The Buried Voice

Chapter 9: Found

If there was any word to describe the mood in the elevator as it opened its doors to the first floor it would've been "dismal". It was a grim and foreboding feeling that left them feeling unsafe, very much like the inside of Afton Robotics as a whole. Stepping out into the sun nearly blinded them after so much time in the darkness and the chill was immediately replaced by a dry heat. It was barely comforting.

They shut the door without much faith it would hold anything in before leaving, and it wasn't until they were walking back around the building towards the parking lot that the silence was broken.

"What do we do now?" Marla asked tentatively. Nobody jumped with an answer. "Do we tell anyone? Can we tell anyone?"

"Whose going to believe us? We just got attacked by a robot clown in an underground bunker that looks like a pizzeria. They weren't even willing to believe something was going on at Freddy's when people were going missing there daily," John pointed out. He then tiredly added, "…But we need to at least try and tell Clay."

"Doesn't help that we were technically trespassing. I can't even tell my dad or he'll fixate on that. Or if I say anything about Will, you remember how much he flipped about that," Carlton lightly vented. His lack of confidence in his father made everyone else a lot less certain about their chances. "…Maybe this is why nobody figured out what happened. Nobody would've believed any of this."

Charlie was still silent, but that was because her thoughts were still racing. More of those pieces were clicking together and leading to an unsatisfactory picture. Separate pictures that showed similar but unconnected events. Michael's brother being kept in the basement, living animatronics being hidden in Freddy's, Freddy's burning down under suspicious circumstances- they were all loosely connected but there was still so much missing, and now there really was nowhere else to turn.

Once they got out into the parking lot, Jessica noticed Charlie's continued silence and approached her about it. "Are you going to be okay?" she quietly asked, not wanting to tip off the others and risk making this anymore awkward. "That was… There was a lot going on down there."

"I'll be fine. I just need to get my head straight," Charlie assured her distantly. "…I think maybe I need some time alone. Not because of anything you guys did, I just… You know, I need to work some things out."

"No, I understand. That's totally understandable," Jessica reassured with a small smile. She tried to hide her hesitation. "You're going back to the house?"

"Where else would I go?" Charlie didn't mean for that to come out as distantly as it did. Seeing Jessica's frown she quickly corrected it, "I mean- I'm not going back to the library or to Jen's or… Freddy's, or anything like that. I just need a little time to get my head together before we figure out what's next."

"Smart plan," John said. She hadn't even realized he had been listening in. "If we go to Clay without our story straight, he's not going to take us seriously. We can meet up later and decide what we're going to do."

"I don't think there's anything we can say that's going to convince anyone in this town," Carlton admitted. Nobody directly commented to this but nobody disagreed with it either. Instead, John turned to Charlie.

"How about I spare you the trouble of taxiing everyone around and let you head home. I've got nowhere to be," he offered with a tired smile. She almost shot him down, but upon seeing how sincere he was and without a shred of pity, she decided to take the offer.

"Thanks, if you don't mind. I can still take Carlton to get his car though… Thanks for this." Charlie's eyes met John with a small smile of her own, one both of thankfulness and a shred of regret. "Thanks for everything. I'm sorry I dragged all of you into this."

"I said it before, I'll say it again. I'm here because I want to be," John said, his voice a bit lower. He looked at her with a newfound adoration as he considered what they went through. "I'm just glad you're safe."

Charlie didn't know what to say to that. Thankfully, she was spared having to come up with an answer by Jessica giving her a tight, one-armed hug. "He's right," she said. "…But we should probably get out of here as fast as we can before either something comes out or someone drives up, so we're leaving. Like, right now. And we're never coming back."

"What, are you sure? I think this place would be great for birthday parties. Screw Freddy's, we'll just rent a clown and play with some dirty hospital equipment," Carlton added in. "…Okay, even I know that one was too soon, but humor me. I'm the one whose going to have to explain to my mom why there's a big bruise ring around my neck."

"Clowns. I'm not even afraid of clowns and now I'm never going to be able to see one again without seeing that thing's claw swinging around," Lamar muttered as he started to get into the passenger's side of John's car. He hesitated a long moment before calling out, "At least we all know why Baby's really closed. That's one mystery solved, gang."

As disturbing as it was, he was right, and nobody- except maybe Charlie- was concerned with ironing out the extra details. Jessica followed his example and got into the car with John following after giving Charlie one more, "I'll see you later." Marla didn't join with them, which didn't surprise anyone, and instead got in the backseat of Charlie's car as they drove back towards the house.

Marla fussily checked and poked at Carlton's neck from the backseat as he sat in the passenger seat. "Yeah, that's all going to turn purple. I've got some concealer back at the house if you want to try and cover it up," she offered.

"Thanks. That'll spare me the grilling from my folks. They're not around enough to look too close so just enough to get me through walking past them in the hallway and occasionally dinner," Carlton answered. Charlie felt unsettled by the suggestion of continuing to hide this from his parents, especially when his parents were the only ones who could do something about it.

"Clay might be the only one who'll believe us. I know you and him have your differences, but Carlton, he worked on the Freddy's case. He's the one that knows about William Afton and what he did."

