Finding The Five || FNAF Movie

4 || Residual Energy

(Unedited, 5776 words)
Trigger Warnings: Mentions of suicide, semi-graphic descriptions of murder
**Disclaimer update pertaining to trigger warnings (12/1/23)

I feel the energy approaching before I ever hear anything, and my head shoots up to see if this one is visual.

"Is another one starting?" Michael asks, still sitting in his spot across from me in the hallway. We've been here for about five minutes, waiting patiently for another memory to pass by. He's spent most of the time telling me about the animatronics: Chica the chicken, Bonnie the bunny, Foxy the pirate fox, and Freddy the bear. Now I get to experience the horrible moments they were turned from state-of-the-art children's entertainment to state-of-the-art evidence withholders.

"Yeah," I mumble, not moving to stand even though I lift my flashlight to try and see.

The children's voices return, with music rumbling through the floor and arcade games making odd sound effects. I smell pizza and sugary sweets again, something I don't think I'll get used to. This time, the rubble in the hallway nearly disappears completely. Michael, however, does not, and he becomes a stark contrast to the vision I find myself falling into.

The hallway is tinted yellow-orange, almost as if the entire thing was filled with natural sunlight the day of the memory. I doubt sunlight has ever touched this hallway, much less filled it to a comfortingly bright amount, but I try not to think too much about it as I hear the sound of running footsteps echoing off the hall. Accompanying it is the sound of heavy breathing and the intense sensation of fear.

My guess was correct: this one is visual. A kid in an orange shirt, or perhaps a white one changed by the odd color of the hallway, comes running around the corner Michael and I came around earlier. He looks behind him for just a second, giving me enough time to note his short ginger hair and dark pants. Then he keeps running, almost crying.

He runs until he's just to my right, not quite past Michael and I, and his expression changes from fear to complete panic. I turn to my left to see the man in the rabbit suit coming around the corner, knife in hand, tilting his head in a way that sends shivers down my spine. The kid cries, turning and running, but the man in the rabbit suit is faster.

I watch them run until the moment the man gets to the kid, and then I force my gaze back to the wall in front of me as the kid screams once and then goes silent.

"Foxy..." the man says in a sickeningly sweet way, and then I'm back in the hallway with Michael, who looks just as confused as he did when I glanced past him to see the rabbit man.

"How was that one?" he asks, gently. He's not directly in front of me, rather just off to the right. I don't know why he set himself directly in front of the door to the animatronic room, but he did, and I haven't questioned him about it.

"He was running away," I whisper, shifting my eyes from the wall to Michael. "He was scared."

"Who?" he questions.

"The boy in Foxy," I reply, my heart having become sad in a way that bypasses tears. A way I can't quite explain. As of now, I can't tell if the sadness is truly my own, or if the building and the energies are influencing me. Regardless of the source, it feels as though I'm stuck in a glass container over a deep valley and my heart has slipped through a crack in the floor and is falling further and further down to its demise. 

"I saw him in a dream when I worked here," Michael admits, snagging my attention and pulling my drifting eyes back to him. I'm sitting cross-legged, but he has his left leg bent and his right stretched out, his hands offset in his lap. "I saw all of them, really, but I chased after him in one of the earliest ones."