Lyssa collapsed to the ground as soon as she was far enough away from the building, the rocks and gravel digging into her knees through her jeans. A keening wail escaped her as she doubled over, burying her face in her hands.

All those times she'd cried watching the show, it was over someone leaving - not dying, never dying. Even Clara had managed to find a way to keep going with the Doctor's aid. And there'd always been the comfort of the fact that the Doctor always won in the end, someway, somehow.

This wasn't the show. They weren't actors, and her best friend had just been killed in a horrific way. She raised a shaky hand to swipe at her lip and winced, the action pulling at the cut on her lip. She pulled her hand away and flinched again at the sight of fresh, warm blood.

It was bad enough that she could still feel the chill of the blood landing on her hand from when Bria... She shook her head sharply, refusing to think about it even as a thought tugged sharply at her. She had a tenuous enough grip on sanity as it was.

Feeling a fresh flood of feelings well up inside her, she clutched her head in her hands as if to keep it all inside, before closing her eyes and screaming out her pain to a universe that wasn't listening. The empty lot echoed with her cries until she slumped over, beating a hand weakly against the ground, all of her energy seeming to have disappeared.

"Why? Why did you have to die?" she sobbed, ignoring the pain as her palm scraped against the ground. "It wasn't - It didn't - It's not fair!"

"Life's usually not, I find." The smooth voice made her freeze. Slowly raising her head, she sucked in a sharp breath as she saw Mor - the Master strolling towards her. The dark purple suit he wore had a few dark splotches here and there, as if a liquid had been spilled on it. "And anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool."

"What - what do you want?" she forced out tiredly, swiping at her eyes, unable to summon up the energy beyond a weak loathing. "Here to gloat? Kill me in some horrific way? Like you did my friends?"

"Oh, they're not your friends, Alyssa," he hummed, pulling a small jewelry box out of his pocket and playing with it, tossing it back and forth in his hands. "I could tell as soon as I saw you. You're too early. You don't even know who they really are to you yet. What he is. What she is." He chuckled lightly. "He doesn't even know who she is yet."

"I know enough to decide that I like her a lot more than I like you," she snapped bitterly.

"You say that like you expect it to hurt me," he mused, flipping the box idly in his hands. "But anyways, that's not what I'm here for. I can't kill you, not yet. Not until you're ready. No, I'm just here to give you this. I managed to snag it for you before it was recycled." He tossed the box onto the ground, where it rolled by her hands until it came to a stop.

She eyed it in confusion before turning back to him warily. "What is this?"

He shrugged, throwing his arms up in the air in a dramatic extension of the gesture. "I thought you might want it. As a reminder. Poetic justice, perhaps? Irony? Karma? The real exit's back through there, by the way," he informed her, jerking a thumb at the house of horrors she had just exited. "I just brought you out here so we could have a little chat, give you something to burn, the usual." He eyed her. "You are smart enough to know that Time Lord bodies can't be buried, right? Have to be burned."

She clenched her hands into fists, glaring up at him. "I'm aware. Now are you done? You've come out here to gloat, insult me, try and goad me into having a panic attack, try and force me to feel guilty about surviving your horrific stream of murders, and told me where the exit was. Anything else you'd like to add, Mister?"

"My name is the Master," he spat, glaring down at her. "And I suggest you use it correctly, before I force you to remember why I have that name."

She couldn't find it in herself to be frightened. "Or what? You'll kidnap me? Torture me? Murder my friends right in front of me? Oh, I know! You'll try and kill me again!" Her voice and expression fell flat. "Oh, no. Please. Don't. I'll do anything. Mister."

He scoffed. "As if I would kill you before your time. Where's the fun in that? No, I just wanted to play a little game with you. But the party's almost over now, and so is all the fun. All that's left to do is say goodbye." He chuckled darkly, mood switching in an instant. "Which will be a whole new kind of fun. I look forward to hearing you scream. Try not to get lost on your way back out. It'll only make it easier for them to find you."

He strolled a few feet away and rolled back his sleeve, revealing a vortex manipulator on his wrist. Prying it open, he pressed a few buttons before stopping and glancing back at her. "Oh, and Alyssa? I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but I would like to say that I've at least contributed to you gaining some semblance of brains before you die."

He rolled his eyes. "Use your brain, if you have one, and think about what happened in there. There's a few things that just don't make sense. Unless, of course, you're a madman like me." He laughed again before pressing another button and disappearing in a flash of light, leaving Lyssa alone once more.

