He was standing in a house, a small house with a kitchen on one side of him, a living room on the other, and a hallway directly in front of him leading to two bedrooms and an old bathroom. He walked into the bathroom and tried to climb onto the countertop, but he was too short. Shame. He wanted to feel adventurous, to feel like a king, to show Mom and Dad his excitement. And Charlie.

Charlie! Where was Charlie? She wasn't awake yet! He ran into the closer of the two bedrooms. Inside were two small beds. One was his; he recognized the sheets with cartoonish bears and foxes on them. The other bed had similar sheets, only with rabbits and chickens. In this bed was a small sleeping girl. He ran over to her.

"Charlie!" he yelled, pushing at her sleeping form. "Chhhharrrrlieee!"

After a few moments, her eyes fluttered open. "Sammy! I was sleeping!"

"Why are you sleeping? We're going to Fredbears again today!"

"Daddy said not 'til later, though!"

"What's going on in here?" came a familiar voice. They both turned to find their father standing in the doorway, dressed in his usual stained nightshirt and pajama bottoms, a large grin on his face.

"I'm too excited to sleep!" Sam exclaimed.

"I can see that," said Henry, walking over and sitting down on his bed He picked Sam up and put him on his knee. "But you know it's still very early in the morning. The sun hasn't even woken up yet."

Sam looked out the window. He was right. The horizon was a dark shade of navy blue, with only the slightest visible indication of getting lighter.

"Are we still going today?" he asked, turning back to face his father.

"Of course," Henry said with a smile, ruffling his hair, "but not until a little bit later. Daddy has some work to do out in his workshop, first."

"Can we watch?" he asked.

Henry gazed down at his son, and then glanced at his daughter, who was also maintaining eye contact with him.

"Maybe another time," he said. "Besides, you know how I don't like you two getting too close to Daddy while he's working. Now go back to bed. It's early."

He ruffled his son's hair and again and gave him a kiss, and then went over and kissed Charlie on the forehead as well before leaving the room. Sam followed as he walked back into their bedroom.

"Everything ok?" his mother asked.

"Yes. Our hyperactive son is eager as usual for our trip to Fredbear's."

"He always is," she said with a yawn. "Did you tell him to go back to bed?"

"Yes, dear," he told her, climbing back into bed alongside her, giving her a kiss.

Sam groaned. Why did grown-ups always do that? It was disgusting. He turned to walk back down the hall toward his bedroom.

"Henry," came his mother's voice, causing him to stop.

"Yes, dear?"

"What are those new inventions you've been working on?"

There were a few seconds of silence before he answered.

"That, my dear, is a surprise."

Sam felt a jolt of renewed excitement. A surprise? Like on his and Charlie's birthday? That could only mean one thing: something good. He wanted to see it! He ran down the hall toward the front door. Despite what his parents thought, he actually could reach the doorknob. He stopped in front of the door and began reaching toward the brass knob, his fingers growing closer.

Suddenly, a loud thudding came from behind him. He turned around, expecting to see his mother or father running toward him, but it wasn't. Instead, it was the dark silhouette of an animal, an animal with long yet folded ears. It continued running toward him, its arms reaching out ready to grab, its footsteps thudding against the floor with every step.

Thud, thud, thud.

Sam's eyes shot open as he took in the sight of the ceiling, illuminated by a streak of sunlight coming through the window. He wasn't in the same place as he just was. It took him a moment to remember that he was in Clay Burke's house in Hurricane, Utah. He looked over at the clock. Nine. Had he really slept that long?

Thud, thud, thud. The door received another rap of knocks, the rather hard knocks of an impatient Kyle Jackson.

"Earth to Sammy!" came his voice through the door in a mock-concerned tone. "Commander Burke says it's time to touchdown and to get something to eat!"

Sam groaned and got up, walking over and opening the door to find Kyle standing there, a large smirk on his face, already dressed.

"There he is. Sleeping beauty has finally awoken!"

"Yeah, and his fist is pumped and ready to make contact with something," Sam shot back with a smile of his own.

"Well, that's a little violent. What's the matter? Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?"

"Dude, cut it out. I'll be right down."

Kyle chuckled and left Sam to get dressed. Sam threw on a black T-shirt and some blue jeans. He gave his hair a quick ruffle and walked downstairs to breakfast. Clay stood at the stove while Kyle and Carlton, looking rather excited, sat at the table chatting. They turned to him and Kyle waved him into a seat near them.

"I was telling Carlton about some of our recent performances back home," Kyle told him.

"Which ones?"

"Oh, the usual ones. It's not like we've had that many...yet." He winked.

"That's cool," said Carlton. "Are you guys actually writing your own stuff?"

"Mmm…" Kyle hesitated. "Kind of. We don't really have anything to showcase yet, though. We're still trying to find our style. I know Sam has that one song from freshman year. Which one was it?"

