I Don't Own Fnaf
Trying not to or not, Mike felt himself instantly starting to panic, his breath growing short, as he tried his best to not start actively thrashing about, a scream wanting to let itself out was only kept in by the knowing that he had no idea where the person or animatronic who had stuffed him in here had gone, if they were still around, if they knew Mike was still alive. The idea that one of the three, Freddy, Chica, or Bonnie, had seen his unconscious form outside and brought him in to be stuffed filled him with an almost uncontrollable sense of betrayal in an almost unexpected way that he nearly hoped that his attacker had kidnapped him.
Only that thought too made him panic, as Mike felt his heart rate spike once more, his entire body trembling trying to keep itself together but failing, as his vision seemingly blurred in and out, his thoughts, dazed and hard as they were to focus on just making the flashes of what was happening to him so much worse, with reminders of what had happened to the kids, of Phone Guy, of wondering if anyone would check on him, would find him, if anyone even knew he was missing, if this was how he was going to die, to scared, for the first time since this nightmare start, that he couldn't even scream.
It turned out Michael did have a very real fear of being put into one of the suits, he just hadn't realized it until now, as everything felt like it was crashing around him, as he silently begged for something to happen to put and end to all of this, as his mind rolled and recoiled from all the other thoughts flooding in his brain as his body continued to barely stay under his control as it shook and trembled with an unseeable terror.
He couldn't hear anything over his own heart rate for what felt like an eternity, until finally, everything seemed to begin to calm down, his own body finally stopping itself from shaking in fear, as his mind slowly returned back to him. So that was when he noticed it, just when Mike thought it was over, he finally could hear it, the faint incredibly familiar sound of ticking.
Mike couldn't not know the sound, he had heard it on and off for weeks when Goldie had been being repaired by Fritz, and even more from his Father and Henry, who both taught him about safety in cleaning certain suits when he was younger.
It was the sound of springlocks beginning to fail.
Nothing made Mike freeze in terror as the realization of just what kind of suit he was in sunk in. Thankfully, he didn't bump into anything anymore, instead only sat frozen in heart racing fear as he waited for a long second before the ticking finally subsided. Realizing his little freak out had knocked something out of place within the suit making the springs readying themselves to dislodge was almost more scary than knowing about it now, the idea he could have killed himself on accident wasn't one that he ever thought would happen, and that lack of control over his own life was terrifying in a way a man not scared to die had never thought would be possible.
It was that thought though, that understanding that there was no control in if the suit closed in on him that really scared Mike, the idea that he couldn't control his death, something he had been in stark control of up until now, as he danced with death during his time on the night shift, was a difference he hadn't thought would make such a big impact, but it did, as Mike sat there frozen in place, his ears prickling with focus to hear if the ticking would start once more.
It was so different, and for this brief moment, Michael no longer wanted to die not just because he had to much to do, no, Michael just didn't want to die at all. It was a cold feeling of strange relief in a way, that desire to live in an almost unpolluted way that it had been before was like a breath of fresh air in front of a roaring inferno, dangerous but in a cruel way tempting.
Mike instead of dwelling on the feelings he had no idea how to put into words, as still concussed as he was, instead managed to get his mind under control as he slowly began to move his head around, staring at the inside of the suit, knowing he had to get out of it before something happened to cause it to spring back into animatronic mode with him still inside. Unfortunately he could barely see outside of the suit to the room he had been placed in, the lighting was horrible, but he could examine the suit at least.
Unfortunately once more, the suit itself didn't give him much in a way of relief, the springlocks that he could see weren't in great condition. Back in the day, he had watched his father and Henry both preformed for hours on end without fear about the springs failing on them, had near to no fear about their employees doing the same with little guidance on getting in and out of the suits as well, the springs had been made strong and durable, no matter what Fritz thought about them design wise, those things were safe back then, and had constant maintenance to make sure they stayed that way.
It was why it was so shocking when the ones in Fredbear's mouth failed that day.
