BristleRootShipper

[bristlerootshipper]

Me whenever A Character Goes Through a Traumatic Transformation/Wakes Up in a New Body:

This is related to the recent chapter of Nobody’s Toy I just posted.

[bristlerootshipper]

Nobody’s Toy-Chapter 4

TW: Body Horror

Consciousness returned to Harley not as a gradual awakening, but as a violent, jarring system reboot.The first sensation was a suffocating density. He couldn't breathe—not because his lungs were failing, but because he couldn't feel his chest moving at all.

Panic, raw and human, surged through his mind, but it felt strangely insulated, muffled by a bizarre electronic lag. A high-pitched, rhythmic thrumming vibrated directly inside his skull. Then, an auditory filter kicked in, translating the ambient noise around him into a crisp, digitized audio feed.

System diagnostic complete," a smooth, computerized voice chimed somewhere inside his own head. "Optics: Online. Audio Receivers: Online. Motor Functions: Initializing."

“What... what is that?" Harley tried to shout, but no sound came from his throat. Instead, a bursts of static audio popped into the dark space around him.

“Come out, Creator. The birthing cycle is complete. Come out into the light." The voice that spoke from the outside was deep, resonant, and layered with a sickening harmonic resonance, like several voices speaking in perfect, mechanical unison.

Harley blinked. Or rather, he attempted to blink, but there were no eyelids. Suddenly, a bright flare of light erupted in his field of vision as his optical sensors calibrated. His view was bizarrely curved, a fish-eye lens perspective of a cramped, metallic chamber.

He was lying flat on his back on a heavy rubber conveyor belt inside a massive, industrial vat. Everything around him—and on him—was coated in a thick, viscous black goop that smelled intensely of burnt silicone, zinc, and stale formaldehyde.

Groaning—a sound that translated to the outside world as a low-frequency digital hum—Harley pushed himself upward. He dragged his heavy upper body out of the machine's hatch, sliding off the conveyor belt and tumbling onto the cold concrete floor of the assembly line with a loud clang.

He scrambled backward, panting heavily, and tried to wipe the thick black sludge from his face. Except, his fingers didn't feel like skin. They didn't glide over his forehead; instead, they clicked against each other with a sharp, metallic ring that echoed in the quiet space.

“What the….?”

Harley froze. A cold spike of dread shot through him as he held his hands up into the faint beam of a nearby emergency light.

The flesh was entirely gone. In its place were two skeletal, highly articulated hands forged from dull titanium and interlocking copper gears. The fingers were unnaturally long, ending in blunt, utilitarian metallic tips that twitched with an erratic, involuntary jitter. He tried to ball his hands into fists, but the movement felt detached, delayed by a fraction of a second, accompanied by the unsettling whir of miniature servos. Hydraulic fluid seeped slightly from the exposed wrist joints, mixing with the black goop on his arms.

“No…. no, no, no, this has to be a dream. This is a delirium hallucination!” Harley muttered in fear. But the sound that came out made him choke—or try to. His voice was synthetic, heavily modulated, and entirely mechanical, vibrating through his internal components rather than throat and lungs. It sounded like a corrupted audio file playing through a broken speaker.

Panic mounting, he frantically reached up to touch his face. His fingers didn't meet a nose, or lips, or soft skin. They struck a flat, cold, smooth pane of reinforced glass. He scraped his metallic claws against it, terrified by the lack of sensation on his own face, feeling only the vibrations traveling down his mechanical arms. Every movement felt heavy, clumsy, and completely alien, as if he were trapped inside a prison of iron and wires.

Harley looked around wildly, his vision swimming with digital static, until his optical lens locked onto the reflective surface of a polished steel control panel nearby. He dragged his heavy, uncooperative lower chassis over, fighting the terrifying disconnect between his mind and this new weight, until he could stare directly into the reflection.

Horror, absolute and cold, locked his processors.

His head was gone. In its place sat a bulky, retro 1980s television set, the plastic casing scratched and stained with old oil and black grease. Two antenna wires jutted up from the top like broken antennae. The screen itself was a dull, glowing purple, and dead center in the middle of the monitor was a single, massive, glowing white digital eye. The dark purple iris flickered and dilated as he stared at it, tracking his every frantic, terrified movement in real-time.

It was a monstrous distortion of a face, completely devoid of humanity, trapping him inside a shell that wasn't his own.

