Wolfie yawned.
Almost midnight exact!
Tonight's show was insane.
Absolutely bitchin'!
William and Henry, the old cheapskates, better pay extra.
She'd already found the source of the noise, the automated music box set on the counter had gone off for some unknown reason. Wolfie had turned it off and decided to get some quiet time while she was here.
This was pretty epic, getting to sleep inside a place like this. All-access snacks and no parents to supervise them.
Even the promised security gaurd was a no-show.
She did have newspapers to deliver tomorrow morning, so she'd probably have to get to bed soon.
She shifted from her perch on the box.
Wolfie decided that she should at least drag her stuff out here so she could get ready after a few rounds of Pizza Party and Poker. This would be the perfect place, she could tell.
Wolfie found herself bored with life, even now when she was a performer for at least a few hundred people. She couldn't wait to go national. Somethng would finally start happening.
She looked around the room, grimacing at the grinning toys and tee shirts.
This place was actually pretty creepy after hours.
Wolfie shivered, then grinned.
Why couldn't life be like a horror movie, full of frights and set plot points instead of something that meandered around and took a nap after taking a dump on all your expectations? Even at creepy Christian Camp Grenada, she was underwhelmed by the lack of hockey mask clad maniacs with chainsaws and machetes!
Because of this, Wolfie often put herself in scenarios that she'd normally yell at characters on a screen for doing, in hopes of finding killing the mundane boredom of everyday life.
Dark basement at night when the power went out with nothing but a flashlight and maybe some batteries? Don't mind if I do!
Maybe the serial killer in the basement she'd conjure up in her mind would help her get the emergency generator going.
Everything in this room was creepier after hours, peaking her morbid fantasies.
The lights had flickered out, leaving only glittering stars to light her way.
Aw, bitchin'! It was even cooler now! Wolfie hopped off, not even noticing the contents of the box shifting below her. She stood in her stiletto boots and stretched, music box rattling, unnoticed.
Wolfie slid from the counter, squinting at the far wall. The flashlight in her hand was steady over her shoulder as she tottered in her heels to the wall.
She could make out what seemed to be scribbles dripping on the tile-and-plaster wall. She could vaguely make out letters, and from those letters, words of all shapes and sizes scrawled all around her, reaching the ceiling.
Wolfie stepped back, making out loosely formed phrases that she now realized surrounded her in the dark prize room.
Wolfie's breathing became heavier with every new word, each one confusingly scrawled like a child had written it with thick markers and clumsy hands. Her eyes passed the phrase "it's me" and landed on "all for one, one for all", unsure of what that could mean. The papers usually taped to the wall were either soaked in a strange-smelling liquid or scattered at her feet.
"'Follow Me'?" Wolfie muttered aloud, "'Was it you?'"
Her hands were violently shaking, making the light jitter. She swayed, the music box tinkling behind her.
"'Save Us'. But who's 'us'?"
Wolfie reached out to touch another set of words, 'I hate you', mind fumbling for answers.
She read aloud to herself, "Was it me?"
"Or you?"
These phrases are interlocked, but how?
Happiest Day papers rustled in the displaced air of her breath as Wolfie tried to put the pieces together.
"You can't save them."
The music box clicked, signaling the end of the tune.
'I can't'.
It was unheeded by Wolfie, still studying the mural infolding in front of her.
'You can't hide'.
Despite her better judgment, Wolfie extended a finger, swiped the dark liquid. She sniffed the tangy-smelling substance, winced, and licked the stained top of her finger.
'I tried'.
It was bitter and sour and tasted like the smell of gasoline or roadkill.
She reacted accordingly, spitting and gagging on the floor.
Before Wolfie could spit the heinous taste out of her mouth, she felt a slender, cold appendage grip her neck.
The thing that had written these papers and aided in the creation of life had snagged her, no longer distracted by music.
As she was dragged, screaming, into the squishy, rotting, odorous maw of the gift box, Wolfie's watering eyes fixated on a phrase she hadn't seen previously, paralyzed, 'Welcome Home'.
Wolfie tried to grab the Marionette, but it was too slippery and rubbery to grab a hold of.
God Dammit!
It wrapped its thin wiry fingers around her throat as she grabbed it around the infinitely small waist. She tried to shake it and slam it against the lid of the box, zipper ripped down her chest as she suffocated in the stench of the pile of dismembered rats in the cube.
"Let's taste death, again, and again, and again..."
Wolfie could feel its weight on top of her, digging into her as it smacked her with its wiry tentacles, glad her body was as flexible as a pipe cleaner.
As much leather and black lipstick she had, Wolfie had never actually fought someone before, especially one pushing against her in the dark.
She yelled, then felt the thing in the box with her grab her throat. Caught prone, she squirmed but found the hands wound around her squeezing harder than they should be able to. Her limited vision began to fade as she coughed into the white face that loomed over her.
Wolfie's vision completely blacked out as she felt the back of her skull cave in against wire armature meant to propel a thin robot outside a box.