Mable: Enjoy!

The Broken Circus

Chapter 5: Put Back Together

It went without saying that when Jessica got Charlie's message in the morning she flipped. She was half-awake when checking the missed call on her phone, hair still partially damp and preparing for what should've been a normal day. Then she learned that Charlie had gone to Circus Baby's, with Sammy, last night. She was going to kill her, she muttered in threats under her breath as she tried to call her.

It was when the call didn't get through that she started to get worried. Charlie seldom turned off her cellphone, even when working or sleeping. Not yet reaching panic, she drove over to Charlie's house to check in on her. Of course, she could've already left, could've gone to the library or store, so her not being there wasn't too much of a surprise.

It was Sammy not being there that was the red flag. Jessica let herself in with the spare key and looked and called but couldn't find him. Unlike the rest of their friends, Sammy didn't hide from Jessica, so she knew he had to be gone. Considering that the message said he and Charlie went together to Baby's, this was a bad sign. Now Jessica was starting to get scared.

This is what eventually led to her and John pulling up into the parking lot of Circus Baby's. She had already informed Clay of what had happened and left her phone with him so that he may use the message to secure a search warrant, as he wasn't going to take any chances once he heard her voice on the line. She and John, the first person she called and the first to drop everything and join her search, went straight to the restaurant.

From outside everything looked normal and a quick once-over the parking lot showed that Charlie's car wasn't there, but neither were willing to believe that she hadn't been there. They headed inside to look around and almost immediately Jessica caught something with an eagle eye. She nudged John and pointed it out.

"That puppet that looked like Sammy is gone," Jessica said. She sent John a worried frown. "That can't be a coincidence."

John nodded in silent agreement before noticing the sole worker coming out of the arcade. His eyes slightly narrowed with suspicion, and he nodded in his direction. "But he's still here. Should we confront him head-on or would that be playing our hand too early? Because if he gets spooked, he might…" He received an answer in the form of Jessica striding towards the worker. "…Okay, never mind."

"Excuse me," Jessica called, catching the man's attention. She managed to keep a completely normal tone, sounding more like someone who had just misplaced her handbag than someone worried that her friend might've been kidnapped, as to not tip him off if he was responsible. "Hi, we're looking for our friend- my friend, his girlfriend. She was supposed to meet us here. She's about this tall with straight, brown hair. You should remember her; she was in here yesterday."

"…Oh, you were with that group of older kids. Okay, yeah, I remember you now… Not the one that got in the fight but the other girl?" He didn't sound nervous- at least, no more than usual. Jessica nodded and he looked around, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't think I've seen her. It's been pretty quiet in here today. Only a couple of kids and their parents. I think everyone's a little spooked about those kids disappearing."

"It wouldn't be the first time kids went missing in this town," John said. He watched the man's reaction closely. The worker looked down and shook his head in agreement; awkward but not suspicious. "Maybe she's not here yet. I guess we'll wait to order until she is," John continued to play along.

"Good idea. I'm going to run and use the bathroom. Maybe you could see what ice cream they have for Jessie's party," Jessica bluffed. She then briskly walked to the hallway while John held up the sole worker, prepared to check every room back there and see if there was any trace of an altercation.

This left John alone with the worker who was none the wiser, willingly talking about the ice cream and cake combination options. With how much he was trying to schmooze John into getting both, he could only assume the man got some sort of commission depending on how much he sold. Either that or was just unnaturally excited about contrasting flavors.

With Jessica not back and the dessert conversation fizzling out, John decided to take the opportunity and pointed over towards the door. "What happened to that jack-in-the-box thing you had over there? I thought it was pretty cool."

"Huh. Really? It kind of creeps me out, honestly," the worker admitted. He shrugged. "It must've broken down last night because it wasn't here when I came in. The night technician comes in after closing and checks on all the animatronics to make sure they're ready for opening, so he must've seen it malfunctioning and wheeled it out. I'm not surprised, kids are always throwing their trash in the box."

"But there's a trashcan right there."

"I know. I've seen parents do it too. Usually, I'm the one who's got to get in there to clean it out," the man said with a sigh. It was possible that he was just a good actor, but John was starting to get 'Mike' vibes from the guy. Like he really was just some random guy working here who didn't know what was going on. That didn't mean he didn't know more than he was saying though.

"Sounds like you do a lot around here… You're not looking for hires, are you? Because I'm looking to change jobs."

"You're not going to want to work here," the man warned.

John retorted with, "I work construction."

"…You're still not going to want to work here. Imagine babysitting twenty kids that aren't yours, don't listen to you, and you're obligated to give them as much sugar as they can pay for," the man offered with a gentle smile. "But I'd hire you in a heartbeat if I could. It's just… This job's too much for one person, you know. But I'm not allowed to hire people and upper management's pretty clear about saving money where they can."

"That's insane. Just one employee for the whole business?" John asked.

"Yeah… To be completely upfront here, I don't understand it either. And it's not like I have anyone to complain to when I'm the first one here and locking up at night."

