"I swore an oath to aid and to heal."

You were fine. You were calm. You weren't going to start screaming.

"Mamie give me strength… Alright. Alright. You aren't in immediate danger. Yes, the fact that he decided not to reveal he was alive until you couldn't see is suspect. And you are alone in this facility with an unknown person of unknown capabilities." You tried to comfort yourself, to no avail.

"Think logically. If the experiments were permitted to be around the children, the scientists had to make sure they weren't capable of hurting them and that they were capable of reason. You just need to keep a cool head and press on." You told yourself, wrapping your arms around yourself.

With power restored, you returned to the door with the blue handprint panel and unlocked it. The section seemed to lead to a room labeled Make-a-Friend. That wasn't what got your attention, however. What won that prize was the sight of a blue fuzzy arm slinking along into the room. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together.

Without anywhere else to go and believing that if you were to confront him, he would listen to reason, you walked into the dark hallway and the door that, fittingly enough, had a cartoonish Huggy Wuggy on top of it. Opening the door, you expected a room called Make-a-Friend to seem more cheerful. The room you saw seemed to be a simple storage room. You found another VCR and television, but no VHS tape.

"Makes sense, the only two tapes I was left was that security tape and that tutorial. What else would I need?" You rationed. You walked up the stairs and came across a conveyor belt with four fuses that you reasoned would allow you access to the red hand. Thankfully you already found one battery, in it's cubical and impractical glory. Unfortunately, you inferred that you'd have to search the room beneath you, and the previous room showed no way to enter.

Your eye caught a pile of boxes that wasn't too much of a jump.

"I shouldn't. It'll be hell on my back."

…

"MERDE!"

You had jumped. There were more boxes than you initially saw, and judging by how they had busted open on your fall, they had been packed with Huggy Wuggy dolls. Still, the split cardboard dug into your sides and made it into a pain to crawl out. At least your fall wasn't in van, you found the other batteries along with a yellow VHS, matching the VCR you had found. To conclude your findings, you found a door that when pulled to the side, it was the room with said VCR.

"Who the devil builds a door that can only be opened from one side? If no one was in this room then how was anyone supposed to get inside? What, did they expect everyone to jump?? Were there no thoughts to potential injuries the employees could obtain?!" Cursing your previous workplace's neglience, you walked towards the VCR and placed the tape in.

It seemed to be a security feed of the room you found the tape in. The date in the corner read June 25th, 1984. There were two men and judging by their GrabPacks and the tape's location, you inferred they were factory floor workers, one worker having lighter hair, most likely being blond, and the other being darker. They seemed to be looking for something.

"Ugh, Rich, where are they keeping the Huggy boxes?" The lighter haired one called out to the other worker. The darker haired one's name was Rich it seemed. "I don't know, I couldn't tell you! Remember when Maintenance last did a sweep of this place?" Rich waved his arms around. "No-"

"Exactly! Nobody in this stupid company knows what they're doing. I swear, I haven't seen a single box in its place since they started flooding the storehouse with orphanage junk." Rich continued, gesturing to the boxes around him. You were aware items you requested had to go through Storage and Supply first, that's why you always bought anything you needed yourself. There was an annoyingly long wait time and now you knew why.

"Right…" The lighter haired man seemed uncomfortable, taking a couple steps back. "I get it, it's a nice program and all, on-brand, but," Rich stopped to sigh. "It's just hard to be happy when Manufacturing is on OUR NECKS about it, 'cause we can't find stupid Huggy boxes!" Rich snapped.

"Rich…" The lighter haired man tried to calm him down, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're right… You're right… It's.. It's for the orphans… I just wish there were less boxes. Anything less would be more abidable. - I-is that even a word? Abidable." And with that, the tape ended.

"If you didn't know if it was a word, why did you use it?" You questioned pointlessly. With that distraction out of the way, you walked back to the fuses and plugged them in. The crane then proceeded to grab the red hand and lowered it onto the conveyor belt. Unfortunately, it didn't do it with subtlety and the glass box shattered. Thankfully it was close to the ground and didn't put you at risk.