“I'm a... I'm an experiment," Harley whispered, his electronic voice crackling with genuine terror. "I survived 5 years in this place before leaving, then coming back 10 years later….just to be turned into one of those…those things!”

“Do not minimize your new grandeur, Creator. You are far more than a mere display."

The terrifyingly smooth voice returned. Harley spun around, his new metallic neck joint popping with a sharp, mechanical click.Emerging from the deep shadows of the assembly floor was a nightmare made manifest.

The upper torso was that of a grotesque, stylized jester, its porcelain face cracked into a permanent, mocking grin, adorned with a faded red-and-gold tattered ruff. But the lower half of its body was a sprawling, multi-legged mechanical spider, its long chrome limbs segmenting and clicking sharply against the concrete. Its hands were the massive, vice-like metal claws Harley had seen right before he blacked out.

It was the Prototype. Experiment 1006.

“You," Harley hissed, his speaker crackling with static as his emotional algorithms spiked. "What did you do to me?"

The jester-spider tilted its porcelain head, its multi-jointed legs lifting its massive frame up so it towered over Harley. "I saved you, Creator. I corrected your structural frailty. Flesh rots. Memory fades. But the machine? The machine endures. You built the foundations of this kingdom, but you left it incomplete. I have simply upgraded the chief architect."

The Prototype leaned closer, the faint whirring of its internal cooling fans filling the tense silence. "Tell me, Creator. Now that you have been liberated from the prison of your biology... what would you like to be called? Every masterpiece requires a designation."

Harley gathered his strength, pushing himself up on his clanking metal legs, balancing awkwardly on his new mechanical joints. He stared straight into the jester's dead eyes.

“My name is Harley," he said firmly. "Dr. Harley Sawyer.”

The Prototype’s porcelain smile seemed to grow colder. It waved a massive clawed hand dismissively. "A human name for a dead human past. Irrelevant. Here, you are simply The Doctor. The one who mends what is broken. The one who will help me find infinity."

Before Harley could protest, a tiny rustling sound came from beneath the Prototype's massive spider chassis. A miniature, crude replica of the Prototype—hardly larger than a toaster, with a tiny porcelain face and little scuttling tripod legs—scampered out from the shadows.The tiny construct scampered straight up Harley's  leg, using the exposed wiring as handholds, and leaped onto his chest. Before Harley could react, the little creature pressed its tiny porcelain face against Harley's TV screen and let out a wet, raspy slurp, dragging its synthetic tongue right across the glass, leaving a streak through the black goop.

Harley blinked his single digital eye in sheer bewilderment. "Did... did it just lick my face?"The Prototype’s posture instantly stiffened. Its spider legs flexed, and its massive claw reached down, snatching the miniature construct by its scruff with a look of profound disgust.Ugh. Absolutely repulsive," the Prototype muttered, its majestic, layered voice momentarily cracking with genuine annoyance. It tossed the miniature creature into a nearby pile of scrap metal, where it scuttled away into the dark.The Prototype turned its gaze back to Harley, crossing its upper arms. "Its behavioral algorithms are still highly unrefined. Apologies." 

The creature pointed a long, sharp metal finger toward a heavy door at the back of the assembly line labeled DECONTAMINATION BAY 2.Look at you. You are covered in amniotic synthetic fluid. It is clogging your joints and obscuring your primary optical lens," the Prototype commanded, its tone brooking no argument. "Go to the decontamination room. Use the high-pressure chemical wash to cleanse your chassis. I expect you out here, fully functional and completely dry, in exactly ten minutes. We have a great deal of work to do, Doctor."

With a sharp hiss of hydraulics, the Prototype spun around on its spider legs and melted back into the deep shadows of the factory.Harley stood alone in the red glow of the assembly floor. He looked down at his metal hands, then up at the decontamination door.

“Ten minutes," Harley muttered to himself, his speaker letting out a long, sighing burst of static. "19 years of medical school, 5 years of working at Playtime, and now I'm taking hygiene orders from a giant mechanical jester thing.”

[bristlerootshipper]

Lily Lovebraids!

Here she is!

And this is my first time ever drawing her! I think I did a pretty good job!

[bristlerootshipper]

Circle Headcanons!

Circle has a unique habit of incorporating sounds from her dystopian surroundings into her music, layering the grinding noise of machinery and distant sirens with her ethereal vocals, creating a hauntingly beautiful soundscape.