There were so many red flags here, because this meant that if Charlie did come here last night, and something happened, nobody was around to see what it was. Except for the alleged night technician, whose lack of description seemed to raise eyebrows on its own. Though before he could ask anything more, Jessica returned from the hallway. From the peeved purse to her lips, it was clear she hadn't found anything. She kept her disappointment subtle enough that only someone who knew her would notice it.

"I take it she wasn't camping out in the bathroom," John 'joked'. Jessica faked a dismissive scoff and pulled her purse strap up on her shoulder before beckoning to the door.

"Let's just go wait outside. It's a little too loud in here," she suggested. He agreed, thanked the worker for his time, and headed out behind her. He looked back once more to see the man now busing a table.

As soon as they got outside, Jessica dropped the act and turned to John. "What did he say?" she asked.

"He said the puppet must've been taken away by the night technician who is the only other employee and, coincidentally, the person who would've been here when Charlie came by. Tried to talk my way into a job, but he didn't take the bait. Any luck on your end?"

"Nothing. I couldn't find anything back there. I checked the kitchen, the closet, both bathrooms, and there's no sign of her or anything else," Jessica said. She inhaled deeply to calm herself. "…But there's a lot of cameras. Not that I think Clay's going to get any footage. They've had plenty of time to erase it." This left the two in an awkward silence standing in front of the restaurant.

John looked over the parking lot again and then to the other businesses surrounding the restaurant and wondering if any of them would have outside cameras. It was when he looked off towards the side of Circus Baby's Pizza that he suddenly had a new idea and started walking down to the end of the building. Jessica quirked a brow before following along behind him and around the corner.

"Think she might've come back here?" Jessica asked as they walked beside the side of the building.

"No, but I think someone could've moved her car back here to hide it," he replied.

"I didn't even think about that. Great idea, let's check," she eagerly agreed. She hurriedly caught up to him as the two went around the corner to the back of the pizzeria. Though it seemed like their hope was quickly dashed.

There were no cars behind the building. This seemed to be a disappointing confirmation that there was nothing to find, but they didn't turn back yet instead starting to walk along the back of the building to see if there was anything there. Jessica was becoming increasingly nervous, to the point that she was actually wringing her hands together- something John couldn't remember seeing her do before. He understood it though, he was just as afraid as she was.

But he couldn't let that cloud his judgement. He just had a hunch that whoever took Charlie- Baby- took her for something more than to kill her. That didn't mean that her life wasn't in danger, but that did mean that they had to work fast. They couldn't start mourning her, they had to find her. They had to keep their eyes peeled for anything and he kept his gaze at the garbage cans and dumpsters.

And just like that, something striped caught his eye amongst the trash. John's eyes focused in on it because he noticed that it looked a lot like Sammy's striped leg. He had a suspicion of what it was.

"Is that that knockoff puppet from inside?" he asked. He pointed it out to Jessica so she could look too. She furrowed her brows and stepped closer so she could see.

"I think it is. Did they just throw it away?" she asked in confusion. She leaned to the side to look around the garbage can before her hands suddenly shot to her mouth. "Oh my God. It's Sammy."

John snapped to attention at this and quickly yanked the garbage can away to get a better look. His eyes widened in shock as he saw that Jessica was right.

The animatronic laying amongst the trash was none other than the original puppet, Sammy. His porcelain face was broken, and his limbs looked unnaturally twisted, as though frozen in a split second of pain. Jessica sprang into action and crouched down beside him, not caring at all about the trash and instead trying to lift his head. His fabric was damp, and he seemed to be lying in a puddle.

"Sammy! Sammy, can you hear me?!" she called. Her hands were shaking as she reached for him. "Sammy, please-!" Suddenly lights appeared in his eyes, flickering and faint. She inhaled sharply in relief. "Oh, thank goodness. He's- I think he's awake. His eyes are glowing," she told John. The pupil lights eventually fixated onto her face. "It's going to be okay, Baby. We're going to fix you, okay? We can fix all of this."

She inhaled sharply through her teeth, barely managing to keep it together. This just all confirmed her worst possible fears. She turned back to John as she pulled Sammy against her chest. "Where do we even start?!"

"I don't know…" John admitted, still reeling. He managed to snap out of it with an idea. "But we know someone who might. Let's just get him up and into the car. Here, help me get him."

John leaned down and carefully took Sammy into his arms. Jessica helped him balance Sammy's head on his shoulder before taking his keys and running to get the car. As she ran off, he felt a wetness beyond the dampness of the fabric and looked down to see purple leaking out of the animatronic's mask. To him, it looked like blood and was a sign that they needed to hurry.

Sammy's consciousness was fleeting. After a horrendous night in the gutter, he had seen what felt like a glimpse of Jessica's fearful face, was now being held by a stranger who he didn't realize was John, and then faded out to nothing.

…

Something was touching his mask. Sammy's eyes alit again as consciousness returned.

There was Mike leaning over him with a tube of some kind of porcelain repair putty and a plastic spoon. The man's mouth was a tight line and his brows raised as he saw the other's eyes appear, signaling that he was awake. He slowly looked over at the spoon in his own hand before looking back at the puppet and speaking.

"I know what this looks like and yes, that's exactly what it is."