You grabbed your red hand and saw your next way out; through a conveyor network. Explicitly labeled 'Do not enter.' Most likely filled with devices that could prove harmful to your well-being but also being your only way to progress.

"…I hate this godforsaken company."

…

"I hate this. I hate this. Hate, hate, hate…" You kept saying over and over. It eluded you as to why anyone would build human size vents but whoever built it did a horrible job. The GrabPack made it horrifically cramped but you supposed that they weren't built with the intention to be hosting workers. Your assumption was proven incorrect, however, upon seeing a blocked door and a similar electrical setup to the power room.

"…why?! Why would you have it that someone would have to go inside an active conveyor network just to allow the product to go through it properly?! Who on earth thought this was a logical idea?!" You complained, once again cursing out this company's idiocy.

With the power restored, you ventured through the network and found your way to the actual Make-a-Friend room. The terminal indicated that it was under-powered, which wouldn't have interested you if not for the locked door with a sign saying 'NOBODY LEAVES WITHOUT A TOY,' indicating that unless you got the power back on, you'd be stuck in here. It always made you uncomfortable how the facility was designed. You expected a level of whimsy when working here, it was a toy company, but sometimes it felt like this company wasn't built with adults in mind.

You walked up the stairs and found a pink VHS tape and VCR, although why someone chose to place a tape alongside a wall was beyond you. You placed the tape into the VCR. Initially the camera was pointed at the floor, and an unknown voice asked if someone was okay with this being recorded. A voice you did recognize, however, gave her permission. The camera was set up so you could see her face, albeit she seemed younger than you met her.

"So, Stella, what made you want to work at the Playtime Co. factory?"

You remembered Miss Greyber fondly, as she was the one who hired you in the first place. She took her duties seriously, tending to both Playcare and the Game Station. Despite it, she always made an effort to tend to the staff in her department when they needed her, always willing to provide a helping hand. You also remembered how despite how happy she was to work with both the children and her staff, there was a sadness that never left her eyes.

"Playing with toys when I was young was so magical. I could go straight from my bedroom floor to anywhere in the world. It was such a great feeling. And… being able to work at a toy factory… somewhere that can provide kids with that same experience… That's a pretty great feeling too!"

Yeah, that was Miss Greyber in a nutshell. She always prioritized the children, keeping an open office and dropping everything if a child needed her. You remember how often she invited you to tea in her office, sharing stories from her childhood. You never shared any stories of your own, however.

"Sometimes though… I really, really wish I could go back. To being a kid, I mean. And it's weird, 'cause… adults are just kids, but older! I don't think anyone ever really feels like an adult? But your body just gets older… and older… and then you die. Poof!" And then she laughed, despite the morbidity of her statement.

You never got the impression from Miss Greyber that she was concerned about mortality, but her discussion of wanting to return to youth made sense. She always focused on making sure the children were living their happiest childhoods. You remember you had pitched an event for the school; a career fair for the children. But your pitch had been rejected by Miss Greyber for the reasoning that the children should focus on being happy and not worry about adulthood. You speculated that she felt she had wasted her youth and projected that onto the orphans.

"Human bodies just can't stay young forever. There's things though, like some trees that can stay alive even while being way older than a person! I mean, the oldest people to ever live are STILL younger than those! So I guess everyone is always young relative to something… Right?" That was another quirk of hers you remembered; she always went on tangents that seemingly had nothing to do with the conversation. Or nothing that you could see.

"Alright, I think we're getting a little off-track." And with that, the tape finished. "Even the interviewer agrees with me Miss Greyber." You murmured. You found the breaker you had to use to power the Make-a-Friend machine. Already you were tired of the repetitive electric routing, but you decided to grin and bare it because at least it was quick.