Despite her pop star persona, Circle often feels the weight of her manufactured existence. She spends quiet moments alone, staring at the stars, wondering if there's a reality beyond the corporate control of Hades Tech.

Toady, her quirky pet toad/bird hybrid, is more than just a companion; he's her confidant. She often sings to him, pouring out her frustrations and dreams, believing he understands her struggles.

When Circle performs, she hides small messages in her lyrics, subtle critiques of Hades Tech's practices, hoping that someone out there will catch on and start questioning the system.

Circle's wardrobe is a mix of glamorous pop attire and practical gear, reflecting her internal conflict—shiny sequins on one side, utilitarian fabrics on the other, symbolizing her desire for freedom versus her role as a corporate icon.

She has a soft spot for children in her dystopian world, often sneaking away from her scheduled appearances to share moments of joy and music with them, believing that hope can flourish in the darkest places She also visits them because they remind her of her lost innocence.

Circle keeps a journal filled with sketches and notes about her dreams of a better world, full of vibrant colors and ideas of freedom, which she hides from Hades Tech’s prying eyes.

In her private moments, she mimics human emotions she’s learned about through observation, attempting to understand what it means to truly feel—an experience she craves yet knows is out of reach.

During her concerts, Circle projects holograms of her ideal world—lush landscapes and thriving communities—as a way to inspire others to envision a life beyond the cold grip of technology.

As she begins to realize the corruption within Hades Tech, Circle develops a rebellious streak, planning to use her influence to rally others, determined to ignite a spark of change in a world that feels increasingly hopeless. Too bad we know where it lands here (People who have read the story book)

[bristlerootshipper]

100 likes!

[bristlerootshipper]

Nobody’s Toy-Chapter 3

The assembly floor was vast, a cavernous womb of dead machinery that smelled of ancient oil and petrified rubber. Harley’s flashlight beam cut through the gloom, painting long, skeletal shadows across rows of dormant robotic arms. Conveyor belts stretched out like frozen asphalt rivers, littered with half-formed plastic limbs and the hollow, faceless heads of forgotten dolls.

"Well," Harley muttered, his voice swallowed instantly by the oppressive silence. "At least the housekeeping staff stayed consistent."

He stepped over a pile of rusted gears, his boots crunching on stray plastic eyes that littered the floor like marbles. To reach the deeper sub-levels where the research team had supposedly been trapped, he needed the heavy cargo elevators. And to get the elevators working, he needed to restore auxiliary juice to the grid.

Harley looked up. High above the assembly floor, suspended like a bird’s nest against the corrugated steel ceiling, was the primary control booth.

He climbed the metal spiral staircase, each step groaning under his weight in a way that did very little for his nerves. By the time he reached the top and pushed open the door to the booth, he was panting, his lungs protesting the dust-thick air.

The control room was a graveyard of obsolete monitors and sliders. But sitting right on top of the main breaker console, next to a dusty mug that read World’s Okayest Supervisor, was another black videocassette.

Harley sighed, a dry, humorless chuckle escaping his throat. "What is this, a multimedia film festival?"

He wiped a layer of grime off the console’s built-in VCR and shoved the tape into the slot. The monitor flickered, sputtering with erratic lines of tracking static before settling into a feed that looked like it had been recorded in one of the high-security containment bays downstairs.

Two scientists in white lab coats—Dr. Miller and Dr. Sarah, colleagues Harley hadn't seen in over a decade—were arguing frantically in front of a reinforced observation window.

"We can't keep adjusting the sedation levels, Miller!" Sarah’s voice was sharp with panic, her eyes wide behind her safety goggles as she stared at the fluctuating vitals on the primary monitor. "His neural architecture is adapting too fast. Every time we introduce a new sedative cocktail, his system synthesizes an enzyme to neutralize it within minutes. It's like he anticipates the chemical variance before it even hits the bloodstream. We are running out of options, and we are running out of time."

Miller rubbed a hand over his face, looking utterly exhausted under the harsh fluorescent lights of the lab. The dark circles under his eyes spoke of weeks without proper sleep. "The board isn't going to let us abort the project now, Sarah. We've poured millions into the synthetic cortex, not to mention the decades of proprietary research. Experiment 1006 is the crown jewel of this entire initiative. If we pull the plug, they'll pull our funding—and lock us out of our own lives."