She just sat there for a moment, blinking at the place he used to stand in confusion. "What? What's he trying to say?" she muttered, frowning at the ground. "I don't understand." She sniffed and wiped at her nose, certain she looked like a mess. She glanced down at her hand, covered in now-drying blood, and frowned. There it was again, something pounding on her brain, trying to get its point across. But her thoughts were too muddled, and she gave it up after a few minutes.

Running a hand through her now-tangled hair, her eyes caught sight of the jewelry box, still sitting on the ground where the Master had tossed it. Tentatively she reached a hand out for it and picked it up, half afraid that it would blow up when she touched it. Turning it over in her hands, she could see nothing off about it, and carefully cracked it open, turning her head away just in case something were to go off.

Nothing happened. She turned back to the box carefully, prying it open all the way and peering inside.

She gasped and dropped the box on the ground as if it had burned her.

The box landed with a thump, a gold ring falling out onto the ground and spinning around before falling over. His gold ring. The one that the Doctor, this Doctor, always wore. Back home, it was to honor his wife. Here, she didn't know what it meant.

But it still meant something to him, and the Master just stole it from him - his body. How he got it from the robots, she didn't know, wasn't sure she wanted to. Wasn't sure how in control she'd be if she kept thinking about it.

In fact, she was sure he meant for it to break her. He'd obviously done his research on how messed up she was, how to trigger her again. The robots that trap you inside, the blood landing on her hand - there it was again, that nagging thought - the terror of knowing you couldn't do anything to stop it. Maybe he was surprised that she'd lived and was still relatively sane, and hoped to use this to tip her over the edge.

Well, unfortunately for him, she was as stubborn as a mule, and perhaps too much in shock to be as traumatized as she was before. Or something. Because rather than break her, it just made her all the more determined to get out of here and find the TARDIS, and fix this. Because that was what the Doctor always did, and if the Doctor was out, then she would just have to find a way to do it for him.

But that meant going back into the house of horrors. From here, it looked nondescript. A large building, with a door, and a few windows here and there that reflected the outside back to her. Probably not real then. Just there to make it look normal. She glanced around, noting the lack of people - or anything, really, outside of the gravel parking lot that surrounded the building. There was a row of grass beyond that, but nothing else. It just seemed to - well, end, for lack of a better word.

She grimaced, putting her hand on the ground and using it to push herself up, clasping the ring tightly in her other hand. Taking a few deep breaths to steady herself, she swiped the tear stains from her face, uncaring of the blood that might be left there by her hand. All the emotions she had been feeling - pain, disbelief, they all were swallowed up by a fierce determination to get back through the house to the TARDIS and find a way to save the Doctor, whatever it took.

That, and a fierce desire to punch the Master in the jaw the next time she saw him.

She walked as slowly as she could, but still eventually ended up in front of the door. She gathered a handful of rocks and put them in her pocket, took one more deep breath then looked down at the ring in her hand, hoping that somehow it would encourage her. And it did, just not in the way she expected.

Because etched on the inside, in letters that were still warm to the touch, were three short words.

Face your fears.

She traced them with a trembling finger, her mouth falling open. There was only one man who could have done this, and he had to have done it recently. Which means -

"He's still alive!" she gasped, bringing her free hand to her mouth. He was alive. He had to be alive. She wouldn't accept any other possibility. If she thought about it, the Master wouldn't have just killed him like that, he would have gone for something showier, and more like a full on massacre. Only four people were affected by this - her, the Doctor, Bria, and Scott.

She glanced up at the building again, hope building in her. If the Doctor wasn't dead, then maybe the others weren't either. After all, hadn't he said he still needed Bria for something? Even if it was for something awful, she could still be alive - and if the Doctor rescued her once, he'd hopefully figure out a way to do it again.

Scott... she couldn't hold out much hope for him. The Master had said nothing about him, and while the animatronics likely hadn't killed him if they hadn't killed the others, it was entirely possible that the Master had still killed him.

She stilled. The animatronics. She'd almost forgotten about them. There'd been four of them at the start, on the stage, and one of them disappeared after every... disappearance. Which meant it was entirely possible that there was only one left. Which made things a whole lot easier.

She glanced down at her hands, seeing the ring in one, and the drying blood on the other. Her brow knit as she recalled the difference between how the blood from Bria had felt like ice on her hand, and the blood from her lip had felt warm. Warm, because it was fresh, and heated by her body. And unless Bria wasn't human - which she highly doubted, as the Doctor would have said something to that effect - her blood should have been the same temperature.

