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A sing-song voice calls out, “nighty-night!”
Gregory dives forward, narrowly avoiding being captured. The thing - whatever it is - laughs, floating out of sight. The constant cat-and-mouse between each generator has his heart pounding.
But he doesn’t have time for this. Both because that thing is steadily growing bolder, and because he’s leaving as soon as the main doors open.
He breathes a sigh of relief, spotting the second-to-last generator. He flicks the switch, running away before that thing can track him down.
One more.
When he snatched up the security badge - just like Freddy told him - he hadn’t expected the lights to go off. The only warning he had was the sun animatronic freaking out about the lights, and then it fell over. After that, it’s a blur of running, ducking, recharging his flashlight, and hiding (when necessary, of course).
If that thing didn’t have murderous intention in its eyes every time it swooped down to try and catch him, Gregory would have thought this is fun. He’s always been great at winning games, especially hide and seek and tag.
This one, however, is a bit different.
For one thing, he doesn’t remember being dive bombed from the sky.
For another, his “playmate” doesn’t seem particularly concerned for his safety or general wellbeing.
A fear exists inside Gregory (piled on top of the others) that maybe there isn’t a last generator, or a way out.
Maybe Freddy just told him that for comfort, like a parent telling a child they only have to get one shot when it’s actually two.
Maybe Freddy told him that, because, in reality, nowhere in the Pizzaplex is safe. And Gregory - for all his smarts - will be stuck running around and around until either he’s caught, or the doors open.
I’m never leaving, Gregory thinks to himself, running towards the bridge connecting the two playscapes. I’ll be stuck here forever.
He pushes those thoughts away. It feels so unlike him, and thinking like that won’t help him find the last generator any faster.
“One more, one more, one more,” he repeats under his breath like a mantra. It shouldn’t be this hard to find a large piece of machinery in two playscapes, and perhaps it wouldn’t be, in the light. But in the dark, being chased and taunted, it’s hard to catch your breath, let alone plan ahead more than five seconds.
He spares a glance at his Fazwatch. Freddy promised that he would be waiting outside.
Gregory hopes, more than finding the last generator, that that’s true. That he isn’t lying.
He needs someone right now.
Anyone.
“Naughty boy. Naughty boy.”
Anyone but that.
He backtracks, a little, shining his flashlight into corners. The last generator remains out of reach, hidden somewhere Gregory can’t find.
He steps back onto the bridge, shining his flashlight over the playscape one last time. Before Gregory can process what happened, he’s hoisted into the air, and his flashlight clatters on the floor below.
He screams, at least he thinks he does. It’s hard to focus on anything when Satan himself is staring into your very soul.
He’s reminded of his own morality. Blood rushes through his ears, matching the frantic rhythm of Gregory’s heart. A drop from this height would mean a broken neck, if he’s lucky.
In a soft but still grating voice, it says, “nighty-night. Sleep. Sleep.”
For a moment, Gregory misses the sun animatronic. But then he remembers being carried by his armpits, like a misbehaving toddler, and the feeling is gone.
“Let me go!” Gregory yells, struggling.
Suddenly, the drop doesn’t seem that far. Surely, he’s made of tougher stuff than flesh and bone. “Freddy! Freddy! Help me!”
The daycare doors open slowly, dramatically, like whoever’s doing it is purposely leaving Gregory on the edge of his seat.
He knows before he sees her that it isn’t Freddy. That doesn’t stop him from calling out for help. The moon animatronic shushes him, which only fuels Gregory to scream louder.
It remains close to the ceiling, holding Gregory in its arms. Right now, he doesn’t care. The only thing keeping him from becoming another Faz-Ent. victim is distance.
The rabbit lady he’s been running from this entire time (Or had he been running from Vanessa? It wouldn’t surprise him if the rabbit lady and Vanessa were one and the same. It certainly doesn’t make him feel any better that he’s going to be killed by the security guard and not some rando) skips through the open door.
She spins around, stopping a few feet below them. Even behind a mask, Gregory can feel her staring, watching with some unreadable emotion (amusement? Sadistic joy?) He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t want to know. Gregory shudders.
Of course, because his luck has always been thin and sparse, the moon animatronic holding onto him starts descending from way up high.
“Nuh…no….please….” he begs.
It wasn’t so bad being held way up high.
Gregory will happily take all the naps in the world, as long as this thing won’t give him up to her.
