Let The Cookie Crumble
My OC Cookie’s (Amy’s) arrival at the Circus
(Ft @roseofithaca’s OC Silver - The witch marionette
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“Welcome back, my loveable load-bearing lumberjacks!” Caine beamed as the fractal noise rippled around the returning troop of characters. All six of them seemed both exhilarated and worn out at the same time. The adventure had definitely proven itself to be a test of speed and reflexes; an impromptu trip to a digital forest being hunted by a cartoonish wolf NPC adorned in stereotypical Grandmother’s nightwear and rimless glasses had been their adversary, turning it’s back on them for a few seconds before swirling around to catch the loser who stumbled.
“Can’t beat the classics. I kinda miss old nursery rhymes like that” Ragatha sighed with a contended smile towards Ribbit. The sweet frog humanoid agreed and turned her head to the rest of the group. Jax and Kaufmo still looked like they were catching their breaths after the wolf made one final leap at them as they made their exit back into the tent.
Silver held her broom over her shoulder like a cartoon character carrying all their belongings in a little polkadot sack on a stick.
“I mostly just liked that we were able to go into an actual forest for a change. I miss the trees. Never had any wild wolves where I come from though” The witch marionette admitted.
“There was a wolf?” Chirped a dumbfounded Kinger as he shambled to catch up with everyone. The group all joined in the lounge area where the soft couches waited for them to rest their weary legs.
“I hope you all enjoyed the new immersive expansion I made to the layout. Although I probably could’ve scaled it up a little more, just to add more depth?” Caine brainstormed, one side of his top row of teeth dipping and the other side rising, his finger scratching beneath his top hat.
“Yeah I know. I found out the hard way when I ran face first into the edge of the map” Silver replied dryly, recounting the embarrassment she felt when she’d planned to duck and cover behind two large trees when she found herself flattened against the supposed foggy distance up ahead.
The AI froze in place above them like a deer in headlights for a solid five seconds before pointing behind himself at absolutely nothing.
“Bubble did it”
The marionette rose a wooden hand with a smile, her head shaking slightly.
“No biggie, it was actually a huge laugh”
Ragatha and Ribbit chuckled softly beside her.
“You sure you’re alright? I didn’t see what happened but I for sure heard it” Ribbit exclaimed with wide eyes, her hand rubbing at Silver’s back tentatively. Before Silver could reply, the whole group heard a faint but distinct popping sound, similar to the popping that comes after an irked Caine prods a finger through an annoying Bubble muttering nonsense beside him.
A slight thud echoed after the popping, causing the gang to glance between each other for a moment, pondering on what it could’ve been. Jax rose a yellow glove and pointed towards the stage.
“Uhh-..was that always there?…” The group turned their heads towards the stage and noticed a large square object resting motionless and silent. Their dubious eyes turned to Caine again, who also was eyeing the suspicious new shape. He quickly caught onto their glances and held up both hands.
“I didn’t do that!”
“Hmm. Let’s go check it out” Ribbit declared, getting up from her spot and heading towards the stage. Jax nearly reached out to grab her arm in slight worry but quickly retreated when Kaufmo also got up and followed her. Soon everybody was gathered on the stage examining the new addition to the tent.
It was a large box that towered over their heads, all except Kinger’s, whose googly eyeballs barely crested the top . It was stark white with a clean assortment of patterns on each side. One side was a row of pastel blue vertical lines. Another side was the same blue, but the pattern was love hearts. Then zigzags. Then finally, polkadots. On one side of the box was a crank, seemingly made of metal with a giant white marble on the end.
“It’s a Jack-In-The-Box” Ragatha announced, still confused why it was suddenly here.
“You guys think we should open it?” Silver asked, scanning the group for any nods or shakes. Jax protested.
“How do we know it’s not just full of those annoying bouncy sticky-..gloink things?”
The group seemed to consider Jax’s comment, once again turning to Caine who began to drift around the box with curiosity.
