Chapter Text
Johanna drove back home with a piece of paper towel in her ears. She cleaned most of the blood out but she wants to make sure that it’s completely dry.
She even checks to see if there was anyone in the diner with her that might’ve caused it, which thankfully there isn’t. But it was still strange how she dreamt of the blood happening. Johanna had some déjà vu dreams before but this was just crazy.
When she got home Johanna immediately took off the paper towels and fell to sleep on her bed like she was knocked out. Thankfully, she didn’t have any crazy nightmares during it.
—
Hilda looks up from her sandwich and sees her mum coming out of her bedroom tired and yawning, “morning' mum. Or should I say, afternoon?” She joked.
Her mother waved in exhaustion, then poured water into the kettle, “that job must’ve worn you out, it’s 1:40! You usually get up before me, I bet you were busy catching burglars.” Hilda says while imagining her mum beating down bad guys. Her mum yawned a second time, “no, no. There wasn’t anyone breaking in, thankfully. It’s just been a night… or, morning, I suppose..”
“Oh, oof.” Hilda frowned. But then she noticed her mum's vest which immediately took her mind off the fake robbery, “is that your outfit for work? It looks pretty cool. Can I try it on?”
Johanna noticed and realized that she had completely forgotten to take off her uniform when going to bed. Despite not hearing the rules from the old tape she figured that it’s not really breaking the rules of taking the outfit to her home, she just needs to wear it during work. And to her opinion it’s better than putting it back in the same locker with that creepy faced doll.
“It is, I guess. Here.” She took her uniform off and passed it to Hilda. The blue haired girl immediately put the work vest on and of course it's bigger than her size, but she doesn’t care. Her giant grin made Johanna chuckle.
She looks back at the counter and puts the kettle onto the stove and grabs tea bags from the cabinet. “Anyways, What've you been up to while I was busy snoring?” The mum asked.
“Nothing much, I took Twig to the backyard but after that, just drawing.” Hilda takes another bite out of her lunch she made.
That made the mum saddened, but she should’ve seen that coming when asking the question. What else can her daughter do in a city she barely knows well yet? Her adventurous daughter has to stay in the house while she goes off sleeping, no one but her pup to keep her company. Johanna shouldn’t really feel guilty, but she does.
But then something came across that might fix that, “Oh! That reminds me, you will be attending school next week, how do you feel? Excited?” Johanna says, the tiredness seems to be slipping off a bit.
“Eh, not really. What’s so exciting about school anyways? We get to sit in a chair for hours just listening to one person speaking and the only time you can talk is when you raise your hand? That’s just silly.” Hilda finishes her sandwich with a gruff.
Her mum wasn’t as surprised when her daughter complained, so Johanna use her prepared alternative to make it sound more interesting, “well, it’s not as horrible as it sounds, you could also make new friends!” The mum imagines all the people Hilda can ally with, how Hilda would come home and talk about how they played and hung out. It's better than just sitting in the house doing nothing all day, except on some occasions, but it shouldn’t be an everyday thing.
“Pff, I got my best friend Twig right here! I don’t need anyone else.” Hilda held up her small dog. “Arf!” Twig replies while wagging his fluffy white tail. “And besides, all my other friends are back in our old home.” Johanna stares at her with disbelief. “Hilda, I’m okay with you befriending animals, but don’t you want to befriend humans as well? No offense Twig.”
He stared at her. She doesn’t know if that’s a ‘non taken’ or ‘offense taken’. Hilda meanwhile let out a “humph.” And goes back to huddling Twig.
Johanna let out a sigh, then asked the main question, “do you at least want to look at the school? I believe we got some time to go over.” She asked hoping that her blue haired kid would agree. “Maybe later.” Hilda replies, now holding her dogs front feet and nuzzles on his snout.
Before Johanna could say anything else, the kettle whistles. She sighed and took it out of the oven and poured it in her cup with a tea bag in it.
“We’ll just go tomorrow.” She decided. Hilda's face grouched by it.
—
“Where is it?” Johanna whispers to herself while going through the closet for the third time. It’s already 12:14 am and she couldn’t find her work vest anywhere. It’s not like that it can grow legs and walk away!
The second time she’ll be going over to the restaurant and she’s already late. Sure the person that owns it probably won’t know but she would rather be professional and get there early.
