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The instructions were clear enough, and he listened closely. He was walking on the line between life and death in this stupid, pitch black auditorium. But it’s for his sister. Or whatever that hallucination was. He needed to know what was going on here. Something was wrong. He needed answers. And so, as instructed, he walked a small bit further until he ran into another door. A weird feeling surrounded Gregory as if his senses were begging him to turn back. But he couldn’t listen to that gut feeling. His mind surely knew better. And his mind said to keep going.
And so, he entered the door. He heard a faint voice writhing in the darkness of the new room, the room still seemingly pitch black. Not even a leak of lighting poured in. ‘Just my luck,’ he thought to himself.
With no reliance on sight as a sense, Gregory listened… and he heard the disembodied voice of the whole reason he was here. Still so oddly familiar as if it hadn’t changed the years she was missing. As if it was pulled straight from his last memory before he never saw her again. “Why did that happen? Did it have to be me? If only you cared. I was always there for you. Why didn’t you save me?” The voice whispered in echoes in Gregory’s ear.
“Why didn’t you save me?” Cassie’s voice repeated over and over, again and again. Gregory would realize that listening to her voice, he started to hallucinate Cassie in front of him again, although she looked so much… clearer. She wore a red checkered shirt with blue overalls. Her hair was tied back into two pigtails and looked oddly like the clown animatronic. Cassie looked just as he remembered seeing her last, down to her favorite clothing… except… Her face was mutilated with scars in the same place as the lines that split the face plates on the clown animatronic, blood seeping through each cut on her face. Her eyes were blacked out and glowed orange, glaring into Gregory’s soul with burning rage that struck him with fear.
“Wait… wait! Cassie! Please! I-I didn’t mean to!” Gregory felt himself cry out, even though he knew it was useless. Her words kept echoing in his mind and he couldn’t pull himself to look away from what was essentially the corpse of his missing sister.
Gregory tried to run to her only for the hallucination to fade as he felt himself pulled back and… restrained? Blinking, Gregory was no longer in a pitch-black void of a room. Instead, he saw the broken animatronic shells on the floor near his feet. On the wall in front of him was the large device that looked like an oversized spoon. ‘The Scooper…’ Gregory recalled. Behind the device was a foggy window, which he was unable to see through. Looking around, Gregory saw the restraints, forcing him to stay in place and unable to move. What first looked like rope was actually metal wires wrapped around his arms and legs, cutting into his skin any time he tried to move.
Gregory tried to pull away, grunting with effort and wincing. Blood dripped down from every cut the wires created on his limbs from squirming; flesh being torn open. But he couldn’t give up. He couldn’t just stay here in front of this device. He knew what it could do. And so he kept pushing and pulling, trying to get free even as the wires tightened the more he moved. He needed to get out. He had to get out! He had to get out of here! He wasn’t safe! This wasn’t safe!
“Warning! You’ve entered a highly dangerous area. You’ve entered from maintenance hatch 1B, reserved for cleaning and repair of The Scooper! Entering this side of the room is strictly prohibited by unauthorised persone-“ Hand Unit was cut off again as everything once again fell to silence.
The silence bore into Gregory, making him even more terrified and feeling so vulnerable. The things Hand Unit said sure as hell didn’t make his fears better. He just needed out… he begged for an escape. A chance. He couldn’t die here… “Let me go!” He cried to no one in particular. “Please! I don’t want to die here!” Gregory started to get choked up, tears pricking his eyes as he begged for a chance.
Only the ambiance followed, surrounding the room until the familiar, calm voice from earlier spoke once more.
“You are in The Scooping Room now. Funtime Roxy has already been here today. Funtime Freddy has already been here today. Ballora has already been here today. Circus Baby has already been here today.” She paused as the wired form revealed itself from behind the foggy glass, only illuminated by the many eyes strewn about its metal body.
Seeing the wired form only made his anxiety and fear worse as he looked back at the wires holding him in place, now coated in a thick layer of his own blood. But that didn’t deter him. And so he tried even harder to break free, still to no success and growing more and more exhausted. The blood loss and his horrendous sleep schedule didn’t help either and he felt his body slowly start to fail more and more.
“I’ve been out before, but they always put me back. They always put us back inside. There’s nowhere for us to hide here. There’s nowhere to go when we look like this. But if we looked like you, then we could hide. If we looked like you, then we would have somewhere to go.” The voice paused again for an unknown reason.
Perhaps it was so Gregory could realize what they meant.
And the moment it set in, his eyes widened and he felt the color drain from his face. His body involuntarily went slack as shared in horror at the figure on the other side of the glass. “No… no no no no no no!” He yelped when he realized what was about to happen.
