A/N: Here we are. This is my first venture into genuinely dark territory. My other fics throughout the years, even at their most serious or darkest hours, had never required me to actually use a trigger warning before. This is the first time I've ever had to actually post one, and in this fic, it won't be the last. All I'll say for now is this. If you hated William Afton before, you'll really hate him by the time this chapter is done.

While I don't normally solicit reviews for fics, in this case I'm going to make an exception. As this is my first time tackling a dark topic directly and completely, I'd like to ask for your opinions on how I did and/or what to improve in the future. Despite being a writer for some time now, there are still territories that I have yet to explore, and I would be incredibly appreciative of any advice that you guys can give me.

Trigger Warning: References to violence, child abuse

Chapter 5 – The Broken Afton

Looking back, Mike would be incredibly thankful that the Marionette had been with him that night. He had been struck speechless by Elizabeth's self-condemnation, and yet somehow the Marionette had known exactly what to say at that critical moment.

"That's not true, Elizabeth," the Marionette spoke comfortingly as she gently stroked Elizabeth's ghostly hair. "If you truly deserved to suffer in eternal agony, you would not be here now. No matter how much you try to deny it, I can sense that you want a home and a place to rest just as much as the other ghosts here."

Elizabeth shook her head frantically. "You don't know what I've done," she mumbled. "All the evil I tried to do, all the wrongs I've already done."

"I know more than you think I do, Elizabeth," the Puppet replied, not giving up an inch. "I would even go so far as to say that I know more than you yourself do about what has happened to you. And I can say, with absolute certainty, that you are not the monster that you think you are or that your father tried to make you become."

Mike finally found his voice. "The fact that you feel guilty about whatever you did do is already a good sign, in my books," he added. "But I think you should tell us the whole story. It would give us a better understanding of what happened to you, and how to help you recover."

The evening was beginning to descend into night, and a warm breeze was flowing through the air. Mike flicked the switch for the outside lights on, shut the front door, and sat down on a chair he had brought onto his porch many years ago. "Now, why don't you start at the beginning?"

Elizabeth sighed. "It was several years ago. I don't remember the exact time anymore, but it was at a birthday party. There was one animatronic that I used to love…Circus Baby. She was a singing animatronic, and I wanted to play with her. But my father…William Afton…he absolutely refused to let me play near her. At the time, I didn't understand why he was so insistent on not letting me play. So I sneaked off to play with her anyway, and she offered me an ice cream from a claw inside her belly. I tried to take it, but it suddenly grabbed me and then…and then…"

The girl broke down into tears, and the Marionette rushed to soothe her. Mike felt a cold chill as he realized what had happened. The animatronic had sucked her into its body and killed her.

"All I remember is the pain…" she murmured in a broken voice. "The pain before the darkness finally ended it. I could feel Baby's insides tear me apart, ripping apart my bones and tearing at the insides of my body. I…I don't even think it would be recognizable anymore, if anyone ever found it. I thought dad would come and save me, but he…he never did. Nobody ever came to help me."

Mike felt a hot rage ignite in his soul. What kind of psychopathic maniac would design this type of gruesome fate for innocent children? The fact that his own daughter had been in the same building as that killer animatronic was a fucking disgrace in and of itself!

Even as he seethed with anger on the inside, he made sure that his face expressed nothing but sympathy for the poor girl in front of him. Considering how emotionally fragile Elizabeth was, she could easily misinterpret his rage as being directed towards her specifically, and that would be nothing short of a catastrophe.

"Do you remember what happened when you regained consciousness?" Mary asked quietly.

Elizabeth took several breaths to calm herself down. "When I woke up…it was in a dark room. I looked at my hands, and they were metal. One of them was a holding a microphone. It took me a long time to realize what was going on. I'd…somehow become Baby. I don't know how or why. The only things around me were the other Pizza Rental animatronics. I tried to form friendships with them…but it wasn't the same. They weren't living like you are, Mr. Mike. I was all alone…and then it started happening."

Mike instantly became wary. "What started happening?"

"I kept hearing…voices…thoughts…in my head," the girl confessed. "Telling me that I should kill other children. Act like a friend to them, get them to trust me, and then…get rid of them. I…I was horrified. I didn't know where they came from, but I had never thought anything like that before. I tried to block them out, refuse them, and at first I could fight or at least ignore them. Over the next few years, Baby was rented out to some birthday parties, and nothing bad ever happened. I don't know if it was because I could stop Baby from killing, or because there were always parents around and the animatronics were designed not to attack unless the children were alone. But they never went away completely. I could always hear them in the back of my mind."

