CHAPTER: TWO

Today was the day. Henry strode through the diner, checking everything was ready for the inevitable beginning of the party. Streamers hung from the ceiling. Balloons floated merrily in the air, each one celebrating a happy birthday. There was a party hat on the table in front of every seat at the birthday table. Colorful lettering, also announcing the birthday, was strung from one end of the diner to the other.

Despite all the joyful and cheerful decorations, Henry could not be happy. The dispute with Cromwell was still preying on his mind, and he was terribly worried it might escalate with another demand by the tycoon before the week was out.

His other concern was the birthday boy himself. Evan was nowhere to be seen, but Henry did not doubt he was curled up in a corner somewhere, crying a river of tears. That knowledge hurt him. All the Afton kids looked up to him, called him 'Uncle Henry' affectionately, just like Charlie called William 'Uncle William'. Having one of them mortally afraid of his creations was like having them mortally afraid of himself.

He cast an eye at the twin animatronics up on stage: the iconic duo, both with glorious yellow fur; Fredbear and Spring Bonnie. Right now, they were motionless, inert, each receiving a last checkup from a technician. Henry knew that they'd been well oiled and painstakingly checked for any flaws. Yet the employees took such pride in their work that they were still doing checkups.

"How's it going?" he asked as he stopped in front of the stage. One of the technicians lifted his head up from almost within Spring Bonnie's back cavity.

"Just finishing up now, Mr Emily," he replied. "We'll put them on reboot cycle for a few minutes, and they should be ready to go by the time the horde arrives."

The corner of Henry's mouth twitched slightly at the wry humor. "Well, keep up the good work."

"We wouldn't dream of slacking off," the other technician added. "Not when it's the birthday of one of the bosses' children."

Henry smiled at the devotion, before moving on. He spotted William seated at one of the tables and decided to head in that direction. There were several kids here at the diner already, either early for the party or just here with their parents for another occasion. Henry had to change his route a couple of times to avoid running them over. Despite this added challenge, he still made it to William's table. The other co-owner was sitting with his head in his hands, his face completely hidden.

"He didn't want to get out of bed this morning," he was murmuring, completely detached from the world around him. "It's his birthday. And he didn't want to get out of bed. Because of where I decided to have his party. Why didn't I listen to him? He was crying even after Mary calmed him down and got him out of bed."

"William," Henry said gently as he touched his friend's shoulder. "When it's time for Evan's party, we'll pull down the curtain over the animatronics. That way he won't have to see them. It's the animatronics he's afraid of, after all."

"I . . . I guess." William sighed, lifting his head to rest his chin on his hands. "We're going to this cabin I managed to rent in Colorado. For vacation. Hopefully that'll be enough."

"I'm sure it will," Henry replied. "You all just need to get away for a week. Now, I'm going to go check on the cake. You should go find Evan and explain to him what we're going to do."

"Yeah . . . yeah, alright." William stood up. "See you around."

Henry smiled. "It's going to be alright."

From there, Henry made his way to the back of the diner, and into the kitchen. The cake was on the bench; circular, covered in dark blue icing, topped with seven candles, and marked with gold lettering that read 'Happy Birthday Evan'. Henry stood in front of it and stared for a long moment, mulling over everything that was on his mind, completely zoning out, all the while looking at the cake that was celebrating the birthday of a boy who did not even want it to be here.

However long he was lost in thought, he didn't know, but what dragged him out of the ether was the scream that pierced the diner. He jolted, and spun around towards the doors, just in time for them to go crashing open.

Matt stood there, his face flushed, his eyes wide in shock and fear. "You need to come now, sir! There's been a horrible accident!"

That was all that Henry needed to hear to confirm his worst suspicions. He charged forward, pushing past his employee and into the diner. The scream had mingled with wailing and crying from kids. He saw William running across the room, his legs and arms pumping like pistons, towards the stage. It was then that Henry spotted the accident, what had caused everything to descend into chaos.

Somebody was inside Fredbear's mouth. Their head was completely within the jaws, hidden behind the row of animatronic teeth, and their body was dangling downwards, kept suspended by the pinning force of the mouth. The dimensions were far too small for it to be an adult.

