✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦
⊹˚₊·‧─────༺🎪༻─────‧·₊˚⊹

R A I S I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !

⊹˚₊·‧─────༺🎪༻─────‧·₊˚⊹
✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

▶ BOOK 1: M A K I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !
▶ CHAPTERS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

⊹˚₊·‧Chapter 8: ARRIVALS

“I told you, I don’t know what to do! This is new to me, too! I never had another detached AI inside my realm like that! I don’t know what she did to destroy the portal!”

“Just make a new one!” Pomni yelled at him, while Zooble was holding Ragatha, who had become completely silent, staring into nothingness.

“That’s not as easy as you think! The connection has been completely severed! Usually with a bug like that, I would just copy-paste the world. You would never know the difference. But that would only count for the world, not for the other AI! I cannot copy her!”

“Caine!” Pomni screamed, and now the desperation was outweighing her anger. “Can’t you… at least… set the timer back? So that it’s day? Or pause the world?”

Caine shook his head, nervously. “I have no control over it whatsoever. It’s her world now. I could… I could delete the file?”

“NO!” half of the group yelled in response.

“Then there’s nothing I can do! I’m not a programmer, I’m just here to entertain!”

Pomni turned her head towards Kinger, who seemed to just contemplate whether he was sitting or standing (he was standing). Then looked back at Caine again. “We have a programmer.”

Caine looked downright anxious. But then he eventually said, “I… I see what I can work out with him.”

---

Pierrosie had never seen hurtboxes before. There were none in the circus. She barely understood the concept. Only that her avatar was now vulnerable — whatever that meant.

To experiment with this, she slapped the long object on her wrist.

This turned out to be highly unpleasant!

It felt uncomfortable, even more so than when she experienced an input overload. Her body produced more tears, and her audio output made a high pitched sound without her even choosing to do so.

She felt miserable. She wanted the Mama to hold her and put her into bed, and take a look at the uncomfortable spot on her wrist. And tell her what it meant, and how to make it better again. And maybe she would tell her a nice story, one with just small input, so that Pierrosie could focus on that, and not every single 0 and 1 around and inside her.

Another sound effect resounded around her.

This time, it was louder. That meant it was closer, right?

And it meant something else… didn’t it?
It meant that… that she wasn’t alone anymore.

For a brief moment, Pierrosie thought it might have been one of the mindfile datasets coming back.
But that couldn’t be true. When looking around, she didn’t see any of their unique coding.
Everything in this world was AI-borne. 

So… what did that mean?

Thinking became hard. Pierrosie was so tired. She could barely process anything anymore.

More sounds. This time not only metallic, but many different ones. Though she couldn’t categorize the input anymore. Only that there were many. And they were coming closer.

Then it all went completely silent.
Her audio channel had exceeded capacity. She couldn’t process sound anymore.

---

“Okay, are we ready to start?” Caine asked Kinger, his fingers positioned in a way that showed he was ready to snap them both into a secluded place.

“I’m never ready” Kinger answered. 

Caine sighed. “Alright then.”

“Wait!” Pomni interrupted, “Please tell us… about the enemies in this world. Will Pierrosie be safe?”

Caine didn’t answer.

This time, nobody pushed him.
They all understood.

“But… but she can respawn, right? NPC or not, she’s… data. If we can respawn, so can she, right…?” Pomni asked further.

Caine looked at her, then averted his gaze. 

Pomni started to laugh. Not out of relief; out of panic. Out of desperation.

“I cannot tell. I don’t understand her. And since she doesn’t understand herself… chances are that she doesn’t know how to do backups. Or how to save. Or how to respawn.”

Pomni heard a quiet sob behind her. When she looked over her shoulder she saw Ragatha on her knees, her hands covering her face, while Zooble and Gangle tried to comfort her.

She looked back at Caine and asked in a weak, helpless voice, “While you two are gone… What… what can we do?”

“Well, nothing. You’re all pretty useless in this regard.” Caine answered plainly, but not maliciously.

“Please, we can’t just… sit here twiddling our thumbs.”

“You could play Solitaire?”

“Caine, please!”

Caine looked around nervously. “How should I know! This is all very bothersome and very confusing for me, too!” Then, seeing all of their desperate faces, he added, “Fine. I will put you in a space that’s supposed to help humans wait.”

With that, he snapped, and not only vanished together with Kinger, but transported all of the others into the waiting area of a small airport, with a big flight information display board over them, showing “ARRIVALS” on top and then under it in white letters: “FROM: POSTAPOCALYPTICA IN APPROX. ?? MINUTES” and underneath: “POSTAPOCALYPTICA CURRENT TIME: 19:57”.

⊹˚₊·‧🎪‧·₊˚⊹

▶ NEXT CHAPTER
▶ BOOK 1: M A K I N G ◦ A N ◦ N P C !
▶ CHAPTERS: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
▶ LATEST CHAPTER

Rose note: I highly recommend reading this story over on AO3 if you wanna see some cool special effects with the flight board and Pierrosie's POV! Unfortunately it's not possible to easily recreate this on Patreon.