March '04, Plymouth County, Massachussetts.

“It might make me feel better if you put on the sexy nurse outfit. Y’know, act out a scene where you fuckin’ know what the hell you’re doing?”

Eugene gave Mike a queasy smile from the edge of the bathtub, “If that’s what it takes.”

Mike was standing at the sink, boggling at his own partially decomposed body in the mirror– which, somehow, looked in better condition than it did the day before.

“... This should be more painful and terrifying. I should be dead.” Mike murmured, flatly, “I can’t feel anything. Like if I stop talking, I might slip off again—this time for good. N’ I don’t want to, but it all feels so… Surreal.”

Eugene tried to seem unphased by the sudden shift in tone this conversation had taken. He remembered Mike telling him it was an inherited quirk; the rapid, indecisive way he shuffled between humor and sincerity, to the extent that telling where one ended and the other started was getting too complicated for everyone involved. Eugene knew that in this context, ‘inherited’ meant Mike unintentionally picked up the mannerism from his father, which one could easily extrapolate to mean it was something about himself that pissed him off to no end.

These past few years—well, maybe since the day Eugene met him, really—living in proximity to the Aftons was one batshit thing after another. Mostly tragic things, but always bizarre. He flowed with it. Mike was, after all, the only freak in a hundred mile radius that could even relatively handle him.

“... Mikey?”

He hummed in response.

“I did some sleuthing while you were away.”

“You were stalking me?”

“Forever and always. Anywho, the Funtime Animatronics, Mikey. Freddy, Foxy… Those are clearly Fazbear Entertainment’s exclusive intellectual property. If Afton Robotics LLC. is a separate legal entity, he would’ve needed to request permission to use these assets. Alternatively—and far more likely, given the circumstances—it’s a related enterprise that’s operating off Freddy’s resources without Mr. Emily’s knowledge.”

Mike finally turned away from the mirror to look at Eugene, though he seemed to still be processing what he was trying to say.

“If that’s true, at the very least, your father is in several different precarious legal situations. Which- well, obviously, but disingenuous business practices would be a good ‘first domino’ in the crime trail. It’s simple, it’s believable. It opens the door.”

He grimaced, “It wasn’t just me. Two other technicians, at least- the last night… I don’t know the scale of it, but… Whatever or whoever he’s using to cover this shit up, it’s been working flawlessly for a long time.”

“Complicated lies tend to come apart fast. All you need is the right loose thread. Speaking of which,” Eugene stood up, stretched and touched his shoulder, “Just realized I didn’t tie those stitches off right at all. Hold still.”

Mike groaned.

September '04, Plymouth County, Massachussetts.

The office was a stuffy, boxed-in room with big, heavy doors. Loose wires trailed across the floors, stringing here and there from dusty CRT monitors and flickering light fixtures. Jeremy rolled the chair back from the paper-strewn desk and stood up. He was fairly certain this wasn't the right place.

In the left hall, he could see a young girl quietly reciting something to herself as she walked away. He stumbled out of the office to follow her.

Though she didn’t turn to face him, she did slow for a moment to allow him to trail closer behind her. Her hair was in a tight braid, though it seemed by the various flyaways that whoever did it had only halfway figured out how to style the girl’s coily hair. He recognized this instinctually as his mother’s handiwork.

Charlotte continued reciting the same handful of letters to herself, now louder, as she led him to the dining hall.

“E. T. H. E…”

There was a metallic clunk behind the purple velvet curtain that curved out from the wall. Jeremy fixed his eyes on his sister’s back and followed closer behind her. Her pace became more urgent.

“...M. S. A. V. E....”

The stage was empty. The tables were empty. There was no sound but Charlotte, her footsteps and her letters. There was a door by the side of the stage, slightly ajar. Warm light spilled out with the sound of children laughing.

“T. H. E… M.”

She began to run. The door snapped shut.

“You can’t.” a low voice plainly stated.