Sam glared at Kyle. Did he really have to reopen that wound right now?

"It was the one about Cyndi, remember?"

"Oh yeah," said Kyle.

"Who's Cyndi?" Carlton asked.

Sam groaned. Thanks, Kyle.

"When I was a freshman in high school, she expressed some...interest in me. She was very pretty and popular, too. But best of all, she was really sweet. We never really spoke until she heard me fiddling around on the guitar one day, and she started talking to me."

"Did you two go out?" asked Carlton.

Sam shrugged. "I guess you could say that. We went to an Italian restaurant one night and talked. She kept asking me about my music. You know, was I gonna be a rockstar or anything. I told her I hoped so, and she was so fascinated by it. That was pretty much all we talked about for the rest of the night. I didn't even get to as about her that much. But who cares, right? I was dating one of the prettiest girls in school."

Carlton smiled, clearly interested in the story's turn. Kyle, on the other hand, was torn between making a joke and letting Sam finish.

"So, we continued seeing each other for about a month or so, and I ended up writing a song about her. Nothing too deep, just expressing my happiness that a girl actually liked me."

"And then?" Carlton asked.

Sam sighed. "I played it for her one day, and...she just stared."

He paused, mentally recoiling as he relived the memory of her reaction. He didn't understand then, but he knew it without a doubt now. She was embarrassed, obviously not expecting to be the center of attention.

"And then," he continued, "she just stopped talking to me. She almost wouldn't even look at me anymore. It was so weird. I kept wondering if I did anything wrong, you know? Finally, after a couple of weeks, I saw her lip-locked with our star quarterback." He paused again for a few moments before continuing. "When she finally saw me, she told me in that ever-so-sweet voice of hers that it probably wouldn't have worked out between us. That I probably wasn't gonna end up being a big star, anyway. And then they walked away."

"Wow," said Carlton. "That sucks."

"Yeah. He didn't talk much for a few months after that," said Kyle, turning to his friend. "By the way, you know I was just trying to cheer you up with those jokes, right? I really was sorry it didn't work out."

"Yeah, I know," said Sam. "But anyway, now all I have from that experience is this song I don't know what to do with about a sweet girl who apparently only wants the bigshots, which she made very clear that I am not."

Silence fell. Carlton was hesitant to make any comment. Kyle decided to break the awkward silence with a cough.

"So anyway, Carlton. What about you? How's life for you?"

Carlton shrugged. "Not much. As you know, I've been under house arrest for a while. It's a shame, really. It's my first year in college and I was supposed to be in another play this week. We'd been rehearsing for months, and now I can't do it." He gave a big sigh. "But that's ok. It seemed kind of boring, anyway?"

"Why do you say that?" Sam asked.

"I don't know. It wasn't really all that exciting, at least not from what I noticed. I've always been fond of action, you know? Plays with lots of movement and talking. This one has a lot of quiet moments. I wasn't too sure about it that much."

"What's it about?" Kyle asked.

Carlton shook his head. "To be honest, I don't really know. It's about a young man whose father is dying in a hospital, and when they finally see each other again for the first time after years of being apart, they don't really hit it off that well. The father seems more interested in other things, like what he still has to do around the house when he gets out. They keep telling him if he gets out, but he's sure he will eventually. And the son keeps trying to convince himself that he's doing the right thing by coming back to see him even though he feels like he's unwanted."

"Doesn't sound that boring to me," said Kyle.

"Yeah, I know there are some people out there who like it," said Carlton, "but it doesn't really fit my interest that much. You ok, Sam?"

"Yeah," said Sam, shaking his head from his thoughts. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Kyle shook his head and leaned over to Carlton. "He's been doing that a lot lately. I'm thinking all those late nights are finally getting to him. Who knows what he does in those late hours?"

"I'm practicing," said Sam, "because unlike you, I actually want to be able to get through a song without missing a note."

"Oh, is that it?" Kyle teased. "And here I thought that all those noises coming out of your bedroom late at night were you strangling the neighbor's cat."

Carlton brought his fist to his mouth, trying to hold in a burst of laughter. Clay made a noise from the stove which sounded like he was trying to do the same. Sam glared at Kyle.

"Hey, Kyle. Don't let me forget: I have a present for you later."

"A present? Pour moi?" Kyle asked in mock surprise.

"Yeah," said Sam. "I'll give a hint. It involves five curled fingers and enough force to send you back to Chicago."

"Well, that's a little violent," said Kyle again, "but ok. I hear you. It's obvious that you're not in the mood right now."

"So, Clay," said Sam, desperate to turn the focus to why they were here in the first place. "What's the plan for today?"

"Well..." said Clay, bringing sausages and eggs to the table at that moment. "Given that this is still officially an open missing person investigation, I'll need to bring you down to the station to ask you some questions. Nothing too deep, but given that you are someone of interest in terms of witness, I want to have on record whatever information you might be able to give me, just to make it official."

