Chapter 7:

Morning Quarrel

Blank mind, void consciousness, all senses were shut down when Gregory closed his eyes, finally getting a long and good sleep after a strenuous and tiring day. It was the first time he managed to stay up an entire night when he got trapped in the Pizzaplex since he would unawarely fall into dreamland when he tried to stay up late back when he was still in the orphanage. Having been constantly chased around had forced his body to be always in fight or flight mode, he might not like it as to how it significantly drained his limited stamina. Sometimes, when he had run too much, his hips would ache, and his breath would become bitter while streams of sweat rolled down his back and face despite the coldness of the building. But thanks to that, he was able to stay focused and not just lie down and sleep on the floor, becoming oblivious to every danger around him.

"Wake up, superstar. Rise and shine."

Deep within his slumber, the boy could hear a faint voice echoed from outside of his own mind. It was deep and robotic, yet, for some reason, it sounded soft and solicitous. The gentle voice made him feel warm and rested as if he was being embraced by a caring figure, whole and relaxed as if he was being sheltered under the protective arms of that person. So cosy, so peaceful, just what he wanted.

"Not now, Freddy.", he said in an exhausted tone. "Give me five more minutes."

"It is already eight in the morning.", said Freddy calmly. "You have slept a lot. And didn't you tell me that you would show me more about the forest the night before?"

Upon hearing that, he slowly opened his eyes. The eyelids weighed heavier than a dumbbell whenever he tried to wake up in the morning, he hated it since it acted as a temptation that let you stay on the bed for another five or thirty minutes or so. This time, with his missed sleep schedule from the day before, they no longer weighed heavily but rather merged into one with his skin. Knowing that, he took effort in raising two of his arms near his face, then he used the fingers to pry the stubborn eyelids open. It was sticky, he could feel it - the eye boogers, a gift of a morning wakeup. Oh, he would take the pleasure in removing them.

He scratched his eyes, it felt good. Then, came a yawn - a moment of transition to shed the sleep from his brain, to allow the visions of the night to give way to the day, to move from that which he created on a whim to things more fixed and real. In a few seconds, he would be able to greet the sunlight, to see the colours as bright as the backlit images of cinema screens; he would adjust. From the carousel of random ideas comes some order - a subtle awareness of who he was under the flow of thoughts with their loose connections to his waking life. After a few moments more he began to analyse them in a lazy way, perhaps these ideas were meant to be kept. Some are composed as if from a book he once read, some were just silly. In another moment they were gone leaving no trace.

As reality manifested in front of him, it revealed an image of an orange-brown animatronic bear whose eyes flickered in hazy blue combined with the bright sunlight that collided with it. He stared at the bear's relaxed gaze, he noticed how Freddy gave off the feeling of having fully rested as well. Though he suspected that robots didn't really have to rest, they just needed enough power to operate. Speaking of power, he might not have to worry about the van battery dying suddenly when using it to charge the bear now.

Last night, when he was teaching Freddy how to read the constellations, he suddenly realized that the time was nearly up for the bear to run out of power and commit shutdown when he took a glance at his Fazwatch. With the sanctuary having a slim but very probable chance of being occupied by someone that night, he had no choice but to use the van battery again. He was confoundedly taken by surprise at how calm the bear was when he was literally moments from shutting down. Surely Freddy wasn't that reckless, right? Anyhow, having attached the jumper cables to the ears, he noticed the bear blank face, as if he was calculating something. The bear said that he could feel the current intensity was the same as the last time the boy used it to charge him while he assumed that the intensity must have significantly reduced. Then the bear concluded that the van battery must have been charged up when he turned on the engine, and since his power demand was too high compared to the battery's voltage, he would quickly drain up the accumulator before it could even raise a single power percentage.

He knew nothing about cars, but so did Freddy, he only knew how to drive them and use their battery to charge the bear. Hence, having heard the battery could be charged as well when he drove the van was something unexpected. Well, at least he had one less problem to worry about. Then again, how was he going to fill up the van's fuel? There might be a lot left, but it wouldn't last forever unless he came up with another idea.

