Billy Idol
Bitter Taste

Artist: Socks

Fnaf movie hype train 🫶

TW: major gore

I was so startled that my body remained frozen, even when a knife was lobbed at my head.

The only thing that saved my skull from being shish-kebab was Freddy, who shoved me out of the way. I stumbled to the floor with a yelp and winced when the screeching sound of splitting metal assaulted my ears. I looked up just in time to see Freddy yank the blade out of his own arm. His face was twisted with righteous rage.

Vanny untucked her arm from behind her back. In her hand was a second knife, glinting menacingly in the broken lights of her secret base. My breath caught.

"Run!" Gregory cried as he grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. Vanny's red eyes shot to us, but Freddy intercepted her attention by swiping at her with her own blade. She narrowly avoided the sharp arc of the weapon with a twist of her spine.

Gregory led the way, racing us over the catwalks once more. He held his toy gun up with a wild look in his eyes, ready for anything to try and stop us. I lost my own gun, resting on the floor of Vanny's room from when I'd dropped it. What I did have, however, was my trusty crowbar. I had a feeling that I wouldn't leave this place without it in my hand - literally or spiritually.

Gregory yelped when the heavy footsteps of an animatronic rattled the catwalk behind us. I held his shoulder and pushed him on.

"It's okay!" I said between gasps. "It's just Freddy."

Freddy caught up within a handful of paces. His face was grim and he was missing his newly acquired knife, but he didn't look back. I didn't have time to check the status of our own murder-bunny, but I assumed that she was firmly in the 'briefly incapacitated' stage. Maybe even worse. Hopefully worse.

  "Where are we going?" Gregory asked.

"Away," I helpfully answered.

Gregory pointed at the stairs, where Chica was lumbering her way up with frightening speed. "Which way?!" the child shrieked.

"Down!" Freddy ordered, before sweeping each of us into his arms and leaping over the side of the railing.

My stomach was abruptly left behind as Freddy's weight shot us down to the sprawling maze below like a rock. Gregory screamed at the top of his lungs, clinging onto Freddy's chest with fingers that could gain no traction. I was too stunned to do anything but watch the floor rapidly approach.

We landed with a sound akin to an explosion. The carpet gave way into the concrete, a crater beneath his feet, and for a horrifying second I thought Freddy had busted his legs entirely - but then he staggered upright and forged on ahead, Gregory still screaming with his eyes shut tight.

My senses returned with a crack of a whip - or maybe that was from the landing, too. "MICHAEL!" I squealed. "Are you crazy?!"

"Rather be crazy than dead," he said, stride unfaltering. He shot through the maze with the precision of Daedalus through his Labyrinth while I cast a look over his shoulder. Both Vanny and Chica were watching us from the catwalk, an eerie audience.

"Now Freddy's gonna kill us," Gregory bemoaned. His toy gun dangled from his fingers, useless in his befuddled state. "You two are a match made in crazy-people heaven!"

I didn't have the dignity to respond to that.

Freddy tore out of Fazerblast and into the shadowy corridor beyond, only setting us to our feet when we were tucked within a shadow and safely alone. I leant back against the wall and caught my breath.

I was too old for this shit - I'm thirty-four. I should be getting promotions in my career and looking at another cat to adopt because my one hated me, not racing around a giant mall with a rekindled old flame and a stray with too much sass. Why couldn't William just go into ghost-retirement already? He wasn't even getting a salary for this.

"You're hurt," Gregory said worriedly. I peeled open my eyes and watched as he carefully prodded at Freddy's stab wound. The knife hadn't done a pretty job; the cut left the metal shell jagged and sharp, with a single wire exposed and dangling out of it. His index finger kept twitching.

"I will be fine," Freddy reassured. He looked around us uneasily. "We must keep moving. I fear this area is too open for a rest."

"I didn't even realise we got to have a rest," I mumbled. He held out his arm for me to take and I gladly did, letting him lift me from the wall and balance back onto my feet. I teetered, eyes lidded with exhaustion. "This night just doesn't want to end."

"It always feels longer when you are being hunted," Michael murmured quietly. "Time is a cruel enemy."

My gaze shot to him, but he was already herding Gregory back into his chest cavity. It shut with a click. Freddy paused there for a second, just staring at the floor, shoulders slumped with despair. It pulled a choking sensation up my throat.