Sammy gave a staticky discordant noise of complaint and started to shift a little. His body was at least moving a little more which meant that the cracks on his mask were starting to close, putty or not. Though with how badly it had been shattered, and from the lingering pain webbing across his face, he was sure that the self-repair had only just begun. At least he was awake, that was a start.

It wasn't until Mike leaned back that Sammy was able to see where he was. His vision was still off, foggy and fuzzy, but he could tell that he was laid out across Mike's couch with the man crouched beside it. In the background he spotted Charlie's friends coming into view. At first, he thought it was just Jessica, who rushed over and leaned above him, but then realized all of them were standing and sitting around the apartment. It was embarrassing.

"Sammy?" Jessica asked worriedly. Just the sight of her pretty face marred by concern and fear, and he crumbled under the weight of his guilt. The tears again began to well in the eyes of his mask. "Oh, Sammy. It's going to be okay. We're going to find her," she said, knowing exactly why he was crying. She started to reach towards her purse for a tissue, but then decided against it, not wanting to touch his face and cause him pain.

Sammy turned his head slightly away, not wanting all of her friends to see him cry, let alone Mike. He let out a distressed whirring from his chest.

"Alright, all of you back up a little and give him some air," Mike said, directing it mostly to the others crowding the couch. Not that any of them moved that far away. Lamar and Carlton were the only ones who took a few full steps back.

"Oh wow, look at that," Marla murmured. She didn't clarify but she was talking about how the tears filled up his cracks and traveled down them, accentuating the damage. "Maybe… Maybe now that he's awake you can start patching that up?" she asked Mike. He sent the puppet a hesitant look.

"…Not yet. That's got to hurt," he finally answered. Marla hissed sympathetically and nodded. Taking this as his own go-ahead, John stepped forward and stood beside Jessica.

"Sammy…" John began cautiously. He knew the puppet was upset and wounded, and he especially knew that he wasn't crazy about him, but they needed answers. He took Mike's example and knelt beside the couch as to not stand over him. "Sammy, I know you're in a lot of pain right now… But we need to know what happened last night. We need to know what happened to Charlie."

This snapped Sammy out of his daze immediately. His mind addled with pain and damage suddenly focusing again on Charlie and the night before. He began to twitch his left hand and fingers, slowly regaining feeling to the numb limb.

"You want your notebook?" Mike asked. Then, without looking over, snapped in Carlton and Lamar's direction, and pointed to the notebook sitting on the chair. Lamar reached it first, opened it up, and handed it and then pen to Mike. Though before he could take it, Sammy waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. Then vaguely gestured for Mike and started to turn his head back in his direction.

Mike got the jest and scooted further in front of him with Jessica and John stepping back to give him room, though the former boldly leaning over Mike as he leaned in.

"Go ahead, Stripes. I'm all ears," he coaxed quietly. The Puppet's chest began to static and hum, and Mike bent his head down closer to listen. After a few seconds, he heard a low voice hidden in the distortion.

"-by… B… B-by..."

"Baby."

"Izzzzzzz…"

"Is?"

"-zzzzy."

"Izzy?"

"Baby is Izzy," Jessica recited. John frowned and Lamar quickly wrote it down as though transcribing.

"Tell us something we don't know," Carlton mumbled. Marla waved back at him to quiet down.

"Okay, so Baby is Izzy. She was the one who attacked you?" Mike asked. Sammy nodded slightly. "Figured as much. Keep going, I'm listening."

"T-T-Tooo-ook Ch-r-lie."

"Took Charlie."

"Vvv-n…"

"Didn't catch that last part. One more time." The puppet repeated himself through the gurgling static and this time it became clearer. "Van?"

"The white van from the news, right? The one they saw around the time those kids were taken?" Jessica asked. She could see him nod and fell silent once again. The others continued to listen, by now most of them gaining grim expressions.

"Could you see where they went?" Mike asked. Sammy somberly shook his head. "Alright… Was there anybody else there?" He shook his head again. "And how'd this happen?" Mike asked, reaching out and very gently running his thumb along the edge of his cracked mask. Sammy tensed, preparing for it to hurt, but thankfully the touch was so soft that it didn't.

"B-by… rrr-nch."

"Language," Mike humorlessly joked. Though he knew what the other meant and pieced together what must've happened. "Baby caught you off-guard and clocked you with wrench, then dumped you out back and made off with Charlie."

Sammy averted his gaze in shame and nodded. Mike moved his hand down to sympathetically squeeze his shoulder. The others were still reeling from the news they just heard. Somehow it was both shocking and exactly what they expected.

"…So, what do we do? We should tell Clay about this, but then what? Should we go look for Baby ourselves?" Marla asked.

"Sounds like a good place to start," John said. His voice sounded distant as he continued to silently reel from the information, retreating into his thoughts.

"I hate to be the one to say this, but there's a good chance Izzy might be gone for good. If the cat's out of the bag, then Baby might just go back into hiding, especially now that she has Charlie," Lamar pointed out.