So far, Gregory had come up with a plan: With each recharge using the van battery, Freddy would get approximately 50% after an hour charge before the battery ran out of power. It was actually 46% but for the sake of simplicity, let's keep it at 50%. Having half fully charged, the bear would function for approximately one hour and fifteen minutes with the help of power-saving mode. Later, he would turn on the engine again to let it charge the battery for half an hour or so before using it to recharge the animatronic again. The plan might sound problematic and inconvenient, but it was the only solution for the time being.

Damn it. Things just couldn't come cheap, could they?

Gregory blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted the surrounding light, it was then he noticed his unusual sleeping position: he was situated within the bear's arms.

"Have I been sleeping like this?", asked the boy.

"N-No.", the bear stuttered awkwardly, his gaze quickly shifted to the right. "I was just… um… trying to…"

"Hug me?", he finished the bear's sentence, before giving it a big embrace. "Come here, you silly bear."

He had been hugged before, but never like this since the time when he did not acknowledge the world around him. There was something so warm, something that felt right, smelt right. He let his body sag; his muscles became loose. In that embrace, he felt all his worries loosened their keen sting and his optimism raised its head from the dirt. Perhaps the hope had been there all along, but without some love, it was trapped, like crystals in a stone. Then, came the bear's, whose embrace was stronger than anything he had ever known, as if holding him wasn't quite enough, the bear had to feel every ounce that he was pressed into every ounce that was the boy. In that moment of feeling the bear so close, he was awoken somehow, more alive than he had been in so very long. For there were times he was as a butterfly who yearned for the cocoon, to be safe within walls, protected. That was what he had felt. It helped. Oh, how much he wanted this moment to last.

After what seemed like a whole minute of hugging and snuggling, the two exited the van, only to be welcomed by the fresh air of a new day. The morning stars peeped down at them like silver asters, glinting and shimmering. They looked happy in their solar-silver isolation. He could see wild basil growing freely on the clumpy, mossy mattress of the floor. The simpering wind carried a fragrance with it. It was spirit refreshing to smell the mulchy mix of the forest's perfume. He paced towards the small brook ahead, in which the burbling and splashing slowly overwhelmed the imaginary rustling of the canopies that blocked the overcast sky. The river kept its vigorousness, frothing and crashing and tumbling in chattering squirrels and buzzing flies or bees. He dipped his hands into the numbing cold current, the water caressed his fingers as its wet and slippery flow softly pulled them along the stream. Using the hands to scoop the water, he gulped it in one go, feeling the liquid sluggishly entering his throat and stomach, freezing every path it travelled.

After a few gulps, he splashed the water into his face while proceeding to rub it. Ah, yes, a perfect "medicine" to those who were too lazy to wake up, some chilly water would definitely help them regain the spirit and prepare for a new day. Having fully refreshed, he walked to a nearby bush, concealing himself from the denizen of the woodland.

"Where are you going?", asked Freddy.

"Doing what I must.", he replied with a steady tone.

The bear did not question it. Understandable. He then grabbed a wooden spear, the one that the boy had crafted for him yesterday and walked towards the brook. There, he saw darts of silver gracefully flapped their transparent tails with scales like the most delicate of armour plating. The fishes made their way upstream, choosing the slower water of the shallows. Freddy tightly held the spear, eyes scanning for an unfortunate victim, waiting for a perfect moment to strike.

He recalled having caught his first ever fish with the boy's help, which also was the first time he committed animal slaughter… Anyhow, he felt somewhat enlightened and elucidated, for it was his first lesson about the outside world. Although, on the contrary, he felt somewhat guilty and remorseful, for he had learnt the harsh and bitter truth – the true character of nature itself – the strong dominated the land while the weak could only hide, it was either kill or be killed. In the end, it was just a part of the forgiving chain of life, a system of rules in this world, right?

Freddy shook his head, pulling himself away from such thoughts as he had found a perfect candidate. Target locked, then, he struck, delivering a penetrating force that punctured the water surface, but not too strong though, he didn't want to get all those muds stuck on his shell again. As he retrieved the spear, a dying fish was pulled out from the muddy shallow. Its delicate body struggled in pain and anguish, its eyes stared at him, seemingly wanting to take a final look at what this strange predator looked like before drawing its last breath of the world.

