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He turned around and frowned.
Something was wrong.
The boy felt around with his hands, unwilling to open his tired eyes quite yet. And sure enough, he couldn’t feel his warm blanket or his slightly too hard mattress that was supposed to be lying on. Slowly but surely his groggy mind came to a conclusion:
He wasn’t in his bed.
The boy didn’t want to open his eyes for an entirely different reason now. If he just goes back to sleep, he should wake up just like normal. That was how this worked, right? And yet, the longer he tried to ignore his surroundings, the more he grew aware of the lack of noise around him, and the lack of anything, for that matter. The boy took a shuddering breath, and opened his eyes.
Nothing.
Before him lay a seemingly unending plane of nothingness, as far as he could tell at least. The only things he could recognize were his pajama and his own, seemingly floating body.
Now he regretted ever trying to be brave. He closed his eyes again, not that it made a difference, really, and tried to make himself as small as possible. Tears started rolling down his cheeks as he struggled to make sense of his situation. But no matter how hard he tried, it didn’t make sense.
He was convinced that he had fallen asleep in his bed, in his room after his Mommy had tucked him in the night before, reminding him to sleep well. She had said that he had to be well-rested for tomorrow, they would be doing... something.
The boy struggled to breathe for a second, before trying to remember again. Remember anything, really. What was his name again?
He opened his eyes and screamed for help.
His voice was met with silence, and for a brief moment he wondered if he was in space. His Mommy had explained to him once that there was no sound in space, and that it was dark and cold there. The boy didn’t feel cold though. And weren’t there supposed to be stars?
He screamed again, pleading for someone to help him.
“I don’t know where I am!”, or
“Please, just help me find my Daddy!”, and
“Is anyone there? Anyone? Please, I need help-”
Nothing.
It was getting hard to breathe, and his head had started hurting. His Daddy had told him that he would feel bad after crying for a long time, so he tried to calm down. After a while tears started to run down his face again. He rubbed at his eyes angrily, slightly frustrated, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop himself from crying.
Something touched his arm.
The boy let out a yelp and whipped around, his hands held protectively before his face when he was blinded. After a short while, he could finally see again. He peaked from behind his hands hesitantly.
A glowing person stood still before him, large black eyes unmoving. They were watching him, he realized.
“Please help me,”he said.
He was scared, and talking hurt a lot after screaming, but this was his only chance to get home. The figure tilted their head slightly to the side, as if considering something.
They had blue streaks running down their face, the boy realized, it almost looked like the figure had been crying as well. The boy considered asking the glowing person if they were alright, but his Daddy had told him not to talk to strangers. Then the boy realized that he had done that already anyways, so really, he had nothing to loose.
But before he could open his mouth, the person had stood up straight again and was now offering him their hand. He looked at it uncertainly.
“I don’t know if I should-”
The figure moved closer, impatiently waiting for him to grab their hand. The boy didn’t have a choice, did he? After all, he couldn’t just wait here forever, hoping that something would happen. And so, the boy dried his tears once more with his sleeve before moving his hand into the one made of light.
Everything turned dark again, and for a short moment the boy thought that the figure had simply left him. But then he heard it.
There was music in the distance, a cheery tune he had heard before in a commercial.
His friend had shown him the commercial, after he had complained that it was boring to celebrate a birthday in a restaurant. He still hadn't been convinced, but would come anyways just to make his friend happy. He had bought them an amazing gift, and couldn’t wait to see their reaction to it. He'd been so excited that he could barley sleep the night before, his mother had to tuck him in.
Now the music filled him with dread. It came closer.
The boy struggled and tried to pull back, to no avail. He couldn’t move.
He remembered arriving to the restaurant with his friend and a bunch of other children he didn’t recognize. They had reserved a table to the front, directly before the big stage. The boy recalled staff walking around in silly costumes, with bright smiles on their faces and pizza on the plates they were carrying. It was magical.
The boy called out for help once more, tears wet on his face. He almost couldn’t hear himself gasping for breath over the loud music.
The small group followed one of the waiters. There was cake for the birthday boy in the back, he had promised them.
His head hurt. He knew what happened next, and the panic came back full force. There was a yellow light approaching him quickly, or was he approaching it? He couldn’t tell anymore, the deafening music was making him dizzy. The boy watched helplessly as the light consumed him, until finally, he could see again.
The boy was looking through the eye-holes of some sort of mask, view slightly obscured. He could see children staring up at him expectantly, smiles on their faces. One of them was holding a toy, a bear plushie, while the others were eating ice cream and looking at… the stage?
Why was he on the-
He started to move, torso rotating unnaturally, but the children didn’t seem to mind. The boy caught something out of the corner of his eyes, a yellow hand waving at the small crowd.
And then it clicked.
No one could hear the small child wail in despair, as it realized that it would never go home again.
No one, and yet one of the employees couldn’t help but watch nervously as a small trail of blood started leaking from under Chica’s torso.
William Afton wasn’t someone to get nervous easily, mind you, but he didn’t really feel like getting caught and trialed for murder any time soon.
He took his time changing into his casual clothes, took a celebratory slice of pizza for a job well done and left the restaurant with a grin on his face.