Startup Process Initiated.
Activating Wake-Up Protocol...........10%.....20%......30%....

With his hands open by his sides, his fingers twitched a little, one by one to make sure they were working.

40%.....50%......60%....70%.......

He moved his head slightly, hands twitching again, while the warm air washed over him like a soothing wave.
Wait...warm air?
This wasn't the air conditioned room he had been in before. Surely not!

80%......90%......

His shoulders moved a little as the power rushed down through his circuits and wiring, from the points of his rays to the tips of his curled-toe shoes.
He was unsure how he had powered down; in fact, he was unsure about a lot of things, but perhaps waking up and seeing what had happened would help out.

Heck, maybe he'd be able to fix the problem and get past it before the rest of the work had to be done!
After all, he couldn't wait around before the kids arrived, could he?

98%.....99%....100%. Wake-Up Protocol complete. All debugs and calibrations launched. Sundrop.exe startup initiated.

Sundrop is now online...

With these phrases and commands present in his vision only briefly, Sundrop opened his eyes slowly, blinking in the golden light around him.
A tired groan rumbled from his throat pipe, followed by a creak of his endoskeleton from pushing himself up off of the dusty ground.
Looking up, the sky was a cloudy amber hue, and below he could see -and somewhat feel- solid brown dirt underneath him.
What's more, there were trees all around them and...a fire right next to him?

Sundrop jumped up with a yelp, ready to use his built-in extinguisher on the fire, only to see what the world around him was more clearly.
It looked like some kind of campsite.
But what was he doing here? this didn't look like it was anywhere near where the Mega Pizzaplex was. In fact, it looked like it was in the middle of nowhere!
Trying to search his processors for an answer, Sun could find none. All memories of how and why he had arrived at this strange forest was foggy, almost like a dream.
All he could remember was finishing up another successful day at the Superstar Daycare only to hear something from his room.
He also recalled feeling very drained, as if he'd skipped his recharge cycle multiple times in a single day.

It was then, and only then, he realized there were eyes on him from all sides.
His rays spun and retracted in a nervous fashion, as he met the eyes of the other three survivors.

A man with glasses and a tie peering fearfully at the tall, lanky animatronic.
A broad-shouldered bearded man with a biker look to him.
And last, but by no means least, a very pretty young lady with blonde hair, wearing a blue shirt and bootcut blue jeans.
The young woman was looking at Sundrop skeptically, while the biker was confused as all get-out, wondering who the animatronic was and why he was there.

Sundrop emitted a cliche'd 'gulp' sound from his throat pipe, discreetly scanning each face one by one.

Dwight Fairfield.
Jeff Johanson.
Laurie Strode.

Laurie Strode definitely rung a few bells for Sundrop, but for the artificial life of him, he couldn't quite pinpoint where the other two were from.

"Hey, uh...." Dwight started nervously, earning a sharp turn of the animatronic's head in response. The speed of it made him flinch just a bit, but he steeled his gaze, fixed his glasses and continued on.
"You're new here, aren't you?" he continued, and Sundrop nodded.

"That I am!" Sundrop responded, his voice as chipper and confident as ever, though his wavering, fearful tone gave him away.
"Say, I know this may sound like a common question, but....where are we? This doesn't look like my workplace at all!" he enquired, tilting his head to the side like a lost puppy.

"It's called the entity's realm. Or, specifically, this is our part of the realm where we're unharmed" Laurie spoke up, taking out and polishing a shard of something silver with the hem of her shirt before tucking it out of sight in her jeans pocket.
"This campsite place is where we are put when the entity doesn't need us for a trial-" she started, then paused, seeing Sundrop's confused gaze.
"Well, you'll find out what trials are soon enough" she continued dismissively, leaving Sundrop even more thrown for a loop than he already was.

"But how do we get back? how long are we kept here?" Sundrop asked.

"No way we can get back. The best we get are crude mock-ups of where we used to live" Jeff sighed, shrugging his jacket on a little tighter to his back.
"Sorry to say, but we're all stuck here, and so are you. Some of us have been here years to the point we forget when the entity got us" he informed him.

"Years?! But I can't be stuck here for years!! What would the kids think?! what would management do?! I-I'll be scrapped if I don't get back!!" Sundrop squawked in terror, utterly shaking like a metallic leaf.

"Hey" Laurie spoke in a surprisingly gentle tone.
"Look, if it's any comfort, you're not alone. A lot of us were taken from places we've known our whole lives and then thrown in here for the entertainment of some eldrich god. But you got us and a few more of our group you'll possibly meet later...anyways, you didn't tell us your name. I'm Laurie, and this is Jeff and Dwight" she said, gesturing with an open hand to each man in turn.

"My...my name?" Sundrop mused, a hand pressed to his chest.

"Yeah, what are you called?" Dwight asked over the fire's gentle but abrupt flickering.

"My name is Sundrop. Sun or Sunny for short" Sundrop replied.

"Weird name. But we've heard weirder, I guess" Jeff said nonchalantly with a shrug.

Before anyone could say or do anything else, a low monotone ringing like a siren or a church bell rang through their ears, followed by the wind desperately picking up its pace.
The trees creaked and the fire flared frantically, as if waving in a distressed signal for help only to be shunned by the entity above.
Sundrop winced, placing a hand to the side of his head where his ear should be, his golden irises barely seen in the surrounding light.
The rest of the survivors all looked at each other, before each one took on a more determined, stoic expression.

"Ready up, Sunny" Dwight instructed, Sundrop carefully mirroring what the survivors were currently doing.
"What are we waiting for? why are we getting ready to fight?" Sundrop asked timidly, fingers moving tentatively by his sides before balling his hands into fists.

"Well, as Laurie said, you don't know what a trial is yet, do you?" Dwight responded, a thick fog surrounding the campfire and snuffing out its amber light, curling around the bodies of the survivors. It was suffocating, and so thick a knife could have cut through it like butter.

Dwight took one last glance at Sundrop before he was fully enveloped, the only giveaway he was still standing next to the animatronic was his voice.

"Your first trial's about to start, and we're all in it...."