HIDDEN IN THE FLAMES ; afton kids

chapter 1

Micheal was always his favourite. Even as an oblivious, nine year old it was easily noticeable.

I always believed it was because Micheal's mother was my fathers true love. My mother clearly wasn't — their messy divorce made it clear enough.

It was hard on all three of us that we would never see her again. Not only because of the verdict that she had no custody of us but because she killed herself only three months later.

She was a good mother to not only Elizabeth and I, but Micheal as well. Father didn't even seem to care, at least if he did he never showed us.

In all fairness, he never showed us anything. He would hide up in his office or his work all day. If we didn't get food from his work, we'd have to go round to the neighbours or Micheal would make it for us.

If he was at physical work, which he was the majority of the time, we would be greeted with free pizza from the chefs to share amongst us and the Emily kids.

The diner was undeniably where we spent the majority of our free time. Whether our dad was working a shift, or we just wanted to hang out, it seemed to be the place you could be guaranteed to find my siblings and I.

Even with the legal troubles that happened in 1982, with the disappearance of Charlie, the business was doing enough to get a side company.

That's why my dad was in his office so much. At least, its what he told us. I always had a nagging suspicion that he just didn't like any of us enough to spend time with us.

It was often that Lizzy came out of his office crying because she'd been ignored.

I remember one example of his poor treatment towards her like it happened every second if every hour.

She went into his office smiling with a picture she'd drawn for him. I was playing with my stuffed animals in the room next door and Micheal was waiting for her.

There was a rather huge thud. Next minute she came out crying, as usual. The only difference was this time, her leg was bruised. I was never directly told anything but it was apparent that she had been shoved away from father.

I never heard father apologise for what he did. Not that I ever expected him to; he's not that type of person.

Fathers way of apologising to Liz was showing her what he was walking on. An animatronic generally for kids like Liz.

It was a clown with two, red pigtails and a dress that perfectly suited the style of the robot.

Elizabeth loved it. It wasn't hard to tell. Even it was, she talked about her fascination with the robot and fathers work to the point it was our main topic of conversation.

On the week leading up to the new diner, her obsession grew to its peak.

"Evan! Evan! Evan! Daddy's opening the new place the weekend!" She announced one morning when I came downstairs.

"Are you excited? Are you? Are you?" She continued as I took my seat at our kitchen table and Micheal handed me my breakfast.

"Yeah, I am," I replied, stuffing a spoonful of cereal into my mouth. It was only Monday but Lizzy was already counting down the days until the opening.

I couldn't blame her. If it was the other way round and Fredbear's was the one being opened for the first time instead I would've been static.

"Mikey.." Lizzy began, staring at him as she waited for him to dit down. "Yeah Lizzy?" He replied.

"Can we go this week. Can we? Please, please, please." She asked. In the vague memory I have of that moment, Elizabeth was doing puppy eyes and sulking - as if to say it would be a worse expression if he said no.

"Lizzy I've already told you we're going. Dad wants us to be there at the opening. Besides you can't exactly stay home when he's at work." Micheal replied. "Unless of course you don't want to see Circus Baby."

Micheal had stuttered when he said "us". That's how I figured out that he didn't really want us there, he only wanted Michel, as usual.

Sometimes, I wondered if Micheal's mother had been as unlucky as ours. I knew father hadn't had his company back then but was she as neglected as mine and Elizabeth's mother was, or was she treated as a princess who always came first.

"Yes! I really really really want to see Baby!" Lizzy cheered in response.

Baby - or more accurately Circus Baby - was the animatronic Lizzy had found out about only months ago. It was the one who had got her obsessed with the company.

Circus Baby was the main star. The next Fredbear in terms of hierarchy in the chain of restaurants.

In some ways, I think Lizzy was used as an experiment by father to see how well little girls would react to Circus Baby. If she picked out any flaws she just didn't like, father removed them. If she wanted something added, it was added. Not for the fact he loved Lizzy but for the fact he wanted children like Lizzy to love it.

It was twisted, but it was the only form of love I'd ever seen her get of dad, and I didn't want to see that be taken away from her.

"Evan, I have one thing to show you," Lizzy said, turning towards me. "Sure what is it?" I asked, genuinely curious about what she was on about.

Lizzy removed her hand from her back and showed me a Circus Baby stuffed animal. "Look it's Baby!" she cheered.

"Where did you get that from?" I asked, although I already knew the answer to some extent back them.

Once again, it was fathers twisted love. He did the same thing when he released the Fredbear plushies and tested them on me to see how well I reacted to them. He wanted to know how normal kids would react, not if we would be happy.

"Daddy gave it to me." She answered all cheerly. When Lizzy smiled it made the gap in the middle of her two top teeth so apparent, yet it was so charming it could always cheer me up.

"I'm just so excited! I want it to be Saturday!" Lizzy complained, stuttering on her words in an infant like manor.

"I just wanna see the real Baby!"

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