Chapter Text
Stirring awake in the makeshift bed, Vinny slowly sat up, stretching and yawning. A new day, and still, nobody was found. But on the bright side, he had a restful sleep! He was calm, and warm, and…alone.
Crawling out of bed, Vinny walked out of the office, skipping breakfast and heading off into the house again.
This wasn’t…exactly what he excepted when he was mailed off. One moment he was asleep, and the next second he was in a box full of packing peanuts. Sadly there weren’t enough to where a consciousness was present with him, along with the box, but it was fine. Though he wished he could’ve said goodbye to the others in the factory.
“There’s gotta be someone here…”
He wasn’t entirely sure where the human was, he had slept in far past the morning, it was probably noon based on the sky outside. As Vinny wandered around the house, he pondered where they could possibly be.
“I’ve been to the kitchen…bathroom…other bathroom…who- who has two bathrooms if they live alone?? Anyway…bedroom, office, living room, closets…laundry room…creepy crawl space…trash…weird gym room…where else could they be?! We can’t leave the house, are they…somewhere hidden? I mean if there’s a whole office, maybe they’re somewhere like that.”
Vinny resumed his search, retracing his steps of where he had already searched. At this point, he had stopped yelling, he just whispered a small “Are you there” to any object he landed his eyes on for too long. He stared intently, as if that would have made it come to life. He scoped out the house, coming across something…strange.
Walking up to the second floor, he looked around as he did before, but this time, as he looked into the closet that he paid little attention to last time, he could see something. By the…breaker box? Another door. One that was definitely made by an object.
Rushing over, Vinny walked through. Though it was dark, a couple flicks to a few light switches brought the room to life. A club, abandoned, but still functioning.
Vinny felt like a kid in a playground, marveling at the large establishment. Could anyone be here? He quickly searched around.
“Hello? Helloooo!? Salut! Bunǎ? Privet? Anneyeo- Oh whatever, my voice is too tired…”
He resumed his search in silence. Sadly, looking in the back and front of the club, he found no traces of life.
Even without finding anyone, this was still exciting! A whole club, and since it seemed like nobody owned this place either…it could be his too! He explored the place closer, looking at the tables and seatings, prancing around the dance floor and listening to the clink and jingle of jewels on glass, and walked up onto stage.
Standing in the center, with the stage lights pointed at him…it felt thrilling. Even if there was no audience, there was him. The crank of a key was heard, and he began playing his song.
The music boxes tune radiated throughout the club, it’s acoustics echoing throughout in a way that seemed to enchant Vinny. Standing there, filling the place with music, it was almost ethereal.
For now…he could escape his worries. Atleast in this place.
For the next couple hours, he spent his time playing in the club, which he found out was called Breaker Box. A straightforward name. He respected the simplicity though.
Lining tables up to create platforms, he danced around on all of them, humming songs like Clair de lune and Carousel Waltz as he danced. He remembered other music boxes and a couple snow globes in the factory having the tunes in them, and while his dancing looked more like a parody of ballet and a waltz smooshed together, he felt happy. While he’d usually be more cautious, he decided that this was his first chance to truly have some unconditional fun.
Once he got tired of that, he rushed over to the stage, standing in the center to perform. The light beaming through his glass, glistening his hair, reflecting off the jewels, he felt like the most stunning thing in the world.
He played his music box, singing along a few times, and once he was done with that, he began singing other songs he had learned from the other products of the factory, like Music of the Night and The Wind Beneath My Wings. Yes, he was singing it acapella, but the reverberating echoes were more than enough to fill in the missing instruments.
Once he was done singing though, he was parched, and walked over to what seemed like a counter with stools, and many bottles behind it. Perfect! Grabbing a random brown bottle off the wall, he popped it open, and took a swig.
“ACK-!” He immediately spat it out.
It was bitter! And it smelled like bread…! Setting the bottle down, he grabbed another bottle, opening it and drinking from it. He coughed it out before he could spit, a burning sensation following down his throat. He grabbed another bottle, hoping to wash down the flavors of the last two, only to be met with a bitter flavor worst than the first one.
He tried out a few more bottles. Some were bearable, a mild sour flavor here and there, some slightly bitter, and admittedly 80% were disgusting. But there were some good ones!
One bottle he had taken a liking to was one called “Bailey’s Irish Cream” that had a slight bitterness, but he could push it aside for the creamy, sweet, almost chocolate like taste. He happily drank up nearly half the bottle, and motivated by his find of a diamond in the rough, he kept experimenting.
He found bottles of what seemed to be fruit juices called “Wine” that had some sweet flavors, and one called “Amarula” wasn’t that bad, he had a couple drinks of that. Eventually, he felt satisfied with his drinks. Very satisfied. He actually felt great! If not a bit fuzzy in the head.
He got up to go look around, only to stumble a bit, barely catching himself on the edge of the counter. His body felt strange, like he couldn’t move his legs where they wanted to move.
“Hahaha…!” The situation was funny, atleast right now. Almost silly! Why weren’t it his legs working??
…Why weren’t they working?
Now that he thought about it, his arms felt weird too…maybe he should go to bed. Yeah, go back to the office and sleep after such a long day! And maybe while he’s at it he’d get a snack, what kind of food did he like anyway? He had never thought about that. What was his favorite anything? Favorite color? Maybe blue? That’s the color of his irises. Or red, cause there’s red too! Speaking of red, the sky looks so pretty red. But even prettier pink. Who was the first person to think of mixing white and red together to make pink? How’d they figure out how to make different shades of pink, why did they give the color Peach to a whole fruit, where’s Magenta’s fruit?
…What was he thinking about again?
Where was he exactly?
He sat up a bit, body feeling heavy and mind swirling. “I was…at the place with the bottles and…and now I’m…there’s llleather…and wooood…is this a…a booth? Is dat what it’s called, booth? Why’d they call it a booth it’s- it’s not a thing that look’s like a booth it- it looks like a…aaaaaaa…thing…long chair…y-yeah, a looooooong chair…! Long- long curvy chair yeah… I’ll…I’ll tell them to fix the name tomorrow I…”
He closed his eyes, and flopped down onto the leather, letting the darkness surround him. Slowly but surely, he feel asleep. Or is sleep the wrong word?
As strange as Vinny felt…he wouldn't deny the truth.
This made him feel a lot better.