Overdue Check-Up (Poppy Playtime)

(Chapter 2) Part 5: Trouble Staying Present

Walking through the dilapidated pathway, they eventually came up to a rainbow spiral staircase that seemed to have several steps missing, even several large gaps, making it impossible to take it all the way up.

Looking up, both brothers see a pipe illuminated by orange lights, seen more visible by caution tape wrapped around it, Dan comments, "Looks like we're taking a surprise elevator."

Nearic nods, "Hm, see you up there!"

Nearic then quickly latches onto the pipe and pulls himself all the way up, hopping over to the landing at the top next to a cutout of some candy toy, immediately unsettling the boy, "Get up here, slowpoke!"

Dan rolls his eyes as he latches onto the pipe and starts pulling himself up, "Yeah yeah, I'm coming you little brat."

Nearic smiles a little shakily as he takes a few steps away from the cutout, "Cats, why were cats their favourite animal for toys."

Dan quickly arrives at the top, and quickly notices Nearic's unnerved posture, and the cat toy cutout, "Want to listen to it?"

Nearic shifts uncomfortably, "Just get it over with."

Dan nods and slaps the cutout's red button, said toy's voice immediately sounding, "Press the button to feed me candy!"

Nearic grumbles, "This is CandyCat, obviously."

Dan smiles teasingly as he rolls his eyes, slapping the button again, "OMNOMNOM, feed me more!"

Dan arcs an eyebrow, "Okay."

He presses the button again, "OMNOMNOMNOMNOM, more, more candy!"

Pressing one more time, the CandyCat says, "OMNOMNOMNOM, hehehe. Okay, no more candy, my tummy's full."

Dan presses it again, CandyCat eats some more before saying, "I said, no more!" Nearic flinching at the tone.

Dan smirks as he presses it again, the toy's eating started slowing down before she said, "Stooooop!" drawing out the word pleadingly.

Dan presses it one more time, the toy eating more candy from the sounds of it, but they didn't get a sentence, Nearic flinches and turns away as he covers his ears upon hearing the agonized groaning as the speaker glitches out and morphing the quality into something near demonic.

Dan looks back to his brother who has his shoulders hunched up and head ducked down a bit, hands over his ears and shaking slightly. Dan walks quickly over to Nearic to check on him, and upon reaching him, Nearic quickly starts to calm down, removing his hands from his ears and looking at Dan with shimmering eyes.

Dan frowns as he swallows down some guilt, "You okay?"

Nearic stares at him for a second, before looking back at the cutout, flinching after a second of doing so before replying, "Uh, yeah, I might space in a bit. That was hard to hear."

Dan nods, "All good, take all the time you need."

The younger brother shakes his head, "No, not now just... maybe after a minute or two."

Dan nods again, "Okay, so let's go, okay?"

Nearic nods, "Alright, let's move."

Moving ahead and taking a left turn, they get to a flight of stairs, which they quickly take, before turning right to some sort of train track area. The walls were yellow painted bricked, the floor were yellow and white tiles, there were closed gates everywhere, and a quick look to the right after hopping in was a slope downward.

Dan looked back to check on his brother, and quickly notices the dazed and unfocused eyes his younger sibling has, Dan frowns, "That was fast, either those voice lines messed him up more than I thought, or he hid his stress from the last game really well."