8 Escape

You could've at least warned me about the bear in here, Baby. Where was the warning for that? William wasn't in the best position right now, hiding behind expendable pipes hanging from the ceiling in a dark room with a robot bear trying to kill him. I don't think he sees me yet. He's probably still trying to figure where I am. I need to get to the exit, but he's blocking my way. Hmm...how am I going to pull this off? If I stay here for too long, Freddy will no doubt find me. I better keep moving slowly and pay close attention to Freddy's movement.

He didn't want to use his flashlight because that would give away his location. Instead, he listened carefully for Freddy's footsteps, so he could pin-point where the noise was coming from and get away from it. A few occasional sparks formed in between here and there, so that was able to provide him with a little bit of light. He could hear several loud footsteps getting closer to him from his right side. Better quietly move away now, he thought. He quickly tried looking for another place to hide, but all he could find was a large desk near him. It was connected to the floor, so hopefully Freddy couldn't peep under there. He had to act fast if he wanted to escape Freddy.

He stayed low to the ground, and began quickly crawling to the desk. He made sure to be as quiet as possible so Freddy wouldn't notice him. It was a pretty short distance away from the mess of expendable pipes, so it wasn't hard for him to crawl by. When he reached the desk and hid behind it, he could hear Freddy angrily taunting him.

"You can't hide from me forever! Come on out, wherever you are!"

Bon-Bon, despite the fact that Freddy was in a fit of rage, still tried to calm him down.

"No, no, Freddy. Just calm down. Relax."

"No! I've had it with you! I know I heard something!"

"There's no one here. Everything is okay!"

"That's it, Bon-Bon! I'm not going back to sleep until I give our new friend a visit, whether you like it or not!"

It didn't look like the hand-puppet was effective at all with calming Freddy down. William tried to peek to see if Freddy was still on his tail, and as he did he could see Freddy violently banging his left arm against the wall, the one with Bon-Bon still attached to it. Well, guess that's not gonna help me, he thought. Alright, I just need to find the door and leave without him noticing. But how? He could still hear Freddy taunting him.

"Where are you?!"

William considered his options. Let's see, I could try running to the door, but I don't know how fast that bear is. Is there anything I could use as a weapon, maybe? There wasn't much in the breaker room to offer, except for a fire extinguisher next to the desk. Well, this won't be too lethal for a weapon, but I'll take it. Wait, can I spray this at Freddy's eyes? No, he's a robot, he wouldn't stay blinded. Maybe for a few seconds, though. Long enough for a brief distraction. All I need to do is figure out where the exit is.

Several sparks began to form again, creating barely enough light for William to see properly. The steel door to Ballora's gallery was in his sight, at the other end of the breaker room. How am I going to sneak all the way over there and not be noticed? Luckily, there were several more plastic expendable pipes hanging from the ceiling, covering a good enough distance for William to make his move. Ok, just remain calm, and try to sneak past Fred-

"There you are!"

Freddy had snuck up on him from behind, punching him in the back. Freddy was surprisingly strong, as William could feel a great deal of pain coming from his back. Freddy tried attacking him again, but thanks to his quick reflexes, he dodged Freddy's second attack, and he grabbed the fire extinguisher in his hands. He quickly backed near the wall, while Freddy was prepared to strike again. The bear didn't seem intimidated by William in the least.

"Ha! You think a little fire extinguisher is gonna hurt me?"

"No, but it might distract you."

William aimed for Freddy's face and let out a long spray of foam. It flew everywhere, getting all over William's suit, the floor, and the wall, and it got right into Freddy's eyes. The mechanical bear seemed to be momentarily blinded.

"Ah! My optics!"

I can't believe that actually worked, he thought. Now's my chance. With only a few seconds to spare before Freddy regained eyesight, he rushed to the other end of the breaker room, trying to be careful not to slip on the foam. Freddy quickly recovered his sight , and saw William trying to make a run for it. The bear ran full speed at him in a desperate final attempt to catch him.

"Get back here, you!"

Freddy was also surprisingly fast, because if William had waited just a few seconds later, the bear surely would've caught him. Luckily, he quickly twisted the door knob to Ballora's Gallery and made sure to close it shut quietly. He could hear Freddy banging against the door, saying something mumbled that he couldn't understand. After a short amount of time, the banging stopped, and it looked like Freddy had given up on hunting him. I just hope he can't open doors, or that Ballora heard any of that. Well, time to go back now.

He grabbed his flashlight from his back pocket and briefly skimmed the gallery to see where Ballora was. She was elegantly dancing near one of the tables in the lower left corner, far away from where he was standing. Alright, just need to do one more thing before I can go on. He tried seeing if there was any way to keep the Hand-Unit turned off, because it nearly got him killed twice in a row tonight, and wasn't taking any more chances. There wasn't any visible power button on the Hand-Unit, so he had to make due with it and carry on. I swear, if this thing starts making noise again, I'm throwing it as far as I can, he thought.

He began crawling along the grey-tiled floor once again, keeping his eyes open for Ballora's music. So far, so good, I guess. There didn't appear to be any sign of Ballora so far, but he was still moving a slow and quiet pace. Just remain calm. As he was around the halfway mark, he could hear the faint ballerina music getting louder. He froze, trying to see where Ballora was, and saw her mechanical legs spinning right in front of him. He held his breath, desperately trying not to breath too heavily.

"Is someone there?", the ballerina asked, in a way that sounded oddly seductive and calming to William. The ballerina started to twirl away from William, but he still kept his guard up. She's starting to pick up on it, he thought. She knows that something's in here with her.

Once she was gone, William returned to crawling along the floor, but as he reached near the end, a rat came out of the darkness, right in front of his path. The rat squealed around, moving closer towards him. Oh no, please don't do that. She's going to hear it.

"I can hear something crawling through my room," Ballora said calmly, her voice echoing through the area. Yep, she definitely heard that. He could hear the ballerina music getting louder again, and while he kept still, the rat kept crawling and squeaking. The music proceeded to get louder, and Ballora once again came in front of William. She didn't seem to mind the mouse, as she kept elegantly dancing along the floor--Smack!

Ballora pounched down on the rat, stomping on it repeatedly to death with her mechanical legs. The rat squealed in pain for a brief moment, but then was dead silent. She seemed to be disgusted by the dead rat, as she tried to clean off some of its blood she got on her legs. "Finally. You couldn't get away from me. Although I am disgusted by the mess it made," the ballerina said to herself.

I am so happy that wasn't me, William thought. Ballora looked around once more. "Looks like it's silent. Now then, back to my luxurious dancing," she said, returning to her dance, disappearing into the depths of the gallery. Once William was sure that she was far enough, he continued to crawl again, and tried to carefully step over the dead rat's remains. He finally got to the end of the gallery, and got up to open up the vent-door to the primary control module. He climbed inside, shut the vent-door behind him, and went back inside the control module room.

"Yes! I'm alive! I honestly don't know how I survived, but I'll gladly take it!", William said to himself, rejoicing. "Alright, that's it. Tomorrow, I'm seriously need to have a chat with my boss! I can't work like this!" A million other thoughts rushed through William's head, like why did no one tell him about any of this, why where these robots trying to kill him anyway, and why was the Hand-Unit so unreliable, but he thought it was probably best to think about all of this in the morning, after a good night's sleep. That is if he doesn't get any nightmares after this experience. Whatever, I'm just going to go back home and rest up for now.