Jeremy flinched awake, blearily glancing around the room until his eyes settled on the figure in front of him.

“Oh, shit.” He murmured, wiping some drool from his face with his sleeve.

The man in front of him drew back for a second, then cocked his head and leaned back in, “You’re alive?”

It was difficult to decipher if he was angry, bewildered or both. After taking a negligible gander at the man’s face, Jeremy averted his eyes to the name tag: MIKE S.

“I- I uh, I’m… Sorry?”

“You’re sorry for being alive?”

“Well, yes, but that’s- I don’t know if we should go into that one, uh, yet. I mean I’m sorry for,” Jeremy pointed at the desk, “... Falling asleep.”

“You’re not dead. Are you injured?”

“I was- was uh, I was just tired, I think. We just moved, and-and uh, unpacking and stuff. It’s been… Tiring. It uh… Won’t happen again?”

Mike let out a sharp sigh, dropping his shoulders and letting his head fall back as if he was a deflating balloon animal, “Okay, okay. Alright, sure… Right.”

Jeremy stretched, wincing as his back cracked far too audibly for someone his age. Time. He looked at his bare wrist, then started patting his pockets down for his watch- crumpled fiver in case nobody came to pick him up, wallet, keys and last night’s Taco Bell receipt.

“It’s quarter after.” Mike deadpanned.

He always thought that was the worst way to state time; quarter after, half past and such. It seemed convoluted and, worst of all, uninformative.

“Quarter after what?”

“Six o’clock, smartass. That’s AM.” Mike groaned, “Listen, kid. You work tomorrow night? I’ll come in and show you the ropes.”

Jeremy nodded, “I’ll um, go clock out.”

He wordlessly gathered his things and followed Mike out of the office. The residual adrenaline of the nightmare was beginning to taper away into a mundane, ambient sense of dread. The layout of the building was completely different than he'd expected; it was as though someone ran out of money part way through building a maze and had to turn it into a pizzeria instead. One thing he noticed in particular was the sparing use of doors, something he vaguely recalled being referred to as a “modern” design choice by the hiring manager.

Mike stopped abruptly at the end of the hall, “Nothing happened?”

“Not… Really?”

“Sounds pretty fuckin’ miraculous to me. Especially since Chucky never remembers to lock up her shit.”

Mike slowly approached the parts and service door and nudged it open with his foot. After a moment, he reached inside and flicked on the light.

From over his shoulder, Jeremy could see a few animatronics slumped on the floor, though they were evidently worse for wear.

“Everyone’s accounted for… Alright. ” Mike flicked the light off, shut the door and quickly locked it.

The two continued towards the main room, then through another few hallways and corners until they reached the staff room. Jeremy tried to focus on trivial things on the way, like his coworkers odd, almost shambling gait, and the quiet sound of a music box playing somewhere in the corner.

“Do you need a ride home?” Mike leaned against the door frame as he watched Jeremy fumble with the punch clock, “I don’t technically have to start for another hour or so.”

“It’s fine. My um- my girlfriend should be here by now.”

“Mm, run off then. I’ve got shit to do.”

From what Jeremy could see from the large glass doors of the entrance, the parking lot appeared to be empty, save for a beat-up muscle car one could assume belonged to Mike.

The sun was just clearing the treeline, illuminating the city’s endless blur of sagging chain link fences, cracked pavement and auto garages in warm, muted tones. There were a lot of trees, he thought, interspersed with residential lots in a way that made him feel as though trapped in a perpetual suburb. Moving here was a mistake. He'd been trying to stifle that particular train of thought, but by now, it had risen to the top of his mind and solidified into a thick, greasy layer.

He pulled out his phone.

WHERE R U
…
NADS
BBY

Jeremy pressed his lips together and waited for a reply. Knowing Nadia, she halfway woke up to turn off her alarm, and forgetting why she set it, went right back to sleep. Still, a sliver of doubt stirred in his chest— what if something happened? What if she got in a car accident?

