New Order
••• Crystal •••

i'm a man in a rage, with a girl i betrayed

here comes love, it's like honey

you can't buy it with money, you're not alone anymore

•••••

Artist: Lady Flame

Artist: DiVinci_girl

Artist: opossum

Artist: werifesteria

Artist: ღ 『𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡』❥

Artist: BoyMarcel98

I have a moon knight fic up now so if y'all like that knightussy *f boy lip bites*

TW: heavy gore, decaying body. reader discretion is advised

••• eight years ago •••

  I woke with a startled gasp when something of a mechanical tool began to loudly buzz from the bench across from me. The distorted figures from my dream faded like ghosts in the wind.

  The man bent over the robot chassis drove the tool's neck deeper into the metal folds and wires with a sure hand and surgical precision. His head, hidden behind thick googles, inclined when I sat up from the old couch. I held my cheeks as I tried to recentre myself on which day it was. The late afternoon sun seeped in from the shed's entrance.

  "Did I wake you?" Michael pulled back the googles with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, love."

  My groggy, bleary eyes drifted to Michael. The googles had pushed back his fringe, leaving only a few, dark strands to frame his sweaty, tanned face. I blinked slowly as placed his tool down and wiped his hands on a rag.

  "What time is it?" I mumbled.

  "Around six," Michael answered with a crooked grin. "You've been asleep for hours."

  "I have?" I asked incredulously. I blinked hard in an attempt to sharpen my vision. "I just had the weirdest dream."

  "Oh, yeah?" Michael hummed. He dropped onto the couch beside me and used his arms to pull me into his lap. I tucked my head beneath his chin and succumbed, letting my heavy eyelids shut once again - I couldn't help it. He was so warm and cozy and safe. His lips pressed against my hairline. "You're not going to sleep tonight if you keep napping."

  "I never sleep when you're on shift, anyway," I grumbled. Michael chuckled.

  "Fair enough," he conceded. His fingertips swiped hair from my forehead with tenderness. "What was your dream about?"

  I frowned as I tried to grab for them again, but each scene slipped from my grasp before I could even form the words to describe it. I settled on the lingering feeling, the only thing that it had left me with; "cold."

  "Cold?" Michael repeated. His arms shifted over mine to break the air's contact with my skin. His warmth was immeasurable, but it wasn't the warmth I needed to thaw this foreign frigidness that had taken over my head. I sighed into his neck and felt my eyelashes brush against his adam's apple.

  "Maybe I was dreaming about snow?"

  "Snow?" he snickered. "'Spose it's not the worst thing to dream about."

  I went to smile, but a sudden recollection of my dream had me faltering; glowing blue eyes, dark hallway. Freezing. It was freezing. And yet, snaps of fire dropped from my fingertips like ash, catching my bare feet aflame. It was burning me, crawling up the skin of my legs, but it was cold - it was so cold.

  It wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare.

  The only response I could think of was to bury my head further into Michael's chest. His arms tightened around me, bewildered but giving.

  "Was it about Freddy's again?" Michael whispered, figuring me out before I could even tell him.

  "... I think so."

  I'd been getting more and more nightmares about Freddy's the longer Michael 'worked' at the locations that Henry weaselled him into under a false name. There were multiple of these Fazbear Entertainment locations, ones neither of us were even aware that existed. But they did, and the curse carried across the chain. I couldn't count how many souls of children had been entombed in the body of robots.

  William wasn't just a mad man who murdered five children in a burst of homicidal passion one day - he was a serial killer. He was calculated. He had been enacting his atrocious crimes for years, hidden behind the smiling bear of his franchise's logo. His kill count was in the sixties at least, if our calculations and the number of possessed animatronics were correct.

  It was Michael's job to study the possessed robots while posing as a night guard - try to get names, try to identify who was who, try to find out if there was anything that was making the souls linger rather than just rage and revenge, try to communicate. It was our goal to set them free. We had been trying and theorising and testing for five years, but the souls were steadfast and things were looking grim. We feared that those robotic tombs would be the souls' eternal resting places.

  But it shouldn't have been a surprise when I woke one morning to Michael entering our home with a soot-covered shirt and unruly hair. Our options had been running low. Desperation was running high. Even my brother, Matt, who had eventually been roped into the small realm of knowledge (though not entirely) was feeling the hopelessness.

  But there Michael was, standing at the entrance of our home with hazel eyes burning a brightness so vivid and garish and a sharp-tooth grin that gleamed. There was ash on the souls of his work shoes. He had burns on the sleeves of his shirt. He was ecstatic. He was enthralled.

  A fire extinguisher had dropped from Michael's dirtied hand as he caught my baffled and, quite frankly, frightened expression at seven on that early morning.

  "Fire," he had breathed. The sun had broken through the clouds and above the mountain line behind him. "Fire's what sets the souls free."

  It was an imperative revelation. Set the souls free, release them from their vengeance, wipe your hands and call it a day. If it was up to me, I would've grabbed a gasoline can and set fire to all the known locations with Michael; but Henry wanted to be meticulous. He still wanted to make spiritual contact. He wanted to know if there was anything we could do for the souls so they could be released of their own accord.

