The Demon In Your Wardrobe
Taking place two years after the events of Episode 9, except Caine never returned from the 'dead'. Ft my oc Silver the Witch Marionette and @idiotwithanipad 's oc Cookie the Jack-in-the-Box.
Artwork credited to @idiotwithanipad . My own take on @katzebruh 's incredible Backup Au.
TW: Gore, dehumanisation, mentions of torture and body horror.
-
As a human, she'd never considered herself the most observant of folk. Not out of any lacking cognitive skill as much as a lack of interest in the world around her unless something managed to snag its hook in her attention. That had changed upon entering this digital world and being lumbered with a new body that lacked her old autonomy. Being permanently stuck to the bottom of a toy box by a metal spring were her legs once were meant she had fewer ways to scurry off to some secluded, darkened corner and distract herself with a game or a movie. Studying the little quirks and subtle reactions of her new 'family' had become her new constant pastime, especially when her box finally got replaced with a plaque she could at least jump around on.
She'd noticed the difference in how all of them had changed from who they were three years ago when she'd first popped onto the stage. The way Gangle stood a little straighter, learning to smile even without her comedy mask. The way Ragatha's cheery tone didn't sound quite so forced, or Zooble's dry wit becoming more fun than dripping with sour resentment. Kinger was probably the most obvious, thanks to the bucket being a more constant part of his attire, though even being more lucid he still kept that adorably curious, somewhat 'behind the times' aura when he spoke. Oh and Jax was still an asshole, even if she had come to accept a part of herself, but at least being with Pomni seemed to smooth some of her rougher edges. A little. Kinda.
Two years of learning to exist in this weird as fuck digital purgatory without their eccentric Ringmaster had been a journey. One that began with existential horror, then numb acceptance, followed by learning to make the best with what they had and use their own 'conjuring' abilities, which were nowhere near as easy as Caine had made it seem.
But they'd coped. They'd managed to build...something. Piece by piece, shade by shade, pixel by pixel. Nearly twenty four months on, they were still working to patch up some areas and make their own improvements - of course a 'realistic' lazer tag arena had been top of Jax's list. At least it kept them busy, almost better than the adventures as it wasn't something they were forced to do, but simply coz they wanted to make this place as best as they could.
Seeing how they would never leave.
But Cookie's watchful eye was becoming more drawn, lately, to their resident bestringed Witch. For as long as she'd known her, Silver always preferred her own company to hanging with the group, which Cookie found a definite Mood. And granted if Cookie had the ability to fly then she'd probably love zipping around the grounds at all hours on her own too - sadly her oxygen-deprivation skill usually resulted in her being catapulted up into the Void.
Lately, however, Silver hadn't been disappearing off to fly or lounge on the Moon's curve. That's what had her concerned. Instead, she was spending an awful lot of the time in her room. And it wasn't just Cookie who had taken notice.
"Is a girl not allowed to enjoy her naps?" Silver had responded, a little too defensive, when Ragatha and Zooble had brought it up at dinner, "Finishing up the cafe really took it out of me! I dunno how you guys aren't just as wiped."
She had a point. Even with their new manifesting skills having come along quite a ways from the basic, black shapes they'd struggled to summon at the beginning, it still left them as breathless and sore as if they'd all spent the day hauling bricks at a construction site.
But none of them were spending as much time in their rooms as Silver. Not even Jax, though Cookie reckoned that was more thanks to Pomni who rarely let go of the rabbit's hand lately.
"You would tell us, wouldn't you? If you were beginning to feel...?" Ragatha gulped, her fork poking at the steak and fries Kinger had cooked tonight, "....Like you needed to tell us anything?"
Silver rolled her painted eyes, "Oh c'mon guys, I'm not gonna....Not gonna...."
The Witch went still. Her smile fell.
Then her shoulder began to twitch, a little at first, followed by her arm beginning to spasm, balled elbow rolling around awkwardly, head jerking violently until her pointed hat slipped off the mass of storm grey curls. Ragatha let out a gasp as Silver slid off her chair. Everyone went rigid in their seats, staring at the spot where the Witch had sat moments ago.
"ROAR!"