“Hey mum.” She heard a familiar voice behind her. Johanna grunted and tried to push her frustration down and prepare for another argument about ‘shouldn’t you be in bed?’. But as she turns around from the closet she expects to see just her daughter, but instead it’s also her vest that accompanies her. She totally forgot that she gave her the outfit a couple hours back. And from what she can tell by her daughter's expressions she knew she was just not going to give the vest back immediately.
Johanna pinched the bridge between her eyes and sighs, allowing herself to grow sour, “Hilda, take off that vest and go back to bed.”
“But I want to go to work with you!” Hilda was also expecting an argument out of this but hoped that it would lead to her expectations and win.
“No Hilda, you're supposed to be in bed and I’m already late for work. Take it off now.” Johanna says using her stern voice. She can feel that it’s going to be a long night and her daughter is just making things tiring for her.
“But why can't I? I’ll just sleep over there! I won’t bother you with work, promise!” She bickered. Both her and her mum know that’s a lie and she’ll just explore rather than sleep. Johanna kneeled down to her level, “take, it, off.”
Twig awoke on the rug from yelling, he looked over at the corner from the sound coming closer. He spotted Johanna walking towards her daughter's room while holding her. Hilda is trying to hit her back, but it’s obviously doing no affect.
This wasn’t the first time Hilda and her mum got into this type of argument, and to Twigs knowledge, it wouldn’t be the last.
When Johanna walked out of Hilda’s room and notices Twig staring at them, so she made a tired reassuring smile, “she’s all yours now.” And walks off with her vest.
—
She arrived at her destination around 12:46. Before looking for her work vest she was originally gonna get coffee from a 24/7 convince store but since she was already late as she is Johanna decided to just try to stay awake.
She was never much of a coffee person but when it comes to an all-nighter then she gets a cup. Johanna saw a coffee maker in the ‘employees only’ but she doesn’t trust it because of its aging beans and coated dust.
She walked towards her office but heard a small giggle behind her.
Johanna turns around with her flashlight but finds nothing. “Hm, must be my imagination.” She told herself. Her ears are still healing so it just might be her brain tricking her.
As she got to the office she immediately relaxed on the chair. The night guard clicked on the buttons to see if there’s anything, but of course it showed the same rooms as before. She told herself to bring a sketchbook next time. Johanna gets back up and goes to the kitchen to grab a few napkins, then she walks towards the prize center since she remembered seeing pens with bobble heads there.
There are four types, each having one of the robot characters on top of it. None of them really grabs her attention so Johanna just takes the red canine pen and walks back.
Around 1:30 Johanna tries to stay up but is failing miserably. She already filled out most of the napkins with doodles of shapes and patterns and small characters. She wants to get up to get more but she feels like the office chair is glued to her while her eyelids keep getting heavier.
Soon she's back to sleeping on the job.
—
There she was again, walking in the same misty field.
The air and land was wet and cold and the fog was forever blinding like before.
She still doesn’t know where she’s going, in fact her mind was just blank. Yet she still focuses on moving forward.
“Hi.”
Johanna turns around, the same mist that goes around her is still there, but no one in sight. “Hello?” She calls out. No one replied back, and this time she knew she heard something. She hugged herself because the air suddenly got even colder.
She kept going into nowhere, but stopped as she heard laughing. But it wasn’t the same type of laughter like last time, it was more childlike and playful while the laughter before sounded like it came from older kids who were pulling a prank.
“Give it back!”
“Haha! You can’t make me!”
The one that spoke first sounded like a girl who was trying to get her belongings while the second sounded like a boy who stole it and teased her.
“S~op ~t!”
“Y~u ca~t ~ell ~~ ~hat t~ ~~!”
Johanna furrowed her eyebrows from their conversation getting fainted and distant. The poor girl sounded like she’s stressed and the boy obviously wasn't helping at all. So she kept walking forward to the source but the mist kept blocking her from seeing afar and where she’s going.
About minutes in and she feels like she’s been walking forever. The girl and the boy never spoke up ever. But Johanna doesn’t want to give up, she wants to stop the fight between them and help. The further she tries to find them the more she can feel something closely behind her.
“Are you lost?”
Johanna jumped, that sounded like a whisper in the ear. It was way too close to home. It sounded so menacing, the voice was deep and cracking and robotic. She looked around her and it still showed the same fog. “Wh-what?”
“Follow me..”
