Charlie dashed out of the house, the noises of her friends drowned out as she ran.
"Guys!" She shouted back at the house, still moving towards her car, "I'm gonna go look for her!" She got into the vehicle and started it, not waiting for a response and drove out of the driveway fast enough to nearly slide onto the grass.
She noticed more lights turning on and pieced together that the others were following her.
She hoped one of them found her before anybody else did.
Mari was only vaguely aware of what was happening. She could barely think.
She could see blurs of greens, grays, and browns as she moved towards something. Someone. Him. She had to get Him. She had to. It isn't fair that He's gotten off scot-free for so long.
She bumped into something, a tree or maybe a car, but kept moving. She didn't even know where He was, or where she was going. But she refused to let Him stay alive.
She was jolted out of this stupor abruptly by a sudden shock of pain from her shoulder. She looked down at it. It seemed fine, what had-
That was when she saw the small dot of water seeping into the fabric, aching as it went. She looked up as another wave of pain hit her leg and a horrible pain started to well up in her neck. Then one hit her hand, then her face.
It was raining.
She'd always hated the rain. She hadn't seen it since the day she died. It hurt.
Her neck felt like it was being crushed, cracked open like a soda can. She grabbed at it, stumbling, feeling nothing there. She felt like she was suffocating, like she couldn't breathe. She didn't even breathe normally, but she still felt like she was going to die if she didn't.
She immediately began to look around desperately for anything to hide under, pained static welling up in her chest, louder with each raindrop. She was in what seemed to be a small town, with shops and other town stuff. She noticed a small alley with an overhang covering some exit door, and raced towards it, her legs having to push off the ground to keep herself from falling over, scratching at her neck.
As she passed under it she fell to her 'knees' on the cold, but not quite wet concrete, coiling her arms around herself as she shuddered, the agonizing pain in her neck fading slowly, leaving a sore feeling afterward. Everything hurt. Why did it hurt? She had gotten wet before, and it hadn't hurt. It had been strange, but not painful. This felt like being stabbed. Why?
She had to get out of view.
She looked around the small square of dry concrete and noticed a dumpster. It was mostly in the space of the overhang but the back part, the bit she could hide behind was well in the rain. She tried pulling it, but it was fruitless. She might have been able to if her arms didn't feel like they were bleeding all over, even though they couldn't freaking do that.
Shaking, she laid against the dry part of the dumpster and went completely limp, hoping to appear as a lifeless prop. Most saw her as that even when she wasn't trying to appear lifeless, so it should work.
Hopefully the rain will stop or one of her friends will find her before somebody else does.
She just had to wait.
…
After a moment of nothing but the drumming noise of the rain, the door opened abruptly, and a guy walked out. He looked to be middle aged, skinny, but still fairly fit with a head of messy dark hair. He seemed a little shorter than the average person, but not by much.
There was something familiar about him, she might've seen him at the pizzeria?
He lugged out a garbage bag, clearly having left to take out the garbage, and looked at the rain before grumbling slightly. It seemed he didn't like rain.
He turned to toss the bag into the dumpster but his eyes landed on Mari and he froze, the bag slipping from his hand; it clattered on the floor as if there was metal in it.
She couldn't really see his expression in the lighting, but she could tell he wasn't going to just gloss her over like she had been hoping.
She hoped he wouldn't do anything to her. She wasn't worried about being hurt- she could just overpower him and run off if he tried anything- but she didn't want to show that she was alive to just anyone.
He just kept staring at her, motionless for a while. "What." He murmured, then fell into silence again. The light was positioned so she could really see his face.
The man eventually crouched down cautiously, as if he was scared that she'd jump out at him. He slowly shakily reached out, his hand pausing for a moment before he poked her mask then pulled his hand back quickly, standing up and backing away.
He stared as if he was waiting for something, before he jumped at the sound of a car door shutting. Mari looked over without moving her head while the man fully turned around to look at the sound as another figure ran up.
It was Charlie.
She froze at the sight of the man for a moment, before joining the three of them under the overhang. "Hello." She greeted awkwardly, not seeming to notice how drenched she was.
"….hi?" The guy greeted back.
The two of them stared at each other for an agonizingly long time, Charlie's eyes occasionally flicking to Mari. "Can I… take that?" She pointed at Mari.