"But that's not true, is it? As far as Baby knows, she's gotten rid of the two people who found out her secret," Jessica pointed out. She paused a long moment, hand resting on her mouth, deep in thought. Then she continued, "If Baby's smart then she'll keep up the Izzy façade, because it's going to look suspicious if she disappears at the same time as Charlie. Remember, she's been playing this whole role for months. There's got to be a bigger plan than just taking Charlie."

"I really hope so…" John mumbled under his breath. Jessica's face fell a little with worry, knowing exactly how he felt. She snapped herself out of it with a shake of her head and reached for her purse.

"Look, we can worry about all of that later. I'm going to call Clay and tell him what's going on… Unless you want to?" Jessica paused in getting her phone out to look to Carlton, who raised a hand in dismissal.

"He'll take your words more seriously than mine," he insisted. She nodded in understanding and headed into the kitchen to make the call. As she did, John headed to the front door.

"I need some air," he said before briskly stepping out and closing the door behind him. They all knew he was trying to put up a strong front to keep from faltering, so they gave him his space.

They stood there in silence for a long moment as they heard Jessica's voice from the kitchen. Mike frowned to himself and closed up the putty before setting it aside. He had his own feelings about the situation but chose to stay silent.

"I wonder if he's still going to take her seriously when he finds out her words came out of a seven-foot mime doll."

Lamar's comment just managed to bring a slight smile onto Mike's lips, if only because he knew under normal circumstances Sammy would've gotten rustled by it. He looked to him again and could tell that he was in silent turmoil, but it was just the sight of his face that suddenly flared up something in his chest. To think that something had the nerve to take a wrench to his face. He had a few choice names he would've loved to have given her.

"The words could be coming directly from said mime, who was in the middle of one of those 'stuck in a box' routines while saying them, and Dad would still take them more seriously than anything I've ever said," Carlton exaggerated. Though then he too looked to Sammy, spurred on by the conversation about him. It felt so weird to see this intimidating animatronic so broken up. "…What if Baby comes back for him?" he asked with stone cold seriousness.

Mike's head shot up. "That's not going to happen," he said firmly. He pulled himself off the floor and sat on the edge of the couch beside Sammy, stretching out his legs and crossing them and his arms. "Over my dead body." Carlton got as far as opening his mouth before Mike caught him with a point. "Over Baby's dead body," he clarified. "And she would be dead. I've got a taser in there that could flatline a bear twice her size."

"Just in case Freddy shows up. That's just what we need right now," Marla said with a sigh. She looked at Sammy, then into the kitchen at Jessica, and then to the others. "…I hope she's okay." They all silently agreed.

Sammy just stared listlessly at the ceiling. He had never felt so worthless.

…

The security door opened and Charlie stepped out into the hallway waiting outside. It was a lengthy hall lined with more narrow security doors just like the one she just stepped through. They clashed terribly with the shoddy drywall, which suffered from significant water damage in comparison to inside her cell. The tile flooring matched the one in her room and the hall was alit with dull, fluorescent lighting.

Her room was the last on the wall with the only door past it being the one at the end directly to her left. Since it was sealed shut, like all the others, she cautiously started to head down the hallway, keeping her eyes peeled. The building seemed so unnaturally silent, with her footsteps seeming to echo back at her. She supposed this was what it would sound like to walk through a mausoleum.

One of the last doors in the hallway stood out not just because it was open, but because it was a wooden hinged door and the only non-security door. As she approached, Charlie leaned forward to peer in and slowed her pace so nothing could jump out at her. To her minor surprise and disappointment, it was just a small bathroom. She took a step closer to get a better look when a voice from the Handunit caught her off-guard.

"There is a restroom through the door directly to the left. Familiarize yourself with it if you'd like but be quick. Your time is limited."

It was William, naturally. His voice sounded so matter of fact and smug that she decided not to even give him the benefit of an answer, but she did go inside and splash some water on her face. She left the Handunit in the hallway, not trusting him to not be able to watch her through it and took as long as she could to get a look at the room as she did. After all, this was the only room where she would have any control over the door.

Unfortunately, the bathroom wasn't much to look at. There was a toilet across from a standing sink with a mirror imbedded in the wall behind it. There was a rather obvious grated vent covering on the lower wall between the toiler and sink. Nearly a foot and a half in height and width, it was more than large enough for a person to fit through. More than enough for her to slide into if she could get the cover off.

…Almost too perfect. Charlie wouldn't have put it past William to purposefully tempt her with this vent as an excuse to taunt her later with killing the children. That, or have the shaft just end in a dead end. She still looked through the grating to make sure there wasn't any recording devices inside and checked the grate itself and found it stuck tight with screws. She looked at the ceiling for cameras too and checked to make sure it wasn't a two-way mirror.

No amount of reassurance made her feel any less grossed out by this situation.

Charlie exited the restroom, picked up the Handunit, and continued down the hallway and around the corner. The pall past the corner was only half the length of the one before it and with only two doors in it. One on the left wall, which was as wide as a typical Afton's security door, and another narrow one at the end. The gap between the two doors made the one at the end look significant in how it was separated from the others, or maybe she was imagining it.