"If I thought he would take me seriously for even a second, I'd tell him the second I got home," Carlton admitted. He propped his arm on the door and stared out the window. "This isn't just me putting my problems with my dad in front of getting real help, I just don't think he'd listen to us. Not with how quick he shut down when we were talking about Afton. And that was after I said-…" He trailed off before his eyes started to slowly widen. "Oh geez…"

"What?" Marla asked. She leaned through the seats to see his dread filled expression. "What, what is it? You didn't leave something down there, did you?"

"We just got attacked by a crazed robot that came out of a burning pizzeria-!" Carlton exclaimed. "-And now I'm going to sleep in a house with another one in the basement?! That bear came out of the fire too!"

It was then that Charlie suddenly remembered that black bear. That black bear that had been hidden behind a curtain inside of the pizzeria. The one that Schmidt, a man who had been around animatronics that moved without reason, thought was haunted like them. The one that had looked at her and shook her to the core just like Baby had, and just like her somehow survived that blaze.

She had to see it. "The bear's still down in your basement…?"

"Should be, unless Dad moved it," Carlton said. He quirked a brow. "Why?"

"What do you think about making an unexpected pitstop?"

Within a few minutes, the car had changed course and instead of driving to Charlie's house they parked outside of Carlton's. Instead of letting them inside, he immediately led them around the back of the house.

In hindsight, this was almost as shady as sneaking into Afton's, but at least it was Carlton who climbed down through the basement window first. Technically it wasn't breaking in entering if he lived there and invited them inside, it was just wrong on other levels. Not to mention that if Clay found out he would probably put his son on thin ice. They had to be quick.

Carlton climbed in quickly and stepped down on some boxes before dropping smoothly to the floor. He headed over to the light switches at the bottom of the stairs and clicked them on. "Alright, coast's clear."

Charlie climbed down first and managed to make it down without much trouble. Marla wasn't as lucky, probably because the clothes she was wearing weren't exactly as versatile for squeezing through a tight space. Her skirt got caught on the edge of the window and then she had to struggle with it while trying to lower herself. Then, because she was shorter than the others, she didn't reach the boxes quite as fast.

All the while Carlton just watched with an amused smirk, listening to Marla mutter in frustration under her breath. Eventually she gave an audible huff and called down, "Couldn't you have just unlocked the basement and let us come in that way?"

"I guess, but where's the fun in that?" Carlton teased. She groaned and managed to lower enough that her foot was brushing the box. "Besides, dad might have some sort of motion detector rigged up down here."

"Oh great. First I get dirt all over my shirt and now I'm going to jail. Just know that if your dad catches us, I'm ratting you out," Marla said. She then dropped fully onto the box with a small 'oomph'. Finally Carlton stepped in to offer a hand and help her down.

While they were doing this, Charlie had been looking around the basement. She could see Clay's desk but didn't feel comfortable going through it. Which was fine considering she couldn't afford to get distracted. She continued her search and found her way into the back of the room that was being used for storage. Ignoring some old furniture and decorations she continued to search until her eyes fell on the corner and noticed something cloaked in a drop cloth.

Charlie knew it was what she was looking for immediately and just the action of seeing it caused her heartrate to quicken. She swallowed her nervousness and slowly but determinedly made her way past the remaining boxes. It seemed like Clay had purposefully tried to block it off, but not lock it up. Its presence here inside of an evidence locker seemed rather suspicious. Like he knew more than he supposedly did.

"Is this it?" she cautiously called back. Both Carlton and Marla looked over before hurrying over to her side, the former a little more quicker than the hesitant latter. It was clear Marla wasn't as interested in seeing it.

"That's him. Brace yourself," Carlton warned as he climbed over into the corner. He then grabbed the drop cloth. "Feast your eyes on the scariest thing to tumble out of a pizzeria since Baby's closed-." Then yanked it off in one semi-smooth motion, having to yank it harder at the end before revealing what was hiding underneath. "Frieddy Fazburn."

All jokes aside, the animatronic was in much better condition than Baby had been in. Its dark skin didn't show its burns or ash marks easily, but the only part of it that looked truly ravaged from the fire was its arms. Its hands' endoskeleton parts were broken and exposed with deep burn marks leading up its arms. Its face was slightly distorted as well, with its lighter paints darkened with soot and some of its features half-melted.

It was slumped in the corner, sitting on its backside with its legs bent, its arms at its side, and its mouth slacked open. It still clutched its microphone but the end was smashed apart, maybe from something falling on it during the fire or the bear itself falling over. Its single, yellow eye stared ahead without any focus or recognition. Just a broken, burned, and forgotten animatronic.

Just seeing it again made Charlie feel peculiar. She didn't know how to explain it, but she resisted the urge to touch the bear. Almost like it was calling for her.

"Wow…" Marla said almost wordlessly. She didn't dare get any closer but gazed over its fallen form with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. "It looks… Well, not as bad as I thought it would."