The door rattled a little as he tried to open it, but didn't budge. It was locked.

A surge of panic shot through him.

Was there a side door? He swore there must’ve been a side door, though he couldn’t remember where. The front entrance would probably be locked until the pizzeria opened at nine.

He would know if Nadia wasn’t doing good- they’ve been best friends for years. She would’ve told him if she wasn’t okay. Right? She’d been staying up late, a lot. Just restless, she said. Although, sometimes girls said things like that when they wanted you to clue in on something. Was she fine? Or was she quote-unquote ‘fine’? And was she quote-unquote ‘fine’ as in ‘I’m mad at you’ or quote-unquote ‘fine’ as in ‘I will be committing suicide this weekend’? His lungs felt tight.

There was a small shuffle from the prize corner.

Jeremy turned to see the animatronic marionette out of its box, staring at him from a distance. It quirked its head to the side.

“I’m sorry.” He said, “I’ve got that uh, panic disorder swag. It’s part of my primal charisma.”

The Marionette continued staring for a moment, before turning and drifting towards the main hallway. It paused by the entrance of the hall and looked back at him.

“Do you… Do you want me to…?”

It motioned limply for him to follow.

“Okay.”

Unlike the other animatronics, the puppet seemed to be carried around by unseen wires, though he wasn't sure exactly how that worked. It all seemed a bit too advanced for a mid-sized business during an economic recession.

Jeremy could hear muffled voices at the end of the hall, from the security office.

“I swear-”

“Come on, doll, it's not that hard to get someone to cover for me.”

“On such short notice? It kind of is. Let's see; Chucky is allergic to social interaction with other human beings,”

“That's true.”

“And Sean is gonna throw an absolute fit if he has to do an actual job.”

“I know, but-”

“Look, I'll figure it out. But you owe me big time, Mikey…”

Jeremy glanced around before approaching the entrance of the office, noticing the Marionette had gone without a trace when he wasn't looking.

Mike was sitting on the desk as a heavyset man with dark skin fussed over a copy of the weekly schedule. He looked well-groomed in the way people with a better salary generally do.

The two looked at him.

“What's up?” Mike asked.

“The entrance was locked.”

“You can open it from the inside. You don't need a key, there's a knob below the handle.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Jeremy gave Mike a visibly trembling thumbs up.

The better-paid man—Eugene S.—glanced at Mike and remarked, “Is he good?”

“He told me nothing happened during his shift, so yeah. I think he's probably just on drugs.”

“Well, tell him not to do drugs on company property. We’ve got policies about that.”

They continued squabbling as if they had forgotten Jeremy was still in the room at all. His cell phone buzzed.

Nadia had replied:

FUCK
SRY TT IM OMW

Jeremy took a breath, “I’m gonna go, now. Also um, FYI, I'm not a druggie. Just neurotic, which is- which is something you can’t legally fire me for… I’m pretty sure.”

He gave them a half-hearted wave before quickly turning and making his way back down to the entrance. A feeling of intense embarrassment gripped him as he walked, eyes on the glossy checkered flooring. The collar of his button-up was kind of tight. His new work shoes weren’t broken in, yet. The whole building had a sort of grating electric hum. He knew instinctively that if anything stopped him on the way out, he would surely have to rip his own skin off then and there.

Nadia affectionately coined the phrase ‘bitch-mode in overdrive’ to describe this particular state.

At the very least, there was a knob underneath the handle of the entrance that unlocked the door. Crisp morning air filled his lungs. Sunlight and birdsong. The low rumble of Nadia’s black sedan.

A song from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge was, as always, blasting from her stereo as he got in. She grabbed the back of his head and pressed a too-forceful kiss to his cheek, tumbling out apologies that he could only faintly hear over the music.

Jeremy cracked a small smile as the bassline thrummed in his bones.

