A Future Friend

For the time being, William felt calm and happy while he was asleep. After the long night he had, this was exactly the kind of thing he needed to relax. Come to think of it, he almost fell asleep immediately. Everything was doing fine at first. It was calm and satisfying for the most part, until, for some reason, he found himself back inside of the Ballora Gallery. Wait, how the hell did I end up back down here? At first, he thought that maybe Baby or Ennard might've moved him back down while he was sleeping, but he soon realized that the gallery was much different than what he remembered.

The tables that were set out in front of the stage were now missing. Not messed up, or destroyed, but just gone. In fact, other than the stage, the room was practically empty, and very dark. William looked behind himself to find the visitor elevator, but the door that was previously there before was gone, too. Now that he noticed it, the large curtains were still the same, and the floor was tiled similarly. There was no sign of Baby, Ennard, or Bonnet anywhere. There wasn't any sign of the glass panels from the primary module, either.

What is happening right now? This must be some kind of dream or hallucination. It was incredibly confusing for him, and it only increased once he looked at the open space in front of the stage. Ballora, in all her glory, was slowly spinning around the room. It appeared that she randomly showed up, as there no signs of her anywhere before. But how? I saw her get scooped out. This has to be some kind of dream. It took him a few moments to realize that there was something much different about this Ballora.

She was still an animatronic, yes, but her suit was vastly different. Of course, she still had many of the same features as before: her dark, short purple hair tied together, a long, light-purple tutu, the same blue ballerina shoes, and a dark blue crop top. However, it seemed like her form was much more humanoid that before, sort of like Baby's new suit. Her face reminded him of that photo of Angelica, as Ballora now looked very similar to her. The part that made him both confused and slightly creeped out was that Ballora started singing some sort of song. Her voice echoed through the room while she sang, and her ballerina music played along as she did it.

"Why do you hide inside your walls?"

"When there is music in my halls?"

"All I see is an empty room."

"No more joy, an empty tomb."

William tried to think deeper about the lyrics. No more joy...an empty tomb...an empty room...is she talking about this place? Is she saying that her room acts like her own tomb? But I can't seem to fully understand those first two phrases. "Why do you hide inside your walls? When there is music in my halls?" I feel like she's talking to me, but I don't know what she's trying to say. Hide inside your walls...is she asking me why I'm hiding from her? Or what about the music in her halls? Maybe she's telling me to go closer to her, or telling me not to be afraid. Or is she even talking about me? What if it is someone else she's referring to?

I'm not sure what to make of this. Ballora was still dancing, but she wasn't singing any longer. William only took his eyes off of her for a moment, and when he looked back, she was gone. Just like that. There didn't seem to be anywhere else she could have gone to, and she wasn't on the stage with him. Where did she go? The room was filled with silence for quite a while. It was only until he heard Ballora's voice again that the silence broke. This time, she wasn't singing. Instead, it seemed like she was talking directly to him.

"These are...strange circumstances...that have brought us together."

It sounded like she was nearby, but he couldn't see her. After a brief pause, she continued speaking.

"Don't be shy. I'm not going to hurt you."

At this point, William had enough of this and tried everything he could to wake himself up. He tried slapping himself in the face and pinching himself, but strangely, he didn't feel anything at all. This is not going to work. There has to be some other way to snap out of it. It was starting to get very creepy now, and silence once again filled the room. Still no sign of Ballora anywhere. Where the hell is she?

His question was quickly answered once he felt a pair of cold, smooth hands, wrapping around his neck out of the blue, but it wasn't in the way he expected it. He knew it must've been Ballora, but she didn't seem to be trying to choke him or anything, at least at the moment. William immediately froze once he felt it, and it sent shivers down his spine. He even got goosebumps when he heard Ballora whisper right into his ear.

"Be silent."

Meanwhile, Helpy was yelling at him to wake up. While William was still lost within his dream, Helpy tried everything he could to wake him up. After trying to yell his name several times over, Helpy was about to slap him in the face, but he held back once he saw that he was slowly waking up. Anxious to tell him the urgent news, Helpy spoke up.

"William, you're finally awake! You have no idea how long I was trying to wake you up. Say, were you having some kind of dream? I could hear you whispering in your sleep about someone. Not trying to sound creepy or anything, but I just noticed!"

William was still very tired, as his eyes were aching, and he had some kind of mild head-ache, too. I'm way too tired for this, he thought. That was some dream. I don't know what to make of it. Still trying to readjust his attention over to Helpy, he finally responded.

"Yeah...I had some...kind of strange dream."

"What happened? Was it-"

"Helpy, I don't want to talk it about it now. I'm just trying to wake up. Maybe later, but not now."

William wasn't in the mood for going into detail about that Ballora dream. Frankly, he was more concerned with why Helpy woke him up, so he moved on to that.

"Hey, why did you wake me up, anyway?"

"I wanted to tell you that I saw a car show up and it parked in the driveway, and that I saw someone coming out of it! I think he's here to let us out!"

Once he heard this, he rushed to get back on his feet, and looked out of the glass panel next to him to see who it was that Helpy was talking about. It was still kind of dark outside, with only a small amount of light, but he could see what was outside better than before. There seemed be to be a man standing a good distance from the front entrance of the building.

