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She was there. She was there when his head was crushed by that yellow bear. She was there when the pizzeria went under lockdown. She was there when the fox was decommissioned, and she was there when her only friend’s voice cut out over the phone as the power shut down. Now, she was here.
She pushed her frizzy curls behind her ear nervously as the elevator began its long descent. The young night guard briefly forgot why she had agreed to this when she accidentally brushed her hand over the gun hanging off her hip. It unsettled her that she’d need one when her job took place in the depths of the underground. Suddenly, static cut through the eerie silence, and she jumped as a booming voice greeted her through the speakers.
“Welcome to the first day of your exciting new career! Whether you were approached at a job fair, read our ad at Screws, Bolts, and Hairpins, or if this the result of a dare, we welcome you.” She snorted. At least this job to was slightly more amusing than the others, but she had to do this. She had to finish this. For him. As she zoned out, she could faintly hear the voice of her robo-guide, but she tuned him out.
As a result, she startled again when a yellow keypad with the word “Mike” taped across the top popped up in front of her with no warning. “Please enter your name as seen above the keypad. This cannot be changed later, so please be careful.” Confused, she attempted to type the word “Mike” into the keypad (though this was not her name: she was simply following instructions), but the elevator was moving too much. The word she typed ended up being something like Mmmoikse, for which she internally cursed.
“It seems you are having trouble with the keypad. I see what you were trying to type and I will autocorrect it for you. One moment.” “Oh brother,” she whispered under her breath. “Welcome, Eggs Benedict.” She audibly laughed out loud with that one. Oh boy, what was she walking into. Her mood immediately darkened, however, when she realized what the next part of her job required her to do.
“You can now open the elevator using that bright, red, and obvious button. Let’s get to work.” Upon opening the elevator door, she saw before her only a vent to crawl through. Now, she began bracing herself as the memories washed over her.
She had always hated confined spaces since that fateful day as a child. Before, she loved to crawl through toy pipes and tunnels inside of playground structures. Now, though, she was repulsed by them
Something that no one else knew about her was that she always blamed herself for his death. She could have stopped his demon of an older brother and his friends from ever forcing him to go near that ghastly animatronic. Instead, as he was being tortured by them, she was playing and wiggling through those damned tunnels of plastic. She heard his cries when it happened, and when she crawled her way to a window, she could see his bloodied, crushed head. /p>
Shaking the horrible memory out of her head, she made it to the end of the vent. Before her was a creepy room covered in masks, which brought another wave of unpleasant memories. Hand-Unit’s voice brought her back to the present once more. “Let’s motivate Ballora with a controlled shock.” The darker side of her mind that often manipulated her from behind the scenes was delighted. Now she has the chance to hurt those in which hurt her, and him.
She quickly pushed that thought away and pressed the red button, watching the stage light up. She repeated this process two more times, with a creepy white and pink variation of the fox and the ringleader herself. Now, her shift was supposed to be over, but of course that was when it all went to shit.
Everything suddenly powered down.The lights all went out, and all the vent doors opened behind her. She was trapped in here with them.
Across from her, one bright blue and one shimmering lime green eye shone from the darkness. Then, an eerie voice began to speak. It was feminine and chilling, a mix of what she guessed was the pigtailed animatronic across from her and the little innocent girl killed by it. She didn’t trust it at all.
“Hello. You are the first human I’ve seen in a long, long time. Why would you choose a career such as this? One where every day, something could go...wrong. You know they’re coming, don’t you? Hide. There is a space under the desk that will protect you until they lose interest.”
Yeah, no. She’s gettin’ the hell out. She’d seen what they can do in the dark, and she didn’t want to be anywhere near them when they escaped their rooms. The night guard dropped to her hands and knees in order to efficiently crawl, about to enter the vent when she heard the next, more sinister words from the mascot.
“Wow. You really are a dummy, aren’t you? Well, now you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Pushing the unsettling tone out of her mind, she began to scramble as fast as she could through the vent, eager to escape this hell before they were able to follow her. As she pushed and shoved her way through the seemingly endless tunnel, the holstered gun on her hip clanged around, hitting the walls and making a huge cacophony of noise. It nearly drowned out the sound of something pattering its way through the vent behind her, but she heard it.
It reached for her boot with its tiny, metal hands, but she kicked the animatronic baby away as she picked up her pace. She reached the end of that awful metal cocoon and found herself back in the main control module. Only this time, she noticed a second later, she wasn’t alone in the room.
Two piercing pink eyes peered at her from the right vent, while two glowing orange ones glared at her from the left. At the right window, eight pairs of gleaming yellow eyes stared at her almost hungrily, and at the left, a set of electric blue, shocking gold, faint forest green, tiny white dots, and haunting purple. Behind her, more and more of the small ones that had begin chasing her in the vent bunched together. She had to get to the exit NOW.
In a desperate attempt to escape, she dove for the open vent in front of her. This caused them all to spring into action. A clawed hand shot out from the left side of her and dug into her leg, drawing a high-pitched shriek from her mouth. She struggled and kicked and did her best to get away from the homicidal fox behind her, but it had an iron grip on her leg, and it would not let her go. It began to pull her out, and she could do nothing to prevent it. Finally, she realized she was going to die.
Unwilling to let these monsters have the satisfaction of killing her, she hatched a dark plan. Now, instead of struggling to escape, she was fumbling for her gun. She finally unlatched it from its holster, and she aimed it towards her head. Just as she began to see the orange eyes up close, she closed her eyes and pulled.
BANG!
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“So, funny story. A dead body was found in this vent once. Okay, so, not that funny, but.......it’s a story.”