"Not as bad as Baby," Charlie agreed. She crouched down in front of the bear to get a closer look. Its gaze was still empty and its mouth still slack-jawed, and she frowned as she looked up at Carlton. "I'm guessing he didn't, but did Clay say where they found it? If the fire was that bad it shouldn't have held up this well."

"I don't know if I'd say 'this well'. I think I'd go with 'not completely decimated'," Carlton chimed in before agreeing. "But I don't know. I noticed that too, but Dad didn't say anything except that they needed somewhere to store it. He did say that there were other ones in there, but they were totally burned up. Like the entire Freddy gang."

"And we just saw them a few days ago…" Marla murmured. "That's so weird…"

"As far as I know, Freddy and friends spontaneously combusting could've been what started the fire, so that explains it," Carlton said with a shrug.

"But why was Baby in there at all?" Charlie asked. This was the question that nobody had a proper answer for. It made sense for Baby to be down in that basement where she was once homed, but why would she have been in that pizzeria if she clearly couldn't be used on a stage. She supposed the same question rose for the bear too and she scooted a little closer. "Schmidt called it Lefty… Lefty?"

Marla turned to Carlton in confusion and he gave a shrug. They continued to silently watch as Charlie attempted to speak to the bear. At that first call there had been no response.

"We already know about Baby and the others being… Aware and awake. We're not going to hurt you. If you can hear me, just… Say something. Or move. Look at me again, something." Charlie was nearly pleading for a response, but none came. The bear didn't move and she sighed wearily. "Maybe we were wrong…"

"Or maybe it knows that if it does start talking, we're all going to run out of here screaming," Carlton said. Charlie got a twitch of an amused smile. That smile dropped at a soft creaking noise that she knew was footsteps, and judging by the sound it seemed like they were right outside the basement door.

"You said nobody was home!" Marla whispered to Carlton, who was now staring at the walk with a look that rivaled the one he had when he first saw the doll amalgam in all its glory. Marla pointed at him accusatorily. "I told you we should've checked first!"

"He's never home this early, and since when's he put his car up-?" The redhead's mini rant was cut off by the basement door opening and continued footsteps down the stairs. He lowered his voice to a frantic whisper and said, "Get under the sheet and try to squeeze behind the bear!" Marla actually snatched up the sheet to do so, but only a few seconds later-.

"I know you're down here," voice firmly stated. He didn't sound amused but he didn't exactly sound angry either, just mostly tired. "Next time you should turn the lights off before you hide." Carlton swore to himself and uncovered himself, stepping out from the storage space just as his father reached the bottom of the stairs. Without changing inflection, he added simply, "Language."

"I know this looks bad, Dad, but all I was doing… Was looking for something," Carlton tried to excuse. Before he could continue, there was a crashing noise from behind and both looked over to see that Marla had accidently knocked over some propped-up candy cane decorations while trying to slide past them. She stared back wide-eyed. Carlton slowly turned back to his father, "I was looking for Marla."

"What have I told you about coming down here?" Clay asked. Carlton paused, and Clay turned to check his desk. "Don't bring anything down here that you don't intend to lose."

"Heh, right," Carlton agreed. It at least sounded like a joke, even if his father didn't say it like one. He then noticed what he was doing; checking his desk to make sure nobody went through anything. Marla stepped out alongside him and Carlton tried to defend, "Technically I didn't go in your office."

"You didn't go near that bear, did you?" Clay asked wearily. Both Carlton and Marla looked identically guilty, like they were children about to be scolded. He treated them as such. "I told you to stay away from it when I brought it home. We don't know what it could've picked up in that fire. For all we know, it could be covered in asbestos." Before he could grill them any further, Charlie stepped out from behind the stairs.

"It's my fault. I asked to come see it," she volunteered. He turned towards her and upon recognizing her looked a little surprised. She smiled, "It's nice to see you again, Mr. Burke. Sorry we had to meet up like this."

"Charlotte Emily, I haven't seen you in years," Clay greeted with a smile. "When did you get back into town? I'm hoping not just because of all this going on."

"I've been in town a few days, this is just bad timing. We were all meeting up when this sort of took us off guard," Charlie was quick to defend. She rubbed her arm awkwardly and confessed, "I asked Carlton if he could show me Freddy and it was all my idea to see it, so if you're going to blame anyone then blame me."

"It's fine. I was expecting it anyway to be entirely honest," he said. He sent a knowing look at Carlton who stayed quiet to keep from incriminating himself further. Clay turned back to Charlie, "Is Jenny in town too?"

"No, it's just me. I've been staying at the house. She's not really happy about it but she didn't stop me from coming… How is everything going with this… With the fire?"

"Well, there isn't a fire anymore, but there isn't a restaurant either," Clay said almost regretfully. He almost seemed upset by something, as though he knew something, and she knew it might be her only chance to learn about the current investigation. She considered how to go about that when the conversation was suddenly interrupted.

"Well, I guess we should get going!" Marla abruptly volunteered. She grabbed Carlton by the arm and made a reach for Charlie. "We've still got to figure out what we're going to do tonight. We've only got a few more days of catching up, so we've got to make the most of it!" Clay didn't seem to suspect anything. He just nodded and sat down in his office chair, and Marla tried to drag them out.

