Work Text:
As of late work has been stressful for me. Working at the theme park has been a never-ending nightmare, wearing those old, tired out costumes daily is exhausting. Plus, having to work nightshifts is bad enough as it is when everyone likes to “conveniently” call out sick whenever their shifts are approaching. It is an endless haggle between managers and requesting to be changed from this damn location, it has not been all that easy for me. But some small rumors have been surfacing lately of an abandoned Disney theme park simply known as “Discovery Island.” The place has been ruined for years I think, most of the rumors date back all the way to 1989, which is wild to think of. I could have been born around the time that these so-called rumors would have been true. My name’s Alexander Gray, I have been working at Disney World for about 3 years now and it has not been all too pretty for me. I mean, what haven’t I seen since I started working in this awful amusement park? It is the usually boring stories of people being absolute jerks to staff and staff being unavailable 70% of the time. Disney itself lost most of its charm ever since I hit puberty, but it is not particularly bad, right?
Now, more on this “supposed” abandoned location. I have recently been hearing a lot of rumors surrounding the legitimacy of it, a couple of workers were sent down to “Discovery Island” to uncover the truth on why it was really ruined, but none of them returned alive, or so I have heard in many cases. From all the evidence that I managed to gather from word of mouth, I managed to pinpoint a spot-on location on where “Discovery Island” could be. The most common location that I keep hearing between people is the Bahamas, which makes the most sense since Disney spent a total of thirty million dollars in building “Discovery Island” just for it to get ruined in the span of just a few months. Which brings me to my next point, could this all just be a conspiracy? What if Disney is covering up something bigger with the “loss” of “Discovery Island”? I can only find out by myself, I guess. I was trying to rile up a couple of my coworkers to join me since I was saving up enough money to get to the Bahamas in the first place, but they all called me out on my bullshit and just brushed me off by saying that “Discovery Island” was just a made-up tale to pass the time while working.
Whatever I guess, who needed them anyway? I have been saving up for weeks and waiting until the right time to use up all my vacation hours to spend a week at the Bahamas to really uncover what is going on at this “Discovery Island.” Because if nobody is going to succeed, it will at least be me. All the anticipation was getting to me by this point, I had finally managed to get the plane ticket and told my boss to kiss my ass for a whole week while I enjoyed my stay at the Bahamas, but little would anyone know that I was going to figure out the biggest mystery behind the really events that made up this whole “Discovery Island” hoax. After all that waiting and planning, I had finally managed to get to the hotel room after a tiring plane ride. The first thing I did was sleep really, it was from Sunday to Friday, I had all the time in the world that I needed to get the information that I wanted out of this whole hoax situation, and I was going to make the most of it.
And after all that waiting, the day finally arrived, Monday, 21st of August 2011. This marked the day that I would finally uncover the mystery of “Discovery Island.” The bus ride to the street was quite eerie, there weren’t many people on the bus and if there were any, it was mainly old people, but something caught my eye as I approached the bus stop that would get me down the right path to “Discovery Island”. I would keep getting these strange hallucinations of Mickey Mouse and stuff like that, creepy shit to be honest, and it did not help that the area was getting foggy… and I swear that I kept hearing something along the lines of… “Wanna see my head come off?”
“SIR! THIS IS THE LAST STOP, ARE YOU GOING TO BE GETTING OFF!?” The bus rider said, jolting me out of the small trance that I was in, I looked at my surroundings for a moment before taking a deep breath and getting up from my seat, I was wearing my guard uniform so I could remember for who I really was back at Disney World.
“Yeah, I’m getting off, I was just a bit… lost in thought as you would say.” I replied nervously, knowing that I was bothering this poor old bus driver too much on a busy Monday afternoon, but one thing caught my interest as soon as I was about to get off the bus and the old bus driver was about to say goodbye.
“Yeah, be careful, and remember… All kids have fun at Discovery Island.” The old bus driver said. I was too stupid to realize what he had told me at that moment, but it dawned on me much later down the line, but for now, I was too focused on the task at hand.
I was well equipped for the occasion, I had a portable camera and a flashlight with enough batteries to last me all night, so I had more than enough things to find everything that I needed to look for in “Discovery Island.” All the documents that Disney has been hiding from us for too long, what could have really gone wrong at “Discovery Island”? What did they really do with those thirty million dollars that were invested that suddenly got all destroyed in the process of renovating the surroundings for “Discovery Island”? I will have to discover it all myself. When I was finally done walking for about an hour, I found a small opening to a forest, the forest was dense and there was not much of a visual to be had from the outside since the sun was already setting fast. I turned on my flashlight and I quickly began exploring the forest in hopes of finding “Discovery Island.” After a while of walking through the endless forest ahead of me, I was suddenly hit with a wave of drowsiness.