But these weren't maintained, and it showed, just like the ones that had been and some were still in Goldie, they were poorly maintained and specks of rust glinted in the poor lighting just enough for Mike to be able to see. And if there was one thing Mike knew for certain it was how easy those springs could give out, he had been there throughout nearly all of his brother's repairs after all. Had seen how often after the springs had being oiled they fell in on themselves, often nearly over Fritz's hands and arms.
The idea of that being Mike's entire body if he did something wrong did little to keep his blood pressure down, but if there was anything Michael could do, it was work under pressure as now that he had gotten his freak out out of the way, he hopefully should be able to deal with this...
How he was going to deal with this was still a mystery but he could figure something out, who cares if he knew for a fact that it took at least another person to take a person out of a springlock suit as well as a specifically designed crank to be used on the suits, of which Mike only knew of one which was at a diner that he had no means of getting to. If the springs weren't in such a state he'd risk standing up and just walking there if he had to, but he still had no idea where he was, much less if the springs would handle that level of movement and strain.
Thinking of, one small mercy on his mind, the suit obviously wasn't Spring Bonnie, that suit had been made for his father to wear and was a solid few inches bigger than Golden Fredbear given how massive his father was, and this one was barely big enough to fit Mike's own long limbs and not at all comfortably at that, so he couldn't have been stuffed at Freddy's. Which meant it couldn't have been one of the four, which made him nearly sag in relief to know it wasn't any of them that this to him. Not liking him or not, it was nice to know they weren't the cause of this. Or that Foxy would have let one of the other three do this to him either, though if it had to be one of them, it probably would have been Bonnie.
That rabbit has been holding a grudge since Mike tackled him, though Freddy wasn't exactly happy with him after that chair incident either... metaphorically shaking his head, Mike tried to get his mind back on the task at hand, a harder task than one would suspect given he was concussed and all. It made his thoughts spiral without him realizing.
Right, what did he know and what did he have to look out for? He was in a springlock suit, but as long as he didn't try dancing around in it, it seemed fine with not killing him, so that technically wasn't a problem until he had to get out of it, but he did have to get out of it. He had no idea where he was, and Mike couldn't risk the man that had attacked him with a freaking shovel to be all that rational about letting him out of this suit. So he had to get out of this, figure out where he was, and then get the hell out of here, everything else he could think about later.
Like, how the hell did some random kidnapper have a springlock suit on hand, Mike knew there were, not quite as advanced, backups, but he figured they had been scrapped ages ago, like how he thought that had been the fate of Spring Bonnie, but even without being scrapped they weren't really just floating around, they were highly specialized pieces of equipment that required very specific training on how to use. Or whoever the hell used it to keep someone bound instead of just tying them up, if he was anyone else the suit would have already closed down on him because he wouldn't have known to not move against the springs.
Which implied that the person knew that Mike would know how to keep himself alive... Or that they actually didn't care all that much about keeping Mike alive, kidnapping be damned.
Yep, Mike definitely wasn't thinking about that.
Getting his mind back once more onto the game, he slowly leaned in just as much as he dared into the front part of the suit, nearly pressing his face into the openings in the front to allow him to see into the room. There really was no light good source of light, there seemed to be some kind of skylight above him from somewhere, but either it was cloudy as hell or it was moonlight streaming in, because he couldn't see much.
A lot of large shaped though, maybe he was in some kind of warehouse? It would explain the light being let in from above, but that didn't prove anything...
Still, he had gotten into this suit somehow safely right? Or at least, someone had put him into it, meaning that there was more than one crank, there had to be one somewhere he could potentially use to get himself out of the suit...
Or the person who kidnapped him wasn't an idiot and left the only tool that would let him be able to escape within Mike's grasp.
Nearly feeling helpless at this point, Mike let out a sharp hissing grunt of annoyance, his anger flaring up and briefly drowning out the fear, and actually helping him keep calm more than he thought was normal, as he managed to try and recall everything he had learned about the suit over the course of time that he had seen Fritz working on it.
Then the answer came to him, a safety feature was built into the suit, of course there was, his father and Henry weren't idiots, they knew how dangerous these things could be if the springs began to fail, the knew what they would have sounded like to tell Michael about it, not to mention there had been... incidents in the past when there had been springlock failures. There was gears within the suits themselves that could be used to retighten the springs manually, Mike remembered it because Henry had specifically brought him into the back office one day to tell him about it.
