Charlie was astounded.
She had found a completely sentient being, or at least sentient enough to get angry at things, judging by what John and Carlton had said about its reaction to the bracelet and the frying pan. Speaking of the frying pan, the being appeared to be capable of registering pain, which was mind boggling to Charlie.
She was sitting on the couch in the living room now, with both John and Carlton joining her. She wasn't listening, but they were talking about something, likely The Puppet. The Puppet itself- himself? Herself? She decided to use 'themself' until she had a concrete answer- had decided to follow them over but had yet to actually enter the room, moving through the rooms around them. Charlie could only really tell where they were by the sound of random drawers being opened and items being set back down after being examined, along with the steady sound of music coming from their internal music box.
She thought back to her first interaction with The Puppet, when they had touched. She had felt strange when it happened, not in a bad way, but not really a good way either. Whatever was in the machine- and she was pretty sure it wasn't just an AI, what kind of AI allows it to float?- seemed familiar in a strange way, like something she had forgotten and found again. But she had no idea what it was.
She noticed it seemed awfully quiet and realized John and Carlton had stopped talking, and she couldn't hear The Puppet. Had they asked her something? She looked at them to find them looking at a spot above her, and looked up to find The Puppet standing behind the couch, staring at her. They did not move.
"Hello?" Charlie greeted confusedly, still nervous under the gaze of The Puppet despite knowing they weren't violent.
The Puppet held up a picture frame, a small one that they had likely taken from atop a drawer. It showed Charlie, when she was around 3 or 4, standing in front of Freddy's. John, Carlton, Jessica, Marla, and Lamar were with her, all at around the same age. That had to have been nearly 20 years ago now.
Charlie looked back up at The Puppet, raising an eyebrow slightly, not sure what they meant. The Puppet let out a quiet staticky noise that sounded vaguely like a sigh of exasperation, proceeding to hold up their other hand and tap the Freddy's building in the photo with one of their long fingers, then pointing it back up at themself.
Charlie was still confused, before Carlton piped up. "Uh, we- uh- we read that it- they, that they were present a-at the- um- '87' location." He explained quickly, stumbling over his own words and getting even more shaky when The Puppet turned its head towards him.
Charlie squinted. The '87 location? As in 1987? Her father never brought up that there was a Freddy's before Freddy's, although she supposed he didn't ever really tell her much. She realized that The Puppet probably didn't know about the one they went to, which opened in, what was it, '93? Would that make it the '93 location? She supposed it would.
Her eyes widened slightly. "Oh," she said quietly, looking back up at The Puppet who was looking at her again. "That's the Freddy's after the one you were at." She explained, "We went there when we were kids."
The Puppet looked back at the photo, tilting their head in thought. John started to reminisce. "Yeah, we went there all the time, mostly because of Charlie's da-" He cut off with a jump as The Puppet snapped their head towards him so fast Charlie could swear she heard some noise in their neck. They stared at John, tilting their head, and Charlie noticed that they were shaking.
The Puppet had reacted to the word 'Charlie', Charlie hadn't told them her name yet. How did it know her?
She jumped as her phone suddenly started to vibrate, signaling an incoming call. She pulled the phone out of her pocket to check, seeing the name 'Jessica' on the screen in bold white letters. She declined the call hurriedly and looked up to see the Puppet staring at her now, shaking less now, but still shaking. Charlie opened her mouth to say something when Jessica called her back. She winced, standing up from the couch and pointing to her phone. "Sorry, I- uh- should probably take this." She walked over to stand outside the room, sighed, and accepted the call.
"Charlie!" Jessica exclaimed through the speaker. "Where are you?" She asked in a panicked and worried manner.
"I was- ….helping the guys with something." Charlie breathed, deciding to not bring up The Puppet for now, especially not when they seemed to be distressed in some way. "Why?"
"...Weren't we going to meet up for breakfast?"
Charlie blinked. She had completely forgotten about that. "Oh. I forgot." They had planned that a while ago, The Puppet had distracted them. "I- I'll get the guys and we'll be right over, this thing distracted us."
"What 'thing'?" Jessica half-mumbled through the phone.
"I'll tell you there! Promise!" She hung up and ran over to get the guys, inwardly hoping that The Puppet could handle themself for a couple hours.
John was exhausted.
He hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep since The Puppet broke in early in the morning, and sleeping after that encounter was impossible. But some breakfast sounded great nonetheless.
