A Message to Scott Cawthon: Reimagined

Chapter Twelve

When Ryan first came back into consciousness, he felt the searing pain in the right of his jaw. He moved his mouth slowly and heard a click as the joint pushed its way back into position and he hissed through gritted teeth. He opened his eyes and realised that he could barely see. It was as if he was looking through eye holes on a mask.

And he was.

He heard shuffling around him and looked around, crooking his neck after it had been still for so long. Ryan could make out the pink patch of Baz's hair and the grey of Rhys's hair. "Baz?" he tried to say. Emphasis on "tried". There was tape over his mouth. However, his older friend knew what the muffled word was. He turned and looked towards his younger friend; his eyes barely visible through the small eye holes of the Foxy mask.

The two brother-like friends stared at each other, both thinking and fearing the same thing. "Pull on your tape!" Baz tried to call to his Freddy-masked friend. He could see the confusion in Ryan's eyes. "Pull on it!" Every breath he took or every word he tried to say would cause his nostrils to burn. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realise his nose was broken.

Baz could feel the edge of where the two ends of the tape overlapped each other. If they were pulled tighter, he could peel them apart. He shook his wrists, "Pull the tape!" he called out again, uncomfortably aware of how difficult it was to hear his own voice. Ryan hadn't yet realised they were tied down and Baz could hear his friend panic as he shook his arms. The pink-haired man understood and was empathetic. When he had first opened his eyes and realised the situation he was in, his chest went tight with terror. "Yes! Keep doing that!" Baz told his friend, knowing that his words were indistinguishable. Ryan shook his head and said another muffled phrase. He was hyperventilating.

Baz got his wrist into the most uncomfortable of positions but started picking at the edge of the tape. It didn't feel thick; it must have only been wrapped around once. If Will and Rhys were awake to pull the bonds themselves, they could probably just pull it apart. But wishful thinking would get them nowhere. He picked at the corner until he finally felt something give way. With a smile that couldn't be seen, he began trying to grab hold of the little edge.

Then Lewis came back.

Having learnt from last time, Baz instantly played dead – or unconscious. He let his head flop forward and kept his breathing even as if he was sleeping. He wanted to scream at Ryan to do the same, but his younger friend was in the middle of panicking. He felt an arm lean over him and heard Ryan give some sort of muffled sob as his head was pulled backwards. The pink-haired man resisted the urge to move, remembering the strike to his forehead, the mask making the force seem worse. At the time it had stunned him, but he was still very aware of everything that happened.

From that point, he had found it easier to think of their youngest friend not as Lewis, but as someone else. He didn't know who, but it wasn't Lewis who hit him. It wasn't Lewis who had tied them up. Thinking that way helped to dull the pain of remorse he felt every time he looked at the white eyed man. Until he somehow returned to normal, he wouldn't be Lewis. But will he ever go back to normal?

Lewis stayed quiet and Ryan fearfully looked into the younger man's dead eyes. There was no sympathy in them like there had been before. There were no kind and caring blue eyes to reassure Ryan that everything was going to be okay. No comfort that he would wake up from this nightmare any time soon. The younger man's lips were pulled back to bear his teeth and he practically growled, the sound deep and low in his throat as if a noise was echoing through a cavern.

Will groaned and shuffled around very slightly. No, Will! Stay still! Baz thought desperately. Of all of the times you could have woken up...