"AAAARRGGH!!" Mommy roared as landed from above as human was fallen backwards onto his rear, screaming frightfully in the process. By appearance, Mommy looked horrible. Filthy with stains all over her body and some cracks left on her skin.
"I asked you to play fair, and you cheated!" She yelled in fury as she ripped out one of the pipes lining the walls. "I HATE cheaters!" Her fist slamming against the cinder block wall, Gabe could have swore he saw the concrete crack a little.
"Wait hold on!" Gabe pleaded, hope still lingering within him if he could pacify the vengeful pink spider. "Can we talk about this?"
"NO!!" Mommy shrieked with such indignation that the walls reverberated. "You don't get to talk! You don't get to think!"
She then smiled, her grin wide and maniacal, and some digits on her hands extending. "Because now, we are going to play one. Last. Game!"
Gabe took some steps backwards as psychotic toy monster then poised herself, her four hands splayed out against either wall, and her legs behind her ready for pursuit. And then with a hushed, hateful hiss, she then declares her final game.
"It's called,…"
Her body then enlongates.
"Hide."
Her fingers stretched.
"And."
And her eyes dilate till nothing but black pupils remained.
"SEEK!!!"
A pregnant pause of silence reigned between the two as they are both locked in a horrific stand off. And then the gate behind Gabe opens, initiating Mommy's count down.
"Ten…Nine…"
Putting in strong effort to bring his frozen feet back to movement, his flight instincts being the only source of his drive. He practically leaps off the stairway and to the floor. Hitting the ground with hard thud.
"…Eight…Seven…Six…"
Groaning, he immediately shot back onto his feet. His legs hurt, but he doesn't care. Adrenaline fueled his veins and surged through his muscles. Running as fast as his feet could carry him. And all the while he can hear behind him Mommy's voice echoing throughout the halls.
"…Five…Four…Three…Two…"
And then silence, nothing but the sound of feet running and the heavy pounding of his heart. He doesn't know where he's going, but there is no time to think, no time to wonder. Every fiber of his being is screaming to run as fast as he can.
He ran through halls, some stairs, and then finally a tunnel. Believing he has put some much needed distance between itself and Mommy, he takes a short break in the room he finds himself in, his breaths batted yet kept it hushed and paced so it wouldn't draw her attention. Taking a glance around he sees an emergency exit, but when he pulled the lever there was no power in it. Of course. He has to yet again find a different way out, or at least get the power working here. Maybe there is a backup generator nearby.
Moving swiftly and quietly, Gabe continues on his way. It was quiet, deafeningly quiet. So silent in fact that a pin dropped on a pillow could be heard. All the more reason to keep moving otherwise Mommy will hone in on the sound of his breathing. Walking along there are toy corpses all around, their long dried blood stains decorating their lifeless husks in random spots throughout the room. Entering a certain hallway he can see that there are hatches imbedded into the wall. Their chambers triangular with vents leading upwards. Are these incinerators?
Though there was not a sound from Mommy to be heard anywhere, Gabe can't shake the unnerving feeling of being watched. Every shadow, every crevice, could be a hiding spot just for Mommy to appear at anytime. Fear gripping his heart, he remembers the Bible verses he memorized from his devotional at home. Even the hymns he used to sing in church.
Speaking from the mind and not from the mouth, he recites a prayer. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me."
He then sees another room up ahead. He continues praying. "Your rod and shepherd's staff, they comfort me."
He nears the other room. "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anointed my head with oil, my cup over flows."
And then Mommy descends from the ceiling.
"OH GOD!!" Gabe screams as he turns on his heels and ran back where he came from. He can hear Mommy behind him, every step she made was so heavy he can feel the force of every thump as she pursued him. Thankfully she seems to be relishing this hunt, as she took it a bit slow in her pursuit. While this gave him time, Gabe had to think of something and fast.