"It'll be okay," I said.

"Will it?" he asked mournfully. "You are compromised and Gregory is still so vulnerable. I am not in optimal condition. How will we be okay?"

I swallowed. My throat was dry. I couldn't reassure him without lying - who was I to tell the future? Who was I to say that we'll be fine? False hope was a killer - and Michael had more experience with all of this than I did.

"Let us continue," he said, voice quiet and tiny.

  We snuck through the building, sticking to the shadows just as we had done all night. Only when we were sure that we were in the clear did Michael start to speak.

"Before, you were trying to tell me something, but..." He was unable to find the words.

"We were interrupted," I finished. I gulped tightly and looked down. It was now or never - and Michael deserved to about Elizabeth know now. "Yeah, it's... difficult to explain."

  His eyes drifted down to me. I couldn't meet them, gaze stuck ahead as we quietly manoeuvred through the dark maintenance tunnel hallways. I could even almost feel Gregory's curious stare through the shell of Freddy's stomach.

  "Mike," I whispered. My footsteps sped up with the rush of my trepidation, the fizzy adrenaline of anticipation. He kept pace easily. "Mike, do you remember that night when I was chased by the endos?"

His artificial breath hitched. "Yes."

My vision blurred. The concrete floor beneath me lost its definition.

"There was a girl down there, a ghost. I told you about her." Breathing was growing difficult. It was laborious, an exerting force, the oxygen alien in my lungs. Gregory knocked on the door of Freddy's stomach and it opened a smidge, just enough for him to curiously peek out. His unusually coloured eyes watched me, equally as confused as Freddy.

"I remember." Michael urged me to continue.

"I met her, too," Gregory said from his little perch inside Freddy's open chest. He eyed me oddly. My gaze jumped away from him, unable to remain in place. "Y/n thinks that you might know her."

Michael's eyes shot to me. They were wide - I could tell that a handful of different faces and names were shuffling through his head, and none of them were a good outcome. All of them should've moved on; he'd died for their release.

But there was one name in particular that I knew he'd loathe to hear.

"Elizabeth." My voice barely pierced above a whisper. "It was Elizabeth."

He staggered. His hand shot out to hold the wall, eyes glowing feverishly in the dark. He stared at me in disbelief, in doubt. He stared at me with a fierce hope that I was joking and the unfortunate knowledge that I was not. I reached out for him and my fingers hovered before his chest, unable to weigh down against him, unsure how to proceed.

Gregory watched the emotions cross Freddy's face with confusion.

"Who is she?" he asked.

"Lizzy." Michael breathed her name, horrified, sickened. His eyes never left mine. "My sister."

"Your sister?" Gregory frowned. "You mean you and your sister died? Jeez, that's rough."

  Mikey. I bit my lip with the desperate uncertainty of what to do next. How does one comfort in a situation like this? I reached up to rest my palm on his shoulder and kicked my brain for blanking.

  "You are certain?" Michael choked out. The weight of his anguish began to build like rock in my chest. "You are certain that it's her?"

  "That's what she said her name was," Gregory answered.

  "Lizzy." Freddy leant into the wall and buried his face into his hands. "She was so happy to leave this all behind..."

  "We'll figure something out," I promised, though I hadn't the faintest clue how.

Michael shook his head. The look he sent me was pleading, imploring with his eyes alone. "We have to find her."

I went weak. "I- I know. I think that's where William's base might be."

"How do you know?" Gregory asked.

I rubbed the side of my head. "Because everything in me is telling me not to go down there." My eyes flickered between Freddy and Gregory. "And we both know that I'm... not entirely reliable at the moment. So if I feel that I shouldn't go down there-"

"Then we should," Michael concluded. "Because it could be William trying to keep you away from someplace important."

"What area could be more important than the place that Lizzy's guarding?" I continued. "The only problem is that William will be throwing everything he's got to keep us from there."

  "Yes." Michael's frame shuddered with a cracking of metal, still shrouded with grief. I winced at the assaulting sound. "We need a plan of action."

  "Or maybe just the action," I countered, nonchalantly swinging my crowbar into my palm. "Planning takes too much time that we don't have. We got in this situation tonight by taking too long to plan. We need to get the better of William and Vanny before they get the better of us for a second time."