Power returned, you walked back downstairs and saw convenient power sparks run along the cord to the power button. You were hesitant due to a fear of exposed electricity, but you pressed the button regardless. Nothing happened. "I knew those sparks meant nothing good. Damn, the fuse might have blown out entirely or-" Your speculations were cut off entirely by what sounded like a train going right past your ears. But no, it was the Make-a-Friend machine.

"Ha ha, what good timing." You deadpanned. You pulled the necessary levers and stood by as the machine did its job. "If the company had access to this sort of technology, why did they even need assembly workers?" You asked. The factory floor workers needed a job, you supposed. You could find another reason Playtime didn't mass produce the machine, albeit petty; it creeped you out. You swore the eyes were following you.

Regardless, the machine finished the toy. It was a CatBee.

Quinn never liked the Swapimals.

You shook your head. You would find the answers to those mysteries, but for now, you needed to continue on. Your CatBee allowed you to progress, but you were prevented by the missing Huggy Wuggy, steadly approaching you.

"Oh, god. Ahem. Hello. I was wondering where you went. I apologize for not introducing myself, I wasn't aware you were alive or that anyone was here, but if you could answer a couple of questions-" You tried to explain, but the experiment didn't listen. It grabbed you by the throat and slammed you against the wall.

The air left your lungs and you swore you could feel your spine crack. You clawed at it's throat, trying to pry it off in vain. "P-please.. I mean you no harm…" You tried to beg, and for a moment you believed it would listen because it released its hold on your throat, but it only held you up by the arm as it grabbed you by the other.

You felt it begin to pull.

"Wait. No. NonononononONONONO!!" You screamed as it slowly, slowly, tore your arm off of you and let you fall to the ground as it, oh lord, began to eat your arm as if it was corn on the cob. While bleeding out and in agony, you tried to crawl away, but your arm wasn't enough of a meal for it, apparently. It grabbed you by the leg and slammed you on the back, completely breaking your spine. It gripped your throat with both of its hands.

"Mercy…" You tried to beg, although a part of you wanted death in any attempt to make the pain stop. That prayer was answered as the creature put your entire head in its mouth, allowing you to feel its razor sharp teeth and how his mouth was salivating, most likely due to the taste of flesh.

You were allowed the relief of death when you felt its teeth chew through your neck.

…

They won't show you mercy that easily.

I won't let you die yet.

Get up.

…

Breath forced itself into your lungs as you sat up, putting a hand over your chest. You could feel your heart racing. 

You were supposed to be dead.

You looked over at the door, a CatBee in your hand.

You had put the CatBee in that slot, and Huggy came through the door and-

He had killed you. You died.

You. Died.

You tried, but you couldn't hold back anymore.

The Playtime Company Factory.

You look at the factory from the entry point. It's not in the best condition. Time comes for everything, even for what doesn't breathe. The primary-colored paint has faded. You can see cracks in the windows, even moss growing on a rare few. But what you find the most eerie is that despite the cosmetic wearing down, it's still the same factory you remember.

You remember walking up to the security booth and presenting your ID card in order to be let in. There's no security guard now, but you still walk up and present your card. You don't know if it's due to habit or if you expect the wrath of an old ghost if you don't.

Then again, the entire reason you came back was because of old ghosts.

You hold the letter in your hands.

EVERYONE THINKS THE STAFF DISSAPEARED 10 YEARS AGO

WER'E STILL HERE.

FIND THE FLOWER

Childish spelling aside, at first you didn't know what to make of it. You remembered the investigations after the factory shut down, the inquisitions. You remember being interrogated as if you had personally taken them. But despite the intensity of it all, no one could give you a reason as to how 50,000 people could disappear in a day, a quarter being visitors.

At first you questioned why a request for aid came to you and not the police, but it didn't take you long to put together. Playtime Co had essentially been written out of the history books; anyone who ran stories on the company had been fired, families of the missing stopped speaking out, even anyone who owned Playtime products had them confiscated.