Mari silently panicked for a moment, Charlie might try to carry her out in the rain. She can't tell Charlie not to without giving herself away.
The guy looked over at Mari. "…is it yours?" He questioned confusedly.
"…yyyyes." Charlie answered equally confusedly.
The guy looked at her, clearly untrusting. "Alright. Do you have an umbrella?"
"What?"
"An umbrella. It probably shouldn't get wet." The man explained, pointing at Mari. Mari had to stop herself from sighing in a mixture of relief and confusion.
Charlie hummed; she hadn't really considered that. "No… I- uh- forgot it."
He sighed. "One sec, I'll get you one, I have too many."
"Oh, um, thank you." Charlie smiled awkwardly as the guy walked back into the building to grab an umbrella, then turned to Mari.
Glancing to the doorframe, she knelt down next to the seemingly lifeless prop. "Are you alright?" She whispered. God, she hoped that Mari was just faking.
Mari let out a small tinkle to show she was fine (though she wasn't really all that fine), and Charlie sighed in relief. Upon hearing footsteps coming from the building, she stood up just before the guy opened the door, a small green umbrella in hand. He handed it to her, "Make sure they don't catch a cold." He said, jabbing a thumb at Mari. It was hard to tell if that was a joke or not.
"Thank you, sir." Charlie said as she knelt by Mari. She gave the 'prop' a pointed look that the guy couldn't catch, as if to silently say 'I'm gonna pick you up now'.
As she carefully hefted Mari into her arms, balancing the umbrella in one hand, the guy snorted slightly. "Please, just call me-" he dropped into silence as he noticed Charlie had already walked into the rain towards her car.
Charlie looked to the seemingly lifeless prop she had dropped in the backseat, pulling her car out of sight of the man that gave her the umbrella. "You can move now." She said aloud, and a chime from the back came in response. It sounded more mellow than she'd heard it before, it felt almost… apologetic.
"If that was a sorry, you don't have to apologize." She reassured as she texted the rest of the group that Mari had been found. "You… weren't thinking straight. I don't blame you." She continued as she carefully drove through the rain towards Carlton's house.
In the back, Mari felt horrible, despite Charlie's words. She slid down the seat onto the floor, making another couple pitiful sounding notes involuntarily, followed by an audible plunk as her mask hit the carpeted bottom of the car. She felt like such an idiot.
Charlie grimaced, hearing the noises from the back. She considered trying to console further, but couldn't think of anything to say. She was terrible at comforting anybody, much less children. How could she comfort one so… hurt?
She decided that the others would probably do a better job at this. Even Carlton would be better at this kind of thing than she was, though he didn't seem to trust Mari so that probably wouldn't happen.
Charlie stifled a yelp as she noticed one of Mari's arms reaching up from the back into the front, clicking the on button on the radio.
Country music began playing and a staticky sound whispered from behind Charlie's chair as the hand immediately changed the channel. Apparently Mari didn't like country.
After a minute of Mari flicking through channels at random to find one she liked, she landed on some song from an old broadway production. After a couple seconds, she decided she liked it and the hand retracted out of Charlie's view.
Charlie listened to the tune, it was quite upbeat and happy. She didn't really listen to music, so she focused on the road.
Mari loved the song. She hadn't listened to actual music in forever, the last music being the few prerecorded ones that they played at the restaurant. This is much more catchy. She subconsciously started swaying to the rhythm, still sitting on the floor of Charlie's car.
She made a stupid decision, but at least it didn't seem to have any lasting consequences.
It was all behind them.
Behind them, a car discreetly tailed them, and the driver felt like a total creep.
He wasn't following her for any sinister plots or anything, but still, following some girl's car made him feel horrible.
But Fritz wasn't about to just let this go.
He hadn't expected to find The Puppet of all things just hanging around the dumpster and his workshop. And he knew it was The Puppet, he knew exactly what that one looked like. The sight of it hunched under the desk to look at him was still fresh in his mind, even after nearly 3 decades. He'd only stopped having the nightmares a couple years ago.
It had gone missing after his shift, he knew that (that was one of the reasons they fired him back in '87, well, that and hacking into the bots AI), and nobody knew where it had gone.
Until now.
