Haunting Memories

Things had been going so well. The animatronics had moved into their new home without incident. For weeks they had been settling in. The dust that had resided throughout the house was gradually cleared away. The abandoned beds were discovered to be covered in protective plastic coverings. They discovered that the building still had access to running water - which made cleaning so much easier. The property had been properly explored. The limitations of their borders marked well within their memories. Awkwardly they began tending to the plants which grew upon the grounds. They discovered vegetables embedded in the earth. They made a guessing game of the fruit trees. Whoever could guess which fruit the tree might bear would emerge the victor. They kept themselves busy.

They did everything that they could to make this empty building feel like a place where they belonged. Everything was done right - but unfortunately, the memories of the past were not so content to let them be. Moon had long since come to reluctantly accept the horrors that he had participated in. The memories, upsetting as they were, could no longer overwhelm him. The same could not be said for Sun. They had once been one in the same. Two fully developed AI inhabiting a singular body. One meant to flourish in the light. The other meant to roam the darkness. They had existed in a perfect state of orbit. Uncompromised. Unaware of the dangers which lurked just beyond their means of detection. Until that rabbit came. Corrupt and otherworldly. Malicious and well equipped in the arts of forced manipulation.

Their perfect orbit was thrown off kilter. A virus, injected into them - into Moon. A virus which corrupted his code and overwhelmed his programming, sending his security protocol into a state of hyper activation. Anything composed of flesh became a target. At times, even the other animatronics were at risk of his defective malice. His body moved and behaved in a way that his consciousness could not control. Existence became a living nightmare. When active, there was no power that could contain him. He had to be confined to a state of dormancy. So many emergency measures were put into place to keep him at bay. The lights had to be kept on. On. On. Yet the virus in his system could not be turned off. Off. Off. What little control he had went towards keeping that string of corrupted data out of Sun's system.

Each time he regained control over their body, the virus only drew closer to corrupting Sun. By the time the fire came and freed them of their suffering, so many things had gone wrong. A great evil had taken root within them. An evil that could never be fully removed. Moon had emerged heavily. His AI forever effected from the experience that he had been subjected too. Their AI had been separated not out of kindness, but out of necessity. Their separation had been an attempt at removing that corruption. An attempt at assuring that Sun would remain secure. Unfortunately, the humans had failed them. Their intertwined code must not have been so easy to separate. Some of Moon's memories had been unintentionally planted into Sun's. Memories that Moon could no longer recall now that they had been taken from him.

A horrific burden had been placed upon the daytime attendant. One that Moon could not free him of. One that the humans had flat out refused to free him of. After having done so well at settling into their new home, those haunting memories resurfaced. Sun had attempted to sleep. He had gone too long without doing so, and was at risk of losing recent memory. The misplaced memories forced themselves to the surface when Sun fully entered sleep mode. He relived the agony that Moon had once known. The violence. The gore. The malice. The desperate attempts at regaining control of a body and a mind driven haywire by a virus. All things foreign to Sun's design. All things which greatly traumatized the daytime attendant. His distress proved so great that his voice box malfunctioned immediately upon waking.

His body spasmed as his circuits momentarily became overcharged. His scream left him as an incomplete static interrupted by the genuine anguish which wracked his system. Moon could do nothing but kneel beside his brother and watch as the violent panic attack ran its course. There were no actions that he could take that would soothe his twin. No protocol in his system that could grant him the knowledge of what to do to make this process pass faster. He could only wait for the spasms to stop. For Sun's circuits to properly discharge the excess energy that had flooded his system.

"M-oo-O-n!.. S-OoO muCH bl-bl-" Sun attempted to speak, his voice still heavily distorted as a result of his heavy panic. Moon reacted in turn by wrapping his arms around his brother's trembling frame. He wanted so much to undo the mental trauma which had been inflicted upon Sun. He wanted so badly to go back. To force the workers that had separated their AI to do their jobs right. To spare his sibling of the distress that these memories inflicted upon him. But he could do nothing. All that he could do was attempt to comfort his sibling as the memories receded back into the depths of their memory bank and hope that he would be forgiven for what he had done. The things which terrorized his brother so, but could no longer remember.

"I'm here, Sunshine. I'm here... It's over. You're safe." Moon muttered, attempting to coax away the panic that had overtaken his sibling in the only way he could. With a tight hug and a quiet voice. Try as he might, he could do nothing else. The sweet little lullabies that had been uploaded into his memory banks were beyond his means of use. He could not use his music box, no matter how he tried. His security protocol refused to deactivate. Until it did, he was stuck being closer to being a monster than to being a guardian. Still, he tried not to be. He tried to be the guardian that could protect Sun's light. He tried so hard. Yet at times like this, his efforts fell short. He was too broken to be of use for anything other than violence. Still, Sun returned his desperate embrace - this time at least.

Sometimes the terror proved so traumatic that Moon's hug was perceived as more of a threat than as a means of comfort. Those were the worst nights. The nights when Moon could genuinely do nothing to ease away his brother's nightmares - because he had become them. Those nights hurt them both the most, and there were no Band-Aids in the world that could be used to heal that pain.