"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
- H.P. LOVECRAFT
The subterranean tunnels underneath the factory eventually led Koa to a water treatment plant. Koa could see some catwalks over the large water tub on the other side of the observation window. Koa currently stood in front of a control console with two large buttons that rotated the catwalks. Seeing a piece of paper next to one of the buttons, she picked it up and read it.
- "Transfer Request –
Experiment 1222 – 'Mommy Long-Legs'
Subject – Marie Payne
Abilities:
Mommy Long-Legs has the unique ability to stretch any of her limbs for several hundred feet. This includes her fingers, arms, hair, neck, waist, and legs. She's very hostile towards the staff, but is very motherly and acts warmly towards the other experiments. She is protective of them.
Problem:
The hostility is quickly becoming problematic, but perhaps there is a solution to put her in her place.
Proposal:
Mommy Long-Legs would be perfect for facilitating everything with the children in the Game Station. She has the warmth that a mother should, and any rowdy child can learn to 'listen to their mother.' It makes sense that her seeing these children daily would improve her behavior, and it is very unlikely she will act out in front of the children. Have her transferred to High Security Maintenance immediately. Conditioning can begin."
"She can stretch her body several hundred feet!?" Koa yelled out this. She shook her head in fear, "I'm so fu-"
She paused. Something else caught her attention.
"Experiment 1222?" Koa questioned out loud.
Remembering the two pieces of paper that she grabbed after escaping the death trap Mommy Long-Legs tricked her into, she pulled them out and studied them.
The first one read:
"Game Station Test Subject Assessement Form
Subject Name: Makayla Hyssop
Procter Name: Sarah Abell
Assigned Toy: Candy Cat
Trial 1: Musical Memory
Performance [1-5: 3
Results: She has a good grasp on the concept and decent performance, but Makayla made mistakes on several of the colour patterns. Her posture indicates to me that she was beginning to panic whenever she got a colour pattern incorrect.
Trial 2: Whack-A-Wuggy
Performance [1-5: 3
Results: Makayla had trouble wielding the GrabPack, often unable to accurately fire it at a hole. She reacted quickly whenever she noticed a Huggy Wuggy toy, but was slow to notice them in the first place.
Trial 3: Statues
Performance [1-5: 1
Results: Makayla is not paying attention, she is screaming and pointing at something else in Statues when nothing is there. Lucky for her, PJ Pug-a-Pillar is so far behind that he can't even be se-"
The last word was cut off by something bad, as Koa saw a splattered blood stain on the corner of the paper. Shuddering, she flipped over to the next page.
"Game Station Test Subject Assessement Form
Subject Name: Makayla Hyssop
Procter Name: Matteo Lata
Assigned Toy: Candy Cat
Trial 1: Musical Memory
Performance [1-5: 4
Results: Makayla is very accurate and fast. Few mistakes were made.
Trial 2: Whack-A-Wuggy
Performance [1-5: 3
Results: Her accuracy with the GrabPack is subpar. Spatial awareness is subpar. Reaction time is fast.
Trial 3: Statues
Performance [1-5: 4
Results: Completely Lacks focus. Makayla was very engaged with the previous tests, however something within Statues is drawing her attention away from the obstac-"
Again, the writer was cut off. More splattered blood stained this paper as well.
Koa didn't understand. Why would the workers of the factory observe the children like this. It was like they were taking notes down for scientific analysis.
"Experiment 1222," Koa said out loud to herself, thinking out loud.
She pulled out the paper she found in Ludwig's office earlier.
"Experiment 814," Koa said quietly. Then she remembered the 'final log' video from before. "Experiment 1006."
She studied all the papers again. On the paper with the experiment about the rat and 'life altering poppy gel,' and all these living toys among the factory, the scientists must have been successful in finding out how to make the gel work.
But then she studied the papers again. If they were analyzing the children as they played the games in the Game Station, they were testing how each child reacted and performed. And the 'Transfer Request' paper mentioned 'other experiments.'
Koa started to tremble. Did this mean that these people were….
Koa put her hand to her mouth and held her stomach with her other hand. Tears flooded her eyes.
'No. No. No. It can't be.' She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. 'Please tell me it's not true! They wouldn't experiment on little children!'
Koa was trembling so hard she had to hold herself up on the control panel. She tried to control her breathing. She tried to slow down her racing thoughts.
'Why would they do this?! Why would anyone do this!? This is beyond sick! It's-"
Koa turned her head and vomited. When she finished, she took a deep, heavy breath. She was sweating. Tears streamed down her face. She couldn't believe it. She didn't want to believe it. But, lying to herself wouldn't help or make it not true.
A loud bang caught her attention. Remembering she was in trouble with Mommy Long-Legs, she was able to refocus on trying to find a way back to the train.
