Chapter Text
The heat was almost unbearable. Flames were reaching at all sides, not yet close enough to do damage to his already broken body, but the smoke had filled the room already. It was scratching in his lungs, choking him with every breath he took.
Once again Michael regretted not being fully alive anymore. Maybe if his body resembled that of a human rather than a corpse, he'd at least be treated to the sweet release of unconciousness, but alas, he was far beyond crying for the past.
He sat down. The security guard's chair gave that cranky squeak he was all too familiar with by now as a response to his weight. The monitors in front of him were flickering; the electricity hadn’t been able to resist the flames for long. Somewhere behind those screens on the other side of a camera was his father, probably clawing at the walls in search of an escape of this fiery death. But it would be in vain.
“This is the end for both of us,” Michael said to the cracking glass and closed his eyes. Seething pain shot through his arms as the first flickers caught hold of his skin. “See you in hell, father.”
“Mikey! Wake up, Mikey!”
A heavy weight plopped on his chest, throwing him right out of the depths of his sleep and into the waking world. A blonde girl with a wide grin and an obnoxiously pink dress sat on top of him, straddling his body as if he was a horse.
Michael had to blink once, then twice. This must have still been a dream. “Lizzy?”
At the sound of her name, Elizabeth Afton smiled as if she won the lottery. Golden locks fell over her shoulders and her cheeks were rosy, the perfect image of a happy young girl. Except that wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Elizabeth had died years ago.
“Come on, Mikey, get up,” she said and slid down from the edge of the bed, pulling her older brother with her by the arm. “Mom’s waiting in the kitchen. You were supposed to help her.”
He wasn’t supposed to do anything, except burning in another of those cursed Pizza Places his father had helped build. He was supposed to go to hell, to suffer like he had made others, to finally pay for his and his father’s sins … Why was he still alive?!
Elizabeth kept pulling and his body followed her while his mind still tried to catch up to reality. He looked around. The walls of his small childhood bedroom were covered in posters of animatronics–mostly Foxy though–some of them stolen, some gifted to him, like test prints his father had commissioned before implementing them into the stores. On one of the shelves there were his school’s sport trophies he had earned during festivals or local competitions. Homework was carelessly thrown across his desk, destined to not be touched until the night of the deadline.
All of it was so familiar, yet it should have been buried years ago. Michael looked down at his hand in Elizabeth’s tiny grip. His skin had the healthy color of a completely normal, slightly tanned sixteen-year-old, free of the rotting purple he had been so accustomed to by now.
This had to be a dream. It couldn’t be reality.
The date on the calender on the wall read 1983.
“I need to wake up,” Michael said to himself; cold sweat ran down his neck and his stomach twisted.
His stomach.
He had a stomache, intestines, he could feel them moving and clenching in fear like they hadn’t done ever since he had died. He still remembered the feeling of this gaping nothingness inside of him, how much lighter his half-rotting body had felt.
All of this felt too real to be a hallucination, but it had to be one. It had to be …
“There you are, Michael.”
His mother’s voice startled him. It was still as soft, yet stern as he remembered it to be. But it couldn’t be. She, too, was long gone.
“You are late. Take this.”
She shoved a plate with cake into his hands and he grabbed onto it out of pure instinct.
“Am I in hell?” he asked, because it was the only explanation he could think of. He died and this was his hell. They had come to torment him with memories of a happier childhood.
His mother let out a gruntled sigh. “Don’t be so melodramatic and move,” she ordered as she pushed him into the living room. Balloons and festoons were everywhere. The early morning sun shone through the window, illuminating a table full of presents.
Clara Afton turned Michael towards the door and then positioned her daughter next to him while she stood slightly behind him on the other side. With some quick motions she lit the candles on fire.
“Ready?” she asked and before Michael could answer anything both her and Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you.”
Footsteps sounded from the hallway, a heavy pair Michael was all too familiar with. His blood froze in his veins.
This couldn’t be true.
And yet his father turned the corner, holding Evan and his golden Fredbear plush in his arms.
Michael dropped the cake.
The plate cracked, shards flying over the floor. Elizabeth yellped and jumped to the side. All eyes were on him, but Michael only had eyes for his father and brother who were both just as alive as him.
Michael ran as fast as he could.
The early morning cold bit his skin, and yet he couldn’t recognise it as an actual feeling. It was too far away, dulled by Evan’s big surprised eyes, by his father’s frown, Elizabeth’s laughter, his mother’s concerned voice. “Are you okay, Michael?”
He wasn’t. Nothing was okay. Whatever was going on had to end.
But it didn’t.
The world kept turning and turning, perpetuating a reality that shouldn’t be.
Michael stumbled when a pothole surprised him, his foot slipping down further than anticipated. Water splashed up his legs but he caught himself and kept running. All of this needed to make sense. There had to be an answer.
Once he reached the door he banged against it with all the force he had.
