~The Arcade~DSMP//DNF//fluff

Dream

George reached the corner of the room, where a large claw machine sat. The paint on it, once a lime green and white mixture with little black smiles scattered across it was now pealing and faded. The name of the machine was painted on the top in thick white and black words, "Dream," it read. The Machine looked to be much older than the rest of the building, and it stood out because of it's early 1970's look.

The stuffed toys inside the machine were clean and white, they were little blob shapes with the same smile as what was scattered across the painted machine. They looked just as clean as the rest of the building, which George found quite odd, as the machine itself was older and less taken care of then the rest of the place.

George caught a glance at his watch, "8:00." George had thought for sure that he hadn't been there for a whole hour, but he decided it was best to head back home anyway. He looked up at the machine one last time and promised to come back and give it the proper cleaning it deserved, so that it looked less out of place in the old arcade.

Only 5 minutes after George had left the arcade, he rounded the corner into his neighborhood, and soon after, arrived at his house at the end of the long road. He walked in and was greated by his roommate Alex sitting on the couch watching the TV.

"Oh hey man, what took you so long?" Alex asked him, confused because George was always careful to be home from his walk at exactly 7:30.

"Sorry, I got a little distracted and lost track of time. I probably won't be home till later tomorrow aswell."

"Oh alright. What's got your attention? Did you finally get a girlfriend?" Alex mocked, knowing full well of his friends social anxiety.

"No of course not, you know better. But it isn't anything realy special, just a cool new shop in town that I want to visit tomorrow is all." George replied, not wanting to tell Alex about the arcade, knowing he would hate the idea of George going there.

"OK man, well have fun then. I will be here like always."

And with that, George went up to his room to do his work for the day. George worked from home, he worked for an online shopping company and took care of tracking orders and refunding. Not his first option when he was searching for a job, but it payed good and he didn't have to leave the comfort of his small home.

George worked for the rest of the day, only taking a break for food and to get a few groceries for his and Alex's kitchen. He went to bed that night exited to return to the old arcade that he had found.

Gorge was awoken by his alarm clock telling him it was time for his walk. He got up slowly and got dressed before going down to the kitchen to get a snack for breakfast. Alex was still sleeping loudly in his room when George grabbed some cleaning supplies and left.

Instead of taking his normal trail, George took the road that led him tho the train tracks, practically running the whole way until he reached the fork in the path that led to the old tracks. He took the same path down following the path that he had left until he reached the hidden path that led to the old arcade.

After the long walk down the path, he arived back at the front door of the arcade, the old rusty sign shimmering in the small light that shown through the trees. George opened the door that he had been careful to close the day before and walked in. He didn't understand why, but he walked around the entire building again and made sure that it was exactly as he had left it. The only thing that he noticed was weird was that the muddy patch that he had left on the old welcome mat from the day before was completely gone.

As strange as he had found it, George still walked in. He went to the old claw machine and tried to pull it away from the wall so that he could clean the whole thing. With a bit of a struggle, and a few mumbled cuss words, George managed to pull the machine out just enough to get around it. He started on the side, then moved to the back, then the other side, and was finally able to start on the front.

George grabbed out his sponge and started scrubbing at the bottom of the machine where the stuffed toys in it would fall and the person could grab their winnings out.

He cleaned the flap first, then the inside up as far as he could reach, and then he started working on the part below the window. George glanced up to stretch his neck, and caught a glance at movement inside of the machine. He stood up quickly and looked hard through the glass, but saw nothing. He decided that he had just been seeing things and went back to work on the bottom of the machine, but when he sat back down next to the prize grab, there was a stuffed white blob with a smile laying on it's side inside.

George was confused, but decided to keep working and ignore the toy. He finished the bottom of the machine and went to stand and work on the glass. He stood up and turned to face the glass that incased the toys in the machine, but what he saw scared him. Taped to the glass was a tron piece of paper, but what scared George most was what was written on it in neat handwriting. "The stuffy is for you dummy!"

George read the message over and over in his head, he was sure that that hadn't been there before. So maybe, the message, and the stuffed toy, were ment for him? He slowly bent back down and grabbed out the little blob. And when he straightened back up, the piece of paper was gone.