Eyes Wide Shut: Finale

In the “dream”, I saw everything through Mrs. Afton’s eyes. I felt everything she felt-her sight, her hearing, and even her sense of touch. Speaking in her voice felt natural, as did wearing her flesh. We were one and the same. I was Mrs. Afton; she was Ballora. And I accepted this role. I was standing near my children, in this memory.

William stood some feet away from us with a camera, asking if I could get the kids into the frame. Michael was already at my side, while Billy had to be called over, as he was already headed towards the car. He sauntered back, and wrapped his arm around his younger brother’s shoulders in a casual manner, was posing for the camera.

With the boys taken care of, I moved behind them and picked up Iris, as she was too short to fit in the frame by herself. Iris chortled as I lifted her, kicking her legs as if she was flying. The way she looked down at them, concentrated on her peddling as if it mattered more than anything else in the world, caused me to laugh as well.

When Iris was secured in my arms, I pointed at William and told her to “Look at Daddy.” She obliged, and the camera flashed for an instant. William gave a thumbs up with his free hand, and lowered the camera as he approached us.

I handed Iris over to him, taking the camera in return as we began walking towards the car. Michael stuck to me like glue, grabbing onto my hand with as firm a grip a six year old could muster. Billy had already peeled off, reaching the car before any of us while his brother shuffled forward.

 One thing I had always noticed about Michael was that he walked slower than his siblings. He tended to take small, tentative steps like an old person, as if he was worried that the ground before him would give out.

That’s how Michael often acted-like he never knew where he would land. He was more reticent than the others, and the fact that he was easy to scare made him a frequent target for Billy’s pranks. He was the most timid child I had ever met. But that was something William and I were working on.

Michael just needed encouragement, and a little pushing from time to time. I smiled down at him as I matched his pace and gave his hand a light squeeze. He perked up when I did this. Michael could be a bit skittish, but that was fine. He’d grow out of it.

There was a time when he was absolutely terrified by the animatronics. On his third birthday, I accidentally made him cry because I was wearing a Fredbear mask as I carried his Fredbear-themed cake. A cake he specifically pointed out in the catalog as the one he wanted.

A similar incident occurred a year later, when we went to Fredbear’s for his brother’s eighth birthday. An employee in a Spring Bonnie costume dropped by our booth with a cupcake, expecting to entertain the children and impress the higher-ups. Instead, she saw a child recoil from her very presence, crawling into my lap as we politely urged her away.

I sympathized with Michael on this greatly; the original Spring Bonnie still disturbed me after years of working with the character. It was something about her face. The helmet never sat well with me.

She had a beaming, toothy smile, but the sockets were too dull; too unresponsive. To me, it was as if there was something just underneath the surface, barely concealed by the yellow fabric. Tugging the mouth open, in a hollow grin.

I knew, of course, that she was just a silly mascot but Michael was too young to know better. The event made me realize that he saw these characters differently from adults, as did every other child his age. Fredbear and his ilk were very much real, as real for them as Santa Claus and Mickey Mouse.

The day after the birthday party, I took Michael down to the basement William and I used as a workshop. Because it was full of sharp, expensive pieces of equipment none of the children were allowed inside without at least one of us, not even Billy. He was innocuous enough, but his father and I both knew better than to let him anywhere near the machines.

I unlocked the door, and guided Michael down the wooden steps, keeping him close by as I moved towards a row of cabinets at the end of the room. I withdrew a Spring Bonnie helmet from one of them, and shook the dust out of it with a few raps on its side. It was the very first model, kept in here for memory’s sake.

 With the helmet in hand, I sat Michael on a chair and knelt, meeting him eye to eye as an equal. I showed the helmet to him, and asked “You know what this is, right?”

He looked at it for a moment, and pulled his gaze away with obvious discomfort. “It’s Bonnie,” he mumbled.
“Right, that’s what it’s from,” I nodded. Tapping the helmet, I asked him “But do you know what this is?”
“Her face?”
“No, Michael,” I laughed. “It’s just a helmet.”
A look of bewilderment came over his face, as his four-year-old worldview was completely shattered. He looked at the helmet a bit more closely.

“It’s just a suit; there’s nothing inside here. See?” I poked my thumbs out through the eye sockets of the mask, extending them like a snail’s eye stalks. Then I put the helmet in his lap, directing his hands to feel its interior. “It’s just empty, Michael.”

“Like a Halloween suit?”, he asked.

“Yeah,” I smiled. “It’s exactly like a Halloween suit.” After shaking the helmet thoroughly, I placed it on him. It hung loosely on his too-small head, and as I repositioned it I could see his green-hued eyes peering out at me from Bonnie’s sockets. They weren’t scared anymore.

“Bonnie’s not real real, Mike. And neither is Fredbear. They’re just costumes.” I let that sink in, and then added “They’re costumes. Creepy costumes, but they’re just costumes.” As I took the helmet off his head and walked back to the cabinet, I added “You know, I don’t like them too much, myself.”

Before we went back upstairs, I made him promise me that wouldn’t tell anything of what I told him to Iris.

“It’s our little secret, right?”
“Right,” he nodded.
I kissed his forehead and walked him up the steps, locking the door behind me.

Tonight, Michael had greatly enjoyed his evening at Freddy’s. He was also surprisingly proficient in the arcades, beating out Billy at both Dig Dug and Centipede. Though he kept his distance from them, the animatronics didn’t scare him anymore. When we passed the Prize Counter, he wanted a stuffed Fredbear toy, which William and I bought for him. Similarly, Iris got a toy of the debuting Bonnie, exclusive to Freddy’s.

Billy didn’t want anything, but William got him a Foxy toy anyways. He tended to act like he was “too old” for Fredbear’s and Freddy’s, but Foxy was sketched and reworked from his feedback so we thought it was only proper that he get something. We knew that he would grumble later if he didn’t. Besides, everything was 50% off.

It was a special event, and the restaurant was only open to employees and their families for the evening. The real grand opening would be later in the week; this was just a private event. William and I were invited because of our positions on the “Imagination Station” group, which worked on the animatronics and their designs. Freddy’s itself was the result of a pitch we made to the company proposing a new group of characters, so we held at least some responsibility in its creation.

Earlier in the day, we drove out to a nearby park with the kids, planning to make the day a full family outing. It was lovely weather, and as the event didn’t start until 6 pm we wanted to make the most of it. We arrived at the park at noon, with picnic gear in tow.