“Uncle Henry!” he shouted. “Uncle Henry, please open up! I need to talk to you. Uncle Henry!”
The door opened and Michael almost stumbled into the house with it in his panic. Before him stood Henry Emily, cofounder of Fazbear Entertainment, long time friend of his family, and the only person Michael wasn’t surprised to see alive.
Yet the difference in age startled him. Henry seemed younger, his full beard and hair that he had bound back to a short knot at the back of his head still had light brownish blond colour where Michael used to remember grey streaks. The wrinkles around his eyes had vanished, the weight he had lost over the years returned. This was a Henry Michael would have expected to see ten or twenty years earlier. And yet the familiar crease between his bushy eyebrows returned as he looked worriedly down at Michael.
He looked down!
Michael had been taller than him for so long he hadn’t even remembered there was a time when it hadn’t been like that.
“What is wrong, Michael?” Henry asked and looked around. “Is William with you? Or Clara? Did something happen?”
“I …” Michael started but then couldn’t remember what he was going to say. How would one explain this insanity? He stood there for a moment with a gaping mouth, running through all the scenarios his scared mind could make up. Then he settled for: “Am I in hell?”
Henry blinked at him, then opened the door wider. “How about you come in first, son?”
Michael swallowed. Tears burned at the corner of his eyes but he nodded and stepped in.
The Emily’s household had always been so much quieter. With only one child and a deceased wife there wasn’t that chatter that filled every room, no footsteps echoing through the hallways or sibling fights that let everyone in near proximity know who was hogging the bathroom for how long again. Sometimes Michael had envied them, wishing he was born an Emily rather than an Afton.
The feeling had only grown after he had learned the truth about his father.
Gentle, Henry guided Michael to the kitchen table and made him sit on one of the wobbly chairs. Then he busied himself freeing the surface of the various screws and bolts he had left there. In the Emily household you wouldn’t find sibling quarrels but the chaos was just replaced by Henry dragging his work everywhere. His pockets seemed to miraculously always be filled with little cogs and screws and if one of them fell out they just added to the decor. Blueprints were left wherever Henry got interrupted by a sudden stroke of genius. Napkins got misused as canvases for new animatronic animals.
Eventually, seemingly after he gave up on the mess, Henry sat down opposite of Michael. He attempted a warm smile but he couldn’t hide the worry that was clearly still bothering him. “So, Michael, what seems to be the issue?”
“I …” he started and once again didn’t know how to continue. “I’m … not sure honestly. I … I thought I died.”
Henry’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly. He opened his mouth in an unasked question.
“But then I woke up!”, Michael quickly continued. Telling the entire story suddenly felt very important to him. “I woke up and I … apparently traveled through time. What was it? Twenty years? Thirty? God, I can’t remember. I was older! I was an adult! And then I died but when I thought it would be over, suddenly Lizzy jumped on my chest and it was 1983 again. So I …” He huffed as if he had run a mile. Maybe he had. How far had Henry’s house been away from his childhood home again? “I don’t know what is going on.”
Henry looked at him for some awfully long seconds, before he folded his hands and leaned forward. “Michael, it sounds like you had a nightmare.”
Michael immediately opened his mouth but ended up short for words. A nightmare? That didn’t feel right, but it made sense. It seemed too easy an explanation, yet too logical to ignore. For a moment he wondered why he hadn’t come to that conclusion himself until he remembered the feeling of his hollow body and the long years of pain.
“This didn’t feel like a nightmare,” he said sternly. Tears burned behind his eyes. “Dreams aren’t that long. Or detailed.”
“They can feel longer while you are asleep.”
“But not thirty years!” His hands crashed onto the desk, hoisting his body upwards. He hadn’t even noticed the anger creeping up on him before it controlled his entire body. “I can remember it. All of it! It’s like an entire lifetime. And … and …” Cold sweat broke over his skin. “My dad … Evan … if all of this is true, then they will …”
Again his stomach twisted. He felt sick. His knees gave out under him, forcing him back down into the chair.
Henry got up and hurried over, his strong hands holding Michael’s shoulders. “It sounds like a particularly bad one. But … nevertheless it must be one. Time doesn’t just reverse itself. For none of us.”
Grief colored his voice, making it almost break.
With a sudden realisation Michael looked over to the calender. Today’s date … It was exactly seven days since Henry’s daughter Charly had gone missing. A thick lump grew in his throat. Here he was freaking out over his family’s death while they were very much alive to a man who might never see his kid again.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Henry squeezed his shoulder. “Our mind can be a great enemy. Be happy this was just a nightmare.”
He nodded because he didn’t trust his words. Of course it must have been a nightmare. Then why did that explanation still not sit right with him? But then again, he couldn’t find any prove his version of events was correct either.
Henry made him a hot chocolate and let him stay a bit longer. They talked, or rather Henry did while Michael listened. It wasn’t uncomfortable listening to the old man ramble. It reminded him of the more peaceful parts of his dream, of nights where his broken body seemed to ache a little less …
He forced himself to think of anything else once he caught himself in those memories.