He observed at the now-dead fish, a lifeless corpse, no longer thrived, no longer energised, no longer lived. The disturbing sight made him feel unsettling. Why, though? Was it because he did not get used to seeing dead animals? Not really, for he had already seen the fried chicken, the grilled steak, the barbecued sausages more than enough. Having learnt the truth, he was shocked, he even attempted to come up with other alternatives such as switching to vegan. Yeah, as if that would work. It was one of those times when he would consider being blissfully ignorant and decide to never ask any question ever again. That didn't last long though, curiosity killed the cat, or so he had heard people said so.

If it wasn't about seeing dead animals every day, then what was it about? Was it because he had ended life thrice? Possibly, he did feel like he ought to be responsible for the fishes' death, but the fact that his doings was a part of the food chain – a system of rules that bound to the world, an invisible hand that controlled what would live on, what would die out, with no exception – had justified them as a normal and common act for survival… He had no choice but to reluctantly accept this undesirable gift even if he liked it or not, it was the rule of the world, after all. Just that?

If it wasn't about killing living creatures, then what was it about?

While he was being submerged in the sea of mind, Gregory returned with a satisfied look.

"That was quick.", the boy wittily remarked. "I didn't know you have already mastered fishing."

Slightly jumped as he was pulled out from his thought, the bear looked at the boy, who was tucking his pants and straightening his shirt. "It was simple enough; I could perform it easily. If regularly practised, you would be able to do it as well."

The boy rolled his eyes, huffed at him. "Freddy, you're a robot. Of course, it's easy for you! How am I supposed to catch up?"

"Even if you cannot do so, at least practice.", he smiled. "That will prove you have tried your best."

"Okay, you're starting to sound like a parent.", the boy retorted, arms crossed. "Give me the fish. You go and get some sticks to light the fire, I'll go and prepare the fish. Then, we can get you charged up."

A few minutes later, having lit the fire, Gregory placed the prepared fish above the fire and went to the brook to wash his hands. After that, he headed to the van, took out the car keys within his pocket and turned on the engine. The abrupt explosion made by the gear as it burst into life was loud enough to overcome the spirited woodland orchestra in a span of a second before idling itself with the monotonous rumbling lullaby. He would need to wait for around thirty minutes or more before the battery was fully charged, in the meantime, he had plans to make with the bear.

They both sat down, watching the scarlet flames slowly feasted upon the fish - another unfortunate victim of the mechanical predator. Freddy mused at the dancing blaze, which cared not of the time it vanished, only that it gave heat and light and a cooked meal. The fire dreamt in its wooden bed, cosy in the branches that glowed. Its flames transformed the woods into the most transient of beauties, hot ribbons of light. There were times it sparked as if it wanted more than one crazy way to dance, as if it needed to leap, to fly, and willing to land where it might. The bear still kept the thought just earlier, there was something disconcerting about it, for how hard it was for him to grasp and understand even the basic definitions.

His greedy curious side rose once again.

"Gregory,", he said. "there is something that has been bothering me. I cannot help but have to question you about it."

"What is it?", asked the boy.

He blinked a few times, before speaking up his thoughts.

"I know that pain is what you feel when you are hurt and wounded. It is a feeling that I can detect but unable to experience, perhaps forever unable to. You might know that already.", he ruminated. "But… I am not programmed to sense the pain of others, asides from humans. Consequently, I cannot recognize any distinctive feature of an animal in pain. Hence the reason why I am incapable of understanding them, for their ways of expressing and conveying emotions were nowhere similar to that of a human person. So, I wondered: Do fishes feel pain? As this question might be applied to every other living creature as well."

"Um…", the boy trailed off, carefully picking and arranging the words so that he wouldn't cause the bear to have another existential crisis. Lying might be bad, but it was as not as hurtful as the truth. "W-Well, they do feel pain, but not like the way a human feels pain."

Freddy slightly tilted his head, what did the boy mean by saying it? What did he mean that a fish could feel pain differently than a person? Were there different types of pain, with each greatly varied depending on its host body? Did the pain take the forms of many and hide under the emotional veil, acting as a reflective barrier that prevented him from knowing what was truly inside? If so, wouldn't it also mean that his "digital" pain was something related to a type of pain as well? Wouldn't it also mean that his "digital" pain was real and was not made up by him?

"How do I put this…", murmuring under his breath, the boy scratched his shaggy head while unconsciously pinching a few strands of hair. "Fishes are very different from humans and other animals; anyone can see that. Their… um… perception of the world around them is different from ours as well. Like the way they see things with their eyes, or the way they hear using their ears, though I don't even know whether they have ears or not… S-So, when they feel pain, they express it in their own way, not the way I or any person do. That's why their reaction towards pain is unrecognisable to you… I think."