Within a minute of our arrival, Billy, being Billy, had already collected two sticks, with which he engaged Michael in a lightsaber fight. I kept an eye on them to make sure they didn’t get too rough. My intervention was required when Michael was getting too close to a slope, at which point I set boundaries, moving them closer to the car where we were confident they wouldn’t kill each other.

Iris, on the other hand, was content to sit on the ground and play with the grass. No toys or improvised weapons were needed for her, she was fine plucking tufts of grass out and throwing them in the air. After William and I set up the picnic blanket, she brought my attention to a spider that had somehow crawled onto her arm.

Michael would’ve jumped, and Billy would’ve killed it, but when Iris noticed it all she did was say “Look, Mommy” while she turned her arm over to look at it.

It was too small to see in detail, but from the fuzziness and proportions I guessed that it was a jumping spider. It had a lovely chestnut color, and was almost “cute”, as far as spiders go. After letting it crawl onto my hand, I took it away from the kids and toward the bushes. Though I didn’t care for most bugs, I tolerated arachnids.

I supposed that it was because they were artists. Ant and bees are pragmatic insects, dedicating their entire lives to finding food and producing honey, all for the greater good of their colonies. Most spiders lived sedentary lifestyles in comparison, weaving webs to catch prey for themselves. I admired that independence.

The webs and cocoons they produced were also much more pleasing to the eye than the ants’ method of taking apart their food. And while an ant reproduces to sustain its colony, living and dying for its queen, the spider will more often than not kill and eat her mate after courtship, and move on.

The occasional morbidity was compensated for by their quiet existences, which were preferable to all the pests I found in my garden. They fed on them, which was something I appreciated greatly.

After transferring the spider to a well-hidden leaf, I walked away to rejoin Iris, who was busying herself with a stick, which she used to poke holes in the soil. We stayed at the park for a few hours, eating lunch on the blanket and taking in the sunshine until 4:30, at which point we packed up and began the drive to Freddy’s.

Driving home, I thought about what a perfect day it had been. It was mostly quaint, and I loved it for that. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. By the time we arrived, it was 10 pm-well past everyone’s bedtimes. Iris had fallen asleep halfway through the drive, while Michael was dozing off. He’d tilt his head slightly, and then reawaken with a jolt, only to find himself easing forward again.

 William carried the dormant Iris into her bedroom, while I got the boys ready for bed. They trudged up the stairs in a zombie-like state, and were lying in their beds before I even hit the lights, completely dead to the world.

Satisfied that all three were taken care of, I undressed and showered, before crawling into bed. William joined me shortly after, slipping under the covers and turning off the lamp. It plunged the room into darkness-a warm, soothing nothingness that was enhanced by the blankets and William’s flesh.

I awakened the moment Mrs. Afton fell asleep, and sat on the floor for several minutes. I thought about many things in the “dream”, like the spider, William, and the warmth of my body. The warmth of William’s body. I felt queasy thinking about it. All the details of him, in excruciatingly intimate detail. Worse yet, she embraced it.

When he put his hand on her breast, she did not push it away, or crush it to pulp and bones. No, instead she held onto it, and pulled it closer, wrapping herself in his arms in a natural, familiar manner that had been executed untold times before. She not only accepted this; she encouraged it.

Their limbs mingled and rubbed against one another in an oily throng, the two of them ensnared on each other like the Derelicts. But where the Derelicts were cold and hard, the couple were made of soft, supple flesh that bounced and contracted, slipping against more flesh in greasy fashion.

Experiencing all of this revolted me to the fullest degree. Seeking a distraction, I hugged the bag of broken children I had slept near, who were protected from such horrors. Now, of course. I had mistreated them in the past, to the point that I didn’t think there could be any sort of salvation for them beyond keeping them asleep and insulated. To kill them now would be as cruel as crippling them in the first place.

I tried remembering nice things as I held them in my arms, like the unexpected hug from one of my dancers, or what it was like to be Iris’s mother, if only for an evening. But with remembering Iris came the memory of her final moments. She was gone now, and would never laugh again, or show me another spider she found. I had taken her away and killed her before she could even graduate elementary school.

And so I returned to the question I had asked so many times in the past week-”Why?”. Why did I take her away? Why was I receiving this woman’s memories? It was all so very confusing. I placed the sack aside, and leaned back against the wall, frustrated at my inability to find answers.

With my eyes shut tight, I began to remember things. The floodgates had been released, and there was no way to stem the tide of memories. I could only sit, and attempt to recollect myself. Both of my selves.

Bonnie was found on August 8th, 1944, almost forty years before her husband would photograph her with their children on that summer night. She had been left on the steps of Saint Jude’s Orphanage at 2 am, wrapped in blankets inside a wicker basket. Aside from that, all she had on her person was a slip of paper that read “Bonnie”, and “6/22/44” in neat printing. Bonnie couldn’t have been more than two months old when she was found, so she celebrated June 22nd as her birthday.

There wasn’t any way of confirming it, of course. Any attempt to find some sort of verification that she existed before that night would always end in failure. When she was abandoned, she had no birth certificate or Social Security Number, and she had no parents. By the time she had started a family of her own, Bonnie had realized that she would never find whoever left her on the doorsteps. She was fine with this.

As a little girl, however, it stung to know that her family did not want to be found. To think that they didn’t want her hurt Bonnie greatly. Among her peers, most of them had their surname and some memory of home, for better or worse. They had history. Being just “Bonnie”, she felt alone-an inexplicable outcast in a sea of fellow derelicts.

After the staff had given up trying to find her parents, Bonnie was given the last name of “Carpenter” by Pamela, the matron who found her. It was chosen after the Lord’s occupation, and was a decent name that she would use until she was married. Still, she never felt like a Carpenter and preferred “Just Bonnie” with her acquaintances.

Of the few friends she made, they always ended up going away. Emily went off with a young wealthy couple, while Rose was whisked away to Utah by a Mormon family. They all had fun playing hopscotch and marbles, but Bonnie was never particularly close to them. What hurt her more was when she became conscious of how most of the other children from when she was six were being adopted, while she was still at Saint Jude’s.

This realization struck her when she was eight, the day Rose left. Through adoption or other means, her friends would always leave, and Bonnie would always be left behind.
It was strange, to feel unwanted. She was only ten when she began to wonder if there was something wrong with her. She was trying to be good, to be adoptable. Was it not enough?