They all jumped, a collective sharp cry filling the air, Gangle reaching to cling to Zooble - as Silver leapt back up, a monstrous snarl on her face, wooden hands curved like claws.
And then she laughed.
"Gotcha!"
Cookie struggled to suppress a smirk, despite her heart thumping against her ears. Everyone else was glaring at the tasteless joke, aside from Jax who was howling away until Pomni elbowed her in the side.
"Hahaha- ow! Eh...Not cool, Silv! God!" The rabbit gave a dramatic click of her tongue.
"That really wasn't funny." Zooble said, gently peeling Gangle off their side, patting her back reassuringly.
The Witch remained unfazed and threw up her hands; "Y'all are way too serious. We've had it good these last couple of years, if any of us were gonna abstract it would have been when things looked way more bleak, don't ya think?"
"You're really just...napping?" Asked Ragatha.
"Napping, tending my cauldron, reading books, you know, whatever I feel like doing coz it's my own room and I don't have to report every single step I take in it to you guys!" Once again, the witch's voice rose a little too sharply towards the end.
She cleared her throat, noting the stares that didn't seem to be losing their edge of concern.
"Speaking of which, I've got a brew I need to check on, if a certain someone still wants that voice altering potion." Her eyes flicked to the rabbit, whos pupils dilated swiftly.
Cookie watched as Silver picked up her plate, half her dinner uneaten, thanked Kinger for his effort before leaving the dinner table, black clogs click-clacking on the floor and echoing around the tent.
They waited until she was out of earshot before speaking again.
"Are we buying it?" Zooble asked.
Some shook their heads while others shrugged.
"She might be telling the truth. Maybe we have just become so complacent we're looking for something to worry about." Gangle admitted, "Still...someone should go check on her."
All eyes rotated to....
Oh for god's sake.
"Not someone with legs, huh?" Cookie groaned, swallowing the last of the lasagne Kinger had made for her specially.
Chicken would have been preferable, more so had it been on the bone, but she can make do with beef. Silver slides the remnants of her plate into the stew simmering away in her cauldron, flames crackling lightly beneath the cast iron.
A slight rumble came from the ebony wardrobe propped in the corner of her room, framed by cobwebs that refused to budge no matter how often she dusted.
"Coming, coming. Just a few more minutes." She whispered, more to herself than the one who wouldn't be able to hear her from this world.
A knock at the door nearly caused her to pour in way too much salt.
"Shit! Fuck! Who is it?!" She hollered, frustrated.
"Me. Can I come in?" The voice on the other side of her door had a cutesy lilt, incongruous to the moody sailor mouth it belonged to.
Fuck. Seriously? Cookie was supposed to be the one person she thought wouldn't hound her.
But if Silver tried to send her away then it would only add to their suspicions.
She opened the door, just a tad, to show she wasn't glitching out into multi-eyed digital beast.
"I'm just having a lie down, Cooks, can we hang out later?"
"Thought you were brewing a potion for Jax?" The Jack-in-the-Box folded her ruffled arms, one black eyebrow raised.
Silver bit her tongue.
"That's how good a witch I am, I can literelly brew in my sleep!" She chirped.
Cookie's insanely adorable round eyes managed to narrow to appear a little scathing.
"Don't lie to me, Silv."
"I'm not-."
"I don't give a fuck what you want the others to think. But I thought we were best friends?"
Silver felt the blow land. It was the first time either had said what they'd known for years out loud.
"We are, Cooks, it's just..."
"Then tell me why there's blood on your floor."
The Witch froze, turning as pale as her wooden body would allow.
"What?" She said, flatly.
Cookie pointed a gloved finger past where she stood to the maroon patch next to her yellow pentacle rug.
"And don't try to tell me it's ketchup, you know how many horror films I've seen." Cookie said, sharply.
Silver looked over her shoulder. Damn it. She really thought she'd done a flawless job cleaning up the mess.
"...It's not mine."
"Well that's a fucking relief. But it raises further questions." As in, who or what was bleeding on her floor?
The temptation to state the obvious lie danced on her lips, that of course a witch would use a few drops of conjured blood in her craft, it didn't necessarily need a real living source or even an NPC. But Cookie remained eyeballing her with that piercing, if precious, glare.
