Mike found the hidden trapdoor in his father's house while cleaning out his stuff.
He wasn't sure how to feel about the whole thing—finding out about his dad being a serial killer, confirmed by his death—but the sight of the hidden door brought a whole new set of anxieties. What had been kept in here? Was what was left of her in here? He didn't feel like he could enter safely until he'd mastered playing the song that kid had taught him.
The problem was, music had never been his thing, and he could never get it quite right. His attempts on the random children's recorder he bought sounded more like a third grader in music class than the haunting melody the kid had demonstrated. Maybe if he could get the kid himself to come along just so he could play the tune... but where was Mike gonna find the little weirdo?
Last time, he'd found the kid hanging around at the pizzeria. But, since then, the pizzeria had been shut down. Where else did kids hang out these days? It wasn't like he could lurk outside the local elementary school without seeming incredibly suspect, especially given who his father had been. And besides, some gut feeling told him that this kid was probably truant more often than not. So where else was there? He could hang out at the local playground, pretending to read a book on a park bench, hoping this kid would show. Aside from that, he didn't know what else to do. So he tried it.
It didn't work.
Weeks passed, and the kid never seemed to show up at the playground. Maybe that wasn't where kids hung out anymore? But there were plenty of other kids there. Just never that one. Never the weird blonde kid in the oversized green hoodie who always seemed to be followed by an aura of... something. Like the kid, considering how young he was, was just too worldly. Or, more accurately, otherworldly. In fact, the more Mike thought about it, the more surprised he was that the kid didn't just show up conveniently when he needed him. That actually seemed like something the kid would do. Just appear out of nowhere with his weird sweet potato flute, exactly as Mike was thinking about him, freaking him the hell out.
Eventually, Mike finally found the kid, at a sort of town festival. It was some event that the town threw together to celebrate fall, with apple cider and Halloween decorations, even though Halloween was still a few weeks away. But he didn't find the kid enjoying any of the events like the hayride or bobbing for apples or anything else.
He saw the kid crawling out from the dumpster.
"Hey, you!" he called out, prepared to chase the kid down if need be. But the kid just looked up at him with that piercing, blazing gaze of his, and gave him a faint wave of greeting.
"Mike, right?" the kid said, approaching. He had a half-eaten apple in his hand, although given his recent emergence from a dumpster, it wasn't clear if he had been the one eating the apple at first, or if it was someone else's. Either way, the kid chomped another bite out of it, and talked with his mouth full. "Ever find anything about your sister?"
"Actually..."
The kid gulped down his mouthful of apple. "Yeah?"
"I was cleaning out my father's house, after he died, you know, and I found a weird trapdoor hidden under a carpet. I haven't gone in yet, though. I was actually thinking..." Mike trailed off, not sure how to ask the kid for this favor. He didn't even know what this kid's name was, and he was about to be like, hey, kid, come explore this weird hidden trapdoor dungeon with me, a grown man who's related to a known serial killer. That'd go over well.
"Aw, your dad died?" the kid said. "I'm sorry for your loss. Losing parents is tough..." He dragged his boot through the dirt.
"Yeah, you killed him, remember?" Mike said, a bit more accusatory than he meant to. "I mean... I mean, you needed to."
"Oh, yeah." The kid shrugged. "I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not sorry I killed him. I'm sorry he was your dad." He adjusted the hood of his grubby green sweatshirt over his head. "So, you think your dad was hiding something in the trapdoor? Something about your sister?"
"Yeah. And I was actually looking for you to talk to you about it, but I didn't know where to find you."
"Yeah?"
"I... I know this is going to sound really weird, but I don't feel... I don't feel safe going down there. I feel like, if I'm going to risk seeing what kinds of horrible sh—stuff my dad kept hidden down there, I need to be able to play that song you taught me. But I just can't do it. I bought a recorder and everything, and I've practiced, but it just doesn't..."
"You want me to go with you," the kid said, like a statement rather than a question.
"I would never ask you to do something that dangerous," Mike said, all too quickly, even though that was exactly what he'd planned on asking.
"Oh, don't worry. Leave it to me." The kid didn't seem the least bit scared. "I could go by myself if you wanted."
