Later That Evening

A scene of Kouta laying on his bed looking towards the ceiling, desperately missing the memories of when the four of them used to play together. He got up and took the pent-up frustration out on his unorganised cupboard, throwing out most of his old clothes, noting the outfit he wore on the day Naoki introduced him to LittleBigPlanet. Tears were welling up in his eyes again.

Suddenly, a reflection of his room lamp flickered on something tucked away behind the clothes he threw out. Kouta stared for a few seconds and reached for the device. It was their fat old PlayStation 3 they made so many memories on. He placed it on his desk and blew off years of gathered dust. He decided to plug it into his bedroom's PC monitor.

He wanted to relive a memory, even if it was just for a moment.

Powering it on, the system automatically booted up LittleBigPlanet. "The Orb of Dreamers" by Daniel Pemberton begins to play, revealing the game's opening. A series of sleeping people in various settings. A flutter of images was being drawn out from their heads, portraying their creativity floating up into space. It seemed the entire community's creativity were combining into a ball in space, birthing a new planet of imagination. This was something Kouta has seen countless times, but each time was always like the first. He smiled for the first time since Naoki's passing, as memories kept playing in his mind.

Suddenly, the stars in his room began to shine brighter, as if they awakened. The room began to light up not just from the PC monitor, but also from this strange occurrence. The globes and cardboard Pod began to shake a little.

"What's going on? This never happened before." Kouta thought to himself, watching all these events unfolding. He stood up, trying to figure out the source of the irregularities. As the opening was about to come to a close, the pink LittleBigPlanet logo appeared on screen, displaying the overload of creativity caused by the contribution of the community, just waiting to burst.

And that is exactly what happened.

As the opening finished with a flash of light, another flash simultaneously enveloped Kouta and his bedroom, almost blinding him. The stars shining equally bright dimmed to its normal state again, the shaking globes and Pod stopped its violent dance and slowly came to a standstill. Kouta fell to the floor, dumbfounded. He could not pinpoint the sudden phenomenon he just experienced and sat there speechless.

The game showed the Pod next as usual, where a Sackboy is meant to pop out from above. But nothing happened. He just didn't appear.

"Is it that old glitch again?" Kouta thought. He remembered seeing an old glitch where Player One would get stuck in the checkpoint for an infinite period. That was not the reason, however. There wasn't even a sign of a stuck Sackboy from above the Pod. As Kouta continuously inspected the Pod on his PC monitor to take a closer look, a small thud accompanied by the Pod entrance sound could be heard from above him. Kouta's eyes widened. He slowly turned to the Pod he and Naoki built, dangling from the ceiling. Sure enough, something was moving inside of it.

"Ahhh my head. I usually always land on my feet, but this Pod's smaller and wankier than usual. Waaait a second, something's not right…" a voice could be heard from the Pod.

Camera slowly shifts up to reveal the head of a character knitted in brown cloth. Kouta was overwhelmed with disbelief.

Sackboy himself had entered his Pod.

"S-Sackboy?" Kouta managed to stutter. Eyes as wide as saucers, he looked at a fumbling Sackboy, standing up from his entrance.

"Why, that's me of course! The one and only… Woah what in the arts and crafts are you?" Sackboy was equally stunned as he took one look at Kouta from inside the Pod with an expression of worry. It seemed the Sackboy present before him had never met a human-being before.

"W-Well, I'm a human-being. My name is Kouta."

"A human-being… Hold on, you're Kouta? The overall administrator of the Pod I've been travelling in all this time?" the Sackboy was shocked.

"Overall administrator? No that can't be right, you just got here! Not to mention you being here at all, you shouldn't even be existing right now! And why do you sound like a man in his thirties?" Kouta was equally confused. How in the world did a Sackboy come to life in his very room?

"Hey what's wrong with the way I sound? I don't exactly have my own voice back in Craftworld, you know! Nevertheless, I don't think you remember me, good sir. See, I was born on November 27th, 2008, under the watchful administrator, Kouta."

"Why are you bringing out old dates… November 27th..." Kouta pondered deeply. There had to have been a deeper meaning to this date. It was exactly a month after the release of LittleBigPlanet on the PlayStation 3, and the day Naoki…

"What the hell? That can't be…" Kouta remembered it as clear as day. He was awestruck once again. Sackboy folded his arms with a smug look, relieved his administrator remembered him.

"Hehe, glad to know you haven't forgotten me, Kouta." the Sackboy said. It was the date Naoki introduced Kouta to LittleBigPlanet for the first time, a day the rain was pouring heavily, and the old fireplace was lit, whilst the two sat comfortably in front of their television. The PlayStation 3 system recognised Kouta as the user and thus birthing Sackboy's very first appearance. There was no mistaking it; this was that Sackboy.

"If Sackboy were real, would he have been this big?"

A flashback of when Kouta asked Naoki how big Sackboy would be in real life. He sized up the Sackboy in front of him, measuring with his hands, the same way he imagined all those years ago. Sure enough, it was exactly as he imagined, no bigger than the palm of your hand. Sackboy was indeed the same size compared to his in-game counterpart, so much that if you had to place him behind a Dualshock 3, his hand would just about cover one analog stick.

"But you're supposed to be in that Pod right there!" Kouta pointed at the empty Pod displayed on the PC monitor behind him. Sackboy never noticed it until now and recognised it instantly.