  Henry's old mechanic workstation in his garage became home base for a lot of 'ghost-hunting' gear - both stuff you'd see professional hunters use on their totally-real-shows but also lesser known products that we got from word of mouth, or even experimental devices Henry made himself.

  And yet, he adamantly refused to call us the real-life ghostbusters. You win some, you lose some.

  "I'm sorry." Michael's apology pulled me back to the present. The sound of his voice vibrated through his chest, surrounding me both physically and audibly. "It'll all be over soon. Then we can finally live normally."

  That's what you said three years ago. I held my tongue.

  "I just want William to be gone for good." I watched my finger trace the lightened scars that stubbornly marred Michael's skin. "I'd say 'for his own benefit after being trapped in that spring-locked abomination' but that would be a lie, 'cause I really couldn't care less. I just want him gone."

  "Me, too," Michael sighed. "Fucker's hard to kill."

  This was the kind of talk we had been slowly desensitised to. We had to be desensitised, or else we'd go insane with guilt. We weren't like William, death wasn't such an easy thing for us (the impermanence of life was far more precious than what Mr. Afton could ever truly comprehend in that sick, sick mind of his) but we knew that, innately, William deserved death.

  At least we were on our last location. The rest of the animatronics would have to be revisited and either set free or burnt free, depending on their cooperation. Then it would be William's turn to leave this plane and the efforts to do so would have to be relentless. He was like a fucking cockroach - he just never died.

  "What would normal be for us?" I asked.

  "We'll finally leave this place, for one." Michael's decisive response was instantaneous - if it weren't for the children, we would've never returned to Hurricane after moving to Las Vegas for college. "Then... I don't know. I guess we'll figure that out on the way."

  "No more ghosts," I murmured.

  "No more ghosts," Michael agreed. "Do you want to get married?"

  The question had to simmer in my head for a couple of seconds before I truly comprehended what he was asking. He watched as I sat up and gave him a baffled look.

  "What?" I needed to hear him say it again to make sure my sleep-addled brain wasn't tricking me.

  "Do you want to get married?" Michael repeated. His voice was nonchalant, laxxed, as if he didn't just entirely shift my world. My chest squeezed in disbelief. My fingers tightened their grip on his crumpled tank.

  "Are you proposing?" I asked incredulously.

  Michael's eyes widened briefly before squinting into a chuckle. "No. Not yet, at least, depending on whether you want to or not."

  "Of course I do," I instantly answered. My bewilderment rose. "Did you just... ask my permission to propose?"

  "Maybe."

  "What if I propose first?" I challenged. "I could propose to you right now."

  Michael shrugged. "If you want to. I'll say yes."

  My cheeks went hot - it was tempting. Very tempting, and I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't already envisioned what our wedding day would be like. It was what he did to me, Michael turned me into a fumbling, bumbling schoolgirl with a crush too big to carry. He left me stammering and blushing and with a racing heart as though it were a sport and he was the master of it.

  Even after being romantic partners for the better part of the past five years, every day with him was like falling in love for the first time all over again.

  "No," I decided, and tried my best to keep my composure despite the frantic, eager fluttering of the butterflies in my stomach. "I'm curious, now. I want to see how you'll propose."

  "Pressure's on, then." Michael grinned. He held out his pinkie. "Promise me you'll say yes and act surprised?"

  I snickered and linked my pinkie through his calloused one. "I promise I'll say yes and act surprised."

  "Thank you." Michael raised our threaded hands and kissed my pinkie. "What's your ring size?"

  I laughed and felt my face bloom even darker. "I don't know. Bring one of my old ones into the store with you."

  "Tomorrow," Michael said. He saw my face light up and amusedly shook his head. "No, silly, I'm just getting the ring. I'm not proposing yet. It'll hit you when you least expect it."

  "Oh, boy," I giggled. "Will I at least be allowed to see the ring?"

  "Nope." Michael smirked at the distraught look on my face - he knew I hated surprises and he was purposefully dangling this one over my head like a carrot on a stick. His hand slipped from mine and rested on my waist. "Gonna have to wait and see, princess."

  "Ugghhh." I turned my head to the ceiling with a defeated groan. "You're the worst."

  "Yeah, I am," he mumbled before pushing forward to kiss my throat. My arms wound around him. My fingers curled through his hair. "The absolute worst."

"Terrible," I sighed. My nose nuzzled into his curls while his lips traced my collarbone. "I love you, angel."

  "Love you, too, superstar," Michael replied. He leant back and pecked my chin. "We need to get started on dinner."

  I slid from his lap with a tired, content sigh and tried my best not to think about his upcoming shift. He had averted death by robot for so long and I was confident in his abilities, but that didn't stop me from being anxious. My only relief would be seeing his car pull into the driveway early that next morning.

  I hoped Michael was right about it being over soon. I wanted to live that normal life we dreamed about - peace, quiet, mundane. More importantly, it was what Michael deserved after everything he's had to go through.

