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Poppy was crying, and her tears seeped through the cracks in her porcelain face.
“No, this can’t be… How did I let this happen? How could it end so badly? Where did I go wrong? No… this can’t be real,” she repeated to herself in sorrowful murmurs and quiet lamentations. Her plan had failed spectacularly, and she had become the greatest laughingstock in the entire factory.
She had had faith, she truly had wanted, with all her soul, to believe that the hell she had lived in for more than a decade would finally come to an end with the arrival of that formidable employee. If the people in that terrible company had begun the martyrdom of hundreds and hundreds of children, wasn’t it only fitting that one of them should put an end to it? That was why she saw an opportunity and dared to believe. Above all, she found the courage to rebel against the Prototype. She remembered when the human survived the train crash, yes, she had caused it, but seeing him rise even after that had only reignited her ambition. She believed she could trust him to keep surviving long enough to bring about real change.
She had spent the last few years locked inside a glass case, unable to communicate with her friends or move freely. Her body, though it did not seem so, had atrophied somewhat from the inability to move, and it hurt to bend her legs, stretch out her arms, or look up. Yet the physical pain she had endured then was nothing compared to the pain she now felt deep within her heart.
After the Hour of Joy, the factory was a disaster that only worsened with the years. With every blink it seemed that something else rusted, broke, or crumbled beneath her feet. Just like the children they had once played with, all of them were now being eroded by the passage of time. Poppy suffered from possessing the consciousness of an adult woman within the eternal body of such a small, helpless child.
A sigh slipped from her lips. It was life’s bittersweet irony: she had fought as best she could to change her situation, to improve the way they lived, yet she had only made things worse. Or rather, she had returned to the starting point. Locked inside a glass case, standing on a small red cushion, with no room for anything more.
“Are you bored being all alone, Poppy?”
The Prototype had appeared out of nowhere beside her glass case. In his cynical manner, he used Ollie’s voice, the supposed ally and friend of Poppy’s, to ask what she wanted to improve her mood. The doll startled at the sound; she would never truly grow accustomed to watching him come and go, most often just to make sure she was still there, just as miserable as ever. She was already so sad that she couldn’t imagine a way he could make her feel worse than she already did, so she simply answered in a whisper, “I just wish… I could see Kissy or the employee. I have… I have so many apologies to give them both, but now I never will. I miss them so much.” Her voice grew softer with every word.
“Ah, is that all you want, dear Poppy?” The Prototype bore the company’s eternal smile, and yet in moments like this, when he delighted in being the cause of such deep emotions in poor Poppy’s heart, his smile seemed to widen. More genuine, even. Poppy could see it and think he was mocking her, but he was merely a little pleased. He never had ulterior motives; he was always very clear and direct about his desires. And so, of course, he wanted to improve his precious doll’s mood. “If that’s the case, you’ll love what I have prepared for you! Haha, it will be a delight to see your face then,” he said in a robotic tone, the closest thing to his real voice, savoring the growing panic in the doll’s expression.
“Wait—what are you going to do?” She snapped out of her daze to look at him, but her sudden desperation did not reach him.
“Oh, just wait and see~, my little surprise for you.” The Prototype left the room where he kept the doll confined. Previously, he had given her the gift of being kept away from everything that happened beneath the factory. No longer. He wanted her to see, to know she was secured in his grasp, and that never again, in all the years they had left to live, would some unbearable human —or toy—come offering her false hopes of escape.
Poppy knew she never should have left her box. Now it was even smaller, fitted with a lock that would only open with the key the Prototype wore as a necklace around his neck. He never opened her box, so it was strange to see him so attached to that key. It seemed like yet another way to torment the poor doll, showing her how close freedom was, and at the same time how impossibly out of reach. In there, time had lost all meaning. She did not bother trying to count the moments before the Prototype returned; honestly, she did not want him to.
But then she heard the sound of his metallic legs striking against the floor, very clearly this time. In addition, she could also make out the noise of something dragging along the ground, hitting the broken pieces that got in its way; Poppy’s nervousness only grew with each passing second.
