The Visitor – by RiPerils

Tuesday! No work tonight and a late shift meant you could have a lie in today, but that was never really you, up, busy and helpful.

The apartment is empty as you pyjama clothed self strolls your plush Bob slipered feet (A birthday gift from Bonbon) into the kitchen, putting the kettle on for your first hot drink of the day. Freddy is out on incomprehensibly explained business, Bonnie probably with him and Chicca had mentioned last night some errands that would take her out this morning, so yes, you are alone.

Sighing contentedly you look around at the comfy and familiar surroundings of 87B, enjoying the moment of peace until

Knock-Knock

The hard rapping came at the apartment door, rattling you loose from the moment.

Pulling your comfy clothes straight you head for the door mentally running over who it might be, the friendships around here meant that some folks just walked right in, those who didn’t, well everyone has their little habits and you’ve started to recognize who will there by the way they knock on the door. This one is unfamiliar, readying yourself you turn the catch and open up to the cold morning air.

You freeze to the spot, bolted stock still by surprise and an unknowable sensation that sweeps over you like an ill wind, even with one of the humanitroncs a possibility this was the last thing you had expected.

A woman stood on the outside landing. Not a female, not a hen, doe or a vixen but a woman.

A human woman!

She stands as tall as you in her heels, dressed in a black business suit and smiling patiently as the initial shock and confusion grips you.

“Mr. Schmidt, may I please come in?”

Your mouth moves wordlessly for a time before she coughed politely, shaking you from your stunned state “YES!” You blurt out too loudly.

She paused a moment at the threshold before taking a heavy step forward into the hall as if entering was a momentous event, but she’s soon walking right through the apartment to the kitchen as if she knew the layout intimately.

You stand rattled, grasping to re-anchor normality.

Looking at you she gives an amused chuckle “May I have a cup of tea?” She asks.

“Of course!” Making tea, good normal making tea, you nod and set to pouring the freshly boiled kettle, a mindless act of normality that helps to re-orientate you. The time passes un-noticed in silence as your hands work on their own, making two cups and bringing them to the table fragrant with the herbal blend Mangle has you sampling recently.

“Mmm smells wonderful, May I take a seat?” She asks, taking your nodded agreement to pull a chair from the table and sat neatly, hands resting crossed in front of her “I appreciate this may be a shock to you but I assure you Mr. Schmidt, I am very real.”

“You’re a... human?” You whisper your own species name in case any of your friends who are currently out of the apartment possibly hear the word.

“What do you think Mr. Schmidt? I’m certainly not some sort of hairless ape” The thought that was needlessly evasive getting swallowed into the emotions of being with another flesh and blood human and the flood of other questions filling your head.

You take a seat across from her, studying another real persons face for the first time in so long “Who are you? How did you get here? How did you find me!”

“Digging in landfill for a start. I am an auditor of sorts. I find things that are not in their correct place and manage them, inanimate objects are easy to trace so the tattered clothes and a suitcase filled with… unpleasantness gave me a firm trail directly to your door”

You stare blankly at her for that answer. It’s got to be some sort of joke…

Ignoring the invitation to give you her name she pulled a note book from her pocket and a black rubber ball, placing both on the table and flicking the pages of the book open “After my investigations I pieced together events. You were deposited here nearly one year ago by local time. The why I understand, the how I do not exactly. Your memories prior to the event are, if present… vague?”

“You could say that” The myriad of things wrong with this situation are creeping up on you, pushing through the elation of being with another of your species and putting you on edge.

“I should think so, you made the trip between there and here completely exposed! It’s lucky you’re not completely scrambled, but there seems to be no permeant damage, so, no need to worry”

“That sounds like you’ve seen this before?”

“A few times.” She paused, looking for a way to start explaining “You and your possessions do not belong here Michael. You’re like a stone dropped into a river, the world has flowed around you, altering and fitting you into events as best it can, but you are a bigger obstruction than you may think, the flow of events have snagged and the debris of change has built up around you.

It is why somethings don’t make sense if you really stop to think about them and you can’t focus on the inconsistencies. All these faults stick to you, they make you noticeable, they make you a pearl.

Do you know how a pearl is formed Mr. Schmidt?”

‘What kind of question is that?’ the question was unexpected and not one of the million that had come to mind but your feeling more grounded now in good old confused anger “No I don’t… what’s your point?”

She picked up the cup with exaggerated care, blowing the hot tea before taking a sip “Sometimes, a foreign object, say speck of sand or grit gets lodged in an oyster, unnoticed at first it becomes an irritant around which the shellfish builds a coating, slowly but gradually, thicker and thicker, coated in the shells iridescent lining…” She traced a dainty finger along the smooth china surface. “Until it eventually it becomes a lustrous pearl.” Suddenly she was looking at you with an intensity that gripped tightly “There are those who like to split open oysters and pull out pearls Mr. Schmidt. Fortunately for you, they, and I, do not see eye to eye”

The gaze she fixed you with was unsettling, but nothing as unsettling as the feeling you couldn’t look away, and the more you stared the more seemed wrong with this woman, something that strained the eyes to look at her. Skin that was too pale and smooth, contrasting hair that was too red and eyes that were too green, like a television with is saturation up just too high. And that suit, the black wasn’t just dark; it sucked in light and kept it, giving nothing back to the world.

