Chapter Text
All your media content is suddenly floated with some new ARG everyone seems to love, here's this... yellow little fellow with Elvis Presley vibes or whatever and everyone's getting nuts about him along with his other friends, a big dog, a pink girl, a mail man, a big bird and some grey grumpy guy? What? I mean, the character design is pretty, I guess... but checking out you find out there's very little information about it, only some secrets in a colorful website.
Your eyes got more used to see this fellow wherever you look at, fanart, fanfiction, animatic, even audios of him! He have so many simps all over him, even some of your friends seems to be in the "Welcome home" fandom, and they're bombarding you with random info about the characters, you just don't get it, to you, it is like falling in love with Kermit the frog! Are you perhaps missing something? Or everyone is just... weird?
Your daily life seems rather same as before, wake up, breakfast, school/work, getting home, dine, sleep... the same routine as ever, the only difference is your media content, you're getting a bit annoyed by all the welcome home content infesting your apps, when is this going to end? You want to see other things already, but it's been the same for now two week straight.
You turn off your phone, resting your eyes and head and willing to sleep already, but then you received a call, you're not in the mood for taking it but it insist so much you finally pick up.
— Hello?
☆: ....
— Hi??
☆: ...
But no one answers, rolling your eyes you hang up, who would call you this late? But yeah, whatever, let's get some rest...
Incoming call again, the same number as before, thinking about answering or not you finally decide to take the call.
— Hello, who's this?
☆: Hello... Hello... neighbor
— What? Witch one? I never give my number to any of my neighbors, how did you get it?
☆: Ha...ha...ha... I can see you, neighbor, do you see me?
— Wha...
That voice resounds in your head, somewhere in your brain is telling you you do know that voice, but where? Think harder, solve the puzzle.
— What do you mean by that? What do you want? You're like... stalking me?
☆: You gave me free access to you life, your daily media consume, but I do not understand... why don't you like me?
— The fuck you talking about? Listen, I'm not scared of your threatening, you lame scammer, go call someone else and get lost.
You hang up and turn off your phone, this time for real, how bold of him to call you and wake you up, it's not the first time someone tries to extort you on the phone but luckily you know how to recognize scammers.
You want to get back to sleep but a weird feeling inside you doesn't let you rest well, you spin on the bed, stand up to drink water, try to sleep again but nothing, stand up again and wash your face, drink a glass of milk, but nothing helps you get back to sleep, you groan and let you body fall on the bed again, you're bored, so you turn on your phone again, but something weird about it makes you feel uneasy, you know the phone is turn on but the screen is pitch black, only a faint light coming from the device, you're sure you haven't drop your phone at all, maybe this is a glitch? Restarting the phone would do any changes? You try to but nothing happens, it's like the phone screen is freeze, you get a little scared something's wrong with your mobile, you only have one and you need it for your work and school, you shake it in a weird attempt to make it react and when you look at the screen again the only thing on the screen is a pair of eyes looking directly at you.
That weird feeling inside you increases, like when you're watching a horror film, you turn the lights on to make yourself feel safe, maybe it's a virus your phone got infected in some sketchy website? You try to remember anything unusual but you got nothing to think of, you didn't downloaded anything illegal nor visited weird pages in search of... some kind of specific content... the only different website you visited recently was the welcome home page, but it didn't seem like a threat at all, just like a silly horror game or something.
☆: Hello... neighbor... I want us to meet... soon... really soon... I hope that doesn't bother you at all...
That monotonous voice speaking through your phone scared the heaven out of you, and something clicked quickly, finally aware who's that voice coming from the other side... no one else than... Wally? The puppet??? But he's fictional... well, maybe it is his voice actor, or some other trick coming from the ARG itself, another thing made up to scare fans, so your best guess is this is indeed some kind of virus, an image along with a voice record of the actor playing as Wally Darling, now your o ly worry it's that this virus wear off soon.
☆: Ah... playing hard to get? Okay... take your time to answer... however it's not like you can decide what's gonna happen next... neighbor.
You are kinda curious about saying something to your phone but... you'll feel really stupid if you speak to your mobile and it is indeed just a recording, so you just ignore it and turn on the TV, whatever background noise will distract you from your insomnia.
Unexpectedly you're fast asleep, the TV stills on projecting a random show until the signal is off, only showing color bars and static noise, in your dreams that little yello guy shows once again, you can't remember right what he does or what he says, discomfort swallows your entire being and wakes you up abruptly, panting and sit on the bed.
You take a deep breath and calm your heart, still feeling weird, like you're in someone else's body, looking at your hands they're a weird color, your skin feels weird too, like... fabric? Shaking your head and looking to your sides every single thing is ridiculously colorful, standing up from the bed and rushing to the nearest mirror you almost scream but the shock is too much to even react, what is wrong with you? Why are you... a puppet!? What in the world!? No, no, maybe you're still on a dream, right? A nightmare better to say, this doesn't make any sense at all, people doesn't just turn into a puppet just for the laughs, but... you can breath, you can feel, you can move by your own, if this is a dream... you can change whatever you want, right? Okay then let's make something appear! Like... a glass of water!
...
Or a flower!
...
Or... a cow??
...
But nothing changes, still, you can't conceive that this might not be a dream, this is just too bizarre to not be, you prefer to not think about it if you don't want to fall into panic.
Just... go with the flow, and everything it's gonna be okay, maybe going to sleep again is the best option, so you lay down again and cover yourself with the blanket.
☆: Good night... neighbor...