It wasn't like anything they were expecting.
It was a sick game of watching, waiting, and losing. It was game of watching out for imminent danger around every corner, waiting for the danger to come straight through your sanctuary, and losing to them in the end of it all.
They knew they weren't supposed to be there so late that night. It was one of the rules after all. They knew that looking for daddy at the pizzeria wasn't going to work out as planned. Daddy never would have abandoned his children to spend more time at Freddy Fazbear's, so it was obvious they were looking in the wrong place for their father. They knew they shouldn't have hid in the security room and leave a counterfeit note relieving the guard of his duty. All that was left were those two, who planned to spend their time looking for daddy, not doing this. Anything but this.
"Bring down the doors." A voice uneasily demanded.
And so she did. Jumping up from the makeshift seat beside her brother, she pressed both buttons just as the power percentage dropped down to 1%.
It was almost as if the entire scene had been played in slow motion, a dreadful delay in their inevitable, gruesome fates. Watching, waiting, losing. Waiting for the end to come, watching for those characters who would soon drag themselves down the hallway, and losing everything in the process; your sanity, your security, yourself. All of it would be gone in a matter of seconds. That much they knew. After what seemed like an eternity, it eventually gave way. There was no more power left in the building. The weak lights finally flickered out. Everything was pitch black. The steel doors on either side of the office, which were previously shielding them from the bloodthirsty creatures wandering in the dark gloomy hallways, reopened themselves and exposed the room entirely. The droning noise of the fan came to an abrupt halt, and became eerily silent. All of it would be gone in a matter of seconds. They felt it coming, knew it from the beginning.
Watching, waiting, and losing.
"Goddamnit!" Spat an angry voice, followed by a shuffling of footsteps and papers.
"Are you alright?" a shaky voice whispered back worriedly.
"I'm alright. Don't worry; it's going to be okay."
His little sister wasn't so sure. "I-It won't be too long until they find us now. The doors aren't shut anymore-"
"Shh, hey." The male gently cooed, scooting closer to the barely visible silhouette of his friend and pulling him in a tight hug. "Calm down and-"
"Don't you tell me to calm down!" The little girl nearly shouted. Then, after pulling herself together, pressed herself against the wall as much as she could in a futile effort to distance himself from the nearing enemies she could no longer see.
"We're going to die, Marcus." she whimpered.
"Don't say that,"
"But it's true and you know it! If only we could've lasted another hour..."
"We'll make it. I promise we'll make it, Marie, it's almost six. You just have to quiet down."
And so she did. But as she did, a light, unsettling music began to play, emitting from the left door ever so gently.
"Close your eyes," Marcus whispered softly into Marie's ear.
And so she did, clenching them as tightly shut as she could, pulling herself into a ball in her older brother's arms and quivering like a leaf.
I can't die now. I'm not ready, the seven year old Marie-Helenne Wade thought to herself. I'm not ready to see Mommy in heaven yet; I don't want to go to heaven - I just want to find papa and leave this horrible place. Where could he have gone? Marcus said he would be here; where else would he be!? Certainly he wouldn't leave his only two children all alone at home-
A shrill, mechanical shriek coming from the door caused Marie's eyes to burst back open. And just as she saw the silhouette of a bear making its escape through the opposite door, she felt her brother being torn from her weak arms.
"Marcus!" Marie shouted without regard to the three other animatronic figures slowly surrounding her.
Her brothers voice got quieter and quieter the further he was dragged away from her. But the urgency never faded.
"Run, Marie! Get out of there!"
And so she did. Pulling herself up from the ground, she reassured herself. It was dark, but she could still see; they were fast but they were cumbersome, and she was nimble. She could make it. There was hope. But as she swiftly evaded their grasp and rocketed out of the office, she wasn't headed towards the exit; she was sprinting after Freddy as fast as he could, Foxy on her tail and the two others following up short behind.
"Marie! They're going to kill you! Go find dad!"
She only ran faster. "I'm not leaving without you!"