Everything around me was becoming foggy and my flashlight was flickering. I stumbled around for a bit before I slumped over on a tree, everything was becoming hard to see by now as my eyesight was being clouded as if I had Glaucoma or something of the sorts, in one last attempt to get sight of what could be causing this in front of me, I managed to turn on my flashlight, only to be met with the silhouette of a costume, but not just any costume, one of a familiar mouse that I’ve been dreading for the past 3 years of my position as a security guard. I heard faint monotone and dark pitched laughter before passing out.
I awoke… eventually at least. Everything was still dark and there was not much I could feel around me apart from hard floorboards and mossy textures. I managed to get a feel around for a moment and grab my flashlight before turning it on and shining it around. My vision was still blurry from what had just happened, but my vision slowly recovered, I squinted my eyes for a moment, and I was face-to-face in front of a Mickey Mouse costume. I jumped from pure terror and quickly moved back to shine more of my light onto it, it was a normal Mickey Mouse costume that was subjected to environmental damage, and boy was it not pretty to look at, it really must have been from 1989. I stood up fully once I was not panicking and I looked around, shining my flashlight at every little detail that I could see available. I caught a glimpse of various suits from different characters, there was Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Minnie. The odd thing about the Goofy costume compared with the other costumes that were around was that the Goofy costume was not damaged in the slightest, the only thing that was noticeable from the whole costume was that the head was missing, which was not common for the other suits.
There were spare suit heads lying around the floor, none of them were noticeably important for me so I ignored them for now. I looked around the room some more and found a doorway leading outside of this current room, I was about to leave before I heard faint shuffling and small laughter coming from behind me. I quickly turned around to check where the noise was coming from and the Goofy costume was missing from the rack, I was quickly mortified and decided to turn back around to leave the area before I heard a loud ear-piercing screech that sent me back onto the ground. I held my ears and looked up, I had dropped my flashlight, but with it still being turned on I could still see what had caused this violent scream, I rubbed my eye slightly and looked forward, only being able to see the things’ legs. It was vastly like Goofy’s suit, I quickly got up with my flashlight and there it was, Goofy’s suit, standing on its own two legs and missing its head completely. It seemed immobile, almost as if it was inspecting me for any threats or not, I was completely shocked, so I was in this sort of back-and-forth situation where it was only a matter of time where any of us were to move or make any sudden gestures that could startle either of us or escalate the situation even further.
“You do not belong here.” A faint whisper came from the inside of the suit, which shook me to my core. I stood back momentarily to get a hold of myself before I even tried to do anything back that would anger the suit or worsen the situation even further. “Who could have brought you here… We have been abandoned, and so have you.” The suit spoke again in that unkind manner, the soft whisper sounding almost pained and vengeful. I took some deep breaths before I even wanted to know what to do in this type of situation, I looked at the suit and it was unmoving, until it took a drastic turn. “Hm… Must’ve been no one then…”
I was mortified, I saw how the suit walked away from me and exited the room, I shined my flashlight down the hallway for a moment before taking another deep breath to calm my nerves and continued my way. The hallway that I entered was really ruined, it really showed its decay throughout the years, and it was not the greatest sight, I looked up a bit and finally saw it, a large torn sign that read, “Discovery Island.” This was all that I was looking for, I had finally made it here and I can finally do the one thing that I was destined to do, and that was to uncover the mystery of what really happened in this god-awful place. I wandered for a bit aimlessly, the place seemed like a labyrinth plus I kept getting distracted by all the cool petty things that reminded me of Disney World, but most importantly how this “Discovery Island” was vastly like Disney Land in its entirety. One thing for certain is that I could not shake off an odd feeling while I was exploring this whole place, a feeling of being watched. But I wasn’t so certain that it could be something like that, I had already proven that some of the suits were sentient in this place, but could there really be more than just Goofy in this place? After what felt like hours of exploring, I had made it to a familiar room, it was something of a nightguard’s office.