The man he saw as an uncle had been incredibly concerned about safety after his father had his own accident. Mike was honestly surprised he remembered it, that had been so long ago that his mother had still been around to help his father recover. He was around... what, four or five, it was before his siblings had been around, right near the start of the diner itself, had to be...
The thoughts and memories weren't appreciated so he pushed them away from the fog in his head and slowly and carefully moved his hands around within the arms they had been shoved in, twisting them around near painfully for his left and very painfully for his right, as Mike let out an unconscious hiss of pain as he felt his probably broken right hand move around before he finally felt it, two small gears that he could hopefully twist to tighten the springs back into place, which should hopefully give him some wiggle room to be able to move the arms themselves to get some stuff done.
The suit was heavy, but the springs when wound up acted to pull the parts together to let the wearer move around at least some what, though given the suits were mostly meant to just stand around on stage when being worn, it was more like they were made to be able to shuffle about more than anything else, but still, Mike was strong, he just hadn't expected the resistance before, now that he knew... Well, this was a suit meant to be worn, he could pilot it as long as he didn't have to fear it closing on him.
With that, Mike slowly steeled his nerves before beginning to twist the gears that were placed in the inside parts of the suit's hands on the backs, it was incredibly painful, he had to bite down harshly into his own lip to keep himself from shaking from how badly his right hand was hurting, especially as the more he twisted them the harder they were to turn, until it was taking a fair effort even in his left hand to get the gears to twist at all. If there was a side that was going to fail, it would be the springlocks on the right side. Mike just hoped that wouldn't be the case as he left it until no amount of spite and determination would get the things to turn anymore after what was minutes of painful labor.
It was the best he was going to get, as Mike didn't waste any time, instead moving his arms, feeling them strain from his body's exhaustion as the suit's arms lifted up easy enough, though he could already hear the ticking return, a quiet but continuous count down to his death, just like his time at Freddy's with his power, only this one didn't have a number he could watch. He didn't have time to waste, as he could lightly feel the air around the back of his hands move as the gears he had wound slowly began to unwind themselves with the springlocks.
It was too bad he needed his fingers for this, otherwise he would have just held them in place, but instead he slipped his hands as comfortably as he could get them in the suits, which was not at all, given at most they were only suppose to be able to clutch onto a microphone and not much else, as he brought his arms over his head before reaching down and began to lightly prod at the back of his neck. There was a release there, just like there was a shut off on the four at the current Freddy's, there was a latch he could take off to at the very least disengage the head.
Mike learned this one from Fritz when he reattached a head endo into Goldie's suit. It was still nerve wracking as with the sudden movement, and the arms now being right next to his ears, he could now hear the ticking from both arms, hands, and as well as the head of the suit he was wearing, to the point he could now even feel the faint trembling of the metal endoskeleton head that was locked behind his own head, ready to spring into place and crush his skull.
It was terrifying, and Mike did his best to ignore the small whisper in the back of his head that it would only be willing if he was killed by a springlock suit. After all, wasn't that what he wanted when he went back to the diner?
Ignoring it even more, he moved the clunky fingers around the back of the suit's head, not being able to feel what he was doing made it harder and worse on his mind before suddenly a loud click echoed out as Mike froze, briefly, wondering for half a second if something gave, before slowly realizing he could faintly feel something through the suit's fingers give, as he continued to push it out, as the thing let out another click as the latch gave.
It was a controlled effort to keep himself from flinging the damn head off and away, given it would no doubt set the arms off, and instead Mike quickly and carefully moved his arms back down to his side, unmoving, until the ticking finally subsided, he wasn't going to risk anything here, he couldn't afford to. Instead he took a few more minutes to painstakingly retighten the gears once more before reaching back up to take the head slowly and carefully off his head.
Pulling it in front of him, he barely had time to lay it onto the ground before stopping to retighten the gears once more, they had been getting louder than he had been comfortable with. It seemed movement at all throughout the arms loosened the springs faster than moving the fingers did, a small miracle, but that meant larger movements made the springlocks start to give like nearly nothing else. He had no idea how the hell he was going to manage to get the body of the suit off if just the head took him nearly half an hour to manage.
