A Glitch In The Circus

Into The Void

Pomni walked down the hall with Ragatha, the doll giving the jester a smile as she used one hand to push a cart full of empty cardboard boxes. Meanwhile, Pomni herself was carrying a bucket full of cleaning equipment as she listened to Ragatha's gratitude to helping with a task they had pushed off for quite a while.

Ragatha: Thank you again for staying, Pomni. I could use a hand with how messy Kaufmo's room is and it's about time we cleaned it out.

Pomni: Don't worry about it. It was... overwhelming last time, so I don't feel like going on an adventure today. But I still need to do something to... wind down. Even if I was just haunted by a ghost of him.

Ragatha: *chuckles* Pomni, I told you, ghost data ISN'T the same as an actual ghost. Besides, Caine got rid of it, remember? Nonetheless, I still appreciate your help. The others weren't so up with the idea, but I want to clean up the bedrooms of our friends after they get Abstracted. It's the least we can do to pay respect to the fallen, other than a funeral.

Pomni: You are so kind, Ragatha. Kaufmo would have been so happy if he knew that.

Ragatha giggled, then looked up at the door they had arrived at.

Kaufmo's room.

The door was still intact and left closed after the incident, the icon crossed off with a giant red X. Ragatha pushed open the door and led Pomni in with her so she could have a better look at the interior as she didn't see much since the day she had went in to investigate any ghost data for an exit. Kaufmo's room was small and covered in colorful wallpapers like any others but had little light (perhaps most of the lightbulbs were gone), was trashed with toys and other objects, and its walls were covered in the creepy portraits and written over by red markers during the resident's ​​manic crisis, which seemed to have extended for more than just a few days.

Pomni: God...

Ragatha: The room is worse than I remember! It'll take an entire day for sure...

The doll sighs, her finger wiping one of the red, giant "EXIT" words on the wall,

Ragatha: Sure hope this isn't permanent markers, or we'll have to ask Caine for rubbing alcohol.... Pomni, can you help me bring Kaufmo's belongings out of the room, please? We need to sanitize it first. And take the flashlight, too.

She nods as she took out the flashlight from the pile of tools they brought along and quickly follows suit. The pair began collecting Kaufmo's discarded toys, taking down the picture frames, and looking for other miscellaneous objects that could be hidden somewhere. They put each type of belonging in a separate box so they could rearrange them back in later. Luckily, there wasn't any smelly garbage or rotting food in the room, there probably weren't any contaminating things in the digital world, or else this place would have been much harder to withstand judging from its chaotic state.

Ragatha: There are a couple of books under the bed.

Pomni: I'll get them.

Pomni bent over with Ragatha, pulling the books out until the last one, which lay at the furthest end of the book. It took the pair a couple of tries to scoot the giant book out from under the bed by the broom, but when Ragatha flashed on the cover, Pomni caught sight of the cover page.

Pomni: Huh?... *takes book* "History of Doors". I didn't know Kaufmo was into studying doors.

The book's cover was made out of normal writing paper instead of cardstock, with only the title written in capitalized letters and the picture of a door glued on in the center. It seemed like a handmade book rather than a factory-printed one.

Ragatha: I didn't know that either. Maybe he started researching about them during his obsession with the exit. Like a coping mechanism. You can just put it in the toy box.