Chapter Text
It all happened so fast. Randall barely managed to keep up with where he was.
In one moment, he’s being hurled through a door. In the next, he’s no longer in the same world.
Randall shot up from his spot on the floor when he heard the door closed behind him, trying to shake off his sudden headache as fast as he could.
“No! Wait!”
He twisted his body around and grabbed the doorknob to shove it open, only to fall face first again on the other side of the doorframe.
Looking up, he was still not in the factory. He was instead facing white walls. A hallway he’d never been in.
His eyes grew wide as he looked back at the now useless door.
“No.. no..” Panic was settling in. Randall stood up, coming to a dreadful realization.
He was stuck in the human world. He was banished.
“Curse you, Sullivan..” He clenched his fists, teeth bared. He wanted to yell and despair further over it, he wanted to take his anger out on something, but he knew now wasn’t the time. Randall looked around his new whereabouts, making sure there weren’t any humans in sight.
He was certainly not in a child’s bedroom. Instead, he found himself in a short, white hallway, with a few circular windows showing a dull blue sky outside.
Randall cautiously went up to the window, peeking outside. Instead of seeing trees, or grass, or other buildings, he could only see a bunch of.. industrial equipment, beyond some railing. And beyond that, the vast ocean.
Randall had to keep himself from flipping out right then and there. “I’m on.. is this..”
Randall had to rub his eyes. Was he on a boat!? Or a platform in the ocean? He stood still for a second as he continued to look out the window. He didn’t feel nor notice any movement, so he must’ve been on some sort of large, fixed platform.
Before he could spare it anymore thought, Randall picked up on a new sound. Voices, coming from down the hall to his left. His fronds shot up in alert, and he instantly turned invisible, scaling the wall so he could watch from above. He dug his dexterous fingers in-between the crack of a ceiling panel. Of course he wasn’t alone here. Why would he ever be?
He watched as two humans - who looked like some sort of construction workers, they wore orange wearing uniforms and hard hats - came around the corner, talking to each other in thick accents. Randall pressed himself up against the ceiling as much as he could, trying to listen in.
“He give ye any more shite for it after that?”
“Ah, no. He probably got too busy patting himself on the back tae remember.”
Randall waited as the two humans laughed to themselves, and eventually disappeared around a corner down the other side of the hall.
Making sure the coast was clear, Randall made his way across the ceiling, searching for a place he could perhaps slip into, a vent or a missing panel. He decided to crawl the opposite way down the hallway from where the humans went. He needed a place to plan his next move, without being interrupted or spotted by anyone.
Turning a corner near a stairwell, Randall found a vent opening he could slip into. The cover was a flimsy material, thankfully, so he pried it open with ease.
As he made his way up and through the vent, he started feeling a sort of weakness in his limbs. Next thing he knew, he had collapsed to his stomach.
Randall let out a shaky exhale, hands suddenly shaking. Right, he hadn’t had any rest all day. He did not try to get back up, and instead decided to curl up into a ball, tail obscuring his face.
The facts of his situation were finally starting to settle in. Randall was stuck in the human world, in the middle of the ocean. Seeing as he must’ve been far away from any human children, he could easily be stuck there forever for all he knew. Nobody would ever come rescue him here. And if Sullivan got his narrative across to the world? Nobody would ever want to come rescue him.
But Randall could improvise. Randall could survive. He knew that, he knew he was resilient. So why was he shaking?
He felt embarrassed as he took deep breaths, finally managing to calm down. He was grateful nobody had witnessed that. Maybe being alone for a little while would have it’s benefits.
“Okay, think Boggs…”
He had to get his head set straight, and map out whatever place he was in. Perhaps he could still find a way off this dump, and towards someplace that housed children, like a town?
He looked up from under his tail, seeing the winding paths of the ventilation system he’d squeezed himself into. The vents looked like a great place to observe from, assuming this place was large.
Randall could hear more loud talking echoing from a vent opening further up. He groaned at the sound, already finding himself frustrated with these humans. They were dangerous, but also incredibly annoying sounding.
Randall decided he could wait until planning. Exhaustion was setting in, and he didn’t want to make himself an easy target incase he was caught.
One thing was for certain. He’d be here for a long, long time.