Taking The "lens" off

Time passes... Weirdly. Around here, I can't tell the difference between the nightmare and what's "real".  We see through a glass darkly. Well, not "we". Can't speak for the others, sometimes anyways. But I certainly have a tough time deciphering what's going on. Maybe it's the rooming. It's a little cramped in here because you always have some guy's thoughts spilling into your own.  Memories playing out of the same events. Sometimes they're different offices. I'm not sure why it's us, though. There's gotta be more secrets. Maybe not bricked up like us, but still secrets. Secrets that the pizzeria would like to keep buried. Hell, is there even a pizzeria? It's been a while.

Either way, I don't really care anymore. Things have gotten out of control to the point that bothering to even attempt to understand what's going on is confusing. Like a dream that never ends.

You know what I find funny?

I thought it was the end before. Twice, now. My first night , I was cornered. At the end of my rope. That fucking rabbit... It somehow got past my cameras, and just as I hit the button to keep the ugly thing out, that big yellow bastard got right at my doorway. I could hear that fat fuck wheezing from six feet away. I was SO close to death. And as it was moving closer, I heard the buzzing of my watch that signaled the start of 6 am. And apparently, the end of their bullshit.

And I was SO close to saving myself if I had just used my common sense. Should've stayed as far away from the place as I could. But I came back the next night, and that's why I'm not on a smoke break right now. This place lures you in. It makes you want to doubt everything bad you heard about it, with all of it's bright colors and the friendly co-worker who greeted me both nights of my career. I don't know why I came back the next night because any moron could've seen that I had gotten a lucky break the night before.

On endings, though...I wasn't so lucky. They resumed their bullshit the night before, though this time I was informed by my friend on the phone that I had another robot to worry about, one I had to keep an eye on or else he'd go a little crazy from the sound of it. And that there was "Freddy" who didn't come out much. They got aggressive that night. Just as the message ended, I had a visit from the rabbit, Bonnie if I recall correctly. It stayed behind my door until 3 in the morning. I'd look down the hall on my cameras, and I'd see nothing. I'd walk over to the window to check but didn't want the chance of it's recognizing that the windows were also a viable entry point. I didn't realize how much of my door's energy the thing was draining just standing there, until everything went dark. I watched my door fly up. And I heard a little song play. It was sad, and sounded nostalgic at the same time somehow.

I was taken, and torn apart by them. I felt my own limbs, yeah. Before they took my head. But I looked across the table, and I saw my own arm hooked up to some thing, needles and some IV drip running through it. I felt my hand form a fist in response from the numbing pain I was experiencing, and I watched the arm form a fist a few seconds later. I recognized it because it had the same yin and yang symbol tattooed on it. There were a lot of other body parts there, some of which I identify from your own memories.

Hearing all of your stories, they all tend to start the same. But I've seen that they end a little differently. Another one appears. You don't like talking about that one, do you? The black, ghostly one with the mask? You always wanna know what was up with it.  I can't blame you, actually.

I had a recurring nightmare once as a kid. I'd see a man in a black cloak in the corner of my room. Constantly facing the wall, and his neck hung down. He'd turn his head towards me sometimes, kinda acknowledging my existence; while keeping a permanent slack-jawed, dead-to-the-world expression. But if I wondered what was underneath his cloak, he'd grin. It didn't meet his eyebrows. And when I realized that, the sudden emotions would wake me up with a jolt, met by a puddle of piss. That confusion I felt was dwarfed by the outright horrifying nature of the situation.

I think some things are better left unanswered. Things don't have a reason for why they are, sometimes. And maybe that's for the best. The dismembering of our previous lives isn't really as bad as I thought. You just need the big shove to wake up from a dream. And when you got it, maybe you won't be like this that much longer.