Guest: Thank you! I'm surprised you like it, and I'm glad you think it might do well. 3

Trying to focus on finishing my Little Nightmares story and working on this one is a little tricky, but luckily I'm close to ending Monochromatic Insomnia. After that, this story will get my undivided attention! Which is good too, considering I have a lot of ideas of where several specific points match up with the events of the games.

Anyways, enjoy!

The next few days passed and Mike hadn't gotten an ounce of sleep. Nevermind the fact that the chair he tried to sleep on was extremely uncomfortable, but it was like he had just contracted the worst case of insomnia to exist. He'd thought his brain would cause him to cycle through the actions of what happened at Fredbear's. Mike and his friends, all decked out behind the plastic masks of the Freddy Fazbear characters, tormenting a sobbing Evan. He'd hidden underneath a table, tears always recreating lines down his face. So much crusted salt. Despite Evan's pleas, Mike decided to save his best trick for last. Him and his friends dragged his little brother out from his protection and carried him over to the stage with the dancing animatronics. The child cried and cried, but never thrashed. But he should've. Especially when his head was placed in the mouth of Fredbear. Evan should've struggled. But what could a flimsy five-year-old do to a group of freshly baked teenagers? Nothing. It was the horrible truth.

Mike's memories would always end up with Evan's last attempt at a plea before something snapped within the jaw of Fredbear. It was so subtle and so quiet it almost didn't exist. Only an ear trained could notice its existence. Mike had heard the sounds of spring locks failing before, force thought to him by his dad. To get him ready to take over the family business. He didn't want to before, and now he definitely refused to.

Spring lock animatronics were always made with a special purpose; they were made to serve as the robot, or a costume. It was all in the simple matters of a sequence of mechanisms that would retract the spring locks, turning it into a wearable costume. Triggering the locks would fill in the suit and turn it into a full-fledged animatronic. A brilliant idea if the spring locks weren't always so sensitive.

One or more spring locks in Fredbear's jaw snapped. They broke. They gave out at the most unpredictable time. The upper half of the mouth fell right down onto Evan's head. Like a grape, his skull was crushed effortlessly. The juice was the blood that exploded all over everybody closest to the stage. Mike was one of those people.

He'd never dream about that though. Any sleep he did get was just him facing his brother, so small. Large blue eyes looked up at him, face dripping wet like a red waterfall. But Michael wasn't scared. He just felt empty. And the two would just look at one another silently. Naturally Mike would wake up without feeling like he slept at all.

The insomnia wasn't something he cared about. He was the only one who stayed at the hospital for hours and even nights. A few times some nurses would tell him it was closing time even though the hospital never really closed. It was just a way to get him to leave. But they couldn't really make him leave since he never created any sort of disturbance. When Mike was in the room, he just sat in that uncomfortable chair and watched his little brother sleep away in that endless coma. Eventually the nurses stopped trying to get him to leave and started trying to make him comfortable. Since they knew he wouldn't leave.

As far as anyone knew, Mike was the only one who cared about Evan. He slept in that chair when he got tired and never really left the room. But that wasn't true. Their mother cared, the pain hurting her too much for her to say for more than thirty minutes. Elizabeth would have cared too, if she were alive. Henry cared, and although he wasn't related by blood and had a relationship with Mike's father that was quickly souring, there was no negative change in the relationship he had with the rest of the Afton family. Dad hadn't visited. He probably wasn't planning to. Mike couldn't remember the last time he saw him outside of work.

Charlie would've cared too, Mike realized with a pang in his heart. She was three when she died. Hunting for her was a challenge as the night was too dark and the rain so heavy. It was just like someone plucked her out from the restaurant and threw her outside mercilessly. They only found her a few days after she was noted missing. Far in the back alley was one of Henry's creations, the Puppet, all soaked and dirty and very much deactivated. Close in the arms of the marionette robot was the body of a small girl fitting Charlie's description. Because it was Charlie. The green band she wore around her wrist was an undeniable sign.

Mike remembered something in Henry smothering out like a dying flame. One moment he saw him, holding the drenched cold body of his daughter in his hands, and then the next Henry had locked himself in his workshop for months. Mike didn't see him next until several days before Elizabeth's fourth birthday. It wasn't a very happy day for any of them.

A muffled sound made Mike shoot up from his chair. Deep bags were already forming underneath his eyes. He could take a nap for another hour or so if he really wanted to. But a few fingers twitched on the hand laying over the white hospital bed. He didn't resist.

Michael moved closer to the bed. He looked at the bandaged face, the thin frame of a pale child. His mouth went dry.

"...Evan?" The short sporadic twitching of the fingers continued and only stopped when Mike took his little brother's hand in his own.

Evan was so pale. So thin. His skin matched the shade of his blankets. It was hard to tell if he was breathing. Mike hoped he was.

Slowly he placed Evan's hand back down. He moved away from the bed and sat back down on that chair. The fabric indented around his calves, promising a wave of comfort that could never be promised. He wanted that comfort sometimes. He especially wanted it now. During all of those times in which he wished he were an only child again was so selfish of Mike. Partly he thought this was the universe's sick way of making that most childish wish come true.

Not anymore. He didn't wish that anymore. If he could take back the wish, he could. Mike would grab the wish, choke it, and shove it back at Death's face with a look of hatred and spite.

Even if he were to do that, he was too tired currently. Mike needed a nap. He really didn't care and really didn't have much of a preference either. And sleep eventually did come for him, swallowing him whole in an endless tide of darkness. Instinctively, Mike narrowed his eyes and looked around, as if narrowing his eyes would make his vision sharper.

