In much of society, research means to investigate something you do not know or understand.

- Neil Armstrong

Somehow the main entrance lobby did not surprise Koa in the slightest. Other than broken glass along the floors and the pealing wall paintings, it was almost immaculate.

As Koa approached the front desk, what was surprising was a green VHS tape on the desk. Seeing a green player and TV not three feet from the desk, out of mere curiosity, Koa placed in the tape and the TV turned on. Koa couldn't quite make out what was on the screen since it was so dark, but it looked like a yellow paw attached to a blue arm. Then, a masculine voice spoke up.

"Hi, my name is Leith Pierre and I'm the head of innovation here at the Playtime Co. Toy Factory."

His tone then shifted from greeting to a rather cocky tone, "if you're seeing this, then you're trespassing! Yeah, we play this little tape on loop whenever we close the factory for the day. So trespasser, just to make you aware. While we pride ourselves primarily on our high quality toys and excellent childcare, we also pride ourselves on our security. For example, this facility is full of hidden motion triggers which, once set off, will turn on the factory's emergency alarms and directly contact the authorities! And that's one of the more tame aspects of our security system. No spoilers… So, you've got my warning. It's not too late to turn around. I just hope you're certain whatever you're doing is worth it."

The screen then went black.

Koa stood there for a few moments. "'I just hope you're certain whatever you're doing is worth it?' Now that's a threat!" Koa said to herself.

Though Koa wasn't too concerned. This building has been abandoned for years. The security systems, whatever they were, have to be down or broken from years of neglect. And when the tape brought up that contacting the authorities was a 'tamer' part of security, it had to be an exaggerated bluff. What else could there be?

Koa looked around the lobby, and went to another room on to her right, the factories gift shop. There wasn't much in this room other than a toy train on a levitated track hanging from the ceiling. What was surprising was the train was still going. Not finding anything else, she decided to go into the room on the opposite side of the lobby, only to find it had a color coded lock. Remember the train in the gift shop had four different colored cars, it had to be a clue. She pushed the green, pink, yellow and red buttons on the panel, and the door unlocked.

Within the room, Koa found yet another tape. A blue tape, and a blue VHS player. The contents of the video was a tutorial video on how to work a Grab-Pack. Memories came back to Koa of other workers using those things. While she worked there, she never had one since she was simply a cashier. She remembered the Grab-Pack coming in handy for them as they helped retrieve out of reach objects. Once the video ended, a case opened up beside the TV, revealing a Grab-Pack.

Retrieving and putting on the Grab-Pack, she tightened it around her shoulders and adjusted the canons, and found only one canon on the Grab-Pack with a blue hand. Deciding to test it out, she backed up and fired the blue canon at a chair, carefully pulled it closer, then released the chair.

"Huh, this is actually pretty cool," Koa said to herself, impressed by the device.

Refocusing on the mission, she left the office and walked through the turnstiles beside the front desk, entering the main lobby. There, in the center of the lobby, was a statue of the factory's most successful toy, Huggy Wuggy. He stood there with a smile on his face, his right paw up in greeting. Koa could tell that it wasn't a metal statue, but a giant version of the toy.

Koa smiled at the toy, but then the smile faded quickly. Something felt… off. She couldn't quite figure out. Deciding not to think too much of it, she looked around the lobby. There were several doors leading to the cafeteria, toy shop, theater, testing, build-a-friend, innovation and power.

Seeing a scanner with a blue hand shaped light, she figured she had to fire the blue hand at scanner, but as it started charging, the power suddenly went out. Not even a second later, she heard what sounded like something sliding down a zip line, then metal clinking. Looking in the direction the sound was coming from, she saw a key hanging from Huggy's paw.

