I can’t see.

Jessica closed her eyes and opened them again, but the darkness remained. She tried again, realizing with a rising panic that she could not move. The air stank of something rotten, turning her stomach, and she forced herself to breathe deeply. I’ll stop noticing it if I breathe. She tried again to move, testing to see what was restraining her. She was confined in a sitting position: Her wrists were tied together behind her, her arms pulled uncomfortably around the back of a wooden chair and her ankles bound to its legs. She pulled against the restraints, almost tipping the chair over as she struggled to free herself, but she could not break away. Then there was light.

Jessica stopped moving. She blinked in the sudden brightness, her vision resolving. Charlie’s imposter stood in the light of the window, revealed in her true form: She was undeniably an animatronic, but she was nothing like any other Jessica had ever seen. She was human-size—the same size as Charlie—modeled on a human woman, of sorts, her bifurcated face painted with rosy cheeks and a bright red nose, and her enormous, round eyes were rimmed with long, black lashes. She even had hair, two silky orange pigtails sprouting from the sides of her head, gleaming unnaturally in the light—Jessica couldn’t tell what her hair was made of. She was wearing a red-and-white costume—or rather the metal segments of her body were painted to look like a costume; at her waist, a red skirt stuck out playfully. She was standing very still, and she was staring straight at Jessica. Jessica froze, afraid to breathe, but the creature just tilted her metal head to the side, watching. Her animatronic face looked familiar, but she still felt fuzzy and couldn’t recall where she’d seen it.

“I don’t suppose you’d give me a hand with these?” Jessica lifted her feet the quarter inch the restraints would allow. The animatronic smiled.

“No, I don’t suppose I would,” she said, her voice alarmingly unchanged. Jessica shrank back, revolted at the sound of her friend’s voice coming from this singular new creature.

“Who are you?” Jessica asked.

“I’m Charlie.”

Jessica looked around the dimly lit room helplessly. Apart from the chair, the only object she could see was a gigantic, old-fashioned coal-burning furnace, with a warm orange glow emanating from the thin vents in its door.

“At least,” the creature began, “part of me is Charlie.” She held her hand out in front of her, studying it. Jessica looked up and suddenly it was Charlie standing in the light of the window, looking confused and innocent. “It’s strange,” the animatronic said. “I have these memories. I know they don’t belong to me; and yet at the same time, they do.” She paused, and Jessica returned to wrestling with the knots. “I know that they don’t belong to me because I don’t feel anything when they come to mind. They are just there, like a long road you walk on, lined with billboards of things happening somewhere else.”

“Well, what do you feel?” Jessica muttered, trying to drag out the conversation as her survival instincts kicked in.

The animatronic girl’s eyes darted toward her. “I feel … disappointment,” she said, her voice growing more tense. “Desperation.” She looked out the window. “A father’s disappointment, and a daughter’s desperation,” she whispered.

“Henry?” Jessica gasped. The girl looked back at her.

“No. Not Henry. He was more brilliant than Henry. I watched my father work from a distance, a great, great, distance.” Her voice trailed off. Jessica waited for her to go on, half forgetting that she was trying to escape. “I see everything clearly now,” the animatronic continued. “But in my memories … things were much simpler, which made it so much more painful. Now I know that people are all fading, fragile, inconsequential. But when you are a child, your parents are everything: They are your world, and you don’t know anything else. When you are a little girl, your father is your world. How tragic and miserable such an existence is.” Jessica felt a wave of dizziness and looked up to see that the animatronic now appeared as the clown again, but the image passed. Suddenly, it was Charlie in the light, but the moment’s disruption in the illusion was enough to remind Jessica of where she was—and that she had to get away.

The animatronic girl stood beside the only window in the room. There was a door nearby; she was closer to it than the animatronic, not that she could count on outrunning her. What else am I going to try? Tentatively, keeping her eyes fixed on her captor, Jessica started working her wrists back and forth, trying to loosen the rope that held her. The girl watched, but did not move to stop her, so Jessica kept going.

“That’s the flaw, and the greatest sin of humanity,” the girl said. “You are born with none of your intelligence, but all of your heart, fully capable of feeling pain, and torment, but with no power to understand. It opens you up to abuse, to neglect, to unimaginable pain. All you can do is feel.” She studied her hands again. “All you can do is feel, but never understand. What a sick power it is that you are given.”

The ropes only seemed to tighten as Jessica pulled at them, and Jessica felt tears of frustration pricking at her eyes. No wonder she doesn’t care if I try to escape, she thought bitterly. If I could just see the knots … She stopped moving and took a deep breath, then closed her eyes. Find the knot. Ignore the robot. Jessica fumbled with her right hand, searching for the end of the knot, bending her wrist painfully. At last, she found the end of the rope and grasped it: the rope tightened, but she inched her fingers along until she came to the base of the knot, then began to carefully push the end of the rope up through the final loop.

