Chapter Text
Michael remembered when his mother didn’t come home.
His father had been extra irritated that day. Rambling like a madman about her. Enough so that Michael, at 10 years old, began to question his own father’s stability.
She’d gone out to buy Michael a toy. William had bought one for his sister and his brother, but nothing for him.
Clara Afton wouldn’t stand for that. She yelled at William for an hour about the way he was treating his eldest.
“You could at least pretend to care about him! I get he’s the reason we’re even married, but you show so much love to Elizabeth and Evan!”
William had begun shouting back loud enough for Michael to hear. “You know me, Clara. I hate mistakes. Not even just his existence, but his entire identity as a whole! That boy’s nothing but a smudge that shouldn’t have existed in the first place!”
“How can you say that, he’s your child!”
“Please, as if you’re deserving of a mother of the year award. Don’t think I don’t notice that bottle in your damn car. You’ll get my kids killed one day you know.”
“I-I. William, I’m going out. Michael is deserving of everything Lizzie and Evan have, I will not let you neglect my son.”
Michael remembered a loud bang as the door slammed shut. He imagined for an hour that his mother would come upstairs and hold him like she usually did. That he would smell her perfume and feel her hands running through his hair.
But his mother never came.
Police came to the door instead.
Holding his new fox plush in his arms felt like a crime.
Drunk driving was what they had said.
His mothers photos disappeared shortly after that.
—
A week managed to pass by Michael, much to his surprise. Time seemed unforgiving as he tried to navigate everything that had happened in such a short amount of time. He kept questioning his dream, the same things happened, but him not going through with the prank seemed to help Michael avoid a more gruesome ending. It was something that made bile burn the back of his throat from just thinking about it.
It was suffocating, thinking about what might have happened. He could still make the image in his head, blood everywhere, on his hands, in his clothes, on his face, all over Jeremy, all coming from Evan.
Michael shook his head, tearing the image from his mind. He snapped back to reality, the darkness of his room filling his vision. His eyes felt slightly heavy and he knew he needed sleep, but he couldn’t help but fear it. It filled Michael with shame that he was almost 15 and scared to sleep of all things.
He rolled around in bed all night, trying to focus on the fact that Evan was still here.
–
His father was out for work as usual by the time Michael managed to get out of bed. He’d walked out of his room and down the stairs to see Evan and Elizabeth downstairs eating breakfast in the dining room.
Michael rubbed his eyes, still feeling drained after everything. He looked at the kitchen but he didn’t really feel all that hungry. His stomach was twisted into far too many knots for him to even think about eating.
Evan finally noticed him and brightened up a bit, which caught Elizabeth’s attention. “Morning, Mikey!” Evan called out to his elder brother, who smiled in return.
Elizabeth looked a little nervous, still a bit on edge about the…incident from what felt like forever ago. “Good morning, Elizabeth,” Michael said, deciding to initiate.
Elizabeth looked a tad bit happier as she mumbled a ‘good morning’ back.
—
Michael felt extraordinarily bored out of his mind as he lay down on his bed. Elizabeth and Evan had gone over to Charlie’s and Uncle Henry’s place for the afternoon. His father was still gone and Michael had no idea when he’d come home, but it wasn’t going to be any time soon.
He sighed. What has his life come to? He can’t stand mirrors anymore, he just recently saved his little brother from a horrible death, so what was next? His sister? He remembers from the dream that she was next.
What had even gotten her killed? All he remembers was that creepy clown girl Elizabeth has been raving about for months now. Michael had a feeling that that thing might have something to do with her death.
He huffed, looking at his desk.
That stupid Walkman was there.
Michael turned away.
—
There wasn’t much Michael remembered about his mother’s funeral.
He recalled wearing an itchy suit identical to his fathers. Elizabeth, still just a toddler, and his slightly older younger brother, crying his eyes out per usual into his father’s pant leg.
Michael almost wanted to cry too. But he just couldn’t. He felt like a monster in some way. Like he never loved her. His maternal grandparents were both sobbing on the other side of the room, so why wasn’t he? Michael didn’t feel anything.
He felt like a shell. Like something was missing but he didn’t know what. All Michael could do was look at the casket in front of him with emotionless eyes.
He wasn’t sad that his mother was gone. At least, that’s what Michael told himself.
And that made him angry.
It filled his entire soul, mind, and body until he was angry at the exhaustion he felt from it.
Maybe anger was his way of feeling upset.
Maybe anger was just his way of coping.
—
A few hours later and Michael knew if he wanted to find out what was up with Baby, he’d have to find out through his father’s schematics.
Perhaps he should take up that offer from his father. If he wanted to get in close, Michael would have to work with his father for once.
Michael groaned as he got up, knowing just how to bring the subject up with his father without seeming highly suspicious.
—
Michael felt his heart pounding as he sat down at the dining table with a piece of notebook paper in front of him. It was his own schematic of an entirely different version— totally original, you couldn’t convince Mike otherwise —of Funtime Foxy. He was currently calling it Lolbit. Sure, his father came up with a clown, a puppeteer, a ballerina, and a ringleader/show host, but what about a comedian?
In Michael’s personal opinion, a circus theme needs to be somewhat funny. Sure a clown could take up that job, but from what he heard from his father and Elizabeth, Baby was geared towards a much younger demographic than the others, mostly making balloons or dispensing ice cream. Lolbit would make anyone they came across laugh or giggle.
He smirked as he sighed his name onto the paper with his favorite red pen and got up. His father would be home late per usual, but leaving the schematic out in the opening where he was sure to see it would hopefully catch his father’s eye.
He would just have to wait.
2 months until the Grand Opening