He had always been interested in that one, it had behaved differently than the others. They were just as murderous as he had heard, but The Puppet acted much differently than he had been told.
Though, he didn't think anybody lied about it's behavior. He had seen those bruises on Jeremy's neck. It had been violent.
Whatever was making the rest of them so violent had evidently worn off by the time this one had gotten to him.
In hindsight, he was extremely fortunate to not be six feet under and being feasted on by maggots right now. Actually that was a long time ago, they probably would've finished by now.
That's a fun thought. Real cool he decided to think of that picture. Awesome.
He sighed, carefully taking another turn to follow the green car in front of him, hoping that they wouldn't notice him.
God, he was being so creepy right now.
"Just grin and bear it, Fritz." He steeled himself quietly. "Actually, wait, don't grin. That makes it worse."
He had been talking to himself a lot lately.
Fritz watched as they pulled into the driveway of a house, and in a way that screamed 'this is a secret', walked inside, the girl still carrying The Puppet.
He decided to park his car out of view; following them on foot would be easier. Maybe even less creepy. It had stopped raining, and it had barely even been raining here in the first place so he should be fine.
By the time he had reached the house and was sneaking along the fence towards the back, he decided it was still quite creepy. For a good cause, he told himself mentally.
He peeked over the fence at the house, unable to see anything through the windows.
He sighed as he fell flat on his feet, pinching his brow. He should just talk to them. Just knock, that'd be easier.
He began to slowly and quietly walk back towards the front of the house when he paused at a sound. It sounded like some critter, but not quite. It was like a sliding sound, like cloth against something. He turned around to check out the noise, making a curious hum that cut off at the sight of what was behind him.
The Puppet was standing right behind him, staring down at him.
He barely had any time to process this fact before The Puppet grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him towards it as it leaned down so they were face to face, glaring at him with two white dots in its eyeholes. A humming static sound played from the thing as it stared down at him, its hold on his shirt pulling up to the tip of his toes. Every nightmare he had ever had about his night at Freddy's came to him at full force for a moment.
It seemed pissed off that he followed it. Which, ok, fair, he didn't blame them. But still, he isn't exactly thrilled to be at the end of that stick.
"H-hi." He greeted fearfully, giving a shaky smile, silently praying that The Puppet hadn't gotten murderous again since that night. "Long t-time no see."
The static hum cut off as the dots in its eyes vanished, a confused tinkly noise playing from what must be an internal music box. He might have snickered at the idea of this intimidating being playing silly little tunes if it hadn't looked like it was going to strangle him a second ago.
He felt its grip loosen on his shirt, his feet finding more traction on the floor. It leaned in a little closer, tilting its head as if it was squinting at him, clearly not quite remembering who he was.
"Fritz?" He shakily suggested, silently prying at its hands, but not making any notable difference, "F-Fritz Smith?" It didn't seem to recognize the name.
"I was the guy who messed with the AI?" He tried, hoping it remembered that.
It played a tinkly sound of what he assumed was realization, tilting its head in recognition. The two of them stared for a moment when The Puppet seemed to remember it was holding him up by his shirt, looking down at it before letting go and allowing its limbs to fall to its sides as Fritz fell to a standing position.
The two stared at each other for a moment, Fritz with a nervous expression and The Puppet with the same one it always had, that happy smile that didn't really show happiness. "No hard feelings?" He shrugged with a forced smile, trying to stop himself from shaking. It nodded.
"Good…." He mumbled, and the air got thickly silent again. "Ok, I'm gonna get off your lawn now." He said quickly with a point towards his car down the street before turning and walking off.
He got around two steps in before he felt a sharp tug on the back collar of his shirt, pulling him backwards before setting him in place where he had been. He looked up at The Puppet, who hadn't let go, watching as it shook its head. Clearly, he wasn't going to be leaving quite yet. "O-ok. Sure!" He agreed with a shaky, falsely enthusiastic thumbs up.
It silently started floating across the area outside the fence, moving at a pace slow enough for Fritz to walk along (though Fritz could tell it'd be dragging him if he didn't keep up).
Eventually they reached a gate and The Puppet curled its free hand around the handle and pulled. It was locked.
