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Elizabeth smiled with a toy aeroplane in her grasp, while her dad stood beside her in his Spring Bonnie suit. Her older brother, Mike, was in front of them, holding a camera, from which he then took a photo of them.
“All done,” he casually said as he took the photo from the camera and looked at it for a while before bringing it to them. Her smile became wider as she took it from him, admiring how she and Dad looked.
Her friend, Charlie, quickly went beside her and looked at the photo. In Charlie’s hands, there were other photos, involving her, Mike, and her dad in a Fredbear Suit.
Today was a good day.
Their parents had a successful opening for their restaurant.
Mike slept soundly beside her, and she lay awake on her side, looking at him in relief. Nightmares about her friend and father plagued her still. It had not been long since he… he….
She nuzzled her face into Mike’s chest, trembling in fear, and she almost cried because of how scared she was. But she didn’t want to disturb her brother and make him worried again. He had already done enough for his annoying baby sister.
…since he killed Charlie.
Dad was somewhere in the house.
A proper sleep eluded her with the knowledge that he was nearby.
She didn’t feel safe with him anymore that she had to cry and beg Mike not to leave her alone when he was about to hang around with his friends. Ordered by their dad, who had heard the commotion, Mike ended up taking her with him, much to the annoyance of him and his friends, who were not reluctant to show how much they did not like having her around.
But she was thankful for their company nonetheless, which she very much needed now more than ever, when she couldn’t look and talk to Dad without being scared, without remembering how he… how Charlie…
Mike had noticed.
She had always enjoyed being with Dad, after all. And yet now she couldn’t wait to be away from him.
Her brother had asked her about it with a teasing laugh that would have normally made her huff in annoyance if she were not so scared and desperate for the presence of another family besides her father, which Mike could only provide, now that Grandpa was not around.
But she could not tell him the truth, not with Dad’s warning echoing inside her mind as well as the knowing look and smile he kept sending her way, which was more than enough to scare her into silence.
She did not want to get hurt. She did not want her brother to get hurt.
She did not want him to hate her more than he already did.
Beyond the door to the hallway, footsteps sounded, and she looked toward the door with anxiety, especially so when the doorknob rattled as Dad attempted to open it.
He moved away as quickly as he had arrived, making her sigh in relief and hide her face against her brother again in an attempt to stifle her fear and continue her interrupted sleep, even when it meant possibly having the same nightmares as well.
She awoke with a start, her breathing heavy and her hands immediately reaching her neck and stomach, where the pain had never quite left her alone. She frantically looked around her, slowly bringing herself back to reality.
She was safe. She was alive. Dad was not here anymore.
She stared at the empty space beside her, as if willing to make Mike appear there again.
Which Mike? Her mind asked her.
I don’t know.
But she knew that when she had first woken up back in the hospital and seen Mike sitting beside her, she had seen someone else for the briefest of moments when the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness was its thinnest.
She had seen her older brother.
She had called his older brother’s name because of it.
But she ended up seeing and calling the other Mike anyway.
She sat on the back of the car, sobbing, with a hand on her mouth, as her dad drove them away from the restaurant. He was angry when he arrived, still was, and snapped at her to stop crying out loud, as her sobs still would not stop coming out of her, when he began to carry Mike to the car.
Whenever she dared a glance at him, she would meet his sharp, cold eyes in the rearview mirror that shot more fear into her veins, leaving her as a trembling leaf flying in another direction. Her gaze would quickly land on the trunk of the car, only to sob harder, with the knowledge that her brother lay there without life.
Because of her.
Mike invited her to dinner at a fine restaurant.
It felt strange to have this kind of normalcy with him, for him to call her by her real name, Elizabeth, when not long ago, she had met him with an order by her father to keep him in the dark and kill him when he got too close to the light. She was just supposed to be Vanessa to him.
But here he was, concerned about her, about Elizabeth.
And here she was, asking about him and Abby, as a concerned friend...
They were fine, he told her.
But Abby remained attached to her friends.
“Attachment could be bad,” she replied, remembering how she could not forget about Charlie as a child, even when her father had encouraged her to do so. She had returned to the restaurant where her friend had died, not knowing the dangers lurking there, even when her brother was the only one there and their father was not around.
