whumpafton

With Charlie, Michael felt like he had a chance to restart.

At first it felt odd. To have somebody look at him like a person— a person to be trusted no less. They were both outsiders, shunned by their neighbourhood for being inextricably linked to the bloodied tiles of Fazbear’s.

He’d do all the things he didn’t do with Cassidy back then. All the things it was too late to do for Elizabeth. All whilst guilt gnawed in the back of his mind, nascent— coloring his thoughts but not loud enough to he named.

When he was called to ‘help clean up after an incident’, he didn’t want to come. But fear of his father carried him to the godforsaken restaurant like waste in a strong breeze.

The body in the alleyway, the stench of death and rot exacerbated by the damp, post rain air. He barely remembers anything aside from kneeling in syrupy blood and the ache in his shoulders as he carried the garbage bag, limp over his shoulder.

For a second, he was taken back to a similar scene, a red-faced sobbing child kicking and screaming in his arms. The scent of metal, then blood— the two so similar one would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.