Except Charlie had other plans. "You guys go ahead. I'll be up in a second," she said. Marla raised her brows questioningly and Charlie gestured to the stairs with her eyes. Marla seemed reluctant but went ahead and left with Carlton, both of them not entirely sure it was a good idea but neither putting up an argument. Now alone, Charlie tried to figure out a way to begin this conversation naturally.

"…You know, we actually visited the pizzeria a few days ago." Clay took interest in this and she added, "Just a few of us. I don't know if you remember Jessica or John, but they're both in town too."

"It would be hard to forget you kids. You were inseparable when you were that age," he reminisced, smiling for a moment before returning to intrigue. "Did you notice anything while you were in there?"

"Not at the time. I did see that black Freddy, but it was out of order. That's why when Carlton mentioned it I came to see it… I heard that the fire was caused by wiring and thought maybe the bear started it."

"That's a good guess, but we've already checked it and it's clear that the fire began from inside the building. It was burned because of its close proximity."

"Wait, so Lefty wasn't in the building?" Charlie was about to ask further on this when she was interrupted by Clay continuing.

"I wouldn't lose sleep over it. Things like this happen all the time with restaurants that manage to open without a proper building inspection. You'd be surprised how many fly under the radar and then end up having issues less than a month in. You should enjoy your vacation and leave the investigation to us. We'll figure out what happened," he said. Then he got a peculiar tone, "But try to keep a low profile."

"…What do you mean?"

"Considering that this is a Freddy's, there are people out there right now trying to make connections with the old restaurant. The last thing I want is the media circus to find out you're in town."

"I doubt they remember me after all these years. I don't even think my name was ever published anywhere. Was it?"

"Maybe not, but they do remember your father." Clay's face fell to a more somber look as he remembered the man in question. "It's a shame what happened to him. He was a good man and he deserved better… But this town will cling to whatever it can. If it eases your mind any, we haven't found any connections to the old pizzeria."

It didn't because she knew that couldn't be true. Maybe he just didn't known about the things she did. With how paranoid Schmidt was, she doubted he would've spoken to the police, and if Michael was involved then he was doing everything on his own. She decided to keep pressing a little further before she would say anything she couldn't take back.

"I know there were a lot of rumors about the diner and the pizzeria… Did you hear when they used to say that the animatronics would come to life at night and attack people?" Charlie asked bluntly. She then covered with, "Kids used to say that all the time. I'm guessing it was because of all of the accidents and disappearances. You know kids, they hear something and come to the quickest solution." She then watched carefully to see if Clay would show any indication that he knew what she was talking about.

Unfortunately for her, while he didn't seem surprised about the rumor, he gave no indication that he knew anything. No twitches, not even a pause, just a sigh and an explanation.

"That could very well be. Management at the old pizzerias didn't follow most safety protocols- not your father, of course. Unfortunately, there's few regulations concerning machines of this nature. There's no laws in place saying that these bots have to be kept up to a certain standard, but things as basic as keeping them on stages, not letting children wander unsupervised, and not retiring broken machines led to a slew of unnecessary accidents. I could see how rumors can spread from that."

"That makes sense, just… I'm not a child anymore, you know," Charlie said. "I know you're probably trying to shield me from some of the details, and that there's some things you can't tell me because of the investigation, but… I know a little more than I let on."

"Did you start the fire?" Clay asked. He said it so straightly that it took her a minute to realize it was yet another joke, though one given completely deadpanned.

She almost rushed to deny, but caught herself and she noticed the wording just like she had earlier with the comment about Lefty. "…Does that mean it wasn't faulty wiring?"

Apparently this took Clay completely off-guard. He actually seemed startled by his own slip-up, or at least surprised that she had caught it so quickly. He then gave a positively exhausted sigh.

"You get that from your father," he said. It almost sounded like a compliment so that's how she took it. "Alright, Charlie, I'll level with you. And I'm trusting you to keep this between us." She nodded in understanding. "I'm sure you've already figured this out or Carlton's already told you, but we're treating this as an arson. Due to the circumstances it isn't in our best interest to reveal that to the public yet."

"Because you're afraid it would scare the community?" Charlie guessed.

"That, and because we believe the person who did this may still be in the city. If we tip him off then he could very well flee, and we don't have enough evidence for a warrant." He was cut off by his phone ringing. "Excuse me for a second," he said, getting his phone out of his pocket and answering. "Burke."

Charlie couldn't hear what was going on over the call and so took the time to take a step back and look down towards Lefty. The bear still hadn't moved at all. Though it must've moved some if it had gotten outside.

"If it was just standing outside then it wouldn't have gotten those burns on its arms, but if it climbed out of the pizzeria then maybe it could've caused them," Charlie thought. She was still somewhat doubtful, but there was definitely some explanation beyond it just being outside for no reason.

"I see. How badly burned? Can we get a clear ID on it?" Clay asked over the phone. A few seconds passed. "Can you tell what gender? Ethnicity?" Another pause before he gave an exhale through his nose. "I'll be right there. Get ahold of the coroner but don't move anything until I get down there."

