Deceptive

A Seemingly Never-Ending Nightmare

The group spent hours discussing Afton's apparent survival of their last encounter with him.

They talked about how they shouldn't have been shocked since he had faked his death before. That was how he managed to fly under the radar for so many years.

They drummed up more loose theories about how he could have faked it, but nobody was really sure.

They questioned whether or not he would show up and try to dispose of them, now presumably believing that he had an advantage over them.

Foxy and Charlie did most of the talking. Ballora and Freddy only occasionally chimed in. Sometimes Bon-Bon would pipe up when he thought somebody said something stupid.

Elizabeth didn't really say much of anything. She just stared past all of them. It was difficult to tell if she was listening to a word of what they were saying or not.

Eventually, the conversation ended because Charlie said that she probably ought to go.

Everyone started to slowly trickle out of the room once she had gone.

Foxy was second to last to get up. He looked over at Elizabeth, who had finally taken a seat at some point.

Foxy wasn't sure whether or not it was a good sign that she hadn't had a similar reaction to the last time she heard news about Afton still walking.

"Are you alright?" he asked after a moment.

Elizabeth's shoulders dropped their usual tenseness. "Yeah... I'm fine, Fox."

"Are we... going to do something?"

"I don't know. What do you think we should do?" she asked.

Foxy blinked. What did he think? Well... he wasn't exactly eager to come face to face with Afton again... or any of his creations. But what if he was lying about not wanting his kids back anymore? What if he went after Elizabeth again? What if he went after Michael? What he if decided that he wanted Foxy, Ballora, Freddy, and Charlie dead because of their prior interference?

Because of the fake body, most of the police force still didn't believe that Afton survived all those years ago. The deaths that had been happening around town were just being attributed to some copycat killer. What if Afton got away with another killing spree because of that?

"Maybe we should do what we did last time. Try to track him down."

"How? We have practically nothing to go off of. There's nothing to track."

"...Well, you know, after we thought you were... gone..." Foxy still choked on the word, even though she was there in front of him, "we had almost nothing to go off of, but we still managed to find him again."

Elizabeth didn't respond.

The next day seemed to come quickly. The power was still out, and it was apparently an issue isolated to their building because other places seemed to have lights.

By the time Foxy had managed to drag himself away from the warmth of his bed, Freddy and Bon-Bon were already working on the power again, Elizabeth had vanished without explanation, and Charlie and was talking with Ballora.

Foxy headed down to the front of the building, which is where he found the last two seated at one of the tables. It was pretty much the only place in the building with decent natural lighting so that was probably why.

The very minute that he had set foot on the checkered tiles and Ballora and Charlie turned towards him, the lights came back on. There was some distant shouting followed by loud, thundering footsteps.

The door Foxy was standing beside flew open and nearly smacked him square in the face.

"We g-got the power b-back on!" Freddy announced.

"Nice job." Ballora smiled. "Why did it go out in the first place?"

"I h-have no idea!"

"Oh, alright."

Foxy stepped out from behind the door that he almost got acquainted with moments ago with the intention of shutting it.

"Hey, wait, don't close that," Charlie told him hurriedly, walking over. "I need to talk to you, Foxy."

"Me?"

"Yeah, it's important." She grabbed his arm and pulled him through the doorway and into the breakroom because apparently, this conversation needed to take place in private. "I did a little thinking before I came back here. There are some questions I need to ask you."

"Okay," Foxy said, slightly perplexed.

"Okay." Charlie glanced around as if she was making sure they were alone before pulling a tape recorder out of her green utility jacket. "Please, um, be as accurate and descriptive as you can. This is important."

She ended up spending a good twenty minutes asking Foxy questions. Foxy found himself looking around a lot, but only because he felt unsure of where to look.

Eventually, Charlie stopped her tape recorder and it disappeared back into one of her pockets. "Thanks. I've gotta go again. Might come back around soon... if that's okay, of course. You guys are probably gonna open now that you have electricity, right?"

"Yeah. Not until Elizabeth gets back, though. You can come around whenever, I'm pretty sure."

"Got it. See you later." With that, Charlie left.

"Bye..." Foxy felt no less confused than he had about twenty minutes ago. He continued to stand there, attempting to form a cohesive explanation for what had just transpired. He was only brought out of his thoughts when the back door opened.

He whipped around with a small stab of fear in his chest.

Elizabeth was standing there.

"Hey. Where have you been?" Foxy asked.

"Outside." She began to walk away and he followed.

"I was just talking with Charlie—"

"Oh, she came back already?"

"Yep. And she just left. She... asked me a bunch of questions about you."

Elizabeth stopped. "She did? Why?"

"I have no clue."

"Hm. Strange."