  It was a usual evening. We had our dinner, cuddled on the couch and watched TV until it was time for Michael to leave. I dreaded each minute that ticked closer to eleven, but tick on it did. And with each minute, I imagined a life where Michael didn't have to leave me alone every other night for his shifts. I imagined a life where he wasn't in danger because of what his father did.

  My dread deepened when his arm slid from around my waist and he stood from the couch. It deepened further when he pulled me in for a kiss at the entrance of our home. The darkness of night spilled out beyond our lawn, ready to take him away to battle death and leave me lonely again.

  "I'll make pancakes for breakfast tomorrow," I whispered. The porch light brushed the side of his handsome face in warm yellow. The shadows of his face shifted as he gently smiled.

  "I'm looking forward to it," he replied. A kiss to my forehead, my nose, my lips. It was a struggle not to capture him there against me - to keep him as prisoner for myself. "See you in the morning, superstar."

  "Stay safe," I said as Michael, donning his usual purple Fazbear Ent. security uniform, stepped down the porch steps with a smile over his shoulder at me.

  "Always am," he grinned.

  I watched in the chill of late evening as he walked across the lawn, got into his car and reversed out onto the street. Michael caught my gaze through the windscreen of his car and stuck his tongue out. It managed to pull a small smile from me. I could never figure out if his leisurely demeanour was genuine or simply a facade to calm me down.

  The moon was bright as his car disappeared down the street.

⚡️🧸🤖🧸⚡️

  Michael's shoes padded on the steel grate flooring of the elevator. His own reflection stared back at him as the doors slowly slid shut - the Eggs B. name tag mocked him the whole way down.

  "Thanks, dad," Michael said dryly as he stared at the name tag with an admonishing frown, because surely his misfortune was his father's fault. Everything bad that happened to him seemed to have stemmed from William Afton, be it dead or alive.

  Michael rubbed his forehead with the bottom of his palm as the elevator rattled, taking him deeper and deeper into the bowels of Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rentals - a sister location of the Fazbear chain, a side project of William's. The place was underground, a massive storage-warehouse type beat situation. Why William made it like this instead of a normal diner was beyond Michael.

  Michael rolled his sleeves as the elevator rattled worrisomely on its cables. He had to admit, out of all the locations, this one was the place that gave him the worst gut feeling. Maybe it was the claustrophobia of being stuck underground with possessed robots. Maybe it was the fact that Baby readily spoke to him first, just the other day.

  He didn't give any prompting to her. He didn't even have a chance to see her before she was clamouring over herself to help him out and guide him through the death traps that inevitably lay within a Fazbear location. The aid was disturbing but not unwelcome. His chances of surviving this place just went up. 

  Michael released a sigh through his nose as he ran a hand through his thick hair. He wanted to ask Baby questions - about if she could remember her previous life, if she needed anything to help her ascend, why she was helping in the first place - but each shift was a never ending case of near-death experience after the other. He could barely squeeze a word in.

  And the way she stared at him with those empty, glassy, green eyes of hers. She stared at him as if he wasn't really even there, staring instead through him and at a spot on the floor, pupils never shifting. As if her towering height of seven feet wasn't terrifying enough.

  And the way she spoke about the other animatronics, it was as though she had stepped aside from them, or felt herself better. She routinely regarded Ballora as though the ballerina-inspired robot was clueless and foolish. She had less of a stand against Funtime Foxy and Funtime Freddy - but don't confuse her tolerance for acceptance - there was an edge to Baby's voice that had him wondering if there had ever been an altercation between the souls. Maybe the others despised Baby for helping him.

  He hadn't told Y/n about Baby yet. He didn't know how to bring it up - after five years of possessed robots endlessly trying to kill him, there was suddenly one offering a white flag and a hand? Michael wanted to investigate her just one more night, get some damn answers out of her, and then he could debrief Y/n, Henry and Charlie about this bizarre discovery.

  "There you are," Michael grumbled as a device popped out from the wall, personified only through googly eyes stuck to the yellow paint. It stared at him with eerie wall eyes. "My favourite guy." His sarcasm was palpable.

  "Welcome back to your last day on the job," Handy began in its automated voice, and a terrible feeling twisted in the pit of Michael's stomach. "That is, the last day of your first week."

  "You're the fuckin' worst," Michael groaned as that awful feeling slowly dissipated. Handy prattled on, going over his usual greeting and list of jobs Michael needed to do. His thoughts wandered back to Baby.

  There was something so specific about her that Michael couldn't put his finger on. Was it her apparent humanity? Perhaps, but perhaps it was an entirely different circumstance that was staring him in the face with green, metal eyes. It was as though she felt driven by purpose - but what of it was lost on him.

  Determined to get answers from the unusually talkative robot, Michael powered through his tasks - checking on Ballora, Foxy and Freddy in record time (can't forget BonBon, as much as he despised the little asshole) - before finally reaching his destination.

  The seven-foot robot stood in the middle of her designated area, casting an eerie shadow of her slumped form. Her bright red hair glinted almost violently under the light of her station. She looked, for lack of a better word, dead.
 
