Michael Afton x Reader

interal conflicts.

your tasks are simple, and you spend most of your work hours mindlessly staring at cameras on the computer monitor. what's the point of this, anyway? if somethings being stolen or broken, it'll be easier for the waiters to see than me. the camera quality is so useless I can barely tell the difference between a kid and a bunch of balloons.
you don't hate your job, of course. it's boring at times, but you've met great people and it's a simple yet reliable source of money. I mean really, it's $20 an hour to stare at a computer screen and print pizza menus!

one of the main things you dislike about your job is how quiet it is. in the rest of the building, the sounds of screaming children creates an ambiance that stops your ability to think, but here? this office is so secluded and isolated from everything else that you could hear a pin drop, and you can't stand the silence. the quiet makes it so much easier to get lost in thought, and currently that's the last thing you want.

for the past couple of days it's been easy to forget, or just ignore, but when you're alone in the completely silent office for hours, you can't stop thinking about the ghost child you had seen only a few days ago.

the hallucination itself wasn't all that scary, it was something your mind had invented from your lack of sleep and love of horror movies, something that should never mix. the result was a creepy hoax- unless it wasn't.

no, you could handle a small scare. you've seen worse on the big screens, you've heard more graphic, sick, detailed things on true crime podcasts. what terrified you more than anything was that Vincent had told you he had seen the crying child before as well.

whenever you remembered that night, you told yourself he was lying. he had tricked you many times before, he thought it was funny! you knew the kind of person he was, he had joked around with you plenty before.

you knew he wasn't joking.

he was scared.

sure, Vincent could act scared or serious or whatever to make you believe his stunts, but this was something else. there was no way he was acting that night, you could tell he was as terrified as you, if not more!

you had to know more.

you needed to know who the ghost was, if it was a ghost. you needed answers to your nightmares, you needed them like a starving wild animal needed to hunt.

shaking slightly, but extremely determined, you got out of your chair and took a few tentative steps towards the door. you paused before opening it, considering your options.

what if I find something I don't want to see? what if I learn something so terrible and twisted I go insane? I saw that in a move once, could that happen to me?... look y/n, there's no reason to do this. the last time I tried to find answers about my crazy hallucinations, I got hurt and scared Michael.

Michael wouldn't need to know.

he will notice if I'm spooked and acting different, I'm not doing that to him.

so what? you're not doing anything, just looking around. there's nothing wrong with a little curiosity- besides, you're a grown adult, you can make decisions based off what you want, not what others want. you're not a kid struggling with their parents' issues anymore.

it's not healthy.

nothing is.

you sigh, annoyed by your own indecisiveness. you consider distracting yourself from your dilemma by going to talk to Iris or Michael, or just by going out into the crowd of screaming children to collect a free migraine. that would stop you from wanting to leave your office.

still, the temptation to go back to the fire exit is too great, and after much hesitation and mentally jumping back and forth you open the door and head down the long hallway towards your destination.

the fire exit itself is barely noticeable, which probably isn't a good design. if there was ever a fire while the building was full of customers, they might not be able to find it. that's no good. you were able to easily spot it however, to your eyes the heavy metal door sticks out like a florescent neon sign.

you didn't immediately walk towards it once you got to the main party room, instead you looked at all the children running around and eating the disgusting pizza. all the living children. the thought sent a shiver down your spine, and all the sweaty heat from the crowded room disappeared and a cold sweat could be felt on your neck.

you scanned the crowd, taking in your environment. there were mostly smaller kids, probably around 6 years old. however there were plenty older and younger as well. none of them looked like the child you wanted to see- the crying child.

eventually, you made your way past the party tables, past the entrance to the arcade room, and stop for a moment to look at the main attraction: the stage.

there were only three animatronics out of the numerous ones scattered throughout the building: a fat bear who you recognized as Freddy, the blue bunny you and Michael had tested together, and a yellow bird-thing. you assumed the bird was a chicken, but it really could've been anything with a beak since it was so unrealistic. it was a shiny yellow and had a toy-like face, plus a strangely hyper-feminine beauty standard body. it was also the only animatronic who wore clothes, by but only barely as the clothing in question were hot pink shorts and a bib reading "Let's Party!"

you looked closer at the other two animatronics, now distracted from your original goal. the blue bunny had a body type surprisingly similar to the chicken, and you decided he was your favorite one. the bear on the other hand disgusted you and the toy-like expressions that were charming on the other two looked goofy and tacky on it.

you knew there was another animatronic in the main room, but not on the stage. you had only seen it on camera and never in person- a small boy holding a balloon. he was the only human robot, and you found it uncanny. whatever. I sure the kids love all of them. it would've been nice to have a place like this as a kid, it's such a welcoming environment. even though the robots are creepy to me as an adult, kid me would've loved them for that exact reason.

you know of the last animatronic, however you've never had a reason to go look at them in person as entering the room they abide in isn't in your job description. you've seen them plenty on the cameras, as they're by far the most interesting out of all the working animatronics, not including the older models or work-in-progresses in Parts and Service. they're known as Mangle, and used to be a fox but after being torn to pieces daily by grimey children, workers gave up on fixing them and now they're  a take-apart attraction. 

you found it somehow sad to learn how Mangle had been given up on, but you remember Michael telling you about it at one point. right, it was one of our first conversations- he explained the exoskeletons and then explained how he had made Mangle's design as safe as possible for kids to take them apart without any risk of hurting themselves. I guess they weren't given up on by all the workers.

at this point you realize you've gotten distracted from the task at hand, but you decide it's best to just go back to your office instead of driving yourself to insanity. the urge to find the crying child are gone, and there's no point in investigating the fire exit today.

oh well. tomorrow is another day.

a/n: i used they/them pronouns for Mangle bc it was never given a gender (i think) and i called Freddy an 'it' because i hate toy freddy with every fiber of my body.

have a great day/night!

word count: 1312