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Spring realized too late that they'd made a big mistake.
In trying to kill their own creator, they'd done something equally as terrible. They kept him alive.
He was still there. Time marched on, and even though decay set in quickly, they remained. Both of them remained.
Spring was awake for every second of this miserable existence. William didn't talk much. He talked a lot at first, berating Spring for the attempt on his life. He soon stopped when he didn't get any reaction.
The bunny no longer feared him. At least, not as much as they used to.
It made sense. While William was still alive, Spring had trapped him. He couldn't harm them unless he was willing to harm himself.
William was weak. He had always been weak, but now, it was all the more obvious.
The day the safe room door opened up was odd. They were excited. They were happy to share their excitement with one another. For a moment, it was as if the two of them were something other than a killer and his murder weapon.
Spring couldn't help but find Fazbear's Fright disgusting based on its concept alone. A horror attraction based on the disappearance and murders of real children? Children whose parents live the rest of their lives hoping, praying, and wondering when everything went wrong?
The people behind this attraction weren't malicious. Most of them sounded like teenagers trying to make a buck, somehow unaware of the rotting corpse inside the animatronic they'd found behind a wall they broke down for the sake of it.
Spring wished they could talk to these kids. To tell them to stay away from urban legends, lest they wish to become a part of them. They would try to set these teens on the straight and narrow, if it weren't for the fact that William was still in control.
William had regained the ability to move about a month after he had been springlocked. He never made much use out of it due to the fact that there was no escaping the safe room. If he tried to break down the wall, the only thing he'd end up breaking was his hand.
"I personally think it's nice." William said the first night they'd been left to roam the attraction. His voice was hoarse, as his lungs had been punctured from several pieces of jagged metal.
"Knowing that all of our hard work wasn't entirely forgotten." William explained. "It's nice."
Spring wanted to say something spiteful in response, but unfortunately for them, they couldn't speak.
On the second night that they were there, around 5:00 AM, they saw him through the long office window. Michael. Or Michelle, as Williams kept incorrectly calling him.
Mike's skin was an inhuman purple, but he was still recognizable.
After taking one look at his oldest child, William made it his goal to kill him. To 'make her pay' for 'tearing his family apart.'
Spring couldn't say it, but they really, truly hated William.
Thankfully, the bunny had found a way to rebel against their creator. Everytime Mike played a sound over the loudspeaker, Spring would temporarily regain control of themselves. They would intentionally move themselves away from the office just to stall William's progress.
Even though Spring couldn't speak when William was in control, the inverse was not true. William would yell at the bunny, berating them for being a mistake. Something that should've been left as a sketch on a blueprint.
Every word he said was empty, and every threat he made was reused.
Spring didn't know if they should've been happy about the fire or not.
It seemed like an accident, but then again, William seemed like a stand up guy before he started killing people.
Watching these relics of the past burn asunder was oddly cathartic.
Still, William was not content to die in this fire. Spring didn't know why their creator wanted to keep living like this. Surely eternal damnation, which William was guaranteed to receive, would be better than this dull, soul wrenching purgatory.
Fazbear's Fright had so many exits. Spring had to admit that it would have been harder to just sit down and die. Maybe that's why William chose to keep living like this. Because it was the easy way out.
Coward.
The door to the abandoned diner was so weak that William had no trouble breaking through it. Spring didn't know why they were here. It wasn't like William would tell them anything even if they could ask.
Leaning against the wall of a decrepit backroom was another SpringBonnie suit. Spring knew that other locations existed, but they never considered what other versions of them were like. Did they like their Fredbear? Love him, even? Or was Spring the odd one out?
Whatever the case may have been, the suit still sat before them.
Spring lurched forward as a mound of flesh crawled out through Spring's open mouth, landing on the floor as it slowly inched towards the other suit.
Spring fell face first on the ground. The sound of flesh wrapping itself around steel horrified Spring as much as it disgusted them.
Spring lifted their head up just in time to see William stand up. He flexed his fingers, pausing to look over at Spring. "Now, I won't have to deal with you interrupting me, and vice versa. How does that sound?"
Spring didn't say anything. William spared his creation a few more seconds before shambling out of the restaurant.
Terrible. That was Spring's answer to William's question. This was terrible.
Spring hadn't moved from the backroom. They had no reason to. No restaurant would ever want them, not when they were in such a state. Not when they had a legacy of agony tied to them.
They wanted to die. They wished that William had let them burn in that fire.
Spring could hear moving outside. The footsteps grew louder, until the backroom door finally creaked open.
"Oh." Michael stepped through the worn doorframe. "I can't say I was expecting to see you again so soon."
Spring returned Michael's gaze, but they didn't say anything.
Michael chuckled awkwardly. "I see that my father isn't around. Or if he is, he's trying not to make his presence known. That would be something that he would do."
Spring sat up straight. "Y-Your name is… Michael… right?"
Michael nearly flinched at how distorted Spring's voice was. His eyes shifted before he sighed, closing his eyes. "Yes. It's good to know that you still remember me after all of these years. Lord knows I haven't forgotten about… any of it."
