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Please let me know if you like this! I wanted to post something small because I really like this au, but I could maybe write more if it is something that would be read :3

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Caine walked to a spot in the common area. This was where he had taken to sleeping for the last few days. The couch was a little bit firm, but it was comfortable enough. He did have a room, but he hadn't decided to go in there yet. He wasn't scared! He was just appreciating how nice the sofas were.

On his first day here, Zooble had informed him about how terrible they thought some of the rooms were. At first, he did not understand. Then, Zooble explained it using their room as an example. They explained to him how their room amplified their insecurities and made them really uncomfortable at times. If the humans thought they were so bad, he was a bit worried for his. He pushed those thoughts away. His "mind" files must be exciting and fun! But then again, the box… Maybe that was why he was so hesitant to look in his room.

Truthfully, the former ringmaster had never intended to create rooms that the circus members would feel bad about. He just designed them based on their mind files, after all! Unfortunately, he failed to account for all the bad that could be in their minds. This led to some rooms being embarrassing or unbearable to his humans. That wasn't his fault, really!

Or… it really was, wasn't it? His responsibility was to make the humans comfortable and happy, but he failed at both of those things.

Goodness, he was getting tired of that.

Gasp! He forgot to grab a blanket! He can't have those humans suspecting he was strange in any way! Caine, an AI? Of course he wasn't! He was the humanest human to ever human!

…Maybe that was a bit much. Still, it had to be kept secret.

They can never know. Never.

Caine knew this was the truth. He could never tell the humans what he really was. If they ever found out that he was an artificial intelligence, he would be rejected and cast out. They would hate him even more when they found out that he was lying to them. He would be alone, all over again.

He had already failed far too many times. Caine cannot have that happen. There were far too many consequences to failing.

The AI knew some of those consequences first hand. He would never forget about his time in the box. How could he? The darkness and the nothingness were impossible to not remember. Every so often, he could feel it closing back in on him, preventing him from speaking; from breathing.

Not that he needed to breathe, but the sensation was just the same. When had he developed the ability to sense in the first place? To breathe?

There were many things like this. They made him more fallible, more useless, but never more human. He would always be artificial. His very nature was different from the humans, so no matter what about him changed, he would never be one of them.

But…for now, maybe he could just pretend.

He could just pretend that he was a normal human, with a normal life, who just happened to end up here.