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Oh God, not this again.
Michael couldn’t help but glare at the red lake, frustration climbing through his body. He remembered vividly the last time he was here, and the “conversation” he had with that old man ran even fresher through his mind.
“Come and sit with me for a while.”
“…am I here? Am I finally dead?” Michael wasn’t entirely sure if this was a dream, but he couldn’t stop the words from his mouth. He had no clue what the afterlife would entail, so it looked like a lake with a polite old fisherman was entirely possible. This could’ve been a dream, but no- it couldn’t be. Michael doesn’t have dreams. At least, not since he got scooped.
“Not in the way you want,” the fisherman hummed as Michael sat next to him.
“…what?” Michael didn’t mean to answer, but confusion continued his side of the conversation.
“You are here for a reason, but the reason itself I can not say. You may think the demon is the one keeping you tethered to the now, but it is someone else.”
Michael’s jaw shut with a close, as his fingers dug into his palms. Confusion only built, with added frustration crawling under his skin and begging to be let out. The fisherman was wrong.
“Who is it? Why can’t you tell me?” Michael pushed down the irritation crawling up his stomach, as he turned to the old man. They weren't even looking at Michael, only at the bobber that bobbed a slow dance with the waves.
The fisherman ignored Michael, finishing their lecture.
“You are broken, and I nor any amount of information can put you back together. Leave the demon to his demons, there is nothing else.”
Michael felt his brows furrow, and he stood up. A glare filled with too many years of fury was shot at the fisherman, but of course they didn’t notice. An angry huff clawed its way from the man’s throat, and he stomped his way away from the red lake and to the red and white trees.
He didn’t want to hear what the old man said, they were clearly wrong, and he didn’t have time for nonsense. He had to focus on stopping his father.
Ducking under one of the red branches, Michael suddenly awoke in his bed with a gasp.
Michael stood at the edge of the lake, shoes digging into mud that faded into the red water. There was no bobber dancing with the current, so Michael gazed emptily at the water as his mind wandered. Unfortunately, it wandered right back to the fisherman’s words.
“Leave the demon to his demons, there is nothing else.”
“You may think the demon is the one keeping you tethered to the now, but it is someone else.”
The voice was as clear as day, even if the dream- vision-
whatever
this could be called was all the way back from Fazbear’s Fright. From the night before he set the fire.
Michael’s head tilted downward, gaze settling on his reflection in the red water. He didn’t know what he expected to see, but he was disappointed to see that it hadn’t changed from the man trapped in his decaying corpse. The only difference was the mask on his face, the mask of Ennard. He felt his skin crawl at the memory of it , but made no motion to remove it. He wanted to get this trip over with.
“Hi,” the voice was young- too young and high-pitched. It echoed on itself, and just as Michael heard it he saw another reflection appear in the water next to his. A child wearing a Fredbear mask.
“ JESUS CHRIST -“ Michael shouted, jumping back and away from the young child- no - girl, who simply turned to look at him. She readjusted herself, hands now awkwardly holding each other as she stared at Michael. There was nothing beneath the eyeholes of her mask, nothing but a void of black.
“Hi,” she repeated. Her echoing voice made Michael’s skin crawl. The man’s jaw was glued shut from shock and slight fear, only staring back at her with his own empty eye sockets. She looked back at the red lake, blonde hair swaying with the movement. She only stared for a moment, before looking back at Michael.
“You’re bad at this,” she stated, and for some reason, that sentence of everything she said was the one to snap Michael back into reality.
“…what?” It wasn’t the best response, but it was all the startled corpse could say as his brain still lagged behind at processing this whole situation.
“You’re bad at this,” she repeated once more. Her hands let go of one another, and she gestured to Michael with both arms. “You’re bad at talking.”
He wasn’t sure why he said what he did next of all things. Maybe it was bitterness, maybe it was from the shock, or maybe it was with all those fresh memories still lingering on the borders of his mind. “Not as bad as that old fisherman guy…” he grumbled through clenched teeth.
The Fredbear mask on her face titled at the astonishment of getting a response that wasn’t confused gawking. She shrugged, her hands falling to her sides. “They’re hard to beat. It took me a long time to figure out what they told me.”
Michael felt his eyes widen, and he took a hesitant step closer to the young girl. “You… talked to them?”
She nodded.
Michael looked down, staring at his own feet as he processed what that exactly meant.
“I didn’t want to listen to him,” she started, jolting Michael’s head back up with a nasty crack as he stared at her. She was still looking at him, even if her hands were now playing with the edges of her shirt. “They told me to leave him alone, but I didn’t want to. He hurt me badly. I wanted him to hurt more.”
