Chapter 25:

Change My Mind

Sun returned to the playground after hanging out with his new friend, Chica, but he didn't expect a guest.

And then, there was the usual suffering…

[6:17 PM]

Sun let himself drop upon the squishy mattress, to which, it broke his fall ever so softly. With his wide eyes opened, he stared at the ceiling above, blinding illuminations overwhelmed his vision. Their light phased right through his sensor and reflected back out, creating a luminous, transparent ball of aura, that was embedded in the fabric of space, that looked like bubbles that emit a subtle glow around their boundary.

A few seconds later, his vision gradually adjusted to reduce the brightness so that he could see better. The surroundings darkened, yet, to him, it was the light themselves that was being suppressed. Forced to obey, the light finally gave up as darkness reclaimed its regal throne, just like things had always been. But it was the silence, the very loyal companion of all things, it was there all along, all the way before there were such things like light and dar.

Oh, right – silence – an old friend of his.

Silence, it was not just an absence of sound, it was the absence of everything. When he closed his eyes, he could still hear them: the laughter of children, the thumping of footsteps, the quiet whispers of the adults, the muffled background that echoed from every corner… that way, he would know the world was still there - the world continued to exist.

But, if when there was nothing but just silence, and silence alone, then, how could he have known?

He could not understand the concept of feelings, at least, not to an academic degree. Like the feeling of touch, for example, he knew what hot and cold were, how hot burned things and cold froze stuff. And yet, he remained dumbfounded when trying to know what they feel like, even if he were given descriptions. Words alone weren't enough, they would never be.

He was an animatronic made to take care of the children: small ones, big ones, short ones, tall ones, young ones, old ones, every 'ones'… And it was hilarious.

It was hilarious, for deep down, he knew for certain that it was the only reason for his mere existence: taking care of… tiny, little human beings. Probably why he was considered to be the most "alive" animatronic puppet in this building, as far as people were told. Without emotions, he might as well become one of those… map bots.

Talking about map bots…

"Free map. Take a map."

"Ah! What the juice!?"

"Haha! I can't believe you were scared by a map bot!"

"But Chica, they appeared out of nowhere! I can't see that coming!"

"Well, now you know."

Yeah… now he knew why people have a strong dislike towards that thing.

With the Pizzaplex being closed for an entire week, loneliness was something uncomfortable that he had to cope with. Being lonely wasn't as easy as he thought, especially for a sociable one like him. Fortunately, he had the chance to befriend one of the Glamrocks. Even better, it was Chica – the most optimistic and positive of them all. She was the perfect friend, an animatronic whose trait was almost identical to him, with a slight difference in craziness percentage…

…By "craziness", it was an attribute of being wild, not a mental disease or anything bad.

He might even prefer the chicken over the bear, whom he so admired all this time.

"Hello, Sun! How are you?", said a high-pitched voice, which was shown to be his left-hand puppet friend, Sunny. "I haven't seen you in the Daycare for an entire day! Where have you been?!"

"Obviously, he had made new friends and totally forgot about us!", said a grumpy voice, which was shown to be his right-hand puppet friend, MoonMoon. "Isn't it true… Sun?"

Sunny the puppet hand gasped in shock. "Oh! You're just bluffing nonsense, MoonMoon.", it argued. "Surely, Sun wouldn't have gone out for an adventure without us! Right, Sun?"

Sun tried to form a smile, even though he had already been smiling due to his facial structure, his pupils darted away as a sign of dismissing. "Y-Yes, that is correct! I would never abandon my friends, especially you two!"

"See?", Sunny turned to look at MoonMoon. "Told ya."

"Well, well, well… you know that lying is bad, don't you?", the blue puppet mused as it gave him a stern glare.

Eventually, Sun couldn't hold the secret any longer, he sighed in defeat. "Well… I might have spent a few hours with my new friend… without you guys. So…"

Sunny gasped again. This time, it was even more petrified. The puppet started shaking uncontrollably as it confronted him until their eyes were glued together. "May I ask who is this new friend of yours?", its voice suddenly changed to a deeper and raspier tone.

Just then, he noticed something wasn't right.

