Eyes Wide Shut: 4

I slept dreamlessly. There was no Mr. Afton. There was no darkness. Just pleasant, uninterrupted sleep. A seamless transition from drifting off to waking up.

When I awakened, I felt calm. Refreshed, even. I had slept well, and was ready for the task at hand. I would go to the parts and service room. And then I would restore my sight. From there, things would change.

Things would get better.

I reached out to my right, and felt for the sack of broken bodies sequestered in the corner of the ceiling. It was still there, its inhabitants dreaming in an eternal slumber. Safely hidden away from where anybody could find them in a soft ball of web. Satisfied, I climbed down onto the tiled flooring, landing on my feet with a soft click.

Before leaving, I ran a hand down each of the pods. Just to assure myself that my children were still there. And they were all there, of course. I counted off, one by one. Each and every dancer was in their pod, fast asleep. Save for one.

I walked towards the vent, and bent down to lift up the door. As I crawled inside, my hand landed on the dead doll’s body. I wrapped my fingers around it for a second, before releasing my grip and proceeding down the vent, leaving the doll behind in a cacophony of metal banging.

When I emerged into the security office, I reached my fingers out, feeling for anything of note. The puddle of black blood from yesterday was still fresh. The sickly sweet stench of it lingered in the air, faintly. But there was also a more concentrated dose. Fresh and aromatic.

Him. The one that got away was here recently. Marky, Marvin; the name is irrelevant. All that matters is what he did, which was downright insulting. He should consider himself lucky that I haven’t recovered him yet, and that Foxy hasn’t killed him.

I walked towards Funtime Auditorium, and considered opening up the vent. Just to find out what they were doing. There was a part of me that was very curious. But I thought better of it, and turned towards Circus Baby Auditorium. I bent down, and lifted the vent.

“I am going to enter the parts room through here,” I yelled. “I am going to retrieve what I need, and will leave with nothing else.”

After a few seconds, Baby responded. “Do what you want,” she said in that grating, pouty voice. I entered the vent, and began crawling. The vent was shorter than the one leading to my Gallery, and much less clean. Beneath my fingers were dried stains. Some of smelled like blood; others smelled like oil or kerosene. They flaked off as I crawled, increasing in noxiousness as I came closer to Circus Baby Auditorium.

Opening up the vent, I was blasted by a wave of hot air. A horrid stench filled the air, one of melted plastic and lead paint fumes. I hadn’t been inside Circus Baby’s quarters in a very long time, not since we were brought down here for good. I remembered the majestic, massive stage in this room, and the soft, warm beds that the Bidybabs were given.

She was always Mr. Afton’s favorite.

Crawling out, my hand touched upon broken wood and torn bedsheets. The room was in complete disarray; toys and other debris were scattered throughout the room with no sense of care. In a far corner of the room, I could hear low giggling from a poorly maintained Bidybab. It was leaking oil, and had a wet, raspy laugh.

Circus Baby’s voice called out from another corner of the room. “Go ahead, it's down the hall” she said. “Freddy’s in there, though.”

Freddy was always difficult. He was lost in his own thoughts, and had a faint disconnect. It had been months since I had last encountered him, but he seemed distracted.

Traveling down the hallway to the parts room. I could hear the sound of rummaging as I got closer; metal being tossed about and rattling on the floor. I entered the open doorway, and could hear Freddy talking to himself.

“Freddy?” I called. “It’s me, Ballora. I’m entering the room now.” He made no sign of having noticed me, and continued mumbling to himself.

“....It’ll be a good birthday, won’t it Bon-Bon?”

Most of what was in here was long gone, having been scattered around the floor like needles in a haystack. I still remembered the layout well enough to have a basic idea of where everything is, or should be. There was a large table in the center of the room, upon which were several boxes of parts.

I moved across the room, investigating each box and its contents. There was nothing of value in most of them, save for the box of eyes. It was miraculously untouched, in spite of the chaotic mess the room was in.

I pried an eyelid open with my thumb and index finger, while the thumb on my other hand felt my right eyeball. My thumb felt small grooves which I used to distinguish my replacements from the assorted mess. I pried open a panel underneath my bosom, and deposited two undamaged eyes into the cavity before closing it and beginning the trip back.

Freddy was still gibbering to himself, talking about parties that had happened years ago until my hand brushed upon Bonnie. It was a hollow piece of plastic, that my fingers slid into.

There was nothing left of Bonnie in there, but when I moved it, Freddy hurried over, stomping loudly.
“Bonnie? Is that you?”, he asked in that loud, scratchy voice.
I deliberated on my answer. At six feet, he wasn’t very intimidating. But he was also unpredictable. He was a shell of himself. No inhibitions. No logic. Time had not been kind to him.