"Wait…" Charlie turned back to Burke in surprise as he ended the call. "Did they just find a body?"

"Sorry to cut this short, but I need to head back out," Clay said briskly. He grabbed a folder off of his desk and replaced his phone in his pocket before addressing her again. "Don't be a stranger, Charlie. Come by one of these days when things have settled down. Betty would love to see you."

"Sure, I'd love to… Is everything alright?"

"No, but in this line of work things seldom are," he admitted before heading back up the stairs.

Charlie felt compelled to follow, sending one last glance at Lefty before climbing the stairs. Once she was out, Clay shut and locked the basement door again. A weird feeling settled in her stomach at letting that door get shut and locked, like she should've stayed and tried harder to goad Lefty into a reaction. She could only hope that she would have another chance to check.

Carlton and Marla were waiting in the living room and watched Clay head out the front door before Charlie came in. "How'd it go?" Marla asked cautiously.

"It… Didn't really go anywhere. Right as I was getting him to open up a little, he got a call and had to rush out."

"Yeah, that'll happen," Carlton said without much surprised. He exhaled tiredly and looked a little disappointed. "Should we go get the car or do you want to sneak back downstairs?"

"No, let's just head back to the house," Charlie said. They got up to leave and she started to head to the front door just in time to spot Clay quickly driving away. Probably wanting to beat said coroner down to the pizzeria and see the body before it was moved. To think that someone got caught in the fire- probably someone working the night shift- made Charlie uneasy. It reminded her of Schmidt.

"…Hold on a second, guys. I need to make a quick call before we go," she called back into the living room before heading out to the car. She sat in the driver's seat before leaning over and going through the glovebox. It didn't take her long to find Schmidt's number and quickly dial it into her phone. It began to ring, then rang a second time, and by the third she was starting to become concerned.

That growing fear was dashed when someone finally answered the phone. "Hello, hello?" She recognized that dry voice right away and breathed a sigh of relief.

"You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice!" Charlie said. There was a long pause on the line before she clarified, "It's Charlie. We talked in the parking lot at the pizzeria?"

"Gotcha. Up to speed now, sorry. You wouldn't believe the day I'm had," he muttered into the phone. She could only imagine but assumed it was nothing like hers. "I'm guessing you heard about Freddy's?"

"That's actually why I'm calling. I just wanted to check on you. You mentioned you used to work the night shift and I just thought… I just hoped you weren't doing it anymore," Charlie excused.

"Nah. I don't get paid enough to babysit bots again," Schmidt groaned. "But you better believe the cops were grilling me like I did. I don't know what they're thinking happened, but there were cameras all over the place. There's got to be one of them that's got footage of me walking out." He then scoffed and added in a mutter, "If any of that equipment's left."

"I know they're saying it's faulty wiring, or going to say that, but I'm thinking this was something more than that. Do you know of anyone who could've done this?"

"Oh no, I know someone did this. A place like Freddy's doesn't go up like a dried-up Christmas Tree without someone being involved. Could've been anyone: a disgruntled ex-worker, an angry parent, the animatronics themselves as far as we know, and that's just off the top of my head," Schmidt listed off. Though then he paused a long time before adding. "…My boss was acting weird last night. I didn't say that to the cops, but this could've been an elaborate insurance thing. He would've been the last one there."

"He was the one you were afraid of overhearing us talking, right?" Charlie asked and he agreed. That certainly was a new lead. "What's his deal? Would he have really gone through all of this just to burn it down?"

"To be completely honest here, there's something a little off with him," Schmidt admitted. He then added in matter-of-factly, "Could've been because he wore a Freddy Fazbear head twenty-four-seven."

"So, that was the manager… I guess that explains the suit," she said under her breath, mostly to herself, but Schmidt heard her.

"Yeah, that's him alright. I'll admit, I thought he was really strange, but it's hard to judge when Freddy's draws in freaks like it's the nexus of the universe. He is a strange one though. Hired me without even meeting me, I don't even know where he got my number. Just told me to call him boss or whatever. And I mean that literally, "Boss or Whatever." Always stayed late, always got there early…" Oddly enough, Schmidt's venting gave way to a gentler tone. "I haven't seen him since the fire. No calls or nothing."

"You don't think something might've happened to him?" Charlie tentatively asked.

"…I don't know, but he wasn't right last night. He never used to say goodbye to me when I was leaving my shift. I guess that's just a red flag I chose to miss," Schmidt said.

Had he known something was going to happen like Michael did? Was he aware that the pizzeria was suddenly going to disappear, and was it really for insurance? Michael hadn't given that impression, unless he convinced the man to go through with it. Unless… "This is going to sound like a weird question, but did your boss have an accent? Like a soft English accent?"

"That's oddly specific, but yeah, he did." Unless the boss was Michael. He must've overheard her and Schmidt talking in the restaurant and then got ahold of her note once returning to his apartment. That whole time the man in the suit had been watching her it had been him. He knew Freddy's wasn't going to last because it was his business that he was about to sabotage. Then that body they found- "Why? You know him?"

