A/N: This is gonna be another filler chapter since I wanted to write a Christmas-themed one, but I am dropping a few hints to show that Security Breach won't be long in coming. Someone recommended a chapter based on A Christmas Carol (you know, that story about Ebenezer Scrooge), and since we have an animated adaptation about it that came out in 2009. An animated movie that, a few moments aside, is honestly very faithful to the original book and definitely one of the better interpretations of Charles Dickens' famous story out there.
Commenter: There are consequences for one's actions, as this story has made very clear. The way Hell is presented in MNGF, even in Hell there are SOME protections imposed by Heaven on the torments of the damned based on how severe their crimes are. William Afton willingly made the choice to be as cruel to the ghost kids as possible even after his damnation, and lost all of his protections because of it. He has no one but himself to blame for his especially cruel torments, and while the Schmidt family may not actively despise and want to make him suffer anymore, nobody is going to shed a tear for him either.
The existential horror hasn't really sunk in for any of them, but that's probably because they don't care enough for William Afton's welfare to really think about his situation. And if you think that's too harsh, keep in mind that "don't care" is already a significant step up from "actively hating and wanting to make him suffer as much as possible," given all the horrible shit William forced them through in the past and during this fic.
ThePencilDude: I don't mind you writing chapters inspired by this fic, but I want to make it abundantly clear that those chapters will NOT be considered canon to the story. Otherwise I'd have to incorporate every chapter written by a fan into MNGF and that just doesn't seem like a good idea, especially when I'm already making plans to wrap this fic up in the future.
Enriqueyorman235: Yes, Circus Baby was made to kill children from the start, cause William's a piece of shit.
TheDarkSide857: I have absolutely no idea what those even are, and Ohio's not my original hometown.
ICA Agent 57: I haven't had the chance to try Help Wanted 2 yet. Given how I'm planning on wrapping this fic up soon after finishing Security Breach and Ruin, I'm probably not gonna go super in detail into it.
Chapter 199 – A Christmas Carol Part 1
It wasn't until the middle of December that Fazbear Entertainment finally made its official declaration about when they would be opening the doors of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex to the general public.
"The beginning of February, huh?" Mike muttered as he read the announcement. It was a fairly standard announcement on the Internet as far as he was concerned, with a few flashy colors and rock star decorations. Obviously, he and the ghost kids had only seen the inside of the Pizzaplex before all the decorations had been put in, but even in those early stages the golden statue of Glamrock Freddy that they had seen had been a particularly impressive specimen and given them plenty of hints as to the nature of the Pizzaplex.
"That's later than I thought," Liz admitted. "I kinda thought they were gonna open this up on Christmas or something like that."
"Maybe before we got involved," Jeremy replied with a thoughtful look. "They probably pushed things back a lot after we made them change up the building to get rid of the fire exits."
"Well, at least we now have a time for when to get ready to go back there," Gabe answered, before turning to Mike. "Should we post online and try to change public opinion one way or another before we go?"
Mike shook his head. "I think it's best if we leave things be for now. You guys can post online and try to sway public opinion back towards a more balanced perspective if everyone is being either too positive or too negative, but otherwise let's give people some time to come to their own conclusions first."
"You gotta make sure Fazbear Entertainment invite you back to see the completed building first before you let them up to the public though!" Cassidy insisted. "We need to make sure they didn't lie and try to mess up with the fire exits again!"
"That's something we're gonna have to deal with closer to opening day," Charlie replied with a frown. "Dad might have enough leverage to get another tour of the building a few days before Grand Opening, but I highly doubt they're gonna let him visit earlier than that."
"I don't have a good reason TO visit their building too early, so that's a problem we're gonna have to set aside for now," Mike acknowledged.
"Yeah," Fritz agreed, before immediately perking up as a thought occurred to him. "Besides, we shouldn't have to worry about things like this when it's almost Christmas!"
