"Can you come down already?"
"B-But it's too high!"
"I'm literally down here!"
"Still!"
"Bunzo, don't make me force you down with the GrabPack! Geez, how did you survive all that time hanging from that rope?"
Both Alex and Bunzo had reached the end of the ventilation duct, arriving at what seemed like a storage room for rejected toys. Alex had jumped down from the raised vent easily, but Bunzo was still very much afraid of heights, and he didn't dare to do that.
After a long time of bickering, the toy finally got down, amazed by the quantity of toys there, though, he was disappointed when Alex told him they were made of plastic and weren't edible.
As Bunzo left Alex to look around the room, and while he did, the human managed to see a raised platform with a hanging sign that read 'Power'.
He climbed towards it and found a control panel with a lever and a few sticky notes. Alex opted to pull down the lever, making a loud sound.
"Was that you, human?" Bunzo called somewhere between the shelves.
"Yeah, don't worry."
"Alright!"
Alex then took a better look at the platform. There was a green outlet and a rising platform with a rather heavy looking Bron statue. Next to it was a red button, but when Alex pressed it, the platform lifted up a small distance before it fell down.
Bron was too heavy for the platform, and judging by the GrabPack hands not moving it an inch, Alex guessed it was for him too.
Alex then noticed a TV with another VCR player, which meant that he should look for another tape somewhere in the room.
For now, he decided to check the cutout next to it. It displayed Daisy, a mascot Alex was sure that had been rejected. Nonetheless, he pressed the button to see what it had to say.
"I'm rooting for you! Get it? Root! "
Alex rolled his eyes. "I think I know why they rejected her."
The cutout kept making very bad jokes about fruit and flower buds until the phrases looped back to the initial one.
"Geez, this is worse than my dad's jokes."
"Hey, was that Daisy?" A voice suddenly said from behind Alex, making him yell and fall.
It turned out it was just Bunzo. "God damnit, Bunzo! Don't do that!"
The toy chuckled. "My bad, my bad."
It was then that Alex noticed Bunzo had something on one of his cymbals. "What's that?" Alex asked him.
"This?" The toy bunny handed it to him. It was a VHS tape. "I found it laying around somewhere. Thought you'd maybe want to have it." He shrugged. "Speaking of, there's a giant crane at the other side of the room with a lot of drawn handprints, if that helps."
A crane? Alex looked up and saw a railing that went through the whole ceiling. "Let's watch this VHS tape before we get to that."
"Okay!"
Before Alex inserted the tape inside the player, he asked Bunzo something.
"Hey Bunzo, you seemed to know Daisy's voice before."
"Duh! She was one of the toys that tried to get out!" He replied before looking down. "She was also one of the only friends I had..."
"Oh... Sorry for asking."
"It's alright."
Trying to change the topic, Alex read the tape's label. 'Security camera: Rich.'
That name again...
The tape wasn't long, but it contained a recording of what Alex guessed was Rich complaining how he had been demoted to work in 'the freaking island of misfit toys', which Alex thought was the room he was in.
"Wow, that guy seems really angry." Bunzo commented.
"Yeah. But come one, let's not waste anymore time. Where's that crane you told me about?"
"Oh! Over here!"
True to Bunzo's words, there was a crane on the railing, and Alex used his GrabPack to move it around the room until it was on top of Bron.
"Alright, now what?" Bunzo asked.
"We have to make the crane move that Bron statue so the platform can lift and get us out of here."
"How?"
Alex looked at the crane and noticed a receiver on it.
"Like this."
Alex then fired the green hand at the outlet and saw how it charged up in an instant, making Bunzo gasp as he then launched it at the crane, making it suddenly burst into life.
Slowly, it lowered itself and picked the statue, before raising itself back up.
"Alright Bunzo, watch out." Alex then moved the crane away from the platform as the charge ran out, causing the statue to fall with a loud thud.
"There we go." Alex sighed. "Let's keep moving."
"That thing you have is so cool! Can I try it?" Bunzo begged.
"Absolutely not. This is not a toy, it's a sophisticated and dangerous tool with required training before being able to use it!"
"Did you go through that training?"
"...Get on the platform."
Bunzo clapped his cymbals with a laugh before they both got onto the platform and Alex pressed the red button to lift it.
They were raised up to more white bricked hallways, and Alex saw another electrical puzzle to solve.
