Chapter Text
It was a bright, cheerful day in the Pizzaplex’s Superstar Daycare. Then again, all days were bright and cheerful in the Daycare. The massive jungle gyms and tunnels and slides all guaranteed that no child could remain bored for long. There was simply too much to do, too much fun to be had.
The play structures were huge, a maze of tubes climbing upwards endlessly, decorated with cutouts of the main band’s faces. Closer to the ground, short foam walls orange in color created the illusion of the battlements of a castle. Adding to this effect was a plastic bridge, a ball pit moat, and a decal of a cartoon tower, stretching towards the ceiling impressively.
The massive daycare was surrounded by balconies, looking down over the neon-colored landscape of play mats and foam blocks. Standing on one of the balconies, watching the masses of toddlers playing below, was a very curious woman indeed. She was wearing a white and gray rabbit costume, complete with paw-shaped shoes and a fluffy snowball bunny tail. To complete the look, she wore a rabbit mask with the mouth open far too wide for comfort. Underneath the mask’s cartoonishly large bright red eyes, the woman’s own green ones were glancing from child to child. So many cute little toddlers, each radiating a sort of innocence that only comes from sheltered early childhood. They ran and crawled through the play structures, and giggled as they roughhoused on the mats. Several were wearing Pizzaplex merchandise, in the form of T-shirts or hats bearing the faces of the main band members. There was even a kid wearing face paint made to look like Glamrock Freddy.
They were so small…
It almost made the woman feel bad for what she was about to do.
Almost.
The woman made her way over to the top of a slide, leading from the balcony to the Daycare’s ball pit. ‘Slide Into Fun!’ was written above it in bubble letters. She sat in the slide, and gave herself a push. A second later, she’d tumbled into a colorful mass of disgustingly sticky plastic balls. She clambered out of the pit, and slowly gazed around the Daycare. She had to try and spot one that was alone. Preferably one that didn’t seem like it’d be missed. If one of the other children went looking for her target, it’d make her job a lot harder. Maybe she should just come back a different day…
She was distracted from her thoughts as she was knocked backwards into the ball pit by a kid who looked around four, playing tag with his friends.
“Sorry miss bunny lady!” He called back at her as he chased a girl with pigtails.
Never mind, she was doing this.
The woman began to get out of the pit again, but then immediately ducked back down into it as a light yellow animatronic wearing a jester outfit ran past, after the kids playing tag.
“No, no, no! No pushing each other, little friends,” the woman could hear it yelling in a forced cheerful voice. Right, the Daycare Attendant. She felt a stab of annoyance. She’d never be able to complete her task if she couldn’t even get out of the ball pit!
She climbed out of the pit for a third time, and quickly moved away from it, lest she somehow be forced back in yet again. She walked around the edges of the orange battlements, looking for a lonely child. There had to be one around here somewhere, there always was. Kids were so temperamental. Crying constantly, and whining anytime the smallest thing didn’t go their way. They were lucky they were cute, or there would be far more adults planning the exact same thing the woman was.
After ten minutes of waiting, the woman’s ears picked up on a faint sniffling noise mixed in with the din of the other children’s happy screaming. She turned, looking for the source of the noise. There! Under one of the slides! A little boy wearing a yellow and dark blue striped shirt was sitting alone. His head was buried in his arms, and his back shook with each sob. He couldn’t have been much older than five.
Perfect.
The woman walked over to the child, and crouched in front of him. How were you supposed to talk to children again? She didn’t exactly have much experience. Then again, she supposed that didn’t matter when she was dressed as a rabbit. Kids always trusted talking animals, right?
“Hello there, little one,” the woman cooed. She tried to make herself sound as peaceful and nonthreatening as possible. The boy looked up at her, his face streaked with tears. “Hey, don’t cry, don’t cry,” the woman wiped his face with her finger, the fabric of her fake paws absorbing the liquid. “What’s wrong?”
“W-well,” the boy started, sniffing again, “J-Jess a-and T-Tommy s-s-said that I w-was w-weird! Aand th-th-they don’t…don’t w-wanna play with me anymore…”
The woman stroked the boy’s back in what she hoped was a soothing manner. “Well that wasn’t very nice of them. Tell you what, you can come play with me and Sun. Does that sound nice?” The woman was glad she knew the Daycare Attendant animatronic’s name. The tots adored the thing, and a promise of getting to play with it was sure to win the boy over.
Sure enough, the boy’s expression immediately brightened. “You know Sun?” The woman nodded. “Of course! It-he’s a good friend of mine, and we were going to go play in the Theater. Would you like to come along?” The boy nodded excitedly, his previous sadness seemingly forgotten. He hopped to his feet, bouncing slightly. “Can we go right now? Can we? Can we?” The woman laughed. “Sure!” If she was being honest, she kind of liked children when they weren’t whining or peeing themselves. They were quite cute, actually.
