A/N: Well, I asked you last week to let me know what you thought of the story and you guys certainly didn't let me down! Thanks a lot for those reviews and suggestions! I currently do not have anyone to proofread my chapters before updating, so typos do happen. Please have patience and let me know when you spot one. Again thanks a lot for your amazing feedback this past week!
Now, on a grimmer note:
I honestly don't like warnings, in my opinion they're spoilers in a certain way. If a tragedy happens it should be unexpected, heartbreaking, etc. However, you are getting a warning from me today: this chap might be... unpleasant. Before I even posted Ch. 1 I already had what happens here in mind. But for different reasons I've recently thought A LOT on whether what happens here should be left out or not, and in the end, decided that it should stay. This is also the last chapter of the first "tape" of this story.
Regardless of it all, happy reading, and let me know what you think of it!
Chapter 11: Something borrowed…
Standing on the show stage, my brother and I looked at the sad display of Erik, the manager, shouting out words Mom said were very bad at the two officers from the health department while they stuck a big red sign on the door of the pizzeria. We had seen those officers before, we had listened to the 'conversations' they had with Erik, so we knew what was going to happen to the pizzeria. The question was what would happen to us.
We walked behind curtains to the backstage area and stepped into the 'Employees Only' hallway, ready to deliver the bad news to Ferny and Sarah. We opened the door of the maintenance room to find the pair sitting on the floor next to each other.
"Hey guys!" greeted Sarah joyfully, "Glad you came! This big nerd over here was about to tell me more about how our gears work, right?"
Ferny only answered with a sad hum, immune to Sarah's attempt at cheering him up.
"How do you feel Fer?" asked Sean.
"Umm… the chest still hurts a bit." he mumbled, "But besides that, I'm fine."
"No you're not." the three of us replied in choir. Our red friend let his head fall down along with his ears.
"I know you since we were in kinder Ferny," I continued, "so does Sean. And Sarah and you were basically raised together. No one here is fine. But we all know you're the one that's feeling the worst in this room, and that says a lot."
A few seconds passed before Sarah nodded at my words. "Brandon's right Fer," she said, "you need to let it go."
"Easy for you to say!" growled Ferny, his eyes lighting up in rage, "I freaking murdered someone! And I… enjoyed it!" His eyes dimmed to a sad glow once again as he let his head fall down.
"Hey, we all feel bad about it." said my brother, "But we were… different. We couldn't think clearly, remember? Even Don did some bad things to Jack, things we know he would never do, so…"
"Bonnie." I interrupted. Three sets of confused eyes looked at me. "That night I was Bonnie. I think I finally understand what Walther said, and what happened that night. Sean Williams, for example, is human. And like any human, he has an evil side. But his good side is much bigger and stronger, so he's overall and most of the time, good. What happened was this: somehow, Walther or somebody else turned that good side off, and what remained was pure evil."
"I think I understand." said my brother as he crossed his arms smartly, "since Sean is 95% good,"
"95%?" huffed Sarah, "You're so humble."
"Fine... since he's 90% good, most of his memories and emotions are tied to that huge piece of the cake. Get rid of that, and you have a tiny slice left that has no human memories, barely any emotions, and is pure evil. A slice that calls himself Freddy Fazbear. The thing is, even though Freddy has nothing of Sean, Sean still knows and remembers what Freddy did because, well, Freddy is a part of him. Same thing goes for the rest of us."
"But if Walther wasn't just bluffing," I added, "then Freddy, Bonnie and the rest will grow with time. Now they're small pieces, but if we don't find answers fast, there will be more and more of them, and less and less of us."
"So what that big bozo wants," concluded Sarah, "is to turn us all into his little gang of psychos. Then we will be no different from him."
A thoughtful silence took over the room. Ferny raised his hook, turning it around as he glanced at it dreamily with guilty eyes. "I don't want to be a killer." he sighed.
"None of us do professor," replied Sarah, "that's why we need everyone's help, including yours." She put her yellow wing-hand and his broken red shoulder, "Can we count on it?"
Ferny raised his head, looking with uncertainty at us. "I'll try." he mumbled.
"That's more like it!" she cheered.
"Okay guys," I called out, "There's one last thing I want to say. Jack wasn't taken over like us. That's why Bonnie hates him; I think he sees him as a threat to the 'game'. Maybe Jack has the key to figuring this whole thing out."
"But you can't go to him now." said Sarah, "It's past 8 AM; we're about to open." I felt a knot grow in my throat as I remembered why we went to her and Ferny in the first place.
"Umm, about that…" muttered my brother awkwardly before clearing his throat, "we, uh, are going to close."
"What?" asked Sarah innocently, "For how long?"
Our dark gazes must've answered her question, because she let her head fall between her arms in sad disbelieve. "But…" she whispered, "if the place gets shut down for good…"
"They may scrap us, yes." concluded Sean.
