The sun's bright yellow light had intruded into the horror attraction, marking six and a half hours since the puppet had been dragged down to its depths. The visiting night guard had almost seen them, but the Marionette left as quickly as possible to avoid scaring him off. Silence filled the green stained halls as he exited, leaving only the white noise of whirring machines and sparking wires.
It took a while before any sort of conversation sparked, seeing as the two were in deep thought.
"So, what now?" The spirit tensed up, rubbing her forearm. The memories of their time in that dank safe room for thirty years were swimming up to the surface now that she was unoccupied. She had hoped back then that they would come up with a plan to escape it. They did technically escape – the better term being dragged out forcefully – but it had come with a price: they now had no chance of reaching Fredbear and Bonnie. She was eighty-seven percent sure that they were still locked up in separate safe rooms, but for all she knew they could have rotten away or been torn up or even destroyed by now.
After viewing all that her host had gone though, though, she could not feel too bad for herself. The Marionette himself had been searching over fifty years for them, and who could blame him – they seemed to be the closest things he had. Even though she had seen firsthand how smart he was when in situations like that, she had to admit that she was surprised how lucky he was. With a purple clad murderer lurking around, five vengeful spirits of children trying to tear apart every night guard they see, and animatronics getting scrapped with the first hint of a glitch in their code, it was a miracle how he survived these past fifty years with only a few scratches.
The answer he gave almost caused the girl to tumble out of his body in shock.
"I-I don't know." He lowered his head and started to fiddle with the area where his golden buttons used to be.
"What?" She had no eyes, only black holes in their place, but the Marionette could still tell that she was looking up right at him "You always know what to do. I mean, just yesterday you kept up from getting caught like three times. Come on, there has to be something."
He wrapped his long fingers together in a ball, trying to pull out some resemblance of an idea. "Remember when the man had carried us over here last night?" The spirit nodded her head. How could she forget? "I remember – he mentioned something about 'something he could use', right? Since he brought us over, he might have been referring to a working machine, like one of the old ones." His eyes crossed paths with a Foxy lamp. Just looking at what happened to these things put him off edge. "If that's the case, then what is he trying to do with them?"
"Another restaurant?" The girl leaned forward out of his body and twisted her neck to get a good look at his face. She had heard his ramblings throughout the journey over, but he had not said much in relation to what the actual place would turn out to be. The Marionette shifted his head from side to side, contemplating the idea.
"Maybe. I-I guess we will just have to wait and see what comes of it."
{***}
August 22nd, 1973. It had been a full two weeks since the grand opening and the Marionette couldn't have been more tense. Everywhere he seemed to go, every time he tried to think of something else, those dead white eyes would stare at him, his throat releasing a sickening demonic laugh that shouldn't have been possible for a human. No one else seemed to notice. Not Bonnie, not the children, not Fredbear. No one. It was like the purple clad monstrosity didn't exist. He did though. The Marionette knew he did, and he wasn't crazy for it. He wasn't.
Two weeks of nonstop paranoia had sucked any enjoyment he could get from entertaining children and mutated it into a heavy led ball, dragging him down slowly into madness. He tried to focus, he really did. Each child that came up to him recieved a plastered smile and the best playtime he could give (though at this point, it wasn't much). That didn't seem to be enough for the kids who had decided to come to the half crazed puppet less and to the much jollier golden animals more. He couldn't say he was surprised. He wouldn't want to be around himself either at this point.
Taking his afternoon rounds of giving out presents, he couldn't help but glance over to the front window every now and then. A girl of around nine years old was staring longingly into the diner. Tears slowly fell down her cheeks then took a plunge straight down to her purple dress below. The rain hadn't been too hard on her, only releasing a few drops on her. Her almost golden hair was frazzled as if it hadn't been combed in weeks. The puppet couldn't say he wasn't too emotionally invested. He would've gone and opened the doors for the poor girl but company policy prevented it. 'No unpaying customers allowed in' it said. With a sigh, he resigned himself to checking up on her every now and then.
A laugh pressed up against the outside glass, just barely making it over to the black and white animatronic.
It was his laugh.