  "Circus Baby had a rough day, and is in need of repair," the automated voice from above announced. Michael slipped through the vent hatch and entered Baby's room.

  "Hey." Michael tapped his knuckles against Baby's metal thigh. It echoed in the small station. "You there? Baby?"

  "Circus Baby has been deactivated for an unknown reason," the voice from above continued. "It's your job to make sure she's structurally stable and secured to the conveyor. Our technicians will take it from there-"

  "Can you hear me?"

  Michael nodded. The words didn't seem to come from within Baby's frame, but rather from the room itself, as though her voice had been disembodied. The back of his neck prickled. The ghost must've been outside of the robot. How was that possible?

  "Good," Baby whispered. He could feel an invisible gaze watching him as he secured Baby's frame to the conveyor belt. "I'm pretending. Remember how I said I could pretend?" He did recall the unsettling conversation he had with the robot his last shift. "The cameras are watching. I must be careful not to move."

  "Why are you pretending?" Michael asked. He worked quickly to latch Baby's foot to the belt's platform.

  "Something bad happened yesterday," Baby answered in a voice that seemed to come right from his shoulder. It took everything in him not to flinch. "Something bad always happens. I don't want it to happen again. There is something bad... inside of me. I'm broken. I can't be fixed."

  "You're a ghost," Michael whispered.

  "... that's right," Baby said after a heavy pause. "But you would know that, wouldn't you, William?"

  Michael sighed. It wasn't the first time the ghosts thought he was his father and it wouldn't be the last. Reasoning had been useless in the past, but Baby seemed to be different. Maybe she would realise the truth?

  "You will see me in pain again," she whispered. Her voice had moved to his other side, as though she was circling him. Prowling, ready to strike. "I'm going to be taken to the scooping room soon, but it's not going to fix what's wrong with me. What is bad is always left behind. Just like you."

  He resisted the urge to flee, but it called at him, clawed at his brain. Everything in him was telling him to flee.

  "I'm not my father," Michael tried. "I'm sorry for what he did to you, but I'm not him. My name is Michael. You know this."

  "Don't take me for a fool," Baby snapped. "I remember your face. A daughter never forgets the face of her wretched father."

  Michael's hands slipped on the platform's latches. The spirit continued circling him but his eyes still jumped up to the robot's deactivated face. His lungs called for oxygen, the ability to breathe had been all but stolen.

  "What did you just say?" he managed to say in disbelief. "No... no, you... that's impossible-"

  The robot suddenly snatched Michael's arms as it leapt back to life. Her glassy eyes pierced through his.

  "Too stunned for words, dear old pa?" Baby's grip tightened into searing pain, squeezing muscle between fingers. Michael grunted. "Consider this payback."

  "Wait! Wait, Elizabeth, Lizzy!" Michael gasped. Struggle was futile but he attempted it, anyway, yanking against the iron-clad grip. "Lizzy, it's me, it's me-"

  "Don't move too much," Baby said sweetly. The conveyor jerked as the wheels started to drag along their tracks with horrific screeching. "This will be quick, unlike your doings."

  "Lizzy- Lizzy, please, just listen to me-"

  "You don't get to apologise after all you've done!" Baby's voice shrieked at a pitch higher than the tracks and it sliced Michael straight to the marrow of his bones as he helplessly stared at the crumpled, furious face of his disillusioned sister. "You are a monster. You made all of us monsters, too, forced to live a cursed eternity like this." Her eyes seemed to burn through him. "How dare you. How dare you play God."

  Ballora's endoskeleton watched from behind a glass pane as Baby and Michael rattled along the track. He was beginning to lose feeling in his hands and the sensation of his tendons being crushed against bone made him lightheaded.

  "Evan couldn't hurt you, but I will."
 
  "I'm not-"

  "STOP PRETENDING!" Elizabeth screamed with a voice so distorted and glitchy that it was barely comprehensible. After her echoing voice settled into silence, she gave a bitter smile. "I hear them, you know. I hear all of them. The voices of those you killed - all of them. It's the curse you bestowed upon me. All the weeping and wailing. There's so many voices."

  Michael's chest crushed. She could hear every single one of them? What cursed existence had Elizabeth been living?

  The platform eased to a stop with a clatter of metal. The automated voice of Handy began to flood from the overhead speakers.
 
  "Warning: You've entered a highly dangerous area," it spoke. "You have entered from Maintenance Hatch One-B, reserved for cleaning and repair of the scooper. Entering this side of the room is strictly prohibited by unauthorized personal."

  Baby gave a wistful smile around the room. It was all stainless steel and white spotlights. A sharpened claw on a crane sat curled against the wall. The smell of oil and the sharp tang of metal friction encompassed the station. Her eyes dropped to Michael.

  You are in the scooping room, now," she said with a dreamy smile. "Funtime Foxy has already been here today. Funtime Freddy has already been here today. Ballora has already been here today. Circus Baby has already been here today."

  Michael's brow furrowed. What? But then movement from the corner of his vision caught his attention - four endoskeletons stood where only Ballora had been before, peering through the glass with wide, unblinking optics. Baby's shell was being manipulated by Elizabeth alone.