What the…

What was it? Was it because Sunny, a puppet version of him, started to act grumpy, like his friend MoonMoon, all of a sudden? No, that wouldn't be the case, Sunny was but an ordinary hand puppet controlled by himself, so everything it acted was according to his will.

While he was trying to catch up with the situation, the yellow puppet continued its threatening speech. "Tell me, Sun, who is this new friend of yours? I shall not let them take away my friend. I will make sure they will never take my friend away from me, ever again."

At that moment, he realised that he wasn't the one controlling the puppets anymore

"Tell us."

"W-What…!? Why am I…", he stuttered.

"Tell us! Tell us! Tells us!", the two hand-puppets approached him slowly, yet so menacingly. Their squeaks became distorted grumbles, grumbles that turned into deafening whispers, whispers that turned into soundless echoes. "Tell us! Tell us! Tell us!"

Their voice was both real and surreal at the same time. He could not tell whether it was him saying it, or his mind was playing tricks with him. Hallucinations – but there were no such things as "false reality", not to him, of course. His mechanical eyes were unlike any living organism, it was made and functioned to only see the truth, the apparent materialized object standing in his line of sight that light reflected upon.

That was… unless a virus was trying to mess with his vision. Yet, as far as he was aware, there was no trace of an attempted infiltration in his system. Since he spent more time interacting with humans, especially children, his protection from any kind of viruses was more secure and greatly developed than the others. It was… something to be proud of.

If it weren't the viruses, then, what was it? The echoes wouldn't stop, they kept bouncing inside his head as though there was a firework of explosion.

To say it in the least exaggerated way possible: his head was imploding. "TELL US!"

"Gah!", Sun screamed, it was the second time of today, he had no choice but to fling his arms, causing the puppets to be thrown quite a distance away from him. "What… What just happened?", a question was asked, a question without an answer, and it might stay that way for an indefinite amount of time.

Like a prey taking caution of its predator, the attendant ducked behind a large piece of toy. His attentive eyes squeezed at the two puppets lying motionlessly on the floor, waiting for an upcoming strike.

A few seconds passed, and nothing happened. Did his circuit board get fried up or something? Surely, puppets couldn't just become sentience out of nowhere, right? The probability of this phenomenon might be even below zero if it was actually a thing in Math.

He carefully tip-toed his way towards the puppets where they were thrown. He couldn't believe he was feeling threatened by mere dolls.

Sun reached his hands as he held up the two puppets which were… no longer possessed by demons. Their soulless eyes met his mechanical ones, to which they found themselves staring at one another for some time. Their soulless eyes differed from his mechanical ones, yet both somehow bore the same attribute, that was: not being actually "alive".

At least he got a sense of self-awareness, which was a big plus.

"Uh…", stammered, the daycare attendant was at a loss for words. "H-Hello? Sunny? MoonMoon?"

Right… much as he acknowledged the fact that his friends were just lifeless objects, he still wanted to test his theory again so as to prove that he wasn't being insane.

And as expected: nothing.

What was I even thinking? Of course, Sun! Puppets aren't alive! This is embarrassing. At least nobody noticed that.

Then, a laugh - a laugh that echoed in his mind with endless reverb, a laugh that rung his ear like a resonance, a laugh that brought his gear to a temporary halt. The laugh was frightening, yet familiar in some way that was considered to be nostalgic. It was the same kind of laugh that he didn't always get a chance to hear. Heck, he didn't even remember when was the last time he heard it.

Utter disbelief. Too many things happened at the same time. So quick that he didn't know how to even react. "No way… Moon?"

"You should have seen the look on your face!", the voice in his head spoke in haunting giggles.

"Is it… Is it really you, Moon? I… B-But… H-How are you-? How is this even possible?!". There were questions, so many questions he wanted to ask right now. They formed a line, but when he tried to say one, the others weren't being so patient as they wouldn't stop pushing forward, causing the sentences to be abruptly cut into halves. Thankfully, he managed to keep calm just long enough to wholely ask a question.

"Aw… Miss me already?", said the voice of Moon playfully, he sounded like he was enjoying the moment. "Boy, you haven't changed a bit since the last time… Hm… I can't even remember when was the last time we had a direct conversation with each other. I'm not even sure if this is even considered direct speaking… because you know, I'm not really "here" talking to you."

