Uncaged

Breaking the Ice

Millie stared at the odd pair, trying to process the scene before her.

"Wait..so...you guys like, know each other?" Millie gestured towards the two, picturing the rabbit being placed upon the bear's stump of a hand—it was weird, yes, but it made sense. They were both clowns, and Bon Bon was a...hand puppet?

"Yes, Millie," Bon Bon answered, "Funtime Freddy and I were—are—best friends!"

The bear's ears perked up at the name, causing a noticeable shift in his mood—Millie couldn't tell if this was good or bad—and he seemed somewhat surprised, as if he hadn't expected to hear the name. Millie for sure hadn't, which piqued her curiosity.

Funtime Freddy? And I thought my name was ridiculous, Millie thought, but it sounds...familiar.

"Ah, so your name's...'Funtime Freddy?'" Millie put air quotes at the end of her rhetorical question, tilting her head slightly. "Seems like a pretty friendly name for someone like you."

He turned his head towards Millie, staring at the girl with an unsettling look that startled Millie. Again, she couldn't quite tell if he was upset or not. She could sense that he wasn't too fond of her comment, though.

"I haven't been called that in a long...long....time." Freddy replied, still staring seemingly into Millie's very soul. "But, really, it's Paxton. Pax the Polar Bear." He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment as his eyes wandered the workshop's flooring.

"Pax the 'Ventriloquist' Polar Bear," Bon Bon added, "—and Buddy the Bunny Puppet!" He gestured to himself. "Although technically, I am my own animatronic. I didn't get much solitary recognition. But that's okay," he added as his friend slumped back a little, "it's not like I would've done very well without my best pal anyway!" He reached up and patted the "pal" he was referring to on the nose.

Millie allowed silence to buzz in the air as she stood in thought for a moment, looking between the two.

"Wait, so is it Paxton and Buddy or Funtime Freddy and Bon Bon? I...I don't get it." The girl raised an eyebrow, curiosity spreading in her mind. "Did they like, change your names, or something?"

More silence filled the room as Millie observed the pair's hesitant reaction to her words. The rabbit glanced away, as the bear still stared unnervingly into her soul, as if to say, stop talking.

"Okay," Millie raised her hands in the air, sucking air in through her teeth, "sorry for asking, I guess..."

"I guess you could say there was an...incident. And we—all six of us—were rebranded, renamed...but, you can just call us Freddy and Bon Bon. Sorry for the confusion, cupcake. I really shouldn't have brought it up at all!" He dismissed the topic with a tinny chuckle, and his mood seemed to suddenly switch up again.

"All six of you? Incident?" Millie remarked, surprised.

"Well, it was really seven," Bon Bon chuckled, "Freddy here just isn't very fond of my...sister...." The hand puppet's voice trailed off for a moment.

"Never mind all of that, I believe we've overshared a bit, haven't we?" Freddy smiled creepily, staring at his friend on his lap, who nodded in response.

"Wait, but-"

"I said never mind, Silly Millie." Freddy tilted his head, and Bon Bon reached up to consolingly stroke his muzzle. The bear loosened up a bit.

"Um...okay then, so...," Millie stared down at her black Converse for a few moments, "how do you guys, like, attach?"

"Let us show you, my dear."

Without skipping a beat, Freddy tilted his right shoulder down, straightening out his arm. Bon Bon utilized his own sturdy arms to scale up to his friend's shoulder, who then bent his arm, his stump facing upward and parallel to the ground. Bon Bon then made the leap from his friend's shoulder square onto his wrist with a firm, crisp click. Perfectly, as if they'd done it multiple times before. They probably have. Millie thought as she observed the couple, smiling goofily at each other.

"Wow." Millie felt as though this looked familiar, but she couldn't pinpoint in in her mind. She dismissed the nebulous thought before it could solidify and attach itself to her conscience. She had enough to think about already. 

After a bit more small talk and conversing, Millie's watch let out a high "ding!". She checked the device on her wrist, which read 18:25.

"Oh, I should get going. My curfew is 18:30," Millie stuffed her hands into her hoodie pocket, before turning on her heel and making a beeline through her grandfather's junk towards the door. "Uh, seeya two. Have fun."

"Goodnight!" The two called behind her in unison.

Millie made sure to tug the pull string to the light in the workshop so it clicked off before she left. As the girl trudged through the mulch, making the short journey through the yard back to the house, she couldn't help but ponder what she had just seen. It was purely astonishing to her that the same machine that had attempted to murder her could be all chipper and jolly when it had a buddy around. And how did those things even feel? Clearly, they had some sort of sentience—but how? And why?

Thoughts raced around in her head, scurrying past one another and making collisions, sparking ideas that were soon snuffed out, stitching into her thoughts and tangling themselves together until Millie couldn't handle pondering them much longer. She did her best to shove them to the back of her mind as soon as she placed her hand on the doorknob.

When she entered the house, she was welcomed by the sight of her cat, Annabel Lee, seated upon a windowsill, as well as the scent of pasta cooking, accompanied by the sounds of her grandfather pacing the kitchen, probably following one of those vegetarian recipes he'd found online—

And instead of darting to her room, she made her way to the kitchen and stood at the small island at the center.
"Hey, Millie!" Her grandfather smiled at her with those energetic brown eyes. He was wearing his same old cardigan, but with a cooking apron over it. "Thought you'd gone and ran off from me again. Now, go wash your hands. You've been out and about for a bit."

Millie didn't reply. She simply nodded before making her way down the hall to the bathroom.

She stared at the person in the reflection as she pumped soap onto her hands, rinsing them under warm water. There was a streak of dirt on her chin, and dust in her frizzed up hair, but there was also a slight, involuntary smile upon her lips. She rubbed the dirt off of her chin and ran a brush through her hair, straightening herself out a bit.

"Soups on!" Grandpa called to her from the kitchen.