Dog Toy: A Poppy Playtime Fanfic

Chapter 1: Unhook the Chains

Traversing through this nightmare of a toy factory has been anything but easy. You had just made it over the bridge past the ominous shrine you swear you saw a figure standing in front of, and now find yourself out of one intimidating environment and into yet another.

This one was plush, not unlike another room with that horrid Pugapillar (a shiver runs through you as the memory forms in your mind). You creep your way through the tight tunnels and slides, every scuttling noise sounding a thousand times louder in the darkness.

Your concern starts when you hear a faint, giggle-like sound down one hole in a wall. Pinprick eyes and a small body follows the noise into the dim light. A critter.

Not hesitating one bit, you use the new Grab Pack hand you obtained recently to shoot a flare in front of the deceivingly vulnerable-looking toy. It shrieks and backs away, returning to the black void it crawled out of. You huff, thinking that was easier than you thought it would be.

You continue to follow the invisible path and solving ever-increasingly convoluted puzzles, repelling more and more of the tiny creatures with flares. After an indeterminate amount of time, the scene turns even more dire.

There's prison cells here, left and right. Bars, splatters of blood, more toy scraps.

Who were they trapping down here?

"You..."

The question you ask yourself is quickly answered by a gruff voice sounding out. It makes you jump and you quickly turn around to the source. Your eyes widen as you take in what's in front of you.

The first thing you notice is the torso with the bloodied, fleshy severance. Then the strung-up arms. Then the hanging head of something, someone, that looks so familiar. A dog, so similar to the other anthropomorphic characters...

It comes to you, finally catching the name of this toy: Dogday.

What the hell is he doing here?

"You... you're Poppy's angel, come to save us." The term he addresses you with surprises you. You didn't think you were any kind of saviour, you were just trying to leave this forsaken place. Nevertheless, you give this poor individual your attention. That's the least you could do.

"Nothing left to save, not here. You're in Catnap's home, Angel. Their home. A million pairs of eyes are on you now. Watching, waiting, hungry. They want nothing more than to crawl beneath your skin and eat away at you, bit by little bit, fill what feels empty inside themselves.

That... thing... Catnap. The Prototype is his god, and this is what he does to heretics. These little toys follow Catnap to avoid that very fate, and in return, they are fed. We tried to fight it, The Prototype's control.

I'm... the last of the Smiling Critters."

He's silent for a moment before he lifts his eyes, black as they may be, to yours.

"Listen to me," Your heart cracks as his voice does, his tone turning desperate. "You need to get out of this place, you need to live. You and Poppy can fix this, end the madness, the torment, the-" His words are cut short as he glances towards the tunnels either side of his dangling body.

"Oh no... oh no!" The smaller critters are swarming through the tunnels and you move instinctively, not even having time to think. You blast the tunnels with flares, temporarily slowing them down, and quickly start sawing through the straps with the handsaw you picked up earlier through the construction site.

"Leave me, please! Just go, RUN!" For his own benefit, you ignore Dogday's pleading. The straps are so old that they're brittle, the last one snapping. You catch him and the weight almost pulls you down if not for the immense strength the Grab Pack gives you.

"Hold on!" You command this to the dog as you adjust him to your front and he slings his arms around your shoulders, gripping you tightly. High tailing it, you sprint away from those terrifying little monsters now swarming into the jail cell and onto the floor.

The ground at the end of the hallway collapses and you're running. It's all a blur, an adrenaline-fueled desire to live blur as you blindly retreat through the cramped spaces, abruptly turning away from dead ends in a frenzy. You barely make out the dog's despairing mumbling as you focus on both of your survival, but the fear in his voice fuels you to keep going, refusing to give in.

By some crazy miracle (the one that's kept you alive in this massive deathtrap), you find yourself in a larger room with a light at the end of it. You rush to it, your heart beating out of your chest. Dogday lifts his face from your torso to look at where you're going.

"Go, go!" He encourages you and you dig your feet into the floor. As you run closer, you see a gap separating the two spaces, so you switch your right hand to the purple one, bracing yourself to jump.

"Dogday, keep holding on to me!" With your short warning, you plant the hand at the edge, launching yourself and him into the air.