"Alright kiddos, time to turn in." Chelly said, taking you by the hand again.
"I don't want to have to punish you for breaking curfew."
You waved goodbye to Mona with your free hand and she waved back. "Bye, Lucy. Come see me at the Magic Playroom when you have a chance!"
Chelly escorted you back to the break room. The door slid open automatically for you and she let go of your hand.
"Looks like we got here just before bedtime." she smiled. "Goodbye for now, kid. Stay out of trouble!"
The mascot break room was especially quiet at this hour. Some of the others had already gone to bed.
It looked like the bar was closed for the night, and you saw Matilda the bovine barmaid idly chatting with a buxom, motherly-looking hen mascot in a feathered bonnet. What was with the mammaries on non-mammallian characters, you wondered, touching your own flat chest. Even Matilda just had an udder.
There was no sign of Jingles the cat, but you realized that you had never seen her in the break room before. There must be others scattered around the park.
You decided to check in with Zoey, climbing down into the maintenance tunnel while nobody was looking.
She greeted you with a smile.
"I see you got a map! Me too!" she beamed, producing her own from one of her stockings.
"And looky what I got here... ta-da!"
She held out her hands, revealing two tubes of red lipstick.
"From the circus changing room." she explained, "One of the perks of being a clown. We can mark our maps with these.
So how did your session with the doc go?"
You sat down and explained everything to the best of your memory: Dr. Z's explanation on mascot origins, your combined memories of your human life and being brought to life as a mascot by Mona the witch. She listened with her full attention and then clenched her big round eyes shut, concentrating.
"Yes that all... sounds familiar. I think I can recall something like that... my old self, the donor... Legal Ludwig....
Wait, did you say you were brought to life by a witch?"
You nodded.
Zoey continued, "Now that I think about it, I remember the stuff with my donor, I mean my old self, meeting with Ludwig. But there was no witch character.
I distinctly remember coming out of this big noisy machine called the clown-o-matic. And they transferred the donor's, I mean MY soul through this big wacky hose."
She rubbed her chin. "Hm, maybe the mascot part of ourselves can't tell the difference between their actual memories and their programmed backstories, so they get all smooshed together."
"Backstories?" you asked.
"Right. I'm a clown character, so my backstory is that I came out of this wacky circus contraption. You're a magic doll character, so you remember being brought to life by a witch."
Somehow, this stung. "No! Mona's real! I met here! We're going to play together tomorrow!" you squeaked.
"Oh I'm sure she's real. Your backstory probably includes connections with other mascot characters. Mona's backstory programming has probably been updated so she remembers creating you, too."
This was making your head spin.
"Of course," Zoey added "This means we don't know the exact process of how the transfer works. Our mascot memories are unreliable.
Still, I think we're closer to cracking this open." she smiled.
This was all too stressful for you, and you decided to go to bed.
"Good idea, we've got another big day ahead of us." Zoe said, sitting down next to you on the makeshift bedding and yawning.
You rested your big round head on the pillow pile, closed your eyes and hoped that 8 hours of sleep would help clear your mind. Eventually you drifted off.
During the night, you briefly awoke to a strange feeling.
You realized that Zoe had wrapped one of her arms around your body while you were asleep, pulling you close, and you could hear her breathing shakily. Either she was having a bad dream, or the new information you'd shared had actually impacted her more than she let on.
You decided not to disturb her, and went back to sleep.