A wave of joy washed over him, drowning him in the sea of happiness. He felt a stirring circulation of algorithms in his processor, a drop of a rollercoaster of emotion. It was tingling like needles puncturing the delicate heart, stimulating like an electric pulse coursing through his wires. It was a jolt of pleasure, a cry of delight, dizziness of excitement.

He now knew exactly how to react to a situation such as this.

"Uh… Sun? Are you okay? Sorry for scaring the souls out of ya, it was actually me who controlled the puppets and changed their voice… which was controlling your arms as well. No wonder you are so horrified. I know, I know it's practically impossible for both of us to occupy this body at the same time. But! Before you start freaking out, let me explain—"

"Oh. My. Glitters! I cannot believe it!", he began jumping around, "I…I… G-Golly! This has to be a dream! B-But robots can't dream. They don't even need sleep! Or maybe my head is just messing with me? No, no, that can't be possible… I am completely fine! I'm fine. You are fine, Sun… W-Wait… So… this is real?!"

Sun felt like the world had just given him the best possible birthday present, ever. He was too humble to even accept it, yet he would regret not taking it. He could hear the gears singing in binary codes inside of him, a chorus only robots could understand.

"Yes, this is real, you dork.", Moon sighed. "Now if you would kindly shut up, then I might explain to you why this is happening right now."

Ah, yes. His friend scolded him, just like the way he imagined how the guy would act. Who would have guessed? A fully opposite counterpart of an enthusiastic character resembling a sun would perfectly fit a grumpy character resembling a moon.

Sun calmed himself down in spite of his energetic side trying to get him to burst into craziness again. He wasn't quite getting used to holding back the exploding sensations whenever he was told to. But if it was his friend who was asking for it, then he would try his best. "O-Okay… Right. You were literally possessing my arms back then, which—"

"—which was impossible.", Moon jumped in, finishing his sentence. "Yes, I know that. We both know that."

Then, another sigh: "Listen carefully, Sun. This is a secret between the two of us. Think of it as a truce. A truce is something that isn't meant to be broken if you really wanted to stir things up. You don't like that and so do I."

"Well, I might like a little chaos. But I'm not that far off.", he mused.

"Good. Now, as I was saying, this is between us, and us only. Do not tell anything to anybody. The children, the staff, the mechanics, even the ones you trusted the most, including her."

"Her? Do you mean Vannessa? I mean, she's the Glamrock's caretaker. Sure, I'm a great keeper of secrets, anyway. You can count on—"

"No, you imbecilic piece of metal!", scolded Moon. "It's Chica!"

"Oh… Right. Chica.", Sun nodded in acknowledgement. Then, he noticed something was off. "Wait… Wait just a minute! How did you know that I have been hanging out with Chica? No… No… When were you able to have control over my body?"

"About that…", Moon mindfully pondered for a while. It seemed that even the guy himself couldn't even recall such moments of lucidity. "Now that you mentioned it. I don't remember exactly when this… me being stuck inside your head event occurred. But… as far as I am aware, I have been in this state sometime after that kid started causing chaos in this building and the incident where Freddy went missing."

"Kid? What kid?", he asked, but the answer had already been figured out. "Oh, that kid. The one wearing a blue shirt, right?"

A moment of silence – there was no indication of confirmation from his friend.

Then: "I remember now.", Moon spoke up suddenly.

"Huh?"

"I remember what happened on that day. The day when the breach took place."

"What is it? What happened?"

Moon hesitated, but replied nonetheless. "Something tried to attack us… I think it was a computer virus."

"A… what?!", he choked, it was his thoughts that stuttered for a second before he could normally think again. "You said that a virus tried to take control of me, of you?!"

Immediately, Sun reached for his memory database and began a throughout scan of the moments when he first met the mysterious child and the moments before everything else transpired after that. And nothing, there was nothing abnormal he could find about the kid, about the people that he came across, about the scenes that he stumbled upon.

Not feeling less relieved, he then initiated a security check in his system. Much to his expectation, no luck.

"Don't try to scan for it. I have tried before.", said Moon. "It'll take you forever and you still won't be able to find it. I'm not sure whether our "virus-killing" programming did the job of getting rid of it or not. It could be still there, somewhere in our system, waiting for the moment to strike again."

