Playtime .co

Chapter 1. A Bad Memory

'Ugh, Another boring day,' I thought to myself as I sat down at my office desk. My employees' voices buzzing around me, while I clacked away tirelessly at my keyboard.

"Hey, Tommy!!" I heard one of my employees call me, I turned around and saw Lorelai, the one coworker that doesn't know my name, my name is Alex, not Tommy. Her dirty-blonde hair in a messy bun, wearing an oversized shirt and a pair of jeans -- not very good work clothes but okay --.

Lorelai plopped herself on my desk and started chatting away.

Lorelai -- my least favourite co-worker -- she's convinced herself that she's my friend, and I honestly feel bad for her. Who would wanna be friends with someone like me? Someone who doesn't have a proper sleep schedule, someone who can't get any bitches, someone who is physically incapable of looking after themself due to mental problems (I'm looking at you, Damn loner).

She must be desperate if she actually likes hanging out with me, but then again, she likes hanging out with everyone; she only talks to me because I listen.

I sat at my desk while she blabbered nonsense in my ear. She did this every day, I've tried to get her away from me but she can't take a damn hint.

"And have you heard of that incident at that old factory? Some explorer tried to break in, the police found their body this morning," she says, this caught my attention, so much so that it felt kind of abnormal. "What was the name again- let me remember..." she pauses in thought "Pettime .co? Kidtime- no that doesn't sound right, Oh! Playtime .co, that was it!"

I freeze, my hands motionless resting on my keyboard. Playtime? That's the place I used to work at I thought to myself, I turned to look at her, she's zoned out. 'She doesn't know that there was more than one incident there...'

My mind jumps to an old scenario, a bad memory.

-

"Woah! What's this?" I hear Austin yell from across the warehouse, he's an idiot, so I don't talk to him much. I look over to see what it is wait- what is that? It looks like a square bracket with cannons on each end, the half-square and cannons are yellow with a hand on each end, one was blue and one was red.

It looked like it had to go around something like you're supposed to wear it. I shifted my attention back to placing boxes on shelves just as Sydney appeared (Sydney is also an idiot).

"Woah! I bet you could put it on," said Sydney, admiring the gadget "Can you help me figure out how, Syd?" Austin asked, a smirk appearing on his face, Sydney smiled back. 'The thing looks dangerous... I'll stop them if things get out of hand' I thought, trying my best to ignore them.

A couple of idiotic minutes later they finally figured it out, they're laughing like morons, I could barely hear myself think.

The hands shot out of the cannons with wires following them. They're pulling and flinging boxes and toy parts around the warehouse.

"Hey, Austin! Shoot me" Sydney yelled "I don't think that's a good idea," I say, butting into their fun "Someone's going to end up hurt" they don't acknowledge what I said, though they could both hear me. "Don't worry your pretty little head Alex, we're fine." I cringed at this comment, I don't like it when people call me pretty, and it coming out of Austin's mouth only made it worse.

They continued giggling and throwing things across the warehouse. Only a second later a huge box came flying at me. "Woah!" I ducked, throwing my arms to cover my head on instinct "watch where you're throwing things, morons!" I yelled, standing up from the position I had coiled into. "My bad Alex!" Austin yelled unnecessarily loud. "Now come on, Austin, Shoot me!" Sydney yelled, even louder than Austin.

I looked back at them, the cannon launching at Sydney's face "Ow!" she yelled as the hand grabbed her head, they continued laughing. 'Wait- have they not seen how strong that thingy is?' I thought "Wait, Stop!" I say as I started running toward them. "What?" Austin replied in a rather sassy tone "we're only joking around Alex, no one's gonna get hurt" Austin said, now sounding a bit annoyed, but I ignored him and ran straight to Sydney. I grabbed her and started trying to pry the metal hand off of her face.

"Bro chill, it's fine," Austin said slowly walking toward me as he had noticed my hostility. Sydney pushed me away from her "fuck off Alex, why do you care so much anyway?" she said before turning to Austin "take it off, Austin. It's getting hard to breathe" "oh, sure," Austin said, sounding very obviously disappointed. "WAIT" I yelled, I lunged toward her, but it was too late. She let out a half-life scream before falling to the ground.

Falling into my arms, I looked down at her headless body, blood flowing out of her neck. I dropped the corpse, scrambling away leaning back on my hands. My orange uniform is now coated in the thin red liquid, tears rolling down my face, I choke up a shaken sob, burying my face in one of my hands. I was sitting there, shaking at the scarring sight. my heart was racing. I then hear a nauseating, wet thud behind me. I slowly turned to face whatever made the sound, Then I saw it.

Her head sat on the floor. The rigid, ripped tissue made me sick. my breath trembling, my head felt like it was spinning, I felt a lump in my throat like I was going to vomit.

I got up, stumbling over my feet as I ran. Dashing through the storehouse, crashing into boxes, I found myself outside now running through the ice-glazed environment. I ran and in my fit of rage, I failed to notice the police running toward me.

I couldn't hear them, my head filled with self loathing thoughts. You're so useless, Alex! You're a coward, running away from something like that. A voice rang in the back of my head, the voice was not mine and yet it was so familiar.

"Freeze!" I heard one of them yell, I stopped and turned to see two police men running toward me. "You need to come with us, Sir- Ma'am- thing," one said, slowing down a bit after realising my frantic state. The large dark stain on my uniform was only more reason for them to arrest me.

But I couldn't understand him, I was panicked, distorted. Not thinking I started to run, dashing through the snow-glazed parking lot with the policemen chasing after me.

Then all of a sudden THUD!! One of them had tackled me, pinning me down on my stomach. I squirmed under them, my arm uncomfortably pinned against my back. The officer spoke to me "Ma'am-Sir, please, you need to come with us, we're just going to take you inside the building" he says. I feel my heart drop into my stomach, 'I can't go in there again, if I do I'll die!' "Someone working there called us about an incident, we need every witness in for questioning," he said. "No!" I snapped at them "I'm not going in there! I can't" I spoke, thick, uneven sobs escaping my mouth.

(a/n: sorry if it doesn't make sense, i don't know much about police)

-

I remember quitting my job there after that. "Hey- Tommy? Anyone home?" I turn and see Lorelai, her face a bit too close to mine. She moves away after a few moments of silence. "Sorry- it's just you've been sitting there for a couple of minutes with a blank look on your face. I thought you were dead" she says "you reminded me of Mr Nibbles..." she states with a pout before continuing to talk my ear off. I lean back in my chair, looking behind Lorelai out the big office window. The mostly blue view out of the big glass wall seeming to calm me a little, I let out a shaky breath, allowing myself to calm down more before continuing my boring fucking job.

(a/n, Mr Nibbles is Lorelai's deceased hamster.)

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