Author's Notes:

Hope you all had a happy Halloween! Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 107

Is this Hell?

Ruby numbly watched the digital clock's numbers tick closer to midnight. Her hand still throbbed faintly with pain but it had mostly healed up. She only absently noticed that though. She was still reeling from what had happened.

Her parents.

She's seen her parents.

The domestic scene was something that had happened numerous times before the accident. Her dad sipping at coffee and trying to look awake while he squinted at the newspaper. Her mom cooking breakfast since letting Derrick near the stove usually ended in disaster. Ruby had inherited her tendency to set stuff on fire from somewhere after all.

She swallowed hard as she remembered it again for the nth time.

Derrick frowned in concern as Ruby stared up at him in numb shock. The last time she'd seen her parents, they'd been bleeding out in the car. She hadn't been able to attend the funeral since she was on suicide watch at that point.

"Something wrong princess? Something on my face?" her dad joked, putting down his newspaper.

Ruby distantly wondered if they just couldn't see the blood that was dripping down her arm.

"Sweetheart," her heart clenched painfully at the sound of her mother's voice and she dragged her eyes over to where she was standing by the stove. She looked concerned. "Did you have a nightmare?"

Ruby felt the urge to laugh hysterically bubble up in her chest and she bit her cheek to stop it from escaping. A nightmare. Something like that.

She found herself nodding.

Derrick stood up and moved closer to her and she found herself caught between the desire to run away and the need to grab onto him. To find out if this was in any way real.

He crouched down in front of her, looking her over worriedly.

"Come here princess," he opened his arms. "No nasty nightmares are getting you while I'm around." His smile was as warm as she remembered and her breathing hitched in her chest while tears burned her eyes.

Before she could really think it through, Ruby threw herself into her father's arms. His cologne was painfully familiar, making the sobs slip out of her control. He brushed a hand through her hair as he stood up, the soothing motion achingly familiar.

"I got you Ruby," he murmured. "It's okay. You're safe."

He walked back to the table where Rose was already pouring a glass of chocolate milk, a surefire way to calm her daughter that nobody else knew.

Ruby stared over her father's shoulder as he walked, sobs far out of her control now. Her gaze locked on a large figure standing by the entrance, the oppressive darkness beyond the kitchen unsettlingly out of place.

Nightmare stared back, red eyes bright in the dark and wide toothy grin sending a shiver down her spine.

"See you tonight little Ruby."

The clock ticked closer to the start of the next round.

"I'm sorry," a small voice said from next to her.

Ruby flinched slightly before turning her head to find Timmy. He looked miserable, hands clutching the duvet and staring at the floor below his feet as they sat side by side.

"It's not your fault," Ruby whispered and his face twisted like he wanted to cry. He looked more real here, more solid. Less a ghost but still not really alive.

Like he was stuck in between.

They sat in silence a little longer. Eleven-fifty.

"You can beat him," Timmy whispered.

"Doesn't feel like I can," Ruby shivered. Six hours of that hell all over again.

"You can," he insisted, voice edging into desperation. Ruby wasn't sure if that was just because he truly believed it or if he was in denial.

"I thought Michael killed you," Ruby changed the subject.

"He didn't mean to," The defense was weak and not very enthusiastic. "Nightmare finished it. I took a long time to die. Out there. I was in a coma for week."

"Why do you still care about him?"

"The same reason Hedy still loves the other kids."

Ruby stared at the clock. Eleven-fifty-four.

"I think the kids can still change." She hadn't ever mentioned to Hedy that tiny bit of faith she had. "Do you think Michael can?" she asked.

"No."

She wasn't really surprised with that answer.

"But he's still my brother."

"You're a good brother," Ruby whispered.

The talk about Michael reminded her of that weird little mini-game that had happened before she woke up here again. She'd been reeling from the short time spent with her parents and the disappearance of that strange little oasis of safety. Unable to help herself she'd gone looking for her parents, wandering the dark and twisted version of her childhood home. Eventually she'd come across a hallway with a ragged looking plush rabbit sitting at the end. It had reminded her Springtrap.

In her shaken state though, she'd fumbled the flashlight and the toy had pounced at her instead of getting stopped on the pretty obvious X on the ground.

It hadn't hurt her though. And well...at least she'd found out that her instinctive reaction to getting jumpscared was still the same.

She'd punched the thing making it yelp. It had pouted at her for a few moments before scurrying off into another room.

A part of her was still furious that something like that had scared her. She'd had bigger scares than that in her life and she hadn't even flinched then.

But this? This frightened her?

Pathetic.

"What was with the...Plushtrap?" She asked, trying to get her thoughts off what was about to happen.

Timmy got an odd sort of smile on his face.

"Plush...trap? So that's what you saw?" he whispered.