“Well, I have some news. It’s good news for me, but I think maybe mortifying for you.” Nadia grinned, cross legged in bed with a large book in her lap, “I have unearthed an archaeological artifact, courtesy of your mom.”

Jeremy groaned in faux anguish and sat down beside her. It was a photo album, probably filled with various outtake pictures of his youth that his mom didn’t have room to include in her primary album.

Nadia opened it up and immediately started laughing. There was a blurry picture of a newborn baby with adult sized sunglasses positioned on his tiny face, followed by more baby pictures of a similar ilk.

One photo, dated October ‘88, starred a small child wearing a ghostbusters jumpsuit.

Nadia pointed at the kid, “Oh my god, is that you?”

“Nope.” Jeremy guided her finger over to the child situated in the background dressed as a white-sheet ghost, “That’s me.”

“Wait, then…”

“My sister. I was kinda camera shy, so I always got her to stand in front of me for these types of pics.”

Nadia snorted, “Was? You slapped my camera into the lake last time I tried taking a picture of you.”

“You were being sneaky. You spooked me.”

“You’re right, next time I'll hold out a handful of sugar cubes and say ‘easy there’ like you're a horse that saw a scary twig.”

The next page had some pictures of a fishing trip. Nadia paused, frowning.

“Are you crying in this one?”

“Oh… Yeah, I-I didn't realize that in order to cook and eat the fish we also had to kill it. Um, coincidentally, this is also when I lost interest in fishing.”

They continued flipping through the pages.

“... What’s your sister’s name? You didn't say.”

“Charlie. We were pretty close back in the day.”

“Not anymore?”

“We-we um, we haven't really been in touch, given she… Died. Almost ten years ago.”

“Oh…”

Ten years. He began double checking the math in his head, before the train of thought derailed into a pile of blurry, dateless snapshots—questions like ‘do any of these men look like the one you saw that night?’ presented with a lineup of nondescript mugshots he couldn't tell apart, ‘worry tracker’ worksheets, the escalation from school counselors to therapists to adolescent psychopharmacologists, the de-escalation from policemen to detectives to amateur true crime enthusiasts— all of it at once, tangled in a cat's cradle.

Nadia set aside the album and stood up, “We’ll come back to that one. Go take a shower, you smell like job.”

It was true. Freddy’s had that typical unfamiliar place smell, combined with something kind of bitter and industrial, that clung to his clothes. Another wave of dread washed over him just thinking about his shift. If he had a scrapbook of bad first impressions, sleeping through his shift and acting like a complete basket case in front of his supervisor immediately after would need to have its own 2-page spread.

“I’m hearing a lot of silence and not a lot of getting in the wet-box!” Nadia called from the kitchen.

Jeremy took a breath and attempted to reel his focus back to the present. He got up, trying to itemize what needed to be done as he dug through the suitcase of clothes he hadn’t remembered to put away. After showering, he would need to eat, then phone his mom and try to get some actual rest. Alternatively, he could try to figure out where the fabled washer and drier unit was in the apartment.

The buttons on the light purple dress shirt he’d been given as a uniform were stiff and difficult- or maybe they were normal, and Jeremy’s fingers were still a bit jittery. Probably both.

He usually tried not to get into staring in the mirror, but last week one of Nadia’s new friends admitted she thought he was a butch lesbian when she first saw him, which was oddly comforting. Most of the life skills typically passed down from father to son, he learned from his mom’s partner, Rita. Hopefully a bit of her charisma rubbed off on him, too.

Today was a hot shower day, Jeremy decided. He deserved a treat.

While Jeremy had been too shaken in the morning to fully form a first impression of the daytime security guard, Mike Schmidt, he now had his bearings enough to know that they probably wouldn’t get along. He absently picked at the edge of the fresh nicotine patch on his wrist with his thumb.

“We’re here, babe.” Nadia reminded him.

“... Do you think it’s too early?”

