Chapter Text
Finally, the music box had run out, and Charlie was free to get out of her stupid gift box and look for that bastard man who was killing kids. Finally, she would get to get revenge, while protecting all the other kids who went to the sucky pizzeria and were at risk of being his next victim. She uncurled herself, rose out of the box, and found herself face to face with some random kid. What the hell was another kid doing in here at night? Didn't he know he could get himself murdered?
Then she looked into his eyes, and noticed it looked like he'd... seen things. Like he'd been through as much as she had, if not more than she had, and she was literally murdered as a kid. But he'd been traumatized too, by something or other. Because that was definitely the face of a kid, the body of a kid, but the eyes of almost an adult. This was the kind of kid that had his childhood ripped away from him somehow. It hadn't killed him, but...
And he was holding the music box in his hand. It hadn't run out. He'd shut it off. He'd wanted to wake her up.
She looked down at him but didn't know what to say. It wasn't as though she could talk to alive kids most of the time. She had to pretend to be a dumb animatronic that wasn't real and didn't know anything about the stuff that went on at this pizzeria. When really, she knew everything. Maybe that was what she should do now? Pretend to be a regular animatronic?
"Happy birthday!" she said, trying to sound as much like a generic recorded voice line as she could.
"Oh, stop it," the boy said, glaring right at her. "We both know you're a ghost. You don't need to pretend to be a normal animatronic right now. Not with me."
She played dumb. "Happy birthday!"
"Stop it! I have something to tell you and it's important. But you have to trust me. Do you trust me?"
"Happy birthday!"
"I'll take that as a no," he said. "You don't trust me, miss Charlotte 'Charlie' Emily, whose dad's name is Henry, who started this pizzeria chain and helped build the animatronics, starting with a place called Fazbear's Family Diner, which is where you were outside of when some weird purple car pulled up and some guy got out and he—"
"Okay, okay," she called out, cutting him off. "What's your deal? How do you even know any of this?"
"You know as well as anyone that it's actually kind of easy to eavesdrop when you're a kid," he said. "None of the adults take you seriously, so they just say important secret stuff right in front of you, thinking you're too dumb to understand. Adults always think kids are way stupider than they really are."
"Are you trying to tell me that most of the kids that come here know this place is haunted?" she asked with a gasp. She was sure that her eyes would have gone all big and round if they weren't just fixed holes in a plastic mask.
"No, they don't. But I do. I'm willing to bet I'm the only one that does." He seemed smug, and it started getting on her nerves. But at the same time, she thought it was kind of... cool? "I know what you want. You want revenge on the guy who killed you. You want to kill him so he can't kill any more other kids. And I can help you with that."
"Okay, how?" The puppet shook her head at the kid. "It's not exactly safe for some kid to go after this guy. He's killed eleven kids so far. You could be number twelve if you stick your nose in places it doesn't go."
"I know." This kid wasn't fazed at all. "Listen."
"You know what he did to me," she told him. "I don't want it to happen to you."
"It won't happen to me. It only happened to you because you had no idea what was coming. But I'll know what's coming. And I know how to fight. I have experience."
"You're annoying me," she said. Really, he was, but still he was almost... badass? Both of them, at the same time. With those intense blue eyes full of determination, and the tough attitude like he could do anything and didn't care what anyone else thought. But Charlie wasn't going to... admit that. "You're so smug, and you act like you know everything and can do whatever you want and no one can stop you."
"Oh, like you?" he said. "Listen. We've both been through some stuff, and it's made us stronger. If we work together like I have planned, we'll do this. Plus, if I'm so annoying, and he kills me, then you won't have to deal with me anymore."
"I don't want you to get killed even if you are annoying." She crossed her spindly arms. Obviously, she didn't want any kids to get killed, least of all him. "Plus, knowing my luck, you'd get killed and end up haunting this pizzeria too. Then I'll have to spend the rest of forever with you, all the time, every night." That didn't sound so bad to her, actually. He might be nice company. "At least I'll be able to tell you I told you so."
"Listen." He crossed his arms back at her. "I know a way to do this. I swear. And it's not my first time doing something like this."
"You keep saying listen," she pointed out, ignoring his implication that he'd already probably killed someone before. She wondered how tough he really was. This wasn't a regular kid.
