Work Text:
She was stood in one of the party rooms.
Or at least, Vannessa thought she was. It looked like one. The party hats and paper plates all neatly set on the table. The garish balloons. The child-sized table and chairs. The showstage looking over the table, animatronics still. Was there always a showstage in the party rooms? There was one now.
She walked up to it. She knew these animatronics. For better or for worse.
They look like toys. Someone had said to her once. They were all plastic. Shiny. The stage lights would always catch them in such stark ways. Bonnie, Freddy, Chica… no Foxy. It was too small a stage. Too small for the 3 of them really. The lights… it was much too dark in that room. Was it after hours? How late? She wasn’t allowed here at night. The lights… not on, but not off either.. no, they were purpled… neon, like the bulbs for the stage lights had been switched for the mains. And the animatronics, well, how the light changed them. How it changed the room.
There was a clipboard on the stage. At the base of where Freddy stood. She bent down to take it (Didn’t her work uniform have a flashlight on the belt? Was she even in her work uniform right now?). They were maintenance checklists, like the one her father would fill out. Vanessa had never read one, rationally she shouldn’t know what they said, but she read this anyway. This one was about Freddy (and that made sense, it had been in front of him), about how different parts of him functioned. Measurements for the angles in the swivels in the joins, the power in the jaw, the volume in his voicebox. Everything was in its right range. Would she know that? Did her father ever explain to her such a thing?
How did she get into this room in the first place?
And then the clipboard was suddenly the least of her concern. Had she put it back down before she turned around? Never matter. There must be a party scheduled tomorrow. There were party favours already at the seats. Little cards resting on each of the plates. Just as bright and garish as the rest of the decor (How odd it looked in this light). Vanessa walked down the side of the long table, yes, there was a little card at each seat.
Looking down, she could read what one said. Gabriel. Gabriel? Did she know that name? Had she known that name? What was the date underneath? What was special about the 11th of March? No, this was a party room, that must be tomorrow’s date. A birthday. Of course. That’s what they did at Freddy’s. Birthday Parties. Everything was set up for one. This was a party room.
How had she gotten into this room?
She was to the side of the table, and as she looked up at it, there was the hallway. It wasn’t lit like the party room. No, it wasn’t lit at all. The purple light from the party room simply spilt out into it. She could see the wall from the opening to the hallway, and realised there wasn’t even a door, just dead space. The light was too dull to see much more than the direct opposite wall. There weren’t any windows. It was just the party room on all sides. Almost all sides. Because there was an open hallway. Very sharply, she knew she had to look away from it.
Music. Had there been music this whole time? Looking at the animatronics, they weren’t performing, but it felt like one of their music boxes. Vanessa couldn’t remember if these models had in-build music boxes (her father had told her once, she was sure). It was a grating tone, as though one of them was failing. It was too slow, had she heard this before? Whatever song it used to be, it felt familiar. So familiar.
She stared at the animatronics. (When had she moved closer to them?) They hadn’t moved. Because of course they hadn’t. It was after hours. There was no one to perform for. It was just her in this room that was supposed to be quiet. When had the music started playing?
A very sharp sensation crawled up her. Etched along her spine and called itself home across her shoulders and entwined itself in her chest. The animatronics were still, but there was music. Music from speakers she couldn’t see. Music she could almost place the name of. Had she made the wrong choice when looking away from that hallway?
All at once, Vanessa became very, very sure she would die here.
Which was silly, because it was just her. It had to be just her. Did it? Was she alone? But still she stood there. Those unmoving animatronics on that too small showstage with the wrong lights and wrong music and the wrong time. It crossed her mind that she should hide. She wasn’t safe. She would die here. Would it matter if she hid? Or would that delay the inevitable?
But still, she just stood there, as that creeping dread that shackled her made her heart beat faster and faster and faster in her chest. So loud. So loud it joined the music which permeated the air. The music that shouldn’t be there. She started to feel very small again. No, not small, young. Young and scared and never knowing if she would be next.
Oh, but she was next. She was so sure of that, the unnatural order of things. That rabbits should be predators, and that children should die before the adults that surround them. She would die here. In this party room. Because this would always happen. Vanessa would cement tradition for dying in these buildings, like how her father had. It was her turn.
But her father was dead. Died in the suit he killed in. Cyclical. (He always did like poetic justice, though Vanessa doubted that he would have liked this example.) If he was dead though, who was coming to kill her? Michael? No, that felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. The party room that looked like none she remembered and the stage not built for 3 animatronics and the lights that made no sense and the music that had no origin. Had she actually read any of those words she thought she saw earlier?
Was she dreaming? Dreaming. No, not dreaming. A nightmare. Oh.
She lay in her bed.
The adrenaline and the panic and the fear that had built up in her actual body suddenly flushed from her as she woke up with a start. Vanessa let out a choked cry, pushing herself to sit up-right. It was her room. Her real room in the place that she lived.
It was still mostly dark out, but that slight promise of the morning had just started to peek through her blinds. There was no music, just her ragged breathing as she stared vacantly out into her room. The haze of the nightmare still clung to her around the edges, but this was real. The air had a bite to it and her clothes had weight to them and everything felt proper.
But still it clung to her. The fear. That feeling. She would die here.
But not here, in her bedroom, in the real world where her father was dead as a doornail. He could have her unconscious and her subconscious, however, no longer would he have her conscious.
Very decidedly, she would not die here.