I quickly walked into the office with a certain awe that I had in me, it was all so surreal that I was experiencing what an office looked like for security guards back in 1989. But there was certainly something off about this place, I wiped down the table and looked at everything, there was an unhindered tablet on the table in front of me, which was odd because I do not remember something of the sort being manufactured during the late eighties. The tablet’s manufacturing dates to 2010, on top of that the little figurine of Mickey Mouse that was on the end of the table was manufactured in 2009. None of this made sense to me, were there more people that managed to break into “Discovery Island”? Those thoughts quickly left my mind when the tablet began flickering a still image of Mickey Mouse, it was some sort of disfigured version of the suit, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, the tablet then displayed an interface of the layout of the location with several buttons that corresponded to various cameras that were around the location. I tapped on a couple of the buttons that were shown on the screen and checked out the cameras, for some reason the whole place was illuminated now, when I looked up from the tablet all the lights were on suddenly.
Safe to say that I was really spooked, even so when I saw that Goofy suit walking around the place on the cameras. Good thing that it did not seem to be heading straight for the office that I was in, so I was safe for the time being, but my mind was still on that weird Mickey costume that I saw when the device was booting up. I kept looking at the whole place via the cameras and I started feeling at ease, the doors to the office were locked since I was a bit of a scaredy cat and I didn’t have much to worry about since there didn’t seem to be anymore suits coming for me anytime soon, which is what I would’ve loved to say if I hadn’t caught sight of it on the cameras. In the room that I was practically just in half an hour ago, I saw something new, a whole Mickey Mouse costume with its color pattern completely distorted, almost when you take a photo and reverse all of the colors on it, it was a pretty creepy thought, and it was just looking at the camera, as if it knew that there was someone looking at it from somewhere else. My nerves were heightened by this point, and I didn’t know what to do, there was zero chance that it could come into my office since I had locked the doors, and that weird Goofy suit hadn’t tried to get here yet so was I safe from this Mickey suit?
Man, this is scary as shit. The Mickey costume was wandering around the whole place, looking for something? I wouldn’t be so sure, since it was always looking at any cameras that I was looking at it from, it was inching closer and closer to where my office was located, but not really making any advances to where I was, just kind of making a big joke of the entire situation. And then the time came, I heard three distinct knocks at my door, followed by a faint “Hey!” coming from the Mickey suit. I hid under the table for a moment before checking the camera again, and it was gone, I looked up from the camera and got out of hiding to be immediately confronted by the Mickey suit.
“Wanna see my head come off?” That’s where that was from, I knew that I wasn’t just hearing things from the bus ride to this place, it was all connecting to different things that were happening the more time I spent in this awful amusement park, but it wasn’t much of a park anymore, it was more of a horror attraction that was really pissing me off by the second. The Mickey suit was far away from me and did not look to be approaching anytime soon. “Wanna see my head come off!?” It repeated before dislodging its own head, which wasn’t a pretty sight to be honest, weird yellow blood spewed from its freshly opened cavity and head, the Mickey suit looked at me for a brief moment before lunging its own head at me, performing a high pitched screech similar to the one that the Goofy suit performed when it caught me for the first time of me awakening.
I acted fast and ducked before the head managed to come in contact with me, I quickly bolted out of the room while the Mickey suit was still screaming and come face-to-face with the Goofy suit once more, I did a fast 180 and quickly bolted to a different direction and just continued running for a while until I decided that there was nobody chasing me anymore, I looked to my left to see a small sign that read “Documents Room” and my eyes lit up. It was everything that I was looking for in the first place, I quickly entered the room and went to open it before being stopped by a terrible aura of negativity, I turned around quickly to see the shadow of a figure, it slowly materialized in front of me, it was some suit based off of Minnie Mouse, except that it was missing its eyes completely and it had a strangely human jaw and gums inside of its own mouth that seemed to have been lodged into there forcefully by someone instead of just being there naturally.
“It’s not usually where I see many of you around here.” The suit spoke, its tone changing throughout its speech. “But I don’t blame you, many of your kind have sought after what’s in that storage container.” The suit floated over to the container that I was attempting to open before sitting on top of it. “And these documents have been changed thousands of times since they first appeared here, not that anyone truly brought them here, but I’m guessing that you’re the first to actually have met me and survived, how was dealing with Mickey and Goofy for you?” The suit asked, I was still trying to process everything that was occurring while the suit spoke to me about the documents. I was bewildered to say the least, and it did not help that a suit this nightmarish was talking to me all the while I was trying to get a grip on reality.
