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He remembers. It was night. The stars were out.
He could feel a cool breeze on his face, the moon’s gentle light making the blood matting his fur glisten.
He remembers a fullness he had never felt before. A satisfying one. One he would almost never achieve again.
He also remembers a prick on his ankle, looking down to see a dart with bright red feathers sticking out of him. He paid it no mind.
He remembers a house.
He remembers…
“7:58 AM. 1170 is waking up,” the intercom droned into the holding cell.
An unfittingly deep and animalistic groan came out of the giant blue toy as he lifted his head up. Disoriented, his gaze flitted around the cell he was in, taking note of the unfamiliar surroundings. It was colorful. Or, at least it was meant to be. He noticed most of the reds, blues, and yellows of the padded room had growing stains of dirt and grime and whatever else accumulating at the corners of them. There was a bright red steel door, cheerfully bolted shut with military grade bolts and locks, and a small glass viewing port in the center of it. A large window covered one side of the room, tinted black. Assumedly, it was one-way only.
He knew that after what had happened, there was no longer any use in keeping up appearances. The moment his vision cleared he charged at the window. Shrieking, he violently banged at the reinforced glass, showing off his rows of jagged teeth at the black screen. Saliva streaked across the surface and his haggard breath fogged up the window. Pausing for a moment to focus, he could just barely make out a small team of scientists on the other side. The woman who had been closest, at the microphone, had backed away. Her composure was visibly disrupted by the scare. Good.
The beast stared down the team, mouth still agape and drooling. Once the woman looked assured that the glass between them wouldn’t shatter, she stepped up to the microphone again.
“It seems that–”
SHRIEEEEEEK!
BANG BANG BANG!
This time, the scientist looked mildly annoyed. He liked that. She waited for a few more seconds before clearing her throat and trying again.
“...It seems that you had a big day, 1170. Why don’t we go over it a bit?”
The toy finally closed his mouth, satisfied at his work, and now uninterested in the crew behind the window. He turned and bumbled off to another portion of the cell as the intercom spoke. He stared down the back wall, letting his eyes trace the rigid seams of the padding as his arms swung in front of him.
“10:27 PM, June 18th. Yesterday evening. Despite the presence of security, you managed to break into the ventilation system and exit the facility through an open delivery bay door in the production wing. Does that sound correct?”
Though he was listening, the monster showed no signs of acknowledgement.
“It took all available security staff to track you down and bring you back just over five hours later at 3:45 AM, costing thousands of dollars not only in repairs to the factory, but also materials spent retrieving you.”
Again, he stood dumbly near the edge of the room. He breathed slowly, now realizing just how much the escape had taken a toll on his body. It admittedly wasn’t much for his heightened biology. But, any intense physical action at all was rare for him, and he still felt a dull ache on his body from a moment of clumsiness last night.
“Granted, some fault lies on behalf of not only the security team, but also the Innovation department and Playtime Co. as a whole. We were quite proud of your adequate intelligence and stellar obedience. But it appears now that your behavior wasn’t quite that, was it? Were you waiting for something?”
A long pause followed. If they were hoping to get a response out of him, it worked. Barely. The blue fur on his back bristled the tiniest bit. His gaze trailed right down to the floor. His paws curled. He could hear the scratching of pencil on paper from the speaker.
“The Innovation department has reevaluated your prior reports. Anything you are requested to do from now on will be overseen and scrutinized twice as much, and anywhere you go, you will be accompanied by three times the personnel.”
That got a rise out of him. Not only had they reminded him of his failure to escape, but now they gave him the cherry on top– making sure that he could never attempt such a thing again. Some deeper consciousness within him blamed himself. That it was his fault he flubbed what might’ve been his only shot at freedom. But what presented itself at the top of his mind was pure, unadulterated rage. He snarled, and paced the cell angrily before coming back to the window with a thud. He pressed his face and velcroed paws against it, attempting to intimidate the people on the other side once more. It held no effect now.
“This outcome does not please us either. The extra funds that could’ve been spent on more research, on the children, are now wasted on paychecks for a team that wouldn’t have needed to exist without your foolish actions.”
“But, rest assured that depending on your behavior in the coming years, these adjustments may not be permanent. On top of analyzing what has gone wrong with your training, we focused on finding a solution. A way to keep you… satisfied with your role here at Playtime Co.”
He huffed on the glass, fogging it up. His aggression didn’t falter, but his eyes dilated a little less.
