Day 52: Intercom, Dawn
There was no telling if the next announcement came hours or minutes after the previous one, but regardless of that, it did come on with the onset of dawn. Like clockwork, like always, someone was there to greet the half-groggy patients as they woke up in their beds
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And suddenly the dull roar cut off as if someone flipped a switch, and an odd coolness settled over him. The transition was a relief, but also jarring enough to make him feel sick to his stomach -- but, then, the fact he felt sick at all meant he wasn't dead.
Gasping, Woody's eyes flew open as he bolted upright. "Buzz--!" His eyes frantically darted to his left, his right, and for a brief moment it didn't entirely register that everything around him was built to scale. "Jessie?!"
There was no one there. Instead, it looked like he was trapped in some kind of creepy dollhouse that didn't look as warm or pink as the ones he'd seen before. But why? If this was some kind of weird afterlife, wouldn't Buzz, Jessie and the others have come here with him?
No, he thought to himself as a bubble of panic rose in his chest, no, no, they obviously weren't dead. Without thinking, Woody reached up to rub at his eyes as he took a second to just try to think of what could have saved them from...that.
But his eyelids felt warm. Warm and squishy--
"Aah!" Jerking his hand back as if he'd been burned, for a second he saw horrible images of himself melting until his hands shot out in front of himself. "My arms!" The sleeves were gone! A quick feel up his left limb revealed that it was a lot stiffer than it should have felt, that there little hairs on it, and--!
Badump, badump, badump-- The bubble of panic was starting to turn into an awful pounding inside of his body. Clutching his chest with one hand, Woody threw his feet out onto the floor. But instead of the familiar pair of plastic boots he prayed to see, Woody found two sets of human-like feet, and two sets of ten bare toes to go along with them.
Toes!
"Ahhh!" He immediately swung them back onto the bed and dug them into the blankets. Hands clutching his head out of sheer confusion, the thumping in his chest only amplified when he grabbed two fists of soft hair.
"No," he muttered to himself, shaking his head as if denying this would make it all go away. "No no no no no--" This was impossible! He couldn't be a--! No, that was ridiculous!
Woody dug his feet further into the bed that was way smaller than it should have been, pushing his back against the wall. This was not happening! This was not...happening...
His jumbled thoughts were punctured by the unmistakable sound of heels headed for the door. Drawing in a sharp breath, instinct took over, and Woody promptly fell limp like a doll whose strings had been severed, eyes gazing out into space as the door opened.
"Mr. Wheeler?" A female voice reached his ears just as Woody saw movement from the corner of his eyes. "Mr. Wheeler, it's time for you to come to breakfast."
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At least, he tried not to move a muscle. The strain to keep his eyes from blinking was bad enough, but it was the need for air that made him break his cover. Before he'd realized it, he'd gulped down a sharp breath.
"There, now..." The woman's voice had an almost soothing quality that reminded him of Andy's mother as she reached to grab his arm, her smooth hand wrapping around his wrist.
"Woah, woah, woah--" Woody pulled away from her, and a frown replaced his earlier blank expression from seconds ago. "Who are you? And, and--" He gestured wildly around the room, then at the body that wasn't his. "What's all of this?!"
Never mind that it felt incredibly wrong to talk to a real-looking woman like this, but there were a lot of other wrong things that he couldn't ignore, either. Like having hair, and feet, and not knowing where his friends were, and--
"You're at Landel's Institute, Mr. Wheeler," she politely informed him. "Your family checked you in here, but I'm sure you'll make a speedy recovery once we get you the proper treatment."
"My family," Woody echoed as he stared at the nurse with a skeptical look. "But, I don't--and my name isn't--" It was so hard to sort all of this out that his sentences were starting to stick together.
"There, there, Mr. Wheeler, I know this is all quite a shock to you," she assured him as she tried to pat his hand, but Woody just pulled himself away from her again. "I promise if you come with me to breakfast all of this will start making more sense. There are others like you here, so I'm sure you'll meet plenty of new friends. Doesn't that sound nice?"
No, it didn't, because he wasn't interested in meeting new friends, he wanted to find the old ones he was worried about. Woody was about to open his mouth to say as much, but something the lady said made him take pause. "Wait, others like me?"
Did that mean there were toys going through the same thing? Maybe toys who'd shared the same fate as him?
Buzz, Jessie, Slink...as terrified as Woody was of all the strange things that had happened to him, his concern for his friends, and the possibility of finding them, helped him push all of that aside for now. Woody swallowed hard and nodded before giving a belated, "Okay...yeah, I'll go." Maybe he'd find the others, and then they could figure out what the heck was going on.
"Very good," the woman replied with a smile. "I'm sure you'll feel better once you get something warm in your belly, hm?" Woody gave her an uncertain look, but it was too late to back of it now. She'd ushered him out of the bed and grabbed a pair of slippers for him. In no time they left the room, the woman shutting the door behind him.
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