Especially given Mike was quickly running out of tricks to get him out of this situation. The head could come off by the latch, but that was the only part that was detachable, the rest was in one pieces because the lower body of the animatronic parts had to work with the upper body. Well, he could disconnect the lower section, the legs, but he's have to get through the suit itself to get to the endo at that point, there was no convenient latch on the outside there, that was what the crank was for.
But with the head off, he could at least look around more, as he scanned the area he could see, it was most definitely a warehouse, there was a large number of massive shelving units that spanned the right side from what he could see with the limited amount he could crane his next while directly in front of him was what looked like large storage crates, each one having some kind of weird big bulky thing attached to them. Mike decided he didn't care about that given he couldn't see anything in detail and instead glanced down to look at the head he had taken off his own.
It was definitely something from Fazbear Entertainment, though Mike himself didn't recognize just where it was suppose to have come from, and he's seen more than a few off shoots of suits and animatronics alike over the course of his childhood who got tried out, mostly at Juniors before being passed on somewhere else or just sold off. It looked like a weird mostly white recolored Chica head with clear light purple accents marking the cheeks and around the eyes, but the face was built wrong, it looked more like it was made out of a group of three sectioned plates than in one piece like most Freddy suits and animatronic models were made with in mind.
Strangely enough, the face sort reminded Mike of the Security Puppet's face mask, an animatronic he hadn't thought about in literal years, it had never been much of a fan favorite, and Mike never paid attention to it even back then given it just sat in a corner at Juniors and didn't do anything. It had been implemented after... something, he couldn't remember what, back a bit before he had became a teenager.
It was strange what one remembered when in a life or death situation, he hadn't thought about the puppets in so long. They had never been memorable, so like the off shoots he had just been thinking about, they had probably been phased out or sold somewhere, a shame, Mike could vague recalling that had he liked how creepy the prize puppet had been, or 'Prize Corner Marionette' as his father liked to remind everyone, even though it was Henry who had made it, unlike the 'Magic Puppet Box' and 'Security Puppet', which were his father's own creations. Both of which he also harked the names of when someone dared to get the two confused, often to the amusement of everyone else.
It was a funny vague memory to have at a time like this, but it nearly made Mike snicker all the same, before quickly sobering up, realizing he was still trapped, with or without the continual trips down memory lane, he wasn't getting anywhere, the weight of the suit surrounding him suddenly feeling like it was choking him, ironically enough given how much neck room he now had with the head off...
He had to do something, the sudden reminder of how trapped he was suddenly came back with another rush, even if he had the head off, it only served to remind him of how he was still just as trapped, still in a suit, still stuffed.
It was that, the constant unwanted memories, the concussion, and perhaps a bit of Mike's natural impulsiveness that made the man decide he was getting himself out or would die trying. The very idea of sticking in the suit for another minute longer was so revolting he could feel his body trying to begin to shake in another panic, something he refused to let happen again. It was humiliating enough that it happened at all.
So with that Mike did his best to form a plan, the head had been taking up a lot of room onto of the suit's shoulders, with it gone there really was a surprisingly large open space around his neck, if he squeezed as hard as he could, he could probably shove one shoulder out and then could probably pry the other one out. Of course, that would be a death wish, he'd be crawling out from the top which was facing up towards the sky, and given he was sitting, it would be impossible to somehow bend his legs out from under them with how they were also trapped, being splayed out in front of him as they were.
Meaning he'd have to get the suit onto it's back, most of the machinery in the body was in the front and sides given one was suppose to get in from the back that was pried open with the crank, so it would be safest to have none of that being pressed on, then he could hopefully and carefully crawl his way out from the top...
But to do that, he would have to move the entire suit, it was too heavy to rotate on the ground, especially with his own weight added, so he'd have to at the very least stand up in something of a crouch to be able to lower himself down properly...
It was risky, but he'd have to do it, his mind couldn't handle staying in the suit for any longer than the amount of time it would take to get himself out of this damn suit.
