The Fall of the Aftons

113: William Afton

What in the world just happened?

Michael couldn't have been sleepwalking. His eyes had been open, actively moving around as he looked at things that everyone else couldn't see. And he most definitely wasn't asleep.

Had he been hallucinating?

That was the only logical explanation.

But why was he hallucinating? He wasn't schizophrenic like Evan was.

When he was still seeing things, he looked like he thought that he was going to die. That his life was being threatened at that exact moment.

That he was about to be killed.

Was his hallucination a result of William's experiments with the remnant he got from Charlie?

Whatever it was, it was not something that William wanted to deal with at one-thirty in the morning.

After a few minutes of the entire family standing in the embrace, William broke out and gently pried a still sobbing Michael away from his siblings. "Okay, kids," William said. "That's enough now. Evan, Elizabeth, go back to bed. I need to talk to your brother."

Evan and Elizabeth gave Michael quick hugs before they reluctantly left to go back to bed. Michael watched as Evan guided their little sister back to her room.

Michael tried to stifle his sobs, hugging himself as he tried to calm down. But, by the looks of it, he wasn't succeeding. He was still sobbing and shaking--so much to the point where his blanket slipped off his shoulders and fell to the floor.

Unsure of what to do, he awkwardly sat down on the edge of William's bed. He hiccupped once before he buried his face in his hands. He started to sob harder, doubling over so far that William had to catch him before he fell off his bed. William pushed him back so he was away from the edge, then sat down.

"I'm so sorry!" Michael gasped between violent sobs. "I'm so, so, so sorry! I don't even know what happened." He sat up a little and wrapped his arms around himself again. "O-One minute, I was having a g-good d-dream, then I was having a n-nightmare, and then I was suddenly trapped in some nightmare world!" He sobbed again before saying, "I'm so sorry, Father--I really am!"

Was that William's imagination? Or did Michael just call him, "Father?" He was probably overthinking it. If Michael did call him that, it was probably just a slip of the tongue. 

"It's perfectly fine, Michael," William assured him. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I-I... I..." A loud, strangled sound gurgled in the back of Michael's throat. "Promise me that you'll try your best to stay alive!" he exclaimed desperately, watching William with pleading eyes. "Please. I can't lose anyone else."

William frowned. "I promise."

"Thank you," Michael mumbled, trying his best not to start crying again. He failed, though, and started to sob.

William pulled his son into a sideways hug, rubbing his back soothingly. Almost an hour later, Michael fell asleep crying.

~ ~ ~

"Goodness, you look exhausted," Henry said when William went to say, "Hello," after he arrived at Fazbear's for an employee emergency. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

William groaned and slumped against the doorway of Henry's office. "It was a rough night."

"What happened?" Henry asked as he went over and dragged William inside, closing the office door behind him. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Do you want to listen to me rant? It's pretty long."

"I don't mind. What happened?"

He sighed. "I was up late doing paperwork for the new restaurant, and when I finally finished and was getting ready for bed, Evan dragged Michael into my room and said that something was wrong with him. I don't know exactly what happened, but he started hallucinating. Once we got him snapped out of it, Evan and Elizabeth went back to bed, and he ended up crying himself to sleep. After that, every time he had another nightmare, he screamed himself awake and would be instantly hallucinating. The poor kid was scared out of his mind, which made Evan nervous, meaning that he was crying the majority of the night since he was worried about his brother.