When Larson woke up, the first thing he noticed was that his back ached. He groaned as he sat up and he heard popping and cracking sounds coming from his back.

"What the... what happened? Where am I ?" He asked himself as he started to get his bearings. He soon realized that he was back in Jeff's pizza. Surprise overwhelmed him. Did the woman let him go? He looked at the doors and nearly walked towards them, but then he looked back at the ball pit. He still had to save Tabitha. He was not going to leave without her.

After strengthening his resolve, he heard something moving in the ball pit. He took a few cautious steps towards the ball pit. When he looked into the pit, he jumped when something leaped out and landed right in front of him. It looked like a large, black figure. Its body was made up entirely of a black tar, the same tar he'd seen making up those tentacles that dragged him into the ball pit. It had begun to stand up straight and it towered over him. Its body started to shift and change. It began to look more bulky as its limbs and torso thickened. Two shapes that resembled rabbit ears sprouted out of the top of its head. Soon, the transformation was complete, and an unsettled Larson looked up and gazed upon a large, yellow rabbit. Its eyes glowed a dark blue color. It resembled an animatronic character from Freddy Fazbear's. It looked convincing until Larson noticed what was between the gaps of the animatronic suit pieces.

Instead of metal and wires, he saw organic tissue, flesh to be exact. His eyes widened slightly as he looked up at its face. The rabbit creature was now looking down at him. Larson noticed a black substance leaking out of the rabbit's right eye. He took a few steps back in surprise as the rabbit let out a blood curdling roar, revealing many rows of sharp, jagged teeth.

Just as Larson braced himself for an attack, the rabbit and the environment around him dissipated as if it was all smoke. Was he seeing another memory? Was that woman telling him the truth? Was she showing him all the answers he'd been trying to find for months? A part of him felt relieved that he was finally going to be able to make sense of what was happening and maybe solve this case for good.

But another part of him felt the opposite. It was as if he wasn't as thrilled as he thought he would be. He never realized that by uncovering these secrets, he would also have to bare witness to the awful things that happened to who knows how many people. Throughout his career, he'd seen a lot of things that he wouldn't be forgetting anytime soon, but a part of him wasn't prepared for the carnage that would give him what he wanted. He knew it would be more than just gunshot wounds and rotting corpses, but he would be forced to watch it anyway.

Was this really the woman's way of helping him, or was it just a way to break his spirit, a way of showing him that what he was facing was impossible to beat? He wished he at least knew that answer. He didn't care about the case anymore. He just wanted to escape, to find his friend and save her from the vile creature that was keeping them here. He just wanted to go home.

The void he was in was soon replaced with what looked like multiple places at once. He saw schools, cities, farms, and other buildings. Some of the locations he saw looked local enough, but many of them looked as if they were from different parts of the world. Among the mishmash, he spotted the junkyard where he uncovered those corpses. As the images of dozens of different places gave him a migraine, he could always make out the woman that had been haunting him this whole time. He saw images of her watching people, stalking them.

He watched her take different appearances, change her form to look completely different. Wait, she could do that? A confused Larson thought. Just what was this strange woman? As he gazed upon her multiple appearances, Larson noticed that she seemed to favor the feminine clown animatronic form the most, but slightly altering it at times to make it look more animatronic-like.

He then began to see images of different people, mostly children and teenagers, talking to her. They seemed to be telling her about something that they seemed to lack. Things like beauty, fortune, fame, confidence. They all seemed to want these things very badly. The woman would always accept their requests, and in every vision, Larson noticed that she would give them all a silver necklace with a heart-shaped pendant.

When they were asleep, Larson covered his mouth in horror as he watched the woman grow extra arms and turn her hands into blades and other tools that would amputate the people and extract their body parts, replacing them with robotic junk and discarding the original extremities and organs into black trash bags. It was here that Larson finally realized the cause of those mutilated corpses in the bags in the junkyard.

The worst part about these memories was that every single person was still alive during the entire process, sleeping peacefully and remaining unaware of what was happening to them. It didn't matter how unaware they were. The visions progressed and Larson watched as every single victim eventually died from different reasons, but they all had to do with the pendant that she gave them falling off and forced to watch as the woman stole their appearance, adding it to her collection, and leave them to die as a pile of scrap.

