Dreaming is still how the strong survive….
NICOLE'S POV
My name is Nicole Pilgrim. I am wholly unremarkable, except when it comes to being a Disney Cast Member. I'd worked in Disney's Hollywood Studios for about five months now, and really felt like I was part of the family. This was, ironically, taken quite literally.
I had just walked past one of the New York façade buildings (nevermind which one, as that detail is not important) when I felt something bump into my knee. Expecting to see a small child even though it was an hour 'til midnight, I looked down. "Sorry," a small, childlike voice said before I met its eyes. "Didn't mean to bump into you."
It was a black-and-white rabbit wearing blue shorts.
"Oswald!" I exclaimed. "Hey, man, are you all right?" I take off my jacket, a black-and-white hooded one I had purchased from Villains in Vogue and hand it to him. It's comically large on his tiny body. "I didn't expect you here, of- of all places, at my-my park!"
"I've been walking for a while. Can you carry me?"
He barely has to finish the sentence before I pick him up. "Jenna's gonna love this," I said to myself. Jenna is my half-sister. In fact, you could almost say she was the Oswald to my Mickey. "So, Oswald, why are you here?"
"Trying to find Daddy," he said.
"Oh, Oswald," I replied. My mouth suddenly felt like cotton, and it took me a very long time before I was ready to tell him. "Your daddy's gone."
He sighed as I put him down. He put his tiny hand on the lamppost and began to sob. "He's gone and I don't know what to do now."
"Why were you looking for him?"
As if meeting a fully materialized cartoon rabbit wasn't enough trolling for the universe, a dense orb hit me on the head. "Ow! Son of a-"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Oswald began to cry.
"Don't cry, man, it was funny. And it's in the past. Wait. You won't get that reference. Sorry. Hey, do you know what that thing is?"
"Uh huh! It's the Soulholder. Daddy said that as long as I had it with me, I'd always find him. Or, well, someone like him." Oswald looked down at his feet. "I miss him."
"I do too."
"You knew him?"
"Oh, no, Oswald!" I laughed. "I'm much too young to have known your father. He died about twenty years before I was born. But I did look up to him. That's why I came here."
JENNA'S POV
"So let me get this straight: You have this orb, and a talking cartoon rabbit."
"Yeah, pretty much," Nicole said. "Here, Oswald, do you want some fries?"
I watched as my sister smiled and held out her carton of fries for the rabbit to hold. This was seriously getting too weird for words. Here we were, sitting outside of Rosie's in Disney's Hollywood Studios, talking out our game plan. Nicole rolled the orb with one hand, almost disinterestedly, and patted Oswald's ears with the other.
"So did you figure out what the orb was?"
"Everything I looked for on the internet said nothing."
"So what are we gonna do, wing it?"
"Probably."
I heard a sharp clang as Nicole dropped the orb.
"Nicole! What did you do that for?!"
"It bit me!"
"It bit you?"
Nicole held her hand up – sure enough, a small trickle of blood ran down from the center of her palm.
THE COACHMAN'S POV
My return hadn't been easy, and it was by the good graces of the First Queen Grimhilde that I was able to. With the information now provided I knew who the Soulholder found.
The Soulholder found Walt.