"Yes, that's right! That's the Pod I've known all my life. Your Pod, Kouta." The Pod on screen consisted of many more decorations and stickers, gathered from all their adventures in the game. This was Sackboy's home for the past thirteen years.

"Although, it's been idle for quite some time now. I don't know what happened, but you just disappeared. It's like you were on a long journey home." Sackboy stated. Kouta knew exactly what he was talking about.

Ever since the official shutdown of the servers on May 24th, 2021, due to hackers and DDOS attacks, they were no longer able to access the community, nor the multiplayer services. Kouta and Naoki were beyond disappointed, but also accepted the fate of the dying franchise. This happened a month prior to Naoki's death.

"I'm sorry Sackboy, but we humans no longer have access to Craftworld. Some pieces of crap wanted to cheat their way to stardom, and it costed the entire community their freedom and creativity. All of it is gone… Humans aren't welcome there anymore." Kouta frowned. He knew there was still LittleBigPlanet 3 on the PlayStation 4 system, but it wasn't the same. It could never compare, not even a little bit.

"What are you saying? Everyone is welcome in LittleBigPlanet. It is an abstract plane of beautiful wonderment, just waiting…"

"Just waiting to be explored. I get that Sackboy, I've heard that saying multiple times. What I'm saying is that we can't go there anymore!" Kouta sat on his bed again, his head in his knees.

"What the hell am I doing? I'm talking to a Sackboy. Am I finally going crazy?" he thought to himself. He was still in disbelief, and decided his tiredness of the day was to blame for his hallucinations.

"But you can, Kouta." Sackboy smiled. He understood now why his administrator didn't visit in a long time, but he knew something Kouta didn't.

"How do I put this? I was planning on conversing with you through your Pod, but I didn't think it would be this one. About half a year ago, a terrible incident occurred across Craftworld. It's almost as if the source of creativity ceased in an instant, and the energy of the world became silent. Now there's already a vast amount of the Imagisphere in existence, but it's… dying out. Its light is being lost."

A scene of Craftworld, the way Kouta depicts it according to the game's opening – a globe of creativity, no longer receiving the dreams and idea of its people. That should have been expected when the official servers are no longer active. Sure, there are unofficial ones out there, but a very small minority of players have access to them, and it would hardly compare to what they had. Kouta scratched his head deep in thought once again.

"How does this relate to going there? It's not like we can just go to Craftworld and fix everything. Well, maybe you can since you're literally from there! Me? I'm useless…" Kouta said, more to himself than Sackboy. He felt the same way he did back when he was unable to overcome the obstacles in difficult levels and had to rely on Naoki, Kai, and Charlotte, who seemed more skilled than he was.

"I'm being dead serious. I can't do this without you Kouta." Sackboy wasn't playing around. Kouta lifted his head and looked at him, trying to understand how dire the situation was.

"I just… need to rest. Please. Today's been exhausting enough. I'm sure when I wake up tomorrow morning, you won't be here. Good night." Kouta turned around and fell asleep on his side, his back facing Sackboy. He just wanted things to be normal again and remove any signs of insanity from plaguing his mental state. Sackboy was about to say something, but quickly decided against it. He sat down in the Pod, not disturbing Kouta and letting him get his rest.

"Good night, Kouta."

Kouta faintly heard Sackboy greeting him before falling asleep. Looks like he really was just tired. So tired, that he forgot to power off the PlayStation 3 at his desk. Sackboy looked for a way to manoeuvre around Kouta's decorated bedroom. He jumped from star to star, watching the gap between each obstacle and carefully timing his jumps. He made his way to a globe that wasn't much of a distance away from a nearby chair, and took a leap of faith. He stuck the landing but bounced off the chair due to its rubber material. A small thud emitted from his fall to the ground, causing him to become a little dizzy.

"Good grief, I don't remember there being fall damage. That hurt."

Sackboy dusted himself off and stood up again. The desk was now too high for him to jump towards; however, he analysed the quickest path to his destination and noticed a backpack made of nylon and polyester dangling from one side of the chair situated right behind the desk.

"Bingo." Sackboy knew this was an easily grabbable material, thus began the climb.

"Huff, huff… That should not be as difficult as it was! The physics of this world is so… questionable. Oh well I've made it. Now let's see what we have here."

A scene of Sackboy behind the controller Kouta was using. Sackboy attempted to move the sticks and control it, but to no avail. He was supposed to be in the Pod on screen, not in the world of his administrator. Truth be told, he already knew exactly how to get back, but couldn't do so without Kouta. He needed his help. He needed help saving Craftworld again.

"Please Kouta, even if it's just one last time. I'll even share… what your brother left behind."

Sackboy knew of Kouta's usual party that consisted of him, Naoki, Charlotte and Kai. But what Kouta didn't know, was that Sackboy also remembered his faithful Player Two. Naoki was a mastermind of a creator himself, even earning four Team Picks to his name when the servers were still up. Every day that Naoki stayed home due to his illness, he'd spend his days on the Moon, creating away.

There was a fifth level he had published to The Community; however, it never received the Team Pick due to it being locked behind Level Keys hidden in each of the first four levels, something no one on Earth has ever managed to achieve. Kouta was well-aware of these levels but does not know the creator was Naoki himself. Not unless Sackboy fessed up.

Sackboy sat next to the controller and dozed off, falling asleep. They both needed good rest for the adventures that lay ahead.

Screen fades to black.