Henry dodged around a sobbing child standing between two tables. He was silently and bitterly cursing himself. How could something like this happen? On his watch? Why was he not here, keeping an eye on the animatronics, instead of lost in his own world in the kitchen?

His prayers that the child would be undamaged proved unanswered as he approached the stage, where William pushed past a group of four teenagers standing shocked around to get to Fredbear. There was blood on the teeth, blood dripping down on the floor, blood on the character masks the teens were wearing.

William wrestled with the jaws, finally finding the release switch that locked them in the open position. The mouth fell open with a snap, and William caught the limp form of the unfortunate child before they fell to the ground. Their face and head were a mangled mess, gouged deep with the cuts in the shape of teeth, pouring with blood, practically unrecognizable.

"Matt! Call an ambulance!" Henry shouted as he scrambled onto the stage. His innards clenched when he recognized the horizontal blue and grey stripes on the injured child's shirt. "Oh no, no, no, no," he whispered under his breath, but there was no mistaking the look of pure agony and horror on William's face. He turned his back on his friend's anguish and ripped the mask modeled after Foxy the Pirate off the nearest teen. The blue Afton eyes and dark wavy Afton hair stared back at him.

Henry couldn't speak for a solid moment, face to face with Michael Afton. The boy's face had tears of their own running down cheeks, his expression blank and slack with horror. Horror at what he'd just done to his little brother.

"Matt?! Ambulance?!" Henry choked out the question.

"On its way, sir! I can go grab the First Aid kit!"

Henry glanced at the crying kids and the shocked parents standing around the diner. He set his teeth. There was no chance any of them would ever come back here, or not gossip about this to their friends. Henry thought he heard the booming footsteps of the demise of Fredbear's Family Diner, but it was really just his own heartbeat racing in his ears. "Get these families out of here. Now."

The stunned employees began to move, directing their equally shocked charges out of the room. Parents picked up children and carried them out.

"Mike," Henry said through gritted teeth. The boy looked at him with terror in his eyes. "Go to my office. Wait there." He noticed Michael's other three friends backing away slowly and fixed them with the most brutal frown he'd ever found the courage to display. "You three can join him."

The four teens scuttled off towards the backrooms, just as the sound of an ambulance siren began to intrude upon the world.

Henry realized with a shock that the sobbing he could still hear was coming from behind him. Turning around, he saw William's entire body trembling and jerking, while he cradled his horribly injured son in an embrace, maybe the last one that the boy would ever experience.

A few tears pushed their way out of Henry's eyes as he stepped off the stage and made his way towards the front door, to inform the paramedics, apologize profusely to the families, find Charlie to make sure she was okay, and then close the restaurant until further notice. In that order.

Henry was feeling sick before he even walked into the foyer of the hospital. In the week since the incident, that a local newspaper had sardonically nicknamed 'The Bite', the doors to Fredbear's Family Diner had remained permanently closed. He had offered more compensation than he knew he was capable of paying to the witnesses traumatized by the event. And this was not an attempt to keep them quiet, or even to convince them to come back to the restaurant; instead, it was Henry's attempt to apologize for what really was nobody's fault.

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. It wasn't Michael's fault. It wasn't. Henry knew he couldn't start assigning blame. From the few times he'd seen him, it was clear that the boy was wandering in the precarious shadow land of guilt and blame. And how couldn't he be? Henry was right. There was brotherly love buried deep within Michael's chest. It was a tragedy that it had taken something as terrible as this for it to emerge.

"Daddy?" Charlie tugged at his pant leg as they approached the reception desk. "Will Evan get better?"

"I . . . I don't know." He gave her hair a stroke. "I really hope so."

"I hope so too," she agreed in a small voice. "With all my heart, I hope."

It was like seeing clouds cross over the sun and hide it. It was like seeing sunflowers and lilies and roses wilt and droop. That's what it was like when he told her that her best friend had been hurt really badly. She'd said she wanted to fix him. Henry had hugged her and told her that he wished that she could, that it was just as easy as picking up a screwdriver and making a few tweaks. But the damage was so bad that the doctors were not even sure of the full extent, or if the boy would even wake up ever again.

