Mable: Sorry this one has taken so long, but I've been a bit busy. Please Enjoy!
The Broken Circus
Chapter 13: Twin Bond
The day before, while Charlie's friends were preparing to meet Izzy at the restaurant, Charlie found herself facing another day of imprisonment. Except with one dramatic change: she was no longer stiflingly alone.
Ennard was peculiar. Though he couldn't speak he was very social, seemed to have an affinity for bad jokes, and had been relatively tight-lipped whenever Charlie edged towards asking about William. Though she had started to suspect that maybe he was either programmed or threatened not to say anything. He was a good listener too. At first, she talked for a while thinking he wasn't retaining most of it, but realized she was mistaken when he started asking questions back.
After being deprived of socialization for so long- Afton didn't count as anything more than a daily trauma- Charlie was willing to cling to anyone. She had a feeling Ennard might've been the same way. He said he had been with the children, but the amount of time he spent with her suggested that they simply weren't enough. She understood and she welcomed his company.
Which turned out to be most of the rest of that day and the very beginning of this one. Ennard stayed briefly after he had given her breakfast, getting in a little time before having to return to the children. At this point she had decided to cave and trust the food he provided in full, and it seemed to be an alright choice.
There was always the lingering dread that this was a ruse to get her to trust him, like Baby tried to do, but Charlie didn't feel like her guard needed to be that strong. He reminded her painfully of Sammy; a person trapped in an animatronic trapped in a madman's playhouse. It was hard to blame him for much when the ringleader was slipping her greasy words through a speaker.
Which he began to do right on time.
"You have an important task today, one that will require a significant amount of time. So, if you would, pick up the Handunit, pull yourself together, and head out." He punctuated the statement with the clank of the door opening. "Thanks to outside circumstances, we are already running late."
For a moment her pulse quickened as she thought 'outside circumstances' could've been the police, her friends, or even Sammy searching for her and getting close to finding her. Though it wasn't long before those thoughts crashed down to earth as she realized he was likely talking about Ennard, not them. She kept silent as she got up and headed out through the door. He likely regarded her silence as obedience.
She was led down into the same room where she worked on Ennard a few days before and found three cardboard boxes waiting for her. She drew back a flap on one to see that it was filled with security bracelets just like the ones she was wearing. Just seeing how many there were filled he with a feeling of dread, imagining each one being put around the wrist of a child.
As though on cue, William chose this moment to speak.
"I will admit that many of your tasks so far have been trivial. Things that I could have done myself if I desired to waste my time doing so. That is not to downplay your efforts. You have been so very good for me, doing each and every task I request of you. Such a good little… employee."
The word rolled off his assumed tongue and down her spine, leaving disgust in its wake.
"But unlike those other tasks, this one is one I simply do not have the time nor patience to attend to. As you have nothing but time, I see this as a mutual gain. These boxes are filled with security bracelets that will need to be manually reset. There is a cable in one of them, find it and plug it in. Then I will explain the process."
Charlie had no idea how William could flop so easily between backhanded compliments in a smarmy tone to an aloof disinterest like she was the one wasting his time. It was possibly the greatest evidence she had that every emotion he expressed was entirely fake, even the sadistic and sinister ones. As though he didn't feel anything at all. It disgusted her, but her hands were tied. The bracelet on her arm weighed heavily.
It didn't take long to find the cable in one of the other boxes as it was lying on top. It looked similar to the one she used to plug the Handunit into the breaker box- the one she had currently stashed in her room- except that the other side was a small box with a thin slot through the middle of it. Almost like the slot to swipe a keycard card through, save that it was sized, assumedly, to fit the security bracelets inside.
"I found it. What now?"
"Have you plugged it into the Handunit?"
Charlie pushed the plug snugly into the exposed port. "Yes."
"A menu should appear on the screen." A moment or two later it appeared, revealing only three options: reset, locate, and calibrate. It didn't even clarify that it meant the bracelets. "Press the reset command."
She did and now a keypad screen appeared. An automated voice spoke from the speaker, "Enter security code."