"Ugh..." He groaned.
Alex shot the first hand at the outlet and wrapped the cable around the first pole. When he did that, a platform, presumably the same one they had to use to keep moving, lifted a small distance upwards.
Alex let it go back down and let the cable touch the pole again, making his way onto it before the space was too small for him. He wrapped the cable around the second pole.
He then found out he was stuck there.
"Uhh..."
"Are you having trouble, human?" Bunzo called out.
"No, don't worry, I got this!"
He stood a few minutes there, feeling how Bunzo rolled his eyes and began clapping his cymbals from time to time while he waited.
Alex then had an idea. He let the hand go and then launched it again at the outlet. Now, from the raised position where he was, he wrapped the cable around the pole before dropping down, and wrapping the other pole.
He launched the hand at the second outlet, and the light next to the button near the platform turned green and a wall behind the raised pole lowered.
"Yeah!"
"Finally!" Bunzo said.
The two got onto the platform and made their way to the other side of the room. They proceeded to walk through a longer hallway, that ended in a stair upwards, in a door blocked by a chair in its handle.
Alex was about to move the chair but Bunzo walked forward. "Let me handle this, human."
As the toy removed the obstacle, he turned towards Alex. "Human, I forgot to ask you. What's your name?"
"Alex. Alex White."
"Cool name."
"Thanks. I like your name too."
Once they were done with that, Alex opened the door and found out they were just in front of the entrance to Musical Memory, on the side of the door that the cutout wasn't. He also noticed the hole was now covered in some silky substance, preventing them from going back that way.
Bunzo shuddered when looking back at where he had been for most of his life.
Noticing this, Alex gave Bunzo a pat on his shoulder. "Have you ever been outside of that place?"
"Not really."
"Then I'm sure you're going to like this."
Both walked up the stairs back to the main room of the Game Station. Alex had almost forgotten he was technically there, since he had had to go through so many hallways.
He snapped back to reality when he heard Bunzo gasp. When he looked at him, he could practically see the stars in his eyes as he frantically looked around the area, eyeing all the things it had.
"Human, human! Can I go? Pleeeease!"
"Why are you asking me? Go for it!"
"Yeah! Woohoo!"
Bunzo's laughter was the only thing that broke the room's silence as he enjoyed all the slides and monkey bars.
Perhaps a bit too well.
He said he's been stuck inside that room for most, if not all his life. How does he know how to use all of this?
I mean, he's a kid, so it's written on his DNA, but it's still a bit weird. Where did he learn to be a kid?
Nonetheless, Alex walked back to the platform, seeing the second lever's light beeping. He pulled it down and yet another recording with Stella's voice began sounding.
"Whoa! You did fantastic! Who gave you permission to be this smart? "
"Oh, thank you Stella. It's not like it was hard to beat a kid's game!" He chuckled, before shutting up. "Heh, I wish."
"Mommy is super proud of you! But I'm sure she's already told you that herself."
Alex could hear Bunzo's startled gasp when he heard her name, but he quickly resumed his activity once he confirmed there was no one nearby.
"Our next game is Wack-a-Wuggy! Head downstairs and have fun! "
And then, just like with the way to Musical Memory, the sign of Wack-a-Wuggy lit up and the way to the minigame opened.
"Bunzo!" Alex yelled. "Come on!"
"Aw, but it's barely been minutes!" The toy called, from somewhere.
"Come on, we're racing against the clock! I've got someone to save!"
"Save someone?" The bunny asked curiously, peeking his head so that Alex could see him. "Who?"
"You know Poppy? The doll? Well, Mommy kidnapped her before we arrived here, and I don't know where she is, or what Mommy's doing to her, so that's why we don't have time to waste!"
"Did you just say 'Poppy'?"
The tone in Bunzo's voice shifted.
"Uh, yeah? Is something... wrong with her?"
"..."
Bunzo didn't speak. "Why are you helping her?" He asked.
"Because she helped me... kind of. Well, at least she says she can get me out of here. And you can come with me if you want!"
"Get you out of here? But that's-" Bunzo cut himself, before rolling his eyes.
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing!" The toy quickly said. "But are you sure you want to trust her?"
"I mean, it's the only toy that hasn't attacked me on sight, so I suppose so." Alex then looked at Bunzo with a serious look. "Is there something you aren't telling me?"
