Chapter Text
They were dead. All of them. Amanda looked at all her brother and his friends from her vantage point on the ground in the middle of the room, underneath a table. The pain from where that horrible man had stabbed her had stopped, but she didn't know if that was a good thing. Then, a figure floated in from her periphery. Literally floated. It was slender and dark. It wore a strange mask with purple tear streaks and held something in it's hands. It looked like... a present? It set one in front of Freddy and each of his friends one at a time, but it didn't give her one.
"He's not going to notice her...", a voice whispered.
"What? What do you mean?", Amanda asked.
"He didn't bring enough anyway.", said another, lower voice.
"Who are you? What are you talking about?", Amanda implored frantically.
"... We're just like you...", the first voice said.
"Sort of...", the second voice added.
"I don't understand.", Amanda said. She noticed the floating... puppet? Yes, it was a puppet. The puppet paused and looked around at the bodies. It seemed... confused. "What's it doing?", she asked.
"Who, Tommy?", Voice 2 inquired.
"Of course she means Tommy," Voice 1 told them, "she can't see us, and nobody else is in the room, unless you count the dead kids."
"But we're all dead kids.", Voice 2 said.
"... Nevermind."
"All?", Amanda murmured, "So that's why it doesn't hurt."
"Exactly.", Voice 1 confirmed, "So what do we do about her?", they presumably asked Voice 2.
"I don't know.", Voice 2 said.
"Hold on," Amanda interrupted, "the pu- Tommy's doing something."
He floated away and came back with the head to the Freddy animatronic.
"Of course!", Voice 1 shouted suddenly, "We need to get her into the suit!"
"What? No!", Voice 2 squalled.
"Oh, don't be such a baby."
"Aren't you younger than me?"
"How do we know? I forgot how old I was."
"Well, you're both probably older than me.", Amanda said. The voices were silent.
"How old are you?", Voice 2 asked.
"Three."
Amanda could swear she heard the first voice gasp. There was a silence, the Voice two spoke.
"Well, now what's going to happen?"
"We have to get her into it somehow.", Voice 1 said, "She can't end up like us."
"What do you mean?", Amanda solicited.
"Like...", Voice 2 trailed off.
"Voices?", Amanda persisted.
"More like... shadows.", Voice 1 informed her.
"Oh?", Amanda let her vision drift down to the floor where two shadows laid against the ground on each side of her. They had circles where their eyes would presumably be, and the one on her right had bunny ears, while the other had smaller, rounder ears, like a bear.
"Oh!", she reiterated, "Wait, didn't you say I couldn't see you?
"Yeah," Voice 2, the bear told her, "because you weren't looking at us."
"Oh."
"Yeah.", Voice 1, the bunny, said.
"And that's part of the problem.", Voice 2, the bear, finished.
"What do you mean?", Amanda beseeched.
"Tommy's scared of us.", the bear told her.
"No, he's not.", the bunny interrupted, "He'd just rather be alone."
"No, he doesn't like us. He's scared."
"Whatever."
"Why do you think he's scared of you?", Amanda inquired, "And what does that have to do with me not becoming a shadow?"
"Well," the bunny said, "whenever we talk to him, he gets kind of jumpy and he kind of avoids us sometimes."
"Wait, so he can hear us right now?", Amanda asked.
"Not... exactly.", the bear told her, "We can only talk to one person at a time, and we have to both be working at it, or it won't work."
"Huh, weird."
"Yeah.", the bunny agreed.
"How do you know?"
"... we just... know.", the bunny said.
"Huh, well what does that have to do with me becoming a shadow?"
"Well, your friends...", the bear trailed off, "Why are they so much older than you?"
"Oh, those are actually my brother's friends.", she clarified, "He had his party today, but... we all... kind of got killed."
"Your... brother...? His... party?", the bear intoned. Amanda heard him starting to hyperventilate and wondered in the back of her mind if Tommy really couldn't hear them over what he was- What was he doing? Amanda looked out. He was having a bit of a hard time... jamming everyone into the suits. Amanda didn't know what to make of it. She thought she should feel disturbed, but for some reason, she wasn't. Suddenly the bear started wailing and snapped her attention back to him.
"What is it?", the bunny asked him, "What's wrong?"
"I DON'T WANNA!", he screeched, "YOU CAN'T- WE CAN'T! I SAW! IT'S BAD! NO NO NO NO! WAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
He continued wailing and sobbing as the bunny tried to get him under control.
"C- calm down! What are you talking about?"
"STOP! NO! IT HURTS! LET ME OUT!", his voice raised to a high pitched scream as he continued to cry. Amanda looked at the shadows, flattened against the floor. The bear was a hardly identifiable heap, and Amanda could tell his eyes were closed, because there were no gaps like the first time she'd noticed them. The bunny's eyes were wide, and she almost looked like she was shaking.
"Y-you're scaring me...", she wobbled out. He continued bawling.
"Stop it!", she said more firmly. Still, he cried.
"DON'T BE SUCH A BIG BABY!", she hollered.
"I SAW!", he screamed, taking in a harsh breath as he (sort of) sat up. The bunny froze, and so did he. He wasn't crying anymore, but Amanda wasn't sure that was a good thing.