It came back but not near the ear this time, Johanna hoped it wouldn’t, Her stomach twisted by those words. Johanna has always trusted her instincts, so she just stands there. The wind starts to budge her as if it’s trying to force her to move. She gets annoyed and tries to go the opposite way but the air feels like it’s blocking her and just not letting her move like it’s an invisible wall.
“Follow me….”
Johanna looked behind where the noise was, still nothing but it feels like something there, staring at her like she’s prey. She hates this so much, but seeing that she can’t stay nor go the other direction, Johanna listens and walks towards the noise.
“Follow me…”
She pursues its demands. “Who am I following?” She bought up. Nothing replied to her, as always. The night guard is getting sick and tired of all this nonsense, but walks anyway.
Every step she takes makes the air get colder and her skin starts to get a bit blue. And by that she knows that she’s been walking for quite a while.
Suddenly a shadowy figure ran past her. Johanna looked around frantically. Fear continues to grow.
*shink*
Johanna froze, that sounded sharp. She has used this type of utensil in the kitchen before so this noise was like a hearing muscle memory to her. Another flash of shadow darted through with the wheeled knife but Johanna jumped back while using her arms to block her face. It was too close and Johanna could feel that she didn’t jump in time and that a thin cut shimmered on her elbow.
The deep crackling laughter roared in the fields with sounds of the knife constantly stabbing at something, causing someone to scream in pain! Johanna eyes widened of the horrors she’s hearing and bolt toward the noise.
As the night guard run she looks around to see if the person was nearby and ready for attack while running or if the screaming person is there. But as she tries searching through the mist crashed into a giant boulder. Johanna held her head as pain screamed at her. She sat there very still, breathing heavily from the running.
While the night guard sits, trying to recover, Johanna could feel something pressed against her right hand, she looks down and sees a small but rough rock. She grabs onto it for a weapon of her own, it’s not much but it’s better than being unarmed.
Her ears twitched when she heard a distant cry to the side of her, and just like before it sounded like one of the children that was arguing with the other.
“Oh no..” Dread washed over Johanna. Who is doing this and more importantly why? Johanna ran over to the pleading child to make sure that they were safe and away from harm. But the mist doesn’t help as it gets heavier and blinder, but that didn’t stop Johanna. “I’M COMING!”
However, the scream suddenly ceased. The mothers concern rose and sprinted, “I'm here!” But from the corner of her eye she sees the tall shadowy figure glided from the fog.
Before she knew it, the shadow pushed her forcefully leaving Johanna with a hard ‘thud’ on the wet grass. She grunted feeling agony to her left side.
Sounds of stepping triggered her as she looked up to the tall shadow holding a shape object that matches with its silhouette towards her. She goes fast onto her back and uses her feet to push against the grass away from the monster. But that doesn’t stop it from kicking her legs and holding the knife with its two hands to lunge at her.
Johanna, realizing its next move, rolled over, ignoring the pricking pain from her left side and her head. The tall creature used too much force to attack her from above and almost fell when missed when diving. Johanna quickly gets up and uses the rock that she’s still holding to bash it into its head.
“ARG!” The shadow screamed, having one hand clutching its face while the other still held the hidden knife. Johanna, seeing that it can be weakened, uses the rock a second time to its head. But the figure swiftly ducked in time causing Johanna to fall for her own trick.
“GAHH!” She fell intensely to the ground, her hand lost force and dropped her rock. The shadow came so fast that she didn’t have time to react. Johanna rolled to her back but couldn't go any further because of the new bruise pounding for aid. She looked up and saw that it kicked the rock away, fully disarming her. Then it began to hold the knife with its two hands once more to attack. Johanna, tearing, covers her face with her arms for impact-
*tap-tap* “hello?”
Johanna woke up with a jolt, almost falling from her chair. She rubbed her tired eyes that’s growing dark bags under it. She lazily gazed at her drawings on the napkins, then she looked at the clock.
5:26. Almost half an hour left.
She can’t believe the nightmares she’s been getting. It might be the last thing she ate that’s causing this, but she’s not really sure.
Then out of nowhere she feels a pang of soreness from her left arm, side, and forehead. The night guard curiously looked over and rolled her sleeve up and to her shock, it was badly bruised. She also felt air pressing against her elbow skin so she got up to look at the mirror in the office, and just like before it had a sight paper cut on it along with the purplish greenish marks. Her head also has a deep bruise.
‘Just like my ears from before..’ The night guard thought to herself.
