Mable: Enjoy!

The Broken Circus

Chapter 7: Clowns and Claustrophobia

Nicky Sheppard had not only been one of the first children who had went missing but was currently the only eyewitness to the kidnappings. Her testimony was valuable and could've been their only chance of locating the other children.

Clay watched Nicky's interview through a live feed a few rooms down with a couple of detectives. Because she was a child and this was such a delicate situation, a social worker had been brought in to ask her questions while her parents sat in the room with her. It was clear that the whole situation had taken a toll on her.

"I just want to go home," she said more than once.

"I know, dear, and you will. Mom and Dad will be taking you home right after we're done, but it would really help us find those other kids if you could tell us what happened."

The girl seemed hesitant, almost like she was afraid of something. Yet at this point she still began to talk.

"I was at the park swinging and I saw a girl clown carrying a bunch of stuff by. She asked if anybody could help her, so me and a boy went over and carried some of the stuff for her."

"What was the stuff you carried?"

"Party stuff. And we took it to her car, and she said she was going to a party and asked if we wanted to go. The boy said no but I said okay, because she said party was down long road by my house, and because she invited me, so it'd be okay. I got in the car, and she covered up my eyes because she said it'd be a surprise."

"Do you remember what the clown looked like?

"Uh huh. She had big pants that looked like candy canes, they had candy cane stripes, but they were yellow and green, and she had a puffy yellow and green shirt too. And a birthday party hat, and two ponytails that went out like this." From the way Nicky moved her hands, it was apparent she meant pigtails. "She had a red nose and had a heart on this cheek and a star on this one."

"Thank you, that was an excellent description. Just one thing, what was her hair color?"

"Blond, but the ends were green."

"Did you see her eye color?"

"No. I don't remember."

"That's alright. You're being a really big help. Do you remember what the car looked like?

"It was a big, white van and there was a bunch of balloons and party stuff inside, more party stuff, but it smelled bad. Like a hot garage."

"That doesn't sound very nice. Did you see where she took you? Did you go to the party?"

"…No."

Clay felt his heart drop at that tone. That was the tone of a broken childhood if he could so much put it into words. All of the innocence and wonder of the beginning of the story tragically cut short. He said nothing and continued to listen.

"Where did you go?"

"I… I don't know… We started driving a long time and I got scared and told her I wanted to get out, but she said I couldn't until I got to see the party. I tried to take the thing off my eyes, and she stopped me and tied my hands up like this." Nicky stuck her hands behind her back. Her mother looked like she was about to cry. "And we drove around a lot more until the car stopped, and she picked me up and carried me into a room, and then she took off the thing and untied my hands."

"That's so scary. I'm so sorry you had to go through that… Do you remember anything about the place she took you? Could you hear a lot of cars outside or dogs barking?"

"No. I don't know. I don't think so."

"Could you feel if she went up any steps going inside?"

"…No, but she took me downstairs. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it and hear it when she was going down them. There were a bunch of stairs, more than just one set of 'em I think."

"Oh, that's a big help! Thank you. Now let's talk about this room you saw. Could you tell me about it?"

"…I… I don't know." Nicky suddenly looked a little more scared.

"It's okay, Nicky. You've been through a lot. If you could just tell us whatever you can, that will be enough, and no matter what happens none of us are going to be upset with you or force you to talk more than you want to, okay?"

Either this or her parents taking turns patting her back was enough to get her to continue.

"It was like a classroom with no desks. Just some toys and games and stuff… There was party stuff up. Like letters that spelled 'party' on the wall and they kept trying to fall down, and there were balloons. Like it looked like a party, but it wasn't. There was a boy there named Cody and he was there when I got there, and later the clown brought other kids to the room too. There was another clown too, a robot clown."

This caught Clay's attention immediately and he paid closer attention. Thankfully, the counselor had been privy to what they needed to know beforehand, so they steered the conversation in that direction.

"Was it a toy clown?"

"No, he was a robot, but he wasn't scary. He was in the room too…" Nicky hesitated, seemingly unsure of how much to say. "…His name was Inner."

"I see. Can you tell me about him?"

"N-…No." There was a worried look on her face.

"Why not?"

Nicky was silent for a long moment. Eventually she looked up to her parents on either side of her like she was looking for assurance. Her father coaxed her with a gentle, "Go ahead", and a pat on the back. This got her to continue.

"…He had a white face, a red nose, and no hair. And his clothes looked like the girl clown's, except he had big, squishy gloves. He couldn't talk, so he'd write what he wanted to say on a board, but he'd drop the marker a lot. He told me… Stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"…Inner said that him and the girl clown were taken from the circus and locked up by an evil bunny named Billy. Billy the Bad Bunny... I didn't believe him. I thought it was a story like the Easter Bunny, who I know's not real, but then Cody saw him. He said he had a really scary face." Her own face started to fall. "Inner was afraid Billy was going to come back and hurt him."

"I see. So, you're afraid that Billy will come after you and Inner?" The girl nodded. "Well, we're going to keep you safe. You've got the whole police force protective you. Do you know if Billy was a real bunny or was he a robot like Inner was?"