  Michael disagreed. "We could be walking into a battle that we are ill-prepared for."

  "Hey, guys?"

  "If we wait any longer then they'll come up with a plan, and they have the numbers to back them," I argued.

  Freddy's towering height leant in close. "The numbers are exactly why we need a plan," he insisted in a hard voice.

  "Guys!"

  I stared up at Freddy, defiant and stubborn. "Well, then, make a plan! See how long it takes for your dear old dad to find us while you're crunching numbers."

  "And while I will be planning, you will be getting yourself-"

  Gregory reached his gun arm around to shoot Freddy in the face. In the same movement, he smacked the butt of the plastic toy into my shoulder. We both cried out in pain.

  "Look where you're going, stupid!" Gregory shouted, before pointing ahead of us.

  Stunned, we snapped our attention to the end of the hall, where a half-destroyed endo was prowling. It peeked up at our ruckus and began scrambling at speed towards us. It must've alerted the hive mind of our whereabouts, because about twenty more poured out of the doorway beside it.

  Freddy pushed Gregory back inside his chamber and shut the flaps. "My plan is run."

  "Good plan," I whispered, before slapping my hand into his and letting him pull me away at speed.

  We ran until we broke sight, before ducking into the nearest doorway. We hid until we could no longer hear the clanking of metal bodies, and when silence finally met us from the other side of the door, I dropped my head and began to desperately regain my breath.

  "Ah..." Michael began.

  "What now?" I groaned. Upon his silence, I lifted my head and was immediately overtaken with guilt. We had just made Bonnie Bowl our new hiding spot.

Michael stared at a print-out of Bonnie with a melancholic frown. The purple bunny beamed back, one hand raised in a wave. I almost expected it to come to life and crack one of his award-winning, terrible jokes, but he remained still and lifeless, nothing more than a cardboard imitation.

  This was the first time either of us had entered Bonnie Bowl since he was found all those mornings ago, scattered in pieces.

I looked around the bowling area. I could almost picture the time when I first stayed back to hang out with my coworkers after our shifts; Bonnie was getting perfect scores - as per usual - and complaining about 80s music. Joey was bright and laughing. Mandy was relaxed for the first time I'd seen, and spilled secrets about Freddy to me, both of us unknowing of whom inhabited him.

And Michael was happy, even if he couldn't truly talk to me back then, because Michael was with his best friend.

But Bonnie's gone, now.

"Mike." I slipped my fingers into his loose grip. Our petty squabble from before felt childish, now. The stubborn pride I had was quickly swept away by concern. "Are you okay?"

His blue eyes, glowing just slightly in the darkness, dropped to me. Unimaginable depths of sorrow crusaded within his gaze.

"I miss him," he said quietly.

My brow knotted with sympathy and sadness. "I do, too."

Gregory knocking on the inside of Freddy's stomach hatch broke Michael's stillness. The doors slid open and the boy poked his head out, curious of the sudden sombreness that smothered the air.

"Where are we?" Gregory asked, before catching sight of the Bonnie cut-out. "Oh! Bonnie. He's not here anymore, is he?" He smiled awkwardly. "I'm glad. Three Glamrocks are already too much to deal with."

I grimaced at his poor choice of words. "Greg, do you know what happened to Bonnie?"

His odd-coloured eyes jumped to me. "No? Why?"

"He was destroyed."

I glanced up at Freddy before a chill ran down my spine. He looked at me, too. Neither of us had spoken.

A heavy footstep behind us made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Michael reacted faster, shutting his stomach hatch with a smack and pushing me behind him as we turned to face our new audience.

Monty assessed the weight of a bowling ball before us. He watched it like he was himself again, not some mindless creature, and placed it back onto the rack with his normal human-like motion. His red eyes slid to us.

"Monty?" I quietly called, hopeful. Michael pushed me further behind him. "Are you okay?"

Monty took a seat at one of the booths and stretched his arms across the back of it. He grinned, and the sight of his sharp teeth made me shiver. I'd never been frightened of Monty's appearance before - wary when I first arrived, sure - he was my friend.

But the way he was watching us, the way he lounged on the booth as though nothing were the matter, had me instantly on edge. He looked like a true predator, eyeing his prey,  his gaze as red as the dried blood down the side of my face. He looked downright villainous.

