It took me three months to figure out how to function again. The real world was an absolute sensory assault. The sky wasn't perfect anymore. It was a chaotic sheet of gray that made my head hurt. The air smelled like cigarettes and rain, not the cotton-candy aroma of the Circus.
But the one thing that hadn't left me was my old muscle memory.
Back before the headset, I knew how data worked.
For the first two months, I focused on relearning on how a human body worked.
For example, we needed food and water which wasn’t a necessity in the circus.
But on the third month, I found a tiny, 24-hour diner to do some digging in, drinking bitter black coffee and using my laptop to hack into whatever crumbling, saved hidden servers C&A had left behind.
I wasn't looking for names.
The system wouldn't have them.
I was looking for timestamps. I was looking for a digital footprint of an emergency shutdown. And I found it.
Five other terminals, whose locations were unavailable, had experienced a hard shutdown at the exact second I slammed that blue button. They were out there.
They were trapped in their own human bodies, probably just as messed up as I was.
I was staring blankly at the glowing lines of code on my laptop screen, feeling a wave of exhaustion hit me, when a soft, gentle voice asked,
"Would you like your check, dear?" My head snapped up as I tiredly looked at the lady. She looked to be in her early thirties with pale skin and light brown hair tucked behind her ears. I was about to respond with the typical yes before noticing her hands were slightly shaking.
"Are you good?" I tilt my head with concern, my bangs getting in my eyes.
"Yeah! Just fantastic!" She clicks her pen, "So can I get you that check?" I nodded slowly, slightly squinting my eyes at her, looking for any cracks in her cheerful mood. She quickly spins on her heel, practically sprinting towards the counter.
Not familiar like someone I’d passed on the street.
Familiar like a dream I couldn’t quite remember.
I turn back around to my computer, exhaling hard, like the whole world came off my shoulders for a minute and was settling back on.
My nervous, lazy hunch was back on as I randomly started humming the circus's theme song that Caine would have us do for every "episode".
"Gangle and Zooble and Kinger too, Ragatha, Jax and there's Pomni, whoo hoo.." I mumble, barely audible, my fingers clacking away at the computer keys.
The waitress, in the middle of carrying my check and three mugs of coffee to the people a few rows behind me stopped in her tracks, dropping the mugs with a loud CRASH.
"What did you just say." She whispered, ignoring the sudden drop of the mugs, her eyes wide with something close to... shock?
My eyes grow wide as I start backtracking,
"Oh, it's just a show I used to watch when I was... little!" I exclaim, using way too many hand motions. The lady squints at me before yelling,
"ROBERT, CLEAN UP NEAR TABLE 57!"
I watch as she comes closer to me, picking up her apron though it doesn't affect anything. She looks at me right in my eyes and squints, as if searching for something that my eyes can only show.
We stay like that for a solid 5 seconds before her eyes widen with realization then stumbling back a few steps, her hands over her heart.
My eyes widen with panic as her back hits the counter top, shaking the over counter items.
She inhales audibly and shakily whispers,
Authors Note: Oh jeez. Looks like Pomni finally found a friend… or did she?..
Also sorry about the delay! Been a bit busy this week with bts stuff! I’m going to be taking a 9 hour car trip so make sure you overfill my ask box for suggestions!
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