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The night started same as always, Mike takes his pills and falls asleep at his desk, slipping into the dreamworld, and finds himself in that oh so familiar campsite in Nebraska. It was the same as the dreams before, Garrett in the forest with his plane, Mike watches him, their mom calls Mike over, he returns to find Garrett missing. It’s always the same. The car with no license plate is there, Garrett’s face peers at him from the back window, it drives away.
“You can have me but you can’t have her!” Mike yells at the angry ghost boy in front of him. “WE DONT WANT YOU!” The ghost boy wails. One of the children behind him speaks up. “Actually I’m okay with-“ “I DIDNT ASK YOU SUSIE.” Tears well up in the little ghost girls eyes. Cassidy continues screaming at Mike “I WANT HER. I WANT ABBY. You’re either going to give her to us or get out of our way.” Mike stands there in shock. “Hell no! You don’t get to-“ Mike’s dream is cut short by a sudden lack of air.
He awakens to see a golden animatronic pinning him down, its hands firm around his neck. He grunts grasping desperately at the large paws trying to pry them off, unsuccessfully. Dread fills his eyes as he looks for anything that could possibly help him. Tears prick his eyes as he spots his flashlight, he reaches to get it. Unfortunately Freddy stops in the endeavor, crushing Mike’s arm with a sickening crunch! He screams but uses the bear’s distraction to his advantage. Curling up, he kicks the bear off himself and scoots away. He grips the desk for support and hoists himself up.
“I won’t let you hurt my sister.” He holds his now crushed arm in one hand, his face filled with determination. The bear’s voice box gives an ear splitting screech and and charges at Mike. A voice echoes in his head but not his ears “I WASNT ASKING.” He grabs a security baton, something that was given to him by Vanessa “just in case”, and thanks Vanessa for possibly saving his life with the stupid thing. The bear charges at him furiously, still shrieking, and pins him against the wall. His head knocks harshly against the wall, smearing the already warm colored bricks with a brilliant red.
Baton rendered basically useless, and painful concussion building in his head, he acts in a desperate last effort. Mike jams the end of the baton in the bear’s good eye, blinding it. It screams, a horrible pained shriek, mechanical vibrations emit from its worn voice box. The animatronic stumbles blindly similarly to Mike’s concussed stumbling. It tackles Mike as he fumbles with the newly locked doors, only being led by sound of the handle jiggling.
Mike tries to reason with the mechanical monster “If you kill me Abby will never forgive you-“ “I DONT CARE” the bear bites down on Mike’s head with another horrific crunch. Blood dribbles down its chin, dripping onto Mike’s now corpse. The bear just stares down at its victim, petrified. A hand grabs the back of its arm as it stares. It startles, the hand pulls, not at the bear, but at the boy. The corpse looks at the boy with what is left of its head, the boy feels himself being pulled but also pushed, an out of body experience despite the boy’s body being long gone. Something collides with the boy as he renters the bear, he’s back in his vessel but he can’t help an overbearing feeling of wrong. It reminds him of the feeling of the first decades in this place. The feeling never truly went away, it just grew quieter over the years.
The bear stares down at the corpse but shakes himself out of his stupor. The droning in his head keeps him composed. One side of his head is wailing with guilt, horror, grief. The other demanding angry, vengeance, pride. Yes. He will be proud. It stops thinking after that and just goes on with the usual procedure to clean up the bodies they made. It ignores the quiet sobbing in its head, it usually hears the crying after it made a new body. It learned a long time ago that the crying was his own.
Eventually the crying disappeared so it carried on with its duty to follow Him. Inside his head the black ichor that normally filled his thoughts was gone, as was the lonely house from before. Instead his mind was a sprawling forest he’s only seen in dreams that weren’t his own.
Then he noticed. He’s not alone.