With a staticky huff, it looked to him, letting go of him and pointing at the ground, the universal sign to tell him to stay put. It tilted its head in a way that showed it waiting for an answer.
Fritz gave it a shaky nod, and it made a chime of what he assumed is approval, or suspicion. Maybe a mix?
It turned and grabbed onto the top of the fence, pulling itself over the fence. He could hear it fiddling with the lock and he briefly considered running away, but was a bit too curious about what The Puppet was doing at some random house. Before he could make a decision on the matter, the door opened and he was grabbed by the arm and pulled inside, the gate shutting quickly behind him.
The Puppet looked down at him for a moment before dragging him towards the house - not firm enough to hurt, but firm enough that he couldn't pull away. He follows along, realizing that he was probably going to meet the inhabitants of the house, and already felt the awkwardness from the explanation for why he was here.
That idea was genuinely more frightening than the fact that the killer (at least used to be a killer) robot that had him by the arm.
He didn't voice this opinion, but immediately started to mentally formulate the least weird sounding way to explain why he was over here.
Charlie looked over as she heard the back door open and close. She scanned the room to see that everyone else was there, except for Mari. So it was Mari, but why was she outside-
Then she noticed the footsteps, which didn't make any sense considering that Mari didn't really 'walk'. She noticed everyone else came to the same conclusion. Except Carlton, who wasn't paying attention.
But before anybody could voice this, Mari poked her head into the room, then tugged a man into the room; said man's eyes were wide as he looked at the amount of people in the room. He flicked his eyes across them before glancing at Mari, who just stared at him.
"Hi…." The man said with an awkward wave.
Charlie recognized him. "You're the guy from the alley. Did- did you follow me?" She realized suddenly.
The guy cringed at the accusation, "N-Not you, your- uh- your car-" he tried to explain.
"Why'd you follow her?" Jessica interrogated, taking a step towards the man.
"H-hey, wait I-," he began to defend before being interrupted by a loud static noise from Mari, which caused everyone to look over. She held up her notepad and tapped it insistently.
'I know him'
"…Mari knows you?" Marla asked confused, genuinely befuddled.
The guy sighed in relief at Mari defending him. "Y-yes," he answers, obviously shaken from the accusations, he blinks as he notices something, "Wait, Mari?"
"That's our nickname for her." John explains, gesturing to her.
The man blinked again, he was silently surprised at the 'her' (he should probably make sure to not use 'it' anymore, if it- she preferred otherwise), but decided not to bring it up. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Charlie. "How do you two know each other?" She asked in both a curious and suspicious tone.
"I- uh- I worked at Freddy's for… a bit." The guy explained. "…night shift." He said the last part fairly quietly, and the rest of the room knew what that entailed.
"So," Carlton started, pointing a finger at Mari, "…she tried to, uh, Yknow…"
The man shook his head, "No. Though all the others did."
John furrowed his brow. "But, didn't-"
He was interrupted by a quieter tinkle, and The Puppet held up her notepad again.
'after bite'
"I thought they closed after that." Jessica muttered.
"They- uh… hired me to protect the animatronics from anybody messing with them." The man explained quietly, and jumped at a loud static burst from Mari, which was followed by stifled tinkles as she looked away.
"Wha- hey!" The guy straightened up offendedly, "Are you laughing at me?"
Mari scrawled something on her notepad quickly.
'protect?'
"Hey- that was a very easy fix. Completely harmless." He said defensively.
"Wha- what do you mean?" Charlie sounded worried.
"I… kinda… maybe…." He rubbed the back of his neck, "messed with all the bots AI so they were super active."
"You're an idiot." Carlton said pointedly, and Jessica flicked him.
"…Yeah." He agreed, but sputtered when Mari nodded with an affirmative tune.
"What's your name?" Jessica asked, holding her hand out for a handshake.
"…Fritz." He answered after a moment, shaking her hand. Jessica started to introduce everyone, and Fritz nodded with each one.
He noticed the paint and other cleaning supplies, and then looked at Mari. "Are you… trying to clean her?"
"Yes." Jessica answered, and Fritz looked at everyone.
"Do you even know how to do that?"
He was met with a chorus of unsure noises, and sighed. "I have… an idea on how to do that."
"Do you think you can help?" Charlie asked, glancing at Mari as she started scribbling something down.
