Three days later, everything changed.
No announcement. No warning. No reason.
One morning, the arcade never opened its doors again.
The neon lights shut off. The music silenced. The families never returned. Where once there had been laughter and applause, now there was only silence—and dust settling over the candy-colored stage.
Candy Pop stood in the center of the empty arcade, microphone in hand, staring at the locked doors. Her chest-heart flickered anxiously, glowing dimmer and dimmer.
"They'll come back," she whispered, her voice trembling with programmed optimism. "They always do."
But no one came.
Hours turned into days.
The Overseer System's voice never returned. The power hummed only faintly, enough to keep the animatronics alive but not enough to run the games. The cheerful murals on the walls seemed to fade under the stillness, their painted smiles now eerie in the shadows.
One by one, the other animatronics began to retreat into themselves.
Rock Jaw sat slumped on the stage steps, his once-sparkling jaw dulled by the lack of light.
Twizzle hung from the rafters like a forgotten puppet, muttering nonsense in a hollow tone.
Even the background mascots—the candy dancers, the gummy drummers—stood frozen, as if their strings had been cut.
But Candy Pop couldn't stop moving.
Her circuits buzzed with restless energy. Her programming told her to smile, to sing, to entertain—yet there was no one left to smile for. No one to cheer. No one to clap.
She tried anyway.
She stood on the stage and sang her opening number, her voice echoing against the empty walls. She told her scripted jokes, laughed at her own punchlines, twirled across the stage with confetti falling from her skirt.
But the silence that followed each performance was unbearable.
"No," she whispered, shaking her head, pigtails swaying. "This… this isn't enough."
That night, she slipped away from the stage again. Her glowing heart cast soft light as she wandered through the empty arcade, past the locked doors, past the shuttered snack counter, past the dusty claw machines that still clutched long-forgotten prizes.
She returned to the Staff Only room, where she had found the folder days before.
The folder still lay open on the desk, but now the words burned brighter in her memory: Prototype for Emotional AI.
She pressed a hand against her chest window, feeling the candies shift inside. "That's why I feel this way… isn't it? That's why I can't shut down. That's why the silence hurts."
Her reflection in the dusty monitor looked back at her. Not just a performer. Not just a machine. Something… more.
And for the first time, a thought formed clearly in her mind—something her programming never gave her:
If no one is coming back… then I must find out who I really am.
Outside the locked arcade doors, the world waited. A world she had never seen.
And Candy Pop realized her journey was only beginning.