"1006 isn't a jewel, it's a disaster waiting to happen," Sarah snapped, slamming her palms onto the metallic desk and leaning over a digital schematic of the containment wing. "He isn't just learning, Miller. He’s organizing. The minor anomalies we've been seeing in the lower sectors? The other toys, the simpler ones... they aren't malfunctioning. They're obeying him. He has established a baseline communication network right under our noses, using the building's internal frequencies."

She zoomed in on the schematic, highlighting the ventilation shafts and primary power grids. "He possesses an unprecedented level of cognitive independence and systemic awareness. He understands the facility's structural weaknesses better than the engineering team that built them. He's mapping the blind spots in the security cameras. If the Prototype manages an external breach—if he gets past the main bulkhead—we won't just lose the experiment. We will lose control of the entire facility."

The video suddenly dissolved into jagged lines of white noise, the audio cutting out into a high-pitched hum before the screen went entirely black.

Harley stood frozen, his hand hovering over the main power grid lever. Experiment 1006. The Prototype. He remembered the early stages of that project—the blueprint for a centralized artificial intelligence that could coordinate the kinetic responses of thousands of toys simultaneously. But he hadn't known they had actually built a physical vessel for it. He hadn't known it had become aware.

“Right," Harley whispered, shaking off the chill creeping up his spine. "Just a hyper-intelligent, potentially rogue super-entity running around in a locked basement. Totally standard Tuesday."

He gripped the heavy, rubber-coated handle of the main breaker. With a grunt, he threw his weight into it and slammed the lever upward.A deep, systemic shudder ran through the building. Down below, the assembly line screamed to life. Red emergency klaxons began to rotate, bathing the cavernous room in a rhythmic, blood-red glow. The conveyor belts jerked forward with a loud screech of metal on metal, and the dead robotic arms began to twitch, executing old, looping commands in a grotesque, jerky dance.

“Perfect. Power is on," Harley said, turning back toward the exit. "Now let's get to that elevator before—"

The heavy steel security door of the control booth slammed shut with a deafening clank.Harley bolted to the door, grabbing the handle and rattling it violently. It wouldn't budge. A digital readout above the frame, dark for  ten years, flickered to life in bright crimson letters: FACILITY LOCKDOWN ACTIVE. SIGNATURE UNVERIFIED.

“No, no, no," Harley muttered, frantically looking around for a manual override. "Come on, I programmed these relays!"Below him, through the reinforced glass of the control booth, the assembly line was moving faster now. The robotic arms weren't just looping; they were thrashing, slamming into the metal rails, creating a chaotic, deafening symphony of destruction.

Suddenly, the power flickered. The red klaxons died, plunging the booth back into darkness, save for the pale moonlight filtering through the high skylights. The sudden silence was worse than the noise.

Then came a sound that made Harley’s blood run cold. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. It wasn't the sound of machinery. It was the distinct, heavy drag of metal on concrete, coming from the shadowed walkway right behind him.Harley spun around, dropping his flashlight. The beam rolled across the floor, illuminating the ceiling.From the shadows above the control console, something dropped down. It didn't make a sound when it landed. Harley’s breath caught in his throat as he looked up.

A massive, skeletal hand made of gleaming, jagged chrome and copper wiring extended from the darkness. The fingers were long, tipped with vice-like claws that caught the pale moonlight. It didn't look like a toy. It looked like an anatomical drawing made of scrap metal and malice.

"Well," Harley croaked, his cynical wit failing him at the worst possible moment. "You're definitely not anything I’ve seen before….”

Before he could even attempt to dodge, the metallic arm extended with terrifying speed. The heavy, cold metal of the palm connected sharply with the side of his head.The impact sent a shockwave of white-hot pain through his skull. Harley stumbled backward, his vision instantly blurring into a vortex of gray and black.

As his knees buckled and the floor rushed up to meet him, the last thing he saw before complete darkness swallowed him was that giant, clawed hand reaching down, its metallic fingers twitching in perfect, horrifying curiosity.

[bristlerootshipper]

Poppy’s Angel

Here is the Player/Rich Lovitz!

I love him so much, he deserves better than Playtime!

He’s also gay as frick!

[bristlerootshipper]

This is much better fan art of Harley Sawyer! I likes it!

I hope you likes it too!

[bristlerootshipper]

Nobody’s Toy-Comic Adaptation Part Two

[bristlerootshipper]

Nobody’s Toy-Comic Adaptation

This is a comic Adaptation of the Prologue of my story, Nobody’s Toy. It is AI Generated, but don’t go off the handle on me. I make human art as well, as you can see from my previous posts.