As she stepped into the hall, the door on the left opened with a loud clank and she found herself staring into the corner of a dimly lit room. From this angle she could see shelves sparsely lined with spare animatronic parts- a disembodied arm here, a random foot there, and an empty Freddy head left gutted. She took a deep breath and cautiously stepped into the room.

It was small but it almost looked almost like a proper Parts and Service room. There were shelves and cabinets grouped together on the walls. In the back there were two animatronic stands, one mounting a half-finished endoskeleton and the other holding the chest and abdomen suit of a Freddy Fazbear. There were a few other machines that she could only assume were for cleaning and mending animatronic parts.

There was a single hanging light in the center of the room that directed most of its light down onto the table beneath it, as though to purposefully draw her attention to it. From the wheeled stool and cart with tools loaded onto it beside the table, she assumed this was the intention and was where she was supposed to work. What she was supposed to work on was very obviously laying out on the table under a dirty drop cloth.

Once Charlie cleared the doorway, the security door shut loudly behind her and sealed her into the room. Immediately afterwards the Handunit crackled to life and William's voice could be heard again.

"Lying on the table before you is a broken animatronic- though to call it an animatronic is rather generous. This malformed creature is barely functional, but it is of use to me. Deep within its chest there is a short circuit somewhere in its wires. If you can find and repair it then I will allow a child to go free. Though be warned, it is very much aware of what you are doing to it, and any wrong move may set off it more… Animalistic instincts."

Charlie listened tight-lipped with growing unease. William sounded so nonchalant with his assessment, like he was asking her to fix an alarm clock and not an animatronic set to go off at the wrong provocation.

"I have laid out every tool you will need. Get the animatronic in working order and you may leave but try not to let it out of your sight."

With that, his voice fell silent and the Handunit returned to a blank screen. Charlie stood there for a long moment to brace herself and size up the situation before daring to approach the table. She set the Handunit down on the cart amongst the various lined up tools before reaching for the drop cloth.

"Let's see what I've got to work with…" she said under her breath. Then she began to lift the edge of the cloth.

Her mouth dropped open.

She had only revealed the arm but just from that alone she realized exactly what she was dealing with. There wasn't a suit, there was barely an endoskeleton arm, just a mat of wires wound into each other and then laced through a metal frame that vaguely resembled a hand. It was a tangled mess and deciding to take the plunge and see what she was really working with, she smoothly pulled the rest of the sheet away.

What lay before her wasn't an animatronic. It was a matted endoskeleton made of wires, the whole body comprised of them, without any suit or much of a structure period. If not for its body shape it might've just looked like a bundle of wires wound up and dumped onto a table, save for one thing. The only thing that made it even vaguely resemble an animatronic: a clown mask, white with a red nose and a molded-on party hat.

Charlie stared wide-eyed at this grizzly scene and tried to comprehend what she was looking at.

Then she yanked the Handunit off of the table and snapped into the speaker, "How am I supposed to fix this?" She didn't hide her budding frustration, thinking that this was one of William's games and that he purposefully gave her a task she could not complete. He didn't answer and she tapped at the screen. "I know you can hear me," she said. He still remained silent, and she slapped the Handunit down on the cart harder than she intended.

"Fine… Fine, okay. I'll just… I'll see what I can do," Charlie said to herself. With her hands on her hips, she looked over the length of its body. "…Short circuit in the chest, that's what he said. He told me to fix that, I'll fix that."

Though it wasn't hard to assume what was causing the short-circuit, what with its entire chest being made of layers of lined wires. Why William would try to make an endoskeleton out of nothing but wires and then not put it in a suit was beyond her, leading credence to the theory that he was toying with her. She would do what she could to show him up and proceeded to find and slide on a pair of old work gloves left for her.

She decided to start with and focus on its chest. There was something that looked like a clothing button in the center of the wires; large, red, and metal. The way the wires were laid around it gave it the impression of being the center of a large, wire bowtie. That seemed like a good enough place to start, supposing it had to be connected to something. She cautiously reached towards it.

While she did, Charlie glanced up at its face. Sammy had been watching the eyes to see if the animatronics at Baby's were aware, so she tried to do the same thing with limited success. The clown's eyes were sunken so deep that his mask just had empty, gaping holes- if he had eyes at all. She cautiously rested her fingers on the button, and when there was no response, she began to feel around it.

The button, which she was starting to believe might've been a weird-shaped valve, was actually attached the thin section of the 'bow' by a piece of what might've been armature wire that was looped repeatedly around the bundle. She carefully worked to unwind it until she was able to remove the button, causing the tightly laid wires to loosen and come apart. Enough so that she could gently finger them open and reveal what was underneath.

Once again, Charlie was left positively dumbstruck. She could've never imagined that the messy display of tangled wires was hiding even worse damage underneath.

Wires were matted together in a half-melted mess, some of them blackened with smoke damage. She immediately spotted several spots where the casing was split and the fragile innards were sticking out amongst the mess. No wonder there was a short circuit; she was surprised any of this would be functional with these deep-rooted problems. She hissed through her teeth as she pulled back and looked towards the cart.

