Mable: Enjoy!

Begin Prompt in 3, 2, 1…
FNAF-tober Edition

19: Connection Terminated

"This ends for all of us. End communication."

With the press of a button, Henry silenced himself from the world and settled into his seat to wait for the end. The fire hadn't reached his secluded spot yet, but the smoke was already creeping in. Though that wasn't what was suffocating him, but the heat that was baking the room. It felt like an oven.

Henry was already starting to become lightheaded when he heard the banging on the nearby hatch. Something found its way to him in its attempt to escape, but it wouldn't reach him, nor would it reach the locked door behind him. At least, that was the plan. He was starting to lose focus as his head rolled back to stare at the ceiling.

He was too unfocused to even think straight. He heard the loud clatter as the hatch opened, the electrical systems holding it closed failing as fire melted the wiring, but he was too far gone to even realize it.

Henry close his eyes and gave himself to the fire.

And opened his eyes to the sensation of being dragged across concrete.

Henry's eyes opened to a blurry mess and could barely make out the sight of the burning building that he was slowly being drug away from. It took him a moment more to realize that he was alive, but he could barely breathe.

He wheezed and gasped for air, body rousing fully, throat burning, and skin hurting. Already he could tell he must've gotten burned. His right arm stung greatly and his leg on the same side felt wrong- probably also burned, perhaps badly enough that he couldn't feel it.

But before Henry could access anything longer, the hand grabbing at his collar released and quickly replaced itself underneath his shoulder, the other fitting under his other. He was lifted into a sitting position and propped against the fence surrounding the pizzeria. It felt like ice against his overheated skin.

Henry tried to open his eyes again and found his vision clear enough to see his savior. He was both surprised and not to see the dark form of L.E.F.T.E. crouching beside him. There were a few burns on its exterior, but it was largely undamaged.

It was then that Henry realized his plan to free them failed. His chest welled with disappointment as he coughed before trying to speak.

"You saved me..." His voice was weak and rough, damaged by the smoke and heat. He carefully reached up with his unburned hand and limply dropped it on L.E.F.T.E.'s arm. It was, as he expected, not aggressive. "...I'm sorry. All I wanted was to help you. I thought I could give you peace."

The bear's head lowered. Then it slowly raised its hand and stiffly moved it to drop atop Henry's. There it stayed on his, as though comforting him. So human for a cold machine- Henry could imagine the strings being pulled by his child's spirit, here to assure him and save him.

He couldn't give up here. Maybe they got out, but if the others didn't then they could still find release. There was still hope for them yet, to find freedom from the suffering.

"I promise... I promise," Henry swore. "I will set you free."

It was this that caused L.E.F.T.E. to slowly raise its head. Its yellow eye twitched before focusing on him almost desperately. It leaned closer, shifting its upper body towards him, and then lifted his hand to press it to his chest. It dragged it along its belly, clawing at its belly with its fingers. It took Henry a moment to realize what it was motioning for.

"You... Want me to take you out? Take your puppet out of the bear?"

L.E.F.T.E.'s pupils widened in desperation and it used its free hand to claw at its belly. It looked so frantic and frightened, and it cut Henry to the heart. This suit was supposed to be soothing- she was supposed to be asleep, not aware that she was trapped inside of the wrong body.

"I'm afraid I can't. I'm sorry, I... But I will free you. I will find a way to release your soul, so you can finally be at peace," Henry promised. "I can fix this."

The bear was becoming twitchier and more frantic. It squeezed his hand tighter and continued to claw at its belly. It traced over a patch of burns on its shoulder before trying to dig its fingers through, to no avail. It was pleading with him and he felt the guilt well up. Too dehydrated to cry, he choked on tearless sobs.

"I'm so sorry, Charlie. I never wanted this to happen. I love you so much."

Suddenly, L.E.F.T.E. stilled. Its clawing stopped and it stared with a dead-eyed look, lid raised, pupil shrinking to a pinprick. Henry wondered if it recognized the name, or if it had just realized he couldn't help it.

The bear suddenly released Henry's hand and slowly started to stand. The hand slid off its arm and fell limply alongside Henry's weakened form. Though while weakened, the bear suddenly standing caught his attention. It concerned him.

"Charlie?" he cautiously asked. The bear turned slowly, staggering over its own feet, and stared off past the parking lot. Then it began to walk away. A rush of weak panic shot through Henry. "Charlie, wait! Don't go! I- I can help you! I will help you!" But the bear was getting further away and there was nothing he could do. "Please, don't leave..."