Truth be told, he has no idea why he’s so frightened of her. She hasn’t done anything to him. All Gregory knows is that his brain feels weird around her, like tv static is buzzing around in his head, filling space.
The moon animatronic lands gracefully in front of the rabbit lady, placing Gregory on his feet. He’s shoved forward. He trips over his feet and scrapes his hands. The rabbit lady pulls him up by the arm.
Some small part of him, the part of him that believes everything will turn out okay, believes Freddy’s going to break down the door any minute and stop this. That he’ll be saved from…
Now that he really thinks about it, Gregory has no idea what her intentions are. Though, considering she’s flouncing through a Faz-Ent location with a bunny suit on, he’s not feeling too hot about his odds in getting out alive.
“Are you having fun yet?” She asks, almost playful. Grabbing Gregory by his wrist, she forces him to spin in circles. By the time she stops, dropping his arm, he’s beyond dizzy.
“We need to go,” she says after a moment of watching Gregory stumble from side to side. “He’s waiting.”
“Who?” Gregory silently prays it’s Freddy, because the alternative is another freak, or worse, an employee. Unless the rabbit lady really is Vanessa, then he gets a two-for-one deal.
“That’s for me to know, and for you to find out.”
She grabs him by the arm again, locking one part of a pair of handcuffs around his wrist. The other part is locked around her wrist, tying them together. He’s dragged from the daycare, struggling and tugging on the handcuffs all the while.
Gregory turns back once more. The moon animatronic stares at him, surprisingly impassive for having a forever smile etched into its face.
The doors slam shut, sealing his fate.
-x-x-x-
He fights all the way to the elevator, dragging his feet. The rabbit lady ignores his antics, pulling him along.
As to be expected, Freddy is nowhere to be found. Either the rabbit lady did something, or…he lied about being on Gregory’s side.
But he wouldn’t do that….right?
“In here,” she says, guiding him into an elevator. It looks janky, hidden in the depths of the Pizzaplex, but Gregory is in no position to argue.
“Rabbit lady,” he starts, voice shaky, “am I-”
“Vanny,” she interrupts him.
“Hm?”
“My name is Vanny. Anyways, continue.”
“Sorry, Vanny. Am I going to die?”
Vanny sighs, placing a hand on his shoulder. She takes several seconds to answer him, staring up at the ceiling. Gregory takes note of the stitches between the head of the costume and the bodysuit. He counts seven before she answers him.
“Yes…someday.”
The elevator jolts, creaking dangerously loud. Gregory almost tumbles to the ground, but Vanny holds on tight to his shirt collar.
“Stay with me,” she warns him. The humor in her voice is gone, and that, more than anything else so far, makes him feel like crying.
This doesn’t feel like a game anymore. Not that it ever did, but if the one “playing” with him isn’t playing anymore, then does that mean the game is over. Does that mean he lost?
He’s guided down winding hallways. It smells like sewage and mildew and no amount of pinching his nose helps mask the scent.
Vanny stops suddenly, squeezing his shoulder. “Stay here.” She unlocks the handcuff. “Don’t move.” She leaves him there, and he’s left to wonder what this was all for? All the running and hiding. Why would she go through all this trouble just to-
Her words echo through his head, “he’s waiting.”
There are a series of thuds, like textbooks being dropped on an old concrete floor. Gregory freezes, suddenly melted to the spot. His body tenses up more and more, the closer the sound gets.
He sees its arm before the rest of it. A clawed metal hand connected to a long metal pole. It seems to keep going and going, and by the time it's fully in front of Gregory, it's towering over him.
For a second, they both stare at each other.
Gregory thinks of running, but one glance at its long legs makes him think twice. No way could he outrun it. He eyes the hands next, silently praying that it’ll make it quick. If he has to die tonight, he wants it to be swift and painless.
The thing reaches for him, and he shuts his eyes. There’s no need to see what comes next. He doesn’t want to see what comes next. He’s sure whatever god or deity is up there would grant him the right to be a coward - just this once.
He waits for the blow or to feel tearing or to never feel anything ever again, but to his shock Gregory feels the metal hand on his forehead, smoothing back his bangs.
The thing chatters. It reminds Gregory of a bad connection between radio stations. That static sound that could almost be considered white noise.