50,000 people leave behind a trail. And anyone who was tedious enough to erase any signs of Playtime Co wasn't blind enough to not find that trail. If that 50,000 hadn't been found, they weren't supposed to be. You didn't know how deep this went, why these people were hidden, but if they reached out to just you for assistance, you didn't think outside aid was an option.

You were rethinking that theory now. Or at the very least, you felt there was more you didn't know. If someone was trying to keep the missing people out, why was no one there to stop you? The security could have been automated, setting off an alarm the moment you walked in, but considering how many people might have been there, it seemed impractical. By the time someone could arrive to intercept the escape, plenty of people could have left.

The deprecation of the factory continued inside. The Huggy mural that stood behind reception had faded, but you could still tell it was him. Time's irregular mercy continued, it seemed. You saw a green VHS tape waiting on the desk, a matching VCR and television not too far. On one hand, it could offer a clue. On the other hand, it could be another alarm. But you supposed you most likely already triggered the alarm, so what did you have left to lose?

You put the tape in, and on the television screen you were greeted with the face of none other than Leith Pierre.

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

You had wondered what happened to the company heads after the factory shut down. None of them had been seen in the public eye since the incident, not even Pierre.

"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."

You raised an eyebrow. That wasn't how tapes worked. Someone had to manually rewind that tape didn't they. God help the receptionist who got stuck overnight with that duty. Not to mention the fact that repeated use as Pierre insisted would have completely ruined the tape. You put a hand to your head as you thought about the amount of employees that didn't get their bonus because Pierre blew his VHS tape budget.

"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."

That got an eyebrow raise out of you.

"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!"

Ah. So your assumption that there were indirect alarms was correct. You were just wrong in who set them up. Well wasn't that so helpful of Mr. Pierre. You pinched your nose and hoped you could find a decent place to hide long enough for the cops to think it was a false alarm.

"And that's one of the more tame aspects of our security system. No spoilers..."

You blinked. "What the devil does that mean…" You muttered. You hadn't heard of any break-ins during your time at the company, but you had chalked that up due to most incidents being on the factory floor. What the hell did Pierre install?…

"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."

And on that ominous note, you were left in the silence. You weighed your options; you could either leave now and avoid whatever Pierre left behind, but if you left, then whoever sent you that note was potentially left to rot. If you stayed, you risk encountering what on Earth Pierre had stationed.

You reasoned that at the very least, the security system couldn't be fatal or seriously deadly. The law stated that unless the owner believed you were going to use deadly force yourself, they couldn't use deadly force in turn. Unless whoever Pierre gave the poor duty of rewinding the tape had full security clearance, the system had to have been made in mind that he'd have no knowledge of an intruder's capabilities.

Taking a breath, you made your decision. You walked towards the section labeled "SECURITY." The rest of the factory would be blocked off unless you could find a way to bypass that handprint screen. However, your progress was halted by a color-coded lock. Maybe the receptionist had the code in her station.

Returning to the reception desk had yielded you no reward, unfortunately. You allowed yourself to lean against the desk for a moment to think.

"If I was an employee who couldn't be bothered to remember a color code even if I depended on it for my job, what would I do?" You murmured to yourself. Your gaze wandered over to the gift shop. It wouldn't make sense for it to be in there, but you didn't have anywhere else to check.

You walked into the gift shop, the shelves being sparse aside from the occassional box. It made sense, with the company going out of business there wouldn't be a need for it to restock, but the disarray made you… unnerved. The sound of wheels from above called your attention. You looked up to see a multicolored train. Green, pink, yellow, orange.

All colors that were on the lock. "…they wouldn't."

…

They would.

Typing that sequence of colors gave you access to the Security section. "Who the devil thought it was a good idea to put a classified code in a public gift shop?… ANYONE could have figured out and gotten access to security." You muttered, cursing the factory floor's incomptence.