Among the hundreds of different faces, Larson recognized a few. One of them was Sarah Nichols, the girl who went missing a few months back. That whole story the students told the therapists about her turning into junk was starting to sound much more believable now. Larson hung his head in grief as he realized how many people had suffered the same fate over the years. Larson wondered if he could've somehow prevented these deaths. Maybe he would somehow find a way to reverse all this. He shook his head, accepting that there was nothing he could've done. All he could do was try and save his friend from joining the woman's collection of victims.

The memories faded away after a few moments, soon to be replaced by a new one. This time, he was in a familiar workshop. Why do I feel like I've been here before? He looked around and saw many different items that attracted his attention. On the table, he saw several tiny dolls that resembled those figurines from an art class, only they were all wearing white tutus. He saw several small, robotic brown bears with speakers on their chests. He noticed a jar of... are those gumdrops?

Ignoring the bizarre sight, he kept looking around, spotting other strange things like a rabbit with cymbals, a few computers, dolls and plush toys, and a small box of something called a "pizza kit." Next to it was a small bottle of small capsules. Larson recognized these kinds of capsules. They were filled with LSD, a drug that could cause hallucinations. In the corner of the room, he noticed a green, plastic figure with the appearance of a kid holding a sign saying "kids at play." On a shelf, he noticed a bowl of fish.
"What the-"

Larson's concentration on the bowl filled with weird-looking fish was broken when he heard a squelching noise coming from the table off to the side of the room. There, he saw the woman working at the table. Looking over her shoulder, Larson watched her shove an eyeball into one of the sockets of a toy with a wet squelching sound. After gagging in disgust, he looked again and saw that his suspicions of the eye were true, that it was a human eye. He examined the toy and saw that it was a green rabbit with human-like teeth in its mouth. The rabbit was hideous, not something that any kid should have. Wait a minute...
Larson recognized this rabbit. The appearance of this rabbit was described to him by that homeless man who took him to the train track in the woods in order to investigate a similar rabbit that was taken by the Stitchwraith. Larson was confused why this woman was creating these items. They all seemed so random.

That vision faded away and this time, he was in a bedroom. The bedroom looked small, and it was dark. Larson looked around and heard an obnoxious scratching sound. He looked towards the window and saw the woman scratching the glass repeatedly, smiling widely all the while. On the floor, Larson saw a woman in a fetal position, rocking back and forth, and muttering incoherently. Larson could only make out one sentence the woman repeated at random.

"It's the doll."

Larson had no time to try and help her before he ended up in another memory.  He found himself in an operating room this time. Larson looked at the table and saw the woman standing over a teenage boy, holding him down. The boy wasn't awake. Two doctors were preparing tools that Larson didn't think looked like things that would be used in a standard operation. These were tools that were meant to be used for amputation. Larson didn't know how, but he could feel that the boy was still alive, and very much aware of what was about to happen to him. He was scared and confused. He was trying to wake up, to escape, but with the woman restraining him, that was impossible. Larson ran towards the woman to try and stop this twisted procedure and save the boy, but the memory faded away, and was replaced with a different hospital room.

Larson looked down at the operating table, and saw that both it and the boy were replaced by a normal hospital bed and a different patient, this one's body burned to the bone, withered, and without eyes, teeth, ears, or a nose. They were nothing more than a skeleton with organs still inside. He covered his nose from the foul stench that radiated from the man. Larson heard whispering coming from the man's chest. Larson took a step closer to investigate. The woman suddenly emerged from the chest of the man, grabbed onto Larson's jacket, and pulled him into the chest of the man.

Disgusted and frightened, Larson fell through another void before landing in what looked like a hallway. He got up and looked around, hoping to see any signs of the woman that was really starting to infuriate him. He turned around after hearing laughter, and spotted the woman running further down the hall. He shouted at her began to pursue her. As he got to the end of the hallway, he saw that it split off into two different directions. Was this a maze of some kind? He opted to go left. He then began to see more paths and decided to just keep going down random hallways until he found something that stood out to him.

Ahead, he saw a boy impaled on the wall by wooden pegs. He didn't know if he just found this out of pure dumb luck, or if the woman was just shifting this location to where Larson would find this body. Upon closer inspection, Larson noticed two black tendrils attached to his lips, pulling on them to make him smile. The boy began laughing, making Larson flinch. He continued laughing which slowly turned into crying, then sobbing. The boy cried black tears. Suddenly, he screamed at Larson and the floor disappeared underneath Larson, making him fall until he hit dirt.

