A second organ awaited him.



The liver.

Frozen. Shattered.

The Doctor’s voice distorted into static.

He grinned, stepping toward the exit—

A SHADOW MOVED.

A HISS.

Then—

Touille STRUCK.



What the fuck! I don't wanna get leptospirosis!

He immediately got it off his face before it bit him and threw it away.



The Doctor’s voice crackled back to life, stronger now, furious.

"Why do you submit to their whims? Playtime hurt us. My experiments hurt us. Do you think Poppy cares about you? She’d sacrifice you in an instant if she believed it meant getting what she wants. The only difference between her and I... The ONLY difference... is that what I fight for actually gains humanity SOMETHING. Otherwise, what was ANY of this worth?"

He ran.

Dodging Touille’s lunges, weaving through the electric currents.

He leaped—

His rocket hand SNAPPED OFF.

It tumbled into the maze below and he fell.

A slow, eerie chuckle rumbled through the speakers.

"Just like them. A blind, scurrying little rat. You think Yarnaby was my only pet?"

A deep, guttural growl echoed through the cavern ahead.

"You know far less than you believe."

He swallowed.

"...Oh, fantastic."

BANG.

Every door around him snapped shut in unison. Metal locks slammed into place, sealing him inside.

Then, the door ahead creaked open.

A guttural, distorted BAAAAAA echoed from the darkness.

Then—THUD.

A grotesque sheep-like monstrosity emerged, its wool matted with grime, black hollow eyes with white pupils glowing, locked onto him. Its mouth was locked in a grinning smile with two tooths in front.



Baba Chops.

"Hell. No."

He turned and BOLTED.

The maze stretched ahead, a labyrinth of towering cages and rusted walkways. Baba Chops' hooves clattered on the metal behind him, its warped bleating echoing like a dying animal.

I am NOT getting turned into lamb chops tonight!

The hallway twisted, and he nearly tripped over a severed stuffed arm—evidence of Baba’s last snack. He took a hard right, ducking beneath a fallen beam.



The bleating turned into a bloodcurdling SCREAM as Baba barreled straight through it.

He spotted something—battery slots in every corner.

"Okay, puzzle time. Great. Love that for me."

If he could collect and place the batteries, maybe he could open an escape door. But judging by the nightmare fuel around here, those batteries were probably inside the other cages.

Which meant—

"Oh, fantastic. I gotta play fetch with Satan’s petting zoo."

CRASH!

A cage door bent outward, a hulking mass of fur and limbs slamming against it from inside. The other Nightmare Critters.

Baba Chops rounded the corner just as he spotted a vent in the floor.



No time to think.

He dove through it, landing hard in a lower chamber.

A metal grate separated him from Baba, but the sheep-thing stared hungrily through it, pressing its slime-coated teeth against the bars.



Then—the speaker crackled.

Sawyer.

"Please see that he doesn’t eat ALL of you. I’d like there to be SOMETHING I can still use."

"Oh, how thoughtful!" he huffed, crawling away. "Real generous of you, Doc! Maybe you can send me a napkin next time so I can at least season myself first!"

Baba’s shrieking bleats continued as he scrambled to find the batteries.

He had to pry them from the hands of other Nightmare Critters, weaving between cages, ducking under clawed arms, and avoiding grasping mouths full of jagged, needle-like teeth.

At one point, Baba nearly cornered him, but he slammed a cage door open, knocking the sheep back into a pile of rotting plush.

Battery after battery—until finally, he had enough.

Click. Click. Click. BOOM.

The door unlocked.

He sprinted through, slamming it behind him, just as Baba Chops’ head SMASHED into the metal.

The beast screamed in rage.

But he was out.

He stumbled into another dark room.

A single capsule stood in the center. Inside, a small, twitching figure.



A Simon Smoke Critter.

Its body trembled. Its dull, lifeless eyes stared blankly into the void.

The speaker hissed to life.

"Do you believe you’re taking the moral high road? Is that what you believe? Let me illuminate an obvious truth: survival necessitates choices. Difficult choices... and this one is yours."

The room dimly lit up.

He now saw a power cable leading directly to the capsule.

A lever.

Sawyer’s voice dripped with amusement.

"If you want to leave this room, it'll come at a cost. It's this little life, or yours. You know what you have to do. Just the slightest pull, and you snuff whatever minuscule bit of light still flickers behind those faraway eyes."

The Simon Smoke shuddered.

Sawyer chuckled.

