Pool Toy Retaliation - $5 Patreon Exclusive - WIP - 8/21/22 (Patreon)

It had been a week since the company disbanded, Coli, a young man in his mid-20s was on his way back to the office building driving through light traffic across town. It was a Sunday, and a particularly lazy Sunday that he would much rather have spent at home playing video games, or just sleeping in, but he had neglected to gather some particular belongings on his last day of work one of which being his business phone. Once he had finally pulled up to the old now deserted building, all he could do was slump back in his car seat as he let out a long drawn out groan, just sitting there for a few minutes as he blankly stared through the car window before eventually pulling himself up.

Dragging his feet behind him, he unlocked the front entrance and pushed through the two heavy thick double doors before they slammed shut behind him. The doors lock automatically, but by now there wasn’t anything of value worth protecting in the building anyway. As he passed through some of the halls, he nearly tripped on some of the large wires and outlet cables jutting out from some of the office rooms. Since it was quite an old building, they had to work around the outdated and rather brittle wiring within the building with lots of hefty extension cords, since only a handful of areas were built with safe electrical outlets. Though these cables were well organized and tightly secured, they still proved quite the tripping hazard.

While making his way up the stairs and through the hallways, he would look over to the now vacant offices he passed by, feeling a bit of nostalgia mixed with loneliness at the sight of the empty spacious rooms. Most of the computers, equipment, hardware, and other properties had already been taken out, except for most of the cables and other small office supplies, keyboards, staplers, and even some leftover ribbons of rubber and vinyl. The place was almost unrecognizable, feeling a bit larger without being with his coworkers and equipment.

However, he didn’t plan on getting sentimental, simply wanting to retrieve his phone so he could head back home as soon as possible and catch up on his favorite game. However, before heading up the next flight of stairs, he looks over to what used to be the storage area for all the inflatables and sees a stray little beach ball just sitting outside the cracked-open door. The young man was surprised to see an inflatable toy left behind, wondering how in the world management or inventory could’ve missed a fully blown beachball. Curious, Coli walked over to the inflatable, reaching down and picking it up as he held it in his hands. To Colis' surprise, the beach ball felt well puffed, it's vinyl squishy but firm as if it had just been freshly inflated.

Becoming nervous, the man cautiously looked around down the halls, wondering if there was someone else in the building. From what he knew, no one had been here for at least a few days, but the fully inflated beach ball convinced him otherwise. It was then that he turned his attention back to the partly cracked open door, a cold shiver running up his spine as he wondered if someone was hiding on the other side. Colis' fight or flight instincts immediately kicked in, wondering if he should open the door or simply walk away. The room used to be for ballet practice, it was large and one of the walls was completely lined with mirrors, so aside from a few dozen shelves, an intruder wouldn’t really have anywhere to hide. His curiosity got the better of his fear as he slowly pushed open the door.

Quickly stepping in, he turned on the light illuminating the massive storage room. No one was inside, but the room wasn’t empty as a plethora of pool toys covered the entire floor. Looking over to the mirrored wall on the far side of the room, he could see no intruder in reflection, but it was clear that the room had not been cleaned up or packed, even the soft blue mats still covered the floor were yet to be removed. dropping the beach ball, he stepped inside and looked around further the place, seeing that the shelves were still stacked with deflated beach toys and even some of the newer products were fully inflated in different parts of the room, as if they were pumped up and ready for testing.