***

It was sunny. Very sunny and hot. It probably wasn’t good for my health to go there but, I was curious. It’s funny and intriguing how curiosity is a thing. Sometimes it leads to great discoveries, sometimes the exact opposite. I was looking for old toys, maybe for Wanda. That’s when I noticed a little thing. A very, very old plush.

The plush was extremely withered. The eyes were almost yellow and full of dust. The bunny ears were crocked, and some material had come off. The colors have completely faded away, leaving just a mostly grey rabbit. The plushie was in terrible conditions… But salvageable. It took my attention.

“You seem interested.” A man approached me. He was energetic but slightly tired, somehow. That man was Karl, the owner of the plushie and a ton of other toys that didn’t interested me.

“Yeah. Eric Carly.” I introduced myself and held out my hand for him to shake it. He did so.

“Carl. I can make you an offer for it, though it’s weird.” His face seemed interested to make a deal.

“What do you mean ‘weird’?” I asked with the beautiful yet terrifying thing that is ‘curiosity’.

“My son, when he was a small little kid, kept complaining that the plushies talked. I just thought that he was using his imagination due to his age.” Carl explained.

“Yeah, that makes sense.” I told him, slightly confused but not bothered. “So, how much for the plushie?”

“I can give it for six dollars, I guess. The original price was thirty but, seeing how it aged, you can have it for less.” Karl said, hands in his pockets.

“I’m fine with that.” I took six dollars in my pocket and gave him the money. He gave me the plushie.

“If you don’t mind, may I ask why you’re interested?” He asked.

“Looks salvageable, I can make something out of it. I’m a designer, I know what’s worth it and what’s not.” I explained and then winked to him.

“Alright. Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Carly.”

“Thank you, Karl.”

“No problem. Have a nice day.” After saying goodbye, he got back to do his stuff with the help of a girl and I head home, happy with my purchase.

***

Now that you know the context, let’s get back to where we were. I got to my garage and started searching. I found some random, uninteresting stuff, a very rare Freddy bobblehead from Fazbear Entertainment and more. Finally, I found it.

The withered grey bunny plush.

I grabbed it and closed the garage. I looked at it and got back to my workspace.

“Daddy!” Wanda greeted me when I came back. Time to explain my plans.

“So, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to turn this old plushie into a brand new one just for you!”

“Yay!”

What color do you want it to be? I got red, blue, green, white, pink, also-“ I stopped shut. I remembered Evelyn again. The bandage, the purple felt around her torso. “Purple. Sorry, my mind bugged.”

“Yes, purple! Purple!” Wanda said excitingly.

And so, we started working on it together. I would give ideas; she would approve them. She would ask for some stuff, I would add them. It dragged on for about two hours. And that was just designing! After that, I promised her that I would get it done by the next day. When she got to bed to sleep, with hopefully no bad dreams, I started actually making the plushie.

I replaced the felt, added some cotton, made the eyes with two white balls that I had bought and made a hole in the middle and painted that hole in black. I even made a bowtie for the plushie, to make it cuter and look safer. I was making a plushie that would give hope to my daughter. A hopeful plush. I had to make it just right.

Finally, after several hours, I was done. The purple bunny plush was completed. I have to admit that, if I hadn’t met Evelyn, the final result wouldn’t have looked the same. This girl triggered something inside of me, and I needed more answers as soon as possible.

I sneaked my way to Wanda’s bedroom, making sure to make almost no sound. I slowly opened her bedroom door and saw her asleep. I carefully approached her bed and place the plush next to her. I whispered ‘Goodnight’ and got out of the room with the same sneakiness. I got to my own bedroom and fell asleep, feeling proud.

God, why can’t I get her out of my mind… It would be so much better like that…

Why was I such a fool...?

Help. -P-l-e-a-s-e-.

One month later. Every day since I’ve made that plushie, Wanda wasn’t having any more bad dreams. It actually worked. I was waiting patiently for one thing. It was painful, the patience was hurting.

I knew the exact day that I would be able to show up. I was just banging my head over and over to keep myself relaxed. We had a phone call, where she communicated the date to me. We were both waiting. I think Wanda never noticed my stress and impatience, so that’s a very good thing.

The day had finally come. I was standing in front of the huge building. Heracles Hospital.

I was greeted by several nurses that accompanied me through the never-ending halls. It was definitely weird, I had to admit. But the nurses were… eh, mostly nice. I arrived at the room 1035. “Here’s the room." One of the nurses said. I don’t remember her too well though.

“Thanks, Mia.” She let me in, and I finally saw her.

Evelyn was there. Her face seemed shy, tired but relieved. She was patched up properly and wasn’t covered in blood, unlike last time back at the accident.

“Hey.” She greeted first. Evelyn was smiling.

“Hi. Is there somewhere that I could sit down?” I asked.

“There’s a chair next to my bed.” She responded. I sat down and felt slightly awkward.

“So… Huh… Are you feeling better?”

“Much better. I still have your purple felt though, I don’t know why.” Evelyn admitted.

“That’s great to hear… So… This necklace. Who gave it to you?”

“Oh, that thing. A woman named Linda. She was selling it at an auction about two months ago. I was selling stuff as well, but I bought this. Do you know her?”

At that point, my mind sank in confusion. “Huh… No. Wait, how’s that possible…? I’m… That necklace belonged to my wife, and my wife isn’t Linda.” I said.

“That’s strange. Do you want it back?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I just thought maybe she was alright.” I admitted.

“… What happened to her?” Evelyn asked. I decided that answering honestly was the best solution.

