D is for Dreamer

I feel like I need to commit this to paper… I'm not exactly sure why. Things have been getting a bit… weird as of late. It's not that I don't… well… I just… need to organize my thoughts. I need to get the details down somewhere tangible. It's just… I can't tell if I'm going crazy or not. I keep on seeing _him_ from the corner of my eye. Out of reach… out of sight. Damn it! Did I have to keep this bottled inside for so long?

Well, screw it, I'm here I guess… here goes.

You see, procrastination had always been a large issue of mine. You’d think that I would’ve eventually kicked the habit by the time I was accepted into Dixie State, but lo and behold, here I was, up in the middle of a breezy Sunday night, wading through bushels and branches in a forest smack dab up shit's creek, 4 minutes' drive from my Dad's place, just to get a picture capturing natural scenery for one of my GECs or whatever they call them before the sun rose, signifying the end of spring break and my return to that same ol' same ol' start of another vicious cycle of classes.

So much for making responsible decisions involving schoolwork.

I tried to find, at the very least, _one_ "B- worthy", decent looking area to take a photo as I proceeded onwards through the large thicket. The forest itself could be best described in only a couple words; overgrown and infested. But, despite how it’s always been described, it always seemed to give anyone who trespassed it a sense of lingering wonder, restlessness, and paranoia that for some reason, was pretty hard to put into words. As if they are just..._there_... As if some sort of otherworldly presence had permeated the woods with its influence, and was now always watching over it, and everything it may hold.

The perfect place for photo opportunities.

I started to slowly grin at the thought of being able to boost my Photography grade, when suddenly, my fantasies of possibly even making the Honor Roll were interrupted by a swift flash of gray, orange, and brown briskly dashing into a bush out of the corner of my right eye.

I yelped and took a moment to catch my breath and reclaim my bearings.

"What in the world was tha-"

My muttering was quickly interrupted by a low growling noise near said bushes. Slowly, I began to shakily raise my satchel full of photography equipment and braced myself, as I quickly shone my flashlight’s narrow beam towards the thicket, which held whatever the hell that was...

Much to my combined relief and slight disappoint, what had nearly given me anxiety-attack was an adult coyote that seemed to be smaller than what was typical for its species, cowering in the tangle of branches and leaves.

I took a few seconds to catch my breath and to gather my bearings after what could have been a less stress-inducing situation

The coyote appeared to be frightened by this, however, as it suddenly started to bark at my sudden movements, and leapt towards me. It managed to sink it’s claws into both the hem of my shirt and the velvety leather strap of my satchel, and began scratching and tearing into whatever its talons could reach.

"Ah!! L-Let go of me you little- Ack!" I spat at it, before it silenced me with a sharp slash to the hip.

I had started to attempt to thrash it off and loosen its grip with the butt of my flashlight, when I finally managed to swat the little bugger off, which also unfortunately allowed it to tear part of my shirt’s hem, and fully rip part of the strap off of the satchel. After most likely realizing what would take place next, it took the opportunity to dash off, with my bag in tow, of course.

"Get back here!! That’s my ticket to not flunking, you trash wolf!!" I cried as I started to charged blindly through the shrubbery.

I spent a good six minutes at the very least bounding through the woods, only relying on the sound of tiny feet pattering and long with the noises of expensive supplies colliding within my stolen bag, when finally, the dumb coyote finally realized that running off with my snatched satchel wasn’t worth it when compared to its life, so it eventually dropped it, and ran in another direction.

When I caught up and managed to dust off my belongings, I took a look around only to realize I had no idea where I'd run off to now. Perfect. In this day and age, I could pop open Google Maps and figure out the quickest route home, but back then, flip phones were barely the norm. All I had was a Nokia with no signal… practically useless except maybe for bludgeoning ~~those pestilential little~~ small animals for food which I definitely didn't look forward to.

Wait, what the hell, I didn't write that.

Hand hurts. I need to take a break…

***

Okay… I took some headache medicine, had a nap, and I feel like I’m ready to continue. It took me a bit but eventually I made it past the treeline and found myself in a deserted street I didn't recognize. Suddenly, the idea of getting lost the forest sounded much more appealing, which says a lot about that part of town at the time. Anyway, while I was contemplating on what to do next, I decided to look through my satchel to see if my equipment was intact, which it luckily was. But through the lens of my Polaroid camera, combined the bright beams of moonlight, I saw the reflection of an old, dilapidated building. I turned around, and much to my surprise, there was a battered, shabby looking building smack dab in the middle of a potholed, overgrown clearing. Funny how my first thought upon seeing all this was "aw with shots like this, except in the daytime, I might even ace this project for once."

And here I thought I had enough action and mystery for one night.

After my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, I could just barely make out a rickety sign that looked like it was ready to fall apart any second, which was decorated with chipped paint and rotting wood, that said;

>FR_D_Y F_ZB_A_’S
>_I_ZZ_RI_

"Frdy Fzba’s? The hell is that?" I questioned to no one in particular.