"I don't know. Cody didn't tell me."

"That's okay. Can you do me a favor, Nicky? Do you think you could draw a picture of Inner and the girl clown?" the counselor asked. Paper and colored pencils were already sitting on the table. "Just do as best as you can. It's just so we can imagine what they look like."

Nicky nodded and took the paper to begin drawing. It was in this lull in the interview that one of the other detectives, Larson, who had entered the room midway through, stepped up and cleared his throat.

"Chief, I might've found something."

Clay turned to face him, regaining his stoic expression. "On the van?"

"Right. I was looking at registrations in the area and found out that there is a white van matching the description that is registered to a Dave Miller. If it's not the same guy it might be a direct relative," Larson explained. He had brought in a folded with him and opened it up on the nearby desk. "So, I ran a quick background check on Dave Miller. No criminal background, no warrants, worked as a security guard some odd years ago, but there's no recent references and no address. His phone's been disconnected too."

"So, another dead end," Clay said flatly. He exhaled through his nose and took Larson's position over the file to skim through it. Or he was about to when he stopped short at a photo paperclipped to the file.

The file was not one of their own, but one Larson had gotten from the security company after stopping off at their office and requesting it. Once they were told about the investigation, they willingly handed over what they had without much convincing. Apparently, the security company took pictures of their employees, a little snapshot that probably would've gone on an ID badge, which was now laid out before Clay.

Clay's heart nearly stopped as he looked at the man in the picture. He lifted the file to get a closer look, barely able to believe his eyes, before slamming it back down.

"That son of a bitch!"

It was enough to make Larson flinch and take some of the other officers off-guard. Thankfully, it couldn't be heard inside of the interviewing room, sparing the already scarred girl and her parents. None of them had witnessed the typically collected Clay Burke have an outburst like this.

"You know him?" Larson deduced.

"That's William Afton! I'd recognize that crooked grin anywhere, god damnit!"

This put all of them on equal alarm. Everyone in that room was aware of the Freddy's case and the former owner from the Missing Children Incident they were looking into to find these children. All of them knew William Afton had eventually become the main suspect, and that then he disappeared without a trace- as did his children. A suspicious man now connected to a new and familiar case. Nobody asked Clay if he was sure, they knew he was.

Suddenly the innocuous story about Billy the Bad Bunny took an insidious double meaning.

"If this is Afton, then that means we don't have much time. Put a bulletin out. The sooner we find him… The sooner we find the rest of the children," Clay said. He looked back to interview feed and wondered how this child had escaped when those first five hadn't, as she hadn't explained yet. The thought that this was all a calculated move by Will began to haunt him.

And Nicky hadn't mentioned Charlie at all.

…

"Good morning, Charlotte. Are you ready for your second task?"

Charlie was caught off-guard by the voice spontaneously crackling out of the Handunit speaker. The Handunit which had been sitting on the nightstand since she went to sleep and had largely been forgotten. There she was sitting at the tiny school desk with a small bag of chips and a book opened in front of her. Not really a flattering position, but after numerous hours of being stuck in this cell she stopped caring what she looked like.

She picked up the Handunit to respond. "What do you want me to do this time?"

"Straight to the point as always. I'm afraid your task today won't be easy as your last one," he said. The security door opened with a clank. "Go outside."

"It wasn't easy. You gave me a totally mutilated animatronic and asked me to put it back together- while it was awake," Charlie hissed. William did not respond, simply uninterested in what she was saying. She gritted her teeth and headed out into the hallway before turning right and starting down.

"Not that way."

There was another clank from behind and Charlie looked back to see that the door to the left of her room had opened. She walked back through and found a small room with two doors. One of which had a small window in it that resembled a stairwell door, but the light was off so she couldn't see what was inside. In the other direction was a normal door instead of a security door.

On the wall opposite of her there was an old poster for Circus Baby's Pizza World. It depicted Circus Baby alone with the words "Circus Baby's" and "Pizza World" bubbled above and below her respectively. This model had blue eyes instead of the green ones she had become familiar with, a detail she wouldn't have noticed if not remembering those eyes in the darkness of Afton Robotics. The poster unnerved her for some reason.

"Go through the right door," William instructed.

She did and walked into what looked to be a makeshift kitchen. There was a small cafeteria sink with some lunch trays shoved into it, a couple of unfolding tables pressed against the walls to replicate counter space, boxes of plastic utensils, and a couple of standing cabinets. There was a minifridge off to the side. The cooking station was comprised of a microwave and a camping stove on a small, wobbly-looking metal table.

It was clear that whatever this room was made for it wasn't to be a kitchen, but someone had fashioned it into one. Probably William for the sole purpose of keeping his captives alive to toy with longer.

What stood out most was what Charlie immediately knew was going to be connected to her task. In the corner against the back wall there was an open vent, one sized almost identically to the one in the bathroom. The covering was removed and leaned against the wall beside it while there was a flashlight set in front of it. Charlie recognized it as her own flashlight and went over to pick it up.