"Pick up one of the bracelets from the box and lay it into the slot."
Charlie quirked a brow but did as told. She fished out a bracelet, a dull orange one, and slid it into the slot. The Handunit made an accepting ding and processed a moment before posing a new command.
"Enter new security receiver frequency."
"I am only going to tell you this once, so do try to remember. C-B-2-8-3."
Charlie typed it in and there was a clinking noise of acceptance. "Reset complete. Please remove security apparatus."
She removed it and nothing else happened. She had expected the bracelet to at least glow to life, but it didn't even do that. "Was that it?"
"It's as easy as that. Now all you need to do is repeat that with every bracelet in these boxes. I'm sure you can manage that."
Back to talking down to her, she only held her tongue because she knew he would relish in her betraying her irritation. He was trying to get a reaction out of her, but she wasn't going to be his toy, even if she was slowly becoming his slave.
She could hear the clicking and loss of hum that signaled he was done talking, leaving her alone in the room and with her new task. Sighing, she set the bracelet aside and reached for another one, repeating the process two times over and having it go smoothly, if tediously. It wasn't long before her mind began to wander.
By the fourth bracelet she remembered why the term 'security receiver frequency' sounded so familiar. It was Sammy, she remembered his receiver frequency being FZ554. It was what allowed their father to lure him into that bear suit and Conibear to track his location. This technology was the exact same as the kind currently located in her brother.
...So, what would happen if she put in his receiver frequency instead of the one William gave her?
Her heart started to pound as she hastily got to the input screen. This time she hastily input her brother's instead of the one Afton provided her. She barely considered the consequences before she pressed the confirmation.
"Security receiver frequency not recognized. Admin approval required."
That deflated all of her hope, physically too with a drawn-out exhale. Of course, it couldn't be that easy. Though she wasn't quite ready to give up just yet.
Suddenly the silence of the room was broken by a loud clattering noise in the back corner. Charlie snapped her head and stared with wide-eyed at the opening hatch at the back of the room, only to deflate again, now with a sigh of relief, as she recognized Ennard's glove and sleeve reaching through. He slowly opened the hatch and peeked into the room.
This was technically the first time they had been alone in a room and without a door in between them since she had figured out the truth about him. Maybe that was why he was so cautious, or maybe he was afraid Afton was there.
"I thought-," she began, only to be cut off by him raising a finger to his mouth. He was afraid of being heard. She readjusted her hold on the Handunit to cover what she believed to be the microphone with her palm, then beckoned him in.
Ennard was still careful not to make much noise as he approached her. Once again, she was reminded of how the clown towered over her, only accentuated by her being seated on the ground. If he suddenly decided to pounce, he could've crushed her in a heartbeat. Then again, he could've tripped and gotten similar results.
He crouched down beside her and reached for the Handunit, which she offered over. He was quick to tap in the corner and pull up a menu, rushing to somehow turn off the microphone. Charlie had just dared to lean over to look when it was already done and he offered it back, bottom eye lid raised like he was smiling, waving his fingers in greeting.
"Hey you," Charlie greeted. She gave him a small, tired smile before being forced to look down at the Handunit. She had to keep working so it wouldn't freeze up. "How're the kids?"
Ennard gave her double thumbs up. She noticed he didn't have his whiteboard with him, so this looked to be the extent of his side of the conversation. Though that was alright. She appreciated the company, and the quirky and very human hand gesture almost brought her out of the direness of the circumstances.
"Good. At least they're not stuck doing this. Glad to see that despite everything, even Afton's above child labor," Charlie said sarcastically and bitterly. She dropped a completed bracelet aside and reached into the box for another.
Ennard took one look at the situation before dragging the box closer. Charlie quirked a brow and watched as he dumped all of the remaining bracelets into the second box. Some of them spilled over and he tried to stack them back on top, then put the already finished bracelets into the now empty box. It was a solution Charlie could've thought up but had been so tired and reluctant to show any more effort than she needed to that she didn't.
"Thanks," she said, tossing another completed one in. "Do you know what he's using these for?"
