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Harry's last thought before they slam the head down is that he doesn't want to die.
It's a bit cliché, really, when he thinks about it in retrospect. Then again, he never claimed to be the most original guy around.
From the moment the lights go dark while he's stuttering out a message to the next poor bastard who's going to take the job after him, he knows it's coming. He always knew it was a possibility, but nothing compares to the sheer and utter animalistic terror he feels as he looks up to find them, all of them, staring at him with glowing eyes, and from the moment that he's grabbed all his thoughts go absolutely haywire.
As he's dragged in by his legs, hysterical and already in pain from the journey there, he tries to grab the door to the backroom in a last-ditch effort to prolong what's looming over him, and is rewarded for it by a quiet snapping and a pain in his fingers that's so sharp he can't even hear his nails scratch and break against the door as Foxy viciously tugs him inside. He's screaming, and he's pretty sure he's crying, and the robot hands that pick him up by the shirt and then hold him in place while he thrashes helplessly are so tight on him they must hurt, but he can't feel a thing through the fog in his brain. He's so high on adrenaline that his brain is reduced to one of an animal, kicking and shrieking and struggling in an attempt to somehow get away from what he knows to be inevitable. He'd played with fire long enough, and he lost. It's the logical conclusion to his painfully disinteresting, mediocre life story.
It doesn't make any of it any less terrifying.
He wishes he never took this cursed, god-forsaken job. He wishes someone will figure out he's missing and feed his cat after he's gone. He wishes he had more time. He wonders if everyone wishes they did when they die.
They're placing suit parts over his arms. He thinks his chest is going to burst open. It doesn't hurt yet, the parts just set in place for someone to press them closed. Somehow, it's worse that way.
He's stopped begging a while back - lost the voice for it, and the coherency for it - but he still screams something, then. It's not words, at least he doesn't think so. His vision is blurred, half from the tears and half from the fact that he must've lost his glasses sometime during the process of being dragged out of his office, but he still sees Freddy's eyes crystal clear as they lock into his. They glow like a seeping, glaring wound in the dim blackness of the parts and service, and the sight somehow disturbs him more than the sight of the bolts and wires of the robot part the bear is holding over his face.
He knows it's over, then. He knows it's going to happen. He knows it's going to hurt.
He just doesn't want to die.
His throat is so raw from screaming that all he's able to gasp out is a: "P-Please." Very unoriginal, as far as last words go, but he can't think of anything better to say.
He can't think much of anything else, really, because that's when Freddy shoves the suit head down over his, and for a split second while he can still register sound he can hear a squelching sort of crack.
He was right: it does hurt. But it doesn't hurt long, at least.
And then, it's over.
And then, it's not.
A door squealing.
A young voice. Probably a teenager, maybe a young adult at best. "I'm just gonna check-"
"No." The response is cutting, harsh, just a breath away from a yell. Something squeaks against the tiles.
Harry feels like he's free-falling. He's sitting, though. He's not sure how both of the concepts can coexist. He's not even sure if he can feel anything.
There's light. Why is there light?
"Eugh-" A retching sound, like someone's just opened something rotten that's been sitting in the fridge for a few days too long. "What's that?"
As suddenly as it appeared, the light is shut out. The voices are muffled when they come to him again, like they're floating through water, and for all he knows, maybe they are. "Kid, I am not asking you again: get out of here right now."
"But-"
"Now. I'm covering your shift. Get some sleep. Come in tomorrow. And for the love of God, don't mention this to anyone, and if the manager asks you to take the night shift, don't. You got it?"
The younger voice takes a while to reappear. Harry's never been the best at reading subtones in conversations, and currently, he's not the best at existing, but even he can read the fear in her voice. "What?"
"Nothing happened. You didn't see anything." The voice leaves no room for argument. "Now, go."
"But-"
"Go!" the voice practically snarls, raising into a shout. It's quiet after that.
Harry can't breathe. Why can't he breathe?
It's an eternity before the door opens again.
This time, he is aware enough to register the figure standing in the doorway.
"...Fucking hell," the voice says, sounding slightly faint, and he finally recognizes it.
As James walks in, the most absurd part of Harry's mind immediately notes that he's not wearing his staff shirt. Janitors aren't technically required to do so, but still, it strikes Harry as wrong. And he's cursing, which also strikes him as wrong.