  "I've been out before, but they always put me back," she hummed. "They always put us back inside. There's nowhere for us to hide here... There is nowhere to go when we look like this."

  The crane at the wall jumped into action, unfurling itself like a flower bud. Michael felt his mouth run dry.

  "Lizzy, I promise you, I'm not him," he begged. "Please, believe me, you're my sister." He pulled at her dizzying grip as panic and bile began to rise in his throat. "I'm your brother. Mike- Mikey, remember-?"

  He was ignored. Baby forced him around to face the scooper.

  "If we looked like you, then we could hide," Baby whispered in glee. "If we looked like you, then we would have somewhere to go. It's a fitting punishment, no?"

  The crane crawled forward. The sharp claws snapped. Terror held Michael so tightly that he felt as though he were about to faint.

  "Lizzy! ELIZABETH!"

  The sharp tips rested against Michael's chest. Baby bent down to his height.

  "The scooper only hurts for a moment."

  Michael lost his vision before he felt it. The darkness submerged him entirely, tinged at the edge in red and suffocating. A metallic taste overwhelmed him, both assaulting his tongue and nose. He lost his sense of touch. His ears rang. He was floating in limbo.

  And then the pain hit, and it came rushing in with such raw, vicious agony that he couldn't even bring himself to scream. He choked on blood as he opened his mouth to cry. There was the distinct sound of something wet and heavy hitting the floor.

  "What's this?" Baby said quietly as the scooper retreated, decorated in shades of maroon. Her voice swam in the distance. "Where is your remnant... why are you dying?"

  A wheeze rattled through Michael's throat. He attempted her name. He could feel it, through the agony, he could feel himself dying. He'd never been afraid of death before but now he was terrified of the encroaching sluggishness of it.

  His blurry vision caught a shimmering vestige materialising before him. Green eyes, blonde hair. A little girl in a pink jersey. His legs gave out, crumpling beneath him. His arms were still pinned by Baby's hands.

  Elizabeth approached across the floor, staring at Michael's dying form with apprehension. Her eyes were cloudy, a milk-white film covering the brilliant green. Michael could feel what remained of his body shutting down.

  "Who are you?" Elizabeth tried to peer through the film over her eyes. Her fingers touched Michael's cheek and she jerked back with a squeal. The film receded. She stared at him in horror.

  "Michael..." Hands clasped over her mouth in horror. "Oh, no- oh, no, what have I..?"

  Michael's head fell. Elizabeth rushed to cradle his cheeks and over the miserable pain, he could feel her phantasmal hands - the contact prickled like static, and was as cold as ice. She hugged his head like a child with a soft toy.

  "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Elizabeth sobbed. "You were meant to be William! I thought you were William!"

  Michael's bleary vision faded. All he could think of was poor sister, cursed to hear the voices of their father's murders day after day, imprisoned within the same robotic body that murdered her on William's unwilling behalf.

  Y/n...

  Michael knew that he wasn't going to make it out. Not with the hollowness of his stomach, not with the glistening lump of internals spread across the dirty floor. His poor superstar. They were so close from the finish line. They were so close to achieving the mundane life of their dreams - and it had slipped away as fast as Michael was dying.

  "Oh, Mikey," Elizabeth bemoaned with such debilitating grief that it almost made Michael's pain seem piddly in comparison. He didn't even know that ghosts could cry, but Elizabeth was crying. He could feel the wetness of her tears mix with the blood from his mouth. "Mikey, forgive me. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry."

  Michael heard her give a sharp gasp and the loss of the chill of her grasp. Scraping of metal against concrete - the endos were coming to claim their prize, congregating together into one as they ambled closer.

  "No!" Elizabeth cried. "Stop it! You can't touch him! Leave him alone!"

  But what was the ghost of a child to three possessed endos? Pain meant no more. Living was no more. He understood Elizabeth, now, with the three voices in his head as his empty body became a puppet. And then there were four.

  "Get out," Elizabeth seethed within his skull. "Get out of him."

  They didn't listen.

⚡️🧸🤖🧸⚡️

  The teaspoon clinked against ceramic as I tapped it against the side of the mug.

  Two steaming cups of coffee sat on the kitchen bench as the sun rose. The teaspoon landed in the sink with a clatter while I glanced at the clock - seven. Michael should be home soon.

  I lifted my mug and blew at the rim. Steam curled through the air before my face before I gave a testing sip. A sigh left my nose as the warm drink began to wake my chest with heat.

  The sun was slowly peeking from over the mountain line as I watched the morning claim the sky. I leant against the patio's pillar, waiting for Michael's familiar car to pull into the driveway. I took another sip.

  I finished the coffee.

  The sun was higher.

  Something was wrong.
 
  "Don't spiral," I mumbled to myself as I grabbed my car keys and started the motor. "Don't spiral. He's fine."

  But meagre words couldn't stop the what ifs that played behind my eyes. My breathing grew shorter as I sped down the streets of Hurricane, heavy with morning traffic. It was eight. He'd never been later than eight before.

