Never the Same

Chapter 3: William's Project

After about two hours in the truck, Henry tapped Michael, who had dozed off, on the shoulder to let him know they'd be arriving soon. Michael looked toward the passenger side window to see Charlie looking at him, "You feeling better after that nap?"She asked. After all the adrenaline of the events leading up to this had finally run out leaving him exhausted, he took a second to respond, trying to wake up fully. "Yeah, I guess while trying to sort all this out in my head, my mind gave up and decided I needed to rest." He responded, sounding unsure of himself. "You said we're almost there, right Henry?", Michael asked. "Yeah, we should be arriving shortly. I haven't been here in almost two decades, heh I don't even know if the old place is still standing." Henry replied. After about 15 more minutes in the truck, they pulled up on the side of the road, along some old train tracks. Set a little further back in the woods, stood an old wooden building, decrepit and decaying, but still standing.

"There it is, the old diner. It's still up!," Henry exclaimed with some excitement. They approached the diner, they passed an old tree on the path. "That's one scary looking tree, it looks like it's staring right at me." Charlie said as she upped her pace to get past it faster. As she did this, she tripped over a root sticking out of the ground and landed right in front of some large metal sign. "Charlie!", Michael and Henry said in unison as they rushed over to make sure she was ok. "I'm ok, I'm ok. It's just a scratch, but look what I found." She said pointing toward the big sign. "Oh my God, it's the sign, it survived." Henry said brushing off dirt and plants growing on it, "I made this sign with my bare hands, good to see my handy work pays off in the long run huh?" Henry said delighted to see the sign he crafted almost 20 years ago held up in pretty good condition. Michael snapped Henry out of his admiration of his craft and pointed toward the doors to let him know they were heading in, Henry laid his sign down against the building gently and followed them inside.

"Don't venture off in here too far you two, the structure is unstable and could collapse at any moment, so let's stick together. I have an idea of where your father may've hidden the entrance to his little "project", follow me." He said as he ventured toward the back of the building with Charlie and Michael in pursuit. As they headed back, they passed up a locked up room with no door handle, Henry stopped for what seemed like forever and stared right at it, saying nothing but filling the room his feelings of remorse and dread, for what lay behind that door was a large stain in the center of the floor that hadn't been touched since that terrible day. "Dad, are you ok?" Charlie asked as she put a hand on his shoulder, "Yes, I'm ok. Y'all were going so slow I just had to wait for you to catch up." He said trying to hide what he was thinking. They continued through a hallway that seemed to stretch forever, until they reached a small office. It had one desk in the center of the room, with a cork board over it filled with flyers for Fredbear's Family Diner, some read different things such as, "Grand Reopening!", "Fredbear's Halloween Bash, 4pm - 7pm Oct.31st.". Compared to the rest of the place, this office seemed rather protected against weathering and could've been used just yesterday if not for the layer of dust and yellowing of the papers on the board. Henry shuffled through some papers on the desk, shaking out folders, and opening drawers, until he found a purple envelope addressed to him hidden within the file cabinet, inside was a letter written by William, it read:

***

Dearest Friend,

If you're reading this letter, you came back. You came back to the place we built from the ground up, the place I let my arrogance and trust get the best of me and tear it down. For that I'm sorry, I'm sorry I couldn't see that man for what he was sooner, he took the life of that child and it was all my fault for giving him the key and I'll regret that the rest of my life.

However, to get an apology from me isn't why you're here is it? No, I didn't think so. If it's for pure nostalgia you rummaged through the cabinets and found this, or maybe you got curious about my project and came to find out more, better yet if it's because Michael is there with you now and you have the keycard in your possession, then I shall tell you where to find the entrance to my project. Without the keycard you may find the door, but access you will not have.