He looked to be around a few years older than William. The man had dark brown hair that was combed to the left, still kind of scruffy looking. He also had a short, manly, dark brown mustache. He was wearing a light brown coat, with a buttoned-up white shirt and a blue tie underneath, and appeared to have a slightly strong posture. He seemed to be smoking a cigar outside, as he let out some short puffs of smoke from his mouth. Circus Baby World had a strict no smoking indoors policy, so that was probably the reason for it.

The man was also carrying a small basket with him, with a neatly tied red bow on it. William couldn't tell what was in the basket, though. After letting out another short puff of smoke, the man started walking to the front doors. He made sure to throw his cigar in a trash bin before pulling out a pair of keys. The man didn't notice William, and proceeded to open the front doors and come inside. The moment he saw William, he seemed to be very surprised and shocked to see him.

"My Lord, what happened to you?! You look like you got jumped by a mugger!"

He was referring to William's black eye, face scar, and the dried blood on his outfit after Lolbit bit him. Well, I wasn't expecting any other reaction from him. He wasn't in the mood to explain, so he just kept it plain and simple.

"Listen. I've had an incredibly rough night. I don't want to talk about it. But who are you? I haven't seen you around here before."

"That's because I don't exactly work here. I'm in charge of reporting any technical difficulties or 'accidents' that occur at this place. If something like, say, an animatronic causes harm an employee or a customer, I'm called in to report it back to my superiors."

The man looked at William's nametag before continuing.

"Ah, so you're Afton? The employee that I heard was kidnapped and rescued?"

"Yep, that's me. William's the name."

"Okay, William. If I'm being honest, when Harold called and told me you were rescued, I didn't believe him. It seemed awfully convenient at the time. I was supposed to come down here yesterday to make sure you weren't missing, but I ran into a few issues on the way, so I had to settle for today. By the way, my name is Henry. Henry Emily. Nice to meet you."

Henry reached out his hand for a friendly handshake, and William gladly accepted it. He then noticed that there was something odd in Henry's basket, so he spoke up.

"So, what's in the basket, exactly?"

"Oh, this? Yeah, an order was placed yesterday for your 'special gift basket', but since there was no one else around to deliver it, I had to carry it with me. It's filled with all kinds of various exotic butters."

Henry handed over the basket to William before he continued talking.

"Anyways, can you please tell me why you were inside of the building before I got here? Technically, if I hadn't showed up, you would have been fined for trespassing, so consider yourself lucky. Did you loose track of time and get locked out, or does it have anything to do with your, uh, scars?"

William thought about his response for a moment. He tried to be very careful not to mention Baby or Ennard just yet. Who knows what would happen if someone else found out about what they had done. So he tried his best to tell Henry mostly everything else that happened without bringing Baby or Ennard up. He also left out the part where he interrogated Dave, everything he found out about him and the two dead technicians because explaining all of that at once would probably sound insane. Besides, William figured he could at least to tell Henry what really happened after he all of this figured out. There's a time and place for that, and this is definitely not the right time. Henry spoke up again after William was done explaining to him what happened last night.

"You got bit and scarred by the hook-handed fox? Hmm. Usually I'd expect more damage from Funtime Freddy given his infamous track record. But hey, at least he only gave you a black eye. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about any medical bills for those injuries. I'm pretty sure we can cover your loss."

"Thank you, Mr. Emily. I appreciate it."

"Please, just call me Henry. Well, at least you're lucky I decided to show up this morning. Otherwise who knows how long you would've been trapped inside of this place."

"I'm sorry, what? I mean, I figured I would've gotten out here first thing in the morning once the cleaning crew arrived."

Henry gave him a concerned look before responding.

"Wait...you don't know what happened, do you?"

"Uh...what are you talking about?"

William had no clue what Henry was referring to. Sure, a lot of insane things had happened to him in the past week, but he had no idea what this was.

"You see, William, yesterday your boss, Mr. Cunningham, was fired by Fazbear Entertainment. That lying bastard had it coming for him, anyway. As of right now, he's no longer the manager of this place. He was brought into questioning by the police for tampering with evidence relating to the disappearance of one of the missing children or something like that. I didn't get all the details."

"Wait, does this mean I'm fired, or just laid off? What's going to happen to the-"

"Relax, Afton, you're not getting fired, and neither is anyone else. Well, my superiors told me to keep an eye on Mr. Miller just in case, but other than that, everyone else is fine. Besides, this place is getting temporarily shut down until all of these issues have blown over. Fazbear Entertainment has put me in charge of salvaging anything useful here, so I'm practically in charge of this place now."

"If this place is shutting down, then how I will I keep my job, Henry?"

"Easy. Fazbear Entertainment also recently gave me a promotion, and now, I'm the manager of a brand new location we're opening a few miles away from here. So instead of working here, you'd be working for me at Fredbear's Family Diner. I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I'd be happy to get you a job there. You'll still be an animatronic technician, of course."