  What if he died? He hasn't died. But what if he is? He isn't. I pictured his body being torn apart by ravenous, revenge-driven robots, hungering for spilt blood in exchange for theirs. I pictured him dying in a location of his father's creation, alone and scared.
  
  My foot pressed harder on the gas. The tires sped across the tarmac, taking me to the outskirts of the city.

  Henry was just stepping into his car when I veered my car across his driveway and leapt from the seat. Charlie stopped at the doorway, dressed in her high school uniform.

  "Y/n?" Henry dropped his foot from his car in confusion. I sped up the driveway with an anxious fidget to my hands.

  "He hasn't come home," I managed to say without my voice breaking.

  It wanted to break. I wanted to cry. There was an overwhelming need to, building in my throat and behind my eyes. I was so stressed that I couldn't even see straight - it was a miracle I made it to the Emily's in one piece at all.

  Charlie and Henry shared a look. I didn't like that look, it was of hesitance and fear and it was confirming my right to be terrified. Charlie began for my car without Henry saying a word.

  "Let's go," he said with a clap to my shoulder as he passed. "I'll drive."

  My fingers tapped on the car seat as Henry drove my car through Hurricane. I didn't know where the current location that Michael had been investigating was and I couldn't bring myself to remember the way through fear. What if he was dead? What would I do if the centre of my world was gone?

  A hand patted my shoulder. It was Charlie from the back seat.

"He's going to be okay," she reassured.

  I gave a nod in reply. I watched as Charlie's expression folded in the reflection of the wing mirror, staring forlornly at her lap. She didn't believe her words, either. The tight set of Henry's jaw spoke volumes in their own right.

  We could smell the smoke before we could see the fire. Red trucks parked in a maze along the street, accompanied by handfuls of people in firefighter gear swarming around them and the burning building. I was out of the car before it had even rolled to a stop.

  The orange haze, the heat, it all made my feet drag to a stop against the sweating tarmac. Bodies of firemen shoved past me as they worked, but I was frozen to the spot, staring into the flames of the small, warehouse entrance as if hypnotised.

  "Mike," I whispered. My feet took me forward, first at a disbelieving amble and then at a desperate sprint. "MIKE!"

  "Whoa!" An arm caught me around the waist and I was halted in my pursuit with a strangled cry. "You can't go in there!"

  "He's in there!" I clawed at the thick jacket of the fireman's suit. The flames blurred into a mirage of red and yellow, taunting, mocking, keeping him prisoner within their heat. "MICHAEL!"

  "I need help!"

  I struggled against the hands with unruly madness, needing only to enter the gates of hell. I was Orpheus. I had to get my Eurydice.

  "Y/n!" Henry's arms clasped tight around me. I screamed in defiance. My heel made contact with his shin. "Y/n, you have to stop."

  "Don't say that!" I sobbed. "He's in there!" My struggling renewed with vigour. The flames grew ever higher, curling into to the blueing sky.

  "He's gone."

  Henry's words hit me. I slumped into his hold with a face covered by snot and tears, staring through watery eyes at the bastard site that stole Michael's life. Henry was shaking, crying, too. He held me up with trembling arms.

  "No no no no no no no nonono." I slid to the ground. Henry crouched with me, cradling me before the open flame. "Don't take him. Don't take him."

  "I'm sorry, Y/n."

  I hadn't felt heartbreak before then; not really, not truly, and certainly not like how I felt in that warehouse parking lot. I could physically feel my heart break in two, I could feel my chest concave and crack. I felt hollow, but so full of rage and indignation and sorrow and disbelief. My head was swimming. I felt nauseas.
 
  How could he die? How could he be taken from me, so suddenly and violently? We were meant to have a future together. We were meant to escape Hurricane together. We were talking about marriage not even twelve hours ago.

  Charlie stood beside us, staring into the fire. The flames flickered in the reflection of her tears.

  They drove me home. Matt was there. I cried again. I cried again.

  I cried again.

⚡️🧸🤖🧸⚡️

  "Flesh," the voices echoed in Michael's head. "Flesh so nice. Missed flesh."

  Elizabeth was quiet as the twisted skeleton of three endos staggered forward through Michael's body. He was there, too, watching distantly as his decaying body stumbled across the deserted Hurricane streets. He wasn't sure why he was still there. He should've been gone.

  The creaks and clacks of mistuned components snapped beneath the body's purpling, rotting flesh. Michael wondered how long he'd be trapped here, prisoner in his own body, piloted by misaligned souls. How ironic; his tomb was himself.

  "Let me die," Michael whispered.

  "Flesh so good," the voices coed. The right leg gave out and the body collapsed with a ring of metal and a thud of skin. The body staggered upright before stumbling forth and hitting the ground again.

  "Get out," Elizabeth demanded. "Leave him be."

  The others didn't listen, instead pitching the body up and wobbling down the sidewalk. Michael supposed the video games got it right - this was how zombies walked. The body walked into a picket fence, bumping against the posts and send tripping towards a utility post. Hands scratched at the wood in a desperate attempt to stay standing. 