An ominous humming came from somewhere deep in the vent shaft. She looked down at it warily as the voice of her captor returned with a single command.

"Crawl inside."

Charlie stood there for a short pause before raising the Handunit and countering, "I want to know what I'm doing before I do."

From the delay in William's response, he didn't consider this resistance. Either that or he was considering how much he was going to say.

"Clever girl. Fine. I'm sure you've noticed the state of your surroundings. It is rotting from the inside out, clogged with the decay of time. The ventilation is no different and even now you and the children are breathing in oxygen filled with it. While it concerns me little what the air quality is… Certain circumstances have cropped up and now it is more than necessary to get fresh air into the rooms."

"What does that mean?" Charlie asked. She couldn't hide the tinge of concern, suspecting that this meant something had happened to one of the children. Or was happening to them now.

"It means that proper ventilation will be required. Unfortunately, attempts to activate from the main breakers have been unsuccessful, which means that you must go inside and activate it through backup means. You are more than qualified."

She had a feeling that there was something he was purposefully leaving out. "And how am I supposed to do that? I'm trained in robotics, not ventilation repair."

"You will manage. Crawl inside."

"Do I get any tools?"

"They're waiting inside."

He got his point across; he wasn't going to answer any more questions or be of any help. Charlie decided to not give him the benefit of seeing her hesitate and simply zipped up her jacket and knelt in front of the opening. The shaft went to the right and left, not straight, so she cautiously leaned inside and looked both ways with the flashlight. As told, there was a toolbelt sitting right inside the vent, and she pulled it out and secured it around her waist.

The heavy belt was barely held on, both because it couldn't secure to her pajama pants and because it was too big for her. She tightened it a little before deciding to leave it be and just crawling inside.

"Right," William said suddenly. His voice echoed through the shaft in an unsettling way and made her feel significantly more claustrophobic. She figured out what he meant though and started moving in the rightward direction.

The vent was about the same width and height as the ones in Afton's. Not difficult to crawl through, but significantly more uncomfortable when not dressed for it. She crawled forward into the shaft until, much to her surprise, she passed through the vent that led right beside the bathroom. She could even look through the cracks in the cover and see right inside.

"So, this vent leads right to the kitchen… It could be an easy way around the hallway security door," Charlie realized. She paused a moment before continuing along, not wanting to tip her captor off. "Better make a note of that."

Not too far ahead, there was another vent cover that she passed, though this one was blocked by some sort of furniture. Listening closely, Charlie could faintly hear what sounded like a child's voice inside but couldn't make out what he was saying. It was a quiet whisper whatever it was and with an unsettled frown she continued onwards. At least she knew one of the children was alright. If not for the vent being covered, she could maybe get him out through here.

She pushed these thoughts aside and continued on until she eventually arrived at a split. One of the vents went straight forward, the other to the right, and it was open to go up above her. Shining the light upwards showed that the vent shaft went upwards for a while. Definitely in a basement, she decided.

"Left."

William's voice yanked her out of her thoughts, and she silently continued in that direction. Though it wasn't too much further before she came to what seemed like a dead end. It was a tight space she could sit up in with three covered openings that looked like they could've been other closed vents. No wonder air wasn't circulating when there were miniature security doors blocking the vents.

"It's a dead end," Charlie said flatly into the speaker.

"Not quite. One moment."

Something whirred to life nearby and there was a mechanical groan of metal as the vent in front of her opened up. She shined the light in to see that the shaft went further in, but the more significant find was a box right inside mounted on the side. It almost looked like a small fuse box.

"Everything you need is right here. Find a way to return power."

A dull click signaled that William was finished with the conversation. Charlie could only believe that he was making this as difficult as he could, like he did with the animatronic repair.

She set the Handunit aside into the corner and leaned into the vent in front of her to reach for the box. It was sealed closed with a couple of screws, which she quickly unscrewed with a hex key from the toolbelt. They both came off easily and she opened the box to reveal a breaker which she flipped. She could hear something activate before the vent to her right opened.

She looked in to see a deactivated fan unit about six feet deep into the shaft, which was probably what she needed to turn on to get the ventilation going again. There was a second box like the first one and a maintenance panel on the floor, either of which could control the fan. Charlie decided to focus on the second box and pressed the hex key into the first screw.

Thump.

Charlie stopped with a jolt and turned back quickly. The noise sounded like it came from directly behind her, which would've meant that it came from beyond the still closed third vent. She sat there for a long moment listening to see if she could hear anything else, but thirty seconds passed, and nothing came of it. She decided it had to be one of the mechanisms somewhere that made that noise, even if it didn't sound like it was.

She slid herself into the second shaft a little more so she wouldn't have her back completely exposed to that third vent and quickly finished opening the box. Like before there was a breaker that she threw, but this time nothing seemed to activate except for a sizzling noise that sounded like it was coming from below. She turned the breaker back off and looked down at the maintenance panel before opening it, only being closed by a simple latch.

Inside she found a few multi-colored wires with one having clearly been cut. It was in plain sight and had been sliced straight through, as though with a pair of wire nippers. It was clear that someone had cut it on purpose.

