Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: Legacy Forgotten

Chapter 3

Sometime in the next month, just as work was letting out, Mickey got Oswald to follow him one more time. He led the rabbit to an exquisite-looking door, with a familiar feel to it. As he could see Oswald's curiosity, he gently took the rabbit's hand and held it out, then dropped a key into it. The rabbit looked it over in confusion. Most notably, the top of the key was molded into the traditional Disney D, with bunny ears on top. Mickey laughed and shook the doorknob, showing that the door was locked. "Go ahead. Try it out." Though he was surprised, Oswald turned to the door and put the key in. There was a satisfying click as he turned it, then pulled it out and pushed on the door to reveal an exquisite, official-looking office. As he stepped inside, he saw posters from old cartoons all over, some of them were Oswald's cartoons, figures of Disney characters on the desk, and above the two big velvet chairs hung a portrait of Walt Disney, smiling at his two original creations.

Oswald felt tears at the edges of his eyes. Of all the things to look at in the room, he couldn't stop looking at Walt's portrait. God, how he missed him. Mickey snapped him out of his thoughts by putting a hand on his shoulder and holding out another key with the same Disney logo, but with mouse ears. Oswald compared Mickey's key to his, and it all clicked. "You... you're giving me a spot in this office?"

"Yep! You can come here whenever you'd like. This was Walt's office before I had to take over for him. I had some help getting the key molded, placing the other chair, and getting some of your posters up. If we're gonna be equals, we might as well work as equals, right?"

Oswald was speechless. He looked around in shock for a minute, causing Mickey to think he was spacing out again, but soon enough the rabbit beamed and wrapped his arms around the mouse. "Thank you! Thank you so much! This is fantastic!" Mickey laughed and hugged Oswald back, holding back a sigh of relief. He was just happy that Oswald was happy.

The effects of showing him the office didn't last too long, though. He usually seemed content whenever the two of them were working together in the office, but outside the office and even sometimes inside of it he would still space out, lose his train of thought, and his bleak mood would return.

The first time this new habit was almost a setback was one day while they were recording lines. As things wrapped up, Oswald sat on the stool he had been standing on to reach the microphone and let his mind wander. Somehow this went unnoticed by Mickey and the studio workers helping with the recording, and Oswald was brought back to his senses when he heard the door to the recording booth click shut. From the window, he could see the recording staff and Mickey leaving the studio, and while he tried to get their attention by talking into his mic, it had been disconnected. As the door to the studio shut, he could feel his heart beating faster in a rising panic. He thought he could see some black substance creeping under the door, then he saw it oozing down from the top corners of the walls. Before he knew it, some kind of shadowy creature jumped up and stared at him from the other side of the window. Oswald screamed and jumped back, falling off his stool. But he didn't stay down for long, he jumped up and ran to the door of the booth, turning the doorknob over and over only to find it was locked. At this, he started pounding on the door and screaming, though deep down he knew no one would hear him. "Let me out! Someone, help! Let me out of here!" He quickly noticed the substance crawling under the door of the recording booth, causing him to back away as he didn't want it on him, not knowing what it could do to him.

Not long after the darkness started invading the booth, he could hear an all too familiar, menacing voice. "You have been locked up again... they will forget you, leave you here to rot... then you can join the wasteland..."

"No, no, they can't... th-they wouldn't. I... I can't be forgotten again. I just can't." The panic was finally starting to set into Oswald, and somehow the voice seemed to recognize this.

"Come and join the wasteland... you will be given peace and happiness... everyone will remember your name... you will no longer be alone..."

Oswald was scared, terrified. His breath was short, his thoughts clouded and unfocused. By now he had his back pressed against the wall trying to avoid the substance when he smelled something kinda funny. Strong chemicals... he looked around to see a green liquid starting to flow down the walls. Paint thinner. His eyes widened with terror. If that stuff reached him, he'd be a goner. So it was understandable that he jumped far from the wall and screeched in pain when it oozed right onto his back. As he landed from the jump he whipped around to see it in the cracks of the bricks in the very spot his back had been pressed against. By now the whole room was shrouded in darkness, there appeared to be nothing left but him and the thinner. He reached a hand around to his back, pulling it back into his line of sight to reveal paint dripping from his hand, and soon enough it began to look like his hand was melting too. In shock and panic, Oswald dropped to his knees and tried to block out any further sound from that voice, squeezing his eyes shut so that he couldn't witness his fate. The smell of the thinner got stronger by the minute. He could feel tears rolling down his cheeks in his panic, his mind running wild with things he didn't want to think about.

But Oswald was known as the Lucky Rabbit for a reason. Another familiar voice rang out, one more friendly than the one coming from the darkness. "Oswald?" Mickey climbed up onto a stool on the opposite side of the glass to look into the booth. Even though Oswald saw darkness and thinner beginning to puddle around him, all Mickey could see was the usual view of the booth, but with one seat knocked over and the rabbit in a little ball of panic on the floor. "Oswald!" Quickly the mouse jumped down and unlocked the door to the recording booth. When Oswald looked up at the sound of the door opening, the darkness completely disappeared as if Mickey's presence drove it away. Mickey approached Oswald and helped him up. "Oswald, are you alright?" The rabbit didn't respond, stuck with an expression of shock on his face, and placing a hand to his forehead. After a minute Oswald's expression became firm and he shoved the mouse away, then stormed out of the room, leaving Mickey standing there confused. But he shook his head and followed the rabbit, acting as if nothing had happened when he came out of the room.

Oswald started on his way back to the vault, knowing it'd be the one place where he could stay away from that mouse. Once there he didn't even think about closing the door, but even if he had he would've kept it open. He couldn't stand to have it closed, especially not after what had just happened. But maybe that whole thing was just a hallucination? He didn't seem to be affected by thinner anymore, and it had all stopped as soon as Mickey showed up. And why was he so upset with Mickey when he had practically saved his life? It didn't take long for him to figure it out. They had forgotten him. Somehow, even though he was sitting right next to Mickey, they had forgotten he was there and locked him in the booth. But that wasn't Mickey's fault, was it...?

Oswald found himself pacing around the vault, his mind running wild with so many different stressing thoughts, he didn't notice the mouse standing in the doorway until he spoke up. "Oswald? Is this a bad time?"

The rabbit paused and turned to face the door. "Uh... n-no, I don't think so."

Mickey seemed a little nervous as he stepped farther into the vault. "I'm not going to question you about what happened back there. I'm just worried about you. If something's going on, you can tell me."

Oswald was silent for a minute, then shook his head. "No, I don't think I can. It would only make you more worried, and I don't want to do that to you when we've already got so much going on."

Even this statement seemed to make Mickey worried, but he simply nodded. "I understand. But know that I'll be here for you if you want to get anything off your chest."

Oswald nodded back and smiled, but as soon Mickey left he let his smile fade. He couldn't tell the mouse what he had seen, and he certainly couldn't tell him how he felt about any of this. Mickey was just trying to help, so why did it make Oswald feel so bad? There were times where he'd be surrounded by friendly people, and he'd feel sick to his stomach. Walt had promised him he'd be able to return and have his time on the screen again, and while that was pretty much what was happening, it wasn't close to what he had always dreamed of while locked in the vault. He should be happy that all of this is happening, he should be happy just for the fact that he was free from the vault, so why did he want to cry or throw up? And why was he suddenly having nightmares and hallucinations? None of this would've happened if he had just left Mickey alone that first time. How could he be so stupid? And more importantly, how was he supposed to fix it? In his old cartoons, it was typically his luck that saved him, but it didn't seem like that luck was going to help him now.