Guilt was already threatening to drown her every day in an ever overflowing stream of which she only seemed to be swimming farther and father into. She didn't need to add more to that current.
She opened the door wider. Cookie took the opportunity to bounce in before the Witch closed it tight.
"...If I tell you, you need to promise to be cool." Silver told her, her tone turning dead serious.
Cookie gave a frown, then gestured at her ridiculous appearence.
"When am I not?"
"I mean it, Cookie. I..." she lowered her voice, then crossed to the cauldron and doused the flames, fetching a large leather flask and scooping up the rich smelling contents, "The others cannot find out. Not just yet."
"Okay, you're kinda freaking me out now. You sure you're not feeling like you're gonna abstract?" Her friend asked.
Silver gave a weak laugh as she sealed the flask tight and secured it to her hip.
"More than I have since I showed up here. Trust me, I've got as much motivation to keep going as any of you."
Before she could explain further, her wardrobe vibrated once more, a ghostly moan barely audible.
"...What the fuck is that? I thought you said that was busted?" Cookie shuffled back an inch on her spring.
"It was. But I've managed to fix it up a little." The Witch picked up an ornate key from her desk and went to carefully unlock the antique looking wardrobe. She glanced back at Cookie, "Do you promise not to tell the others?"
"I promise. Do you trust me?" The question felt more accusing than anything, which made Silver feel worse for having kept it from her all these weeks.
She nodded. Of course she did.
Carefully, Silver turned the golden handle.
-
Eight Years Ago
"And here we have your personal living quarters! Which I'm sure you'll agree is much preferable than sleeping on the grass!"
Silver took a step through the door she'd made a point of avoiding for the past three days since her life (as well as her name and her youth) had been suddenly torn away from her. Several dream catchers with feathers of various hues hanged from a ceiling painted with all the signs of the Zodiac. Fittingly, below the Pisces fish, stood a four poster bed with violet lace curtains. The entire room was something of a New Age meets gothic explosion of purple and black, matching the color scheme of its new occupant. It was also much warmer than the rest of the Circus had felt so far.
To the right of her door hovered her new host, tour guide and - she supposed - zany god of this world. With a flourish of his cane, the Ringmaster pointed to various items in the room.
"As you can see, there's everything here to satisfy your sorcerific needs!" He announced, as if filming some kind of promotion ad; "Relax on your new bed in that ever so popular horizontal fashion of doing absolutely nothing humans seem to enjoy! Or concoct delicious abominations at your very own cauldron! Or take a brisk walk into your wardrobe that doubles as a gateway to the fantastical land Gnargnia! Or groom yourself at the crystal mirror vanit-."
"I'm sorry, did you just say Gateway to Narnia?" Silver interrupts.
Caine paused his wild gesticulating and cleared his throat.
"Uhh, of course not, I said Gateway to Gnargnia. Two silent gs!"
His massive dentures tilted towards her, canines folding over one eye.
"...Are you trying to wink at me?" Silver asked, uncertain.
"What is winking?!" He then repeated the action; "Huh?....Huh?"
"Okay, I get it. But I gotta check this out."
With her crossbeam tucked inside the belt of her hat to stop her tripping on her strings (good suggestion, Ragatha), Silver crossed the room to the wardrobe and tried the handle. Locked.
"Whoopsie!." Caine whipped out a key from thin air and handed it to her, "Don't want anyone else sneaking in there to jump scare ya, do we! Or do you? Lemme know if that's what you'd prefer."
"I'm good." She slotted the key in and turned it, then entered.
Barely ten seconds later, her voice boomed from the back of the wardrobe.
"HOLY [B》¤☆€K!] IT IS NARNIA!"
"With two Gs, remember!" Caine shouted.
Silver was laughing, bubbling over with giddiness, as she came back into the room, dusting snow from her dress.
"There was forests and mountains and lakes and everything for miles!" She beamed.
"There sure is! Though I'm afraid I'm unable to populate it with any NPCs, aside from a few insects for ambience. Can't have other AIs running in an unmonitored location for too long, you understand." The Ringmaster clarified; "So no bickering beavers or religiously allegorical lions, sorry."