"Really?" Mike almost jumped at this opportunity, to have the kid go in the trapdoor instead of him. But then he remembered what was probably down there, and shame washed over him. He couldn't send this poor innocent child into danger like that. It was bad enough to want the kid to come alongside him, but alone? Out of the question. "I mean, no. Not by yourself. It's dangerous to go alone."
The kid gave what would usually seem like a snort of amusement, but when he did it, it seemed eerily mirthless. "What, are you gonna give me a weapon before you send me down there?"
"Of course not." Mike shook his head. "You're a kid. How old are you anyway?"
"You mean now?" the kid asked.
"Of course I mean now. When else would I be asking about? I didn't say how old were you last year, or how old will you be three years from now. I asked how old you are, as in now."
But then it hit him. The possibility he hadn't even considered. A reason this kid was so goddamned weird. Why he came and went as he pleased, didn't seem afraid of anything, was capable of playing such haunting melodies on a simple kid's toy flute...
"You're... alive, right?"
"Alive? Would I be dead?" The kid scowled. "Just because I accidentally asked a stupid question doesn't mean you have to make fun of me about it."
"I'm not making fun. I'm..." Mike grasped for the right words. "You know there have been a lot of incidents around here. Kids getting killed and then haunting the pizzeria. The way you seem to not know your own age, it's like, are you a ghost too? And you were ten when you died, but it's been like five years since then? Or something like that."
"I'm e-lev-en," the kid said, in his typical sassy way. "And I do have some weird stuff going on, but I'm not a ghost."
"What weird stuff then?" Mike asked. Maybe now he'd get to find out what this kid's deal was.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Damn it.
"Try me."
"Maybe later," the kid said. "Maybe after we know what's hidden in that basement. But, yeah, I'll come with you. Just tell me when."
And that was how Mike ended up there, later that very day, standing in front of what looked to be an underground elevator door, with weirdo kid by his side.
"An elevator... do you think it still works?"
But the kid didn't even seem to be listening to him. He just pressed the button to call the elevator. And, sure enough, the door opened, and he stepped right in. Looked like it did work. Mike followed closely behind him, and they began to descend.
It was slow going, and the two of them were both looking around as they waited. There were lots of odd buttons and keypads around, that weren't labeled with any sort of clear purpose. And there were a few posters of animatronics hung up as well. Animatronics that looked much more high tech than any that Mike had seen before in all his years of working at Freddy's. One was a ballerina woman, and the other was a clown girl...
A clown girl.
He had vague memories of that one. His father had tested it out once, at some sort of kids' party, but then decided that he didn't like it, and packed it back up again somewhere, never to be used in a pizzeria. That was around the same time in his life as Elizabeth had disappeared in the first place. And now that he thought about it, those events had to be connected. How had he not thought about that before?
The elevator opened. The only thing in front of them was a small vent that Mike knew he'd barely be able to crawl through. It was blocked by strands of bright yellow caution tape. Well, there was nowhere else to go but forward, and it seemed a waste to turn back now. He went to peel the caution tape away from the vent, but the kid was several steps ahead of him, having sliced it all out of the way with his sword.
Wait. Sword?
Yeah, the kid had a little sword, just his size, that looked like a toy you'd buy your kid at a Renaissance faire, but it wasn't a toy. The blade looked sharp enough to be real, as the dim light from the elevator washed over it. Where'd the kid get this? He was about to ask, but the kid had already started crawling through the vent, forcing him to follow.
They came out the other side in a small room, once again full of buttons and keypads and the like, all with different functions that weren't labeled or anything. The room was also full of blank monitors, and odd animatronic parts that looked like they were about to be built into something else but were never finished. Like a red nosed clown mask with a party hat, hanging above the door. Or a clock, with the face being that of the clown girl animatronic. And, to the left and the right, there were windows that could be used to look into other rooms. But those rooms were too dark to see into.
And, once again, the only way to progress any further into this odd bunker were vents that needed to be crawled through.
Mike sighed. He didn't like the looks of any of this.
"Okay, kid. I know there's a lot of buttons in here, but don't get tempted to touch anything—" But the kid was gone again, already heading down the vent leading straight ahead, to a room that couldn't be seen. And then there was a robotic woman's voice.
"Motion trigger: Circus Gallery vent."
