Chapter 3: Startled

Marlene liked mornings, she swore she did. She always felt more awake and motivated to get stuff done.

However, on days like today, Marlene found she didn't want to leave the confines of her bed. The slow feeling of waking up warm, cozy, and safe was a feeling unlike any other. Blinking lazily at the sunbeam that made its way through the cracks of the shade, Marlene knows she ought to get up. 'Five more minutes…' Marlene yawns before shifting onto her other side.

The door bursts open, the brightly colored robot skipping into her previously peaceful room.

"Goooo-d Morning, Sunshine~!" He greets loudly. Marlene jolts out of bed, trying to catch her breath and definitely not cursing out the robot in her mind. No… why would she do that…

"Morning, Sun…You seem to have a lot of energy this morning," Marlene grumbles, rubbing the crust from her eyes.

"Oh yes!" Sun replies, giving a twirl which makes the bells on his hands ring loudly. He then peers at Marlene's disgruntled face before tilting his head. "But you seem displeased. What's wrong?"

So he did notice.

"How much do you know about waking people up, Sun?"

Surely something, right? It was a little hard to imagine that in all the time that he worked at the daycare, he wouldn't have woken up one napping child.

"Not much. Why? Did I do it wrong?"

Marlene couldn't believe it. How had this been overlooked in his creation? Or had they just slapped a learning module in him and told him to watch and learn?

'This is Fazbear we're talking about… yeah I wouldn't be shocked if they put minimal effort in his design…' Marlene pinched her nose, trying to chase the leftover sleepiness away to give him a nice answer. Or perhaps something less grumpy at least.

"Humans generally don't like to be woken up by loud sounds and sudden movements. It puts us on edge."

Sun spins his head and Marlene thought she could hear the confused tones in his voice when he replied. "But don't humans use alarms to keep time? Why would adding motion be different?"

"Sometimes loud sounds alone scare us too." Marlene shrugs, stretching out her back. "We use them when we have to be up at a certain time. I think it's the fact that motion can mean danger."

"Danger? But you're safe at home."

"We should be." Marlene nods, shuffling over to her closet to pick out her clothes. "But we are vulnerable when we sleep. Think of it as a defense mechanism."

"Oh! I think I understand…" Sun replies, his face spinning back upright. "Then did I scare you?"

'Wasn't it obvious?' Marlene raises a brow, draping the clothes over an arm and closing the closet door. "Yeah."

The robot seems to fritz out a little and Marlene took that as a quiet understanding never to speak of this again. It was an accident by the sounds of it and Marlene could forgive him for that.

The peace didn't last long.

"Oh dear!" Sun exclaims and Marlene clutches the clothes that were slipping from her grasp. "This just won't do! I'm so sorry, Sunshine! Sorry…Sorry!"

He frets, hands outstretched towards her before freezing halfway. "Sorry. Sorry." Sun repeats albeit a little quieter and Marlene finds herself humanizing him again. Did he feel conflicted about how to make this right? Marlene froze up too when she made mistakes she didn't know how to fix.

"Hey," Marlene whispers, trying to soothe the robot's nerves, "it's alright. I'm not mad, so don't worry too much about it, okay?"

Sun bobs his head and Marlene smiles, giving him a gentle pat on the arm before passing him towards her bathroom. She plops her clothes on the counter before moving onto the kitchen, Sun walking in her shadow.

An absurdly tall, loud shadow.

As Sun trails behind her, he chatters about all the things they could do today. Coloring, hide and seek - all things she supposed he would have done with the children at the daycare.

'He didn't get much interaction with adults, did he?' Marlene nods as Sun talks, trying to show she was listening even as she was moving around the kitchen. She grabs an egg from the fridge and a piece of bread from the pantry and sets out to make scrambled eggs and toast. If she were honest, and Marlene liked to think of herself being a particularly honest person, she would much rather have a sunny-side-up egg but she always messed those up. They always broke on the flip!

And now, being pregnant and all, she didn't know if she could technically have those sorts of eggs. Could you get salmonella from them? Is that how it worked? Marlene realized she didn't outright know. Perhaps that'd be a question for the internet or her doctor before she visited a breakfast joint.

However, as the smell of eggs wafts into the room and Marlene's stomach churns, she decides she doesn't need to ask. Scowling, Marlene switches off the stovetop and harshly shoves the egg into the sink. She roughly flicks on the switches to the water and the garbage disposal.

A new food aversion… great.

The chattering slows and a shadow casts over her frying pan. Marlene frowns and glances up, wondering where the light went only to be met with Sun, who stares at her frying pan.

"What are you doing?"

"I was making breakfast," Marlene answered, frowning as she turned off the disposal and water. "Seems that eggs don't agree with me."

