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Shanon took her keycard from her pocket and scanned it. The elevator creaked open, slightly startling her. It was empty just with a few splashes of ichor here and there. She hesitantly entered and then hit the number ‘15’ on the number pad. She put the keycard back in her pocket as sweat started dripping from her face. She was anxious that Delilah or Arthur would stumble upon her and arrest her on the spot. She had already lost her job of being Shelly’s toon handler and she wasn’t even supposed to be here because of it. The keycard wasn’t even hers either, it was Austin’s. He only agreed to give it to her under the condition that 1.) it was his turn for the night shift and 2.) she wouldn’t disrupt other toons while she met with Shelly for the last time. She just didn’t want to leave Shelly behind without knowing the reason why or even a goodbye. After all, Shelly reminded her of her little sister who died years ago. The blonde-haired girl shook her head, shaking away those thoughts of her little sister, Charlie. She didn’t want to think about Charlie, those memories still hurt her even years later. Instead, she began to hum a song that both she and Shelly liked. It was Linger by the Cranberries.
She remembered when she first introduced Shelly to music, it was around the first month that they first met each other. Every toon had a sense of music with just sounds but not music with lyrics. To perform music, they would clap with their hands and feet but nothing else. They weren’t programmed to actually sing for real.
One day, she brought her walkman to keep herself company when Shelly was playing with other toons. However, when she played Linger by the Cranberries, Shelly was awestruck by it and walked to her. She started to bop around and try to mouth out the lyrics but it was a broken rhythm. This made her, Shannon, giggle and try to get Shelly to sing in more of an accurate rhythm but Shelly couldn’t. At first, Shelly was confused as to why she was getting laughed at but joined in with her handler and bopped with her head more. Shanon later explained to Shelly it wasn’t supposed to be a happy song as Shelly previously thought. Shelly didn’t care as long as they were having fun.
Oh how the time has flown by, Shanon thought. Her thoughts were interrupted by the constant clicking of the elevator. She forgot she was in the wonky elevator. Oh well. After a few more seconds, the elevator opened to Shelly’s floor. It was dark and empty and she could barely see anything. Luckily Austin gave her a spare flashlight and she flicked it on. It wasn’t strong but at least she could see what was in front of her. She exited the elevator and the elevator clicked and closed, scaring her a little. God, she hated that elevator. With her flashlight, she went looking for her toon and also possibly turning on the generator. Each floor was connected to the generator downstairs except for personalized rooms like Shelly’s which was in a spot in the room itself. That also meant that she had to fill all of the 4 machines with ichor and then turn on the generator. She sighed and thought “Anything to wish Shelly goodbye I guess”. She memorized the entire layout of the room but navigated in the dark? No way. Luckily she knew where the first one was because it was near the elevator.
She headed towards that one and put the flashlight in her mouth as she generated ichor for it as she spun the wheel. When she was done, she heard the click signal that it was done but she also heard a strange roaring noise. Strange, every toon should be in their respective rooms or the rainbow rooms at this hour. Shelly should be the only one on this floor but she was always powered off at the end of the day to conserve energy or she, Shanon would tell Shelly “it was sleeping”. “Maybe I’m just anxious about getting caught,” Shanon thought to herself. She took out the flashlight from her mouth and back into her hands, continuing her journey of trying to power on the room and wishing Shelly goodbye. As she continued to generate ichor for the remaining machines, the strange roaring noise became louder and louder. Eventually, the last machine was near Shanon’s personal favorite area of the floor. It was near the sandpits where Shelly and other toons liked to dig up and find “treasures” (placed by the toon handlers of course). She ran there but she was stopped by what seemed to be Shelly herself.
“Shelly! What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?” Shanon said, crouching down to her height and shining the flashlight at her. The toon didn’t respond and stared at her blankly with red eyes. Red eyes. Huh, maybe Shelly was malfunctioning. After all, Dandy started malfunctioning when she was fired. “Hey Shelly! Look I'm not supposed to be here but I have to go forever. I’m sorry, okay? I really loved being your toon handler. I’m really sorry Shelly. I really am.” She babbled on and went to hug the toon but then she felt something pierce through her chest. Shelly had stabbed her with her favorite digging tool covered with a huge amount of ichor. Instantly Shanon fell backwards hitting her head against the floor. Her vision was blurry and all she could see was her toon glancing at her.
“Oh Shelly” She murmured and tried to reach out but her arms felt too heavy for her to lift up so they dropped back to the floor before closing her eyes.