The Hour of Joy was drawing near.

According to the game’s twisted prophecy, it would be an hour of bloodshed, a massacre beyond comprehension. Death would stain every corner of the factory. Innocent or not, no one would be spared.

The toys—those monstrous, carnivorous abominations—would roam freely, slaughtering anything with flesh and bone.

And the children?

That was the biggest mystery.

Yazmina had spent weeks piecing together the fragments of truth, scouring every hidden file, every whispered rumor. The game had always hinted at something sinister lurking beneath Playcare.

And then there was Catnap.

He was the keeper of the children, the warden of Playcare. But the question remained:

Were the kids truly alive?

Or had they been turned into something else?

Yazmina didn’t know. Not yet.

But she intended to find out.

For now, she had a more immediate problem—survival.

It didn’t matter how well she knew the game, how many times she had memorized the layout of the factory. None of that would help against a horde of ravenous toys, programmed to rip apart anything that moved.

She needed a place to hide.

Somewhere secure. Somewhere the toys wouldn’t think to look.

But where?

Her dormitory was too exposed. The main halls and vents were a death trap. The laboratories were built for research, not survival.

She has to roam this Factory again to look for the perfect hideout. She needs to act now before the Hour of Joy began—she might just have a chance.

A chance to survive.

And more importantly…

A chance to uncover the truth.

But time was running out.

---

It had been a few days now, and something felt… off.

Yazmina hadn’t seen Harley Sawyer anywhere.

No smug remarks. No presence in the labs.

It wasn’t like him to simply vanish.

She tried to ignore the gnawing unease, but it was hard to shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

Then came Doctor Wallace Crane.

He approached her that morning with his usual indifferent expression. “You’re needed in the conference hall.”

Yazmina’s stomach twisted. No reason given. No explanation.

Her instincts screamed at her.

As they walked through the corridors, her eyes flicked around, searching. Her heart pounded when she spotted a pair of scissors resting on a nearby cart. Without hesitation, she swiftly swiped them, slipping them into the pocket of her doctor’s coat. Her fingers gripped the cold metal tightly.

When they reached the hall, Crane pushed the doors open, gesturing for her to enter.

The moment she stepped inside, the doors slammed shut behind her.

Darkness.

The dim lighting barely allowed her to make out the silhouettes in front of her. She squinted, trying to adjust, trying to see who was there.

Then, a voice. Calm. Familiar. Cold.

Eddie M.N. Ritterman.

She stiffened.

A click echoed through the room as a light flickered on, illuminating something placed on the table before him.

Yazmina’s breath hitched.

The scorpion.

The very one she had hidden carefully in her dormitory.

Her grip on the scissors tightened.

Eddie leaned back slightly in his chair, studying her reaction with an almost amused detachment.

“Well, well,” he murmured, tapping a finger against the table. “You’ve been keeping secrets, haven’t you, Doctor Yazmina?”

Yazmina’s pulse quickened. She knew that they were spying on her.

Eddie Ritterman leaned forward, his fingers laced together. “Interesting specimen, wouldn’t you say?” His voice was light, conversational—but there was something predatory beneath it.

Yazmina kept her expression blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Eddie chuckled, shaking his head. “Come now, let’s not insult each other’s intelligence. You hid this in your dormitory. A highly venomous, highly rare scorpion. One that you shouldn’t even have.” He gestured lazily to it. “That makes me very curious.”

Yazmina was still calm. Panicking is not in her vocabulary.

Wallace Crane stood off to the side, arms crossed. His expression was unreadable, but the way he positioned himself near the door told her one thing—she wasn’t leaving unless they allowed it.

Eddie sighed dramatically. “You see, Yazmina, we don’t take kindly to secrets here at Playtime Co. Especially when they involve unauthorized research.”

He tapped the container lightly with his knuckle. “This little creature—it’s special, isn’t it? And it’s not just the scorpion, is it?” His gaze sharpened, his voice dropping slightly. “It’s what you were doing with it.”

How much did they know?

Eddie smiled at her silence. “You’ve been quite the busy doctor, haven’t you?” He leaned back again, folding his arms. “You see, the thing about secrets is—” His eyes gleamed in the dim light. “They always have a way of coming out.”

Yazmina’s grip on the scissors tightened.

Eddie Ritterman didn’t stop at the scorpion.

With a slow, deliberate motion, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out something small—a vial.

Yazmina’s stomach dropped.

It was her vial. The vial. The one she had hidden in the laboratory, carefully sealed away where no one should have found it. The refined poppy gas, infused with her own blood and the scorpion’s venom—a discovery she hadn’t even fully understood yet.

Eddie turned the glass cylinder between his fingers, watching the liquid inside swirl under the dim light.

“Now, this,” he said, voice tinged with amusement, “this is quite the enigma.” He raised a brow at her. “What exactly were you trying to create here, Doctor?”

How did they find it? She had chosen the laboratory because it was the safest place—her dormitory wasn’t sealed well enough, and the vial couldn’t be exposed to open air for too long. But somehow, they still found it.

She kept her expression neutral. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Eddie let out a breathy laugh. “Oh, but you do.” He held the vial up to eye level, examining it with faux curiosity. “A unique little concoction—blood, venom, and a touch of poppy gas, if I’m not mistaken.” His gaze flickered to her. “That’s quite the dangerous combination.”

Yazmina didn’t reply.

Eddie clicked his tongue. “You know, we ran a few preliminary tests—just surface-level analysis. Nothing too deep. And the results were… fascinating.” He smiled. “You, Doctor, are sitting on something quite extraordinary.”

He leaned forward slightly, setting the vial down on the table between them with an almost delicate touch.

“The question is,” he murmured, eyes sharp as a scalpel, “what were you planning to do with it?”

Yazmina's fingers curled around the scissors hidden in her pocket.

This was bad.

Very bad.

Before Yazmina could respond, a sharp, distorted static crackled from the corner of the room.

Her eyes snapped to the source—a CCTV monitor, one she hadn’t even noticed when she entered. The screen flickered violently, twisting between black and white static, warping into something unnatural.

Then—

An eye.

A massive, glaring white eye, surrounded by shifting fingers, materialized on the screen, pulsating with erratic energy. It was staring directly at her.

Then, in a burst of chaotic distortion, Sawyer’s voice erupted from the speakers.

“YAZMINA—RUN!”

The walls seemed to tremble with the sheer force of his voice, his words layered with static and mechanical distortion.

Eddie shot up from his seat, whirling toward the CCTV screen with wide eyes.

Yazmina didn’t hesitate.

She bolted.

She shoved the chair back, her grip tightening around the hidden scissors as she lunged for the door.