The Amazing Digital Circus: Dawn Of The Virus

The Glitch

Caine couldn't understand. Abstractions never worked that way. As much as he'd hate to say it, he never truly understood abstractions. They were the second, to the Void, to ever truly baffle him. And he was the KING OF CRAZINESS! MIND BENDING WONDER!

So how was he able to fix abstractions. It should've been easy, considering that he was able to fix glitches in a jiffy.

Well, there was just a tiny, petite problem. Caine couldn't control minds. He was relieved to not have that ability, considering that he treats the performers as his friends and family and would never want to control them. But this limitation was presumably one of the things stopping him from fixing abstractions.

When the first abstraction happened,(Caine couldn't remember the name nor the face of the human who first abstracted), Caine confined the monster in their room, saying to everyone that "it's just one transformation. They'll be fine in a couple weeks."

But the weeks came and went and no sign of progression into undoing this hideous transformation was not found. And then one day, some performer was stupid enough to open the door and let the monster out.

That was the moment that Caine saw that the abstraction could do serious damage. His performers were all lying on the ground, glitching horrendously and screaming in pain.

So Caine had to do the only thing he could have done at that moment. Make a place known as the Cellar and trap the monster in there so it wouldn't cause any more harm.

It was then that Caine dubbed the creature an Abstraction and told anyone that it wouldn't happen again.

But then a few years later, it happened again.

And again.

Caine tried to keep his sadness down as he was forced to put the monsters in the Cellar. He deeply missed the performers who abstracted, but never wanted to show it to the performers. After all, he was their ringmaster after all and should be a role model!

As time went by, Caine slowly got used to putting abstractions in the Cellar. And sometimes, he got lazy.

But even as the pain lessened, Caine was left with an empty void in his heart. Even as an Ai, he still felt emotions like a human does.

Then the main topic he pondered today came up again...

How was Hiyori back?

...

When Hiyori arrived, she was...different to say the least.

Unlike most people who freaked out when they appeared in the Circus, Hiyori was relieved and happy there, even saying that she loves the place. Caine assumed that maybe she remembered a few things from her life that may have been horrible for her, probably affecting her reaction when she was teleported from reality to this land.

She also remembered her name, or nickname, as she told them. Caine was a little worried about this, that maybe she might have a mental break and abstract right then and there. But he chalked it all up to the headset being a little broken or a glitch in the code.

Another thing that was different about Hiyori was that she can take off her hat. Most performers can't take their clothes off, as they're now a part of them. There are some exceptions, such as Zooble(due to falling apart most of the time), and Gangle, whose comedy mask is removable and breakable.

And then there's her return to the Circus. Not even Caine expected her to appear. And the shock he found when he wasn't able to fix her body glitches, even though it didn't hurt her nor anyone who came in contact with her. When he started to converse with her in private, Hiyori talked about being in some kind of "carnival" but glitched and corrupted.

Could it truly be the Carnival that Caine had invented years ago? He had tried to make an extension to the Amazing Digital Circus just to make it more exciting.

But then something happened.

Caine encountered his first computer virus.

He couldn't remember what it looked like, but by the time Caine was about to show the Carnival to his performers, the virus showed up. It mocked Caine for his ignorance and started to terrorize the performers, attempting to infect them with its monstrous taint.

And so Caine was forced to delete the Carnival from existence, taking the virus along with it.

But it was now back. Corrupted and glitched beyond recognition.

And Caine feared that maybe, just maybe...

The virus would be back as well.