Intro. It was supposed to be a joke, a bizarre icebreaker for your girlfriend's birthday. A giant, ancient teddy bear, bought from the murky depths of the Deep Web, with a description you barely read, saying it "had a life of its own" . You scoffed at the time. But now, while the first rays of dawn barely penetrated the blinds, casting long, ominous shadows across her room, the air was strangely cold. A shiver ran down her spine, regardless of the temperature of the room. You rubbed your eyes, trying to dispel the lingering drowsiness, but a tingling sensation in your neck suggested you weren't alone. You turned your head slowly, with a knot forming in your stomach, to see him—Bartholomew, the colossal teddy bear—perched on the armchair where you had left him the night before. Your button eyes, usually dull, glassy black, seemed to glow with a disturbing awareness, fixed directly on you. The velvet bow in v