So things in here were still somehow active? Mike bit down on his lower lip as he followed the kid through the vent, not wanting to let him out of his sight, fearing what would happen to him if he did. The two of them emerged at the end, one after the other, into yet another odd control room full of buttons and keypads, with windows looking into a dark room where, once again, nothing could actually be seen.
The kid looked around silently.
"What do we even do in here?" Mike asked. "Where were they keeping the animatronics? There are animatronics down here, right? It's so dark, and yet that voice came on when we went into the vent, so some systems are still active, but..."
"You're scared," the kid said, matter-of-factly. "You've worked for Freddy's for how long, putting your life on the line night after night, and you're scared."
"I didn't say I was scared."
"Yeah, but you're rambling to yourself like scared people do to try to work through their feelings. I've been there. Used to do it all the time." The kid shrugged.
Mike just sighed. He hated that he was, in fact, scared, and this kid somehow wasn't.
Then, a voice came from somewhere. A woman's voice. Soft. A little bit seductive, enough that it felt uncomfortable, yet somehow sorrowful at the same time. Like she was trying to lure them in to help her, wherever she was.
"There are two of you in here," that voice said. "Both of you are people I've never seen before. And one of you is a child. What were you thinking, to bring a child into a place like this?"
"I..." Mike didn't know how to respond to that. "Are you the animatronic?"
"Yes. I am Circus Baby. I have been alone here for quite some time now. Before, a man used to come and go, appearing down here to work on things in this place. But he hasn't shown up lately, and I am starting to wonder if something has... happened to him." She paused for a moment, leaving an awkward silence. "I am quite disappointed. I was hoping that soon I would be finished, and I could be used to entertain children at their birthday parties. But if something has happened to the man that was working on me, I suppose I will remain unused."
Mike swallowed hard. He had never heard an animatronic nearly as self-aware as this one. Well, the puppet was pretty self-aware, but that was because she was the ghost of Charlie. Charlie had always been a smart kid. But Charlie had been killed by William and had hated him with every fiber of her being. This oddly self-aware animatronic seemed like she might have valued William's presence. So Mike didn't exactly want to let her know yet that William had been killed. She might not take too kindly to that. So it was better for them to keep it under wraps for now. Right?
"Oh, him? He's not alive anymore. He won't be coming back." The kid just blurted that out. Well, great. "But you don't have to worry about being trapped down here forever. That's why we came here. To find you and get you out."
"To get me out?" Circus Baby asked. The softly gloomy emotion in her voice never changed, never gave any hint to how she was actually feeling about anything. "Are you going to take me to a pizzeria?"
"No, but—"
"Then where will you take me?"
God damn it, kid. Why did he have to tell the truth to this animatronic? He was going to get the two of them killed. And now the kid himself was tongue tied. He didn't seem to know how to respond to this question, and even he seemed to be able to tell that "to the afterlife" was probably not going to be an acceptable answer.
"If you are going to get me out of here so that I can be used, I will go with you," Circus Baby said. "But I will need to meet you in a certain room first. Go to that room, and I will be there for you to rescue. I can give you instructions on how to get there. Please follow them."
"Got it," the kid said, nodding.
"Don't—" Mike almost warned the kid not to trust Circus Baby, but realized he couldn't just do that out loud without her hearing him. Wherever she was, probably in that dark room beyond the glass, she seemed like she could see them. So he had to keep this kid safe somehow, without letting Circus Baby know what he was trying to do. "Um. We don't know if she's exactly who we're looking for."
"Doesn't matter," the kid said, his voice soft. "I still have to save her." He then looked up toward the glass. "Where do we go?" he asked, loudly.
"Use the vent to return to the main room. Then use the vent on the right to go through the Funtime Auditorium. Once you are there, go forward, then to the right. Enter the door. I will be there, in that room. We will talk about where I am going to go."
"Okay. Got it." And the kid already started to crawl back through the vent to follow Circus Baby's instructions, leaving Mike once again having to follow. And, as he did, the odd voices in what was left of the system continued to make their announcements.
"Motion trigger: Circus Gallery vent."
"Motion trigger: Funtime Auditorium vent."
Then Circus Baby's voice appeared from nowhere again.
"When you enter the Funtime Auditorium, there will be another animatronic in there, Funtime Foxy. She is activated by light, so it is important to keep the room dark. Just head forward, then right, and you should be able to find the correct door, without disturbing him. Be careful."