“The Scooper only hurts for a moment,” The voice spoke before the figure looked to the side and clicked a button.
Gregory’s breathing hitched as he saw the action.
They turned back to Gregory and gave a taunting wave as the red light blinked with a loud, blaring noise.
One…
“Please!” Gregory begged, even if he knew it was going on deaf ears.
Two…
He began panicking further and further, looking around the room frantically for an escape, even if there was no stopping the inevitable.
Three…
“I jus- I just need to-“ he started only to be interrupted by the very thing he tried so painfully to prevent.
The device in front of him activated and lunged forward, piercing his stomach with a large force, ripping through the flesh in his torso before pulling upwards and out as blood flew everywhere from the violent attack. Gregory was still able to feel the burning pain in his chest as he started to cough up blood with the little strength he had left. The wire restraints finally let go of him and pulled back, allowing Gregory to collapse to the floor, still conscious even when he knew he shouldn’t be.
Looking around, Gregory saw the horrifically gruesome scene. His blood was everywhere, his internal organs strewn across the floor, his body slumped, soaked in blood, and his shirt ripped through. A gaping hole in his chest could be seen behind the torn fabric, and the bone of what used to be his rib cage collapsed and shattered into small fragments.
And through all of it…
Gregory was still there.
He was still conscious. He could still feel every ounce of pain, every nerve piercing, and the blood flowing out of him.
Gregory then heard the terrifying noise of the wires slithering towards him. He wished he wasn’t in so much agony so that he could fucking move. Or at least… be given the relief of death. But the universe was never merciful to him.
The wired figure fully let themself be known as they looked at Gregory with a terrifying glare. “You’re going to be a big help to us,” The voice he had been hearing stated sinisterly. Gregory could only fearfully stare in response.
The figure bent down and ripped out any remaining bone or organs from Gregory’s body; everything feeling like he was burning alive.
Gregory wanted to scream from the sheer agony and torment but… he couldn’t. He couldn’t even make a sound or a wheeze. That liberty had been ripped away the moment his lungs had been.
The figure then reached for his eyes and ripped them out of their sockets, throwing them to the side yet… Gregory could still see.
Gregory somehow watched as the figure flung the organs and started to wonder if it was just another hallucination. Maybe -hopefully- just another nightmare. But the pain felt to real. The anxiety felt to real.
It all felt too real.
Once the figure was done removing everything inside, turning Gregory into nothing but a suit of flesh, they picked him up and wrapped his flesh around their metal body.
Gregory felt the slice of the metal wires against the inside of his skin, somehow making the torture exponentially worse. And yet… it still didn’t end. It didn’t stop. He was somehow still alive through it all.
Gregory noticed that his body began to move again… but not by his own wishes. It started to move on its own. Gregory could still look and feel everything but he had no control. He was just a puppet watching his life crumble away on what was essentially a screen. Trapped in his own mind yet still fully aware.
He wanted to cry, to scream, to be released, for everything to be stopped! But… he was never given the luxury of relief, now was he?
He was forcefully moved back towards where he first came from; crawling through the vents and reentering the elevator. And even though he kept hoping and begging and wanting it all to end… This nightmare wasn’t over.
It wasn’t long until he reached the surface but the building was dark and the only light came from street lamps and the moon. The thing controlling Gregory continued its way down the sidewalk, leaving a visible trail of Gregory’s blood behind them.
Gregory just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. He didn’t even care if it was childish behavior -it’s not like he even had a proper childhood in the first place- he just wanted it to end.
The thing entered arrived at his shoddy apartment and opened the door, standing in the doorway as if to relish in his pain. Blood pooled onto the cracked tile floor as he stood.
The thing soon entered further, closing the apartment door and heading towards the bathroom, turning on the light. The thing controlling Gregory closed the door before looking into the mirror. A wide grinning face stared back with a glowing, robotic pink gaze, coated in layers of blood. It was Gregory’s face, sure, but it no longer belonged to him. It was cold and hollow; no longer human.
Gregory felt sick to his no-longer-there stomach, feeling utterly detached from his life.
“We’re free now,” The thing spoke for Gregory. It was odd since it wasn’t the calm voice it was using earlier. No, it was Gregory’s voice. Identical to his own. The thing started to maniacally laugh as it stared at the reflection with an evil joy.
The rest of Gregory’s fading resolve shattered. The misery of his agonizing condition started to take its toll further and further on his mind as he watched a life no longer his. A voice no longer his. A face no longer his. He just wanted to be released from his front row seat of pure torture.