"Can we celebrate Christmas with the Marshalls this year?" Susie asked eagerly. "I don't think we've ever celebrated a Christmas with them yet!"
"That might be hard to pull off if Ryan and Stella are inviting a lot of people into their house this year," Mike answered, before shrugging. "I think it's definitely worth a shot, though. Let me give them a call and see what they think."
He opened up his phone and left the room, the ghosts waiting nervously to hear back from him. After a few moments, Mike returned with a satisfied grin on his face. "We're in luck, everyone!" he declared. "Ryan told me that he and his family were just gonna stay at home and celebrate Christmas by themselves this year, but that they'll be happy to invite us to join their get-together!"
His children all cheered at the news. "Hell yeah!" Fritz whooped. "It's been so long since we hung out at their house!"
"I gotta go talk to Alex and Meghan and ask them what they wanna do!" Cassidy declared, already opening up her laptop to coordinate plans with the two Marshall siblings.
"We're not gonna do anything crazy, right?" Liz wondered. "Like traveling to another city just to see a haunted house, right?"
Mike shook his head. "Nah. It sounds like the Marshalls want to take things easy for Christmas, and if we're gonna be showing up at their house at the last minute we should absolutely respect that."
"Not gonna argue with that," Gabe agreed. "They're already being really nice inviting us over to their house to begin with."
"It's been so long since the last time we've been over at their house," Susie commented wistfully. "Do you guys think it's changed a lot since the last time we were there?"
Charlie shrugged. "Only one way to find out, I guess." She smiled. "Still, let's just focus on finding things to do so we can enjoy our time there, yeah?"
One Week Later, on Christmas Day…
"Oh, wow!" Cassidy gushed as they approached the street where the Marshalls lived. "They really went all-out in decorating the houses here!"
"It's really amazing how creative people can get with this," Gabe commented approvingly as they passed by a house that was positively covered in multicolored lights, including a few that had been arranged to be in the shape of Santa Claus. "How do you even ARRANGE lights like that?"
"A lot of time, creativity, and experience," Mike replied with a smirk. "You just gotta make sure you don't accidentally create a major fire hazard. Nothing ruins the Christmas spirit quite like burning down your own house on Christmas."
"Yeah I probably wouldn't be celebrating all that much if that happened," Fritz replied dryly.
Mike drove his van past the rows of houses, slowing as he approached the driveway to the Marshalls' house. The Marshalls had decorated their house on the more conservative side, with little more than a few multicolored Christmas lights strewn around the balcony and front door of the house and a wreath hanging on the front door.
"Aww, I kinda wish they did more with the lights," Susie sighed. "We were able to decorate our house like crazy with no problems!"
Mike raised an eyebrow. "You do realize that you're ghosts, who can fly into the air and carry lights up to the top of house with no risk to your health whatsoever," he pointed out in a deadpan tone. "Unlike living humans, who can't fly and can risk serious injury from falling off their ladders or roofs if they aren't careful."
Susie had the grace to look embarrassed. "Oh, right… sorry…" the former Chica inhabitant muttered sheepishly.
Mike shrugged as he turned the car off. "Doesn't bother me any. Just don't make any kind of comment like that in front of the Marshalls and you shouldn't have any problems."
"I won't," she promised as they got out of the car. Mike approached the front door with the ghosts floating invisibly behind him, and he rang the doorbell. Barely a few seconds later, the door swung open and Stella greeted him with a warm smile.
"Hi, Mike!" Ryan's wife cheerfully greeted him. "Come on in, Ryan and the kids will be happy to see you! Did you bring your own kids with you?"
"Yep, just close the door behind you so that nobody sees a bunch of ghosts in your house," Mike replied without missing a beat. Stella did as he suggested, and the ghost kids all materialized in the house. "Say hi to Stella, everyone."
"Hi, Mrs. Marshall!" the ghost kids all chorused.
