how did you meet Stitcher?
Peacekeeper looks away, her face showing deep regrets and inner turmoil.
"I should've handled things better"
It all started when Frank became...weird.
He stopped coming over everyday to play.
He wouldn't even tell her about bugs anymore.
Frank used to be fearless, but suddenly...he became stressed, paranoid even. Julie knew something was up, but Frank wouldn't talk to her, not at all...
"Hey Frank, what game should we play today ?
- Not today Julie... I can't....I just can't.
And Frank hang up the phone. That was the last time they spoke. After that, Frank was gone. And wherever she searched, the woods, every house, every nook and crany, she couldn't find him. Frank was gone...
And the other neighbours didn't seem to notice. Even though his house was still there.
"Maybe he went on a vacation ?"
But Julie wasn't having it, surely something happen. He wouldn't leave her just like that, without a word, would he ? Aren't they best friends ? Surely he would have told her if he left...
With those thoughts came the worry that perhaps, he wasn't alive anymore. That thought scared her, saddened her, so she tried not to think too much about it.
And then, everything turned for the worse. The world started collapsing on itself ! Cracks in the very walls of their reality, the buildings crumbling like gingerbread houses. Everything was dangerous, and would attempt to kill Julie and her friends. They would all take refuge in Home, Wally let them in. Poppy, Sally, Barnaby, Eddie, Howdy, Wally and Julie, they thought it'd be alright. Home would protect them, right ? But Home ended up collapsing too. And whoever, or whatever home was, panicked. The group would start to see hands appearing from nowhere, trying to grab them, dismember them. There was blinding lights, there was shouting, there was screaming, and more lights and shadows, a frantic dance of pain and danger. Soon, Julie, the most agile and quick on her feet, was the only one still standing, although her leg was severely injured, cotton pouring out with each move.
Just as suddenly as it started, everything quieten. It was as if time itself stopped. Julie looked around her, the shadowy hands floating in the air, the breaks and cracks in Home, her friends, reduced to mere bloody corpses. Wait...no...not corpses. Isn't blood supposed to be red...? Julie looked at her own wound. It looked more like a rip in a fabric. White stuffing was coming out of it... Julie looked around, her expression distorting to that of pure horror as she realized that her friends and herself never were beings of flesh, but mere...plushes ? Puppets ?
Her gaze drifted to Poppy's body. The terrified bird, in a desperate surge of courage, had attempted to protect Wally and Sally... And thus suffered the most damages. Julie carefully approached her three friends, and would noticed one's chest slowly moving. Wally is alive !
Julie picked up her friend from under Poppy's wing, which made her body crumble on the ground, and would drag him to a spot without any shadow hands despite her injured leg. Wally was unconscious, both his arms ripped appart. Aboundant stuffing would come out of the wounds at any attempt to move.
"It's going to be okay Wally !"
Julie said, but she was crying. All her friends were dying, dying for what, for who ? For no reason. Wally and her were the only survivors here... As Julie sat down, she felt something near her leg. Her gaze fell on Poppy's eye, that had rolled over here when her corpse collapsed. Freaky, but by that point Julie already had seen worse.
Julie picked up the eye, tears rolling down her face. She tried to joke to comfort herself :
"Heh, keepin' an eye on me, Poppy...? Even glasses wouldn't fix...this...? Oh ?"
Julie got an idea. If they were made of stuffing and fabrics, if they were puppets... Then maybe, just maybe, if she fixed her friends, they'd come back to her.
This was a silly idea, really, but an idea anyway. Julie got up, the pain in her leg felt far, so far from her. So far that she could probably run right now, despite the stuffing coming out. And running she did. She ran to Poppy's house, to grab a sewing kit.
Julie was in pain, shocked beyond words, horrified, to a point that the state of her world collapsing, distorting to grotesque visuals as shadows would attempt to take it all appart before time stopped; all of this wouldn't do much worse to her current mental state. Her pain felt unbarable, yet she ran on the way back to Home still.
As soon as she came back, she got to work, starting with the one that was still with her, Wally. Taking out threads and needles, she would attempt to stitch back together everything she could...but soon she comes to find she was missing a few pieces of fabrics...
Julie was out of breath, her mind fogged by the pain she was still feeling. As far as the pain felt, it was still there, clawing at her leg as if to prevent her from doing what she had to in order to save her friend. Her gaze slowly turned to the closest corps. Barnaby... Barnaby had enough fabric already... He probably wouldn't mind if she gave some to his best friend, right ?
Julie grabbed the dog's arm, which was already cut from his body. Carefully, with little scissors, she would undo all the seams that where already there, got out the stuffing, so she'd have a bit of fabric to use to patch Wally's body. And as she did all that, she would pray. Pray to god, or satan, or whoever would hear her now, that her idea would work, that she could save him.
But by the time she had tied the last knot of thread... Wally wasn't breathing anymore.