Pocketing the papers, she walked to the catwalks to study how to rotate them. Seeing two doors, she saw one had a toy scanner, and the other was open, she went back to the control panel and rotated the catwalks to the appropriate positions. One she was across the catwalks, she found another tape. Pocketing it, she focused on the task at hand.
Koa found herself in a room full of conveyor belts, and the platform she was on had levers to take her up or down. After much maneuvering and redirecting the conveyor belts, did eventually had a boxes Bunzo Bunny toy in her possession. Koa returned to the control panel, playing the tape in the TV next to her, multitasking her focus.
"Jimmy, your work as Playtime Co.'s chief marketing officer has skyrocketed the company's profits. How do you do it?" An unknown man interviewed off-screen.
"Y'know, it's not what you'd expect. It's the little things most people don't even think about. Like, take names for example: Surprised people haven't realized this. You take the 'E' sound, slap it onto the end of a name," he clapped his hands loudly and yelled, "BOOM! You're making bank. Huggy, Mommy, even Elliot was doing this way back with Poppy."
"I guess I kinda see what-" The Interviewer tried to talk but was rudely interrupted.
"BLUE. Blue is huge. What's your favorite color, I bet it's blue. Right? It's blue?" He questioned rhetorically, expecting to be right.
"It's green," the Interviewer said in an unimpressed tone.
"Ok well, You're a special case, most people would say blue," he replied in a cocky tone.
Koa looked to the screen with an incredulous look on her face.
"But seriously, marketing is not as easy as you think. I mean, I make it look easy. If there is anything Playtime Co. should be known for, it's not toys. It's marketing."
The screen went black. Koa shook her head and refocused on the task at hand.
Once the catwalks were in place, she traversed them to the locked door and placed the Bunzo toy in the scanner, and the door unlocked. Finding a dead end, she traversed the vents once again.
She eventually found herself in another power room. During the tricky maneuvering of rerouting the power, Koa found yet another tape. Once the power was restored, she played the tape in the nearby TV. Koa suppress a shutter at seeing a picture of Mommy Long-Legs' hand.
"The following is a pre-recorded announcement to address the many complaints regarding an alleged 'very, very big spider' crawling around in the facility." A male announcer spoke up in a very annoyed tone. "The Playtime corporation wants me to remind you all that spiders that big… Do not exist. And if they did, quote: 'We would already be dead anyways.' End quote."
Koa shook her head unamused and gave a heavy sigh.
"Regardless, you can all rest assured the company's sending some specialists down here to have a look around and relieve the constant whining. Complaining seems to be everyone's primary contribution to this company. It's just a spider. You are all safe. Please, please carry on with your jobs."
The screen went black.
"You're kidding me, right," she asked out loud, annoyed. These people certainly would not want to know how she would've reacted if this was their response to a complaint.
Koa reentered the vents to continue her quest to find a way out of the place. Once Koa rounded a corner, she saw a way out just ahead.
However, when she was barely three feet from the exit, the tile under her collapsed. With a surprised scream, Koa fell and landed hard on her side on the floor bellow her.
Koa groaned in pain as she rolled over onto her stomach. Carefully and slowly, she pushed herself up. She checked herself for injuries, fortunately finding no bones were broken in the fall. Though Koa knew she'd be sporting a deep bruise to her arm and shoulder.
"Oh, I'm never going to here the end of this from Daddy," she groaned.
Looking around, she saw an obviously locked gate in front of her, and a dead end on the other end of the hall.
"Great," Koa said angrily as she stood up.
Walking to the end of the hall, she looked up and saw there was a way to climb out. She fired her Grab-Pack to grab the bar on the wall when-
"RRRRRAAAAAAARRRRRR!"
"AAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
Koa dove out of the way as an enraged, disheveled and filthy Mommy Long-Legs dropped from the dark shadows from above. Mommy narrowly missed landing right on top of Koa.
Koa turned onto her back, and backed away slowly as Mommy advanced on her, grabbing a pipe on the wall.
"I ASKED YOU TO PLAY FAIR, AND YOU CHEATED!" Mommy yelled as she ripped the pipe out of the wall, steam shooting from the broken pipe.
"I HATE CHEATERS!" She growled as she continued to advance on Koa, who had her back pressed up against the gate in complete fear. "Now, we' re going to play one, last GAME!"
Her limbs stretched and bent in abnormal lengths and angles. Even her fingers were stretched long and thin as she placed them on the walls of the hall. She gave an unhinged smile, showing she had completely snapped and was done with her bubbly façade.
She growled, "It's called… hide… and… SEEEEKKK!"
Her pupils blew wide open, showing very little of her green irises, showing her sanity was completely lost and she was a wild predator trapped in a frenzy.
"Ten… nine… eight…"
The gate behind Koa opened up, causing her to fall backwards. Koa scrambled to her feet, whimpering in fear as she jumped down the stairs and ran as fast as her legs could carry her.
"FIVE… Four… three… two…"
Anger is one letter short of danger.
- Eleanor Roosevelt