The Fall of the Aftons

009: William Afton

"Terrance!" William shouted at the top of his lungs. Finally! He managed to get his nephew's attention. Terrance turned towards him with... was that Michael on his back?

Terrance walked over to him, smiling. Smiling? This boy just lost his only parent and he was smiling? His eyes weren't even red from any crying!

"Afton!" Michael cried happily, sitting atop Terrance's shoulders.

"Hey, he speaks!" Terrance said jokingly. Michael giggled, a little bit of a nervous edge in his voice. He extended his arms and reached out his hands, asking for William. William called Terrance over and took the small one off of the boy's shoulders. 

"Why did he call you by your last name?" Henry asked, smiling back when Michael turned to him in William's arms and grinned. "Your name is William."

"William?" Michael repeated, unquestionably confused. Frankly, William wasn't sure why he called him by his last name. But he didn't care.

"Yes. My name is William." He smiled broadly at the little boy. "My last name is Afton."

He could practically hear the pieces click in Michael's mind. The four of them laughed.

The front desk officer walked over to William and handed him a nilla envelope thick with papers. "Here is the paperwork to fill out for your nephew. I also added Michael's adoption center forms. He was extremely difficult last night. He refused to talk to anybody, even the older brother of Aster's friend," the officer, whose name tag said Duncan, told William. "Aster is his brother. Anyway, you seem to be able to get him to speak. Can you get him to answer everything?" 

William glanced at Michael, who had pulled up his hood and was fidgeting with his thumbs. Somehow he just knew that Michael wasn't just quiet; something had happened that kept him shut up most of the time. "Yeah, sure," he muttered, eyeing a thick, jagged mark on the back of the little boy's hand. "Where can we go to speak?"

Officer Duncan shrugged. "In here? Outside? I don't know. I'm still new."

William chose to go outside. Michael held the umbrella blocking the rain as William wrote down the answers on the forms. But when they were near the end of the questions, he asked something that wasn't on the forms--"What's that mark on your hand?" He pointed to the zigzag mark on Michael's hand, the one that was holding up the umbrella. 

Michael didn't even look at it when he gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. "It's nothing."

"Michael."

The little boy turned and looked at him with a confused expression.

"That isn't something that you would get by messing around, and it can't be a birthmark. Someone did that to you, whether it was an accident or on purpose. So, I'll ask you again: what is it?" When Michael didn't answer, he sighed. "Michael, please. I can't help you if you don't--"

"It's from a beer bottle!"