Chapter 114

Which Fox?

Despite being a kid and heavily in shock, Ruby had always been adaptable. She won the weird little Plushtrap game this time, watching the odd thing drop lifeless to the ground in the torchlight.

The injuries from the last night were only aches now, no visible evidence of the broken bones left.

She still felt it though. Oh did she feel it. Every step sent pain through her body. She walked through the dark, empty house towards her room. No, not her room. Her room had been a safe place full of happy memories.

This wasn't her childhood home. This was a twisted copy Nightmare had pulled out of her mind.

She pushed open the door, eyes automatically drifting to the spot on the carpet she'd bled all over when the Freddie's attacked her. There was nothing there now but she could still remember it all vividly.

Ruby sank down to sit on the bed, staring blankly ahead of the closet. It was ten minutes until midnight. Almost time to begin this nightmare again.

Timmy appeared on the bed next to her but she didn't look up at him. He didn't say anything, just sat there in silence as the seconds ticked away.

She wanted to ask him questions but couldn't bring herself to speak either. She hated the silence but at the same time survival demanded she didn't ignore the clock.

"You're in the hospital," Timmy said. "Hedy's been visiting you every day."

Ruby clenched her hands in her lap. She hated being in the hospital and it was a special kind of horrifying to be there and unable to wake up.

She kept her eyes on the floor. She kinda wanted the silence back now.

"She misses you. Everyone misses you."

That got a flinch out of Ruby. She knew that there were people who would be upset if something happened to her. She'd learnt that ages ago with Alice and Clint when she was at her lowest.

For the first time since this whole mess started, a bubble of anger formed in her chest. She hated that Nightmare was making Alice and Clint go through this again. She hated that Hedy and the bots and all the kids were going through it too.

"Why are you telling me that? I already know." It just made her feel worse.

She saw Timmy shrug out of the corner of her eye. Silence fell again but it was heavier this time. Stifling. Ruby's mind was buzzing with questions and every new thought she had about the outside world made her angrier.

"Are they okay?" the question slipped out without her permission.

Timmy's silence was an answer in itself.

Before she could start demanding details, even though they would hurt, the clock beeped and he disappeared. The fear slammed back into her but the anger didn't disappear. Actually it helped clear her mind a little.

Okay. She'd done this two times already and… well, neither time could be considered a landslide victory for her.

She couldn't just run around like a headless chicken. She needed… she needed a plan. Or something.

The idea was a little foreign to her but her instincts were kind of useless at the moment.

"What would Hedy do?" she wondered out loud, trying to ignore the pain in her body as she stood up.

Probably find a pattern or something.

Wait.

A pattern…

The bots followed a pattern during the game. Bonnie always came down the left and Chica down the right.

She tried to think of all the times she'd seen their nightmare versions and realised it was the same here. She'd never seen them in the other hallway.

"And Foxy in the closet," she whispered, eyeing the door with trepidation.

First though, Hedy would probably try something using common sense.
Like… something in front of the doors…

Ruby stared ahead blankly. "Why didn't I try that before?"

The bed was too big for her to move, but what else was in here? She glanced at the side table where that clock sat.

Would that even be heavy enough? Ah well, might as well try. Maybe she could wedge it in place. She moved quickly to check the doors and then shoved the table in front of the right door. At the very least, the cupcake thing shouldn't be able to push it and it might give her a few precious seconds of warning for the other thing.

Stupid cupcake… Her ankle was still throbbing.

Okay, her everything was throbbing.
She checked the bed quickly and made sure the clock was in view. Seeing the time made her realise something odd though.

It was two hours later than she expected it to be.

"Huh?"

She couldn't think about it for long since she also realised it had been ten minutes and she hadn't checked the closet yet.

Suddenly panicking, Ruby darted across the room and opened the closet.

For a moment she stared in confusion at the apparently empty space before a distorted crackle made her look up.

She screamed as too many teeth and legs and arms-

She slammed the door shut just before she lost her head to something she refused to associate with her second favorite fox.

"Okay, okay, different fox in the closet," she squeaked out, barely hearing herself over the poundIng of her heart.

Mangle had...been the only other bot that had really hurt her, the only one who got close…

Ruby shook her head.
"Not my bots," she muttered.

Shakily she rushed over to check the left side since it wasn't blocked by anything. She barely even registered the movement down at the end of the hallway before holding the door closed for a few moments. Then she listened at the right and held it closed too.

She forced herself into a pattern. Left, right, bed, closet. Maybe this way she wouldn't forget anything.

It was hard to focus through how much everything still ached.

Maybe this way she wouldn't screw up this time.

Hedy would be so freaked out to see how predictable she was being. The thought brought a weak smile to her lips.