“Dunno. I think that guy might be waiting to let you in… Or rob you? Not sure.”

She gestured to a figure by the entrance of the pizzeria. It was Mike, he assumed. He tried not to seem too nervous as he squeezed Nadia’s hand goodbye and got out of the passenger seat.

There was a weird smell as Jeremy approached the other guard, kind of like someone sprayed a “tropical” scented air freshener on a dead animal.

“You’re late.”

Jeremy checked his watch, “I’m fifteen minutes early.”

“Try to make it twenty.”

The way Mike postured himself felt familiar in a way he couldn’t place. He vaguely reminded him of a pre-teen boy trying to act tough on the playground. Maybe even one specific pre-teen boy, though he couldn't be bothered to fully recall it.

The main room was half-lit when they entered, which was thankfully enough light to navigate by. It was strange to think that he used to hang out here, albeit over a decade and a few thousand dollars of renovations ago. He wondered if any of his old drawings made the cut— “Bonnie on a Desert Island Submitting to Cannibalistic Desire” by S.J. Fitzgerald, crayon on lined paper. Probably not, considering all the drawings plastering the hallway seemed relatively new and that particular piece was confiscated by a psychiatrist shortly after. Bummer.

“Listen, I’m not trying to be hard on you, but there's things you need to understand. The night shift isn't for the faint of heart, and it pays like shit.” Mike muttered as they entered the office, “If you make it through this week, I might be able to switch you over to days, but I'm not making any promises yet.”

“Wasn't my first choice, either. I wanted to be a sales associate at Hot Topic.”

He sighed. At least at the mall, he could tell himself he was carving his own path in life. He was sure Freddy’s was a pure nepotism hire.

The phone began ringing not long after they settled into the office. It was a beige landline with a regular numerical keypad, which meant it was a bit dated, but not ancient. Jeremy remembered the hiring manager had called him the other night to give some brief information on the job.

“Uh, hello? He-”

He flinched as the call suddenly dropped. Mike had reached over and pressed down on the switch.

“You don’t need him,” Mike stated with disdain.

Jeremy nodded. He wasn’t sure he needed Mike, either, unless there were several other pages of the job responsibilities booklet he hadn’t been given.

“Alright, let me think… First off, the Freddy head. You’re gonna need to put that on if any of the bots get in the office, n’ leave it on ‘til they leave. Doesn’t work on Foxy, and I assume it won’t work on the Puppet, either. You can get Foxy to fuck off by flashing your light at him a bit. The Puppet doesn’t leave the prize corner until it’s quiet, so you can keep the music box wound up. There’s a button on the monitor for you to do it remotely.” Mike demonstrated by flipping to the prize counter camera and holding down the spacebar on the clunky mechanical keyboard to wind up the box, “The hallway’s gonna be a main point of entrance for a lot of the animatronics, but keep an eye on the vents too. I got Chucky to put some cams down there, n’ you can light ‘em up with the keypad to check. Got all that?”

Jeremy paused, “... Not really. First off, why are the robots coming to the office? And why would that be a problem?”

Mike seemed so flabbergasted that he immediately started to second guess whether or not those were, indeed, valid questions to be asking. He began to review what a security guard was in his head before Mike spoke again.

“Because they want to kill you.”

He sounded stern and urgent in a way that tended to easily bypass Jeremy’s critical thinking skills. He mulled over the possibility for a moment.

“... Like, actually? Or are you messing with me?”

With a huff, Mike handed him the empty bear head and gestured for him to put it on. It smelled like an unwashed gym jersey. Jeremy held it in his hands, then looked up at Mike with his most powerful pathetic expression. It was a pure, unadulterated, ‘you wouldn’t do this to me on my birthday, would you?’ kind of look that sometimes disarmed people enough to admit they were just teasing him.

“Hey, hey- we do not have time for that, buddy. Just put it on, ‘kay? I'll explain later, I promise.”