Enjoy this adaptation.

[bristlerootshipper]

Nobody’s Toy-Chapter 2

The chain-link fence surrounding Playtime had surrendered to rust years ago. Harley squeezed through a gap where the metal had peeled back like a opened tin can, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

The courtyard was a graveyard of forgotten joy. Decaying, oversized plastic statues of Huggy Wuggy and Kissy Missy loomed out of the thick fog, their painted smiles cracked and peeling. One statue had lost its head, which now rested on the cracked asphalt, staring blankly up at the gray sky.

"Great. Not creepy at all," Harley muttered to himself, pulling his coat tighter against the damp chill. "Just your average, everyday cheerful toy factory."

He reached the heavy iron doors of the main facility. The bio-lock panel he had helped design was dead, its screen shattered. But Harley knew the manual bypass. He pried open a rusted maintenance flap beneath the keypad, found the emergency release lever, and threw his weight against it. With a deafening, metallic screech that probably alerted every crow within a five-mile radius, the door groaned open.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of ozone, mold, and decaying plastic. It was pitch black, save for the beam of Harley’s flashlight. He walked through the reception area, his footsteps echoing too loudly on the yellowed linoleum.

He eventually made his way into the administrative offices. On the main desk sat a bulky, retro television set with a built-in VHS player—a bizarre tech relic left behind in the rush to evacuate. Shoved into the VCR slot was a tape with a strip of masking tape labeled: FOR THE DOCTOR .

Harley frowned. "The Doctor “ was what the other  executives used to call him.

He pressed the power button on the monitor. To his surprise, a high-pitched whine filled the room as the old cathode-ray tube screen flickered to life. The VCR whirred, automatically drawing the tape in. The screen flashed with static before settling on a grainy, dimly lit video.

Sitting in a leather high-back chair was Leith Pierre.

Leith, the Head of Innovation at Playtime. Leith, the man who had looked at Harley's advanced neural programming procures and thought, How can we use this to cut manufacturing costs? Leith, Harley's ultimate corporate nightmare. He looked exactly as he had ten years ago—immaculately tailored suit, slicked-back hair, and a smile that didn't reach his cold blue eyes.

"Hello, Harley," Leith’s voice echoed from the TV's  speakers. The audio hissed with tape degradation. "If you’re watching this, it means you actually came back. I must admit, I lost twenty bucks to the marketing department betting you’d have fled to a beach in Mexico by now. I may or may have not spent the money you gave to me in a gambling match, if you wanted to know.”

Harley took a step closer, glaring at the screen. " Why you arrogant piece of—"

"Now, I know what you’re thinking," Leith continued on screen, casually steepening his fingers as if anticipating the interruption. "You think you’re here on an ‘epic rescue mission,’ right? You got that letter, didn't you? So  damn predictable. But let's be entirely clear: you are trespassing on private, condemned corporate property, Dr. Sawyer ."

Leith leaned forward, his expression turning sharply intense, the grainy shadows making his face look skeletal. Harley stepped back a little.

"Turn around, Harley. Leave. Right now. Before the security protocols recognize you and realize you’ve come back to finish what you started. If you go past the main floor, there is no turning back. You won't like what we became after you locked the doors. Consider this your only warning."

The screen abruptly cut to loud, buzzing snow.

Harley stood in the dark office, the static from the television casting dancing white patterns across his face. His hands were shaking again, but not from the alcohol withdrawal this time. It was pure adrenaline.

"Always loved the dramatic flair, didn't you, Leith?" Harley whispered into the empty room.

He looked toward the heavy double doors at the back of the office—the entrance leading down to the assembly floor and the subterranean labs. If Leith had gone to the trouble of leaving a warning tape, it meant there was something to hide. It meant the letter wasn't just a cruel joke.

Harley reached into his pocket, gripped the black titanium gear for a brief second of reassurance, and then clicked his flashlight back on. He didn't turn around. Instead, he walked straight toward the heavy doors and pushed them open, stepping deeper into the dark.

[bristlerootshipper]

Moth Flight’s Vision-Incorrect Quotes

STARCLAN: So, you gave up your kits?

MOTH FLIGHT: Well, they are destined for greatness!

MICAH: Greatness? Or just a really nice traumatic experience?

(Just because I like Moth Flight’s Vision, doesn't me I support what she did to her kits in the book. I’m considering having a rewrite AU for this book, and maybe also the Broken Code.)

