Chapter Text
August 17th, 1983 - 8:26pm
Charlotte Emily, the 7 year old daughter of Henry Emily, currently sat outside Fredbear’s Diner, staring through the window with a frown as she watched the kids inside. It had begun to rain and the only protection she had from getting wet was the small overhang of the Diner’s roof, pushing herself against the building to stay dry.
Her father was a co-owner of the Diner, which she thought was kind of cool. It would've been even cooler if she wasn’t locked out of the Diner that her dad owned half of. A sigh left her lips as she continued to stare at the activity inside of Fredbear’s. She couldn’t see where her dad was, and she had already knocked on the door and window to see if anyone would let her back in. At some point, a kid she recognized looked at her through the window with a smirk on his face. She felt herself frown even more, if that was even possible. This kid would never let her in, she had a group of people that bullied her and this guy was one of the bullies, one of the reasons she was locked out of the building right now.
Charlie had been trying her hardest not to cry, but she felt a few tears slip and fall down her cheeks. The boy behind the window only laughed before running back to his friends, leaving Charlie alone again. She sniffled her nose as she tried to control her rapid breathing. She didn’t want to cry, she didn’t want anyone to see her cry. She placed a hand on the window, silently watching and praying her dad would pop up from the crowd and save her.
She suddenly noticed that the Puppets box was blocked by something, making sure it was stuck inside and unable to get out. She furrowed her brows, who would do that? Why would anyone do that? No one else seemed to be paying attention to the box, but to Charlie, this was weird.
She had been the one to help her dad design the animatronic. He watched her daily as she drew and drew and designed her own little characters. One day, he looked through her countless drawings and the one with the white face, red cheeks, purple tear-like lines, and black and white clothes caught his eye. When he asked Charlie about it, she shrugged and said she drew it because it looked cool.
Henry had taken the drawing and made it into the Puppet animatronic, gifting it to his daughter for her 6th birthday. The animatronic was created to watch over Charlie, using facial recognition and a glowing green bracelet to track her. The green bracelet had also been used by Henry to track his daughter, the glowing of the bracelet allowing Henry to easily see where his daughter was.
That didn’t matter now, her father was nowhere to be found and the Puppet was locked in its box. She felt hopeless as tears flooded her vision, everything becoming blurry as she listened to her own hiccupped sobs. Maybe if she walked out into the rain, no one could tell that she was crying. Charlie turned away from the window to stare at the downpour, it was dark outside and the only available light came from the window and her bracelet.
The sudden glimpse of the glowing green made her angry. Why would she need to wear this stupid bracelet if it’s intended purpose wasn’t helping her. She wanted to rip it off and throw it away in the dumpster in front of her, but a sudden honk of a car stopped her. She looked back at the window, no one else heard the honking, or maybe they didn’t care. Charlie turned back around to see a familiar car pull up to an empty parking spot.
Her Uncle William stepped out of the purple car, holding an umbrella as he walked straight towards Charlie. A smile graced her lips as she felt her mood lift. Uncle William would let her back inside, Uncle William would save her. She watched as he got closer to her, a smile on his face as he approached her. Once he was close enough, he kneeled down to match her height, raising a calloused hand to wipe her tears. Charlie felt a giggle slip past her lips, Uncle William always made her feel better.
When he removed his hand from her face, he spoke in a low voice, “What’re you doing out here, Charlie?” The question made her scrunch her nose, trying not to cry again. She replied in a tone similar to his, as similar as a 7 year old imitating an adult man could sound, she wanted to sound strong, “I-I got locked out. No one w-will let me back in.” She cringed as she spoke, her words shaky as she heard her voice crack, stumbling over her words. She pointed to the door as she spoke, trying to show him that it was locked. Noticing a frown on his lips, she looked him up and down, hoping he’d hurry up and unlock the door. He was the co-owner, he had to have a key.
“Well that’s just no good, huh?” Charlie grew confused as she stared at him, why was he taking so long to unlock the door? It was cold and still pouring rain, she just wanted to go inside. She slowly shook her head, yeah, it was ‘no good’. They stood in silence, the only noise she heard was the commotion inside the diner, everyone was too focused on themselves to notice what was going on outside.
Charlie’s confusion turned into fear, why was she so scared all of the sudden? She continued to look him up and down, unable to speak. Her voice broke the silence, feeling off in the small space, “Can…can you let me back inside?” She stayed still, almost frozen in place, waiting for an answer.
Her stomach dropped as she watched her Uncle William shake his head no. “w-what-?” The words were quiet as she mumbled, furrowing her brows as her vision became blurry again, feeling warm, fat tears fall down her cheeks. The reflection of something shiny behind her uncle caught her attention. There, in his back pocket, was a sharp knife. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Charlie stumbled backwards, not caring about the rain anymore. William immediately stood up, walking towards her. How could she be so blind? So stupid? So trusting? A million thoughts raced through her mind, she couldn’t focus.
Her body fell limply onto the ground, as if she were a doll. She slipped on a puddle that she couldn’t see as the back of her shirt became soaked with rain water. A sob ripped through her throat as she tried to crawl away. Her knee felt hot and she could feel blood drip from it. The only thing on her mind was running, but her legs felt like jelly as she continued to crawl away from him, hearing heavy footsteps behind her.
All she could hear was her own heartbeat before she felt her shirt violently get yanked from behind. A scream for help escaped her throat, but it was hoarse and not loud enough for anyone else to hear. A million words spilled from her lips, begging, pleading, compromising, threatening, nothing worked, nothing stopped him. It ended as quickly as it started, he pushed her onto the ground and stabbed her before entering his car again, leaving Charlie to rot.
The stab wound felt like it was on fire as her chest tightened, pulling herself towards the closest wall, which happened to be right by the dumpster. She tried her best to apply pressure to the wound, but she couldn’t press on it without making it scream in pain even more. She could feel her eyes try to flutter shut no matter how hard she tried to stay awake, but it was becoming difficult. With her back against the dumpster, she stared into the diner, squinting. No one came for her, she was alone.
A frown formed on her lips as she struggled to stay calm, feeling blood soak into her shirt and make the area around her wound sticky as tears form in her eyes. Charlie could hear herself grunt as she tried to get up, but it felt impossible. She tried her best to not look at her wound, she didn’t want to realize how bad this all really was. Suddenly, as soon as she heard the Diner’s door fly open, she was drowned into pitch black darkness.
It ended as quickly as it started.