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Aurora Chase was a beautiful young girl. She had silky black hair, piercing purple eyes, and delicate skin that had the color of a fresh baked brownie. She was a kind girl, and was particularly good at everything she did, but she struggled with some important things. Aurora found it exceedingly difficult to describe things and communicate her feelings, this frustrated her parents very much. At the age of four, her parents put her up for adoption, they said they did not have the capability to take care of her.
Aurora did not talk to or play with the other children; she simply sat at her window and drew as she watched the other kids got adopted. Watched as they would be driven away to their new happy lives. One day Aurora and ten other children were told that they were being moved to another orphanage, one run by a corporation called Playtime Co. Aurora watched with sadness as the other girls and boys hugged each other, gave each other gifts, and other kind gestures while no one so much as said bye to her.
It had only taken Aurora her first day at the Game Station to get top marks in all the different challenges. “Are you having a nice time Aurora?” Mommy Long legs asked. Aurora shrugged. She was sitting on a bench drawing a picture of a Bunzo hugging a Cat-Bee while listening to the other children laughing and talking while they chased each other up and down the playground structures. “Do you want to play with the others?” Mommy asked. Aurora did not do anything this time and just continued drawing as if she were the only one in the whole room.
“Mommy! Mommy! Look what I can do!” Shouted a little boy from across the room.
“Okay sweety!” Mommy looked down at Aurora, then left.
Later that night, Aurora and five other kids arrived at Playcare. Aurora unpacked her bag and left the room to grab dinner from the cafeteria. Unlike the other kids, Aurora decided to take her food back to her bedroom, she did not feel like being in a big crowd right now. When she returned to her room, there was a box with a note on her bed. “From me to you, love Elliot Ludwig.”
Aurora opened the package to find the most adorable toy inside, a cute little Craftycorn. She picked up the toy, placed it on the bed, and looked at it with awe. She could not remember the last time she had received a present. It stood up, looked up at her with seemingly equal awe and waved at her. Aurora quietly said, “Hello, I like your pendent, its very shiny.” Crafty corn jumped off the bed, grabbed a piece of paper and a crayon, drew something on it, and handed it to Aurora. She looked down at the piece of paper and saw that Craftycorn had drawn her a heart.
Since that day, Aurora and her Craftycorn did EVRYTHING together. Aurora only talked to Craftycorn, and Craftycorn went with her wherever she went. They seemed equally attached to each other. “What do you want to draw today Craftycorn?” Aurora asked her new friend. The toy pointed to Catnap. “You want to draw Catnap? Okay!” the two of them got to work on their works of art. “Wow! I love your shading Craftycorn! I wish I was as good as you.” Aurora said in awe. Her Craftycorn looked up at her with a smile. I mean yeah, Craftycorn always had a very large smile on her face, but Aurora could tell when Craftycorn really meant it.
A few days later, one of Craftycorn’s crayons broke. Aurora decided to leave to get her a new one. While she was walking in the halls, she heard a very terrifying noise. It sounded like screaming! She started running down the colorful painted hallways following the sound to see where it was coming from. As she got closer, she could tell it was a mixture of screaming, crying, and laughing, to her this was a very creepy mixture. Once she got steps away from the door it stopped. She looked in through a window on the door and saw a room filled with red smoke and children lying across the floor with something standing among them. A huge Catnap was walking around the children as red gas poured out of his mouth. The kids were having very restless or stressful dreams as they were mumbling and kicking themselves around the floor looking like fish out of water. Catnap turned his exceptionally large head around, but Aurora ducked away before he could see her. She was terrified! She needed Craftycorn, now, so she darted back to her room.
When she got back Craftycorn motioned in a way asking her why she was out of breath and asked her where the crayon was. Aurora began crying, “I don’t know what it was! I don’t know!” She started sobbing loudly and uncontrollably. Craftycorn was rubbing her back and then left. When Aurora opened her eyes Craftycorn handed her a piece of paper and a pencil. Aurora understood what she was being asked to do. She took the pencil and paper and drew what she saw, or rather what she was afraid of happening. She drew herself in the room with a sad, scared, screaming face, and a playroom that looked out of a horror film filled with red gas and Catnap lurking in the corner. When she was finished, she handed it to her friend. Craftycorn took one look at it and shook her head. “What do you mean no? No what?” Craftycorn pointed to her face in the picture. It grabbed the pencil, erased her face, and then redrew it, but changed it. She put a happy look on her face. Like she had just found out she had been adopted and was meeting her parents at Disneyworld. “Happy? They didn’t sound like they were happy Craftycorn.” But her friend insisted and wouldn’t let her change it back. She was trying to tell her that Catnap and the gas was nothing to fear. “So, its safe?” Craftycorn shook her head yes. She then started streaming out her jasmine scented gas, and Aurora fell asleep.
The next few days Craftycorn had been encouraging Aurora to get to know Catnap. Catnap had been joining them on their drawing sessions, joining them for lunch, things like that. Once Aurora knew him better, he didn’t seem that bad. Though when he looked at her in a certain way, she couldn’t help but see him in the creepy playroom, with the red gas, towering over the children lying all over the floor. She always had to remind herself that the smoke wasn’t bad. Craftycorn had explained through a series of drawings that Catnap’s red smoke was just like her clear jasmine smoke, it helped the kids fall asleep.