"A lot of things, actually!"
Alex didn't expect that. "Fair enough, at least you're honest. But it's not something bad at least, is it? The thing with Poppy? Please, don't tell me she's going to turn feral and try to rip my guts out when we get to that train."
"I mean... depends. If my intuition is right, it could be something bad for you, though I'm not sure."
Alex frowned. "And that thing is...?"
"We should get moving to the next game." Bunzo finished the conversation, walking towards the stairs.
Great. Yet more toys not wanting to share the truth with him for some reason. Was it really that hard to sit down for a second and speak? It could be if the toy had no voice box, but Alex had yet to come across one toy like that.
Sighing, he followed Bunzo into the next minigame.
The hallway leading to the game was decorated with painted holes from which mini Huggies looked at him. They were adorable, or they would be, if Alex didn't know that the actual ones wanted to kill him.
Bunzo turned left when he saw a halfway open door, and gasped when he read the sign, running inside.
Alex followed suit. The sign read 'GrabPack storage'. Alex groaned and entered, seeing Bunzo try to open the gate that separated him from getting one of the GrabPacks that laid there.
"So close, yet so far..." He said, dramatically. "Human, can't you use your thing and break the door so I can get one? Pleeeease!"
"I already told you before. And plus, this is heavier than it looks. You won't be able to carry or even lift it."
Bunzo crossed his arms and huffed, turning away. "Killjoy."
Alex had to quite literally drag Bunzo out of the storage before he followed behind him, seeing the entrance to the game in front of him.
"Bunzo, you stay here."
"What?! No I'm not!"
"Yes you are. I don't want Mommy seeing you with me."
"This game is nothing like mine! I know the toys that live here! If you go in there alone, you'll die!" The toy yelled. "And what makes you think she doesn't know we're together already?"
"Bunzo, please. This is something I have to do alone. I don't want to piss off Mommy anymore than she is, so please, just stay here. I'll come back, I promise."
Alex turned around before he felt something grab his leg. Bunzo had latched onto him, and didn't seem like he had any intention to free him.
"Please, don't make this difficult."
"I said you're not going in there alone! You're one of the only people that's showed me kindness in my whole life! I won't let anything happen to you!"
"I'm... what?"
That was sad to hear. Did the other workers... not treat Bunzo kindly? Was that why he seemed so reluctant to trust him before?
...
Was that why Mommy hated his guts? Because she thought he was like her caretakers? Was that why Huggy had attacked him too?
Alex sighed. "Fine! But if things go wrong, you run, and don't look back, got it?"
Bunzo nodded eagerly.
"Alright then, let's start this shit already."
"Hey, that's a bad word!"
"...I forgot you're a kid."
The two stepped inside the Wack-a-Wuggy arena. It was a wall decorated as a city with a few holes, colored individually, and in front of Alex, raised from the ground, there was that familiar observation window.
There was a TV at the other end of the room, which began playing the tutorial for this game as the door closed behind them.
"Welcome to Wack-a-Wuggy! " The announcer began.
"Hello!" Bunzo waved at the recording.
"You know it's just a video, right?"
"I know!"
"This advanced test is designed to assess the extent of your reactionary abilities." The video kept explaining. The image then cut to a hole, from which a small Huggy face appeared.
"Around you are 18 sizable holes. An adorable Huggy Wuggy toy could appear out of any one of these holes. If one comes out, hit it with your GrabPack. That's all. Good luck! "
"Oh well, this seems easy." Alex commented.
Alex then heard a sound coming from behind the window. "Hmm, I guess Mommy was right after all..."
Bunzo visibly squirmed, but kept his face up. "Normally, I'd kindly ask Bunzo to leave the play area, but Mommy decided to make things more interesting." The two perked up at that. "Bunzo can stay inside..."
"Yeah!" The toy exclaimed.
"...buuut he can't talk to help his friend." Mommy added.
"What?! That's not fair!" Bunzo replied.
"You want to know what isn't fair? Taking care of someone for all this time only for him to run away with a human, hm?"
Bunzo winced. "Taking care of someone my ass! You were going to kill him!" Alex shouted.
"QUIET!"
That made Alex flinch.