It didn't. But he did spy another pair of eyes looking at him. Blue and so big with streaks of dry tears around the edges.

The first time Mike had this dream of sorts, he screamed suddenly in surprise. No matter if Evan was already there waiting for him, Mike didn't hear anything that said someone was watching him as he played the confused tourist.

Evan just looked at him. He blinked occasionally, gaze sometimes looking at Michael in different sections. Hands one minute, then Mike's neck. Perhaps one of his sides and quickly to his feet later. If Evan was searching for something, he didn't know what. Mike hadn't actually spoken to him in the dream before.

He'll try this time. "Hi Ev."

Evan's blue eyes moved up and he looked at his brother directly at his own. A few drops of blood fell and came in contact with the floor from the child's scarlet waterfall of a face. Mike couldn't tell where the blood began or where it ended. He didn't really want to know.

"I missed you Mikey," came a soft whisper, eyes dropping to the floor. A miserable smile came across Evan's face. Tears then formed. "Why didn't you talk to me before?"

"Because I thought you were a figment of my imagination," Mike muttered. "Because you're dying and this is a dream."

"I'm dying?" Evan asked, sounding so confused.

Mike's breath changed, wincing at the sound of his brother's lack of awareness. He hadn't known what happened when Fredbear crushed him. How could Evan had known that?

"People think you are."

"Why?" the child chimed. "What happened?"

The wince of a breath turned into a slow inhale. The inhale was so painful, like someone had taken away Mike's oxygen and it was the first one he'd had in a long time. But the words were more painful, sitting so vividly in Mike's head. He knew how to answer the question. But he couldn't.

Instead he said, "I killed you."

Evan's large eyes somehow grew larger. Those days of never sleeping shined true with his look of shock. Pale skin, an unhealthy grey tinge. Dark lines curling his eyes, racoon-like. If Evan were in the waking world, Mom would enforce him to sleep. Because he looked that sickly.

"You killed me?" Mike looked away immediately. "I don't understand..."

"I know Ev. And I'm sorry."

Evan didn't say accept the apology, a passive smile crawling up on his face. For reasons Mike could not explain, a foreboding shiver traveled through his spine, up his neck. He couldn't even focus on what happened next. Except the words that came out of Evan's mouth. The words that carried a voice that was not the boy's.

"Find them."

Then Mike woke suddenly. He inhaled a sharp breath, every one of his senses adjusting to the real world. When he fell asleep prior, he was sitting in that uncomfortable chair. Now Mike found himself looming over Evan's comatose form, a hand placed so gently on the front of that bandaged head. The confusion of finding himself away from where he slumbered caused Mike to withdraw his hand. He stumbled a few steps away from the bed.

Those two words coming from the strange voice echoed in Mike's head. The sentence ricocheting against the walls of his skull. He couldn't forget them. They had tattooed themselves into his brain.

Find them. Find who? And never mind the "finding" part for a moment- who was "them"? Was it one person, left ambiguous of identity, or multiple persons. People. In that case, how many people? How old? Mike's temple pulse at the possible formation of a headache. The questions were too much right now.

He decided to go and take a shower.

Mike ventured from the bed and towards the door of the room. Gripping the cold handle in his sweaty hands, he looked over his shoulder at Evan.

"Don't die," he called out. The heart monitor beeped, almost like it was saying "I'll try not to."

The path to the showers wasn't too far. Sometimes employees of the hospital stayed overnight for the needs of specific patients, so a small section of the building had showers. The place was quite large. It gave Mike unpleasant memories on the sizes of the restaurants. Many unnecessarily large. Seemingly hundreds of empty rooms.

Outside the room, Michael stopped dead on his tracks after he closed the door behind him. Before him stood Henry, who was adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. He hadn't seen the older man since the first day at the hospital. Mike was told Fredbear's was closing, which sounded like a fantastic thing regarding the future safety of guests and staff. But it would actually hurt the company. And leave the mystery of dead children still a mystery.

Henry didn't greet him. The older man instead cleared his throat, pressing the tips of his fingers together. "How is he?"

Mike looked briefly at the door. "Fine, I guess. Still unresponsive, but he hasn't flatlined yet." Was that a good thing? Should he say that was a good thing?

"That's good! G-Good news that he's still... Alive." Henry lowered his arms quickly. He looked at Mike with a look suddenly so serious. "Your father is going to try and put you into court for attempt of 2nd degree murder."

Mike's jaw tensed. "That bloody-" He didn't finish his sentence. That usually faint accent of his came out so strong just with those words. Mike hadn't talked very much in the past few days. He also usually kept his accent hidden. A lot of kids found that foreign side of him weird. So the familiarity of his voice made Mike confused.

It didn't seem to bother Henry. "He might win," he said.

"Brilliant!" The accent was thick with sarcasm now. Mike ignored it. "He's going to throw his own son behind bars just because he doesn't want to own up to the stuff he's done!"

The look on Henry's face changed. A small smile, subtle but visible. It looked sly, an expression Mike had never seen Henry wear before. He was taken back slightly.

"Michael. If he's going to put you into court, you have to become the witness."

"What do you mean?" Mike asked.

"He's going to pull the card of your little brother," Henry explained. Evan! "But you need to be smarter."

Find them. "Are you asking me to watch him kill a child?"

"No. I'm asking you to find their bodies."

Find them.