"Hi, all of you," Stella returned the greeting, before shaking her head in bemusement. "I still can't believe I live in a world where ghosts provably exist," she mumbled. "Your life must've taken a turn for the surreal, Mike."
Mike only chuckled at that comment. "Oh, Stella…you have absolutely no idea."
"Well, glad to see they're keeping you busy after you retired," Stella commented with a light laugh. "Anyways, Alex and Meghan are waiting for you upstairs, they'll be glad to see you."
"Thanks!" The ghosts replied, before floating up into the air to join their living friends. The two teens had been about to open up a movie when the ghost kids showed up in their bedroom.
"Oh, hey guys!" Alex happily greeted them. "Glad you could make it!"
"You caught us at the right time!" Meghan added. "We were just about to start watching A Christmas Carol!"
"That movie about Scrooge, right?" Gabe asked, earning two nods of confirmation from his living friends. "Aren't there like…a thousand different versions of that movie?"
"Yeah, but there's one from 2009 that's really good," Alex commented. "Figured we'd pick that one to watch today."
The ghost kids shrugged. "I'm not complaining," Cassidy replied. "Let's watch the movie!"
The living and dead children flocked around the desktop computer screen as the younger Marshall sibling started the movie. They were immediately greeted with the positively glamorous sight of Jacob Marley's corpse lying dead inside a coffin, his eyes covered with 2 gold coin eyes. They watched silently as Scrooge, a hunched and hideous old man with a permanent scowl on his face, very reluctantly give a single coin to the coroner as payment for confirming Marley's death certificate…right before stealing the two coins from Jacob Marley's eyes and using them as a tip for the coroner's son.
"Tuppence is tuppence," Scrooge growled before walking away, clearly not caring about the tradition of honoring the dead in the slightest.
"Wow…" Charlie shook her head in disbelief at this immediate demonstration of Scrooge's greed. "We're off to a great start, aren't we?"
"This guy really is a dick before he turns good, isn't he?" Fritz commented dryly.
"He starts out as a dick no matter what version of the story you're watching," Alex commented. "The only question is how much of a dick he is."
The poor first impression of Ebenezer Scrooge did not improve as they watched him walk through the streets on his cane, a permanent scowl marring his face and providing a sharp contrast to the festive and joyful music that surrounded the rest of London. The kids watched as the time shifted to seven Christmas Eves later, watching Scrooge greedily and obsessively counting his money. They watched as Scrooge's nephew Fred barged into the office to merrily greet his uncle and invite him to Christmas dinner at his house, only for Scrooge to coldly rebuff his nephew and dismiss the value of Christmas with his iconic "Bah, Humbug!" His treatment of other men wasn't any better, as he completely rejected two men's request to collect alms for the poor and only very reluctantly give Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off after ranting about how giving an extra day's wages once a year for Christmas was no better than picking a man's pocket.
"Okay, wow…" Cassidy muttered. "This guy really is a complete jerk, isn't he?" She asked, succinctly summarizing every single person in the room's impression of Scrooge.
"It's Ebenezer Scrooge in the first part of the story," Meghan deadpanned. "What did you expect?"
"I seriously don't understand how he can't have fun on Christmas," Liz shook her head in bemusement as they watched Bob Cratchit joyfully slide down an icy street, before the film cut back to Scrooge slowly walking up to his mansion. "Does fun just straight-up not exist for this guy? Did his life suck at childhood or something?"
"You'll see," Alex promised as they watched Scrooge approach the front door to his house…only to stop short as the knocker to his door was replaced by the ghostly, deathly green face of a withered old man with wisps of hair flowing out of the sides of his head. The ghostly face's eyes were completely closed, his mouth perfectly positioned over the knocker.
"Uh…" Susie stared nervously at the face in the knocker. "Is that…who I think it is?"
"Yeah, that's the face of Jacob Marley," Alex confirmed, sounding noticeably less happy than he had been seconds before.
"I have a really bad feeling about this," Jeremy muttered.