"Never better, darl,'" he said. The usual pet name sounded wrong and heavy on his artificial tongue. He gestured to the booth seat opposite him with a sweep of his clawed hand. "Why don' ya have a seat?"

"We will remain here," Freddy declined. His claws nervously fisted into the the front of my shirt.

Monty shrugged, as though he couldn't care less either way. He picked up a 50s-styled salt shaker and inspected the dents in the red plastic.

"This place ain't the same without cottontail," Monty murmured. He placed the shaker back down onto the table and returned his gaze to us, tail end flicking. "Dontcha' think so, Fazbear?"

I didn't like this. It was eerie, talking to Monty again as if he was normal; but he wasn't normal. The look in his eyes, the drip of poison in his voice - it was like we were talking to somebody else. Goosebumps travelled down my arms.

"He was irreplaceable," Freddy curtly agreed. He began to edge us towards the exit. "Now, if you'll excuse us-"

"Broke our hearts ta' see 'im like that," Monty continued as if Freddy hadn't even spoken. "Poor ol' bunny."

Freddy stopped walking. Something was shining in his eyes - understanding. Most of all, regret.

I didn't grasp what he'd realised until Monty said it himself, looking at Michael dead in the eyes;

"He shouldn't have gotten in th' way of my claws."

My hand found Freddy's arm in shock. I was confused - this wasn't Monty, but it was Monty, and I wasn't sure to be heartbroken or furious.

Michael was leaning towards the latter.

He took off before I could think to stop him, grabbing Monty by his snout and dragging the alligator out from the booth with a crack of the flooring beneath him. Freddy's face was devoid of emotion but he was shaking, staring down into the face of Monty with captivated rage. My hand held thin air.

"What did you say?" Michael whispered.

Monty managed to grin despite Freddy's grip around his mouth. His voice box was unfettered, and he still spoke in that same taunting manner. As if he wanted this. As if it was planned.

"I destroyed 'im," Monty hissed quietly, voice full of disgusting glee. "I took 'im limb from limb while 'e was screamin' for help." He chuckled in memory. "He called f' ya, Fazbear, but ya didn' even hear 'im."

Silence. Freddy turned and let Gregory out, pushed him towards me solemnly. The boy reached for me with an uncertain frown on his face. I held him against me, equally unsure.

"Mike-"

Freddy grabbed Monty's head and slammed it into the floor of the bowling alley, digging a crater from the force alone. My voice left me in a startled gasp. Monty's laugh turned static-peppered, glitching and looping.

"Mike!" I exclaimed. Gregory's little hands gripped me tight enough to be painful.

Monty suddenly grabbed Freddy's arms, face showing fear. "Michael!" he gasped, all bravado gone in a snap. "'E's in my head! You gotta destroy me!"

Freddy paused. He stared at the half-mangled face of the gator below him in horror. "What?"

"Destroy me," the gator begged. "E'll use me to hurt again, and-" his terrified eyes darted towards Gregory and I "- I don' think it'll take much ta' destroy them."

Freddy didn't move.

"Do it!" Monty roared. "Do it before 'e gets control!"

Monty began to laugh again, a shrill cackle reminiscent of the one I heard in the back of my head. Gregory grabbed me tighter. Freddy sent a sorrowful look over his shoulder towards us.

"Don't look," he said, so we turned away until Monty laughed no longer.

  Michael joined us after a beat of solemn silence. His hands were covered in oil. They shook.

  "He won't be able to follow," he said quietly.

  I risked a peek behind us and stifled a sob at the sight of Monty disfigured - snapped in half like a twig. I clasped a hand over my mouth and turned away. Nausea rolled through me. I couldn't look at him like that any longer.

  This night was hell.

  Gregory looked between Freddy and I. He didn't bring up what just happened. "We'll need to move again. Ghost man probably knows where we are."

  Freddy nodded grimly. I avoided his gaze when he turned to me and he faltered. I couldn't look at him with the misery as clear as day on my face. It would only make him feel worse.

  "We should get going," he said quietly.

Michael led the way through Bonnie Bowl and out through the opposite exit. Gregory's grip was steadfast in my own as we followed, the each of us staring at the trail of oil that dripped from Freddy's claw tips. A heavy tension grew unspoken.