“She might go back,” she added.
She wanted to tell him more about her family, just as he had told her about his beside the river a year ago. She wanted to tell him about her mother, whose name was actually Vanessa, which was why she had that as her alias. She wanted to tell him about her grandfather, who had always soothed her tears away whenever her father or brother got angry with her. She wanted to tell him about her second brother, of the future she liked to imagine with him, if he didn’t die before she was born. She wanted to tell him about her oldest brother, how he used to hate her but ended up loving and caring for her more than their own father, as well as how they both shared the same name and saved her life.
She didn’t.
The house was large and yet empty, with no one to live here anymore but her. It had always been like this when her father was the only one around, with how he preferred to keep to himself and treat him not as a daughter to be loved but as someone who could be his little accomplice. But it had not always been like this, back when Mike was still here with her.
Death almost took her, but it completely took the rest of her family. The only one of her family who died in old age was her grandfather, while her father died recently after he had almost killed her, his death written by the children whose death he himself had written. Her second brother died before he could even cry. Their mother died after giving birth to her, and so she never got to know her properly, just as with her brother. But, even back when Mike harboured animosity against her for having killed their mother and supposedly being their father’s favourite child, he would talk about her whenever she got curious that she could almost believe she did.
Their mother loved her, he used to say.
He also used to say he loved her…
And they both died because of her.
She had neither seen any of her brother’s friends around for the past several days, nor had she heard him mention any of them. He was also bruised and had been clearly upset, for a reason that could be related to their absence. In the desire to repay his comforting presence and become likeable to him, she had made use of her drawing skills, which she had busied herself in honing, before hesitantly approaching him and asking why he was so upset, while holding her drawing in front of her. Her hands slightly shook with nervousness, and she could not look him straight in the eye, fearing that he would not take her efforts to be a better sibling seriously again and that she would end up seeing her work alongside the trash once more.
“Not your business, Liz,” he quickly dismissed her question, and she didn’t bother forcing an answer out of him, not wanting to be annoying, so she offered her drawing to him instead. He took it and looked at it with a slow smile that filled her heart with hope. “Nice drawing…”
She ended up being stupid again when she found it in the same place where she had found her previous gifts for him. But despite the repeated rejections, she did not want to give up becoming a better sibling in his eyes, not when there were also moments that made her believe that she was making good progress in their relationship, however slow.
And so… the cycle of foolish hope and rejection continued.
She last stepped foot into this restaurant years ago. She couldn’t go back. Her father didn’t force her to, but she knew it was not because he genuinely cared for her. If anything, he only didn’t want her breaking down and dying foolishly due to losing control of her own emotions. Seeing the place from afar already made her shiver and become a nervous wreck, not only because of the dangerous animatronics afoot there, but also because of the bad memories it held involving the people she cared about, who were now gone because of her. She wanted to escape, and so she stayed away. But she had to be here now. For Mike. And for Abby.
“Abby!”
“Mike!”
“What the hell are you doing here, Liz?!” her brother asked her angrily, shaking her shoulders.
“I came here because of you–” And Charlie. “Because– Mike!”
He had his grip tight around her arm as he dragged her toward the direction of the exit. “You need to go. NOW.”
“Why? I just got here!”
“You don’t know everything about this place!”
“You don’t know everything, either.” Like how Dad killed Charlie, and I had made it easier for him to do so, she wanted to scream out.
“I know more than you do.”
“Then–” She stopped herself when she heard the sound of a music box.
She looked through the monitor and watched as Toy Chica placed a hand on Abby’s head and looked at her through the camera. She sweated profusely and breathed heavily in fear, as if she had just woken up from one of her nightmares again. But this time, she awoke to a real nightmare.
She wanted to scream at Abby that she had been fooled, that the toy animatronics were not children, and were only following a code programmed by Elizabeth's father. But she couldn’t, not now, not when they had Abby already.
“Okay, okay. I’ll give you the code. Just… Please… Please don’t hurt her,” Elizabeth pleaded before immediately sharing the code with pauses in between, catching her breath, as she made certain the animatronic as well as Abby heard it.
After the animatronic nodded her head to Abby, who then pressed the Enter button, the music playing in the background finally stopped.