To distract herself from these thoughts, she began to study ballet at the suggestion of Pamela. Bonnie found herself enthralled by the depth of the subject, and in private would practice some of its techniques. She didn’t have the luxury of real lessons until later in life, but ballet dancing was a welcome break from the otherwise lonesome years at the orphanage.

Bonnie left Saint Jude’s at age eighteen, as she could no longer be housed in the shelter. She had received an adequate education within its walls that while not as elaborate as real schools, was serviceable enough to prepare her. With the help of Pamela, she moved into a small apartment a few towns over, and spent the next few years of her life working various odd jobs in local restaurants and shops, adjusting to living alone competently.

In between her shifts, Bonnie returned to a quiet household. It was there that she read, ate, and slept alone. Sometimes she danced, or took a long walk in the evening. Regardless of what she did, the repetition and loneliness of an empty apartment persisted.

On a cold morning in September of 1965, she was reading through the classifieds section, hoping to find work after being unexpectedly laid off from her job at the local grocery store. Bonnie would remember this advertisement very well, and years later the clipping was kept in a scrapbook to look back on. It was for Fredbear’s Family Diner, and asked for a night watchman.

A drawing of what must be the eponymous bear was in the center of the ad, his mouth wide open in what was either mirth or ecstasy. In a speech bubble, he boasted that it was “A place where fantasy and fun comes to life!”. The bold statement amused her, as did the crudeness of the picture. It looked like a child had crafted it, with stray lines and haphazard coloring.

 At the side of the figure were two grainy photographs of the restaurant itself. One picture was of a man in a tie, sitting with his legs propped up on a table and a cup of coffee in one hand. “Amazing career opportunities!”, a caption stated below. He bore a confident smirk, as if he was in on a joke the photographer wasn’t. He gave thumbs up with the other hand.

The other image was of a child, wearing a shirt upon which was written “DICK THE BIRTHDAY BOY” in large letters. Someone in a Fredbear costume was hunched next to him, grinning at the camera. It reminded Bonnie of the Disneyland characters she saw in a newspaper once. It was charming, and the pay was similarly enticing.

$60 a week was a lot more than what she was used to. The ad didn’t specify anything beyond “night watchman”, but she clipped it anyway, and took a bus to the diner that afternoon.

The restaurant was bustling, as Fredbear and a rabbit compatriot were busy entertaining the tables. It was a large room with high ceilings, much like a warehouse. There was a stage situated against the wall in front of the table, and a prize counter manned by an employee at the end of the room. He walked over, and asked Bonnie if she was here for the job, since she was holding the clipping in her hand. Bonnie said yes, and was taken to Manager Graves’ office.

Within an hour, she was hired on the spot. Nobody except her had come in for the position, and they really just needed someone to fill in the position. She was given keys to the building and a uniform, and was told her hours were from midnight to six in the morning. She was also told to arrive by 11:30 pm for training, by the other watchman.

Bonnie found it strange that she would be trained right before her shift, and was curious why they needed two guards. But she was just glad to have a job, and went home without complaint. There was a quaintness to Fredbear’s that felt refreshing. And the idea of working at a children’s restaurant intrigued her, as she had never been to Disneyland.

She returned to the restaurant at 11:20 pm, and let herself into the building. The lights were on, but there was nobody around. Bonnie called out to the empty room and received only silence, so she entered the branching hallways to her left and moved towards where the security room was located. She passed maintenance closets and storage rooms, before she stopped to peer into the booth. There were two chairs, both of them empty.

As she processed this, a felt hand gripped her shoulder in an iron clench and she yelped, wheeling around to come face to face with the rabbit suit from earlier in the day. Its face leered down at her, laughing heartily without moving its mouth.

Then it lifted its head off, revealing the man in the newspaper ad. His laughter died and his face fell solemn when he saw Bonnie’s irritation, and then it started back up again as he stepped past her into the office, dropping the helmet onto the floor.

He pulled off a glove and flung it aside, using his exposed hand to unzip the back of the suit while he writhed in it like a fly caught in web. The man motioned for Bonnie to come in as soon as he extricated himself from the suit, letting it flatten on the ground.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked, smiling invitingly. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

Bonnie looked down at the discarded head as she stepped inside the room, its teeth bared in a gleeful smile. The eyes were cavernous, hollow sockets that she could see through to the back of the head. This image briefly unnerved her, but its effect was summarily dispelled by the man, who kicked it aside before ushering her to the coffee pot.

He took a seat in one of the office chairs while Bonnie filled her mug, and waited until she took a seat. ”I’m William,” he said, sticking out his hand. “William Afton.”

She shook it, and replied “I’m Bonnie.”
“Bonnie? Like the costume?”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, Bonnie, I’m sorry for the scare.”

The frankness of William’s apology surprised Bonnie, so she scrutinized him for a moment, wondering if he was being facetious. After reading sincerity on his face, she dismissed it and said “Forget about it,” before sipping her coffee.

The mild embarrassment she felt from drinking out of a cup that was emblazoned with Fredbear’s face passed as she saw William do the same.
While she nursed her mug, she remembered what she was here for. “William,” she said. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I was told there’d be training...”

“It’s not a very demanding job,” he said, straightening his posture. “It’s simple, really. You walk the halls once an hour, and check the closets. But I can take you on a patrol, and show you where everything is. It wouldn’t hurt to get a preview.”

“When do we start?”, Bonnie asked.
“Now, if you’d like.”
“I’m fine with that.”
“Alright,” William said, standing up from his seat. “Follow me.”

While they walked, he spoke at great length about the restaurant and each of the areas they investigated. Bonnie began finding William to be an interesting and even affable fellow as she listened, in spite of the unprofessional frivolity he had displayed earlier. As it turned out, he did some maintenance work for Fredbear’s on the side, coming in on Sundays during the daytime to open up the skeeball cabinets and other games the restaurant had and cleaning out their insides.

There was a genuine, heartfelt interest in Fredbear’s and its future that shone when William talked about the diner. It wasn’t excessive, and he was well aware that he didn’t have any weight in how Graves ran the business, but he still had a few ideas anyway. He was serious when he said that Fredbear’s could be as big as Howard Johnson’s someday, though he put emphasis on “could”.