Now, I’ve seen plenty of horror films with dim-witted protagonists walking into these types of buildings with zero sense of concern for their safety whatsoever, but now, essentially _being_ that protagonist has shown to me why they make dumb decisions; the thought of exploring a seemingly abandoned building was a captivating feeling that felt harder to resist as the seconds ticked by, and more enticing, even with my brain telling me to run as far away from this building that looked as if it saw its fair share of natural elements.

And yet, I felt something else… like a memory beginning to bubble to the surface, something familiar… but what?

I'm a rational man, I always have been. But this is the only occurrence in my life where any sort of thought relating to rationality went straight out the window. I gingerly started to take small steps toward what had once been a pair of glass doors, now with shattered bits and pieces dangling from the rim of the remaining left door. That otherworldly feeling pulling me closer to the pizzeria only intensified as I passed over the threshold.

Attempting to not make any noise, on the off-chance that there was probably some meth head or heroin junkie hanging round, I treaded forward through what I can only assume was meant to be the front desk, surrounded by flipped over or broken chairs and tables, what was left of peeling wall decals off what appeared to be pizza and some animal mascots that were too damaged to even recognize.

"Looks like some angry kid wasn’t a fan of this place," I quipped quietly to myself to try and lighten the mood. It didn’t work.

After making it past there, I soon came across a large doorway leading to a room that was at the very least, five times the size of the front desk area. It was full of long tables dotted with party hats and bright, colorful tablecloths, almost as if they were awaiting a party that would never happen.

But to the right of the passage from where I had just entered, was something… strange, to say the least; an empty stage. Now, that wouldn’t be so out of the ordinary, right? Many restaurants have designated areas for bands or musicians to play. What made it seem more odd though, were the six holes with many small, ripped wires poking out of the floor of it, all aligned as if to signify that there should have three pairs of feet connected to it. Whatever had been once there, was long gone, as if they'd wandered off.

I suddenly felt a whole lot more unsafe in this place; it felt as if the building’s atmosphere had turned darker, more ominous than before. But something else about the newly formed tension in the air seemed to cause my curiosity to overpower my fight-or-flight instinct, and pulled me towards a battered doorway on the left wall of the building.

Much to my curiosity’s dismay, what awaited me were two boarded off bathroom entrances.

"Huh, all that mysterious build-up for nothing, I gues-"

_CLANG_

Just as I was about to depart from what I had presumed to be nothing more than an uninteresting relic of the past, my foot had struck what had felt like an awkwardly shaped pile of metal, which also seemed to be partially coated in dusty fabric. I looked down at said object, and to my surprise, there were the shredded remains of a cartoonish-looking brown bear; it looked oddly familiar…

Then, it struck me.

It didn't take long to put the pieces together in my brain, and once it all clicked in place, it was impossible to take them apart, not with the tableau before me that could never be unseen. My missing uncle had once owned a franchise of pizzerias with some oddball of a business partner. The chain of restaurants he had owned always seemed to be plagued with tragedies, such as a freak accident involving a family diner and a golden bear, the grievous injury of one of their day shift employees, and multiple cases of young children going missing seemingly every single time the company name tried to rebrand itself. And not to mention the death of my cousin during a rainy day outside one of their pizzerias before I was even born.

~~**I REMEMBER THAT DAY**~~

The very same pizzeria I was in.

Here I stood, a mere 26 feet or so away from the very spot _she_ died all those years ago.

Obviously, I now realize there was much worse than that, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyways, back to the shredded remains of the bear. It’s head was barely attached to the robotic skeletons neck, the remains of its neck held together by a cluster of wires. It was missing its left eye, while the right was dangling out of its socket. This remaining porcelain eye almost seemed… to be angrily observing… as if burning its glassy, painted blue pupils into my skull, similar to that of an animal silently gazing at its prey, waiting to leap out and pounce.

I dropped the seemingly angry bear mascot head back into its former resting place, next to its body, and while I was doing so, I noticed three other broken forms; one that looked like a rabbit, one that seemed to be a duck, I think, and one that

##**_OH GOD HE'S RIGHT BEHIND ME IT BURNS_**

…It’s getting worse…

…I need to lie down…

***

Ugh, it’s getting much worse… How close is _he_? Um, anyway, where did I leave off at? Oh, right, the mutilated robots. The one that resembled a rabbit looked barely recognizable, save for the one remaining ear, which reminded me of a similar looking rabbit plushie–except teal with a red bowtie and glasses–I named Tom during my childhood, for some odd reason. But I digress, the rabbit had a large, uneven gash over its right eye that looked like an axe had aggressively come down upon it multiple times in rapid succession. Its other remaining eye was intact, but some of the paint was smeared, most likely due to rain leaking in, and I couldn’t help but feel… oddly unnerved by its seemingly angry look. This eye seemed to resemble that of a wild animal’s, watching its prey from a distance, with a glaring, searing expression seemingly able to scorch through flesh.

Speaking of the rabbit, I could have sworn I saw something else that resembled it, but was missing half of its body, peaking through the doorway I had just come from. When I first saw it, I jumped back, causing it to dart away, which was quickly followed by the sound of a window breaking. I was left breathing hard and slowly getting anxious…

How long was it watching me?