Ennard tapped the security bracelet on her wrist.
"Oh, uh, no. I know what they do. I mean, what's he doing with this many? Have you heard anything?" she asked. He hesitated for a long moment, eyes sliding away from her.
She went through the process of calibrating another watch and was tossing it into the box when Ennard slowly reached out and took her hand. She almost reflexively pulled back, but resisted the urge, letting him open her hand and draw on her palm. First a 'C' and then a 'B', and she knew that he meant Circus Baby's. Which would naturally match the code she had to put in. She frowned and closed her fingers after he finished.
"I'm guessing that a lot of what he has me doing down here is for Circus Baby's," Charlie said. Though she looked to Ennard with questioning, and he nodded in agreement. She hummed in thoughtful dismay. "That's what I thought."
He gave a mechanical hum that rumbled through his chest, the wires nearly vibrating. She noticed the peculiar sound, along with the way his eyes retreated to the floor, and wondered if he thought she was upset with him. Before she could correct this, his eyes suddenly snapped down to their hands- to his hand still holding hers, then looked up at her, and then quickly recoiled his grasp.
He raised his hands almost defensively with a little shrug and head tilt, and his teeth separating like in a smile. Like an awkward little apology before he quickly averted his eyes back to the Handunit, his shoulders slouching enough that she noticed. She considered letting whatever that was go for a minute, but for some reason it continued to bother her, up until the point that she finally had to do something.
Since she didn't know what to say to assure him, she instead reached out and laid her hand back on his.
Ennard flinched and looked at her in surprise. She didn't look away, instead gifting him a small, assuring smile. Trying to assure him that whatever William might've said- what she assumed was the root of it- wasn't true.
His eyes seemed to brighten and lower lids raised as though to express a smile. A real one instead of the permanent one stuck on his mask, or whatever he did a little bit ago. He slowly turned his hand over, as though afraid he would scare her off, and clasped his fingers around her smaller hand. Even though made of metal it was comfortably warm.
The way he held it reminded her of how John sometimes held her hand, though with great differences. Not just the metal aspect, but the feel of the room. This small bit of shared affection between two people who had been long denied it felt all the more powerful. Like a taste of food after a day of fast, or a drink of water after a hike under the baking sun. She would be perfectly fine with working one handed under this condition.
Or that's what she though until she noticed that the Handunit had returned to its default screen. She inhaled sharply at the sight.
"Oh… great," she muttered.
She could just imagine what sick pleasure Afton would take out of rubbing it in if he didn't follow up on his threat from earlier. Part of her assumed it was yet another ruse, but the other part noticed his tone was different when he said it.
But before she could dwell on it long, Ennard shook his head and pulled the unit into his lap. She watched as with one hand he tapped and slid in the bottom left corner in a strange angle, which surprisingly caused a menu to open. He went to an option listed simply as 'admin', which brought up a password screen. She watched very carefully now and was able to see him type in eight-four-seven-three-seven into the Handunit and repeated the numbers in her head to remember.
This brought up another menu and after a few taps he found an option labelled as "Security Bracelets" and tapped on. They were now back onto the screen to edit the bracelets and he eagerly handed it back over.
"Thank you! You have no idea how much you just helped me. I owe you one," she said. He let out a more contented little hum and continued to sit there and watch as she finished up her task.
When there were only a few bracelets left- and Charlie couldn't tell if it was one or more hours later- Ennard waved for her attention. He tapped his chest and pointed for the trapdoor where he came in. He had to leave.
"Okay. I'll see you around," she said with a smile. He took the Handunit back to turn back on the microphone before slipping out the back of the room.
She knew that she would likely see him in only a few hours. He would probably drop in alongside a meal and stay for a little while. All while scribbling puns and jokes more suitable for kids down on his little white board. Being a goofy clown.
…But occurred to her that it probably wasn't a good idea to get attached.
