"YES! HAHAHAHA! NOW YOU'RE BANKRUPT!" Chica yelled in triumph, throwing her arms up. Hundred-dollar-bills fluttered to the floor like snow. The six of them had been playing Monopoly, and as it turned out, Chica was weirdly good at it. She'd won the last three games they'd played.
Ruby groaned and slumped on the table. "I don't like the side this brings out in you, Chi. It's violent." She mumbled. Then she seemed to have a change of heart as she straightened. "Actually, no. I like violence."
Freddy leaned back in his plastic folding chair. He wanted to do something different. Partially because he was sick of losing, but especially since Mangle looked a little on edge. Rightfully so, though, because there was the threat of being dismantled beyond repair looming over her head. "So, I was wondering if you guys wanted to check out that room behind the door in the kitchen? It might have something cool in it, and we never really got to check it out since we were, y'know, fighting murderous scrap robots." He suggested.
Ruby's hazel eyes lit up and she nodded. "Yeah, maybe it's haunted!" She wiggled her fingers and made spooky noises for effect.
Chica laughed. "Sureee."
The rest of them nodded. They were all in favour of this plan.
The six of them made their way down the right hallway and into the kitchen. After some tugging from Foxy and Mangle, they managed to open the creaky hidden door. Darkness loomed, and Ruby flicked on her handy-dandy night guard flashlight. However, Bonnie noticed a small switch. When he flicked it on, fluorescent lights turned on. They hummed, buzzed, and flickered, but at least they still worked. Ruby looked up and noticed a small fly roasted in the light. Yikes.
The six of them jumped down, and looked around. There were large plastic folding tables and chairs stacked against the sides. The smell of smoke, oil, and grease hung heavy in the air.
Ruby traced a smiley face in the dust on top of a shelf. "This place looks like it hasn't been touched in years. It's so weird." Ruby murmured, mainly to herself.
"I know, right? I wonder what it was used for. Maybe storage, or a workplace of some sort?" Chica theorized, examining a random porcelain lamp.
Ruby opened a small closet and gasped. "Hey Chi, look! It's an animatronic!"
Chica yelped and dashed over. When she saw what it was, she gave it an experimental tap. She shook her head. "It's just a shell, it doesn't have an endoskeleton in it. Which is good. Hmm...says here that its name is Lucky and it was entered in a robot-making contest. It won runner-up, so that's cool." Chica read off a tag on its body.
Ruby stared a little more at the humanoid animatronic. In all honesty, it kind of freaked her out, so she closed the door and let it be.
"Hey, guys, come look at this!" Bonnie called from the other side. He was jumping up and down excitedly and pointing to something Ruby and Chica couldn't quite make out. The two girls dashed over, along with Freddy, Foxy, and Mangle. It appeared that Bonnie was pointing to a tiny set of stairs leading to a small rusty red door. The door was labelled 'Authorized Personnel Only', 'Toxic Substances', and 'Poisonous Radiation'.
Ruby grinned, her eyes sparkling. "Someone hand me a lighter."
Bonnie shrugged and pulled one out of his pocket. Freddy yelped and snatched it from him before he could pass it to the chaos-thirsty Ruby. "Guys! No committing arson in our pizzeria! How many times have I told you this?!" Freddy scolded, as if talking to a class of small children.
Bonnie and Ruby mumbled something unpleasant under their breath, but didn't argue.
Cautiously, Freddy crept closer to the door. He took a deep breath, and turned the handle. When nothing jumped out at him, he took a step inside. And another. "Huh. Coast is clear." Freddy called. Ruby followed behind him, just in case something did happen to jump out at them with teeth and claws bared.
It was a small storage room, with a couple boxes labelled 'Balloons' or 'Confetti'. It looked like just another normal room. Well, it would have been a normal room, except for the fact that everything there was trashed. A blue glow emitted from a small TV that looked like it was from the eighties or nineties.
Bottles of what looked like wine lay smashed on the ground. A sticky red substance covered the walls, flies buzzing around it. The substance could have been wine or blood or anything really. Papers littered the floor, most of which looked like bills or just sheets of blank printer paper. Ruby knelt down and picked up a stained photo of a little girl with curly yellow-blonde hair and big blue eyes. When she showed the group it, their faces paled. Chica grabbed it and started to shiver.
"W-what is this place?" Chica asked nervously. Of course, nobody had the answers to that.
"I bet it has to do with a certain purple man," Mangle whispered to Chica, quietly so Ruby wouldn't hear. Chica scowled and nodded. It would certainly make sense.
Ruby walked around, inspecting everything. There was a small table in the middle with a green desk lamp and a couple of pens. A note was written there on lined paper and in purple ink. Ruby picked it up and read it aloud.
