AN: little heads up, for those who liked Pianosaurus in the game, I'm so sorry for what's about to happen here.
There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.
- Ernest Hemingway
LUB-DUB
LUB-DUB
LUB-DUB
She was slowly stalking through the back halls, having escaped the observation room after unlocking a door with a battery. The sound of her heart beating seemed to echo despite there being no way for an echo to carry in the halls. Koa did her best to control her breathing, though her erratic heart rate made that so much harder. And her cracked ribs only enhanced her discomfort.
LUB-DUB
LUB-DUB
LUB-DUB
Finally, after what seemed like hours, she found herself behind a fence. And it was locked.
Turning around, her breath caught in her throat and she froze in place upon catching a glimpse of Yarnaby as he stalked into a nearby ventilation shaft.
Once he was gone, she turned back to the locked fence, but immediately backed up in fright and grasped the handle of her knife.
There was a long yellow arm that looked like it was made of children's play dough right outside the fence, his hand at the lock for a brief moment, then the arm pulled back into a pipe along the ceiling.
Koa didn't dare move a muscle.
Glancing back to the fence's door when the arm didn't return, she used her foot to test the door, believing whatever the hand did only made her more trapped.
To her surprise, the door opened slightly upon her applying a little force to it with her foot.
Confusion flooded her thoughts, but a crash sounding nearby only snapped her out of her thoughts. Opening the door wider for her to get through, she was relieved to find the next door was unlocked, and eventually she found herself in a dark mail room.
Turning on the Grab-Pack's flashlight, she found boxes of various sizes filled the shelves and cluttered the floors. Some of the shelves were partially or completely knocked over. Groaning mentally as all this climbing and squatting would agitate her injuries.
Bracing herself for the pain, she squatted down to crawl under a collapsed shelf, only to retreat once she was nearly through and turn off her flashlight.
Yarnaby had crawled out of a vent right in front of her. He was huge! He was just as big as a normal African lion. His spherical head opened up and he roared loudly, forcing Koa to block her ears with her hands from the sound.
With that, Yarnaby started stalking the room. Looking behind Yarnaby, Koa thought about jumping into the vent to slip away, but a grated door slammed shut, locking Koa in the room with Yarnaby.
Glancing towards Yarnaby at the other end of the hall, she saw another vent. But there was a problem. It was high along the wall, and Yarnaby was right there.
There was no way she could get past Yarnaby. She thought about shooting him or sneaking up on him and stabbing him, but it was too dark. Her flashlight would give her away and she was half blind with her left eye still bandaged up.
"Psst!"
Koa had to slap her hand to her mouth to keep from yelling out in shocked surprise at that sound. Looking around, she saw movement in the dark but she couldn't make out what it was. Backing up to make sure she was out of Yarnaby's line of sight, she fired a flare from her Grab-Pack's flare gun in the direction of the moving shadow in the dark.
The thing surprisingly caught the flare, revealing the same dough hand from before. The next second, the hand dropped the flare, and what Koa could see was a large barrel of some sort caught fire. The hand then retreated again in the pipes.
Yarnaby seemed to be fascinated by the flames, as he moved out of the way and stared at the dancing flames with his large, non-blinking black eyes.
Koa took the opportunity to slink from her hiding spot and approached the wall. She thought about killing Yarnaby while he was distracted, but she held back.
What if she missed? What if a horde of little toys came out of nowhere following the noise? What if Yarnaby moved before she could strike? What if the noise attracted something else down here? Something bigger?
There were still risks.
Looking up to the vent, she fired her Grab-Pack's blue canon and pulled herself up, swinging feet first into the vent once she could reach it.
RAWR!
Yarnaby roared in anger and tried to climb up to the vent, his large leonine claws missing Koa's head by a mere inch.
Yarnaby continued to roar in frustration as Koa slipped away through the vents.
Upon reaching the end, Koa paused.
She listened to and watched her surroundings to make sure it was safe to climb out. Not seeing or hearing anything, she climbed down from the vents as carefully and as quietly as she could.
Once she was safe on the ground, she glanced up and found a tape, which she collected before she continued, finding herself in some kind of Electric/Power room.
