"Vincent!" I jolted awake, panting. I looked around me but didn't recognize where I was. It certainly wasn't the alleyway or the graveyard, and I didn't remember ever passing out in a storage closet.
Is this a dream?
"Hey, you awake yet?" I heard someone's voice. "Hello?"
It was only then I noticed it was the giant black, gold, green, teal and neon pink animatronic in front of me that was speaking to me. My eyes widened.
"What the hell?" I moved backwards. "What's going on, where am I? And why am I talking to an anthropomorphic robot?"
I have to be dreaming.
"You don't know, do you?"
"Know what? What is going on here?" Wake up.
"Yeah, I think you're dead, my guy. Welcome to the family."
"Dead?!" WAKE UP!
I tried standing but my legs locked up with a metallic sound, causing me to fall right back down. The robot in front of me let out a grumble and rolled its eyes.
"Come on," it gave its hand to me to help me up. "I'm Nova by the way. We're going to have to come up with a name for you, my friend."
"I have a name. It's Rollan, and I'm not your friend."
Don't touch me.
"Yeesh, you're fun, aren't you? What happened, someone spit in your cereal?"
I could tell I already didn't like this guy.
"Alright, I'm too tired for all this introductory bull crap right now Ro, so I'm just gonna take you out front to meet the others."
"Do me a favour and stop calling me Ro." I'm not your friend.
Nova rolled his eyes again and opened the storage room door. The lights were mostly off in the bigger room. I looked around and recognized the building's interior.
"This is Violet's, isn't it?"
"Yeah, yeah, RC will show you around as soon as she gets back. I'm outta here, later Ro."
Stop calling me Ro.
I huffed at Nova. What's with this guy? Was he sentient, or just programmed to be an ass? As Nova left the building, which I thought was weird seeing as he was practically a giant dog in a coat, another larger animatronic came in. It looked like- a kangaroo?
Great, there's more of them.
"Oh, you're awake," it spoke with the voice of a young woman. "I was hoping I'd catch you on my way in. I'm RC."
She was already much nicer than the last guy.
"Rollan," I said, still struggling to get my footing. Was I taller?
"Wait, Rollan as in Rollan King?"
"Who else would I be?"
"I don't know, a six-and-a-half foot red, black and blue wolf?"
"What?"
RC pulled me gently by the arm over to a mirror in another back room. She didn't lie, I did look like a black wolf; one I would recognize anywhere, in fact. Tom and I had been working on it for a while before he left. But why? What happened?
"How is this..." I muttered, moving my face around to get different angles. Almost nothing was symmetrical, colour-wise at least. Just goes to show how much good working in the woods did for Tom. He was right; I hated it. The inside of one ear was red and the other blue, the same with my hair and, unfortunately, bow tie. I hated ties. At least my eyes were the same shade of red. I whispered to myself, "I helped design this model..."