Whatever comfort Jeremy could've derived from knowing his psychic attack had succeeded was immediately cancelled out by the conclusion that Mike was, in fact, sincere. With that, he relented and put on the bear head.

Mike reached down to one of the desk drawers and pulled out a similar hollowed-out animatronic head, though he couldn't quite make out what it was meant to be. He could see the other guard flicking between a couple different camera views on the monitor, checking the vents, then shining the flashlight down the hall. Suddenly, Mike went still and held his finger up, as if to shush him, before pulling on the orange costume head.

Heavy footsteps entered through the hallway, loud and laborious. The footsteps lurched to a stop in front of the desk, accompanied by the unmistakable creak of rusted metal. Jeremy slowly turned his head towards the source of the noise.

It took him a moment within the visual limitations of the rank-smelling bear head to piece together what he was looking at; two vibrant red pinpricks from a backdrop of darkness, fraying wires reaching down towards a jutting row of blunt teeth. The lights flickered overhead. Clearly, the desert island he had condemned Bonnie to many years ago had done a number on the poor thing, he thought.

Bonnie subtly hunched to glare a bit more pointedly toward Jeremy, and before he could think to stop himself, he whispered an apology. The damaged animatronic went still. After a long pause, Bonnie drew back and shambled out of the office again.

Once the rabbit was gone, Mike took off his mask and quickly paged between the cameras on the monitor again, this time stopping to rewind the music box at the prize corner.

“... You can take it off, now. But stay alert.”

Jeremy took a deep breath of fresh air once the Freddy head was off. The strong adrenaline rush still coursed through him as he tried to get his bearings.

Finally, the orange Foxy head Mike had been wearing was in proper view. Things were starting to click together in his head.

“... Michael? I thought your last name started with an A. Michael Ahh-something.”

“Do I know you?”

“Not really. I-I mean…” He paused, realizing he’d messed up, “No? No. Not at all, is what I meant.”

“Sure, that's not ominous.”

Just like that, the subject was dropped– for now. For good, if he was lucky.

Though the circumstances were nerve-wracking, Mike settled into a kind of rhythm as the night went on, as though the whole song and dance was second nature. Left vent, right vent, hall. Prize corner, party room, parts & service, and so on. Mask on. Wait. And off. He interjected, sparingly, when he noticed Jeremy’s attention was wavering by describing various aspects of the security system and building layout.

“Don’t vents usually have grates?” Jeremy asked.

“Yeah.”

“... Why are they so big and close to the floor?”

Mike repeated, “Yeah.”

There were a few more visitations throughout the night. Notably, the half-destroyed Toy Foxy, which Mike referred to as “Mangle”. It crackled with distorted static from within the vent for a minute or so, before skittering down to Kid’s Cove again. There was also a robot modelled after a small boy brandishing balloons, which Jeremy hadn’t realized was even capable of moving until he noticed him missing from the Game Area. At that point in the night, it felt like some sort of unnecessary slight to have given the gift of autonomy to what could’ve easily been a gumball machine instead.

The six o’clock chime almost caught Jeremy off guard when it finally rang. Not because it hadn't felt like he’d just spent a six-hour shift ambiently fearing for his life without so much as a bathroom break, but because it actually ended instead of persisting like an eternal nightmare.

He slumped forward on the desk and groaned loudly as soon as he got confirmation that it was now safe to do so.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. As far as I’m concerned, you handled that all like a champ.” Mike gave his shoulder a light squeeze, which he considered a thousand leagues too fond for the amount of time they'd known each other. Nonetheless, he could let it slide for the moment.

Dr. David Miller’s office was situated in a dingy, hole-in-the-wall clinic downtown that practically oozed of quackery. The clinic was obviously created for the sole purpose of exploiting impoverished, desperate people who couldn't afford actual healthcare, Jeremy thought. Unfortunately, he was one of those people, and being scathingly self-aware could do very little to change it. He needed his terrible nightguard job, so he needed his brain halfway functional, and that meant getting his pills refilled before the withdrawal symptoms got too severe. At the very least, the clinic took drop-in appointments.