"Dear whoever finds this. Hello there, lovely person! Depending on when you find this, it could be the vast future! Do you have flying cars yet? Haha, just kidding. (But do you?) Anyways, back to business. Please burn this room to the ground. I'm sure there's a lighter somewhere. Trust me, nobody wants to know what's happened here. Some things are best left forgotten. Although, there is something you might want to find, R. Oh, and if you are a victim of purple fever (heh, I'm so great at secret codes), then you should know why. Lots and lots of love, W."
Ruby stared at the note in confusion. Purple fever? Wasn't that something that killed Ruby 2 and her mother? But he said it was a secret code…
The animatronics, however, knew exactly who the writer was and what he meant. And it wasn't good. He clearly wanted all of the evidence burned and destroyed. And purple fever most likely meant his victims, or people he'd killed and brought back to 'life' via agony or Remnant.
Suddenly, Ruby noticed something. A small black safe with a number pad to the side of it. "Hey, guys. Look at this. It looks like it needs a 4-number code…" Ruby experimentally punched in '6969'. Sadly, it failed to open.
Chica rolled her blue eyes in disappointment. "Oh my God, Ruby…"
"I know the code." Bonnie shouldered his way past everyone. They stared at him with curiosity as he punched in '2007'. The safe made a happy-sounding beep and the door opened.
"How did you…" Freddy was amazed.
"Oh, I had a dream." Bonnie said airily, as if that explained it. Nobody questioned him though, so it worked out.
Ruby looked around at the things inside. A stack of papers, four tapes, and a battered golden stuffed rabbit with a torn-off paw. Ruby picked up the first paper, expecting it to be a bill or something.
However, this would possibly be the most important paper she'd ever find. Because it read, in fancy black handwriting:
'Congratulations, Ross and Rosalie Roxanne, on your adoption of Ruby from the Saffron Falls Adoption Agency.' Enclosed was a photo of a little girl with wavy red hair, and then another one of the same girl but with wavy blonde hair and in purple ink next to it, 'they took her.'
The two girls were the same.
Ruby 2 and Ruby Roxanne were the same person.
Ruby couldn't breathe. Her heart was pounding a million miles a second. Her head went fuzzy and all the colours seemed to rush at her as the world spun black and she fell to the floor.
"Look, I found a can of red paint so we can hide the exit better!" A voice chirped cheerfully.
Ruby blinked. Her vision was blurred at the edges. Where was she?
The room was dark, but she recognized it immediately. It was the little hidden basement in the cabin in the woods. Except this time, it wasn't trashed. Drawings made in colourful crayons plastered the wall.
It was just then that Ruby noticed the little girl sitting in front of her. She had short cocoa-brown hair tied in two low pigtails, pale skin, and painted on red cheeks, blue tears, and cherry lips. She was wearing a gray T-hoodie over a shirt with striped sleeves that covered her hands. The girl was about eight, and when Ruby looked down at herself, she realized she looked to be around six.
"He-llooo? Earth to Ruby. C'mon, this is great! We might be able to sneak out soon, and then we can escape this stupid place." The girl smiled, obviously excited.
"Yeah, that's great! Um, who are you again?" Ruby asked. She looked down to see that she was in a white button-up, so long it was practically a dress. Ugh. She liked skirts, but something about dresses just didn't sit right with her. At least this one was comfortable and not tight and itchy.
The girl gave her a quizzical look. "Charlie? Your best friend since you came here? Three years? We were literally just having a conversation? That doesn't ring any bells?" Charlie tapped the side of her head twice and laughed, the sound seeming to echo endlessly across Ruby's aching head.
Ruby laughed along, though forced. "Sorry! I, uh, don't know what got into me. Something might've been messing with my head." Ruby shook herself.
Charlie looked at her sympathetically. "Was it the red serum? That stuff messes with me all the time. And I didn't even end up needing it anyways. Sometimes, I really hate the fact that I was the first guinea pig."
"Red serum?" Ruby asked. Actually, now that she thought about it, she might have heard that mentioned before. A serum of some sort, in a diary. She couldn't quite remember. Her head felt fuzzy and she couldn't feel her thumbs, as if they'd fallen asleep.
Charlie shook her head. "Dang, it must really be messing with you. Y'know, the stuff that makes you able to see ghosts? The reason your hair isn't blindingly blonde?" She grabbed a lock of Ruby's bright red, unnaturally red hair and giggled.
The rain pounded on the ceiling above.
"Right. Yeah. So, you mentioned the exit. Should we go out?" Ruby asked. Hopefully that was the right thing to say.
"Hmm. I mean, we could do it now. I think he's still out getting groceries. God, I wish I could have apples. I'm really craving them right now. Too bad he's allergic. We probably could've used them to escape, too. Feed him one and wait for him to go into shock, then hide his pen and run." Charlie tossed a nearby gray pebble up and down as she discussed her plan.
"Okay, well, let's go then! No point in wasting time." Ugh, her head really hurt. It felt like a tiny man was slamming a sledgehammer onto her skull, over and over and over again.