"Fuck," James curses again, as if on cue, hands twitching as he comes closer to- he doesn't know where. He doesn't know - with the light pouring in, the janitor's silhouette is too sharp for his eyes, and he can't tell what expression the other man is wearing. His steps are weirdly slow, like he's approaching a wild animal that could jump out at him at any second. Harry wants to say something, but he can't remember how.
Something squelches under James' foot, then, and he looks down, and suddenly he's jumping back like he's been burned. "Fuck!" he exclaims at whatever was on the floor.
No cursing, Harry wants to remind him, wants to speak. Or move. Or do anything.
James stands frozen, now, looking at the floor, and the night guard doesn't need to see his expression to notice how his entire outline shakes as his head tilts up again. How it shakes with each almost hesitant step it takes back toward the wall.
And suddenly, with a click, there's so much light so suddenly and abruptly it fills Harry's vision entirely, turning it white with a sharp flash that makes him break into an involuntary scream, but not a sound comes out.
Something is blinding him. Something is dripping on the floor. Something stinks of death.
James inhales sharply and, sounding faint, breathes out: "Oh, you poor bastard."
And with that, the world blurs again.
The next few times Harry wakes up, it's always to voices. He recognizes some. Some, he doesn't. It's a soup of words and phrases and people, from his location's manager to James to someone who he's pretty sure is a newer hire because they sound too hysterical for anyone who's worked at Freddy's for more than a year would be. The phrases never stick. They slide off of him like water, without discrimination, even as he catalogs them somewhat absent-mindedly. He hears words like 'body' and 'evidence' and 'missing persons report', like 'estranged family' and 'single' and 'police', and so many swears he doesn't even bother listening to them.
He thinks he hears a 'I'm sorry' from James in there, somewhere. He feels, strangely, like it's being directed at him, but he can't imagine why.
So he just floats, for a while. And it's somewhat comfortable.
The last time Harry wakes up is the only one where he's sure he's hallucinating.
It's dark again, now, thankfully. After the sharp lights, the abyss is such a relief he wishes it could last forever.
But it doesn't. And immediately, as it's broken, he's strangely calmed down by it.
Because there is no other explanation for why he recognizes the tiny, high-pitched voice that speaks to him then, other than that his mind is making it up.
"Are you still here?"
It's strange. He never interacted with the kid one-on-one, but it's immediately astounding to him how well his brain is recreating her voice. It almost genuinely sounds like Charlie, ten years ago, like nothing ever happened to her and like no time has passed, like she's still a happy, healthy and living toddler with giant gaps between her front teeth and the brightest tiny smile and bright purple sneakers, and he's still just an employee at a regular job, absent-mindedly watching his bosses' kids play at the pizzeria, his biggest worry that they were going to break something when he's not looking and not them being potentially abducted and murdered.
His chest feels weirdly empty. He doesn't know why that is.
"You are," she continues, then, sounding oddly calm, like she's just stating an obvious fact. In a weirdly tight tone, she adds: "I didn't know if you'd stay." It's not a way of speaking that would fit a child, so it should sound at least a little odd to him, but then again she should also not be able to speak at all, considering the last time he saw her her throat was slit and she was very much dead. So, probably not as odd.
Harry wants to tilt his head in a question, and is shocked to realize that he, in fact, can. He can't see anything, still. But he can hear the voice just fine as imaginary Charlie shuffles around the abyss they are in, her pitter-pattering steps confusing him even more.
If this is a dream, it's a very strange one. Hallucination, maybe?
Charlie stops and sits down next to him. He doesn't know how he knows that, because he doesn't feel it happen - he just knows, somehow. She whispers again, her tiny voice so much closer and tangible and so real as she asks: "Are you scared?" And Harry furrows his eyebrows, or at least he thinks he does.
Because he's not scared, of course he's not. He's very confused, and he has no idea why the kid would ever ask him that, sure, but he's not scared. He'll have to ask Henry what the girl meant by that the next time he sees him. The man always understood his daughter best.
But Henry's gone, and Charlie's dead, and Harry's floating and maybe something's wrong, here.
