Poppy Playtime ~ An Angel's Bleeding Heart

Chapter 13 : For Want of a Smiling Friend

With a pained wince, Gabe pried open the metal door with both hands.  While the blue hand scanner worked, the door got stuck halfway, leaving him no choice but to pry it open.  Another exhausting endeavor.  But it was worth it when he finally got the door open, the ear piercing screech of metal against metal screaming loudly.

Upon heading inside he finds himself in what appears to be a maintenance room.  A gloomy atmosphere enveloping the cold, darkened room.  It was quiet, strangely enough, there was always at least some sort of sound coming from somewhere.  The irritating buzz of fluorescent lights or the deep hum of irrigation systems always filled these dank corridors with some semblance of background noise.

His shoulder still hurts, the wound still a bit fresh from his encounter with Miss Delight.  Thankfully though as he lightly brushed his fingers over the puncture wounds he can feel the blood already beginning to clot over.  Still though, he should get that cleaned and bandaged, he doesn't want it to get infected.  And the last thing he wants is losing an arm to disease.

So far there isn't anything that has caught his eye, but before he can even think about which way to go, he hears something skittering nearby.  Gabe looks around to find the source, his sensed on high alert in case he needs to start running again.  His eyes then caught movement coming from a hole in the wall.  From the appearance of its silhouette behind the umber lighting coming from inside, it was small in stature, and had the same gleaming white eyes just like Catnap's.

Gabe was prepared to run, but once the creature made itself known in the light, he couldn't help but feel remorseful at the sight before him.  It is a small living plush creature, and Gabe recognized it well, it is one of the Smiling Critter plushies.  A Bobby Bearhug to be specific, and Gabe couldn't stand the and feel any apathy for the poor critter.  Her once vibrant red fur had been stained and blackened in splotches, and there are numerous cuts that allow small tufts of cotton to poke through.

The critter was just simply standing there at the hole's mouth, staring at him cautiously with their beady white eyes.  It was then that Gabe remembered something that Poppy told him, about the smaller toys.  She said that many of the smaller toys rebelled against the Prototype, and that they had now kept themselves hidden to avoid the Bigger Bodies wrath.  This little critter must be one of those smaller toys!

He was actually incredibly relived, it had been a bit too long since he'd seen a friendly face.

But the toy critter seemed apprehensive to even approach him, so Gabe bent down on one knee and held out his left hand to it.  The critter toy tilted their head for a second as it gazed at the crouching human offering his hand out, it was confused, but curious.  The critter slowly crawled over to him, each little inch closer brought a hint of happiness to the young man.  Soon enough the small critter was just a mere inch away from his hand, it then lifted an arm nub to Gabe.

And then, it suddenly leapt forward and bit down on one of Gabe's fingers, hard.

"GAAAAAAHH!!"  Gabe screamed in agony as the critter plush bite down as hard as it could.

Then, a sickening crack was heard along with the sound of something wet ripping.  The living plush bit his left ring finger off.

Gabe fell backwards reeling from the pain as he watch with disgust as the plush gnaw and chew on what was his finger before the swallowing it.  The critter then wasted not another second and then leapt towards him with surprising agility and landed on his face.  Gabe shot straight up trying to grab the plush, he can feel it trying to bite one of his eyes out.  Instincts kicked in as he then grabbed it and threw it across the room.  But even then while Gabe still reeled in pain, the plush was persistent enough to crawl back towards him and try again.