“I wanted so desperately to have been the one on that stage, but it was always her. All of his love went into her.”

“You’re talking about Afton.” Jessica stopped, and Charlie nodded confirmation. “William Afton never made anything with love,” Jessica snarled.

“I should rip you in half.” Charlie’s appearance flashed, the animatronic’s face and body seeming to break, then reassemble in an instant. For a moment her expression wavered, a vulnerability showing on her face, but she quickly collected herself. “She was his obsession.”

The animatronic twisted her hair around her fingers. “He worked on her day and night, the clown baby with bright orange pigtails. Petite enough to be sweet and approachable, but large enough to swallow you whole.” She laughed.

Jessica pulled the rope a last time: She had managed to undo the first knot. Breathing heavily with the effort, Jessica opened her eyes: The animatronic had not moved from the window—she seemed still to be watching with a kind of amused interest. Jessica gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, and started on the next knot.

“I wanted to be her,” the girl whispered. “The focus of his attention, the center of his world.”

“You’re delusional.” Jessica snickered as she struggled with the rope, trying to keep her distracted. “You’re a robot; you’re not his child.”

The animatronic pulled a chair away from the wall, and sat with a pained expression. “One night I snuck out of bed to see her. I’d been told not to a hundred times. I pulled the sheet away. She was gleaming bright, beautiful, standing over me. She had happy red cheeks and a lovely red dress.”

Jessica paused in her work, confused. Who is she talking about?

“It’s odd, because I remember looking down at the little girl as well. It’s strange seeing through both sets of eyes now. But as I said, one is no more than a data tape, a record of my first capture, my first kill.” The animatronic’s eyes flared bright in the darkness. “The little girl approached me and pulled the sheet away. I felt nothing; it’s no more than a record of what happened. But there is feeling, my feeling as I pulled the sheet away, and stood in awe before this creature my father loved, this daughter he had made for himself. The daughter who was better than me, the daughter he wished I had been. I wanted to be her, so badly.” Charlie’s appearance faded, revealing the painted clown, and Jessica sighed as a wave of nausea and dizziness passed over her again. “So, I did what I was built to do,” the girl said, and stopped talking. The room was silent.

When the last knot slipped loose and the rope fell to the floor, Jessica’s eyes popped open in surprise. She leaned forward, moving her numb, tingling arms down to her ankles as she watched the girl, who simply continued to observe her. Jessica undid the knots that held her ankles quickly—they were looser, done carelessly, and she put her feet flat on the floor, her stomach fluttering. Time to run.

Jessica ran for the door, propelling her wobbly knees and sore ankles through sheer force of will. There was no sound from behind her. She’s going to be right behind me! she thought wildly as she reached the door and turned the knob. She yanked it open with overflowing relief—and screamed.

Close enough to touch was a mottled face, swollen and misshapen. The skin looked too thin, and the bloodshot eyes, staring angrily at her, quivered as if they were about to burst. Jessica jerked away, stumbling back into the room. Her eyes darted to his neck, where two rusting lengths of metal protruded from his skin. He stank of mold: the furry suit he wore was covered in it, turning the cloth green, though as Jessica took in the whole of him, she knew it had once been yellow.

“Springtrap,” she breathed, her voice shaky, and his lips twitched into something that might have been a smile. Jessica ran to the chair she’d been tied to, putting it between them as if it would do any good, then horribly, Springtrap began to laugh. Jessica tensed, grasping the chair’s wooden back, ready to defend herself, but Springtrap just kept laughing, not moving from the spot where he stood. He cackled on and on, rising to an impossible pitch, then he broke off abruptly, his eyes snapping to Jessica. He shuffled closer, then, inexplicably, he began to caper in a grotesque dance as he sang in a thin, unsteady voice.

Oh, Jessica’s been caught

Oh, Jessica she fought

But now she’s going to die!

Oh my!

Jessica glanced at the animatronic girl in the corner, who looked away as though disgusted. Springtrap danced closer, circling Jessica as he repeated the verse, and she hefted the chair between them, watching for a chance to strike. Jessica tripped over her own feet trying to get out of his way. Even for him, this is insane. He danced closer and away, the words he sang degenerating into syllables of nonsense, interrupted by maniacal laughter. Jessica held the chair steady, ready to swing it. Suddenly, Springtrap froze in place.

