Chapter 9: Growing Up Without You
There were police officers at the door. Damien listened carefully from the stairwell as his parents let them in.
"I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. De Vil, but it's been several months, and we have no leads. Unfortunately, the case has run cold and we are unable to continue the search for your daughter."
Damien's ears started ringing, and he curled up on the stairs, unable to listen closely but also unwilling to block out the officers. He let tears streak his face. He'd been doing a lot of crying since Ming went missing. He had never managed to be so close to anybody else, and hadn't made any close friends at school. Sure, everybody was nice enough. Harmony Rose was a small town, and everybody had heard of Ming's disappearance. Nobody judged him when he cried in class, and everybody let him be.
Sure, he wanted space, but more than that, he needed a shoulder to lean on. Somebody like Ming.
He started sobbing, not caring that both his parents and the police could probably hear him. The police would understand, and his parents did too.
Arianna and Lucifer De Vil both heard the sobs from the stairwell, and looked to see Damien through the safety rail, curled up with his head on his knees. This was a common occurrence now, but the news from the officers didn't make anything easier. They, too, were heart-broken.
Months slowly turned into years, and the families continued to suffer their grief. Their parents, Tweet's grandparents, their siblings, cousins, and friends. Slowly, each one let go of the tragedy and the mystery, allowing the children's memories to rest in peace.
That is, everybody but one.
Damien grew to be a troubled young man. He was now 18, and had been unable to keep a job longer than a few months, and his parents were getting increasingly worried about him.
It felt pointless to try anymore. Ever since he had lost his sister, everything else had lost meaning. He had never been happy since. Every birthday, every holiday that brought joy, every special occasion, it was overshadowed by her absence. Every birthday and Christmas he wished for the same thing. He wished for Ming back, or for a friend, for somebody to understand him like she did, somebody to be his second half again.
His parents had tried everything. The Christmas after she had disappeared, they had gotten Damien a puppy, hoping that he would be able to latch onto the dog and it would help him heal. At first, that had worked. Damien had named the golden retriever after Ming, and it almost felt like she was there. Until his next birthday, when his mother had let the dog out to do her nightly business before bed. Some drunk teenagers saw the dog and had jumped the curb just to run her over with their pickup. Damien was devastated when he learned of this. The entire incident served only to worsen his depression.
When Damien turned sixteen and got his driver's license, his father helped him buy his own car. Every year they gave him the best thing they could think of. To anybody who didn't know about Ming, Damien seemed like the luckiest kid in the world. His parents knew that no material object would replace his sister, but they did everything they could think of. Not even therapy and counselling seemed to help.
The worst thing to Damien, however, was the day he graduated. He felt increasingly more guilty as the day drew closer. His grades were just barely enough to keep him afloat, but he knew Ming's would have been in the eighties and nineties. She might have even graduated top of the class. She should have been there, too. The school hadn't forgotten her, of course, and just after Damien received his diploma, when it normally would have been her turn to walk the stage, the principal said a few words about her, acknowledging she would have been here too. At the end of the ceremony, they had a few minutes of silence for her, with her picture up on the stage.
Now Damien was bouncing from job to job, still living in his parent's house. He was doing his best, but nothing seemed to stick. Nothing seemed to work. It didn't even seem to matter anymore. Life didn't feel worth living without Ming.
That was when he saw the ad in the classifieds. It jumped out at him when he read the words "FAZBEAR'S FRIGHT."
As he read the ad, he became more intrigued with every word. They had built a horror attraction based around Freddy Fazbear's. Part of this made him angry. They were capitalizing on the disappearances, deaths, maybe even murders of his childhood friends and his own twin sister. However, they were looking for a security guard to work the night shift. Sure the pay was only minimum wage, and certainly wasn't enough for him to move out on his own and support himself, but it was a job. A job that involved some happy childhood memories. A job that, in a way, included Ming.
Damien practically sped through the rest of his breakfast, showered, brushed his teeth and combed his hair as fast as he could. He was getting that job. He needed that job.
Within the hour he was sitting in an interview with the owner of the company.
"Well, I'm going to call your references and talk to them, but otherwise, you sound pretty promising, kid. Of course, you were the only one to respond to our ad, but we'll see." The owner shook Damien's hand as he left.
Damien grinned, in high spirits as he drove home. For once, in a weird way, something felt right. He felt like he was in the right direction.
Damien woke up the next morning to his phone ringing.
"Hello?"
"Damien De Vil?"
"Yes, that's me."
"My name is William Afton. I'm representing the Fazbear Entertainment. Uh, congratulations. You're hired. I expect to talk to you Monday night at 12. Don't be late."
Damien grinned, elated. "Of course. Thank you, sir!"
"Thank you." And with that, Mr. Afton hung up.
Damien took a deep breath, and went downstairs to tell his parents the good news. This time, things would be different. He could feel it.