Chapter Text
The moment I opened my eyes, they burned from the harsh white light above me. It was bright, blinding, painful. I instinctively raised an arm to shield myself from it.
But when I looked at my arm, I froze. It wasn't fur. It wasn't purple. It was skin. Human skin. Real flesh. Pale and unmistakably real.
I shot upright, my heart already beginning to race as I desperately tried to orient myself, to understand where I was.
Where was I? Where was Kinger? Or Ragatha? Or Gangle? Even Zooble?
I looked around and realized I was alone in a hospital room. The beeping of the machine I was hooked up to sped up, though I couldn't remember what it was called. I glanced down at my hand and noticed the IV line. Without thinking, I tore the oxygen mask off my face. The artificial lights and the sunlight pouring through the window made my head throb.Then, all at once, I could feel my entire body.
My real body.
My real self.
My breathing became erratic. Terror gripped me, and an overwhelming urge to run flooded through me. But run where?
With trembling hands and frantic movements, I yanked the cables connected to my IV and jumped out of bed. My legs immediately buckled beneath me, as if I hadn't walked in years. I grabbed onto the edge of the hospital bed to keep myself from collapsing.
My hands shook. My legs trembled uncontrollably. Cold sweat ran down my face and along my back.
Once I managed to steady myself, I stumbled toward the bathroom door as fast as I could, nearly tripping several times. I threw it open and rushed to the sink, slowly raising my eyes to the mirror. In the reflection, I saw myself.
Not some stupid purple rabbit with a permanent grin plastered on his face. Not Jax.
Me. Leroy Mateo.
I looked awful. Just as pathetic as I remembered. I touched my face with trembling fingers.
This couldn't be real. It couldn't.
I wasn't in the circus anymore. And yet, it was real.
I wasn't a digital cartoon character. I was a person.
A living, breathing person made of flesh and blood, with lungs and veins and a heartbeat.
I ran my fingers through my dark hair. It was longer than the last time I'd looked in a mirror, greasier than I expected.
Realizing all of this didn't calm me down. Quite the opposite.
My anxiety only grew worse.
I couldn't clearly remember what had happened at the end, back in the circus.
But we escaped. We all escaped. Didn't we?
Even as my mind desperately tried to piece together what had happened, my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. I snapped out of my head and stepped out of the bathroom, only to find several doctors entering the room.
The ringing that had taken over my ears had kept me from noticing that the machine I'd been hooked up to had started blaring the moment I tore the wires off. Apparently, that had been enough to alert them.
I didn't fully register what was happening until I came to my senses and felt their hands on me, carefully guiding me back to the bed. They reconnected the wires, though they left the oxygen mask off. They hooked me back up to the IV and something else I didn't bother reading or paying much attention to.
I barely heard what the doctors were saying.
Until I caught one of them saying, "All of them woke up at almost the same time—"
He said something after that, but I couldn't make it out. I looked at them and tried to ask about the others, but no sound came out. They only told me to rest.
I spent three days hospitalized while trying to remember what had happened during the circus's final moments. The police questioned me constantly about my disappearance. They wanted to know where I'd been, whether I'd been kidnapped, if I remembered why I had been inside that building. C&A. I lied and told them I remembered nothing.
I didn't want to sound like some deranged lunatic claiming that a virtual reality headset had trapped me inside a digital world where I spent years as a stupid purple rabbit.
Only to find out I'd been missing for five years.
Five years?
I was seventeen when I entered that place. I'd only just graduated high school...
And now I was twenty-two?
What happened to my mother? Was she still alive? Had she died, just like I'd convinced myself years ago? If she was alive, had she looked for me? Had she cared? Because if she had, she would be here. But she wasn't. Which left only two possibilities. Either she was alive and still didn't care about me... Or she was dead.
The only thing I learned about the others was that the police said we'd all given the same answer.
None of us remembered anything. That relieved me.
I wasn't sure if it was because we'd all said the same thing, or because it meant everyone had made it out.
God.
Of course it was the first one, right?
The police had gone through my records and the old documents inside the backpack I'd been carrying when they found me. Apparently, they had managed to contact my mother, and she was on her way to pick me up. Since I had disappeared while still being a minor, she was legally responsible for me.
Knowing she was still alive made me feel better.