He stood up and looked around, seeing that he was in the woods. He heard a train whistle up ahead. He quickly ran towards the source of the sound. Up ahead, he saw somebody who looked like they were wearing some kind of freaky costume. It looked like some kind of bird with black feathers. The person wearing it looked like they had long, skinny legs. The person was standing on the train tracks. He looked like he was spinning around and making himself dizzy. The train made its presence known and Larson looked to the right to see it coming fast. If that person didn't move out of the way, they would be killed instantly.

"Hey! You over there! Get out of the way! There's a train coming!" Larson shouted. There was no response.

"Hey!" Larson shouted once again. When he looked closer, he saw the woman spinning the person in the costume around. No wonder he looked so disoriented. Larson had to get him off the tracks. He had to try and save him. He didn't care if this was just a memory. He still had to try and at least save someone. He sprinted as fast as he could and watched the woman run away into the field up ahead. Larson ran and tackled the boy off the track just as the train sped by. As Larson fell, he fell right into a ball pit.

Larson went through the ball pit and he got spat back out into a different place altogether. It was a house. He looked around and took in his surroundings . The home was small, but not too small. It looked like a good place to live. He saw pictures of a family of three on the wall. They looked so happy in all of the pictures. Larson heard something outside. It sounded like a kid yelling. His instincts kicked in and he ran towards the back door. Swinging it open, he relaxed when he saw that the kid in the photo was just playing outside with his mother. The father wasn't too far away. Larson smiled at the happy memory, reminiscing on a time that he wished he could go back to with his family.

The happy memory was short lived. Larson watched another memory come into view. The mother was walking down the street. Larson saw the woman standing behind her. Before Larson could warn her, the memory faded away, and was swiftly replaced of another one. The boy looked pale and sickly, his hair falling out. Cancer. Larson started to think about his mother when she had cancer. Another memory of the father leaving came into view. The father looked like he was about to leave for the army. The child was all alone with a caretaker.
Wait... caretaker... It suddenly clicked to Larson.

"The boy... what was his name?"

"Jake."

Larson thought back to the day he talked to Margie about the boy who lived in the house. It had been a while since he'd spoken to her. This was Jake's story, but why show him this? Was the woman somehow capable of giving someone a tumor all of a sudden? That was a bit of a stretch, even after witnessing all the impossible events he had seen so far. Larson watched Jake as his life slipped away. Before he had time to mourn, he looked over as the closet opened and a doll crawled out of it, the exact same doll that Margie described to him. Larson widened his eyes as he started to connect the dots and realized what happened after Jake died. Jake's spirit possessed the doll and he ran away. He remembered how the doll's head matched the description of the Stitchwraith mask. Larson finally understood. After all this time, Larson finally learned the truth.

Jake McNally was the Stitchwraith.

He actually did it. He solved the Stitchwraith case. The people that the Stitchwraith killed... those really were in self defense. They must've scared him when they got too close. Larson should be celebrating, he should feel relieved that he solved the case at long last, but did his discovery really change anything? Before he could think about this any further, he was pulled into another ball pit that appeared beneath his feet.

The pit transported him to a different location. It was another forest, but this forest was different. There was fog everywhere and the sky up above was pitch black. There was no grass to be seen anywhere, only coarse dirt. All around him were trees that stood tall. Larson looked closely at one of them. It didn't look like it was made of wood. Rather, surface was smooth and milky white almost like... bone. Larson didn't know how, but these trees were made of bone. He had a gut feeling that he knew what kind of bones they were made of. None of the trees had a single leaf on them. Larson walked a little deeper into the twisted woods and looked around. He walked for another few minutes until he saw a massive change in the forest.

Hanging above Larson were hundreds of dead bodies. They were all hung up on the tree branches like decorations. The same black tentacles he had been seeing quite a few times so far were what was hanging the people. The tentacles were all connected to each other above the bodies, forming some kind of bizarre tentacle web above the canopy of the forest. Larson inspected the bodies. He recognized all of them from his visions. They were the woman's previous victims. As he looked closely, their eyes were pitch black and their mouths were being kept shut by the tendrils. The tendrils that were hanging them seemed to be attached to them, embedding themselves into their necks, backs, and limbs. They looked so... Larson didn't know the right word to describe their current state. He believed the right word was... empty. Their bodies still looked human, but they weren't decomposing or damaged in any way, they just didn't feel human. It was like everything that made them who they were, their minds, their personalities, their souls, for lack of a better term, were sucked out and purged, only leaving an empty husk behind.

