Another Five Nights

Jams and Jump-scares

[Henry's POV]

After several hours of sitting still in my living room and something like 8 mugs of coffee, I decided I was making minimal progress. The best I could come up with was that fire and extreme temperatures destroy remnant. It was mentioned in the blueprint of the S.C.U.P. that Mike had shown me earlier.

Apart from that, I couldn't find anything useful. William always made it a point to write his important and personal notes in the worst handwriting possible ever since he was a kid, so half my time studying them was spent making a legend of my own, consisting of different loop-the-loops and the letters that they represented. The man somehow managed to make his As and Ms look the same.

After a hot minute of staring at the pile in front of me in helpless despair, I glanced at the clock. It was eight o' clock. In the morning. I'd been up the whole night. No wonder I felt so exhausted.

"Good morning Mr Emily!"

I froze upon hearing the somewhat familiar, shrill, girlish voice address me. I whipped around to find myself face-to-face with a little brunette girl in a blue, old-timey dress and hat, bright pink cheeks and Mary-Janes with wheels on them. No... not a girl. A doll. And not just any doll.

"Ella! Good morning!"
I beamed at the tiny thing who did an adorable little, happy twirl, squinting cheerfully.

"You didn't tell me you had returned," she said, a light note of accusation in her relatively monotone voice.

Right. I'd honestly completely forgotten about the little one. I probably should have noticed that the house wasn't as dusty as it should have been after five years. She was probably taking care of it this whole time, like she was programmed to do.

Ella was made to be my little assistant; she took care of most household matters, like dusting and making coffee, while I worked on my own stuff. She was also meant to be a playmate for my daughter, but my dear Charlotte isn't here anymore... so Ella sticks to household chores.

"Sorry, Ella. Five years in jail... I was really tired these past few days."

She seemed satisfied with that explanation.

"Should I prepare coffee for you, Mr Emily?"

I didn't think I could handle another mug of that stuff. Eight consecutive mugs was too much, even for me, who drank it almost all the time.

"No thank you, Ella."

She peered at the stacks of papers and blueprints with a glint of curiosity.

"Unrecognized font style," she said, robotically, before facing me, resurrecting her humanoid behavior.
"Are these your notes, Mr Emily? Are you planning to make more animatronics?"

"NO!"
I stunned myself with the amplitude of my response. It was true, though, that the last thing I ever wanted to do was build another animatronic. I lost both of my children to this job of mine. I prioritized my work over them, and now they were gone.
At the same time, I didn't think I would be able to do that again... going into the darkness of my office in the basement, making blueprints all day, putting parts together, staying out of the sunlight for multiple days on end... I was dedicated to that kind of thing once. The thought of it now sends shudders down my spine.

"Is there anything you require assistance with, Mr Emily?" Ella enquired, unfazed.

I was about to shake my head, but then I had an idea. I pulled out the legend which I'd made earlier and handed it to her.

"Ella, do something for me; scan this real quick. Remember it."

She stared at the paper for a moment.
"Memory updated," she said, robotically.

"Now, I want you to look through these pages, and search for the words 'remnant', 'soul', 'release', 'free' and... never mind. Stick to that for now."

She immediately began carrying out her task. Every time she came across any of those words, she'd read the paragraph out to me.
But here's the other issue with William and his notes. He sometimes puts in random stuff to throw people off, confuse them, waste their time and eventually make them give up on reading. Another reason why I didn't find anything useful after a whole night.

"Fifth find for 'soul'."

"What does it say?"

"For I am, indeed sir, a mender of bad souls. Thou--"

"Never mind. That's Shakespeare."

"Ninth and tenth find for 'free'."

"Read."

"The best things in life are free. But nothing in life is free. So, is 'nothing' the best thing in life? Or have we been robbed of our birthrights?"

"That... that's actually... wow, okay, that got pretty deep. But still, not helpful. Keep scanning."

All in all, I was stuck. I couldn't find anything even remotely useful. All I was doing was hopelessly picking apart either pure junk or stuff that I'd already read.

"'Ello Uncle! Jolly good day, innit?"

"WHAT THE-- Oh, Mike! How-- how'd you get in here!?"

Mike was standing over me, as I was hunched over a piece of paper trying to see if I missed something while Ella was looking for the keywords I told her to. He was still wearing that bear-shaped mask of his, and had his hoodie's hood practically drawn over his face.
It was the middle of July. Just looking at him like that tempted me to jump into a vat of ice.

"Your door was open and you weren't answering the bell. You... you don't mind me here, do you?"

"No, no, not at all. You just scared the living daylights out of me." I forced out the best smile I could muster. In actuality, I was far from okay with Mike just striding into my house uninvited.

"Any luck?" He asked, nodding towards the mess on the coffee table. I shook my head.

"Ah. Bummer. I... I suppose I could help? Two heads are better than one, right?"

I chuckled. "Better make that three heads."

"Three? But why--" he stopped short, taking notice of Ella, who was sitting by the couch on which I sat, pretty well-hidden from Mike's frame of perception.

"Ella?"

Ella looked up at him and squinted happily before turning back to the paper in her hand.

Mike lifted his hand to wave at her, but then let it drop since she'd already turned away.

"Anyway, I don't think your help is gonna help much, Mike. I already spent all night on this."

"I suppose so too. I also spent a lot of time on these. Always ending up at a dead-end."

"Well, there is the thing about the high temperatures destroying Remnant and all..."

"What good is that? We're trying to help the souls. Free them. Not obliterate them..." he looked away thoughtfully, before speaking again softly. "Although, setting the animatronics on fire would be pretty awesome..."

"I agree. But nah. That's not happening. Not yet, anyway."

Mike nodded. "So, what now?"

I didn't know. I was pretty jammed.