Then the same tapping came again, surprising the night guard. It sounded scratchy from the security monitors. Johanna walked back to her desk and clicked a few buttons and stopped when it showed the entrance.
There is a person with a raincoat knocking on the door, looking inside, then glances at the camera. Though when they saw it they waved, noticing that the camera was on.
“What the?..”
Johanna grabbed her keys, rolled her sleeve back to it’s original form, and walked to the main doors.
As expected when she got there the person who was pretty tall and bulky was waiting patiently in the rain through the door windows. Johanna unlocked it and the person who was previously standing walked inside.
“Thank you.” They say.
“No problem?” Johanna replied while locking the door again, “um, who are you?”
The mystery rain coated person pulled the hoodie down and smooth silver gray hair fell and calm tired amber eyes shine out. They pulled out a badge from their coat, “sorry for the intrusion, I’m investigator Trylla.” She responded.
“Oh um, nice to meet you. I’m Johanna, the night guard of this establishment.” Nerves shake her coldly, did someone call an investigator over? “Did uh.. did something happen?”
Trylla chuckled, “no, no. I’m just checking up on you, I normally do with new night guards here.” The nerves did not die down but in fact rose when she said that. “What do you mean by that?”
She looked to the side and waved her hand, “Just wanted to make sure that you’re safe an’ all. You wouldn’t believe how many accidents happened in this area.”
“Like, with intruders?” Johanna asked nervously.
“Yeah, with intruders.” She kept glances around, as if she’s looking for something. “But also other stuff like making sure that they themselves aren’t doing anything drastic.” Trylla says. “..is that a bruise on you’re forehead?” Johanna eyes widened and touched her head, she felt a pang from touching it. “Oh, um. Yeah, I tripped.” The investigator staring at her hummed, “well, good thing I know where the first aid kit is at!” She said happily. They walk towards the arch and to the office along with Johanna following her. Johanna calmed down a bit, but still felt her stomach knotting.
Minutes passed and Johanna now has a square head bandage finding her bruise. She also learned that there’s a first aid kit in the drawers. “Thank you.” She says to the investigator.
“You’re welcome.” Trylla replied. “Have you met them?”
Johanna looked at Trylla with her head tilted a bit. “..who?”
Before she knows it they’ve reached the main area of the restaurant, Trylla looked around as if she’s a new customer at a reopening. “Pretty neat, isn’t it.” She says with optimism. Johanna looked around the same deserted place, dust still floats around and cobwebs can be seen in almost every corner. But the night guard didn’t want to be mean, so she answered kindly, “it is yeah.”
Johanna still doesn’t remember much about the place she was in, so seeing it now just makes her cringe instead of saddened.
Trylla snickered, seeing right through the night guard, “it’s okay if you don’t find it attractive. But this is the part I wanted you to see!”
The night guard watches the investigator walking over to a wall near the stage, to Johanna’s surprise when she saw what was behind there, it was that same big red hidden button from the tape. Johanna suddenly realized what she meant now.
Trylla pressed on it and everything glowed while eighties music started to play. Johanna watched in amazement that the diner, after years left untouched, still works. Then the curtains curled up to the sides and Johanna’s eyes widened.
The same robot she saw in the tape before danced. Even though Johanna has already seen the bird character it still can’t shake up the feeling about how towering they are. She realizes that it must’ve taken forever to set them up.
The three robots remain on their stage while the seal thing and the fish puppet in its hand dances on its own platform. The bird hits the triangle it’s holding while the mouse sings on its microphone and the red canine just boogie to the music.
But her eyes stayed looking at the tall bronze mouse, she felt frozen just by looking at it. A tiny glimpse of a flashback briefly flew into her head, causing the night guard to feel a bit nostalgic but also fearful. Like she enjoys watching it sing but afraid that it will step off the stage and pick her up with its mechanical arms and brutally attack her. Then lyrics played catching her off guard, making Johanna blink her sore eyes from staring.
“Don’t let your love fly away, fly awayyy! Don’t be afraid, to seize the dayyyy!”
The giant mouse sang while the yellowish orange bird swung its instrument to the tune. The music was old timeish and loud but Johanna can still hear what the other person in the room can say.
Trylla walked back to her and gestured to each of them, “Meet the Superb Sparrow, Marvelous Mouse, Radical Red Wolf, and Scurvy Salt Lion.” Johanna looked confused with that last one, “salt lion?”
The investigator shrugged. “The creator.. wanted to build something different and got imaginative. Added ‘em before it was shut down.”