They watched with nervous anticipation as Scrooge slowly approached the door…only for Jacob Marley's eyes to suddenly open wide, his mouth suddenly open into a soundless snarl with rotten teeth flying out of it, all accompanied with a very loud fang. Scrooge screamed in terror and stumbled backward, falling head over heels down the stairs, and the ghost kids looked just as terrified.
"Holy SHIT!" Fritz exclaimed as Scrooge looked up with dread at the door, only for the face of Jacob Marley to have completely vanished. "What the hell was THAT?"
"One of the scariest scenes in this entire movie," Alex answered. "They've actually got quite a few horrifying scenes in this movie, a lot more than you'd expect from A Christmas Carol in general."
"That was one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen," Gabe admitted. "Maybe cause like you said, I wasn't expecting to see something like this from a KID'S movie out of all things!"
A mischievous expression suddenly appeared on Cassidy's face. "You think I could show my face in front of a door and try to scare Dad like that?" she wondered with faux-innocence. "Maybe turn my eyes into black voids when I open them?"
"Wait, you can do that?" Meghan asked incredulously. In response, Cassidy allowed her eyes to transform into empty voids, complete with equally black tears pouring out of her sockets.
"We can all do it!" she cheerfully replied, as though her face wasn't one of the most horrifying things either Marshall sibling had ever seen in real life.
"…Never do that again, please," Alex muttered as Cassidy turned her eyes back to normal. "I don't need to have nightmares the night after Christmas Day, this movie can get scary enough as is."
"As for whether you think it'll scare Dad, please," Charlie scoffed. "He's seen way scarier stuff than that."
"True…" Cassidy conceded as Scrooge climbed up his stairs and prepared a meal in his bedroom. A meal that was soon interrupted by the sound of clanking chains and heavy metal boxes being dragged up the stairs towards the door leading to Scrooge's bedroom. The sounds of banging metal ceased for a few seconds, just long enough for Scrooge to begin to think about denying the reality of what he was hearing…only for several ghostly pale-green metal boxes attached to winding spectral chains to barge through the door, slamming to the ground with heavy thuds. A few seconds later, Jacob Marley himself floated into the room, buried in the same clothes with which he had been laid into his coffin. His entire head was wrapped with a singular bandage…and his entire body was wrapped in chains, the same chains that were attached to the heavy metal lockboxes that had been thrown into the room a few seconds later.
If there was any doubt about who this ghost was, it was dashed away as he declared himself to have been Jacob Marley in life.
"That is one terrifying ghost," Liz mumbled.
"All those chains wrapped around him like that…" Susie murmured sympathetically. "And he's stuck with them forever? Poor guy…"
Fritz shuddered. "I'm just glad we didn't have anything like that happen to us," he muttered. "Especially after the crap we pulled."
Alex and Meghan both gave him sympathetic glances. It had taken them a while, but their ghostly friends had come clean a few months ago about the circumstances behind why they were being left on Earth, and the murders they had committed while trapped not just in the bodies of the Freddy Fazbear animatronics, but also their own rage and insanity. Both of them had understandably been horrified by the crimes they had committed several decades ago, but they also understood that they were genuinely remorseful for their crimes and that the people they were now were completely different from the vengeful murderers they had been before they had been freed from animatronics.
It had been difficult for the Marshalls to come to terms with their friends' past sins, but they had eventually accepted them and still considered them friends despite it. Partially because their father had already known and yet still trusted them enough to be safe around them, and partially because they knew, deep in their hearts, that they probably wouldn't have been any better if they had been in the ghosts' shoes.
"Hey, at least Heaven's giving you another chance, right?" Alex asked encouragingly. "Clearly they didn't think you deserved to be wrapped up in chains like that, seeing how you're here right now."
"Definitely doing a lot better than that guy," Meghan pointed at the TV screen, where Marley was howling, wailing, and shaking his chains in pure anguish and despair.