Jessica’s arms wavered, and she set the chair down with a thud. Springtrap didn’t move, even his face was completely motionless. Like someone turned him off. She had barely finished the thought when his whole body went limp, collapsing on the floor with a clatter. He flickered, then Springtrap faded away, leaving in his place a blank, segmented doll. Jessica whirled to look at the animatronic girl: she was still watching without expression.

“Enough theatrics.” A rasping male voice came from the open door. “Jessica, isn’t it?” The voiced wheezed. She squinted, unable to make out anything in the dim light.

“I know that voice,” she said slowly. There was a whirring sound coming from the doorway, and soon Jessica could see something roll into the room, an automated wheelchair of some sort. He was dressed in what looked like white silk pajamas and a black robe of the same cloth, covering him from chin to toe, black leather slippers on his feet. Behind him, three IV bags hung from a wheeled stand, the tubes extending up under the sleeve of his pajama shirt. His head was bald, covered in ridged pink scars. Where there were no scars, there were strange pallets of plastic, molding, and metal, pressed into his head as though fused to it. He turned his head slightly and Jessica saw that while one eye was perfectly normal, the other was simply missing: the gaping socket was dark, and shot through with a thin steel rod that glinted in the light. He was painfully thin, the bones of his face visible, and as he gave Jessica a small, twisted smile, she saw tendons move like snakes beneath the surface of his skin. She had to fight to keep from retching.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

You’re William Afton, Jessica thought, but she shook her head, and he sighed, a rattling sound.

“Come here,” he said.

“I’ll stay where I am,” she said tightly.

“As you like.” He shifted his weight carefully, the wheelchair letting out a whir as it moved forward slowly. The animatronic girl started toward him and he waved her off, but the gesture threw off his balance, and for a moment he appeared as though he might fall to the side, but he gripped the arm of the chair with a pained expression, righting himself.

“So what was the dance routine for?” Jessica asked loudly, and he looked at her as though surprised she was still there. Then, he raised his hands to the knot on his robe, his fingers struggling clumsily to undo it.

“I thought you might like to see me as I was. A familiar face,” he said, and smirked. He held up a small disc in his hand and clicked it on. The blank doll on the floor suddenly looked as it had a moment ago, with the bloodied, duplicate William Afton stuffed inside the rabbit suit.

“Time changes all things,” he went on, clicking the disc off again. “As does pain. When I called myself Springtrap I was ecstatic with power, delirious over my newfound strength. But pain changes all things, as does time.” He opened his robe to reveal his torso.

At the center of his chest was a mass of twisted flesh, crossed with neat, diagonal lines of black stitching thread; rippling out from the wound were the marks of the spring-lock suit, some scarred over years before, and some scarcely healed, the skin a shiny, angry red. He raised a hand to the wad of stitches, careful not to touch it. “Your friend inflicted this new wound,” he said mildly, then bent his head slightly forward, calling her attention to his neck. She took an involuntary step closer, and gasped.

His skin was gone, she thought at first, the innards of his neck laid open to the air. But the blood … he’d be dead. Jessica took a long, slow breath, feeling light-headed as she tried to make sense of what she saw. The wound had been covered with something else, plastic, maybe: she could see where the surrounding skin had fused to it, healing red and ugly. Through the clear material, whatever it was, she could see his throat—she didn’t know enough about anatomy to name the parts, but they were red and blue, blocks of muscle and strings of veins or tendons. Wedged in among them were things that never belonged inside a human body; small scraps of metal, embedded in the tissue. There were too many to count. The man moved, and they glinted in the light. Jessica gasped, and he wheezed, clearly struggling to breathe with his neck turned the way it was. Something caught her eye as he moved, and she leaned in closer: she was almost touching him now, and the smell was awful: a noxious perfume of disinfectant. She peered through the clear shield and saw it: a spring, its coils wrapped tightly around what looked like three veins, the sharp ends plunged deep into red muscle tissue.

Jessica stepped back and almost tripped on the fallen mannequin that had been Springtrap. She kicked away the jumble of limbs, recovering her balance, and looked into the man’s mutilated face again.

“Yeah, I know you. Didn’t you used to be a mall guard?” she said. His fists clenched, and his eyes darkened with fury.

“Spare me. Dave the guard was a character, one concocted on a moment’s notice to play you for a fool, you and your friends. It was insulting. It doesn’t take a great thespian to pretend to be an idiot night guard, as long as you can get around inconspicuously. I have not been inconspicuous for some time. It hardly matters now anyway, as this is all that’s left of me.” His voice gargled with despair.

“Come sit with me, Jessica.” The animatronic girl dragged his IV stand with one hand, helping him back to a corner, where more medical devices and a reclining chair awaited. Jessica eyed the door, bracing herself to move, when the quiet was broken by what sounded like a child’s scream in the distance.

“What was that?” Jessica said. “That sounded like a kid.”

