Daughter of Bill Cipher (Corona's Weirdmageddon fanfic)

Chapter 45

"Fantoccio?"

It was the fifth day. Hat Kid was gonna meet up with her later. Bella opened the doors of the theater that belonged to the puppet she was seeing today.

The theater was quiet. As if it was empty for some reason. Usually when she had visited, she'd hear Fantoccio. Usually settling up stage props, organizing the theater, fixing any damages, no matter how big or small, or perhaps even memorizing scripts for any plays he had planned.

Sometimes, she'd even hear his pet shark, Sharkspeare, swimming around in the tank beneath the stage and swishing his tail fin around as he did.

But the entire building was empty, which confused Bella as it didn't make any sense. Anxiety began to take over the demon's veins. Knowing firsthand that silence is never a good sign, Bella began to worry. But the demon had only stepped into the theater for two minutes.

She shouldn't be jumping to conclusions already. The demon floats around the theater, searching for the puppet. She checked  every seat to see if Fantoccio is in any of them.

Empty. Just the entire theater. "Fantoccio?" Bella floats up into the sky, scanning the entire theater as she calls out the puppet's name. "Fantoccio!"

She hears the sound of swimming around, followed by splashing and little whimpers. She recognized the whimpers to be from Sharkspeare. She looks down at the stage and sees the shark in the large hole that was connected to the tank beneath the stage.

The shark was swimming around in a circle, pacing as he let out loud whimpers like a dog. This very much concerned the demon, as she knows Sharkspeare doesn't whimper like this unless he's distressed.

"Hey, buddy," Bella lowered herself down towards the shark, looking at him with concern. "What's the matter?"

The shark started whimpering louder by the time it saw her, as if he was trying to tell her something. But Bella was confused. She wanted to know what was going on. She cursed herself for being unable to understand animalistic speech.

She turned around to go back to looking, when she saw something familiar. Fantoccio's hat. It stood there, and as she got closer, she saw dozens of papers scattered around the hat.

Picking up one of the papers, Bella noticed that they were script papers, for a play she had once suggested.

As she picked up his hat, worry began to surge through Bella's veins. "... Fantoccio?"

....

After having frantically searched the city and asking people around, Bella was very panicked. She knew Fantoccio. Like I said, Fantoccio never left the theater unless it was to see Bella or if it was important matters.

Bella decided the next place she'd look was Goatshire, and the thing she did was go to Billie's place and asked her about Fantoccio's whereabouts.

"No, I didn't really see him," Billie answered when she asked her. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Well, I went to see Fantoccio, like I planned for today, but the entire theater was empty,"  Bella started. "I looked around the entire theater. He was in any of the seats, and on the stage. All I saw was Sharkspeare, who was more distressed than usual,  and his hat, along with some scattered papers. Then, I searched the entire Lost City of Magic, but he was nowhere and none of the people knew where he was or saw him."

"But that doesn't make sense," Billie said after blinking a bit. "Fantoccio hardly leaves the theater unless it has something to do with you or something important, and I know he reads a lot of scripts, but he always stacks them up neatly and organizes them. Plus, while he does wear a lot of costumes and I've seen him without it on a few times, but I don't think I've seen Fantoccio leave without bringing his hat."