Baba Chops was sitting in the corner trying to sleep. The only two who were awake in the room were Bierce (who was looking at her ring pieces) and Mollie (who was taking her plane apart making an attempt to make a useful contraption out of it). Baba was the only nightmare critter who was awaked. She noticed how Doug was twisting and turning in his sleep and saying, "No, no, I didn't realize she would be the one driving! Please, forgive me!"
Baba raised her eyebrow with curiosity. She stood up and walked toward Doug and tapped him on the shoulder. He was still twitching in his sleep.
"WAKE UP!" Baba shouted. The lawyer awoke with a start. "You looked like you were going to have a mental breakdown." Baba said. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Doug said.
Baba Chops wasn't buying it. "That bologna, Mr. Houser. If this is a Hellish reality, why are you here?"
Doug said, "If I told you, you would not want to see my face again."
"Try me." Baba said. "I bet I am just as bad as you are."
"But you are just a toy that somehow came to life." Doug said.
"Nope, I was a teenage orphan girl whose human parts were somehow transferred into this stuffed sheep body." she said. "If I tell you about where I came from, will you tell me why you are here? I'm usually not interested but there is something about you that intrigues me."
Doug thought about it to himself. "Okay, tell me."
"Well, at playtime co. There was this man named Elliot Ludwig who had a daughter and died at a young age. He was a brilliant man who found out how to revive her by transplanting her organs into a doll and created the first living toy. He wanted to pass his knowledge onto a successor because he was growing old so he made up this "Young Geniuses Convention" and invited intellectual teenagers to his factory. One of the brightest was named Harley Sawyer. He understood the technique but lacked the empathy for such projects. Ludwig tried to share his vision with him but he proved he was not the right kind of person. So, Ludwig sent him away. After Mr. Ludwig died, the company was making so many new toys that they wanted new workers that they didn't have to pay so they wanted to turn people into toys. At that time, Harley Sawyer was a neurosurgeon and was a doctor. They hired Dr. Harley Sawyer to work with them and he decided to experiment on orphan children to turn them into toys. He was successful but with consequences. Some of the toys retained their human intelligence while others were animalistic. That was how I am the walking talking plush sheep today. Harley Sawyer also took fancy of an experiment known as 'the Prototype' and worked with it. Eventually, the experiments were resulting in factory personnel getting hurt and the other scientists grew tired of Dr. Sawyers mistakes. They decided to make HIM into an experiment and he ended up have his brain and other parts transferred into a machine. He became known as 'The Doctor' and swore revenge on the scientists who betrayed him."
"Isn't the Doctor dead now? The portal did open to the Murder Monkeys' hotel." Doug asked.
"I guess. The prototype had many henchmen such as Huggy Wuggy, Mommy Longlegs, Catnap, Yarnaby, and the Doctor. They all came together and came up with a revolution called 'The Hour of Joy' giving false promises about freedom. I and the other nightmare critters sided with the Prototype to set ourselves free. If you saw me then, you would think of me no better than the Murder Monkeys, the Gold Watchers, or any of Malak's crew. I and many toys killed the scientists and workers who imprisoned us. Even many innocent bystanders died that day. They bodies were taken to the basement and became food for the renegade toys. The Prototype then told the toys they could never leave and their only food source were the humans that were massacred. Some of the toys began to eat each other when there were no more humans. I and my friends lived in the basement for some time until a portal opened up. We ventured inside and found ourselves in that creepy hotel hallway." Baba Chops said.
"You're not exactly an innocent poor little orphan girl." Doug said.
"Okay, now tell me your story." Baba Chops said.
Doug shifted uncomfortably. "Will you not tell Malak?"
"I am not with that guy. The Prototype was bad enough, I am not going to side forces with another dictator." Baba Chops said.
"Fine, when I was young, I grew up with a mother who blamed me for her problems when my dad left. She eventually died and I went to school and became a lawyer."
"What kind of lawyer?" Baba asked.
"A criminal lawyer. I was very successful with my job and I met this woman. I married her but didn't love her. Elise had a temper that I didn't want to deal with. I had a daughter named Tammy who was autistic and I didn't have the love I should of had for her. I remember that last night I had with them. I screamed at my wife and told her that she should be dealing with her daughter, not me. I even blamed them for sucking the joy out of my life and I shouldn't have married Elise. Secretly, I was dating a secretary and I was planning on manipulating Tammy to side with me and against her mother. I even bought the secretary a new car and I told her I lied to my wife telling her I was on a work trip when I was cheating on her. One day, I decided to get rid of Elise. I switched her medicine to make her die from an overdose of sleeping pills to make it look like a suicide. However, she went driving with Tammy. The pills took affect, the car drove off a bridge and plunged into a body of water..."
"So you're a murderer." Baba finished. "You killed them both."
"Now you know." Doug said.
"But how did you get here?" she asked.
"Well, I used my own blood for a ritual when I was sick with cancer and dying in a hospital to get to Bierce's ballroom." Doug said.
"Raby Baby was right, you committed an act of sorcery." Baba said. "You are a witch."
"I wanted to make a wish to bring my family back and undo everything I did and Bierce is the only person that I knew who could do that." Doug explained.
"Doug, have you ever thought that Bierce is using you?" she asked. "Maybe you are holding onto something you should be letting go of. I killed many adults in an attempt to set myself free only to be lied to. Bierce could be doing the same thing. You need to forgive yourself."
"I can never forgive myself for the blood I spilled." Doug said.
"But you are deceiving yourself with false hopes of erasing the past. Using a wish will not remove the guilt. Your wife and kid might not know about your choices in the alternate timeline but you will. If I were offered a wish to undo everything that happened at Playtime Co., it would not cause me to forget every death, torture, and pain several children, workers, and scientists were put through. Take it from me. Think about something other than the wish to gather soul shards, and I will help you defeat Malak and his demonic hoard. You can be a good hero and redeem yourself. Don't let the past define who you are as a person." Baba Chops said. She yawned, "I'm tired. Thanks for sharing your troubles with me."
"You too." Doug said. He tried to sleep again thinking about what to do next with himself and about whatever Bierce had in store for him."

End of Chapter