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“He- he just disappeared,” the woman sobbed, “I had him in my arms and he just disappeared…”
The receptionist at Roblox HQ took down the details the woman gave, but before she could ask for elaboration with all the tact of a sledgehammer, her superior swooped down to tap her on the shoulder, “I’ll take it from here.”
Brighteyes rounded the desk to where the woman clutched the edge so tightly her knuckles were white.
The woman looked to be in her early 30’s, dressed in a soft greenish-blue sweater with a large patch of blood on her right sleeve, and a smaller patch all along the left cuff. Her hair consisted of a large ice-cream cone dripping down her head, but it was neither cold nor viscous as Brighteyes gently put a hand on her shoulder to lead her out of the lobby, “it’s alright miss, just come with me.”
Brighteyes guided the woman to a break room on the first floor, urging her to sit down on a beat up leather couch by the door. She gratefully took the tissue Brighteyes offered to clear the snot from her sinuses so she could get more than a few incoherent noises out.
It didn’t work, as the moment she tried to articulate what had happened, she broke down even harder. How does she explain that her son was there and then he wasn’t? That he was in her arms and then he was not?
“Take your time, miss,” Brighteyes said, placing a hand on the woman’s shoulder, “let’s start small. I’m Brighteyes, a senior admin. Can you tell me your name?”
“It’s-,” the woman choked out between heaving gasps, “it’s 118o8.”
*** 12 YEARS AGO ***
118o8 is selfish, she knows this. She’s fresh out of college, fresh out of a breakup with the only girlfriend she’s ever had, fresh out of any reason to keep going. It’s so very selfish of her to want to keep the baby she found dumped on the side of the road.
She doesn’t want to care for it because it’s so small, undeserving of dying in a ditch having never lived at all. She’s just selfish. That’s it.
When the sweet cherub whines and reaches for her every time she tries to set him down, it is selfish. When he giggles and grabs at her hair, it is selfish. When he fusses and refuses food, and she’s in hysterics in a paediatric clinic’s waiting room ten minutes later, it is selfish.
She is selfish, but she will never regret raising her son.
***
Brighteyes wasn’t in her office. Brighteyes had previously needed to be restrained to keep her from leaving Roblox HQ and vanishing like four other admins already had. Brighteyes wasn’t in her office.
Clockwork was understandably concerned, and his concern manifested as him teleporting straight down to the reception desk, appearing behind the poor receptionist like the grim reaper coming for her soul. She didn’t move an inch, asking placidly, “do you need anything, sir?”
“Have you seen Brighteyes-“
“She’s in break room A1, sir.”
Oh, well. It’s good she hadn’t left Roblox HQ, but what was she doing in a random break room?
Clockwork nodded awkwardly to the receptionist and began walking to the break room she’d specified, definitely not bringing up the layout of Roblox HQ on his admin panel to find where to go.
He didn’t know what to expect when he came up to the door, pressing his ear against it. Crying was what he expected, and indeed it was what he heard. Except he also heard Brighteyes speaking softly, definitely not the one crying. Clockwork had all of five seconds to be mildly confused before a notification popped up on his admin panel. It was from Brighteyes, and said simply:
Open a new case file
His name is Bluudud