🫀Loversfault.mp4🫀

It’s bright.

That’s the first thing I notice.

The primaries of red and yellow are staggeringly harsh on my sight. I can’t see properly with this amount of glare; it hurts my retinas. It’s blaring, ugly, and too much for my strained eyes. It’s like I was stuck inside a spinning kaleidoscope. Everything feels too fast. Everything feels heavy.

Is that . . . a children’s theme song?

“—ay, this is gonna work. We’ve already got a rabbit in the group, what’s the use of another one?”

“Jax, not now.”

My eyes are still adjusting when I turn around; it’s blurry, and it takes a second before my sight finally clears.

I’m looking down while they’re looking up at me, a set of cartoon-ish and colorful characters on a checkered floor. If it weren’t for the black and white tiles, they’d have melded into the background with the rest of the colors. Each of them is distinct in its own way.

The king’s chess piece.

A red and blue jester.

The comedy mask is held together with ribbons.

Some purple rabbit with overalls.

A patchwork of a raggedy Ann doll.

And a . . . ramble of unique pieces that fitted together in a calm pattern. If I could describe it that way.

All of them looked like they’d just popped out of a child’s drawing or an old show that a kid tries to tell you about through abstract detail. Maybe that was me; they all had a nostalgic presence that reminded me of days when I was a kid, cooking up random characters on paper in the summer. How lovely.

The red-haired doll steps forward, “Hey there! It’s nice to see a new face.”

“What are you? Part of the welcoming committee?” Says the purple rabbit, his bright yellow teeth don’t move, only his lip. In retaliation, the sculpture jabs him in the side with one of its sharper appendages. Shut up, I heard them say.

I don’t say anything; instead, I look past them and around. This place, this new world I was in, was . . . cheery.

While the floor was tiled black and white, the rest of the place was splattered with bright colors and funny shapes. All over the place were tunnels that led somewhere, slides that go nowhere, and high, high towers that looked structurally unsound. The higher it went, the brighter it got until a white light at the top consumed all. Even then, the slides, tunnels, and buildings kept going; there was no end. It scared me quite a bit. The never-ending stories of this place were daunting.

Little trinkets of balls, toys, and blocks were scattered all over the place, and red theater curtains were draped here and there.

The colors, oh the color.

It was nauseating, seeing it clearly reminded me of a preschooler’s playroom. While the main ones were red and yellow, there were splotches of green and blue around on spheres, and some on the sides of cubes. There wasn’t too much of it around, but just enough that the red and yellow didn’t overload the environment.

“. . . Uh, hello?”

I shook my head and looked back down at the group. They were still staring, “What?” I finally said.

A brief moment of quiet passed before the mini jester spoke. “Let’s try this again. Hi,” she says. “I’m, uh, Pomni, and it’s nice to meet you. Do you wanna come down from up there?”

I look down, and I’m standing on top of a stage. I turn my head behind me for a second to see the two sets of curtains; the front pair are open while the back ones are drawn shut. For some reason, I suddenly feel self-conscious. I try to move off this thing, and my legs don’t seize up.

It only takes one step, and I’ve dived off the stage. What’s wrong with my legs?

I’m bracing myself for the impact, expecting the hard tile. However, for a moment, I feel hands on me. I open my eyes, and those cartoon hand gloves are gripping my arms. It’s not tight, but the grab is firm enough to hold me.

“Watch your step,” says the chess piece. Apparently, his hands aren’t confined to arm’s length.

As I’m put right-side up, they all approach me with some caution as if I’m a new form of species they’ve discovered. No. That’s not it. They’re trying to decide whether or not I’m dangerous. If I’m—

“You’re tall.”

I blink a couple of times. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re uh . . . pretty tall, you know?” Says the rag doll, “taller than Kinger here.” She points at the king’s piece. The gloved hands retract to their owner, and he waves at me. I notice his eyes are funny, one up and one down. I don’t think he’s looking at anything or anyone. His asymmetrical eyes are peering off in two different directions, one going right and the other going left. Kinger doesn’t look like he’s anywhere near here, mentally.

