Eyes Wide Shut: 7

When I woke up, I did not move for a very long time. I didn’t even open my eyes. I decided to stay in my little corner, and think about the woman with the bleeding head. She seemed familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I saw her. I couldn’t explain her connection with William, either. Why were the two of them standing together?

I remembered that she had a blank expression on her face. Her mouth was hanging open, like a broken robot while her eyes had an unseeing, unrecognizing vacancy. Her skin was pale, like a corpse. Or maybe a vampire.

She was frozen in time, just like William. But his disposition was much more human. It managed to feel natural. The woman, on the other hand, was a soulless husk. Just like Bonnie. There was nothing in there. Her head wound looked like it had passed bone. It would’ve taken something of incredible strength to inflict that kind of damage. I can remember a slight depression where the blood was coming from, like a dent in the skull.

I pitied her. For this nothingness she had become. She was dead in all but the physical sense. But then I remembered that I did not know her. That injury would have been lethal, if it was real. She had no name, and I could have imagined her, just as easily as I imagined myself doing all the things I could ever want to do with William Afton.

Crushing his legs with applied pressure. Smothering his face, and watching him turn purple. Poking and prodding each and every spot on his body to see what sort of reaction he makes. These were far more tangible than a long-gone ghost of a memory. I could do any of these right now, if I wanted to. But I can wait.

Mister William Afton would have more than a few surprises coming his way. The thought of that satisfied me enough.

Energized, and filled with renewed vigor, I stood up and sauntered towards William. He had woken up at some point, as he was looking at the exit vent. When my heels started clicking on the floor, his head went limp.

William is many things, but a good pretender he is not. Still, I humored him. I didn’t address him at first. Instead, I stood in front of him, and stared down at the man before me. His face was dripping with sweat to the point that I could smell his body odor. It was mingled with that distinct saccharine scent , which was coming from his hand. Already, the web was taking effect.

He had closed his eyes, tightly. Too tightly. It resembled a look of disgust more than slumber. I knew a few ways to open them.

I pressed my hand against his left breast pocket. William’s heart was beating fast; the palpitations increasing as I moved my hand around his chest. I began to run my fingers down it gently. Sweat dripped down his face and onto my hand. His head hadn’t moved, and his eyes were still shut.

He was still insisting on that silly facade.

I continued feeling his chest for a few seconds, before I pushed my hand down his chest, raking purple fabric and skin with my nails. He gasped.

Now he was looking at me. His eyes were wide open, with dilated pupils. Either from fear, or from the light.

“Why are you here?”, I asked him.

He did not answer. He kept staring.

“I will ask you again- why are you here?”

Nothing. I could continue asking him questions, or I could move onto something else.
I knew what he was doing here, of course. He was trying to get to my children. But why now? Why would he come down here himself? That was the part that made little sense.

William remained silent. He would not answer. I wiped my hand off on the fabric, and spat out a glob of web into it. I slathered it onto his mouth, sealing his lips before I turned around.

He was yelling something as I walked away. The web wasn’t enough to do any damage in such a short period of time, but it would leave a mark. Perhaps he would be more sociable when I returned from the office. It had been so long since I last saw myself, and the windows were good for reflections.

When I opened up the ventilation shaft, I saw that the dancer’s corpse was still inside. I had managed to forget about him for the most part, but he still needed a resting place. The vent simply wouldn’t do. I pulled him out of the vent and checked to make sure he hadn’t been disturbed.

He was as I had left him, William hadn’t done any damage. He still had a full leg and arm. His left leg was still broken off at the knee.

But there were some unfamiliarities as well. Details that I had missed in my own examination. I could see the edges of a small, hollow smile, warped and pushed inward towards the hole that my finger formed three days ago.

It was a disconcerting thing, to be frank. I looked away from the head, and turned my focus toward William.

He was looking straight at me, and his muffled cries had ceased. I didn’t feel good about leaving one of my dancers with him, so I fastened a small pocket for the dancer to fit into. I lowered the corpse inside, and attached it to my abdomen before I proceeded into the vent.