But by now the consciousness inside of the bear knew it couldn't rely on Henry. The connection it believed they had didn't exist. Henry didn't love him, Henry didn't care about him, all he cared about was his daughter.

He always loved her the most. Nobody else could compare.

Not even his son.

20: The Red Lake

"It's going to be Halloween soon."
"What does it matter?"
"I- I thought maybe we could do something fun. Like we could find and carve a pumpkin, or we could tell scary stories."
"Or we could go out and scare someone."
"I... I don't want to do that... What about the ghost stories?"
"That's dumb. I don't even know any."
"I do. I used to have a book full of them that I bought from school. There was one about this family that moved into an old house-."

"I could tell you a story. A really scary one that's totally true."

"Really?... Yeah, okay. What's it about?"

"It's about the place where little ghosties go when they get lost and go where they're not supposed to. They call it the Red Lake."

"I don't know, I don't think I really like the sound of this."
"Don't be such a baby. You're the one who wanted to tell ghost stories."
"...Alright."
"So, what's the Red Lake?"

"In a clearing of red trees in a void of black, where the air is thick like a staticky TV, there's a red lake. It's completely round, about the size of a swimming pool, but so deep that you can't see the bottom. The water's as red as the trees are, but you can see through it and see this big, black pit in the bottom. There's no fish in the lake, but there is a fisherman."

"Is he red too?"

"Funny. Yeah, he is. But he's not a person, oh no. He's something much, much worse. He's got a mouth like a gator that stretches out with razor sharp teeth, waiting to catch something, but it's not fish he catches."

"...What does he catch?"

"There's nothing down in that lake except THE END, so he can only catch things when something goes out in there. That's when the lost ghosts come in. When a kid like us dies, sometimes they go a little too far and get to that red lake. But once you get there, there's no coming back. You're stuck there... Unless..."

"Unless... The fisherman catches you?"

"Close! Unless you go into the lake. Then the lake decides where you go. Either the fisherman catches you, reels you in, and you get to be his midnight snack... Or you sink to the bottom of the lake and you never come back. They call the fisherman Old Man Consequences, because he's the consequences you get if you get too close..."

"...Close to what?"
"The lake. Duh."

"Or whatever's at the bottom of it."

"And this is really a real story? It sounds made up. If nobody who sees the lake gets back, how come you know about it?"

"I didn't say that. I said once you get there, to the lake, there's no coming back. As long as you stay far enough away, you might see it... Heh, but that's not something you two are going to want to try. You're barely keeping it together as it is! So, next time you wind up wandering around, if you start seeing a bunch of red, you better start running. Or else you're going to be doing a lot of swimming."

The warehouse was silent. In the midst of the largest room, surrounded by trinkets lost to time, a strange figure was crouched on the ground. It was wrapped in a trench coat and little of it could be seen beyond its white face and metal, endoskeleton hands.

The hands which currently cradled what looked like a simple plush toy. It stared at the toy with drawn-on eyes, silent with unexpressed horror.

The following laughter came from the toy it held.

"Aww, what's wrong, guys? Scared of a little ghost story? Heh, well... You should be."

The cloaked endoskeleton slowly sat down the doll and wrapped its arms around itself. Silently contemplating what it had said until-.

"Andrew?"
"Yeah?"
"Just... Never mind."

21: Can you hear me?

They waited for him eagerly as they heard his footsteps tapping across the tiled floor of the auditorium. It wouldn't be much longer now. All they had to do was be patient.

The technician opened the door to the maintenance room and cast his flashlight's beam across to the slumped form in the middle of the room. He was nearly dwarfed by Baby's massive, unresponsive body, and he approached it hesitantly. One hand was tucked behind his back while the other held the flashlight. The Handunit hung on his belt and began to speak to him.

"Great job reaching parts and service. Circus Baby has been deactivated for an unknown reason. It is you job to make sure she's structurally stable and secure to the conveyor. Our technicians will take it from there."

They would not, never again, and even the Handunit's use was quickly running out. They intervened before it could give anymore commands.

"Can you hear me?" Baby's soft voice called out. "I'm pretending. Remember how I said I could pretend? The cameras are watching. I must be careful not to move." The technician was listening silently, buying it all.

"Something bad happened yesterday. Something bad always happens. I don't want it to happen again. There is something bad inside of me. I'm broken, I can't be fixed," Baby said. It was being lathered on thickly, nearly pleading for sympathy, and begging for him to play the role of hero. He was lowering his guard; they were lowering their bait.

"I'm going to be taken to the Scooping Room soon, but it's not going to fix what's wrong with me. What is bad is always left behind. Will you help me? I want you to save what is good, so the rest can be destroyed, and never recovered..." Surely he would agree to that, even if he said nothing.