As I’m staring, I’m also noticing what the doll had commented on. Even now off the stage, I’m having to crane my neck down to look at all of them. They’re all so tiny compared to me. I mean, I’ve had to in the past, but I don’t remember being this high up.

“Does this mean I get a new ladder?” The purple rabbit says. “It’ll work better that way than having two rabbits.”

The jester, Pomni, pushes him aside. “Jax, knock it off,” she sighs, giving him a look before turning to me. “So, do you have a name yet?”

A name.

“I’m . . .” I trail off. “My name is—”

M y n a m e.

M y

n a m e

i s— “I don’t know,” I murmured. “I can’t think of it.” An oozing numbness piled in the pit of my stomach. Why is this happening?

Pomni sighs again, only there’s a hint of sadness under it. “Yeah, I figured. It’s okay, you’re not the only one. We can’t remember either.” She gestures to the whole group, and half of them do an awkward wave at me.

That doesn’t make me feel better.

“Don’t worry about it, though,” Jax, the yellow-eyed bunny, strides over. “Once Caine gets a whiff of the newbie, he’ll fix that problem.”

“Who’s Caine?” I asked.

“Oh, you’ll probably meet him in a minute. He’s quick like that,” the living collage pipes up as they come over with the tragedy mask follows behind. They point to themselves, “Zooble, and this is Gangle.” One of the ribbons around the mask sways its makeshift hand at me.

I wave back this time, and in doing so, I catch the design of my hand in the corner of my vision. Briefly, I can see ball joints. “Hi . . .”

“You can call me Ragatha,” the doll says rather joyfully. “It’s nice to meet you, we’re all happy to have you here.”

“Hey! What about me?” Says Jax.

Ragatha rolls her one eye, “And that’s Jax.” The previous cheer disappears from her voice, and what’s left is sheer annoyance. Jax makes a face at her, and she ignores him. I’m getting the feeling Jax isn’t a ball of sunshine to be around.

“Oh, that’s harsh. Way to give the newbie a bad rep of me.” He says, rather loudly.

Zooble crosses their wavy arms. “She didn’t even say anything.”

“Still! It was the tone in her voice, how else am I supposed to think?”

That sets off an argument.

Jax, Zooble, and Ragatha start in on each other; mostly Zooble and Ragatha yelling at the cheeky rabbit. Something about . . . something: I don’t hear what they’re saying, I can’t. My body feels numb. It’s like I’m grounded, but at the same time, I don’t feel like I’m here on this plane.

Existing here doesn’t set in my bones; I don’t remember how I got here. I don’t remember how I ended up in this place. Did I even do anything? Why can’t I remember? Did I do something wrong? I must have. I could have. Before all this. Did I? No, I did all that I could; I wouldn’t do something so stupid. I couldn’t have. Unless I did. Have I forgotten what to do? What am I supposed to do?

What am I—

“N O W, N O W, M Y L I T T L E C A N D Y C A N E S !”

There’s a booming voice that carries through the air that forces me out of my thoughts. It makes the foundation of my body vibrate. I can actually feel my bones shake in my— . . . skin. The arguing stops, and everyone becomes silent as the voice comes closer.

With a pop of confetti, a full set of teeth comes into view. The dentures open to reveal two eyes within. This thing is accompanied by a top hat and a cane, dressed somewhere between a ringmaster and a nutcracker. Instead of standing, it’s floating around above us.

It grabs the cane, twirling the staff between its gloved hands. “I heard a ruckus goin’ around these parts, and I just had to peep in for a chat. HA HA HA HA HA, I’m kidding.” The teeth and the eyes bend in line with its words, mimicking the lack of lips. “But not really, are we having a tiny spat in the presence of our newest member?”