"That brutish glob of clay would do it. Poppy would do it. This is YOUR mission. The door will open. Or is maintaining the veil of your ‘morality’ more important? Act quickly."

He stared at the switch.

Then at the ceiling.

And smiled.

"Yeahhh, I think I’ll pass, Doc."

Before Sawyer could react, he launched his grapple at a weak ceiling panel.

WHOOSH!

He yanked himself up, disappearing through the hole.

The capsule remained untouched.

Sawyer’s voice hissed with disappointment.

"Fine. Have it your way. Come on in. The Doctor will see you now."

He made his way to an elevator. The ride was slow, too slow. Every passing second, his stomach twisted into a tighter knot.

Then—a whisper.

"Do you hear it... like I do?"

The lights flickered.

"Off somewhere. Somewhere… far. Beyond this place. Beyond any place. A bell. For whom does it toll, you think?"

The temperature dropped.

"A wounded little pup lifts its head beneath the shadow of the master's raised foot. For whom does that bell now toll?"

Then—laughter.

The lights went out.

DING!

The elevator door opened.



But A shadow loomed ahead.

Before he could react, a metal hand CLAMPED onto his throat.



He barely had time to process the TV-headed robot now gripping him before—

WHOOSH—



The floor VANISHED.

He was thrown down a TRAP DOOR.

The robot waved mockingly as he fell.



Sawyer’s voice followed him into the abyss.

"Elliot's machines are nothing to me. The childish fantasy of a naive, broken man. They won't serve you here."

The darkness swallowed him whole.

"NOTHING can."

He landed hard, the cold floor jarring his bones.

Groaning, he pushed himself up and took in his surroundings—rows of flickering monitors, cables snaking across the floor like lifeless veins, and four towering gates, each glowing with a different color: red, blue, green, and yellow.



Then, his eyes settled on the battery slots.

"Yeah, now this would be my clue to escape"

A single battery pack lay discarded nearby. He grabbed it and slotted it in.

WHIRR.

The blue gate unlocked.



"Alright, first stop on my ‘Get The Hell Out’ tour—blue hellhole it is."

Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside.

The second he crossed the threshold, darkness swallowed him whole. He clicked on his flashlight, the beam cutting through the void.

The air was heavy, humming with unseen tension. He took a few cautious steps forward when—

CLICK.

His light landed on a hooded robot standing directly in front of him.



Motionless. Unmoving. Watching.

His breath hitched.

Then—exhale.

"Not moving. Cool. Super cool. Definitely not gonna lunge at me the second I turn my back—no way, right?"

He slowly sidestepped it, sweeping his light around the room.

More robots.

Hundreds of them.

Some hunched in corners, others pressed against the walls.

All were silent.

All were waiting.

He turned a corner.

Something shifted.

His pulse spiked. He whipped around—nothing moved.

Yet… something felt closer.

Then—CREEEEEAK.

The distinct sound of metal shifting behind him.



"Nope. NOPE!"

He sprinted.

Twisting through the maze of frozen robots, breath sharp, heart hammering.

Then, footsteps.

Heavy. Fast. Following.

A metallic screech tore through the air as he risked a glance over his shoulder—

A robot had come alive.

Its glowing amber eyes locked onto him, its arms reaching, fingers twitching—

"GOTTA BLAST!"

He bolted.

Ducking under pipes, leaping over debris. The robot lurched after him, its mechanical joints grinding with every monstrous step.

Ahead—a staircase.

At the top, a battery pack is locked inside a monitor. He bounded up the steps, grabbed it, and—

WHIRRR—RED.



The robot’s eyes flared.

"Oh, that’s bad."

It lunged.

He twisted away just in time, but its clawed hand SLASHED across his arm.



Pain exploded through him.

His sleeve darkened with red, but he didn’t stop—he couldn’t.

He tore back down the stairs, ducked into a crawl space, and yanked off a wooden plank.



His heartbeat pounded in his ears.

The robot’s heavy footsteps stalked closer.

"Come on, come on, come on!"

He shoved the battery through first, then himself.

Just as he slid through—

THUNK.

The robot’s hand smashed against the opening. He scrambled away, gasping, gripping his bleeding arm.

"Jesus. And that was just BLUE?"

Shaking, he stumbled back into the server hub.

"It was going to be mine. It was all going to be mine. My discovery. My recognition. I was the one who paved the golden path." Sawyer’s voice slithered from the speakers.

"Doc, I think you took a wrong turn and paved a highway to hell instead."