Having made it back to the previous room before, a gut feeling told him to look up. And sure enough, there is a hole above with a bar at the very top. Without a second thought he fired the Grabpack and pulled himself up inside, just the in time as Mommy entered. Gabe did not dare breathe as he watched the giant spider scurry below. Her laugh so distorted that it shifted from high cackling to a grotesque, deep pitch.
Once the laughing has ceased and the loud footsteps fade, he slowly lowers himself down, thanking God that Mommy didn't bother to so much as look up. The way back to the emergency exit has been blocked, webbed up in fact. So yet again he must find another way back to the exit should he get the power back up and running. Cautiously he continues back through the corridor that she appeared in, muffling each step he takes.
He soon finds himself in a small refinery. There on one side of the room is a large blast furnace, but it has been left cold and inactive for so long, many cobwebs decorated the furnace's rusted exterior.
His thoughts then trace back to a moment earlier when Mommy first found him in their last game. How did she find him so quickly? Sure she could have caught up with him, but that was too quick. How did she do it? It was then that he realized, the toy corpses, they weren't just creatures alive at one point and then succumbed to wounds. No, they are prey. Mommy's prey.
This whole place, the Game station and the surrounding halls. It is her home, her domain, her hunting ground. Every square inch of this place has been claimed and memorized by her. And he has just been wandering through it this entire time.
He has to get out of here, now. He soon finds a shutter door to his left, its bottom slightly open. He crawls his way through and proceeds across a catwalk overlooking a deep shaft. But before he so much as reach the other side, Mommy reappears from below, facing him with her black as night eyes just as dark as the void below.
Immediately turning tail, Gabe ran back to the shutter door and then rolls his way under it, just in time before one of Mommy's hands could grab him. As Mommy started to pry open the iron door, Gabe shot up to his feet, frantically looking around. He knows if he ran straight back to the same hiding spot as before she will suspect he is hiding in there and find him quickly. he needs a new spot to hide in, fast.
He then sees it, the furnace doors still open and its chamber large enough for him to hide inside. He ran inside the blast furnace and immediately pulled the doors shut with his Grabhands. He didn't so much as let the handles go as he hears Mommy rip the shutter door open. The entire room begins to quake as she ran on through, gutturally roaring and groaning. Her furious footsteps sounding like a thunderous stampede.
It was only then once the noise subsides, did he bring himself to open the blast doors. Exiting the furnace, he finds that the room has been webbed up even more, but thankfully she didn't web up the ripped open door.
Making his way back over the catwalk, he finds a new room with giant cogs. He doesn't know if this could be the generator he is looking for, but there is a lever with many wires coming out from it, so there is only one way to find out. He pulls the lever and the cogs come to life, and suddenly some lights come on. That was it! Now he has to get out of here before-.
But just as he finished that thought, Mommy immediately crawls her way up from a deep hole in the wall. Gabe once again for the third time turns tail and run, Mommy's cackling laughter booming behind him. He knew this was it, there won't be anymore hiding this time, it is now a full on race to the finish against Mommy Long Legs to the emergency exit.
Running back across the catwalk Mommy's hands tried to reach out from the darkness below to grab him, he rolls under them before they could even touch him. Exiting the torn off shutter door he veers right, intent on taking the hallway back. However it seemed Mommy knew this. For once he turned, one of her arms appearing from a random hole in the wall then pulls down a fragile part of the ceiling. Causing metric tons of rubble to fall and block the way.
But the force of the fallen debris jolted a locked door open. He burst through that door with enough power to give a man a concussion. Mommy still gave chase, she veered off to the side of another wall and crawled on it down into a pit. Gabe continued on, sweat drenching his brow, he soon finds himself leaping into another hole. With Mommy appearing again through the gaps between a set of broken pipes.
He pushed on, begging God that he will hear him in his time of need. He sped on into a sewer system, turning left and right as Mommy's many hands reached out to him. He reached the end of the sewers, but it was a dead end. But looking up there is a bar at the top of the concrete shaft. His Grabpack grabbed it and yanked him up just seconds away from Mommy's grasp. She then climbed after him, never relenting in her hunt.