It points the end of its cane at me, flying over and landing right in front of me. There’s a little tmp from the boots, and up close, I can see inside this thing’s mouth. The two eyes had two different irises, the right being blue and the left being green. They were shiny, full of excitement, as the teeth surrounding them acted as a cage. Its k-9s were oddly sharp.

Zooble waves a claw, “Jax is being an (BWAAAAAAHHH!!)-hole again.” A black box pops out to cover where their mouth should be, and then it disappears. What the hell was that?

The teeth inch back from me a bit to face the purple cartoon bunny, cane pointed at him. “Awe, Jax! Once more on the block, and you just can’t stop! What did we say about that nasty, nasty attitude?”

Jax gets quiet, his rectangular pupils get smaller as his expression becomes weary. He’s trying to hide it, with his smile twitching upwards. It’s still for a minute before he finally talks, “. . . Not everyone wants to be offered sour candy . . .” he says it with a bit of resistance as he faces the ground. There’s embarrassment in his stance as Jax crosses his arms.

“Very good,” the dentures spin its cane around, and back to me. “Now! Back to you, my little hare! How about we start wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiith . . . your name!! Give us a listen, and tell us all about yourself!”

“Uh . . . I’m—”

“She doesn’t remember her name,” Pomni interjects. “We’ve already asked her.”

The thing taps the golden ball of its cane against its top jaw, “I seeeeee. WELL! No problem there, I’ll do the honor of bequeathing our new friend a lovely new name! How about, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . " A soft humming started playing, like the buzzing of a computer.

It’s staring at me with those big glittery eyes, gazing deep into my face. I stare back. The gap between us was getting smaller as it leaned in close. It’s slow, and the closer it got, the more of its energy I could nearly see radiating off its body like tidal waves. If there were any more excitement inside of this thing, I’m positive it would’ve exploded in a burst of confetti. It’s vibrating so much and so fast that I could hardly see it move.

The attention was eerie. Like the others before, it seemed like the talking dentures were analyzing every little thing about me. I could vaguely see the minuscule flicks of movement in its eyes.

“Caine, aren’t you gonna roll out the slot—”

The thing holds its index finger up towards Zooble, “—MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!! I got it,” It rights itself up, straightening out its back and spinning the cane in its hands. The top of it lands on me, the gold ball shining in the light. The front of the teeth face the tiny crowd. “Everyone, say hello to ClockWise!! Our lovely new circus hare! Yes, yes! That’ll do nicely! What do you think, ClockWise?”

It looks at me, well, not fully facing me at first. The eyes pan back before it turns around.

“Uh. Sure,” I said.

“That’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?” Zooble says. “With the clock in her stomach and all.” They gesture to my abdomen.

I move my hands to my stomach, and the tips of my fingers meet the smooth surface of glass. I do my best to look down as far as I can, and almost, I can make out the circular white spot on my torso, lined with gold, and the black button in the near center. I can just about see the number twelve at the top.

Oh.

“Well, if YOU come up with anything better,” it waves its cane at them. “How about you let me know?” Zooble rolls their eyes in response.

The thing adjusts its bow tie and turns its full attention on me. “Alright, with that all out of the way, let’s begin! I’m trusting you’ve had time to get acquainted with our other guests, hm?” I nodded, and it hums a happy tune. “Fantastic! No doubt everyone’s gonna get along swimmingly!”

“. . . Wait,” I say, louder than I intended. It looks back at me with doe eyes. “Who are you? And where . . . where am I?” I finally put in some effort to ask that question that’s been drilling in my brain. Where exactly am I?

There’s a click, a door hinge squeaks, and the clock in my stomach pops open. A bubble flies out as the hatch snaps shut. The bubble flies around in the air for a couple of seconds before it settles beside the carefully dressed teeth. Two black dots appear on the sides while a wide smile of its own opens wide, revealing rows of sharp teeth.

I h a v e a h o l e i n m y b o d y .