"Wally...? Hey...there...I fixed you up... Please wake up..."
Wally slowly opened his eyes, for Julie's greatest joy. She was crying again. She did it ! She saved him ! He was alive ! Thanks to her... She fixed him nicely, although she couldn't give him back his arms, but it still worked !
Wally's eyes would have no shine in them. He wasn't talking, just staring at her blankly with his eyes that looked dead. A blink. Two blink... Then tears. Some sort of black, goopy tears.
"Aw, are you happy that I saved you ? Well, I am happy too, I fixed you !"
Wally made a noise... Was he going to talk ?
"...aegh....hu...Ju...li..e...no...hu...rt...ugh.."
"Yes, it doesn't hurt anymore, does it ? Hold on, I'll fix everyone too ! They'll wake up, and we'll all leave together... Everything will be fine Wally"
"...p...l..ea..se...no..."
But Julie wasn't listening, she had moved on to fix the others already, while Wally could only look at her with a horrified gleam in his eyes. Barnaby, then Eddie, then Sally, then Howdy, then Poppy. Each of them would wake up and cry as they did. "Cry of Joy, Cry of Life", Julie would chant. It was no such thing, however.
As she was fixing Poppy and her eyes, Julie suddenly heard a loud crash. The shadow hands would be moving again, the chaos started anew, only more destructive as it would now try to attack itself. The cracks of void would open and close, hands fighting themselves. As the chaos spread, the cracks of void would become bigger and bigger, the ground was trembling. Julie screamed, hiding in Poppy's wings. She had just managed to save her friends, but she ran out of time...
Suddenly, she felt a movement. Poppy had risen, standing up with Julie in her wings. The other stood up as well. They'd all come around Julie, as if to protect her, and hug one last time. Julie cried.
"No, no, don't do that, you all woke up, let's leave, let's get out, let's -"
The ground shook again, and they'd all lose balance, tumbling in a mess of puppets. At the last minute, Poppy would cry the goopy black tears too. Instead of horror in her gaze, and that dead look the others had, Julie could only see...compassion. But Julie didn't understood compassion here. She didn't understand anything, actually, as Poppy threw her in one if the cracks of void. Julie saw her friends, all looking at her as she was ejected out. The world around them would crumble more, and soon would implose, all cracks closing at once. The crack in which Julie was would close too, just as she was about to get out. Julie wiggled, crawled out of the crack, and arrived in a sort of white void. But, well, she wasn't quick enough in getting out if the crack, for it suddenly closed on her leg, cutting it clean. Julie screamed in pain, her voice echoing in the void. Too much, this was too much... She passed out as a strange mist would start surrounding her...
Julie woke up in a comfy bed. She sat up, and looked around her, still feeling pretty sleepy. Her surroundings were nothing but pinkish clouds, on every side, the ground and even the ceiling. Her whole body was aching, but more importantly, one of her legs was missing. Tears would immediatly stream down her face, as the previous events came back to her mind in a flash. Everything, she lost everything. Everyone, they were...
The rainbow monster sobbed for a while, mourning her family and friends. She had managed to fix her friends ! But it was all for nothing, as her world still ended up destroyed... And her siblings ?? What happened to them ? Julie cried her heart out, for she was truly alone now... Well, not quite alone actually.
Feeling something warm on her remaining leg, she would stop crying for a moment to look at the other side of the bed. Someone was watching her ?
The little star person flinched when Julie looked up at her. This puppet looked vaguely like her friend Sally, although this little one seemed made out of pur energy, somehow, and even emitted warmth ! The little Sally made a friendly smile and waved, before running away at an extreme speed, leaving Julie in stunned silence and puzzled. Later, the Sally came back, tugging on the ribbons of a giant being. This entity looked like Poppy ! Although, her colors where all faded pastels, and her eyes were nothing but a black void...
"Filante, please be careful when tugging on my ribbons...
- But, but ! The Julie woke up !"
The Poppy looked down at Julie, her expression was kind and reassuring despite her eyes being made of void. Some ribbons came to gently wipe away Julie's tears.
"Hello little one. I am Peacekeeper, but you may call me Keeper... and this little ball of sunshine is Filante.
- You can call me Speed too ! Because I go fast ! "
As if to demonstrate, Filante would do some acrobatic flying in the air at great speed within the confines of the cloud room, flying around Keeper with a few giggles. Keeper would then bend down to have her head at Julie's level, speaking softly.
"I found you passed out after your world got destroyed... I am so sorry..."
She would say. Julie couldn't help but start sobbing again at the mention of her world. Yes, everything was gone... But that being seemed friendly enough...
It would take a while for Julie to get used to the idea of a "multiverse". Keeper herself would seem unsure about many things, as she only opened her own pocket dimension recently. During her stay in the peaceful world, Julie would only meet few other multiversers, such as Filante and a Shopkeeper Howdy. The rest were other rescues, brought by Keeper's mist to her space so they would recover from atrocious events similar to Julie's.