A heavy weight came upon our shoulders while these words rung in our heads. My ears drooped down sadly as I looked how Ferny's and Sarah's eyes filled up with sadness.
"But," sighed my brother, "we can't give up yet. Let's just wait and see what happens. Maybe it won't be as bad as we think, right?"
"Right." we replied.
"I, umm…" I said after a moment, scratching my head, "I'll go and talk to Jack… if he lets me."
"When you see him," added Sarah hastily, "tell him that I miss checking his drawings." I remembered with amusement how Sarah gave extensive feedback on Jack's circles and X's scrabbled on paper like she was some kind of famous painter.
"Don't worry, I will." I waved back at her as I turned around and started walking along the hallway, picturing how Jack would react to the bad news. But when I was getting close to the storage room a conversation that a couple of employees were having in the break room made me stop in my tracks.
"…on her older son's birthday." said one of the voices, "It was a few days ago; September 2 I think. He was one of the kids that were murdered."
I entered the room, walking in as robotically as I could. The two men, one in the standard purple and white shirt and the other in blue overalls, glanced causally at me before talking again.
"As I was saying," continued the man in the shirt whilst pointing at a newspaper on a table, "I'm surprised you didn't hear about it."
The man in overalls shrugged. "There's too much messed up stuff happening in the world nowadays, so forgive me if I missed out on that. But honestly I can't blame her."
I discretely walked closer to the newspaper on the table and peeked at it. On one corner, under a little headline, I saw a black and white picture of three faces I knew very well: mine, my brother's and Mom's faces. I remembered taking the picture with them a few months ago, when Sean had just graduated from elementary.
"Yeah…" whispered the man in the shirt, "a person can only take so much."
A strange feeling came over me as my eyes slowly went up to the headline of the short article.
Clara Williams, mother of two Fazbear tragedy victims, commits suicide by hanging herself in her apartment.
My knees just gave out under my own weight. I clutched at my chest, where I felt like someone ripped away something from my body, something warm and human, leaving behind a painful and cold emptiness. I just lay still on the floor, while the words of the headline echoed in my head.
"What the hell happened to Bonnie?!" shouted the man in the shirt behind me.
"Okay, calm down." hissed the man in overalls, "Let's just get the manager and the mechanic… umm… Erik and Fritz right?" Their footsteps quickly faded away as they jogged down the hall.
"M-Mom…" I whimpered, seeing her face and smile in front of me once again, "Why?" I cried softly, "W-Why did you do t-this Mom… we're alive… WE'RE ALIVE!"
I punched the floor again and again, ignoring the pain. I remembered the message I left for her in the cassette tape. "If y-you had just waited a b-bit more…" I sobbed as I covered my face. "We c-could've b-been t-together…"
I cried silently on the floor, remembering all the happiness and pain we had been through with my brother as the gaping hole in my chest grew wider. The hugs, the kisses, the bedtime stories, the warmth of her hands as she grabbed my cheeks, her brave smile that she always wore whenever we visited Dad's grave… they were gone.
And would never come back.
After a few minutes, I heard some familiar heavy footsteps coming from the hallway.
"Don, are you okay?" asked my worried brother as he approached the break room. "I heard some employees say that there was something wrong with you."
A feeling of anxiety crept into me as the footsteps got louder and louder. "He's the one keeping us going." I thought, "If he finds out, things will never be the same."
I pulled myself up using the table. Blinded by grief, I hastily grabbed the newspaper, looked at the three smiling faces one last time with an aching heart, and crumbled them. I tossed the ball of paper at the back of the room, right as Freddy's figure appeared at the door.
I looked up at Sean as he slowly walked towards me. "Don?" he asked, coming by my side, "What's wrong private?"
"What?" I replied, trying to sound as casual as I could, "Nothing's wrong brother."
His eyes looked straight through me. "Don," he said flatly, "you can tell me anything. We're family; we have nothing between us."
His words made me shudder inside, but I knew I had to keep it from him. "You d-don't wanna k-know…" I sobbed as he put his huge hand on my trembling shoulder.
"Please," he whispered softly, "just tell me."
I looked up at his blue eyes that were glowing with the same hope and love as they did when he was alive. Thinking about the amount of pain he'd have to go through if he found out about Mom's death, I thought I was making the right decision.
"I-I'm worried…" I sobbed, "about J-Jack. He's b-been so sad l-lately, and so a-alone. He really m-misses his f-family."
My brother let out a sad chuckle. "We all do Don. But as long as we're together, I'm sure there's nothing we can't…"
We froze on the spot as three employees stormed into the room. I recognized two: Erik, the manager and Fritz, who held the remote that was used to control us during the shows. The third one was the man in blue overalls.
"Erik," started Fritz, "are you sure you want to do this now, and not later?"
