Chapter Text
1-01 || BEES LOVE FLOWERS
Macroverse - Hospital 3rd Floor
December 24th 2023 - 08:34 p.m.
Caine
It's been five days.
Five days since Pomni woke up.
Five days since the Circus threw him out.
Five days…
They're in the same white room. A room that he's come to realize is that of an hospital. It took him a few hours to connect the dots but he's not going to actually admit that out loud.
He doesn't understand how or why, but it happened. What he does understand, despite the lack of code surrounding the… workspace… is that Pomni is not talking to him.
The first thing he thought was that maybe her model was having trouble with her sensory receptors. Maybe she can't hear what he's saying, but a part of him thinks that's not it.
She must be ignoring him. That makes something stir inside his chest.
If anything , being ignored is the least that he deserves after attacking… he physically shivers, something that's been happening a lot to him lately. He's closes himself up, teeth snapping shut and hugs his knees to his chest, temporarily obscuring the view he had been admiring from behind the window.
His chest is tight… again. It's still an entirely new sensation… actually everything is. Different from when his model glitched inside the Circus. As far as he can tell, there's no apparent cause for it. He checked his entire model. His arms and legs. His torso. He even took his eyes out of his mouth to check every single tooth up close, but frustratingly nothing seems to be wrong with his model.
Thinking about it, that's the only time Pomni reacted to him doing something. She had stared as she caught him with his eyeballs in his hands, sticking them up close to the top of his head, but when he turned his blue eye to her, she had just… turned away from him on her bed, taking the sheet and completely submerging her model under it.
Now it's pretty much the same thing. She doesn't seem to want to move from under the sheet and he doesn't want to disturb her. After all, it must be difficult for her to be back where she belongs. Although, it surely must be a relief.
Models come and go from her room. He's come to expect one every few hours, although they're not precise. Sometimes it's about 3600 seconds, other times it's more, around 7200 seconds or so. Apparently they don't follow a specific TaskScheduler. That's why he doesn't think they're NPCs… he's 99,9% sure there are no NPCs in the Macroverse anyways. That other 0,1% is to count for anomalies, such as himself. Although the thought of putting himself in the same category as some NPCs really doesn't sit right with him.
The only model he sees Pomni “talk” to, if that can even be considered talking and Caine highly doubts it, is that of a woman. He's glad he overheard one of the models is scrubs mentioning her because he's not that good at identifying these models. With the players inside the Circus it was pretty easy. He just had to analized their mind files to know subconsciously how they identified themselves and provide a suitable model for each one. Here… it's different and he doesn't particularly like different.
The woman is very similar to Pomni in appearance. Dark, long hair and green eyes. She's not dressed the way the other models are, with loose blue-ish scrubs or white coats. Something inside his mind tells him that those are nurses and doctors, but how he came to that conclusion, he has no idea.
He's come to realize in the last five days, that he knows a lot of things of this Macroverse. Must be some kind of residue from all the data in his memory banks back when he still was inside the Circus… which makes him think he'd eventually get to remember the rest of it, but he's not so optimistic to find himself hoping for it too much.
A knock on the door startles them both.
She must be back…
Caine turns around, still floating, uncurling from his position near the window and staring at the door. It's still closed. He looks around confused. Pomni is still under the covers of the bed. She's not moving.
“…Pomni?“ He tries, but the young woman doesn't budge. Could she be asleep?
There's a second knock and when Pomni also doesn't answer it, the door opens on it's own.
The woman with Pomni's same dark hair and green eyes comes in. She doesn't make any noise as she closes the door behind her.
Caine allows himself to float closer to the drawer, hovering above it for a moment before deciding to sit on top of it, praying that he doesn't go through it like it happened with the floor the first time he set foot on it the first day. Nothing happens, he just feels his legs touch the wood and he dangles his tiny feet off the edge, positioning his elbows on his knees, relaxing his shoulders.
Pomni's sister walks closer, not making a sound. She has something in her hands… it looks funny, sticking in all directions with no clear pattern and full of different colors.
After Caine sees her emptying a vase of the previous contents his mind finally catches up with what he's seeing.
Those are flowers.
Real flowers!
Bees love flowers!
He refrains from jumping up and fly closer to inspect them. Something tells him it's best if he stays where he is for the moment.
The woman puts the flowers in the vase and fills it with water, depositing it back on the nightstand close to Pomni's bed. All the while, Pomni doesn't react to the soft noise.
She takes hold of the sheet above Pomni's head, gently lowering it. Pomni's eyes are closed. She's turned on her side, her back facing the door. Caine realizes that if Pomni opens her eyes, she'd be able to see the tall trees that are outside the window. He thinks she might like the sight, if only she'd let herself enjoy it… he's never seen such a smooth shade of white in his entire life… the trees are full of it, it covers them from top to bottom.
“I'm sorry it took me so long… the cafeteria is packed at this hour…” she says softly, caressing Pomni's forehead and taking some stands of dark hair out of her eyes.
Caine watches fascinated. Every time the woman enters the room, each time she visits Pomni, he can't help but notice how… physical she is.