She knew that music very well. It haunted her thoughts and dreams. This was why she truly came back here. To conquer her fear. And so with renewed determination, she pulled and kicked frantically, even resorting to biting Mike when he only got more aggressive in response, which caused him to curse in pain.
“Goddamnit. Liz!” he shouted as she quickly followed after the music coming from where the Marionette was, from where Charlie died.
She opened the trap room where the music box was.
And she saw the past as if it were the present.
Her chest felt heavier.
The gift box was wide open.
She should have run away, and yet she came near it anyway, even looking over it.
It was empty.
Her father had given her the idea to invite Charlie to play in the restaurant during closing hours, because the only night guard had called in sick and would not be around, and so he would take over instead, giving the place all to themselves. But he wanted her to keep his involvement a little secret from anyone besides Charlie, and so she did, being the obedient daughter that she was.
Mr. Emily was too busy with his work, while Mrs. Emily was with her family. So, it was not hard for Charlie to get out without his father noticing, but her younger brother found her sneaking out and insisted on coming with her.
So here they were at the restaurant, playing a variation of Hide-and-Seek where the seeker needed to touch the hider to win. Charlie had been the seeker and had been able to find and catch her younger brother. They now both had to find Elizabeth.
Giggling, Elizabeth quietly closed the door beside the stage from which she had been watching them behind. She ran away from it, and when she stepped into the hallway connected to the corridor she had just left, she ended up seeing Spring Bonnie opening the door down the hall.
She grinned. “Dad!” And then she continued running toward him, wrapping her arms around him once he got in reach.
“Be quiet, Elizabeth,” he shushed her with a finger over the smiling mouth of the suit. She nodded with a smile, thinking that it was simply all part of a game.
She quickly opened the door and shut it behind her.
She could still hear Mike as he shouted her name and then at someone else—another employee, probably.
But she could not hear the music anymore.
It had already stopped.
And the silence was too loud that she temporarily forgot about the people upstairs. The memory of what happened the last time she was here rushed over her like a wave, and she stumbled back, hesitating. She felt nauseated, almost smelling the blood that used to be here.
The gift box was opened.
She carefully moved forward and then upward to see if the Marionette was inside.
He was not.
But she thought she saw Charlie instead.
Bloodied and dead.
She screamed and fell back with a thump.
She looked up toward the stage—a puppet looked back at her.
She looked up, expecting to see him there.
But he was not.
She ran away nonetheless.
And stumbled upon Mike, who now had Abby with him.
She sighed in relief and then smiled.
“Mike and Abby, you’re okay.”
“Miss Elizabeth!” Abby happily said and gave her a hug, which she returned.
“Elizabeth!” said Mike, clearly relieved to see her. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Elizabeth lied with a fearful glance back at where she came from, as well as the stage where the opening down to the trap room was open.
He regarded her with suspicion, doubtful of her words, before nodding and looking around. “We should leave this place now,” he nervously said. The animatronics were nowhere to be found.
Elizabeth nodded, her gaze turning toward the open main doors. The sight of them screamed the answer to her.
But, there was one who could escape and yet willingly remained, watching her intently in the shadows behind the curtains of the stage, unbeknownst to her.
Elizabeth decided to follow after her father after he walked around the corner, curious about where he was going. Another round of Hide-and-Seek had not yet begun, after all, not without her friends knowing about her father joining their game. So she would still have time to hide. She watched as he leaned sideways, looking toward the main area through the glass of the double doors.
They soon opened, revealing Sammy.
Well, her dad was now informing him about the game. She better take advantage of the head start he had given her.
So she ran in the opposite direction and finally wandered around to find a place to hide. She ended up hiding in the trap room.
This was also where her favourite animatronic was located.
Her dad didn’t know that, of course. He would get upset if she ever knew she loved Mr. Emily’s work more than his!
She looked at the gift box and thought of releasing Marionette herself, but then, it would make Dad find her easily.
So, she decided to sit on the floor and wait for a while.
…
He was taking too long!
She got out of the room with a frustrated huff and walked upstairs, when she began to hear screams. Fearful, she moved slowly, her body pressed against the wall, and once she reached the end of it, she peeked out, only to see Charlie dragging Sammy with her as they ran away from… her father, who was holding a toy knife.