They listened to the ghost of Jacob Marley explain how he had crafted the chains wrapped around his soul by his own greed and lack of empathy towards his fellow man, how he was now trapped in those chains for all eternity with no hope of escape or rest…and that Scrooge himself was destined to wear a chain that was even longer than the one Marley wore.
"That is just horrifying," Liz pointed out what everyone was thinking. "Can you imagine being trapped like that forever? It sounds like something straight out of Hell!"
"You'd think being in Hell would be worse than being trapped on Earth in chains as a restless spirit," Gabe remarked as Marley detailed how he was forced to wander the Earth eternally with no hope for rest or peace, "but the way he describes it I have my doubts."
The point emphasized even further as Jacob Marley let out a particularly loud wail as Scrooge made a rather insensitive comment about Marley being a good man of business, one that was so violent that the ghost's jaw straight-up dislocated in the middle of it.
"Oh my God!" Susie shrieked in disgust. "Did his JAW just fall off?"
"Even as a ghost this guy's a rotting corpse," Jeremy sounded completely nauseated. "Man, this guy just can't catch a break, can he?"
"He does make a good point, though," Charlie pointed out as the ghost of Marley, with his jaw still dislocated, countered Scrooge's claim by stating that mankind and the common good of people around him should have been his business but wasn't. "Humans really should care more about the people around them. He never gave a crap about anyone except himself and his money, and that's what led him to end up like this."
"At least we know Scrooge will learn that lesson before it's too late…eventually…" Alex commented. They watched as Marley gave his iconic warning about how Scrooge would be haunted by 3 spirits, each of whom would be key to his redemption and avoiding his soul being trapped in chains just as Marley had been. His spirit began to fly away towards the window, signaling the end of his brief respite. And as he departed, he ended up pulling what looked like a ghostly form of Scrooge's chair to the window, dragging Scrooge to the very edge. The ghosts were forced to witness the absolutely ghastly sight of the London sky being positively filled with tortured spirits, all being punished and forced to wander the Earth eternally just like Marley was. The "lucky" ones were merely wrapped in chains attached to ghostly metal lockboxes, similarly to Marley. A few, much more unfortunate souls were bound to unique tortures, with two souls being chained together to a large wheel that swung eternally into the sky, one soul being bound to a strange device that whacked him on the head with the edge of a giant metal key every few seconds, one ghost having his head eternally whacked between two cymbals, and one smashing his head on a cinder block that he was chained to every few seconds. It was an absolutely horrific scene of torment and damnation…and the worst part was that it wasn't even in Hell.
"Jesus FUCK!" Fritz exclaimed in horrified disbelief as he watched a few of the ghosts hopelessly surround a living impoverished woman feeding her baby, lamenting how they wished they could help her but being completely helpless to do so. "How many tortured souls ARE there up in that sky?"
"Bad enough most of them are wrapped in chains, but can you even imagine having your head smashed between two cymbals or being smacked on the head by a giant key for the rest of eternity?" Liz asked, clearly just as unnerved as her brother. "Just how bad would your life have to be to be punished like that?"
"Uh…there aren't actually screaming ghosts in the air being tortured like this in real life, right?" Meghan suddenly asked, a disturbing thought entering her mind. "Please tell me that's not actually happening and that we're just not seeing it."
Charlie shook her head. "Thankfully, no," she quickly reassured her. "The only ghosts who exist on Earth currently are us as far as we know, and we're only here cause of special circumstances. For the most part, whenever a person dies, they either go to Heaven or Hell and that's it."
"That's…a relief, I guess," Alex muttered as the window to Scrooge's house suddenly slammed shut, and all the ghosts disappeared with it. "I mean, not the part about Hell, but I really don't want to think about the idea that a bunch of ghosts could be flying around my house wrapped in chains and screaming in misery that I'm just not seeing. Glad that's not a thing, at least."
