The Circus

Searching Game

Ringmaster woke up, her head fuzzy and body weak. She was in a beanbag. She opened her eyes and groaned, rubbing the side of her head. "Where-" She took a deep breath and looked around. "Oh. My office." She said, seeing someone sitting in her office chair waving at her. "Who-" She couldn't figure out who it was due to her vision being too blurry.
She started to look around and noticed that Esdeath was there in the corner of the room asleep. "Esdeath?" She mumbled, closing her eyes again and holding the sides of her head. Her head was pounding and she found it hard to breathe. "God-" She groaned, curling up more into the beanbag and wincing from the pain.

There is knocking on the door, and Esdeath goes over to answer. Ringmaster watches the door open. She looks back over at her desk chair. The figure that she saw before was gone. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked at her hands. "Another hallucination." She said to herself, looking back up at the person at the door.

"Hello, I am Angel, your doctor for the day-" Angel begins to say, Ringmaster and him making eye contact. "You." Ringmaster said sternly. Angel laughed nervously. He set his big bag of medical equipment on the table. "So I am going to do a basic check up first and then ask some questions to see how you are feeling." Ringmaster glared at Angel. "I'm fine- don't touch me." She said before coughing frantically. She cleared her throat and held her head in her hands. "God-"

"Look, your friend told me that you had a fever of 108.9, you had coughing fits, and you started to hallucinate. You are not fine." Angel says. Angel then grabs a warm washcloth and puts it on Ringmaster's forehead. "Get some rest for a couple of weeks, and drink plenty of water." Angel says turning to Esdeath. "Make sure she doesn't do anything too active," turning back to Azriah. Angel grabs some bottle with pink liquid in it.
"Take two spoonfuls of this for 5 days, if you don't get better call me," Angel says while packing his bags. "I can take care of myself." Ringmaster said, looking at Angel and Esdeath. "I'll be fine, I don't need your medicine." She said through coughs.
"I can get through some sickness. It's nothing I haven't-" She broke into a coughing fit, covering her mouth with her hand. "It's all just chemicals and drugs, my healing spells would be more effective." She said, glaring at Angel.
"You are suffering from a disease that can infect people that use too much magic at once, it can and will cause coughing fits, drowsiness, high fevers, and severe hallucinations. All this medicine will do is subside the symptoms," Angel said, pouring a spoon of the medicine. "Now this one is bubblegum flavored. I give it to all my patients." Then Angel shoves the spoon in her mouth.
Ringmaster's eyes widened, their expression looking disgusted. She swallowed it and gagged. "Dear god your poor patients-" She coughed more, wheezing this time. Her vision was going haywire from the loss of air, but she caught her breath. She saw black shadows in corners and things jumping around the room. "Your medicine is- is.." She started, looking at the chair again.
This time the chair was turned around facing her, and someone was sitting in it. She recognized them, but didn't know where they were from. She shook her head. "Not now." She mumbled to herself, putting her hands on her temples again. "Okay-" Ringmaster suddenly got lightheaded, and started shaking.
"Oh no, she's going into shock!" Angel screams, "You, does she have any major trauma?" Angels said while trying to find something to help with Azariah. Esdeath thought for a second. "Uh- I don't know, she never talks about it. I'm not sure, the only person she ever told was Mayumi." They said, shrugging and going over to help Ringmaster breathe.
Ringmaster choked on the air around her, the hallucinations got more violent and the figure in the chair was starting to make out shapes. "What- are you?" She said, looking at the figure, it sat and stared at her. It was glaring. Esdeath put their hand on her back. "There's nothing there, it's okay." They reassured Ringmaster. Angel started doing CPR on Ringmaster, hoping to help her breathe.
Ringmaster pushed her away. "I'm not," she started coughing, "knocked out you idiot." She stood up, still trying to breathe, the hallucinations coming closer. She could barely breathe, her vision getting darker. She backed up into the wall, slamming into it. There was a flower crown that Mayumi had made her a long time ago that fell from a hook, it swirled into the air and landed on Ringmaster's head. Ringmaster took a huge deep breath, coughing and catching their breath.
"Fucking finally." She said, the hallucinations going away and her regaining her thoughts. Angel stepped back and then said. "Hold on, who made that flower crown?" Angel asked, looking at Ringmaster. Ringmaster looked at Angel. "Mayumi.. Why?" She said, sliding down the wall to sit back down. "She must be able to grow flora flowers, a kind of flower that can heal almost anything, and it doesn't even wilt!" Angel says in relief. "Yeah, she can." Ringmaster said, looking down at the floor. "She always has been able to." Her words were slower now.
Memories from before she passed out flooded her mind. Her fixing Mayumi, Mayumi almost dying ,the blob turning into a man, her questioning him, and then Mayumi being taken away. "She's gone-" Ringmaster remembered, looking up at Esdeath. "He took Mayumi-" She choked out, her face growing pale with panic. "She's gone. We need to get her back." Ringmaster said, clearing her throat.
"After I took you out of the attic, I looked for Mayumi and I couldn't find anything." Esdeath said, looking down. Ringmaster searched her pockets, pulling out the piece of cloth. "We need to find her." She held it tightly in her hands. "What happened when the blob took her, or what did he say?" Angel asked. Ringmaster went back through the memories. "I don't- Uhh, something about the Overworld? Then.. he took her.." She said, looking down at the cloth.
"The Overworld. . . I have heard of it. Wait, I know a guy who can get us there" Angel says. "Us?" Ringmaster says looking at Angel. "I go or no one goes," says Angel. Ringmaster scoffed and stood back up. "I am not going on a trip with you, especially when my best friend's life is on the line!" Ringmaster yelled, looking at Angel with a stern expression. "You think that after everything you've done, I will go on a trip with you."
"Wait, Ringmaster! This could help us, he is a convenience to us. He can get us to Mayumi faster." Esdeath whispers to Ringmaster. Ringmaster scoffed again and looked into Angel's eyes with a cold glare. "I could do it on my own." She said, crossing her arms. "But Azariah don't you want to get to Mayumi as fast as you can? To save her?" Esdeath said. "We can take the Glorel Canal. . .ya know the shortcut, " Angel says. The Glorel Canal is a river that can pass through almost any dimension, and not many people know about it.
Ringmaster ran her fingers through her hair. "God damnit." She said, looking at Esdeath. "Fine. Fine, okay, yes." She looks at Angel. "This is only for Mayumi, you understand that? But if you pull one, insey, tiny, little trick, I am going on my own and leaving you in the dust." She said, getting close to him. Esdeath looked confused but shrugged it off. "It'll be fine." She said, putting a hand on Ringmaster's shoulder. Ringmaster stepped back with a sigh.
"But first before we go, don't we need a plan on how to get her out?" Esdeath asks. Ringmaster thinks for a moment. "Yeah, it'd be a good idea to make a plan." She said, sitting down in her office chair and pulling out a notebook and pencil. "Angel, how much do you know about the Overworld?" She asked, pointing her pencil towards him.
"It is a place for people that are hiding something. It's a very hot place, and there are a lot of bad people. That's all I know but I know a guy who's been there" Angel says. "Of course you know a guy who's been there too." Ringmaster grumbles, writing down information about the place. "This person I know also lives in another dimension." Angel continued, Ringmaster setting the notebook down. "Isn't that just fantastic." She said sarcastically.