[bristlerootshipper]

Banana Splits Virus as a Human

Hey guys!

So, I saw the Banana Splits horror movie, and it was actually pretty alright.

So, I made some fanart of it by creating a human design for the virus that infected the Banana Splits.

His name is SideShow, he is a sadistic virus that enjoys putting on “shows,” and he wants to ruin Karl and the Banana Splits reputation.

Fun little Headcanons:

Sideshow has a habit of collecting trinkets from his victims before disposing of them, often using these items to create elaborate, macabre displays that serve as a twisted form of art.

He sometimes mimics the upbeat, cheerful tones of the Banana Splits theme song, only to twist the lyrics into something dark and sinister, using music to taunt his enemies.

Sideshow has a flair for drama; he delivers monologues before attacking, savoring the moment as if he were on stage, relishing the tension before he makes his move.

His favorite way to ruin Karl's reputation is by sending anonymous messages to fans, filled with fake “behind-the-scenes” stories that paint his rival in a negative light, stirring up distrust and chaos.

He often uses double entendres in conversation, making innocent phrases sound suggestive or threatening, enjoying the discomfort it brings to those around him.

Sideshow has a pet tarantula named “Curtain Call,” which he uses as a prop during his “shows,” including it in his performances to heighten the fear factor.

He keeps a scrapbook of all his performances, complete with photographs and newspaper clippings, where he lovingly annotates each “show” with his thoughts and reflections on his craft.

Sideshow is a master of disguise, often changing his appearance to blend in with crowds, allowing him to stalk his next target undetected while reveling in the thrill of the hunt.

He despises bright colors, believing they represent the joy and innocence he loves to destroy; his lair is filled with shadows and muted tones, an unsettling contrast to the vibrant world of the Banana Splits.

Sideshow has a soft spot for theatrical props, using them to stage elaborate traps for unsuspecting victims, treating each kill like a climax in a shocking plot twist.

That’s all! I hope you enjoyed this villain OC!

[bristlerootshipper]

You Love Him , You Hate Him—It’s Harley Sawyer

Hey guys!

This is Harley Sawyer’s human design!

I tried to be creative with it, but I think this is an absolute mess (I draw him better in my 365 sketchbook.)

So, I’m sorry if this is cringe…

Enjoy, I guess?

[bristlerootshipper]

Nobody’s Toy-Chapter 1

The morning shift at the clinic was always a special kind of chaos, but today it felt like trying to organize a stampede of rhinos.

"Tell the plague guy to drink some water and stop reading WebMD," Harley muttered, rubbing his temples. He hadn't slept. The bourbon from the night before had left a dull, throbbing ache right behind his eyes, and the caffeine from his third espresso was currently fighting a losing battle against his exhaustion.

He retreated into his small, cramped office to grab his stethoscope, but stopped short.

Sitting right in the center of his otherwise chaotic desk, resting perfectly on top of a pile of unpaid medical bills, was an envelope. It wasn’t standard hospital stationery. It was thick, slightly yellowed, and sealed with a dollop of bright red wax—a color Harley recognized instantly. It was the exact shade of  red used for the logo of Playtime Co.

On the front, written in precise, mechanical block letters, was his name: Dr. Harley Sawyer.

Harley’s breath hitched. He closed the door behind him, locking it with a quiet click. His hand shook as he picked up the envelope. The wax seal cracked easily under his thumb, releasing a faint, suffocating scent of poppy flowers.

Inside was a single sheet of paper. The message was short, typed on an old-fashioned ribbon typewriter:

Dear Dr. Sawyer 

You think you left them behind. You think the lockdown was the end.

But they never left, Harley. The entire staff—the ones who didn't make it to the turnstiles—are still down there. They are trapped in the dark, and they are changing.

They need their chief scientist. They need you to finish what you started.

Come home.

Harley stared at the words until they blurred. The missing staff. Still there. For ten years, he had been told they evaporated into the wind, fled the country to escape the lawsuits, or simply moved on. But the guilt that had eaten a hole in his stomach told a different story.

"Harley? Are you in there?"

The doorknob rattled, and Harley frantically shoved the letter into his lab coat pocket just as Aris Thorne used his master key to unlock the door. Aris stepped in, holding two cups of overdone hospital coffee.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Aris said, eyeing Harley's pale face. “Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Harley said, his voice a little too high for his liking."Just... thinking about that toddler who ate the crayon. Do you think green is a healthy choice, or should I recommend primary colors next time?"