"I don't think I can fix this…" she realized. Yet she still looked through the goods she had- electrical tape, some clippers, a soldering iron- and knew she had the means to at least try. "Just see what you can do. Can't give up before you try."

Charlie took the wire nippers in hand and turned back towards the animatronic. She looked over it quickly to make sure nothing had changed, paranoid about it moving without her noticing. She couldn't remember if the fingers were slightly bent like they were now or not, but the hand was still resting palm down. She decided to believe that she was being paranoid and steadily leaned back in.

She began to spread the wires more to give her room to work and space to see the worst of it. It certainly looked bad enough from here, so she imagined worse damage deeper inside. Right at that thought, she ended up uncovering something startling. Some sort of orb amidst the wires that she nudged to get a better look at, revealing exactly what it was.

"Is that an eye?" she asked in disbelief. Indeed, it was a broken, pink-irised eye. It was partially crushed and also had exposed wiring. Not to mention that it simply wasn't supposed to be there. "That's going to have to go…"

She carefully reached in with her free hand to lift the optic and see how it was attached. It was possible that the reason the animatronic lacked eyes was because they had somehow been detached from the skull and drifted down here, which backed up the idea that this was just a mound of endoskeleton innards pulled together at the spur of a moment. Even if it was its eye, she was almost certain it wasn't repairable- or worth repairing over replacing.

She hooked her fingers underneath it and lifted it up out of the bed of wires.

The eye looked up at her.

With an inward gasp, Charlie yanked her hand away and froze poised over the endoskeleton. The pink iris was still staring at her even in its busted state. Chilled to the bone, she looked to the animatronic's face again, but the empty mask hadn't moved. Neither had its hand. It was completely still except for the eye… Unless.

She carefully reached back in and gently nudged the eyeball, only to have the pupil and iris roll off to the side. She inwardly swore at her jumpiness and exhaled tensely, though then made the call to leave the eye be for now. This seemed to guarantee that it was totally busted, so she could put off removing and taping it up until later. Chances were, this wasn't the short circuit.

But it didn't take her long to find something that might've been. Only a little more sorting later and she found a wire that was almost entirely melted through. Not just the casing but the fragile insides, leaving it narrowed and bowed in the middle. It didn't take her more than a glance to know it would need to be spliced. She reached in with the wire nippers, not to clip the wire immediately but to lift it on the edge where the casing ended.

Just touching that wire triggered a sudden chain reaction that Charlie couldn't have expected.

Right in front of her eyes, all of the wires in opening she created suddenly tightened together, clamping the nippers in them as she pulled back her hand. Her other wasn't as lucky as the wires closed in around her fingers and held her there. She pulled back, still stuck to the amalgam, and watched in shock as the wiring slid together and tried to knit around the nippers. Though all they succeeded in doing was shove it in deeper.

She heard a clattering noise and looked down to the endoskeleton's hand to see it twitching. Its fingers tightening and clawing against the bottom of the table as the animatronic roused from a state of dormancy. She looked to its face and saw nothing. It continued staring up at the ceiling like a corpse, even while its torso twisted and tried to reject the object stuck within it.

Seeing half of the wire clippers poke out, Charlie decided to act and reached for them. She pinched them between her fingers and gave a light tug, only to find them stuck under the wires. Though to her continued startlement, the wires unwound themselves more and she was able to pull free the tool, watching as the opening closed once more. The wires went still once again and only then was Charlie able to pull free and took a few staggering steps back.

Its head had fallen onto its side during the thrashing and its face was now aimed towards her. Deep inside the holes of its mask she thought she could faintly see the gloss of its eyes. She couldn't tell if it was awake or not.

Though she now knew without a doubt that William was not bluffing. This was an alive and alert animatronic, just like Sammy, just like Circus Baby. She couldn't work on a living animatronic; it would kill her, just like William had implied. It could feel everything that she was doing, so it would only be a matter of time before something set it off. Maybe that was exactly what he had wanted.

Charlie was stuck standing there for a long moment. She didn't trust the endoskeleton enough to look away and knew there was no escaping through the closed security door, and she wasn't about to beg William to let her go. Call it foolish pride, but she couldn't lower herself to that, especially when she couldn't help but think that was what he wanted. She looked briefly to the cart for a taser but found nothing of the sort.

She was trapped here with a possibly dangerous animatronic and no way to defend herself.

Yet she couldn't help but notice that the animatronic wasn't getting up to attack her. It hadn't shown signs of aggression up to this point and, while it was clearly somewhat awake, hadn't given her a reason to be this on edge. Especially since it was William's word saying it was so violent. She took a cautious step forward, then another, until she was standing over the animatronic again.

There was a good chance it could be as violent as the Butchers or as conniving as Baby, but there was also a chance that it was like Sammy, a human soul trapped in this broken body. It barely looked capable of movement, let alone putting up any amount of a fight. After a moment of mulling it over, Charlie decided to take a calculated risk and softly laid her hand on its arm.

"It's okay, buddy. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm just going to try to fix you up as best as I can," Charlie said hushedly. She rubbed the tangled wires of its arm in a soothing manner. "I'm going to be as careful as I can, but there's a lot of damage that needs to be repaired. So just… Just tell me if I'm hurting you, or tap the table, and I'll figure something else out." Still no response and she almost felt silly even trying.