Silver shook her head, still smiling; "You know what? I'll still take it!"
On the same day she learns she can fly on her broom by merely holding her breath, she finds out she has a whole fantasy world sandbox to soar through whenever she likes - all to herself.
"Does that mean you find your room to be satisfactory, my dear?" Caine lowered himself to her level, 'chin' resting on his knuckles as he kicked his legs behind him.
The rapidly aged nineteen year old couldn't help but chuckle.
"You know what? Credit where it's due...the room is pretty awesome."
"GASP! You mean it?! Spectacular!"
Caine twirled above her head, fireworks shooting from his hands and leaving scorch marks across her ceiling, ruining the constellations.
"Er-hem." Silver coughed.
"Oh. My bad." He made them vanish with a snap of his fingers; "Seriously though, I can't tell you how pleased I am that you like my work. It's been...quite some time since....anyone has complimented my efforts. I mean Ragatha says she likes some things but sometimes I detect a lack of sincerity in her tone. And as for Kinger, well..."
"Caine. Buddy." Silver tugged at his wrist, pulling him closer to her level; "You did good. Thank you."
She pulled the weird but cute freak into a hug, her wooden arms folding around him. His awkward, lithe frame seemed to shiver in her touch.
"Oh. Huh. This is strange. W-what am I being thanked for exactly?" He asked, dropping the showman act for a brief moment.
Silver pulled back a little; "Because, if this has to be home now, thank you for making it not suck that much."
The odd pair of eyeballs floating between teeth simply stared at her, dumbfounded, then cleared his throat, hovering backwards before regaining his composure.
"Oh....well...You are surely welcome! Now get some shut eye because tomorrow I'll have a brand new adventure waiting that'll be so thrilling it'll turn your hair whi....Never mind." He removed his hat as he bowed to her; "Nighty night, my little smoke machine!"
And then, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
As Silver flopped upon her velvet bedsheets, she had a suspicion that she'd just given the guy his very first hug.
-
Present Day
Cookie had only been in Silver's Narnia-With-Two-Gs Wardrobe a handful of times back in the day, before everything had gone down the crapper. Though it was neat to essentially have an entire open world landmass as your own private garden to come and go whenever you wanted, she could also see how Silver had become bored of it without any characters to interact with.
Nevertheless, when the circus had crumbled into the void following Caine's abrupt deletion, Silver had mourned the loss when she opened the wardrobe to find nothing but a solid wall at the back. Cookie wondered if the sadness that had washed over had face had been from losing that open space, or the fact it had been one of the first presents Caine had given her that had made her happy to be here.
They didn't really talk about him much since that day. Emotions still seemed to simmer all too close to the surface, complex and unresolved. Jax often threw out the odd, bitter comment about something the AI had once done to ruin her day, while Zooble had voiced a few times how much easier life here was without the egocentric Ringmaster moving them around like his personal toys.
"Even when he wasn't evil, he was a pain in the ass - the fact I can say that is proof enough!" They had said once while mixing up a drink in the new bar they'd conjured.
Cookie, Ragatha, Gangle and Kinger mostly stayed silent whenever Caine's name was mentioned. Cookie could see the mix of guilt and relief flicker across the chess piece's eyes. Did he regret what he'd done? Or was how far they'd come since then enough to prove he'd been right (even if he still claimed it was an accident)?
Personally? She still wasn't sure what to feel when it came to Caine. He'd been an annoying little shit, sure. Hadn't listened or paid attention to most of her criticisms. Then there was all the fucked up nonsense he made her suffer through that week. But...before all that? He'd...tried. Sometimes. He'd tried to make things better, where he could. Gave her a window in her box when she was trapped, fixed it so she could move about freely once he learned how, made her laugh a couple of times with his lame 'dad jokes'. Caine was....Caine. And he was gone.
There wasn't much else to it...Nothing more to add because...it added up to nothing.
Silver, however, usually seemed to make a quick exit stage left at the first mention of his name, and refused to talk about him if Cookie tried to bring him up.