"When I was knocked out, I... saw things," Gregory murmured, breaking the silence, an attempt at shifting where our thoughts lingered. "I think they were my memories. But..."

Freddy and I watched as his attention lingered on a poster of a child with two parents. Gregory glanced up at me.

"What's... a mother like?" he asked hesitantly. "I... don't think I have one, but everyone I see has one."

My brows furrowed in confusion before my heart dropped in realisation. Oh. He was like me. He was like Michael. We'd all lost a parent.

I risked a glance at Michael, but he stared ahead. He didn't like mentioning his mother. He never spoke of her, not even to me.

"A mother..." I paused to consider my words. "A good mother looks after their children," I answered. "Their love is unconditional. They'll do anything to protect their kids. But that doesn't mean you're not deserving of unconditional love if your mother doesn't give you it." I feebly shrugged. "Some parents just aren't meant to be parents, and it's the children that suffer."

Michael purposefully wasn't looking at me. I swallowed thickly.

"Oh..." Gregory looked at me a little differently, as if I'd changed somehow in the last few minutes. He shook his head and looked away. "I'm hungry. Can we stop by a kitchen?"

  I agreed, though uneasy. All this running around, fighting and almost being beaten to death has made me famished. Michael wordlessly changed destination to the nearest kitchen. His silence was driving me up the wall.

  "Mike." I tried to catch his gaze. Oil still dripped from his fingers, stained his hands dark. I hesitated when his gaze shifted to me. What could I say to soothe this situation? Nothing. Nothing could take back what happened. I settled on sending a sad smile. He didn't return it, instead simply nudging my temple with his muzzle.

  His hands remained firmly at his sides.

•••••

I stared at Chica in hopeless exhaustion. After sneaking through the west dance floor and getting chased by Manny like a mighty, eight-limbed lion chasing mice, Gregory had only wanted something to eat. Despite my itch to keep trucking on to find William's base, some long-suppressed maternal instinct in me divulged in his wishes and the three of us slipped into a kitchen.

And then we were cornered.

Gregory hunched beside me, and Freddy beside him. The door to safety was one mad dash through the kitchen away. We didn't dare speak, communicating through gaze alone. Is it okay to go? No. Now? Not yet.

Chica's heavy footsteps passed behind us. We stilled, hidden from sight only by a large fridge and nothing else. If she so glanced our way, we'd be goners.

Gregory sent me another eye-message. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I sent mine in response; it's okay. And then when he turned away, I let my laden eyelids slide down. When I did, I saw Monty's broken body, etched onto the backs of my eyelids.

I pinched my thigh and tried not to weep.

I was just so tired. So tired and sore, and terrified of the lingering presence in the back of my head, of the fact that at any opportune time, my body could get taken over by the horrible man who'd abused Michael and killed children. I was tired of a lot of things. I was tired of feeling tired.

When was it going to end? When was it going to be over? When could we get a break? When we're dead? Was death our only chance of salvation?

I think I was growing hopeless.

She must've known we were in the kitchen, because she kept prowling it in circles. That was the problem with hive-minds - it only takes one pair of eyes to spot you and you're being hunted all over again. The possibility of William tracking me reared its ugly head, and my stomach sank.

Stuck. Stuck. Stuck.

I closed my eyes. Was this the end? It felt as though we'd been fighting for years, condescend into the mere few hours it actually was. Being attacked by Vanny, losing Gregory, the psychological torment of the fake perfect world the VR headset provided while infecting William's presence into the confines of my mind. The pain, the terror, the despair.

I peeked at Gregory and Freddy. The young boy was curled into my side, eyes clenched shut and jaw gritted. Michael was staring at the floor intensely, ears flickering as he listened for Chica's surveying path.

My throat grew thick at the sight of my boys. I had so much to fight for, so much to lose. If William truly was tracking me, then I'd have to lead his attention away from Gregory and Michael. Maybe this was the sacrifice that would save them. They could hunt William's base down together while I distract him, they could take him down once and for all. Maybe we could even save Vanessa, too.

I would certainly die, but isn't that what you do for loved ones? Isn't that what Michael would do for me - has done for me?

He's not the only one who isn't afraid to die.

