Digital circus x reader. Can you help? (Postponed)

Character 1: Can you help?

Sitting at your dinner table you watch a video called Little Runmo as you think about the previous events in shame. You can't believe you had gotten so spooked by a VR game, it wasn't even a horror game or anything. 

It must have been that odd feeling of being trapped or how the "characters" reacted to you.

You signed as you tried to focus on the video, which had an odd game show playing now, deciding to try again later.

-Time skip

Standing back in the same room again you prepare yourself. You can't let a silly feeling stop you from enjoying your expensive headset. You took a deep breath, put on the headset and gloves as the room from before materialized and the game menu greeted you.

Going straight to the Digital Circus you wait patiently as it loaded. Once it did you stand in the same spot as before, expecting the intro to start.

But it never did.

"Maybe the game already started." You say to yourself to break the silence and calm your nerves.

The feeling of being trapped wasn't there anymore as you looked around for things to do. Seeing a big pillow fort shaped like a dome you walk up to the odd structure. When you did, two of the pillows opened up like a door revealing a king chess piece. As the two of you looked at each other the chess piece started screaming at you as you screamed back.

He soon stopped and apologized, "sorry didn't see you there."

Claiming yourself you figured that this was just some weird NPC and couldn't hurt you.

"It's ok." You wave off not really expecting them to reply.

"Oh that's good." He replied.

You turned at neck breaking speed when you realized he had actually answered back.

"Did you just answer me?" You questioned.

He nodded his head "yeah that's what you're supposed to do in a conversation. To keep it going you know?"

"But this is a video game? How can a NPC talk to me?"

"A video what now?" He questioned you back.

Before you could explain more, the teeth with a top hat from before popped out of nowhere floating in mid air.

The king chess piece then screeched again, closing the pillow door to hide in.

"Hey there you are!" Exclaimed the teeth. "You got away from us didn't you?" He asked you but it didn't seem like a question. "Hi I'm Caine the ringmaster of the amazing digital circus!" he explained with over exaggerated hand gestures. "Well now that you're here we can finally introduce you to everyone!" He waved his cane towards the people you had seen just before leaving.

"Umm ok." You say as he grabbed your avatar and pushed you in front of the group. Almost falling over you look nervously at them. What were you supposed to even do in a situation like?

"Come on now, don't be shy." he encouraged you.

When you didn't say anything one of them who wore a blue dress and seemed like a Rag doll stepped up. "Ok I know you must be panicking right now, but everything is going to be fine." She reassured you, as she patted your back. Or you think she did since you could only feel with your hands. "We all freaked out when we first got here."

'Freaked out when we first got here?' You think to yourself. 'Maybe this was part of the game? But that won't explain why they were talking and responding to me.'

"I'm Ragatha. The colorful one is Zooble, ribbons is Gangla, the rabbit is Jax, the one in the pillow fort is kinger. And the last but least is our second newest member, Pomni." She looked at you and waited for you to say your name.

"I'm Y/N." you say as Caine sighed and started to push a huge slot machine with letters instead of symbols away.

"Don't worry none of us-." she started before realizing what you had just said. "Wait, you can remember your name?"

You nodded. "Yeah why wouldn't I."

"Well you see everyone who's ever gotten stuck here can't really remember names or who they were before they came here. So we give each other new ones or whatever." Zooble said.

"Wait." you say the terrifying feeling of being stuck somewhere creeping up your back. "So you guys aren't NPCs but actually just people who played a game and got stuck in this virtual reality?" you ask, trying to wrap your head around this.

"In a nutshell," Ragtha said.

"T-that's horrifying!" 

"Yeah, and you're stuck here as will." Jax says bluntly, getting a slap on the back of his head by Zoodle. "Ouch!" he over exaggerated.

"But I'm not stuck here." you tell them.

Jax started laughing at that and then said "they think they're not stuck here." He wiped a fake tear from his eye. "Hilarious."

"No, That would make sense. They did disappeared earlier." Ragatha defended what you said. "Do you have any other way of proving this?" She asked you.

You had to think about this before a good idea came to you. Raising your hand you press what you think is a menu button as the game settings come up. Things like volume, height and a display of your avatar were shown on it. Showing them even Jax seemed surprised before you closed it.

Pomni, who had a crazed look in their eye, tackled you "Oh thank the lord. You need to help me get out of here!" she said, clinging to you.

before you could reply to her Caine interrupted you with a loud gasp. "You know what this means!?" He yelled. "Looks We have our first official player!"

Flying over to you, Caine was now hovering in front of you. "Oh wow this is such a big moment for me." He said fidgeting with his collar. "I can finally do what I was coded to do! Come let me give you a tour of the palace!" he said, grabbing you again and flew away leaving Pomni behind.

Now you and Caine were outside of what you now relied was a tent, floating. Looking over to Caine he seemed to be hyping himself up for something.

"Do you know if Pomni is O.K?"

"Pomni? Oh she's always fine!" he assured you but you didn't really believe him. "These are the grounds!" He told you. "Here you can find the circus tent where most of your adventures will take place."

He points to a lake. "Go swimming for leviathans-...no wait, that's subnautica!" He corrected himself. "Go Fishing in the digital lake!" he pointed in another direction." Or take an exhilarating circus ride at the digital carnival! The choice is yours!"

"Oh...that's great-" you started saying but were interrupted by Caine.

"We even have a void." He said giving you a one hundred yard stare.

You blinked at him.

"Good for yo-"

"Do you want to see it?"

"Not really-"

"Great!" Caine pulled you with him as you went deeper into this digital world. You were glad that you were only seeing this through a headset because you were pretty sure you would have thrown up if you were actually there.

Seconds later you and Caine were in an infinite plane of whiteness.

"This is the void!" He yelled his voice echoing even though there weren't any walls for it to echo off of.

"We don't go out here often." He hastily said, pulling you to the grounds and then back inside of the tent.

"Well now that I've shown you around we can start the first level! The maze of hallways!" He introduced to you. "As the player you need to navigate through a Maze of rooms and corridors until you find the key out!" he said as a castle-like structure came up from the ground with a large wooden door."But be careful not every room is as safe as it seems. Good luck to you and may the odds be ever in your favor!" and just like that he was gone.

You stand there feeling very overwhelmed by everything. "What have I gotten myself into?" you say.