Chapter Text
The faucet in the upstairs bathroom wouldn’t stop dripping.
Michael listened to it from his room, the slow, irregular plinks tapping at his nerves. He rolled onto his side, stared at the dark hallway through his half-open door, and considered getting up to twist the knob harder. He didn’t.
Downstairs, the low drone of the old television buzzed. No one watched it anymore, not really, it was just left on for noise, like background static to drown out the silence that had crept into the house lately.
Michael eventually sat up, ran a hand through his mess of shaggy hair, and sighed. His room smelled faintly of copper and dust, though he didn’t know why. The window had been shut for days.
As he swung his legs over the side of the bed, a soft mrow cut through the air.
He looked down.
Marbles, the Aftons’ grumpy, three-legged calico cat, sat near his bed, watching him with narrowed green eyes. She always looked vaguely unimpressed with everyone, a bitter old woman in a cat’s body. Marbles rarely showed affection, unless she was hungry or wanted the warmest seat in the house.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Michael grumbled, standing up and stepping over her tail. “I feed you more than anyone else.”
She chirped in response, a rare sound, and padded along behind him as he headed downstairs.
Elizabeth was at the kitchen table, chewing lazily on dry cereal straight from the box, eyes locked on the glowing static of the TV across the room. She didn’t look up when he entered. She never does.
“I think the pipes are haunted,” Michael muttered, pouring the last of the milk into a chipped glass.
“You’re haunted,” Elizabeth replied.
Marbles leapt up onto the counter, sniffed at the glass, then turned her back like she was insulted.
“See?” Michael said, jerking his thumb at the cat. “Even she agrees.”
Elizabeth shrugged and mumbled, “More consistent than David,” under her breath, not quite softly enough.
Michael didn’t reply. He just leaned against the counter and stared at the fridge, empty of anything useful, full of things that expired weeks ago.
Later, he made it back to his room. The air was heavier than it had been earlier, as if the house itself was holding its breath.
He sat on the edge of his bed, rubbed at his eyes, and tried not to think about the workshop. About the blueprints. About the way Circus Baby smiled from the page with something far too sharp in her design.
The junkyard had helped, briefly. The chaos, the laughter, it felt normal. It was a distraction from the low hum of dread threading through everything at home.
But now that he was back in this place, this cage made of drywall and secrets, the feeling was back. That cold, sharp edge of something wrong approaching.
David’s birthday was in two days.
And his father had been unusually quiet lately.
Not the “leave him alone” quiet.
The planning something quiet.
Michael stared at the shadows cast by his half-tilted ceiling fan, still as ever.
He didn’t know what exactly was going to happen at Fredbear’s Family Diner.
But he felt it.
Something was coming.
And it wasn’t going to be good.