Author's Note:
We're back to the usual schedule of chapters out on Monday.
Chapter 118
Marionette
Timmy watched Ruby in silence. She hadn't said a word since waking up back in that hallway with Plushtrap. It was still weird to him, to see that Ruby viewed him as such a non-threat.
She really wasn't afraid of Michael.
Ruby won the mini-game and went back to the room in silence. Timmy didn't try and break it. He'd noticed the slight tremble to her hands and he understood it. She'd just watched one of her worst memories, on purpose.
It still stunned him. Her solution to resisting the temptation of that 'happy place' was to relive her worst memories. To destroy any hope she had of that place being real.
It was a cruel and painful solution. He would have never been able to do it.
Ruby sat on her bed and watched the clock, the pain of the experience somehow giving her an icy calm Timmy didn't understand.
Pain crippled him. And most people he'd seen suffer it. Ruby almost seemed to turn emotional pain into a strength.
How far could she push that though? At what point did the pain become too much for her?
When would she break under it?
He never wanted to find out the answer.
The alarm clock beeped and Timmy wondered what Nightmare would throw at the night guard tonight.
He froze when a distorted tune began playing and Ruby stumbled in her move to slip off the bed.
Timmy recognised that tune, even under the horrible distortion, and it looked like Ruby did too.
He still remembered with horrifying clarity how Nightmare had twisted his memories of the bots he loved. How he'd turned them into monsters. Puppet had never been among them, though. The first of the animatronics had always been someone Timmy associated strongly with safety.
He'd never seen the bot in this world.
How did Ruby view Marionette?
The answer was more horrifying than he'd ever thought possible and Timmy found himself frozen in place as he watched, invisible.
It was… It was… Did Ruby really view Mari like this? Is this how she saw him? Cruel and manipulative and…
That stupid twisted music just wouldn't stop!
"Are you having fun Ruby?"
The voice was closer to a hiss and the wide gaping smile with razor-sharp teeth was a horrible parody of Mari's face. All the color that Mari had in his painted make-up was replaced with a slick black that reminded Timmy of dead tissue.
His body was a strange, elongated and distorted version of Puppet's. It was like every aspect of him had been made worse. The "suit" was stretched tight over some structure that was mockingly close to what Puppet's endo looked like, but the legs were knobby and resembled black splintery wood.
But where the hell did the tentacles come from?!
"I think Hedy was right, I need to cut down on the horror movies," Ruby rasped with her too-young voice, trying to pull the tentacle wrapped around her throat free. "Or at least the Slender Man stuff-"
She was cut off as Nightmare Marionette (that wasn't Puppet, he wouldn't call it Puppet) lifted her off the floor by her neck.
It giggled and flexed its long long claws.
"You like your games, don't you Ruby?"
She squeezed her eyes shut as that face came closer. Timmy vaguely remembered her clown phobia. Did she still have it in this body?
The monster laughed softly.
"We've been having fun, little girl. But it's night four. About time to end the game, don't you think?"
For one terrifying moment, Timmy thought Ruby had given up, hanging by her neck like that. But then her arm snapped up and she clicked on the flashlight that she'd somehow kept a grip on. The light hit Nightmare Marionette full in the face and it shrieked, dropping her and vanishing back into the closet.
Ruby lay gasping for breath on her back for a moment. Tears leaked out the corners of her eyes as she gingerly felt her bruised and swollen throat.
"That's my new monster in the closet," she whispered to herself. "I preferred the foxes."
Timmy didn't know how she found the energy to push herself to her feet and get back to holding the monster at bay with her flashlight. Keeping the creepy tentacles retreating into the closet and through the doors, under the bed and into the crack in the ceiling that had just appeared.
He watched her, unable to do anything else. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. He knew this was taking a massive strain on her physical body. He kept a distant awareness of the real world. Her oxygen levels dropped a lot just now.
They probably had to intubate her.
She kept going though. Even though she was afraid. Even though she was hurting.
He envied her for that ability. She just never gave up and he didn't know how she did it.
It was so hard to look at that thing. The real Puppet would never hurt someone this age. He would probably try to kill himself before he did.
Ruby stumbled on her way to the closet, a few seconds too late.
Claws lashed out and stabbed into her, making her cry out.
They were both frozen for a moment, the child looking down at the claws embedded in her abdomen. Somehow, that determination Timmy was used to seeing in her eyes still didn't go out and she sluggishly lifted the flashlight. Nightmare Marionette shrieked again and retreated, ripping its claws away with flecks of blood and bits of solid matter. Timmy hoped it was just bits of fabric from her pajamas.
It drew a scream from Ruby and she swayed dangerously on her feet.
Timmy could hear distant alarms as the hospital machines went off.
If she hadn't won the minigame, he didn't think she'd stand much of a chance tonight. As it was, she still had forty minutes to go.
He idly wondered if watching was worse in a way as Ruby was thrown across the room when she was too slow to the door.
"It would be easier if you just stopped fighting Ruby."
The little girl forced herself back up and despite the clear pain and blood coating her, she gave Nightmare Marionette a defiant look.
Timmy didn't understand. Sometimes he wondered if Ruby even had a breaking point when it was just herself on the line. He'd seen her shatter a little bit when Hedy was hurt. But whenever it was just her life or safety on the line…
He hadn't seen her reach a limit yet.
He was scared of what would happen if she did reach one.
Nightmare Marionette raced towards her in a clear attempt to end this. Nightmare must be getting bored of the game then.
Before it could reach Ruby though, the clock hit six. There was a sound of pure frustration and then the monster disappeared.
Ruby stared ahead for a moment, panting with blood in her mouth, before she collapsed on the floor.
Between one blink and the next there was a hulking form over Ruby's still body. Timmy froze up with fear.
"Stubborn one isn't she?" razor sharp claws came dangerously close to her neck.
"You can't do anything between nights," Timmy blurted out, drawing Nightmare's attention to him.
"Hmmm. Those are my rules little boy."
Timmy was relieved when he backed away from Ruby though.
"You're like the building. You don't contradict yourself a lot," Timmy said. "You can't."
"She's still got to survive from that in reality," Nightmare pointed out, ignoring him. "That was a lot of blood lost." His eyes flicked to the pool of blood Ruby was resting in.
"She won't die," Timmy tried to sound strong but those red eyes still scared him. Just like that voice still haunted him.
"We'll see." Sharp teeth were revealed in a wide grin. "How long can she realistically hold on Timmy? How long did you?"
Timmy didn't have an answer to that, and Nightmare laughed.
Timmy materialised into chaos. The doctors were surrounding Ruby as they struggled to stabilise her. There was now a tube down her throat and her monitors were going crazy.
How long can she realistically hold on?
Timmy swallowed as Nightmare's question echoed in his mind. Despite everything, Ruby was just human with a flesh and blood body.
It seemed to take forever before things calmed down again. It was only then that Timmy noticed Hedy in the doorway, watching everything with horrified eyes. She didn't seem to sense him, like always.
Timmy closed his eyes, trying to block out the urgent chattering of doctors as they frantically tried to figure out what went wrong.
That was just night 4.
It would only get worse from here...