Patience: Chapter 8. Gates of Truth.

The man sat behind the desk of the grease-stained office, rubbing his hands together for heat and anxiety relief in equal measure. His name? ...Well, that hardly mattered at the moment. He was sifting through the carelessly stained and wrinkled papers that had been adorning the inbox for far too long. The sporadic thumping of the restaurant's heater kicking on and off every few minutes wasn't doing his headache any favors either. So much to be done for the coming summer, he couldn't pin anymore to-dos onto the memo board anymore without risk of the burden tearing it off the wall.

Running a hand over the scar tissue that was hiding under his mangy hair, the man sighed as he began looking over the season's new prospects. Building grants, health code inspections, new hires...Everything that needed to be done before spring rolled around. Deadlines being what they were, the man couldn't help but feel like the stress was going to make his hair fall out. Worse things could happen. Case in point, his splitting head. He needed new meds, maybe something more substantial today.

Pushing himself away from the desk to dig through his drawers, the man pulled into the third drawer down with interest. Pushing aside the revolver, he didn't need a painkiller quite THAT strong, he began to fumble with the various pill bottles inside. He really should've gotten around to clearing it out, many of them were expired and probably unstable with how much bullshit they packed into them. Still, there was a lot of things he should've gotten around to.

Pulling out a generic orange bottle of prescription strengths, probably for post-surgery pain or some such, the man went to push the drawer closed, a dull thump let him know it'd caught on something. Rubbing his temples with a heavy-handed sigh, something told him that nothing was going to go right today. Pulling the drawer open to remove the blockage, the man's brow furrowed with confusion. There was a dull glow at the back of the drawer, hiding right behind the whiskey bottles. Pulling them out and tossing them to the floor, the man's face was illuminated by the small wonder hidden away within the desk.

A small, fractured, key laid within an iridescent glass case. The thing sparkled with an octarine prism of colors that didn't seem natural. The case produced a quiet, static hum, and blurred around the edges of vision if he weren't looking at it directly. It was out of place, in this somber building of grease and decay. The man could've sworn it began to speak to him, through whispers just barely outside the range of comprehension. He reached for it with a fearful, tentative hand...

The phone ringing had the man pulling his hand back as though he'd placed it into a bear-trap. The man slammed the desk drawer closed and put a hand over his chest. His heart was racing. Looking around the room with guilt, the man shook his head and picked up the phone.

"H-hello? You uhh, you've reached the office of-"

"Don't."

'H-HUH?!"

The voice coming over the receiver was even in his words, but clearly aggressive in tone.

"Don't do it."

"Look I uhh, don't know if this is some kind of prank, but-"

"It's against the rules Mike."

Mike. Right, that was the name he didn't have time for. He remembered that clearly enough. He didn't remember dropping the phone, or throwing the thing off his desk, but he could hear the dial tone coming from trash bin that'd been knocked over. Who the hell was that, and what were they talking about? Rules? He wasn't doing anything illegal...was he under surveillance? There were no cameras in here, no obvious ones anyway. It was confusing, and his head was throbbing just trying to think about it. And now that he'd seen it, he couldn't stop thinking about it. Reopening the drawer, it was still sitting there with a gentle hum and a dazzling display.

What was it?

The closer his hand moved toward it, the more blurred it became. Fading in and out, from static to clarity like an old television, the thing held Mike's attention like a moth to flame. The phone was ringing again, but this time it's wails fell upon deaf ears. Reaching closer and ever closer, Mike's migraine ramped up with every meager advancement of his hand, peaking when it came within a hair's breadth of the strange device. Against all common sense or screaming instincts of self-preservation, his hand moved forward and grabbed the case tightly. Mike's eyes slammed shut as his mind felt as though it had been cracked open and lit aflame. And then he remembered.

His bloodshot eyes opened wide as he remembered EVERYTHING. The nights, the nightmares, Sal, Mary, everything this horrid place had robbed from him. More pressing was the matter of the office. Specifically, the distinct lack thereof. What was once his...Sal's office, was instead a mishmash of cobbled stones and landscapes. Behind him was the edge of an abyss, with no discernible bottom to it's depths.

Part of him wanted to jump.

Swallowing hard, he buried the thought and turned to face the strange world he had entered. Several paths laid before him, each one unique in's foundation, path, and decorations. All of them, however, lead to a door. Looking down knowingly at his hand, the case he was holding had vanished. Instead, the fractured key was placed precariously in his palm. Though it had been shattered somehow, it's fragments orbited and revolved around the key's base through some unseen force. Mike gripped it hard in his hand as he looked around at each of the doors. Though his form was shaking with dread, Mike was burning with curiosity. The nightmares never ended until they wanted to, so he figured he might as well see them through. His footfalls echoed throughout the otherwise silent dreamscape until he made a decision, he decided to investigate...

