By: Allen Huang
After five days, Josh Tango, now dubbing himself Withered Jacob, was tired from walking around the city and being neglected because of how he smelled and looked. Josh decided to head back to where he woke up, the abandoned Jacob’s Friendly Diner. Once there, he sat down and looked up. One of the other robots was gone, but Josh was too tired to care. As he began to fall asleep, he saw a rat-like figure with glowing red eyes.
“Well, well, well. Look who we have here. The first victim,” the figure said in a very American accent. The figure walked out of the darkness.
“Y…you’re that rat-costumed man that killed me and the other kids!”
“You’re right, I am that man,” Ranthal Jones said with an evil grin. He was wearing the purple-and-black rat costume.
“How did you get into my head? You’re not supposed to be here, rat man,” yelled Josh, very angrily. Suddenly, his limbs and torso were caught in a tight rope. Jones took off his hat and began walking toward Josh. Then, he knelt and looked him in the eye.
“You want me to be gone? I’ll go away on one condition,” Jones said, smiling at Josh sinisterly.
“What is the condition, you rat?”
“The condition is destroying your body. I’ve done it before, with mechanical robots while you were unconscious,” Jones stated.
*
Josh woke up, but he wasn’t where he was when he fell asleep. Withered Jacob was now in a room filled with broken metallic pieces. Then he heard Jones’ whispers.
“You may be able to look out through your eyes, but I control your body,” Jones whispered to Josh. Jones suddenly stood the Jacob animatronic up and began walking it towards the exit. Josh didn’t know what to do.
“Hey rat, I have an idea for how to destroy this body. Burn it.”
Confused about why Josh was agreeing with his plan to destroy the body, Jones responded with a simple question.
“Where do we start burning this broken-down body?”
“The most dangerous location in this city, Wrinkle the Flamingo’s café.”
After ten minutes of walking toward Wrinkle’s, Withered Jacob went into the restaurant. Jones grabbed the gasoline and a lighter, then poured the gasoline onto the ground. He threw the lighter onto the floor and it started to catch fire.
Smoke, heat, and fire broke down the restaurant piece by piece. One of Jacob’s legs broke off and was crushed by debris. Jones’ soul left its body, expecting to be taken to the sky. But it was taken down to hell itself. Josh stayed in his body. His plan had worked. Going into the fire had destroyed the suit. Josh had been learning how souls worked, as he was the conspiracy theorist of the Rango family.
Josh had discovered many facts about how souls interact with objects. The main theory was that souls of the dead could be removed and become part of an object. Only when the object is damaged or their goal is fulfilled will the soul leave. The fire had done enough damage that Jones’ soul was able to leave.
A few days later, a group of construction workers took away the debris from the very poorly safety-rated café. A worker found Josh’s robotic corpse and told the boss that there was a robot with a corpse in it. A company called Joe’s Amazing Pizza Company (JAPC) became interested in the robot and had animatronic fix it up.
The robotic engineers at JAPC replaced many parts of the robot and removed Josh’s corpse from the animatronic. Neon pieces, metallic plastic JAPC called Melastic, were put onto the robot. Josh’s soul was still in the robot during its recovery.
Suddenly, Josh woke up. He looked around the room. Apparently, he was called Jacob Tango. Confused about how the company knew his last name, he walked out of the room and saw a worker.
“Hello there. Who owns this company?”
Surprisingly, the worker didn’t get scared and answered in a kind tone.
“Daniel Tango of course. Why do you ask, Jacob?”
“N…nothing. Just curious good sir. Thank you,” Josh responded to the man. He began to realize that his oldest brother was the owner of JAPC. Excited, he went into his room and began his new job as an animatronic band leader and guitarist.