Follow the rabbit, Alice!

His voice is small, his many arms cradling the body to his bulk. Using his old voice, the one he spoke to that small scared child on his bed all those years ago. Not the many, varied voices he danced between.

"I'm so sorry, Theodore..."

An Outimal scrambled out of his way as he slammed his bulk into the double doors. Delicately, he lays the large purple body on the table. Almost... reverently.

A god mourning his devout.

He turns. His bulk clips a table and he flinches violently at the sound of the metal clattering to the floor. Unbidden, he snarls and lashes out at it, claws gouging deep trenches into the floor and the table flying across the room. His bulk hits the operating table as he does and--

He scrambles. A crash. Theodore's body barely kept from touching the unworthy ground. Metal limbs sprawled, slammed into every available surface to catch himself. He stays there for a moment. Trembling. Metal heaves and groans.

Slowly, carefully, he steps back, uses a hand to right the operating table. Slowly setting the body down again, backing away and being hyper aware of his body.

The limp form of pugapillar on his back end bumps the door and...

something within him explodes.

He screeches and twists, lashing out. Ripping body after body off of himself. Screaming in broken, unholy fragments of the voices of the dead and unforgivable as his own gore makes the floor slick.

Mommy's head is crushed under a claw, pugapillar's pelt falls shredded into a pile on a countertop.

Somewhere an Outimal cowers deeper into its hiding place, whimpering, at the screaming and tearing sounds.

And then... silence.

Deafening.

Endless.

Not even heavy false breathing from a glitching voicebox.

Gel drips in slow, thick drops to the ground. A single gold eye stares at itself in the reflection made by the gore.

Slowly. Hesitantly. Finally.

He speaks to the only thing not covered in gore. His voicebox is shot from screeching. The syllables come through in grinding static and feedback squeals.

"I... told you... to let them... through."

He's hardly anything but metal and poppy flavored gore now. A thinner body, nothing like the shrine, now. Smaller, more fragile, rid of all that made him More than his...

He doesn't dare think the word 'friend'.

"That I would... deal with them..."

Much lighter steps, now, almost hesitantly approach the table.

Approach Theodore.

"Why... you... you were supposed to be... Once I figured it out..."

He's gone now.

He's alone now.

No, he's been alone far longer than this. How long has it been since he and Theodore still acted the way they did when he was still his 'imaginary' friend?

Metal digits click. Delicately, more delicate than he's been in years, he snips the seams of CatNap's fur. Peels it away from poppy gel that no longer has a mind to obey. It rebels. Tries to hold on to the fur, pull it back into place.

He slowly cuts into the coagulated gel. Slowly peels out the... the parts of Th--... CatNap... that he can use. The smoke canisters, the nozzles from his mouth.

He can feel the stale, stagnant air of the labs across his back. He pauses for a moment. Then takes the pelt and drapes it across his back. Lets it fall across his back half.

In a few hours, he will affix it properly. Add the smoke canisters to himself. He will replace the jester clothing that he'd shredded in his fit of rage. But he will not return to the bulk and the size.

The lighter body suits him better, anyways, to follow the employee around, it had gotten troublesome to be so bulky. At least, he tells himself that.

He fusses with his collar.

He fixes his mask.