Remember

Chapter 1

The winding, pebbly path underneath your cold, bare feet pained you. The starry night illuminated the path before you, as if it were a sign from Heaven. Your pajamas -purple plaid pants and a purple quarter sleeve shirt -blew gently in the summer night's breeze. Why had you woken up? Why had you climbed out of your comfy bed? You were curious about the sharp, piercing noise you heard from your old childhood treehouse. As you rounded the slight corner, you saw the treehouse. The ladder to climb up had been broken in a few spots but was still climbable. The leaves rustled in the breeze, making the treehouse more eerie than you expected. You decided to climb the ladder into the old treehouse. While making your way up, you heard the sharp, piercing noise once again, only this time... it was right in front of you. You reach the inside of the treehouse and see the wretched thing your father built you as a child.
The animatronic panda.
One eye burned a bright cerulean blue, your favorite color as a child. Then you remember...
You watched your father toy with his animatronics daily, always trying to impress you. On your birthday, you awoke and found Pearl, the animatronic panda, on the end of your bed. 'Happy Birthday!' Pearl said, and it sang the happy birthday song in the best way possible for an animatronic. Your father moved Pearl into your treehouse and you always played with Pearl and learned that, by command, Pearl could sing any song you wanted. You decided on your favorite.....Row row row your boat, gently down the stream! Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream!
The horrendous sound of Pearl moving brought you back to the present.
Pearl's voice was anything but beautiful, and she sounded like nails on a chalkboard. The words to 'Row Row Row Your Boat' were no longer comprehensible. Your fear kept you from moving. You knew you couldn't get away from her...she would always be there, haunting your memory of the fun times you had as a child. It wasn't until Pearl was a step away from you that you stumbled back down the ladder, wanting to get back into the house. She grabbed the collar of your shirt, her paws slowly digging into the thin material with ease. You were clinging to the ladder for dear life, hoping you wouldn't fall and be injured. You grabbed at Pearl's paw and pulled it away from your shirt, ripping the collar right over your head.
You ran back, stumbling over a few larger stones here and there, trying to get away from the old animatronic. You heard a loud, metal thunk and turn around slowly. Pearl was on the ground, her leg on backwards and her ear dangling on her cheek. You screamed, even though being out in the countryside would get nobody to help. Pearl looked down and readjusted her twisted leg. You kept running and made it into the house and locked the back door behind you. You hear Pearl banging on the screen door, almost breaking the windows in the main oak back door. You ran upstairs, flinging your bedroom door open and then slamming it shut, barricading the door with anything and everything. The window was open and you could hear Pearl walk away, the clunk of metal each time she took a step. She turned back to look at the house and then snuck away in the old shed underneath the treehouse, hidden behind the branches of trees by the house.
The breeze softy blew, calming the fear that was inside of you. You remembered a typical day at Bambino's Café...
Jitters, Thaddeus, and Minx all stood on stage, the one group of animatronic animals led by a squirrel. The tune for the café rung out above the crowd of pleased children. Little did they know, your father was underneath the stage, operating and monitoring each and every animatronic. Your father used to let you play with them when the night guard was working. The night guard, or Jeremy, used to applaud at you for the smooth yet ungraceful movements of your show. He was always a good man...
Then your mind began to wander further into your memory, and you imagined the accident...
As the last kid left, the night guard walked in, and did his daily walk around to find left children. You sat in front of the stage and watched Thaddeus and Minx power down, but there was something clearly wrong with Jitters. His speech was garbled, almost demonic. Jeremy approached Jitters...
You couldn't remember the actual accident. The last thing you do remember was the one bright orange eye, and then blood running over the pupil, turning it deep red. You fell asleep, not for long but was enough until morning. You woke up  and stared at the dusty pink colored walls. You knew you wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, at least not with the sun pouring in through the tattered curtains. You rolled onto your side, staring at the mess of furniture you piled in front of your door. Your dresser, a deep brown color, was stressed underneath the weight of your old rocking chair. You decided to get up and move your rocking chair. Getting a splinter, you dropped your rocking chair in the corner of  your room, where it used to sit before you moved it. The splinter in your hand throbbed and swelled slightly. You looked for a pair of tweezers in your makeup bag. Finding the tweezers and a bandaid, you attempted to pull the medium-sized splinter from the palm of your hand. The blood slowly dripped from your hand while you tried to peel open the bandaid. You applied the bandaid and looked for a napkin or towel to clean up the drop of blood on the floor. In one of your desk drawers, you found the key. The old rusted key with a gear for the top. You never liked how steampunk it looked so you hid it in the bottom of your desk drawer. When the café was closed one day, your father gave you the key, he said you'd know what to do with it. Now that you're older, and both of your parents are in a retirement home, you still had no idea what to use it for. You remembered the basement, the many parts strewn about while your father worked on his newest and latest animatronic. The currently rusted, almost gothic, padlock around the doorknob made it impossible for anyone, or anything, from getting in or out without the combination, or the key. The key! Of course! You moved everything away from your door and ran across the creaky floorboards in the hallway and down the stairs to the living room. The old furniture threw you back in time. You saw the padlock on the door in the kitchen and walked over to it slowly. The white paint of the door chipped away around the padlock, the rust covered most of the keyhole. You realized that the key didn't have any sort of ending, it was more of a gear on a stick made out of iron. You tried to clean up the keyhole and you realized it was actually a small handle. You tugged at the handle, trying to pull the old padlock off but instead revealed a gear shaped hole. You placed the gear from the key into the hole and the padlock unlocked. The door creaked open, the light from the kitchen window poured onto the old musty walls of the basement stairwell. The stone stairs down radiated a coldness. You went into the living room, grabbed your sweatshirt, and put it on. The flashlight on the fireplace mantle was old and heavy but worked enough to see. You grabbed the flashlight and headed down the stone stairs, the stream of light from the flashlight leading your way. At the bottom of the stairs, your face went straight into a cobweb. You frantically tried to wipe it off and made sure there wasn't a spider or its food on you still. An old switch was on the wall and you flipped it, that's when you saw him.