"…Did William cut this just so he could send me down here to fix it?" Charlie thought. After a long moment she decided, "Of course he did. He probably gets some sort of sick thrill out of this."

Sure enough, she just happened to have electrical tape on the tool belt. She carefully taped the wires together before closing up the hatch and throwing the breaker again. No sizzling, but there was a groaning noise from somewhere above.

Air suddenly shot out of a pipe above her and down onto her hair. Charlie choked and yanked herself back out of the vent, bumping her head on the edge as she did. It had sounded like steam so her instant fear was that she would get burned, which turned out not to be the case as the gush of air was lukewarm. The bump hurt though, enough that she checked her hair to make sure she wasn't bleeding underneath.

A familiar groan and creak of the third vent opening snapped her back to attention and she turned in that direction. Apparently, she wasn't done, Charlie realized, and she looked down at the maintenance panel on the floor of the vent shaft, revealed as the hatch was still opening. It looked just like the other one and was probably in the same state. Sure enough, she opened the hatch only to shut it quickly when she saw sparking.

"Of course," she sighed. Another cut wire that she would need to shut the power off to and tape up. She looked upwards to see if there was a breaker on the wall of the shaft-

-and saw a white face staring back from the shadows of the vent.

Out of reflex, Charlie snapped her flashlight forward and felt her heart lurch when she saw that she wasn't alone.

The endoskeleton with the clown mask stared back at her. Its body as still as a statue, so large that it took up the entire vent, staring at her with unblinking eyes. Glassy, dead eyes and not even a twitch of movement.

Charlie felt her heart pound and her stomach clench from the rush of adrenaline. Alarm bells started going off in her head all at once. It shouldn't have been so frightening considering that she had worked on this same creature only yesterday… but something was different about it now. Something about how still it was, hunched down and staring at her, was terrifying. It almost looked feral in this state. There was no humanity in its posture.

Baby wasn't scary to Charlie; it was what Baby was capable of that scared her. William wasn't scary either; he just had an amount of control on the situation that was dangerous.

This endoskeleton clown was terrifying. She would say it rivaled the Butchers, and it had only become so at this exact moment.

"Breathe. Don't panic. It didn't attack you when you were working on it, it's probably not going to hurt you now," Charlie thought. Though at the same time, more demanding thoughts argued, "Can't let it get close. Something's wrong with it."

A long moment passed as she took a shaky breath and tightened her grip on the flashlight. She didn't have a taser to protect herself, so she was going to have to use whatever else she had at her disposal.

"Oh, uh- Oh, hey! I didn't see you- sneak up like that," Charlie greeted friendlily. Her voice hitching half-way through but her managing to control it. "Feeling any better?"

The clown silently stared back.

"Probably not all better, but you're up and about so… There's that." Seconds in and she was already struggling to pretend to have small talk. "Me? I'm just down here to fix the vents."

The lower right portion of the clown's mask started to slowly drift open and revealed sharp teeth hiding underneath. From here they looked like a row of needles.

"…I'm almost done. Let me just finish up and get out of your hair…"

By now Charlie knew she had to get out of there quickly. She couldn't tell if it was being controlled by William or coming back for revenge for the pain she had to inflict on it, but nothing in its motions were anything less than threatening. Even now it watched closely, like it was waiting for her guard to drop so it could pounce. She had to finish the job without taking her eyes off of it, just like last time.

Which became marginally more difficult when she realized that there wasn't a breaker on the wall of this shaft. It was one of the other two; probably the latter, which was directly behind her.

Not taking her eyes off of the animatronic, she slowly shuffled back on her knees until she was partially in the vent behind her. Then she reached back and felt for the box, opened it again- thankfully having not replace the screws, and turned the breaker off. There was still sparking from inside the panel, so she would have to try to shut the other off too.

It was just far enough in that she would have to take her eyes off the animatronic, but not for more than a few seconds. She held out her hand to keep the flashlight shining into the one vent as she quickly leaned in to open the box and turn off the breaker. It was no more than two seconds at most that she took her eyes off of the clown, but she swore she heard something that sounded like a metallic squeak before she looked back.

She swore that it had gotten closer.

The heaviness of the vent was only growing. It felt like the walls were starting to tilt in on her and the ceiling seemed lower than it had been before as she leaned into the third shaft. She didn't like having to close the distance between it and her any more than it had but had no choice. She got the tape out with one hand and moved forward to work. Though it became clear almost immediately that this was a two-handed job.

Charlie set the flashlight down right in front of the panel, keeping the clown illuminated while still keeping it close at hand. She kept her eyes on it as she peeled back the tape and tore off a big enough piece. Then she picked up both sides of the cut wire only to notice a lack of resistance in one side. A testing pull tugged the whole wire free, showing it had been severed at another spot. Apparently, the sparking was only from the one live side.

"You've got to be kidding," Charlie hissed under her breath. That was going to mean more work, and more time looking away from the endoskeleton. Which she was currently looking back and forth to quickly to keep it from moving like it had earlier. She taped up the one side and started to scrounge for the other.