"I… I thought I did," Charlie excused. She tried to cover up the surprise in her voice before noticing movement out the window. Only then did she realize Carlton and Marla were standing outside the front door waiting. "Sorry, but I have to go. I've got to drive a friend to get their car."

"You have my sympathies."

"Can I call you back later? There's something I would like your advice on," Charlie asked. Specifically, to ask what he thought about them trying to tell someone about Afton Robotics, being that he had lived through a similar experience.

"Sure, I'm not going anywhere. You watch yourself out there. There's some weird stuff going down in this town," Schmidt warned her. It echoed Clay's own warning and she took this one to heart just the same. The call was ended and she rolled down the car window to tell the others they could get in.

Marla must've noticed Charlie quietness as she seemed reluctant to leave right away when they got to the house. It took a little assurance that they would meet up later to get her into Carlton's car and send them on their way. Now on her own, Charlie headed inside her home. The lights had been left on and the silence was deafening inside of the house.

She leaned against the door and just stared inside, half-expecting something to peel out from around a corner and make a dash at her. This didn't happen, of course, but it felt strange to suddenly stop after all of that. The closest feeling would be like waking from a nightmare, those first moments where it wasn't clear if it had been a dream or not. Charlie sunk down onto the couch and let her thoughts pour over her.

"So, it was always him. Michael reopened Freddy's, he's the 'he' who burnt it down, he knew about Afton Robotics and what was down there, which coincidentally ended up in the fire, and now there's a lone body found at Freddy's and he's nowhere to be seen…" Charlie laid out before herself. It was a lot to take in after she had been so quick to defend him. "…What now?"

She answered herself when her mind went back to the family album in the office. She remembered that there were pictures of him in there and was gripped by curiosity, enough to head into the office to look. The room was just how she left it with her copied newspapers and the family album sitting together on the desk. She sat down in the office chair and pulled the latter towards her, paused a long moment, and then opened it to the later pictures. The ones where the Afton and Emily families were combined.

It didn't take her long to find the same picture she had seen before and to see Michael standing with his siblings. He was smiling, but even then there's seemed to be something forced in that smile. At least his siblings seemed happy enough. There was one question she couldn't get out of her head, "But why reopen Freddy's just to burn it down?"

Charlie's eyes drifted down to his younger brother and remembered what he had said about him. "…Maybe he just couldn't get over what happened. The only way he could find closure from Freddy's was if he destroyed it himself… And it might've cost him his life." That wasn't the only thing she realized. Everything he had said, his warnings to move on, it was all too familiar.

"He was the one who sent the letter," Charlie thought. She could feel the immediate disappointment come with that realization. "Maybe he thought reopening Freddy's would bring me back into town and didn't want anyone getting in the way of his plans… Maybe he really was trying to help me. Trying to spare me from everything he found out. So, when he figured out it was me coming by Freddy's, he was finally direct with me."

The truth was that she was less upset by the realization that Michael had done it and more that her father hadn't. That he hadn't had some elaborate plan to send a message from beyond the grave. One last attempt to have his voice heard and to say the things she needed to hear from him.

She found her gaze moving from Michael to her own father on the other side of the picture, smiling without a care in the world, totally oblivious to what was going to happen in the very near future. She remembered him always being full of love even on his saddest days and wondered how different life could've been if he had been spared that misery. If their family could've stayed together.

She got her answer by flipping to the following page and seeing the photos of her and her brother playing. Happier days of them being carefree and safe. Though these were more combined with the Afton family. At one point her gaze fell squarely on William Afton himself and a wave of disgust and anger rose inside of her.

How someone could do something as heinous as kidnap children and then drag them into that basement was beyond her comprehension. What happened to them there- whether they were used to test animatronics on or just used as William's playthings- was unclear, but they had never made it home. She had no doubt now that William silenced Henry after he figured out what was going on and made him disappear before he could tell anyone else. That wasn't going to happen this time. This time, William couldn't hide any longer.

Charlie tried to force back her feelings and focus on the other pictures. Her insides were twisted up painfully, but she didn't want to walk away just yet. Instead, she let herself stare into a happy but somber scene.

Four children were sitting on the dining room floor together in the picture. They were finger painting with messy hands and equally messy pieces of paper laid out in front of them. Charlie herself was caught with a wide mouthed smile and her eyes squinted. Alongside her was William's daughter, the girl with the strawberry blond hair. It was pulled up in a loose bun and she was waving with a paint stained hand and beaming.

Then there were the two boys on the other side of the blond girl, Sammy and William's son. Sammy was smiling but seemed fully focused on his picture instead of the camera, currently pointing a green finger down onto it. The boy beside him also acknowledged the camera, but this particular picture showed something completely different than what she had seen before, something heartbreaking.

The boy was paler than the other photo, a bit more gaunt, and there was a telltale bandage wrapped around his elbow. One that would've been placed there if blood had recently been drawn. This picture showed the boy that Michael had told her of, smiling and happy, but sickly. To think of what followed made it all so much worse. She couldn't help but imagine what it was like to be stuck down in that basement with that sterile hospital equipment and a few toys. No wonder he had come back so fearful.

