so

have you guys read CGHA, go do so please, i love these kiddos to death, but to be fair, warning, because, y'know, someone dies

Enjoy!

"Wow, you're brother is kind of a baby, isn't he?"

You're tired.

Maybe that's one way of putting it, or maybe it's because it's something you've never really noticed before, but it's true. Your back hurts from your god-awful posture, and your eyes feel wrung dry with how much they've been put through. The carpet reeks of month-old premade pizza and sweat, and you're clutching the table in your tiny little hands, looking up at your brother and his friends.

"Isn't he?" Gabe replies, cocking a hip and repressing a laugh. "He does this all the time, hiding under tables and behind the clerks. He even locked himself in the old supply room."

That was you, you think, and hold the leg of the table tighter, hardening your look into a glare. You'd been quietly walking around the brunt of the restaurant, pointedly ignoring the animatronics, when someone suddenly shoved you and then you were in the supply room, with decapitated bear heads and bare metal skeletons. You'd cried, pleaded, and begged for what seemed like an hour, but he only let you out when he heard someone coming.

That had been a long day.

"It's pathetic," says one.

"It's hilarious," Gabe corrects, and his friends burst out in boisterous, mocking, bombastic laughter. You can't help the little pricks of pain in the corner of your eyes as you start crying again—by this point in time it's almost automatic. Someone says something that tugs harshly at one of your heartstrings and your eyes just seem to reply in tandem, and before you know it, you're hiding under a table or clutching one of the workers or talking to Goldie, your overstuffed, over loved, favorite teddy bear.

And look where that's gotten you now.

Sometimes you wished you could disappear. Not like, actually, physically, die, but if someone handed you a drink and said you would've never have existed if you drank it, you would've downed the whole thing in one gulp before they had the chance to finish.

But on the other hand, it's the middle of the day. There's cake and food and kids everywhere. It's your birthday, the one day of the year where you have more than the right to be happy, to be open with your small gaggle of friends and not worry about things for once, and yet here you are, sulking behind a table because you can't stand up to your stupid brother and his stupid friends with stupid masks on their stupid faces.

"What's wrong, bro?" Gabe asks condescendingly, sinking to one knee as he pretends to give a sliver of a fraction of an inch of a care while his friends giggle alongside him. "Are you gonna cry?"

He roughly wipes the back of his hand across your cheek, and you shiver at the contact. One, because it's so unexpected, two, because the way he's rubbing your cheek causes it to sting, and three, having his obscene Foxy mask all the more closer to your face sends your body into overdrive. Your heart skips a beat and your breath pulls in harder, quicker, faster.

You almost slap his hand away, but don't when you realize you don't have the energy. You just want this to be over. You just want to go home. It's awful having to live with him, but having to face him and a bunch of other bigger, stronger kids is worse than any punishment he could dish out alone. You're sure he's tired of it too, after all, you're just sitting next to a table leg with nothing remotely interesting to do.

It never hurts to try, right?

"S-stop it," you plead quietly, looking your brother in the eyes. "Please, please stop."

It's amazing how quick the laughter stops.

Maybe it's the inflections in your voice, or maybe it's the way you're holding yourself up—a nine-year old kid hugging a table leg while being harassed by their brother and his friends—or maybe it's the way your voice sounds; it wavers and it shrinks and just sounds so painful, insignificant, small.

Either way, it seems to tick him off; he sets his jaw in the way you know means that he's angry, and he pulls back to his full height. You see his fist twitch and you swear his friends are closer now than they were before.

"Change of plans, guys," Gabe says suddenly. You glance up at him fearfully, but with the angle of his head you can barely see his eyes. "Why don't we give the little guy a lift? I'm sure there's someone he'd just love to see."

Almost immediately, you're filled to the brim with fear. You're crying harder and trembling, like a crumbling leaf on a windy afternoon. You're not ready for the hand that first reaches out for you, nor are you ready for more of them that lift you up.

And in the midst of your fear, you feel something different. It's raw and hot and completely out of your comfort zone, but—

You feel angry.

And maybe you have more than the right to be.

"N-no—No!" you hiss, and start to wrangle your way out of their grip. You fall gracelessly to the floor and scuttle a little ways away from them, breathing harshly and clenching your fists.

They look baffled, and more than a little ticked off. You're more than okay with that.

"I-I'm n-not going. I s-said stop. I said please," you insist, then, in a voice smaller than you'd like, you mumble, "And...besides...I don't wanna go over there, anyway."

A couple of moments pass before the uproarious laughter returns, this time with a vengeance. Two of kids yank you by your arms while your brother trails along in pursuit, unable to quell his laughter.

"'I said stop,'" he mimics. "'I said please.' Get over yourself. Everyone else is having fun, would it kill you to loosen up?"

Your protests come back fierce as they start walking you closer and closer to the stage, to the point where you're pushing, shouting, kicking—but to no avail. Eventually you're at the stage, looking up at the old bear himself—Fredbear.

"C'mon guys! I think the little man wants to give Fredbear a biiiig kiss!"

"Yeah," adds one. "I mean, he said please, right?"

"No!" you plead, trying to pry their hands off you. It doesn't do much of anything, and you're left trapped. "Stop it, stop it! Please!"

"You heard 'em!" Gabe calls, and you feel him grab your shoulders. "Ready? On three! One..."

"No! Gaberiel please, please put me down—"

"Two..."

"—I promise I won't tell anyone, not even dad, just—"

"Three!"

"—let me go!"

Everything kind of happens all at once at this point. Your protests are ignored as you're violently shoved into Fredbear's mouth, and you shriek loudly—this is worse than being locked in the storage room, or kept in your room, or getting jumped in the middle of the house. From inside you can see all the little whirring, rusty, terrifyingly sharp pieces that help make Fredbear move, and the open space in his mouth only amplifies it, making the laughing louder, the mechanical groaning sharper, the sudden realization of your mortality so heart-stoppingly clear.

You start to wiggle because you're past the point of being fearful; your entire body is shaking, and your tears spill from your eyes like a hydrant. The entire space is cramped and you shimmy your legs in order to get more leverage, when suddenly you swear that the little pieces on either side of you get closer. A lone tear rolls down your cheek and into the machinery, and then something starts to click, one, two, three times, and then—

You feel the crunch before you hear it.

Fredbear's mouth seizes and then clenches, quick, unyielding, and loud. Your legs stop flailing, your entire body sags, and there's a wet squelch as blood starts to pour from Fredbear's mouth.

Then comes screaming, yelling, crying; little kids coming to see the commotion and then breaking down into tears and horrified screams, terrified parents calling for an ambulance, and in the middle of it all is your brother, his friends, and you.

The last thing you hear is the echoing of Fredbear's laughter; deep, gruff, and then gone.

You're—

—dead.

so, uh, yea, re-watching the fnaf cutscenes really makes you think about what was going through the characters minds. maaaybe i made gabe too much of a dick here, i don't really know.