She stared at him in confusion for a moment before the alarm clock beeped, making her whip around in fear. When she turned back, Timmy was gone.

Ruby let out a shuddering breath. Time for the night to begin then. Her hand was shaking as she lifted the flashlight after sliding off the bed and she felt a sharp flare of frustration aimed at herself.

"It's just a game," she whispered, sweeping the light across the bed. "Just a game. You know the rules. Check the doors, listen, check the closet, check the bed." She swallowed hard. "It's just a game."
For a moment, she was sure she heard an echo of Nightmare's laughter in the distance.

The first couple of hours were filled with a lot of stumbling around and near panic as she just barely reached the doors in time and kept sweeping the light over the bed. She was careful not to forget the closet this time even if she shook harder holding the door closed. Her hand throbbed in remembered agony.

"Not my Foxy," she muttered the words over and over to herself whenever she had to go near the closet. "Not my Foxy," she shook at the sound of claws scraping on the inside of the doors and a dark, mocking chuckle. When she opened the doors, the plushy seemed like a cruel mockery of the toy she still sometimes slept with at home.

The scars down her back burned. But that hadn't been Foxy either. She did her best to ignore the phantom aches.

It was a little harder to ignore the pain in her hand when it abruptly started bleeding again while she was holding the closet door closed. She stared at the red dripping onto the carpet.

"Always getting hurt around me aren't ya lass?" a frighteningly familiar voice came from the closet, making her head snap up. She tightened her grip on the closet handle, only faintly aware of the sharp increase in pain in her palm. "There was that mast incident, and tha' fight with that bigger kid."

"N-not-Not m-my Foxy…" Ruby whispered, barely hearing herself over the pounding of her heart.

"Course I am, Lass. It's me. It's always been me," the voice said with a hint of betrayal.

Ruby found herself shaking her head. She really needed to move on. She needed to check the other doors. She needed to check the bed.

But she was stuck.

Her back burned.

"Are those scratches giving ya some trouble?" The concern in his voice almost sounded real. "Yer hand bleeding again lass? Ya know I was only playing right?"

"That wasn't Foxy," she had to fight to get the words past her throat. Her back felt wet, her pajamas sticking to her skin and she was afraid that if she checked, her hand would come away with blood. "That was Felix. Foxy never hurt me."

"Why don't ya let me out ta check lass? Why keep me locked in here if yer not afraid?"

"I'm not afraid of Foxy," her voice wavered a bit. She wasn't. She wasn't. "But you're not Foxy. You're not even the right bot to be in the closet."

Somehow she managed to rip her bleeding hand off the handle and hurriedly checked the bed. There were already three mini-Freddies and she swallowed hard as they disappeared. That was too close. As she moved away from the closet to check the right door, she heard a familiar but twisted chuckle and she shivered.

"Not Foxy…" she kept walking, clenching her throbbing hand to try and force herself to focus. The pain didn't really work like it usually did though. Just like the weak joke about Bonnie didn't work. Her back burned, her hand throbbed and she felt very, very alone.

She quickly closed the right door after getting a glimpse of yellow at the end of the passage. It wasn't long before she heard breathing and she tightened her grip on the door. There was a strange muffled chattering sound as well that she couldn't identify. She was worried that Nightmare Chica might speak as well but after a few moments she left as quietly as she'd arrived, taking the weird chattering with her.

Sweeping her flashlight over the bed again, she forced herself to check the closet again. The plushy stared innocently up at her and she felt bile rise in her throat.

She moved on to the left door, opening and closing it just as quickly when she saw Nightmare Bonnie. She hated herself a little for calling them anything close to her friends but she couldn't think of anything else. No nicknames, no insults. Her mind blanked. They were just that.

Nightmares. Twisted versions of her friends. They weren't the same. She didn't know what Nightmare's goal was besides to mess with her but for now, she just had to focus on surviving.

"Why are you hiding Ruby?" she squeezed her eyes shut as Bonnie's voice came through the door. He sounded hurt like when Toby was in an especially nasty mood. Her heart twisted at the implied reason for that tone being her.

"Not real, not real."

"Why are you being like this?"

"Not real," she hiccuped on a sob.

"Don't you love us anymore?"

Her breathing hitched.

"Are you done with us? Bored with us? Like you got bored of your parents?"

Ruby just about stopped breathing.

"We know you distracted your dad on purpose that night. You made him crash because you were bored of your family."

"Stop it…"
"We know you get bored easily Ruby. But are you really bored of us already?"

"Stop stop stop."

"Are you going to kill us like you killed your parents?" He sounded so sad. It made her sick.

"I didn't-" Her body shook as she remembered that night.

"Look daddy look!"

"Not now princess I'm driving."

"But daddy! You gotta see!"

"Not now-"

Pain, metal screeching on metal, the drip drip of blood, please don't go-

Ruby gasped as she ripped herself out of the flashback, the door more holding her up than anything.