“Okay… Years ago, she… Had an accident at work. I barely got any details of what happened, but I never saw her again after that. I’ve only heard about something involving a cutter… And blood… Nothing else. I highly doubt that she’s gone forever though.” I explained carefully. I was just like my daughter, choosing my words with close attention.

“I see. This is so strange. What was her name?”

“Rebecca. I gave up looking for her though.” I admitted.

“Alright.”

“Hey, huh, Evelyn?” I said in almost a totally different tone, trying to change the subject.

“Yes?”

“When will you be able to get out of the hospital?”

“Oh, in about a week now. This place gives me the creep, especially with the rumors about some kind of man and a boy. Don’t want to talk about that though, it’s rather spooky.” She said, ending with a very tiny amused but disturbed laugh.

I had to say that she was a pretty fun person to talk too. “Yeah, it’s been just a few minutes since I’m here and I do not like the look of it.” I said, following with a similar laugh as hers. Then, I quickly remembered something. “Oh… Just wanted to point out that there are two necklaces.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. One was for Rebecca and one for me. Though the first got lost with her and the second… I put in Wanda’s plush.”

“Why?” She asked.

“So that I could think that she is safe with her plush. That I’ve made a good thing for her.” I explained. It might not make any sense, but I’ve still done it anyway.

We’ve continued chatting for a while. Talking about jobs, stupid stuff, and all. You could think that I was falling in love but that wasn’t the case at all. And, well, she was younger than me and I had a daughter. But, anyway, it was fun. It truly was. I miss this moment…

I eventually said goodbye and got back home. However, I didn’t really expect what followed to happen.

When I entered my messy living room, my daughter was sitting on the couch, excited. “Feeling good?” I asked her, a smile forming on my face.

“Yes, daddy! I’ve done my homework!” She responded with her cute little girly voice.

“That’s good to hear.” I said, feeling proud of her.

“Today’s been great! I’ve done drawings too!” She said, handing them to me. There were two drawings. The first one was her bedroom. She was in her bed, reading a book, I was making… Huh a dinosaur toy (never made one before that day but I recently made one similar) and the plushie was next to her. The plushie was looking at her book, it was almost like a living cartoon and not a lifeless plush. I thought that that was fun.

“Looks good.” I said, giving her back the first drawing.

“Thanks!”

I looked at the second one and started to get… Very confused and, maybe slightly concerned. It was a drawing of me, at Heracles hospital. It didn’t make any sense, since I never told her that I would be there. More shocking is… Evelyn was drawn too. Exactly how I saw her. With her black hair with dark blue streaks, her beautiful eyes, her bandages and more. I was… Almost stunned. How did she know what I’ve done today? And how did she know about Evelyn herself?

“Jim helped me.” She said with a proud smile.

“… W-Who is Jim?”

“The plushie you gave me! He’s really helping me, dad! I’m so glad to have him!” Wanda said, sounding innocent. I didn’t know what to think. Maybe Jim is just her own imaginary friend that she made up with the plush? Then how would she know the hospital or Evelyn? So many thoughts were going through my mind…

“O-Okay, great. I’m just going to do my work-“ In the strangest timing, my phone rang. “Give me a second.” I told her, politely. I approached and grabbed my phone only to see that it was Evelyn who was calling. I traveled the stairs to go to my workspace and answered the call. “Yes, Evelyn?”

“Hey, Eric. Sorry but… I got some bad news. I’m forced to stay at the hospital.”

“What? Why?” I responded, intrigued.

“Well, I used to live with a friend and, well that same friend decided to just abandon me. So… I’m pretty much homeless and the hospital was kind enough to keep me in there until the situation gets fixed. Sorry.” Evelyn explained, slightly stressed. It was kind of depressing, hearing all of this right after our talk. Right after she told me that she would leave in about a week after our talk.

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. I can still visit you weekly if you want.” I suggested.

“If you can visit me tomorrow, I’d be happy. I got several ideas going on my mind at the moment about the situation. What do you think?”

“Sure, I can try that. I got work to do so I have to hung up. See you tomorrow, Evelyn.” I said, agreeing with her proposition.

“See you tomorrow too!” She said. We hung up. Well, it was time to work on my prototypes.

A week before the talk with Evelyn, I managed to get a big task. I was going to make prototypes of construction sets based of the upcoming cartoon by Fazbear Entertainment called ‘Fazbear’s World’. The cartoon had a ton of cute versions of the popular mascots and environments, it was pretty big.

That night, I was going to make Freddy’s house. It was supposed to be a twenty-five-dollar set with the minifigures of Freddy, his cousin Toy Freddy and his father Withered Freddy (don’t question that because I have no clue).

I always organize myself for my prototypes. Making construction sets was no exception. I had so many boxes filled with already made bricks, all I had to do was assemble them to make it look like the desired product. The company gave me a concept art of the house and prototypes of all three figures, since I don’t make the actual figures, I make the rest and someone else already made the figures. I’m not sure why.

I started building the house from the ground all the way to the top. It was always relaxing making these sets, trust me on that. I tried to make it as accurate as possible to the concept art but also give my own little touches here and there. Why? I just like it! I made the house’s interior, the small garden with a tree and all. Took about forty-five minutes in total to finish the prototype. I was pretty proud of it, and I was sure that kids would love it (spoiler alert from the present: yeah, they loved it).

After looking one more time at the prototype, I set it down on my desk. I laid back on my chair and thought about Wanda’s drawing… The hospital one. I made a few theories in my mind. Maybe she was really there without me noticing? But then why would Jim be involved? I concluded that Jim helping her might just be the fact that the plush was there with her and it was making her feel safer, as I intended it too. With that conclusion, I got up from my chair and got to my bed.