"Who are you here to see, sir?" asked the nurse at the reception desk.

"Uh . . . Afton. Evan Afton." Just saying the name was enough to drive a spike of grief into Henry's heart. It had not been looking good for the boy, trapped in a coma and barely alive. Even if he managed to fight his way out of it, he would be scarred for life; physically, psychologically, and emotionally. He would not be the same cheerful boy that Henry knew him as before, at least when Michael wasn't tormenting him. Evan's face used to always light up so wonderfully whenever he played with Charlie.

"Mr . . .?"

"Emily. Henry Emily."

"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, Mr Emily, but Evan Afton passed away at three o'clock this afternoon."

A lightning strike could have been the best way to describe the effect of the news on Henry. His legs almost gave way, but he breathed deeply and gripped the reception desk. "Wh-What . . .?"

"It's exactly as I said, Mr Emily. I'm sorry."

"Daddy?" Charlie gave his pants another tug. "What does she mean? What's happened to Evan?"

Henry couldn't bring himself to answer her – to crush her hope – just yet. "Is . . . is the family still here?"

"I believe so," the nurse replied. "You can go on through."

Henry took Charlie's hand, and led the way to the children's wing, in a fugue state, entirely focused on internal thoughts. Three o'clock. That was barely twenty minutes ago. If only they'd been here half an hour earlier, they would have had the chance to be here, the chance to . . . say goodbye. Really, there was nothing else they could have done.

"Daddy," Charlie waved a hand towards him, catching his attention. Her small face was trembling with worry. "What's wrong? Is it what happened to Evan? Is he okay?"

After a moment, taken to gather his thoughts and suppress the sudden desire to break down into sobs, Henry knelt down with his hands on her shoulders. "Do you remember how Mommy had to go away to heaven? And how I told you that it wasn't our fault or her fault? That things like that just happen sometimes."

Tears were gathering along her eyelids, ready to go pouring out and down her cheeks like raindrops on the window. "D-Do . . . you mean th-that Evan's gone to heaven?"

Henry nodded sorrowfully. And the onset of weeping came like a rush for both of them.

"I d-d-d-didn't get to say goodbye. To tell him how much he meant to me."

"I know, I know." Henry tried to comfort her with an embrace. "Nobody knew it would happen so suddenly. He's in a better place now. I'm sure he's happy."

"Buh-But what if he's lonely? What if he misses us?"

Henry held her tighter. "I'm sure he isn't lonely. He's probably with Mommy. She's taking care of him."

"I-I-I hope so," Charlie sobbed. Then she added, "I think I understand what you meant."

"Meant about what?"

She leaned back and wiped her eyes. "About feeling guilty. If I'd just been a better friend to Evan . . ."

"Charlie, listen to me," Henry said firmly, looking her directly in the eyes. "You are– were, the best friend Evan could have wished for. What happened to him . . . that's not your fault at all."

"Is it Mike's fault then?"

"Mike . . . Mike shouldn't have been mean to Evan, yes. But he didn't know how dangerous Fredbear could be. Even I didn't know what would happen if someone's head got stuck in his mouth, because I never considered that as a possibility. If he knew what would happen, he would never have done it."

Charlie took a moment to process this, before sniffing twice. "It's not fair."

"I know it's not," Henry murmured as he pulled her back into the hug. What he didn't add was that sometimes the world just works like that.

The day of the funeral was far too bright and sunny to be appropriate. Henry had to squint his eyes as they stood by the open grave and the tiny coffin was lowered into the hungry maw of the earth.

The funeral itself had been a terribly morbid affair. That was to be expected when it was for a boy so young. William broke down twice during the eulogy, and there was not a person at the service that was not in tears by the end. The wake was still to come; for now, it was time to give the poor boy his last rites. Time to seal his body away in the cold, lightless earth, never to exist except in memory, picture, and the engraving on his tombstone.

This was the first occasion in a long time that Henry had worn a proper suit. He'd also had to go shopping for some suitable clothes for Charlie. She certainly looked smart now, but that was the wrong thing to be noticing on this day. Instead, Henry decided to focus on the Afton family.