The woman took the little boy’s hand in her own, and led him out through the Daycare’s large double doors. They made their way up the stairs, and into a hall labeled ‘Theater’.
The two entered the theater at the end of the hall, and the boy looked around eagerly. “When’s Sun going to get here, miss?”
“Oh, he’ll be here in juuuust a minute,” the woman responded as she closed the Theater door behind them. She couldn’t risk anyone walking in on what was about to happen.
Slowly, she approached the little boy, who was busy climbing over the mass of seats. He looked up at her curiously.
“What are you doing, miss-“ He was cut off as a knife cut neatly across his tiny neck.
He stared up at the woman, eyes filled with fear and betrayal. A gurgling noise came from his mouth along with some bubbles, his saliva red from blood. The woman raised her knife again and neatly sliced lengthwise along one of the jugular veins in his neck, to speed up the bleeding. He fell to his knees, head lolling.
After that, it wasn’t long before his eyes went blank, his life extinguished before he’d even gotten a chance to live it. The woman scooped up his limp body, her costume soaked in his blood. Maybe she shouldn’t have made the fur so white…
She jumped as a clanging noise came from the end of the hall.
“I’ll be back in a minute, friends! I just need to grab some puppets for us to play with!” She could hear a voice say in the distance. She swore under her breath, dropping the child’s corpse unceremoniously. That Daycare Attendant animatronic was heading her way! If it saw her, it’d alert security!
The woman shoved the child corpse into the corner, where hopefully the animatronic wouldn’t see, and tried to make herself scarce. A moment later, the door clicked open, and the Daycare Attendant skipped in, humming to itself. God, these things were lifelike. From how they acted, you’d think they were sentient!
The robot dug around onstage, collecting quite an impressive armful of sock puppets, then it turned and began making its way back to the door. The woman let out a sigh of relief.
But then the animatronic stopped.
It lifted up its right foot, which had landed right in a puddle of the boy’s blood.
Slowly, its gaze moved from its foot, to the blood, to the trail of droplets leading to the corner, to the corner itself, finally landing on the woman and her victim.
The two stood and stared at each other for a long moment, both horrorstruck.
The robot sprung into action at the same time as the woman. It made a mad dash for the door, dropping its sock puppets as it went. The woman tackled it, knocking it to the ground. It was pretty light for an animatronic, making pinning it down fairly easy, despite its desperate struggling.
There was a small red button on the back of the robot’s head, just hidden enough to keep some random toddler from noticing it, neatly labelled ‘POWER’. The woman slammed her finger into it, desperately hoping the thing would turn off before it could squeal on her.
“SECURITY ALERT!” The Daycare Attendant was yelling. “SECur- se- se-…”
There was a powering down noise, and the animatronic fell limp, just as the boy had. The woman lifted her finger off the power button, panting.
She flipped the deactivated animatronic over, getting her first really good look at it. She could see now why it had been named Sun. Its jester costume was striped yellowy orange and red, with bells adorned with ribbons tied around its wrists. Its plastic shell was a banana yellow, which grayed around the fingers and joints. Its face was a mask, with triangles meant to imitate rays of light coming out of the sides. The mask consisted of the shape of a crescent moon against a yellow circle, with two empty white eyes staring blankly forward. A horrible grin stretched over the lower half of the mask, its teeth oddly detailed. The woman shivered. Who designed this thing? It was a miracle the kids weren’t terrified of it.
She stood up, walking back to the dead child and picking him up again. The Daycare Attendant had been a bump in her plan, but in the end it’d worked out quite well. Now she just needed to hurry and dispose of the body-…
Uh, how was she going to dispose of the body, exactly?
The Pizzaplex was packed, she couldn’t just walk out holding a dead child and covered in blood, and there definitely wasn’t enough room in her bag for him.
Maybe she should’ve planned this out more.
The woman looked desperately around the room, trying to spot a place she could stash the body. Somewhere no one would find it for at least a few days. Her eyes darted from hiding spot to hiding spot, and eventually landed on the Daycare Attendant.
Its chest area was hollow, right?
Five minutes later, and there was no body in sight. Just the woman and the deactivated Daycare Attendant, now several pounds of child heavier. Hopefully it’d be a couple days before anyone took the thing in for maintenance, or noticed the smell. She reached for a duffel bag decorated with a rabbit pin sitting by the door, pulling out some cleaning product. At least she’d thought to grab this stuff. Once she was done cleaning the floor, she put the cleaning products back in her bag, and removed her rabbit costume. Underneath, she was wearing a simple black tank top and black leggings, perfect for absorbing any blood that’d soaked through. She shook out her long blonde hair, and hoped she looked normal enough to not arouse suspicion. Stuffing her costume into the duffel, she pressed the power button on the Daycare Attendant again, and exited the Theater.