Erik nodded. "Well, now that those bastards are closing us down, it doesn't make much of a difference." He turned his head and looked at us with the same disgust as the clients did. "Besides they've been a nightmare since we reopened. Did you hear the noises their voiceboxes make sometimes?"
The man in overalls nodded obediently. "And now they're acting weird when they're in free-roam mode." he said gravely, "And the stench! You've never told me before that their fur can stink like that when it's not cleaned every few days."
Erik shrugged innocently at the man's words, while Fritz' eyes darted away guiltily. "Now you know." said the manager flatly, "But hey, they had a good run at least." The three of them looked directly at my brother and me.
Sean turned around immediately, and standing in front of me like a living wall, struck a defiant pose at the three employees. "Don," he whispered, "I know we said that no one could find out about us, but I am not gonna let them throw us away."
"Brother," I replied as quietly as possible, "we can't do anything. If they find out things will only be worse." But he just kept on standing tall and straight in front of me, just like Dad always stood with us in the yellowed photos we grew up with.
Erik raised an indifferent eyebrow. "See what I mean?" he asked to no one, "They've never acted like this before. Well, only one time, but that was three years ago. Anyways," he turned around and looked at Fritz with a piercing gaze, "I know that someone had to mess with them."
Fritz chuckled nervously at his superior. "I-I didn't Erik!" he stammered, "That was j-just an accident!"
Erik grinned with satisfaction at the fear of his employee. "All I know," he said innocently, "is that we found you tampering with the direction and orientation circuits a few months ago. You're a good mechanic, so we decided not to fire you…" his voice changed from almost friendly to downright threatening, "as long as you didn't do it again."
"I'm telling you Erik," said Fritz with a peeping voice, "it really wasn't me."
"Okay, okay, I believe you." replied Erik as he out up his hands in a don't-get-mad-at-me gesture, "You know how to handle the remote, so just do what we asked you to do."
With a sad sigh, Fritz flicked the red switched on the remote, and immediately I felt a familiar, painful strain enter my joints.
"Okay, free-roam mode is deactivated, right?" asked the man in overalls. Fritz nodded.
"Alright Freddy," cooed the man as he came closer to us, rubbing his hands together, "you're going to take a little nap."
Sean couldn't hold it back anymore. "Don't. Touch. US!" he growled, clenching his fists at the approaching staff member.
The man in overalls suddenly jumped back. "Ugh, that voicebox thing is horrible! It sounds like someone's dying in there."
Erik shrugged. "That's what I said. Anyways, let's get this over with and move on to the others. Fritz?"
At his command, the young mechanic pressed a few buttons on the remote and put his thumbs on the two joysticks. Freddy's legs obeyed and my brother started to walk away from me.
"Don't do it!" he begged as he turned his back to the man in overalls, forgetting that no one but me could hear him.
"Brother!" I cried out in panic, trying desperately to move while I saw the man opening the power port on Sean's back. As he stuck his large hand in the opening the blue glow of my brother's eyes started to flicker rapidly.
"I'm begging you…" I heard him groan sleepily one last time, "Don't hurt… my… friends… plea-"
All light left his eyes when the man tore the battery out of the brown torso. He put it down to a side as Freddy's limp body, now without any power to remain standing, fell sideways like dead weight. I looked at the animatronic body tossed on the floor, thinking that I heard the last words of my brother.
"Okay," wheezed the man in overalls as he stood up and looked at me, "you're next in line buddy."
Those words took me back almost a month, to a private party room where five children entered but none left. I didn't see the man in blue overalls walk towards me; I saw Walther with his purple security guard jacket instead. But this time there was no one to protect me.
"So that's all." I thought, "We're gonna be turned off and dumped in the same landfill as our corpses." Somehow the irony of this made me chuckle as I turned my back towards the man, unable to resist the control of the remote. I couldn't fight back; I wouldn't even if I could. There was nothing left worth fighting for. I betrayed Jack's trust in me, we killed an innocent man, I lost the brother I needed and the mother I loved.
I felt the man tug open my back. My vision started to flicker as his fingers touched my power cables. A deep feeling of tiredness came over me. Maybe this eternal sleep was for the best. Maybe it was the best thing we would get.
The man cursed angrily as he pulled at my battery. "Take it." I thought calmly as my vision started to grow darker, "Just take it." Right before the battery finally snapped loose, I tried to picture one last happy memory: my friends, my family and me, together and happy… but I couldn't do it. The last image that came to my mind was that of Mom hanging from her neck in a dark room. And then, there was nothing.
End of Tape 1.
A/N: Why tapes? Check out the very first paragraph of Ch.1 if you don't remember.
This was one of the bleakest chapters in the whole story. Nevertheless, feedback is appreciated as always. Next week: same story, new tape. The story will eventually take a much-needed lighter tone and we will meet some new guys I've been looking forward to writing since day one. Who are they? Well, they have a thing for nursery rhymes regarding collapsing British infrastructure...