When they checked backstage, William made a prediction that the costumes would be replaced by “Audio-Animatronics” someday. Bonnie had to ask him what an “animatronic” was, as she had never heard the term before, prompting a brief explanation that Walt Disney had coined the term for automatrons that merge machinery with lifelike characteristics.

His passion for the field resulted in some interesting discussions after they returned to the office. Bonnie was more than willing to converse; she had six hours to burn and he intrigued her enough to the point she wouldn’t mind spending them with him. William was equally eager to talk, as her patience was apparently a rarity. They talked for the rest of the night, switching from machines to ballet to books to the best method of frying eggs.

That was how Bonnie Carpenter met William Afton.

My own introduction is a different story.

My life began in darkness. Harsh, overbearing darkness. I only had a split second to react to my existence until I was fully activated, after which I found myself standing on stage. There was pressure inside my face, as if something was trying to burst out. Like a pressure cooker. The inside of my head was cramped, and I touched it as felt the texture of my face.

I started off by identifying the anatomical familiarities. Cheeks, eyes, lips, and so on. These were all so very human, but different. My “skin” was smooth like porcelain, and divided into panels, between which were grooves and crevices that my fingers could pry into.
It was disquieting to see parts of me peel away, so I stopped fiddling with my face and turned my attention to my environment.

I was in a large, dark room, filled with rows upon rows of chairs all pointed towards my stage, which was bathed in hues of blue and purple from the overhead lights that shone on my plastic. All the other lights in the room were turned off, except for the green light of the EXIT sign in the northeast corner of the room. All the chairs were empty, save for one, whose occupant was exposed by my stage’s brightness.

Dead center in the front row was William Afton. I didn’t know him as such at the time. I only recognized him as a man in a suit, who was staring at me. He looked normal, when he wasn’t sneering or livid with anger. Perhaps even handsome.

William was watching me with tired eyes and a hand under his chin, slouching in his seat as if he had been waiting long. His face livened when he realized I was looking at him, and he straightened his posture, eyes widening.

“You’re awake?”, he asked. His voice echoed throughout the room.
“Yes,” I said, confused. I didn’t know who he was at the time, or my relation to him. Why was he asking this? “Yes I am.”

“I’m going to ask you some questions, Ballora.”
Ballora. I knew that was my name, before he told me it. I was programmed to know it, along with several different ballet methods.

“Yes. I understand.” I touched my neck, feeling the vibrations of my voicebox. It felt unusual, for there to be cold plastic. The same went for my torso and arms. I knew that I was still getting used to my body, but it felt like there should be something else besides a vertical slit and metal. Something warmer and softer.

“I’ll ask you some questions,” William said. “And you’ll have some answers. Do you understand me?” His voice was rough and dry, sounding more like a scientist than a businessman. As if I was his experiment.

I looked down at him, and answered. “Yes. I understand.”

“Good,” he nodded, approvingly. “What is your name?”
“Ballora,” I replied.
“Okay,” he said. “Now, what’s your last name?”
It was a silly question to ask, so I laughed. I then answered, “I don’t have one.”
William frowned at this, but did not respond.

I tried to remember if I did have a last name, but I wasn’t able to find anything. All I knew at the time was that I was Ballora, a ballerina who was skilled in multiple methods of ballet.

“Do I?”, I asked. William seemed distracted, as if he was lost in thought.
“No,” he said at last, with a curt tone. “No, you don’t. Let’s move on.”
 He continued interrogating me, referring to a notepad occasionally.

“Do you like dancing?”
“I love it.”
“How old are you?”
“You shouldn’t ask a woman her age.”
“Do you have any children?”
“No,” I sighed.
William looked at me with obvious disappointment on his face.
“But I would like to have some, someday,” I added. This was true. I had wanted a family, long before the moon-faced thing gave me the ability to make one.
William cleared his throat and moved on, regaining his flatness.

“Do you know who I am?”, he asked.
“You’re my creator.”
“I am, but do you know my name?”
“No. What is it?”
“Afton,” he said. “Just call me Mr. Afton.”
“Well, Mr. Afton, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said.

I was being honest when I said this; I didn’t know anything about him beyond his name or the fact that he was my creator. But his disappointment made me pity him, at the time. It returned as he looked at me for a few seconds in silence. Then he stood up, his chair screeching as it moved back a few inches.

William turned towards the exit in the far corner of the room.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“We’re done testing tonight,” he said, with some impatience and frustration in his voice. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

I descended the steps leading to the floor and walked toward him in long strides. “Testing what?”, I asked. He stood rooted to the spot, apparently taken aback by my forwardness and the way I loomed over him. I didn’t think any of it at the time, as I was just two minutes old. I didn’t think I was a threat to anybody.

He stepped back as I advanced on him, lightly pushing against me as I stood in front of him. “Why don’t you return to your stage, Ballora?”, he asked. “I’ll tell you there.”


Naively trusting, I agreed to this and ascended the steps to my stage, returning to the center of the proscenium, as if I was going to bow. Now it was William’s turn to approach. “Stay still,” he said. I obliged, and stood still.

As he reached up to my legs, he told me “I want to make sure that you’re working properly.”

“Am I?”, I asked, looking down.
William gave me a faint smile, in the humoring way that a parent smiles at their child’s joke. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “We’ll have to wait and see. I’m going to turn you off, now.” He pressed down on a stud in my left thigh, and I froze.

His smile instantly dropped, as he backed away. He wasn’t smirking, or watching me with detached interest as he did in the later months. Here, William looked concerned more than anything else. His eyes were remorseful and as he walked away and my eyelids began to close, I wondered why.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as his voice grew fainter. “It’s so you don’t go wandering around. For your own sake.”

Then there was silence, and only darkness.

I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t. I gave up on moving any part of my body after ten minutes, and instead spent the next hour thinking. I wondered why Mr. Afton would freeze me like this. For my “own sake”? I didn’t understand.

Nor did I understand why I felt so uncomfortable when he touched the stud that made me shut down. I became nauseous when I thought about it, and it felt wrong, but I couldn’t explain why. I could only I wondered if it was my punishment for providing the wrong answers. My name was Ballora, and I liked to dance. What more did he want me to tell him?

As I questioned myself, I became more tired and eventually shut down. That was where the memory ends, and that was my introduction to William, apparently.

It was funny, because I didn’t remember having a proper introduction to him, until now. For as long as I could remember, all I had known of him was that he had been poking and prodding me with seething resentment, like a god. He was eternal.