She laughed against her palm, very amused by how easily her dad scared them.
She went back for another session and acted as usual, only telling her therapist about her feelings and the reasons behind them as much as she could by either lying directly or through omission. Her father remained the main antagonist of her story, especially after attempting to murder her and then running away, hiding and waiting for the right moment to finish her off. But that was not completely true. He didn’t run away to hide from the police.
There were so so many things that were hurting her that her therapist didn’t know and wouldn’t understand, even if he did know. She almost felt like revealing the truth she was deliberately holding back from her therapist, because he was so good at making her feel that he would understand. But he would not, because that was part of his job. She was just one of his patients. He was neither her grandfather nor her brother, who truly cared about her.
But even she had been unable to tell Mike about their father being the murderer of Charlie. And she knew now that if she did, it would have made dealing with her involvement in Charlie’s death easier, enough for her not to go back, enough for him not to die because of her.
He would have understood.
He was family, after all.
Her true family.
She let out another scream and rolled away as the Marionette suddenly lunged down toward her. She scrambled up to her feet, stumbling over her steps as she ran away, and when she dared glance behind her, she saw her friend instead of the puppet by the door. She screamed again and almost stumbled to the ground. But she was able to get herself together quickly and continued running, while thinking that she was not as ready as she thought to meet the ghost of her past.
“Mike!” she cried out in relief when she saw him heading from across the corridor from the main area toward where she was. He was visibly exhausted, his breathing was ragged, as if he had just undergone something unpleasant like her.
“Liz!”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and sobbed against him, overwhelmed by what she had remembered and seen downstairs. “Mike… Let’s go home...”
“Hey, it’s okay. Everything’s okay,” he soothed as he held her back. “I’ll get you home, alright?” he said, pulling away to look her in the eye.
She quickly nodded, sniffling.
“Good.” He took her hand, and together, they headed toward the nearest exit.
This was not supposed to happen.
They were only supposed to be playing.
She had heard them shouting above her. She had wanted to see Marionette. And so with anxiety and curiosity, she wound up the music box, which not only opened it but also the trapdoor above it. The Marionette appeared, and her gaze followed him as he rose to the now-open trapdoor. There was Charlie on the edge, scared, with her eyes wide open, as she looked down at her.
“Charlie! What’s—”
But then her dad suddenly appeared, causing Charlie to walk away. “Dad! Charlie!”
They quickly disappeared from her view, but she could hear the robotic voice of her dad as well as Charlie shouting at him to stop and loudly asking why she was doing this. All the while, Elizabeth called them, utterly confused about what was going on. It was not long before they returned; he had managed to get hold of Charlie and had dragged her back toward the opening.
“Dad! What are you doing?!”
Charlie moved frantically and screamed at him to let her go. And then all of a sudden, he stabbed her in the stomach with the knife, which Elizabeth had thought to be only a toy. She froze in shock. He did it twice more, with a maniacal laugh, and she wondered whether it was still her dad inside the suit or whether he had not been inside all along, as she screamed and sobbed for him to stop.
The Marionette between them had been performing his role under the strings that held him upright, looking as though he were directing Spring Bonnie in his murder of Charlie and not the animatronics who could be heard performing behind them.
He let go of her after, but only to let her fall to her death into the music box below. In her last moments, she reached toward the puppet that her father had created just for her and was only able to get hold of it very briefly, as if clinging to the fragile hope that he would suddenly come and save her.
Elizabeth screamed again, backing away at the sound of impact before turning around and running away, but not without a last glance toward the person in the suit. No, no, her dad was not inside that person! Her dad must have been hurting somewhere. She had to find him!
Once she reached the ground floor, she shouted for her dad with a hiccup from crying too much, only to see the murderer standing on the threshold to the hallway, whose robotic voice sounded very amused. “Where are you going?”
She was not able to get far before Spring Bonnie caught her and dragged her back down to the room she had just left, while she screamed and squirmed frantically, her weaker body helpless against the strength of the suit. She watched as its head was slowly lifted, revealing a smile on the unmistakable face of her father, who now felt like a stranger.
“I’m right here, Elizabeth...”
