Chapter Text
William Afton sat in the chair of the office lazily. He knew the night would begin soon. He thought of why he is still here in hell, a hell fit for a murderer. He is in an endless night shift, versions of his creations and things he helped build, all trying to kill him and he has to try to survive. He supposes he had tried to fight the animatronics off at first. Not that it did much, being dead doesn’t exactly make you invincible to the concept of death, it just made you come back after. But even when he was still plaguing the land of the living he always came back.
‘Well, they do say old habits die hard,’ he jokes to himself.
Really, it seemed the only person who still wanted to be around was Cassidy. She was too angry to move on. Evan Afton who had been with her for years after his death in a springlock accident with the Fredbear animatronic had even split off to try and rest finally. William heard he left to find Michael and Elizabeth. he had a bittersweet smile, his youngest son deserves to rest, and he wishes all three of his children could move on.
William moved to watch the clock tick. He feels numb to the annoying ticking of the clock. The bland repetitive noise drones on and on.
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tick…….
Tock.
11:55:00 pm.
William gets a thought in the back of his mind, you’d feel better if you just kept doing what you used to. You always felt better when you killed something. All those animals for nothing? You’re still not fixed? You’d think wringing all those annoying fucking children’s necks would've been enough. You should do it again.
William shivers and shakes his head, he considers that those thoughts are the reason he’s here. He did this to himself. Giving in to those gross impulses. He supposed he deserved this. The torture and endless death.
Scritch, scritch, scritch. The sound of sharp metal scraping on glass pulls him out of his thoughts. Slowly, his emotions trickle back, and his corrupt broken mind’s dam begins to break. A rush of familiar feelings floods his being. Terror and guilt rush him as the scratching gets louder. Fuck, he hadn’t been checking the time. His eyes shift to the clock on the desk6.
12:05:30 am.
He watches as the power drains and the doors set to default. He takes a shaky breath and accepts the horrid feeling of death.
William falls, the void is liquidy and feels like it should be wet or slimy but it's dry. Like feeling the water flow from the other side of a thin membrane that's just thick enough not to split between the rough textured fingers and nails.
He wakes with a jolt. Before him is a black-haired girl. She is angry, but she’s always angry.
Justifiably angry, William tells himself. Very justifiable.
“Why aren’t you fighting back? You would lunge and try to grab me and attempt to fight death like it’s genuine. You have been doing it for ten years, why are you stopping now? It's not torturing if you don't fight it! You're supposed to fight it! Beg for it to stop as I had when you killed me you damn monster.!” she scoffs.
William stays silent. He knows the poor girl deserves to know his regret and grief but he knows she will just get angrier.
“What are you not going to say anything anymore? Tired of me already Afton?” she tsks, “too fucking bad. You're stuck here with me and I’m going to make sure this hell of yours hurts just as much as mine does.”
“I’m sorry,” he mutters, reluctantly. “You don’t deserve to be here like this, I deserve anything you throw at me, I don't want to fight it, I deserve to die over and over and over. You deserve the revenge you give me. I am sorry,” he says but with the livid look Cassidy is giving him she most definitely is mad he’s saying such empty words like sorry.
“When will you admit that you messed up? Admit it for real!? I don't want your stupid empty apologies and fake words of ‘oh I’m sorry, I shouldn't have done that,” she mocks him, “You did it! That's what fucking matters, you did it, you wouldn't have killed me unless you wanted to and you can’t be sorry for that, Afton!” Cassidy screeches at him. A black oily substance pours from her chest —where there was once a sickening gory wound from various stab marks— and from her eyes —flowing like unending macabre rivers of sticky gross tears.
“I have. I know that I will have to deal with the monster that I made. That I cultivated and stirred up and raised from the ground up like a demon. And I let it control me."
Cassidy looks at the man before her, with a sour glare and confusion behind her angry eyes.
"I've never been more scared of something…" he trails off, "or… rather someone, than I was of myself. I still am, I'm still terrified of what I did. What I could do." William's dull silver eyes are overflowing with tears in his eyes and the look that plagues his pale features, as he looks at his hands, reads despair.
