The room Binibelle could see–If it would even be called a room–Was drowned in absolute darkness for the most part, only a small portion in front of her line of sight was illuminated… A circle of light, akin to that formed by a limelight directed down upon the star of a theatre piece.

  Everything else was nought but amorphous dark. This room could be small, or it could be an endless void. Binibelle simply wouldn’t be able to tell the difference… Her only clue was the pattern upon the floor, which was similar to that seen in representations of Harvey’s Diner she had seen in the archives, but also not quite the same thing.

  The halfling could only assume that this was once again the work of the alternate reality portion of these visions…

  Her line of sight was even closer to the ground than she was used to, but try as she might, she couldn’t see anything about her. By all means, she was just an invisible pair of eyes, as she had previously been in the visions that had preceded this one.

  Soon… Footsteps echoed into the vast darkness, and a pair of refined shoes stepped into the light, followed by a colourful figure–That of Glown. She was different from how Binibelle knew the character… In the previous vision, Glown had looked the same as she had seen in the descriptions, but this one? Her suit was much more ample and wide, and she wore a cone-shaped hat on top of her head, slightly tilted to the right.

  Her colours, which were normally varied and rather dark shades, were lighter, and the colour pink was far more prominent on this costume–This was clearly yet another reality showing itself to her. This reality’s Glown was a much different-looking character, but the mage could only assume that what she was going to see was relevant to her own reality somehow…

  A voice came from what seemed to be Binibelle herself.

  “Glown…? Why is it so dark here?”

  It was the voice of a young girl, her tone clearly worried. Binibelle could feel it in her bones. The girl was dearly afraid of the dark, and she could only rely on the one sign of safety around–The clown girl herself. The mage felt her skin crawl. She knew what was coming… With what she knew, the outcome of this vision was obvious, and yet… Glown was still able to make it seem as though she was not a threat at all.

  “The light must have malfunctioned… Ooh… The Diner’s owner insists on the fancy, lightning-lighting… What a mouthful, ohohoho! Do not worry, Darling. Walk into the light with me, grab my hand, and close your eyes–Closing your eyes is different from darkness, isn’t it?”

  “Y-Yes…”

  “Then, when you close your eyes, you won’t be able to see the scary darkness! I will guide you out of the room… You shouldn’t be here, but don’t worry. I won’t tell your parents that you wandered off where you shouldn’t have… Let’s go back. I’ll show you something elsewhere”

  Binibelle’s vision moved as small footsteps echoed into the room. Her sight was seemingly tied to that of the girl, but the halfling still could not see anything of the one whose eyes she was looking through.

  She got close to Glown.

  Binibelle had frankly never been a big fan of clowns, but she had to admit that not only was the one inside the suit of Glown very good, but the design of the costume itself was on point. Glown looked cute, friendly, and approachable. She didn’t evoke any of the strange feelings another clown might evoke due to the heavy makeup they wore.

  Normally, the chalk-white skin seemed strange, especially when it was obvious that a human was beneath, the colours, the demeanour… Clowns usually seemed uncanny, but not Glown. The clown girl was simply perfectly designed, and the costume wearer really further enhanced these aspects.

  The mage was attentive, however, prepared for something awful to happen. The young girl was in no way wary or afraid of the colourful performer, grabbing the clown’s outstretched hand like it was her own mother’s.

  Suddenly, the lights of the room flickered to life, spooking the girl into throwing herself into Glown’s embrace.

  “Now, now, Darling… There is nothing to be afraid of. The darkness is gone”

  Binibelle looked around, recognising this place immediately.

  This was the backroom in Harvey’s Diner, where the old, wearable automata were once stocked before they were all taken away by the culprit, only leaving a single, decrepit one behind to confuse investigators about the veracity of Coco, The Coyote’s presence inside the diner at the time of the disappearances.

  She was able to immediately tell because the forgotten characters were all here. They had not yet been taken away, allowing the mage to see for herself that indeed, there were two versions of Coco, one was in a good state and the other… It had been placed in an unfortunate position, a leak had caused the automaton to become drenched.

  Compared to the rest, it had rusted and become mouldy rapidly. This was the one the investigators had found when searching the backroom, but there had been another set of the same character here–Which would have been the suit Adem had worn while trying to assist the mastermind.

  “Shhh… Breathe in and out, Girly. I can feel your heart beating fast right now…”

  Glown comforted the girl for a few minutes, holding her up and basically cradling her. It felt very weird for Binibelle, but it did show that the costume wearer was impressively good with children, the voice was perfectly soothing, the motions calming, and it was easy to tell that the young girl had a great deal of trust in the clown.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  …And against what the halfling had believed, nothing bad happened to the girl, just like Glown said. The girl was escorted to the door of the room, and there was no trick it seemed. This was not a vision of the moment when the tragedy had struck.

  This meant that the person wearing the Glown costume was in fact supposed to be wearing it right now… Which could only mean that this was Mara Nebulo beneath the suit right now. Which was surprising, Binibelle had heard from Leton that his sister had had a rather poor view of children in general. Going as far as referring to them as ‘spawnlings’ or ‘creatures’.