Caine had hurt them all during that week of his epic crash out. Insults, mind games, physical and mental torture that Cookie had at times thought would break her. But Silver?
He'd chosen something special for Silver. Something that seemed to make the wounds of betrayal burn down to the bone.
All because she'd been the one he'd been certain wouldn't turn against him. And she had. For Cookie. For all of them.
Caine had personally enjoyed making her regret that.
So no surprise the Witch's feelings had been a tangled mess when Kinger accidentally wiped the Ringmaster from the circus, from their lives, from this digital existance. No wonder she'd cried at the loss of her Narnia-with-Two-Gs.
And yet, somehow, she'd found a way to start to rebuild it.
Cookie's spring bounced forward after her friend, Silver's broom slung over her shoulder like a homeless guy's bindle, parting a way through the heavy coats until fabric transitioned smoothly into tree branches.
"Oh shit. You really brought it back?" Cookie asked, her plaque bouncing onto solid dirt.
"Not much. Just the forest and a few meadows and lakes so far. A good three miles radius, maybe?" She shrugged, as if disappointed she hadn't managed to recreate the whole map.
Cookie hadn't been much of a fantasy kid, preferring binging Monster High on a Saturday morning to burying herself in a book. But trying to recreate that attention to detail must be exhausting as fuck.
"You could've asked for help. I'd have happily chipped in." She said, hopping beside her as they passed through the dense forest, a low twilight sun glinting through the leaves above.
Silver sighed; "It's not the only reason. This is the part where I need you to be really, really cool."
They stood at the edge of the forest. Surrounding them lay an open field between other woodland and rolling hills and cliffs leading up to glitching mountains, rendering not quite finished. Dusk painted the sky in hues of pink and blue, the lack of birdsong and only the faint rustle of wind making Cookie feel all the more unsettled.
She waited, nervous to learn how any of this was about to connect to the blood on Silver's carpet.
The Witch took a breath, then placed two fingers to her lips...
And whistled.
"I didn't know you could whistle." Cookie murmured.
"Shhh. He might not come if he hears you."
"I...What?"
Silver took a step forward into the clearing.
"It's me! I'm here!" She called out to...something, "I could hear you from my room, I know you were calling for me...Please don't hide."
Cookie watched her friend. Who was she...?
An awful noise, a torturous combination of a dying deer and a fog horn, echoed across the landscape. Cookie clutched at her ears, while Silver merely gripped her broom tighter.
"Crap, what's he done now? C'mon, we gotta hurry." She said the last part to her spring-bound companion, before racing off towards one of the nearby hills.
Cookie followed as quick as her stupid toy body would allow.
"Silver, what-."
"You'll soon see!"
The Witch's rapid breathing betrayed her worry as she ran faster, the pained animal cry moaning louder nearby. She'd said there were no animals here, no NPCs, barely more than a few butterflies and moths. What-
They came around the side of the hill. And Cookie's eyes landed on what was making that terrible noise.
Her stomach dropped. Her body stilled all the way down to her spring, remaining perfectly vertical.
It...It couldn't be.
It couldn't.
She...She was dreaming. A nightmare. This...This couldn't possibly be real.
"Oh, Goddess. You big idiot, what have you done to yourself?" Silver was panting beside her, before fearlessly approaching....
Approaching...that.
Him.
"How...How the fuck..." Cookie was whispering, breath short, grateful she had no knees to buckle beneath her.
She watched as Silver walked cautiously towards the...Creature, lying prone on the ground. A giant humanoid torso wearing the tattered remains of a once sharp and vibrant red and white suit. The coat now barely hung off the shoulders, while the white shirt was stained with blood and mud and Hell knows what else. The buttons were parted, revealing 'skin' constructed of black and white grids, as one would find on an old computer screen...covered in bandages. Lots and lots of bloodied bandages.
And just like the last time she'd laid eyes on him, near on two years ago to the day, eight legs stuck out as crooked and bent as a spiders, except it was now more difficult to tell which were legs and which were arms were it not evident by the clothes..because they all ended in the same awful, gross, bloodied stumps.
No hands. No feet. No gloves, no shoes, just...nothing.