Walking into the security room, you were greeted with roughly thirty six black monitors, a table with a computer, another large television with a VHS and VCR, this time being dark blue, and-

Oh. Oh god.

"Please tell me I don't have to wear that gaudy thing…" You prayed, pressing random buttons on the keyboard to see if you could turn it on and somehow override the hand panel. But it was in vain.

You groaned and reluctantly placed the tape into the VCR. As expected, it was a tutorial for one of the innovations Playtime Co was most proud of; The GrabPack. It hadn't changed from how you remembered it; a glorified backpack with firable hands that could grip and pull objects towards a user, along with carrying electricity and conducting it.

And you absolutely hated it.

You were aware of how useful and necessary the GrabPacks were for working, especially for the more manual labor-oriented jobs, but you hated using them. You didn't like how tight the straps had to be against your back, the weight of the pack along with how the storage reel pressed into your back, and the way the rope whipped against your back felt awful.

The only consolation you had was for someone of your position, it wasn't required to have it on at all times. But it seemed that if you wanted to get any further, you had to don what you hated most. So, with non-conprehensible muttering, you put on the GrabPack. On top of that,you had brought a backpack of supplies for the ones in the factory. Due to the nature of the GrabPack, you had to switch your backpack to the front of your body.

You felt ridiculous.

"…the damn thing doesn't even have a right hand. Because of course it's not enough I have to wear the worst atrocity this company has ever made, it's not even fully operational." You complained as you made your way to the lobby. Normally you would make an effort to remain more composed, but you reserved your patience for when there was company.

You used the blue hand to open the Lobby door, and were greeted by Huggy Wuggy. Well, not quite. It was far in the distance, and it didn't actually greet you. When you were given your orientation guide for working at the company, you were given a brief overview of the toy and the statue in the Lobby. Your overview didn't mention the statue holding a key though…

Although you didn't need the overview. Huggy had only been out for a year by the time you started to work for the company, and you couldn't turn on the television or open a magazine without someone praising the fuzzy little thing. And, more important to you, you remembered the children proudly showing you drawings they had made of their favorite toy, Huggy being a frequent subject.

Walking off the road of Memory Lane, you stretched out your blue hand to the panel connecting to the power room, assuming that it would unlock, but you were wrong. The light indicating the handprint went out, and a convienent spark of electricity went along the wire to the power room.

The power room which happened to have a keyhole on the door…

You looked back at the Huggy statue. You were starting to think this wasn't a case of company neglience. You were getting the sense someone was leaving clues for you. But why? If whoever was here could leave clues, what was preventing them from leaving? Then again, the same could be asked as to how they could send a letter.

You used your hand to pull the key from the statue's hand, wincing at the feeling of the rope winding and unwinding. God you couldn't wait for when you could take this stupid thing off. You took the key and walked into the power room. Of course, it couldn't be as simple as switching the breaker. No, everything in this godforsaken factory had to be complicated whimsical. You walked over to the power source and intended to gain some electricity.

However, something else distracted you. It was a Boogie Bot head surrounded by what looked like a tiny explosion of blood. "What the hell…" you muttered. A simple inspection showed you similar spotches of blood over the walls.

You could feel your heartbeat begin to pick up. No. You couldn't afford that right now. "Mamie, give me strength." You prayed. You used your blue hand to conduct the electricity and wrapped the wire around the poles. With power returned, you walked out the door, although the relief you obtained from your job done vanished when you saw one simple thing. Or rather, when you didn't see one simple thing.

The Huggy statue was gone.

You tried to reason what could have happened, but the possibilites were limited. If someone had taken the Huggy statue, then it would have made enough noise for you to hear. On top of that, you had only left the lobby for five minutes. For something that big, it would have taken longer to move. Furthermore, if someone else was here, why would they steal the statue and not investigate the sounds of another person here.

No, you knew what happened. You only wanted to humor another possibility to try and comfort yourself.

The Huggy statue was an experiment.