The Marionette quickly turned around and zoomed over. The purple clad menace was standing right behing the crying child with that wide grin plastered on his face and white eyes glaring directly at the girl. A revolver was positioned directly behind her head, cocked and ready to fire. The Marionette knew what was about to happen and raced to the window in a futile attempt to stop it. "No! He screamed. His fists pounded on the windows, desperate to alert the girl of her imminent doom.
Bang!
The shot was quiet, the sound being muffled by the soft layer of skin that pressed against the tip of the gun. The girl's face was blank, tears still streaming down her face as she slid to the ground that was as cold and lifeless as she was.
The puppet shrieked and jumped back falling to the floor. "She's dead! She's dead!" He cried, crawling over to the first security guard. The man's face drained of its color as he rushed over to the window. He stood ther for a moment, gaping at what the Marionette could only presume to be the child's carcass, before turning around with a sigh.
"It's nothing." Bewildered, the puppet rushed over and looked out the window again. Sure enough, the was no body, no security guard, just a sidewalk and a street. The glaring sun proved that it hadn't even been raining.
"No, it can't be - I swear she was just -" He looked over to his golden freinds for support but their faces didn't help much, a mixture of confusion and disappointment. The parents and children had backed away, creating a large rift between him and the rest of the crowd. Without a word, he dissapeared into the kitchen and stayed there for the rest of the day.
{***}
Two golden suits, a bear and a rabbit, lay practically dead on the tiled floor where the Marionette sat just seven hours before. The halls seemed to darken at their mere presence, each coated with several thick bloodstains splattered across the fronts of their withered torsos. The golden coloration of the fur had long since faded to a sickening yellow-green, matching the hue of the attraction. Hollowed black holes where the eyes should have been popped out against the semi-colorful fur. Their suits were both extremely withered, large gaping holes in the fabric revealing the corroded metal mechanisms inside. There they sat, the bodies prohibiting them from making any sort of controlled movement. After a little less than an hour of forced solitude on the ground, a purple flash wrapped around the rabbit before seeping in, planning a reboot for the mechanisms inside.
A few minutes passed with no change, only the whirring of metal parts and the occasional sparks erupting from the mossy light bulbs. Suddenly, a pair of white dots sprung up in the rabbit's eye sockets, piercing its pitch-black surroundings. Slight jerks shifted the cadaver around until its ancient mechanics gave it the gift of standing up. The white lights zapped around their circular encasing, taking in information of the area around them, save for the golden bear off to the side. He had no idea where he was, or why he had awoken at that specific moment, but he had figured that would be revealed to him eventually. The object of interest for him now was the thing slithering around in his head. He could just barely feel it, but the minuscule itching proved that there was in fact something. It was oozing around like a snake, deleting and replacing memories, one at a time, though there was no way for the rabbit to know that. Heck, he had not even known his real name until the thing gave it to him.
One hall down, the Marionette was on edge, again. The clanking of metallic footsteps repeatedly echoed against the walls, and every now and then he swore that a flash of purple (or was it gold?) slipped by the corridor. Even though it had become a common occurrence by now, he still could not pinpoint who, or what, it was, with the footsteps quickly fading into silence and the sparks of color melting back into the mossy green of the attraction.
What felt like hours later, the floating puppet caught another glimpse of the color flash, this time shining for far too long just to be a hallucination. Turning around, he headed straight for where he could trap the thing in a dead end. As he came closer, the gold he swore he saw was slowly being out-shined by a deep purple. A toxic mix of dread, excitement, and plain fear took control of his body almost forcing him back to his spot. His curiosity got the better of him though, and pushed the fabric body towards this new source of light. Who was this? The Marionette asked himself. If it was not the guard from last night or the man on the phone, then could it be... Him?
He inwardly scowled at the thought. Why would he come back? He should have never come back. He had already done his dirty work and ruined so many lives hadn't he? So why would he be back?
No. He wasn't here. It had to be something else. This thought propelled the puppet forward, charging with a tiny glint of dread in his eye. When the subject in question entered his line of sight, he stopped and gazed, the simple answer hanging over him like a loaded gun over a child's head.
"B-Bonnie?"