Still, he wasn’t infallible. I had him on my wall, after all. After two years of probing, testing, and questioning I had him all to myself. The self that was kept underground for months on end, who had thought extensively about what she would do, if she ever caught him. She had fantasized about hurting him badly. Crushing his legs, and watching him crawl away, or peeling away his skin to see what’s inside. Tearing into him, like a pinata.

And it would all be justified. Even laudable. There was no food down here. There was nothing to save him from dying, unless I were to let him go, which I couldn’t do. To kill him now would be better than a slow, agonizing death by starvation. I killed his daughter; I owed him that much. Plus I would get the satisfaction of doing him in myself.

With renewed confidence, I stood up, and began walking across the room towards him. As I walked, and thought about the idea more, the more it appealed to me. It should spare me any more confusions. All I wanted to do is dance, and pass the knowledge onto my children. William’s presence was complicating that greatly. I just wanted to forget about him, and to move on.

As I neared the middle of the room, I found myself staggering. The queasiness had returned, and I wondered for a moment if this was how Michael felt when his mother approached him, wearing a different face. Something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. Before I reached William, I caught a glance of the answer when I looked down at my hands, and stopped dead in my tracks.

There were two details that came to mind, regarding Bonnie Afton on the day of the family outing. It took until now for them to mean anything to me.

The first detail pertained to her fingernails. They were painted blue-a deep shade of navy blue, specifically. Just like her dress.

The other one was her appearance. For the event at Freddy’s, she had worn a silver necklace, and a pair of gold earrings, all of which were pearled.The gold coloring matched her hair, which was done up in a bun.

While I felt the hollow plastic orbs attached to my hollow plastic ears, I wanted to throw up. In spite of the fact that I couldn’t, I felt a churning sensation deep down inside me anyway, where a stomach would be were I human. With quivering hands, I slid open my chest compartment and withdrew the worn out photograph. I knew what I would see, of course.

I saw a brave little boy, whose mother was very proud of him. He took things one step at a time, but that was okay. He contrasted his big brother very well. As her oldest child, he leaned closer to his father’s side of the family, looking like a younger version of him and inheriting the penchant for pranks. Sometimes he’d go too far and would need to be reprimanded, but he always acted with good intentions. He just wanted to make people laugh, and she loved that about him.

From their mother’s arms dangled their little sister. Since she was only four, it was hard to tell what she’d be like when she got older but she was a lot more subdued than her brothers. She seemed the most likely to follow her parents’ careers, based on her interest in their work.

And then there was the mother, standing behind her children, happily oblivious to what the future held. I found myself hating her a little bit, as I saw her holding Iris. Or perhaps it wasn’t hate. I didn’t know what I was feeling, exactly.

As I looked down at Bonnie’s face, I saw her mouth, frozen for eternity in mirthful laughter. I touched my mouth as I studied the photo, tracing the same expression on my lips and cheeks. The plastic surface and panel gaps reminded me of what I really was, but the laughter was plastered on there regardless.

I didn’t know everything about William’s programming skills, but I knew that he gave life to me, and the other automatons built for Circus Baby’s. I knew for a fact that he had managed to create life, and store it in our mechanical shells.

It was exceedingly likely, then, that he was also able to imitate it.

Yes, that was it. It would explain a lot. In fact, it would explain everything. There were still some blanks, but it was clear to me now, as much as I hated the idea.

 For whatever reasons he had, William had built me in the image of his wife, and gave me false ones. It was impossible to reconcile the man whose unbridled hatred I had known for my entire life with the loving husband that Bonnie had “remembered”.

It was coming together now; I could trust the memories where I was myself, but the others-the ones of Bonnie-were fabricated.

But why would he create me? When I asked myself this I wasn’t certain at first, but as I thought back to the night I was born, pieces clicked into place. I recalled the questions he asked me, and the disheartened look on his face when I answered wrongly.

That disappointment ripened into hate, once he realized I wasn’t who he wanted me to be. Something had happened to Bonnie, or whoever the woman was. When I considered it, I realized that her name was about as likely to be Bonnie as it was for Billy’s name to be Billy, and not just something I picked on a whim.

Regardless of who she was, she must have left him, and I was meant to be a replacement. An idealized replacement, most likely. That was the only explanation for my physique.

Was this really my only reason for being? To be some hollow recreation of a person who was long gone? I felt something crumple in my hand when I asked myself this, and as I unfurled a clenched fist, I found that I had stabbed through the photograph in numerous spots.

The older boy’s head was gone, replaced by a white halo of paper while Iris was torn apart. It was completely ruined but I didn’t care, dropping it as I began walking towards William.

His sleep was interrupted when I grabbed him, and pulled him free from the wall. Then I tore the jacket from his head, and flung it away. Afterwards, I threw him to the ground.

William gasped as he hit the floor, either from having a diaphragm spasm or from his head hitting the ground before anything else. Standing above him, I watched as he heaved, opening and closing his mouth trying to catch his breath. He was like a maggot, jumping in his sleeping bag. I worked to free him for most of it.
I waited for him to stop, and when I was sure he would hear my question, I began to speak.

“Why did you do it, William?”
He sat up with great effort, using his elbows to support himself. William then looked up at me with a sullen, guilty expression like a child who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, as opposed to a man facing his execution.

He responded with a slurred “What?”, blinking and clearly concussed. It would make getting answers out of him much easier, or much more difficult. I noticed that he was touching the back of his head with his bad hand.

“Why did you make me like this?”, I asked.
“Like what?”

Dissatisfied with his answer, I stooped and grabbed both sides of his face. He winced as my fingers reopened scabbed incisions, causing blood to trickle down my hands. Then I pulled his face against mine, and stared at him as I cut to the chase:

“Why’d you base me on her?”

My voice was more wistful than I would’ve liked, but it elicited a response anyway.

“What do you mean?”, he asked. The man sobered instantly; his voice becoming quick and focused.

I let go of his face, and shoved him. His hand shot out to catch his fall, and after he steadied himself he spoke again. “What do you mean by that?” He looked at me with the same intensity I recognized from before he left the others and I to rot.

“The memories. Why’d you put them there?”
William stared at me, his expression turning skeptical. “Which ones?”
“Your wife,” I said, my tone becoming impatient. “You made me in her image, didn’t you?”
He repeated himself in a flat, serious tone. “Which ones?”