He reminded her so much of Sammy. Even as they sat together they were contrasts of one another. Both brunette, though a slightly different shade, both about the same age, but one with so much life and one with a failing body, and both with their time running out. In this moment, Charlie felt nothing but sympathy for this boy, looking into his sunken blue eyes and feeling guilt like she would for her brother.

"I wonder what he was sick with… Poor kid had to go through all of that and then still ended up like all the others. He didn't deserve that," she thought. Her eyes rose to the newspapers. "…But at least he got healthier before his accident. That's something…" Charlie knew she was grasping at straws and with a sigh she shuffled through the newspapers.

Eventually she found the one talking about the bite and looked at the boy's picture on it once again. He looked so miserable in it. "I can't imagine what he saw down there. How could someone take their own… Wait."

Charlie made a sudden realization that she hadn't before. At first she thought it was a trick of the newspaper's picture's contrast, since it was in black and white, but looking closer showed enough shading to back up her confusing finding. The boy in the photo had to be Michael's brother. His story was the same, his features looked very close, and it all added up together.

Except that William's son had blue eyes and the bite victim had brown ones.

"Wait, no. Maybe I'm wrong." Charlie folded the newspaper and then lined up the photo on top of the album's picture so that the two boys were right beside each other. There was no doubt about it, the bite victim's eyes were simply too dark to possibly be the soft blue of William's son. Unless the photo was doctored, the bite victim couldn't have been him.

"…Maybe Michael meant another bite?" From what Charlie saw during her research, there could've been dozens of bites, but then again this was the story that matched up with Michael's and the boy who looked close enough to his brother. It just seemed too coincidental. "This doesn't make any sense-!" But he didn't have blue eyes, he had brown ones. Just like-.

Charlie slowed moved the newspaper aside and uncovered the partially hidden picture underneath. In one revolting moment all of the pieces came together and she came to a ghastly realization.

That wasn't Michael's brother in the picture, it was hers. The bite victim was Sammy.

Denial tried to creep in and spare her from the truth but she couldn't ignore what she was seeing. His face, his features, his skin, his eyes; literally everything lined up except the slightly different shade of hair. Except hair could be dyed and eye color couldn't; hair could darken with age and eyes wouldn't.

Charlie recoiled with a shake of her head as the rest of it started to slowly come together. This was why Michael's story seemed so strange and why William allegedly hid his own son away for years. He didn't take him away, wait until he got healthy, and then bring him back. He replaced him with a completely different child, the son of his business partner. The one boy who resembled his own enough to pass it off.

"That's him! That has to be him- William had him the whole time!" Charlie sputtered out. Her hands began to shake worse than they ever had in Afton Robotics. "He took Sammy and he kept him all this time. Those years he was gone he must've- he had to have taken him down there to that fake house and fake pizzeria and just waited, keeping him down there, until- Until what? Until Sammy thought he was his son?!"

As disgusting of a thought as it was, Charlie knew it could've worked. Sammy had been too young when he was kidnapped to retain most of those early memories. If he was kept down in those rooms then he would've eventually been coerced into believing anything. Yet he had still came out of there fearful of whatever he had seen. He had still been traumatized by what he witnessed.

"And then he- he brought him up here and posed him as his own son, and it worked. Michael even believed it, everyone believed it. Nobody would've ever found out… Until the accident." She swallowed thickly as it continued laying out before her. "And they might've found out then, so he removed him from the hospital the first chance he had and took him… Down to that basement… Again."

Charlie's eyes widened as she remembered that room. "And- And then he just left him in that hospital bed until-!" Not until he died. That IV bag had been in the locked room. He had been alive. "Until he put him in that box-!" Charlie's voice grew higher and cracked as she was overwhelmed by it all. Her brother had been in that box. That smell had been from his body. "And that's where Dad found him!"

That was when everything suddenly got very tight. The room seemed to expand and the air felt thin and floaty. Charlie noticed that she was heaving gulps of air and yet felt like she couldn't catch her breath. She stood abruptly from the desk, looking down at the photos through foggy vision, and then shoved them away. A cup of pens fell off the desk, but she was too busy rushing from the room to notice or care.

She didn't know where she was going, she just knew she had to get away from the house. She grabbed her car keys and barely shut the door behind her before she ran to her car, got in, and began to back out. She hadn't even pulled all the way out before she abruptly hit the break and stopped in place. Sitting there in the car, throat tight and heart pounding, it occurred to her only then that she had nowhere to run to.

Where was she supposed to go for help? Her lonely and disorganized dorm room? Aunt Jen's house, where she always felt like she was taking up space? All Charlie wanted to do was go home, but there wasn't one to return to. The closest thing was the house in front of her and it was the last place she wanted to be. She had never felt so utterly helpless, except for perhaps that horrible moment when Sammy was carried away.

Finally she was beginning to come down from her panic, but her mind clearing only allowed the thoughts to return. It was the worst outcome imaginable: not only was Sammy dead, but he lived in fear and then died alone in a cold basement. From the moment he was taken from that diner he was subjected to whatever William put him through, all the while nobody was there to help him. Their parents gone, nobody else looking, and her unable to do anything. Did he think about her? Had he remembered her at all?

