A New Guard

Chapter Twenty: Jackson

Arriving home, I walk in the door to see Mom sitting on the couch. Worry makes me take a breath while confusion mixes with my feelings from Mangle. Walking up to Mom, I'm about to speak, until my phone goes off. I slide it out of my pocket and bring it up to my ear, hitting the answer button

"Hello?" I say. It's a second before there's a response from the caller. I just hit the end button, as it was pointless to me.

"Ah, you're home," Mom says.

"Yeah? What's up?" I simply say. I lean against the arm of a nearby chair.

"Figured I'd tell you your dad had to leave for his job. I tried to get him to stay so you can say goodbye, but he was running low on time," Mom says. Is this why she wanted me to come home? Perhaps. I decide to ask anyway

"Is that why you wanted me to come home?" I ask. Mom nods lightly.

"Yeah," Mom says. I scoff in light surprise before deciding to get a bit more rest than I got.

"Well, I'm going to try to get a bit more rest," I say. Mom looks at me, as if trying to comprehend what I just said.

"Alright," Mom says. Wordlessly, I head upstairs and sit down on my bed, but finally come to a decision I can't. I turn my TV on that I have, and, oddly, it turns on to the news, and I see the familiar scene of Jackson's crash, and the headlines, 'Student dies after wreck'. Shock fills me, but floods Mangle, oddly, as I read the headlines.

"I'm standing here at the scene of a violent wreck that happened during a recent street race. It is confirmed that both cars were damaged, but only one vehicle managed to drive off. We also have word that the victim of the wreck, Jackson Peterson, has recently passed away only thirty minutes after the wreck happened-" I shut the TV off and grab my head in disbelief. He died. Jackson died. I feel a single tear run down my right cheek and wordlessly let the dark tear drop onto my white foot, only soon to roll off of the smooth metal surface onto my floor. Soon, more tears start coming, and I just sit there in the same position, watching my tears roll off of my foot. I can feel Mangle wants to try to comfort me, but yet, remains silent. After a few minutes, I'm feeling rather tired, so I lay my head down on my pillow and slowly fall asleep.

[2 weeks later]

Slowly waking up, it's almost as if my body and mind refuse to move. It's becoming a normal for me now. I slowly sit up and let my mind wander a bit while my body fully wakes up. It's hard to believe it's already been two whole weeks since Jackson died, yet, I still feel as if it were only yesterday. Mangle's gotten a lot more silent after that day, yet I feel she still cares.

"Come on, Matthew," Mangle says, trying her best to get me out of bed. Here recently, in the past, I don't know, day or two, We found out that Mangle still has a bit of control over her old body parts, allowing her to move them to some extent, or prevent me from moving them. After a little help from Mangle, I finally get up and, oddly enough, the first thing I do is check my phone, only to see a missed call and a text from Chase.

'Come on, man. It's been two weeks since it happened. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel anything, but you needa get goin' a bit more. I dunno, how, but could ya try to get on the server? I can't run it myself.' I see the message reads. Admittedly, Chase is right. I feel like this whole thing has hit me harder than I thought. I only wonder how Jackson's parents are doing. Tossing the thought aside, I walk over to my computer and turn it on. After a little while, I finally get our server pulled up, see if it'll raise my mood a bit. Checking a few things, I see nobody's online on it. Why'd you tell me to get on if you're not on? Sighing in slight frustration, I'm about to close it, until I see something that catches my eye on the server. Taking a closer look in-game, I see it's a congratulation message. Reading it, it says that this server is second place winner. I get a sense of interest from Mangle as I read that message.

"Second place?" Mangle says. I nod lightly as I close the server and open up the internet, looking up 'Freddy Fazbear's Pizza', trying to see what'll become of my old job. Freddy's has been shut down a week or two prior to my incident there with Mangle and Withered Freddy, and now, I get online and try to see what's going to happen to Freddy's, whether they'll reopen or be forced to close permanently. After a bit of searching on the internet, I see an article about Freddy's. Something about a new owner, but I'm not able to read it all, as my internet stops responding.

"Did you see that, Mangle?" I say, shutting my computer down. I can plainly feel the excitement from Mangle as she read that, spiking a bit more as I talk.

"A new owner! They're not getting scrapped!" Mangle says, excitement set in-between her words. I can't help but laugh lightly at her excitement. Not a minute later, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hall to my room. Mom soon enters the room.

"Everything okay?" Mom says. I turn to face her, a slight smile on my face for the first time in a while. Mom looks confused, yet relieved to see a smile from me.

"They're not getting scrapped! Mom, they're not scrapping the animatronics!" I say, Mangle's happiness over-exaggerating my speech. Mom looks taken back by our excitement, but retains her posture.

"What are you talking about? Are you talking about Freddy's?" Mom says, sitting on my bed.

"Freddy's is getting a new owner, and they're not scrapping the animatronics!" I say. Mom gets a look of surprise before smiling lightly.

"Well, that's good to hear," Mom says.

"I kind of want to see how the pizzeria's doing," Mangle says, an uncertain edge to her voice.

"Honestly, Mangle. I don't think there's much to see about it, really," I say. It's just the old building, and I don't think there's any easy way in.

"I don't care. I just want to, see it. You know?" Mangle says. I will admit, I've honestly kind of wanted just to see the pizzeria as well. I shrug and stand up, earning a confused look from Mom.

"You're going?" Mom says.

"Eh, yeah. I don't see the harm in driving by it," I say. Mom doesn't say anything as I grab my keys and walk out the door. Heading out to my car, I feel kind of bad for not at least saying goodbye.