[[Author's note, as has become tradition:
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…
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AGH! OH FUCK NO! NO! NOT AGAIN! NO- NOOOOOO!]]
Evie's Night at Fazbear's Fight
Evelyn Matis Gheri had gotten along pretty well in life for the mixed-breed daughter of two demon slayers. From a young age her father had taken her out twice a month to learn how to wield the tools of the trade- oversized swords and magic-infused handguns. She killed her first demon at five and her father had collected the sand it had collapsed into into a little jar for good luck. She had remained on good terms all her life with her parents, her younger brother and twin little sisters. Her father had noted when she had gone to visit him just a week before, "I can't believe I'm not going to die with a running kill-count. Took me over fifty years, but I'd say we really cleaned up nicely.
The dream of dying on the battlefield had all but disappeared in its entirety by his later years. After slaying the dreaded Plutuson just a few years before Evie's birth, the influx of demons into the human world dropped to an all-time low. A few still remained and would crop up now and again, but their mass disappearance (caused mostly by civil wars struggling to fill the power vacuum) meant that the world didn't have a lot of use for demon hunters anymore.
Unfortunately, it also left Evie and several members of her family out of work and forced to seek fruitful employment elsewhere.
Evie herself had never meant to become a demon hunter, she just ended up taking lots of jobs as they came up. But with hunting now at such a low, she was forced to utilize the counseling degree she earned back in college. Ordinarily she didn't mind, but was rubbing at her temples that particular day, trying to reason with a particularly excitable recovering drug addict.
"I just see this spooky stuff, you know man?" He asked. "I wanna channel all that energy into something really cool, but I just don't know how. Then I get depressed and I start hitting the stuff again, you get me?"
"Yes," Evie sighed. "For the umpteenth time I get you."
"And I was just sittin' around the other day, talking to this buddy of mine- he's a real cool cat. Doesn't really say much, he's a super listener though! Apparently took some trauma to his frontal lobe or something way back in the day-"
"Mmmhmm," Evie said, her eyes down at her notes and beating herself at tic-tac-toe yet again. She looked up at her client, perhaps the most descript surfer dude she'd ever met in her life. She didn't mean to be so dismissive and usually was better, but this guy was amongst the most out-there clients she'd met in her field.
"And I'm like, 'You know what'd kick ass? There was this place a bunch of kids got killed back in the day, and boy, it'd make a killer haunted house!'"
"Yeah, you don't see how that would be a little insensitive?" Evie asked. "I mean, it's not as bad as that idea you had to teach 'Grave desecration' at Camp Crystal Lake but-"
"Could you refill my water glass ladybro?" He interrupted.
"If you'll stop calling me that," Evie said with another sigh. She took the glass from his hand and made her way out to the hallway that led to her office, getting a breath of fresh air away from her client as she looked to the clock. Almost 6 PM, then she'd be able to go home in peace. Her husband Rodan would surely handle cooking that night. As long as the kids weren't acting rowdy, there would be peace.
She returned with two refilled glasses, handing one to her client and sitting back down to take notes across from him. "So like, you don't think my haunted house idea would be super bodacious?"
Evie stuck out her tongue in disapproval. "Ugh, something must be wrong with the water filtration in this place. That's awful… No, I really don't think it's a good idea to try and open… To try and open… What the hell…?"
As she continued trying to look at her client she could feel the room beginning to spin. The red coloring of her wall began to appear to melt and bleed into the ceiling and floor. There was a distinct beating sound somewhere in the back of her mind, like Iron Butterfly and Pink Floyd were partaking in a Battle of the Bands next door.
"Ooooooo crrrrraaaaaaap laaaadddddyyybbbbbrrrrro. Iiiiii thhhhhiiiiinnnnkkk thhhhhhaaaaattt miiiiggggghhhhhttttttaaa beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen myyyyyyyy dddrrrrrriiiiinnnnnnk."
Evie opened and stared at her hands as they began to move and gyrate faster than she could comprehend. "What the hell was in that glass?"
"Thhhhaaaaaat'ddddd bbbbbeeeee ttthhhheeee 'spppppooooookkkky stttttuuffffffffffffffffff' Iiiiiiii meeeeennnnnttttttttiiiiiooooonnnnned," her client said. "Iiiiittttt'sssss toooottttttttaaaaalllllyyy coooooooooo' tttttthhhhhoooouuuuugggggghh, iiiiiitttttt'sssss nnnnnoooooootttttttt illlllllllllleeeeeeegggggaaaaaaaalll. Goooovvvvvveeeeeerrrrrnnnnnmmmeeennnnt ddddooooeeeesssssnnn'tttt kkkknnnnooooowww tttttthhhhhiiiissss ssssttuuuuufffffffffff eeeeeexxxxxiiiiissssstttttssss yeeeeetttttt."
About at this point Evie began to gleefully spin around in her office chair with her tongue extended. "Wooo! Woooo! Wooo!"