I hadn't killed her with that shove all those years ago.
But on the day I was discharged, when I saw her standing outside my hospital room, she didn't look happy.
Honestly, that didn't surprise me.
We'd never had a good relationship.
And it was probably even worse now, considering our last interaction before I ran away.
While we were at the reception desk and my mother spoke with the receptionist, I found myself staring absentmindedly down the hallway.
That's when I noticed a girl standing with her parents and a younger boy—probably her brother. She seemed to have been discharged recently as well, and I overheard her complaining about how much her hair had grown and how much she hated it being so long.
But there was something familiar about her.
Something in those blue eyes.
Those round cheeks.
The bangs.
The dark brown hair.
That voice...
Pomni?
Or Abigail?
Was that her real name?
Or was it Christine?
Neither name had anything to do with the other, but both had become hopelessly tangled together in my memories of the circus.
Was it her?
An overwhelming urge to walk up to her and find out surged through me.
Until the memories hit me.
No.
It couldn't be her.
She didn't...
She didn't make it out.
It was impossible.
Wasn't it?
She didn't...
She...
My mother's cold voice caught me off guard. It was time to leave.
To go back to what was supposedly my old home.
We walked toward the hospital exit, but I glanced back one last time.
The girl was now standing at the reception desk, talking to the receptionist.
Her face.
Her voice.
They stayed with me.
I thought about that girl during the entire car ride home. I couldn't even hear what my mother was saying—
Or rather, what she was yelling.
I thought about Pomni again.
And then, like a bucket of ice water being dumped over me, guilt crashed down on my entire being.
After Kinger deleted Caine from the program, everything became a complete disaster.
I thought we were doomed. That everything had been ruined.
I yelled at Kinger.
I blamed him.
I blamed Pomni.
It had been her idea. She had started all of it. Ever since she'd arrived, everything in that circus had gone to hell.
Once again, I screamed at her.
Only this time, it was in front of everyone.
Only this time, she didn't try to strangle me or throw something at my head.
She just looked tired.
She looked like she blamed herself.
I made her cry.
And I still treated her like shit.
Again.
And even though everyone had every right to turn against me, they didn't leave me behind. They never let me isolate myself, either.
Maybe that's what kept me sane.
Maybe that's what stopped me from abstracting.
But we couldn't stop Pomni from abstracting.
Thanks to her and Kinger, we eventually discovered that the key to escaping was remembering our names and entering them somewhere.
I don't remember exactly how we found our files or how we reached the door we were supposed to use. I only remember Abstracted everywhere.
And that we had to hurry.
I remember Pomni beginning to abstract before we even reached the place where we had to enter our names.
We ran from her.
And the last time I'd seen Ragatha that devastated over someone...
Was because of Ribbit.
It was my fault again.
Another abstraction because of me.
And none of us knew what happened to them in the real world.
What if I killed her too?
I didn't want to leave.
I didn't want to walk through that door.
I tried to stop them from entering my name.
I wanted to stay there.
I couldn't face reality again.
I couldn't.
I wanted to stay with her.
With Ribbit.
But I couldn't.
I was already starting to glitch after getting too close to her earlier, and before I knew it, Ragatha entered my name and pulled me through with the others.
The first few weeks were awful.
Living with my mother was probably one of the worst things that could've happened to me.
It was unbearable.
I wanted out as soon as possible.
While we were renewing my documents, getting replacements, buying me a new phone and dealing with everything else, I started looking for a job and applying to universities. Eventually, I applied for a UX/UI design program.
Funny.
I used to criticize Gangle so much for drawing, when I'd always loved doing it myself just as much as she did.
I was accepted into a university that offered dormitories and managed to get a part-time job at a coffe shop.
It wasn't much, but it was something. Better than nothing.
Besides, adjusting to real life had been difficult enough. Five years had changed everything. New trends. New technology. New words. Everything felt different.
And, much to my displeasure, I started going to therapy.
God, what a pain.
Talking about myself. About my behavior. Listening to advice. Talking about my mother. My father. Their divorce. That miserable excuse for a school I grew up in.
The psychologist also tried to help me remember what had happened during those five years.
Poor guy.
If only he knew I'd made up a story about all of us being kidnapped and pretended to slowly recover those memories.