To no surprise, Yarnaby found his way in. The bright side was this room was bigger and therefore had more places to hide. She had to have dodged past Yarnaby at least half a dozen times by the time she made it to the other side of the room. She could hear Yarnaby trying to claw his way past fences and electric grids, only to receive mild shocks as she heard electricity sparking and charging.
After a while, it got quiet. Daring to take a peek from her current hiding spot behind a dead power grid, she saw Yarnaby was gone. Not taking any chances, Koa still kept low and stayed quiet.
By the time she reached the other end of the room, she had collected a few notes along with the VHS tape she found. And there was a TV in a dead ended hall.
Taking a final check to make sure Yarnaby was really gone, she placed in the tape. The screen displayed a couple of files before a masculine voice with a posh British accent spoke up. Not the same man from before, this one was new.
"This recklessness has to stop! The Doctor has no regard for the safety of this facility, or its staff!"
'The Doctor? That's what Warden called the voice in that other video.'
"Or the children in Playcare!" the voice Koa recognized as Stella Greyber spoke up worriedly. "I've tried to set boundaries with him. He doesn't listen to me!"
"He doesn't listen to any of us," the familiar voice of Leith Pierre spoke up incredulously. "Not really. Not anymore. And he's behind schedule." His voice then took an irritated tone as he continued, "Playtime may have turned a corner financially, but that doesn't change the fact that his 'Bigger Bodies Initiative' is still a money hole!"
"The guy's gotta go, Leith," the first man said impatiently.
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Leith questioned rather snarky.
"This wouldn't be the first time we've made someone disappear," the other man said suggestively.
"We can't kill him, Eddie," Leith stated with irritation.
The other man, Eddie, growled, "…why not?"
Leith sighed before he stated, "because like it or not, we need him."
"Eddie's right though," Stella insisted. "Sawyer can't keep leading this project."
Leith chuckled before he questioned rhetorically, "so we just ask him to step down? Take a demotion?"
Stella stuttered worriedly, "n-no, but-"
"I'm not disagreeing," Leith interrupted calmly before his tone took an irritated turn. "Huggy loose in the woods, that business with CatNap, the whole Stoll thing-"
"- And half a dozen other incidents-" Eddie added in the middle of that list.
"Right, and all that pales in comparison to the Theater Incident," Leith stated in frustration.
Stella shuddered before she said sadly, "I don't even want to talk about that…"
"So… we can't kill the sonofabitch, but we need to knock him out of the equation. What do we do?" Eddie questioned.
"There is… one thing I can think of," Leith answered in a proud suggestive tone.
With that, the screen went black.
Koa stood there in shocked confusion. So this man, whom they've called either 'Sawyer' or 'The Doctor' caused multiple incidents in the factory. Koa recalled the Theater Incident. The public was told a fire had broken out in the factory's theater and had gotten out of control and nearly 80 people had died.
So this 'Doctor' was responsible. What exactly did they do to him?
She paused and looked slowly towards the ceiling.
Was that voice out there… him? The same 'Doctor' Warden spoke to?
"Oh no…" she whispered.
Needing somewhere safe to think things over, she continued her quest.
After a minute or two, Koa found herself in another mail storage room. This one was a lot bigger and spacious than the first one she was in. After squeezing her way past a knocked over shelf, Koa noticed that some areas were blocked off… with solidified quadricolored clay. Within the colors was a familiar shade of yellow. The same shade of the hand that was helping her earlier.
RAWR!
Koa jumped out of her skin and turned around.
From a high shelf, Yarnaby grabbed the edge of the shelves with his large paws, and his head peeked from the edge. He tilted his head smugly and roared again, and pounced to the ground, his vertical jaws clicking hungrily.
Koa turned on her heels and ran for her life, dodging large boxes and jumping over others. Seeing ahead that some boxes were piled on top of each other, she noticed a gap she could jump through easily.
Diving through the gab, she curled her body to roll on her back to get back to her feet, her cracked ribs protesting in pain as she did, and continued to run.
Behind her, she heard Yarnaby crash through the boxes, but then screamed when some collapsed on top of him. Thinking from the sounds that he pinned himself, she continued to run.
"Hey." A masculine voice whispered as the same yellow dough hand from before pointed to a yellow door in front of her. Once she opened the door, the hand again retreated.
