At first, William thought he was in some sort of near-death induced hallucination. While the old man knew he was at the end of the line, he never imagined it would have turned out the way it did. A diabolical conglomeration of sights and sounds were all impossibly jumbled together, like multiple children's puzzles spilled on the floor, all topped off by the monsters he created gleefully ripping onto him, his flesh, his bones, his very spirit, until he was completely torn apart and then put back together again.
It was agony of the highest calibre, and then some, for him to see these characters, some of which he poured out so much of himself into, become mindless beasts with only a desire to kill him over and over.
But, as quickly as it had all started, at some point, everything faded away, only leaving complete darkness. William fell over himself in this sudden change onto a shifting floor. He steadied himself quickly. Perhaps this was simply a break before a whole new batch of torture, he thought, with the hardly coherent section of his brain that managed to do this, at least. He braced himself in anticipation for another onslaught.
But it never came. Slowly, William stood upright. He inspected himself for a little bit. Odd. Somehow, something had without warning or tell, changed the clothes that he had worn before he got Springlocked replaced with the yellow pinstriped suit he wore as a businessman so many years ago. Not to mention that he looked younger. Not too different really, it was simply a decrease in the abundance of grey hairs that he sported before the change, as far as he could recall.
The man stopped himself from this line of incredibly basic thinking and began warming his brain up after a long period of having fallen victim to uncountable agonizing deaths, some just a few minutes ago. He took a few tentative steps forward in the completely empty void, with his hands raised in front of his face in case he hit a wall.
After a while he realized this was completely useless, and instead got the hang of using his limbs once more. The landscape, devoid of any features, was at first interesting to William, but he quite quickly got tired of it.
He couldn't get too bored, though, because after a couple of minutes, he was suddenly blinded by a bright light that seemed to emanate all around him, accompanied by a sharp knock to the back of the head. William cried out in shock as he crumpled onto the floor.
"Hello? … Hello? Wake up, dunderhead."
William felt a firm force kicking him on the side of the head, to which he responded to promptly by groaning and turning to the side. He didn't play this game for long, however, as he felt his body being rapidly placed upright, his head lolling to the side slightly, and getting poked sharply on the head. At this point, William could ignore it no longer, and pried his eyes open.
The first thing he saw was a small, blond haired child standing in front of him, which William immediately recognized. The kid was frowning now, but William could tell immediately that this was the face that he had frequently caught glimpses of while being tortured earlier, and had since been burned into his mind. Either way, both expressions didn't seem to click just right to fit the face of a child.
"What do you want?" William spat out, not sounding as intimidating as he wished. The child seemed indifferent to wether William sat there or if he suddenly sprint off the opposite direction.
"Follow me." The boy said. As he turned his back, the voice immediately clicked into William's mind- this was Cassidy, one of his past victims from years ago. Cassidy was strangely stoic compared to William, who was still incredibly shaken from the events he was submit to minutes ago.
He had no choice but to trail behind Cassidy, the shoes tapping the pavement below their feet being the only sound that emitted from this strange area. William surveyed his surroundings as quickly as he could. It appeared to be a completely normal suburb aside from the lack of visible houses, with some clouds contrasting the color of the light blue sky, and a big sun which William inexplicably hissed at when he recognized what it was.
Afton attempted to make some sort of conversation cleverly manufactured to subtly give him as much information about this place as possible, but to no avail, as Cassidy seemed to even be actively ignoring the man's presence.
"You'll be over here from now on." Cassidy suddenly said.
"Huh?" Afton blinked.
Cassidy pointed to their right, which housed… a house. Two actually. The house Cassidy was pointing at was quaint, and looked like it had gone through multiple owners already, with a beat up old door and some windows with the curtains closed. What William was most enraptured by, however, was the house next door, which was a tall, yet unassuming grey house with a simplistic design that William had never seen before, as well as a man mowing this house's lawn.
William wasn't really interested in the houses, however, because his focus was entirely shifted on the bearded man mowing his lawn- Henry, his old business partner.
William stood there, unable to make anything of this information for a couple of seconds, before he snapped and rounded on Cassidy.
"What's going on here, boy? Is this a prank?" he seethed, but as he turned around, he only found that Cassidy had disappeared. So now, he had nobody he could realistically take his anger out on, so he suddenly realized he looked very foolish looking like this on the sidewalk. It didn't help that the person who looked like Henry kept waving at him casually.
They both stared at each other silently for a few seconds, although it was obvious that William was trying to make it less apparent that he was staring back.
"I left my stove on," he said bluntly, and strode towards the house he supposed he was meant to live in from now on as if it was just any other day. The fallen inventor held his head up high, and tried to enter what was probably his house. Henry continued to look on.