Gregory's heart was pounding, he became nervous whenever Freddy began asking questions revolving around his robotic nature, for he worried that the bear would have a breakdown or commit some extraordinary out of bound acts. These sensitive subjects regarding emotional and existential crisis were what he should be fully prepared for or best avoided if possible. Then again, he couldn't let the bear be sad and disappointed as much as he wanted to teach the bear new things about the outside world. Speaking of which, he noticed how more often it became when Freddy started asking him these types of questions. Sure, the bear was learning, but why would he be focused on these kinds of subjects?

He and the bear shared each other gaze; both did not speak a single word for a few solid seconds.

"Do you… uh, understand?", he nervously asked as a part of him was expecting a "no" from the bear.

"Somewhat… yes. The fishes are made different from the humans, so their experiences are different.", responded the bear as he revised everything the boy had just said, who then probed again. "What about the other animals? Do they express their feelings the same as you?"

"Yes, most of them do.", he answered. "They can feel pain, happiness, anger, sadness, all sort of emotions. They would wince in pain or maybe even cry if you tried to hurt them, just like the way we would react. And since they expressed their feelings somewhat similar to us, we would recognise them easily."

"I see…"

Gregory had a feeling that the bear wasn't satisfied with his explanation, not good. He then began brainstorming again in order to come up with another and better one. He hoped that these explanations wouldn't cause the bear's processing unit to blaze up in sparks.

"Okay, how about this?", he said, fingers twirling his bang. "Humans have a very big brain thanks to thousands of years of evolution, with it, we can understand better and can express more complicated emotions. The other animals can do it as well with their smaller brains, but they're not as complex as we are. So, it is not always that we can understand what they're trying to say. Fishes, on the other hand, their brain is really tiny, which means they know very little. Therefore, they are unable to express their feelings like the way we and the others do."

It was until the bear finally widened both of his eyes that he could sigh in relief. He expected the bear to ramble in a formal but nonsense speech, for sometimes the robot talked too familiar to that of a gentleman from the 80s, using uncommonly used sentences that even he could not understand. Was the bear programmed to be like that or he had developed the tone and accent by himself? He didn't know, though he was sure that no one in their sane mind would create an animatronic bear, who performed rock music and celebrated birthday parties, to speak like a nobleman.

"So… it all depends on the capability of conveying emotions.", Freddy concluded. "I understand now. Thank you for enlightening me."

"You're welcome.", the boy exhaled in relaxation while chuckling to himself. "Why did you even ask this stuff in the first place anyway? Feels pretty odd, not gonna lie. Don't tell me that you feel bad for the fishes."

"I… Yes, I do feel bad for having killed them.", admitted the bear. "Although, it was not the reason why I asked you."

"Then, what was it about?"

Freddy didn't answer, he then lowered his gaze until he was face to face with the sandy soil beneath his giant metallic white feet while slowly letting himself submerged in the sea of mind once again. Drowning in a digital ocean, he recalled the thought of him having abandoned his friend while mindlessly seeking for freedom, the memory of him slowly turning into a selfish wretch who cared not if there were people who needed help, if there were people who were looking for the same thing as he did. Sure, he managed to save one – Gregory – a lost and fateful child who still had hope in this vast and exotic world, a strong and courageous boy who he had sworn to protect at all costs. But in doing so, he had slipped away a chance of freedom to those who also needed it.

It wasn't about seeing dead animals every day. It wasn't about killing living creatures. It was about something sore and painful yet inconceivable to his thoughtful eyes. He could not see the pain of a dying fish, just like how he could not see the pain of his friend being confined by a massive solitary chamber that acted as the colourful neon lighting wonderland, giving away a false hope of something so unimaginable and undreamed-of yet so important and meaningful.

Pain - an invisible, subjective and open dispute unless it was one's own pain. They were the worst, always taken to be less than they were and hardly ever thought of without the possibility of the sufferer magnifying their woes. The pain was a dull, as if some lazy torturer was standing right behind, only applying enough pressure to be an annoyance. It sat there, just to the side of the right shoulder blade toward the spine.

