Part 3
The children froze, startled at the shout and how the other three now stood between Blu and them. Blu turned swiftly and picked the bloody knife off of the counter and slipped out of the room; none of the children asked where he was going, choosing instead to stare at the other adults.
Spring let out a nervous, obviously fake laugh. “Blu will be fine,” he told the children, grabbing a rag to clean up the blood that had dripped onto the counter and floor. Chii and Alfred still stood between them. “At least none of it got on the strawberries,” he muttered, glancing at Alfred and Chii.
“Who wants tea?” Chii suddenly asked, putting on a large smile. Bonnie’s gaze immediately went to her long fangs; were those fake? He was starting to think not. “And cookies? I’m sure we have some in the ice box.”
The children weren’t sure what to say, but they nodded in agreement. The chicken turned and strode towards the fridge- icebox, as she had called it, and how the heck did it keep foods fresh without electricity?- and opened it, pulling out a plate of cookies and a pitcher of tea. The children exchanged glances, unsure if they should actually accept the treat, but really, it wasn’t like the weirdoes had been expecting them or anything…
“Go to the dining room and choose a seat, we don’t eat in the kitchen,” Chii shooed them, walking towards the door set into the wall from the kitchen. She lightly pushed it open with her foot and waited for the children to nervously shuffle through.
Goldie looked back at them, watching as the chicken and bear exchanged frowns. They were clearly not any happier about this than the children were. Goldie followed his brother and friends in and climbed up onto a chair. There was a large chandelier hanging above a long table and the wall was covered in thick black curtains. They could hear the rain slamming into the wood on the other side of the glass.
“Why is this place so creepy?” Chica deadpanned, staring at Chii as she set the cookies and tea down. Chii blinked her blue eyes owlishly, as if trying to figure out what she meant. “It looks abandoned.”
“Oh. That’s to keep people away,” Chii explained quite happily, giving them a strained smile because obviously it hadn't worked. “By the way- when you leave here, you cannot tell anyone about us, alright?
Bonnie frowned and looked at his friends. He could tell by their expressions that it was just as suspicious to them as it was to him. “Why not?” Foxy asked.
“Because then more people will come into our home and we really don’t like scaring people,” Chii told them, smoothing the skirt of her dress. “It really isn’t fun, but it’s better than what will happen if we’re found out, okay? So when you go home and your parents ask where you’ve been, don’t tell them you were here.”
“Oh we weren’t gonna anyway,” Goldie snorted, snagging a cookie and ignoring Freddy’s hiss. “Mom and dad would flay us!”
“Well you know, they’re probably worried sick about you right now,” Chii told him with a frown. “It’s late, dark, and storming and none of you are home.”
The children exchanged unhappy glances. “Yeah…”
“The nightmares we’re gonna have are gonna make them even unhappier,” Chica stated matter-of-factly. The others nodded sagely.
“Sorry about that…” Chii looked properly sheepish. “We didn’t, um, mean for that to happen, but Mangle had already… it, um, don’t worry about it, though. None of those things were real, I promise.”
“Oh yeah, because we trust you.”
Chii just smiled at them. Something about it unnerved Bonnie but the others didn’t seem bothered. “Of course.” She clearly knew it was sarcasm; Bonnie realized she was saying of course they didn’t trust her. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish cooking breakfast.” She turned around and went to the door, slipping through it and back into the kitchen.
Immediately Freddy turned to Goldie. “Are you crazy? Those could be killer cookies!”
“They got it out of the fridge, it was made before we even got here,” Goldie shot back. “They’re really good, too. Peanut butter.”
The others exchanged a glance before reaching out to take a cookie. Freddy didn’t join in. Chica hesitantly took a bite of it and immediately perked up.
“These are better than Mama’s!” she immediately declared. “Come on, Freddy, try it!”
A crack of thunder shook the house again, causing them all to pause. Bonnie stared up at the chandelier, wondering what would happen if it fell. The thought made him shudder, but the chandelier only shook and didn’t fall.
“I wanna be home right now,” Foxy finally muttered, sinking down in his seat and hugging his arms to himself. “Storms are less scary when I’m in bed.”
“Chii, did you really give kids cookies? It’s probably not even their dinner time!”
“Blu accidentally cut himself, I had to do something to distract them.”
Bonnie’s ears perked and he looked over towards the door. It was just barely cracked open and the two females’ voices filtered through.
“Well you could have at least given them milk to go with it.”
“We don’t have milk, we used it for the pancakes.”
“The Academy sent us our paycheck last Friday, Chii, all you had to do was ask me to go to the store and get some.”
Academy? Bonnie tilted his head curiously.
“If you want to go out in this storm, be my guest, Mangle, but you just took a bath.”
“I’m not going out right now! I’ll do it later, when the heavens aren’t trying to drown our house.”
“Are you ladies done bickering?” one of the others, Bonnie believed it was Spring as it was gentler than the others’, interrupted the argument. “We need to finish the pancakes if we want to eat by midnight.”
“Remind me again why we’re eating? We’re going out tomorrow night anyway and it’s not like it does anything for us.”