She was on who knew what circuit of the room when she got a bad feeling. She glanced at the left door. But she just checked it… She didn't want to be late on the closet. Biting her lip she continued with her pattern.

Part of her wasn't surprised when the left door slammed open. Didn't mean she didn't scream though.

Since she was still a distance away she managed to dodge the worst of the blow but Bo-it still managed to break her arm.

Again.

Instinctively, she made sure the flashlight stayed trained on the bed. She didn't want those little things near her again.

The tall monster let out a deep chuckle, reaching down and pulling her up by the hair.

"You're a real sucker for the foxes aren't you?" the grating, metallic voice asked. "Why don't you play with this one too?"

Ruby felt her stomach drop. She'd seen what was in that closet… she didn't want it to come out.

It started dragging her toward the closet, ignoring her instinctual cries at the pain in her scalp. She felt small tangled chunks pull out of her skin and screamed harder.

"Stop it!" she screamed, thrashing in its grip. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw the right door open, the table being pushed out of the way like it weighed nothing.

She felt… she felt like she was being toyed with.

Finally she was thrown down in front of the innocent looking closet. She had one hysterical moment of remembering her dad checking the closet during the whole 'monster in my closet' phase.

"Come out and play Magsey!" the thing pretending to be Chica sang sweetly. Her voice sounded exactly like Chica's and it made Ruby feel sick.

Her thoughts screeched to a sudden halt at the barely there squeak of the closet door. Her breathing hitched and she forgot about her arm as metal scratched across the ceiling.

She didn't want to look up.

Something wet dripped on her neck and she reluctantly lifted her head.

For a long moment her brain didn't want to process what she was seeing. She only got bits of the whole image. Too many razor sharp teeth crammed into a mouth that looked almost dislocated. Burning orange eyes. One or two too many arms and legs on a twisted and disfigured body. Oh, and two heads...

A drop of… something hit her on the forehead. She couldn't tell if it was oil or blood. It changed colour depending on how the light hit it.

And it was everywhere, dripping from every joint and open space on… whatever this thing was.

"You're not Mangle," her voice wavered as it moved to hang from the ceiling directly above her. "You're not."

It tilted it's head and it's jaw moved in a way that almost looked like a twisted smile.

Then it lunged forwards.

Ruby screamed, toppling backwards in her haste to just get away.

As a result it didn't get her neck like it was aiming to. Instead those too sharp teeth clamped down on her shoulder.

Ruby couldn't even scream this time. The breath was knocked out of her lungs and her vision whited out with pain.

"Aww, look, Mags likes you," Not-Chica's voice sounded distant. Ruby's whole world was narrowed down to the agony in her shoulder.

Then the monster bit down harder and Ruby just about passed out. Almost. She still didn't know whether she'd die for real if she died in this nightmare.

And she couldn't die. She'd promised.

"Why are you even bothering fighting?" Not-Bonnie sounded almost bored.

I'm not afraid of them. She kept up that mantra in her head. She wouldn't let them win like that.

Not-Mangle shifted slightly and suddenly those teeth were being pulled out of her shoulder agonisingly slowly.
Ruby did scream this time.

Once free she slumped on the floor, energy practically gone. The twisted fox started prowling around her, distorted static-like growls sounding every now and then. Ruby couldn't even figure out how it was moving with too many limbs in all the wrong places.

"It would be so easy to kill you right now," Not-Bonnie pointed out in that same bored tone.

They wouldn't, Ruby realised. They wanted to drag this out as long as they possibly could. They wanted torture her more than they wanted to kill her.

That realisation scared her more than she wanted to admit. She couldn't ignore the pain like she usually did. Not in this younger body and mind.

She was too unused to pain at this point in her life. The sudden overload of it was sending her into shock.

Suddenly Not-Mangle pounced again. A clawed hand wrapped around her throat and cut off her air, digging in her skin. Up close she could see the pained madness in the fox's orange eyes. It was so different from the cold glee in the other's eyes. There almost wasn't even a facsimile of a person inside. Ruby's hands scrambled to pull the claw away but it was no use. It tightened instead.

Dark spots were taking over her vision and the only thing she could hear was the other two not-bots laughing.

The last thing she heard before darkness dragged her under was the alarm clock.

She woke up to Timmy curled up next to her, sobbing.

"You can't die, please don't die," he begged between the sobs as he held her. He was older than her here and a little bigger. He was cradling her like he could protect her. "Don't let him win."

It felt like Nightmare already won.

She wasn't winning the nights. They were toying with her. Letting her survive so they could hurt her again.

What was the point?

"You have to win," Timmy whispered, and for a moment it sounded like he wasn't talking to her.