He wants to float closer, but stays on top of the drawer and doesn't catch what the model says next. He blinks and sticks a finger in between his upper and lower teeth, before remembering that that's not actually gonna do anything for him. He's too far from them but what the model does next makes him pause.
She lowers herself and… he lips lightly touch Pomni's forehead.
Caine watches fascinated as she then sits on the chair beside the bed, taking out a rectangular block out of her purse, splitting it in two and starting to stare at it silently, legs crossed over one another.
He doesn't know what just happened. He doesn't know what the rectangular, colorful block is. He doesn't know what the woman did to Pomni, but he could have sworn he saw Pomni relax in her sleep somehow.
He doesn't have any memory of this and he's sure he didn't have anything that explained such an action in his database when he was in the Circus. But he's already seen this before, he realizes. That first day…
✦ . ⁺ . ✧ . ⁺ ✦
Macroverse - Location Unknown
December 19th 2023 - 11:22 a.m.
Caine
She's screaming.
She's screaming like he's never heard her before.
He doesn't like this sound. Not at all. It's piercing through his mind and he can't think right.
He flinches back instinctively like she's burned him and the connection with her cuts off abruptly. He squeezes his teeth shut, hands flying over his upper jaw to try and block the sound out. Before he realizes it, his back hits the far away wall and everything becomes a blur for a little while.
He has no idea how much time has passed but he knows that he's probably lost consciousness because he's waking up. He's slumped on the floor in the corner of the room and his body feels like it's been hit by lightning.
He thanks whatever powers that might exist in this strange world for not having gone through the floor or gotten stuck in the wall. Can something like that happen? It would be rather inconvenient… how would it even work-
The workspace around him is completely different.
It's a hall, full of chairs and models all over the place. Sitting. Walking around.
He did go through the wall or possibly the floor. Caine will himself to float above the ground again, adjusting his hat before finding out that he doesn't have it on his upper jaw. He looks around but it's nowhere in sight.
Okay, no. Focus, Caine! You've got much more pressing problems here!
He feels heat coming from his right as a model walks up to where he's floating, turns around and- Caine scrambles to the side, narrowly avoiding being sat on as the model sits on the chair he'd been floating above of.
He closes his mouth and concentrates. If he was able to feel the heat coming from this model, he might be able to feel Lomni's signature as well. After a few seconds, sure enough, he finds it, just two floors above him.
He floats back up, going through the floors and deciding to stop himself when he feels her strong presence again closer to him.
Caine opens his teeth, he hadn't realized he had kept them closed. He eyes his hand for a moment and tries to ignore how bright the room suddenly feels. The hand he touched Pomni with. He faintly realizes that it's trembling. He has no idea why.
He also realizes something else.
The screaming that had startled him before has stopped.
Finally. He doesn't think he could have handled another minute of that sound.
“How are you feeling, dear?“
Caine doesn't know the voice, but it hurts his mind. Everything seems too loud… too bright. “Too loud…” he mumbles, shutting his teeth.
“Can you hear me?“ The voice asks and before Caine can reply, someone else answers.
“Yes.“
It's faint, and it's scratchy but it's a voice that he recognizes. Pomni! He opens his mouth again and sees for the first time what's going on around him.
Clearly some time has passed since he lost consciousness because now there are more people in the room. They're all wearing the same blue-ish clothes. Caine doesn't like it… they all look the same. With no personality whatsoever. They're surrounding Pomni, from his position, back in the corner of the room, he can't really see her and they're speaking to her but… they're saying another name.
“It's okay to feel a little disoriented, Abigail. After all you've been asleep for two entire months.“
“Two… months…?“
Caine hears the voice again. It's hers, no doubt about it. He float over and hovers closer to the bed, narrowly avoiding one of the models in blue scrubs as they turn, going for the door.
“Careful there!“ He says, waving them off and not really caring when the model just keeps on walking, closing the door.
When he gets closer, he recognizes her. He thinks it's gonna take him a while to not expect her jester model when looking at her but he can adapt.
There's something though. Something that's rubbing him the wrong way. He doesn't understand what it is at first, but then as he floats even closer and stands on the edge of the bed at Pomni's feet, he sees her eyes.
She's sitting up in bed, her back to the headrest. Her hair are a mess and her eyes. Her green, beautiful eyes. Wide and tracking every movement around her. But when they land on him, they impossibly get even bigger.
“So it wasn't a dream…” she whispers the words, staring right at him.
“Dream?“ He asks, confused and sees her flinch. Before he can say something more, one of the other two models speaks.
“It's not unheard of for coma patients to dream, Abigail.“
“How…” she hesitates, clearing her throat, “how do you know my name?“
“Your sister told me. She brought you here herself.“
“My… sister…”
Caine decides to sit there on the bed, listening to the models speaking to Pomni, but after those few words she said, it's like something clicks off in Pomni's mind. Caine sees the difference right away. One moment she's following everything going on around her. Granted her eyes are wide and she looks scared out of her mind, but at least she's there. And then the next, when the model that exited the room comes back with another model, this one with the same dark hair and green eyes as Pomni, she just… her mind turns off.