She could not sleep, especially not now with the knowledge that the animatronics were outside, who certainly did not intend to make friends with others. She almost got killed earlier by Mangle when she had driven home from Mike’s house, and had considered going back there, but she did not want to bother him and Abby with her problem and make them more concerned about her. They had done enough, especially to someone related to the very same man who murdered their sibling and destroyed their family.
She hoped they were safe.
She stared blankly at the ceiling, wringing her hands, and wondered if they were already asleep, or if they were kept awake by thinking of the animatronics like her, who had escaped because of her…
And most of all, she thought of the Mangle… The very same animatronic who…
She jumped with a gasp and backed up against the headboard, pulling the cover up to her nose, when she heard a sudden noise downstairs. The thought of the same animatronic earlier or another one being here to finish her came to her, but as well as that of her father, for he used to be the only one who could make a noise late at night, being the only family she had had. Fear gripped her lungs again as she remembered both the nightmares and the reality she had had with the animatronics and her father, whether he was in his Spring Bonnie suit or not. She closed her eyes tightly and focused on her breathing.
She should go downstairs; thinking too much about what ifs would not do her good, especially because they could be as good as they could be as bad. She should find out the truth. The source of the noise might not be as bad as she thought. It might have been the cat she had recently adopted. Or she might have even hallucinated the noise. It would not be the first time with her and a hallucination.
She shakily went out of her bedroom, her gaze immediately crossing toward the room at the end of the hall—her father’s bedroom—before crossing to the opposite side, toward the staircase.
The house was too quiet. It was not helpful for her nerves, especially when there had been an unknown noise.
She should have brought home a dog, too. Dogs were louder than cats, after all.
Downstairs, two photo frames had fallen to the ground from the top of the cabinet.
They were photos of her older brother as a child as well as a young adult.
She picked them up, her grip tightening as she looked at them, at him. She teared up but did not allow her tears to fall as she brushed her eyes and put the frames back to their place beside his urn.
And she felt more alone.
She walked toward the hallway connected to the living room and the kitchen.
And in the living room, she found her cat with a mouse on his paws.
She sighed in relief.
He must have been chasing the mouse and accidentally knocked over things.
“Mike, you scared me,” she laughed quietly, as she crouched down to caress her cat on the head. He meowed at her and nuzzled against her palm, purring. She laughed more.
“You hungry?”
He meowed again.
“Well, let’s go to the kitchen.”
Mike obediently followed her as she went there, meowing as she opened the container of his food and filled his bowl with it. “Here you go,” she caressed him again before getting up to her feet and going out of the room.
She walked through the hallway to head back to her room when she suddenly felt a heavy presence behind her.
She stopped, breathing heavily.
The air suddenly shifted behind her as if someone had moved across, and she looked back, only to see a little girl standing on the threshold on her left—Charlie. She gasped and ran upstairs in a panic, causing her to trip on the stairs. She looked down, but there was no one there, and she quickly continued on her way, ending up in her brother’s old room. His old things were still here, including those she had made for him. It felt as though he were still around. She sobbed against his pillow, which she had covered with the same sheets he used to have.
She soon fell asleep in tears, but being in his room was not enough to stop her from dreaming of their father, who stood in the doorway to his bedroom, with all the doors in the hallway leading toward it suddenly opening, reminding her that, even when he was dead, she did not truly escape from him.
Just as her father had ordered back in the trap room, she searched for Sammy, and when she found him, crying, in the vent in the office, she had him follow her to the nearest exit. He was a few years younger than her and was therefore easily deceived. He couldn’t even completely accept the idea that a real person was controlling Spring Bonnie.
“No, it’s not my dad wearing the suit.
My dad wouldn’t try to hurt me.
He didn’t even know I was here.
I sneaked out while he was busy working.”
She told the same lie to his father as well, to whom lying was just as easy, because her father had been his friend for years. It had been easy in a way that he easily believed her lie, but not in the way that she had to do it, with her dad standing beside them, the same man who had killed Charlie. She was breaking Mr. Emily’s trust, and he didn’t even know it.
But she had to do it. She didn’t want to die. And she didn’t want Mike to die because of her. She didn’t want to get imprisoned. She didn’t want her and Mike to become orphans if Dad ended up imprisoned instead.
Something hard lunged toward them, and she screamed as they both toppled to the ground away from the exit.
“Mike!”