Of the four remaining, Elizabeth was showing the most emotion, weeping openly as the dirt was shoveled into the deep plot. William was trying to put on a brave face, keeping the tears in as best he could, which was mostly unsuccessfully. William's wife, Mary, seemed catatonic; eyes blank, hands hanging inert. And Michael . . . well, he was somewhere in between. He was silently staring at the grave, a turmoil of sorrow raging in his eyes. He'd been on the verge of breakdown when Henry had gone to his office that fateful day after the incident. The angry words had died on Henry's lips, but William had not held back when he had seen him, even striking his son in the face. Mike's emotional response had dampened since that day, slowly falling towards where he was now.

Suddenly, the emotion became too much. Henry found he couldn't look at this tragic scene any longer and averted his eyes. As his gaze fell across the rows of tombstones, past the crowd, his blood froze. A man was standing near the crest of a small rise, leaning on a cane, and staring right at the ceremony. He was wearing a blue suit and had perfectly arranged snowy white hair and beard. It was too far away to see his expression, but Henry already knew that it would make him feel unpleasant if he could.

In a blink, the rites were concluded, and those present began to drift away towards their cars. Henry dutifully gave every member of the Afton family a hug, and every hug felt different in its own way. Mary's: stiff and unresponsive. William's: strong and asking. Michael's: weak and remorseful. Elizabeth's: scared and upset.

After the hugs were concluded, and after he'd reassured William he would come to the wake, Henry took Charlie back to the car, sat her inside, rolled down the windows, then straightened his suit and walked back up the hill towards the blue-suited man. He'd deliberately not told William, to spare him on this terrible day.

"Mr Cromwell," Henry acknowledged, coming to a stop, with his hands in his pockets, on the other side of the grave from the man.

Abram Cromwell was smoking a nasty-looking cigar that sent thick puffs of smoke trailing across the brilliant grass of the graveyard like fog in the wind. He pinched it between two fingers and took it from his mouth as he began talking.

"Mr Emily. I know by now that you dislike beating around the bushes. Not to mention you have a wake to attend. So, I'll be blunt."

Unlike his son, the elder Mr Cromwell's voice was very gruff and nonsense free. Henry shuffled his feet a little further apart, an exercise to calm his raging emotions. A quick glance down the dirt road between the rows of headstones revealed to him the black car waiting a respectful distance away, no doubt concealing an unknown number of Mr Cromwell's signature bodyguards.

"Following this unfortunate accident, I can guarantee you that your revenue will be falling. Therefore, I have come with my last business offer before I buy all the rights when you go bankrupt."

Henry shook his head subtly. The audacity of this man. The soil was barely settled over the grave.

"In return for a sizable percentage of your income, I am more than willing to fund the future of the Freddy Fazbear franchise. You will have full control over the company, with only small input coming from my office, with regards to business matters. You shall have all the sponsorship you could dream of, and more. More than enough to begin working on your dream of *ahem* bringing the rest of your characters to life."

Too late, Henry failed to conceal his start of shock. How did the man know? A smile touched Mr Cromwell's face as he spotted Henry's reaction.

"Let's face the writing on the wall, Mr Emily. Nobody's ever going to want to go back to Fredbear's Family Diner, no matter how hard you scrub the bloodstains out of Fredbear's muzzle. But that's not to say the entire franchise is sunk. There is still potential here. But you need my backing to realize this."

"Look, I . . .," Henry began, rubbing his eyes, but he faltered. The rich man did have a point, and the backing of logic. For once, Henry couldn't just say no. The company was in too much danger of going under. And he couldn't do that to the workers. William would be horrified, but there was really no other option for them, no other source to turn to without completely flopping. It felt like selling his soul to the devil, but what choice did he have? Biting his lip, Henry tried a play for time. "Look, I just watched the burial of a kid who was like a son to me. Can I at least have a few days to think this over and discuss it with my co-owner?"

Cromwell smiled; he knew that this coup de grace had just won the war that had been raging for the past two years. "Take as much time as you need, Mr Emily. But do be aware, my patience will run thin. As will your current financial situation."

With that, he strode away, his cane flicking back and forth beside his slow, loping gait.