Locked. Of course. Afton was beginning to consider the possibility of legal scuffles if he tried breaking into the house, but then he would have to think about wether there was law enforcement, which, of course, may not exist in the afterlife, but then came the question as to how private property could be protected. . .
He stood completely still in the front entrance of the house letting this line of thought play out, until he noticed that he had something in his back pocket, from which William whipped out a couple of keys. Right. He randomly picked one of the two keys, and used it to unlock the front door.
Going inside, the house was not much to look at. It had a tiled floor which was exclusively white-on-white, and ugly dull brown walls. A small television, although William noted that it looked ungodly expensive, sat in the small living room in front of a saturated yellow and purple couch.
"Har, har. I suppose this must be my liscenced Fredbear couch? You know, the one that I own?" William said sarcastically as he looked up. To who he was talking to, he had no idea, but he could estimate from the time he's spent in this purgatory, that chances were somebody was listening to him at all times.
Afton decided not to think of this any further, and plopped himself down onto the couch. He didn't realize how tired he felt until he sat down, and he felt a relief he hadn't felt for a while. But even then, it felt wrong. As he looked around this living room, he began to notice little details that he could place to be from places he lived when he were alive.
There was a grandfather clock haphazardly placed in the middle of the living room, such so that he would have to move from the middle of the couch so he could see what was on the TV. It wasn't any specific one he recognized, however.
But somehow, the placement and the simple fact that these objects were placed here, as well as how smug and clever William imagined whoever made this place thought they were for doing it, made him more deeply insulted and irked than the hell he was placed in not even hours before.
As William looked around the house, he began to make a game out of trying to guess what deep personal objects ripped out of his past would be placed around this house. Clown mask in the kitchen? Of course. Bed with tacky purple and yellow striped sheets? Naturally. Nothing upset him the most, however, than the Fredbear plushie tactfully placed on the middle of the bed.
He knew he shouldn't play into his captor's hands, and he was deeply aware that this was exactly what they wanted, but upon seeing the plushie, William would begin picking up random objects and throwing them towards the walls, in some vain attempt to show his contempt and protest.
It wasn't until he got tired of throwing things spontaneously that he went back to the living room so he could sit down again, only to find someone else sitting there.
"Michael?" He asked incredulously, taking a step back in shock.
Michael Afton, also having an appearance that was more similar to him back when he was much younger, simply raised a brow and said nothing. They stared at each other for a few moments, not too different from when William saw Henry.
William, who was already upset, began to visibly get very angry. "You're involved with this, aren't you?" his voice dropped to a lower growl. "Of course. Why don't you come here and say hi?"
And right as he began to walk menacingly towards Michael, William felt a jolt of pain travel all throughout his body instantly, so sudden and shocking that he nearly collapsed.
"You can't do anything to me, father." Michael said. A subdued grin plastered upon his face betrayed the feigned sense of pity for his father. William staggered up to his feet.
"If you couldn't tell by now, your every move is being watched. You have no power here." Michael stared down at his father for a moment as William staggered back up to his feet once more, but before William could make a snappy retort, Mike got up from the comfortable position he had in his chair and casually walked over to the refrigerator at the side of the room, where all the kitchen materials were, and opened it to take out a jug of milk.
William blankly gaped at him, which was much unlike how he usually wanted to portray himself as. But the circumstances were so bizarre, he couldn't help it. "What is this place?" he asked his son, who was currently opening up the jug of milk.
"It's not much of a place, really. It's more of a realm." Michael looked inside the jug.
"An afterlife."
"I don't know. Whatever it is, we're certainly not in any sort of true heaven or hell." He flipped the jug upside down, to reveal that nothing came out. William had no idea what he was trying to convey.
"Well, maybe we could call it a hell for you, but for me and some others, it was more of… a nothing." Michael shrugged.
"How do you know that this has to do with me, and that we're not just all together in hell?" William scowled.
"Because me and the others figured out that it was only the people who burned down in that building. Something is keeping us together, I think. We had a lot of time to think about it, you see."
William narrowed his eyes. "And you didn't even try to help your own father, once. Even when he was calling out for you."
"What was I supposed to do? I don't even really know what's happening now. Did you want me to file a complaint to whatever is running this? Try to organize a business meeting?" Inadvertently, this discussion was beginning to devolve into a shouting match. Typical, somewhat.
They couldn't get much longer into the argument, however, because they heard the distinct sound of a bell ring indicating someone was outside the house.
"You take it." William turned and pushed Michael towards the door.
"What? It's YOUR house, probably. Deal with your visits yourself." Michael pulled his father as he walked towards the door.
"It's MY house, I make the rules on what does or doesn't happen!"