William can't break his stare at his red hands, not even able to make himself blink, he doesn’t notice that the phantom girl had disappeared. His hands are cupped catching the tears, as it pools it starts to become red filling the clear liquid with blood. The longer he stares the redder the liquid in his hands gets, puddles of blood begin to form in his hands and even drip off the sides after his hands begin to overfill. The taste of copper and metallic liquid fills his mouth and William gags slightly. William pleads silently with whatever higher power will listen to make this stop. His knees buckle and he falls forward. He coughs and frantically tries to wipe the blood from his face, his clothing stained with the sticky rust-smelling substance. He misses the sound of metal on metal as an animatronic drags itself through the vents. He gets a sudden feeling of unease and looks up to see a mess of wires and eyes that jumps at him, its facial plates opening up to show the horrifying jumble of meshed together endoskeletons. A shrieking static fills his head and pain courses through his body. His blurry vision goes dark and his body goes numb.
He falls into a familiar pitch-black space, the feeling of the void filling his being. His chest is in excruciating pain from the metal that had pierced his chest when the animatronic dug its sharp fingers into his skin. The phantom feeling of the metal triggers the rest of his body to ache with the feeling of tight metal spring locks clamping down on his body piercing right through his clothing the first spring lock failing and the thick blood setting off the rest of them causing the metal clamps designed for keeping metal endoskeletons in place stabbing him. He can still feel the horrid pain of having his lungs punctured and the feeling of blood gurgling up into his throat as he attempts to scream.
He feels suddenly like he's submerged in water. He tries to scream, startled by the different feeling but water flows into his mouth, frantically he tries to swim but has no idea which way is up and which is down. He just quickly picks a direction and swims. He breaches the surface of the water and gasps for any air he can get, coughing up water harshly, the burning feeling near unbearable.
“Eh! Afton! Are you going to continue coughing up your lungs or are you going to come over here and get out of the lake?” a man speaks to him, the tone no louder than a regular speaking voice. William doesn't recognize the voice and forces himself to stop coughing slowly. He turns to the voice and sees a man who seems much older than him fishing near the shore.
The area is oddly red-coloured as if everything had a filter placed over it. William notices that the water is deep, only able to see a meter before the surprisingly clear-looking wine-coloured water is too dark to see. He wonders if it’s a trick of the eye or if actually how dark the area is. Shrouded in this dim red light from no visible source.
As William climbs out soaked onto the shore he shudders the ground is dark coloured almost black but it feels like completely healthy grass. The old man just looks at him.
“Quite the ordeal you made out there. Come sit down,” he spoke, the pitch of his voice never changing from what he had heard out in the lake as if the man spoke directly into his head. Maybe he does , William wasn’t sure he didn’t even know who this was.
“Who are you? Why am I here?” William's voice is hoarse and rough, he makes no moves to go toward the old man.
“My name is Old Man Consequences. Come have a seat, and fish for a while. You have nowhere else to go.” He ushers and doesn’t look away from where he is looking at the bobber of his fishing rod until William is right next to him.
“Why am I here?”
“You showed regret in your actions did you not? That you were disturbed by yourself? You’ve been breaking underneath the heavyweight of guilt and regret for ten years.'' He looks back to his fishing rod and William sits down on the ground also turning to watch the man’s rod. “William, I've been watching you for the past few years. I know this has been eating away at you and you want to do something about it. Prove to yourself you’re not really that monster you made yourself to be. You’ve been going to break for years now, you just hadn’t done the most important thing to earn this, you hadn’t thought about what you really did until now.”
William looks at the man, confused. Had it really been that simple all along, just think about his actions? Realize they were fucked up? He’s sure he’s fucked beyond repair but an eerie lake with a creepy man was a nice break from whatever hell Cassidy has been keeping him in.
“William,” the man says, pulling William from his thoughts, “Each and every action, good and bad, has a consequence. You do bad things, you get bad consequences, you do something redeeming, you get something that makes that redemption worth fostering.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re getting a second chance, William. You’re going to go back to just before this all starts and you’re going to fix it. You're going to do your damn best to help your kids, those poor missing kids, and the Emilys, and they will remember, if not fully like Henry and Michael, they’ll have an idea on it. How much you hurt them is how much they’ll remember. If you don’t help them whatever hell Cassidy has planned out for you will be heaven in comparison to what I’ll give you. You understand?” The old man stands and William follows quickly right after.
William’s eyes widen, “yessir.” he confirms his understanding to the man.
“Good.
Do not
mess this up for yourself William Afton.” the man says firmly before pressing a hand into William's chest and pushing him back into the lake. William jolts but a numb feeling spreads through his body like ice and he’s asleep before he even touches the water.