Chapter Text
A decent-looking lamp dimly lit the room. Poppy could have at least asked Vee to hand her one of her intense flashlights, nevertheless, even if she did try, Vee would try to convince her that all her flashlights were either broken or missing, probably from Flutter. Her hand found its way to an old tape recording from the show, titled "Poppy's Big Act," signed with a bold black marker. She slipped the old tape into a recorder, weird how it was conveniently placed where she could reach it. The girl paid all her attention to the recording, if she could recall. It was a season special, about her being worried about what she should do for the show's first anniversary. All her friends suggesting wacky ideas following a montage of that same idea. Delilah recorded all of the audios from the existing episodes and jammed them all into one tape, well, multiple tapes, but she tended to gumble short episodes together.
"Poppy! How will we ever find a solution for this!" Looey cried, his voice shaken up with some sort of mix of fear and concern.
"Don't worry, my good friend! I'll find a solution," She said it so happily as if she wasn't terrified either.
She glanced around the disheveled room, packed with the latest and oldest types of products they sold in the place's prime. Lunchbooks, plush dolls, and some coloring books, Tisha would probably pass out if she ever even caught a glance of it. The recording kept playing, but her mind had already wandered somewhere else, a familiar setting.
Qfhyb vyvjuudjx,.---- ----. ----. --...
The episode projected on the screen, eager kids watched while others casually rested their tired souls on the available beanbags. It was a normal day, to say at least, nothing really ever happened on such days. It was like a cycle. wake up, eat, smile, sleep, and any other added things to brighten up the bland days. Poppy thought, yawning as she leaned against the wall in the projector room, she had found her way in it by growing fascinated with the weird, filmy things used to show such exquisite pictures. So she decided the best route was to sneak out of her room and slip into the projector room, hundreds if not thousands, of those same things were stacked on the shelf. Neatly organized by letter, she held one, taking it out with great struggle and observing it like how Shelly examined the new dinosaur bone bought for her, Sinosauropteryx, she thinks? She really doesn't know, but due to her curiosity it seemed to kill the cat or in her case, pop the bubble.
Now here she is, holding the same thing she was curious about. It was beyond repair, pieces scattered all over the floor like building blocks. Her expression puzzled, then growing into a more petrified look as the door slowly pushed open, realizing who was on the other side. She panicked, hiding the evidence under tables, under shelves. Even hiding it behind her back, but despite all her efforts, it was more than obvious.
"Poppy? What are you doing here?" Arthur had budged the door open.
"Poppy! What's with the mess in here?" Delilah observed the scattered parts around the room, her face being an obvious indicator that she was annoyed.
She didn't have the heart to tell them the truth; she opened her mouth, then closed it, unable to utter a word. She was shaking at this point; she really didn't mind Delilah. She was cold and rude at times, but she had a good heart. If anything, she was scared of what Arthur would think. Even if he was optimistic and nice, she knew what would happen if she ever did something that would anger him in the slightest. Arthur was like a different person when angered.
She felt little droplets come out; her knees seemed to weaken under the weight. She felt guilty, she felt remorseful. However, it was the only thing she was capable of doing.
She can't go back, the action has already been done.
"Oh god, please tell me you didn't break anything in the room," the woman sighed. "I think she broke one of the film recordings." She had put the pieces together right away, pointing out everything that looked wrong or out of place. After that confrontation the three stayed quiet.
...
What happened after that again?
As much as she can remember, what had happen after that didn't seem to come up. It was like it was simply erased from her mind, like a blank space her Brain was trying to fill.
"Oh my, look at the time!" The ticking clock at the top of the room displayed it being around noon, or she thinks that's what it's called, Delilah didn't even bother teaching them any words outside of their lines in the show. It was time for her art making with scarps! Such an exciting activity, she wouldn't miss it for the world! She placed the delicate tape recorder wherever there was available space in the room, trying to avoid stepping on all the dispersed items on the floor.
The door shut close as she exited her gloomy room,walking around, she observed her over saturated posters and hundreds, if not thousands,Poppy's World merch stored on freakishly tall shelves. One in a kind she would say, the corridor heading to her room was long, like a never-ending hallway that goes on forever. Its was cool to have her very own section but lonely at the same time, no annoying nagging or any banging of pots or pans would seem like heaven to her, however,she was used to it. Even endearing if it wasn't to bad.
She tried to ignore the stinging pains on her wrists, having gripped it to hard while reminiscing about that little memory. After what had felt like hours, in reality it being only a few minutes.she reached the elevator door, of course decorated with gorgeous portraits of her from the kids that visited, she stepped in.
Nothing seemed to entertaining about the elevator, a bland elevator used for transport for the staff and toons. Far different from the stunning beauty the guest elevators had. She recalls trying to plaster her drawings on the walls of the staff rooms. When she checked that same afternoon the papers seemed to have been ripped off,any bits of it visible inside the trash.
Seemingly familiar music played from the speakers inside.