Once she turned around to shut the door behind her-
RAWR!
"OH SHI-"
SLAM
SMACK
Koa just managed to slam the door shut and lock it as Yarnaby pounced, and she was knocked to the floor on her rear as Yarnaby slammed into the door.
From the outside, Yarnaby continued to roar and scream and slam himself against the door to bust it down.
Recovering from the chase and being knocked down, Koa crawled into a nearby vent.
Once she was out, she found herself in some kind of archive.
Through she didn't continue right away, as she needed a moment to catch her breath and rest her aching back muscles, as they were starting to protest in pain. Once she sat down against the wall, she coughed into her hand. When she recovered, she looked to her hand and saw a bit of blood.
It was nowhere near as bad as it was before, but it was a sign to Koa that she was still in danger with her cracked ribs and the broken bones around her eye.
And that she needed to slow down.
Giving herself a calming sigh, she stood up, staggering a bit, and then continued.
The first thing she saw was a green key card, which she collected. Looking around the shelves she found another tape. Her searches eventually brought her to a cardboard cutout of a toy dinosaur that had piano keys as teeth and more piano keys running along its belly. The dinosaur itself looked like a hybrid of a stegosaurus and a raptor. Maybe even a T-rex. Koa didn't recognize this toy, but the cardboard cutout introduced the toy as 'Pianosaurus,' one of the dangers Poppy warned everyone about.
Turning around and finding the TV, she walked to it, placed the tape in and watched. The screen displayed a picture of a shelf of various toys before Leith Pierre spoke up.
"So, Ms. Greyber, have you considered what we talked about?"
"Yes, Mr. Pierre," she responded nervously. "I… I won't lie, I was at a loss for words at first. The information hit me pretty hard. I felt so badly- I still do- for the ones that go through the, um, testing."
"You really care about them," Leith stated with disgust in his voice.
"Yes. It hurts to see them hurt, I don't think there's any way around that feeling…" Stella admitted before she took a deep breath. "But… I did some soul searching, and got to thinking about the bigger picture… About what your researchers wrote."
"And?" Leith questioned in a challenging tone.
"Well, the work itself, what you all are able to do… I mean, it's nothing short of a miracle! I know you have more goals to hit, but even as is, just… wow. Do they know when it'll be… fully ready?"
"We're still working out the timeline," Leith said rather dismissively.
"I see," was Stella's only response.
"You know, the project lead - Dr. Sawyer - wasn't sure about giving you that information in the first place. He thinks your affection toward those kids could be a liability… What do you think about that?" Leith questioned.
Stella sighed before replying,"I took this job because I wanted to help change kids' lives for the better. Of course these procedures are far from ideal; I cried like a baby when I read them. But I started looking past the here and now, started looking down the road a bit. That's when it clicked. What your researchers can do down here will someday help a lot of people out there, including so, so many kids. That's a bigger and better change than I could ever have hoped to make. That's a change I want to help make!"
Leith Pierre gave a snarky chuckle before he said, "I knew you'd understand."
With that the screen went black.
Koa stood there. Not moving. Then her breathing picked up. Her teeth and fists clenched in pure, unadulterated rage.
With a furious roar, she grabbed the TV and pulled it from its shelf to the floor. Electric sparks danced and roared as the TV smashed against the floor.
"FUCKING PIGS!" she roared in anger.
Turning around, she started punching the wall, yelling as she did, to release her frustrations. And she didn't stop until her knuckles started bruising and bleeding.
Finally, after a long while, she stopped. Her breathing was still heavy. Her body screamed in pain, but she paid it no mind. The physical pain she was feeling was nothing compared to the emotional pain building within.
She was glad DogDay and Kissy weren't here to see her right now. And with that thought, she collected herself and stood up. With a final heavy sigh, she walked forward.
Slipping in the key card after finding the lock, and walking through the unlocked door, she paused.
There was unsettling noises in the air. One sounded like… a reef back? The other was no doubt the crunching of bones.
She knew she was in some kind of observation room as there were tall plates of glass that one could look through to see anything from above. Looking through the glass, Koa saw Pianosaurus standing over a bloody, gory mess, and he was eating from the messy pile.
Grimacing, Koa, as quietly as she could, walked around the observation windows, collecting more notes as she did.