"Dad, how many things have you done since this mess started that you kept off-the-books?" Carlton asked with raised eyebrows.

Clay sighed. "Son, I've told you time and again, no one's perfect. When you experience the bizarre things we have, you can't expect every call I make to be completely correct. I know I've made my fair share of mistakes throughout this whole ordeal, but sometimes there are things that the public at large don't need to know, at least in full. But now that most of this mess is hopefully behind us, I want to try and deal with this as professionally as I can."

Carlton shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"Good. Now eat up," Clay told them, mainly Sam and Kyle. "I want to make sure we get to the station before it gets too busy as it always does."

As Sam and Kyle began to focus on the food that had been put in front of them, Sam glanced at Carlton, who was looking at him with a pained look on his face. It wasn't too obvious, but there was clearly lingering remnants of the recent emotional trauma being revealed.

Good luck, he mouthed to Sam, who nodded in acknowledgment.

Clay pulled into the parking lot of the police station and into his designated parking space. Sam, alone in the passenger seat, glanced up at the building. It wasn't very tall, but it had an old look to it with obvious renovating efforts showing here and there. He wasn't sure what he expected it to look like, being in a small town. Now he knew.

"Ready?" Clay asked.

Sam hesitated before answering. "Yeah."

They exited the car and began walking toward the station. They were alone. Kyle had been asked to stay at the house to keep Carlton company, and because he was of no use to this portion of their investigation.

They walked through the front doors into the reception area, where a few people sat waiting in seats. They looked up at the newcomers and back down again. A woman in a white blouse and blue jacket sat behind the desk managing calls. She nodded at them as they walked by.

"Good morning, Clay."

"Morning, Susan."

They walked down a short, narrow hallway past an empty meeting room and a break room with a few men laughing and holding small styrofoam cups. After a few seconds, they reached a door at the end of the hallway. Clay unlocked it and led Sam inside to a room with a desk, lamp, and stacks of papers and folders cluttered everywhere on the desk and floor.

"Um…" Sam couldn't help but notice how untidy it looked. He expected a police chief to have a lot on his plate, but it still gave off an appearance of unkempt stress.

"Yes, I know," said Clay. "I've been very busy lately, as I've already said. I'm hoping to get around the tidying up once I finish with this case. Please, take a seat."

Sam sat in the small chair across from the desk while Clay sat behind it, setting his briefcase down and pulling out a few things, one of which was a notepad.

"Now," he said, looking Sam directly in the eyes for the first time since entering. "I know this is a little unprofessional. Usually we have rooms dedicated to this very purpose, but with unusual circumstances comes exceptions, and I don't really feel like making a big scene about this given how crazy some of my colleagues already think I am for obsessing so much over this."

He opened a file, the same file that he had brought with him to Chicago. In it contained the mugshot of Charlie and the report on her disappearance.

"So," said Clay, pushing the file toward Sam and readying a pen. "Let's get down to business, shall we? Think back as best you can. What can you tell me about your sisters?"

Sam shook his head, gazing down long and hard at the photo. When was this photo taken, anyway? She looked like she could've been smiling, but then again she had that look about her.

"When was this taken?" he asked.

"The picture? Jessica provided it. Apparently, this was on their first day of classes this past fall. A momento."

Sam looked below the photo, something he hadn't thought to do before. It gave a brief description of her appearance, her brown hair, her eyes, her body size. It never occurred to him how similar the descriptions were to him, but then again, she was his twin. It still boggled him how he could've forgotten through time that he had a twin sister. It listed her personality: quiet, smart, resourceful. Now that didn't sound like him. He may be a bit on the quiet side, but he never hesitated to speak his mind when he felt it was important. Resourceful? Maybe. He skimmed the rest of the document, taking in what he could. Apparently, she was studying robotics during her brief time at St. George's college. Taking after their father? Perhaps. And then came her last official sighting: seven months prior in their father's house right before it collapsed.

He glanced up at Clay, who was watching him intently, unwilling to even move a muscle until he felt it necessary to do so.

"I...still don't remember that much."

Clay nodded, tapping the edge of the pen on the desk. "I understand. It's been a long time. What do you remember?"

Sam tried hard to rack his brains. It wasn't even forty-eight hours ago that his normal life had been interrupted by this man's unexpected appearance at his apartment door, and now he was being asked to try and remember something his had only begun retrieving in his dreams since then.

His dreams. Perhaps that's a good place to start, he thought.

"Well...I've been having some weird dreams these last couple of nights," he said softly.

Clay's eyebrows raised. "Dreams?"

"Yeah," said Sam, aware of how awkward it sounded. "Or at least I think they're dreams. I had one last night that seemed so real, it might have been a memory, like something that I'm remembering now that I'm back."