"Was that… there before?" she asked out loud.Using the Grab-Pack's blue canon, she retrieved the key from Huggy's paw, and looked it over. She looked around and saw the door for the power room. Glancing back to Huggy, she kept her eyes on him while she approached the doors for the power room, and once she was at the doors, she tried the key. Surprisingly, it unlocked the doors. She stole another concerned glance at Huggy before she continued.Once in the power room, she looked around and found what looked like a power pole. Koa was not electrician, but these power receptacles seemed simple, especially she found a closed power receiver. Opening it, she fired the blue cannon and held the charge until she made it to the power pole, which sounded a charm sound and the power was restored. She returned to the main lobby to retry charging the scanner to get into the gate, only to find an unexpected surprise:Huggy Wuggy was gone."What the…" Koa couldn't finish her thoughts.How can he be gone? It was just a statue… wasn't it?Koa's thoughts went back to the tape of Leith Pierre's warning. Was Huggy the security the tape was talking about? Was Huggy some kind of animatronic that was designed to safeguard the factory at night?

Different theories swam through Koa's head as she continued. She charged the scanner for the gate, and once the charge was completed, the gate opened. Koa continued down the hall, but paused when she saw something slide against the wall. Her hand on her gun, she cautiously approached the door the figure disappeared into, and slowly pushed open the door.

Nothing was there.

Her hand still on her knife, she cautiously continued. Not ten feet later, steam shot from a pipe, earning a shriek from Koa. Realizing what it was, she placed a hand on her chest and gave a calming, but annoyed sigh. She needed to calm down. She had to focus.

Koa's journey through the factory brought her to a back storage room, where after finding a tape of two men questioning where a box of Huggy Wuggy dolls were, and one man made it explicitly clear about how frustrated he was. And after finding a few batteries to power up the equipment in the room, she managed to retrieve the missing red hand canon for her Grab-Pack. While in the room, Koa could've sworn she caught another glimpse of Huggy stalking her.

Once the conveyor belt in the room powered up, she eventually found herself in the factory's Build-a-Friend room, and found in order to continue, she had to build a toy and have it scanned to open the door. After switching on the power, and finding a rather…. interesting…. tape of Stella Greyber's orientation interview, Koa powered up the machines in the room, which build a CatBee toy. Once she retrieved it, she placed the toy in the scanner, and it accepted the toy and opened the door, and a dark hallway greeted her.

Feeling like something was right there in the shadows, Koa removed her gun from it's holster, cocked the hammer, and cautiously approached the hall. The closer she got, she raised her gun to, ready to fire at anything that jumped out at her.

"AAAHHH-"

Koa was sliding backwards in the floor after being knocked down by something striking her hard across the face. She impacted the floor so hard it caused her to drop her gun, which was sent sliding across the room.

Her face felt hot and wet, and it stung and throbbed in pain. She held her hand to her eye to try to help with the pain. Just then, right from the shadows, came Huggy Wuggy. His smiling mouth was wide open, revealing two rows of pointed teeth, like that of a mako shark. And his teeth did not look metallic either. They looked like they were bone!Backing away, Koa looked for an escape route. Looking behind her, she saw the conveyor belt hatch was still open. Rolling over onto her stomach and standing up, Koa ran for the hatch and dove in, hoping to escape Huggy.After making it several hundred years, through a grate, Koa saw that Huggy was in the vents as well.He was hot on her trail.This started to trigger unwanted memories of her being attacked by the bear. Memories of feeling the bear tearing her open came flooding in. Memories of the pain came back. Panicked beyond measure, her heart rate rising, tears forming, she sped up her pace to get away.Not even thirty feet later, right there Huggy Wuggy was charging right at her from in front!Koa screamed bloody murder, and crawled as fast as she could through the vents. Diving through opened hatches and trying to stand when she could, she could hear Huggy right behind her. His paws and feet slamming against the metal walls as he used them to push himself forward to gain speed.Koa was hyperventilating. Her heart was beating in her head. It felt like an eternity that she was being chased. The vents were toying with her. Hatches were closing, forcing her to change directions. They shrunk around her, like they were ready to crush her to death. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. She couldn't focus. She was ready to collapse.Not paying attention, she was suddenly sliding down the belts, landing on her belly. After a few seconds, which felt like hours, she calmed down long enough to see she was out of the vents, but she could hear Huggy approaching fast. Looking up, she saw a large crate. Getting an idea, she fired both Grab-Pack canons and grabbed the crate, and pulled it down.Her timing couldn't have been more perfect.

