𝕎𝕆ℕ𝔻𝔼ℝ𝕃𝔸ℕ𝔻.𝔼𝕏𝔼

A Clown's Breaking Point

        As soon as they separated themselves from Kinger and Gangle for their own "adventure" at their end, the group of four made their way down a rather extensive hallway that led out of the main circus room. Various paintings of a peculiar art lined the walls, along with an array of doors on either side that each sported a character portrait on them, most likely symbolizing the owners of the rooms. For some reason, there was a variety of several pictures on most of the doors that had a red X over them, while the portraits of the current circus performers were completely unharmed...

        "So, this is where we all live. Or well, where we all sleep at night." Ragatha explained to Pomni as they strolled down the hall together, Jax walking alongside Barbie with a nonchalant expression on his features. "Even though we don't really need to sleep, it's sometimes nice to kind of take a break from everything and...have a bit of a routine, you know? I'm sure there'll be one for..." She momentarily trailed off to glance around the hallway before the group briefly stopped to see that there was a new addition to the bedroom doors lining the walls. "Oh, look! You already got one." 

        Indeed, the portrait on the door they halted in front of was a 2D picture of Pomni, sporting a melancholic frown with her eyes dilated to emphasize her red-and-blue pinwheel irises. The jester woman stared up at her new bedroom door with the exact same expression, a bit conflicted about how to react to it. 

        "Ooooh, looks like we're roomies ~ !" Barbie piped up, gesturing over to show that her own bedroom was directly across the hallway from Pomni's door. Her character portrait was of the witch girl winking with a cheerful smile on her face, almost an uncanny resemblance to the owner herself. "Well, not really, but you get the idea, right?" 

        After glancing back and forth between her door and the taller woman's, Pomni hastily shook it off as they continued walking down the hallway. "I...still don't understand." She hesitantly began, conflicted emotions flickering across her features before peering up at Ragatha. "About the adventures... Why even go on them at all? Why not try to find a way to..." 

        She briefly glanced over at Barbie with a cautious frown, instinctively grimacing when she saw that the witch was eyeing her as well. Fortunately, she was momentarily distracted when Jax slowly reached for her hat to sneak himself a piece of candy from the accessory, prompting her to smack his gloved hand away with a deadpan look. 

        "...leave?" Pomni quickly finished her question after taking advantage of Barbie's brief diversion, not wanting to provoke the latter's unpredictable mood swings whenever she spoke about exiting their digital world.

        "Well, we usually do...when we first arrived." Ragatha replied as she walked besides the jester, a lax smile on her features before it gradually fell. "But after a while, you start to realize that...you really can't leave and constantly chasing an unattainable goal will start driving you a bit crazy." Her voice began to slowly grow strained as a distressed expression washed over her features the more she spoke. "And eventually, you get to asking what the point of anything is and you completely lose sight of who you are and why you're even alive and when you reach your breaking point, something really terrible can happen...!"

        The sudden sound of Barbie clearing her throat promptly snapped the ragdoll back into reality, the latter glancing towards the others to see that they had finally reached their destination: a door with Kaufmo's character portrait to indicate that this was his bedroom. Ragatha rapidly blinked to see that her three companions were staring blankly at her after her brief rant, realization quick to dawn on her as she noticed that Pomni was especially stunned to hear all those words from her. Not to mention, Barbie was regarding her with an unreadable expression consisting of half-lidded eyes and a raised eyebrow.