"It's okay if you are," Charlie reassures. He can't see it, but he hears her sneakers squeaking on the tile as she shifts in an odd way that makes them sound like they're soaking wet. The kid was going to catch a cold, running around with shoes like that. He wants to point that out, and he thinks he does, but from the way she doesn't seem to even register the words, he wasn't successful.
When she speaks again, her voice is just a bit quieter: "You sounded really scared when they caught you." She pauses a little, then adds: "I could hear it from all the way downstairs. It sounded pretty bad. I'm sorry they did that."
She does sound sorry. Harry has no idea what she's talking about. Everything's muted, wherever they are, and trying to think feels like he's wading through thick mud.
Caught him?
Where is he, again? What happened? He can't remember, but for the first time since waking up, he feels like he should, that he must, that something is not normal here, and it dawns on him, slowly, like seeing a wave rising above him at open sea, that there is something very, very wrong with the tiny voice talking to him. It stirs in him so slowly he didn't notice it coming until it was too late, but now that he has, it's all he can think about.
He tries to stand up, and merely twitches, and he pushes on this time and this time, something hurts, and that pain turns the murky mud his mind is wading through to ice.
Something's wrong.
"I remember you," the voice that sounds like Charlie says, in the same tone as before, but something's shifted, now; something in Harry's mind is starting to move, and he doesn't know what it is, and it swims around like a shark under the sea surface as the kid continues and he sits. "I'm sorry I spooked you, back at the old place. You never liked seeing me there." She taps her sneakers against the tiles again, audibly lost in thought: "I really didn't like that. You used to talk with me before dad came to pick me up. You were nice. I really didn't like that you were scared of me." And that's ridiculous, because Harry was never scared of a toddler, at least not that he recalls, but he's rethinking that now when he tries to move and fails again beyond shifting his head and for the first time, a flash of something uncomfortably close to fear rises in his chest.
That's when it suddenly dawns on him - this entire time, he's spent ignoring the weird emptiness in his chest because he frankly had bigger concerns. But it isn't moving. Even as he focuses, it just isn't moving.
He's not breathing.
He hasn't been breathing for a while, now.
And that's when the pit under the surface opens up, and he feels himself start to spiral and he can't stop it because he can't breathe, he cannot breathe, he's not choking but he can't breathe and he can't feel his own fucking pulse, he realizes, even as the panic that washes over him should've brought it to his throat.
Something's wrong. Something is extremely, terribly wrong.
A small hand suddenly finds its way to his knee, and he jerks and finally succeeds. Charlie - is it Charlie? What is it, actually? What does it want from him? What's going on?
It’s like there is a wall, standing strong in his mind, blocking the answers away, and it’s crumbling. He doesn’t want it to go away.
"You'll be okay," the voice says, and it sounds like an apology. It sounds like a hollow circus tune, one that feels deeply familiar.
Harry can't breathe, but he feels like if he could, that would be the point where he'd start to hyperventilate.
Charlie sighs, then. It's in a way that doesn't fit a child at all, too weary and experienced and tired. It's in a way that makes him question whether he's about to die. The voice starts speaking again, and it sounds apologetic, almost, and that doesn't make any sense but it does: "The others are going to find you soon. Follow them, okay? I'll just go back to my box, now. But I'll come visit you whenever I go to see them, alright?"
And then, the presence is gone. Not standing up, not leaving - one moment, it’s there, and the other, it’s gone. And its words don't make a lick of sense, and the ground doesn't feel real anymore and Harry doesn't know what's going on anymore and he can’t remember what happened but he can tell that there was something there, before, and it doesn’t feel like a hallucination at all and it’s honestly, genuinely scaring him.
The wall is crumbling, and he doesn’t know what will send it tumbling down.
In the end, it only takes a few minutes of sitting alone, trying not to move too much and simultaneously trying to escape his own skin, for everything to come rushing back, little by little in flashes until suddenly the floodgates open and-
He realizes why he can’t move, then, as he looks down and, even in extreme darkness, sees the outline of an animatronic suit.
He’s pretty sure that’s when they appear and as it all dawns on him five silhouettes close in, blurry and unfocused in the dark but they’re there so suddenly it almost hurts.
He’s pretty sure that’s when he starts screaming.