Even with however many monsters had been banished to the human world across the years, some managed to find their way back. Breaking into a child's bedroom was a harder task than it sounded if you didn't know what you were doing, nevermind finding a door that led back to the monster world, but it was still possible enough for monsters to have done it. Plenty of Scarers had faced similar problems—after all, it was a daily hazard of their occupation—and managed to make it back more or less alright.
Why couldn't Tani have been one of them?
For the longest while after her disappearance, her friends and family had rode on her abilities as a matter of faith for her chances of returning home. However, the more days went by the more hope was lost. Investigators did all they could, but even with the CDA's help, there was no use. As far as anyone could tell, Tani had escaped—the bedroom, in the very least—but what happened to her after that remained a mystery. That summer, Tani was slated as one of the handful of unfortunate, modern-day scarers gone MIA.
It was a rare enough occurrence that the media pounced on it like a lion on a maimed deer, but no one dared to host a service because it would only be confirming in their hearts that she really was gone for good. Knowing Tani, she wouldn't have wanted that anyway… It was considered a tragedy for MU most though; the final misfortune of the term.
The story ran in the news the longest no doubt thanks in part to Tani's mother's reputation. For the longest while on screen, the woman had remained as coldly composed as the day Randall had first met her, but soon enough the mask cracked. Every 'no comment' that she tried to use to chase away the vultures was soon replaced by the vengeance of a mother who only wanted to be left to grieve in peace.
Then eventually, to MU and the rest of monsterkind, Tanith Hartbrooke became just another unfortunate and forgotten name. A figure taken all too early before she even had a chance to become the 'somebody' that they had talked about the very first time Randall had truly come to know her. Randall never forgot though: With so much laughter and pain, she remained somebody that burned into his memory no matter how many years passed by.
Grief and guilt consumed him first. He mourned over her and gave himself the blame for so much: Foremost for never being able make things up to her and then for failing to save her in the end. Loneliness struck him next, the loss of one of the few true friends he had ever known gutting him like nothing else—particularly when he went back to MU the following semester. He didn't join back up with the RORs—he couldn't, after all that happened—but he kept himself isolated. His career became his whole devotion.
Then, soon enough, came resentment and rage. A part of him always hated Sullivan and Wazowski for their easy getaway after the Scare Games: Having found them not only working, but advancing rapidly at Monsters Incorporated—where he too choose to work after getting his degree—made his blood boil. It wasn't right, those two who got by on their names and sheer luck, being devoid of consequences for their actions! They remembered him too alright: Though he never brought it up himself, he readily believed that they didn't remember Tani though since they never mentioned her either. Even though they might as well have been the catalysts to her having gone missing! He hated them for that. He hated them for their success because of how little they really did to deserve it, and how they deserved to pay for all the dirty stunts they pulled. Tani always got onto him for how he treated them and the Oozmas, but where was their karma? Why did a person like Tani have to vanish, and a person like himself have to fall short in every aspect of life, when people like them rose to the top and continued to live happily no matter what they did?! Where was the justice in that?!
And while wounds scarred over, resentment and rage charred his heart as black as coal. Friends? He had had enough. It was better to be alone when possible, rather than risk getting stabbed in the back at best and losing it all at worst. It was better to fight to the top with his own power, seeing as how he couldn't rely on anyone and that life chose to be so unfair. Coworkers? An inconvenience, but sadly a necessary one. Humans? The daily hazard of their occupation. They were often viewed like animals to monsters to begin with, but Randall's experiences had given him even less sympathy for the creatures than most. Far less. If it weren't for the fact that monsters needed them for scream energy, the whole species could die out for all he cared.
Those feelings only hardened when one of his scares ended up revealing a very jarring piece of reality to him. Some years into his career, one of the most terrifying accidents to ever happen to a Scarer had befallen him: He was touched by a human child. A scare gone wrong, the kid ended up being one of many "dead door" cases on the rise, and had caught him by the tail. He had scared the kid several times in the past and never saw it coming, but apparently it had decided to retaliate that night. It would've been one thing if he had touched a toy or got caught by a piece of clothing: If that happened, than at worst the CDA would've been called to remove the object and decontaminate him—though that would've been enough for him to have wanted to die from shame alone. But for the kid to actually touch him… There was no lying about it: Randall had feared for his life for several days after the event. He didn't tell anyone either, too scared for himself and for his career to talk about it. Besides, as far as any monster was aware, the toxic touch of a human child was beyond any doctor's ability to heal.
He didn't know what would happen to him, but it was one of the few times in his career that he actually took a few days off of work. He had locked himself away in his apartment, just waiting for the end. Except it never came. His health never got worse, even after the passing of weeks. He went back to work and still never worsened.
And so then came the shadow of doubt. If human children weren't toxic, then what did monsters have to fear from them? What was the point to all the horror stories that surrounded them? Why were monsters touched by kids locked away under the false narrative of 'decontamination,' and why were scarers that went missing on a job so quickly given up on? Why was whole monster world taught to be afraid of the otherwise weak creatures whose sole use was to fear them?
It took no convincing for him to join in on the day that Waternoose came to him with the plot to kidnap human children in order to save not only the company, but the whole industry. It was the first thing of any good sense that appeared before him in the longest time. And, of course, seeing Sullivan and Wazowski get a taste of karma had been a thing of beauty.
But, in the end, life proved too cruel for righteous consequence. And now—years later—there Randall stood braced against the world's ultimate smack to the face. Or rather smack of a shovel. With a black eye and a lump on his head the size of a baseball. In a swamp in the middle of who knew where in the human world.
The door that Sullivan had thrown him out of had either been deactivated or destroyed, leaving him stranded until he could find another way back. And even if he managed that, there was Waternoose to deal with. The arachnid was as cold-hearted as any—Randall had known that even before he first agreed to partner with him for their scheme, his time spent with the RORs having taught him more than enough about the wickedness that could hide behind an award-winning smile. They had been partners of necessity, each hard-headed and only out for their own benefit. That was well understood. Things were tense as it was, but this failure wouldn't go dismissed. If it was all over for them both, then Waternoose would use whatever power he had left to bring Randall down with them. In that case, home could've been more dangerous a place than the human world could be for him.
It was late, in the human world at least. His head throbbed painfully with every weary breath he took and his feet dragged through the muck. Long strands of gathered moss wrapped around his ankles and threatened to trap him in place if he didn't keep moving. He needed somewhere to sleep and recover from the beating he took not even an hour prior. And then he needed time to think.
So much had happened to turn him into what he was that looking back he might never recognize the young reptile he had once been. The winds of change had taken their course over his life to buffer him against the harshest storms. And what was left, now that the hurricane had passed? He had no idea. Maybe he had reached a point of no return in his life where he now stood rooted against them.
Or maybe the winds of change would blow again to save him from the monster he had become.