"The Hour of Despair"|Smiling Critters Apocalypse AU

Prologue - It Came from the Shadows (Prequel Arc - Part 1)

Location: Playcare - Playtime Co. - Downtown Creation City

Date: March 14, 1987

Time: 08:45 PM

No POV

10 Days Before the Hour of Despair

It all started years ago at a local toy factory known as Playtime Co., where they make lots of amazing and creative toys such as Huggy Wuggy, Mommy Long Legs, Boxy Boo and the one and only Poppy Playtime herself. The founder of the company himself, Elliot Ludwig is determined to make the perfect toys for all the children of the entire world. He had a strong regard for love, happiness, joy, and smiling, especially when it comes to the happiness of children, with Elliot himself saying: "There is nothing more gratifying to my soul than being the reason for a child's smile."

At first, things are going smoothly, but there have been some "dark" rumors of the company that they've been doing some cruel and unusual experiments on these toys in order to bring in more money and popularity to the company, even if they have to eliminate the competition or anyone that tried to expose their secrets that will destroy the company from the inside, which is why they are determined to do anything to cover their tracks to keep the company running.

Recently, Playtime Co. has built a place underground known that has an orphanage, a schoolhouse, a playhouse, a playground, a counselor's office and a toy store known as Playcare, where they bring in orphaned children to Playcare to test out the toys to play with before they put the toys into production and ship them to your local toy store and the caretakers of the orphanage, which is called Home Sweet Home take care of the children until they all get adopted by their new families.

However, those who didn't get adopted will be used as part of their experiments as test subjects, including the Bigger Bodies Initiative program. Eventually, they created a new line of toys that later became Playtime Co.'s best toys that they ever created.

The Smiling Critters!

They are a group of popular plush line of colorful animals, who are infamous for their giant smiles and their amazing and pleasant scents that helps people sleep better. They look like small, colorful, anthropomorphic animals, each appearing as a plush toy with a zipper on the front chest; large, gaping smiles, and black eyes with white pupils. Each toy has a unique pendant that alludes to a core aspect of each one of their personalities.

In addition to this, each Smiling Critter comes with the ability to emit their own unique scent via a hole in their mouths by pulling on their tails, all of which are traditionally used to aid with sleep or relaxation, being based off of a specific type of fruit, herb or flower.

They're officially the mascots of Playcare and they all perform the role as the caretakers of Home Sweet Home to watch over the children and due to their popularity and how they managed to capture the hearts of children in the whole world, they managed to get their own cartoon TV Show that kids are always happy and excited to watch on their television systems.

The group consists of 8 members with DogDay, the orange and vanilla scented canine as their leader. The other members include Bubba Bubbaphant (Elephant; Lemongrass), KickinChicken (Chicken; Ylang-ylang), CraftyCorn (Unicorn; Jasmine), Bobby Bearhug (Bear; Rose), Hoppy Hopscotch (Bunny Rabbit; Peppermint), PickyPiggy (Pig; Citrus) and of course, the purple and lavander scented feline, CatNap.

CatNap, otherwise known as Experiment 1188 or previously known as Theodore Grambell was originally responsible for looking after the children in Home Sweet Home, as the caretaker as he takes his job very seriously and kept the children happy and safe as he enjoyed watching the children sleep peacefully thanks to the power of his sleeping gas.