July 9, 2022

The Mascots are still fighting over the cot, all repeating, "move scootch moove move scootch"

The door unlocks as a guard steps in, grabbing a Mascot by the scruff.

The Mascot yelps "Friend! No grab! Bad!" the other Mascots try to get closer and grab at the guard. The guard's horns glow slightly as all Mascots are thrown against the wall by an invisible force. The guard leaves with the Mascot it's holding.

They lock the door behind them. All of the Mascots say variations of ouch and ouchies.

---

The guard lays the Mascot down and straps it to a table. They head to the door and stand next to it as a varian in a lab coat with frizzy blonde hair and bright pink horns steps into the room. She's wearing goggles and a surgical mask as well, and heads over to a counter near the table the Mascot is strapped down to, humming a tune.

"Hello friend, want join?" asks the Mascot.

"Hmmmm, maybe!" says Emily, taking out some scalpels and knives and scissors, putting em all on a small table. "Okay, this'll only hurt for a second!" The lights in the room glow a soft pink as soothing music plays. Emily picks up a scalpel and begins cutting the Mascot open.

"Oomph! Youchies!!! Golly Gee!" the Mascot squirms as the wound sprays grape soda, like opening a carbonated drink. Large, bug-like arms extend from Emily's back and continue to cut it open as she attempts to collect some of the grape soda in a small vial. The grape soda is collected as the Mascot frowns, "My limalade core is going to dissipate if you don't stop!"

"Oh? And what's a limalade core?" Emily asks softly as she begins the upper part of the Y incision.

"Th-" the Mascot's chest suddenly explodes in a fountain of grade soda and a mist of purple filling the air. Emily recoils, her bug arms attempting to shield her from the splash. The purple mist in the air lowers into a thick fog. There's a mess of innards left on the Mascot, there's not much to inspect when it's all over the room. Emily takes a picture of what remains of the Mascot, and calls in for a cleanup team.

The Mascot is limp seemingly dead. As the cleanup team enters, Emily looks down at her hands.

"Whh..? Why are these gloves so tight..,?" The gloves are loose on her. She starts screaming in terror, ripping the gloves off of her hands and backing up against a wall. The cleanup team stares at her, watching. None approach her. She begins sobbing, still screaming and yelling. She coughs as well, tearing out her hair and violently picking at her skin. "GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF" None of the cleanup crew nor the guard bat an eye. They continue like nothing is happening.

Once Emily's torn herself up to the point immobility, the guard takes the still-screaming Emily and drags her away.

The soda on the ground still fizzes. The cleanup crew cleans up most of the scene, bagging the Mascot's corpse and sending it off to the DEC.

---

The Mascot carcass is put on a table. A varian with red horns, a respirator, and a black turtleneck looms over the carcass, grinning slightly. Next to him is a counter with various things on it, mostly stuff that would be used for taxidermy.

They begin removing anything inside the incision in the Mascot's torso. They start removing normal organs (tinted a grape soda purple) until they start pulling out things such as plastic straws, some fastfood cup lids, and unopened ketchup packets in the torso. There's something sticking out of the base of the arm. Everything is placed inside a sink in an organized fashion, but as Morgue sees the thing in the arm, he leans in slightly, trying to figure out what it is

It looks to be a handle, buried deep into the arm where the bone should be. He begins to tug on it slightly. It feels to go all the way down to the elbow and would take some force to get out. Morgue takes a small scalpel and begins cutting open the Mascot's arm. On cutting it open, it reveals a full wooden baseball bat signed with sharpie a large cursive F and W. Morgue removes the baseball bat, placing it in the sink with the other organs.

Morgue slowly begins filling the Mascot with foam insulation. The foam starts sizzling in contact with the Mascot's insides. The foam is melting some. He tilts his head slightly, going to sew up the arm. Part way through sewing up the arm, the needle hits something under the skin, the texture of paper. Morgue then takes the scalpel once more and tries to cut the thing out of the arm. It's a folded note. He takes it and unfolds it, trying to read it.

It says "Left leg knee cap"

"Hm," Morgue puts the note in his pocket and continues to sew up the arm. The foam continues to dissolve. Once finished sewing up the arm, he goes back with that foam insulation gun and starts up again. There's a slight feeling of bad luck as the melted parts of the insulation starts turning into a bright green liquid. Morgue tilts his head, taking a syringe and attempting to get a sample to put in a small jar. It's collected and produces a small amount of gas that rises like a thin steam. Well, he's lucky he's got that respirator on.

Morgue tilts the table up so it's at a 45deg angle with the ground. He begins spraying the foam with a hose, trying to get it out of the Mascot. If it works, it'll all be washed into the drain below. It's washed out as something inside of the Mascot rattles. It's coming from the left leg knee cap. He remembers the note. Morgue tilts the table back down to level, and begins scalpelling that kneecap. He finds a small bag of jingle bells with a note inside. He places the jingle bells on the counter and reads the note.

"left hand palm"

Scavenger hunt. Morgue understands now. He cuts that palm open. In the palm is a broken pocketwatch with 2 minute hands and no hour hands. There's a note behind it. He takes out the pocket watch and places it in the sink, taking the note and reading it.

"The mind"

Morgue doesn't bat an eye, heading to a supply closet and taking out a fucking chainsaw. He revs it, decapitating the Mascot in one foul swoop. He then takes a bonesaw and starts working his way through that skull. When through the skull, he can see something large in place of where the brain should be. He removes that fucker whole. It's an entire dead raven with a note in its beak. Raven goes in the sink, he takes the note.... AND READS IT!!!

Wow! Who knew? "left hand wedding finger ;)"

He places the head to the side, walking back to the body. He takes the scalpel to the ring "finger" and cuts it open. In the finger is a .50 BMG PTL bullet with a note rolled around it. He takes out the bullet and reads the note.

"uvXYYFO7h0Q"

Morgue's seen this before. He takes out his laptop and goes to Oh Klahoma by Jack Stauber.

He stares at the Mascot's head. The feeling of bad luck grows. He gets up and tries the foam again. It doesn't dissolve or melt this time, the Mascot's head is smiling now.

"Perfect." He sews up the torso and tries sewing the mouth in place so that the smile is permanent. He begins shampooing and conditioning the fur. The fur becomes incredibly soft as grease and spit washes out of it, something behind the bowtie sparks. Morgue cautiously removes the bowtie. There's 4 long black needles tucked into it, one of them sparks. He places it on the counter and begins putting gloss over the eyes. The eye is warped by it, like it's just a dot of black paint in a fresh pool of white paint. He continues either way, planning to paint over them. He begins painting the eyes to look presentable, putting more gloss over them.

Morgue sews the head back together and onto the body. It goes well, the feeling of bad luck still there. Morgue decides the hands are too cut up to be pretty so he LOPS THEM OFF. He begins sewing some human hands onto the arms. As he starts sewing. the skin starts mending itself to the arm before he could finish, doing it for him.

"Well." Morgue steps back, admiring his work. The feeling of bad luck remains. He takes the Mascot off the table. He places it in a glass container full of chemicals to preserve the corpse. It's preserved, but a radius of about 5 meters around it gives a constant feeling of bad luck. The container is wheeled off into a large, warehouse-like room FULL of other preserved specimens.