You really don’t like the way this is going and start to push away from the table

“Now, the rules dictate, that I should sling you and your mechanical doppelganger back where you belong… but I have no intention of putting you back, rather I’m going to re-arrange things...”

“Listen lady!" You interrupt "I don’t get what’s going on here but I don’t have to put up with this nonsense” Your temper fraying like it hasn’t done in a long time.

“You don’t believe me?”

You stand to your feet, hands planted solidly on the table, confusion and agitation making you angrier by the moment “Frankly no! I don’t!”

“Very well.” She says disappointedly.

There is a blinking of the world and you’re not in the comfortable kitchen of 87B anymore. Horrible black and white chequered floor lit by a feeble bulb overhead, its hum mixed with the clipping noise of the decrepit metal desk fan. In the near distance the sound of heavy metal footsteps clanking, coming closer down the hall beyond the dark doors sitting starkly open.

Your visitor sat, knees crossed on the single collapsible office chair sipping the tea as your mounting panic builds. Her eyes fixed on you sternly with something else going on behind them, her voice clipped with annoyance.

“Shall we skip the ‘It’s wonderful life’ crap Mike? We could go see how no one got into Jeremey’s until Fritizine was done stripping Beanie of her after-market parts and her misery at Goldies impossible demands. How not being there to relay Peanuts words to April let Nisha keep leaching the pizzeria until nothing was left for your new found family. “

“What the fuck!” You exclaim, desperately pressing the door close buttons as the sounds of mechanical feet draw closer and closer, the mutely blipping door doing nothing to close despite your frantic pressing.

“How you were never there to suggest that more than just April and Mr.Fazbear go to the restaurant to confront her? Spoilers Mike! Everyone died! Or! How you ran out of luck on October 31rst, and wound up ‘suited for work’ in a restaurant that folded months later.”

You look through the glass to see a looming mechanical figure paused in the hall, looking in at you questioningly before it starts moving for the door in heavy, metal steps “ALRIGHT I BELIVE YOU!” You cry in desperate horror.

“Excellent” Suddenly all warm smiles again and in a blink you’re back in the kitchen. “Now I’m sorry for the theatrics there Mike, but this is serious and I need you to understand at least the basic parts”

You grip the back of the chair defensively, your thumping heart slowing from the panic “What the hell is this?”

“This is your audit Mr Schmidt”

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!” Your already shaken nerves make you jump in shock at the sudden noise. Chicca was stood in the living room, eyes wide and beakless jaw hanging in shock, crumpled mail in her clenched hand “You just popped in out of god damn thin air!”

“CHICCA! This… this ” You struggle for words to explain.

“Don’t you worry Chiclet, I just took Mike here for a quick trip home to the human world”

The hen looked thoroughly confounded, eyes wide, eyes twitching erratically “…What?”

Smile never faltering the visitor picked up the rubber ball from the table and pelted it at the hen sailing just passed her ear and striking against the far wall, rebounding away.

Chicca spun reflexively, watching the flung ball shoot passed, but as her back turned she slowed to a stop and paused, standing motionless for a moment before shaking herself back together, turning back around.

Seemingly noticing you and your guest for the first time she startled “Oh! Mike.. and guest? Hello! I um… I didn’t see you there? Hi!”

The woman in black waved her hand in a friendly greeting “You must be Miss.Pardeebirb, don’t mind me, I’m just here to sort some business from Mr. Schmidt’s old employer”

“Ah! Better be good news for my guy here, he’s been an absolute treasure for us”

“So I hear, and yes it should be good news”

She nodded approving “Good to know, I just gotta say I love your feathers, how do you do that?”

‘Feathers?’ You eye your visitor sideways as she brushes a curl of hair from her face

“Oh! Thank you! Plucking, tweaking and a good dye mix, it’s the devil to do… but unfortunately I haven’t come here to discuss preening regimens, would you mind? There is some confidential matters I have to discuss”

“Alright, but don’t monopolise my man too long there” She grinned and winked at you, sauntering off to her room.

As the hen swayed her hips out of sight your visitor leaned in and spoke quietly enough that only you would hear “I’m not here to see anyone else, they’ll see a me their minds can accept and will forget me after they look away, it’s how things are… gets rather irritating actually”

‘they’ll see a me their minds can accept‘? Were you really seeing them either? The mounting madness and uncomprehending horror of this seeming woman begins to claw at you “What do you want?”

“I want to help you Mike” She states flatly and believably honestly.

Only one question stands out now, begging to be asked “Why?”

She gave a smile and looked down at the ball which was somehow back I her hand, rolling it around back and forth with her fingertip “The bottom line, is that I am a sucker for a happy ending… and there are two at risk here. So I’m about to seriously bend if not break some rules… I’m not here to bring you or anyone else any harm, you must believe me on that”

You settle into the seat again “Okay.”

