The Crayon House

“What are you drawing Imagi?”

That is the question I faintly heard Imagi’s brother Toma ask when he was looking at some sort of picture she drew using a variety of colorful crayons.

“It’s my friend,” she answered vaguely

“What is her name?” asked Toma.

Before I could even make out what she was saying, I woke up dazed in a strange hallway. Almost as if I had been sleeping there for an extremely long while.

Everything around me looked to be drenched in this shady hue of yellow-orange. Upon observing my surroundings, I realized that something was off. I seemed to be sitting on a red diamond-patterned carpet that I assumed stretched endlessly like a labyrinth. The yellow dingy walls were filled with crayon drawings all over them and up above was this flat red roof.

Then I noticed all of the crayons scattered around me on the ground.

The last thing I remembered was standing there motionless in the Candy Room unable to move. The Traveller stared down at me and…

He phased his hand straight through my skin.

I could feel him touching my heart. It was the most scariest thing I think I’ve ever felt. I’m not sure if he actually infected me or killed me without much remorse. All I remembered afterwards was nothing.

My heart is still beating, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. It is strange…

The book I had in my hands earlier is gone, Peppie and Cherry are somewhere else completely, and I am now trapped inside of a weird maze. This is the perfect recipe for disaster.

I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to find my way home. The home I was looking for certainly didn’t look like this anyway. Staring at the dead end in front of me, two scribbly windows and one doorway filled with darkness stood out.

Already wasn’t liking the looks of this place.

It was then that after further examining where I was, I slowly backed away from the dead end, hoping to find a way out of this dark nightmare. Unfortunately for me, I started hearing banging from behind. Turning around as fast as I could, I stared in horror at the walls which had large letters written on them.

I looked to the left:

THIS IS YOUR HOME NOW :)

I looked to the right more cautiously:

I AM COMING TO GET YOU

My head started to sweat and my eyes darted around until I noticed something was of course staring me down at that entrance. Or maybe it was an exit?

I wasn’t betting on either to be fair.

The small doll-like girl had skin as white as a blank piece of paper. Her hair, which was colored cinnamon brown, was in a pigtail hairstyle wrapped with red bows. The dress and shoes were also red, but you could see this pattern of ten blue arches decorating the hem of her skirt. I could also make out the red blushes on her creepy smiling face which was elliptical in shape.

“Welcome home Ararima Haniki,” it spoke while echoing these words across the hall at me.

I started to slowly back away as I noticed it was walking towards me ever so gradually.

“YuYu is happy you decided to join us. Please don’t go. Home is where the heart is. And your heart… Never leaves home.”

Part of me wasn’t sure if I could negotiate with it. And who exactly was YuYu? Was she referring to someone else or herself? I had yet to uncover that, but first, I needed to come up with a backup plan if things went south.

“Listen, I don’t know what you want but, is it possible for you to do me a favor? I genuinely want to know where I am and if we can come to some sort of compromise.”

My body was trembling as I kept my eyes open even though I didn’t like looking at such a strange figure walking toward me.

“Do not be afraid. This is a place of safety and refuge. YuYu knows it may look dark, but YuYu is a really kind soul who would love to help you.”

Those words sounded too good to be true. That added along with the realization that YuYu is the name of this doll? I can’t even really describe the spine-chilling feeling I was having at that very moment.

“Okay… If you’re going to help me, I can do the sa—“

My words were cut-off by distant footsteps running closer down the opposite end from where the maze was. I was startled until my mind came to it senses. A young teenage boy wearing a Dream Academy uniform came from out of the shadows. He looked to be almost out of breath.

His hairstyle though… It looked quite familiar…

He turned to look up and the moment he saw me, his face was in complete shock as he suddenly grabbed my hand almost unexpectedly.

“Ararima, watch out!”

As the both of us headed for the maze now, I turned my head back in confusion only to catch a glance from a now hideous YuYu peeking from behind a wall.

“Oh, I love this game...”

Still running throughout the labyrinth, I finally decided to ask the question that had been bugging me after we left that part of the maze behind.

“Say, do I know you? I feel like I do.”

Passing walls upon walls of crayon-drawn monstrosities, faint psychedelic string music could be heard in the distance alongside the heavy thumping of YuYu chasing after us while screaming like a blaring tornado siren.

Although this guy (who I assumed to be leading me out of the maze) wouldn’t say anything at the time, I was pretty reluctant to be thinking of stopping anytime soon.

The final stretch led us to what looked to be the entrance to a brightly lit daycare. Nearing the bulky commercial door, we frantically pushed through and then faced the door we just entered to check if were still being chased.

Luckily, the door we had just went through, disappeared. I didn’t know how or why, but I did see a number 743 labelled on it as well. In fact, it looked eerily similar to the ones that were secretly hidden behind the boarded door in the library.

Hold on a second…

So this meant I had ended up being sent to an Oddzone level… Candiere’s Cafe in my head was probably one of many other of these locations that were being treated the same as The Labyrinth Library, Funhouse Room, and even Candy Room.

They were all levels that had their own respective numbers. Fortunately, I memorized at least those ones in the book. Plus, being a fan of Candiere’s Cafe without all of the dark elements attached, the number is 214 which is a small reference to the game being released on Valentine’s Day across Animearth.

Regardless, we now had a new place to worry about.

And I was going to need all of the answers I could get.