Chapter Text
Michael was startled into motion by a sudden, loud sound in the hallway. He had tried not to linger on the sound of shattering glass earlier, passing it off as one of the nightmarish animatronics either being clumsy or trying to get a rise out of him, but, with the sound of conflict emerging from the hall opposite to the side of the room he was in, it was now clear that it had been a sign of something more deeply wrong.
He took a second to ensure Chica wasn’t about to get him where he stood post, and then carefully rushed across the room, shooing off one of the small, sharp-toothed Freddys that had made its way onto the bed on the way. The last thing he needed now was for one of the more familiar dangers to sneak up on him while he investigated.
Speaking of which, this would no doubt allow Foxy an opportunity to sneak into the closet, but Michael supposed you couldn’t win at everything.
Bracing himself, he pointed his flashlight into the hallway.
It quickly found one of the sources of the noise, illuminating a person dressed in dark, rough fabric. They winced at the beam shining in their face, which reflected off pupils that Michael could swear were glowing as they struggled to adjust to the sudden light.
By the flames, that’s bright.
The Hunter inwardly hissed to themself as the bright light assaulted their eyes. It appeared that the tradeoff for eyes best-suited to night was that sudden pieces of daylight like this were far, far worse. They tried to push their discomfort aside, for there were far more important matters to pay attention to.
Namely, the not-quite-slain monster at their feet and the seeming teenager staring at them wide-eyed from the doorway.
Before the Hunter could get a good look at them however, they found the door promptly slammed, blocking both their view and access to the scared teen.
It was… extremely concerning, to say the least, that someone who was potentially untrained in combat, and appeared to be at apprenticeship age rather than an adult by any measure, had wound up within this Nightmare. Hopefully, the room was somewhat safe and they could bring the teen to safety once they explained the situation.
Their train of thought was interrupted by hearing the distinct creak of metal from below their line of sight, reminding them that their duty as a hunter was not yet finished.
Shit, Michael thought to himself as he scampered to check the closet. The door he slammed would no doubt slip open within a few minutes, but it was all he could think to do to put a barrier between him and the new, far more humanoid threat. A quick shine of his flashlight to check the closet revealed a familiar red fox plush sitting upon the floor. Double shit .
He found himself slipping into a pattern of closet, right hallway, bed, ignoring the continued sounds from the left hallway, repeat. As much as he wanted to get a proper threat gauge on the new entity, he really needed to try and win enough sleep for himself tonight.
Inevitably, the previously-slammed door had started to creak open, but bracing himself to get hacked to bits couldn’t prepare him instead for a voice that sounded like it hadn’t seen much recent use to call out.
“Hello?”