Spring nodded. There was so much they could talk about, yet there was very little they actually wanted to talk about.
"I'm… sorry." Michael said clear out of the blue. "I ruined everything. I caused…all of this."
It had been so long since that fateful day in 83. For one blissful moment, Spring had no idea what Michael was talking about.
Michael coughed. It was purely to get Spring's attention, as there was no way in hell his throat could ever be considered 'cleared' considering his status as a rotting corpse. "I'm going to try and right my wrongs. To purge the sins of the past and let the spirits rest. I tried once before with setting Fazbear's Fright on fire. Considering that you're still here, I didn't do a good job." Michael scratched the back of his bare scalp. "No offense, of course."
"I-It's alright." Spring assured.
Michael nodded. "Good to know. As I was saying, Fazbear's Fright had far too many exits. Besides, other than my father, there are still many of his victims who have latched themselves to various animatronics and are proven to be especially violent. Trust me, I've faced off with just about all of them."
Spring couldn't tell if Michael was gloating or not. It wasn't something that most people would want to be associated with, let alone gloat about. Michael's breathy laugh combined with his relaxed posture told Spring all they needed to know.
"I have been running a restaurant and Henry was the one who hired me. It's kind of a miracle he did, considering the old saying of 'don't trust an Afton with the keys.'" Michael chuckled. Spring raised a brow. "Sorry, it's an in-joke. Anyways, the restaurant is just a front to lure in the rogue animatronics and finally burn them all down when they're all in one place. Letting them come to us has been surprisingly effective, but I felt the need to look for you in particular, even if my father has already been contained. Getting to the point, though that's proven to be difficult for me," Michael smirked, though it quickly faded. "Do you want to burn as well?"
Spring nodded without hesitation.
The new pizzeria was serviceable enough. Michael seemed to be the only person on this earth who could run a Freddy's restaurant without any deaths, which shouldn't be considered an accomplishment, but it was far too late to get angry over something like that.
The vent system was a complicated and confusing mess. Just as much of a maze as Fazbear's Fright, except somehow even worse.
Spring didn't know the full extent of the vents, as they were content to sit in one of the vents' junctions and watch the others crawl past.
Spring didn't recognize the clown girl. Apparently, she was held down in William's bunker, possessed by his daughter. Spring didn't know William had a daughter, but still, they felt remorse for her all the same.
Spring flinched twice. Once for when they first saw each bear. The black bear, Lefty, was more visually similar to Fredbear, but upon closer inspection, Spring could see the puppet's arms inside the suit. Again, Spring was remorseful.
The tangle of wires bearing a bear mask confused Spring. They had no idea what it was or why it was here. It seemed the most manic as it slunk through the vents, as if it were being pulled in multiple directions at the same time.
"I was wondering when I'd run into you." Spring said blankly.
William scowled. He looked up. "You're so much more irritating than I remember you being."
"I guess Fredbear rubbed off on me." Spring said, shrugging. "Maybe it's my way of keeping his memory alive. It's better than whatever the hell you tried to do."
"Have you ever considered what lies beyond the threshold?" William asked.
"For you, probably hell. For me…" Spring closed their eyes. "Probably nothing."
"How can you be content with that?" William asked. It may have just been him thinking aloud, as he kept talking. "Maybe it's because you don't know what it means to be truly alive, so 'death' also means nothing to you."
"My life started as years of blissful ignorance, before devolving into a hellish nightmare that I was forced back into time and time again." Spring answered. "That sounds like an accurate description of life to me."
William sighed. He turned his head back to the open vent in front of him and kept on crawling.
"... I hope you're satisfied, Mr. Afton."
Henry's voice echoed through the vents. Spring listened, like everyone else. Dots connected themselves in their head, but none of that really mattered. It was over.
Screams rang out through the vents. Based on the accent, it was most likely William. He was a murderer scared of death. Irony at its finest.
Spring snapped their head towards the sound of clanging in the vents. It was the tangle of wires again. Spring waved half-heartedly as the flames flicked higher.
The hunk of scrap metal kept staring at the bunny. "Spring?"
Everything froze.
Spring recognized that voice.
Without saying another word, the mess of wires made its way over to Spring. It rested its head on the bunny's lap.
"F-Fred?" The bear nodded. Spring reached out to him, only for the bear to recoil.
"I'm… sorry." Fredbear spoke through a voice box that was well beyond repair. "Some of the spirits are still here. They can't help but be weary of you. It's a miracle they're letting me get this close to you."
Spring hung their head low, looking at the scolding hot metal beneath them.
"It wasn't your fault."
Fredbear circled around his partner, warmly embracing them as a trail of wires wrapped around their body. "It's ok. You don't have any control."
Spring hesitantly returned the hug. "Do you think that… Henry's proud of us?"
Fredbear nodded, pressing his snout against his partner's cheek. "I think he'd be pretty impressed by the bond that we've formed."
They never let go of each other as the fire enveloped them and everything started to go black.
"So much for ‘artificial feelings that don't matter,' huh?"