After that yell, Mommy went back to her usual cheery demeanor. "The toys in this game used to have strings attached to them, so they could be pulled back when they got too close to the children." She said, raising something she had on her hand. Alex wanted to hope those weren't the game's strings, but he knew it would be false hope. "Hmm... Have fun."
The lights suddenly became dimmer, and Alex could barely see past his nose. Before any mini Huggies could appear, Alex turned to Bunzo. "She told you not to speak, but she never said anything about pointing or making sounds."
Bunzo widened his eyes in realization before smirking.
It was then that Alex began hearing sounds behind the walls. It seemed the toys were starting to come after him.
The game started out easy. A mini Huggy toy peeked its head out of a hole, and Alex immediately launched the hand of his GrabPack to push them back. He saw how they first appeared with a confident expression before it changed into a more confused one once they realized Bunzo was just standing there with the human they were supposed to catch.
The toy bunny only laughed and waved at them.
Alex was positive about winning the game. The speed and number of the toys appearing was manageable, and Alex wasn't missing a single mini Huggy, thanks to both his reflexes and Bunzo clapping his cymbals whenever a mini Huggy peeked.
It didn't last too long, however. After a while, the game began getting progressively harder and harder, with more mini Huggies appearing more and more frequently, and some of them needing two hits with the GrabPack to get back. Even Bunzo was having trouble telling Alex without the ability to speak.
The Huggies seemed almost... desperate.
God, don't tell me this is another case like Bunzo's... I won't be able to put up with more child toys coming with me.
Finally, after a lot of close calls, Alex realized there were no more toys coming for him. To further prove his point, the lights in the room, suddenly lit up again, momentarily flashing both him and Bunzo.
"Oh. You did it." Mommy said, her tone displaying a special hint of annoyance at Alex's success.
"Hell yeah!" Alex exclaimed, and then turned to Bunzo. "We did it!"
"We? " Bunzo seemed taken aback by that.
"Well, duh! I wouldn't have seen half of those mini Huggies without you pointing at them!"
"I... suppose you're right..." He said before giving a small smile. "Yeah! We did it!"
"Hurray! Mommy is so proud of both of you!" The larger toy said in her usual cheery tone, giving special emphasis on the 'so proud' part of the phrase. "Here, Mommy has another hint for you."
A vent in the wall that Alex hadn't seen before suddenly sprung open, and from it, Mommy's hand appeared, with another piece of the code.
A set of colors, red, yellow, red, and blue.
"Seeing a list of colors is going to give me nightmares from now on."
"You aren't the first one." Bunzo chuckled.
"Only one game left to play..." Mommy interrupted. "Hmm... Sad. Mommy was hoping you'd stay here forever. Though, it's never too late to change your mind. Both of you."
The toy then turned around and began laughing menacingly. Before she went away, Alex spoke. "Wait!"
This time, however, Mommy actually stopped, and turned around. "What do you want?"
Alright, now Alex had her attention. He had to play his cards right. "I'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind."
Mommy looked confused for a second. "What kind of questions?"
"Well, first of all, what the hell happened here? Why is everything devoid of people?"
Alex saw how Mommy laughed at his question and then scoffed. "Do you think Mommy's that stupid? Playing dumb won't do you any good."
Alex tilted his head slightly. Playing dumb?
"I'm not... playing dumb." Alex rolled his eyes at Mommy's expression. "Whatever. Why do you want to kill me? I've never ever seen you, but you act as if I was some kind of torturer!"
Mommy's face twisted into a look of anger. Bingo. There's my answer.
What Alex didn't expect was the toy suddenly banging on the glass window. "You know very well what you and your coworkers have done! So don't you DARE speak to me as if you were some kind of angel!" She yelled to the top of her lungs.
Alex was too confused to do anything. What me and my coworkers did? What did we do? Whatever it is, it's clear that she hasn't been treated kindly by whoever took care of her. Or maybe it's not just that...
That thought made Alex's blood boil. If you're going to make a toy become alive, at least treat them well, god damnit!
Mommy's eyes turned to Bunzo. "And you! Don't you see he's just using you? The moment you stop being useful to him, he'll ditch you away!"
Bunzo frowned. "Just like you?"
Mommy's eyes widened, and Alex could barely see a faint regret on her face before she frowned again. But Bunzo spoke yet again. "At least he had the decency to get me down from that rope."