Clay nodded. "Okay. What was it about?"

"I was standing in a house, a small house, and I knew my way around it and everything, you know, like I'd been there before. And Charlie, she was there, and she was young. We both were. And my parents were there, too. I spoke to my dad about going to the restaurant because I was excited to see it, and I my dad said that he was working on something new, but I didn't know what."

Clay listening quietly. Part of him felt like he should take notes, but he wasn't sure what to write.

"I see," he said. "And...did anything else happen?"

Sam thought back to the end of the dream, a large animal-shaped shadow running toward him. That couldn't have actually happened, could it?

"Not really," said Sam. "I know it's not much, but it's all I remember."

"Okay," said Clay, putting down his pen and rubbing his face in his hands, clearly frustrated at the lack of useful information so far. "I want you to think back as far as you can. Do you remember Charlie as a kid?"

After hesitating for a few moments, replaying what he could remember from his dreams, Sam nodded slowly.

"Can you describe her for me?"

Sam thought about it for a moment before replying, "Energetic."

Clay raised an eyebrow again. "Energetic?" he said, caught off-guard by the answer. "Charlie?"

"Yeah," said Sam. "Why? Was she not since you've known her?"

"I wouldn't say that," said Clay, "but I also wouldn't say she was energetic, either. She seemed a bit recluse at times, to be honest. That's not to say she didn't enjoy playing with her friends, including Jessica and Carlton, but she never really struck me as one to be 'energetic.'"

"Well, from what I remember, she was," Sam insisted. "We loved playing together. We played all the time, especially at our father's restaurant. We loved watching those animals sing and dance."

He began looking upward, the visions once again becoming clearer now that he was speaking about them. Clay listened in silence, remaining as still as he could and making every effort not to disrupt him.

"I remember the bear costume my dad used to wear," said Sam. "He told us he made it just for us so that he could fit inside and entertain us when if he wanted to. He-"

He broke off, another memory fragment suddenly snagging his attention. Like the others, it came without warning but was suddenly so clear.

"I could snap off your nose!" his father had said as the metal in his hand snapped shut with a loud, startling noise. "This is a spring lock, and I want you to know how it works because it's very dangerous, and I don't ever want you touching these. This is why we never put our hands in the animal costumes; it's very easy to trigger these if you don't know what you're doing, and you could get hurt."*

Sam could only marvel at how well he suddenly recalled the events. Kyle always did tell him that his ability to remember key details and use that to relay memories clearly was spot-on.

"He...wore the suit himself," he told Clay, who nodded in interest. "The suits were these hybrid suits that could function as animatronics and suits. My dad liked to wear the bear suit a lot."

Clay had begun scribbling notes down.

"And Charlie and I always loved when he danced for us. He knew how much we loved that. And-"

"Hold on a sec," said Clay, holding up a hand and finishing his sentence before putting the pen down. "Now, I know that you're obviously talking about a different restaurant. Freddy Fazbear's, the local one he owned when my son and your sister were kids, never had any hybrid suits that could be worn by someone. Not to mention when your father moved to town it was only him and your sister. What was that name you mentioned before?"

"Fredbear's, I think," said Sam. "Fredbear's Family Diner, or something."

Clay wrote the name down. "I've never heard of it. Do you know where it is?"

Sam thought for a moment but then shook his head. "I can't remember."

Clay sighed. "No matter. I'm sure we can find it with some digging. I'll get someone on it and see what they can find. In the meantime, I think it might do some good to show you around the town, let you see where a lot of this stuff happened."

Sam nodded and Clay began making another note. The phone rang and Clay groaned.

"Hello?" came a voice on the answering machine. "Hello? Hello? Chief Burke. Sorry to bother you again, but that man's back and he won't leave. He's got a sign this time that says BREAK THE CURSE. My wife is getting really nervous, and I am, too. I was wondering…"

Clay picked up the phone. "Scott? Chief Burke here. I'll let one of my officers know. They'll be right over, and I'll be there, soon."**

He hung up and sighed.

"Trouble?" Sam asked.

"Well, yes and no," said Clay. "This particular neighborhood has been experiencing some problems as of late. Someone in town has taken the recent disappearances to mean that the town is cursed."

"Do you believe that?"

"I'm not sure. As Carlton mentioned, there's certainly been more than a fair share of bizarre things that have happened here, but I'm still a little skeptical about the town being cursed, especially if Afton really is gone."

"So what does this mean?" Sam asked.

Clay stood up. "It means, I've got something on my agenda to take care of. But fortunately, Jessica should be available this afternoon. I called her this morning to confirm. I think I'll leave your little tour of the town in her hands if you don't mind."

REFERENCES

*The Silver Eyes, p. 165.

**Anyone who's played ANY of the games, particularly the first, should know who this is referencing! ;)