The first designs for au are ready and now I can share it. The point of au is, what if abstraction turned out to be a virus? For now, there are only design ideas, and the next characters will be in a different part, and I will tell you about the stages of infection. :DDD
After that, it is planned to make separate ref leechs for all the characters, like Caine, to tell more about what has changed.
«What if abstraction is a virus?»
No one knows where the virus came from.
Some say it was always in the circus — just sleeping deep in the bowels of the system, waiting for its time. Others believe that it was brought by one of the newcomers — a random failure that turned into a disaster. Still others are sure: it was Caine who accidentally ran the wrong script, trying to make the Circus even "funnier".
No one knows the truth. Not even the administrator himself.
The virus manifested itself suddenly. At first, it was just minor glitches: characters would freeze for a second, their textures would flicker, and static would leak from the speakers. Caine attributed it to overloading. Then the voices began—soft, insistent, whispering the worst.
And then the first inhabitant transformed into a black, glitching creature with multiple eyes.
Caine called it "abstracting" and locked them in the Basement. He thought it was an isolated incident. He thought he had everything under control.
He was wrong.
The virus was contagious. It spread through contact, through damaged code, and through fear—the more panicked the victim became, the faster the disease progressed. There were four stages: from a quiet whisper to complete loss of self.
When the infected in the Basement broke free, Caine was already in the second stage.
He left. Alone. To avoid infecting anyone.
Since then, the Circus has been divided into those who are trying to survive and those who can't be saved. But there are also those who are immune to the virus. Qwill and Kinger. Their minds are too broken or too strange for the virus to latch onto.
They are the only ones who can search for Caine
And they are the only ones who can try to save everything else.