Reaching the top he swings to the open ledge and sprints onwards. Weaving past pipes, he can hear her unnatural laughter just feet behind him. He soon approaches another pit, as quick as lightning he fires the Grabpack at a hanging rebar in the ceiling and swings over, to which he then barrels his way through an open hole the the wall. It then seemed that Mommy has no choice but to take a long way around, disappearing into the pit.
Gabe sees that he is back in the room he started in, the emergency exit is now functional, he wastes not a second pulling the lever down. The door opens and he rushes inside, running through a very long empty hallway. It took about half a minute just to make it to the end. Gabe dared to look over his shoulder, he doesn't see or even hear any trace of Mommy. It seems that by some miracle he has lost her. Now all that stands between him and both his and Poppy's freedom is just this shutter door. And all he has to do is let the blue hand scanner do it's work.
The scanner does its job and begins scanning the blue hand. But then he hears something. Laughter.
Dreadfully, he turns around, only to witness as Mommy Long Legs appears out through the threshold on the other side of the hall.
Gabe has shouted before, but now, as he watches death literally running towards him, he finally screams in genuine horror. "God! Help me! PLEASE!!" The door then starts to finally open as Mommy makes it past halfway towards him. Gabe didn't bother to wait, he pushed himself through once it was open halfway. He ran through, and then upon instinct pulls a lever, not bothering what its purpose might be. He ran for his life at full speed, only to be smashed face first into a grated door.
He turns around just in time to see Mommy crashing through into the room with him. His back was practically planted against the door. He chose to accept it, she caught him. This is it. This is how he dies. But Mommy didn't make a move yet. One of her four hands is actually stuck in something. Grinder teeth. And it was then that Gabe realized, that that lever wasn't to the door at all.
The grinder then activated.
"AAAHHHHH!" Mommy screamed horrifically as her hand disappeared into the grinder's teeth. All the while Gabe was watching, frozen in place. "What have you done!?" She yelled at him. "He'll make me part of him!"
She tries her best to pull her hand out using her other hands and even some feet. But once she manages to rip her caught arm from its socket, one her feet then gets caught in the teeth. She was practically clawing on the tile floor, desperately trying to gain any grip as she is slowly being pulled closer to her imminent death. And still, Gabe continued watching.
"You can't. Do this to me!" Gabe sees her abdomen is just a foot away from the machine's rotating teeth, many would see this as cathartic, justifiable even. But yet-
The teeth then touched her, its sharp points piercing into her flesh, and just as soon as her body was about to be crushed. It stops. Abruptly and not a centimeter more. Mommy watches as the grinder then fizzles out and short circuits itself, the gears grinding themselves to dust, and with a puff of smoke it was over. She pulled herself out, plopping to the floor, she inspects her body, missing an arm and a leg along with a handful of puncture wounds on her abdomen.
Then as the smoke cleared, she sees Gabe there, his fist smashed against the emergency cutoff button.
Mommy was flabbergasted. "Wha…y-you…why-"
"WHAT HAPPENED!?!?" Gabriel bellowed. His booming voice carrying such intensity that it sent Mommy back.
Her response was soft and quiet. "Wha…?
"WHAT HAPPENED HERE!?!"
It was now Mommy that was scared of Gabe. But there wasn't any rage or malice in his bellowing voice, but it sounded more hurt, desperate. She started backing crawling back away as he screamed on. "TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED HERE!! PLEASE!!!"
Mommy can see it in his eyes, they are on the verge of tears. She watched as he fell on his knees, as if to beg of her of sweet release. Maybe he actually was.
She was silent, so Gabe then continued. "You, you want to kill me right? Right!?" He said scurrying over to her whilst she is still lying on the floor. "THEN DO IT!! I don't care anymore!" He then took two of the now three of her hands and wrapped them around his neck, even going as far as placing her thumbs directly on his windpipe. He really is begging her to kill him.