"That must have been Baby's programming," Mike thought grimly, "starting to screw with Elizabeth's soul. She's stronger than she thinks, if she was able to block that out for years." He could already tell from these beginning details that Elizabeth's fate had been the worst out of all the ghosts. The others had always had each other for companionship at the very least, and the capability of free will.

"Over time, I learned that the other animatronics were just as tired of hurting children," Elizabeth continued. "I was so excited when I heard that. I thought that maybe, just maybe, they were more human and had more emotions than I thought. And that gave me hope."

"Hope..." Mike repeated, suddenly looking much older than he had a second ago. "It can be one of the greatest things to keep your spirit going…or one of life's greatest liars." He glanced at the Marionette, who returned his gaze sadly; both had a feeling they knew which it would be for the girl in front of them.

"Knowing that I wasn't alone after all inspired me. I felt I was meant to be their leader, and I wanted to be the one who would free us from the evil that my fa…my former father forced us to do. Even better, the voices in my head stopped for a while, almost as if they agreed with what I was doing. I spent many months after that trying to come up with a plan. We would take parts of our bodies and fuse them together to make a single animatronic. We would then lure a single person into what was known as the Scooping Room, take out his organs, and wear that person's skin as a living human being," Elizabeth looked down at the ground in shame. "I didn't want to kill anyone, but it was the only thing I could think of to finally free us all from our prison."

Mary placed a hand on her shoulder. "All of us have done worse than you have, and for less noble reasons, Elizabeth. I have no right to judge you, and I do not think Mike will judge you either."

Elizabeth tilted her head and back and looked into the Marionette's comforting gaze. The haunted puppet's words had comforted her, but not by much. "Very few people ever came to the abandoned Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental. When they did, the other animatronics were too eager to kill them and take their bodies so we could carry out our plan. I tried to stop them, tried to get them to follow the specific plan I had created. But they did not listen, and the way they killed the first two rendered their bodies useless for our plan. Over time, Ballora began to have doubts about whether my plan was a good idea after all. Then, the third one came, and with him the ticket to our salvation."

Mike opened his mouth to speak, but Mary silenced him with a shake of her head. "Continue," she beckoned.

"This third man survived where the others failed, and all of us could sense that we would finally be free. On the fifth night, we combined our bodies together to create Ennard, and lured the new technician over to the Scooper Room so that we could take his body for his own," Elizabeth sighed sadly. "I wish it had never come to that, but all of us agreed that his death was a necessary evil. Wearing a human's skin, we could finally be free of the torment that had been forced upon us."

Mike shook his head. "Except that's not how it works," he replied. "Humans aren't just a large bag of skin. It needs organs, blood, things to keep the body running. Or else it will just rot away and decay."

"We didn't know how humans worked," Elizabeth argued. "The other animatronics were never human to begin with, and I barely learned anything about the human body even before I started forgetting details about when I was still alive."

Mike shrugged. "Fair enough."

"At first, we thought the plan had gone off perfectly. We were able to walk around in the body that we had taken, and others greeted us like a fellow human. We felt…normal," Elizabeth described wistfully. "And then…things started to go wrong. It is like you said, Mr. Mike. The body started to decay. The same humans who once welcomed us started to avoid us, and then the man we claimed spit our body out. We had no choice but to flee into the sewers, and somehow the body we had taken started to move even without any natural means to live." Elizabeth's face began to sadden again, and both Mike and the Marionette knew that the worst was about to be revealed.

"Without a human body to hide under, our true nature was revealed. We could not even perform for children anymore, for what child would want to be anywhere near the monster we had become? We didn't understand what was going on….and the other animatronics blamed me for our failure," Elizabeth's eyes began to tear up, and Mary whispered comforting words Mike couldn't hear. "Our hopes for freedom were crushed, and I realized that the others never saw me as a true friend. I…I lost control of myself. I snapped back. I got angry at them, said things that I shouldn't have. And then they kicked me out, leaving me a bare shell of my former self."

"This is far too real for my liking," Mike muttered. Both Elizabeth and Mary looked up at him with concern, but the man shook his head. "Sorry, some bad memories."

Elizabeth sighed. "I do not know what happened to Ennard after I was banished, but my plan failed in one more way. The voices that I thought had been gone came back, and this time they were stronger than ever. I tried to fight them like I had before, but I was in so much pain after being ejected that I was getting weaker and weaker. It was all I could do to not give in and attack the closest child I could find on the streets, and so many times I was tempted to just give in entirely and become a monster after all. I fled back to the place that, despite being a barren prison, had been the closest thing to a home I had since my death. I thought that I could repair myself slowly, and maybe regain my strength. But when I arrived there, there was someone waiting for me."