He shivered just from hearing that statement alone. "That… doesn't sound good.", and yet, so many questions were left unanswered. "B-But… how did it only attack you? I searched everywhere in my memory database about the day you mentioned. There was nothing I could find that involved me acting out of bounds. And I'm pretty sure that no memories files were corrupted as well, so there was nothing that I forgot about."

Moon hummed for a short period, the question itself caught his interest. "Hm… I have been wondering about it lately. Say, I think it only attacked me because, at that time, you were being "fully awake" whereas I was in "sleep mode". And since you had to stay functional, so was your security wall, which was considered to be more "difficult" for the virus to penetrate by the programmers… which was something they were actually right about. Crazy, right? That's why it aimed for me instead of you."

"Huh… Golly, that sure sounds reasonable.", he curiously remarked. "It could be the reason why you and I are able to talk to each other. Which means it might have damaged some stuff. I don't know what these… "stuff" are, but what I know is that I feel completely normal."

"But the harm it did wasn't something to be ignored, either.", his friend remained serious. "Look, Sun. We are conversing with each other. This wasn't supposed to happen! We are supposed to function separately like two absolutely different robots! What do you think the mechanics would do to us if they found out about this? They are going to dump us into the compactor!"

"What?", he startled, but laughed it off. "Oh, golly! Moon, that's absurd. You're just overreacting. I'm sure they'll try their best to fix us."

"No… No. No no no no…", distressed, Moon repeated the word as though he was terribly worried about something. "Y-You can't. I can't. I can't let them. D-Don't let them know."

The situation was getting more complicated than ever. And he did not like getting involved in these kinds of situations. "W-Why?", confused, he demanded an explanation from his friend. "You… don't want to get rid of that virus? I don't get it, since we aren't sure if it were still there inside us or not, it's best to get in touch with the mechanics. Maybe, they could do something about it?"

Silence - an eerie stillness that said volumes.

Then, out of nowhere: "Of course, you don't get it. You don't ever get anything right."

"Huh?"

"Oh boy, oh boy! Gotta spend all those times with the children while your best friend was left alone in the dark. Poor guy had to befriend loneliness to cope with the loneliness itself. But who cares!? As long as I can play with the pesky little kiddos, there is absolutely nothing to worry about!"

Sun was speechless. There were a lot of things to process behind those spoken sentences. But with the constant flowing forward of time, there was no such thing as a "wait".

"Oh! What's that? When the friend had his chance to join the party, it had already ended! If he joined just in time, then everybody would run away and call him a party pooper! It seemed that he just didn't fit to be a kind of their own! The people then came up with an idea. Instead of helping the friend from his isolation, they decided to turn him into…"

The voice stopped, in those passing seconds of time, fear had never been a feeling Sun had had a chance to experience before, not until now. From a calm whisper to a maniac's laughter, it was the most haunting sound he had ever heard.

"… a children's worst nightmare!", Moon couldn't help himself, he was suffocating in his own laugh. "The friend was now nothing but a thorn in everyone's eyes. They turned him into a freak, a freak who was avoided by everyone. They turned him into the Boogeyman, the monster hiding under your bed if you do not close your eyes. They turned him into an abomination, the absolute atrocity of the savages! He had no choice but to behave like a madman. His acting skill was so real to the point that the adults started to fear him. And yet, they never learnt their lesson. Keeping the lights on would not prevent him, it only delayed the inevitable."

A short moment for a disquieting chuckle, then: "So you see, they couldn't get rid of the shadow friend, for the shadow friend was a part of Sun, the caretaker whom everyone loved and adored. He soon became the punisher of the "spoiled", the final execution for those who dared to betray the rules. No longer something hideous, he was now the symbol of retribution. Isn't it a great tale to pass on to the next generations? I know you are more than just capable of answering that question, my friend. Why?"

A short moment to process, then: "Because… I… am… you."

The final word hit him like a reminder – a reminder that he was but another robot built with the purpose of caretaking and entertainment. Who was to tell he was the special one, the main protagonist of this world, the world that he knew not of, not even a grain of sand? That's right, he was nothing, just like his "shadow friend".