Which means it most likely wasn't her blood. If it was blood at all. And the thought that had been nagging the back of her consciousness at all erupted once more in full force, this time forcing its way through to the front. All the inconsistencies tumbled through her mind, one after the other.

Robots - robots that didn't even have much of an AI in the first place - suddenly gaining "sentience". Robots needing blood to "oil" themselves, especially when they didn't need it previously. Bria's blood being ice cold. Her blood coming from the beak of the animatronic, even though it was too far away from where her body would have been. The Doctor and Bria being "killed" when it wasn't the Master's style - both to kill off the Doctor without at least making him suffer first, and the sheer lack of attention drawn to it.

Unless he was watching them somehow. Which, given the animatronics, he probably was.

Feeling a sudden surge of anger and confidence in her, she glared up at the building as if it were the Master, and, muttering something under her breath, clutching the ring in her hand for dear life, she pushed open the door.

It fell open silently, the light from outside lighting up the darkened interior. A short distance down the hallway, she could see her flashlight on the floor, where it had fallen from her grieving hands. Taking one last look at the ring in her hand, she slipped it onto her thumb, where it seemed least likely to fall off, and closed her eyes before stepping back into the building.

Face your fears.

Almost instantly she was surrounded by the darkness of the building. The light from behind her did little to light her way, and she was sure that once she shut the door, it would be completely dark once more.

So she didn't. Propping the door open with a large rock, she made her way over to her flashlight, forcing herself to pick it up with trembling fingers. The Master had said something about the changes making them sensitive to light, so if she couldn't use it normally without fear of attracting their attention, maybe she could use it to drive them off, or something.

She vaguely recalled the direction they took when reaching the door, so she hoped she would be able to reverse it in her head. Or just figure it out on her own. Because, really, the main reason their trip through the building took almost seven hours was because they were going so slow and waiting outside each room to check for the animatronics. Which she was going to need to do. Wouldn't do anyone much good if she got caught now.

So, silently cursing the Master in her head, she started off down the hallway. It wasn't long before she came to the first door and slowed to a stop outside. She waited a minute and then, when there was no response, she took a small pebble from her pocket and tossed it down the hallway, pinning herself against the wall as it clattered and tumbled.

Still nothing.

Forcing herself to move forward, she scooted quickly past the open doorway and crept further down the hallway. The light from the exit was now completely gone, and only the odd greenish lighting from the building itself lit up her way.

There were only two more doorways before the hallway turned, and out of caution, she stopped before each one, listening carefully for any sort of sound before moving on. She didn't bother to throw a rock again, figuring that if it was going to attract attention, it would have already. Once she was at the end, she paused again, carefully peering around the edge of the wall for anything out of place in both directions. Seeing nothing, she slipped around the corner, her fingers tensing around her flashlight.

And a tiny measure of relief relaxed her shoulders ever so slightly. There was enough of the dim lighting that she would have been able to tell if there was anything along the walls, and there was nothing. Even better, there was only one door along this hallway, and the door, for once, was shut.

Admittedly, she didn't recall seeing any shut doors on the first journey, so she advanced with caution, stopping once more outside the door. It stayed shut, though, so she quickly moved past it and down the hallway, checking behind her for any sign of someone - something - coming up behind her ever now and again.

She managed to make it this way for another hour without ever once seeing a sign of anything, animatronic or human - well, human-like, at least. While they'd managed to do that before, she felt it was rather suspicious now. But, given the conspicuous lack of Time Lord - complete with genius-level intellect and sonic screwdriver - next to her, there wasn't much she could really do about it besides keep on going.

It was horrifying, nerve-wracking, and dredging up all sorts of unpleasant memories she'd tried to bury deep in her mind. It'd barely been a month, and yet here she was again, taking on more monsters of the same variety. Every time she thought about giving up though, about curling up in a ball and blocking out the world, she remembered the Doctor.

How there were so many times that he wanted to give in, so many monsters that he faced, that had taken so much away from him - Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, and yet he kept going. How every time, he'd find the strength to keep going, and he'd defeat them, proving himself the better man time and time again.

Face your fears.

So every time she wanted to hide away in hopes that everything would magically fix itself, instead she rubbed her fingers over the cool ring on her thumb, taking comfort from the small piece of metal. She'd have to remember to give it back to the Doctor when this was all over - but she would give it back, because she was going to find him. She had to. She refused to accept any possible alternative, and kept moving forward.

