In the eerie silence, accompanied by flickering lights in the lab, their creation had come to life. Sitting around a table were a group of scientists, mysterious figures who wore uncanny, animal-like masks that concealed their identities. After a quick observation, they agreed that it was a successful experiment.
The scientists were fixated on the fears of children and desired to extract the fears into a vessel that could keep hold of it. Their first creation was mainly made up of cotton and thread, but it was partly an organic and self-aware creature that had human-like thoughts, feelings, and emotions. For the scientists to be able to install their experiments into the homes of children, they needed a way for them to look appealing. The scientists knew that children liked cute things such as Teddy Bears. That is what they made him out of.
The scientists called him "Experiment01," They had inserted consciousness into him which is what gave him his own emotions. Behind his fluffy, brown fur and his small, dark eyes was an innocent soul. Before sending their creation out to the public, the scientists needed to give him an appropriate name. They also needed to create more bears. The scientists had decided on the name "Bruno" for him, it was short, sweet and fit him well.
Bruno had seen what the scientists had done, injecting real bear DNA into him, and stuffing the remains of a brain in his head. Although his goal assigned by the scientists was to harvest the fears of children, the bear already had fears of his own. Each fear the bear had would make him more aggressive to the scientists. Every time he would attack the scientists, they would gas him out and would remove portion of his brain, however, his conscious stayed no matter how much they removed. The scientists planned on making many more bears, hundreds and thousands to further test the hypothesis.
Bruno, being the first one, knew the truth. What the scientists were doing was inserting consciousness into Teddy Bears and using brain wave technology to get the fears out of minds and into them. The scientists planned on placing one Teddy Bear into each child's home. They would sit on their bed like a normal Teddy Bear, the children wouldn't suspect a thing. But while the children would sleep, the brain wave technology would drag the fears out of the children's minds and into the bear, making it live inside them instead. The Teddy Bears had to have some level of conscious to be able to do their job correctly, the scientists figured as the bears needed to know what the fears were and if they were correctly extracted. The real bear DNA was purely for survival instinct purposes.
Little did the group of scientists know, too much fear inside the bears would cause them to completely lose it, and even become the fears themselves. They kept Bruno locked up most of the time to keep him safe and secured. In the same room, Bruno could see many other cages for the new bears these people would put them in, if only they knew how the bears felt, but the seemingly mad scientists were inhumane beings. In the dim lights of the laboratory and the cold floor, Bruno would sit. The smokey air would fill the room as the scientists would research in the other room, being able to hear them whisper to each other.
Although the group of scientists were the ones who created him, Bruno saw himself as an entity. He did not understand how consciousness could be injected into him, after all there were remains of a brain in his head but it surely would've been dead. Considering Teddy Bears aren't expected to be alive like Bruno is, he liked to refer to himself as something. He was an alive bundle of cotton and thread which is usually not normal. He called himself the "Stitched Anomaly."
The scientists came back after a while with their new creation. Expectedly, it was just like Bruno, an alive Teddy Bear. He was somewhat different; he had soft, yellow fur with a larger nose and eyes, his paws were more detailed, and he had a different name. This was "Experiment02," but his nickname was Bailey. The fearful bear was shoved inside a cage, right next to Bruno, who saw him as a potential friend.
The bears needed to escape, the fears were getting too much for them. The scientists would regularly inject fear into them during surgeries to get them ready for when they harvested the fears off of children. It was only until they noticed that the injections were the reason why the bears were so aggressive in the first place, each time the surgery would proceed on the bears, they would try to attack them.
The bears would grow subtle features each time, such as small claws. Still, they injected the bears with the fear serum. It was until 1979 when the bears were finally released into homes. The scientists paid for commercials to be aired on television showcasing the bears. The commercials would consist of a talking puppet variant of Bruno and Bailey, who weren't the real ones. The puppet versions would say things like "we are the fear-catching bears, we get rid of your nightmares!" along with visuals containing the bears singing on beds while watching over a child.
These commercials aired for a long time. Bruno and Bailey were finally released into homes for months, collecting fears whilst other bears were being made. Many months went by and the bears would grow with every bundle of fears they collected. They would get more aggressive. When they had finally returned back to the lab, they were riddled with fear and aggression that they wouldn't stop attacking the scientists. Each fear would corrupt them more and more each day.
One day Bruno broke out of his cage and ripped one of the scientists' face off. He tried to escape the building but the other scientists caught him. They lit him on fire and tied him up. Bailey was traumatised by what he had seen, he hid in his cage away from the scientists as much as he could, as he was more fearful than Bruno. When Bruno awoken, his fur was matted and burned, his eyes smokey and bloody.