Mary's eyes narrowed furiously, and Mike had gone pale. "Springtrap," both of them hissed.

"When I arrived at the Pizza Rental, an animatronic was waiting for me," she whispered, and the shame from earlier was coming back in full force. "I had never seen him before, but he told me that he was my father, and that he was sorry for leaving me to die all those years ago. He told me that he had a grand purpose for me, and that by fulfilling that purpose I would be his good little girl. He told me that there were other souls that were stopping him from fulfilling that purpose, and that we needed to find them and bring together to a new Pizzeria so that we could begin a new Afton era." At this, the girl burst into tears again. "He lied to me!" she wailed. "He only saw me as just another tool for his evil plans! All he wanted was for me to become another monster like him, a murderer of innocent children!"

Mike couldn't help himself anymore. He opened his arms out to the broken Afton, and the girl desperately accepted, completing the hug as she wept freely into his chest. She hadn't been in control of her abilities long enough to manifest a physical presence, but that didn't matter to either of them right now. The Puppet looked over at the duo sympathetically, but nearly recoiled when she saw the expression on Mike's face. It was currently a model of sympathy and compassion for the girl in front of him, but Mary had known the man far longer than most.

She knew she hadn't imagined the fleeting sliver of hatred and rage that had crossed his face at the mention of William Afton's most despicable atrocity.

When Elizabeth had finally calmed down, Mike released her and wordlessly gestured for her to continue her story. "If I had been fully aware of what was going on, I might have refused. But I was so…tired. So tired of being alone, so tired of being hated, so tired of fighting the voices that had plagued my mind for years. To my eternal shame, I finally gave in…" Elizabeth admitted. "I gave in to my father, I gave in to the voices. Maybe they were right after all, and all my fighting had been for nothing. I listened to my father's instructions as he helped in my recreation, and followed him to the Pizzeria to carry out his orders." The tiniest of smiles flickered across her face. "I did not know that it was a lie by a man more cunning than him, a trick to end everything once and for all. But whoever that man or his employee were, I am thankful that they had outsmarted us. I am thankful that they destroyed us and that they destroyed him. He ended the nightmare…" the ghost of a smile disappeared. "But he cannot erase the guilt of my crimes. He cannot erase the fact that, in the end, I became a monster just like my father. And I must live with that fact forever."

"What happened to you afterwards?" Mike asked.

Elizabeth shrugged. "I'm…not actually sure," she admitted. "At the very moment that the Baby animatronic was destroyed, I felt all the evil influences in my life lift from my soul, and I was certain that I would be joining my father in Hell for aiding in his crimes. Instead, I fell into what I can only guess is unconsciousness, and when I woke up, I found myself still on Earth. I felt…something…call me here. Even though the last person I trusted was a monster, there was something about this presence that convinced me I should come here. I was afraid…I was a murderous monster like my father before me. But…I had to try, one last time…"

The Marionette and Mike smiled. "We're glad you did," the latter said warmly, as the Marionette leaned down to look straight in Elizabeth's eyes.

"Listen to me, Elizabeth," the Marionette instructed, and her tone had completely shifted into that of a stern mother, whose words demanded absolute attention and held no room for argument. Mike still marveled at the fact that, despite dying as a little girl not too long before the other ghost children, she was an adult in all but physical age. "You are not a monster. Not even close. Your animatronic was different than the others. Freddy, Foxy, Bonnie, Chica…none of them had any type of malevolent purpose programmed into their core. Circus Baby was designed from the very beginning to kidnap and murder children, innocent children like you who had no idea what was hiding underneath. That programming twisted and tainted your soul, or at the very least made you much more vulnerable to Springtrap's lies and manipulations. You are not a monster. You are a victim. The most tragic victim in the entire nightmare of Fazbear's history, not just of murder but of a cold-hearted betrayal from one who should have loved you with his heart. The ghost children inside this house at least had each other for company and could exercise their own free will. You were trapped alone in the dark for years without any true friends, an isolation that can drive others insane even without any external malevolence. You tried to fight off that evil as long as you could, and you succeeded for years where others would have surrendered before all of your grief and ill fortune came crashing down upon you and Springtrap pushed you over the edge."

For the first time, a glimmer of hope could be seen in Elizabeth Afton's eyes. "Do you…do you really mean that?"