  The mage could only guess that being good with children did not mean that you had to actually enjoy their company…

  This vision was not yet over, though. The young girl stepped out of the backroom and looked back, only to see something Binibelle did not understand immediately. The rusted, whitered, and rotten Coco, The Coyote–Was standing on both of his feet.

  His outer shell of once cuddly-looking fabric had degraded, turning grey and fragmented with tears, revealing his skeletal frame of steel beneath.

  As he took a step forward, Binibelle knew that something was wrong with it. This was an automaton which had been–Rather hastily and thoughtlessly–Been made into something that could be worn by a person.

  Back then, entertainment automata were not common at all. Some businessmen were smelling potential, but the mechanical knowledge was rough back then. It was only seen as a much cheaper way to create artificial constructs, amongst other things.

  Everything about what Leton Nebulo would later elevate to great heights had been deeply flawed during the time of Harvey’s Diner. When the automata were revealed to be disappointing, whoever had built them had decided to also make them wearable costumes, to trick customers into thinking that they were interacting with very advanced creations–To make them want to come back to see the supposed wonders of mechanical engineering.

  …Ignoring the fact that these suits turned out to be deathtraps capable of inflicting death so utterly abominable that describing them was enough to bring many to empty their stomachs–These so-called automata could not move on their own at all.

  They even needed to be bolted down in place in most cases, as they could barely stand and make motions at the same time.

  Binibelle was watching one of such faulty suits, standing like it was a living creature… Coco, The Coyote, had his back bent forward, arms stretched to the sides as he opened his maw wide.

  “Girlypop. Would you be so kind as to take a few more steps back, please? It would seem that a certain canine has woken up and is feeling a bit cranky”

  The girl listened, and who Binibelle believed to be Mara Nebulo closed the backroom’s door–With herself still inside, only keeping the young girl out.

  There were loud bangs inside the room, until the sound of steel crashing against a wall was heard, iron scraped against a stony surface until one last, dull noise was heard.

  The clown stepped out of the room, squeezing through a narrowly opened door as though not wanting the girl to see what was inside.

  “Glown… Are you alright…? I am sorry…”

  “Don’t apologise, Darling. It is only natural to be curious, besides… It is best that this happened while I was around. Another employee would have been in serious trouble having to deal with this! Ahahah, do not cry. Let’s go get you an ice cream, shall we?”

  The clown girl casually wiped and concealed a thin stream of blood flowing from her nostril.

  The vision stopped once the girl reached the main dining room of Harvey’s Diner.

  “What was the meaning of this?”

  The vision had seemed less about the tragedy, and more about the mouldy automaton which had been used as a diversion in Binibelle’s reality. Why did Coco move? And why could he move like this in the first place? Even a brand-new, fully functioning automaton of this type wouldn’t be able to do this, so one which had been left exposed to humidity and forsaken for who knows how long?

  If the mage continued to assume that these visions from alternate realities were relevant to her case–Then, was this telling her that there was something about the rotten version of Coco, The Coyote? As far as she was aware, the remains of this old thing had been left in the backroom to continue to decay.

  “Were its remains ever found in the ruins left after the fire…?”

  “Is this about the steel abomination Jupo encountered…? But as far as description went… The monster that first terrorised Tolten looked nothing like Coco”

  There was one last vision for her to bear witness to.

  Unlike the previous ones, it actually had something to do with what she had just seen.

  She could see Coco lying against the wall he had previously been, but in a much different position–His steel chest seemed somewhat caved in as well. It seemed like Mara Nebulo had hit the automaton quite hard… Hard enough for the impact to send the coyote right back to the sleep it never should have awoken from.

  The robot’s eyes illuminated with a faint, small glow. By this point, his imitations of ocular globes had become overrun with mould. Whatever had caused him to rise previously probably wouldn’t be able to bring him back up. His frame was simply too rusted and rotten.

  A figure came into view. A black and white clown, once again, the costume’s design was different from the one Binibelle had seen before. This one was closer to the ‘original’, but featured fluffy spheres in place of buttons on the front of the suit.

  Rather than speak, she seemed to manifest some sort of grime onto the floor in front of the machine, writing a simple sentence.

  Do you understand who rules you, now?

  The automaton responded in the same manner, but wrote on the wall just above his head.

  I do.

  Then, swear it.

  I swear it.

  Binibelle’s vision turned black, only for a single image to flash before her–A dark figure with its face covered by a black square standing as its shadow split.

  Something Binibelle could not understand appeared in front of her eyes, and she was ejected from the visions, falling on her backside in the real world, in her own reality.

  “What did I just see…?”

  It had looked like nothing more than gibberish to her.

  Yg ctg kpuvtwogpvu qh fgcvj, qwt ugtxkeg gvgtpcn

  Binibelle felt drained and couldn’t think about this right now. There was still a clown to deal with.