Alex heard a sound coming from Mommy that almost sounded like a growl. "You are going to regret this. Dearly."
And then she disappeared.
Alex gave a smirk at Bunzo. "Nice one, buddy."
"I've been wanting to say that and so much more for so long..." The bunny sighed. "Thanks again for getting me out of there, by the way."
"No problem."
There was a pause.
"Hey, human?"
"Yeah?"
"Is it true you don't know what's happened here?"
"You think I'd have come back if I knew?"
"I thought you were just very brave! Or crazy beyond repair."
Alex chuckled, turning towards the door. "Maybe I am a bit of both."
"Wait, human! We can't leave yet!"
Alex sighed. It was going to be another rescue mission, wasn't it?
"Let me guess. We have to save the mini Huggies from Mommy's wrath."
"Yes! I know they tried to kill you, but-"
"Save your explanation for later. Let's get moving." Alex said, before heading towards the wall.
"Wh- Hey, wait for me!"
Alex knew there wasn't a good way to enter the area behind the wall from where the mini Huggies came, so he opted to squeeze inside one of the holes, finding it barely his size.
The other side of the wall consisted of scaffolding of different heights, all of them ending in a hole so the toys could peek their heads out of them. Seeing everything from this side of the wall made him feel kind of bad for hitting the mini Huggies.
After all, they were just desperate to win so they could survive. Just like Alex was.
"Over here, human!" Bunzo called. He was in front of a wall with a door and a hole next to it.
Alex could hear the sounds of worried growls, whines, and many more sounds coming from behind it. "The mini Huggies are in there." He said.
"They are." Bunzo confirmed. "Listen, I'm gonna get in there and talk to them, okay? You wait for me to tell you it's safe."
"I thought I was the adult here!" Alex joked.
"Do you want to get eaten alive? I know those toys, so let me handle this!" Bunzo laughed, before going through the hole.
Alex waited on the other side, hearing the startled sounds of the mini Huggies.
"Ruby! Yes, yes! It's me! Long time no seen!" Alex heard Bunzo said to one of the Huggies.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."
"No, Mommy didn't hurt me."
"No, I didn't escape my game on my own. A human helped!"
"Yes, the same human that you were told to attack."
"Yes, I'm being serious! Do you think I'd just be walking around with a human because I felt like it?"
"I know what Mommy told us about humans, but he's different! I've seen it!"
"You want to see for yourself? Heh, classical Ruby. Hold on a second."
Bunzo peeked his head from the hole. "Come in. But don't make any sudden movements."
Alex nodded and crouched to go through the hole.
"The door's unlocked." Bunzo said, as if it were obvious.
"My bad! Force of habit." Alex laughed, opening the door.
The inside of the room was nothing more than a janitor's closet, with mops, buckets, and cleaning equipment that was beyond unusable. In the middle of the room, there were 17 (as Alex counted) mini Huggies all cuddled up into a shaking pile, all of them eyeing the human.
In between Alex and the pile, stood a red mini Huggy, with a face that clearly said 'one wrong move, and you're dead'.
"Alright! Human, these are the mini Huggies. The one looking at you with that friendly face is Ruby. I picked her name myself." Bunzo said. "Ruby and the rest, this is Alex the human! And he's going to get us all out of here!"
All of the toys looked at each other with hopeful faces, though it soon changed to sadness.
Ruby let out a growl. "She asks you why you want to help us." Bunzo translated.
"You can understand that?"
"I've known her for a long time."
Ruby growled again. "Okay okay! I won't distract him!" Bunzo sighed. "Answer quick." He whispered.
"There's not a why. You don't deserve to be trapped in an abandoned factory, forced to cannibalize each other to survive, and much less follow the orders of a bigger toy just to live." Alex replied.
Rube looked at Bunzo and growled again. "No, he doesn't know, apparently." The rabbit replied to the question.
Ruby looked at him and growled again. "She asks why we should trust you."
Alex took a deep breath. "I don't want you to trust me. I want to get you out of this factory. It's not that hard! Look, I've got a friend that knows a way out of the factory, and she's going to help me get to it! And I can just take you with me!"
There was a pause, in which the mini Huggies began conversing among them.
Ruby asked Bunzo something else. "Yes, he knows about him blocking our way."
Ruby asked Alex again. "She said that if you know that he's forbidding us to escape, why do you try and get us out?"
