Fazbear Frights #4: Step Closer

Stitchwraith Stingers #4

The fourth Stitchwraith Stingers epilogue.

Jake looked down at himself and tried to get used to the fact that

"himself" wasn't anything like the himself he'd been used to being before. Last he could remember, he'd been a little boy. He hadn't been a boy in a while ... he didn't know how long.

So it wasn't totally weird that he wasn't in a little boy's body anymore.

But it was still pretty weird that he was in a thing that wasn't alive. It was also weird that he couldn't remember exactly who he'd been when he was a little boy. He had vague bits of memories, but they didn't make sense. Like, he could remember thinking it would be fun to come back to life as a puppy or a kitten. But why would he think that?

Now here he was inside a metal thing. He didn't know enough about anything to understand what it was. But he did know he wasn't alone. He was sharing this strange space.

It was like waking up in in another family's house.

"Hello?" Jake said.

"Who's talking?" a child's voice asked. The child sounded a little like a boy Jake used to know in school, a boy who was always talking back to the teacher and getting himself in trouble.

"Oh, hi," Jake said. "I'm Jake. Who're you?"

"What's it to you?"

"Um, I was just being friendly."

Jake remembered learning that the way to deal with kids like this was to let them be as tough as they wanted to be.

"Sorry. I'm Andrew." The child's voice was rough. He didn't sound like he was saying his name. It sounded like he was throwing down a challenge.

"Hi, Andrew," Jake said.

"Why can't I see anything?" Andrew demanded.

"You can't see the truck?" Jake asked.

"If I could see the truck, do you think I'd say I can't see anything?"

Jake thought Andrew sounded angry. Very angry.

"Sorry," Jake said. "Um, so we're in the back of what I think might be a trash truck? We're with a lot of junk."

"Figures," Andrew said.

"How come?" Jake asked.

"Story of my life."

"What do you mean?"

Andrew ignored the question. "How come you can see and I can't?" He sounded like he was gearing up for a tantrum.

"I'm really sorry. I'm not sure," Jake said. "I mean, I know we're in some kind of metal thing, I don't know, some kind of entity or something? I can see what's around it, but I don't know how I got here, and so I don't know how you got here. And I sure don't know why I can see and you can't. But maybe I can help you see. Do you know how you got here?"

Andrew was silent for a minute. Jake waited.

"Well, it might have had something to do with the stuff I was in?"

"What stuff?" Jake asked.

"How is it any of your business?" Andrew snarled.

Jake sighed. "It's not. I just thought it would be nice to be friends, and friends get to know each other. So I just wondered what you meant by being in stuff."

The truck ground to a stop, and there was silence.

"I haven't had a friend in a long time," Andrew said. His tone was defensive, as if he was daring Jake to make fun of him.