Michael knew who she was talking about, and he hated it. This was another one of his damn victims. He wasn’t sure which one, but he knew it was one. He only realized his fingers were digging into his palms when a small hand grabbed it and started pulling. He looked at her, the broken jaw to the Ennard mask swaying as he did.
She led him to the dock and sat on the edge, humming as she kicked her legs back and forth. Michael hesitantly sat next to her, sitting cross legged so his feet wouldn’t get wet. He took the liberty of speaking first this time. “What’s your name?”
“Cassidy. What’s your name?”
“Mike.”
“Michael,” Cassidy corrected with a far too familiar giggle, and Michael once more got that chilling feeling of fear at her laugh. He pushed it down. He chose not to question how she knew his name. “What did they tell you?” She turned to face Michael, who didn’t answer for a few moments, instead letting the question linger in the air as he thought.
“…I’m not sure.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” she teased with another terrifying laugh. If Michael wasn't so terrified of Cassidy and her laugh, she would have reminded him of his sister. Michael looked down to the water, staring at his and Cassidy’s reflections as he thought some more.
“They told me I was there for a reason, but didn’t say why-“
“They never say why.” Michael shot a glare at Cassidy for interrupting him.
“They also said that he wasn’t keeping me alive, even if I know he is- because why else would I keep coming back to stop him-“
“ He isn’t keeping you alive,” Cassidy ignored Michael’s second death glare. “It’s you.”
“What?” There was slight venom to Michael’s voice. Cassidy looked back out to the lake.
“It’s you. You’re keeping yourself alive. Maybe you’re stupid and it’s by accident, I dunno.”
“I’m not-“
“Yes you are. You’re stupid. Very stupid. Stupid like me,” Cassidy laughed again, allowing Michael to revel in his own confusion. It was funny to see him sputter and wave his arms around like a mad man when he got confused.
“…like you?” He asked, head lowering to his hands in his lap.
Cassidy nodded.
“I found him . His soul after he died. We played. It was a very one-sided game, one that only I could win and one that made him hurt. I never stopped, and I never wanted to, because he didn’t deserve a break. He only needed to hurt. The others played too, but not because they wanted to, but because I needed more players.”
Michael stared at her, the gears in his head turning as he tried to make sense of what she said.
“Then the old man spoke to me. They told me-“
“Leave the demon to his demons, there is nothing else,” Michael finished for the young child. Cassidy nodded.
“I didn’t listen at first. I only wanted to see him hurt, but what they said made me notice the others. They were tired of playing, and they were hurt. They wanted the game to end, and I was stupid. I was hurting him, but I hurt my friends too.”
Michael eyed her, listening intently. He didn’t have anything to say.
“So I left him. I ended the game. He doesn’t deserve it.”
“ They do, though,” Michael’s voice was barely above a whisper as he struggled to take in what he heard and make sense of it. Looking back at Cassidy, he noticed how she changed. Her head was lowered and her legs had stopped kicking, her hand was scratching at her palm as her shoulders shook ever so slightly.
Hesitantly, Michael opened his arms. He nearly got tackled into the water as Cassidy plummeted into his arms, wrapping hers around his stomach and burying her face into his chest. There was no crying, he still wrapped his arms around her back, hands rubbing gentle circles.
He looked back to the lake, rotted lips pursed in thought
“They told me I was broken,” Michael mumbled, half to himself. The young child in his arms didn’t free herself, but instead curled up against him.
“You are.”
“I know,” he’s known for a while, but saying it felt horrible. The words shook as they escaped his throat.
“What’s broken can’t be fixed,” she added something Michael really didn’t think needed to be added. He could feel his throat burning and closing as he primarily focused on trying not to break into tears in front of a literal child.
“To fix it would be for everyone to come back, and for us to go to our families. That can’t happen. I want it to, and it hurts. It can’t happen.”
Images of newspaper headlines flashed in Michael’s head, all centered around the accusations and charges of murder against his father. They were all correct, yet they were all dropped. His throat felt like it was swelling from the pain and tears swirling inside him. It scratched and kicked at him, desperate to be let out.
“But just because something’s broken, doesn’t mean it can’t be mended,” Cassidy said with a hum.
More images flashed in his mind. Fredbear with the limb body of his little brother, who was no older than this girl. His hands with blood on them. He couldn’t fix it. He could never fix it.
He failed to keep in a choked gasp, one that made the Ennard mask shake and nearly come apart as his head lurched.
“I think you’re mending the best you can. Just like me. So we’re both stupid. Both stupid, so stupid at mending, but we’re getting there.”
Michael listened to the sound of his own broken sobs and Cassidy’s eerie yet comforting humming as his tears mixed with the red water of the lake.