"...But you must be careful. Ballora is here in the room with us. Ballora will not return to her stage. Ballora will not return to her body. You must be careful. You must remain calm and listen to my voice."

That would stave off any suspicion. That would implement the fear. Now the technician would need Baby's guidance. Now he couldn't just run out, or he would be risking his life. It was perfect. He believed it all.

"There is a button on my cheek. You must find it and press it."

Then the technician finally reacted. Slowly he pinned the flashlight between his shoulder and neck and reached up for the clown. His movements were slow, calculated, no doubt frazzled by fear. Upon pressing the button, one of Baby's faceplates clicked open and revealed a numbered keypad underneath.

"There is a passcode that you must enter before you can retrieve me. Enter the code carefully." He raised his hand to the keypad obediently and waited.

"...Eight." Beep. "Seven." Beep. "Four." Beep. "Two." Beep. "Two." Beep. "Three." Beep. "Nine." Beep. "Five." Beep. "One."

Silence.

The technician's finger held above the button without moving. He paused there waiting for something, staring distantly towards Baby's chest, completely silent. At first, they thought he must've gotten confused, and so they gave him a few more seconds, waiting for him to press the button. They began to quickly lose their patience.

And then the technician did the last thing they expected. He lowered his hand and took a few steps back from Baby. Then just stood there and stared down towards the floor, grabbing the flashlight again. Maybe he was starting to realize how suspicious this all was. Maybe he really had miscounted the numbers.

Whatever it was, he made a mistake, and they were desperately impatient. There was no holding them back any longer. Forget the plan, forget the voices, they would physically drag him to the crusher and force him to endure what he was needed for.

Without any warning, they appeared from around Baby's empty shell and leapt at their prey. Their fingers dug into his collarbone as they prepared to break him under their grasp, not needing his bones intact. He stared up with wide eyes of horror and-

brought something out from behind his back that looked almost like a gun-

and something sharp dug into their wires before the world was suddenly overtaken with PAIN.

The agonizing crackle of electricity wracked their conjoined body. Four voices shrieked as one as their wires convulsed. It was so much worse than the controlled shocks from the panels connected to their stages. The pain burned through everything and by time it stopped they had collapsed to the floor.

The amalgam twitched as its wires tried to come undone. Though one, twitching, green eye it could see the wire leading up from the prong lodged in its chest to the gun in the technician's hand. It had to be some sort of taser, one that they were not familiar with. That same eye rolled up to see the technician.

He looked... Unaffected. Silently, he tugged at the cord to pull the wire free and then pressed a button on the back of the gun to retract it. Then he silently turned towards the tool shelf and headed over to it. He let his guard down to look for something, and if the amalgam wasn't in the state it was in it might've attacked again.

Until it saw the technician's hand running over the handle for the portable buzz saw. Within seconds, the amalgam pulled itself together enough to crawl out the door. The technician glanced over his shoulder but made no rush to follow.

Legs still virtually useless and body still twitching from the aftershocks, they took refuge by Funtime stage. There everything quickly devolved into panic.

"Wh-Wh-What the heck was that?! That guy's a total psychopath!" a panicked, borderline crazed voice cried. "B-Baby, what do we do?!"

"I... I don't know..." Baby, normally controlled and having been in control of the situation, was totally floored. To think that the technician was carrying a taser with that much power-. "...He didn't trust us. He bought that thing with him."

"I told you this would happen if you were too heavy handed. I warned you," a soft, female voice whispered. "But you never listen."

"Who cares about that! What are we gonna do n-now?!" the crazed voice cried.

Baby hissed, "Keep your voice down, Dummy. He's going to find us-."

Speak of the devil, the door swung back open and the flashlight shined across the auditorium. They leaned to the side and peeked out, only for their pupils to shrink to pinpricks.

He changed lights, now with a smaller one attached to the breast of his uniform. It left his hands free to carry the taser in one and the buzz saw in the other. Their wires tightened and their eyes were trembling and twitching.

"Elizabeth..."

They flinched at the name, even though Baby was the only one who, for some reason, seemed to recognize it. She stared distantly at the technician, watching as he began to walk across the room, taking his time with it.

"Elizabeth, it's me. Father sent me to come find you. To come set you free," the man murmured. "And that's what I'm going to do... Under whatever means possible."

Their eyes lowered to the buzz saw again. They remembered how the taser rendered them defenseless, and how their legs were still not functioning. They sunk further back into the stage.

"There's no point in running, Elizabeth. I may not be able to see you... but I can hear you."