My grip tightened around my crowbar. My resolve was resolidifying, strengthened by the hope that my boys would make it out of here. I would be the sacrifice, the willing virgin throwing herself into the mouth of the volcano. I would do anything to protect them.

Gregory raised his head when I stood, eyes widening in realisation. Freddy's attention snapped to me. His face tightened into a grim expression, one that knew what needed to be done and loathed it.

  His paw reached out and clasped around my wrist, above my tight hold on the crowbar. His blue eyes, piercing brightness through the dark, set unflinchingly upon me. I stilled beneath his poignant gaze.

Don't do this, he seemed to say. Please.

"Where are yooou?" Chica sang from the other side of the kitchen, voice glitching and chilling. "Gregory!"

Gregory flinched. My face hardened and I tugged at my wrist. Michael couldn't choose my safety over Gregory's, and we both knew it had finally come down to this.

His hand slackened with a crestfallen frown. I allowed myself one last look at Michael, at Gregory, before turning on my heel and sprinting towards Chica.

I closed my eyes tightly as I ran down the long pathway of the industrial kitchen. I gathered up every bit of strength I had in me, every scrap of anger and just. I thought of Gregory getting out of here with Michael, safe and unharmed and William's permadeath easing their consciousness. I manifested that outcome for them with my entire soul, and my eyes shot open, locking onto Chica's back.

"HEY!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. Chica spun around with a surprised squawk just as I put my whole weight behind the arc of the crowbar, smashing it against the side of her head.

White fragments scattered upon impact and she staggered, stumbling sideways with the force of my blow. Her voice box shrieked shrill and sharp as she half-fell to the floor. Her face had crumpled slightly, exposing the skull of her exoskeleton's cheek. A pang of sorrow ingested my heart wholly, but I knew what had to be done. I had to be ruthless. I raised my crowbar again-

"Chickpea?"

My arm faltered at her call. My breath tumbled from me with a startled shudder. Chica's pet name was achingly familiar, an intense nostalgia that shredded my hastily built resolve before my eyes. She looked up at me towering over her, crowbar raised for another attack, and the look in her blue eyes had tears welling in my own.

I'd just lost Monty. Could I really lose Chica, too? My mind took me back to the girl nights we shared, her infectious happiness and genuine care, the way she was undoubtably in love with Roxy - hell, a person, my friend. I would even go as far to call her a sister, part of my ragtag, absurd little family.

My hand fell a little. The longer she watched me, still as a rock on the floor beneath me, the more guilt clawed at me. Wasn't she as much a victim as I? How could I do such a vicious thing to her?

My breath was knocked from my body when I was tackled roughly to the ground. My crowbar scattered along the tiles, sliding out of reach, and Chica had me pinned, the familiarity in her gaze nowhere to be seen. There was nothing in their depths - just a lot of emptiness, a void of cold cerulean. I couldn't believe William had played me so easily.

"Chica-" I gasped. Her jaw opened wide and a sob got caught in my throat. I didn't want to die like this - with them so close and able to hear the crunch of my bone, the cries I would undoubtably make.

Cries I never would make, because just as Chica lunged down to snap her beak over my cranium and send me into the eternal end, a small bomb of raggedy brown hair and Roxy-themed sweatpants shot into her side. Chica toppled over with another cry of shock.

"Now, Freddy!" Gregory yelled.

Before I could even comprehend what happened, the trash compactor slammed down onto the animatronic with the force of innumerable tonnes. I flinched violently at the sound of metal bending and snapping so fast that it was akin to the riotous bowling of thunder through the sky. I watched as Chica's arm fell limp to the floor.

Gregory stood before her, betwixt us, and stared into her dull, blue eyes, emptier than ever.

I staggered to my feet as a slow blaze of shock weakened my legs. Only Freddy's hand on the small of my back kept me upright. The kitchen had become so silent without Chica's prowling. My heartbeat thundered against my eardrums.

Gregory turned to me. Chica's body sprawled out behind him, a mangled corpse of wires. The only sound were two sets of ragged breaths.

"You should've run." My voice was rough and croaky.

"Are you kidding me?!" Gregory snapped with a fury that sent me reeling. "I'd hit you if you wouldn't break into pieces!" He swiped a sleeve over his weeping eyes. "You're a liar! A dirty, stinking liar!"