"There are some things that are better off not knowing about," Gabe grimly replied as they watched the first of the 3 spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, arrive in Scrooge's bedroom. The ghost was a rather…bizarre figure, looking like a human candle with a burning flame for a head like a wick, dressed in white robes and holding a cone in its hand. Unlike the still-recognizably human Jacob Marley, this ghost was decidedly not human in origin.
The ghost spoke in an unearthly and inhuman rasp, introducing itself as the Ghost of Christmas Past. The ghost grabbed Scrooge by the hand and pulled him towards the window, which slowly opened up by itself even as the world outside inexplicably shifted from night to day. The ghost granted Scrooge a bit of his magic, allowing him to fly into the air…right before forcefully sending the two of them flying out of the window and through a series of woods covered in snow that definitely hadn't been outside of his house earlier in the night.
"Damn, that looks like so much fun," Alex commented a bit wistfully. "Wish we could fly in the air like that."
Fritz grinned mischievously. "Speak for yourself!" he boasted. "WE can fly through the air just fine! We flew into the Grand Canyon and all around cities we've visited like that, it's no problem for us ghosts!"
"Really?" Meghan exclaimed, looking at him enviously. "I'm so jealous!"
"You couldn't use some magic to make us fly like that, could you?" Alex asked a bit hopefully.
Charlie shook her head. "I might know some magic, but I'm definitely not anywhere near that powerful," she reluctantly squashed his hopes. "If I tried to pull you through a window, you'd probably just fall onto the ground and break your neck."
Alex winced. "Let's…not do that," he decided, as the Ghost of Christmas Past landed Scrooge neatly outside of a town. For the first time, Scrooge showed signs of genuine joy and happiness as he recognized the town where he had grown up as a boy. The first signs of the humanity lurking underneath his cold exterior. Scrooge's humanity would become even more pronounced as a cart filled with singing children passed him and the Ghost of Christmas Past by, and Scrooge happily recognized them as his schoolmates.
The joyful atmosphere would not last long, however. The Ghost of Christmas Past carried Scrooge over to his schoolhouse, where a child Ebenezer Scrooge sat alone in a dark and abandoned schoolroom, completely alone. The young boy was sitting upon a desk, singing softly to himself and looking utterly miserable, as though he were about to cry.
"Okay…" Jeremy was the first to break the silence that followed, sounding decidedly more sympathetic to Scrooge than he had been earlier. "I'm starting to see how Scrooge became such a jerk to begin with."
"Being left all alone at the school like this on Christmas," Susie shook her head in dismay. "No wonder he hates it so much."
"Was that EVERY Christmas he was left behind like this?" Liz asked, the disturbing thought suddenly entering her mind. "Did he not get a chance to celebrate it ONCE?"
"You'll see," Meghan promised somberly as the Ghost of Christmas Past waved their hand, moving time forward to another Christmas. At first, this seemed to be more of the same gloomy story with Ebenezer completely alone, only older than before. But the dismal atmosphere was quickly interrupted by a young woman who they quickly realized was his younger sister Fan rushing in to greet her brother. With an excited and joyful tone, Fan revealed to Ebenezer that their father, who had been implied to have been a harsh and cruel man who recently had become kinder, had finally decided to allow Ebenezer home after leaving him alone at the schoolhouse for God knows how long. The two siblings laughed joyfully together and embraced each other, finally ending the bleak cycle of Ebenezer being left alone.
The kids couldn't help but smile at the sight. "Aww…" Cassidy cooed. "That's so cute! Scrooge's little sister is so adorable!"
"And he finally gets to go home after all this time!" Gabe added approvingly. "I know he might be a jerk in the future, but right now he deserves to be happy!"
Yet even this joyful moment held a kernel of darkness, as Scrooge revealed to the Ghost that, despite having a wonderful heart, she died as a woman giving birth to children. Suddenly, Scrooge's coldness towards his nephew made a disturbing amount of sense.