The man ignored her and settled back into the furnished chair. The animatronic girl busied herself with the machines around him, attaching electrodes to his bare scalp and checking the IV bags. A monitor began to beep at slightly irregular intervals, and he waved his hand. “Turn that off. I can’t stand the sound of it. Jessica, come closer.”

Stay alive. Play along, Jessica thought to herself as she warily picked up the chair she’d been tied to, carried it over to the man, and sat. Jessica trained her eyes on the animatronic girl as she strode across the room, gripped a handle, and pulled a long table straight out of the wall as if they were going to view a body in a morgue. Jessica clasped her hand over her mouth as fumes of oil and burning flesh washed over her. There was something lying on the table, covered with a plastic sheet.

Jessica leaped up again and backed away. “What is this? Who did you murder now?” she demanded.

“No one new,” William spurted, almost as though he was trying to laugh. The plastic crinkled; something was moving inside.

“What have you done?” Jessica gasped.

The animatronic girl took a cotton ball from a bag nearby, wetted it from the bottle in her hand, and wiped it thoroughly up and down the metal fingers of one hand, then dropped it into a trash can at her feet. She took another piece of cotton and repeated the process, continuing over the surface of her hands and forearms up to her elbows. She’s sterilizing herself. Jessica turned to the man in the chair, keeping the girl in her peripheral gaze. Behind him the animatronic girl was sterilizing a scalpel, using the same care she had taken with her hands.

“Here I thought you’d cheated death,” Jessica said, almost feeling sorry for him.

“Oh, believe me, I have. You have only seen one fraction of what was done to me, the shrapnel that even dozens of surgeries—and I have had dozens—could not remove.” He slowly rolled up the sleeve of his pajama shirt, revealing two staves of metal embedded in his arm, both dotted with ragged pieces of gray rubber. “Parts of that costume have become part of me.” The animatronic girl took what looked like a pair of scissors out of the drawer and began to swab them clean, dabbing gently along every surface.

“But the fake blood.” Jessica closed her eyes, shaking her head. Charlie said that Clay found fake blood at Freddy’s. “There was fake blood; you faked your death.”

Afton coughed, and his eyes widened. “I assure you, I didn’t fake anything. If your police friend found fake blood …” He took a steadying breath. “It wasn’t mine. I bleed, just like everyone else.” He finished, and smiled, giving Jessica a moment to think before continuing.

“I gave you a monster.” He gestured toward the collapsed doll that had been Springtrap. “But I assure you, I’m very, miserably, human.” He paused again, a surge of anger crossing his face.

“My scalp was torn from my head when I escaped that costume, all but this piece here.” He touched the small patch where hair still grew. “Scraps of metal are interwoven through every part of my body that has not been replaced with artificial tissue. Every movement causes me unimaginable pain. Not moving is even worse.”

“I’m not going to feel sorry for you,” Jessica said suddenly, braver than she felt. Afton took a breath and stared at her blankly.

“Do you believe that your pity will make any difference concerning what I do to you?” he asked with a steady tone. He tilted his head, leaning back as if taking a moment to relish the words, then his face lost the glint of cunning. “I am simply telling you, so that you can help with what comes next,” he said tiredly. Jessica stood.

“You want me to be impressed by how much you’ve survived, and how much pain you’re in. I don’t care about you.” She approached William’s chair, then crossed her arms, glaring down at him from above. She glanced at the animatronic girl, who seemed poised to intervene, a half-swabbed scalpel in her hand, but Afton gave a subtle shake of his hand toward her, waving her off, seeming to enjoy the exchange. Jessica bent closer.

“William Afton,” she said. “There is nothing in this world that I care less about than your pain.”

Another child’s scream came from somewhere nearby, and Jessica straightened.

“That was a little kid,” Jessica said, a heady rush of adrenaline surging through her. She felt suddenly forceful, like she had some control of the situation. “You’re the one who’s been kidnapping those kids, aren’t you?” she demanded, and Afton smiled weakly.

“I’m afraid those days are gone for me.” He laughed, and looked fondly at the animatronic girl, who looked up at Jessica and smiled delicately. The girl straightened her posture and continued to stare; Jessica took a step back. All at once, the girl’s stomach split open at the middle and out shot an enormous mass of wires and prongs. It reached its full extension and snapped open and shut with a steely clank. Jessica screamed, jumping back. The thing fell to the ground, then slowly recoiled back into the girl’s stomach, which closed seamlessly. She smiled at Jessica, running her finger up and down the now-invisible line of the opening. Jessica averted her eyes.

“Baby, that’s enough,” Afton whispered. Jessica came to attention, her panic suddenly washed over with confusion. She looked from the girl to Afton, and back again.