It took her a little while to find it, fishing it out with her fingers and having to continuously look down to make sure she was sure of what she was grabbing. Even with the electricity off, she wasn't comfortable grabbing around blindly without gloves. The other side of the wire was short without give and Charlie had to bring the rest of the wire down to meet it. Nothing too difficult, but with the rising pressure it was easy to get overwhelmed.

It was too easy to get comfortable. A few seconds of looking at the wires without the endoskeleton moving led to a few more, and then to her not looking up during the period of tearing off the tape and reaching in to wrap the wire up, being careful to close them as evenly as she could in the small space she had to work with. Holding back wires with her other fingers as she worked.

The sound of dozens of metal wires dragging across metal suddenly yanked her out of focus. In an instant she snatched up the flashlight and yanked it up, shining its beam of light down the shaft.

The endo was significantly closer. From the sounds it had made, it must've lurched forward all at once and stopped short just as fast. Though it was no longer still, wires swaying and twisting along its body like exposed muscles. One arm was stretched out closer and she could see its fingers slightly and silently dragging down the bottom of the vent.

"That was close. That was way, way too close," Charlie thought. Her panic was trying to return, but she managed to keep it under control. She couldn't keep her hands from twitching, but she could keep herself from losing track of what she needed to do. She slowly laid the flashlight down again and took the wires in hand but didn't look away. "Don't- Don't do that," she said firmly, but with her voice wavering.

It didn't come any closer, but she had no doubt that this had nothing to do with her words and more to do with her eye contact. She didn't break that eye contact as she finished taping the wires. It was harder to do blind, but she finished.

She then closed the panel and leaned back to turn on the second breaker then quickly ducked in to turn on the first. She could hear the sounds of intricate systems booting back up through all three vents. The fan down the vent behind her slowly came on with a soft whirring and an overhead light came on in the junction where she was seated. It all seemed to approve her work.

Though she couldn't help but notice that something felt artificial about it. The hesitation between the breakers being turned on and the fan and lights coming on almost made it seemed like they weren't activated by it. Almost like a switch was flipped somewhere else after she had completed the designated task. She was already suspicious of William's motives, but this convinced her even more that something was wrong with this scenario.

She had a feeling 'scenario' was the best word to describe it.

With a familiar creaking, the vent covers began to slowly lower and block off every passage except the one she came through. She breathed a sigh of relief and watched the endoskeleton until she couldn't any longer. It made no attempt to rush to her, just watching silent and still as its prey was closed off.

There was a beat of silence, two, and then it was intruded by the last voice she ever wanted to hear.

"Very good. You've gotten power flowing again. Well done," William said in a patronizing sounding tone. "Unfortunately, you're not quite finished yet."

Charlie wasn't surprised to hear this, but that didn't mean that she liked what she was hearing. She picked up the Handunit from the corner. "What else?" she asked briskly.

"Where you stand is one of the main connecting points through the ventilation shafts. One of the crossroads where the circuits meet, but it is not the only one. Electricity flow has returned to some of the conditioning units, but not all of them. You will need to find the second connecting point and figure out what has gone wrong there. Once you do, you have earned a key."

Spending more time in these vents didn't sound great, but the thought of earning that freedom for a child was worth anything. That is, if William was keeping up his end of the bargain, while Charlie couldn't tell for sure. In the silence she mulled over demanding answers instead of answering him and started to find her voice only to be suddenly interrupted.

"But before I lead you there, I must ask… Have you seen anything? Heard any strange noises?"

She knew exactly what he was getting at. "If you mean the clown, yes. I've seen him, and you've probably seen him too. I know you have a mic in this thing so don't pretend you couldn't fit a camera in it."

"I wouldn't see very well from the corner, would I?"

That sent a chill down her spine. The Handunit was going under her bed when she got back to her room. Wrapped up in a sheet, hidden in the back corner, and he wasn't lucky if she restrained herself from cracking the thing open.

"Then let's not play around here. You know you're not alone. That… Thing has followed you down there, and don't expect it to be friendly. It has been known to bite the hand that feeds it. If it wasn't for me, it would be rotting in a gutter, and here's how it thanks me... You will need to keep your wits about you. It will eventually find a way inside."

"It's already inside. You said so yourself," Charlie said bitterly.

"Let me clarify: it WILL find its way to you. This creature has a fixation on suits… and skin… and to it, you are nothing more than a new vessel to climb inside of. It is incapable of empathy or mercy, and no amount of begging will stave it off."

Charlie wouldn't give him the pleasure of knowing how much the comment chilled her. She knew better than to trust his words and wouldn't have if not for the clown's behavior. It seemed to fit the narrative.

"Then why would you have me fix it if you can't control it?" she asked, voice low and her suspicion apparent. "Just to send it after me, wasn't it?" she thought.

"An unpredictable tool is a tool nonetheless. I require its as I require yours. Speaking of which, head back through the vent you came from."