Wait… No… _They_ didn’t exist then… Am I confusing memories?

A-Anyway, erm… The duck-thing wasn’t much better off; it had a large slash-mark extending from what remained of its arm, to the right side of its torso. Speaking of its torso, it seemed to have a shredded, faded bib, with patchy letters that seemed to spell out "**LE_’S _AT!!!**", with some sort of slashed and rotted piece of pink and brown plastic with buck-teeth stabbed through whatever letter was to the left of the "**A**". It was also missing a large portion of the top of its head, sans the mechanical endoskeleton inside.

Its eyes, though, were a sight to behold. The left eye was tilted to the right, and the right one seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling. Yet, through the smudgy, dusty porcelain orbs, there was the same look that the robotic rabbit had, as if there were still signs of life in the ruined machine.

I could have sworn I saw it twitch...

Then, there was the fox, I believe, which took the cake for being the most damaged out of all of the abandoned mascots. Most of its head was malformed and dented, (Save for part of the muzzle and one of its eye holes.) its jaw was dangling from some wires, and what I presumed to be the remains of its arm, with a hook for a hand, was stabbed through its left eye hole. Its torso was barely hanging onto the endoskeleton, and what looked to be the remains of brown canvas pants were shredded up to the robotic skeleton’s thighs.

Though, despite the absolute decimation of the robotic fox, one thing attracted my attention first;

###_The eyes…_

Those damn eyes… I could have sworn they were giving me the same haunting look as the other mascots… And soon after examining them, I started having these eerie and macabre hallucinations… There was another rabbit… It was yello-

**_Am I going mad?!?_**

#**~~THERE YOU ARE~~**

#####**_THAT YELLOW RABBIT…_**

##**~~FOUND YOU~~**

**_WH_T IS _E DOI_G TO ME????_**

**_I remember running, running faster than I ever have before… My head was pounding… All I could see was that Y_LLO_ R_B_IT.._**

##***I CAN’T REMEMBER MY NAME***

###**_WHERE AM I_**

#**~~I CAME BACK.~~**

***

… I… I have no idea w-what just happened… It was like those hallucinations came back again as I was writing this… It felt as if I was on fire… All I could hear was screaming and grotesque, visceral sounds…

Um… Back to what happened with me running away…

I… um… remember eventually passing out near a street, then… then…

I was back in the pizzeria… but it looked different this time. H-How was this even possible?? It had looked as if I was in the building after closing for what I was sure would be the last time, never to reopen its doors again. Everything was intact, if a little dusty. How on Earth did that building decimate itself to the point of being unrecognizable within a few weeks??

The pizzeria looked exactly like the first "form" of it, but everything was… gray, black, and white. Not only that, but unlike the abandoned feel that the "first form" of the pizzeria had, this one felt, well, dead. Lifeless. As if something had sucked all the joy out of the restaurant, leaving an empty, decrepit husk of a building. And yet somehow it was still clinging to some semblance of a half life…

Like Frank…

Then, out of nowhere, the animatronics from before, now intact, slowly started to appear, one by one. They were motionless, yet seemed to be full of life, as evidenced by their eyes, which seemed to never leave mine. They may have only been tiny, white pupils in the middle of voids full of darkness, but I could somehow see feelings of seething, burning hatred, yet through it, was an odd calmness and… patience? Curiosity? The best analogy I can come up with for it would be a large predator, watching its prey with a sick sense of hope and delight that it would be whatever it may be looking for, like some sort of sinister game of cat and mouse.

I'm just hoping to God that I wasn't the mouse.

Once all four of the mascots had shown up, just barely in sight, yet still noticeable, I might add, my vision started to gradually fade as the four hulking beasts stared me down, observing my every movement. I felt myself shrink in fear as they towered over me like giant sentinels. When my vision finally became obscured to the point where the only thing I could see were four pairs of white, pinprick pupils, one more pair, which belonged to a polished white mask, started to materialize.

"… who are you?"

*"You can think of me as Charlie."* Somehow, I could hear it, no… her even though its mouth stayed frozen in that wide smile.

"How… ?" I gestured around at the animatronics surrounding us.

*"They are confused about why there are two of us. Why you look like me, why you can see us. They have never seen anything like it before."*

"I don’t know what that means."

*"That’s ok."*

"Well… what is all this?"

*"A memory… a memory stirred up by their reaction to your presence. Their curiosity."*

"I… I don't understand."

*"You will, in due course."*

"Why are you telling me all this?"

*"Because you need to wake up,"*

*"Sammy."*

I found myself being thrust back into reality, lying in a hospital bed with an oxygen mask and an IV. I was quickly nagged at by my Dad about being reckless, as he always did, right after he knew I was fine. After spending the night there, and while getting ready to be loaded into the car, I was stuck thinking about that… surreal experience…

It was like that other time I thought I ran home but never did and I woke up in the hospital, or whatever that was, but a bit different.

Something had drawn me back.

And so, I made what was perhaps the biggest mistake of my life.

But that's another story.

I… I need to lay down… For a [while…](/r/26FrightsofFreddy)