This Chapter: Scratchansniff's Point of View
Next Chapter: Most Likely Yakko's Point of View
I have never been inside a memory before; I never thought it to be in the least bit possible. I should know better, I live in a studio lot with cartoons. Yet, just the simple concept of literally stepping into Yakko's memories made me leery. Who knew what sort of strange occurrences awaited. And how was it to be achieved in the first place?
My answer came when Yakko reached into the air and hooked a finger around absolutely nothing. When he pulled his hand down, a panel appeared out of nowhere, and hung in the air like a picture window. The scene inside was of an overcast spring day; a dirt road spotted in puddles of various sizes drew a thin line over the mottled landscape, drawing attention to the previous rain.
"Yakko, are you sure?" Dot asked her eldest brother hesitantly. He only nodded, but that seemed to be enough to calm her.
"Well Scratchy, you wanted to know," Yakko said. "Step inside and see for yourself." He waved a hand graciously towards the panel and bowed in a mock formal manner. I won't pretend that I wasn't a little apprehensive at the thought, especially since I had no idea what would be waiting; but Dot and Wakko took me by the hands and led me inside as Yakko straightened up to watch us enter.
The overcast sky now above us, Wakko, Dot and I glanced back to where the panel now looked into my office, getting steadily smaller until it disappeared completely.
"Are ve trapped?" I asked nervously.
"No, Yakko will open it again when the memory's over," Wakko assured me.
"That's why he stayed behind," Dot added. I got the strange feeling they'd done this sort of thing before. I took in the somewhat dreary landscape that had managed to produce a few clusters of trees dotted irregularly along the thin dirt road that I now found to be quite muddy.
"So vhere are ve?" I asked.
"New York," Dot answered. "We've been walking for about an hour... there we are!" She pointed down the road where three tiny specks could just barely be seen in the far distance. Dot, Wakko and I began to walk down the road towards the memory versions of the Warners, and during the walk I decided to study the memory a bit more carefully. The puddles, I noticed, rippled and splashed under the influence of non-existent rain, and the trees shook their leaves in a profound lack of wind. I pointed this out.
"The current weather isn't the product of the memory. It corresponds with whatever Yakko's feeling right now," Dot explained.
"So the veather ve're seeing isn't the veather that actually occurred..." I mused over this new fact for a moment. We had nearly come upon the three Warner memories; they looked exactly as they were as they stood beside me – or in Yakko's case, in my office. The only difference was that their fur was wet from the rain I couldn't see falling. I took a closer look when I noticed something slightly peculiar. This Yakko's gait was less controlled and far more at ease than it was back in the studio; something I never would have noticed if not presented with a comparison.
All three of them seemed happy; they were jumping into as many puddles as they could and generally acting as they normally would at the studio. The memory Dot splashed her brothers with a particularly large amount of muddy water, and they all broke into a giggling fit. I couldn't help but smile. We followed as they walked along the road for while, before Yakko and Dot halted in their tracks – Wakko continued on for a couple of steps before noticing and running back.
"What is it?" Wakko asked. Yakko put a finger to his lips to silence him. He and Dot were listening for something. Yakko jerked his head around to look between the trees to the side of the road, then ushered his siblings in the other direction. They came to a large tree within a cluster of others that obscured the view of the road, and Yakko helped Dot and Wakko to climb it before scrambling up it himself. Moments later, two men with what looked like modified rifles ran out into the road, looking around wildly with their guns at the ready.
"Vill they see us?" I asked, even though a couple of seconds later I felt a little foolish for it.
"No," Wakko answered. "Nobody can see us." One of the men had lowered his gun and was looking around in slight confusion.
"I don't get it, Brad," he said. "They were here just a minute ago."
"And they still are, I'll bet," the man named Brad answered. Dot took hold of my hand, and stared at him. This must be the point where everything went downhill.
"Who is he?" I asked the two Warners at my side as the men in the memory argued.
"Brad Hart," Wakko answered, taking my other hand. "He's the one who discovered how to bring cartoons literally to life."
"That doesn't sound so bad," I said. Both Dot and Wakko shuddered.
"He kept them prisoner. He'd draw them and lock them up in cages the minute they were off the page," Dot explained. "He'd make them act or sell them for profit. When people started to figure out what he was doing, they complained, and the imprisonment of cartoons was banned."
"Is that vhat happened to you?"
"No," Wakko answered.
"We were drawn by someone else," Dot added. "Ray Murphy."
"He was really nice." Wakko said.
"When the secret to bringing a cartoon to life was accidentally leaked, he drew us. He said we could do as we liked, so we stayed with him."
"But after all cartoons were set free, Brad wanted all of them back, so he hunted them down."
"And this is where he found us," Dot finished the story, pointing up at the tree where the three memory Warners were hiding quietly. I let my gaze rest on where she pointed, noting how each of the Warners were crouched in such a way that they could easily bolt if they needed to. The two men on the road were still arguing heatedly and gesturing wildly. The three Warners in the tree shared a look, and then proceeded to carefully and quietly climb down the tree. They had nearly made it to the bottom when a dart whizzed past Wakko's ear. Yakko hopped to the ground, helped Dot down, and Wakko jumped into his arms. Yakko set him down and grabbed his sibling's hands. They ran off through the trees as fast as they could, followed closely by Brad and his partner. Dot, Wakko and I ran after them, hearing more darts being fired in the direction of the memory Warners. We caught up with them as they made their way out of the patch of woods and into the open fields. A hundred meters away stood another cluster of woods where the Warners were headed as fast as they could. The men followed them out a moment later. Now that he had a clear shot, Brad stopped to aim, and fired another dart.
Dot stumbled and let go of Yakko's hand. Yakko whispered something into Wakko's ear, then let go of him and went back for Dot as Wakko continued to run.
"He told me to keep going," Wakko said from beside me, just to clear up any confusion I might have had. I nodded as I watched Yakko kneel down beside a now-unconscious Dot. Brad's partner fired another dart. It hit Wakko, who had almost made it to the tree line. Yakko could only watch as his younger brother succumbed to the drug and fell down into the long grass. He stood up to face Brad and his partner, standing protectively between the men and his two younger siblings.