“She’s here, Freddy,” I said.
“Oh, good,” he muttered. He went back to the other side of the room, picking up and dropping random instruments.

Exiting the hallway, I heard Circus Baby standing near the vent. “Did you see him?”, she asked. A soft chuckle followed. I loomed over her and said “Thank you, Baby” before leaving. She always hated that.

As I crawled through the vent, I pushed the thought of her giggling out of my mind, focusing instead on how I would restore my sight.

When I returned to my gallery, I steeled myself for what I needed to do. My eyes were still connected; albeit severely damaged. I had a hairline crack in my right eye, while the other was torn from its wire. Foxy’s bestial violence had left them in difficult and painful places to extract.

I pried open my left eyelid with the nails on my thumb and index fingers, probing the eyeball with the finger on my other hand. To feel my own fingers on the sensitive parts of my eyeball was a strange, uncomfortable feeling. It hurt. But I needed to do this.

I moved the eyeball around in its socket, feeling the wire on the back of its orb shape. I attempted to move my nail to cut the wire bundle, but I couldn’t. Bursts of pain shot through my head. It felt like nails were being driven into my brain. I instinctively pulled my hand away, and let my eyelid slam shut.

I would need help.

I withdrew a dancer from his pod on the east wall, and warmed him up. He uncurled from his ball, and after a few seconds of apparent confusion and uncertainty, crawled up to my shoulder while I took out another dancer. I rocked her back and forth for a few seconds, until she too woke up.

Holding the two, I sat down against the wall and debriefed them on today’s duties. I spoke slowly and gravely.
“You two are going to remove my eyes.”
I turned my head to face the male on my left, as I said “You will hold the eyelid open”. Turning to the female, I told her “You will unplug the eyeball. There will be wires that you will need to remove.”

I brought the two closer to my face. “Do you understand? Tap once for yes, twice for no.” They both tapped my hand with their cumbersome, digit-less blocks.


I deposited the duo onto my shoulders, telling them “Start with my left eye. It’s been torn.” I tilted my head up, as the girl crawled over to reach the left eye. The boy’s arms moved into the top and lower eyelid, to keep them from closing. The girl dug around in my socket, her blocky hands scraping the inner eye socket ever so slightly. I clenched my hands, and kept them on the ground. Something rolled around in the socket.

She held it with both arms, and a cupped hand moved to greet her as she stepped out. The eyeball was dropped into the hand, which returned to the ground as swiftly as it had arrived.
“Now go back and remove the wire”, I said.

I could feel a tingling in the left side of my head as she touched the damaged wire. In a human’s anatomy, this would be what’s left of the optic nerve. A clenched fist bucked, and pounded the floor. The tingling grew worse and worse, like my head was going to explode, until she dug a hand into the wire’s socket, and pried it free.

She emerged from the socket with the wire, which she dropped into my hand. The boy moved his arms away, and let the eyelid shut.

“Good,” I said. “Now let’s do the other one.”

The two dancers crawled over my face slowly and cautiously, immediately getting to work as soon as they reached the other side of my face. The boy held the eyelid open again, while the girl rooted around for the socket. It was discomforting, but not as sensitive as the torn wire was. Within a few seconds, she had managed to extricate it, with my other hand receiving the eyeball still attached to its wire.

“Good work,” I told them. “Now we can put the new ones in. Same process, but re-”

I stopped. I could hear something coming through the vent. I scooped the two children into my hands, and placed them on my shoulder as I climbed up the wall. They held onto my ears, while I moved up towards the ceiling and anchored myself with some web. I put the dancers into a small bag of web and fastened it to the ceiling as I listened.

The tumbling grew louder and louder,as I heard someone lift up the vent. They pulled themselves out onto the floor, and stood up.

The deep breathing told me the figure was male. He took out an object, and moved towards the east wall. I heard the sound of something cutting into web.

I dropped down onto the floor, and grabbed the man by the neck. He struggled as I lifted him up, kicking and swearing at me. I then let go,letting him fall to the ground, at which point the object fell and clattered across the room. Pinning him under my foot, I increased the pressure upon his ribs until he stopped struggling and eventually faded out. He was breathing, but not dead.

Good.

The object that the man dropped was a knife, and he had only managed to make a small incision into the pod before I stopped him. It was easily repaired, and its occupant was unharmed.

Satisfied, I picked up the man's limp body, and carried him with one arm under his legs, and another bracing his back. He felt so small and vulnerable. I took him to a blank space of wall, at the very end of the hall across from the vent.

I attached his arms and legs to the wall with web, and then covered his mouth with web. He was stuck there, like a bug that had been pinned and put on display. A bug to examine. A bug to poke and prod.

I listened to his hushed, low breathing. I felt his hair. I ran my hands down his face, and felt the angled bone structure of his jaws. The warm, soft flesh.

It was unmistakably Mr. Afton.