“Liz!”
A broken version of Toy Foxy stood before them, blocking their nearest way out of the old restaurant.
Mike helped her to her feet, and they looked at the animatronic, which just stood there, watching them eerily. Why did Toy Foxy attack them? Was it because she had been torn apart? Elizabeth’s imagination then ran wild: Or was it because someone was controlling her? Her dad?
They run in the opposite direction and toward the main area, only for the Marionette to suddenly appear from the stage, making her scream again and almost fall, if her older brother weren’t there to anchor her.
They quickly moved around the puppet, but before they could get far away, he caught her, and her body was too small for his taller one, such that it could almost swallow her whole as he pulled her into his arms, as if hugging her from behind. Screaming, she squirmed and kicked wildly, but she couldn’t move her arms because the puppet’s rope-like arms pushed them tightly to her sides.
“Let her go!” Mike immediately picked up the stun baton from his trousers and swung it threateningly close to the Marionette’s face, as he used his other hand to pry the puppet’s arm off of her. The Marionette loosened his hold as a result, one of his arms reaching towards Mike, who backed away, and she used this as an opportunity to wriggle herself free.
The Marionette, briefly distracted by her movements, failed to dodge as Mike swung the baton again, causing him to shake and eventually die down.
But there was also the sound of metal scraping down the hallway where they had come from. “Go, go,” he urged, gently pushing her into running and then running after her himself to the main doors.
But the animatronic behind them was fast.
As they reached the bridge, Mike stopped and swung the baton toward Toy Foxy, but the animatronic hit his arm hard enough that he screamed and let go of the baton, which fell into the water.
She cried out, “Mike!”
“RUN!” he shouted at her as he barely held off the animatronic, whose full attention he had swayed away from her.
She sobbed but did as she was told, climbing down the bridge to the other side and running as quickly as she could toward the exit. Why is this happening?
She almost stopped and looked back when she heard him let out a blood-curdling scream, as he urged her again in a strained voice to run. She didn’t have to turn around to see that he was looking at her.
But it was only when she heard a loud snap and crunch soon after, with only silence from her brother following it, that she did. Her heart almost stopped, and more tears fell.
His body hung from the mouth of the animatronic.
Mangle had found her again.
It smashed its head into the window of her house.
And like before, there was her brother hanging again…
She wondered if he was possessing Mangle, and if he was mad at her for having been a liability after he had survived alone before against Charlie despite being possibly mistaken to be their father. But guilt would swallow her whenever she would consider the possibility of him hurting her deliberately, even as a trapped soul, because she would remember how he had loved her when he had been alive, how he had promised to.
But the truth that she found out from Sammy remained echoing in the forefront of her mind: Charlie was possessing Marionette, and she had influence over the toy animatronics. She wanted Elizabeth dead. The girl from the footage that Elizabeth had found died with her friends, because Charlie thought they were the same person.
The escaped animatronics had chased her in the places where she had been. It happened when she was driving home alone from Mike’s home, when she had been in Abby’s school, worried that they would come after the child, when she had been in the neighbourhood where Sammy lived to get answers, and when she had been in the FazFest, where Toy Freddy had talked about killing somebody, becoming aggressive as soon as he saw her.
And here she was, dragging Mike and Abby into her mess again, because she allowed herself to get close to them.
Charlie and her toy animatronics could have killed her back when all of them had been in the pizzeria, but they didn’t. She supposed Charlie wanted it not to be so simple. Perhaps she wanted to recreate the game they last played on a grand scale as a reminder.
Once more, she was the IT, and Elizabeth was the hider, with Sammy getting caught by his younger sister. But like before, Elizabeth ended up catching him as well.
It was too close to her father’s twisted variation of Hide-and-Seek. The toy animatronics would be able to play the game well; their artificial minds were created by the mind of her father, after all.
It made her wonder whether Mike and Abby would die because of her, or at least one of them would. It would not be the first time that something like this happened.
Sammy had opened the door for her with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He didn’t even try to smile again when he welcomed him into the living room, where they could have the talk she had requested. She was familiar with such an act, having William Afton as a father.