"Okay, I'm going to start again." But it calmed her nerves talking herself through it like this, so she continued with it. She began to coax the chest wires apart again. They were tense but loosened up their hold after a few seconds of maneuvering, and after a little searching she found the same damaged wire pulled further upwards into the chest. She hollowed out a would-be cavity to see better amongst the soot-stained metal.

"Now, let me tell you what I'm going to have to do, because I'm afraid this part might hurt," Charlie began. "And if you know what I'm doing, maybe you won't snap my neck when I do it," she thought to herself. "It's the same wire I was touching before. There's a place where it's been near melted through and the only way I'm going to be able to repair it is by… Clipping and attaching the wires together… So, I'm going to start."

She turned to the cart and arranged the tools in the order she would need them to make it easier, and to stall a little longer. Clip, connect, solder, tape; that was the best she could do with the tools given to her. She took the wire cutters in hand again and leaned back over the endoskeleton once more. There was no movement as she began to tug at the wire on both sides.

There was more than enough give to reattach the ends once she clipped them and no reason to keep stalling. Taking a steadying breath, she lined the nippers up higher on the thick, metal coil.

"First clip," she warned, then snipped the wire. She made sure to apply enough pressure to snip the wire straight through in one go. Surprisingly, as thick and secure as the wiring felt, the clippers were able to cut through.

The reaction was immediate. The endoskeleton lurched violently and slammed down onto the table so hard that it shuddered like it was going to collapse under the weight. All of the wires began to twist and writhe like trapped snakes, and she barely pulled back the clippers before they could trap them again. A strange gargling noise came from somewhere within it and Charlie recognized it as a sound of pain.

"It can feel everything," Charlie realized. Then a sick feeling filled her stomach as she came to a grotesque realization, "It's going to feel everything."

William was just as sadistic as she could've ever imagined. He knew the possessed machines could feel pain and was hinging on Charlie being the one to inflict it. It would barely be different from performing surgery on someone who was unanesthetized. It was going to be torture- until it lost its temper and lashed out.

It was so overwhelming that it wasn't until her lungs ached that she realized she had been holding her breath. She inhaled sharply and snapped herself out of her trance.

"I can't start panicking now. I've got to focus," she firmly told herself. She watched as the endoskeleton's writhing stopped and it fell still again, save its wires still sliding around in its chest. "…And I'm going to have to finish. If this- If the wire hurts when it's damaged and cut, then it's just going to keep hurting until it's repaired… If it'll let me keep going."

Taking a deep breath and holding it in, Charlie stepped in alongside the table without reaching for the animatronic. Its head had fallen and was tilted in the other direction, making it even harder to see its face. She reached down and petted its arm again. Its hand twitched in response, causing the wires in its arm to tighten under her hand.

"I'm sorry. I know that hurt, but it had to be done. The wire is so damaged, I can't even imagine how it feels… And I'm- I'm going to have to make another clip- but I'm going to work as fast as I can to get the wires soldered back together, and that should in theory take a lot of the pain away… I think. It should, it'll be fixing you, but… We'll have to see." Charlie hated how uncertain she sounded, betting it didn't sound very convincing. "I'm going to keep going."

It didn't respond at all, maybe not able to. Even though unsettled, she began to lean in and open it back up again. This time the wires seemed a little more pliable, so she was able to find her place a lot quicker. It wasn't long before she was lined up to snip the other side of the wire. She could see the wires starting to tense around her hands and knew it was preparing for what was coming before she firmly snipped.

The reaction was more subdued but not by much. It writhed and shuddered on the table, twisting its neck until its mask was pressed into it, and Charlie again had to pull back as its wires shifted around. This time she watched them a little closer, noticing how some of the more damaged ones tried to pull upwards and bunch in the upper chest, only to then slide back down into place. The movements almost resembled heaving.

Finally, the endoskeleton rested once more. Its face was kept twisted away but its wires stilled once more. Charlie gave it a few seconds to rest before leaning in and opening him back up.

"Looking good so far. Let me just prep the ends and then we can reconnect them. I'm… not sure how this is going to feel, but I'll try to be gentle," Charlie assured. She didn't know if it was listening, but it made her feel better to say it anyway.

She pulled the cart closer to the table and began to lean in once more. This time she was determined to wrap up the job as quickly and efficiently as she could. She clipped back the metal casing of the wires, which didn't seem to cause the same amount of discomfort as the wires shifted but didn't seize, and then bent it back enough to deal with the interior of the wires. Once she got to that point, the splicing was relatively typical to a normal one.

It wasn't until Charlie started to solder the wires together that she began to get a response again. That gargling groan began to slowly resonate from somewhere further up inside of its chest. The crackling definitely signaled a damaged speaker hidden somewhere inside, but she didn't have the means to fix that. She could just keep her focus on the job at hand.

"Easy," she said softly, eyes focused entirely on her work. "Don't move. I'm almost done here."