My mother had sold or thrown away most of my belongings, so there wasn't much to pack when I moved out.
She looked happy. In her own way. From then on, she wouldn't have to see me anymore. Wouldn't have to put up with me. Wouldn't have to take care of me.
Before I left, she made one thing very clear: I wasn't her son. That hurt more than I expected. But I guess I should've seen it coming.
Since moving out, I haven't spoken to her.
I ended up sharing a room with two other guys, Henry and Matteo. They were surprisingly nice. Treated me well. I don't know if that surprised me or made me uncomfortable.
Before the circus, I didn't really have friends. Or people who liked being around me. So it felt strange not being excluded or treated like some kind of freak.
I tried not to avoid them. I mean, therapy had to help with something, right? I don't know.
I wouldn't call them friends. But they treat me well. They showed me around campus.The buildings for the other design majors.
When I saw the Graphic Design building, a thought crossed my mind like an intrusive impulse.
Gangle.
I wondered if she'd decided to study what she really wanted.The thought irritated me.
What irritated me even more was remembering how I'd treated her. I had no right to think about her as if I'd been her friend. As if I'd treated her well.
Two months passed after I moved.
Real life is exhausting. Classes are brutal. I don't know how I've managed to keep up with work. I'm only free at night and on Sundays.
People exhaust me.
I haven't spoken to my mother once.
And no, I haven't run into anyone from the circus, either.
But I can't stop thinking about Pomni.
At some point every day, she crosses my mind. In class. At work. Lying in bed in the dorm. She's always there. Along with the guilt. The regret. And the affection I never wanted. The affection I keep trying to deny. God, I'm an idiot.
She was the only one who genuinely cared about me.
And I pushed her away.
She wanted to understand me.
And I yelled at her.
She wanted to support me.
And I avoided her.
She wanted to help me.
And I blamed her.
I led her to abstraction. I repeated exactly what I did to Ribbit.
I want to know what happens to the Abstracted ones in the real world.
Are they here? Did they make it out too? Do they remember? Are they okay? Did they die? Or are they trapped forever?
And if, somehow, she really did make it out...
And if she remembers everything...
Would she even want to see me? Would I still matter to her? She has every right to hate me. To avoid me. To scream at me. If she hit me, I'd take it. If she insulted me, I'd listen.
I want to apologize. For everything. For the way I treated her. But I'm afraid of seeing her again.
Truth be told, if she were standing right in front of me... I'd probably avoid her all over again.
No matter how badly I want her by my side.
And I'd be lying if I said I hadn't tried looking for her. I remembered she'd mentioned having a YouTube channel. Small, but still. I searched for it over and over again for days. I found a few abandoned accounts, but I couldn't tell if any of them belonged to her.
I kept trying to convince myself that I was only doing this because I wanted to apologize.
Because I wanted to ease my conscience.
Because I wanted proof that I wasn't responsible for someone's death.
Not because she actually mattered to me.
Just like I tried to convince myself that Jax had only been a persona I'd created to survive in the circus. That none of it had been real. That there would never be consequences because I'd never leave that place.
But now...
I don't know anymore.
I don't know how much of that was just a mask.
And how much of it...
Was really me.
I sat at the small round table in the dorm room, eating breakfast with Henry and Matteo. They were talking about things I wasn’t really listening to until I heard my name.
“Hey, Roy, don’t you want to come with us to the Graphic Design building before class?” Henry said before taking a sip of his coffee.
Henry only wants to go give his girl a gift before he forgets,” Matteo added with a teasing, amused tone.
I let out a small laugh that sounded more like a sigh, but I agreed anyway. I had nothing to lose, and a short walk before class didn’t sound bad. Besides, the Graphic Design building was really nice.
Later, Matteo and I were standing in one of the hallways of the Graphic Design building. I was leaning against the wall while we waited for Henry, and I kept tapping my foot against the floor—stopped only when I realized it was a habit I used to have as Jax. Matteo, on the other hand, was buying a cold coffee from a vending machine.
My mind drifted for a second, imagining what would happen if Caine suddenly appeared right now, with that cheerful announcer voice, saying it had all been some kind of adventure… and then everyone would show up again, giving me my rabbit body back. Sometimes it still felt hard to accept I was out of that place. Even after two long months.
