Chapter Text
Georgie sat up straight in bed, breathing heavily. Except...where was he? He looked around the small room. Green walls. Red blanket covering him. Small closet. He was back in his old house. But... how? Muscle memory was telling him not to sit up too high in his bed. He slept on the bottom bunk, after all. He slowly got out of bed, avoiding the creaky floorboards. This felt all too familiar.
He glanced down the hall. That long hall he had always hated. It felt like a hall straight out of a horror movie. He hated it. But, the walls were normal. Those nightmares made holes in the wall. Was this... no. No, it couldn't be. Georgie kept walking.
He opened the door to the rest of the house. The staircases. As he checked to see if the coast was clear, he saw it. Its skin was white as snow. The gooey dress was black, matching a black bow on its head. But something was off. It usually wasn't this...docile. It just stared. Stared and smiled. As it slowly walked towards Georgie, the bat in its left hand showed. And it was corrupted. The bat had somehow fused into its arm. That was odd.
As he tried to reach out to touch it, he noticed something. The goo. That black goo that dripped from the bow. The black goo that was dripping from the bat. He hated that goo. He had had a dream where he watched his sister drown in that goo. He started breathing heavier. The creature reached out and grabbed him by the shirt collar. Georgie tried to fight back, but he knew it was useless. The creature raised its bat-arm, smiled a wicked smile, and then attacked.
Georgie woke up with a yelp. He hated that stupid dream. He knew it was fake. But, it was so enticing. The idea that everything was fine. That his family was still alive. He still held onto the fleeting hope that all of this was just a dream. But he knew that was such a childish desire. He looked at the bed across from his. It was a queen sized bed with a short person asleep. That was Player. Them and Georgie were close. Like parent and son. As much as he wanted to run to their arms, be comforted. But he knows they need their rest. Especially after yesterday.
He grabbed a flashlight from the shelf and walked around the safe place. It was an old abandoned hotel. It had been his home for the past 6 months. He walked down the first flight of stairs and entered the green rooms. This is where Giraffy worked out. Where Pony and Mimi slept. Where they did laundry. But it was quiet. Both people who slept here had been asleep for hours by now. Georgie didn't want to wake them up.
He crept down another flight of stairs and entered the kitchen. It was so creepy at night. The darkness reminded him of the goo from his nightmares. But, there was no sign of life from the kitchen. That was until a voice boomed behind him.
"What are you doing up, kid?"
Georgie quickly spun around and was faced with Giraffy. He was very tall, around 6'8". Georgie was just barely 4'7". He looked up at Giraffy with a scared expression, not sure how to respond to the sudden scare. The giraffe sighed.
"Look, just get back to bed, and I won't tell Zizzy."
He goes to walk back up the stairs, turning to Georgie for a final time.
"You're lucky I didn't think you were infected."
On that threatening note, he walks back up the stairs to the top floor. His room was right next to Georgie and Player's room, so he probably heard the piglet awake. Georgie sighs and walks back upstairs. He doesn't have much else of a choice. But he knows something was there besides the group. He could feel it somehow.
With irritation, he laid down on his flashlight and climbed back into bed. But he couldn't relax. He knows it was no coincidence he awoke again at this hour. It happened every night. He looked over at Player, who was still asleep. Thank the gods. Georgie wouldn't forgive himself if he had woken up one of the only people he really trusts.
It felt like just as he got comfortable, there was a loud crashing sound. He grabbed his flashlight and shot up in bed. He carefully crept over to the door and opened it, shining the beam of light down the hall. Nothing. He wanted to sigh with relief and go back to sleep, but something was out there. Something wasdefinitely out there.
After at least an hour of checking outside of the room whenever he heard so much as a gust of wind blew through a window, the piglet had to give up. It was almost 5am. The members of the safe place had a busy day ahead of them. He couldn't waste his energy on something as trivial as this. Georgie turned his flashlight off and climbed into his bed again. As the clock struck 6, he fell asleep. Surely a few hours of sleep was better than none at all.
Hopefully, he won't have that nightmare again tonight.