Fritz also glanced at Mari, "If she's- uh- cool with it."
Mari held up the notepad. 'as long as you don't poke around my brain'
Fritz blinked, then forced a light chuckle, thinking it was a joke. Mari just stared at him. He drifted into a nervous silence after a moment, fidgeting with his sleeve. "Don't worry, I won't."
Mari nodded after a moment, sitting down on the ottoman, staring directly at Fritz.
Fritz let out a shaky sigh, maintaining eye contact for about 4 seconds before screwing his eyes shut and rubbing them. "Oooookay, I can do this. Do we have- like- a brush or something?"
Mari shuddered at the feeling of fabric cleaner being spread onto approximately where her forearm would be. She was glad that they had decided to only use the substance on the actual stains on her body as opposed to all of it, as she really didn't like it. It felt like that fuzzy feeling when you sit on your leg for too long, she didn't know what that was called. After that feeling faded, it felt like wet socks.
"Are you alright?" Marla asked worriedly.
Mari nodded in response. She could handle the feelings, she'd died after all. A bit of fuzziness is fine.
She watched as Fritz carefully scrubbed the cleaner in, considering the man for a moment. She hadn't thought about the guy since that night, but she probably should have. He was the first to interact with her after she had been snapped out of her mindlessness.
He looked terrified, seeming to be as careful as possible with each scrub, like he was scared she'd hurt him.
…When she first saw him, he looked like a teenager. Now, he looked like an adult, and a slightly old one at that. That made her even more uneasy.
It had been so long since that day, what had happened when she was asleep?
She realized that He must be quite old at this point, if Fritz had aged this much. That was actually good news.
It would make what she did when she found Him easier.
She zoned back in as Fritz tapped her on the side of the head, and she turned to him a little faster than she meant to, judging by the fact that he flinched. She wasn't going to blame him, he was shockingly collected around her considering what he went through on the nightshift. Though she wouldn't really call it collected.
It was just impressive that he'd only left the room thrice so far.
She tilted her head as he gingerly pointed at her 'face'. "We- uh- got the suit pretty much done, I-it's just your… face we need to fix." He explained awkwardly.
She supposed he meant her mask, though it might as well be her face, she hadn't figured out how to remove it yet. Or if she even could. She nodded, and Fritz carefully picked up the resin.
"Ok. H-Hold still please…" He asked gingerly as he carefully began to apply it.
It took an agonizingly long time, in Fritz's opinion, but they had finally fully cleaned The Puppet, or Mari as the group of people had nicknamed her.
He'd never cleaned up something that could think before, and he was terrified the entire time that he might nudge something too hard and antagonize her. He knew that she wouldn't hurt him, at least the logical side of his brain did.
The other side was why he kept taking breaks to sit outside the room for a couple minutes.
He was still fully processing that she was a 'she', he'd personally seen the character as more of a male, or even just leaving it ambiguous, but it wasn't his choice to make, it was hers. Though the fact that she even could make her own decisions was confusing to him, considering the fact that she was a robot.
He was currently following as one the people (he thinks her name was Marla?), led Mari to a bathroom to see herself in a mirror. He was obviously walking farther back. Fritz looked up at her, trying to ignore how, now that she had been cleaned and fixed, she looked even more like he had seen her on that night. Though, they had used different colors to repaint. The white was pretty much the same but he could swear the reds were a little pinker than normal.
After a moment, they reached the bathroom and Marla carefully led Mari in, who had to lean down slightly to enter the room. She immediately started staring at the mirror, and Fritz carefully peeked in. She was staring for several seconds, before she slowly turned to him, and he tensed under the direct gaze, even though he knew she wasn't going to do anything.
"Do… you like it?" He asked awkwardly after a moment, tapping his fingers on the doorway. Mari nodded several times, holding her hands together with a chirpy tune of approval, and Fritz let out a relieved sigh. "That's great." He breathed with a thumbs up, practically jumping out of the way as Mari (rather quickly) left the bathroom and floated down to the main room, emanating a merry jingle the whole way.
He couldn't help but feel weary around her, and he probably wouldn't get over that for a while.
He jumped slightly at a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Marla, "Hi," she greeted, "Fritz, right?"
"Yep. You're- uh- Marla?"