Bruno was now even more scared of the scientists so he hid from them as much as Bailey did. The scientists still injected numerous substances into Bruno. One of the substances caused a mutation in him, making him grow more eyes and even be able to form fire from his paws. He became larger in size and more aggressive towards the scientists. Bailey was also mutated, instead into a 4th dimension being who could create clones of himself and use them to attack the scientists.
They could both return to their original selves as well so they would look seemingly harmless. The bears knew that they were strong enough to get out now that they were mutated creatures. In 1984, the bears had decided to attack and kill all of the scientists and escape the building. Months later, a group of police entered the area and saw nothing but dead scientists wearing masks and blood everywhere, no evidence of the killer was found. They called this the "Ghost Murderer Incident."
The bears escaped into the Forrest, Bailey hid in another dimension while Bruno would hide in the forest and attack passers by for years to come.
Whilst police were still trying to discover the who and what caused the incident, a journalist named Fredrick Jones was exploring the forest. He came across a slight sighting of Bruno, who tried to attack him. Fredrick got away from him and made a news article saying what he saw. He described Bruno as a large, overgrown brown Teddy Bear with large stitches that had appeared out of nowhere and started attacking people. He called him the "Stitched Anomaly." Fredrick said that the Stitched Anomaly was an entity.
Many people disagreed with Fredrick and didn't believe him, instead they thought he was out of his mind. Fredrick still knew that Bruno existed and suspected him to be linked to the Ghost Murderer Incident. He told the police what he thought but they also didn't believe him, instead they took him to a mental asylum and got him assigned into a straight jacket. They thought he was insane when he said that a murderous Teddy Bear caused the scientists' deaths.
Fredrick was in fact telling the truth, he was the only one who knew the truth about what had happened, nobody believed him as he was only a junior journalist and nobody took him seriously.
In 1986, when Fredrick was released from the mental asylum, he was still dedicated to find out more about the bear in the woods and if he were the one who caused the incident. He would constantly go into the woods in hopes of seeing Bruno again, but he didn't. Fredrick started to second guess himself and think that everyone was right about him being insane. He felt like his idea of a murderous Teddy Bear was stupid and that he wasn't sane, or possibly just imagining things.
Humiliated, Fredrick decided to quit his job because he felt as if he wasn't a real reporter. He sat at his desk in his house thinking about where he went wrong. He was so humiliated that he wanted to change his identity, especially because he was extremely recognisable by his curly blonde mullet hairstyle, his prominent freckles, his bright green eyes, and his small, dark beard. Fredrick knew he wouldn't be taken seriously ever again.
He filed a request to change his name, and to his surprise, it was approved. He chose to change his name to Richard Henderson. He went to the barber and got his beard shaved, his hair straightened and cut into a pompadour hairstyle and got it coloured black. His identity was officially changed, he even went as far to change his wardrobe and get a new occupation as a construction worker.
He worked on himself for four years, both mentally and physically until 1990, Fredrick, now called Richard, decided to go back into the Forrest to see if Bruno was really real. He saw a large, brown bear with visible stitches and mutations feasting on a corpse. Richard knew he was right all along. He got out his camera to take photos. As soon as he put it away, Bruno had already spotted him. He went to attack Richard but an invisible force stopped him. Bailey appeared and used his forces to get Bruno out of the way and even turn him into his normal self. Bailey took a glance at Richard and walked away.
Scared and confused, Richard knew that what he was seeing was not all in his head. There were real Teddy Bears that were harmful. One seemed less evil than the other. As he got back home, he got out his sketchbook and drew what he saw. He sketched a large, brown Teddy Bear with large claws, and large stitches, as well as burns on his fur. Richard sketched a bright yellow bear with a force around him and large stitches too.
Richard went back into the forest and night and filmed what he saw so he could show the police. He was suddenly pulled underground by none other than Bailey. He warned Richard not to go near Bruno as it could cause him harm. He also made him promise that he wouldn't tell anyone what he saw, not even the police, because it would get both he and Bruno killed. Richard agreed to not tell anyone but was still intrigued by what he's seen.
Richard kept a journal where he would write his experiences and the creatures he would see. He would constantly go back into the forest to see if Bruno was still there, and which he was. The forest was called "Bluebell Park" and it was his new territory. Richard figured that was most likely the reason why the bear would kill anyone who entered the forest. Now he understood what Bailey was talking about and that he did need to stay out of the forest or he would get attacked by Bruno and likely even killed.