"Won't even fess up to it. Probably afraid I'll refuse to keep working. What a coward," Charlie thought bitterly. She wanted so badly to say it, but she couldn't risk the retaliation. Not when he had the lives of children and possibly Sammy in his hands. She bit her tongue and silently turned to crawl down the vent.

"Take a right at the end. You will need to backtrack."

With a frustrated exhale, Charlie replaced the tape in the belt and shined the flashlight down the vent before crawling inside. Hopefully she wasn't going to have to go too far. Hopefully it wasn't a shaft connected to these three.

She stopped when she heard a creaking noise.

Charlie paused for a moment to listen and realized the noise was coming from behind her. She slid back into the vent and since the light was still on it took her only seconds to locate the source of the noise.

The was something sticking out from under the third vent cover. They looked like the tips of wires. It wasn't until they slowly started to lift the cover that she realized they were fingers.

That, and that the cover was slowly being lifted up.

Without a moment to waste, Charlie turned and hastily crawled through the vent and took a sharp right as directed. She continued to scramble onwards, slowed down by how full her hands were with the flashlight and Handunit. It didn't take long to come to a corner that she crawled around and continued on down towards the next split in the narrow pathway.

A loud banging echoed from the shaft far behind her and she could spatially pinpoint it to the area she had just been in. She knew it had to be the sound of the cover being forced open, because what followed was the thumping, rumbling, and banging of something making its way through the vents behind her. She struggled to move faster, sacrificing silence for speed.

"Right."

Charlie obeyed the command and shifted into the rightward vent. She continued to crawl onwards, her knees scuffing on a sharp ridge on the bottom of the shaft but only barely slowing her down. The noises began to move in closer, rhythmically thumping and squeaking as the wiry body slid through the tight corridor behind her. Its size was alarming, but its speed was almost terrifying.

She kept moving forward, trying to increase her speed, and knowing it didn't matter because it would eventually catch up. She could hear it turning that first corner and then clamoring down the following shaft with inhuman speed. She had to figure something out quickly, and that was when she spotted a branching path coming up. She looked down the adjoining shaft only to see something startling: a way out. Three short feet and then an open vent cover leading into a dark room.

She was going to have to take it, and she took the corner right before she could hear the endo claw its way around the corner behind her.

"You're heading towards a dead end," William warned. His voice indifferent and concern non-existent. "You can't escape through there if that's what you're hoping. You're just going to get yourself cornered."

"Would you just be quiet?! I know what I'm doing!" Charlie whispered harshly. Surprisingly, William fell silent. Though she could still imagine him watching her, silently challenging her to prove him wrong. She hoped that she could as she crawled out into the room.

It was full of standing breaker boxes, or that's what she assumed they were from the heaps of electrical wires spilling onto the floor. Instead of looking for a door, knowing that the endoskeleton would be out of the vents before she could find one, she looked for a hiding spot and found a small space behind a box that had been knocked back and propped against another. She squeezed into the small space and clicked off her flashlight.

The room was pitch dark except for a few small red or green lights dotted around the room, which wasn't enough to light up anything. There was something sparking from the other side of the room. She could hear it snapping and popping, and occasionally the room would flicker with light for a split second. She thought she could see a security door hidden in the back but knew it would not help her.

Only moments after she hid did Charlie hear the clown crawl out of the vent behind her. She held a hand over her mouth to stifle her quiet breathing even further and listened closely. She could hear the squeak of its wires rubbing together, the groans of its metal body, the thumping of its heavy footsteps, and they were all too close. It sounded like it was right on top of her.

But it hadn't seen her hide. It passed by her hiding spot and started to make its way into the back of the room. Each step slow and methodical, head turning as it scanned the darkness looking for her. In the brief flickers of light, she could see it in full and she hadn't been prepared for how tall it was. Seeing it laid out on the table hadn't given her a precise look at its height, but now she could see that it was nearly as tall as Sammy, and it moved more like a human than a bot.

Charlie waited until it was partially obscured by the corner of another standing box before she crept out of her hiding space. She stayed hunched to the floor and quietly made her way back to the vent opening, not once taking her eyes off the direction it had gone in. She managed to find her way in the dark and slid inside undetected, then slowly and quietly crawled back into the ventilation system, now taking the path she was originally told to go.

The whole thing left her positively nerve wracked and her hands were shaking as she crawled forward. She didn't risk turning her flashlight on and instead moved onward by feel, keeping quiet along the way and making sure that she couldn't hear it catching up or cutting her off. She seemed to have lost it for the moment.

The silence was eventually interrupted by William's, "Straight," and then, "Left." He made no comments on what had just happened, but honestly, she preferred it that way.

Eventually she found herself in another three-way vent access like she had been at before, but this time it was noticeably different, and she turned her flashlight on to get a better look. There were no vent covers and instead passages were blocked by machinery. Though they didn't look like they were part of the ventilation shaft at all and instead just some sort of connecting structure. She swore she saw a fan down in one, but it was more like a weirdly adapted little room.

The machinery was absolutely baffling. Instead of wires and breaker boxes, she was looking at three separate gear structures. She highly doubted that gears would be used to activate a ventilation system that was previously shown to run on electricity, so Charlie had a growing suspicion that he was trying to pull the wool over her eyes and have her work on something else. From the conveyor belt in the left shaft, she had a suspicion it was something involving production.