As I crawled toward the security office, I noticed all the scratches and dents on the walls that had accumulated. All the frantic escapes, and narrow misses. There was a history to this vent. I wondered if it would still be around, decades from now. Would any of my dancers be alive in thirty years? I hoped so.

Upon entering the security office, I was bathed in a sickly green light. I had forgotten how about the lighting was in the facility. Much of it didn’t work, having been either destroyed or simply never maintained properly. There was never any lighting in my gallery, save for that of my own eyes. For that, I was grateful.

Everything was in its proper place. The room itself was relatively unchanged, prescribing to my memory of where things were and what they felt like. The toy gypsy was still there, as was the clock, which used an unflattering close-up of Circus Baby for its background.

What caught my attention was the black leather jacket on the table.

 When I picked it up, I felt something bulging in one of the pockets. Digging around in its pockets, I found a wallet, which I proceeded to open. According to William driver’s license, he was born on July 8th in 1942. Making him forty-four years old. I wasn’t too surprised.

Nor was I surprised by his money. He had a lot of dollar bills in his wallet. I knew he needed some amount of fortune, to pay for his company and his men. As I was sifting through the bills, my eyes glanced upon something tucked away into one of the wallet’s pockets.

It was a photograph, folded into a small, orange square. It had worn edges and white lines ran through the paper, showing its weathering. Delicately, I plucked it from the pocket and unfolded the photograph, taking care not to tear the picture.

The orange color was from a sunset; the picture had been taken in front of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, during the evening. At the center of the frame was a woman.

The woman from my dream. The woman with the bloody head and the dead eyes. But she wasn’t injured, and she wasn’t lifeless. She was healthy, and smiling.

Happy.

She had a nice blue dress, and was wearing a fancy pearl necklace. And yet, she wasn’t snobbish. She seemed human.
She was very much alive, as were the children with her.

In front of the woman was a young boy, with tousled brown hair and a timid smile on his face. He seemed to be about six or seven; old enough to be in elementary school.
At his side was another boy, who had his arm around the other’s back. He was a good deal older than his friend, and seemed much more confident. The youth bore a mischievous smirk that was met by his eyes, which were glinting with wildness.

In the woman’s arms was a little girl, who could be no more than three or four. She had blonde hair, just like her mother. The photo must have been taken while she was laughing, as her mouth was wide open with a look of maniacal glee. The kind of mania that only small children could make endearing. And the mother was laughing, too.

They were all smiling. They were all so happy. The orange sky, the laughter, the sense of belonging.

The sense of family.

As I stared at the photograph, I wondered what the mother was laughing about. And for a few seconds, I wondered why this photo was in William’s wallet. I didn’t realize why until I noticed the woman’s wedding ring.

I turned the picture over, onto the white background. It was all blank, save for the words “JUNE 1980".

Six years ago. I wonder where they are?

I folded the photo back into the small square I found it in, and opened up a small chest compartment above my dancer’s harness. I slid the square inside, and closed the hatch before approaching the office’s windows. My LED eyes and the overhanging light fixture provided ample lighting for some self-reflection. It had been too long since I last saw myself.

I looked strange. I didn't recognize myself.
My face plates weren’t working correctly. That’s what stood out first. The mechanical tubing and grey steel that made up our insides was exposed by some uneven plates. I tried pushing the plates back into place, and it worked for the most part, with much less machinery being revealed. Other parts on me were similarly misaligned, I realized. The fight with Foxy must have weakened their strength.

On my hands were black splotches, which dotted the fingers and palms. They were old enough to the point that they had turned an almost grey color, similar to my "skin" pieces. They were still noticeable, and looked like liver spots.

After removing the webbed pocket, I searched the drawers for some cleaning supplies. I found a sponge, some soap, and water that I used to clean my hands off.

After seeing how polished my hands were, I decided to clean the rest of myself, and worked for the next twenty minutes, washing off dried blood stains and other detritus. When I finished, I took one last look in the window.

I still looked "off", but I don't think I could change that with any amount of cleaning. As I crawled back into the vent, taking the jacket with me, I wondered why he built me this way.

The woman was still in the back of my mind. As was her family- William’s family, I suppose. I will ask him about that.