"I, uh, had a friend that used to always say listen," he said, looking sheepish all of a sudden. It was... cute. "Maybe I picked it up from her. But she's, uh, gone now, so..."
"Whatever," she said. "Just be careful. Murder is illegal. I could get away with it because I'm a ghost, but you're a regular alive kid. And if they find out you killed some guy, even if he had it coming, well, I'm not exactly sure how they'd punish some ten-year-old murderer, but it doesn't sound good."
"First of all, I'm eleven," he said. "Second of all, they won't catch me."
"You sure?" she asked. "Mike the security guard is probably watching you on the cameras. Right. Now."
"You know, I'm being nice by asking you if I could do it," he said. "I could've just done it without asking. But that wouldn't be fair to you."
"It's fine, if it works," she said.
"It will work." He seemed so sure of himself. Somehow it was almost convincing. "I promise it'll work. This Mike person won't have any idea what I did. Especially if he thinks you did it and not me."
"You're going to kill someone and pin it on me?" Charlie was almost indignant. "Wait. That's actually a good idea. I can get away with murder 'cause I'm a ghost. You can't." She sighed. "So tell me. What's the plan?"
She decided she had to listen to what his plan was. It was, after all, her best chance at successful revenge. Much better than the usual plan of just waiting for the bastard to show up at night and getting him that way. But it was hard for her to focus. Her thoughts kept drifting back to the days of being alive at the pizzeria. Before... everything. It would've been nice to have a friend like this back then, she thought. They could have played games in the arcade together. They could have shared a soda. But if they both put their mouth on the same soda, wasn't that kind of like... kissing? She did her best to push this thought out of her head.
Still, why couldn't she have run into this kid then? She was almost sure that he would've protected her. Like a hero.
When he was done telling her, though... well, her jaw would have dropped if it wasn't permanently stuck open.
“You mean if you play that song then I'm going to pass on to the afterlife?” she asked. “Right here? Right now? For real?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he said. “Well, like I said, it'll turn what's left of you into a mask, and I can use that mask to transform into you to finish up your unfinished business. On your end, I'm pretty sure you pass on. Isn't that what you basically wanted?”
Well, maybe. It always sounded nice, but if it was really going to happen right now, that was scary. What would it feel like to be dead for real? Would she go to heaven? Or was there no such thing? Or, worse, what if there was a such thing but she wasn't good enough to go there? And... she kind of wanted to spend some more time hanging out with this kid. Just to see what he was going to do. No other reason. And maybe also because she'd been lonely without any other kids to talk to all these years, and finally here one was. But besides that, absolutely no other reason...
“I wanted to get revenge first,” she said. And that part was true. “I can't pass on until I get revenge.”
“I'm doing it for you. So you don't have to.” He sighed at her, but she couldn't figure out the emotion behind the sigh. “I promise. I won't let you down. You'll... you'll be okay. I'm here with you, okay? It's...” He looked like he was getting choked up. Why was he upset? This didn't even involve him. “It's okay. I'll... I'll remember you. You won't end up like me, where everyone forgets... what you did...” He trailed off.
“What do you mean what you did?” She shook her head. “Who are you, anyway? You're not... normal.” She paused. “Who are you?” she repeated.
“Link,” he said. “My name's Link.” But he didn't answer any of the rest of it. “Are you... are you good with this? I really don't want to do this if you're not good with this.”
“Link, huh. I'm... I'm good with it.” She would have swallowed hard if there was anything left to swallow. “Go ahead. I'm... I'm grateful.”
“Okay.”
And with that, he pulled a weird sweet potato flute out of his pocket and started playing it. A haunting melody. A melody she didn't have much time to reflect on or process, because it started putting her to... sleep? A sleep she wouldn't ever wake up from. For a second, that revelation made her want to panic, but then felt too calm to panic. Calm. That was all that was left. Calm, and it was like she was melting. Melting, and dissolving. Dissolving into him and his life energy, like he was a warm liquid that was going to hold what was left of her forever and ever. But that didn't seem like such a bad place to be, not at all. Everything was going white, but...
At least, this time, when everything was all over, she hadn't been alone.