“Oh, my Gregory,” it says, scooping him up. Gregory falls limp, heart beating against his ribcage. He’s going to die, isn’t he? “You’re probably tired, aren’t you?”
Gregory can only stare at this massive thing with wide eyes. He swallows, trying to make himself talk, but it’s a fruitless effort.
“Cat got your tongue? Doesn’t matter. I know you are.” It walks further down the hall to a room exactly one door down.
“Nuh…” he tries to formulate a response, but his body seems unwilling to give one.
The room he’s brought to is only slightly better than the hallway. The smell of sewage and mildew isn’t as strong here. An unmade cot sits in the corner with a single blanket, pillow, and what looks like a stuffed bunny.
There are papers hung on the walls. Each of them depicting something different. Most, if not all of them, star him and the thing carrying him, others include Vanny, and one or
two have a familiar orange bear in them, though Freddy’s face has been slashed with what looks like several long knives.
The sight of his friend - even faceless - calms something in Gregory. There’s still hope. There has to be. This can’t be the end.
The thing places him down on the cot. “You’ve been very naughty,” it says. Blurry memories that maybe, probably belong to Gregory flash in his mind’s eye. Memories of a woman with hair like his and a stern expression telling him something similar. “We are going to talk about this tomorrow, but it’s already late. And I’m just glad you’re home.”
Gregory does his very best to focus on his breathing. In. Hold. Out. In. Hold. Out.
That thing leans down until they’re face to face, making it harder for Gregory to remember to breathe. It feels a little like he’s suffocating, only there’s nothing and no one doing it. It’s his own doing, and yet he can’t force himself to breathe.
Its hand sits on his chest, pushing down. All the air Gregory’s holding is expelled, relieving him of the suffocating feeling of air.
“There,” it says, “all better. You have to keep breathing. I can’t lose you t-” It stops itself. If Gregory wasn’t absolutely terrified of its next move, then he might have ventured to ask a follow up question of his own. “Anyways, time for bed now.”
It maneuvers Gregory like he’s little more than a rag doll, and maybe he is. He certainly feels like one, being tossed around, carried, and disregarded all night. It pulls the covers up, and it almost seems like this large, monstrous thing is tucking him in. Like….like a parent….
(Then, why does he feel scared? If this thing is always like this, then why does he want to leave so bad? What happened that made him feel this way?)
It hums - perhaps one of the thousands of songs in Faz-Ent’s library - but Gregory can’t remember the exact song. A hand brushes back his bangs once more. It leans down, and Gregory’s sure this is it. But like so many times before, he’s proven wrong.
The feeling of something cold is pressed to his forehead, before moving on to the bunny next to him. It’s only after watching that thing press its approximation of a mouth to the bunny’s “forehead” does he realize that it was kissing him.
“There,” it says, tucking the stuffed animal in next to Gregory. “Kisses for you and kisses for Rabbit.”
Gregory turns his head, making direct eye contact with the button eyes of the rabbit.
A hand soothes his hair down. “Rest now.” But how can he?
“I…I can’t,” Gregory manages to stammar out. “I’m not tired.”
It laughs, and he feels something like indignation bubble up inside him, but it could have very well been childish helplessness. It didn’t matter in the end, neither’s going to help him make it out.
“Yes, you are,” it murmurs, tracing a clawed finger over his cheeks. It pokes his nose. “You’ve been running around like a chicken with its head cut off.”
Okay, he is , but this thing doesn’t need to know that.
Gregory nods, not agreeing, but seeing no way out of this. “Fine,” he says.
“You say that, like you have a choice in the matter.” It boops Gregory’s nose again. “Get some sleep,” it urges, no humor in its voice. “Rest. Dream of something magical.”
It’s not much in the way of a goodnight, but he imagines it’s a kinder send off than this thing usually gives. He shuts his eyes. Maybe if he waits long enough this thing will wander off, allowing him ample time to escape. Gregory can sort of remember the way back to the elevator.
But as he lays there, tucked into a cot, next to a stuffed bunny, he quickly realizes that this thing - whatever it is - has no plans of leaving anytime soon.
“Oh,” it says after a long moment of silence, “did you think I was going to leave you alone after the stunt you just pulled?”
Gregory sucks in a breath, eyes squeezed shut. He doesn’t want to be awake anymore.
“I know you’re still awake, Gregory, and I want you to know that from now on, I’m never leaving your side….
ever again .”