Foxy wasted no time. A thin metal hand yanked young Marie-Hellene backward and she felt something bite into her frail little shoulder. A sharp stinging sensation sent waves of unbearable pain throughout her upper body, deterring her in her mission. It wasn't until her brother's agonizing shrieks pulled her back into reality, and with a newfound burst of adrenaline, she tore away from the animatronic's snout; and, in doing so, tore through some of the muscle in her arm.
Grabbing a nearby pizza portrait off the wall, Marie flipped around and smashed it into the foxes face, dislodging its bloodied jaw and dislocating it's glowing white eye. As small as she was, Marie was not one for waiting, nor watching, nor losing. The fox with the shattered face ultimately collapsed onto the floor, and the other two tripped and clambered over there fallen comrade in hot pursuit of the girl, completely unphased by the animatronic who was now officially out of order.
Blood gushed out of her wounds and left a noticeable trail behind her as she continued to run after Marcus, who was no longer in sight.
After ensuring she was safe, Marie stopped and looked around. Everything was so dark. She was barely able to make out the tables and chairs in his way, much less any killer animatronic characters who were out to stuff her into a robot.
"Marcus!?" he shouted, straining her ears and slowly making her way through the pizzeria. "Where are you!?" By this time, Marc's screaming had stopped, and silence had set in once again.
A flicker of light caused her to jump back, crashing into the table as she tried to scurry away from the light source. Freddy! She thought, until he saw that this light wasn't fake. It was natural light, peeking through the window and rising to meet the sky.
The watch on her petite wrist beeped.
6 AM, the watch read, and below it, Papa comes home!
Sure enough, the animatronics were all back on the stage, and Foxy behind the out of order sign where it belonged.
But Marcus was nowhere to be found.
"M-marc?" The girl's quivering voice echoed off the walls.
She was met with silence.
"Marcus, they're gone now." she lightly sobbed with joy. "It's over now. Let's just find papa and go home."
She waited for a response, for a holler of "I'm okay" or "thank goodness you're safe". None came. She watched for any shuffling or moving, for when he would clamber out of under a table and pull her into a tight hug. None of this happened either. She was losing hope. What if her brother had gotten lost in the pizzeria?
She would've been officially lost in the pizzeria if the sign on the door hadn't read Employee's only. Withdrawing what she remembered from the maps, this was the last room to be checked. This was where Marcus was hiding, and maybe daddy too. She would find them and hug them and cry on their shoulders. Then they would go home. Yes, then everything would be fine.
"Marcus?" She walked in slowly, carefully peeking her head through the doorway. "Marcus, come on. Papa-"
The floor was competely flooded with a dark crimson red, and it made a slooshing sound as Marie-Helenne neared the single Freddy Fazbear suit sitting in the center of the room. It was slouched over as if in defeat, and covered with red splotches, as if it were scratching at itself to open new wounds and let the flies in. It was staring at her strangely, with such sad, hopeless, childish eyes that almost seemed to be crying pools of blood beneath it. A pile of broken teeth lay inside the agape dislocated mouth, and behind that, more teeth. And behind that, what looked like the dark pink of gums. And behind that, Marie couldn't see anymore.
She didn't know what made her do it. Something inside of her told her this was it, but it was stifled. No way, it said. No way that's true. She had to see what was inside of Freddy. A voice told her, papa could be hiding there with Marcus, safe and sound. That was where Marcus was hiding, and maybe daddy too. She would find them and help them out and hug them and cry on their shoulders. Then they would go home. Go look inside, Marie. You know you want too.
And so she did.
She knocked it over. With a squelch sound, two mutilated piles of bone and blood and peeling flesh fell out the back. One was still gushing blood, still had fluids leaking out of its newly snapped tendons and freshly folded body parts, twitching here and there, producing a strange high pitched noise, still alive.
The other was no longer moving, an older, much larger mass of rotting flesh, whose innards looked to have been torn out to fit him inside.
They both had hair very similar to Marie-Hellene's.
They both could no longer be considered human.
They both had gone the same way.
And with that, Marie-Hellene fell back into the blood and cried in agony, unaware of the golden Freddy Fazbear suit behind her.
"Marie-Hellene. It's me. It's me, Marie. Don't cry."