“I already told you, I had nothing to do with this!” He returned, stiffly flourishing his hands down towards the mysterious yet colourful box. Somehow, it being so innocent looking made it feel all the more sinister.
“I think we should push that button!” Kinger announced, pointing a finger to the lever on the side of the box. They all eyed him for a second, choosing not to correct him and instead contemplate just biting the bullet and doing it. Silver and Ragatha glanced to each other briefly, feeling as though all eyes were on them to get this damn thing open.
“Do we just-?” Ragatha stepped up to the lever with her hands braced over the great marble, hesitant, as if touching it would immediately cause her stitches to split.
“Careful guys” Said Ribbit, who now, despite her previous curiosity, looked reluctant as Silver took the marble alongside Ragatha.
On the count of three, the marionette and the ragdoll began to sloppily wind the lever. Slowly, creepily, a rendition of ‘Pop Goes The Weasel’ began to chime from within the box. The others took a steady few steps back towards the edge of the stage to prepare for what they subconsciously knew was coming once the song ended. Silver finished humming the tune in her head and grimaced as the final haunting note of the jingle finished. Nothing. No jumpscare, no nothing.
Cracking open her tightly shut eyes, Ragatha loosened her grip on the lever and sighed with relief. Jax groaned.
“Way to hype a guy up!” He barked, throwing his arms up. Ragatha stepped away from the box and shrugged.
“Maybe it’s just a decoration?”
Silver took her broom in her hands like a shovel.
“A hunk of scrap” The irritated witch slammed the end of her broomstick into the side of the box harshly, in all honesty, disappointed.
In a flash, the top of the box flung open, and a similarly pastel blue and white figure sprung up out of the box. It landed with a thump over the lip of the box, its arms and head hanging down towards the floor lifelessly. Everyone did jump back then, even Silver collided with a startled Ragatha who nearly dared to snatch the broom from the marionette and brandish it like a cudgel.
When everyone was finished shrieking and catching their frantic hearts practically pounding out of their animated chests, they noticed the figure was breathing heavily as if it had been deprived of oxygen for a while. It slowly lifted its head of dark blue hair and pushed the comically large blue bow it wore away from its face and gawped at the gang.
The figure was feminine, the pale skin and pink cheeks looked like they could’ve been made of either rubber or porcelain, seemingly she sported classical white clown makeup around her eyes, the dark blue hair looked like it came from a child’s doll that didn’t belong on her almost antique looking head, the body was comprised of a large spring covered by white and pale blue fabric decorated with stars that ended where the bottom of a ribcage would be on a human. The puffy sleeves on her shoulders were slightly covered by a soft ruff. Her inhumanly wide eyes were different colours. The right eye was a deep royal blue and the left was a bright turquoise.
The discombobulated little clown remained flopped on her chest for a moment, suspiciously regarding each of the characters before her, until she made a move to grab at the bow on the top of her head. She tugged at it, seemingly trying to take it off, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Okay, I think it’s on now. You got it working, can I take this thing off now?!” She spoke aloud, slightly panicked as the bow refused to come off. Caine gasped above them, catching the clown’s attention.
“A new human! Well by golly!” He said with insanely wide eyes and and equally wide set of jaws. The clown flinched at his volume and stared up at him.
“The f@%k-…” The clown caught herself as a black censor bar appeared in front of her mouth like a shield, along with the sound of an old nineteen-twenties car horn that left her mouth.
“Careful there, Clarabell. Foul language is prohibited in the circus” The flying set of dentures warned, waggling a gloved finger at her disapprovingly.
The clown attempted to right herself and pushed away from the edge of the box, accidentally sending herself craning back towards the opposite side of the box on the spring beneath her. She yelped and tried to counterbalance herself, although to everyone else watching, she looked more like a toddler learning to ice skate for the first time; just a tornado of flailing arms. Before she could stove the back of her head on the edge of the box behind her, Caine swooped around her and guided her forward so she was balanced upright.