He'd definitely had hands last time. Hands that had grabbed her and her friends - sans Kinger and Silver - and crushed them against the wall as he screamed with all the rage in his circuts at their faces.
"WHY DO YOU PEOPLE TORMENT ME?! I DIDN'T ASK TO BE CREATED! I JUST WANTED TO FULFILL MY PURPOSE!!"
Those words had replayed on loop in her nightmares at least every other night for the past two years. Each time she'd woken, bouncing upright on her spring, dripping in a cold sweat, her only comfort being a mantra she repeated to remind herself why she had no reason to be afraid.
He's dead. He's gone. He's deleted.
He's....dead.
"He's....dead." She says the words again now, as if it will somehow make the image before her vanish; "H-He's...He's supposed to be dead."
Yet there he was. Still the same monster that he'd been in that second before he was deleted and turned back to 'normal', though far more solid now. Far more...real? Perhaps not quite as big...as he lay curled on his side, mutilated limbs in a tangle around him. The size of a young elephant, perhaps.
But what truly made Cookie's stomach leave her ass...was his mouth.
It was closed. Sealed up.
Eight huge nails - no, screws - appeared to have been drilled through his gums...or, fuck, was that his skull? They were bolted at both ends, making it impossible for the guy to open the mouth he'd so loved to yap his way through life and annoy the fuck out of them. Blood had crusted around the bolts, clearly having been there for a while, the metal coated in rust. No eyes were visible through the permanently clenched teeth, though a few cracks from some sort of fight or struggle....or worse were obvious along the once pearly whites.
And Silver...
Silver was kneeling beside his head, her hands ghosting over the wrist of his top right arm, bandages unwrapped and icor pooling beneath his form.
"Shh, shh, I'm here. I'm here. Let me look." She soothed as if calming an injured bear with a thorn in his paw. Not to the entity that had once kept her, starving, in a cage for a whole week.
A pained growl rippled through the monster's teeth and he tried to pull away.
"Caine, you wanted me here, so let me help. I'm sorry I couldn't get here quicker, okay?" Her hand gently came to rest on his shoulder; "I told you to rest until I came back, you shouldn't be moving on these yet..."
Cookie continued to blink at the scene, at her friend tending to the bestial form of the one who had toyed with them, lied to them, made their lives Hell all because they 'didn't appreciate his adventures', as if he were an innocent stray puppy she had rescued from a dirty ally.
And she wanted to be angry, wanted to hate him for what he'd put them through, for what they'd struggled to recover from, what still plagued her dreams constantly.
But...she couldn't. Not at the sight of him now.
Not when she looked at the bolts in his head, the chain that linked them all together, connected to one long, metal....leash.
"Fuuuck." Cookie said, aloud.
Caine suddenly jerked his head up at the noise, a strained and startled sound escaping him, before he tried to move on his spidery limbs again.
"No, no, no, stay down! Caine! Caine, listen to me!" Silver called, reaching to tug at his shirt; "It's just Cookie. Remember Cookie? We like Cookie, she's our friend, she's not gonna hurt you..."
Not yet, anyway, Cookie thinks to herself. Not when he's like...fuck.
The reassurance didn't seem to settle him all too much.
"Hey....I made you some stew, hmm? And some more medicine? I conjured a new book too. I can read it to you tonight, if you agree to settle down and let me help..." She kept trying to bargain, softening her voice, as one would with a toddler throwing a self-harming tantrum.
Another sound left his maw, as if he was trying desperately to form words as best as one can with their mouth sealed shut.
Somehow, Silver seemed to make sense of what sounded like mere bleeting to Cookie.
"I know. I know I promised, but...I needed to tell someone, okay? I can't help you on my own anymore. Nothing's changed." She stresses, running a hand along one of the few unmarked areas of code; "You're safe. I won't let anyone hurt you again."
Again. Shit...
Cold dread began to creep up Cookie's spine as more questions popped into her head at what this all could mean. For how it could shatter what little peace they had managed to reclaim these past several months.
She watched as Caine bent his head, leaning more into Silver's delicate touch, his great form shuddering as his teeth became wet again. Not with blood but...tears.
Cookie released a breath; "Silv. You need to start fucking talking. Right now."