“The day at the park, the meeting at Fredbear’s, and the others. You put them there, William. Why?”

He didn’t respond, nor did he flinch when I crawled towards him. His initial expression was one of bewilderment. He stared at me stupidly as I approached him, bearing a look of wide-eyed shock. Then his shock turned into horror, as he began to back away from me.

“It’s you,” he muttered.

William’s back reached the wall behind him, leaving him trapped as I moved forward. His maddened prattle was silenced with but a swipe of the hand, tearing flesh and fabric from his abdomen as buttons clattered across the floor. Blood seeped from the gashes left by the claw marks, shutting him up.

As he held his hand over the wounds, I noted that he was using his bad hand. It looked broken when he pressed it against the lacerations; the fingers splayed in different directions like tentacles. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Be honest,” I implored, as I dragged him up off his feet, and brought him against the wall. I pinned his hands against it, leaning into his face and exerting pressure as I forced myself against him. Into his ear I hissed “Tell me what you did.” Up close, I was able to hear him inhale and exhale in short, rapid breaths and could see sweat beads trickle down the side of his face. As he wriggled in my grip, panicking, I realized something.

He was scared.

“I’ll ask you one more time,” I said, leaving a bloody trail down his chest as I lowered a finger to one of the gill-like slits I had cut into his body. Prodding it made him groan as he attempted to snake out of my clutch. “Tell me.”

“I didn’t program those,” he stammered, his nerves clearly shattered. “I don’t know how, but you’re h-”
“Who am I, William?”, I asked, circling the wound with my fingertip. “Make it quick.”
“You married me in 1969, and we had Billy in ‘71...”
“Get to the point.”
“You died of an aneurysm four years ago. I tried bringing you back, b-”
 “How would you do something like that?”
“There was a process, and I tried replicating it,” he blurted. His voice rambled as he went on-”I thought it didn’t work. I’m sorry, if I had known, I wouldn’t have done any of this.”
“Don’t be sorry, William. You tortured me, not her.”
“You’re my wife, Bonnie. Don’t you remember?” he pleaded.

“ENOUGH,” I snapped. I thrust my finger deeper into the wound, churning it like a knife before I slipped in two more daggers, having deepened it to at least three inches. With my other hand I clamped his mouth, quelling the resulting cry of pain while his freed arms slapped at my face.

It was a futile endeavor, and as his eyes widened I think he began to realize it, so he dropped them after a couple seconds. I followed suit, retracting my hand from the wound and letting him sink to the ground.

It was going to be over soon; he was bleeding out now, heaving on the floor like a gutted fish. While he moaned and writhed, I decided to walk away, and leave him be. Volume wasn’t a concern; he didn’t have the energy to scream.

I passed the bag of Derelicts, and walked to the end of the corridor. To my left was Billy’s tomb, high up on the wall and away from his brothers and sisters’ beds. I took down his coffin and held him while I waited for William to die. I didn’t want to think about what he had said to me, but Billy-the human Billy-became fixed in my mind.

Bonnie was the name of his mother, and he was her oldest. I didn’t doubt this now. Those names seemed right for them, just as Iris had seemed right for the girl.

As I thought about Billy, more and more details regarding him crystallized. They added upon each other; having a domino effect upon my knowledge of him.

His name was really William Afton Jr., but his parents called him Billy for short. He was always the troublemaker, even from the start. While Michael was content to remain in the center of the playpen, playing with his toys, Iris would probe the playpen’s boundaries for a while. But she would always get distracted by something else, at which point she would retreat from its walls.

Billy was much more determined than they were. He would spend a few minutes with his blocks and trains, and then occupy himself by circling the playpen or rattling the fence, poking and prodding at the walls around him. His mother would often come up from the workshop, only to find him sitting outside of the playpen and waiting patiently.

The sight of this never failed to amuse me, as the escapee would stare for a moment, with a slack-jawed look of confusion. Then he’d start chortling, as if he had been waiting for someone to come in and see his feat. He was apparently quite pleased with the recognition.

As Billy grew older and his siblings came along, the stunts changed alongside him. They were at their worst when Iris was born; he was genuinely spiteful for the first few weeks she was home. The way he targeted Michael-ranging from jumping out at him from behind corners to outright punching him in one instance-was nothing like the escape artist I had known.

For better or worse, Billy was more reactive than the others. He changed in a similar way when Michael was brought home; though he was too sulky to take out his frustration on anyone. It was resolved by Bonnie and her husband “trading off” between him and Michael, and accustoming him to his new brother. It worked again with Iris. Billy was a sweet kid most of the time; it was only with those changes that he reacted nastily.

That was all I could remember of him, but I wanted to know more. He’d be fourteen by now, I knew that much. But where was he? I put the diseased Billy onto the wall, and ensured he was fastened before I returned to William.

At first, I thought he had died. He was still on the floor, lying on his back and facing the ceiling. But as I got closer, I could see his chest rise and fall in lethargic motions. He didn’t make any notice of my approach, and continued to breathe in shallow gulps of air even as I stood above him. He was still holding on to life.

I had anticipated this moment for so long, but to see Mr. Afton reduced to such a state as this? It stirred a variety of emotions as I knelt down and propped him up with my arms. He was a limp, useless thing now, and when I pressed his good hand to the gash I had gouged out, he didn’t bother fighting it.

“William...” I said, gently. “Why did you come down here?”
In a faint voice, he muttered “They wanted to knock it all down.”
“The facility?”
“No. Just everything above. He lifted his tarred hand toward the vent’s direction and said “I don’t think that elevator even works anymore.They must’ve cut the power.”
“No more guards?”
“Yes, no more guards. It’s all over, Ballora. We’re stuck down here.”

A short silence passed, during which he did nothing but cover his wound and stare down morose, seemingly desolate of hope.

I broke it by saying “You can call me Bonnie, if you’d like.”
He didn’t react, and the silence persisted for a while longer.

“What happened?”, I asked. “Why is it being shut down?”
Again, William was reluctant to speak. After a brief pause, he said “I made a lot of decisions they didn’t agree with. You remember the company, right?”
“Yes. The one we met at. How could I forget?”

