This chapter is significantly longer than the last couple ones.


Charlie secretly enjoyed killing William over and over again. She'd never let the others know. It had broken her heart to find out that they'd killed yet another night guard in their endless quest to end the man who had taken their lives. But that didn't stop the rush of pleasure she felt whenever she saw his blood pool out on the floor around him.

"The others are under my protection" she'd say to him. She had other things she liked to say, too- she'd try and scare him by telling him that the others were like animals. That was far from the truth, but it wasn't like he knew that. Heck, he didn't even know that his own kids were down here, or that he was being killed over and over again by the kids themselves, not just mindless recreations of the animatronics.

On occasion, she'd let him know that she was there- that they knew each other in life, and that she wasn't afraid of him.

She reentered the main room, feeling her animatronic form melt away until she was just Charlie. Evan didn't like it when they were in their animatronic forms… he complained that it was like they lost themselves when they were like that. Admittedly, she agreed with him. She felt like an entirely different person when she was The Puppet. She wasn't entirely sure if that bothered her or not…

She sighed as she sat down on the sofa, closing her eyes and leaning her head back.

"You seemed especially brutal today," said a voice from beside her. She stiffened up, her head shooting to the other end of the couch. For a second, she thought William had escaped and was resting on the couch. The voice was the exact same, not to mention the person she was looking at.

But then he smiled at her, and she calmed down, letting out an audible breath of relief.

"Mike… " she said. "Don't scare me like that!"

Mike just giggled.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean for that to happen."

Charlie shook her head in slight exasperation, letting out another sigh.

"It's alright," she said. "We gave you plenty of scares."

Mike's grin told her that there were no hard feelings. He held up his tablet, shaking it around a little bit.

"So… anything you wanna talk about?" he asked. Charlie shrugged.

"Not much to talk about," she said. "I went in there and did what I'm used to doing. That's all."

Mike hummed in understanding.

"You just… felt like bashing his head against the desk twenty times instead of your usual 'grab-the-head-and-twist-it-really-fast' approach, huh?" he asked. Charlie winced.

"That's… kinda brash," she said. Mike shrugged, turning off the tablet and tossing it to the side.

"I'm a brash person," he said. He turned back to Charlie and studied her for a moment. This made her sigh again. She didn't like that she was doing it that often.

"Fine. Yeah, I'm in a bit of a bad mood today," she admitted. "Everyone's been more down than usual, and I can't help but blame him."

Mike shrugged one shoulder, crossing his arms.

"No 'blame' needs to be given," he said. "It's his fault."

Charlie felt her hands clench into fists.

"It's not just 'his' fault," she grit out. Mike frowned in slight confusion.

"Well, true," he said. "It's also partly MY fault- I mean, I helped set the place on f- "

"It's not YOUR fault, either," Charlie snapped. Now, Mike was genuinely confused.

"...Cassidy's fault?"

Charlie growled and leaned back again, covering her face with her hands.

"Just… forget it," she said. "I should've known you wouldn't understand."

The two of them sat there in silence before Charlie felt a reassuring hand land on her shoulder. Shocked, she lowered her hands and turned to look at Mike. His face was sullen, his eyes a dim purple instead of the brilliant blue he had recovered when he found out he could change his appearance. Charlie vaguely remembered Fritz telling her that it had happened before. She frowned in slight thought. Why did that happen?

"...you blame yourself," Mike said. His voice was soft and gentle, full of understanding. He shook his head slightly. "I know you, Charlie, better than you think I do. You want to be able to protect them, but since they're dead and we're all stuck here, you feel like you failed them."

Charlie's eyes shifted back and forth between his, looking so deep into his eyes that she could get lost. How did he know that? How was he able to so accurately pick it out?

His other arm twitched as if he were going to move and thought better of it. Instead, Charlie felt him squeeze her shoulder a little bit.

"You're a tough girl," he told her. "And you've tried your hardest to protect everyone. They know this. Spoiler alert: they don't blame you for anything. They don't think it's your fault they're down here."

Charlie shook her head, a mirthful smile on her lips that didn't reach her eyes.

"I know they don't," she told him. "I'm not worried about that… and deep down, I know it's not my fault, but…"

"...you can't help but blame yourself."

Charlie nodded.

"This is one of those things that you can't help with, no matter how hard you try or what you tell the person. It just… won't work."

She watched Mike open his mouth to say something, saw him hesitate, then saw him close his mouth. Instead of saying whatever was on his mind, he just nodded and squeezed her shoulder again.

"I understand," he told her. He stared at the ground in thought for a moment before taking a deep breath and making eye contact with her. In the span of that look, Charlie managed to read what he wanted to say- he wanted to keep giving her reassurances, keep trying to convince her that it wasn't her fault, that she tried her best to protect them but that there are some things she just can't protect them from. He wanted to keep trying until she finally believed it, until she finally understood- but, per her request, he said nothing.

But she knew it was there.

And that improved her mood greatly.

"There might be some leftover cookies in the kitchen," Mike said instead. "Sue and I baked a couple extras in case anyone needed something sweet."

So, he wasn't entirely dropping the matter. But at least he wasn't talking about it, and she appreciated that. She nodded at him and they stood up, making their way to the kitchen. One thought nagged at the back of her mind, overruling her self-imposed guilt temporarily.

Why were his eyes changing to purple?