Johanna looked at the Salt Lion robot, “so that’s why the robot looks like a seal with fins?” Trylla nodded, “it’s actually an animatronic.” The night guard remarked that word back when she was interviewed by Bjorg that he did mention that word.
She watches as the animatronics perform their gig. “Do they have actual names?” Trylla shook her head. “Out of all the things the creator thought of, it wasn’t that. He likes to stick to building. Names were not one of his specialties… except for the puppet Scurvy is holding, his name is Eugene.” She says pointed towards the creepy fish puppet.
“Ah.” The night guard simply says. Johanna thought about the creator’s imagination and ability. What else did he think of before the whole thing blew over. Was there gonna be more sets? More buildings? Were the fake movie posters of these characters actually an idea for them to go onto the big screen?
“Wanna dance?” Trylla asked, interrupting Johanna’s thoughts.
She looked over and saw her offering her hand out. But before she could answer, sparks flew everywhere, startling both Johanna and Trylla.
Johanna didn’t see in time what would have caused this, she just knew that the show was over as the curtains flew back in a flash, hiding the animatronic band.
“Ah, well, years left unattended will lead them to surge like that.” Trylla sighs.
“What happened?” Johanna looked at the investigator with worry. She noticed the night guards panic and comforted her with a tired smile, “don’t worry, Superb Sparrow just malfunctioned from hitting the triangle too much. Scary at first but rest assured that it doesn’t cause a lot of harm.”
Johanna breathed in relief at that. “Is that why this restaurant is closed?”
Trylla got quiet, her eyes looked down for a moment in sympathy. “No, not really.” She takes a long deep sigh. “Remember how I said that there were multiple incidents in this place? Well, the main reason why it closed off is because two kids went missing.. they were never found.”
Johanna holds her mouth, shocked. “Oh dear..” she remembers about why this job was opened but was never taken back at the interview. Bad pay, bad shifts, AND a scary background. What confuses her is why didn’t her counselor didn’t say anything at all?
What got her more frightened is that the investigator said that it was the main reason. Did something else happen before? Johanna wanted to ask more but she doesn’t know if she could. What didn’t help is that she still felt those lifeless eyes from the mouse animatronic staring at her, like the incident was almost tied in with that giant robot.
Trylla looked at her, seeing her in distress, so she walked over to place a hand on her shoulder, “it’s okay that you didn’t know, I didn’t expect you to do an essay on anything about this place.”
The night guard didn’t feel comforted by that, she wanted to at least know some history about this restaurant, what happened before. Maybe there’s some more tape in the office.
“I feel like I should’ve known, I barely remember my aunt bringing me to this place when I was younger.” She finally spoke.
The investigator raises an eyebrow, “oh?” Surprised that the night guard had been in this restaurant before it became ruined. Johanna, hesitantly, looked back at the main stage. “Yeah, but we stopped going afterwards. I don’t know why but I couldn’t help but think that.. never mind it’s foolish to think like that.”
Trylla shakes her head slowly, “I’ve done multiple cases, and half of them were a lot more foolish than this diner.” Johanna smiled small, then frowned again and crossed her arms as if a swift wind breeze by.
“I-“
BEEP BEEP BEEP
She was interrupted by the far sound of an alarm clock on her watch which panicked Johanna, and even Trylla. “That must be the alarm clock. I should pack it up.”
Trylla inclined, arms on her side. “Johanna, before I leave, promise me you won't stay here longer.” The night guard turned around and met her sorrowful eyes. The investigator looked as if she had seen a lot of horrors during her cases, maybe even before she became an investigator. Johanna can’t help but feel sadness by staring into her sleep deprived eyes. “I’ll quit when I can.” She says, seeing Trylla breathe a bit, but still stressed as if she’s not satisfied with her answer.
“Well, I better get going. Got a lot of work to do. I’ll check up on you if you do work again.” She says with a more passionate smile.
“Alright, it was nice meeting you.”
“Likewise.” The investigator turned around and headed out the entrance. Johanna can hear the door opening and closing from afar.
She turned the opposite way and walked back down to the security office. She didn’t bring anything from home but she does what to hold onto her napkin drawings for future inspiration.
As she got there she looked over at her desk for her doodles but halted. Her heart dropped like an anvil and her brain is trying to recall what she’s looking at. But no matter what she tried to think back she doesn’t remember writing on her napkin saying, ‘it’s me’