Gabriel fell back against his office chair as the vhs tape stuttered to a staticky end. There was so much to digest from what he had seen. It had started off as a very old commercial for Poppy Playtime, a small toy doll from the... was it the fifties or the sixties? Gabriel couldn't remember but he also didn't want to remember. The company that made the doll, Playtime Co, was... shady, in the kindest way to say it. Gabriel should know after all.

He used to work there.

The commercial had continued to play like how it did when it first aired on television. First it had a segment for the Poppy Playtime doll and then it advertised factory tours. But then that's when things got... weird. The commercial was cut off by a clip of a strange place. It was up on a set of catwalks leading to a door. A big poppy flower was painted around the door. The clip was blurry so Gabriel couldn't see anything else. And then that's when the tape stopped playing.

Running his hand through his long dark hair, Gabriel leaned back in his chair and looked out the window at his vast acre of land. He was quite literally in the middle of nowhere, far away from people who knew him from the past. Why would someone send him this? Did they know about him and his former job? If so, how did they find him? Eyeing the paper bag-like package the vhs tape had come in, the man had a gut feeling there was something else inside. And so he picked up the package and turned it over, dumping out a single sheet of paper.

A shiver ran down Gabriel's spine as his blood ran cold. His hand trembling slightly, he picked up the paper and turned it over. There was writing. Swallowing his fears nervously, he read aloud, "Everyone thinks the staff disappeared ten years ago, we're still here. Find the flower." Underneath the writing was a drawing of a poppy flower identical to the one he had seen on the vhs tape. There were also two typos in the writing with the spelling of disappeared and we're. But the most concerning thing though was the dark red splatter in the bottom corner of the paper. Was that blood?!

Setting aside the paper, Gabriel covered his face with his calloused hands. Ten years. For ten long years, he had managed to keep his past life under wraps. Nobody knew who he was or what he did. But now here he was, being dragged back to the haunting grave he had dug himself out of. Someone had to be messing with him. Yet how could they have possibly known about his connection to Playtime Co? Was it someone he knew? Or was there something else going on? There was only one way to find out.

Gabriel grabbed the keys for his truck.