I pulled out my phone to check the time and see how long we were taking. I stepped away to tell Matteo I was going to class already. He said it was fine—Henry was probably still going to take a while anyway, and he didn’t really feel like going to class either.
I just nodded and said nothing else.
I put on my headphones and started walking toward the building, adjusting my backpack strap so it wouldn’t slide off my shoulder. Maybe I should’ve just gone straight to class. I don’t know. I didn’t dislike being with Henry and Matteo, but sometimes I preferred being alone. It wasn’t that I disliked them. I think I just kept avoiding people.
I was trying to remember whether I had finished the assignment the teacher asked for, or if I had spaced out again. I lose myself in my head a lot. It’s hard not to when you spent five years inside a digital world.
God.
It still feels unreal that it was five years. Inside, it felt much shorter. And again, I was drifting away into my thoughts. Lately I live too much inside my head, while real life keeps slipping past me, the one I’m supposed to be adapting to.
I only snapped back to reality when I accidentally bumped into a girl. Of course. Because I was distracted.
I watched her kneel down and pick up her notebooks from the floor and immediately moved to help, apologizing as I did.
“Sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was—” I said, grabbing one of her sketchbooks, my eyes accidentally landing on a drawing.
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t paying attention either. I’m just a bit in a hurry,” the girl said with a soft, nervous tone. Her voice was gentle. “Thanks for helping anyway.”
I looked at her more closely.
That voice. The red ribbons tying her hair. Her posture, that familiar nervousness. And the drawing of Zooble inside her sketchbook.
It was her.
Gangle.
Of all the people I could’ve run into, it had to be Gangle.
And again, that familiar guilt crawled up my spine. But the same mocking smile still crept onto my face.
“You’re back in Graphic Design, ribbons? What a surprise.”
That sarcastic tone I always used came out naturally.
And her expression changed instantly when she recognized me—surprise mixed with discomfort and fear. Right. I had tormented her. And yet here I was, talking to her like nothing had happened.
She didn’t look happy to see me.
“Ah… Jax… or was it? Leroy, right?” she said quietly, holding her things tightly against her chest.
“Yeah… Leroy. And you were…? I don’t remember.”
It felt a bit embarrassing not remembering her real name. I honestly didn’t remember most of them anymore, except Pomni’s. Abigail.
“Zoey…” she answered. “My name is Zoey.”
Silence followed. I scratched the back of my neck almost immediately, my hands already starting to sweat. She looked visibly uncomfortable, and I knew I couldn’t avoid what I had to say.
Part of me didn’t want to do it. But another part was screaming at me to stop being like this. I couldn’t keep being the same idiot.
“Hey, ribbons… I—uh… I mean…” I exhaled sharply. Why was this so hard? How do you even start an apology without sounding forced and stupid?
“I’m really sorry about what I did to you back in the circus…”
I had no idea if I was doing it right. I sounded pathetic.
“You didn’t deserve any more stress than you already had just from being trapped there…”
I felt like I was making it worse.
“And a purple rabbit just made it even worse than it already was…”
That rabbit was me. God, this was embarrassing.
“You don’t have to accept my apology. That’s fine. I just… wanted you to know I regret it.”
That last part sounded manipulative. It wasn’t what I meant.
I noticed she was just staring at me, genuinely surprised.
Yeah. I was surprised too.
I probably forced it. It sounded artificial. Awful.
Oh God.
I had already said it. At least it was off my chest. Or maybe it sounded like a burden. Like something I just wanted to get rid of. Maybe it was. But I wasn’t like that anymore. Right?
Just as I was about to turn around and avoid her forever, I noticed a small, hesitant smile forming on Zoey’s face. She looked calmer. More at ease, somehow.
“I think that’s the worst apology I’ve ever heard in my life,” she said softly, “but… it is an apology, and that’s what matters.”
Then she added,
“And no, Jax—Leroy. I don’t forgive you. But I appreciate that you said it. I don’t hate you either. And I don’t know if being your friend is even an option… but I like this step forward.”
That somehow made me feel lighter. I smirked again, confident like always.
“Friends? Pfft—sure you wish, ribbons.”
Then I heard a sigh.
But it didn’t sound annoyed.
And her expression didn’t look like it either.