"Can you hear me?"
"I don't know if you can hear me."
"...I'm sorry."
"You're broken."
"We are still your friends."
"Do you still believe that?"
"I'm still here."
"I will put you back together."
...
Those last words softly wound through Chris' mind. He was vaguely aware that someone was clutching his hand, their fingers tough and calloused, yet gentle. He couldn't move, though...he couldn't do anything to make his own hand grab back with that same firmness. At this point, his consciousness existed only within his own head, like he was trapped in an empty shell with no way to control it. The feeling was draining though, and he was becoming more and more numb.
Chris knew he was dying. He had known that for hours now. Yet, oddly enough...it made him calm. His living nightmare could finally come to an end. No more phantoms and shadows to haunt every dark corner of his mind, no threat to cause him to be in a constant state of tenseness and overwhelming fear. Nothing left to leave him a crying mess locked in dark closets surrounded by frozen machines all focusing their terrible eyes at him.
He hated it, that ever-going sense of dread. His monsters were everywhere, no matter how many times he went running, tear-ridden to his parents' room for security and comfort. His mother and father always offered it, but that safety only lasted as long as he was with them, then vanish as soon as their presence left.
Chris hated living like that. He was broken. Battered, like a forgotten toy who's owner had long since abandoned it. He couldn't remember the last time he was truly happy. He couldn't remember anything but the last months that had treated him so horribly. His life was only mind-breaking fear and anguish.
...
Where was he again?
The...the hospital. Yes, that was right. The hospital. It was so strange...he couldn't see or move. He couldn't even open his eyelids. But he could hear things. Adults that hurriedly spoke commands to one another, the sound of mechanical beeping, his mother's cries...
He could feel too. He felt his clothes being replaced with a rougher fabric, baggy and airy. He could feel pricks of needles and a building pressure in his head. A paper band was wound around his wrist and a cup with tubes was placed uncomfortably over his nose and mouth. Gloved hands touched his chest and face, each doing something different.
He felt the brief times a different set of hands grabbed his. One was soft and gentle-his mother's, surely. The other was rougher and larger and would grip him like if he let go, he'd lose him forever.
Dad.
Chris could remember in unwanted vividness what led him to all this. He'd begged for Michael to just let him go, that he didn't want to go to the stage. He couldn't see from the tears running furiously, making his vision swim. The hands gripping his arms were strong and firm, holding him tightly as to not let him free as he squirmed and twisted. There was nothing he could do.
He had cried aloud in panicked anguish, trying desperately to get his father's attention. The music around them was too loud, and in his state, he couldn't muster coherent words anyway. It all just came out in strangled yells and screams as they brought him nearer to the monster on stage.
They had paused in front of it, letting Chris get full view of the golden bear towering above him. He thought it would end there, that Michael and his friends had had their moment of fun. But he was wrong. So horribly wrong.
He could feel his heart stop in utter terror as they lifted him up with ease, shoving him head-first into the robot's mouth. He screamed, adrenaline fueling his fear as his tears fell somehow more intensely, dripping through the mechanical parts of the bear's mouth. He pushed and pulled, squirming frantically, trying to get himself free as the jaws moved up and down around him.
They let go, letting him dangle, laughing at his horror. He planted his feet on the animatronics' chest in an effort to pull himself out, his tears flowing freely. He pushed harder. But then...
It all happened fast.
He had paused abruptly as a series of clicks echoed around the mouth simultaneously like firecrackers. Then, all at once, the jaw bore down with a sickening crunch. Chris felt something on his head break away with unimaginable pain. He lost all control of his body which fell limp as if there were no bones keeping everything together. He couldn't see.
At that point, all feeling was gone, which he was sure wasn't a good thing. Screams emitted all around him, but it sounded muffled, like he was trying to hear through a fishbowl. Eventually, the jaw released him and he fell helplessly for a second before large arms caught him. He couldn't tell who it was, but either way, he felt just a little safer.
Everything that happened from there was a blur.
Voices had woven in and out of his mind, though those last few sentences stuck with him. Whoever spoke-and it might have been more than one person-sounded sad, anguished at his tragedy. He didn't care so much. Not anymore.
...
It took Chris a minute to realize he could no longer hear the gentle beep of the monitor next to him. The hand upon his was gone. Either that or the remaining feeling there had left him. All was silent, and a white light had lightly begun to open above his consciousness-but then cut off promptly.
...
Chris suddenly felt very strange, like his being had become enveloped in cool water. The sudden feeling of falling racked him, making him panic as he was subjected to other unexpected sensations. Then, all at once, it came to a halt.
He shifted, the cool feel of metal surrounding him. He paused. He could feel again? Confusion seized him as he racked his mind for answers. He had been dying, hadn't he? What was happening?
He hadn't noticed it amidst his disorientation, but his vision had begun to return, now back in full capability. Chris squinted, trying to identify what he was looking at. The room he was in was dark, with rays of white light creeping out from cracks in a doorframe ahead of him. Metal shelves and tables were scattered everywhere, some with tools and mechanical parts atop them. It was then that Chris realized that he was seeing through the curved eye holes of an animatronic mask.
His limbs were slumped at his sides, unable to move. His legs were propped up, bent in front of him, balanced to stay standing. Through the gaps in the mask, Chris could see that awfully familiar fur, golden as ever.
"I'm in the robot," he said to himself. "I'm in the robot."
He sat there, bewildered. How did he get there? He looked down inside the suit, expecting to see his body, but only saw the inside of the bulky frame, locks lining the inside of the form against its walls. His physical body wasn't inside this thing. His consciousness was.
"I've gotta move," Chris said to himself, trying to lift the robot's arms. Nothing happened. "Move," he demanded, as if the command would be followed. "I want. To. MOVE!" He shouted to himself. Suddenly, every part of him tingled intensely and the sight of the closet vanished.
Chris blinked as he found himself out in the dining room that was mostly empty except for small groups of adults walking around the room, many of which he recognized from his father's staff. None of them seemed to noticed his presence. He looked around, realizing he was several feet from the ground, seemingly levitated.
One of the workers started his direction, looking right through him. Chris tried to reach out and call to her, but she didn't respond-no one did-as she continued walking his way. She startled the boy as she walked right through him.
Chris looked down at himself. All he could see was that dreadful Freddy suit, now his only body. Just as he made to move somewhere else, the view of the dining room disappeared and he found himself back in the closet, in the exact spot he had been just moments ago.
He was beyond confusion. This had to be a dream.
Chris looked up-though the mask didn't move-as the door in front of him opened, a man at its front. He walked to Chris and grasped his arm, moving it to the side as he set a cardboard box next to him where his hand had been. "See ya later, buddy," the man said solemnly, leaving with the door closed behind him.
Chris began to have an idea about what was happening now.