Finding a broken window and a thin concrete edge high along the far wall within Pianosaurus' cell, she knew there was no other option but to cross it to get to the next room.
Placing her Grab-Pack canons down to her sides, she stayed as close to the wall as she could, scooting across the thin edge carefully.
CRUMBLE
Not even five feet in, the concrete crumbled and collapsed under her feet, and Koa, with a surprised yell, fell right into Pianosaurus' enclosure, landing hard on her uninjured side, knocking the wind out of her. Dust and pebbles rained down even after Koa had landed.
When Koa recovered, Pianosaurus was already looking right at her over his shoulder, and spotlight shining on him. Three of the piano keys serving as his teeth glowed, played random piano notes as he turned his body to face her. He then wiggled his claws, and with a loud crunching-snap of his wrists, gave jazz hands.
Then charged right for her at full sprint.
Before Koa could even try to go for a weapon, a group of long stretched hands grabbed hold of Pianosaurus and dragged him back a few yards, and held him down.
Slowly, the hands that had a tight grip on his torso, arms and neck lifted him up, Pianosaurus hanging helplessly in the air -
SLAM
Pianosaurus released a pained squeal as he was slammed to the ground with intense ferocity.
SLAM
SMASH
CRASH
CRACK
CRUNCH
Koa watched in shock as Pianosaurus was slammed head or shoulders first back and forth against the walls with such intense force. Some of his piano keys were smashed off his body and sent flying everywhere while the sounds of concrete crunching and thick plastic snapping echoed the room. Blood splattered against the walls every time Pianosaurus made impact, and with the final impact, the hands held Pianosaurus limp in the air again. His head hung to the left, his neck obviously broken from being slammed so hard against the wall headfirst, and his guts and a few of his organs hung from his torso as his plastic body split open, blood trailing from his body to the floor.
SLAM
Koa flinched as Pianosaurus was slammed to the floor again, earning a weak scream of pain from the toy. The hands then drug him backwards across the floor into the shadows, leaving a trail of smeared blood and guts on the floor.
CRUNCH
One of Pianosaurus' hands was sent flying out of the shadows and landed to the floor.
CRUNCH
CRUNCH
One of Pianosaurus' spikes was sent flying as well, followed by his severed head skidding across the floor, leaving behind a thin trail of blood. Two of his still glowing piano key teeth finally faded.
Koa panted in fear as she sat up.
"Now that hit the spot!" a jolly voice called out from the shadows, earning her attention. "I haven't eaten in weeks!"
Suddenly, a large, pudgy humanoid clay figure ran from the shadows and stopped right in front of her, his body jiggling with each movement he made. Most of his body was blue in color, while his left arm was orange, his right arm yellow, and his stubby legs were red. The distinctive feature he possessed was the yellow, orange and red dough on his belly forming the pattern of three bendy arms reaching towards the middle of his stomach. He also wore a small blue bowler hat on his round head.
"Hiya there, pal!" he greeted with a smile on his simple face when he stopped right in front of her.
Koa leaned back in tension, not knowing how to react to the newcomer.
"Don't worry," he said with an amused giggle, shaking his head dismissively. He then looked back to her and said with assurance, "I won't eat YOU."
He then leaned back giggling, holding his purposely distended belly contently. He then straightened himself up, and turned his attention back to her.
"I'm Doey," he greeted with a polite smile, taking his bowler hat off with his right hand in greeting, and placing his left hand on his chest. His features then shifted from a happy smile to a skeptical frown. "I was told to expect you."
He said that like he was expecting more as he put his hat back on and put his hands in his hips.
Koa still didn't know what to do, think or say. She couldn't tell if he was being serious or if he was just teasing her. After a few seconds, Doey smiled again, and picked up Koa by her shoulders and helped her to her feet, yearning a startled yelp from her.
"This way, follow me," he said with a wide smile. The then turned his body, his head still facing her, and waltzed away, his head remaining where he was as his thin neck stretched as his body still moved.
After another second, his head moved and caught up with his body, leaving a flabbergasted Koa in the shadows of the spotlight.
IRONICALLY, THE PEOPLE YOU MEET BY ACCIDENT ARE OFTEN THE ONES WHO BECOME AN IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR LIFE.
- Unknown