Chapter Text
Emily Wharton died on January 12th of 2026 in her bed. Her loved one made sure that she went quick and painless. They had all gathered knowing the old woman did not have much left. Emily herself wished her daughter and her grandchildren to be with her when she died.
Jessica Wharton, who went by the name of Jessie, has wanted the best for her dying mother. So much so, she had gone to great lengths to get her old Jessie doll back. The gesture had been unexpected but warmly welcomed because her daughter meant to much to her.
And so her doll sat beside her through all times of the day. Sometimes she slept beside her old owner and sometimes she was found on the bedside table when Jessica was sure she had set the doll beside her mother.
Then came Emily's final month. It happened late at night at 6 in the morning. It was 6:16 AM when Jessica got an alert on her phone that the life support was failing. It was happening.
She woke her husband and woke up her daughters and son and took them all to her mother's bedroom.
There kay the old woman with a crooked smile and failing lungs, she had let go of her doll and it had fallen to the floor. On accident, kicked further under the bed by the son who was still perhaps a little too young to understand what was happening.
The family said goodbye to their matriarch, oh, how many birthdays and Sunday dinners, all those times Emily talked about how life was like in the countryside outside of the city. Or her disagreeing with her granddaughters about today's teenagers.
Emily Wharton was a good wife, a good mother, and a good grandmother. Everything she had owned...
She had treasured....
Jessie had spent the entire past two months fighting her own toy conscious on what to do.
She had gotten lost in Poultry Palace by a Bonnie who was taken by her mother and Bonnie had failed to get back her toy and had left Jessie there.
Jessie of course, had tried to get back to Bonnie but was found by someone...
This someone had been a bit familiar and Jessie could not explain why. This woman in question appeared to be in her thirties, was wearing plaid and had a set of eyes that was haunting Jessie.
The woman ended up taking Jessie with her all the way to the countryside to....
Oh no... this was Emily's old home.
Jessie learned quite a bit during her time with the Whartons. Emily once, Emily Jefferson was now Emily Wharton, her daughter Jessica (sometimes Jessie) Wharton had her husband and her flock of two daughters and young son.
A weird sort of happy nostalgia filled Jessie. When Jessica found her she set her immediately beside her dying mother's bedside.
Jessie was not heartless she was happy to see Emily but she had made sure that chapter of her existence was now just something that happened and not something worth remembering.
Jessica had been up at the look of Jessie's chaps. It was in the fact the old doll!
Emily had barely been able to process much but whenever the doll was close enough she would have it close to her and hug her with her wrinkly hands.
The months went by, Jessie got used to her routine, at day she was something to hold and look at, at night he she could sneak and out and sometimes chat with the Wharton kids toys.
But life wasn't what Jessie wanted. She shouldn't even be here. She had been figuring out a few escape plans for when she could run. But her plans were always thwarted.
The main thwarting, was the children who sometimes played with her. She wasn't complaining as being played with sure felt nice especially when she had been reduced to a collection figure.
Jessie had always tried to make a beeline for the car in the mornings because Jessica's husband Tim would drive to work in the morning all the way to the city.
Jessie had done seven attempts to climb into the car but it was always ruined by the children. Somehow her biggest love for children would be the thing that would be her ruin.
And so that brought her here. Jessie had been feeling... weird... her head was clouded and her stuffing felt itchy. A hazy noise filled her head and sometimes it felt like her body was doing something she had no control of.
She had been at the time of sight when Emily died. That was it. That didn't mean anything.
Currently she was in the toy box of Emily's eldest granddaughter Kelli who was away most times of the day from 12 to 4 in the afternoon and didn't bring her toys with her. It was the school break. That meant the kids could do what they wished.
Jessie took her sweet time to run all the way through the country, images flashed by quickly of her old life. Being brand new, unboxed and barely touched, the way she was. That time she saved an orphanage from a fire. The time she helped a cut out of Sheriff Woody from her packaging save a train from being thrown off the cliff. The time Emily brought her over to see the evening sun.
It all happened so quickly too quickly. Behind her she left the ghost that frightened her so long ago.
As she approached the first sight of buzzing city people her mind wandered.
No
It can't be true.
She had heard some stories. Stories of prized toys. Toys who were more than just possessions they were actual friends. And more so, when an owner died they went to the toy box for humans in the sky. They went to heaven according to Mom and Aunt Molly.
Supposedly they do. But what about the rare times they don't.
What about the rare times those owners, leave a present behind for their loved ones?
Jessie was... haunted...