There was a squeaking and out of the corner of her eye she could see its neck twisting until its mask was facing up at her. Her heart began to pound in her chest at the sound of metal pieces shifting and clicking inside of its head and could barely see one of the mask's metal faceplates twitching at whatever was moving underneath it. She couldn't look away from the soldering, but she also couldn't not see what was happening right beside her.

There was a sliding noise along with a soft, metallic click, which she assumed was the jaw clicking or tightening, before all of the movements stopped. It wasn't until she finished securing the wires that she could look and see what it had done.

It had eyes now, and it was staring directly at her. Large, glassy eyes with bright blue irises stared up at her, looking like Freddy Fazbear's own. Though they didn't feel like his. Instead of cartoonish and friendly, they seemed jarringly out of place, staring unblinking at her until they felt like they were seeing straight through her. Almost like a frightened animal, or an injured on. Despite herself, Charlie stared back for a long moment.

She finally forced herself to look away. "Almost done. With this wire, at least," she said. She hadn't felt this nervous in ages, not even when she was actively fighting off Baby. She could actually feel herself breaking into a sweat.

Somehow Charlie continued to work. The original plan was to use electrical tape to reconnect the wire casing, but since it too was metal, she decided to attempt soldering it together as well. It seemed to work, but she still taped it to be safe once it had cooled. This whole process had been rewarded with silence and the endoskeleton almost fell into a dormant state.

That was an almost because it was still watching her. Sometimes she would glance over to see it staring off at nothing, eyes almost looking lifeless, but just as quickly they would snap back to her and startle her even when expecting it. At least it wasn't writhing in pain. Intimidating or not, Charlie didn't want to inflict pain on it. It reminded her too much of Sammy. It reminded her of how broken he had been, and she had to force her mind to focus past it.

Work didn't end with that one wire. She continued to search and tried to clean up more of the damage. Separating wires that were melted together by the casing and taping up any opened areas. Eventually she found the eye again, but after a moment of consideration she decided to push what wiring she could back inside and tape it up as well. There was no repairing the eye, but there also wasn't much reason to lop it off when she didn't need to.

Occasionally the wires would tighten, or the body would contort, or a shaky noise would breathe through its chest, but other than that the endoskeleton seemed to lose what steam it had. Charlie couldn't tell if this was a good sign or not.

Eventually Charlie decided that she did the best she could with what she had. She wiped off as much of the ash as she could, searched through its chest as best as she could, and then started to guide the wires back into place. She even tried to realign the bow, wrapping it closed with the wire and placing the fake button back in place. It looked a little messy, but acceptable, and she looked back up at the animatronic's face.

Its head was back in a neutral position again with its mask angled upwards towards the ceiling. She could see its eyes clearly, so she knew for certain that they hadn't been in its sockets when she began working. That was… Strange.

"Does it still hurt?" she asked gently. Its eyes snapped to look at her without answer. She was prepared for it this time, so she didn't jump. "I guess not. Or if it does, not as much as earlier. I don't know how it works with that, but everything in there's stable now, so maybe any soreness will wear off. Hopefully," she said, offering it a small smile.

It was still watching her. Even when she stepped back to the cart, it turned its head so it could follow her with its gaze. She removed her gloves before lifting the Handunit and went to tap it, paused a moment more, eyes flickering over to the endoskeleton and briefly wondering what William wanted with it. Part of her could only imagine something horrible, being that it was some sort of clown like Baby, but she couldn't help but feel guilty.

In repairing this animatronic had she inadvertently doomed it? She didn't want to think about it and instead tapped the screen, causing it to alight. "I'm finished," she into the speaker.

There was a squeaking from the table and Charlie looked over to see the endoskeleton shifting on the table. Almost like the action of turning on the Handunit disturbed it. Though before she could pay closer attention, a click came from the speaker followed by a familiar voice.

"I am impressed, though not surprised. I should have known that you would've inherited your father's skill. As per our agreement I will release one of the children… Once I check your work, of course." Charlie could just feel the greasy smile and grimaced in disgust. "Tell me which color."

"What color?... Oh, right. Their colors." He hadn't even been willing to give their names or identities. It would be a completely random choice, which didn't give her much confidence in this agreement. "Who's been here the longest?" There was an empty silence. She got the point. "…Fine. I choose… Blue."

"…..Consider it done. You may return to your room, and I will call on you when I need you."

The security door flew open with a clank and the conversation was cut abruptly short. Which was fine by Charlie, save that she didn't feel like she received any closure. If anything, she felt like she had just been tricked. She could only hope that she wasn't making a terrible mistake. She sent one last look at the table, finding that the endoskeleton's eyes had rolled down, giving it the illusion of having its eyes closed.

"Take care," Charlie said quietly. She edged towards the security door before stepping through and briskly heading down the hallway.

The security door slammed closed again behind her and she slowed to a stop in the middle of the hallway. She didn't want to return to that little cell, but she didn't have much of a choice. It wasn't like standing out here was anything more than another room in the prison. Slowly she forced herself to walk back towards the room, to play along with the rules of the game, and pretend that she had a choice in the matter.

And was left with nothing to do except worry about the ones she made.