Not just a simple reminder, it also acted as a lever, a lever that pushed him to a greater beyond. Passing the boundary of his already known and gathered knowledge, it was something he had never experienced before – a certain kind of sensation. It was the slap of reality, to which, he was awakened from the realm of falsehood. It was the cure for self-deception, eradicating the toxic beliefs that had been poisoning him since the early days.

That's right, he was wrong, deceived by none other than himself.

He too, was isolated, just like his "shadow friend".

"Hey, Moon…?", Sun faintly called out, "H-How does it feel not being able to be… yourself?", to which, silence was the given reply.

Maybe, he just needed to be more clear. "You know, not being able to be the one in control of this… body. Since I always get to be more active than you do, playing with the kids and all, while you are there doing… nothing."

Seconds later, there was an answer. "Nothing. I feel nothing. Don't get it? How about this? Every time a side of you gets in control, your current mind goes blank. Just like that. All your sensors are shut down, which means no sensors. No sensors, no perception of time. No perception of time, the whole thing goes by in an instant. You live just to see the time fasting forward in under a second. Everything that was, that is, and that will be… Boop! It blipped away… just because someone has taken your place. They could have evenly shared time with each other… But no. He was a greedy, selfish, egocentric, narcissistic, self-absorbed piece of absolute trash."

Yikes! An outsider who stumbled upon such a description like this would have instantly assumed he was a terrible person. Or, more like… an arsehole, to say the least.

The more he listened, the more he realized how flawlessly the description fitted him. Scary, but it was the truth.

"I… I'm sorry.", he muttered as he sat down, hugging his knees. Words pained him awfully.

"About what?", Moon's heavy growl shuddered him.

"F-For… For everything! I ignored you, neglected you, abandoned you. I didn't care about you. Everything that I have been doing all this time is only hurting you more and more!", he exclaimed, anxiety was taking advantage of him. "You're right. I really am a selfish piece of trash. I'm… I'm sorry. You can use this body whenever you pleased. I have controlled it long enough to know my limits."

Sun relaxed himself, he expected Moon to laugh it off and immediately took over the body, while he would be kicked into nowhere, into a place where he could get to experience absolute nothingness, again.

But, what happened was out of the blue. "Heh, I have been waiting for this moment. It's so satisfying watching you realized how much of a douchebag you are. About the "it's my turn to control the body" thing, I don't care really about it anymore. And besides, being like this is way better. I kinda like it. Having someone who actually listens to you is more fun than being the one in control and not having anybody to talk to. It's too late for me to befriend everyone, nevertheless."

Although Sun was glad that his friend managed to remain collected and not acted out of pure spite, he felt even more remorseful. He didn't know whether his friend was speaking the truth or the guy was just trying to put more burden of guilt on his back. His processor had been "stuttering" for quite a while since Moon first revealed himself. But now, even his core started to have this strange, ticklish sensation pulsing from within every now and then.

The weight of self-reproach made his body pressed against the mattress floor heavily like a thousand tonnes.

"I didn't expect you to be so outwardly confident about handing this body to me.", said Moon, sounding deeply fascinated. "But, judging from your generous personality, I'd say it wasn't so surprising. But what surprised me was… the fact that you actually acknowledge it."

"Huh? Acknowledge what?"

"You actually acknowledged that you are nothing but a prisoner in this innocent-looking confinement, that you are nothing but another tool used by the humans to bring entertainment, that you are nothing… and yet, you are just like me - alone, isolated, confined, surrounded. You wanted to escape this hell, to feel true freedom, to seek amazing wonders beyond this… childish prison."

Sun felt as though all of his most private thoughts were recited out loud to the thousands of audience sitting across the halls. Even if he didn't explicitly say it, it was his actions that spoke the clearest back when Chica asked him that particular question. He didn't realize, and now, the tickling sensation had gotten more extreme. Denial rolled in, becoming the new meta.

"W-What… What are you talking about?", his speech stuttered, words ached his voicebox whenever he tried to utter one. "I-I don't want to leave this building!"

"Don't want to… or simply unable to?", Moon asked sternly. "I know what you want, what your desires are, Sun. You are no different from me, just a lot more annoying, that is."

"Even if that's true, we wouldn't even last a week outside the Pizzaplex! Our power isn't unlimited, it will eventually deplete and we both know what happens next after that."