“Circus Baby,” she said, suddenly recalling the sign outside the restaurant. The animatronic girl smiled wider, her face threatening to split in half. “You’re not as cute as you are on the sign,” Jessica said bitingly, and the girl stopped smiling instantly, turning her body toward Jessica like she was aiming a weapon. A high-pitched ringing rose all around them, and Jessica edged backward. That’s her chip, Jessica thought, bracing as if for impact. The animatronic girl held out her arms as though in a gesture of welcome.

Thin, sharp spines like porcupine’s needles began to grow from her metal skin, each capped with a red knob like a pinhead, spaced a few inches apart, and extending from her face, her body, and her arms and legs. They grew slowly outward, lining up perfectly with one another to create a false contour all around her body. The girl looked expectantly at Jessica.

“Give it a minute,” the girl said. “Let your eyes adjust.”

The humming sound grew louder, rising higher in pitch until it became painful to hear. Jessica covered her ears, but it did nothing to dampen the sound. Suddenly, a new image snapped into place: where the smooth, slim redheaded animatronic had been was a gigantic, cartoonish child, her green eyes too large for her face, and her nose and cheeks painted a garish pink; she was a perfect image of the girl on the neon sign. Before Jessica could react, the childish image vanished, the needlelike extensions snapping back into the girl’s body with a metallic snap. The humming stopped. The animatronic girl had returned to her former appearance. William Afton watched her with a gleam of pride.

Jessica turned again to the sleek, shiny girl standing at the man’s side. “How did you create her?” Jessica asked, her eyes filled with curiosity for a moment before snapping herself back to the immediate danger surrounding her.

“Ah. A woman with a mind for science. You can’t help but to admire what I’ve done.” He braced himself on one arm of the chair, hoisting himself up to sit straighter. “Although …” He looked up at the gleaming girl for a moment, then turned away. “I can’t take complete credit for this, unfortunately.” He reclined his head again and let out a sigh. “Sometimes great things come at a great cost.”

Jessica waited for him to go on, confused, then looked at the animatronic girl, recalling all that she’d said minutes before.

“I am a brilliant man, make no mistake. But what you see before you is a combination of all sorts of machinations and magic. My only real accomplishment was making something that could walk.” He reached out and tapped the leg of the animatronic standing at his side; she did not react. “No small accomplishment. Although it’s not happening as fluidly as you think. A lot of what you see is just in your head.” He wheezed a laugh, then stopped himself, ending with a pained cough before going on. “That was Henry’s idea not to try to reinvent the wheel. Why try to create the illusion of life, when your mind can do it for us?”

“She’s more than an illusion, though,” Jessica said plainly.

“Quite right,” Afton answered thoughtfully. “Quite right. But that’s why we’re here—to discover the secret of that last ingredient, what you might call the spark of life.”

“Is that why I’m here, too?” Jessica clenched her jaw.

“I believe you came here of your own free will, didn’t you?” Afton said mildly.

“I didn’t tie myself up.”

“But I certainly didn’t put you in the trunk of that car,” he answered.

“We would rather have had your friend Charlie,” he continued. “But we can find a use for you.” He closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them, meeting Jessica’s eyes. “I have faced my own mortality, Jessica. I knew I was dying and through every broken fragment of my body, I was profoundly, immeasurably afraid. I fear it more than I fear life like this, even when every waking instant is pain, and sleep is possible only when induced by enough medication to kill most people.”

“Everyone is afraid to die,” Jessica said. “And you should be more afraid than anyone else, because if there’s a hell, there’s a hole at the bottom of it reserved for you.”

Afton nodded with a moment of honest resignation. “In time, I’m sure that’s where I will find myself. But the devil has knocked on my door before, and I’ve turned him away.” He smiled.

“So, what? You want to live forever?”

William Afton smiled sadly and held out his hand to the animatronic girl; she went to him and put a protective hand on his shoulder. “Certainly not like this,” he said. Jessica glanced at the robot girl, then back to the man in front of her, his body already riddled with mechanical parts.

“So, what, you’re making yourself into a robot?” She laughed nervously, then stopped at his grave expression. “I didn’t realize that you fancied yourself a mad scientist.”

“No, that’s science fiction,” he said, unamused.

The plastic tarp moved again, and began to slide off the table, but stopped, not revealing what lay underneath.

“Everyone dies.” Jessica blinked; the adrenaline was wearing off, and she was beginning to feel exhausted. Afton reached up and touched the mechanical girl’s cheek, then turned his attention back to Jessica.