One day Aurora was told by one of the adults that she was needed in a certain room. As she was led down the hallway Aurora began to recognize the path, she was going to Catnap’s playroom. Aurora’s heart started pounding, she didn’t want to go there. She had to remember what Craftycorn said. She was demanding herself to think about Craftycorn and what they would do when she got to leave the playroom. “Alright little ones, we’re going to have you watch this little clip, okay? You might recognize some of your friends in it too.” Aurora turned attention to the TV and saw the Smiling Critters theme song begin to play. She loved that song, especially the Craftycorn part, which was her favorite. The episode was about the smiling critters needing Catnap’s help to sleep. Craftycorn was right, that is what the gas was used for. But she didn’t understand, she didn’t have trouble sleeping at all. She was about to tell this to one of the adults when she noticed they all had left the room. The only figure in there that wasn’t one of her fellow playmates was Catnap. He was just as she had drawn him, lurking in the corner, when red gas began to pour out of his mouth. Aurora watched around her as the gas was being breathed in by the children. At first everyone was either slightly frightened or curious. Then they all kind of just went insane. Everyone was jumping around on the walls screaming, crying, and jumping on top of each other. They had smiles on their faces, but not like how Craftycorn had drawn, these kids were crazy. Aurora was trying to hold her breath, to stop herself from entering the madness, but she felt herself joining them, feeling blindly happy, till everything went black and the last thing she saw was Catnap’s smiling face looming over her.
Layla was a charming young girl who spent most of her time drawing. She lived in a calm little neighborhood in Virginia where not a whole lot happened. She had been diagnosed with severe anxiety problems at a very young age and her parents wanted to help her. So, for her birthday, Layla got a Craftycorn. This toy helped her so much through her daily struggles, and the two did everything together.
As the years passed, obviously Layla grew up, but her love never changed for her childhood toy. Her Craftycorn stayed out and followed her around the house as she did her daily chores as a teenager. Layla decided that she wanted to help other people like her Craftycorn had helped her, so she became a child phycologist. A few years later, Layla found herself spending a lot of time at college. While Layla wasn’t at her dorm, her Craftycorn would draw pictures. That’s what life grew to be. Layla graduated college, and while she would go to work Craftycorn would draw. When she’d get home, her and Craftycorn would hang out and Layla would talk about her day. Every day was almost kind of identical, until one Friday afternoon in March.
When Layla got home, she found Craftycorn asleep. She had expected this because Layla had to get up earlier than normal that morning to visit a client and Craftycorn had woken with her. While the toy was asleep Layla decided to look through the drawings that Craftycorn had been making over the past few years. She had no idea what she was about to find.
She was aware that Craftycorn had placed all of the drawings in a little wooded bin, the toy had written “Special box” in purple crayon on it. She opened the lid and looked down at the art projects. The first picture looked fine, drawn very well, but the picture itself was a little confusing. It was a girl with purple eyes and skin the color of chocolate hugging a Craftycorn toy. Layla felt this was odd, she had never seen this child before, so how could her Craftycorn? “Perhaps it was just being creative.” Layla thought to herself. She looked down at the next drawing and heard herself scream. It was the same girl from before lying on the floor in a playroom with a psychotic smile on her face. The room was filled with red smoke and there was a large purple beast, which Layle recognized as one of the other Smiling Critters, Catnap, was looming in the corner. The smoke was coming from him.
There were millions of other pictures, all the same girl in the same state. Though some contained a Craftycorn forcing the girl to smile when she looked like she wanted to scream. There were also pictures of other Playtime Co. toys opened up with human parts inside of them such as brains, hearts, veins, and muscles. Layla sat on the living room floor speechless. “Craftycorn!” She shouted through the house. The little toy wobbled down the stairs looking tired and confused. “What are these?” Layla said, throwing the drawing over to the toy by sliding them across the wood floor. “These are horrific! Why are you drawing these!?” The toy looked down at the pictures and then pointed to her head. “Yes, I understand you thought of them, but why?” The toy shook its head. “No?” Layla said, confused with this answer. The Craftycorn grabbed a piece of paper and drew a rough drawing of itself in bed with a thought bubble full of Zs. “You… dreamed this?” The Craftycorn shook its head yes. “But it’s a toy, it can’t dream.” Layla mumbled to herself. She shook her head, picked up the toy, and put it in the attic. It was a problem for another day.
The next morning Layle turned on the news to have something to listen to why she ate her breakfast. “Breaking news about the popular toy industry known as Playtime Co.”
“What?” Layla mumbled in slight disbelief.
“After deep investigation, police have discovered that Playtime Co was an organization murdering the children that were put through the orphanage there. But many people are saying it was not a murder. Playtime Co used certain parts of the children to give life to their toys. Supposedly they also used this as a punishment for workers who threatened to expose the secret. If you own any of the toys in the following, call 443 879 4274 to get this human proper medical help and a good family. Call 443 678 2151 if you are interested in providing a home for one of these poor people. I will now list the toys. Catbee, Candycat, Bunzo Bunny, Mommy Long Legs, Huggy Wuggy, Kissy Missy, Bron, Poppy, or any of the Smiling Critters.” Layla turned the TV off and ran straight for her attic.
After many drawings and conversations Layla learned that her Craftycorn’s proper and preferred name was Aurora, that the little girl in all of the drawings was once her, and that she was very scared and confused. Layla decided to further her education, so she was licensed to help other people in Aurora’s situation psychiatrically. Aurora found lots of enjoyment in helping her new mom in these classes, so she became a little bit of a sidekick. She was extremely helpful in interpreting some of the other patients’ experiences and feelings. Aurora loved her new life. For once, she meant the permanent smile on her face. She was finally and forever happy.