"I hear the secrets that you keep "
Strangely that phrase seemed to make her shiver, the thought of someone knowing any of her secrets while she slept seemed to bother her alot. The song kept playing while descending down, it's catchy tune seemed to captivate her, turning into a unforgettable experience. Literally
The elevator finally reached the toon rooms, where scarps and her brother resided. It was clear that the kitchen in this floor was consider useless at this point, the dust ridden counter and the empty fridge a huge sign of it.
In front of the origami cat's room, she knocked, exactly three times before the doors was answered. Geez, having the show's value lessons was to be clean and sanitized, this room seemed to turn that upside. With the dried paint covering all over the walls and the crinkled papers you would think this room was made to be a garbage shoot.
"Oh hello Poppy! Would you like a origami cat I made! " Scarps held the hand made creation, shoving it up her slippery face. Poppy giggle, picking up the small origami with her fingers and setting it on her palm.
"Wowie scarps! This looks wonderful! Wanna go to the arts room to start making beautiful crafts! " Poppy swore she saw scarps eyes light up, scarps nodded, holding Poppy's hand and leading her to the elevator.
"Scarps, just be careful with the scissors" Goob, scarp's younger yet more protective brother called out, goob was fluffy to say the least with stretchy arms to wrap around things and pull towards. The yellow cat papercraft gave a thumbs up, her grin going larger as goob nodded, even if he was unsure of it he didn't want her persistent side to show again.
As the two girls entered the elevator, Poppy still held on to the gift scarps presented to her earlier. Scarps was talking about her day to day life, some silly shenanigans that the regular toons would get into. Poppy loved listening to her stumble upon some words sometimes, it made her laugh if she was honest on how optimistic Scarps was.
The two ended up in the art rooms after around two floors, heading into Scarps department. It was messy, yes but it held to much memories that couldn't simply be cleaned off (much to the dismay of tisha after seeing how dirty it was)
"Now let's get started, first what would you like to create" Scarps held up three cards, each having one picture that would be the topic of today's lesson. Whenever it was time for her class, her handler made sure to give her three different cards, never the same in a way that made every lesson seem new. Similarly, they used it for brusha's art gallery also, changing the portraits each week depending on her mood so it would match her energy.
Poppy pointed to the easiest one, a simple origami star. Scarps, whenever it was chosen, would bring out her gigantic tub full of each star a child has made. Apparently, she was collecting and making them for good luck in gardenview, guess that didn't work when their creators left them but oh well.
Scarps pulled out some long paper strips, handing a few over to poppy. "You know what to do pops" Scarps started on hers, her long claws being a pain in the chest for her since it would always rip the paper. Poppy remained silent as she wrapped the paper, stealing a few glances from scarps while she worked.
"Hey scarps, can I ask you something"
"Yea? "
"What happened to that jar you had when the show wasn't in hiatus" Poppy used the word 'hiatus' to at least keep all the other unsuspecting toons out of this.
"Oh! Uh, it broke" The silence dampened between them.
"What? How? "
"It's a long story really" Scarps didn't dare look at the bubble girl at this point, tears swelling up as she tried to keep them in.
"... "
"Scarps, please just tell me"
"... "
"Scarps"
Poppy used her hand to touch Scarps's cheek, making scarps look her in the face. It wasn't to hard to guess what would happen next, scarps just let the dam holding her back break, leaning onto poppy as she wept, poppy casually let scarps do so.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! "
"What do you mean by that? " Poppy asked
"I got so mad one time that I just lost control! I broke all of our hard work just because I-I! -"
Poppy let her cry, she knew what it was like, to have something you have worked so hard, something you cherished, to be broken, to never be fixed again.
Scarps didn't finish what she had said but poppy knew enough.
They stayed there for a while, not moving, no saying anything. Just a calm, soothing atmosphere accompanied them, the world seemed to melt into nothing as they felt like they were the two true beings in this unforgiving world.
"Thank you poppy"
"Don't worry scarps, you can tell me anything"
The two eventually finished the craft, scarps having made a total of sixty two. There wasn't much talking after that but that's all they needed, their each other's presence, it was enough.
"Should we go back down now? "
"Yea" Scarps sniffed, leaving the tiny chair clearly meant for children. They approached the elevator, clicking the button to it as they enter, soon after that they reached scarp's floor, saying goodbyes to each other's like good friends do.
Normally, poppy would head back into her room. In contrast to that, she instead went to the looby. Her fellow and dear friends sitting on the benches.
"Welcome back to the surface my dear friends! " They all stayed quiet, their breath steady as they turned to look.
"Head back to your rooms, your free to do anything tomorrow" Poppy smiled, they all said there goodbyes to eachother as they took the elevator back to their floors. She sensed they were tense, both mentally and physically.
The lobby was empty at this point but she could still feel a set of eyes on her, a permanent effect of how many kids and adults, stared at her like she was a alien, Technically she was but it wasn't like that.
"Huh, why is the pipes dripping water? " she wondered, feeling something wet drip from the ceiling
"I'll get Tisha or Boxten to check up on that later"