Retightening the springs once more, he took a deep breath before using the hands to push himself out from under him, the suit was incredibly bulky and heavy, it would have taken probably a few people to heft the thing back up normally if someone fell when inside of it, but Mike didn't have anyone, and really that was just to be expected, he never had anyone, so he could do this.
He ignored the very loud part of his mind that was wishing very, very loudly that Fritz and Jeremy were here.
The ticking started instantly up again, and Mike knew he was rushing it, as he quickly put all his strength into his legs and arms, feeling his entire body protest under it's pain and from just how heavy the suit was, but he ignored that and just kept pushing even as the ticking got louder, even as he could feel things in the suit begin to twitch and begin to shake. As with one last heft of effort he got onto his feet in a horrible crouch, barely balanced.
And then he straightened, not having the want just yet to risk the springs on moving himself onto his back, his hands fiddling around instantly now that they weren't used to press down on the ground to get his weight underneath him, as they found the rotating gears and grabbing onto them to stop them from moving. Mike let out a slow whimper of agony as the things continued to try to move on their own, the entire suit now shaking as the gears fought to let the springlocks release, the only things keeping the pressure from releasing suddenly being his own two hands.
The metal of the gears keeping the springlocks wound instantly dug sharply into his hands, but Mike couldn't afford to let them release, so there he stood, barely keeping himself still and not shaking from pain, and pounds of pressure of the suit trying to release were pressed into the gears and then into his hands. It felt like his wrists were about to snap, the biting pain only secondary to the burning racing up his right arm from his broken hand as Mike sworn and fought for as long as possible to hold them in place, even for just a second more, as he felt something slick and wet trail down the fingers of his broken hand, making holding to the gear even harder.
But eventually, after what felt like forever, the suit finally calmed down once more, the shaking stopping, the gears slowly bleeding off the pressure, as Mike managed over the course of minutes slowly tightened the gears.
Getting to the ground thankfully was faster, it was mostly keeping gravity from killing him by jostling something harsh enough to knock it out of place and causing a chain reaction, meaning it was mostly just needing to have a controlled descent to the ground, which Mike was more than willing to let happen. Of course he had to retighten the gears once more, but if he was lucky, this would be the last time, as now he was finally in the right position as he slowly began to roll his body back, using the tender back of his head as leverage to lift his body up enough to slowly scoot himself up until he felt his own shoulder bump into the shoulders of the suit.
His hands were no longer by the gears, unable to reach them, if he messed this up, he wouldn't be able to shove himself down into the suit fast enough to get to the gears, the springlocks would kill him and he'd be able to do nothing about it. Mike only had one chance, somehow knowing he wasn't allowed to mess up helped his desperate mind not think about what would go wrong as he slowly shifted and pressed his body to the side before slowly managed to peek his left shoulder out of the top of the suit, his neck was pressed painfully against the metal rim of the opening, but he managed to prop his shoulder out more before quickly feeding it out until his left around was freed.
The angle he was at was ridiculous, he had to look beyond ridiculous even, a full grown man at his height, crawling out of a freaking white and purple chicken suit had to look so stupid, the mental image nearly made him laugh, if only from the nerves that were bound tighter in his chest than the springs in the suit, as he slowly shifted himself over until it was the under sider of his armpit that was being pressed into painfully as he began to slowly push himself out to try and pry his right shoulder out of the suit, then he could pull his entire body out slowly by his arms.
At least that had been the plan until there was a soft creaking sound that echoed out from around his left legs as he tried to use his foot to push himself up to get his shoulder out. That had been a mistake as suddenly multiple creaks began to sound around the same leg.
Mike didn't know if it would settle like before, or if it would just chain itself into letting the springlocks releasing like they nearly had when he had moved to stand, but he did know he couldn't do anything to stop it, and if he didn't do anything, his left leg, and then the rest of his lower body, would be crushed way past repair. It was in those tense moments that built up to the sounds of the continual creaks that Mike had to make a decision.
It was also in that split second, that Mike decided to say Fuck it.