He feels the difference, sitting on the bed, his little knees touching her leg. He feels it and it makes him freeze. When he looks at her eyes, it's like they go right through him. Like he's not there.
The new model that came into the room. She must be someone Pomni's sister because the first thing she does is basically throw herself on the bed, hugging Pomni to her.
“I couldn't have hoped for a better Christmas gift!“ the model cries, her voice quivering and muffled by Pomni's thin shoulder.
Pomni doesn't react, of course.
She doesn't react to nothing much for a long while.
Caine doesn't want her to be like that.
It reminds him of an empty NPC.
He doesn't like empty NPCs.
✦ . ⁺ . ✧ . ⁺ ✦
Macroverse - Hospital 3rd Floor
December 24th 2023 - 08:45 p.m.
Caine
Caine snaps back into the present at the sound of the chair scraping against the floor as the woman stands up, taking care not to wake her sister and leaves for the night.
As soon as the door closes, Caine floats cautiously over to the nightstand, bored out of his mind now that the sun has gone completely down and he can't look out the window anymore. He hovers in the air for a moment, eyeing the lump under the covers, from which only a mess of black hair is still visible and then he turns towards the flowers.
His tiny feet land on the nightstand, but he's a good head taller than the vase and the space is too tiny even for him, so he decides to keep floating, raising his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.
The flowers are full of color. Full of life. They're actually the opposite of Pomni, Caine muses as he raises a hand and touches one of the yellow petals with his finger. As soon as he touches it, a jolt runs through his core, just like when he touched Pomni. Only this time it feels different. When the first time he felt an entire world on the other side, full of thoughts, sensations and emotions, this time there's none of that. Sure he can feel the “life energy” coming off of the flower, but it feels faded. Like it's not fully there.
Caine eyes the flowers again, marveling at the difference when something catches his eye.
There's a tiny shift from under the covers and Caine turns towards it. He's still touching the flower and his mind kind of feels like it's being split it two, having to focus on the life energy coming off the flower and the reality he lives in.
As he floats there, eyes passively taking in the scene in front of him, he doesn't realize he's starting to slowly drift away from the nightstand. When his finger loses contact with the petal and his eyes focus back again, he's hit by that sea of green staring at him.
Pomni is awake.
And she's watching him.
“Pomni!“ Caine exclaims, without even thinking about regulating his tone of voice.
Pomni takes the sheet away from the lower half of her face and sits up again shakily, silently eyeing him.
“I-I uhm…” Caine fidgets with his hands, nervously, “I was checking out these… they're flowers, see? A-and… bees love flowers and I think I know why. They're so colorful…” he points at the one he touched earlier, “this one's a bit tired though…”
“What are you talking about?“
Her voice is so scratchy and monotone that for a moment Caine doesn't realize it's her the one who spoke. For some reason, his mind refused, for the briefest of moments, to associate that sound with the one he's come to expect from her. Undoubtedly it's the same, but even her voice seems void of life and that realization makes a shiver run down his spine.
“Well… never mind that!“ He says, floating closer and depositing himself on the much larger chair close to Pomni's bed. “What about you? You've been… what's the word the doctors used… catatonic for a while there… I was starting to get worried,” he laughs nervously as he tries to find a comfortable position on the chair. At last he opts for resting his back and laying his legs in front of him, allowing his jaw to float a bit forward so that it doesn't hit the backrest. A quiet voice in the back of his mind tells him that he didn't go through the chair and before he can dwell on that realization, Pomni speaks.
“You sure like torturing me, even now.“
“W-wha-?“ he's too stunned to form a proper sentence. It kind of reminds him what happened just before him lashing out at his players.
“Why are you doing this?“ She asks and her lips suddenly curl into an ugly, quivering smile, “Is this how malfunctioning, psychotic AIs get off or something?“
Caine straightens himself on the chair, finding his voice again, but it's unsteady, “I… I'm not doing any-”
“I'm tired of your bullshit, Caine.“ She says and he flinches at the word. Her voice is calm, her eyes staring right at him from where she's sitting. “I get it, you want revenge because somehow you think we owe you our presence or something, but…” she takes her gaze away from him, staring at her legs, covered by the sheet. “Creating a-an ad-dventure like this… the hospital… my sister… that's just cruel…” Pomni says, hugging herself and lowering her head.
She thinks… she thinks this is one of his adventures? But how? Doesn't she see the clearly obvious change in graphics. He would never have the processing power to reproduce something so accurately, not to mention the lack of structure in the Macroverse, which is here now being presented to him so plainly and simply.
He snaps put of it the moment he catches something in Pomni's gaze. Her eyes… her green, beautiful eyes. They're leaking water.
Over the years, he's come to understand, mostly thanks to observing Gangles, the poor thing, that Pomni's crying.
Crying…
He doesn't like it coming from her. He never liked it coming from his players whenever one of them started going off, but now… now it feels even more real than inside the Circus.
Then, in an almost entirely defeated voice, Pomni says, “I just… I hate you…”
Caine’s chest tightens and, before he can try and explain, she’s already turned onto her side again, leaving him there trying to breathe despite not needing any air.