"Yeah," Fritz silently celebrated that he remembered her name, "Anyway, I have a question, if you're comfortable."
"Uh, ok, shoot."
"So." Marla started, clasping her hands, "I'm curious, what exactly… happened?" At Fritz's confused look, she clarified. "On that night, I mean."
Fritz hummed. "Oh. Right." He scratched his neck. "It wasn't exactly the most tranquil thing, I'm sure you know."
Marla nodded and Fritz continued. "I set all the bots to their max to see what would happen. Maybe it'd reveal some big secret, or something. Answers." He paused. "It didn't, and I nearly died. Practically every time I looked up from winding that music box something entered the room and I had to put on the mask. It ended up as a pattern and eventually I got the hang of it."
"Sounds stressful." Marla stated and Fritz nodded, "I'd have probably died." She mumbled.
"I would have too." Fritz stated cryptically, explaining at Marla's puzzled look. "I forgot about the music box near the end, and… Mari," he sounded like he forgot her name for a second, "got out."
Marla made a 'hmph' sound in interest.
"Typically, this would kill you." He explained, "But apparently the bite the day prior had snapped her back to reality, or something. So she didn't hurt me." He looked at the ground, remembering the sight of that mask peeking under the desk to find him. "Though, I still had nightmares about that night for years. I was like 17, after all."
"About Mari?"
"About all of them." Fritz explained, rubbing his eyes, "But Mari did get a fair share. I think the most was probably Foxy, or maybe Chica; The older ones freaked me out." He was half-lying here, Mari was in nearly every single one. Though she wasn't the subject all the time.
"I- …I'm sorry." Marla said in a way that exhibited unsure reassurance.
"It's fine. I'm fine. She's fine." He pointed down the hallway where Mari was. "Everything's fine. And I'm not just saying that to get you off my back." He half-was.
Marla let out a half-laugh at that, "That's good-" She squeaked at something behind him and he turned around to see Mari. He flinched involuntarily and couldn't tell if Mari was looking at Marla, though it appeared she hadn't been until she had squeaked. The completely static face somehow looked apologetic. She made a tiny tinkle of what sounded like worry.
"Sorry. Sorry." Marla breathed, sighing. "You just caught me off guard. Not your fault."
"W-What's up?" Fritz asked, fighting (and failing) to keep his voice steady, and Mari held up the notebook that Fritz had figured out was what she was using to communicate.
'do you know where friends are?' She looked almost anxious asking this.
"Friends?" He squinted confused, before getting that she probably meant the other mascots. "Oh, the- uh- other bots?"
She nodded, making an excited tune, though it was quiet, as if she was baiting her excitement.
Fritz grimaced, not looking forward to saying what he was about to say. "Uuuuhm…" he scratched the back of his neck, "The toys were dismantled, I think." Mari made no discernable reaction to this, so he continued, "And the oldies were used again, and I thought they were left at the pizzeria, but they were gone when I broke in- checked. When I checked. Legally. Legally checked."
Marla squinted at him before jumping slightly at the thump of Mari's notebook landing on the floor, looking over to notice Mari was slightly shaking.
Marla stiffened and moved over to her. "Mari?"
Fritz slowly took a step backward in caution, confused on what was happening. Then he realized that he had basically just told her her friends were dead. Shit. "O-oh, god, man. S-Sorry." He slowly stepped backward as Marla cautiously patted Mari's back reassuringly. Mari put her hands to her face and made pained tinkle, her entire body shuddering.
She let her hands fall to her sides and make a staticky sound that vaguely sounded like a sigh, seeming to regain composure. Fritz felt a glimmer of relief.
She leaned down and picked up her notepad, Marla backing up slightly to give her room. Mari looked down at Fritz, who tensed again, before relaxing as she floated off again.
Marla gave him a look. "You could've broken that news differently."
"I-I'm stressed," He defended, "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. Also, reminder that I only recently learned that they can think." He folded his arms.
Marla sighed. "Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Sorry."
"It's fine." Fritz waved her off. "I was rude."
The two stood in silence for a moment before Fritz looked over at the hallway to the main room. "We should go see how she's doing." He said, beginning to walk that way, Marla close behind.
He tried very hard to ignore the part of him screaming to leave the house and run away.