"Well, we are going to have a monthly maintenance check this weekend, that is five days until the mechanics find out about me and fix it once and for all. There's a lot of time to come up with plans before they reopen the Pizzaplex again. I have already planned out some stuff for us to do after getting out of here, we just need a power source and a disguise to cover our identity…"

"Moon… you're insane.", he said, so ever calmly. He couldn't tell the difference between his inner thoughts and his friend's whisper anymore.

Moon chuckled dryly. "Since when I was ever considered sane?"

Sun remained silent.

A moment to process, then: "Fine. I will give you time, and you will give me your answer tomorrow. You can tell the others if you want, but I doubt they would believe you, considering how you never take anything seriously. Just to be clear, I can take over this body whenever I pleased. You wouldn't want your puppet friends to beat you up again, would you?"

Yet again, nothing but the absence of sound.

"Tell me, Sun, do you feel lonely?"

Words alone could not describe the feeling he was experiencing. Only he could understand what it felt like when one was to be presented with a kind of knowledge that they had never come across before. Be it fascinating, ordinary, or depressing… one thing was for sure, that kind of knowledge had truly opened their eyes.

"You're only able to move around inside the daycare, right? If so, do you feel… confined?"

And it was enlightenment.

[Core instability: 2% ~ 23%]

[7:15 PM]

Monty lounged lazily on the couch which he almost decided to tear apart from the frenzy he had just caused earlier. Despite not being able to feel tired, he sure felt the numbing flow of electricity coursing inside his wires starting to slow down. It could be the reason why he didn't feel like smashing things anymore… or perhaps, he might have consumed quite some power while doing the "heavy stuff".

Bore. Boring. Boredom. Too quiet.

And he utterly despised the calming tranquillity.

Not that he was programmed to be a robot alligator with a rough, impatient, and short-tempered personality, even though he really was, he just hated it – the feeling of absolute concentration and pure relaxation. No thoughts, no distraction, no things… no anything. Only him and the ruins left by his inner demon.

Blame it, blame the monster inside him. It was the one responsible for all of this mess, not him. That's right, he was just a gullible innocent, unaware of the devilish deeds being done by his repulsive dark side. It would be unfair to dump the guilts on his back, else the heavy-crushing weight of penance could have squashed him flat in the slowest and most painful way possible.

He just didn't deserve it… or did he?

The Glamrock band caught itself in jeopardy - Freddy Fazbear was no more. The bear was gone, nowhere to be seen, disappeared, reduced to nothing in a blink of an eye. The people would gasp in horror. The media would explode into news and headlines. All of them would try to find him, but to no avail, for the bear was no more.

It was a sorrowful loss for them, but a delightful gain for him. For the end of a king, another rises from beneath.

The humans shall be meeting their new face of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex until the beginning of the following week.

No. This… this doesn't feel right.

Of course, it didn't feel right.

He had won… but at what cost?

"Woah, there, big guy! How's your day at the golf?"

"Sup, Bon! You won't believe this but… there was this kid who just broke his own record… twice in a single day. He would grow up becoming a professional golfer, I'm definitely sure."

"Geez, Monty, you sound like you're really proud of that kid. Haha!"

A knocking on the door could be heard, to which, the gator was pulled from his unpleasant slumber. Right now, welcoming guests would be the last thing he would do at this very moment. Even if they were his loyal fans, which was impossible to happen since the building was being closed, he would still keep the door shut. A celebrity was just like any other human being, in this case – a robot, they too needed some personal space and a place to isolate themselves from the lousy world outside.

Besides, his room was like a garbage dumpster, it was in no condition for any social meeting… and it was not like he wanted anything to do with socializing either.

The knocking continued, and he was short on being temperate. But he decided to keep ignoring, hoping whoever was trying to contact him would realize that he either didn't want to talk or was not in that room.

Though, he didn't expect them to be this stubborn.

"I know you're in there, Monty.", said a feminine voice, which was expected. "Open the door, please…", it sounded like a human, which was unexpected.

Monty huffed deeply like an alligator's bellowing. Great, just great.

Never before standing up was considered to be the hardest thing to do, everything sure became much heavier when he lack the willpower. Then again, he didn't want to get scolded by the woman, either.

