Poppy Playtime ~ An Angel's Bleeding Heart

Chapter 20 : The Hour of Joy

Helpless in the void, sinking into depths where no man would go. Red smoke dancing and shifting into shapes familiar long ago.

In this distorted realm a small light is seen. Drifting, falling, drowning.

Like an angel felled from heaven or a leaf tossed in the wind.

A victim of times long past, consumed by old anguish. A soul dragged further and further into red fog and despair.

A massive presence emerged behind him, a malevolence potent in unholy darkness.

Through this darkness a hand reaches out, looming over the small light as if ready to snuff it out.

Needle-like fingers moved downwards, digging into the soul's core. Prodding, sifting, searching.

Strings he pulled though its sharpened tips.

Memories arose, past emotions made manifest.

Using the strings he wove new shapes, into forms the soul long remembered both past and present.

He continued weaving, and around the soul it sowed people, places, and other things in between.

The stage has been set, a theatre, a cage, a torture chamber.

He will direct every moment, every event, all for its own delight.

All this designed for one purpose.

To hurt him.

<<<<<<<<<<~>>>>>>>>>>

"Sir?"

Gabriel groaned as his head throbbed and pounded as the obviously concerned voice ringed in his ears. Slowly his eye fluttered open, there is someone leaning over him, under a near blinding overhanging light as the stranger's form was hardly distinguishable. Blurred vision resides, the host's face becomes clear to see, and at once Gabriel let out an audible gasp as he shot up once the person before him made himself known.

"Oh I am terribly sorry, Sir! I didn't mean to scare you!"

Gabe was almost completely lost for words. "D-Dogday?"

It was indeed Dogday, the very same one he knows, but this time he looked different. He is back to his old self before Gabriel performed the "True Body" operation in the Ward. His gapping fake smile held open by hard-plastic, the stitches of sown yarn visible holding together the fake, polyester, orange fur. But Dogday still has his legs on, and he appears far more clean and relaxed compared to his former self.

"Forgive me!" Dogday politely said. "I just, saw you fast asleep on the floor and I thought Catnap had..." The Old Dogday didn't seem to want to explain further. "N-Nevermind, but anyway, I saw you on the floor and I thought to wake you up. That's all!"

Gabriel tried to speak, yet so many questions swirled in his head that it became dizzying. "But, how did? W-What? But you were-how?!"

"Hey hey, easy there." Dogday said holding his paws up, hoping to calm the distressed human down. "I guess Catnap did use the gas on you. Look, I know it must be disorienting. I've,...been there, but just calm down and-"

"Wait, where are we?" Gabriel interrupted as he hastily took in his surroundings. He finds that he is no longer in the Councilor's Office but in the center area of Playcare, and to his absolute shock, everything is as clean and pristine as it was ten years before he left! The sky colored wallpaper is no longer peeling down, The fake sun shone brighter than ever, and there is not a single rotting toy corpse in sight. Instead of toy corpses, the children were playing with clean, untainted dolls.