"I suppose that 'he' you're talking about is the one forcing you all to stay here?"
The bunny nodded.
"Alright. Listen, I don't know who the guy blocking your way out is, but let me tell you something. I do not care about what he wants. You're stuck here because a selfish prick wants to? That's not fair, is it?"
Alex paused for a bit. "Look, I've gone through a few encounters before getting here, okay? I managed to calm down Huggy, and you have Bunzo right here talking to you. We literally just have to board a train to get out! And if that toy or whatever it is tries to stop us, what's he gonna do against all of you? Have you thought about it?"
For the faces they did, it was clear they didn't. "You're going to die eventually if you just stay here, and judging by Mommy's reaction to Bunzo's disappearence before, it will be very soon."
The 18 mini Huggies looked confused, so Alex made it a bit more clear. "She's going to kill you for not getting to me. Understood it now?"
That caused panic. Most of the mini Huggies began crying, and Ruby herself seemed shocked, though not surprised.
"Come on, Ruby! You know you won't survive her!" Bunzo interrupted. "I know trusting a human is hard after all they've done to us, but give it a try! And if it ends up backfiring, you can remind me for the rest of my life!"
Ruby seemed to think hard about it, looking between the human and the pleading Bunzo. Finally, she sighed, and turned around towards her group.
Alex didn't understand what she said, but when Ruby finished speaking, everyone was on their feet, ready to move, as if they were never crying a second ago.
"They're coming with us." Bunzo clarified.
"Thank God!"
Alex was about to turn around, but Ruby suddenly leapt onto him, grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and growled something with a look that made Alex terrified.
"What did she say?" He asked Bunzo.
"She said that if you dare try and hurt her, me, or any of the mini Huggies, she's personally going to make sure your death is slow and painful."
"Geez, that's really cool." Alex ironically said, getting Ruby on the ground.
"Alright everyone, follow me. The train is this way."
But when they got back into where the game had taken place, they found out the main exit was still closed.
"That, bi-" Alex thankfully remembered he was in charge of 19 kids. "...bastard. The door is closed. We can't go the quick way."
There were more worried gasps as Ruby's eyes narrowed on Alex. "Don't worry, there's gotta be another way..."
He then noticed the vent Mommy opened, seeing a hallway behind it. "Aha! There's our way out!"
Crawling through the small hole, Alex found out there was another set of hallways behind it. "Come on! The hallway's big enough for all of you!"
Once they had all crossed, Alex noticed a lying GrabPack that didn't seem to be working, judging by the fact it was almost completely broken into pieces. He heard Bunzo let out an 'aw'.
Nonetheless, everyone kept walking forward, arriving at a broken down multicolor stair. There was a handle for Alex to latch his GrabPack to, but he didn't think the tool could lift him, Bunzo, and 18 mini Huggies, and even if it could, the ceiling piece could fall because of the weight.
"Alright, we need to get up there. Can you guys-"
Before Alex could even suggest anything, the mini Huggies were using their bodies to make a bridge to get across the broken section of the stair. Alex stood there watching with his mouth hung open.
Once all of them were up, Ruby peeked her head and growled at Bunzo and Alex to keep moving.
"Woah." Alex simply said.
"I know." The bunny replied with a smirk. Bunzo then jumped onto Alex's shoulders. "Let's follow them, human!"
The GrabPack managed to lift both of the two upwards, where they met the mini Huggies. Alex saw a cutout of what looked like Candy-Cat, but didn't feel like seeing what lines it had, mostly because of the mini Huggies that were urging him to keep moving.
It was then when they heard it.
"WHAT?!" They heard Mommy yell. "HOW?! FIRST BUNZO, AND NOW THE MINI HUGGIES? HAS EVERYONE FORGOTTEN ABOUT WHAT HIM AND HIS COWORKERS HAVE MADE US GO THROUGH?!"
Everyone tensed up. There were a few sounds of things breaking before a sigh. "What a bunch of ungrateful toys." She added. "No matter. They won't be able to follow that human for too much longer..."
A maniacal laughter echoed through the room before there was silence. "Is that a normal thing?" Alex asked.
"Her tantrums aren't usually this bad..." Bunzo said.
The mini Huggies were once again shaking in fear. Apparently, Mommy going to the room they lived in wasn't a good sign. On the bright side, Ruby didn't look at him like she did before. At least it looked like she kind of believed him now.
