The Playground Wars

Chapter Twenty

CRASH!!!

I wake up and immediately I'm shaking uncontrollably. Probably some side effects of waking up from the pills. I feel my neck and I feel a band aid wrap in place of the tracker. The shaking begins to cool down after a few seconds.

I'm still in my stained cog crusher suit, but I tie my yellow boots before I make my way to the control panel.

"Crackers, what's happening?"

"They found us." They. I don't even have to ask who "they" are. 

"Are we near Acorn Acres?"

"Not.... yet."

BOOM!!!!

The airship gets a harsh shaking that causes me to grab on tightly to Crackers' seat. 

"Shit. Grab on tightly everyone, we're going in for a rough landing," Gary announces. He sets the course of the ship to land, but in front of, a cog airship bigger than ours blocks our way. Suddenly, thumps of noise get louder above our heads. A hatch of the roof opens and a Pencil Pusher jumps into the ship, landing a few feet away from me.

I make no mistake in using my gun to shoot it dead. More cogs come in, and I'm surrounded by three.

"OSWALD!" I could hear Crackers yell for me.

"No it's ok, let them have me. We can't keep fighting just to keep me alive," I emphasize. The cogs nod to each other and just grab my arms behind my back, not bothering to handcuff me or anything. They fly out, holding on tightly to me so I won't try anything like letting go and ending my life then and there. 

We're in the sky. Below me I could see the bigger cog airship flying towards us, letting Gary's cog airship have a clear path, but not before they release a missile to slow down Gary and the others.

The cogs take me to their airship quickly. I'm thrown and kicked onto the ground. By now, I'm so used to the same damn routine of being abducted by cogs.

"Is my room ready? Or does Flippy have something planned?" I joke, a weak attempt at making a remark about my room in Toonbot HQ.

"He's going to meet us here," a Flunky controlling the airship by the control panel says.

"Here?"

"Toontown Central," he replies with no effort. Toontown Central?!?! What is Flippy up to? 

I feel the airship begin to hover, meaning we've arrived. That was quick. The same cogs grab my arms again, and the ramp opens. 

Grass is the first thing I notice. Patches of green and brown, a dying soil. The Gazebo, it's roof torn apart. The fishing river, slowly drying up. As I'm walking, I can only tell myself that this isn't Toontown Central. What in the hell... it changed so much. I haven't been here since the war began but clearly Flippy didn't bother to care about this place. The place is empty with he exception of a few cogs walking around, taking pieces from the trolley for scrap. 

The steps that surround the library, bank, and Toon Hall feel so fragile. Toon Hall seems the only thing that has managed to preserve it's state. When we enter the building, the Silly Meter has been rotting and its glass shattered and broken. The rope surrounding has decayed. We walk around the sight, and head towards Flippy's office. Flippy's office looks the same as before the war. One of the cogs lets go of my arms and goes behind Flippy's desk. I hear some buttons pressing, and a door opens behind the desk. Er, an elevator it seems. Its outside walls completely camouflaging with the wallpaper and paintings of the office. I'm pushed against the wall and we begin the descent. Underground beneath the Toontown Central everyone used to know. Every second I'm here, I'm learning something new about Flippy and the war in general.

After what seems like a few floors, the elevator opens to a long white hallway. All white. The ceiling and floor and walls. The cogs take me down the hallway, a left turn to another hallway, and finally stopping in front of a door. After a few buttons pressed, the door slides open and I'm thrown into the darkness. The door quickly slides close and I'm left in the darkness.

It's only dark for a few seconds until lights turn on to ignite the room. The floor feels weird until I realize it's the floor is a big mirror. The walls and ceilings are mirrors, showing all angles of who I am. Even the door on this side of the room is a mirror. 

Flippy has gone full out to torture me, but I know this room has been here long before I came. I don't want to know who has suffered here. A closer look at the mirrors show scratches, marks of all kind. Tally marks, like if someone has been counting the days.

This is it. I've told myself so many times before, but I really mean it right here and right now.

I'm so close to giving up until I remember. My gun is still in my pocket. Those stupid cogs didn't bother to check. 

I shoot the door, but only the mirror cracks. No use wasting bullets when there's no cog to kill. By shooting the door, they might've heard and I with that single action I might've caused the loss of my gun.

An idea grows in my head.

When the cogs come to investigate the noise here, I'll kill them on sight and escape.

Sure enough, footsteps of the cogs loom in closer to my trap. The door slides open. The minutes it's taken them to come here, I've managed to cut the lights out so that it's immensely dark, the only light coming from the outside of the door. Two cogs look around and walk into the room, confused. 

BAM! BAM!

The cogs' oil spills everywhere, and on my face and clothes. I kick their bodies, making sure they're dead for sure, and then I scavenge their corpses to see if they have anything that might be of use to me.

Some keys. An ID card. Nothing else from the two of them. I leave the room, wiping my feet of oil before I leave to prevent footprints. The hallway isn't hard to navigate, the circumstances being that I just got here only an hour ago. I'm looking at my feet as I walk that I don't notice that I've bumped into someone.

"Oswald!" Crackers hugs me. 

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

"Rescuing you. Are you alright?"

"It wasn't hard to escape. Seems like they hardly care anymore." He laughs.

"Crackers? Do you read me?" I hear Gary's voice over a walkie attached to Crackers' belt.

"Hey, I've got Oswald, or actually he found me."

"Great. Do you know the way to Felix?"

"Mhm."

"Get him and let's get out of here. We're in the airship hovering in the sky, but we can't stay like this too long because of the damage from the missile we took. And I can't land or the cogs are going to shoot us down. Stay safe Crackers."

"Copy that. You too, sir." I could hear Gary laugh over the walkie at hearing Crackers say "sir."

Felix? He was my Squad 13 leader. How did he end up here? He has hardly been on my mind, as I'm so focused on keeping myself alive. I did see at Acorn Acres during the attack, so he must've been taken like me, maybe even for the same experimentation Flippy planned for me.

"Why is Felix here?" I ask Crackers.

"We're going to save him."