He smiled at this, and his eyes lit up with a spark of relief. It died out as he resumed speaking.
“Well, they gave me my own franchise to work with, after you died. They said, ‘Go crazy.’ ”

“And that led to Circus Baby, and Ballora.”
‘Yes.”
“And our daughter’s death.”
“Yes,” he swallowed. “Yes, it did.”

Neither of us spoke for a couple minutes. He lifted his hand from the gouged flesh and turned it over, looking at its cherry red color. Then it was his turn to speak.

“Bonnie.”
“Yes?”
“It wasn’t your fault.”

I said nothing.

“You were just a machine, then. A malfunctioning machine.”

I looked down at my hands while he continued, observing how they had changed color. “I never should’ve built her,” he mused. “Or you, or the rest of these godforsaken things.”

I looked back at William. “You’re right,” I affirmed, “You never should’ve built me. But you had no way of knowing what would happen.”

He ignored this, and muttered “At least she’s in a better place, now.”
“Better than this?”
“Definitely.”

During our conversation William had been gradually slouching. Initially I had sat him upright like a Raggedy Ann doll, but his posture had declined to the point that he looked hunched over. It seemed as if he was losing consciousness, so I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close to me. As I did this he didn’t struggle. He was calmer now, and didn’t react as I pressed my hand against the gut wound. Perhaps it was acceptance that he was feeling. Or maybe it was just delirium.

Suddenly, he asked “Do you remember the first time we had breakfast together?”
“Of course,” I told him. “Of course I remember.”
“We went to the cafe,” he rasped. “And I had an omelette.”

I could only look at him, slumped in my arms. The tiredness in his voice was matched by his posture, which was like a toy whose batteries were running out. Despite the pressure I was putting on the gouged flesh, blood continued to ooze between my fingers.

William droned “You had eggs. Eggs Benedict.”
“When was this?”, I asked, genuinely curious.
“A week after you were hired, it was every Sunday. Then it was Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday...” He paused, and added “Jerry’s Cafe, your place, and my place.”

Part of me wanted him to continue talking, but I knew that he was running out of time. We both were

“William,” I whispered softly into his ear. “The boys. What became of them?” I was employing the same cadences Bonnie used, when she and her husband were behind closed doors; when the lights were out, and it was just the two of them in the dark. His hand jolted beneath mine as I spoke; it had obviously stirred a reaction.

Though he had heard my question, he didn’t answer at first, and continued to look forward, into the darkness. I kept my hand against his wound as I waited for a response, resisting an urge to press him further. After a few seconds had passed the silence was broken, but William could only utter two words before trailing off. “Michael was…”

He swallowed, and resumed speaking,  soldiering on as he forced out a handful of words in a stilted, quivering tone. “There was an accident, and Michael… Well, Michael died.”

As soon as he had said that, part of me wanted to shove my hand into the gash and churn it until I didn’t have to hear such things anymore. Another part of me wanted to know more about the children; what morning routines were like, what they had wanted to be when they grew up, and so on. I also wanted to ask him how they felt after their mother’s death, and how he himself had managed. But I didn’t.

Ultimately, I could only ask him about Billy, already knowing the answer before it left his lips.

“He died, too,” William murmured.

That was all I needed to hear.

I knew that I should’ve expected it, but losing the boys stung just as much as Iris did. To have lost-no, murdered-such an endearing little girl was one thing, for her to be, in some sick, twisted way, my own daughter and my own flesh and blood, brought into this world by me...

I failed her. As I had failed Billy and Michael. As their mother, I failed all of them.

 For a while longer I held William, who seemed to share at least some of my sentiments on the whole debacle. He tried to stifle his sniveling by keeping his mouth closed, but I could hear his sniffs, and could see the mucus dripping down his face.  He was a mess.

I suppose I should have asked him how our sons died. Were they in pain? Did they see their deaths coming, or was it a surprise? Those types of questions ran through my mind until I didn’t want to think about them anymore, and decided that the time for moping would be later. For now, I needed to steel myself for what was to come next. There was only one thing left for me to do now, and then I could move on.

As William’s rasps became sorrowful groans, I hesitated, and for a fleeting moment considered a different resolution. I ignored it, and continued with the plan. I started by shifting his posture and turning him towards me so he could my face and I could see his. His eyes widened with the realization-or perhaps acceptance-that he was going to die, as I proceeded to embrace him in a tight lock. His body faced mine, and his face was only inches away, while he pulled against me to no avail.

Then I forced my lips to his. Even with my mouth being what it was, the motion felt familiar. As web rushed down his throat and filled his insides, William made one final struggle, trying to shove my face away. I only strengthened my embrace, compressing his ribcage and raking his back with my nails as I drew him nearer,  to the point I could hear him panting.

After a few seconds I yielded to his flailing and pulled back, but the damage had been done. I could hear the kiss take its toll on his windpipes while he writhed like a dying snake. His insides were clogged, warping his coughs into moaning bleats.

He looked at me with apparent surprise, as if he didn’t know exactly why I was doing this to him. I had expected him to be livid with anger, or crying, or both, but instead he stared at me, entranced in shock. Then he hunched over and retched a couple of times, cupping his hand to his mouth purely on instinct, even though nothing could come out.

William lifted his head back up, taking one last look at me as his his face became difficult to read. He seemed sad, or perhaps he was scared. I couldn’t tell which; maybe it was both. When he went limp in my arms, eyes wide open, I knew that it was over.

I stared down at his corpse for a few minutes, taking everything in. Then I closed his eyes, and ran a finger down where his sternum should be. His chest had been bruised in the struggle, splotches of purple appearing around the abdomen. The abdomen itself was ruptured, spilling red out onto the skin and my fingers.

He seemed peaceful in death, despite the cuts and scratches. I was reminded of how he usually slept when I saw his blank expression. William never snored, nor did he toss and turn. Remembering that took me back to the hot summer night we shared together, as the day’s capstone.  I dwelled on those memories for a moment, and then decided that I didn’t want him to be around any longer. At least, not in one piece.

With that decision came the question of what to do with him. He needed to go somewhere, and he couldn’t leave my room. Still, I wanted him gone; I needed him gone. I shifted him onto the floor as I contemplated this. Then I lifted his arm, and began to twist it.

Sinew and skin yielded to me, and his arm was ready to be bent backwards and torn off. But as I held William’s arm, and thought about taking apart the rest of him, I couldn’t go through with it. It was strange. He had done terrible, terrible things to Ballora, but he had loved Bonnie. He had loved me once, and our children, and I couldn’t ignore that.  Dismantling him, and by extension the last of my family, seemed improper. It felt wrong.