Turning around and walking pass Sun, Marlene goes to crack a window open. It was getting a little cold now that fall was creeping up but there was no way she was dealing with the egg smell longer than she had to.

"How unfortunate! It was quite delightful to watch though! I've never seen a human make food before. There's no way to do that in the daycare, after all."

"What about outside the daycare?"

"Oh, I never left."

Marlene's mouth drops though only for a moment. She rights herself straight away by flattening her mouth into a thin line. How could she respond to that? The mere idea sounded depressing but the robot himself seemed quite nonchalant about it.

Perhaps she was overthinking it.

So she responds with a quiet "Ah" before sliding her lightly browned toast onto a plate and spreading some peanut butter on it. Since the Sun robot seemed intent on watching her eat, Marlene struggles between inhaling her food to avoid his gaze and eating slowly for the sake of her pride.

She barely finished when Sun was already taking her plates and tossing them in the trash.

"Uh, Sun? What are you doing?"

"Taking care of the dirty dishes?" He titled his head, the confusion clear in his voice. "This is what we did at the daycare?"

Marlene pauses, wondering why the Pizzaplex would toss out perfectly good plates before speaking up again. "Were those plates plastic?"

"Yes."

"Sun, we only toss the plastic plates." Marlene digs out her dishes from the trash bin. "We put these kinds in the dishwasher. See?" She pulls the dishwasher door open and slides the dishes carefully in.

"Oops, how silly! Thanks for telling me, Sunshine!"

There was that nickname again. Was now a bad time to tell him she wasn't sure about the nickname?

Marlene peers at the robot, who was now looking around the house and fixing tiny things while muttering under his breath. Something along the lines of "clean up?"

No… Now was probably not a good time for that. She could be "Sunshine" a little longer.

Instead, she turns back to the bathroom. A nice, warm shower sounded really good right about now. After that, she could finally start job hunting for the day.

Marlene sat at the computer, scrolling through job offers for hours. Many jobs fell into two pitfalls: they either didn't pay nearly enough to cover the bills or Marlene didn't meet the education or experience requirements. There were a few times where she got her hopes up only to scroll down and find out it wasn't going to work.

Getting a job wasn't so hard when she was young, was it? Why was her nearly 15 years of experience suddenly worthless? Malene's lips began to quiver, her eyes welling up with tears. She places a hand over her eyes and leans back in her chair, taking a shuddering breath.

Where did it all go wrong? The question which had been whispering at the back of her mind suddenly seemed much more demanding. Was it last year when she transferred to the Pizzaplex? Or was it when she was 22 and realized maybe she was meant to be alone?

Had she been destined for failure at the age of 16, when she first started working to get away from her strict parents?

Trying to take a deep breath but choking out a sob instead, Marlene begins trying to put a seal on those emotions. Package them up, she thinks to herself. Wrap them up, tape down the lids, and store them.

Just breathe and forget.

A familiar numbness begins trickling in, like a toxic friend who swears they've changed. That they have your back.

She knew it was a lie but didn't know what else to do.

Marlene hears the vacuum running in the background. Was Sun still cleaning? 'It's not like this place is a pigsty… what else could there possibly be to clean?' she wonders as she presses the off button. The job hunting could wait.

Hand hovering over the handle, Marlene hesitates before letting her hands drop.

Sun could wait too. Let him have fun cleaning. Right now, she just wanted some time to herself.

'What can I do right now that will make this feeling… tolerable?' Marlene carefully asks herself, staring at her room. Browsing on the computer was an easy distraction, but it wouldn't help. Might make this worse actually.

Marlene glances over at the third drawer of her desk, knowing that her journal had long been neglected. Slowly, Marlene makes her way back over to her desk and opens the drawer to reveal a green journal. Then, after she plugs in some headphones and gets some of her favorite tunes going, she begins writing. Writing about the big and small, from Sun and losing her job to a joke she recently heard.

The numbness had slipped off her, leaving her feelings raw and tender when Sun opened the door.

"I've cleaned everything and I need something to do!"

"Get out!" Marlene shouts, her voice cracking as she hides the journal under her arms.

Sun stills and Marlene tenses, eyes wide. The orange points on Sun's head fold back a little like a dog's ears after being frightened. Tears slipped out of the corner of her eyes, sliding down her cheeks as tried to regain the ground she lost with her emotions.

"I… I don't want to say something I don't mean," Marlene amends, harshly drying her slick cheeks with her sleeve as a lump forms in her throat, "So… please don't come in here."

The robot slowly nods before slipping out of the room.

Marlene tucks the book back in its drawer, not in the mood to write or do anything really anymore. The whole ordeal left her fatigued so she slips under her bedsheets and settles for hiding under the covers.

Perhaps things would look better after some rest.