“Careful there, newbie. There’s no first aid around here, so try to be careful” He said, his statement sounding more like a playful suggestion rather than a warning.
“A new girl?” Ribbit smiled, already stepping closer. Kaufmo grinned and glanced at the new clown’s more ‘vintage’ looking costume style.
“She even got a better suit than me”
“Look- I don’t know who any of you are, or what this b#!¡£%?t is, but this can’t-“
“Be real?…Sorry to break it to you, new girl, but it is” Ragatha finished, with a sympathetic yet awkward smile on her face. The newcomer looked at all of the things in front of her. A flying set of teeth and eyeballs, a stuffed doll, a frog, a rabbit, a clown, a chess piece and a witch. The whole environment looked fake and smoothly rendered, just like in a-…game?
“Welcome aboard. Get comfy, this is your home now” The frog smiled, gesturing to the brightly coloured surroundings of the tent. The clown took her words in but shook her head.
“N-No, this is just a f!%k up, this is just a simulation or something. I put on a headset-..”
That’s right. She was in a charity shop with her friend. They found a RV headset and bought it. It wasn’t working right at first, so she put it on while her friend worked at it. She said to let her know when it started booting up. A game menu appeared before her eyes, but she had no controller or even a keyboard. How did it start? Her friend must be hearing her speaking right now? Her friend? What’s her name? Both of their names?
The clown seemed to go even paler and rub at the side of her head.
“I can’t remember my friend’s name. Or mine”
The humanoid rabbit’s ears tilted down slightly and he seemed to grimace with familiar discomfort.
“Oh boy…”
Ragatha sensed tension in the newcomer and stepped forward awkwardly.
“Just try and stay calm, okay? We’ll help you figure this out. Why don’t you just come on out and take a look around with us for a little bit before we get all existential?”
Caine interrupted quickly and swooped down in front of her.
“Ragatha, are you insane?! We can’t let this new human go unnamed? That’s against protocol!” He began to ring his hands and bead tiny droplets of sweat. Out of thin air, Bubble appeared beside him with a sharp toothy grin and began to gnaw quietly at the top of his hat without a single word. The ringmaster stopped dead and his eyes slowly drifted up to peer at Bubble gnawing away. Everyone was silent.
“…Stop that”
“Tastes like fear and shame!” The happy bubble beamed. You could hear a pin drop in the silence that followed before Caine popped the strange bubble away.
“As I was just saying, it’s imperative that we give the new human a circus name”
Ragatha held her hands up, stuttering. Silver stepped forward.
“Wait just a second, maybe we could just show her around before we saddle her with coming up with a name right on the spot? We all remember how tough it was trying to remember our old names” The group had since given up trying to remember their first names and remembered all too well how frustrating it was to do so, and they nodded in agreement.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Kaufmo shrugged, stepping up to the side of the box, raising a hand to thump softly at the new girl’s arm. “Us clowns gotta stick together, right?”
The nameless clown clenched her fists in a bout of annoyance at the other character’s nonchalance and slammed them down against the edge of the box.
“I’m not a clown!” The group glanced up at her slightly startled. Her scowl drifted from them to her own hand. She examined it closer. Light blue gloves, frilled white cuffs, puffy blue and white costume covered in stars. She looked like a toy. She wouldn’t be caught dead wearing an outfit like this, especially in these colours. She felt her head. Her hair had that jarring synthetic texture that cheap wigs tend to have, and it slowly dawned on her that she could feel things through her gloves, as if the material was merely part of her new ‘skin’. She moved both her hands to her body, patting from her chest to her hip. There was nothing beneath her costume but a large spring.
She looked about ready to either burst into fits of hysterical laughter or tears of horror, and the group prepared for the latter. Silver stood on the tips of her wooden clogs and held onto the edge of the box to prevent herself from falling.
“Hey, it’s okay. Doesn’t seem like it right now, but you’ll be fine soon. Once you’ve adjusted” The friendly witch attempted to placate.