...The terribly damaged red door? (https://pastebin.com/0n1pNWVJ)

...The simple yellow door? (https://pastebin.com/PLqinGri)

...The heavy wooden door? (https://pastebin.com/mHdbWBfF)

...The heart-covered purple door? (https://pastebin.com/QUarMzte)
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Having seen all he could of this place, Mike sat down and pulled his knees close to himself with both hands clutched around the fragmented key. He'd seen what he was meant to see, but he hadn't awoken. He was still trapped here, just like everything else. Forever. When everything felt lost, Mike liked to look for silver linings. The thought 'I'm going to live forever', didn't comfort him much though. An eternity in mazes and confusion, eventually losing yourself after bit by bit was torn away from you...

Why? After all this time, he couldn't figure that out. Why was any of this happening? Why him? Why them? Why?

From the depths below came a rumbling groan that made Mike regret asking. The paths before him spread out further as another path forged between them. Brick by brick, a walkway resembling an abandoned parking garage led to another door. Featureless and tarnished, it's green surface had no name-plate like the others. It must've been a work in progress. Mike moved to pus the key inside the door, but the door's handle simply feel off as the door creaked ajar. Mike's feet walked forward without any choice in the matter.

Inside, Mike found a young boy who grew up without much in the way of money, family, or friends. A kid who knew the horrors of the world too well, and grew up fast at the fear of never growing up at all. He attended regular schooling, and neither excelled or failed in any subject. He simply endured. He wasn't bullied, nor was he befriended. All-around, he was an after-thought. An extra body to pad the system's numbers. Books held little interest to him, technology was locked behind an insurmountable paywall. So instead, the boy began to wonder to many different places and think up new ways to occupy his time and escape from the disparities of the world.
The boy would find hidden, out of the way places, and lay down. Waiting for inspiration to ignite his imagination.

It wasn't long until the boy then graduated from his schooling without much fanfare. With resources low and tensions high, an eventual breakdown from his family drove the boy away on bitter terms. And so the boy began to drift away, doing odds and ends to survive the world as he continued to drift through life as a ghost, an after-thought. His dreams and imagination began to die out, but still he found himself laying down in those groves and hideaways, waiting for a better world to sweep him away from his troubles, his growling stomach.

Years passed, and still this boy had nothing to show for himself aside from a closet he'd managed to sign for himself. His health had declined, his dreams had long since gone, but his spirit was still drifting, aloof to his apparent struggles. He would endure as he always had. A sentiment that did little to ease his starving body, and anxiety-riddled mind. Thankfully, before the man lost everything, he found a new job. A steady, non-seasonal job. A job that he would soon realize was a mistake.

Re-watching the events with silent regret, Mike came to a realization. Each member he'd inspected before had been broken down and bent to a bastardized version of their cardinal virtue. And now Mike, the man who'd grown up complacent with his hardships, who had been waiting for a better world for years, had singlehandedly survived this place, intact, longer than anyone who'd come before him. No matter how unfair, how insane the situation became, he could be counted on to see it through...one way or another.

That was how he fit into the scheme. THAT was 'why'. Watching himself work in that office with somber realization, the failures became less and less frequent as he progressed. He watched himself adapt to the tactics that were being used against him with silent resolve. This is what he was, this was his cardinal virtue. He was patience. He was a resilient one, but he could see himself faltering over time. The emotions drained out of him as the days passed, the memories fell away, until the only thing was left was a plaything of this place. A glorified computer for door controls, light switches, and soundboards. This is what he would've been reduced to if Sal hadn't intervened.

And that's when Mike remembered. During those nights, the 'eventful' nights, when this place was too distracted by Mike's theatrics to follow Sal's business. That must've been when Sal had stashed this key inside his desk. That must've been when he 'broke the rules'. He used him. Despite the outrage at this, Mike had to ask why he would risk everything over this? Where'd he even get it? He doubt he would tell, even if this place let Sal remember. So many questions, so much pain.

But now the dreamscape was looking back at itself. An endless line of recursion, infinite Mikes looking down at the other. He had reached the preset. The door was under construction after all. Mike raised a hand and waved it to watch the smaller version's reaction. It was faster to the punch, and seemed to wave before Mike even managed to move. It seemed to crouch a little before it turned around and looked at Mike with a horrified expression. And then Mike realized why. Tensing up, he turned around to see a massive face, HIS face, looking back at him. Covering his face with the key in hand, Mike began to panic.

"Enough!"

Opening his eyes to the empty dreamscape again, Mike found not the paths and doors, but the animatronics themselves. Deactivated and slumped over, each one was standing in front of where their correlating door would've been. Above their lifeless forms hung cloudy silhouettes with black ichor dripping from their closed eyes. All of them were bound to their metallic hosts with thin, black lines that strung them up like puppets. Despite all of the pain they've caused, Mike couldn't help but pity them after all he'd learned about them.

It came with a quiet shuffling. A final path past the lost souls that lead into the darkness ahead. The end was near, one way...or another...