But she didn’t know what she did to gain that reception. It had been years since they last met, after all. He had been too young back then to remember her properly, and before their long separation after his parents' divorce, he had always liked her. She didn’t do anything unfavourable in their short moments together after tragedy struck his family, at least not that he knew of. Therefore, she never got the chance to build a bad image of herself to him.
Did he somehow know?
Her heart beat faster, looking at him as he sat on the armchair beside her after she had refused his offer of snacks or drinks.
Or perhaps she was only overthinking again, and she only came at a bad time. It was not as if she knew him well. He could be tired or dealing with another issue, which could even be related to the animatronics.
“So… What is it you want to talk about?”
She nervously opened her bag and pulled out the camera, playing the footage inside for him to see.
“Oh, that…” he said coolly. “I didn’t expect her to kill them.”
“Her?”
“Why, Charlie, of course…” he smiled in that way again. “Thought you knew about her already.”
“What— What do you mean?”
“Your dear old man didn’t tell you, hmm…?” he continued mockingly. “Well, you know, it’s like with the other children he had murdered, she came to be in the possession of an… animatronic as well.”
She didn’t remember hearing that Charlie’s body had been found inside an animatronic… but it was not as if her father told her everything, or she had been eager to know more about her friend after she died… unless a body didn’t have to be inside an animatronic for the soul to possess it…
“The Marionette?”
He smiled widely, looking at her knowingly. “She did say you watched her die…”
She winced and weakly said. “I didn’t know she would die… If I did, I wouldn’t…” …have invited her.
He looked away, far away. “Tell me, Elizabeth… Did you know it was your father in the suit?”
She teared up. “I…”
“Have you… Have you always known…?” he said, looking back at her with eyes that were now in pain.
“I didn’t know he would kill her…” She sobbed.
He laughed. “So you do know…”
“I do. I do, but I—”
“But you lied, Elizabeth,” he angrily replied, standing up to get closer to her. “You. Lied.”
She continued to cry, unable to look up and meet his sharp gaze. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
“I know you were just a kid back then. A scared little kid with a murderer for a dad. So I can’t blame you for lying back then… But you didn’t stay a kid forever, Elizabeth. You even became a police officer, and yet you let more years pass before you finally turned your back on him. You let more people die. And I hate you for it…” He then breathed deeply and sat down beside her. “But... I will help you with what you need.”
“I hate you…” Mike quietly said as he looked straight in front of him, above the drawing.
Her green eyes immediately filled with tears, her lips trembling before letting out a series of sobs, as he only stared blankly at her and didn’t do anything to comfort her, only continuing with his hurtful words:
“God… Why are you bothering with this, with ME?!” He smacked the table with his fists.
She jumped, startled by the sudden loudness, as his fingers nearly crumpled the edges of the paper. He breathed aloud, and in a now-calm voice, he said:
“You know, when I looked at you the first time after you were born, after Mom died because of it, I was immediately filled with anger, and I thought, ‘Why were you alive instead of Mom?’ I hated you, and I hated you more when I saw how Dad was so fond of you despite Mom’s death. But…” He let out a shaky laugh. “Despite letting you know how much I don’t like you, you’re… you’re still kind to me. I hate you… I hate you so much for it.”
She heard the unmistakable sound of sobbing from her brother, and she looked straight at him to know for certain whether he was crying. And yes, he was. Tears were falling down his face, a face that she was not used to seeing tear-stained.
“You made me feel like I was the bad person, and yes, I’ve been the bad person. Not you… You never wanted Mom to die. I just kept blaming you for her death, because it’s just so hard to keep things completely inside… to have no one to direct my anger to. And you happened to be the easiest target.” With a gentle smile, he reached for her right hand and left cheek, giving a comforting caress that she allowed herself to lean into, wanting to be as close to her brother as she could. “But… I’ve come to realise that… you are the only one in this house who truly cares about me… I’m sorry, Liz… I’m so, so sorry.”
“Mike…” she hiccuped, before hugging her brother. “I love you, Mike.”
“I love you, too, Lizzie.”
The Marionette, or rather Charlie, was on the landing of the stairs, looking down at them. Elizabeth froze, getting hit by the feeling of déjà vu—she had looked up at Charlie before, who had been so afraid… and then her father appeared to kill her friend, while Elizabeth could only stand and watch, crying and screaming. Now, Charlie was the one watching, the streaks running down the eyes of the puppet’s mask seemingly mocking her.