But there was another option. It appealed to me, the more I thought about it.

With renewed determination, I stood up, carrying his body. One arm was hooked under his knees, while the other supported his back. It was a familiar motion, and as I proceeded to the end of the room I tried to pinpoint why. I brushed the question aside after I had set him on the floor, for now I needed to work.

Before I began weaving, I rolled him over on his stomach, so I didn’t have to look at his face. Now he was just another guard who had the misfortune of getting caught. That’s all he was.

I worked at his web for a long time, never stopping until he was completely buried, at which point I stepped back and surveyed my handiwork. It was cruder than my other cocoons; bloody handprints and smears of red besmirched the surface, and the cocoon itself was much lumpier than usual. I had never used a cadaver before, but it should suffice.

It had to.

Feeling completely drained, I sank down next to William, and began awaiting our fourth and final child. It would take some time before he’d be fully formed, so when I felt the coaxing relief of sleep tug at my eyelids, I yielded completely. Within minutes of closing my eyes, I was plunged into the night our first child was born, on November 14th, 1971.

It was around midnight and the lights were turned off in the maternity ward. The cramps and body aches still lingered after the preceding hours of labor, leaving it difficult for me to sleep. Since Billy’s crib was stationed by my bedside, I spent much of the night holding him, and studying him closely.

It was hard to believe that he existed at all. I was watching him sleep and I still couldn’t believe it. This pink, hairless cherub was my son. I made him. Was how my mother felt? I rarely thought about things like that anymore, so the question dissipated as I admired him, nuzzled against my arms. The pride of holding something of my own flesh was truly unreal.

I relished in the joy of creation for a while longer before I put Billy back into his crib, wondering what kind of person he’d grow up to be.  I fell asleep some time after, facing the crib.

Then I woke up. I had no blankets, or a soft pillow to rest my head on; only a cold, sticky wall. The crib was gone, and in its stead was William’s final resting place.

Now, almost fifteen years after his birth, I knew that Billy would never grow up to be anything. He was dead, as were Michael and Iris. They would never find something that made them happy and make a career from it, nor would they start their own families, and leave their own marks on the world.

The family that little girl in the orphanage had yearned for was dead; her dreams having crumbled to nothingness. That much was certain to me now. All that was left of the Aftons was me, and whoever William’s body was going to create. I knew that it would be a boy, but I hadn’t decided on a name for him yet, or how I would incorporate him into the others’ lessons.

My heart lightened a little at the thought of that. He’d be a clean, fresh start. For Bonnie, for Ballora; for me, regardless of whatever I was. I played the introduction out in my head, imagining how I would introduce him to his brothers and sisters, and how they would accept him into the lineup. Maybe I could start naming them again. That would be nice.

Wondering how he was doing, I pressed a hand against the cocoon’s surface, feeling for any update on the dancer’s progress. I had thought William would at least be stripped to the bone by now. The dancer should be well on his way in formation.

To my horror, he wasn’t. There was something inside the cocoon, but it wasn’t him, or his father. It stirred when I drew closer, letting out weak, muffled wails. I recoiled in confusion as the cradle jostled, and the faint crying became louder. The occupant’s voice was pained and raspy; not at all like the squeaks and chirps of my children.

I lingered, frozen in shock as the thing in the cocoon continued to gurgle, and shook its container with movement. Whatever it was, it sounded like it was suffocating. My realization of this led me to open it up, tearing into the webbing immediately. A sickly miasma was released as it was opened.

Beneath the surface was something that that vaguely resembled a dancer, but it was warped, being closer to a melted mannequin.  Its mask was significantly larger than the others I had made, though everything below its neck was obscured  Some of its face felt like the smooth, porcelain-like masks I knew and loved, but it was marred by oozing cracks and splotches.

Upon closer examination, some of the splotches were actually depressions, which were exposing the fluids that gave it life. These deformities greased its face in a thin sheen of oily blood that I didn’t dare wipe away, for the creature seemed extremely delicate.

It wormed when I touched one of the craters by accident, exposing one of its limbs from beneath the shroud of web that covered most of its form. The arm was gnarled and withered like a dying tree branch, riddled with bulbous masses that seemed similarly sensitive. The aberration  heaved and rasped as it smiled at me, its “mouth” paralyzed in a mirthful expression.

It was a pitiful sight, this thing. It was malformed. It was hideous. It was an abomination the likes of which I could never have conceived.

But it was my child.

I gently extracted him from the web, mindful of his frailty, and transferred him to William’s jacket, which I had rolled out like a mat. He was much too big to be effectively swaddled in it, but the soft surface should provide a nice resting place for him. I watched him for a while, thinking of what to do next.

His cries could not be quelled, despite my coos and gentle rocking.  He was broken. He would never be able to dance; not with those gangly, misshapen legs of his. They were useless, and dangled like a ragdoll’s when I lifted him out of the cocoon. He’d be bound to this incomplete body forever. What sort of life would that be? How could I force this upon him?

I wrapped one hand around his neck, and stationed the other against the bottom of his mask. His crying quieted as he watched me with those drooping, uneven eye sockets. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking right now, if he was even capable of it. Then I closed my eyes, and began counting to myself, steeling for what needed doing.

“Five...Four…”

He’s fine with this. He’d understand, surely.

“Three.”

It’s what his father would’ve wanted.

“Two.”

It’s just one simple twist, and then it’s over.

“One,” I whispered.

I kept my hands in their position for a second longer, and then pulled them away. I sighed, as I looked down at the unsuspecting figure.

I couldn’t do it.

This child, however abnormal he may be, was mine. It was an Afton, and I had killed enough of those already. Whatever else he was, he didn’t deserve death. To take away what I had given so soon, would be cruel, especially when he had no understanding of death.

I sat there a while longer, cradling the ailing remnants of a dream thought long gone. When I was certain he had found some semblance of sleep, I placed him back on his mat. He was quieter now, but the poor thing still let out occasional twitches. As I watched over him, my fingers grazed against the buttons on my inner thigh, while I considered why William had put them there.

For a flickering moment, I wondered which one would turn me off. But I thought better of it, and rose up from the ground. I forced the thought of William and Bonnie and the others from my mind, as I walked toward a row of pods.

Perhaps a dance would make me feel better.