She turned down the next hallway and came to an abrupt stop. A set of double doors lay open to the main area, complete with the stage in it. The hallway beyond it had been blocked off by rubble, though where it came from, she didn't know. The building still seemed whole, but she could no longer reach the front of the building by this route. And she couldn't go back. It was very clear which way the Master wanted her to go.

So, steeling herself, she held her head high and strode into the room, an inkling of a plan beginning to form in her mind. A desperate, probably incredibly stupid plan, but the only one she had, and a plan nonetheless. She shuddered at the sight of the four animatronics on the stage, but kept going, practically waltzing right up to the stage, her flashlight held loosely in her grasp.

Three of them - the ones who'd already taken the others - didn't move, didn't even seem to be active anymore, staying frozen in their positions on the stage.

The fourth one turned to her, its blue eyes glowing brightly in its head, its unnatural smile seeming to shine with a malevolence all of its own as it waited for her to approach.

It seemed to be waiting for something, some sort of signal, as it did nothing besides stare as she approached. She glanced down at the ring on her thumb, knowing that this was it. She was either going to find out what was going on, or die trying. She could do this. She could. She would.

Face your fears.

Making her way to the front of the last remaining animatronic, she tilted her head back in defiance and glared at it. "You want me, you twisted psycho? Come and get me!"

The last thing she heard was an earsplitting screech before she felt something wrap around her, pinning her arms to her chest.

A/N: So, my computer just shut down right as I almost finished this, and I swear I almost had a heart attack, because I hadn't finished it yet. Thank goodness for automatic saves.

Apologies for the short chapter and late update, you'd think that a blizzard in the middle of April would give me the chance to be better about updating earlier, but I'm not. :P Sorry. I really did want to get this out much earlier, but things did not work out the way I had planned. On the bright side, though, this gives me the chance to work in everything else I've been trying to next week.

Special thanks to everyone who's favorited and followed, and shout-out to Eternal Chronicler, brmngirl, V, Alix Winchester, Fakira, and Guest for reviewing! (And congratulations to everyone who guessed that this was based off of Five Nights at Freddy's [Which I don't own] - and special congratulations to everyone who figured out which character I based the Master off of)

Eternal Chronicler: Lol, I've never played it either, but I've seen others play it, and it's definitely... intense. Haha, that was Lyssa's sentiments as well. Right now, she's got hope that they're alive, but... keep in mind, this is the farthest Lyssa's ever been. This might be the end of the road for them. (And great guess on which character the Master is!) Thanks for your review! I'm really sorry that this one is so short, but I needed to get it out there. :/ Hope you like it! :)

brmngirl: Thanks. :) That's what I was going for. And I figured I should at least make a nod to that childhood restaurant we've all been to, or heard about at some point or another. And no worries about not reviewing. As can clearly be seen, I struggle to update sometimes. :P I'm just glad you've been liking it. :D

V: hahahaha, it's so nice knowing that when I need a laugh, or something to motivate me to keep writing, I can just go to my reviews and look through yours, lol. Thanks! I always look forward to hearing from my reviewers, but there's something to be said for the unique quality of yours. :D Thanks for the awesome review (and nice job restraining yourself with the gloating, lol). Hope you liked it! :D

Alix Winchester: Hahaha, I'm sorry... I needed someone creepy enough to pull of the Master, and he immediately came to mind. And sorry... there's some hopeful thinking here, but there is still a very high chance that Bria and the Doctor are both dead - I am being 100% serious when I say that the Doctor and Bria are close to the end of the line, if not there already. :/ Revenge? Eh... not this chapter, but Lyssa concurs with you. :D Thanks for reviewing, and I hope you liked it! :)

Fakira: Yep. Got it in one. So, in reference to the Master/Missy thing, a few chapters ago I said that I would need the Master in this story, and so he could not be Missy. So I left it up to the readers whether they wanted me to drop Missy from the story completely, or still have her, but just have her be some other psychopath. Everyone seemed to want her, so she's still here. Hope that clears things up. And I'm sorry about the lack of conclusion in this chapter, but I simply did not have the chance to get it complete this chapter. At least the next chapter should clear things up, as to whether or not Bria and the Doctor are still alive. Thanks for reviewing, and I hope you liked it! :)

Guest: Thanks! As for why she can't take it off... first of all, congratulations on being one of the first people to comment on that. :D Second, well... at least part of the reason should be explained soon. Believe it or not, it's actually a key part of this story. :D Thanks for the review, and I hope you like it! :)

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! :) Stay safe in that weather out there.

General Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who (or Chuck-E-Cheese, or FNAF), just Lyssa.