"You're a smart girl, I'm sure you can figure out what you need to do. Once you finish you may decide which child you want freed."

It all seemed so easy. Charlie didn't trust it for a second. "Are you going to tell me what all of this is for? Because I know it's not to get the fans on."

"You would do best to stop asking questions and start working. It's only a matter of time before the abomination finds its way back to you."

That wasn't a suggestion or a mislead, it was a direct threat. It told Charlie everything she needed to know; it was no coincidence that the clown had just happened to find its way to her. She silently set the Handunit aside and hastily got to work.

In this case, it didn't look like she would be requiring any tools. There were obvious spots in the gears where some had been removed and a few stray ones scattered around the area. Pick them up, put them into place; it seemed too easy.

There were a couple scattered around the floor that she gathered up and looked for a place to put them, which turned out to all be in the left side. She slipped the first into place with a dull click, then a second one, and then paused when she thought she heard a scraping noise from nearby. She sat upright for a long moment and heard nothing more, then began to work more quickly.

"Almost there… Got it!"

The last gear was placed like a puzzle piece and with a low hum the conveyor belt beside it kicked on. She shined her flashlight inside to see a single gear being carried down the belt and caught it in her hand.

"How convenient," she thought with suspicion. She then turned forward towards the space in front of her. There were more gears, but also a partial grating covering over a second conveyor belt. "There's probably another one in this one too, but there's no more gears. How am I supposed to-?" Charlie noticed a spot that looked about big enough to fit one of the gears she had already slid into the other mechanism.

Deciding to test a new theory, Charlie pulled the gear she had just placed free and stuck it into the new slot. It didn't activate, as there were still slots open, but it fit right into the spot.

"That should work. I'll just use what I have… by taking apart everything I just put together." She pulled out another gear to fit a second space. The third required a gear smaller than any she had handled, so she turned herself to the third wall.

And came face to face with a white mask.

Charlie pulled away so fast that her back ended up hitting the opposite section of gears. Her bent legs between her and the other gears, and the upside-down clown face peeking out from above them. It stared at her with those large, blue eyes, now closer than it had ever been, even when it had passed her in the breaker room. It had somehow hooked itself up into the space above the machinery and now peered into her little cage.

A few long seconds passed. The only thing she could hear was the distant humming of machinery and the noises the endo made as it shifted in place and stared her down. She didn't think it could reach her in here, unlike what William had said, but that didn't make her feel any safer. If it went back into the vents, it could find its way here and then she truly would be trapped. She had to finish and get out.

Charlie began to slowly lean forward only to get a tug from her hair caught in the unmoving gears. She took an extra second to free herself before cautiously sitting up on her heels. Forcing herself to breathe, she kept her eyes on the clown and reached for the wall of gears beneath it. Using the vision from the edge of her eye, she managed to find a small gear that would fit and pulled it free with a soft sliding noise.

The moment this noise triggered; the clown suddenly cocked its head with a loud squeak. Not an innocent or curious tilt like her brother's, something inhuman. Something that should've broken its neck. She pulled her arm back quickly, the gear caught between her fingers, her eyes wide as she stared back trying not to even blink.

Suddenly the clown twisted its body so it could reach its arms down the floor behind the gears. It lowered itself down onto them and peered at her in between the gears. At this time, it began to make a strange fuzzy noise, something that sounded almost like breathing if played through an old speaker. It cocked its head at her again, needle teeth tapping a few times, and then lowered itself before pushing off and disappearing back up into the space above the shaft.

For a moment Charlie could only sit there in shock, but that was short lived as she heard the groan of straining metal coming from above. Much to her horror, looking up revealed a flimsy metal cover over where she was sitting. Probably wouldn't even hold the clown's weight, let alone keep it out. She set the gear down and reached into the belt for her only weapon, the screwdriver, and hunched down as she stared at the ceiling.

But nothing came through. Not that it was much of a relief, as now Charlie had no idea where it had gone. It could've been looking for another way into the vent. Steeling her nerves, she snatched the gear back up and leaned forward to stick it into place, only to find her hair caught again. She reached back to pull it free again.

Her fingers met warm wires.

This time she actually screamed and wrenched herself away, managing to yank her hair free of the clown's grip. She threw herself into the opposite corner and looked back to see the clown's mask starting through the empty slot between the gears, one of its hands still outstretched as the fingers slowly coiled in.

It tilted its head until it made that sickening noise again, twisting its neck in an unnatural way until its head was almost upside-down so it could look through the slot above the conveyor belt. Charlie felt like she could've been sick right then.

Then it suddenly pulled itself back up and was gone again. She could hear the groaning of metal and knew it was crawling around above again. This time she didn't waste even a second listening for it and instead hastily fit the gear into the small slot on the second wall. There was a loud click, and the gears began to turn, like the presence of the gear alone had activated the whole system. The artificiality was only making her unease worse.