William took his time thinking about this. Let's see, I'd still keep my job, but I wouldn't be working here anymore, which is just fine with me, as long as I can still keep track of Baby and Ennard. But if working at this new place is going to be anything like the past week was for me, then I want no part of it. I guess it couldn't hurt to at least check it out before I come to a final decision. Henry seems like a much nicer boss than Mr. Cunningham, too, and I probably won't have to worry about Dave trying to kidnap me again, unless he somehow finds a way out.

It's still a bit too early to tell. Maybe I should take a brief tour or a visit to this Fredbear place first, and then I'll decide. He started asking Henry some questions relating to what his new work conditions would be like.

"So, if I took the job at Fredbear's, would it be like working here? Because I've had one hell of a week so far-"

"Your job as a technician for the animatronics would stay the same, and your payment would probably be the same, too, but I think you'll be much safer at my new location than here. The animatronics here might have a bad track record of several incidents, but the ones I'm using are much less dangerous. You'd have a lot less stress on your shoulders if you took the job."

"Well...I'm kind of need that job right now, but I also don't want to blindly walk into this, either. I think I'll have to check your new restaurant out first before I come to any conclusions, and if I think it's good, I'll happily take it."

"Thank you, Mr. Afton. I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Say, now that I notice it, why is your little, uh, friend here with you?"

Henry was pointing at Helpy when he said this. William was about to answer, but Helpy beat him to it.

"My name is Helpy! I'm here to make sure William gets out of this place without running into any more complications along the way."

Henry seemed to be thinking about something before he answered back.

"Well...I guess I can salvage him for some good money, or maybe I can find some other restaurant to take you in. I think he'd make a good addition to my business. What do you think, Mr. Afton?"

"I mean, if you can properly program Helpy with all the data he needs," William said, "I guess he could be useful for you. What about you, Helpy?"

The little bear nodded in agreement, but he didn't seem too pumped about it. Henry continued again.

"Alright, it looks like a deal. Hey, Mr. Afton, you're welcome to help me salvage any other animatronics here if you want. I'm probably not going to focus on that too much though. I need to start focusing on successfully starting my new business. Well, I guess that about does it for now. There's really nothing else I have to do here anymore now that I found you."

"Well, if that's true, then I guess I'll just go home and rest for a while. Great to meet you, Mr. Emily. I'll try taking a tour of your new business on Sunday when I have the time. Have a nice day."

William was about to walk out the front door before Henry stopped him.

"Not so fast there, buddy. I haven't even given you your paycheck yet. After Mr. Cunningham got fired, I was in charge in giving your paycheck to you. I think I have it in my back-pocket. Let me get it."

Henry pulled out a white envelope and handed it to William, and when he opened it, his paycheck was inside. His face instantly beamed with joy, now that he rightfully earned his payment after the horrible week he had to endure. Ah, the sweet, savory smell of payday. I have definitely earned this. All he wanted to do now was to go back home and relax for a while. However, Henry still had something to say.

"Hope you enjoy it. Oh, by the way, Mr. Afton, you look like you could use a little, uh, nourishment, if you know what I mean. Being trapped in here all night must've been torture for you. I can get you some good coffee or breakfast if you really want. There's this great breakfast diner a couple blocks down that serves some good food. Maybe we could talk about what really happened to you last night."

That last line surprised William a bit. Wait, does he know something is up? I have to be sure. He tried lying when he responded.

"I'm...not sure what you're talking about, Henry."

"Don't act like that. I'm sure there has to be something else that happened to you last night. If you came across any secrets or anything like that, just tell me. I can alert my superiors about it, but they're likely not going to do anything without any physical proof. It's my job to know about these kind of things, so if you do know anything, you can tell me once we reach the breakfast diner. I mean, you don't have to come or tell me if you don't want to. It's entirely optional."

Perhaps. He seems to be more trustworthy than Mr. Cunningham, and much more than Dave, William thought. I don't know if I really want to explain everything to him. If I do tell him anything, I shouldn't bring up Ennard or Baby. Who knows what would happen if someone found out about what they're doing. Plus, I'm starving, so I guess it couldn't hurt to come along.

"Alright, Henry, I'm fine for coming to whatever breakfast diner you had in mind."

"Good choice, Mr. Afton. I'll pay for anything if you need it. It's only a short drive away. Just follow my lead and we'll get there in no time. But first I'm just going to pick this little guy up...", Henry said as he picked up Helpy from the floor, "...and put in the back of my car. Let's go."

Henry opened the front doors and walked out of the building, William following him. I don't know how this is going to work out for me, but I certainly have a better feeling about it now.

_____________________________________________________________________________

One day later...

"Damn it, it hurts so much! I barely escaped this wretched place! Frankly, I'm surprised I even got to the elevator!"

Heavily panting, struggling to keep his balance, Dave was now inside the technician elevator, trying to escape from Ennard's grasp. He was hoping the elevator would go up quicker. He already suffered through two of Ennard's "experiments", and the pain from it only stayed with him. Come on, I have to get out of this place!

Once the elevator reached the building level, Dave tried to walk out, but he almost collapsed to the floor when he did it. It took him all of his will-power to keep on going. I need to get out of here. William might know about what I've done here, but I'm sure he doesn't know what I'm working on. I just need to make sure it stays that way.