They made their way through the corridors, until the group came across a small drop into a yellow walled set of hallways. There was what looked like train tracks on the ground, and Alex soon found out why.
The accessible path led to a slope that was blocked by wooden planks, so he guessed there had to be some sort of train, or cart that could be moved there to break it.
He told the plan to the rest of the toys, who only laughed at it. "A bunch of planks won't stop us!" Bunzo cheered, but when him and all the mini Huggies tried to break the planks, they realized they couldn't.
"Okay, maybe your plan isn't as bad as we thought, human." The bunny sighed, defeated.
Alex rolled his eyes and began looking. Following the tracks, there was a closed grated door with two receivers, so he supposed there was a way to cross to the other side.
"Human! Over here!" Alex heard Bunzo call him.
It turned out there was another door next to the ramp, but it was closed too, and the lever was on the other side.
"Damnit. How are we gonna pull that?"
"Maybe there's a vent nearby?" Bunzo suggested.
Ruby let out a growl at Bunzo, making him sigh. "Ruby says there might be a vent nearby."
Alex chuckled. "Then maybe we should start looking for it. I doubt anyone's going to come and open it for-"
As if on cue, there was an alarm that began flaring as a door further from the group began lifting slowly, a silhouette encased in darkness behind it.
Alex widened his eyes when he saw it. That silhouette... No... That's impossible! He... He's not on this floor!
As the figure of Huggy Wuggy began walking closer towards the light, Alex braced himself to meet the blue giant again... and found out it wasn't Huggy.
Huggy wasn't pink, nor had eyelashes.
"Kissy!" Alex exclaimed.
Kissy walked until she was just in front of the door, looking confused at the group despite the forced smile on her face.
She didn't take too long to turn her attention elsewhere, which happened to be the lever. As she looked at the group once again, she used one of her arms and tried to pull the lever, but it slid off.
On the second try, however, she managed to hit the lever correctly, and the door began lifting at a painfully slow speed.
Before anyone could speak, she turned around and began walking away.
"Kissy, wait!" Alex yelled, but the bigger toy didn't seem to care, or hear him. "Ugh, stupid door! Open faster!"
But by the time the door was opened enough for one of the mini Huggies to slip below it, Kissy was already about to disappear from their view.
It seemed the mini Huggies weren't too keen on following their 'bigger sister', but Bunzo managed to crouch down the gate and run after her, yelling Kissy's name.
Alex had to wait some more time for the gate to open, and he crouched below it, running after Bunzo, the mini Huggies behind him.
He found the toy bunny in the middle of the next, bigger room, looking around confused.
"She disappeared." He simply said.
"Weird..." Alex added.
How did a toy that big vanish?
"Well, let's not give it too much thought." Alex simply sighed, noticing a cart full of toys with 'Barry' written on it.
"Alright. We have to get this cart moved forward so we can use it to break the planks." Alex said.
"How? That looks very heavy, and the exit is closed!" Bunzo exclaimed.
True to his words, the tracks forward was blocked by a grated gate, a lever visible on the other side. But there was also an outlet and a receiver. Alex had an idea.
"Using this."
He launched his green hand at the outlet and then at the receiver, opening the gate next to the latter, which was a room with another receiver and another gate. Alex launched the green hand back at the receiver and then at the second one, causing the second gate to open.
As he made a turn, he found himself at the other side of the gate, the toys looking amazed at him. He pulled the lever and the gate separating them from Alex lifted.
"Cool..." Bunzo said. "Can I try it?"
"The answer won't change."
"Aw..."
Alex then grabbed 'Barry' and began moving it forward.
He continued doing the same for a while. Finding receivers to put charges in, so that gates could open and then pull the lever to keep moving. Easy.
Halfway through, there was a TV with a tape laying next to it, so Alex decided to watch it.
It was an interview between someone named 'Marcas' and... Leith Pierre again. It was a conversation about how Marcas had seen some 'massive bloody thing' that was 50 feet long in the vents, which Leith denied it existed. The tape didn't have anything too special apart from that, only Marcas trying to say that he didn't imagine it, and Leith repeating it wasn't real.
Alex wasn't sure about what exactly the thing that Marcas saw was, but one thing stood out to him. That Marcas guy... He was just like me. He didn't know about the toys being alive. He probably saw one and got scared.