“The most terrible accidents sometimes bear the most beautiful fruits,” he said, as if to himself. “Re-creating the accident—that is the duty and the honor of science. To replicate the experiment, and obtain the same result. I give my life to this experiment, piece by piece.” He nodded at the girl, and she approached Jessica with deliberate steps. Jessica backed away, fear surging again.

“What are you going to do to me?” She could hear the urgency in her own voice.

“Please, enough. As a woman of science, at least try to appreciate what I’ve done,” Afton said.

“I study archaeology,” she said in a flat tone. He didn’t respond; the girl stepped closer, giving her an unreadable stare.

The plastic tarp slid from the table, and Jessica startled and stared at what was underneath, but her terror turned to confusion in an instant. There wasn’t a body, not human or machine. Instead there was a melted scrapheap, whose extensions could be interpreted as arms and legs, but with no defined mechanism of movement. There were no joints, no muscles, no skin or coverings, just masses of undefined tangles and cords, melted into one another and fused together. Most of it seemed fused to the table, burned and blackened at the edges where it touched the table itself, melting into it and seemingly inseparable from it.

“I don’t understand.” Jessica’s mouth hung open, and she sat down again without thinking.

“Good girl.” Afton smiled thinly. Jessica clenched her jaw. The animatronic girl went back to the table and took up the cotton balls and rubbing alcohol. She started with her fingers again, methodically wiping down each one. “Get on with it,” Afton said impatiently. The girl did not break her deliberate pace.

“I touched you; I have to start over,” she said.

“Nonsense, just do it. I’ve survived worse than this.”

“The risk of infection …” she said calmly.

“Elizabeth!” he snapped. “Do as I say.” The animatronic girl stopped moving at once, looking startled, and for a moment almost seemed to tremble. Jessica held her breath, wondering if anyone knew, or cared, that she had just heard the exchange. The girl immediately regained her composure, her eyes relaxing, then opened the drawer and took out a pair of rubber gloves, which she fitted easily over her metal hands. He settled back, and the girl came to him and bent over to press a button on the side of his chair. The chair made a pneumatic hiss and reclined, flattening out like a bed, and the girl placed her foot on a lever at the chair’s base. She stepped on it, and the chair jerked upward. Afton made a pained grunt, and Jessica winced reflexively. The girl hit the lever again, yanking the chair up another inch, then stopped and flipped the monitor back on. It began to beep again at slightly irregular intervals, and she levered the chair up rapidly, jolting Afton’s frail body as it rose. The girl darted her eyes from the monitor to Afton and back again, attentive to his vital signs. When the chair reached waist-height, she stepped back, apparently satisfied. Afton let out a rattling breath, then lifted his hand an inch to point at Jessica.

“Come closer,” he said. She took a small step, and he curled his lips in a smile or a sneer. “I want you to watch what happens next,” he said.

“What’s going to happen next?” Jessica asked, hearing her own voice shake.

“How did the creatures at Freddy’s move, of their own will, with no outside force controlling them?” he asked mildly. He tilted his head, waiting.

“The children were still inside. Their souls were inside those creatures,” she said, the words brittle. She felt brittle, like if anything touched her now, she might easily break apart.

Afton sneered again.

“Oh, Jessica, come now. What else?” She closed her eyes. What is he talking about? “What else was inside them, to bind their spirits so inseparably to the bear, to the rabbit, to the fox? How did they die, Jessica?”

Jessica gasped, covering her mouth with both hands, as if she could stop herself from knowing, as long as she did not speak. “How, Jessica?” Afton demanded, and she lowered her hands, trying to steady her breath.

“You killed them,” she said, and he made an impatient sound. She met his eyes again, not flinching from the empty socket. “They died in the suits,” she said hoarsely. “Their bodies were bound inside, along with their souls.”

He nodded. “The spirit follows the flesh, it would seem, and also the pain. If I wish to become my own immortal creation, my body must lead my spirit to its eternal home. Since I am still … experimenting … I move my flesh piece by piece.” He looked thoughtfully over at the creature on the table. “More and more,” he murmured, almost to himself, “it is a test of the strength of my own will. How much of myself can I carve away, and still remain in control?”

“Carve away?” Jessica repeated faintly, and he snapped his attention back to her.

“Yes. I will even allow you to watch,” he said with a smirk.

“No, thanks,” she said, shrinking back, and he wheezed a laugh.

“You will watch,” he said, then gestured to the animatronic girl. “Keep an eye on her,” Afton said.

“I have many eyes on her.” The girl went to a cabinet and took out another IV bag: before she closed the door, Jessica caught a glimpse of more like it, and a shelf of what looked like vacuum-sealed cuts of meat. Her stomach flipped, and she swallowed hard.

