Five Nights at Freddy's

18. Epilogue

Finishing with building a tower of blocks, Abby hesitates to place it onto the structure she was making with a group of kids her age due to the ricketiness of the table.

"Put one more? One more block?" Abby asked.

"Yeah. Yeah. Let's do one more." One of the kids responded.

The school's guidance counsellor, Lillian, enters the classroom with Mike following. "It's really extraordinary." She says, taken aback by Abby's sudden change of behaviour. "The turn she's taken these past few weeks."

"Whatever you're doing, keep doing it." Mike, for the first time, smiles at Abby. She's really changed a lot in a short amount of time. He turns towards Lillian and nods his head, accepting what she said as a form of compliment. "Yeah, I will."

On the drive back home, Abby is still finding it difficult to pick between the two meals her brother has laid out for her. "It's not that hard." He clarified. "What do you want for dinner? Pizza or spaghetti?"

"Both."

"You got to choose." Mike chuckled. "Which is it?"

"But I want both." Abby smiled.

"You can't have both." He coaxed. Upon realizing that she won't be able to get what she wants, Abby decides to pick the best out of the two. "Spaghetti. With meatballs."

"All right, with meatballs." He lets out a smile once again, this time not showing his sister his joyousness in the hopes that she wouldn't rub it in his face later on. But then it hit him, the main reason why he's so far out of town to begin with. "Um, we're gonna make a quick stop, okay?"

As sirens wailed in the background, Mike makes his way into the hospital with Abby already sitting down in the waiting room, drawing in her sketchpad. The sounds of air pumping and the monitor beeping steadily close by. Putting his hand onto the railing of the hospital bed, he looks at a coma-induced Vanessa. "Vanessa, I don't know if... you can hear any of this, but, um... I'm having a hard time just... processing everything that happened."

"But you were there for me and Abby when it mattered the most." Mike added. "And I don't think that either of us would be here today if it weren't for you."

"So... so get better." He continued. "And we'll be here when you wake up." Feeling like he hasn't reached her enough, Mike holds her hand. It was limp due to her coma state but he continued to hold it.

"Did you tell her I said hi?" Abby asked, seeing her brother reach for his jacket as he left with her. As they continue to walk out of the health centre, Mike responds with some good news. "I did."

"All right, let's get out of here." He reaches out for her hand, and she takes it once they continued towards the exit.

Mike stepped towards the fridge, opened the door, and grabbed the carton of milk that was wedged in the corner. As he closed the door, his gaze landed on Abby's latest drawing, secured strongly on the fridge with many magnets.

From what he could make out from it, the drawing was of him, Abby, Vanessa, and the four animatronics. They were all lying inside the fort, smiling at each other and everything like that. "You okay?"

Feeling his lips curl upwards to the smallest of smiles, Mike turned away from the drawing. He returned to the table where a curious Abby sat.

"I was just thinking about my friends." Abby said, playing with her food. "Hmm." She continued to make circles around it until almost all the strands of pasta were unwrapped. "They're all alone."

Mike could tell where this was going but just to make sure, he pretended he had no idea what she was going on about. "Right."

"No one takes care of them anymore." Abby continued. "Can we visit them sometime?" She starts to put on her best guilt-trip expression to get him to say 'yes' in a matter's notice.

Mike almost choked on his food. Going back there again after what just happened? Never again. "Um..." But as he continues to stare, he starts to feel bad. Not having the courage to tell her no, not while he's alive, he decides to tell her this: "You know what? You never know what can happen." Leaving it as open-ended as possible without hurting her feelings.

"Do you think if you drink enough milk, you just turn into a cow?" He joked, taking a few bites of pasta.

"No." Abby said with a giggle.

"Would you start, like, getting, like, spots on you like a cow?" Mike continues to ramble on, causing Abby to smile at his stupid jokes. "No." She knew he was only joking but there was just something about hearing a grown man say these things that just made it ten times more hilarious. "What would happen? Just..."

Inside Freddy's, in the shadows, the rooms hunkered within the old ceiling of the restaurant. The empty lobbies, posters bare of broken glass. The long hallway, with even more wrecked posters. The security office was just as much as a wreck.

The kitchen was probably just as bad. Everything was totally quiet. The blonde kid stands at the open door leading to the storage closet where laid a yellow rabbit slumped against the wall.

But it wasn't just a rabbit. A man. A man in a horrible costume. The twitching man slouched in a massive spread of blood. It was rust-coloured, dried blood that was stuck to the floor. It smelled and it didn't look like it was going away. Maybe forever.

The boy watched the man through the doorway, taking satisfaction upon seeing the man moaning and crying in pain. Once he saw the boy, the man reached out for him but he was just too far away. Despite that, he still prevailed on reaching him. The boy backed away, looking at the man grunting in agony.

But it was no use, the boy closed the door in front of him, sealing away the evil that once took his life and took over his afterlife. Leaving the man trapped in a cold, dark, black prison of his own making.