“The Head of Playcare, Ms. Stella Greyber, has been working with staff here at the Shelf to ensure all subjects remain mentally stable and free of intense emotional episodes. Like yours.”
“We found that periods of socialization with other subjects in the block proves to be very effective at this. I’m sure you’ll find that spending time with a companion will boost your mood and perhaps even allow you to reflect more deeply on your outburst from yesterday. Now, if I’m not mistaken, I believe you have a visitor.”
He heard sounds coming from outside of his cell. Many little footsteps, accompanied by steady soft thuds. It sounded a lot like his own footsteps. He raised his head to look at the door.
Through the viewport, he could tell there was movement outside. He even heard talking, though muffled, through the walls.
“...No need to worry… be fine…”
“Anything… wrong… we’ll help…”
“...A new friend…”
“...Stay calm, okay…?”
The locks on the door began to loosen. They clunked and clacked, before a loud creak from the steel door notified the toy that something was about to be let in. The intercom buzzed again.
“8:09 AM. 1172 is placed into containment with 1170. Ending communication.”
The feed went silent. Unconsciously, he took a step back, mouth still agape as he waited to see what came through the door.
…
Pink.
That was his first thought. A yellow mitt like his clung to the inside of the door, and then he saw pink fur. Crouching through the entryway, the other subject was ushered in by specialists, causing it to stumble a little as the door was shut behind it. Once it had straightened up, it clutched onto one hand with the other. Its gaze followed the ground before shyly looking up at the experiment in front of it.
Beady eyes with huge dark pupils. A wide red smile, just like his. It looked exactly like him.
But it was pink.
And, very obviously, a girl.
The air in the room was thick enough to slice through with a butter knife. Clearly, neither of the two had ever been in a situation palpable to this one before. The blue toy had never interacted with others like him, let alone others… like him. The pink one slowly began to inch away from him. He noticed that, despite the similar stature, she was much meeker. The way she slouched over, and immediately went to rub at her arm. Her eyes constantly darting everywhere in the room, before settling at one place in particular. She was completely silent.
Oh, right, his teeth.
He shut his mouth, and pulled his paws away from the window. He still didn’t do much after that– wasn’t sure what to do, really. He slightly backed up against the wall, too. Maybe to not intimidate her. Maybe for some other reason.
…He really didn’t know what to do. It made him uncomfortable.
Fortunately, something about his gesture seemed to calm her. She lowered her arms, and now rather inquisitively looked him up and down. She appeared to be making the same realization about him as he did about her. She cocked her head a little.
When she took a step forward, he took two steps back. What on earth was going on? The lab-coats made thinly veiled threats towards him all the time, and he hardly bat an eye. Now this fuzzy pink clone was approaching him, and it troubled him deeply.
Unfortunately, this boosted the confidence of the other subject even more. She now steadily paced up to him, leaving him with no choice but to slink further into the back of the room until he was basically cornered on the floor himself. She finally raised one floppy arm of hers…
…and pet him gently on the head.
…Did she enjoy the feeling of his fur?
He reached his own arm up to peel her hand off of him. She let him, now swaying her arms happily at her side. To the blue toy, she looked like she was glad to have made a new friend. He then realized that she’s probably already been through a few of these ‘socialization periods’ before. Albeit, not with anyone as antsy as him. Her gaze followed him as he stood up. Even now at their full heights, he was still a good bit taller than her. It made it all the more embarrassing.
Racking through his brain, he finally recalled her actual name from some deep recess of his memory. This was Kissy Missy– almost as dopey of a name as Huggy Wuggy. He watched Kissy turn around and go up to the tinted window. Not very elegantly, she made a small waving motion with her hand. The intercom went up again.
“Let’s fetch you both something to draw with.”
A few minutes later, like magic, the door opened a smidge, and a good few sheets of paper plus a pack of crayons slid through. Huggy looked between her and the window as she went to collect her goods. How Kissy had learned to communicate with the lab-coats effectively– and not only that, but actually get what she wanted– was beyond him. Nevertheless, she shimmied the paper into the middle of the room, and scooped up the box of crayons. Kissy finally bared her teeth. They were just as sharp as his. And yet, she merely used them to hook onto the cardboard and free the crayons from their packaging. She spilled them all onto the floor, and gazed over them before picking one up and waddling back over to Huggy, who was still watching her from afar.
She stopped right in front of him, and lifted up her hand. She unfurled her fingers to reveal the crayon before offering it up to him. It was blue.
He raised his own hand, and accepted it.