But Leith... He knew about it. His denying sounds fake as shit, and the fact the tape has 'potential problem' on its label isn't helping.
Leith, and more people most likely knew about the toys being alive. Someone had to make them, and didn't tell the rest of the employees.
Alex began getting angry, and was resisting the urge to break the TV.
"Human? Are you alright?" Bunzo asked.
"No. No I'm not, Bunzo." He simply replied. "No one told me about toys being alive in this factory, despite me working here. And now I find out the ones that did know tried to hide it from the rest."
He took a few deep breaths. "I knew something was wrong with this factory the moment I stepped foot in here for the first time all those years back. Toys being alive, those toys being mistreated, or judging by Mommy's reaction, straight up abused... Lies. Everything I thought I knew about this company are lies. Why did they lie? So that the workers couldn't tell the people not working here? So that we didn't question how you guys were made? By the way, that's something you'll have to tell me."
All the toys visibly flinched at that last phrase. "Or not. Whatever floats your boat."
Alex shook his head. He was starting to dread the answer to that question. "Look, I'm just mad all I got back then were lies and secrecy, and you guys just keep not telling me what I ask you."
The human turned away from the TV. "But I suppose you have your reasons. And honestly, by the face you all did when I asked you how you were made, I don't want to know the answer."
"Yeah, you really, really don't." Bunzo confirmed.
"At least answer this. Were you guys being abused by the scientists that took care of you?"
All the toys nodded.
After a few silent minutes, Alex decided to get back to moving the cart. No one said anything the whole time it took to beat all the remaining puzzles.
Finally, the cart was just in front of the slope. The GrabPack was truly something amazing. Alex was about to give it the final pull, but Bunzo suddenly clapped his cymbals to get Alex's attention.
"Can I throw it?" He asked.
"Sure, go ahead."
As Bunzo gave the cart a final push, it was sent down the slope, hitting the planks and shattering them in an instant, before it fell down a big hole.
"Way's clear. Let's go. We can't be too far from the Game Station."
True to his words, they weren't far from it at all. To the right of the slope, there was another room full of pipes and wires, but it also had a hole that led to the entrance of Wack-a-Wuggy.
"That's our way out. You guys can get down there on your own, right?"
Ruby gave him a nod, and the mini Huggies began using their bodies to form some sort of stair they used to get down, while Bunzo simply walked on them, causing them to groan in annoyance, and the bunny to laugh.
It seemed Alex was going to have to jump down. Luckily, it wasn't too much of a fall, but he managed to land just wrong enough for one of his ankles to suddenly start hurting, making him let out a moan of pain.
"Human! You alright?" Bunzo asked him.
"Yeah. Just..." He stood up, limping a bit. "This GrabPack weighs a bit more than I thought, heh."
Despite this, the group made their way back to the Game Station. Just like Bunzo, the moment the mini Huggies saw the playground, they scattered and began playing with all of it.
Bunzo looked at Alex, asking a silent question.
Alex sighed. "Fifteen minutes."
"Yay!" And he ran behind the mini Huggies.
Alex took advantage of the time they spent playing to sit down and take a break. There was one game left to play, and Alex didn't like how he was getting a feeling something was going to go wrong.
So far, every time that happened, it actually came true, so that wasn't a good sign. Regardless, he had to convince Mommy that she was wrong about him, but how to do that?
When all the toys had been hurt by them, it was going to be hard to do it, especially if she didn't want to listen to him.
Hopefully, he would find a way to gain the favor of the toy that lived in the last game, and that would somehow help him in his odyssey to convince a giant and murderous toy of his innocence.
Or, well, he was starting to doubt he didn't have a part in whatever it was that made the toys become alive. After all, he had to do a lot of research about the poppy flower and other various things, research that he had to hand to his higher ups without them giving an explanation to him.
Oh, how he hated Leith Pierre.
If he knew about how they treated these toys, or even if he knew about their existence, maybe...
What could he have done, really? Him, alone, against a company that big? It wouldn't be too hard to make him go silent. He didn't know how they would do it exactly, but he had heard rumors about what happened to employees that were too curious or asked too many questions.
He shook his head. Lies can only stay buried for so long. One way or another, I'll find out. I'll find out everything.
Poppy, I'm coming for you.
