HIDDEN IN THE FLAMES ; afton kids

chapter 9

Every morning after that, I would tiredly force myself down the stairs to eat breakfast and give a long apology to father about my restless sleep the night prior.

But by the time there was only a week before my birthday, Elizabeth started doing it to.

I could see through her tired eyes. I knew it wasn't playing with her toys that kept her awake every night or the noise of the thunderstorm we had that one morning.

The first morning I came down before she did and she followed me and used some old excuse I knew.

I knew her nightmares were the same as mine. I knew that she two had the restless feeling at early hours and passing out. I knew she had been fighting monsters I still didn't truely understand.

And I could tell by the way she looked at me that she knew I knew.

Yet, I never acted like I knew myself. It's something I still regret but it's the truth. Even after the second night she had came down late, still half asleep and barely eating, I decided to scare her.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth brushed this off. I didn't understand why but I assumed it was either the lack of sleep making her too tired to care or the fact that she definitely had her suspicions about me having nightmares and just wanted one of us to be happy. Even though I wasn't happy. Even though bullying her wasn't going to make me happy.

I mostly ignored her whenever we were dragged around to father's diners, a number which had increased a lot since Summer Break had started.

We also tended to go to Fredbear's a lot more. Part of me liked to pretend it was because of my birthday, but deep down I knew it was just a coincidence that was bound to make me happy.

Even through all the trauma, I didn't see Elizabeth hiding under tables whenever she saw a robot anymore. Another coincidence I wanted to believe had anything to do with me. Truth be told, she was avoiding the animatronics anyway, and simply was having a good time.

I watched as people stared at me. 'The Sad Boy Under The Table.' Imagine how embarrassing that sounded.Especially since quite a lot of the people that came here were people I knew. People who coming to my party, at a robot diner, even though that's a recipe for trauma, embarrassment, disaster, and failure.

I knew people laughed at me. Couldn't deny it. I knew if I were in their shoes though, I would laugh too. That's the only reason I let them off.

I didn't know where the sitting under the tables thing came from - still don't.

All I remember is a bunch of us children of worker sitting under the table. I remember Micheal being with me the first time.

Then, Micheal got older and instead of him it was Elizabeth.

Then the twins came along. They weren't related to us but they seemed to copy our secref hiding aspect and no one ever told them to stop.

After that, it seemed like the number was decreasing more and more as the days went by.

Charlie had gone missing - probably murdered given the fact it had been over half a year.

Sammy got taken by his mom to live somewhere else.

But it seemed like the disappearance of people sitting under the tables was going further than just one unfortunate family.

Because Micheal was gone.

And Elizabeth hated me.

I snapped back into reality and crawled out from underneath the table.

But I could do it. Soaking up the area of entertainment was enough at the time to send me spiraling.

I wanted to run out of there.

It was a horrible place to be.

Everything within sight brought my mind back to the incident.

It wasn't even just the robot. The walls with the poorly drawn robots on them, the smell of pizza fresh from the oven and even the building as a whole were sending me over the edge.

I barely remember what came over me, but I just ran.

I ran right out of the doors and all the way to my house, locked myself in my room and slept.

I don't know why I slept. Maybe I was just too sleep deprived.

Either way, when I heard the door slam hours later, I sat up, scared for my life.

Shit, I thought.

Father obviously knew I had ran out, and it was highly likely he was looking for me. And not for anything near a good reason.

When I heard a light knock on my door, I was obviously hesitant to open it. I peeked through the minor gap on my door and saw Elizabeth.

Without thinking, I opened it.

"Daddy's looking for you," she said, confirming my fears. "He seems mad."

Of course he was.

Out of fear, I legged it. I just started running, trying my best to avoid any trace of father.

I managed to make my way downstairs and found a window.

I don't know if it was the impulse or the fact I was scared of the punishment I would recieve, but I smashed the window and jumped out of it.

It didn't matter anways, I'd come back later.

But at that moment in time, my only thought was making it far enough away from the house.

After about five minutes of running away from the building, I reached a point were I was both out of breath and barely close enough to remember the way back.

I walked a bit further up and sat down. There wasn't any proper seating area nearby, so I was just holding myself up on the side of the road praying nobody asked what I was doing there alone this late.

Half an hour passed and I was being to get bored and homesick. I wasn't one from staying away from home anyway, so I had minimal experience with it.

Only two people had came up to me and asked what I was doing. Both times I lied about waiting for a friend. It didn't weird me out hoe they kust moved on with their days after that, although the older I got the more it weirded me out everytime I snuck out the house as a tween that no one ever thought anything more about my situation.

I begun walking home, making sure to not rush incase father was waiting in view for my arrival.

It was only fifteen minutes later I got home. When I did, I snuck round back for my make-shift enterence and peered through. Luckily, there was no sight of father.

I climbed back through and tiptoed up the stairs to find Elizabeth waiting by my door.

The first thing I noticed was the open door behind her with my alarm clock showing 11pm on it.

"Lizzy, why sre you awake?" I asked rubbing my eyes.

She didn't answer, instead responding with a question of her own. "Where were you Evan?"

"I don't know - I just went for a walk." I half-admitted.

"What about the window?" she asked, taking a break to yawn. "Daddy's going to be really mad tomorrow he might even.."

She stopped at the end of that sentence. Neither of us wanted to believe it, but father dod have the odd time were he would beat us.

After what I had done earlier today, I expectwd as much, which is why I had ran.

Little did I think about the consequences of coming back.

❣︎ ☠︎ ❣︎