Hurt blossomed between my lungs, stealing my breath. I couldn't decide what was worse - his words or his tears. "What?"

"Gregory..." Michael said quietly. Behind the child's shaking body, Chica began to slowly edge down the side of the garbage shoot, teetering on the lip before the fall.

"You kept saying we needed to stick together!" Gregory accused, his little face flushed with fury and betrayal. "But you'd rather go and die! You're just like everyone else! I hate you I hate you I hate-!"

His cry cut off abruptly as a partially-destroyed hand grabbed his ankle. He looked down, perplexed, and then silent with solemn realisation.

Freddy and I leapt forward just as his body disappeared down the shoot. Our hands clasped at thin air.

My body trembled with horror. The darkness of the shoot yawned beneath us, a gaping chasm to the pits of hell which had swallowed Gregory completely. My hand stretched towards it, painfully empty, useless, chalked with dried blood and the false promises I foolishly made to a boy. A boy who I now realised had trusted me to stay by his side wholeheartedly.

Gregory won't survive down there. Not on his own. Not against Chica and Vanny and William and their army of robots.

It was all my fault.

He was going to die and it was all my fault.

I should've just stayed by his side.

"I know where it leads," Freddy said hurriedly. "We can make it there in five minutes-"

"He might be dead in two," I choked out. I forced my eyes away from the darkness. "I have to go down."

"What?" Michael watched as I retrieved my crowbar. "Y/n, it's dangerous!"

"Everything about this night has been dangerous," I said hollowly. I stared into the shoot and shook at the eerie depths. "I can't let Gregory believe I gave up on him." If he is to die, can't let that be his last thought. I can't let him think he's alone.

"Y/n-"

I couldn't hesitate any longer. I spun to face Michael and stood up on my tiptoes to kiss him, just in case it was the last time I ever could. My fingers trembled against his cold cheek.

"Meet us down there," I whispered, and slipped into the shoot.

"Y/n!" Michael's shout followed me down, bouncing in the tight confines of my ride of terror. The metal burnt against my skin and the panels tore at my hair, an excruciating experience that ended with a finale of agony - of landing on a tall pile of rubbish and broken parts and aching limbs.

I wasn't sure how much more of this my body could take before giving up on me.

Dazed, I lifted my head and winced at the flash of white-hot pain that accompanied movement. The trash room was a massive cavern, with hills and valleys of the discarded surrounding me. The smell made me gag, and I held a hand to my mouth as I dragged my desperate eyes across the room.

My gaze landed on Chica just beside me, a limp knot of metal parts and offline robot. I choked back a sob at the sight of her loose hand. I remembered painting that exact shade of pink onto her nails just the other night.

A sound down the hill of trash made hope soar in my chest. I scrambled to my feet, unsteady on the uneven ground, and stumbled down the slope towards the noise. The trash beneath my shoes tumbled down with my descent.

"Gregory?" I called. My eyes split between watching my footing and searching for the boy. "Gregory?"

A tiny sob echoed throughout the room. I slid down faster.

"Gregory! Please, don't cry," I implored. "I'm sorry. I have to get you out of here-"

I paused upon seeing him, curled in on himself at the bottom of the valley. A small, shivering ball of a weepy, hurt boy. My heart broke.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered. I crept closer. "I didn't mean to hurt you, Gregory."

"Y/n," he wailed softly, voice broken by sobs. "Y/n."

I finally reached him and placed my hand on his shoulder. "I'm here."

Gregory, still hunched over, looked up at me with big, glossy eyes. Except instead of being hurt or relieved to see me, all I could see in their odd colour was the chilling sharpness of dread.

"Y/n," he breathed, barely breaking above being inaudible.

"Gregory?" I crouched down beside him. His behaviour was making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

"It hurts," he whimpered. "It hurts so bad."

My alarm skyrocketed. My eyes roved his small body, looking for injury. "What hurts? Where are you hurting?"

Gregory pulled out a shaking arm from where it was being held against his chest, and my face twisted from worry to horror.

He had no hand. It was severed at the wrist, the cut jagged and messy, torn from his limb during his tumble. And while his warm, red blood poured down his sweatshirt and dripped onto my knees, something about it was very, very wrong.

Because instead of having flesh and bone, what stuck out of Gregory's arm were the metal and wires of an endoskeleton.