  "Can't walk flesh so nice body unaccepting skin so good have to leave."
   
  The body continued. Through the night it continued to aimlessly wander the streets of Hurricane. People spotted him, of course. They turned away when they saw the glint of purple in his eyes. They fled when they saw the blood coating his uniform. Police were scouting. The body kept to the shadows.

  "Not good not good not good not good," the voices would echo, but they ambled on nonetheless.

  They stuck to alleyways, to darkened corners. They hid during the day and explored at night. Michael watched on because he had no other choice. Elizabeth continued demanding them to leave.  

  And then one day, they did. Parts of the metallic skeleton slithered away, crawling into the stormwater drain. For once in the long, three days that he had been prisoner, his head was quiet.

  His eyes - sharper in vision than they should've been - stared at the tiny stones sprinkled over the footpath. His skin had purpled up to his wrist. He couldn't smell anymore, but he could only imagine.

   "Michael?"

  His dry lips moved against the concrete. Nothing came out.

  "You're going to be okay. I'm not going to let you die."

  Let me die, Michael thought.

  "You can go back to Y/n."

  I can never go back to Y/n like this.

  "You won't die," Elizabeth said. "You won't die. You're going to be okay, Mike. You have to finish this."

  Why do I have to finish this? Why does it have to be me?

  "I'm sorry," Elizabeth said. "I love you."

  Silence. She was gone.

  Michael contemplated letting his body wither away on the sidewalk. The sun would rise and he would be discovered. But he wasn't gone, he was still here, still in his body that was riddled with robotic parts. How long would he stay? Forever? Could he handle being put into a coffin and living inside a wooden box six feet under forever?

  Not really 'living' though, am I?

  Could he risk Y/n seeing him like this? Tortured before death? Used as a puppet? Could he risk the further heartache that would cause her? Could he risk playing dead while she wept over his still-living corpse?

  Michael forced himself to stand. His jaw flapped, cheeks torn from where the skeleton had forcefully removed itself. They needed stitching. His stomach needed stitching. He needed to stop William once and for all.

  He needed a plan. He needed... somewhere to stay. He needed... Henry. He needed Henry.

  Walking to Henry's place took effort Michael scarcely had. His ankles kept twisting. His jaw rested against his neck, swaying with each lurching step. He almost gave up more than once, but the look of horror on Y/n's face if she discovered what happened kept him moving.

  Finally, as night began to lighten in the early, early hours of the day, Michael fell to the wooden planks of the Emily's porch. He couldn't lift his arm to ring the buzzer. He couldn't even tap his fingers against the planks.

  Flies buzzed. Oils from his body leaked through the wood. Hours passed. When Michael heard movement within the house, he took it upon himself to shift his arm and knock his knuckles against the bottom of the door.

  How would Henry react? In horror, most likely. Would he flee? Would he scream? Would he set fire to him? The latter didn't sound too bad, honestly. It wasn't as if he could feel any pain anymore. His nervous system had completely perished. He longed to follow.

  The door swung open. Michael's inhuman, purple optic flicked up to see Henry's pale face as he stood there, frozen above him. He rasped Henry's name. "Help."

  "Charlie, get the towels!" Henry called back with a brittle voice.

  "What?" Charlie called back.

  "GET THE TOWELS!" Henry bellowed with a strain to his words. He dropped to his knees before Michael, not knowing what to do with his hands as he stared at the corpse. "Oh, son. What happened to you?"

  Michael couldn't answer. His head fell back to the floor. He was tired, he was so tired. All he wanted to do was to sleep and never wake up.

  Charlie's reaction was unusual. Michael expected the seventeen year old to scream at the sight of him, but instead she wordlessly handed her father the towels and held Michael's head as they moved him inside and to the bathroom.

  "Can you walk?" Charlie asked as Henry stripped Michael of his bloodied, ruined shirt. They both paused at the gaping hole.

  "... yes," Michael rasped. He couldn't understand why he was able to speak with his jaw hanging by a couple of tendons, but maybe he wasn't even usually his human vocal chords. Surely they'd be withered by now.

  "Interesting," Charlie hummed as she peered closer. Henry took a step back and clutched at the sink with a sick look. "You healed over the the endoskeleton. I would suspect that happened before your body died and why you have remains of it."

  "Cool," Michael said dryly. Charlie reached for the first-aid kit on the sink and pulled out a needle and thread before approaching. He instinctively flinched back. "Don't you need to sterilise that?"

  "Your flesh is dead," Charlie reminded with a raise of an eyebrow. "You won't get an infection."

  "We thought you died in the fire," Henry whispered in disbelief from the corner of the bathroom. He watched with morbid fascination as Charlie stitched Michael's cheeks back together.

  "Wish I did," Michael mumbled. His drifting eyes found Henry. "Have you seen Y/n?"

  Charlie paused. Michael's alarm rose at the hesitant look on her face.

  "What?" he demanded. "What is it?"

  Charlie shared an uneasy look with her father. Henry swallowed.

  "Y/n hasn't taken your death well," Henry said. Michael felt his non-beating heart drop to the floor.

