My Dearest Puppet

Chap 3

Your mind silently ran through a slew of curses while you scrambled towards your charger and plugged it in desperately praying that nothing bad happened to Scaramouche. 

You sat there staring intensely at your phone which was slowly revived. Tears welled up in your eyes as you imagined all the horrible possibilities of what could happen. Was he dead? Did you kill him? What if he was broken? What if he forgot who he was? What if he just never woke up? What if... he would disappear completely? Your panic grew rapidly as the battery percentage sluggishly increased. Time seemed to grind to a halt as you continued to stare at your phone battery percentage. Minutes passed as you waited intently full of anxiety as your phone charged when finally, your phone reached 2%. You quickly deemed it as enough and powered on your phone again expertly swiping through the passcode and opening up the Hoyoverse app. You held your breath in anticipation as you saw the little Scaramouche hat icon that you had clicked on earlier. Hastily clicking the icon you breathed a sigh of relief as you finally returned to where you spoke to Scaramouche. You stay silent as you see Scaramouche groggily wake up rubbing his eyes from a seemingly forced sleep. He then glared at you in anger and opened his mouth ready to bombard you with a slew of insults when his face suddenly stiffened and averted his glare morphing into a slightly softer scowl.

"Stop crying it's pitiful."

You had no idea until he mentioned it and you instinctively touched your face suddenly feeling the hot tears streaming down your cheeks. You sniffled loudly as your nose was also covered in snot. You hastily grabbed some tissues and wiped off the excess mucus and tears while mumbling an apology about a pitiful appearance and avoiding Scaramouche's judgemental glare from the phone screen. Once finished, you meekly looked back at him quite flustered at the embarrassing display you presented to him. To your surprise, he was looking at you with a thoughtful expression.

"Uh... um, is something on your mind?" you mumbled timidly as you tried to meet his gaze. You then remembered the reason for your tears and concern overrode all other feelings. 

 "No wait, actually are you okay?!?" you exclaimed in a panic. 

Noticing your eyes laced with worry and concern, Scaramouche was slightly taken aback. Why would a stranger be so concerned about him? Even if he was her "favourite character", he hasn't exactly been nice to her. Was there an ulterior motive? Was it all an act? Suspicion raced through Scaramouche's mind however he found himself unable to convince himself that you were harbouring ill intentions under your genuine expression of concern. Frowning once more at the conflicting opinions, he responded in his usual snide tone.

"Hmph, it's nothing. Besides, as you can see I'm fine but DON'T EVER do that again."

You flinched slightly at his words but you understood how uncomfortable something like that could be. Despite the obvious scolding your curiosity soon got the better of you. "Uh, if you don't mind me asking, what exactly happened?"

"Forced slumber." he snapped back clearly not fond of the whole process. 

Looking at his expression, it was clear he found it uncomfortable being forced asleep and you silently swore to yourself never to let your phone die again. You then nodded in understanding and decided not to press further. You both sat in silence for a few moments before you decided to break the silence.

"So uh, what now?"

"How am I supposed to know?" snapped Scaramouche, quite irritated by this whole ordeal. "It's not like I can do anything since I'm stuck in here."

He made a good point. If something were to change, you would have to be the one to initiate it.

"If there's nothing else, I'm just going to sleep. If you figure something out think twice before waking me up."

With that statement, before you could even do anything, he simply vanished save for his hat that fell to the "floor" on the screen. The action looked very similar to the old serenitea pot where you get sucked into the pot so you assumed it worked the same way.

Exhausted, you flopped onto your bed and lay there, contemplating all the events that had occurred within the day. You just met your comfort character in real life. You can even talk to him. He also asked you for help. You felt a spark of determination to do your absolute best to help him however you didn't know where to start. Now it was time to brainstorm. You sprung up from your bed completely remotivated and plopped yourself on your desk and began to scribble down some ideas. Soon enough you had a small list of possible connections.

Go to the Hoyoverse branch in your city

Go online and dig into the lore for more information

Play around with your phone settings

You thought some more but nothing came to mind so you decided to try the easiest option without disturbing Scaramouche. You went online on your laptop and surfed through countless websites and articles. You read tons of Reddit posts and even watched YouTube videos but nothing seemed helpful in the slightest. Then again you weren't really expecting to find anything anyways.

You were just about to give up and sleep when you finally found something worth taking note of. It was an article saying that Hoyoverse was in the middle of many layoffs due to internal conflict. There weren't many details however you had an idea in mind. Perhaps you could reach out to a dev who recently got fired and ask them about what was going on. Now the tricky part was getting into contact with a dev that has recently been fired. You pondered for a moment when you suddenly remembered your older brother who works in game development. He was currently away at university but has done many internships and co-op placements so perhaps he knew someone.

Excited, you hastily texted your brother asking if he knew any Genshin developers who had recently been fired. You then jumped onto your bed and lay down mentally exhausted after all the internet searching. You felt a small smirk tug at the corner of your lips. You were finally making progress and you couldn't wait to tell Scaramouche about it. Feeling quite relaxed and at peace, you slowly drifted off into sleep.