“You’re in the most wacky and greatest place on the face of this existence,” Says the bubble. “The most wonderful, cheerful, and funnest place ever—”

“ — T H E A M A Z I N G D I G I T A L C I R C U S ! ! ”

Big letters shine above us, each making a loud fump as the smartly dressed dentures make a grand display of them. More confetti falls from the air with the sound of trumpets going off. This thing is sure a mighty big fan of putting on an unforgettable show, though the rainbow confetti was a bit much.

“And I’m your loyal host and ringmaster to this wacky world, Caine!” It says. The name it calls itself sounds familiar until I remember what Jax and Zooble were talking about earlier, someone named Caine who’d give me a title. Unless the little bubble scamp that just came out of my stomach hatch was this being, I guess this ringmaster was that . . . man. I don’t know why I expected an actual person. Now I felt rude for assuming such things.

“And what’s the adventure today, boss? Got anything special in the kitchen cooked up for this day’s fun?” The bubble says, flying around erratically.

Caine immediately stops whatever he was doing and takes a prolonged pause as he’s stuck in a weird pose. He stays like this for a while, a really long while. His cane is just floating beside him as he sways side to side in the air. I look to the others for some sort of explanation, but I’m met with nothing but plain and bored stares.

Excluding Kinger, he and Caine are the same here; they share that expression of absent-mindedness.

Pomni sides up next to me, “This is a normal thing, don’t worry too much about it.”

“What’s he doing . . . ?” I ask, looking from the jester to Caine.

“Thinking,” She says. “It just takes a couple of minutes.” There was a tiny moment of silence between us. “You know, you’re handling this pretty well.”

I turn to look down at Pomni, “Handling what?”

She gestures all around the circus, “This.”

I sweep my gaze over our surroundings, taking in the oversaturated colored walls and objects once again. In my gut, I know I’m freaking out—there’s a coolness bubbling up inside me that’s prodding at my arms and legs, screaming at me to run, cry, yell, to do something that would be a normal reaction. I want to, but the bigger chunk of my mind was cutting off the whole bit. A rip had been torn in me.

I scratched my head, “I might just be in shock.” I said, long strands of wispy white hair are caught in the notch joints of my fingers.

“Ahhhh . . . that makes sense,” Pomni says.

It isn’t much longer until Caine starts up again, and by the time he does, the light from above has gotten dimmer. The atmosphere was coated in a soft orange and purple-ish lighting, which made my head a tad fuzzy.

“Right, Right! Today’s adventure is—” Caine is interrupted before calling out his planned title. Ragatha comes forward along with Zooble.

“Um, Caine? As much as we would love to go on another adventure, we think it might be best if—”

Zooble steps in, “—We need a small break at best, it’s not like we didn’t already finish one yesterday. Plus, ClockWise just got here. She’s gonna need some time to adjust to all this, don’t you think?”

“Right!” Ragatha follows the end of Zooble’s words with a quick pip. “ClockWise is probably feeling a little overwhelmed right now, so she might need a bit of adjustment before we all head off on another adventure.”

Caine spins the staff in his hand, floating in the air with the bubble swimming around him. “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . you might have a point.”

Shock fills not just Ragatha’s face, but everyone else’s (apart from Kinger). They’re all stunned by his answer, each of them reeling in from his words alone. It’s not outright, it’s not bold, it’s only for a moment that his words had thrown them off before they all bring it back in.

“Seriously?” Zooble asks.

“Well, of course!” Caine says happily. “I might’ve been working you all too hard these past times, and I don’t want to make our new friend feel uncomfortable! So why don’t we call it a night today? Sound good?”

“Yeah, but—”

He taps his cane on the bubble, “Amazing!! How about you all hit the hay and get a good, nice sleep? We’ll start early in the morning, bright and early!” With a snap of his fingers, Caine was gone, and the bubble whizzed off to find wherever he went.

It’s quiet again. No one said anything, and the light inside this place grew dark.