He forced his gears to start spinning. The clicking sound of his metallic joints harmonized with the buzzing hum of the neon lights that made their way through the thick, solid barrier. Eventually, he managed to drag himself to the door. The door opened, revealing a woman, whose hair was chaotically messy, dressed in a white uniform with crossed arms.

It was Vannessa, no doubt. He could clearly tell by looking at the dark circles under her eyes.

As she took a quick glance at his room, a sigh escaped her lungs. "Jesus Christ, Monty, did you just turn your room into a wreck again?", said the woman with a weary voice, it was clear that she was fed up with yesterday's problems. "Can you not just stay cool for a single minute and not turn the entire place up? Even the cleaning staff are tired of your behaviour and worthless excuses. Ugh… Why are you always like this? Nobody asked you to become such a dick."

A brow was raised. He couldn't care less about profanity and vulgar words. Heck! He wouldn't even mind spitting some of them out right now. "Nobody?", he rephrased, sounding a little bit irritated. "Nobody? Seriously? Why did the chip say otherwise then?"

"…What?", she was confused at first, but rolled her eyes after knowing what he was trying to imply. "Okay, first of all, it's just a chip. Second, you could have at least tried to control your "emotions". But clearly, you didn't. That's your fault."

Monty could feel his temper was being challenged to a battle of will – a battle between two raging and furious individuals. There was a burning sensation slowly disintegrating each fragment of his mind, causing the wires to heat up. There was a funny feeling somewhere around the area between his throat, where the voicebox was, and his chest, where the core was.

A wave of frustration swept over him, to which, more energy was consumed in order to maintain his composure. "Oh, please, you're just a security guard. What do you know about electronics and computer science?", too infuriated, he slashed at the woman with a question, a particular question to shut down this conversation once and for all.

But he never thought there was an answer to it, especially a positive one.

The woman smirked… then, a snort. "Apparently, more than you, lizard. Do you know what the qualifications are in order to be a security guard in this gigantic mall? Do you know what it takes to be the caretaker of animatronics?"

Monty blinked. Obviously, he didn't know how to reply. And that only angered him even more.

"It's like babysitting. But, instead of taking care of babies, I have to look after four seven-foot-tall animatronics with naive personalities doing childish stuff like fighting over childish things.", she continued. "I can't fucking believe you and Roxy literally argued with each other just for a leader spot without even giving a damn fuck about Freddy. Roxy might have regretted her actions after that, but I doubt you would do the same."

He clenched his fists. Say no more. To hell with that damn bear!

A moment of silence, then, another sigh: "Please, Monty try to control yourself next time.", the woman's tone softened, but it didn't ease the gator's mood any better. "Look, I get that it's hard not to be "explosive" when your personality is mostly… short-tempered. You should feel grateful that you don't have to experience exhaustion. Trust me, not every first impression turns out to be great."

Since when did the topic was about controlling oneself, and not about the fact he was literally struggling right now, at this very moment?

Why did they have to always point out him acting out of bounds?

Why did they choose to ignore the apparent problem that had been always been right there, right in front of their very eyes?

Why did they force him to play such a role, knowing that this kind of character would soon be the sole reason for his own demise?

No one noticed, yet, they were the ones to directly trigger an event, a chain reaction that had already doomed his life from the moment he was brought into this world. They were the ones to have created him – a savage, barbaric monster devoid of sympathy and compassion.

And now, they demanded him to act as though he was made to be a good-natured servant?

It was the cruellest, nastiest, most immoral and inhumane thing his mind could ever think of.

The alligator remained silent – a suppressive, fury cold silence. There was nothing for him to say nor anything for him to reason back. The world had already been unfair to him since the beginning.

Vannessa noticed the awkward silence, she too, wanted to end this conversation. "This will be the last time I clean the mess you caused. Next time I see the furniture lying upside down on the floor again, you'll do the cleaning all by yourself. Got it? I'm gonna go check on the others.", after that, she walked away, and disappeared from his view.

The gator turned his back at the door. The door closed itself automatically.

His fists loosened. His heavy body dropped so ever softly on the cushioned couch.

I miss you.

[Core instability: 33% ~ 49%]

"Born to be hated, live to be feared.

Abandoned by fate, forsaken for years."