In the back of her mind, she knew that she could be playing into Afton's plans. That he told Ennard to be more friendly and then would use him as a bargaining chip when and if he ran out of kids. There was an overwhelming fear that something- someone like Ennard was bound to die no matter what she did. Perhaps that was part of the reason she held on at all because she knew that something terrible was eventually going to happen.
Or perhaps that wasn't the plan. Perhaps she would escape, bring Ennard with her, only to have him shot down by the police the second he left the building. Ignoring anything she said to put down the monster of wires.
Funny, she had begun to admire Hurricane's police force after the lengths they went through to protect her and the other citizens from the Butchers, but this place had let the bitterness seep in. They hadn't found her or these children in days; regardless of what they had done for her before, they were the same incompetent force that had let so many children get kidnapped and killed, including Sammy.
Of course they would be incompetent enough to take out the person who helped her while letting the murderer walk free once more.
She was just too tired and jaded to rationalize these thoughts. At this point it just felt so much easier just to give into and keep pressing on. Just like with Ennard; she would rather embrace the little amount of companionship she could, knowing it would end in disaster, than rejecting it and spending even more time alone with these poison thoughts. With this mixture of frustration and fear that had been festering for days.
William's voice wasn't going to help matters, so she took her time with the last few bracelets, then sat there uselessly for a few minutes before lifting the Handunit.
"Done."
There was some crackling and lingering pause before he spoke.
"Well done."
She noticed something was off right away. His usual smugness or condescending tone was gone. He sounded upset- not like he was disappointed or remorseful, or anything human, but more like he was keeping his voice even to cover-up a hidden rage. The warning tone of someone who could erupt at any moment.
He had to know about what Ennard had done, she realized with fear.
"Normally this is where I would have you choose a child," Afton continued, "but tonight I will be choosing the child."
"And why's that?" Charlie asked. She suspected as a punishment.
"One of the children has waited until now to show that they are physically unfit for this experiment and is no use to me any longer. But I assume you will be fine with this decision. You have a soft spot for the weak and unfortunate."
Charlie wasn't sure what was more concerning; the fact that Afton referred to this as an 'experiment' or the fact that he all but confirmed that he knew about her time with Ennard. Pairing those together didn't bode well for her.
"Physically unfit? What does that… I thought you just had them trapped in rooms," she said.
"Shouldn't you be returning to your room, Dear? You had such a long, tedious task to complete. Such a good helper, you deserve a rest…" Afton's voice took a mockingly sweet tone that made her feel sick and dirty just hearing it.
The Handunit sputtered out and the door opened with a clank, a clear sign that he the conversation was over. This should've been a relief, but it wasn't, because he had purposefully left her with more questions than answers. Or a warning.
To spite him, she balled up the cord and subtly shoved it in her pocket. After only a moment's hesitation she took one of the security bracelets too. Not that she could change the code because it was blocked with a password-
Wait.
Charlie stopped on a dime as she stared at the security bracelet and let the gears turn in her head.
"It said it needed 'admin' approval. Didn't Ennard just-?"
Eight-four-seven-three-seven.
Eight-four-seven-three-seven.
She slipped the security bracelet into her pocket and hastily stood from the floor. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she made her way to the door and down the hall, pretending that nothing was wrong and fighting back the urge to hurry.
Eight-four-seven-three-seven.
Charlie stepped into her room and the door shut behind her. She stood there for a moment before going to sit at the desk, sitting there rigidly for a moment before resting her head on it on her folded arms, giving Afton time to stop looking.
Eight-four-seven-three-seven.
Once she was sure she repeated those numbers hundreds of times, Charlie finally went into action. She worked in her lap, hunched over at an awkward angle, trying to keep any possible cameras from seeing.
She plugged everything in and got the bracelet into the slot. She pressed the corner to pull out the menu just as Ennard had, going into the same password locked admin screen. She entered the numbers and was granted another screen with various options, and one of which was to reset the bracelet. Just like with the others, she could reset the frequency to a new one.
Only this time she could use her brother's like she initially planned.