“Welp,” Jax announces with a yawn. “If that’s that, then I’m not gonna waste this opportunity, I am beat.” He puts his hands behind his head and begins hopping off to another section of the circus. Zooble and Gangle look at each other, sharing a look, and head off in the same direction.

I feel a hand on my arm, and turn to see Ragatha and Pomni. “We can show you your room if you want,” Ragatha says softly.

“My room?”

“Yep,” Pomni grins. “We all have our own. I’m pretty sure there’s one for you, too, if it hasn’t already spawned in. We can help you find it.”

I didn’t see much choice in refusing, I mean, what else was I gonna do? I couldn’t go anywhere; I’m unfamiliar with the grounds, and I don’t know what’s outside this circus tent. I didn’t know where I could go, where I could run to if there was even somewhere to run. The more I thought about it, the more my head felt heavy. The shock might be wearing off.

I just nodded to Pomni and Ragatha without saying anything. They motioned me to follow them.

The lot of us climbed a staircase up to the second story of the tent to a balcony, where there was an open entryway into a hall. I walked silently behind everyone into the continuation of the red-and-yellow strips. The floor up here was a thin red carpet, and our footsteps went from tiny taps to muffled thumps.

Along the walls were doors, hundreds upon hundreds of them. There were so many lined up against the hall, one after another, it seemed endless as we turned corner after corner. On every one, faces of both different characters and blank-faced mannequins, which looked to be on the majority of the doors. When one didn’t have a stand-in model, they had a mascot in place: a dog, a dinosaur, a worm, another chess piece, a frog, and a Pierrot-esque clown. Tons more were present, but I couldn’t properly figure out what they were supposed to be.

A stranger thing I noted was the red X marks over their pictures. The ones that weren’t here with the rest of us.

The group thinned out, going to their assigned room and wishing each other a fairly good night. Ragatha and Pomni stayed with me to help me find my room. They walked in front of me and talked mostly to one another; I didn’t have any words to put into the conversation, and I wasn’t the most talkative at this hour.

Eventually, after several turns and twists, we reached my room. Like all the others, it had a logo on the front: a completely black face with a wide white smile greeted me. There were no other distinct features on the face, just an empty smile and nothing else. The head was draped in white-ish, gray hair, bangs covering some of the face, and on the very top were two long hare’s ears.

I stare at it, and I can almost feel this new face staring back at me.

“This is you,” Ragatha said, her voice brings me back. “Do you need anything else before we go?”

I blink a couple of times before answering, “Uh . . . no. I’m good. Thank you.” Pomni and Ragatha both nod, say their goodnights as they disappear down the hall. I watch in the direction they left in, footsteps getting further and further away until I know I’m alone.

I turn back to the door, staring at my face. My face.

I lift my hand to the knob, pressing it into the palm as I turn it, and the door opens without ceremony. I head inside, and it softly shuts after me.

My room was dark, the only light being the sporadically placed candles, and an open window that brought the moonlight pouring in. From what I could see, the structure around the window was made up of cobblestone bricks, carefully placed to create a design around the open hole. Underneath the window was a bed, a canopy bed with its curtains pooling at its feet. The bed looks brand new, the sheets, pillows, and mattress look softer than anything else I’d ever seen.

I headed over to the bed, making heavy steps across the floor, when I caught myself. A mirror had been placed, hanging up with the help from nothing but more curtains. My reflection was barely visible in the dimness, but vaguely I could see my shape with what the candles could provide.

My feminine outline was illuminated slightly, one side from the window and the other from the candles. The hair on my head was longer than I’d seen, reaching down to the hem of the black dress I was wearing. Two white slits went up the skirt, ending at my waist, but the stitch kept going. Something was around my neck; it was white, but I couldn’t tell what it was. The piece of clothing was firm around my neck and branched out to the edges of my shoulders, where the puffy sleeves fanned out to my elbow.