They were all sitting in the diner, some place called 'Sparky's', John and Carlton on one side, and Charlie, Jessica, and Marla on the other. He cut off a section of the waffle in front of him, putting the piece into his mouth, chewing the chunk and feeling the syrup dissolve in his mouth. It was actually pretty good. He was about to eat another piece when Jessica spoke. "So," she started, looking over at Charlie with a curious expression, "What's that 'thing' that held you guys up?"
John froze with the fork halfway to his mouth, Charlie stiffened slightly, also freezing, Carlton seemed to stiffen, but kept eating, and the other two girls both raised an eyebrow at the reaction. Jessica seemed even more curious, and Marla seemed to have some worry in her expression. "Did something bad happen?" She asked.
"Not really." Charlie said, John nodding in agreement and Carlton making a so-so motion with his hand.
"Then what was it?" Jessica looked back and forth between the three of them.
"It's a little hard to explain." John said after another bite of his waffle.
"Someone broke into our house last night." Carlton started, deciding to start with something somewhat believable, then build into the actuality.
Jessica raised her eyebrow higher. "How is that not a bad thing?" she asks in a deadpan manner.
Charlie opened her mouth to say something, before closing it again, thinking of the best way to say this.
"It wasn't a burglar or anything." John piped up.
"It was some sort of old Freddy's mascot that is in some way capable of thought." Charlie said quickly, before anyone else could say anything. The table was silent for a moment, before Carlton started to rub his eyes, groaning.
"I'll believe it when I see it." Jessica muttered, going back to eat. Marla still seemed worried, not believing them but also worried about what actually happened to make them believe that.
John, Carlton, and Charlie all looked between each other. "Alright," Carlton said pointedly, "Then you will."
The Puppet was confused.
One of the people had brought up someone named Charlie. It couldn't be her, could it?
No, that's ridiculous, she's dead. But then who was it?
She was guessing that it was possibly a friend of theirs, perhaps the young woman. It could be a boy, however. Charlie was just a nickname for Charlotte, but it could be nicknames for other names, or just a full name. She mentally cursed her name for not even giving away the gender of the person, but she wasn't too frustrated.
She could rule out both of the men, due to one saying his name (Carlton), and the other (she wasn't sure of his name) mentioning this Charlie individual in the third person. She felt an anxious tune play in her chest as she "paced" the hallways of the house, thinking about this.
She stopped abruptly, cutting off the music with a huff of static, she was being simply unreasonable. It wasn't like Charlie was a rare name. She plopped down onto the couch, leaning her head back and staring at the ceiling. She had decided she enjoys sitting.
She thinks back to what the people had said before they left, they were going to meet some friends for breakfast. She wonders what those friends were like, were they completely different to the three she had met or pretty similar? She also finds herself thinking about breakfast for a moment, before quickly dashing down those thoughts.
Through her years as the Puppet, Charlie had found that thinking about things she can't do anymore just makes her sad.
She pulls her head up to stare at the front door as she hears a car pull up outside. Were they back already? Surely they wouldn't be done eating that fast.
Although she had only seen people eat back at the pizzeria, where it was more of a party anyway. And back when she ate, she was around 3 years old. She wasn't exactly a fast eater.
She stands up as she starts to think about all of the things she never got around to eating and never will, desperately wanting to take her mind off those thoughts, and moves over to the front door. She pulls back the curtain to peek outside, to find 3 cars outside, and 5 people walking towards the door. She recognizes the three people she had met, and two women she hadn't. One was tall and blonde, the other shorter with brown hair. They must be the friends that were at the breakfast.
The short one looked over at the window and made eye contact with Charlie, freezing as she stared. Charlie quickly shut the curtain, moving away from the door. She should probably hide, or at least not greet them at the door.
This had to be some sort of prank, Jessica thought dryly, as Marla started to freak out about having seen something in the window. She looked over at the others, Carlton had a small smirk (that's telling), and John and Charlie just seemed worried.
Jessica sighed, walking through the front door as it was opened. "So, where is it?" She asked, putting her hands on her hips as she scanned the rooms she could see, finding nothing out of the ordinary (unsurprisingly), when her eyes landed on the basement door. The handle was torn out of the socket, and the door was ajar.
Her mouth went slightly dry, and she walked up to examine it closer, dashing down the idea that it was anything strange quickly. It was probably still a prank.
"Does that count as seeing it?" Carlton asked from behind, and Jessica looked over to see that the others were there as well.
She sighed, before letting herself smile. "This is impressive," She began looking over at the others. "You almost had me fooled for a second there."