This was reality.
The rest a nightmare.
Michael told himself so over and over again until he thought he could believe it.
Despite Henry’s hospitality Michael only returned to his family’s house once the sun started setting. The thought of facing them was too hard, not when he still remembered their dying faces. Dream or not, that part had just felt too real and it still shook him to the core.
His old life seeped back into his mind like thick syrup. How come he remembered a death that had never happened better than the bygone day? He couldn’t recall what classes he currently had or which of his friends fought with whom. Everything that had seemed so important to him as a child was escaping him. What was important to him now. He was still a child. It had just been a nightmare.
He walked by the riverside and then up the hill to their backyard. This was something he remembered clearly–sneaking in late at night. He had done it countless times even though it would only prolong his father’s lecture for a few hours. Michael had never been good at not getting caught.
His bedroom window opened effortlessly from the outside. As he swung one of his long, lanky legs over the border suddenly the light in the room turned on.
William stood in the doorway, face frowning like it always did once he laid eyes on Michael. As if looking at a constant disappointment.
“Uh …” Michael said. “Hi.”
“Hi,” William replied, his voice a soft growl.
It was hard seeing him like this, all human, no monster. His skin was smooth and pale from all the time he spend either in his workshop or the office, his brown hair slightly curled and wavy just like Michael’s, only that William wore it in a short, clean cut, while Michael’s had almost reached his shoulders. His eyes set deep in his face, their lines solid like stones.
Michael had never felt close to his father, the crushing weight of William’s ambitions lingering between them, still he felt guilty for dreaming up a monstrous version of him, deserving of a fiery death.
“Care to explain yourself, son?” William asked and crossed his arms in front of his chest. He lifted his chin like he always did when he didn’t expect an actual answer, just an admission of what he already wanted to hear.
“I just …” Michael started, but didn’t finish. He wasn’t in the mood to explain once more what had happened just to be told it wasn’t real. And he definitly didn’t want to explain who he had set on fire with him.
“Dropping your brother's cake,” William said as if listing a bunch of federal crimes. “Running away. Not telling any of us what’s going on. Do you know how worried your mother was? Or what a downer this was on your brother's birthday?”
Anger brewed in Michael’s stomach. He tried to push it away, but the heat went to his head anyway. “Right, because it is always about him.”
William’s eyes narrowed. His muscles were awfully tense, making Michael think about the springlocks in the animatronic suits for a second.
A cold shiver went down his spine.
“Apologize to your brother,” William snapped, pointing down the hallway to where Evan’s room was.
Just to get out of this conversation Michael stormed past him to that direction. Slowly the feelings of a teenager returned to him. It seemed so long ago that this bottomless anger had pumped through his veins like poison. Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised him that his father had taken the form of a monster in his dreams.
He knocked on Evan’s door with more force than necessary. An old sticker was put on the door, depicting Freddy and Bonny surrounding a name plate titled “Here lives” and then Evan’s name scribbled underneath with black sharpie.
“Come in,” Evan shouted from the other side.
Michael forced his glare away from Bonny and opened the door.
Evan sat on his bed, the golden Fredbear plushie next to him, the pages of a colouring book open. Of course it was Fredbear and Friends themed. Michael had a feeling it was gifted to him by their father. He almost thought he could depict this interaction from memory, but he hadn’t been there … Probably just went to show how predictable William Afton truly was.
A little calmer Michael closed the door behind himself. “Dad wants me to apologize to you.”
Evan looked up, then went right back to colouring the book. “Figured.”
Silence stretched uncomfortably. Michael had said what he had come to say so he should probably turn around and walk away. Yet his feet didn’t move. For a few moments he just watched Evan carefully drawing along the lines of Chica’s head.
“I didn’t drop the cake on purpose,” he eventually said.
“I know,” Evan replied. His voice was so somber, it was almost chilling. “If you had done it on purpose you wouldn’t just drop it. I bet you would have smashed it. Maybe at the wall.”
Michael’s stomach clenched. Why did those words make him feel so ashamed? It did sound like something he would have done if he thought it justified.
“Evan, I…”
“It’s okay, Mike,” he cut him off. “I know. If mom and dad ask I will tell them you apologized and that they shouldn’t cancel the party on Sunday.”
What party?
Oh.
That party.
Michael fought down a wave of nausea. It had all just been a dream.
“Right. So, uh … Good night?”
Evan looked at him with a confused frown. “Good night, Mike.”
When he walked back to his room William was already gone. Quickly Michael took off his pants and crawled into bed. The shadows seemed to flicker, twisting the faces of Freddy and his friends to inhumane grins on the posters.
Michael turned to the wall and closed his eyes. “It was just a nightmare. It was just a nightmare,” he whispered again and again into the darkness until finally sleep took him once more.