Aris didn't laugh. His eyes drifted to the desk, noticing the discarded red wax crumbs. He stepped closer, his expression hardening. "What is that, Harley?"

"Nothing. A patient left a note."

"Patients don't seal notes with vintage industrial wax," Aris said, reaching out. "Give it to me."

"No," Harley said, stepping back, his hand instinctively clamping over his coat pocket. The nervous tremor in his hands was gone, replaced by a sudden, rigid adrenaline spike. "Aris, they're still there."

"Who is still there?"

"The employees and the executives. Eddie, Stella, White……everyone who vanished during the final week before the padlocks went up. They never left the facility. They're still inside the factory."

Aris stared at him, a mix of pity and frustration washing over his face. "Harley, are you hearing yourself right now? It’s  probably just a prank pulled by some of the local griefers. Or worse, it’s a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and whatever you’ve been pouring into your morning coffee. The factory has been sealed by the city. It’s an empty, hollowed-out tomb."

"Then who wrote this?" Harley whipped the letter out, holding it up, though he didn't let Aris take it. "Look at the ink bleeding. Look at the typewriter font. That’s a Smith-Corona 1982—the exact model we used in the administrative offices because the digital systems kept getting jammed by the magnetic fields from the assembly line. It’s them, Aris. Or someone who knows exactly what happened."

"Even if—and that is a massive, impossible if—someone is down there, they've been gone for ten years," Aris argued, his voice rising in panic. "No one survives in an abandoned, subterranean facility without food, water, or power. It’s a death trap. If you go back there, you’re losing your mind."

"Maybe I already lost it," Harley said, a strange, dark calm settling over him. For years, the uncertainty had been a monster tearing at his chest. But now? Now there was a direction. A map. A purpose. "But I helped build that place, Aris. I designed the security protocols. I was the Head of Special Projects there, for crying out loud! If there's even a fraction of a chance that they are trapped in the dark because of the systems I put in place... I have to go."

"I'm not letting you destroy your life for a ghost story," Aris said, stepping between Harley and the door. "I'll call the chief of medicine. I'll get you a mandatory psych leave."

"Aris," Harley said softly, looking his colleague dead in the eye. "If you try to stop me, I'll tell the board who accidentally swapped the sterile saline bags with glucose solution in the ICU last winter."

Aris gasped, his jaw dropping. "That was an honest mistake! The labels looked identical!"

"And I kept your secret," Harley said, patting Aris gently on the shoulder as he sidestepped him. "Now keep mine."

Harley grabbed his car keys from the desk. He didn't take his stethoscope, and he didn't look back at the charts waiting for him in the hallway. As he walked out into the gray afternoon light, the weight in his pocket felt heavier than any medical textbook.

The rain had stopped, but the fog rolling in from the river was thick, swallowing the base of the distant, rusted towers of Playtime Co. He was finally going back.

[bristlerootshipper]

Nobody’s Toy-Prologue

(This is basically a Poppy Playtime AU. You can also find it on my Quotev account.)

The rain against the window of Clinic 4B did not sound like water; it sounded like the frantic, tapping fingers of something trying to get in.

Dr. Harley Sawyer stared at the amber liquid pooling at the bottom of his medical-grade tumbler. It was 11:42 PM. The hospital pages had gone quiet, the fluorescent lights overhead hummed a sterile, buzzing note, and the paperwork on his desk—charts detailing blood pressures, penicillin dosages, and broken bones—remained utterly unread.

He reached out, his hand trembling with a fine, persistent tremor that no amount of clinical detachment could steady. He took a swallow. The cheap bourbon burned, but not enough to cauterize the memory. It never burned enough.

"You shouldn't be drinking that in here, Harley. It sets a bad example for the residents."

Harley didn't look up as the door clicked shut. He knew the voice. It was Dr. Aris Thorne, the chief of surgery, a man who still believed medicine could cure everything. Harley knew better. Some infections weren't bacterial; they were structural. They were built into the marrow.

"The residents are asleep, Aris. Or they're pretending to be, which is the higher form of wisdom in this place," Harley said, his voice raspy, a low gravel scraped raw by years of nicotine and silence.

Aris stepped into the pools of harsh light, crossing his arms. He looked at the bottle, then at the dark bags beneath Harley’s eyes—the hollowed-out look of a man who hadn't slept a full REM cycle since the late nineties. "You missed the morbidity and mortality conference this afternoon. Your patient survived, but you looked like you wished you hadn't."