Larson couldn't bare to look at the bodies anymore. Many of them were teenagers, children, victims that could be taken advantage of if manipulated the right way. Larson didn't know why, but he had the feeling that even now, they weren't entirely dead. They were still here. This place was keeping them here. Larson could feel that they were still aware, and very much in pain. Larson didn't know how he was suddenly feeling what they felt, but he began to feel feelings of regret, sorrow, betrayal, rage, and agony. Agony, Larson thought. Something about the word suddenly stood out to him.

Larson approached a large clearing. This was the center of the forest. Larson was sure of it. Larson gasped as he looked ahead. Connected by the arms and legs to multiple tendrils was Tabitha. She didn't move; she was unconscious, or maybe dead. Larson hoped she wasn't dead.

"Tabitha!" Larson ran over to her. She checked her pulse. She was alive, but barely. Larson sighed in relief.
"Hang on, I'll get you out of this! I promise!" Larson began tugging at the tendrils.

"DO YOU LIKE WHAT I'VE DONE WITH HER?"

Larson quickly turned around to see the woman behind all this pain. He seethed with anger and clenched his fists, preparing for a fight. This woman, no, this monster was going to pay for what it did.

"HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN HER, EVERETTE?"

"I'll kill you!" Larson screamed as he ran at the woman. He didn't care if he didn't have his gun. He still had his fists. Just before his fist would land, a tendril wrapped around his legs and pulled him upwards. More tendrils restrained his arms behind his back, then wrapped around his neck. It didn't choke him out completely, but it was just enough to make breathing difficult. As he looked at the woman, his mind began to connect with hers. He began to see what she really was. A name popped up in his head at random and without warning.

Eleanor.

So, this woman had a name? Larson saw into her, and he didn't see a human or any living thing for that matter. This was a force, a dark, chaotic force whose only desire was to feed on the suffering of others. Why? To give itself more power. This creature was emotion made physical, made sentient. Where it came from and how it even existed to begin with, Larson couldn't tell, but he did know that it was around for a very long time. The more it killed and fed, the longer it lived and the stronger it became. Her victims became a part of her, and continued to feed her their agony to this day. Larson was appalled by the abomination that stood before him. This thing was not a human, it wasn't even a machine, and it definitely wasn't something he could stop on his own. He couldn't fight it, but he could still find a way out of this and save Tabitha. He had to. He couldn't give up. Eleanor walked up to him.

"YOU FINALLY HAVE THE ANSWERS YOU WANTED. ALL OF THAT HARD WORK HAS PAID OFF. BUT, AT WHAT COST? YOU LOST YOUR FAMILY, YOUR LIFE, AND NOW, YOU ARE ABOUT TO LOSE YOUR FRIEND."

"Please! Just don't hurt her! Take me instead!" Larson begged. He didn't care about himself anymore. He didn't even care about the knowledge he'd just learned. He just wanted Tabitha and his family to live. He turned his head to look at the ball pit that was still there in the distance, its vibrant colors heavily contrasting the dull and lifeless environment. Larson began sobbing.
"Please... let her go, Eleanor." Eleanor stood to where her face was inches away from his.

"YOU CAN'T SAVE HER, EVERETTE. THERE IS NO LEAVING THIS PLACE. YOUR ACTIONS CAUSED HER TO END UP HERE. SHE TRIED TO HELP YOU. ALL THIS TIME, SHE WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO TRULY WANTED TO HELP YOU, AND ALL YOU DID WAS PUSH HER AWAY. HER DEATH IS YOUR FAULT."

"I know! I know, and I'm sorry! Don't you understand that I want her to live?!  Let her go! Just let her go! Please! Just do this one thing for me!" Larson begged. He started to sob uncontrollably. Larson already failed his wife, he failed his son, he failed everyone. If he failed Tabitha... he wouldn't be able to move on without her. As demented as Eleanor was, there was some truth to her words. Tabitha really did help Larson through it all, even when he was at his lowest. She was always there, looking out for him, and yet, Larson did nothing to change himself. Eleanor smiled.