It was a lot of new friends to make, which Julie would generally love, but after what happened, she stayed closed off for the most part. She couldn't forget her old friends, that were gone despite her fixing them. On that thought ,she mindlessly searched in her pockets as if to find one of her games in there to comfort herself. However, the rainbow monster would instead find something else. There was the sewing kit and... Poppy's eye. The only thing left from her world. Julie decided to keep them preciously.
One day, a new multiverser came. This one looked like Wally, but with inverted colors, and seemed so grumpy ! Julie heard Keeper call him "Observer"... Was he the one in charge ? He seemed to be so, as he was complaining that the refugees in Keeper's space might be a problem, rambling about scripts and corruption, while Keeper was reassuring him that it would be fine.
Nonetheless, this Observer guy would intrigue Julie. If he was in charge, maybe he knew what happened to her world...and perhaps he knew how she could get it back ? Maybe it wasn't truly gone... but it would be worth a try to ask.
So, after the conversation he had with Peacekeeper, she would follow him. Julie wasn't sure how she managed to get from one dimension to another, but she did it ! She was now floating around in a void filled with TVs and tapes... She made sure to stay as silent as possible, it seems Observer hadn't noticed her for now... And then, Julie found it.
A tape. She didn't know what it was for, or even why, but one particular tape, among the many others, she felt like it was calling her. Like it belonged to her.
It was in rough shape, looking like it had gone through a beating and was almost destroyed ! But she felt like it should be hers.
Then, a noise. Observer was coming this way ! Taken by a sudden panic, as the multiverser would likely take the tape away from her, Julie quickly tried to get away, as much as she could. She didn't really know why, she didn't exactly to anything wrong, but something about being discovered here didn't seem like an ideal situation, and in the panic, running away seemed like the best option. Somehow, she managed to teleport from a dimension to an other again, and came back to Keeper's world as she heard someone yell behind her.
After crumbling on the white cloudy floor of Keeper's space, Julie would now feel safe enough to take a better look at the tape in her hand. Did she...just steal something ? That wasn't good, no good at all. The Wally would be so mad... But... This tape was hers, wasn't it ? She could feel it !
The rainbow monster would inspect the tape now. It was in very bad condition, almost completely destroyed actually... But it was still emitting this strange energy that she felt called to. But why was it in such rough shape ? Was he the one who destroyed it ?
There was a sound again, and someone yelling .
Julie started panicking. Oh, she was in for a beating if he sounded that mad. Putting the tape in her pocket didn't seem safe, it would be taken back too quickly. And Julie felt like she needed it.
So she did the next logical thing to do, as she looked down at the thigh that was stitched back to prevent the stuffing from pourring out.
Opening the sewing kit, and then with little scissors, Julie would gently rip the seams, and placed the tape in her thigh, before quickly sewing it back up. It wasn't a seamless job, but it would do the trick just fine. And then she put the kit back in her pocket and tried to find a way out.
But with only one leg, she wasn't that quick. Keeper soon found her.
"Julie ? What are you doing here instead of resti-... What have you done ?
- You are feeling guilty about something, I can tell... Are you the reason why Observer is searching my space up and down in anger ...? "
- Please, let me be the judge of that... What did you do ? I am certain that there is a way to do this peacefu-
- I-I didn't steal anything ! Leave me alone, I want to go !"
Peacekeeper looked suprised. She could feel that Julie was stressed, panicking even, but couldn't exactly tell why and Observer would soon come around that part of the space.
"Go ? To where ? Julie, please be reasonable, stay calm, everything will be fine ...
Julie was starting to actually panic now, for a reason she couldn't actually explain. She felt like she would get destroyed along with the tape if he did come close. A very irrational fear, as Keeper would likely not let Observer do any harm, but right now this wasn't a question of reason, for Julie's mind was racing with worse case scenarios, only adding to her current stressed mental state. Julie was now trying to crawl away from Keeper.
"Please, please let me go..."
Keeper sighed, and would attempt to catch Julie with her ribbons. The pink ribbons gently wrapped around Julie's limbs, preventing her from moving further, while Keeper got closer again, ready to take the variant in her wings to comfort her. But Julie reacted quickly, way to quickly, and being held back only made the panick worse, as it would remind her of the shadow hands that once dismembered her friends. Julie felt trapped, in danger, and there was no way out of this.
"Keeper... please...PLEASE "
The rainbow monster looked at Peacekeeper, as the ribbons wrapped around her arm. What would be a little pain compared to freedom ?
Julie looked back at Keeper, tears rolling down her face.
And then... Julie pulled, ripping her own arm appart to escape. A few second later, and Julie teleported away, crawling in an other dimension far from here to escape, while Keeper screamed in surprise and horror.