Just as the crate came tumbling down, Huggy came rushing from the vents. The crate missed Huggy, but the impact shattered the catwalk they were on, and both of them were sent tumbling down to a lower catwalk ten feet under them. Koa landed on her stomach with a loud grunt, but she recovered in time to see Huggy had landed on the catwalk's railing. His body slid off the rail below, and Koa rushed forward to look over the rail to see Huggy smack off the large pipes under her, blood sprayed and splattered on the pipes as he made impact, then Huggy was seen falling into the dark abyss below.

Then it was silent. Completely silent. No screams. No cries. Nothing. Just complete, utter silence.

Koa sat there for a few minutes, just looking over the rail in complete shock. Then the adrenaline started wearing off, and she felt extreme pain in her back, face, and her limbs. She let herself fall over onto her side, huddled, and cried. She cried from the pain. From the fear. Her tears mixed with her blood on her face. It was like surviving that bear attack all over again, only this time she got out with a few cuts and bruises. She wasn't torn open this time. None of her bones were broken. She tried to calm down, but her PTSD was making it hard for her.

After an eternity, she finally calmed down. Her breathing was stable, but she still held herself in a huddled fetal position. Though she finally was able to think.

Huggy Wuggy just came out of nowhere. And what was worse, that thing was not a machine like she initially thought. He bled. Machines don't bleed.

'But how could this be? How could a living creature like that exist? This is supposed to be a toy factory. What exactly was going on here? Was he the reason why everyone disappeared? But one toy alone couldn't wipe out an entire factory full of people. Were all the other toy mascots like this? Mommy Long-Legs? The Smiling Critters? Everyone else? They were never animatronics or people in costumes? They were living, breathing creatures the whole time? How?'

Koa gave a final sigh and sat up. She was now more determined than ever to find out what happened. Before she stood up, she checked over her injuries. She was bleeding from the face. She could tell Huggy left three long scratches along her face, one just above her eyebrow, one across her eye, which missed her eyeball entirely by miracle, and the third scratch just below her eye along her cheekbone. Other than that, she just had a few bruises and tears in her clothes from hitting the walls too hard in the vents. Then she remembered her gun. She had dropped it when Huggy ambushed her! Looking up, there was no way for her to go back and retreave it.

"Great," she said in annoyed resignation.

Giving a final sigh, she stood up and looked around.

She found herself in a room full of catwalks and platforms. It looked just like the room in the tape she got in that package. She then looked and saw a large graffiti poppy flower on a far wall. She couldn't help but smile at her fortunate. She sped walked in the direction of the flower, but then stopped once she saw a black VHS tape in the floor, and the player was right there next to it. Curiosity once again taking hold, she placed the tape in the player and turned her attention to the TV.

Koa could make out what was in the screen, but it looked like some kind of metallic hand. Just then, a masculine voice spoke up, and in the background, there was blood-curdling and fear-filled screaming and banging noises, which made Koa uneasy.

"Final log. In relation: 1-0-0-6: The Prototype. Coordination and cooperation is evidently within his skillset, as well as the skillset of all other experiments of his type. Though still missing, today's events are no doubt in relation to him. His absence was a flaw in the scientific process, which should have under no circumstances been left unaccounted for. That's why I'm making this log: So that the same mistake won't be made twice."

He paused when he heard a loud bang and more screaming in the background. He continued, "any future experiments will need to be contained and disposed of in a secure location. I'm not worried about myself. One breakthrough and I'll be back. We must forge onwards in the name of science! Whether those who are beneath us understand it or not! End of-"

The video suddenly cut and went black.

Koa stood there. "'In the name of science?'" Koa repeated out loud, questioningly. "Why would science be involved in a toy factory? And what is this 'prototype?'"

Koa had a feeling that she was going to learn about this soon. And she didn't like it.

Koa continued to the graffiti poppy flower, and was surprised to find the back hall behind the door decorated like an old Victorian home. In the distance, it sounded like a music box was playing. Koa followed the music to a back room.

There in the center of the room, was Poppy Playtime, in a glass case. Feeling unnerved, she used her Grab-Pack canon to open the case. Once it was open, the doll's eyes shot open and the lights blew out.

Suddenly, Koa felt something knock her down by smacking her upside the head.

"You opened my case!"

As soon as we think we are safe, something unexpected happens.

- Gautama Buddha