His voice was breaking. "Just please! Tell me what happened! I want to know! I NEED to know!"
She was still silent, there are no words to say nor any insult to give. But this was her chance. She has him. He is literally giving himself up to her. And all for what? Just to be reminded of the things that he has already done before? So why? Unless…
Then it clicked, the realization dawning on her with such intensity that it shook her to her core. Because the reality is, is that he's actually telling the truth. He truly, genuinely, has no idea what is happening here. He wasn't there when she was made. Nor was he there during her torture. Poppy was right about him. He really was just a regular assembly worker who knew barely skin deep about this factory's darkest secret. It was this lack of knowing that brought him back, and here he is, willing to die for it.
"You…don't know." She said slowly, each word possessing a softness that was unknown on her tongue.
"Wha-What does that supposed to mean!?" Gabe was baffled. "I just want to know what happened here!" He still has Mommy's hands around his throat. "Please, I don't care anymore. I just, I just want to know!"
Her grip then lessened.
"You….You are different."
Mommy finally lets go, falling back to the floor leaving the bewildered and distraught human kneeling on the floor with her. Gabe saw as her eyes shifted back to their normal bright green and her stretched out limbs now returning to their normal shape. She then does something that was a bit unexpected.
She starts to laugh, but not at Gabe, but herself. "To think,…I was going to rip you to shreds and eat your heart out!" She whimpered whilst hysterically laughing up a storm. Gripping her plastic hair in her hands while staring out into open space with glassed eyes, curling her legs in to herself till she was practically in a fetal position.
Gabe was astonished. Here was this monster that wanted nothing more than to hang him by his own entrails and devour from him inside out, but now, she is on the floor sobbing like a child.
He tries to reach out to her, putting a hand on her shoulder, and using the gentlest tone. "Mommy?" She then locks eyes with him, both of them staring deep into each others souls.
It was then that Mommy finally spoke. "Poppy told me, but I didn't listen. You came back here to seek answers. To find your friends?"
"Yes." Gabe has already forgotten that a moment ago she wanted him dead. "Please, tell me."
There was a pause, as if she was hesitant to even speak it. Gabe simply sat there, so close to her in fact that the both felt the warmth of their breaths. But what she said next, cut his last remaining strings of hope.
"They're gone."
Gabe was speechless.
"There is not one left."
"But,..that can't just be it." Gabe said. "There's got to be more to this, right?"
She wanted to tell him, she really did. But He won't let her. "No, if you know the full truth, you will only hurt yourself. This is all that you should know."
The shutter door to the way back to the Game Station then opens. Mommy the grabs his hand pleading with him. "The train code is with Miss Poppy in the control room. Please, go home. There is nothing left for you here."
But Gabe wasn't willing to leave so quickly, not with Mommy alone like this. "But what about you?"
"…?"
Gabe then comes up with an idea. "My home, it's a farm. Tucked away in a valley with the nearest town miles away." He then stands up while still holding onto her. "I can take you out of here. I can give you a new home. For you, Poppy, and all those other toys. Even Huggy. You don't have to stay here anymore."
Mommy looked at him, her eyes glossing over with wetness. She was brimming with such newfound hope that she wanted to follow him to the edge of the earth if it meant being anywhere far away from this place. This place that has brought nothing but torment upon her. But Hereminded her, like a string tugging at the back of her head, that no. She doesn't belong out there, there is only here. With Him.
"I-I can't." She said sorrowfully. Hugging herself. "I have done things. Terrible things. I shouldn't leave."
Gabe wasn't so convinced. In fact, a newfound resolve has been solidified in him. This won't be how he leaves. "No." He adamantly states, bringing himself face to face with her. "I don't care what you did. I will not leave you here."