Charlie laughed and leaned over behind a nearby bookshelf filled with colourful children's picture books and easy-to-read novels. She pressed a small red button and a tiny door opened up. She made a gesture like a chauffeur. "After you, madam. Wow, I can't believe we'll finally escape. After like three or four years now!" Charlie sighed happily.
Ruby crawled over to a small door.
"I mean, I'm just glad I haven't been into Shadow yet." Charlie continued. Shadow was what the two of them called a sort of subspace or purgatory, where occasionally a ghost with no body would be trapped in a place of shadows with maybe a personal item with them. How did Ruby know this? She had no clue. Maybe it was an unlocked memory from her past that she'd simply blocked out.
Ruby ducked her head down and crawled into the space. She remembered this from when her and her science group had found this cabin and escaped. The memories were faded though, and she couldn't remember much.
Footsteps creaked from above, and she froze.
"Oh, pumpkin guts! He's home early- go go go! You can still make it out!" Charlie cursed.
"Wha- but what about you?"
Charlie looked up at her with desperation in her eyes. "Just- go, okay? I-I'll try and find you. Some time. Please please please don't stay on account of me. We'll meet again soon, okay? I promise."
"But-"
The footsteps got louder and started to come from a door to the left of them. Charlie looked back at well, eyes glimmering.
"Ruby, please! I swear, I will never forgive myself if you don't escape, so stop dwelling on the past and get your butt out of here!"
Ruby sniffled. Was she crying? Why was she crying? She didn't know this person. And yet…
No. She had to leave. Quickly, she took a step forward and-
And then the colours and scenery around her changed, as she was now running through the rain, at night. Her bare feet made slapping sounds against the cool hard concrete. Her thick red hair was wet and in sodden dark clumps. She was running through the city, town, whatever. Ruby couldn't stop, wouldn't stop running. For all she knew, he could be after her.
"Oof!"
She'd bumped into a tall lady in a yellow dress. The lady looked down, slightly annoyed, but her face turned to concern when she saw the soaked little girl in a bedraggled white nightgown and dirty feet. "Are you okay? Where are your parents?" The lady asked gently. She reached down to touch her hair but Ruby slapped her hand away and turned, running down a shadowed alleyway. She couldn't get caught.
Down and down corners she went. She passed two people smoking, dumpsters and garbage bags, and- oh! A kitty! Ruby stopped. There was a poor little raggedy gray tabby kitten, wet and with fur missing. One of it's yellow eyes was leaking with pus. Ruby made a tsking sound and tried to get the kitty to come closer to her.
Sirens wailed, and red and blue flashed down the alleyway. Ruby yelped. The kitty would have to wait. She ran down further, but it was a dead end. She was trapped.
Police made their way down the alley, and the little girl flattened herself against the wall. Ruby would not get caught.
A burly man with light skin and blond hair crept closer. He quickly hissed something into a walkie-talkie, then turned his focus back to Ruby. "Hey, little girl. It's okay, we're not here to hurt you." He coaxed.
Ruby shook her head and curled up into a ball. Tears streamed down her face, mixing with the rainwater.
The policeman advanced closer.
Woah. And there was a ringing sound in her ears, and a flash of colours, and now she was sitting on a creaky bed in a large, brightly lit room with lots of other kids. A small girl with straight short black hair and olive-green eyes blinked at her from her spot kneeled on the floor. "Hi. I'm Raven. Mommy says she likes you."
Ray?
Memories flooded back to her. Raven and her sitting in a sandbox. Walking to school. Lying on their beds just talking. Sharing secrets on the swing set.
Ruby smiled. "Hiya, Raven. I'm Ruby."
"Is she okay?"
"I'm not sure…"
"Hey, look, she's waking up!"
"Lass, can ye hear me? How many fingers am I holdin' up?"
"That's your hook, Foxy."
"So it is!"
Ruby rubbed her eyes. Then she sat up.
Her friends were all looking at her with concern in their eyes. "Are you okay, Rubes? We read the papers. You kinda blacked out there for a bit."
Ruby shook herself, then looked around. Memories flooded back to her. Charlie. Running through the night. The adoption agency. Everything…
"I...I remember. William, he took me from my father. And then I was in this dark room, with a girl called Charlie. And Charlie and I were best friends. And then we built an exit three years later, but only I got out. And then the police caught me, and my family...adopted me."
She exhaled slowly. That was a lot to take in.
The animatronics were shooting each other worried and shocked glances. "Charlie? Like, Charlotte Emily? The puppet?" Freddy asked, just to confirm.
Ruby frowned, her brows creasing. "Uh, yeah, I guess she did kinda look like a puppet. She had black hair and dark eyes and had these blue stripes on her face and red cheeks."
Freddy whispered something to Bonnie, who whispered it to Chica, and so forth. They all exchanged looks, and nodded. He took a deep breath.
"So...Ruby. We haven't been completely honest with you."
Ruby looked at them in confusion. "What?"
"We have a secret, too."