God hears and He sees, and you are not alone in your struggles. Remain firm and stable, for God has your deliverance planned.

- Joyce Meyer

It was so quiet. DogDay could hear broken pipes dripping and the faint flickering of the candles' flames. He had been alone for so long now. It had to have been years now since PickyPiggy starved to death. Ever since then, DogDay had been begging for CatNap to kill him. He was tired. He was in pain. His friends were dead. He had no reason to go on anymore. But CatNap would always ignore him. Not giving him the relief of death. Instead, DogDay was labeled not just a heretic, but now he was an 'example,' and would remain that way as long as he needed him.

"Please. I want it to end. I want the pain to end. I want to be with my friends again. Please, help me," DogDay quietly prayed.

Just then, DogDay heard the cell doors open and the sound of footsteps slowly approaching. But they were not CatNap's footsteps. They were louder, and sounded like they were coming from boots walking on concrete floors.

'Boots?' DogDay questioned himself. He had to be hearing things. Maybe he had finally snapped like his friends. However, the footsteps were getting closer and louder. Even in the poorly lit hall, he saw a shadow coming his way. The shadow of a human.

Word had spread throughout the factory that a human, someone who used to work here, had returned and was assisting Poppy herself to liberate everyone from the Prototype. DogDay didn't believe it, but now, right in front of him, a human was approaching. Just then, a young woman came into view.

She wasn't very tall, but not short either. She was also well built. Her eyes were bottle green and gentle, and her skin was tanned. Her long black hair in a messy braid, and she wore an eagle feather in her hair at her left temple. She also had a Grab-Pack 2.0 on her shoulders. DogDay took notice of her injuries: The right side of her face was caked in dried blood, and her clothes were torn in random places. Her face was also bruised. She wore an arm brace on her right arm, and a brace on her abdomen, but the braces looked used, as if she were wearing them for years now. She looked very familiar to him. Perhaps a former staff member of PlayCare.

The second she saw him, she gasped in shock, throwing her hands to her mouth. She was clearly upset by what she saw. DogDay knew he was not a pleasant sight to behold, and he hoped to distract her from that.

"You…You're Poppy's angel. Come to save us," he said in a weak and tired voice. "Nothing left to save. Not here. You're in CatNap's home, Angel." He paused very briefly. ''Angel?' No, it can't be. You answered my prayers, haven't You?' He thought before he continued without missing a beat.

"Their home. A million pairs of eyes are on you now." his voice took on a serious tone, but still tired nonetheless. "Watching. Waiting. Hungry. They want nothing more than to crawl beneath your skin, and eat away at you, bit by little bit." He grunted in pain, but continued, "fill what is empty inside themselves."

Angel removed her hands from her face. Trembling, she asked quietly, "who did this to you?"

"That…thing…CatNap!" He said with anger in his voice. "The Prototype is his god, and this is what he does to heretics. These little toys follow CatNap to avoid that very fate. And in return - they are fed." DogDay grunted in pain. "We tried to fight it: the Prototype's control. I'm… the last of the Smiling Critters," DogDay finished sadly. The thought of how each of his friends died flashed before his eyes as he finished his sentence. He looked back up to her, knowing now, she was in danger too just by being here.

He started to plea, "listen to me! You need to get out of this place! You need to live! You and Poppy can fix this!" He closed his eyes before he continued, "end this madness! The torment! The-"

DogDay stopped when he felt slight tugging on the belts around his throat. He opened his eyes, gasping at how close Angel was to him. The next second, he dropped ever so slightly down the wall. Angel then moved to his right arm, and that was when DogDay saw a very large knife in her hand. She was cutting him free from the belts! DogDay was in too much shock to even question why she was doing this.

Just as she cut through the first belt around his wrist, a familiar snarling filled the room. Angel looked over and saw dozens upon dozens of glowing white eyes of the Mini Critters in the pipes and holes in the walls of DogDay's cell. DogDay heard it too, and began to panic.

"Oh no! OH NO!" DogDay used his now-freed right hand to try and push Angel out of the cell, but it only got her to the doorway. He yelled out in a begging tone, "leave me! PLEASE! JUST GO! RUN!!"

One of the Ruined Critters, a Ruined CatNap, made it ahead of the others and crawled his way to DogDay's exposed torso wound. DogDay saw it coming, and began to whimper, but just before the Ruined CatNap made it to his wound, Angel impaled the toy through the back of his head with her knife, the blade coming out of his mouth. The Ruined CatNap was dead before it could release a squeal of pain, and hung limp. Angel used her foot to hold the Ruined CatNap to the wall as she pulled her knife free, crushing a few of the toy's bones in the process, and the toy fell the floor once he was released, the other Ruined Critters backing off as he did. Angel then went back to cutting the belt holding DogDay's right bicep, with DogDay in shock at what Angel had done.