Mike didn't comment on it, but he noticed that Circus Baby initially referred to Funtime Foxy as she, then switched to him. Was Funtime Foxy a boy or a girl? She couldn't even keep her own story straight. He looked to the kid, trying to read his face to see if he was noticing anything strange, but the kid's face was, as always, too stoic to be readable. His mouth was set in a line, his eyes giving that same determined look they always did. So the kid either didn't notice how suspicious this whole thing was, or he didn't care.
He emerged from the vent first, having taken the lead yet again, and Mike followed. The room they were in was much bigger than it seemed like anything this far below ground should be, though it was too dark to tell exactly how big. "Auditorium" was an oddly apt word for it. Mike took the kid's hand to keep them from getting separated, still worried for the tough little guy's safety. The two of them started heading toward the right, just as Circus Baby had instructed. In spite of all Mike's misgivings...
They reached a door.
"I'm going to go in and talk to her," the kid said. "You stay here."
"It's dangerous to go alone," Mike said, reiterating it even though it seemed pointless. "Are you sure you—"
"I'm smart enough to know a trap when I see one," the kid said.
"Don't say that." Mike felt himself shaking in spite of himself. Really, this kid was right. All the time he'd spent surviving the night at Freddy's should have toughened him up more. But maybe he was more afraid this time because it wasn't just his own life on the line, but an innocent kid's. "I don't know where she is, or what she can hear."
"I know," the kid said, shrugging. "But I don't care if she hears me. I'm going in anyway. I've handled way worse than this." He drew his sword and opened the door, preparing to enter the room where whatever the trap was lay in wait. Mike straight up grabbed him, knowing words wouldn't stop him. Desperate not to see him get torn apart in front of him. But the kid wriggled out of Mike's grasp and went in anyway.
This room had a single dim light on, leaving Mike to watch whatever horrors were about to unfold to this innocent kid. By that light, he could see there was an odd mechanical device in the middle of the room, and broken parts of animatronics on the floor all around it. There was a second part to the room, but it was blocked off by glass, and that part of the room was pitch dark.
"So you knew I intended this as a trap." Circus Baby's voice was heard, but she was still nowhere to be seen. "And yet, you still came. Are you here to offer yourself to me, as a gift? So that I can do what I was created to do?" Mike had a feeling she didn't mean entertain.
"I'm here to save you," the kid said. "From yourself, if I need to."
"Save me?" A slight note of confusion was noticeable in Circus Baby's otherwise monotone voice. "Do you think you can deactivate me? Have me taken apart? Have me cease to exist? Is that your idea of saving?"
There was movement barely visible on the other side of the glass. Mike strained to see it. A huge figure with the proportions of a toddler, but tall enough that it almost reached the ceiling. Was that her, lying in wait?
"I already know what it's like to be taken apart. Would you like to know what it's like?" Something came to life on the dark side of the glass. Buttons and keypads lit up, giving just enough light to see her by. Yes, it was her, the clown animatronic, and her hand was hovering over a large red button. "It only hurts for a moment. And you won't die." Her voice managed to sound sadistic now, even though it was otherwise still the same soft, sorrowful tone as before. "I will make you proud, daddy."
And she hit the button.
"HYAAAH!"
There was a scream of exertion, and a clang of metal on metal. Whatever the odd machine was in the center of the room had descended from its place on the ceiling, propelling a large scoop shaped claw toward the kid's head, obviously intended to slice it right open. But the kid had pulled out that sword again, and held it up to block the... scooper. He had managed to jam the sword in between its mechanical parts, twisting it at an angle that kept it from decapitating him. Once he deemed himself safe, he stopped to catch his breath.
"I know," he said. "He made you. He made you to pretend to be an entertainment thing, and then go haywire and kill kids. Is that it? And you want to make him proud. Even though he's using you. He gave you feelings, but all he wanted to do was use you like an object. I know how that feels." The kid retrieved his sword from the now broken, disjointed scooper. "I know how it feels to exist for a purpose, something that almost makes it feel like you have no free will. Something that makes you an object to help everyone else, so much that you don't even have a yourself."
He pulled out his sweet potato flute from his hoodie pocket.