She could put Sammy's security frequency in and if she was correct, he would feel it just like he had with the Conibear. Even if he didn't know it was her, he would be tipped off to her exact location and then he could get the others, and hopefully Clay and his men, to come looking for them. All she had to do was activate the bracelet and it could set into motion her escape. She and the children would finally be found, and not a moment too soon.
Yet right when she was about to activate it, heart pounding with excitement at a possible out, she hesitated. Something didn't seem right. It all sounded too easy in her head. Just press this button to confirm and in a matter of hours her brother and the police could locate the basement and be finding their way inside.
Hopefully before Afton found out and killed them all.
Charlie's stomach twisted at the thought. That was the hesitation, she realized. Once she did this the game was over. She would be breaking Afton's rules- which she would've been fine with if not for the fact that her life wasn't the only one on the line. There were children trapped in this place and at Afton's mercy. Who was to say that he wouldn't walk in and slaughter the kids while Clay was still at the front door? She knew he was capable of it.
The fact that Afton so willingly let the children go showed that he didn't need them for this experiment. They were not required, just a carrot on the stick to both tempt her and the police. They didn't even have the amount of precarious protection that she did.
Of course, he could turn on her just as easily, she thought with dread. Knowing Afton, it wouldn't be a direct attempt at her life either, but some elaborate plan to torment and torture her, drawing it out as long as he could. At least, that was the impression she had gotten from him.
Charlie sat there staring at the Handunit for a long moment, warring with herself internally.
"I can't just keep going along with this. Obviously, he's planning something more than this. Everything he's had me do is just busy work, there's got to be something more with this experiment… especially if he needs the children strong for it. Or was that just some sort of excuse? He's letting the children go, so… are they just a distraction or is he just narrowing them down?"
Charlie had a bad feeling that it was the latter.
"We need to get out of here. The longer I hang around helping him, the closer we're going to get to what he actually wants… but if I get caught too early, I could ruin this. This is my only chance and if I botch it, I lose it," Charlie considered. She then swallowed thickly and also considered, "Or maybe I'm holding back on our only way out just because I'm scared of him. Because I'm afraid to of what he's going to do."
She realized with both embarrassment and shame that it was true. As defiant as she acted, as much as she pretended that this was an infuriating inconvenience, she was scared. Not just for Sammy either, she was scared for herself.
She didn't want to die in this basement.
"Did he break me?" Charlie vaguely thought. This somewhat snapped her out of the spiral, if only out of that same defiance. That refusal to give in to it. "No. I just can't get ahead of myself. There's more than one life on the line here, and I don't want to lose mine either."
She looked to the Handunit for a long moment, realizing it had went into its offline mode. Not that it was a problem now that she knew how to get around it. As long as she had the cords and Handunit, she had the way out. She had the key to their shackles, or at least the vessel to send out the SOS. She just needed to be ready to use it, because she knew Afton wouldn't let them go quietly.
Considering that there were only two children left, and one of them was sick, she wasn't sure if she could validate risking it without a better plan.
"…I'll wait until I can talk to Ennard. Maybe I can feel out the situation with him," Charlie decided.
She didn't trust Ennard enough to outright tell him her plan, or at least didn't trust that he wasn't bugged, but maybe she could get some answers from him. She discreetly hid everything.
Ennard cleared up a few things when he came to visit after dinner. He had been gone for most of the day save a very quick visit at lunch, which Charlie had worried was perhaps out of fear of getting caught speaking to her.
It was not. One of the two remaining children, a girl, was ill. From the message, "Was sick, getting worse," Charlie could only assume that she came in already sick and that the stress and lack of care had made it worse.
"Can you get any medicine?" she asked, peeking out through the door opening. "I mean, just to get her by?"
Ennard shook his head. He sat outside the door cross-legged like he usually did, but he didn't seem relaxed. He wouldn't be able to stay long enough to relax.
He scribbled down something else and showed it to her. It read, "I'm afraid for the last one. He's small."
"He should be alright. If he's not showing symptoms now, then maybe he'll get out of here before they do. Or maybe he won't even catch it. Weren't they kept apart?" Charlie asked.