Slamming his right foot into the side of the suit he pushed himself as hard as he could out, feeling his right shoulder snag on something and get pressing into harshly enough he was sure he hurt something, but the adrenaline made him care less at the moment as in a near pop, his right arm was freed, pain be damned as he pushed both hands into the ground and quickly began to pull himself out, as the entire suit began to shake and jerk, that damn ticking filling the air.
Mike was sweating, even as he crawled back by his hands, he could feel the suit around his legs that he was pulling himself away from jerk until, just as his feet were leaving the gap-
*Snap!*
The sound nearly echoed off the open air as the entire suit nearly jerked into the air as all of the insides snapped into place violently all at once.
Mike just sat there, now propped up on his elbows, staring ahead at the suit as it finally stilled, his chest heaving as he only just realized his entire body was covered in sweat from nerves, as he continued to just stay there for a long moment, before finally managed to get himself back under control as he shifted back into a roll to get himself up onto his feet, catching the ugly purple color his right hand had become in the poor light with a grimace. Broken was an understatement, as he just pressed it to his chest to keep from waving it around as he began to move.
Looking around for an exit wasn't that difficult, just walk around the walls until you find one, he found it fairly quickly, a faint miracle if there ever was one, even as he moved to leave, pushing the door open after unlocking it from his side, as he stumbled on out into the air of night, having no idea just how long he had been in there, as he looked around for a moment... Only to briefly pause, glancing back into the warehouse...
It was the concussion talking, had to be, he imagined, remembered, and thought of a lot of stuff when he was in there, and it was another part of that.
After all, it had only been about an hour ago that he had thought about the prize puppet for the first time in years, and that was the only reason he could have sworn, for just a moment, as he was leaving, he heard the sound of a vaguely familiar music box song play within the darkness.
He should have just ignored it, it would have been easy, he was in more pain than anything else could be worth, there was some psycho out there who would return at some point with Mike in no condition to fight back, and he really need to get his hand looked at given it was the wrong fucking color... But in spite of all of that, as he stared back into the warehouse, the portion of his mind that couldn't handle not knowing what was happening, what the purpose of all of this was, itched for him to go back in, to see just what the warehouse was for, maybe find out who owned it, if there was anything incriminating in there he could use, or just learn about whatever the hell has been going on.
The kidnapper couldn't have been unrelated to everything else right? It would make no sense if that was the case given how he woke up in a death trap, well, more like a spring trap given he was still alive, but the point stood. It had to be Purple Guy, and this might be the lead Mike had been hoping for.
It was stupid, it was beyond stupid to even think about doing it.
Michael did it anyways, as he turned, took a deep breath, and took a step back into the warehouse.
I... don't know how I feel about the pacing here, I like it, it's exactly what I was going for, a long drawn out chapter where only one thing happens, Mike working on getting himself out of the springlock suit, because it needed to be drawn out and slow, to show just how fragile the situation was, where a wrong move would have meant death. And it worked very well for me to be able to had world lore and information that I hadn't done before because I didn't know how much I wanted to add in at the start of this story, so this chapter was great for being able to fill in a lot of stuff that I can use later on, but... I'm still not super sure about the pacing. Any thoughts?
Beyond that, I really liked the characterization here of Mike. It's all his traits on display, good and bad, but heightened because of the concussion he has, making his thoughts harder to hold onto, and making him fall into strings of thought that I think helped give a better view of him. He's a weird mix of incredibly impulsive but at the same time unshakingly calm and collected when he needs to be. His curiosity and need to know might just get him killed one day, but at the same time it's that drive that's gotten him this far. And then of course there is the... darker sides as well, where Mike questioned if he even deserved to get out of the suit, and his own surprise at realizing, even if just for a moment, he really wanted to live when faced with an uncontrollable death. In a way, all Mike wants is control of his situation, of his life and that's... honestly really dark. This chapter in general was really dark, but that does happen sometimes. It's life.
Moving on, we're getting close to some of the chapters that I think I like the most out of everything I've written so far, it'll be a ton of fun and something I've had planned and waiting to get to since I started writing, so can't wait to see what everyone thinks about next chapter, but in the mean time, See ya.