“Oh, Poppy, are you ready?” the Prototype stuck his head through the doorway, capturing the doll’s expectant gaze. He then stepped inside, and Poppy noticed his uneven way of walking. His legs usually allowed him to maintain a very steady balance, but now he seemed to be limping. The reason for this became apparent when he fully entered the room, and between his fingers hung the bodies of Kissy and that employee who had once given her hope. “Surprise, dear Poppy! Now you’ll be able to see them every day, you won’t miss them anymore,” he raised his arms and brought them even closer to the box, leaving both of their faces within Poppy’s reach. “You can eat the flesh and leave their skin and bones; they’ll keep just fine.”
The doll was stunned; the last breath left her body before she could form any words from the shock. “Kissy… she was my friend,” barely slipped from her lips in a thread of a voice. “You knew… you knew how much she meant to me. How do you expect me to—?”
The Prototype lifted Kissy; the teeth of his jaw retracted enough to reveal a small opening, and he sank them into the shoulder where the bigger body was missing an arm. A piece of muscle tore easily from the rest of the body while a dark reddish liquid spilled from the opening. “There you have it, opened for you,” he moved toward the former employee, ready to repeat the action, but stopped when he heard the doll’s whimpering.
“AHHHHH! No, I don’t want this, stop!” The doll’s tears mingled with her screams as soon as she saw them clearly. She tried to pull away, retreating as far as she could, and looked up at the Prototype with uneven breathing. Deep down, she was grateful that her friend’s and the former employee’s eyes were closed; she would not have been able to bear looking at them lifeless. “I won’t eat them! They were important to me, how can you suggest this?”
The Prototype shook the bodies and slammed the human against the floor. “What is it that they have that’s so important to you?! What have they done that I haven’t, for you to mourn their deaths while you conspired against me?!” His voice was more unstable, making it difficult to interpret him.
“Don’t do that… don’t treat them like that.”
“Oh, didn’t you like it?” he tilted his head. With complete carelessness, he let the bodies slide from his fingers until they finally hit the floor with a heavy thud. Then he shook the blood from his hands with disdain and turned his attention back to the girl trapped inside. “I had put so much effort into bringing them to you just as they were.” One of his elongated fingers traced the glass of the box, right where the doll’s neck would be. “You know they wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway. The smaller toys are like ants, always searching for new sources of food to devour as a swarm.” As he spoke, he circled Poppy’s box, walking around it. “In fact, I think they look very intact considering several days have already passed since I took care of them. As for the taste, you shouldn’t notice anything wrong.”
There was no real way to know how much time had passed. The Prototype had certainly stopped thinking of time in terms of days, hours, or even minutes. Things simply existed and then were corroded or entered a state of decay. Those corpses were in perfect condition; not much time could have passed.
“Take them out of here, take them out now. I don’t want to keep looking at them any longer.” She kept her eyes closed despite hearing the Prototype walking around; it made her terribly nervous, but she didn’t want to open her eyes again and be faced with the lifeless bodies. Once more, she felt powerless. “You got my reaction, t-that’s what you wanted, right? You have it now… so take them out of here.”
The Prototype sighed. “No, no, no, dear Poppy. That’s not the way to ask me to do something.” He grabbed the glass box and tilted it forward; Poppy had to brace her arms in front of her to avoid crashing into the glass when she felt the sudden movement. She finally opened her eyes, only to be met with the terrifying sight of the corpses carelessly thrown onto the floor. The Prototype’s voice came out harsher. “You are not the one who gives orders here—I am. I thought we had already made that clear. It seems you need a reminder.”
He took the small key hanging from his neck and brought it to the box’s lock, ready to open it. Poppy shuddered. Even though the box was as fragile as she was, the distance it provided gave her a false sense of security, and she was grateful that most of the time it made it impossible for the Prototype to touch her. She hated leaving her glass cage if the Prototype was the one setting her free.
“There’s no need, there’s no need, Prototype. I… I understand, I swear I understand! I’m sorry, it startled me and I forgot. It won’t happen again. Never,” she sobbed as the key opened the small padlock and the sound of a click was heard.