Jessica started to squirm in her seat; there was a hissing sound coming from somewhere, and a smell of burning oil began to fill the room. The table where the mass of metal rested was beginning to glow orange at its center, and the mass on the table seemed to move slightly, although only out of the corner of Jessica’s eye. Jessica snapped back to attention and turned toward Afton.

He appeared to be asleep: his chest rose and fell with slow breaths, and his eyes were closed; his eyelid draped loosely over the steel rod in the center of his missing eye, the thin skin hanging into the empty socket. The girl nodded, and moved to the table. Jessica swallowed, the rotten smell swelling around her. She had ceased to notice it, her nose tuning it out, but now it was everywhere, thickening the air with its miasma. An operating theater … he’s harvesting the kids for organs, transplanting them into himself?

Jessica looked around the room, calculating—the scalpels were too far away to grab, and they wouldn’t even scratch the animatronic girl’s paint. If she ran, she would be dead before she was halfway to the door. Jessica forced herself to watch.

The animatronic girl went to William Afton’s side, then checked the monitor again with care. She unbuttoned his pajama top and splayed it open, revealing his chest, and the mass of scars that had covered it since before he went by the name “Dave.” The girl tugged the waist of his pants an inch lower, so that his torso was fully exposed, then nodded, took off her gloves, and replaced them with new ones. Then she took up one of the scalpels. Jessica looked away.

“You have to watch,” the girl said, her voice chilling, a human voice stripped of human intonation. Jessica jerked her head up; the animatronic’s eyes were on her. “He wants to see you watch,” she repeated, the pleasant veneer cloaking her voice once more. Jessica gulped, and nodded, fixing her eyes on the scene before her. “I don’t think you understand,” the girl said. “Go wash your hands.”

Shakily, Jessica got to her feet and went to the sink, feeling as if she might pass out at any moment. She turned the sink on and watched the water spiral down the drain, the shiny stainless steel gleaming through in the bright light.

“Wash your hands.” Jessica obeyed, pushing up her sleeves above her elbows and washing her hands all the way up the forearms, foaming up the soap over and over as she had seen doctors do on TV. She rinsed them finally and turned to the animatronic girl.

“What am I doing?” she asked. The girl ripped open a plastic package and took out a towel. She held it out to Jessica.

“You’re going to help.”

Jessica took the towel and dried her hands, then put on gloves from the box the animatronic girl directed her to. “You know this thing isn’t sterile, right?” she muttered, glancing at the mass on the table.

“Wait.” Jessica gasped and took a step toward the table. From this angle, she could see more of its form. It was a melted mess, but she could recognize certain elements in the mass of fused scrap on the table. A leg. A finger. An … eye socket.

“I—I recognize these parts,” Jessica said, but there was no answer. “These look like … endoskeletons, from Freddy’s, the original Freddy’s.” Jessica began calculating in her head, measuring to herself how much this mass must weigh, and its size relative to the size of the endoskeletons she remembered. Before she could think further, the creature on the table attempted to lift its leg, the makeshift knee bending partially. There was no mechanical device that she could make out—it seemed to be moving of its own will. After a second, it dropped back to the table.

“Where did you find these?” Jessica stepped back. “Where did you find these? What did you do? Why did you … melt them all together?”

“Hand me the scalpel,” the girl said patiently. The surgical implements were laid out in a neat row on the rolling table, on a piece of paper, along with a set of curved needles, already threaded, and a small, kitchen-size propylene torch. The creature on the table tried again to lift its leg, and suddenly Jessica understood how it was able to move.

“They’re still in there!” Jessica screamed. “The children—Michael!” The creature writhed pitifully, as if responding to her voice, and Jessica’s heart wrenched. They’re in there, and they’re in pain.

“I guess I should have kidnapped Marla if I wanted a nurse,” the girl said sardonically. “I told you, he wants you to watch. Look over here.” Jessica obeyed, feeling her head go light as the girl pressed the scalpel into Afton’s skin. Don’t pass out. She drew the blade across his lower abdomen with steady, practiced hands, making a six-inch incision. She held out the scalpel, and Jessica stared for a moment before realizing she was supposed to take it. “He wants you to watch; it’s the only reason you’re alive. If you don’t watch, then there is no reason for you to be here. Do you understand?” Jessica steadied herself. Breathe. Don’t faint. Think about something else.

John, Charlie—no, I’ll start crying. Something else, something else …

Shoes. Black boots, knee high. The kind that look like riding boots. Italian leather. Jessica took the scalpel and set it down where it had been, and the blood dripped onto the paper, seeping into the fibers. Jessica took another deep breath.