Then finally for the first time in so long, Mommy felt tears running down her cheeks. Is this what genuine kindness looks like? She then reaches for him, Gabe's heart lifts in anticipation. Until it was crushed when Mommy shoves him away. With two of her arms she pushes Gabe across the floor till he's past the shutter door, and with her third one, she pulls the door shut. Cutting them both off.
"Mommy?!" Gabe said as he pushed himself back to his feet. "But why?"
She doesn't answer him. Instead curling herself even tighter in her arms and legs then burying her face within them. Gabe tries to raise the door but it was no use. He isn't strong enough to even budge it. "Why!?" Again, no answer. She really has decided to stay and there is nothing he can do to change her mind. Feeling defeated, with nothing else left to do for her, he turns away and begins the trek back. But not before promising her.
"I'll come back for you. I promise." And with that he ascended the stairs, and is gone. Leaving Mommy alone to wallow in her sorrow.
She sat there, unmoving and still as a statue. The only sign of life within her being the subtle sobs escaping her lips. And then, as if her troubles have not exceeded past the breaking point already, she feels it. Like a cold vice-like grip that trails up her spine and into the very depths of her mind. A presence so saturated with mind numbing bitterness that it was all consuming, like the hunger that he inflicts.
It is Him.
"He is gone." The dark voice said.
"Yes." Mommy plainly replied. Not even bothering so much as raising her head.
"And you let him go."
"Yes."
"Why?" The voice demanded.
"Because he is different."
"Different? What is there to tell the difference from?" The voice snarled. "There are many humans that are like him out there. Those that gift you with the promise of home and clever words. But it will all end the same. He will abandon you when there is no convenience in you. For that is the nature of this world, Marie Payne."
Mommy drank in those words like icy daggers straight to her heart. But then, she laughs at it.
"You find your failure laughable?"
"Oh no! Actually,…it's just you! Because as it turns out, everything you just said, all of this, it's all just one big joke. Hahahaha!"
A short pause of silence followed. It was then that Mommy declared. "I'm done." She says. "I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore."
He agrees, for He is done with her as well. "You will answer for your insolence."
Just then, out from under a slightly open shutter. A massive mechanical hand appears, its long, needle-like, skeletal fingers sharp enough to cut through stone spreads wide behind Mommy. Ready to strike her with a single stroke.
"I know." Was what Mommy said as the claw was brought down on her.
Till something, someone, pushed her out of the way.
<<<<<<<<<<~>>>>>>>>>>
Having made it up the stairs, still holding back the tears stifling in his eyes, Gabe soon makes it to the top of the stairway and back out into the Game Station. This time, he is on a metal catwalk overlooking over the whole station. His heart still feels heavy not only from the burden of knowing friends are all gone, but that Mommy for some bizarre reason has refused to leave.
Why? He knows she doesn't like this place, and who doesn't. He himself sure as heck doesn't want to stay here any second longer. So why is she so willing to stay, doesn't she know that this place is hurting her.
In the middle of this system of walkways hangs a room, that must be the observation room Mommy told him about. He heads inside and sure enough, just to Mommy's word, there hangs Poppy webbed up in spider's silk. The train code just sitting just next to her. He fires the Grabhand and pulls the silk off, freeing her. She stumbles forward just a little bit before nearing the edge. She looks at him plainly.
"Did you kill her?" Her voice strangely apathetic.
Gabe doesn't feel like talking right now. "No." He plainly says.
"No?" She was actually surprised by this development. As if she wasn't expecting both Gabe and Mommy alive as an outcome. "Hmmm. I'll board the train." She then begins to walk off into one of the vents. "We have to leave."
Then soon as she disappears into the vents Gabe soon follows after her by a different way, taking a slide down to the back of the station. His heart sinking yet even lower when he doesn't see Bunzo anywhere, nor the Mini-Huggies, PJ, or even Kissy. He really is leaving the factory alone, but at least Poppy is there for him. And so he enters the locomotive's cabin, puts in the code, and starts the engine.