She found the clown's following hesitation to be peculiar. She had noticed once or twice that he mentioned the children playing together, so she had wondered if he had been letting them visit each other when nobody was paying attention.
"Ennard?" she goaded.
He suddenly wiped off his board and began to draw something on it. At first it looked like he was drawing squares, but by time he finished up enough to show her she realized that it was actually a basic floorplan. From the hallway and the sizes of the rooms set along it, she could tell right away that it was floorplan of the rooms directly around them.
He pointed at the room that was hers and then up at her door.
"My room, got it," Charlie said.
Ennard put a little dot in the room. He pointed at the dot and then at her.
"That's me?" she guessed.
He nodded and then proceeded to put five more dots for the children.
Except they weren't in the cells along the hallway. They were in one large room that took up the same space as two cells at the end of and on the opposite side of the hall. Located suspiciously close to that vent that she thought she heard a child through when forced to crawl around for repairs.
"Wait, they were being kept together?" Charlie asked. Ennard once again nodded.
It wasn't that surprising, it just seemed peculiar. It was likely just easier to keep them quiet when corralled in once place. Though that also meant that they would've been easier to smuggle out, being in one spot instead of each in a separate locked cell… and because the room was directly connected to the vents. If not for the furniture blocking it, that could be very useful. She wondered if there could be a way to subtly convince Ennard to move whatever was blocking it.
For now, she needed to focus. "Still, I meant what I said. He's not showing symptoms yet…" She trailed off, considering her words before daring to ask. "Do you know what's going to happen when all the kids are gone?"
Ennard shook his head, though his eyes did seem to downcast. He didn't know, but he wasn't too confident in it ending well.
"We still have time. What if someone finds us before then? Like the police," Charlie asked.
Ennard looked at her for a long moment before his shoulders slouched in the motion of a sigh. He turned the board over, wiped away all the markings with his sleeve, and then wrote down a new response to present to her.
"He will get away. He always does," it said.
"And what if he doesn't? I don't know if you've noticed, but Afton's been making a lot of stupid decisions. Including but not limited to having us do all his work for him. If there's any weak points, then we're going to see them," Charlie said. He voice lowering into a whisper towards the end. "He might've gotten away with this before, but he can't get away with it this time. Never again."
Ennard seemed a little surprised by her proclamation. Perhaps he too had assumed she had been worn down by Afton, which she wanted to prove couldn't be further from the truth. He then slowly started to look down at the floor and stared for a pensive moment. Then he slowly wiped off the board and began to write something else down. The glow of his eyes seemed to lose its luster.
She thought to herself that he was the one who looked broken, and not just because the state of his body. This was all but confirmed when he presented what he had written down.
"He will take us down with him."
"I know he'll try," Charlie agreed solemnly. "…But his track record sucks."
This actually roused a breathy chuckle out of Ennard. That sad look seemed to soften, and she smiled back at him.
She hoped he couldn't tell how scared she was, because she was more than aware of how scared he was.
…
…
The door was open.
She wasn't sure how or why, but the door to her cell was open and she could hear voices coming from outside. Numerous voices, not just Afton and Baby but strangers who sounded normal. Perhaps the police had arrived, but Charlie had trouble believing that Afton was in any condition to face them in person and convince them that he was normal.
She stepped up to the door and looked through. To the left she could see that door was open too. To the right she saw the source of the voices and her heart jolted.
There was a group of people standing further down the hallway. One of them she recognized as the reporter who had been on the news when they announced the kidnapping of the children, and from the lot's similar garb she could assume that they were all reporters. There were cameras too, boom mikes, all aimed towards two figures who stood with their backs to her.
The one figure was immediately recognizable. It was Izzy, dressed in one of the many innocuous outfits Charlie had seen her wearing in the last few months. Her heels pressed tightly together and her hands folded behind her back.
But what stood beside her was all the more horrifying because Charlie vaguely recognized him and thus knew instantly who he was.