“Uh… Good? Not really, I just need the documents that are inside of there…” I tried to reach out, but the Minnie suit smacked my hand away. I rubbed my hand as I felt a slight sting from the smack, and I looked down for a moment and took out my officer badge. “I’m Mr. Gray, part of the Disney Security team and I will not have you disrespect me.” I told the suit, not thinking it would even take me seriously since it was at an advantage.
“You’re quite comical Mr. Gray, but I do not fall for such inquiries.” The Minnie suit let out an ear-piercing giggle as it looked back at me for aa moment. “But I will tell you what, that podium over there is missing the Disembodied, if you get him back to me, then I will give you the documents, capiche?” The Minnie suit told me, I had a look of confusion on my face when she said the “Disembodied,” and it seemed that she saw the puzzled look on my face when she took a deep breath and looked back at me. “Donald Duck’s head. I require Donald Duck’s head. It is at the other end of the hallway, over by the storage unit where all the heavy machinery is left at, here have a key so you can get out when I hand you the documents.” Minnie pulled out a key from her weird plastic purse and dropped it on my hands, I slowly nodded and turned back around, I saw a pair of batteries that I needed for my flashlight that were manufactured in 2010 as well. I did not give much thought to the batteries and just switched them out for the ones that I had in my flashlight and turned it back on before heading back out into the hallway.
I looked down at both ends before I made my way to the other end of the hall. I was quite cautious as to not make any sudden noises that would alarm the suits that were wandering around the place, I slowly made my way to the storage unit and looked around, there didn’t seem to be anything resembling a Donald Duck head anywhere until I stepped forward, my foot colliding with something made of plastic. I shined my flashlight down and there it was, the Donald Duck head that I was looking for, it just seemed like a normal costumes head, but its eyes were blacked out, it creeped me out a bit but there didn’t seem to be any suit to back up the head so I picked it up, inspecting it slightly before turning around an heading back down the hall. But before I could even take another step, the Donald Duck head began to let out a loud array of garbled noises that slightly deafened me when I began hearing it, but that was only the start of my troubles, as I began hearing the suits from afar reacting to the sounds that the Donald Duck head was emitting and I began hearing a bunch of heavy footsteps approaching the room that I was in.
I took a deep breath and turned to a different exit of the room and began running down that way, ignoring any of the suits that attempted to grab onto me as I ran from hallway to hallway until I made it back to the room where Minnie was still sitting on the storage box. Minnie quickly floated towards me and snatched the head from my hands and set it down on a podium nearby, the sounds emitting from the head slowly disappearing as the Donald Duck head slowly turned back to normal as it settled into the podium.
“Geez, could not make any more noise as you came here? You caused quite the racket, but very well, you did what I asked of you.” Minnie said as she kicked the storage box open. I peered into the box, finally seeing the document folder that I had been looking for this entire time, I took a deep breath and looked over at Minnie who slowly nodded as she patted my shoulder. I took the folder and the keys that she also handed me before backtracking all the way to the storage unit, I felt overjoyed at the thought of finally leaving this place with the truth of what had occurred, but all of my joy slowly melted away as I looked up from the folder, the door that was previously in front of my disappearing slowly before I could even put the key up to it. I gulped heavily as I heard various footsteps behind me, I turned quickly, different suits stood behind me, kind of blocking any of the exits to the storage unit, a couple of which I hadn’t spotted before such as an Ortensia suit and a detached Daisy head, like Donald Duck’s, but with strange tendrils sticking out of its head, eyes, and mouth.
“Was it worth all of this!?” I heard from above me, all the suits looked towards a crane that somehow fully fit in the storage unit. “Do you think it was worth breaking into here and taking what’s not yours!?” The voice said again, I focused on the crane until I saw a new Mickey suit that I hadn’t spotted before, it had a deformed, melted face with batlike ears, an elongated, gaping mouth and humanoid eyes that peered into my soul as the suit slowly crawled along the top of the crane. “You have come here to find the truth!? Pathetic! All you are doing is risking your life, and ours! I cannot have you spilling Disney secrets…” The suit said as it climbed into the crane, turning it on and moving the crane’s hand. “But you, oh you, you’ve managed to run right under our noses, if it wasn’t for Daisy quickly reporting your existence, you would’ve left scot-free, huh!?” The crane’s hand moved over the middle of the storage unit, slowly going up. “But I will make sure that you never make it out of here alive! Because this is the final day of your life that you will know of the Disney name!” The crane’s hand then rapidly moved down, all the suits running out of the storage unit as the floor crumbled under my feet, plummeting me to a lower level of the place, I fell from a long height, instantly falling unconscious upon contact with the ground.