It couldn't compare to the moment when the grate hiding the second conveyor belt raised, and the clown heavily dropped five feet back behind it. Charlie clenched her teeth so tightly that her jaw hurt and flinched back, but only momentarily as she noticed a gear being led down the belt towards her. Apparently, the clown noticed it too as it began to crawl after it, its limbs moving in rapid little jerks as it moved the wiry mass that was its body.

The gear made it to the end before the clown did and dropped off the conveyor. Charlie began to reach for it, only to jerk back when the endoskeleton suddenly threw itself forwards against the back of the gears' structure. Its arm then reached over the conveyor and from the angle she knew it was reaching for the gear, not for her.

Everything was in a split-second at that point. The sudden realization came that if it got the gear, she wouldn't be able to get it back. Or that if she made a grab for the gear, it would grab her. If she had more time, she might've considered shutting the grating on its hand, but it was reaching out quickly and she had to get it before it did. She threw herself forward and reached out just as quickly as it had.

But what happened next was something entirely unexpected. Because the plan was to grab the gear and get her arm back in one piece, but everything was so quick and frenzied in the process.

Charlie instead grabbed the clown's hand in a vice grip and trapped it under her own. The reaction was immediate.

The animatronic made a sharp noise through its speaker and suddenly wrenched its hand back from under hers and back to its body. It held the limb to its chest with the other hand, as though protecting it and shirked back into the shaft. It stared at her silently; she stared back mouth agape, having no intention to touch it like she had. It left her feeling like she had just gotten away with sticking her hand in a bear trap.

Then she watched as something changed in the way it was looking at her. Those glassy eyes focused in as the pupils shrunk significantly, giving it the illusion of emotion that it hadn't shown the entire time it had pursued her.

It was afraid.

Without any warning, it suddenly clamored back into the shaft and climbed back up to wherever it came from. She could hear the distant knocking and thumping as it made a speedy escape. Almost like it was running from her.

Charlie wasn't willing to trust it too long and took the gear up and put it into the third wall, along with removing other gears to fit them into the empty slots. Soon that third wall came to life and like with the last intersection of vents, a light flickered on above her head and signaled that she had gotten power back up again. If that was what it signaled, which she had reason to doubt.

"Well done, Charlotte. Another task concluded," William said. His tone sounded a little too interested, breathy and intrigued, and it made Charlie want to squirm. She didn't want to know what he was getting out of this. "Would you like your reward now or are you patient enough to wait? It may still change its mind."

"Just get me the hell out of here."

What followed was what felt like an eternity following directions to make her way back to the would-be kitchen. She dragged herself out of the shaft and sat down beside it momentarily, just long enough to catch her breath and prop the cover over the opening. She didn't get more than a few seconds.

"Leave the toolbelt in the vent."

Charlie exhaled and unhooked the belt from around her waist. As she lifted it, she hesitated, looking at the tools hooked into it. None of them held the same importance as that screwdriver, especially now that she knew how far the vents went.

"In the vent."

William's voice was harsher this time and she knew he was watching her. She couldn't make any moves yet, but she would remember this for later. She pulled the cover forward and tossed the belt inside before propping the cover up again.

"Good girl." Her skin was crawling. "Now then, I believe you have earned your reward. Look at your Handunit."

She picked it back up and watched as the map appeared with its layout of the facility and dots of colors linking to the bracelets. Though now she noticed that the rooms it was showing seemed a little off to the layout she had seen through the vents. Either she was mistaken, or the blueprint was leaving things out. In this case she could actually believe either, as the shafts were like a disorienting maze.

She noticed that the blue dot was gone and that the green dot was in what would've been the room for the kitchen, so it was at least accurate on her bracelet's location. Though that didn't tell her much else.

"Choose a color."

After what she had seen in the vents, Charlie wasn't entirely sure if she trusted anything that was going on down here. William had her repair an animatronic that he no doubt then sent after her and had her repair machinery that was both clearly sabotaged- probably by him- and didn't go to the system he said she was repairing. As far as she knew, this was all one big ruse.

…Except she had definitely heard a child from the vents. That wasn't a recording or a television, it was a child's voice. It was quite possible that he was lying about setting the children free, but there was at least one here and if she had to play along to keep them alive then she would, and hope whatever she was being coerced to do wasn't going to shorten their lives.

"…Pink," she decided. The map clicked off the screen.

"As you wish. Now return to your room. I will call on you when I need you."

Charlie went along with it again, though it was becoming increasingly more difficult to willingly by this madman's plaything. She felt physically ill as she walked back into her room. Though she did feel a little safer once the door shut. Maybe it was Stockholm syndrome setting in, or maybe she needed a few inches of metal between this amount of crazy.

It wasn't until she sat down on the bed and looked down at the dirty knees of her pajama pants that she thought about the clown again. How it had looked at her when she grabbed it- she knew that look. It was vaguely familiar to the looks it gave her as she had worked on it. Had grabbing it physically hurt it, or had it snapped the endoskeleton out of whatever trance it was in? She didn't know, but she knew this wasn't the last time she would run across it.

William would make sure of that.