"Woah, ladybro you look like you're having a good time over there! Are you feeling better about stuff?"
"This is the greatest carousel ride I've been on! Faster, faster!"
This was completely out of line with her normal professionalism, but the established "Spooky stuff" would, shortly after its discovery by the American Food and Drug Administration three years, be labeled amongst the most obscenely powerful hallucinogens on the planet. The entire reason the stuff never took off was even the trace amounts since dissolved into Evie's client's glass were enough to temporarily wreck the demonic hybrid's mental state. How in God's name her client had survived taking as much as he did was wholly a mystery.
"Hey… Ladybro, if you're feeling so cool… I know you don't like the idea of my funhouse… But would you like, consider checking it out with me?"
"Lead the way leprechaun man!" Evie exclaimed. "Lead me right to the pot of gold! I will eat all of the delicious haleem! I want a sweater made out of that lambskin rug on the fourth floor!"
…
At around nine PM, after mindlessly skipping and marveling at the complete craphole her client had been bragging about, though was most excited to resuming spinning around in the wheelie chair in the security office, Evie fell asleep. Her client, being an idiot, left her alone for the night.
At about midnight, drool running halfway down her face, Evie was awoken by the ringing of an ancient phone. She opened her eyes to a terrible haze and shook her head, struggling to make sense of her surrounding as she picked up the receiver.
"Hell…. Hello? Aw holy hell, what'd I drink last night?"
"Um… I looked back in the script a little bit. Apparently you drank the dissolved residue of the scariest hallucinogen on the planet."
"The script…? Oh for the love of—who is this?"
"My name is Meredith, I was asked to call this number, favor to my boyfriend… What does he have me doing now? Who are you?"
"My name is Evie... Is your boyfriend, 'The Author' or something?"
"I think 'creative writer' is about as generous as I can get on that front," she said. "I got this email like a week or two ago about calling this number. Then he disappeared… I probably should have filed a missing person report by now, but I gotta be honest, I'm really enjoying all the quiet."
"Yeah, well I can sympathize with that," Evie sighed, reaching forward and coming upon a piece of paper just in front of her, promoting "Fazbear's Fright! The Horror Attraction!" "Oh son of a… Have I been dragged into a damn sequel to those stupid stories my dad was in years ago?"
"Aw shit, is that what we're doing? That thing Michael won't shut the hell up about? How did I get dragged into this… Look, he had some vague instructions I'm supposed to give you… You see… qPad? No. I'm not saying that out loud. You see a tablet in front of you?"
"Yeah," Evie said, reaching next to where she had picked up the promotional poster, tapping around on the various icons on the screen. "Oh goody, we're doing this stupid camera thing again."
"Yeah, but there was something else… Is there a secondary tablet to your left? Or maybe it's your right. I'm sorry, his notes are pretty terribly written."
"Got it," Evie said, grabbing the second pad and reviewing the information on the cameras and audio and ventilation. "What is all this? My dad didn't deal with anything nearly this overcomplicated."
"At least you didn't have to try and explain it," Meredith replied. "Geeze… Okay, don't let any of those things short out… You've still got some of that crap in your body, if you're not breathing right it's gonna start messing with your vision."
"Well, can't have any of that," Evie said, leaning back in the wheelie chair. "I don't need this… I didn't go to shrink school to do crap like this."
"At least you could get in. Student loans are kicking my ass. I'd give anything to be practicing psychology."
"Well hey, we've got school and we're both sick of your boyfriend's crap." Evie said with a little smile.
"Yeah… Again, probably should have told someone he disappeared, but I'm getting some of the best sleep of my life. Listen, Evie, I don't have unlimited minutes on my phone, can I call you back, make sure everything's okay in an hour or so?"
"Sounds pretty good. If your boyfriend shows up, let him know I've got some strong words picked out for him and… Holy crap! What is that thing?"
Evie's eyes remained trapped on a single horrible eye, peeking around the corner and staring right at the camera. "Oh yeah, I think Michael left a note about that too… 'By the way, I kinda retconned the ending of Animatronic Boogaloo.' I don't actually know what that means, but I've got a feeling you do."
"Perfect," Evie said, exacerbated. "Just perf- Wait a second, is that an emergency exit?! Holy crap, thank you for talking to me, but it looks like I'm out!"
"Wait wait wait, the note says-"
Meredith wasn't able to talk down Evie before she made a mad dash for the exit door. Upon opening the door, she was met with a wall of nothing but bricks. With a baffled stare Evie made a few punches and kicks at the brick wall before bitterly returning to the office.
"Yeah… Note said the exit door was bricked shut. And there was still too much of that stuff running through your body, keeping your 'powers' in check. I'm gonna trust you know what that means."
"Yeah. Thanks for talking to me. Hope I hear from you soon."
"Good luck, I'll call you back later. Oh yeah, Michael's note said you gotta make it til six. Talk to you around two."
"Thanks," Evie said, looking back at the camera to find the terrible creature with the eye had disappeared around the corner. "I might just need it."