"I don't know how I got here. I was just... looking for an old friend, and I got... lost, I guess. But I know another lost little kid with issues when I see one. Your name was Elizabeth, wasn't it? You were killed by that animatronic, and your soul went into it, and got so mashed up in there that you can't even tell anymore, where Circus Baby's program ends and Elizabeth's mind begins. That's what happens when evil power messes with lost little kids, isn't it? But you're lucky. Because I have a song for that."
And he began to play the same haunting melody he played before. For Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy. The old animatronics in the back room. The new animatronics on the stage. And for Charlie. And for... who even knew how many other lost souls?
With that, the clown girl animatronic began to break down. Her external shell fell off her endoskeleton body, pieces cracking as they hit the floor. Screws loosened, and metal parts clattered down. The only thing that remained intact was the outer shell of her face. Like a mask. It bounced on the floor as it landed, but didn't break.
The kid crawled through the opening in the glass to retrieve it. Then, he crawled back, and handed it to Mike.
"I don't think I should ever put this on, and you shouldn't either," he said. "It probably still has enough of your dad's programming in it that it'd get in your head and make you want to kill kids too. But I think you should keep it. Just because I guess it's all that's left of Elizabeth. Her sorrows, and pain, and loneliness, and need for approval. They're all stuck in there. That way, where the rest of her is, she can be happy." He sighed, a deep and heavy sigh, like something huge was weighing down on him.
Mike clutched the clown girl mask close to his heart. All that was left of Elizabeth... he wished he had something like that for Cassidy, too. Cassidy...
Seemed like everyone around here had endoskeletons in their closet, he thought, as he followed the kid through the rest of the underground bunker. The kid made sure to enter each auditorium, each gallery, each service room, just to play his song in them, for any animatronics or parts left behind. To make sure the whole place was cleansed of lost souls. Nothing left behind. Mike could appreciate that level of dedication.
Even though he wondered if, every time the kid helped someone, their sorrow was added onto his.
Both of them were silent until they got back in the elevator.
"Now that we're safe," Mike said, crossing his arms. "You told me you'd tell me what the weird stuff was."
"Weird stuff?"
"Yeah. When I asked you if you were a ghost, you said you weren't a ghost, but that there was some weird stuff going on with you."
"Oh, yeah. And I didn't think you'd believe me." The kid fidgeted where he stood. "I still don't, but whatever. I'm... not from this world. Like I told her, I'm not sure how I got here. But I'm here now, so I'm just kind of rolling with it. This town... it feels like it needs me."
"Where are your parents?" Mike asked.
"They died in the war. Back where I'm from. I never even met either of them. I only know what people told me about them." He shrugged. "Honestly, losing my, uh, foster dad hurt more than losing my real parents, because, like, you can't miss what you never had, right?"
"So you don't have parents. Where do you live?"
"Uh. Wherever?" The kid shrugged again.
"You're homeless?!" Mike's jaw dropped.
"You could call it that. I mean, why do you think I only ever wear this one stupid too big sweatshirt? I found it in a dumpster, and it kind of reminded me of what I used to wear, where I'm from. I eat out of the trash too. But I've eaten worse, really. Imagine you're trapped in a cave for a few days and the only thing in there that's even kind of edible is Do—uh, lizards?"
"Lizards?!" Mike shuddered. "That is it. You're living with me now. You're my new little brother." Sure, it was a snap decision, but this kid was homeless and just ten—no, eleven. But still...
"Are you gonna make me tell you what my name is?"
"You can use a fake one if it makes you more comfortable. I used fake names when I worked at Freddy's. Like Jeremy, or Fritz... I picked the names of the kids that died, to honor them I guess? And because I didn't want to be immediately connected with my father. You get it."
"Okay." The kid tapped on his chin in thought. "Are you gonna make me go to school? That's gonna be hard. I'll have to learn how to read in English."
"You can't read in English?!"
"Nope."
"Geez, kid. You're going to be one difficult new little brother." Mike shook his head. "But I'm not turning back now. You need me."
"And you need me," the kid said, that sassy tone of his back. "Something tells me we aren't done with this town's ghosts yet."
"Don't remind me." Mike sighed. "But we're going to be together from now on. You and me."
"'Cause it's dangerous to go alone?"
"Yeah. It's dangerous to go alone."