“How touching your swift understanding.” With the padlock removed, he tossed it to the floor carelessly. “A pity it arrived so late. I’m glad you understand it now. Pain is often an excellent teacher. Now…” He gently held the doll by the head, using measured strength to barely lift her, ignoring her whimpers of pain. With his free hand, he ran one of his fingers along the cracks that marred her face. “Dear Poppy, you have no idea how much I hate the thought of causing you so much harm. If only you had listened to me, all the troubles you’ve gone through would never have happened in the first place. Do you know something, Poppy? I think you still look just as beautiful as ever. After all, beneath these cracks, the dust, and the wounds, you are still you.”
But the Prototype’s words, as real and sincere as they could be coming from someone so cruel, would never reach someone as wounded as Poppy.
So Poppy forced herself to keep her single eye closed while stifling a sob. The truth was that she was terrified, straining with all her might not to cry again, though in reality there was nothing else she could do. As her face twisted, the Prototype simply felt pleased to have his doll so close. He had certainly been annoyed all the time he knew she had been wandering freely between the floors, avoiding him.
“Come on, Poppy, I’m sure you must have a few words to answer me—or did the cat get your tongue?” He raised his hand, bringing the doll’s face even closer. “You used to be so willing to listen to me and obey me. When I called you, you never questioned anything I said.” He imitated Ollie’s voice again, sending a shiver through the doll. “Maybe at the beginning, when you asked for proof to know whether to trust me, but you changed your mind very quickly, didn’t you? Tell me, you knew it was me the whole time, didn’t you? Did you enjoy our little game? Do you like it when I use this voice?” He spoke softly, not letting his desperation show too quickly. “It was so easy for you to talk about how much you trusted me. You even said you considered me a special friend. Yet it’s so hard for you to answer when I confess my adoration for you. I’m quite sure that, if you couldn’t see me, you would have even said how much you love me.”
He longed to see her broken not only on the outside, but in her spirit as well. To have her very being forever marked by loss and shock. But Poppy was losing patience with every new word that came from that creature’s speakers. She gathered the courage to stand her ground.
“No!” the doll finally answered, desperate. “I wouldn’t have done it then, and I wouldn’t now,” she replied with renewed bravery, opening her eyes and giving the Prototype an accusatory glare. For a second the Prototype looked genuinely surprised. He quickly straightened his posture and looked sternly at the defenseless doll. She wasn’t going to stop now. “And you’re not as invincible as you imagine…”
The Prototype had a small weakness. He might believe he held her in the palm of his hand, locked within the prison of his authority, but no matter how much he wished to conceal what he was vulnerable to, with time —and with the cracks— it became increasingly evident: Poppy. The only one capable of shaking that wicked being to his very core. She had long since lost her fear of dying; that was precisely why her plan to explore the factory had never truly included a viable escape route, but the human didn’t need to know that. She was willing to die and take the Prototype down with her, and that was why she ended up locked away, to protect her from herself. It was the only thing the Prototype had ever known within the Playtime Co system: to lock away what was uncontrollable, what was dangerous, what threatened its own existence.
The truth was that she had already lost the most important people in her life and had resigned herself to the rest. She also knew that the Prototype would never kill her. He would never grant her the gift of ending all her suffering as he did with Catnap. She wanted to be brave, she truly did.
That rejection wounded the Prototype like nothing else in the world. Every time he opened his heart to Poppy, she stabbed him as though he were rotten, fetid, undesirable flesh beneath her hands, disgusted by the mere sight of him. The idea of being regarded that way affected him deeply; he wanted to be everything to the doll, a confidant, the voice that guided her decisions, the constant shadow behind every step she took, the only name her small lips would utter, the answer to her doubts, the comfort for her tears, the reason she breathed, the thought that interrupted all others, all of that, and not merely the nightmare that tormented her in life, day and night, no matter how much he relished the idea.
He suffered greatly because of her as well; the difference was that when Poppy cried, he was there for her. The reverse would never be true. Certainly not when she looked at him with such contempt and venom in her words.
“Why do you refuse so much to give me the pleasure of hearing it from your lips? Poppy, say it, say that you love me.”
“N-No!”