The clown merely stared at her in horror, her hands still pressed to her spring body. Silver glanced down awkwardly.
“Why don’t you come down from there and see the sights for a while, yeah?”
She seemed to give in, and pressed her fingers to her brow in exasperation.
“F!%k it, fine” She spat, pressing both hands to the edge of the box as if to jump over the lip, but she was met with resistance. She jolted and was left bobbing slightly up and down in the box, desperately trying to cling to the edges for purchase. She tried again, and again, harder the next time.
“I can’t get out” Said the clown in the box, glancing around desperately for help. Caine hummed in confusion and drifted closer, his eyeballs peering over his bottom jaw to take a peek down into the box. The disgruntled clown batted him away sharply at the invasion of her personal space, causing his jaws to spin around three times in a circle before coming to a stop back in place.
“Oi!”
Caine froze at her loud reprimand before backing off once more.
“I saw the problem! She’s stuck to the bottom of the box. Quite literally, her spring is attached to it” Caine retorted triumphantly.
“Oh, well-…that’s not too great” Ragatha acknowledged.
“You’re saying that I’m trapped in this f!%?/¡g thing?!” The clown barked at the ringmaster.
He rose a finger as if to give a rebuking statement that this was not the case at all, but paused.
“…Yes”
The stage fell as silent as a grave, many eyes flicking around to gauge everyone’s reaction to the surprisingly miserable news for the newcomer, who herself had come very quiet. Too quiet.
“Shouldn’t we at least find out if she has a room? She should, right? That’s kinda how it works. Automatically whenever someone new shows up?” Ribbit suggested, if only to add levity. Caine sprang back to life.
“Excellent suggestion, Ribbit!” He grabbed onto the edge of the box and with a snap of his finger, both he and the box zapped away, leaving the stage bare again.
In another part of the circus, Caine and the box landed in a much smaller room decorated extremely differently to the room just now. It looked like a cross between a toy shop and a bakery. The white shelves and pale purple plush carpeted floor was littered with Beanie Babies and other plush toys, all of them white with pastel coloured accents and accessories. The small selection of furniture in the room was made of - what appeared to be - glass. A round table with fake cupcakes spread across it sat by the wall. A plastic teapot and some cups to match shared the same pastel colour palette as the rest of the things in the room. The walls were a pale pink with murals of wrapped taffy, ice cream scoops, sprinkles and cookies.
“This’ll be your new room” Caine ‘grinned’. As the clown’s eyes scanned the room she felt fit to vomit; this wasn’t her style at all. She remembered liking darker colours and themes, like haunted houses, creepy liminal spaces and the like. Not this absolute nursery hellhole with all these pale colours. She had so many questions but her words failed her as her new eyes adjusted to the amount of assaulting stimuli around her.
“Since you’re the only human in the circus who isn’t mobile like the others, I’ll have to come up with a few ways for you to stay stimulated” Caine observed out loud, already looking like he was going over a mental checklist.
She looked up at him with deathly serious eyes.
“I’m stuck in a toybox, what could I possibly do aside from slowly go bat$¡?t crazy?” She growled.
Caine leaned uncomfortably closer to her.
“You could come up with a new name!”
Resisting the urge to groan and shove him away, the clown merely faced the other way and sat in silence, her frantic mind not allowing her to even string coherent thoughts yet.
“What about Cookie?” Caine suggested. She glanced back at him, seeing that he was pointing to the mural on the wall, specifically at a scrumptious looking chocolate chip cookie about the size of an exercise ball. She acknowledged that it was a cute name and definitely fit the theme that she was now cursed to be stuck with for who knows how long.
With her mind perpetually blank, she both shrugged and nodded her head, without much thought, and Caine beamed in victory.
“We have a winner! From henceforth, your name shall be Cookie!” Spontaneous confetti popped around him suddenly and he vanished with a whoosh, leaving ‘Cookie’ all alone in the room, still trapped by her spring welded to the bottom of her box.
