"ʏᴏᴜ'ʟʟ ʙᴜʀɴ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴜꜱ"

Chapter 42: SAVE HER

I could not fight my body as my mechanical feet moved on their own.

I ran.

"Go on ahead, run rabbit man, run." A voice called out through the halls. I knew it was the spirit.

My chest hurt with sharp pains, pain I didn't know I could still feel. Her voice tormented through the halls... I felt my limbs begin to ache strangely, like my metal body suddenly burdened me, even though it was entirely a part of me for years. There had been a point where I didn't think I could feel the pain of the suit anymore, or maybe it was just that I had felt pain the entire time, and I forgot how it felt to be normal.

My soul...

Y/N would save me...?

She doesn't run anymore...

Cassidy's words echoed in my head and her literal voice became further away as I slid to a halt in the end of the hallway. I was faced with the exit, but I knew I couldn't leave.

I couldn't leave.

I don't know why I can't leave.

Can I leave...?

No...

No matter how much my mind wanted to burst through that door, or break it open if I had to; I could not will my body into opening it. My body suddenly shook, and I could not feel control of my limbs anymore.

Pinprick feelings radiated through my arms and legs and I suddenly fell back into the wall. My body involuntary slid down the wall, as I felt all control slipping from me.

What is happening to me?

I could not move anything but my eyes now. The darted around the room in confusion. My mind was still conscious, and as my eyes stopped racing around, my thoughts began to wonder.

Cassidy is wrong.

I wouldn't ever hurt her... I'm different now. I've changed..
Haven't I..?
If I wanted her to feel pain.. she'd feel pain.

If I wanted her dead.

She'd be dead.

I was not afraid to kill.

But... I won't... not her.

She's different.

I'm different. I hope.

My head fell slightly limp, as my eyes were forced to look down now at the tiles of the floor. I had this heavy feeling in my chest, I did not know what it was. It reminded me of the time when Elizabeth was taken from me.

I spent years building monsters, a reflection of me I suppose. I had been punished once for that.

I had closed Circus Baby's rentals temporarily, keeping watch over it at night.

My daughter... I don't know if I was seeing things..

I had not slept many days during then, images in my head haunted me.  Maybe I had hallucinated her voice in that place.

Then I lost my youngest son, Evan. His brother... oh Michael...

I hated Michael for a long time... even though he was also my son... I had taken so many years alone and yet I don't know if I have even forgiven him yet..

Where is Michael..?
Is he alive?

Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted. A shadow figure approached me. Long thin striped legs, I recognized Charlie.

"Look at you, all broken down."

She whispered coldly. I could not tell her emotion behind it, but I assumed it bitter.

I wanted to speak. Call out to her for help. But I couldn't manage to utter a word.

"She's been trying to help you."

"You need to help her now, William."

She said to me.

What?

"Get up, she can't be asleep alone in this place. She's not safe. You need to help her." Charlie whispered louder.

"I-.." I tried to speak. I felt my limbs twitch but they didn't seem to really move.

"Come on Afton. You act like you've never died before."

My body shivered and my limbs began to shake I'm voluntarily. I tried to get up on my feet. I managed to slowly lean forward with strange cracking noises, and I felt the weight of my outer skin.

I pulled myself up slowly, feeling my weakness as I tried to regain strength. I limbered down the hall, back where I ran from.

I swayed with a strange sense of weakness, as I could suddenly feel the difference between metal and bone in my body, and my discomfort became almost unbearable, but I forced myself to keep walking.

Ghosts can't kill a person directly...

But indirectly...

Or with a vessel...
They can.

I picked up my pace at the thought.

I saw her body lying on the floor and I forgot my weakness for a moment as I rushed over to her. Her nose was bleeding viciously.

With some struggle I scooped her up into my arms, her head hanging limp I carried her bridal style into the office. I didn't know where I was supposed to take her.

I laid her limp body down into her chair for a moment to think. I stood up straight and took a breath, somehow.

Suddenly something caught my eye on the desk.
Y/N had left her bag and ID on her desk.
I went over to inspect it.
Her ID was her license, and the card was in a slip attached to her keys. Her picture on her license made her look kind of funny. The corner of my mouth twitched upwards for a moment.

I picked it up, observing it and putting it into her bag.

I lifted her back into my arms and pushed open the exit door.

~~Y/N's POV

I couldn't remember anything, it being wiped from what happened between now and then.

It was a blur as I felt myself sink into bed, forgetting  how I got there , but it was a moment in which I couldn't spare a moment to care. I was half conscious and glad to sleep somewhere comfortable.

I did not have to work tomorrow as far as I remembered, since it was Mike's shift. I couldn't be happier though, the place feels as though it had turned my brain to mush more and more each week. How long have I even been working here?

When I woke up, I was in the wrong place, in fact, I had no idea where I was. My head spun, and I could not stand at first.

It smelled like birthday cake.

Attempting to stand, I felt oddly tall as my vision began to develop. I saw pixels.

Is this a dream?

All around me it was pixelated, and it seemed as if I was at Freddy's Pizza, or one of the locations.