One of the Prototype’s fingers rested against the cracks on the doll’s face, but before continuing he gave her another chance, he would give her endless chances. “It’s a very simple phrase, very short, and it would have spared you a great deal of pain.” The doll closed her eyes, and this would be the last rejection he would tolerate. With enough force, he pried a small piece of porcelain from the childlike doll’s face. She screamed in shock, but he did not stop there. He pulled another, and another. Tiny fragments that seemed insignificant in the overall picture, compared to what he had already done to her at the tea party. Back then it had been a mistake; he had lifted her hundreds of times before and nothing had ever happened. But the Prototype acknowledged that his anger in that moment had made him press harder than ever before, and he ended up ruining her perfect face. Far from regretting it, he had felt a sense of release. He lost his fear of hurting her; he saw that Poppy was not as fragile as the porcelain of her face made her appear. And so he stopped treating her with such delicacy.
He turned the doll’s face so that she was looking into the glass box, at her own shattered reflection. His fingers possessively traced over her face. “You are no less valuable in my eyes, on the contrary. I will fix you, my dear; you will no longer feel ashamed of how you look or worry about what I might think. You will feel better than ever. My dear Poppy. Now, open your eyes, go ahead, see the extent of my devotion to you and accept it. Do not ignore or reject again what I offer: all of me, everything I possess, my flesh-and-blood heart will be yours. In return, your innards, your guts, your eye, your lips, your soul, your thoughts… everything you were will be mine. The flesh that shapes your body and the spirit and life behind your eyes, so bright and precious, have belonged to me for a very, very long time.”
Poppy, terrified, looked at herself as the Prototype spoke. She felt destroyed, utterly diminished beneath his hands and his words. She fixed her gaze on her own eyes, full of restrained rage.
Suddenly, the Prototype slammed his legs into the bodies on the floor, making the doll shriek in surprise. Then he lifted the corpses and brought them behind Poppy, letting her see their reflections as well.
“Do you feel happier now, surrounded by those who love you the most?”
Perhaps she thought he wasn’t capable of harming her—at least, not in a tangible, visible way. He acknowledged his mistake in having been so indulgent with her over the years, allowing her too much. He lifted the doll to be face to face with him. “You are so captivating, even in suffering. I would have broken you long ago if not for my great devotion to you, Poppy. I wonder if now you have a few words for me.” He walked over the bodies of Kissy and the former employee, making the doll wince in pain. “No? Nothing? I hardly recognize you, we used to talk so much on the phone.”
“I…” Poppy murmured something.
“Excuse me, what did you say? Speak louder.”
“I love you, you have no idea how much!” Her lips were tense as she forced herself to look at him, clenching her fists.
He smirks, “Say it once more, you must sound more convincing.”
“Prototype… I love you, truly. I love you, I love you, I love you.” Poppy lowered her head with a look of pain; it was clear she only sought to ease her own suffering, not completely surrender her cowardice.
The Prototype laughed loudly as he swayed from side to side, leaping around the room and knocking over the dusty objects decorating some of the furniture. Nothing mattered —nothing at all— when he was so overjoyed to hear the most special words directly from his doll. It didn’t matter his intentions, as long as she said them just for him. In his excitement, he barely worried about shaking her small body too much; joy coursed through his system, dulling his lower limbs, making him jump and drag across the floor. He extended an arm as his movements became more controlled, circling around, eyes lifted as if they were dancing a waltz.
“I don’t like being shaken like this,” Poppy struggled as much as she could, trying to free herself, but it was impossible. She had to wait for the Prototype to calm down after a while. In his distracted mid-dance, the Prototype stepped on the bodies lying on the floor again, this time driving one of his legs down and splattering blood. He had to pause and shake his robotic leg slightly.
“Ughh, look at what… please, just finish this quickly.”
“I won’t let you go so soon, dear Poppy. I still need to find you a better lock for your box, one that no one will ever be able to open again.” He carefully ran the back of his hand over Poppy’s cheek, where a small smear of blood had reached. He took the moment to look at her directly, neither of them speaking, while the tension eased from the bodies below. The Prototype gently moved his head, admiring the little doll from different angles. Feeling exposed, she could do nothing. At last, he placed her back into the box, closed the door with his hand as he lifted it, and left the room. “Until then, let us not part.”
Poppy looked away. “Fine.”
The Prototype held Poppy in one hand, and in the other, he clutched the fragments of porcelain from her face. He tucked them into his clothing; the fact that they were broken pieces didn’t make them any less precious to him.
“Poppy.”
“What?”
“Say you love me again.”