Carlton opened his mouth to say something, but stopped, his gaze landing behind her, she didn't notice immediately. "What?" Jessica asked, confused, as all four of them start doing that, Marla backing away from the door, Carlton following. Charlie stands still, and John looks like he wants to but is worried.
Jessica sighs, starting to turn around. "See, that's good. Now, I'm gonna look over and there's gonna be nothin-" She cut herself off with a yelp of surprise at the information that there was, in fact, something there. It was tall, lanky, covered in dirty black felt, and adorned with some sort of mime-esque mask, which was angled towards her. It doesn't move, it must be a prop.
"O-oh!" She laughed, looking over. "You got me! How did you even get it to move without a remote?"
Charlie squinted, John squinted, Carlton kept looking at the prop, and Marla kept backing away. Jessica was surprised at the lack of laughter, and was about to bring it up when she felt something rest against her shoulder, not quite grabbing it, but just kind of sitting on it. She freezes almost instantly, before looking down at her shoulder slowly to find a hand, with 3 fingers, each long and dark, and covered in dirty black felt. She felt her throat go dry as she looked a little backward.
Its face was closer. Way too close.
She let out a swear in surprise and pulled further away, and the thing surprisingly let go immediately, moving up to "stand" straighter, its mask tilting to the side. She stumbled backward until Charlie caught her, and she looked between the 'prop' and Charlie repeatedly, pointing and starting to say sentences but unable to formulate one.
She was cut off when a light jingle came from the prop, shaking slightly as it tilted its head again. Jessica stared at it. Did it just… laugh at her?
It seemed to straighten up as it noticed her staring, cutting off the jingle, its face shifting to the side slightly, like it was avoiding eye contact. Jessica stared at the 'prop' for at least a minute, it starting to slowly wave its long arms back and forth, almost like a fidget.
Jessica took a deep breath, slowly turning to look at Charlie. "Okay, what the hell?"
Charlie watched as the 3 she knew explained to the 2 strangers what they thought she was. It wasn't quite correct, but close enough. At least they made it clear she was sentient.
The shorter girl kept glancing at the tall figure in the doorway, clearly frightened. The taller one glanced at Charlie occasionally, but not often and more out of suspicion than fear. Charlie could tell they didn't trust her, but it wasn't like any of them really did. The most trusting one was probably the girl who she met first, the one with the green jacket, but even she didn't entirely trust her.
Charlie moved out of the doorway, lifting a vase and turning it in what used to be her hands. She had learned that turning things like this was both slightly relaxing and a good way to practice doing more exact things with her abnormal hands. She listened as one of the girls, the taller one, exclaimed something. "The 80's!?"
"Late 80's!" She heard Carlton (the one person she knew the name of) exclaim back.
"It's still the 80's! They were last awake in the 80's, Carlton!" Charlie began to peek through the doorway, curious. They were talking about her, she pieced together. "It's 2015!"
Charlie stiffened. 2015? It couldn't be 2015, that was- "That was like, 30 years ago!" Jessica exclaimed with a wild hand gesture, "They've been asleep for nearly 30 years!"
…30 years. Thirty years. She'd be like, 40 right now if HE HADN'T DONE THIS TO HER. She could have kids of her own by now. She could have tried ALL the food. But NO, she was STUCK IN THIS STUPID BODY. She could have been to Paris! She hadn't even thought about how much she wanted to go to Paris. But she DIDN'T, and she never will. She'll be stuck in a STUPID body with a STUPID mask in a STUPID box in a STUPID building FOREVER.
Why her? Why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY-
She barely even noticed the vase slip through her shaking hands.
Marla looked between Carlton and Jessica with a worried expression as Jessica voiced her concerns about the age of the strange being in the house. She briefly wondered if The Puppet even knew that it- no, they had 'slept' for so long.
Suddenly, a crash echoed from the doorway across the room from her, and Jessica shut up immediately. That had been the doorway that The Puppet had been watching them in earlier. Everyone looked over to the source of the noise, a shattered vase spread on the floor.
The Puppet was there as well, barely in view of the doorway. They were shaking, a frantic tune that sounded like 'pop goes the weasel' starting to play from their chest, a small white dot visible in the eyehole she could see, like a pupil, looking unfocused somehow.
Everyone that wasn't standing previously was already up, and Marla moved behind the couch, staring at the trembling figure in the doorway. The clown motif was terrifying to her, and the fact that said clown seemed distressed was not exactly comforting for Marla. The music was louder now as The Puppet started to move before they seemed to accidentally move into the wall then back again.
They then started to move around frantically, and with no clear path, bumping into anything in the way.
Everyone started to panic.