It was William Afton. Not as a rabbit animatronic, not as an animatronic at all, but as a full and complete human. Or looking as much like one as Baby did. That alone was horrifying enough- the confirmation that William was in a body where he could seamlessly fit in with the normal population without detection- but what was worse was the fact that she remembered him. The shape of his body, the color of his hair, his larger-than-life height.
Charlie had known from the album pictures that she must've been around William in her childhood but had been too young to remember him well, had even spotted him in a few of those pictures, but seeing him brought back an actual recollection of seeing him in person. It gave her a feeling like nostalgia, but instead of pleasant fondness it was of deeply settled fear. A feeling of impending danger and a reminder of a time when her happy family was ripped apart.
She knew she had to run. As though sensing this, William slowly began to turn his body. As stiff and slow as a mannequin while the world around his seemed to halt. As though everyone else were just part of a backdrop.
All she could focus on was his face slowly looking back at her, but it wasn't any face she recognized. It was something far much worse, far more foul.
He had the face of a burned corpse. Large holes and sloughing hunks of flesh littered his face and exposed fraying muscles underneath. He had no nose, he had no lips, his teeth were yellowed and cracked like broken porcelain and a foul mix of blood and other fluids dripped through them and down his chin. His eyes were the worst. Pure white, entirely vacant and rolled back, and still for a silent moment they locked with hers.
The moment she regained control, she turned and ran through the door behind her. Running as fast as she could through the bunker-like basement as a dozen voices called after her. First normal, then distorted and deepened, and then dragged out into a slurry of mechanical noise. They weren't people, she decided, and if they caught her it would all be over.
She made it to a stairwell and began to hastily run up the steps. It felt like they got taller with each step. She tripped and had to resort to climbing up them before getting to her feet and making it the rest of the way.
She threw open the door and staggered out into the garage of her family home. They had been underneath her house the entire time, somehow, and though she questioned it she continued running. She had to find a place to hide and find Sammy, who she had a feeling was in the house. She could just feel that he was nearby.
Charlie ran for the stairs and up to the second floor, down the hall, and to their shared bedroom. She threw open the door and found someone waiting for her inside, but it wasn't Sammy. It was her father, or how she remembered him. His back to her like when he was working in the garage, but instead standing in and facing inside of her closet. His body still and stiff.
"That's not him," she realized. It was a panicked, frantic thought as she staggered back out of the room and ran as fast as she could. She didn't know what that was, but it wasn't him.
But before she could make it back to the stairs, and as the world seemed to close in around her, she noticed the bathroom door agape and shoved it open. Sammy was inside, and to her immediate relief she knew that he was the real deal. It was really her brother, Sammy, sitting in the bathtub and peeking out at her. Not a puppet but a person, with his face somewhat blurred but her recognizing him regardless.
She slammed the bathroom door. Something was trying to come in behind her, but she managed to turn the lock and get into the bathtub with Sammy. She shut the shower curtain and sat down across from him, but only had a moment to settle before Sammy suddenly launched himself at her, pulling her into a crushingly tight hug.
"Charlie! My God, you're alive! You're okay!" he cried. Even though clearly not a puppet, she could hear the chiming on his voice. "I've been so worried! I thought he killed you; I thought you were gone and I couldn't bring you back!"
"No, he was just keeping me in his basement… But I thought the same thing about you." She hugged him back and held him tightly. "The last thing I saw was Baby getting ahold of you. I thought she might've… But you're okay?"
"I'm fine!" Sammy gushed. There was near hysterical laughter on his voice. "I'm more than fine! You're alive!..."
He trailed off for a moment, then abruptly pulled back and right out of her arms. He stared at her for a long moment. She could see his face a little better now, with his eyes darkened out like the ones of his smiling mask.
"This is you. I know it, I can feel it. It's you," he murmured. Then he quickly changed tones and became more direct. "Charlie, where are you?"
"I'm right here. What are you talking about?" Charlie asked in confusion.
"I'm not talking about-… Oh… Where did you come from? Where was he keeping you?"
"Afton had me locked up in this basement and he had me doing jobs for him in exchange for letting the kids go. Then he left the door open, and I ran out and saw him…" Charlie trailed off.
