His oddly inquisitive fear astounded him.

Ryan stared at the half-open doors of the closet. He knew that if something truly was there, he'd have to go inside if the mischievous creature that had wandered in didn't come out for when the shuttered doors opened. Without a single light, Ryan wasn't able to see anything further than a couple of feet away, and checking the closet in search for a new threat wasn't precisely something he was willing to do.

He left the dead flashlight atop of the bed, and with a nervous gait, the boy decided to look what was there with him. He couldn't just let that thing inside, with him, in the darkness. He extended his arm to reach for the left door of the closet; he noticed how much his limb was trembling due to fear. He felt like blanching when his fingertips made contact with the door and slowly started to push it open with a low and steady creak. Ryan noticed he had to almost enter the closet if he wanted to actually see something, it was so gloomy inside that his sight couldn't even reach to see the silhouettes of the clothes.

He took a small step forth, the door opening until it hit the wall. The kid didn't expect it to stop so suddenly that he slightly winced with the thud it made. The closet seemed to be empty. There wasn't any kind of breathing, nor were there glowing eyes or gleaming teeth and claws, which fortunately meant that there wasn't any Nightmare animatronic awaiting Ryan's arrival. It did calm him down enough to gain a slim confidence to take another step further, but he pretty much wasn't going to move on from there.

His blue eyes checked every spot visible, no silhouettes or shadows were hiding in there. Ryan started to question if the giggle he heard was just a figment of his imagination, something the dream was doing to scare him since the Nightmares weren't roaming around and the horror had to always be present. His expression softened, he was about to turn around and stay in the bedroom waiting for Nightmare's appearance until a soft thump caught his attention, causing him to sharply look over his shoulder

He was sure about having caught a puny glimpse of something shiny disappearing just the moment he turned around to meet the darkness accumulated behind the doors. Ryan stood in place for some seconds. There was someone with him. Who? He'd love to know, without having to risk his pendant life that is. He finally took the courage to whirl around. No matter what, he'd have to find out who was watching him to then choose if to run or stay there. The likely choice was to run though, because whatever was right in front of him was presumably dangerous. The only not-so-deadly thing Ryan had seen was Plushtrap.

Talking about Plushtrap…

Ryan narrowed his eyes, searching for something undesirable through the shadows. The giggle was heard again, and right after it two glowing white eyes with black pupils opened in the middle of the closet. The scare was so fast, Ryan's eyes widened for a second and the next he found himself having jumped back away from the closet as a golden blur lunged at him with a high-pitched scream he recognized pretty well.

The now startled child shook his head to recover from the sudden affright and looked in front of him. He hadn't expected to see Plushtrap laughing sneeringly at him on the slightest. The puckish plush toy was guffawing at Ryan just the way his brother did, and it actually hurt him deeply when the memories surrounded him. It hurt him even more how it had scared him the exact same way his brother did as well.

Ryan could hear malice between those piping, squeaky chuckles. He just stared at it, he didn't even know what he was more confused and shocked at – Plushtrap laughing, or it having apparently changed the game into hide-and-seek. Plushtrap slumped as its giggles began to slowly cease. Its black pupils looked straightly at Ryan after it fully stopped laughing. It seemed to be looking for a sign of happiness on the boy's face since it was smiling more widely than usual and had expectant eyes planted on the kid in front of him. Ryan was everything but happy, and the plushie noticed when its usual grin seemed to disappear and fade to a frown as much as it could. It tilted its large head to the side, making a brief purr-like noise. Plushtrap thought Ryan would find the new game entertaining, but he surely did not.

The stuffed rabbit stood up limply as it kept its unnerving stare. Ryan could only find that thing creepier and creepier as their exchanged puzzled looks. The kid stood up as well, giving a step back to keep balance. "Y-yeah, that's not funny at all…" he said lowly, guessing that Plushtrap only wanted to take a smile out of his face and failed wildly at it. The toy made up a sad face as Ryan turned around and sat up on the edge of the bed, his head looking down at the blue carpet thoughtfully. Plushtrap tilted its head to the other side, it didn't fully understand what had it done so wrong. "I hate to be jumped at like that." Ryan clarified, getting the toy to look at him curiously. "Brings back bad memories…" He gave the flashlight a small glance. It was his one and only weapon and it was gone for who knows how long. "Why am I even telling you this… you probably don't understand."

What Ryan wasn't aware of was that Plushtrap did understand. It did understand that being scared like that wasn't his favorite thing. It didn't know why though, but Plushtrap wasn't a questioner and simply dealt with the clear facts. No more hide-and-seek, that was for sure. And while it found it disappointing since it was tired of playing the same game over and over again and wanted to find other ways of having fun, it didn't really want to harm Ryan's feelings anymore. Plushtrap crooned as it lumbered towards him, standing next to him. He didn't move his sight off the floor, even if he knew the plushie was to his side. The memories that little scare gave him weighed more than the responsibility of keeping the Nightmares away. Something so small was something so big for him. "Don't you come saying sorry now," Ryan told Plushtrap as he guessed the thing was apologizing as it could for having awakened his past. He knew it wasn't right at all to blame it on Plushtrap, what did it know? It wasn't like it knew everything.

Suddenly, its ears perked up as its eyes widened, round as plates. It looked around the bedroom alarmingly, and that was when it got Ryan to actually look at him. Something was wrong. Really wrong. The boy took a gander at the alarm clock. He felt like everything around him froze and he and the clock were the only things left. It was 4 AM. In other words, Nightmare's probably successful turn to kill Ryan.

Without the flashlight, there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop that monster of the shadows. When Ryan looked back at Plushtrap it had already dashed away, it was as afraid of Nightmare as the boy was, and it wasn't going to spend a second more in that bedroom that would soon became hell if Ryan didn't think of something soon. The dark animatronic's footsteps frantically panning from left to right indicated that he was already on the move. Ryan still had a chance - if by gigantic luck Nightmare didn't sneak in he had an opportunity to make it through the night, but if that thing got in… there'd be nothing left for the kid to do.

The heavy footsteps stopped at the right side, but unsurprisingly Nightmare changed route to the other side as Ryan was just about to close the door. He felt his heartbeat accelerate. The Nightmare animatronics were just puppies compared to the shadow-cloaked monster, and Nightmare Fredbear? Compared to Nightmare he was slow and easy to get rid of when it was clear he wasn't. Nightmare turned Ryan's world upside-down. What he thought was scary turned into something harmless. What he thought was exhausting transformed into a kid's play. It was just way too much for him to handle.

Ryan just left the door as Nightmare returned to his halt-and-stop race through the obscure halls. The kid was already dizzy of moving so fast, so many times, in so many directions repeatedly.

And then, there it was. The laughter. The laughter that screamed 'death'.