The animatronic girl had one of her hands inside the incision, and was pulling it back, peering into the wound she had just made. “Scalpel,” she said again, and Jessica picked up a new one and handed it to her. “Watch,” the girl warned, and Jessica watched as she reached into the incision and cut something inside. Jessica flinched. Shoes. Maroon clogs. Chunky heel, three inches. Patchwork stitching. The girl held out the scalpel, her hand still inside Afton’s body. “Take it; give me clamps.” Jessica took the scalpel and replaced it.

“Clamps?” she asked, starting to panic as she searched among the instruments.

“They look like scissors, with teeth instead of blades. Open them and hand them to me, and do it fast.”

Shoes. Jelly sandals, purple, sparkly. Jessica grabbed the clamps and tried to open them, but they were stuck together, hooked by an odd clasp at the top.

“Hurry up, do you want him to die?”

Yes, I do! Jessica wanted to shout, but held her tongue. She pinched the scissor handles together, and they came free. She handed them to the girl, relieved, and watched as she stuck the pointed end into the opening and pinched whatever she had been holding, clamping it shut. She took her hand slowly out of the wound and looked at Jessica.

“You have to be faster. Scalpel, then I’ll need clamps right away.”

Jessica nodded.

Shoes. Green suede kitten heels with a rhinestone strap at the ankle. She handed the girl the scalpel, then wrestled the clamps open as fast as she could, and was holding them out by the time the bloody blade was returned to her. She watched dizzily as the animatronic girl made another cut, severing something she could not see, and using the last set of clamps to hold it shut.

The table behind them began to hiss more loudly, and the orange glow intensified. Jessica took a step sideways to get away from the heat. The glow spread to the creature on the table, and parts of it seemed to turn from side to side.

“Hold out your hands,” the girl said.

Platform sneakers. Denim. Hideous. Jessica held out her hands for the clamps, but the girl left them in place. Instead, she slid both hands into Afton’s open body and lifted out a bloody object. His kidney, that’s his kidney. Black leather combat boots. Black leather combat boots. Charlie’s black leather combat boots. The animatronic girl held the kidney up in the air for a moment, and blood dripped from it onto her face. Charlie’s boots. Charlie. The girl turned to Jessica, and she shrank back.

“Hold out your hands,” the girl repeated with cold insistence, and Jessica obeyed, fighting not to retch as the warm organ was placed gently in her hands. It’s meat; it’s not part of a person; just think of it as meat. Platform sneakers. Stiletto boots. Penny loafers. She watched in a daze as the girl took a curved needle and black thread and began to sew William Afton back together, starting with his innards, and ending with the first incision, making a row of Xs across the left half of his body. At last she finished, snipping the last thread off with practiced ease.

“What’s next?” Jessica asked, her voice sounding faint against the rushing in her ears. Yellow sneakers with a blue streak on the side. Those brown pumps Mom got me. Oh, Mom—

“The next part is easy,” the girl said, pulling the gloves off and picking the kidney up again with her hand and approaching the table where the mass lay.

“What are you going to do?” Jessica quivered.

“What did you think all of this was for?” the girl said softly. “He told you: piece by piece.”

Jessica looked down at the creature on the table, glowing orange at its core, and dripping fluid from its various parts, the drops landing with a hiss on the hot surface.

“This is a transplant,” she said.

The mass of melted parts for a moment looked human, its demeanor suddenly childlike as it squirmed, and its head turned to face Jessica. For just a moment, Jessica thought she could make out eyes looking back at her. Suddenly, the silence was broken as the animatronic girl clenched her fist around the kidney and slammed it against the creature’s chest, pressing so hard that the metal underneath sank inward, embedding the kidney deep inside where it gurgled and hissed. More fluid seeped out the sides of the creature and burned on the table, as the girl wrenched it back and forth inside.

She pulled her hand from the cavity she had created, her hand charred black, and rested it at her side, extending and retracting her fingers as though making sure they still worked.

“Now, we are done,” she said. She brushed past Jessica and went to the cabinet, and emerged with a long needle. She strode purposefully to William Afton’s side, stopped with her fist raised over her head, then brought the needle down, plunging it into his chest.

A second passed, then he heaved an enormous breath and groaned. The girl pulled the needle from his chest and set it gently on the table beside him. William Afton opened his eyes, and his single eyeball moved back and forth between Jessica and the animatronic girl.

“Is it done?” he asked.

Jessica screamed. The intensity of it roused her from her daze and she screamed again, letting the sound drown out everything else. Her throat went raw, but she screamed again, clinging to the roar of her own voice; for an instant, she felt like if she kept screaming nothing worse could happen.

The air around the girl shimmered, and Jessica’s vision blurred in front of her: something was moving. In a moment, her eyes cleared, and Charlie was standing in front of her.

“Jessica, don’t worry! You can trust me,” Charlie said cheerfully.