Something very odd happened in that moment. She was still there with Sammy, still knowing William was coming and that there was something that looked like her father right outside the door, but she also abruptly realized that none of it was actually happening. That this had to be a dream and soon she was going to wake up. The fact that she hadn't already was a little surprising.
She hadn't escaped at all, and Sammy wasn't really here. Unless he was. Something about him in particular seemed weirdly tangible compared to everything else.
"Sammy?" she asked slowly. "Is that really you?"
"Yes! Yes, it's me. I can hear you. I can see you," Sammy insisted. "But I need you to tell me more so I can find you."
"I had a- have a security bracelet that I can use with your frequency to signal you, but I'm afraid if I do that Afton will kill the kids. I think we're under Circus Baby's, and I know William's planning something big. He had me reset tracking bracelets just like the ones he had on all the kids, and he said something about an experiment. I know he's been manipulating me into doing work for him, but I can't see where it's going."
Her ramble was cut off by a crashing bang as the bathroom door was broken in. Sammy grabbed for her again and held her tightly to him.
"Don't look. Don't look. Don't look," he told her.
She didn't. Not because she was afraid of what she would see, but because she was afraid that would be the end. That she would awaken in that cell and realize every part of this, even Sammy, was just concocted from her own mind.
"I don't want to go back," she confessed.
Then the curtain slung open and Sammy squeezed tighter. Despite what she wanted, Charlie was jolted and pulled out of the dream.
…
…
But something was wrong.
Charlie awoke to darkness. She couldn't see anything, and she couldn't move. She could feel though; the sheet pulled over her and the flat pillow underneath her head. She was back in her cell and in bed, but she couldn't move anything.
She began to panic and could feel her heart pounding in her chest, but she couldn't increase her breathing. She couldn't even hold her breath, she was stuck in the same cycle of inhaling and exhaling, trying to move her fingers and not being able to, and struggling against a body that wouldn't respond. She wondered if she had been drugged, but even that didn't seem to explain what this was.
There was someone in the room with her. It was hard to explain since she couldn't open her eyes to see, but she could feel a presence at the foot of her bed. She tried harder to fight against her body, recognizing the impending threat.
"Charlie?"
A threat that was immediately vanquished with a single word and a familiar voice. It was Sammy, as though he had followed her out of her dream.
"Charlie, can you hear me?"
She couldn't answer him.
"…This is where he's been keeping you?"
It suddenly occurred to Charlie that this was the proof she needed that this was actually Sammy and not just a dream- unless she was seriously hallucinating. She chose to believe that Sammy had traveled through her dream and was now looking around at her pitiful little cell.
"It's horrible…" Sammy said. His voice sputtered like he was choked up. "Oh Charlie..."
Charlie wanted to tell him not to cry, but she couldn't move. She couldn't even convince herself to breath more deeply to feed oxygen to her pounding heart.
"I'm going to find a way to you," he choked. Then he broke down. She could hear him full on sobbing. "I'll bring you home, I promise. And I love you."
As terrifying as this all was, something in hearing those words brought her relief. It was a reminder that he wouldn't give up on her. It hurt to not be able to reply, especially when she didn't know if she would get another chance.
It hurt her heart. It hurt her lungs.
Suddenly the need for extra air caught up to her and she gasped in a full lungful, and with that her eyes flew open and she regained full control of her body. She laid there for a second before sitting up in bed.
"Sammy? Are you here?" she asked. There was no answer. He was gone.
Charlie took a deep breath and considered her options. It took ever once of willpower to keep from immediately putting the bracelet in place and resetting the code right now. In the end, she talked herself down into laying back down immediately and trying to get back to sleep in the hopes of reaching Sammy again.
She rolled over and struggled to go back to sleep. After what felt like an eternity she did.
…It was a dreamless sleep.
…
When she finally did wake up for good, Charlie felt like she hadn't gotten any sleep at all. She still felt tired and her neck hurt from the position she had been laying in.
And the door was open.