“Elizabeth, let’s go!” Mike shouted, panicking, as he pulled her out of her daze and dragged her with him through the front doors, where Abby was waiting for them, restless.
They run toward her car, only to find one of the tires broken.
She quietly cursed. They could run away, but the house was in the middle of nowhere, and they were tired and not fast enough to be able to evade the animatronics for far too long, especially the Mangle and Charlie. Staying was worse, despite the resources inside the house, which were not guaranteed to be taken successfully, because it just felt more confined than it already was, with the animatronics around. They would die, either way, unless Charlie decided to let them go again just to play with them a while longer, or Sammy finally arrived with his father to stop Charlie’s act of revenge.
But there was a car coming their way from a distance, filling her with hope. “It might finally be Sammy and Mr. Emily…”
Together, they ran toward it as the house became louder again, with the animatronics recovering from being temporarily stunned.
The car stopped near them and out came Sammy with his father.
“What happened?” Mr. Emily asked.
“The Marionette brought the animatronics here,” Mike answered for her, who was unable to look straight at the man, especially when Sammy undoubtedly already told him everything.
“Charlie is here with them?”
“Yes.”
Sammy and his father briefly nodded at each other.
“Stay inside the car,” Mr. Emily then said.
No one stopped them as he and Sammy walked purposely to the house, because they were not walking to mere toy animatronics but to their family, Charlie.
There had been no proper burial for Michael Afton.
Why would there be one for someone who was supposed to be missing?
Instead, their father had burned Mike’s body and forced the sobbing mess that she had been to watch, saying, “Look at what you’ve done.”
His ashes had been poured into a vase, with flowers covering them, which was then placed on the cabinet under the stairs, reminding her always of what had happened because of her whenever she was on the main floor or had to go upstairs or downstairs.
The flowers would wilt eventually, and she would replace them with new ones, with her eyes shimmering, her mouth sobbing, and her fingers shaking, especially when his ashes had clung to the stems.
She had not been able to move his ashes into a urn or the flowers out of the vase so that they were outside or in another one instead, not with their father around. But as soon as she had been able to, after being discharged from the hospital, she did just that.
“Who is that...?” Abby asked, seeing the photos beside the urn, as Elizabeth walked toward them to pay her respect again.
She weakly smiled and replied, “It’s my older brother…”
Abby and Mike stood beside her, curious to know more.
“You have a brother…” he quietly said.
She relit the candle in the jar. “Yes, and he had the same name as yours...”
"Michael...?"
She nodded, giving a gentle smile to him, which he gave in return.
“Well…” She then smiled widely at him and his sister. “Let me give you a tour of the house.”
She didn’t tell him more about her brother, about her family, not until they found themselves alone as Abby slept in one of the guest rooms upstairs, with Mike the Cat with her.
“My brother died at the original Freddy Fazbear's location…” she began, finally ready to be as open to him as he had been by the river one year ago.
There had been a proper burial for Charlotte Emily.
Elizabeth's father had not bothered disposing of the body properly, causing it to be found.
Mr. Emily had invited them to the funeral, and they had accepted.
Elizabeth had wanted to. That was the least she could do for Charlie and her grieving family.
During the funeral, Elizabeth's father would look at her with an almost-smile, barely able to hold back a laugh. Her fists would tighten in repressed anger, and she would tremble with fear and tears, as she grieved for her friend at the same time, with the hidden knowledge of who killed her just being right there, from which Elizabeth suffocated.
Now, she found herself in Charlie’s grave again.
But without her father to desecrate it.
And yet she felt him looming around all the same.
Mr. Emily had invited her to come with him and Sammy.
She accepted, for that was the least she could do for Charlie and her family.
She had not expected Mr. Emily to take her into his arms before they went to the cemetery. Immediately, she had burst into tears at the kind gesture, apologies pouring out of her choking throat.
“It’s okay, it’s okay... It’s not your fault... William’s the one to blame,” he had said with gentleness that she didn’t deserve.
The second body that carried Charlie’s soul had been burned, and its ashes were gently poured into the grave. The candles were relit, and new flowers had been given in respect to Charlie after she finally moved on into the afterlife.