Overdue Check-Up (Poppy Playtime) [On Hold]

[Chapter 5] Part 13: Memory Records Ep. 2

The capsule rises and Nearic slowly steps out, stumbling a few feet before falling to his knees, "Ugh..."

"Nearic," Catnap calls, "Are you alright?"

Nearic hiccups as he wipes at his eyes, "Y-yeah, fine," the teen shakes his head as he sniffles, "just..." he sighs as he rubs at his eyes, "recovering."

Catnap leans down to his nephew's eye level, "What did you see?"

Nearic slowly pushes himself up, "Just more of Ms. Greenes' educational lessons," he replies as he walks out of the room.

Catnap rolls his eyes and follows, "I know that much, but what exactly was it this time?"

"Teaching Huggy how to dance with others," came the short reply.

They go down the hallway and make their way to the office lobby, "Let me guess, was there a 'Bad Toy Box?'" Nearic flinched prompting Catnap to sigh, "Huggy didn't know at the time, none of us did, until we were 'properly educated.' Then they stopped trying to hide what they were doing."

Nearic rubbed his forehead and sighed, "Let's just get this over with and move on, please."

The feline nodded, "Alright."

Entering the main room again, one of the upper floor railing panels breaks off and hits the ground floor, shattering to pieces. Nearic sighs, "It's a miracle this place hasn't completely collapsed."

"I did some exploring in here while you were watching Ms. Gracie's 'Educational Tapes,' and I think there's one more memory card in a room up top," Catnap points to the second floor, "but it's filled with Red Smoke, and I don't know how to get in without spreading the gas."

The nephew hummed in thought, "Get me up there."

Catnap leans down for Nearic to hop on, which he does, before standing up and clambering up to the second floor. Nearic hops down and looks to his left, spotting the gassed room his uncle was talking about. He furrows his brow and looks towards the broken path, "I'll check down that way for something, you go the other way, maybe you missed something," the toy nods.

The teen hops over the gap in the walkway and follows it down. He spots a room next to his goal that looks like a children's lab: worktables, burner ovens, beakers, etc. However, one of the burner ovens was set right next to a glass pane, a beaker filled with a clear substance placed atop it. Nearic tilts his head before moving on, encountering yet another gap in the path, but this one was far too big to jump across.

The Survivor looks around for a way to cross the gap, but finds no magnet panels, no handlebars, and clean surface to wall-run over; the wall on his left interrupted by pipes and a window while the right side is nothing but a small railing. He sighs and squints his eyes, looking for something to grab, and eventually, he does. A small yellow audio tape resting on a cardboard box.

"Gotcha!" he smirks as he fires the red hand and reels it in. He shows it to Glowby and asks, "Play it for me?" the small bauble pings with a wink, "Thanks."

Inserting the tape, Nearic turns around and heads back to his uncle as the audio is played from Glowby's speakers, "Meeeeegan. Heya Megan," Gracie's voice says getting a growl from Nearic, "One of the friends told me that you're having trouble with the noise of the world being just too much!"

Nearic hops over the gap, passing the smoked room and started searching for his uncle, "I brought someone to help."

"Go away!" a young voice cried, clearly distressed. This was supposedly Megan.

"Now, that's not very ice!" Gracie reprimanded as Nearic turns left at a corner, and Glowby beeps a notification that UV ink was nearby, "You're going to hurt our friend's feelings."