FNIA: The Missing Pieces

14: Tasks Complete

SPRING POV:

"There. Feeling better?" Golden asked as she sat down on the couch next to me. A look of concern shining in her eyes as she rested a hand on my shoulder.

I replied with a slow nod as I held Mimi closer like an oversized teddy, letting out a sigh through my nose as I steadied my breathing. It had been maybe an hour since my little episode, and Golden and Mimi had spent that time trying to calm me down.

After I saw what I did to Evan, I nearly went mental again. I tried to tell them what I saw. Black blood, Evan's blood. More inline with oil than blood. Something that shouldn't be bleeding from a human's face. But when I'd try to tell them, I'd turn into a stuttering mess. The realisation of what I'd done felt like it was trying to drown me every time.

"Y-yeah... I think I'm good now." I replied after a second, feeling Mimi hug me tighter which drew a light smile to my face.

"Good." Golden said with a nod. "Now. just breathe slowly. We'll start from the beginning. First, what triggered it?"

"A-alright." I said as I took a breath, trying to keep my thoughts clear as I recounted what happened. "I... Saw him. When he took off his glasses, he looked almost exactly like Evan. I recognised him and all I could see was what happened that night."

"So he looked like Evan, and that triggered your ptsd." Golden reaffirmed with pursed lips, a conflicted look shining in her eyes. "He didn't do anything else that may have caused it? Didn't place his hand on you or say something that triggered you?"

"Hey! Evan wouldn't do something like that." Mimi snapped at Golden with a surprisingly aggressive tone. "He's been nothing but nice since he started."

"I'm aware of that, Mimi." Golden replied with a tired sigh as she looked down to the minireena on my lap. "I just want to be sure. '

"No, he didn't do anything. It was just his face." I answered as I placed a hand on Mimi's head to calm her down. "But... It wasn't just that. When you snapped me out of it, when I punched him. I saw him clutching his eye, which was bleeding. But-."

"Shit." Golden interrupted as she stood up, stress quickly taking over as she started walking around the room. "Shit shit shit shit shit. Oh god what kind of damage could that have done? He already had a bad eye, could he be blind in that eye now?"

"GOLDEN! I yelled, snapping her out of it. "I wasn't done... His... His blood wasn't normal. It was black, like oil. I... I don't think he's human, I think he's an animatronic like us. I think he may be our Evan."

"Are you sure it wasn't just the light that made it look black?" Golden asked with a hint of unease in her tone. "Are you absolutely certain you weren't seeing things?"

"What she saw was correct." Mimi replied before I could, her tone a nervous whisper as she looked up at us with uncertainty in her eyes. "Rena and I heard him admit he was an animatronic yesterday. Michelle had suspicions of him and basically confronted him in the underground parking lot."

"Michelle? As in entry desk Michelle?" Golden asked with a quirked eyebrow. "She figured out he was an animatronic? And you heard him tell her?"

"Yeah." Mimi replied with a nod, a slightly guilty look present on her face. "We were going to tell you all, but we didn't know how. It hasn't even been 24 hours since we found out. But Michelle also brought up the Convention, and what happened and how he was there. And he sounded genuinely confused."

"Great." Golden said with a tired sigh as rubber her brow. Stress clearly written on her features. "So to put this into perspective. Evan Afton. Ballora's son, Mari and Bonnie's boyfriend, someone who managed to break Freya from her "kill all men" mindset. Is finally back from the dead after promising he'd come back over 5 years ago. But he doesn't remember anything from his time with us girls... God fucking damnit."