Carnage : 1983 | William afton x reader |

Trust and Consequence. - 10

May 24th, 1983

County Records Office — 10:12 AM

The building smelled like dust and old paper.

Not the comforting kind — not library dust — but the suffocating, undisturbed kind that settled into forgotten file boxes and yellowing folders no one had touched in years. The county records office was quiet except for the hum of fluorescent lights and the distant clatter of a typewriter from somewhere down the hall.

I preferred places like this, no stage lights, no mechanical humming. Just mundain plainness. No eyes watching from across a table. Just paper. And facts.

I signed my name into the visitor ledger and carried my notepad toward the archival desk. The clerk barely looked up as I presented my badge.

"I need structural permits and underground schematics for the original diner property on St. George," I said. "And the updated filings for the new restaurant."

The woman adjusted her glasses. "That's a lot of paperwork."

"I have time."

That wasn't entirely true. But urgency didn't get you cooperation in rooms like this. Patience did.

She disappeared behind a partition wall and I exhaled slowly.

The dream from last night lingered in the back of my mind — not vividly, not hauntingly — but like the faint afterimage of staring at something too long. His voice. The doubled echo.

Are you afraid of me?

I wasn't. I was afraid of myself.. of this case. I was afraid that I didn't have enough courage, that this would destroy me. 

A heavy stack of blueprints hit the desk in front of me.

"There were revisions made six months ago," the clerk said. "Additions to the lower foundation. Not publicized."

My pen paused mid-motion.

"Additions?"

She nodded. "Utility expansion, according to the filing."

I opened the first rolled schematic carefully.

The original diner layout was simple — dining area, kitchen, stage, storage.

But beneath it— My stomach tightened. There was more, a secondary corridor beneath the stage.

Narrow. Unmarked in the original permit. It connected to a small, windowless room, without label or description, just a blank door.

I flipped to the updated restaurant blueprints.

The same corridor appeared. Extended. Now branching.

Two additional access points were all leading back to the same central chamber.

I felt the hairs on my arms lift. Had I discovered something or was this the result of my desperation to find out who–what did this. But this wasn't casual renovation.

This was intentional architecture, maybe to conceal the crime.

"Who authorized these changes?" I asked.

The clerk scanned a ledger sheet.

"Signed under co-owner approval. William Afton."

him, again

 A cold shiver ran down my spine, and the name sat heavily in the air between us before I nodded once.

"Thank you."