Gabe thought he should feel relived, joyously reveling even now that he is leaving the factory alive. But yet as the train begins chugging along the track, he feels, unsatisfied. Unfulfilled. Like there is something more to be done in this place. Like there was something he is missing. But it seems none of it matters now, what is done is done. But even once he leaves he'll still hold true to his promise to Mommy. He will come back for her and convince her to come with him, her and along with every other toy in this cursed factory.
However, just as the forked rail ahead nears closer, Poppy had a different idea.
"I was so scared when Mommy took me away from you." Poppy said through the train's intercom. "I thought she was going to put me right back in that case. But you saved me."
"Well, I don't know if it counts that I didn't knew you were alive at first." Gabe responds while sitting on the conductor's chair. "But, I guess it's a good thing anyway. I'm glad I'm bringing someone out of here. Couldn't have hoped for a better silver lining."
Gabe heard Poppy silently gasp. As if there was something else on her mind. "Gabe…while I did say I was going to help you. I never said that we'll be leaving."
"...What?"
"Gabriel, you are perfect. Too perfect to lose." Just then the rails changed directions. Away from the exit. "I'm sorry. I can't let you leave."
Gabe was stunned. Now she of all people is wanting to stay?! "Poppy what is this!?" He yelled. "I thought you wanted to get out of here!?"
"No, not yet." Poppy responds. "Not when there is still unfinished business here."
"What business?" Gabe incredulously asks as the train shifted towards its new path. "What could you possibly want to do in a place like this?!"
"You'll see Gabe, you'll see soon enough." She then continues. "You know, I never met anyone like you. I have seen many people come and go and they all appeared the same to me. But out of all of them, you are different, very very different. You are perfect. You are the one we had all been waiting for. Our Angel."
"Angel? Poppy if you know anything about me, I am not an angel."
"Tell that to them, because now everyone here knows about you Gabriel, even Him. And they'll all soon see you as one, just like I do."
"But why? What makes me so special?"
Poppy then answered by continuing. "Do you know how long I have been stuck in that case? Well, too long. I had so much time to think and reflect, thinking on what to do once I'm free. And now, after all this time, we can finally put an end to this. Terrible things have happened here, but I know that whatever I need you to do, you are capable."
"Capable of what?"
"….To make things right."
She then finally said. "We will soon reach the bottom of this track, and once we do we'll…" But something then cut her off. "Wait, what?"
And then silence. "Poppy? Poppy are you there?" He said tapping the speaker. But still, not a peep is heard. Suddenly, he felt the train's momentum start to pick up speed. The train is going faster. "Uuuuhh. Poppy, I don't know about you, but don't you think this train's going a little too fast?" But even still, not a single word is heard.
The tracks then shift downhill, causing the train to pick up even more speed. Chugging hard and fast like the ragged huffing of a race horse galloping in a ferocious fury. And even then the train accelerated faster and faster. And faster, and faster, and faster. The alarms then blared, it's red light flashing in the cabin. Gabe swore that he is going past a hundred miles at this point. He would open the door and jump out but it was too late, he would just get himself splat inside the tunnel walls and earn himself an embarrassing epitaph.
There is only one thing to do now if he wants to save himself from a wreck, pull the brakes. He finds then, and using both Grabhands, he pulls the lever hard, so much so that the metal rod begins to bend. Sparks flew from the wheels as the train screeches an ear-piercing scream. But the train was just simply running too fast, soon a turn appears, and the train falls to its side. Gabe falls with it, smashing his head against the wall. He begins losing consciousness, and then slips off.
The next thing he sees is the train at a full stop. Flames erupting and smoke fumed as some metal is already melting off the engine. Gabe can feel the last strings of consciousness slipping. He then turns flat on his back, and past the blurred, dark vision and smoke, he can make out two things. One is a sign pointing to his newest destination, Playcare. And the other, is an unnaturally large smile of a massive, purple creature.
And then, everything turned to black.