But before the ghosts could comment on it, the Spirit of Christmas Past grabbed Scrooge by the end and dragged him slightly forward in time, this time taking him flying through the heart of industrial London until they stopped right in front of a large warehouse named Fezziwig's. This time, Scrooge openly displayed his delight at seeing the building without any hesitation, and his delight only increased when he saw his old boss Fezziwig, a man who had long since passed who Scrooge clearly had nothing but complete fondness for.
"He really does seem so much happier now," Jeremy commented as he watched a young adult Scrooge and a young man around the same age named Dick Wilkinson race forward to greet Fezziwig, the three of them laughing merrily together. "What the heck happened? His childhood didn't seem THAT bad."
"Sure as hell beats being brutally killed and trapped in an animatronic for 30 something years, that's for sure," Fritz added dryly as the scene changed again.
The previously (mostly) empty warehouse was now filled with dancing and celebrating partygoers, the interior having clearly been converted to host a massive party hosted by Fezziwigs. The elderly Scrooge even started joining in the dancing, clearly caught up in the festive moment.
"Wow," Susie whistled as she watched the two Fezziwigs dance. "Those two are some REALLY good dancers."
Once the dance was over, the music shifted to a different dance where the partygoers would form lines, and a man and a woman would dance towards each other in the center for several seconds before parting. It was here that the young Scrooge would meet a beautiful blonde woman named Belle, and even before the music and dance changed into a slow dance between the two of them, it was abundantly clear that the young Scrooge was completely head over heels in love with her.
Meghan snickered at the sight. "He has such a huge crush on her, it's so obvious!" She exclaimed.
"Wow, even found love too?" Liz asked. "He really had everything going for him back then minus being stuck in the schoolhouse for a while!"
Charlie frowned. "Well, given how much of a miserable lonely jerk he ended up being, he very clearly screwed up somewhere," she pointed out. "Doesn't take a psychic to know that this isn't going to end well."
As if on cue, the scene shifted again, to a slightly older Scrooge and Belle sitting in their office together. The atmosphere, however, couldn't have been any more different. Belle was clearly frustrated with how Scrooge had become obsessed with gold and wealth, clearly valuing material goods over the love they had once shared. The scene culminated with Belle pointedly loving asking if Scrooge would still love her, a poor girl who lost everything with the death of her parents, when he clearly valued everything based on how much he would profit from it…and when Scrooge's silence gave the answer away, she left his life once and for all.
"Well, there we go," Alex commented disapprovingly. "This is the first time we see Scrooge be a selfish, money-loving asshole."
"He had such a nice thing going for him, but he ruined it with his own greed," Charlie shook her head. "And we all know things are only going to go downhill from there."
They watched as Scrooge begged the Ghost of Christmas Past to remove him from the past version of his office, only for the spirit to point out that he was merely showing him shadows from a time that could not be changed…and then the Ghost began to do something really creepy, changing his head to fit the shapes of the countless different people they had seen during the past visions. Scrooge, clearly overwhelmed, yelled at the ghost to haunt him no longer, before grabbing the cone that he had been carrying and slamming it down on the ghost's head, covering his entire body and plunging the room in darkness.
"…okay, I can't blame Scrooge for that one," Gabe conceded. "The Ghost was doing something seriously creepy with his head."
"Yeah, I'd probably react like that too if I saw that," Fritz agreed with a shudder.
Before anybody could say anything else, they were suddenly interrupted as Scrooge was unexpectedly blasted off into the night London sky like a rocket, a trail of supernatural purple fire shooting him high into the heavens as the man screamed in panic the whole way. It was only when he was high into the sky that the trail of fire flowing out of the metal cone sputtered out and died before the entire cone itself disintegrated into a shower of sparks…sending Scrooge plummeting back down towards the city for several seconds until he landed square on his face…right back in the bedroom where he had first started.
Everyone, living and dead, winced at the sight. "Yikes," Jeremy winced. "That looked like it hurt."