A flash of lightning made her jump. Rain was hitting the window hard. She hated thunderstorms. They reminded her…

"You're being a naughty girl Ruby," Bonnie's voice grew distorted now. "Naughty girls get punished."

Ruby pried her fingers off the door, barely noticing the blood she left on the handle. A slam against the closet doors made her jump and she almost tripped over her feet to get to it in time to stop it from opening.

"Always been a bad girl lass," Foxy's voice almost made her recoil back from the door. "We know why you stayed with us lass. Like attracts like. Monsters stay with monsters."

"They're not monsters," Ruby bit out, a flicker of anger lighting in her chest.

"We are. And you know it. Since you're the same lass. You know you're a monster. The worst of us. You scare all the other monsters after all."
She shut her eyes, getting hit with the memory of standing over a shattered and oil-slicked Springtrap, of the fear in Michael's eyes.

Of how she'd relished in knowing that the ghost, the murderer and monster, was afraid of her.

"Stop it stop it stop it!" she screamed.

Nightmare Foxy's laughter was twisted and warped.

A sudden bang made her whirl around and her heart sank as she saw the right door standing wide open. Panicking, she looked around for Nightmare Chica. Did she not get in yet? She took two steps forward to try and close the door before anything entered but she was too late.

Sharp pain shot up her leg, making her cry out and stumble. She looked down to find a twisted and deformed version of the cupcake both Chica and Chi carried around sometimes. It's viciously sharp teeth were embedded into her ankle like a bear trap. When she reached down to try and pry it off, it only bit down harder, making her drop to the floor with a scream. It felt like it was the smallest bit of force off of snapping the bone in two.

"Let go let go," she hated the pleading note in her voice but it hurt so much.

Sudden chittering noises behind her made her turn with dread. The flashlight had rolled away when she dropped but she could still see the three pairs of red eyes shining on the bed.

She forgot to check.

She screamed as they jumped at her, raising her arms in an attempt to protect her face. One of them clamped down on her forearm, ripping another scream from her. She both felt and heard the bone snap this time. Another bit down on her shoulder, inches from her neck and she was pretty sure something cracked there. The third bit into her thigh. She was so much smaller than she usually was that it didn't have a problem with completely snapping her femur.

She didn't even have any air to scream after that. Their heavy bodies had pinned her to the floor and she didn't know what to do. It was hard to think beyond the sheer amount of pain shooting through her body.

She watched with a sort of numb shock as a black shape slipped out from under the bed. Nightmare Freddy seemed to be letting his mini versions have a go first.

"Weak."

The word felt very accurate right now. She hadn't felt this helpless in a very long time. When he took a heavy step closer, the four bots on her suddenly scrambled off. Sharp teeth ripping from her body didn't make anything hurt any less. Before she could even think of moving, he had a cold hand wrapped around her throat. He picked her up like she weighed nothing at all.

And considering how much blood she was losing that was pretty possible.

"You think you could ever protect anyone?" he sneered and threw her across the room. She hit the edge of the dresser hard and gasped. He grabbed her again, this time just picking her up by the arm. Her shoulder screamed with pain.

"You can't even protect yourself."

He threw her again and she heard a couple of ribs crack on impact with the frame of the bed this time, blood slicking the wood and staining the foot of the covers as she sank to the floor, unable to hold herself up.

"You don't even want to protect yourself. After all, you want this don't you? That's why you stay. So you can get hurt. Otherwise you'd just do it yourself."

Ruby shook her head weakly while he picked her up by the other arm. He trailed a sharp claw over familiar scars on her inner arm, the movement almost gentle like Freddy could be.

"I stopped…" she choked out.

She'd stopped when she saw how much it hurt everyone who had to find her like that, in a pool of blood with empty eyes.

"But you still want it," he almost cooed, pressing harder on the scars until blood was freely running down her arm.
She whined softly.

"You didn't change Ruby. You just found a different way to get what you want."
He gave her a mocking smile and dropped her in a heap on the floor.

"You can't lie to us."

She didn't hear him move away, barely hearing the sudden beeping of the alarm clock. Instead she curled into a ball on the floor and let herself fall into the darkness.

She woke to her mother's worried face.

"What on earth are you doing sleeping on the floor sweetheart?"

Ruby hated the feeling of resignation curling in her chest.

Dr. Cecil looked down at the unconscious teenager with a furrowed brow. Her vitals had dropped an alarming amount during the night. They'd had to hook her up to an oxygen mask but they couldn't find a reason for Ruby's turn for the worse. Her heart rate thankfully stabilised before they had to get a defibrillator.

"What's going on Ruby?" she found herself whispering in the dark room, already crafting how she might inform Clint, Alice, and Hedy.

The only answer she got was the beeping of medical machines.