"I WILL NOT GIVE YOU THAT SATISFACTION, EVERETTE. YOU BOTH BELONG HERE. DON'T WORRY, YOU WILL BOTH BE TOGETHER FOREVER."

Larson shouted in anger. "I'll kill you for this! I'm going to kill you! Do you understand, you witch?! I'll end you!" Eleanor turned away from him and faced Tabitha.

"YOU CAN'T."

Eleanor outstretched her left hand, and it began to transform into a large, black tentacle. It quickly attached itself to Tabitha's chest. It pulsed and Eleanor's eyes rolled to the back of her head. Tabitha's veins began to turn black. Larson panicked. She was absorbing her agony, just like she did with her other victims. She was slowly claiming her soul. Larson had to get himself free. He had to stop this. He tried to pull himself free. He used all of his strength. The tendrils wouldn't budge. Larson screamed in frustration.

He closed his eyes. Panicking wouldn't change anything. He quickly realized that he was giving in to Eleanor's manipulation. He had to focus. He couldn't let himself suffer because of this. He could not let Eleanor win, not again. There was still time. An idea popped up in his mind. He didn't think it would work, but he couldn't think of anything else. He tried focusing his mind on the memories of him and Tabitha, the good ones.

"The station can wait. You're staying here until you get better."

"You know, you can't keep stewing in your guilt forever. Your family isn't gone, you know."

"Just know that I tried to help you."

"Dude! Come on! I'm in the middle of my break! What do you want from me?!"

"I know, but you can't just focus so much on your regrets of the past, that you lose sight of what you do next."

"Hey, you'll figure it out. You're detective Larson for crying out loud! You can solve anything!"

"I promise."

Larson opened his eyes as the tendrils suddenly let him go. He grunted as he hit the ground. He didn't believe it. That actually worked? He guessed it made sense due to Eleanor being a creature that fed off of negative emotions. He had no time to celebrate. Tabitha was now leaking black liquid out of her nose and eyes. She was dying.

Larson had to stop this now. He ran over to Eleanor and grabbed a part of her face. He ripped off one of her faceplates. Eleanor grunted in pain as she stumbled back, covering her face. Her tentacle arm retracted, and she dropped Tabitha on the ground. Before Eleanor could retaliate, Larson quickly kicked her to the ground. Larson ran over to her and picked her up. She was heavy, but he could manage. He had to. He didn't bother checking her pulse. There was no time for that; there was only time for escape. Eleanor's fingernails on her right hand grew into claws and she swung at him as he ran past, barely missing.

Larson winced as the claws scratched him in the back, but he kept running. Eleanor looked on with a scowl of pure rage, her missing faceplate beginning to regenerate. She clenched her fists and the ground shook. As Larson kept running, he looked ahead and saw creatures made of the black tar rising out of the ground. They bared their long claws and sharp teeth. Larson didn't turn back. He had to keep going forward. The creatures charged at him. Tabitha in his arms made it hard for him to maneuver around, but he still barely managed to dodge many of the monsters. Some were able to scratch him, but nothing that would slow him down. He could hear the monsters still behind him, but his adrenaline made him run faster than them, even with Tabitha in his arms. There was no fear or anger in him at the moment, just the will to live.

Eleanor summoned more creatures from the black tar, but she knew that wouldn't be enough. She conjured giant tentacles that erupted out of the ground and attempted to grab Larson and Tabitha. Larson maneuvered around every obstacle that Eleanor threw at him. He didn't care that his legs and arms ached and his lungs burned. He had to keep moving. He was so close now. The ball pit wasn't far. He didn't dare look back, but he heard the sounds of chaos behind him. Tabitha slowly opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"Everette?" She asked before passing out again.

Eleanor began to make the ground shake and split to slow him down. Larson was so close to the ball pit. He then noticed two creatures appear in front of it. He cursed under his breath. His only choice was to charge through them and hope for the best, and so he kept running forward. Eleanor's eyes widened slightly in surprise. She summoned more tentacles and creatures, but she was beginning to push herself to her limits. She was starting to to grow tired. The tentacles and monsters began to melt away into nothing, but the two creatures at the ball pit remained. Larson sprinted full speed towards the ball pit. He closed his eyes and jumped.

END OF CHAPTER XXV