Finn

I woke up laying next to the partners statue on the cold ground. Turns out I was right, Florida can get cold at night. Well, I would know, I've lived here my whole life. But onto more pressing matters, besides the fact that they didn't have the decency to cross me over onto the bench of the partners statue. I straightened myself up, looking around. When I stood, something jingled in my pocket, and I'm not talking about the annual Jingle Cruise. I dug my hand down into the pocket of my joggers, where I pulled out an old gum wrapper, $0.35, The Return, and Walt's pen. 

The last item made me tense up. I sat back down on the bench and ran a sweaty hand through my even sweatier hair. I hadn't seen this for ages. Just the look of the thing brought back so many memories, including my first time breaking into an attraction during daylight hours at DHS. The fountain pen felt foreign in my hands, after all that I had went through to get it, along with the others. I recalled Maybeck captured in SBS (Sleeping Beauty Syndrome) in Space Mountain. Boy, was that an adventure to dance carefully around with his Aunt Jelly. 

Hearing footsteps come from behind me, I whipped around, only to find Wayne. Wait, that was Wayne! I had mourned his death forever, and here he was, yet I didn't even register how paranormal this was. 

"Wayne!" I exclaimed, my eyes filling up with tears that were evidently going to spill over my eyelids at any moment. 

"Oh, Finnegan, how nice it is to see you once more." He opened his arms, knowing what my young heart yearned for. Despite what I wanted to do-which was to calm the heck down-I ran into his embrace like a lost child that had just found his mother. My tears fell onto his shoulder, staining his dark gray jacket. I did one of those ugly cry smiles where it's sort of toothy but genuine through the tears. 

"Yes, yes it is." I managed to get out, my throat catching with every syllable. 

"Come, let's sit." He waved me over to the other side of the new hub space, which now inhabited green sod. For some reason, he went around the fencing, which I found silly, but thought hey, the guy's at least alive. I smiled, knowing what I was about to do, and hadn't done in ages. I closed my eyes, and went to walk through the fence. Man, I loved being a DHI.

Smiling, all happy go lucky, I walked towards the fence with my eyes closed. I was so excited to have my DHI powers back again. But then, my thigh made contact with the fence. I sucked air in through my teeth, determined not to squeal. "Ow," I muttered.

"Finn." I opened my eyes to the sound of Wayne calling me over. He motioned for me to come to him and take the path around the fence. I obeyed. "I think we have something to talk about." 

"Yeah, I think so too." I grumbled, sitting down on the bench and rubbing my thighs.

"When the new Keepers came into 'work'," I snorted at how he called it just 'work'. It was so much more than work. "They had not much to deal with the first month. But the second month, little acts of mischief started occurring around the parks. First it was things like Br'er Fox messing with Splash Mountain or even Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Then, we moved onto the Pirates of the Caribbean escaping at night and helping Br'er Fox. Finally, we got to the Small World dolls getting out and chanting 'Must get to Base' so we figured we had to call in some help. You guys weren't going to be much help since you signed off, but we still needed someone to hold off the little things.

"We knew that there wasn't going to be any big tragedies. Or so we thought. Those other Keepers failed on the first night, with just the Small World dolls." I flinched at the name. "Which I know are scary, but you all managed to get out of them. They did not. We fired them the next morning. Those kids had made a mess and didn't even help. Then, more dangerous characters started making appearances. Scar showed up one night, and that's when we knew we needed to call you."

"But what does that have to do with me not being able to walk through stuff?

"Yes... When Scar showed up that one night, we were not prepared. He raced all the way from The Circle of Life in Epcot to the Base in DHS. He got into the Base so fast, an-and set us back." Wayne was starting to get a little flustered, something I had yet to see happen. 

"Set us... Back?" I was confused.

"Back to 1.0."

And with that, I buried my face in my blue-line glowing hands.

Hey everyone! 

I hope you enjoyed this chapter of The Kingdom Returns. This kind of establishes it's back to the drawing board for the Keepers. What's going to happen when the other Keepers find out? And the more pressing question, how are they going to deal with having to deal with all the deficiencies of DHI 1.0? Comment below what you think is going to happen!

xoxo

~bcruzy_02