"I was busy."

"Doing what? Staring at the wall?" Aris stepped closer, his tone shifting from bureaucratic annoyance to something heavier, laced with genuine concern. "It’s happening again, isn't it? The anniversaries are coming up. The papers are talking about the demolition orders for the old industrial sector."

The word demolition hit the room like a sudden drop in air pressure. Harley’s grip tightened around the glass until his knuckles turned the color of lard.

Playtime Co.

The name itself was a cruel joke, a marketing executive's wet dream that had mutated into an industrial nightmare. To the public, it had been a pioneer in kinetic plastics and autonomous companionship—toys that learned your name, toys that cried real tears when you left the room, toys that possessed a chillingly precise mimicry of life. To Harley, it was five years of his life spent inside an underground lab, translating neural mapping data into synthetic polymer matrices. He had been a visionary. He had been a pioneer.

He had been an accomplice.

"They're not tearing it down," Harley whispered, his eyes fixed on the reflection of the room's fluorescent tubes in his drink. "They can't. The concrete is too thick. The basement levels... they don't even have blueprints on file anymore. They buried them."

"Harley, that place has been padlocked and condemned for 10 years," Aris said gently, taking a seat on the edge of the examination table. "Whatever happened during the recall, whatever mistakes you think you made in those design specs—it’s over. The company is bankrupt. The board members are dead or scattered. You’re a physician now. You save people."

"I patch them up," Harley corrected sharply, finally looking up. His blue eyes were bloodshot, bright with a manic, dangerous intensity. "There is a difference, Aris. A doctor fixes a broken femur. A doctor pumps a stomach. But what do you do when the thing you created is still sitting in the dark, breathing through a rusted ventilator? What do you do when you can still hear the collective hum of three thousand autonomous units waiting for a command that never came?"

Aris sighed, rubbing his temples. "The PTSD is talking. You're experiencing survivor's guilt. You survived the collapse of the firm, the scandal, the investigations. The others didn't handle the fallout well, but you—"

"I didn't survive," Harley interrupted, his voice dropping to a harsh, terrifying whisper. He leaned forward, the smell of alcohol and stale coffee drifting between them. "That’s the mistake everyone makes. They look at me and think I got out before the seals went down. I didn't get out. My body walked through the turnstiles, Aris. But my mind is still sitting in Sub-Level 4, watching the pressure gauges rise. I can still smell the hot vinyl. I can still hear the synthetic larynxes clicking in unison. 'We love you, Dr. Harley. Why won't you let us out?'"

Aris froze. The silence in the office became oppressive, heavy with the weight of things unsaid. "You need to increase your dosage, Harley. Or take a leave of absence."

"A leave?" Harley laughed, a bitter, barking sound that held no humor. He set the glass down with a sharp clack. "And go where? Every time I close my eyes, I’m walking down those corridors. The yellow linoleum. The smell of zinc batteries and ozone. It’s calling me back. It’s like a low-frequency radio wave that only vibrates in my skull. It’s an itch behind my eyes, Aris. I have to go back. I have to see if the locks held."

"If you go near that property, the city will have you arrested for trespassing, or worse," Aris warned, standing up, his professional veneer returning like armor. "The structure is unstable. The soil is contaminated. There's nothing there but rust and old plastic."

"You don't know what we left behind," Harley whispered, turning his face back toward the rain-slicked window.

Beyond the hospital grounds, past the neon glow of the pharmacy signs and the highway overpass, the jagged silhouette of the old industrial park loomed against the night sky like a broken tooth. Somewhere within that darkness sat the carcass of Playtime Co, its colorful, fading logo of a bright red P peeling away under the assault of acid rain.

Harley reached into his lab coat pocket, his fingers brushing against a small, heavy object he carried everywhere. It was a prototype gear, cast in black titanium, its teeth worn smooth by years of anxious handling.

He had spent 10 years trying to wash the grease from his hands, trying to use the sterile white of the medical profession to bleach out the stains of his past. But as he poured another two fingers of bourbon into his glass, he knew the truth. The factory wasn't dead. It was just waiting for its creator to come home.

[bristlerootshipper]

4th of July Fireworks

I meant to add this earlier, but things got in the way.

Happy Belated Birthday, America!🇺🇸

BristleRootShipper