Hey! BonnieBun here with the first chapter of the sister story to A Lingering Sense of Sadness! Sorry this took so long; I had the original file almost completely finished on my laptop but had forgotten to back it up, and the next thing you know my house was robbed and it was the only thing of mine that they took. (I now have a new laptop, which would explain why I am no longer on a hiatus!) I've decided that rather than making you guys wait even longer while I write the whole thing in one chapter, I'll split it up and deliver it in several chapters. So, without further ado, Chapter One!

As always, I'd love a review! :) Enjoy!

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It never truly occurred to you to think about your reason for creation because you deemed it unnecessary. The others thought about it often, but you were told of your reason the moment you were booted up.

You were created with only one task: entertain the children. Make them laugh and make them remember their birthday for a great majority of their childhood. After all, the place bears carries your name. If anyone, you should be the one that the kids are dying to see when the bright purple stage curtains open, spreading the happiness plastered onto your thick plastic face to them like a pathogen. You can't say that you complain how happy you appear all the time, because after all, what is there to complain about? Even though you are robotic, there is this strange sense inside of your core that bounces around like the children that visit your pizzeria everyday, each and every single particle of its being sharing a similar feeling that you associate with that permanent smile of yours.

But every once and a while, those particles... taint themselves. For a few seconds they darken, trying to force your programming to twist the grin on your plastic shell into something less giddy. They try and try, but no matter how hard that smile cannot leave. It is stuck there and is torturing you, taunting you with the fact that you are not portraying your true mood to the kids. There's nothing wrong with feeling that way every once and a while, so why couldn't you?

It's simple: you don't want to make them aware of the reality that happiness isn't everlasting.

You do not feel this way because of a strange bug in your programming, nor do you feel this way because you are in an argument with one of your three closest friends. No, you feel this way for another reason, one that you were positive would be considered stupid to the others.

Your sense of happiness disappears whenever you think about how you had just went and stomped on his, crushing his hope and obliterating his reason for being.

It came whenever you even glanced in the direction of the Parts room. Most of the time, it came mid-song, which was the worst. Microphone raised, friends performing as well, turning their bodies robotically and acknowledging each other's presence with wiggles of the ears or a nod of the head. For a split second, the words coming out of the speaker deep in your throat seem to jam, refusing to come out. Your literal glassy blue eyes freeze in the direction of that forsaken room, that sense in your core quickly creeping up to your face, trying with all its might to take its skinny, long hands and force the smile onto your face into a frown. To you, it feels like it has succeeded, the image of the children in front of you morphing itself into this scene of terror, tears streaming down their porcelain faces, all color draining from the room as something ominous raises slowly out of a box in the corner of your eye...

You have failed your purpose.

But it is only a hallucination. As quick as the feeling had appeared it was gone; you were still in the middle of the word that you were singing when it had started. The children were still crowded in the colorful dining room with cheeks crimson with excitement, watching the three of you perform like you were their heroes. The box you had saw remained closed.

Why did you hallucinate like that? Was it a glitch? Truthfully speaking, you probably should speak to the mechanic about that. Or, if anything, your friends. But you already knew how they'd react; the child animatronic wouldn't understand at all (besides, he, too, was considered a child in your eyes and you didn't wish to poison him with the knowledge of those tainted particles of happiness), the rabbit would just call you a name, the chicken would just shrug, and the tied-up mess of metal and glass would honestly want to help you but would sadly be disabled because of the garbled way of communicating it had.

Maybe you wouldn't feel so bad for him if he had been shut down and stayed down. But no, he had been teased with a false sense of security when he had been restarted and placed on the exact same stage weeks before your creation, with your friends. He had held the exact same microphone and performed for the same kids. You assumed that he felt that happiness that was over-advertised on your face. Your jawline was assembled in such a way that you were physically unable to frown; you had been through this a thousand times already. Judging by what your guitarist friend had told you, he didn't have the same look on his face. His was twisted in a somewhat similar way at the sides, but his jaw was completely straight, not conveying much emotion at all. That was great to you; you wished you were created the same way, because you doubted he had such hallucinations like you did.

Then again, you only had those hallucinations because of how you had ripped his happiness to shreds.

You had never met him in person before; only the rabbit had told you about him, looks-wise. You knew nothing of his personality. Was he the nicest person you could ever meet, or was he a 'only-in-it-for-the-kids' type of guy like the rabbit was? Was he relieved to be off-stage again, was he neutral about it, or did he absolutely hate you?

You didn't know. You did know, however, that you had a lot in common.

You shared the same name. First name, surname. You both had similar builds, your belly only being a tiny bit more exaggerated than his. You both boasted trademark bowties and top hats as well as the habit of taking it off at the end of the day and tipping it to the kids in a goodbye gesture. You had shared the same friends, the same role in the band, the same place in children's hearts. There weren't too many differences between the two of you.

You are him, and he is you. Yet, you truly weren't the same person at all.

Or... were you? Your right hand never seemed the same color brown as your left...