She barely realized that she was crying until a choke rose in her throat. She had always been a realist, but part of her always thought- or hoped- that she would find him alive. That dream of the diner, those thoughts of 'what if he's still out her', her when she was a child believing that her brother would someday be found, all of it was for naught. He was gone and there was nothing she could do.

It took a few minutes before Charlie was calm enough to realize that she still had a problem. She couldn't walk back into the house and she needed to go somewhere, but she didn't know where. She felt like she was going to collapse from the pressure if she didn't get moving somewhere and, for the first time in years, she felt like she truly needed to be with someone. She didn't want to deal with this alone again.

Before she could back out, she got out her cellphone and quickly dialed Jessica's number. She answered within a couple of rings with, "Hello?"

"Hey, Jess. It's me…" Charlie began. She hadn't anticipated her voice sounding as frayed as it did. The distraught was painfully audible.

"Charlie? What's wrong? Are you crying?" Jessica asked. Her tone changed instantly to concern. Only a few days ago, Charlie would've been mortified and tried to repute this, but now she could care less. She needed the help and Jessica was one of the only people she could turn to now.

"No," she denied at first out of reflex. Then, after a few moments. "…Yes," she caved. "Look, I just… I don't want to be a burden, but I need someone to talk to. Can I come over?"

"First of all, you're never a burden. Secondly, of course you can! How soon can you get here?"

"I'm already in my car. I just need a few minutes… Thanks Jess." As they ended the call, Charlie almost felt a little relieved. She put her car in reverse again and backed out of the driveway. She caught sight of the house as she was turning, standing just as intimidating as it had been the first day she got here. She knew she would be back.

Charlie pulled up in front of Jessica's motel room and had gotten out of her car when her friend came out to meet her. By now Charlie had recovered somewhat, no longer trembling or tearing up, but she looked disheveled. Jessica greeted her in a tight hug, one that Charlie held longer than she had before, and then ushered her into the room.

Then everything came out. Charlie explained everything she discovered, including reciting what they had seen together in Afton's in this new context, and Jessica listened the whole time. Sometimes sitting alongside her, sometimes slowly pacing in front of the bed that Charlie was sitting on the foot of. Her expression changed from shock, to disturbance, and to empathy. It definitely hurt to have to painstakingly voice the details of what happened to Sammy, but it was also a little cathartic.

"It was just- I don't know what happened. I flew out of the house and called you right afterwards," Charlie admitted. She fiddled with the end of her sleeve to combat the urge to fidget. "All I wanted was to find out what happened to him. I guess I wasn't as ready as I thought I was…"

"I think you could've been bracing yourself for years and you wouldn't have taken that any better. That's not the kind of news you can take sitting down," Jessica assured her. She pressed a hand to her chest and added, "I'm hearing this now and I feel like I'm going to be sick… Especially now that we've been down there and saw all of those- ugh- 'observation rooms'. God, what a psychopath." She realized she was ranting to the person she was supposed to comfort and caught herself. "Sorry."

"Nothing you're saying isn't anything I haven't been thinking," Charlie said. She took a deep breath before looking to the blond with defeat. "We've got to tell Clay."

"I totally agree. We need to get everyone together, head over to his house, and try to rationally explain all of this insanity," Jessica agreed.

"But it's not going to be easy. I'm not even sure when he's going to get back. If they found something more than just a body, it could be a while before he gets back."

"Well… It's not like anything's going anywhere," Jessica reminded. She then started to get her cellphone back out. "I'm going to call the others and get us all in one room so we can talk this out, okay?" Charlie nodded and the blond began the task of getting the others together. It was a little earlier than any of them had expected, but hopefully they would still be willing to meet.

Meanwhile, Charlie just couldn't stop thinking about Sammy being left in that box. She kept having this stuck mental image of her father finding him there, even though she knew it was years after he had died. If Sammy had been down there he would've been still alive. If anyone found his body, it might've been Michael, years later.

Charlie's mind continued to recreate fake scenarios in which Henry tried to escape with Sammy and failed, or where he had gotten so close only to be blocked by a door, or just got home to call the cops when he was blindsided and killed by William. Yet the one with the box still stood out. It wouldn't leave her mind.

"Alright, so, John's in. He's still with Lamar, so he's going to call up Carlton, I'll call Marla, we'll all figure out somewhere to meet up- somewhere where we don't have to sit on beds… Charlie? Are you okay?" Jessica asked worriedly, noticing how quiet the other had become. Her friend sat up straighter and was quick to defend.

"What? Oh, yeah, sorry. I just got lost in thought for a second," Charlie said. Thankfully, she was turned away enough that Jessica couldn't see her glassy eyes. "Thanks."

Jessica smiled and said, "That's what I'm here for," before starting to dial Marla's number next. They would all get back together and figure this out, make a new plan, and crack Freddy's wide open.

But Charlie couldn't help but wonder if it was even worth it anymore.