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When most people hear the TV turn on in the middle of the night, their first reaction would be pants-shitting terror. For Hayden, however, it was merely a source of confusion. Groaning, he rubbed his eyes and checked the clock on a nearby desk.
3:00 AM.
Sighing, Hayden pulled himself up, got out of bed, did a few stretches, then walked to the door and stepped into the hall. Turning and making his way to the living room, he eventually came across the source of the noise.
The TV was indeed on, currently broadcasting what looked like old Robot Chicken episodes. The person watching was currently sitting on his couch, all four arms wrapped around her legs as she stared ahead, not seeming to be looking at the screen at all.
You’d think you wouldn’t get used to seeing a four-armed crow robot sitting on your couch, but… well, Hayden was used to a lot of things at this point.
After everything had been settled in the facility, Hayden learned that Audrey had not only died, but had been possessing the Astra animatronic alongside a bunch of other soul fragments, none of whom had any memories of their past lives. Luckily, defeating Sarah, or Litho, or whoever, seemed to have restored all the memories everyone had lost and not regained by that point, including the soul fragments in Astra. And while most of the fragments were content to move on to… whatever afterlife existed, Audrey had chosen to remain in her mechanical vessel.
Of course, since Audrey had been dead for a while at this point, she didn’t exactly have a place to stay, so Hayden offered to let her be his roommate, which she accepted. Since then, the two had been living together. It had been a little awkward at first, living with someone who was a foot taller than you and who had a habit of forgetting just how strong she was, but the two made it work eventually.
Honestly, Hayden was just glad to have his friend back.
Pushing thoughts of the past aside, Hayden walked over to the couch and took a seat. This was enough to catch Audrey’s attention, with her yelping before seeing Hayden, causing her to catch her breath.
“Hayden! Geez, you scared me.” She said with a small chuckle, before something occurred to her.
“D-Did I wake you up? I-I’m sorry, I was just-”
“Eh, it’s fine.” Hayden said dismissively. “So, why exactly are you watching TV at three in the morning?” He asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just… had some trouble sleeping, that’s all.” She replied.
“Bad dreams?”
“Not exactly. Just… thinking about… myself.”
That caught Hayden’s attention.
“You wanna talk about it?”
Audrey was quiet for a moment, before replying.
“It’s just… sometimes I wonder if I’m still me. I mean, I died, Hayden. I remember dying. And even when I came back, I spent who knows how long not even knowing who I was as part of some… soul conglomerate. And now that I finally have all my memories back, I can’t even go back to my own body. I’m stuck in this metal thing. It’s like… am I really Audrey, or just a machine with Audrey’s memories?”
Before she could spiral any further, Hayden placed a hand on her shoulder, bringing her back to the present.
“Hey. I’m not sure how helpful this’ll be. But I don’t care what you look like. I don’t care if you’re a robot, or a human, or if you’re one person or seven. You are you, Audrey. Memories or not. And nobody can take that from you.”
Audrey was quiet for a moment, before she reached over and wrapped Hayden in a four-armed hug. Hayden was stunned for a moment, before he returned it. The two sat in silence for a moment, with the TV still playing in the background. Then, Audrey spoke up.
“Thanks, Hayden.” She said, sounding more than a little choked up. “I… I really needed that.”
“Yeah, don’t mention it.”, Hayden replied casually. “No matter what happens, you’re still you. Just like Andy’s still Andy. Even if his teeth could break someone’s finger.”
This got a laugh out of Audrey, which in turn got a laugh out of Hayden. After the two had calmed down, Hayden got up, picked up the remote, and turned off the TV.
“Well, since you went through all the trouble of waking me up,” he said as he placed the remote back on the couch, “I’ve got some hot dogs in the fridge. You want some?”
“Yeah, that sounds great.” Audrey replied, smiling. With that, Hayden got up and headed to the kitchen to prepare them some food.
He wasn’t sure what the future held for him or his friends. But if they could survive everything Dreamworld threw at them, he was pretty sure they could handle whatever was coming next.