“Samuel Fitzgerald?”

He cringed as the man in the hallway beckoned him to another room. He figured by the white coat that this was the so-called medical professional that had been generously provided to him in the spirit of goodwill and philanthropy. He had large, rectangular glasses and a long face, which Jeremy figured would be enough discernable features to correctly identify him in the future.

Dr. Miller placed himself behind a cluttered desk with a dusty computer monitor in the classic, charming grayish beige that all technology seemed to come in before the year 2000. Facing the desk, there was a faux leather armchair with a visible slash in the upper corner of the upholstery. Besides that, some motivational posters were plastered on the walls.

Jeremy sat down and ambled through the motions of exchanging pleasantries, which the doctor kept graciously brief.

“Now let’s get right into the nitty gritty. Are you sexually active?”

“... No.”

Dr. Miller let out a quiet chuff, as if amused by his response.

“Do you smoke?”

“Sorta, but I’m- um, trying to quit.”

“Are you on any medications? If so, which ones?”

“Xanax, I guess. The uh, generic brand though. Can you- um, could you get my prescription renewed? That's actually- that's why I'm here. I've been taking it for, like, a long time now, and…”

“We can discuss that once we’re finished the screening process.” Miller took some sheets of paper from his folder and held one up, “Duck or rabbit?”

“Rabbit.”

“Great. How about this one?” he shuffled to the next paper, which was a printout of an Rorschach Inkblot. At this point, Jeremy had his answers for inkblot tests locked and loaded.

“Ghost.”

“And this?”

“Also a ghost.”

The doctor leaned in with an inquisitive smirk, “Do you believe in ghosts, Sam? Are you a superstitious guy?”

“I don’t know. I just think they're cool.”

“What's your relationship with your father like?”

“Not applicable.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Again, I-I need my meds refilled.”

“Why?”

“Because I can't stop taking them suddenly or I get jittery and spacey and I can't think, can't sleep, and my head hurts and I feel like throwing up all the time.”

“It says on your file that you have a family history of psychosis. Are you aware of this?”

“Being crazy has been running in our genetics since prehistoric times. Can I please—”

“Follow the yellow rabbit.”

“Get my… What?”

Dr. Miller held out what looked to be a pen topped with a small plastic bunny figurine. He slowly waved it from side to side.

“With your eyes. Trust the process.”

Jeremy obeyed, “You know, despite its- its clinical popularity, most members of the scientific community uh, they consider EMDR to be borderline pseudoscientific–”

“I can't help you if you don't let me, Sammy. At least try to keep an open mind.”

“I've had an open mind. I never skipped a session, I took my pills. I went on walks, I filled out worksheets, I read those short stories about kids who were quote-unquote just like me. All I got was this stupid benzo addiction.”

He took a shaky breath, still following the plastic bunny with his eyes.

“I’ve heard the buzzwords a million times: progress isn't linear. Grief doesn't always dull with time, it just gets easier to manage. It gets better, blah blah, etcetera. It's not like I chose to be like this! It's just- I’m- I’m not supposed to be here, it was supposed to be me- not Charlie, not Cass, it- it really, really should have been me.”

“And yet here you are.”

The doctor put down the pen then reached into his desk, shuffling around before pulling out a small, unlabeled bottle of pills.

Dr. Miller tossed the bottle to Jeremy with a grin, “They're not exactly your Xannies, but they're in the same family. Best I can do on short notice, but they should tide you over until I can getcha something better.”

Jeremy let out a heavy sigh of relief and crumpled over in the chair. Despite his deep embarrassment about crying in front of other people, a gross, wet sniffle escaped him.

Miller hummed approvingly, “Attaboy, have some damn catharsis. It’s good for the id.”