"I once told you that I did not know why I had followed you outside the Pizzaplex. Now I know why…"

He then began telling the boy all of his lingering thoughts of the night before.

"You want to… what!?", Gregory loudly exclaimed using both of his lungs. Since they were in the middle of the forest, he could scream and shout and nobody would hear a thing.

Freddy was taken aback at how the boy reacted, he had never yelled at him this loud before, unlike the last time when he accidentally broke his promise to the boy. Even he himself acknowledge how preposterous and outrageous the idea was to him, he thought the boy would somewhat understand and sympathise with his friends' conditions. Well, it didn't go out as planned.

"Freddy, are you out of your mind!?", the boy continued scolding him. "Haven't I repeated this like… ten times already!? Your friends literally tried to kill me back then! How could you not see that?"

"They are not capable of hurting guests! It would go against their programming!", he tried reasoning.

"Not capable of or effortlessly capable of?", retorted the boy. "Oh, please, I wasn't even a guest, but rather an intruder who sneaked into your Pizzaplex without a ticket or approval from my caretakers. A reason why they went wild on a rampage that is!"

"They are my friends; I know them more than anyone. They are like my family. I can promise you that they would not hurt anybody!", he tried again.

"What? Now you decided to change from 'guests' to 'everyone else'?", the boy laughed hysterically, somewhat panicked. "Okay, mister Fazbear, would you like to hear my real thoughts about your ideas of saving your friends from their 'solitary confinement'? It was extremely dumb and stupid."

Words struck him like thunder, it deeply stabbed his chest like a sharp blade. Something about those criticising words made him want to explode rather than be enlightened.

Core instability: 27%

"I haven't even started with you promising and breaking them all the same time yet. We'll talk about it later.", continued the boy. "Firstly first, you can't just return to the Pizzaplex with a terrible condition like that, especially with your reduced power. Secondly, since you have managed to escape the building, the security must have become more secure, good luck getting in. Thirdly, who knows what are the company going to do to you if they caught you? Erase your memory and reprogramme it just to be sure that you wouldn't act crazy again? Or maybe straight up scrap you for good?"

Core instability: 28%

"Gregory, please…", he could sense it, something was wrong, something was not right. He took a quick scan in the system but found nothing. What the hell? What was happening?

"Your friends, they need the power to function just like you, right? What's your plan on getting them charged up when you were somehow able to convince and help them escape the building? Go to a garbage dumpster or scrapyard to look for some randomly placed generator? Steal people's car batteries while not knowing where to even divert those power into them? Not to mention your short-lived battery, which lasted even shorter and needed even more power than everyone else!"

Core instability: 29%

"Please…", he took efforts in uttering a single word, it was faint and unclear, for he was overloaded with numerous information to process. But where did they come from? He could not detect nor trace their origin. These strange and new data kept coming in uninvited. His system could not identify nor recognise them as if they were invisible to the eye. But that's impossible, for he could physically feel it. And the fact that it actually hurt…

"And what? Having to hide in the alleyways while constantly being hunted down by the company and maybe even the police because for common reasons, they couldn't just let some murderous animatronics casually roam on the street like everyday normal? Yeah, what a great idea-"

Gregory was put to a halt when the bear rose up out of the blue, towering him like a grand mountain compared to an insignificant hill. He blinked; mouth still left open. Then, came the stillness. It arrived as a storm suddenly quelled, when gravity was once more joyfully obeyed. It was the kind of day even a feather would fall without drifting one way or the other. The grass was straight and silent, the leaves dangled more as if they had been painted there. Should a person be able to feel the beating of the birds' wings - that would have been the only breeze. It was still, utterly still.

Freddy stood in silence, as firm as a statue, his hands were… shaking.

"I… am… sorry.", muttered the bear, sounding purely monotonous. "You are right, the idea was stupid. I did not do enough calculations. I will never bring it up again."

After that, the bear walked away, cared not when the boy asked him where he was going. He stopped by the brook and sat on top of a stump nearby. His entire body faced the flowing current, leaving the boy to be alone with his flames, the dead fish and the idling van.

Just then, Gregory realized how far he had gone.

"Fuck…", he quietly scowled.

"I do not want to feel pain, yet I want to know and feel it at the same time, for reasons that even I do not understand."

A/N:

Gregory is just a kid, so not everything he teach the bear about the outside world is absolutely true.