Chapter Text
A young girl stood alone in the back corner of the arcade.
Overhead lights flickered every few minutes, sparks flying out in a way that made her think this place was definitely breaking some kind of safety law, and the muffled chattering of what she could have sworn were rats in the walls.
She brought her hand up to her face, smearing already drying tears.
The arcade machine made a ding sound.
TIME IS UP!
Susie fished around in the front pocket of her pink dress for a moment, first pulling out a small toy dog, before finding what she wanted, and she popped another quarter into the machine.
The arcade machine started again, and the sweet, bouncy music of Fruity Maze’s START screen began again.
Susie’s eyes shifted over to the MULTIPLAYER option, and she briefly looked up, over to the empty space across from her at the other end of the arcade machine.
Samantha said she didn't want to play. She preferred to stay with mom and dad, to watch Bonnie and Foxy and Freddy perform. Susie thought it was dumb, Chica wasn't even on stage today.
Mom said it was something about the band needing a rest too, Sammy said it was probably maintenance.
Susie frowned, and went to SINGLEPLAYER .
Fine, if Sammy wanted to watch the dumb bear and stupid bunny and weird fox perform instead of playing with her sister, then she could. Susie would be fine on her own, she's been alone before.
The arcade machines game began after a moment, and she was met with the familiar 8-bit girl with blue hair and a hot pink dress.
Susie’s time flashed in the upper left hand corner, while her score comfortably sat in the lower right hand corner. With 30 seconds on the clock, Susie started to move. She sped across the maze, one that she knew nearly as well as the back of her hand from playing it so much, collecting the mini pixel fruits covering the screen.
Oranges, grapes, cherries, they all disappeared from the screen as Susie continued to collect them.
It only took her a few moments to complete the game, the obnoxiously bright AMAZING! flashing across the screen, before it returned her to the INSERT A COIN screen.
Susie fished out another quarter from her pocket, and popped it into the machine. She returned to the menu, and yet again hovered over the multiplayer option.
Susie frowned, and, yet again, her eyes began to burn.
“C’mon Sammy! Please?” Susie pleaded to her sister, hands clasped together. Samantha's face scrunched up, and she pushed her ponytail off her shoulder.
“Sue, dogs can't go into Freddy’s. you'll get us both in trouble if you bring him in,” Samantha replied, crossing her arms as she put her best ‘mom’ face on.
Susie pouted, “If anyone asks, tell them I brought him in, and you had nothing to do with it!”
Samantha shook her head, her expression not changing once. “How do you think we’d even get him in?”
“Most of the employees don't care what anyone does if no one dies and nothing gets broken,” Susie said, shrugging her shoulders and blowing a fallen piece of curly blonde hair out of her face.
“That's not an answer.” Samantha put her hands on her hips and looked at her older sister disapprovingly, another eerily good replication of their mothers own glare.
“Please Sammy, just this once?”
Samantha’s stern frown broke, and she groaned, “fine! But don't you even think of blaming me when we get in trouble!”
Despite being the younger of the two by an entire year, Samantha was the more mature of the two. Susie was nothing less than persistent, though.
Susie lit up, her frown morphing into a wide grin. She practically jumped in excitement, and leapt forward to hug her sister.
“Oh thank you thank you thank you! You won't regret this, I promise!”
Samantha rolled her eyes, but smiled as well, “yeah, sure i won't,”
Samantha hugged Susie back, before stepping away and playfully swatting at the others arm. “Just make sure he doesn't eat any trash, or change, or anything,”
Susie frantically nodded, bouncing on her heels. She got to her knees, and gleefully spoke to the excited puppy, “you're gonna get to see Freddy’s! Isn't that amazing?”
Susie's finger ran over the quarter in her hand. When had she gotten out another quarter? Did it really matter? He ended up eating a quarter Susie dropped, they had to tell their parents. Mom was so mad, they were grounded for weeks.
Susie's hand came up to her eyes again, trying to wipe away the tears that cascaded down her face. Her frown deepened, and she sniffled.
Susie went to the single player option, and clicked start.
The arcade game started with 30 seconds, like always.
She took longer this time, getting all the fruits with 5 seconds left on the clock. Her eyes burned and her face felt cold, she wiped away the tears again.
AMAZING! flashed across her screen again.
She didn't feel amazing.
She’d play the game one last time, and go back to her parents. One more time, and she'd get to go home, talk to her stuffed animals, and cry.
Susie put one last quarter into the machine, and the game started again.
She went directly to SINGLEPLAYER this time, and the game began again.
“Buttercup!” Susie shouted as she felt the red leash slip from her hand. She immediately ran after the puppy, Samantha not too far behind her.
The golden fur of the dog disappeared between the legs of others walking, before reappearing ahead.
Susie's legs burned as she tried to grab Buttercup's leash again, but to no avail.
As he ran into the road, a bird not too far ahead of him, She screamed again.
And then she heard the collision.
Blood weakly splattered on her shoes, and she glanced up at the purple car.
She couldn't see who was in the car, but she wished she could.
Hurricane was a small town, everyone knew everyone.
And that jerk didn't even try to swerve.
Droplets fell onto the arcade machines screen, and Susie choked on her breath. The game ended, and the familiar AMAZING! Screen flashed again, before bringing her back to the title screen.
She never wanted to smash it more than she did at that moment.
“He's not really dead.”
Susie whipped her head around and stared up wide-eyed at… a stranger. Maybe another mascot? She's never seen this one before, though.
A yellow bunny, like Bonnie but… not. Wearing tattered purple and magenta overalls and an off-white blouse with stars, suns, and moons stitched on with two black buttons, and a bowtie.
“... what?”
Is all she can bring herself to say. How would… Hurricane was a small town, everyone knew everyone, and so everyone knew everything.
Susie still remembers hearing about a woman who lived just outside of town, in the somehow smaller New Harmony, going missing through the grapevine.
Katherine, was her name? Susie wasn't sure.
It didn't really matter anymore, did it?
That is to say, she supposed it wasn't impossible that whoever this is would have heard about what happened like that, too.
“He is over here.”
The man gestured behind him to a dark doorway buried in the arcade, a rusty ‘EMPLOYEES ONLY. DO NOT ENTER’ sign hanging on the left side of a red door. From the way he sounded, maybe he was foreign? She didn't know anyone who still had that strong of an accent, though.
Maybe he was new?
… maybe he lived here? In the arcade?
That possibility creeped her out more, and her nose scrunched up. The bunny-man seemed to notice, and he held out his hand for her to take, before bending down to be at her level, perhaps to make himself seem less intimidating. It didn't work.
“Follow me.”
She thought, hand partially outstretched. Was this really a good idea? This was a stranger, and she had always been told to stay away from strangers… but this was Freddy’s, practically the safest place in Hurricane, maybe the whole world.
Sure, sometimes the pizza could be a little moldy, or there could be some trash that hadn't gotten cleaned up laying around, but it was safe.
No one had ever died or gotten seriously injured here.
At least, not from what she knew.
Susie carefully took his hand, and he firmly closed his metal fingers around hers.
The fur of the suit was cold and sticky, it seemed inhuman and yet so painfully alive.
He gently pulled her forward, nodding his head in the direction of the door again.
As she walked away, she briefly turned back to look back at the arcade machine.
She made eye contact with the purple and orange eyes of player1 and player2.
She suddenly felt like she just made a mistake.