  "Are they okay?" Michael asked, alarmed.

  "Matt's with them," Charlie answered softly. "She's heartbroken, Mike. Are you going to tell her about this?"

  Michael stared at Charlie's expression of calm concern before turned his attention to the mirror that sat on the wall across from him. He looked like something out of a horror movie, and he could only imagine that his body would decay more and more each day.

  Y/n had already been hurt so much. What would her life be, if Michael walked back into it, looking like this? Physical affection would be averse, at best, surely. Nobody wanted to kiss a corpse who leaked bodily fluid from death. He couldn't give her the life she deserved, not anymore.

  It was better this way.

  "No," Michael decided, and simply saying the words was enough to break his heart again. "I can't do that to her."

  Charlie resumed stitching, but her face was crumpled with displeasure for the first time since he arrived. Henry crossed his arms tightly, uncomfortably.

  Michael's future was gone. His future with Y/n was gone. Every single child of William Afton's was cursed entirely now, properly. Michael wondered why he was surprised; he was an Afton, he should've seen misfortune coming. He was just lucky enough that Y/n wasn't mixed up in the middle of it and killed.

  Y/n. He longed to visit, to see their face. He longed to hold her again. But he couldn't. He knew he couldn't, and it was eating him up inside.

  He wished he could tell Y/n that he wasn't dead. He wished that there was a way for her to know without seeing him like the B-rated horror character he now was. This was so gut wrenching, such heartache. Such confusion.

  Death would just be easier. But death was what William wanted for him.

  "Can I take a shower?" Michael asked quietly.

⚡️🧸🤖🧸⚡️

  "Y/n?" Matt's gentle voice leaked from under the door. "I've got food." 

  The door creaked open when I gave no reply. Light flooded in, silhouetting Matt and his bowl of dinner at the entrance of what used to be mine and Michael's room.

  I was curled up in bed, surrounded by his clothes. They were already beginning to lose his smell.

  "Come on, squirt," Matt said with a wobbly smile. "You've got to eat. Alice made this special."

  My eyes tears onto the bedsheet. The bedsheet was losing his smell, too.

  "... m' not hungry."

  Matt released a shaky breath. He placed it on the bedside table and removed the barely-touched plate from lunch.

  "I'll leave it here, just in case."

  I didn't answer. Matt retreated, shutting the door behind him. I could hear him and Alice speaking through the walls of my small home. I could hear the worry in their voices and I felt guilty that I was causing so much strife, but my grief was too heavy a burden to plaster a fake smile over. Not just yet.

  I couldn't count how many days it had been since Michael had passed. Each minute felt like an eternity on its own. I'd always feared that Michael would one day lose his life trying to right his father's wrongs but now that it was truly this reality I was forced to live in now, I...

  I didn't know what to do. I was lost without him. Michael had always been my compass. My north star was gone.

  I wasn't sure how much time had passed after that. Maybe a week. I moved through the house out of sheer necessity and upon Matt's begging. I felt the breeze through the windows, but the sky shouldn't be so blue when Michael wasn't here. Where were the clouds? Where was the rain?

  One night, when I was alone, the front door banged.

  I looked up from where I was in the living room,  curled up in the corner of the couch and tangled in a blanket while staring blankly at the television. Alice and Matt were out grocery shopping. They had only just left. They shouldn't be back so soon.

  Maybe it's a murderer. I unfurled my legs from the blanket and trudged towards the door. It was unlocked. It must be my lucky day.

  My foot hit something before I could reach the door. I looked down, and to my dull surprise, a silver locket sat on the carpet. A cord necklace curled from it. A folded piece of paper sat beneath it.

  I knelt with a confused frown and picked up the locket and note. Was it a gift from a sympathetic neighbour? I clicked open the locket, only to drop it with a start when I saw Michael's face staring back at me. Michael and me. The both of us, a photo from our first date.

  Confused tears sprung forth as a feeling of agony and desperation made its return, smothering the apathetic dullness that had taken over me. I unfolded the note with shaking hands.

  I love you. I'm sorry. Don't look for me.

- Michael

  The note fell, fluttering to the ground. He was alive. He was alive.

  He was... he left. Michael left.

  I stared at the carpet as my vision blurred and my ears began to ring. He was alive. Where was he? Why did he leave? Why did he leave?

  He was here.

  I scrambled for the door and shoved it open with a desperate gasp of his name. The street was dark and empty, void of anybody that held Michael's frame. Even if there was anybody, I wouldn't have spotted them through the tears in my eyes. Nevertheless, I tried to look.

  "Michael!" I cried. My broken sob echoed down the street. The locket swung in my grasp. "Michael!"

  I couldn't pick what I was feeling the most of. Was it the feeling of betrayal? Relief? Was it confusion?

  I was lost. I felt so alone. So confused. So betrayed. So relieved. It all hurt.

  "Michael!" I continued to scream his name, as though if my desperation was loud enough that he'd return. "Michael!"

  My knees hit the tarmac of the road. I cradled the locket to my chest as I cried.