{***}
Two months later led to their last day. The diner was set to close down at the end of the night. 'Lack in customer interest' was the official reason that was written down on all of the forms but everyone there knew the real one. The Marionette's little outburst had scared them all away. Naturally, a few kids came every now and then, but the visits were few and far between and no one dared to venture anywhere near the 'glicht ed' puppet. The clocked chimed 8:00, an hour 'till closing time.
The two golden animatronics on stage were playing with their instruments for the last time, strumming and singing a tune he didn't recognize. The staff were busying themselves with removing tablecloths and polishing up the room, refusing to make eye contact with the puppet. He didn't know exactly what to do. The staff didn't want any help and his friends would ignore any type of conversation he tried to start. Currently fiddling with his bottom golden button, a blue glow in the corner soon caught his eye.
The girl from before was huddled into a fetal position. Her entire body was now colored in various shades of blue, including the once purple dress she had been wearing. She was still crying like before, but it was much quieter. He was barely able to hear it from his position. Checking his internal systems, he made sure that he wasn't just imagining it before hovering over.
"Hey, don't cry. It'll be fine, Uh, here." Quickly grabbing a slice of unfinished cake from a nearby table, he set it down in front of the girl. Immediately, she stopped crying and looked up. Smiling, she thanked the Marionette before wrapping her arms around him.
Unheeded by both of them, she had gained two purple lines running down her face.
{***}
'The golden-green rabbit tilted his head to the side and studied the being in front of him. Truth be told, he was not expecting any sort of company aside from the night guard the purple thing in his head would not shut up about. He didn't mind it, the thing had been helping him out after all, but it couldn't go three minutes without blabbering on about 'evil night guard' this and 'in our way' that. With all its speeches, he could not help but assume there was no one else. It is a logical assumption when you are trapped in an abandoned building. However, this... thing (puppet?) was much different from anything else he had remembered. His body was a sleek black with exactly nine white rings around each appendage. A long neck the same color connected to a creepy faded mask, though it seemed to be sagging down his face just a bit. Being so wrapped up in all of this, he had barely noticed the other's attempts to speak with him.
"Bonnie? Is that you?" The white irises inside held a bit of hope and desperation.
"Who- My name is Springtrap." The rabbit stated. If the mask was not enough of an alarm, the puppet-thing seemed to be crazy as well, or that is what the purple thing told him, at least.
"Springtrap? No, Bonnie, you don't understand. It's me! The Marionette! Don't you remember me?" His tone dropped at that last half, as if he were kicked in the stomach multiple times.
With all this new information, the purple thing was starting to lose its control, each memory it was trying to delete resurfacing and giving the rabbit more freedom over his body. They had to regain control, and fast. "Who's Bonnie? I already told you my name, now let me through!" His anger levels were rising at whatever this thing was trying to tell him, even if it was clearing up some missing gaps. His only escape was through the corridor in front of him and the other did not seem eager to let him loose.
"Please just listen to me. If you just stay here a little longer, I'm sure-" Silence bursted through the air again, replacing whatever thought and phases had been present before. A Freddy lamp was shining into Springtrap's mouth, revealing a large human skull gleaming against the yellow-green color of the animatronic.
"What is… that?" The Marionette asked, fear creeping into his voice. If the eternal smile hadn't been plastered onto his mask, it would be gaping in horror. Surely, the bone couldn't belong to a child, right? "Let me help you – stay still!" He reached his long spindly fingers towards the springtrapped figure in front of him.
As soon as his sensors processed the incoming felt, a flame burned in the animatronic's mind causing his self-defense mechanism to spring into action. His large golden hand grabbed the other's as the jerked it, throwing the limp body to the floor.
"Don't touch me!" The clang of fabric, metal, and plastic resounded off the tiles as the rabbit stared at the mess. Without a second thought, he hurried off in order to remove himself from any further related thoughts.
The Marionette groaned in pain, reaching out a hand to his spirit who had fallen out in the collision with the floor. She gladly accepted and phased back into his body just in time to allow him to hear incoming footsteps and see the purple outline of a leg and a shoe. Right then, everything clicked. The identity of the skull that was wedged into Bonnie's mouth. The reason why he was so mean to him just then. The reason why he didn't seem to remember anything the Marionette told him.
It was all because of Jeremy Fitzgerald, the Purple Guy.
"Hello, Puppet."