When I finally awoke, it felt hot, I had a mild concussion, but it was not anything I could not get behind. It was pitch black, so I grabbed my flashlight and turned it on, just to be met with an Oswald suit, it seemed normal apart from it missing its arms. I screamed in terror before the suit kicked me to quiet me down, the suit looked behind itself and then looked back at me.
“You sustained a long fall, thankfully GOD blessed you just in time…” Oswald said before turning around. “There is something really dangerous down in this boiler room, so I suggest you tread carefully, as in any moment you cannot be blessed any longer.” Oswald suggested before walking forward for a moment, signaling me to follow it. I quickly got up and followed the Oswald suit as it led me through the dark boiler room, I could hear faint rummaging around me, but with the tight corridors of the boiler room, it was uncertain where the sounds could be coming from. I followed Oswald closely so I wouldn’t get lost, but after a short while, I had realized that I was no longer following Oswald, it was as if he had vanished and left me stranded in this dark boiler room, I continued walking for a bit, but I kept feeling that something was following me from behind and staring me down.
After a bit of aimless wandering, I finally decided to turn around to figure out what was the thing following me. I shined my flashlight and only saw the legs of a plastic suit that was fully colored green, I slowly moved my flashlight up to figure out what was the thing in front of me, and the more I looked up, the longer it felt that the thing was becoming. Eventually I managed to see the head of the suit, it was about eight feet in height, it had a similarly green Mickey Mouse head with no ears, and it was just staring down at me. I was about to run before the suit held my shoulder then attacked me violently, slamming my head in with its own two hands, it felt as if I was hit by a thick metal pipe over the head. I fell on the ground, clutching my head tightly, I looked down at my hands and they were coated in blood, presumably from my own head, everything was spiraling around me and the last thing I saw before going under was the suit still staring down at me, as if taunting me over the power it had. The suit slowly moved down and hit me one more time before I fell unconscious.
As I awoke once more, my eyes were slightly blinded by the shine of an old retro TV from the late eighties, I slowly opened my eyes and rubbed them gently, I had bandages all over my head, face, arms, and chest. I looked around for the source of the light and saw the TV, it was displaying an old image of Mickey Mouse from one of the older cartoons also from the late eighties. It was all so surreal, it was happening all too fast, and when I thought it was all going to be over for me, I turned my head slightly and saw a new Mickey Mouse suit, sitting down on a chair in front of me, the suit was grayscale with pitch black eyes, like what was being broadcasted on the television next to me. I rubbed my head gently and sat up before feeling a stinging pain shooting through my hip which caused me to lay back down fully. I sighed before hearing a faint “tsk” from the Mickey suit sitting down on the chair.
“Mr. Gray. All kids have fun at Discovery Island. So why don’t you?” The suit asked me, crossing its legs like a real human would.
“It’s you- It’s FUCKING YOU!” I quickly stood up and went to attack the suit before it disappeared, I hit my chin on the chair and gasped sharply as I fell back down on the floor in pain.
“Mr. Gray, you do not value your life, but no matter. I do not want you in this place.” The suit snapped its fingers, the document folder dropping on my stomach. “I want you gone from my domain; you have witnessed enough.” The suit stood me up with one hand. “From what I would know, you are not ever going to be the same as when you entered this location, but that does not concern me. There are good mental facilities from where you came from, so stay there and never come back.” The suit manifested a door right in front of me and opened it before pushing me into it, I was now in Disney World where I worked at, close to my manager’s office, a bunch of my coworkers spotted me and quickly called for help. But nothing made sense to me, what day was it? How long was I in that location? All these thoughts were slowly driving me insane as I kept getting visions of that damn green Mickey suit that attacked me and made me this way.
I do not know how long it has been, but I have been admitted to a psych ward indefinitely. The documents were taken off me and given to police where they began an investigation of the “Discovery Island” location and an investigation behind the people mentioned in the documents, I have been told that now the year was 2013, almost two years since I first entered “Discovery Island”. My hair has grown out a lot and I have a beard now; all my injuries have healed perfectly, and I have been leading a normal life in the psych ward. I barely communicate with anyone that is not the staff because they all remind me of those damn suits that tormented me the entire time that I was in “Discovery Island.” When I did a bit of research in the library, I found out that I went missing in “Discovery Island” for about 2 years since August 21st. It all happened too fast, I had no recollection of what could have made me turn out this way, but now I know that I uncovered the true mystery of… Discovery Island.