"Then GO enforce your ruling and answer the door!"
"Fine."
The door made a whiny creak as William slowly opened it, only to reveal a short, spectacled man with frizzy brown hair and faux-casual business attire.
The man jumped slightly when seeing the door open, and quickly composed himself. "Hi! I'm George Caiden and, uhh, since I noticed- saw- you were moving in, I just wanted to say.. welcome!"
William and Michael looked at each other. Michael slammed the door. "I've never seen that man in my life." they both said simultaneously.
"I thought you said you were around every spirit before this." William whispered.
"I was. I didn't see him anywhere in the Flipside."
"The what?" A rapid knock on the door painfully rang in both their ears.
"The- I don't know. We just made up a name for the void that we hung out in. Long story."
"Then why in the bloody hell is HE here??" William hissed.
"I don't know! Make him go away!"
William creaked the door open once more. He tried giving out his patented charisma that he often had in the public years ago, but, well, he wasn't exactly in the same headspace, so to say.
"So- what brings you here?" William flashed a charming smile.
"Oh, well, I know that you're new around here, so I just wanted to- umm, bring hospitality. You know how it is, right? Yeah. Anyway, I also would like for you to get to know, uhh, what's- his-name. Henry! You would love Henry, you're both such kind folk."
"Ha ha. Right." William's smile became a lot more strained. "I will definitely do that. In the meantime, why don't you go off and- water some plants? Or something? Okay bye." And he shut the door once more, except, George had lodged his foot in between, and he continued talking.
"Actually, I see him right over there! Why don't you go say hi?" And George proceeded to drag William and Michael outside to the stupidly bright sun.
And sure enough, Henry was standing there, apparently nearly finished mowing his lawn. He waved the two of them over.
"Hello. Welcome to the neighbourhood!" Henry said.
"Er… yes."
William examined Henry closely. The beard and glasses, and the work outfit he was wearing, all seemed to point to him looking like he did years ago too. He knew Henry well, and he could easily tell that behind this nonchalance, there was some sort of convoluted plan behind his eyes. He took this as confirmation that there was certainly something happening that he wasn't aware of.
"Well, I'd better be, um, should be on my way now! See you." And with those parting words, George scurried away.
Henry awkwardly kept his nonchalant, chipper face fixed on William until George Caiden had seemingly left, in which he seemed to somehow instantly deflate.
"He's not real." Henry stated bluntly. He glanced around and dropped his voice conspiratorially. "None of this is."
"Yeah, I knew that already." William scoffed. "This is some reunion. Who was that, anyway?"
Michael and Henry looked at each other. "Actually, I recognized his voice just now," Michael said. "He was some guy who gave me phone calls for advice when I worked at Freddy's. The horror attraction too, actually, but those were old tapes."
William closed his eyes for a moment and began to think. Really, Caiden did seem like a familiar name to him, although he wasn't exactly sure where he heard it from.
"George Caiden. You were under his supervision when you… did your thing." Henry elaborated, almost as if he read William's mind.
"But how is he here? There's no way his spirit found itself in this place." William said, almost unintentionally speaking out loud.
"I don't think it is," Michael shrugged. "Maybe he's here just because he died at Freddy's?"
"Perhaps." William mused for a little, but then he had a double take.
"He got killed. By who? The children?" William looked to the two others, who nodded grimly.
"In any case," Henry said, "we should try and get rest however we get that here, because it's getting dark."
Already? William took in his surroundings once more, and sure enough, the sun was setting over a bright orange sky. He had no idea how this happened. Had it really been that long since he first got here, or was the sun simply that fast? Either way, William, Michael and Henry promptly went inside their houses.
William closed the door behind his son. "You know I despise you both, yes?"
Michael turned to look as his father. "Yeah, we don't like you either. We were perfectly okay leaving you there to burn, by the way. It's what you deserve."
It seemed to Michael as if William didn't even give this a second thought. "You're right. I simply imagined there would have been more bloodshed and tears at our eventual reunion, is all. You knew I'd come back." Michael nodded.
"It's not really because I feel particularly forgiving that I'm here with you. It's really not. I think these are just some very strange circumstances. We can do all the fighting we want once we figure out what the hell is happening." The two looked at each other, almost like if they were momentarily in a deeper layer of communication, nodded, and walked past the living room.
Another bedroom seemed to have suddenly manifested across the hall from William's. So, they both assumed, it must be Michael's. From the small glimpse William saw of his bedroom, he recalled seeing many of the objects before as well, although, of course, they were all related to Michael. He wasn't exactly sure what a basket of butter was doing there, but whatever.
Nothing was said between them as they entered their rooms. William collapsed onto his bed, and went into as close of a sleeping state as was possible in such a place.