Once that belt was cut, the belts holding DogDay's left arm snapped, as they were already too brittle, and Angel caught him as he fell. This snapped DogDay out of his shock. The relief he felt in his arms was indescribable after hanging by his arms for who knows how long in that cell, but then his attention went from relief to fear as the snarling of the Ruined Critters got louder. Just then, the wall where DogDay once hung flooded with the little toys, and Angel turned on her heels and ran the direction she came from, returning her knife to its sheath as she ran.

She shifted her grip on DogDay to her left arm as she made it to the end of the hall, but then the floorboards beneath her collapsed, and both of them landed hard on the ground. Angel yelled in pain as she landed hard on her back, but her adrenaline helped her recover almost immediately. She got to her feet and ran as fast as she could through the tunnels of the Playhouse, prepping her Grab-Pack's flare gun to ward off the Ruin Critters who were in hot pursuit, as well as stragglers who tried to sneak up on her from all directions.

DogDay helped guide her way through the tunnels, telling her which turn to take and warning her the Ruined Critters were coming in too close behind them. After making a wrong turn, the floor beneath them collapsed again. Angel again recovered fast and continued to run, this time she was able to run faster now that this fall had gotten them out of the tunnels. Ahead of them, there were three slides in the wall, and DogDay directed her to take the middle slide, and Angel obeyed without hesitation. Once they were at the bottom, DogDay's heart leapt with joy. He recognized where they were.

"Angel, the exit is not far! Just turn right then the exit is right ahead!"

"Got it!"

Angel ran ahead and took the first right rather sharply. Just then, a sharp pain in her back caused her to stumble and collapse to the ground, yelling in excruciating pain and dropping DogDay as she did so, causing him to roll away from her a few feet. When he stopped, DogDay collected himself and crawled back to Angel's side.

"Angel, what's wrong!? What happened?"

Angel tried to push herself back up, but her damaged back muscles protested in pain and she collapsed to the floor with a pained yell.

"OW! OW!" She cried in agony as she struggled to control the pain shooting through her muscles.

Suddenly, snarling and giggling was heard nearby. The Ruined Critters were coming!

"DogDay, go! I'll hold them off! You go ahead of me!" Angel commanded.

Instead of leaving her behind, DogDay pulled Angel onto his back crawled as fast as he could to the exit, with the Ruin Critters right behind them. To stop them, Angel fired a line of flares to hold them off.

Just as DogDay made to the edge of the platform, he lunged himself and Angel across the gap. However, they didn't make it, and started to fall. Angel thought fast and fired the Grab-Pack's blue hand to grab the rail for the platform. Once the hand had a grip on the rail, the wire jerked hard and stopped their fall hard, with the Grab-Pack pulling hard into Angel's upper back, causing her to yell in pain and DogDay slid out of her grip. Angel managed to grab hold of DogDay's hand with her free hand to save him from falling to his death. Just above them, they heard a door slam shut and the Ruined Critters were heard squealing in anger and hunger.

Angel and DogDay sighed in huge relief. They had escaped the Playhouse. Angel had the Grab-Pack pull them back up to the platform, with DogDay climbing up first once they made it to the edge. Once he was on the platform, he helped Angel up to safety, and she released the blue hand from the rail once she was safe. Both of them then slumped to floor and panted, exhausted from that chase and massive adrenaline rush.

Once their breathing was even, DogDay looked over to Angel, who, just like him, was flat on the floor, her face contorted in pain and exhaustion.

She had saved his life.

"You saved me," DogDay said, his voice full of confusion, Angel opening her eyes to look at him. "Why."

Angel gave a small smile. "I wasn't going to leave you like that. You don't deserve to suffer."

"How would you know what I deserve, Angel?" DogDay asked.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" Angel suddenly asked, lifting her head slightly off the floor.

DogDay was surprised at the question. He then took a minute to reexamine her features, but half her face was bruised and covered in dried blood. He shook his head slowly, but then he got another look and recognized the feather in her hair.

"Koa?"

She smiled. "It's good to see you again, DogDay."

Deliverance is not the same as freedom. Deliverance is release from the oppressor, but freedom is deliverance from oppression.

- Myles Munroe