“I was serious earlier, you in your current state you have …value… to some groups who would happily tear all this down to get to you, I do not want that to happen and I’m sure neither do you”

Eyeing her cautiously you’re not sure if you can wholly trust this thing that has come to you cloaked in the guise of your own kind “so what do you have in mind, I sure as hell don’t know what to do about this”

“I can swap roles between you and Safety, essentially making you a native of this world and him of that one, now you won’t physically change, don’t worry about that but the process should break off your shells and prevent new ones forming again.

You will lose all worth and can live the life you’ve set for yourself here”

“Right sounds great, how do we do that?” You deadpan.

She stood up, looking around and over to the open space of the living room “This will do, follow me” Standing in the space between the TV and the couch, shaded lamp overhead.

Together you stand, with a deep inhale of breath she claps her hands, rubbing her palms before exhaling heavily.

“Last time was just a glimpse, this one will require a more voluntary return to the point. I need you to think of Freddy’s, imagine the screen, imagine the chair and the light above you. It may be uncomfortable for you to think of it, but you’ll never need to go there again after this”

You grimace at the thought of the place you spent so much time fearing for your life but her prompts had brought them to the fore of your mind on their own.

Your sight fixed on the TV screen but also a monitor screen that faded in over it, your eyes felt like they were crossing remaining focused on one point, other details overlaying themselves but the living room never left, like you were processing two of every sense at the same time. It was mentally aching being two places at once, simultaneously you stood in the living rooms of 87B and at the same time in a horribly familiar security office of black and white tiles, a flickering light and one whirring steel fan.

And with that, you were there too, but also not.

Neither were you alone.

Turning around slowly, you saw him for the first time.

Over six feet tall, shod in green plastic and metal, a peaked security hat bolted to his head over glowing eyed fixed on you “Mr. Michael Schmidt.” His voice a disturbingly similar synthesised mimic of your own. The words were not a question, they were a statement of fact.

“Safety Schmidt?” You feebly ask before jumping in surprise, behind him, pressed to the booths plexi-glass is the rabbit animatronic, Bonnie. Her jaw hanging loose in shock as she pressed her hands to the window looking back and forth between the two of you.

“The doors are sealed for now, she cannot come in” There was a fourth figure in the room, another humanitronic, a metal and plastic iteration of your own visitor wearing a similar business suit but fashioned in plastic and steel. Her breast sporting plastic badge that read ‘Afton Robotics Management’ “If we’re both ready we can begin, this should not take long.”

“You should listen to the woman, she knows what she’s talking about” her flesh counterpart said from beside you with a smirk, you oculd have sworn she wasn't there a moment ago.

“Astute observation me”

“Thank you me”

The pair of them tittered in a synchronised human chuckle and a tinny synthesised one before with a wave of her hands the robotic counterpart brought them back to order “This is important, Ahem. Safety Schmidt” She commanded his attention “Do you agree to take Mick Schmidts place”

“I agree”

The human visitor addressed you “Mike Schmidt, do you agree to take Safety Schmidt’s place.”

“Yes, I guess”

“Excellent, that’s all we need”

There was a sudden dragging, a pulling sensation all around you like a strong wind at your back, but your feet remaining resoundingly rooted to the floor as something unseen moved between you and your mechanical doppelganger. As it passed over there was a great feeling of lightness, as if a weight you hadn’t noticed was suddenly lifted from all over you.

As soon as it left the feeling of distortion lifted and the office fades from your view, the last sight being of safety Schmidt picking the tablet of the table and getting back to work, unconcerned about the whole affair.

“There, all done”

You are home again and your guest is slipping the notebook and ball back into her jacket pocket. Now she looked even more out of place then before, like something pasted onto the world and peeling away at the edges.

“That was it?” You ask in surprise, but relieved to be out of that damned security office again.

“Oh yes, you’re all set to stay here now indefinitely. So is Safety, he’s a good match for that job. The others like him and they’re turning their fortunes around. As you have done for everyone here”

“Thank you for your co-operation Mike, but, now it’s time for me to go” She says, holding her hands primly across her waist.

You can’t say your wholly unhappy to part ways as you lead her to the door in silence, but standing there with your guest, it feels like you should at least say something as you part ways.

“Look… I’m still not sure what you did… or if any of this is real… but thank you”

For the first time that smile truly faltered “It was nice to meet you Mike, I really mean that, stories like yours are why I keep doing what I do”

“I won’t forget this” You say with all sincerity.

“Yes, you will” She gave a weary sigh “Our time is over, please take care” With that she stepped out the door and back outside, turning to give you one last look with a forced smile.

The door closed on its own.

You stand alone looking at the front door, a blank sensation washing through your mind before fading away, leaving you wondering what you’re doing standing in the front hall starting at the closed door?

A vague recollection in your mind was telling you that there had been someone on the other side, but it was a voice coming from increasingly further and further away.