"At least the fall didn't kill him?" Susie asked with a shrug.
"That crash never gets any less painful to look at no matter how many times I see it," Meghan admitted.
Before they could say anything more, the clock suddenly rang and the outline of the door to Scrooge's bedroom suddenly began to glow with a brilliant golden light. Joyous, mirthful laughter began to bellow from just beyond the door, signaling the arrival of the second ghost.
"Wait, is that Santa Claus?" Fritz asked eagerly.
Liz rolled her eyes. "No, you idiot. That's obvious the Ghost of Christmas Present!"
"Liz is right," Alex confirmed. "First there's Past, then there's Present, and last there's Future."
The door suddenly swung open of its own accord, revealing a room filled with golden light as a booming deep voice invited Scrooge to enter. Scrooge slowly did so, and it soon became clear that the room he found himself in wasn't one that belonged to his original house. It was bigger, for one thing, and it was covered with the Christmas spirit in the way that his house had never been. The entire room was decorated with wreaths and ribbons and positively covered with golden sparkles, and there were also clocklike contraptions made of white marble and gold standing in the center next to a fully lit fireplace playing Christmas music. In the farthest corner of the room was a giant pile that seemed to be made entirely of toys and ornaments, at the top of which sat a laughing giant with a brown mustache and beard dressed in a kingly robe and holding a horn that glowed with brilliant golden light like a miniature sun. If there was any doubt about who this figure was, it was dashed as he introduced himself as the Ghost of Christmas Present.
"Hey, out of curiosity, have you ever seen ghosts like either of the Christmas ones?" Alex suddenly asked his friends. "I know you said people move on to the afterlife after they die, but you've never seen anybody like those two even for a few seconds?"
Cassidy shook her head. "Nope, never seen anything like those two before," she confirmed. "We barely even see other human ghosts, and they definitely didn't look anything like those two."
Admittedly, that wasn't the full truth. Liz's brother Evan had that Shadow Freddy form, and William Afton had taken on the form of Nightmare Springtrap when he had escaped Hell. But they couldn't tell the Marshalls about either of those two, for obvious reasons.
After a brief conversation between Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present during which he revealed that he had 1842 brothers (which everyone quickly realized represented the number of years for which Christmas had existed) and the latter highlighted the importance of his empty scabbard as a representation of peace on earth and goodwill towards all, the Ghost of Christmas Present extended his robe towards Scrooge. The old miser reluctantly accepted it, triggering a transformation as the pile of toys and ornaments shrunk considerably. The Ghost of Christmas Present waved his horn around and blew into it, releasing a shower of golden sparks in the process. The sparks fell onto the ground and turned it transparent, giving Scrooge a view of the first floor of his house. Scrooge watched in astonishment and fright as the Ghost of Christmas Present transported the room away from Scrooge's house and towards the rest of London while "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!" played triumphantly in the background.
The ghost kids watched the events of the film transpire, transfixed. They had seen the events of Scrooge's past that had shaped him into the greedy and cruel miser that he would become. They had seen bits of Scrooge's humanity peak out from his cruel and rotten exterior, and they were eager to see how the events of Christmas Present would play out and further the journey of Scrooge's redemption.
After all, there was not a single one amongst them who didn't recognize just how powerful redemption could truly be.
/
A/N: This is roughly the halfway point of the movie, so that's a good point to stop for now.
I was hoping to originally write this as a stand-alone chapter, but considering how half of the movie by itself took up 12 pages and 6K words I quickly realized I would need to split this up into 2 parts if I didn't want this to be an egregiously long chapter.
Hope you guys enjoyed the commentary the kids made. I honestly think the 2009 adaptation of A Christmas Carol is surprisingly one of the most faithful ones to the original novella out there (barring a few exceptions), with a lot of the dialogue taken straight out of the book. It's definitely underrated and worth watching at least once, in my opinion.
Anyways, next chapter will pick up where we left off. Hope you guys enjoyed!