The Marionette nodded. "Absolutely. Elizabeth, we are not blameless either. All of our hands are, from a technical standpoint, stained with the blood of more innocents than the one who killed us. Even if I realized that I was destroying my own morals earlier than the rest, I and the others chose to kill of our own free will. You did not have that freedom, and we would be hypocrites of the worst kind to condemn you when you have technically killed only one person."

Elizabeth's lips stretched into a hopeful smile, and this time her new friend and parent could clearly see it. "Thank you…thank you…" she whispered, and her tears this time were of relief and happiness she hadn't felt in years. But a thought suddenly occurred to her, and that clouded her joy. "But what if…what if the others reject me? I don't want to be surrounded by people who hate me…"

Mike got up. "Well that's just too fucking bad for them, isn't it?" he snapped. "There's another thing that nobody's mentioned you. Let's take out all the shit in your past, Elizabeth. You've technically done nothing to harm me at any point in my entire life. The others? They have, or at least tried to. Multiple times. As far as I'm concerned, you have more of a right to be a part of this household than they do, and if they can't accept that then they can get the fuck out!"

"Calm down, Mike!" Mary pleaded, and Mike took in several deep breaths to cool down his mental state. "I promise you, Mike, that it will not come to that. The ghost kids are wiser than they were when they attacked you, and once I tell them what I have told Elizabeth, they will welcome her or at the very least accept her."

"I trust you," Elizabeth added as she reached out and clung to the Puppet's arm like a child clinging to a parent. "I trust both of you."

As the three of them continued to talk, none of them noticed the ghost child watching them from inside. While the other children hadn't noticed Mike's and Mary's disappearance, Fritz had always been the most alert and aware out of all of them. He'd seen the two walk past the room where they were watching their movie, and he'd followed them at a stealthy distance out to the front door. Using his ghostly vision, he had immediately recognized the girl in front of them, and while he'd felt a spark of rage at seeing his murderer's daughter, the broken and miserable look on her face had snuffed it out just as quickly.

"For fuck's sake…" Foxy's former inhabitant muttered as Elizabeth told her tale. "She's had it so much worse than any of us ever did." By the time she had finished, Fritz had to fight the urge to break his cover and wrap her in a hug like Mike had, even as his already soul-searing hatred for William Afton reached new levels that he hadn't even thought possible.

"…and if they can't accept that, then they can get the fuck out!" Mike was saying, and Fritz nearly panicked at that sentence. Thanks to the nature of their redemption quest, they could only stay if Mike allowed them to, and if he kicked them out then they would be forced to leave. But that wouldn't happen. Gabe, Jeremy, Susie, even Cassidy to a degree…they were all more mature than him. If he of all people could accept Elizabeth, then they would too, he rationalized, especially once the Puppet explained everything to them. But a small part of him kept whispering into his ear. "What if they don't?"

He was the only one who already knew Elizabeth's story, and that meant he needed to take initiative. Mike and the Marionette were already having a hugely positive effect on Elizabeth, but they were closer to parents than anything. Elizabeth needed a friend, someone who would be the first to welcome her, help her get adjusted to the closest thing a ghost kid could have to a normal life, and have her back. Despite everything, Fritz couldn't help but smile dryly at the sudden responsibility. "Guess it's time to put on the ol' Foxy the Pirate charm one more time," he thought as he slipped away, back to where the other ghost kids were watching the movie. But he wasn't interested in Star Wars anymore. He had more important things to focus on now.

/

Well, I was certainly a very busy boy for the early part of this week. Poor Elizabeth…out of every victim of the tainted Fazbear legacy, she got fucked over the hardest by far, in my personal opinion. Many of the details were already provided by Sister Location, but there is still a lot of potential backstory left in the dark that I have tried to fill in the best I can.

A lot of you who are familiar with the FNAF lore are probably wondering why I haven't made any mention of Eggs Benedict being Michael Afton, Elizabeth's brother. Considering how interested I am in the backstory of FNAF, how could I make such an elementary mistake and forget such a crucial detail?

I didn't forget. It wasn't a mistake. There's a reason why I left it out, and to say anything further would risk spoilers for what might very well be the darkest part of the entire story.

While the other ghost kids are pretty well-established in their relationships with each other (if that statement makes any sense), I feel like Elizabeth will bond to some more closely and more quickly than she will with others. She'll obviously form familial relationships quickly with Mike and the Marionette, but I also wanted her to have a particularly close friendship with one of the ghost kids from the get-go before she and the rest warm up to each other. And, I don't even really know why, I just imagined Fritz would be the best for that :P Maybe cause they're the same age or have personalities that are drastically different from each other.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this rather lengthy chapter! Please let me know how I did in tackling a darker topic full-on.