Chapter 25: The Prototype

After Mommy finished cleaning up the shards of the broken washbasin, she found a new one in a cupboard nearby, placed it where the previous washbasin was, and then applied hydrogen peroxide to the puncture wounds on Elli's left knee. Elli tried to scream, but Mommy covered her mouth up with her rubbery hand to prevent any sound from coming out. Then after cleaning the blood, Mommy wrapped Elli's knee in fresh bandages.

"In 1991, Playtime Co. was at its lowest point," Mommy began. "Their new toys weren't selling as well, and the toys that were successful in the past such as Huggy Wuggy and Kissy Missy had lost their appeal. So the Playtime Co. scientists turned to the Poppy Playtime doll for inspiration. Unlike the other toys Playtime Co. made, the original Poppy doll was genuinely alive. But how Playtime Co.'s founder Elliot Ludwig did it was a mystery as he didn't leave any instructions behind."

"Why couldn't they ask Ludwig himself?" Elli asked.

"He had…passed away by that point," replied Mommy.

Knowing what 'passing away' meant, Elli didn't say anything further.

"Using the original Poppy doll as a blueprint, the scientists worked day and night to recreate Ludwig's miraculous achievement," Mommy continued. "And from their efforts was born the Prototype, which led to the Bigger Bodies Initiative that created me and the other giant toys that roam this factory."

"Have you seen the Prototype?"

Mommy paused nervously. "I've only heard its voice, and seen a hand. A long spindly hand with sharp black fingers and red wires mixed with metal and human bones."

The way Mommy described the hand made it clear she was afraid of the Prototype, even if she wasn't admitting it.

"If toys like you and CatNap were created to replace the factory workers, then why are kids being turned into regular-sized toys?" Elli said cautiously. "That's what happened to Kayla, right?"

"After the toys based on me sold well, the factory owners thought they could replicate that success with other toys like Bunzo, the Smiling Critters, and Boogie Bot," Mommy explained. "Yet even with the heavy amount of promotion for those toys including the Smiling Critters cartoon, they didn't succeed. So the factory scientists decided to turn the orphan children who lived here into regular-sized versions of their preexisting toys as well as large ones for the Bigger Bodies Initiative. The reason they did is is they figured having more lively toys would increase their sales, and they would be able to get away with it due to the lack of official records on you orphans."

Elli didn't like the way Mommy spoke so condescendingly to her, considering Mommy used to be an orphan child just like her. But Elli kept her cool and continued asking questions. "Was the Smiling Critters cartoon show out when you and Ollie saw the tape?"

Mommy shook her head. "No, it was an advanced copy."

"So the show was still being made?"

"Yes, it was in production. Though Claire had early copies of the show before it was set to officially air on television alongside the release of the toys."

"But the scientists created you and CatNap before the toy versions of you two were sold."

"Correct."

"Then the reason there's no information about the Smiling Critter toys in the library is because Playtime Co. was ashamed of how badly they did sales-wise?"

"Not only that, but the factory was sued by parents who complained about their children having nightmares from the scented gas produced by the plushies—especially the CatNap one."

This made Elli think back to the nightmare she had after watching the hidden Smiling Critters tape and became horrified. "Why would the factory owners let us kids have the Smiling Critter toys if the gas they make causes nightmares?"

"It's part of the process for deciding which toy to turn a child into," answered Mommy.

"How?"

"You've no doubt figured out by now that the games you play at the Game Station are used to measure certain attributes," Mommy assumed. "Musical Memory measures your hand-eye coordination, Wack-a-Wuggy measures your reaction time, and Statues tests your physical endurance. What the games actually measure is the healthiness of your brain, eyes, organs, and spine which are taken out and put into the appropriate toy if they're determined to be in 'ripe' condition. However, early experiments in the Bigger Bodies Initiative revealed the mental state of the test subject matters just as much as their physical health.

"For instance, the Prototype was too mentally unstable to be controlled by the scientists. But when the giant Huggy Wuggy toy was made, he was more obedient due to his mental state not being as unstable. And the way scientists determine the mental state of a child is by exposing them to gas with opium in it, which is a type of drug that causes one to experience hallucinations. So the more vivid your hallucinations are on the opium, the more mentally unstable you are."

Elli remembered looking up the word 'hallucination' in the dictionary before, and knew Mommy was referring to strange images that weren't real.

"What about Marie?" Elli asked. "She woke up screaming from nightmares after being exposed to the smoke CatNap produces and was taken away. If CatNap's smoke had opium in it, that would mean Marie was mentally unstable. Did she get turned into a regular toy, or a big toy?"

Mommy narrowed her green eyes at Elli. "You've been asking a lot of questions, Elli. Is there a particular reason for it?"

"Just to satisfy my curiosity, I guess," Elli said in a half-truth. "I mean, even with everything my friends and I figured out, I wanted to confirm if the things we discovered were true or not."

"You're prodding me for more information to fill in the blanks on you and your friends' research, aren't you? And please don't lie to me."

Gripping Elli's bandaged knee, Mommy squeezed it tightly till it started bleeding again.

"Yes, that's why!" Elli cried out involuntarily.

"That's what I thought," Mommy smirked and let go. "But I wanted to tell you everything anyway, so I suppose it doesn't matter whether you tricked me or not."

"I don't understand," murmured Elli, trying not to let the fresh pain coming from her left knee get to her.

As her smile widened, Mommy forced Elli to sit up in her bed. "If you, Nathan, and Rez agree to give Poppy to me, I can persuade the factory scientists to turn you three into giant toys like me. Then we can live as one happy family together forever!"

To be continued…