“Because we like food, Mangle.” The voices faded away to a point where Bonnie could no longer pick up on their words.
That… was a weird conversation. He turned back around and looked at his friends with a frown. Foxy was turned towards the door as well with perked ears and a frown, but the bear brothers and Chica seemed blissfully unaware of the exchange. As such, he looked questioningly at Foxy who just shrugged in response.
“I guess we’re stuck here until the storm ends,” Freddy finally said with a sigh, casting his gaze to the thick curtains. They couldn’t even see the flashes of lightning through them.
“Looks like it, so we should make the best of it,” Goldie agreed, slipping out of his seat. “You notice she set the pitcher down but no glasses?”
The children giggled a bit at that. “How silly.”
“They’re probably not used to guests,” Bonnie pointed out after several moments of giggling. He slipped out of his seat as well. “I wonder if they’ll let us look around…”
The other four looked at Bonnie in shock. “You want to look around?” Foxy asked, flabbergasted.
“Well, why not? They haven’t hurt us yet…”
“Yeah, only scared us half to death,” Freddy scoffed, casting his eyes towards the door. “And who knows what they’re planning? They’re strangers!”
“They seem nice,” Bonnie said, though honestly he was more curious about what they were than who they were. Something was definitely off here. “Besides, we did come in without per- permmmission.”
Before anyone could say more, the door creaked open quietly and the blue rabbit peeked in at them. They watched silently as his eyes scanned the room and he pouted.
“Aw, don’t you like the cookies?” he asked.
“Yes,” Chica answered, crossing her arms. “But we have nothin' to drink with it.”
The rabbit furrowed his brow in confusion, looking at the glass pitcher, and then he seemed to realize what was missing. “Oh! Un momento por favor~!” he called, slipping back into the kitchen. The children exchanged glances, four of them confused. Chica just snorted.
After a minute or so there was a crash from the kitchen and a surprised squeal, but then Blu skipped happily through the door, five glasses balanced in his arms. “I don’t know why they keep the glasses way up there where only Spring and Alfred can reach them,” he laughed and the children looked at each other. So that had been the crash; the rabbit had climbed the cupboards.
The rabbit set the glasses on the table. “Is your name really Blu?” Goldie asked suddenly. The rabbit looked at him, emerald eyes blinking in confusion.
“Uh, yeah?” he shrugged. “Might as well be, anyway. Everyone’s always called me Blu!” he added with a laugh, turning his gaze back to the pitcher and picking it up to pour into the glasses. “Thinking about it now… never mind,” he laughed, waving a hand dismissively as he glanced at the ceiling. “Yeah, my name’s Blu.” He paused and looked at the children, as if just realizing something. “Oh, we never asked about your names! We’ve just been calling you “kids” this whole time but I bet that gets annoying, huh?”
“Yes,” Chica deadpanned while Goldie and Foxy nodded.
Freddy hesitated. “I don’t feel safe giving you my name,” he finally said.
“Can’t say I blame you,” Blu laughed, handing each child a cup of sweet, cold tea. “Do any of ya want ice? I can get ya some!”
Bonnie wasn’t sure his eight year old mind could comprehend this. When he first saw the rabbit, he had been snarling, but then he had been happy and bouncy, but then he had been alarmed when Freddy tried to approach him when he’d been cut, and now he was… bouncy again? It made his head spin and he frowned up at the taller rabbit.
“Are you alright, mister?” he asked again. Blu blinked and looked at him, evidently confused.
“What…? Oh, you mean this?” He lifted up his left hand, where a bandage covered his wound. “Yeah, I’m okay!”
“I wasn’t talking about that,” Bonnie stated flatly. This just seemed to confuse the blue rabbit more.
“I assure ya, little rabbit, I’m perfectly fine!” Blu laughed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve been banned from the kitchen- I may have just accidentally knocked Alfred’s antique china onto the floor… Well, seeya!” The rabbit was gone before any of them could protest.
Not that they were going to.
“He’s weirder than the others,” Goldie decided after several seconds of silence.
“Yes,” the others agreed as they sipped at the tea.
It was pretty good for cold, iceless tea.
They sat in silence, listening to the thunder and after a while voices approached the dining room. The Animals slipped in, Chii holding a platter of pancakes and Blu sheepishly holding a stack of glass plates.
“You kids want some?” Chii asked as she set the platter on the table. “I made enough!”
The children exchanged glances again and then looked at the pancakes. They looked fluffy and had chunks of strawberry in them. Spring set a bottle of maple syrup on the table. “Okay,” Goldie agreed with a shrug. “Your cookies are really good, ma’am.”
Chii tittered softly and smiled, nudging Blu to set the table. “Ma’am? Ha, I think I’m hardly old enough for that nonsense,” she declared. Apparently there was a joke in that as her friends began laughing.
Bonnie and his friends didn’t get the joke.
“Yeah, it’s not like you’re a day over nineteen,” Blu snorted, quickly setting out the plates and stepping aside as Alfred laid out the forks.
“Says the person literally not a day over eighteen,” Chii shot back with an amused smile. She began dishing out pancakes.
Blu pouted in mock-hurt. “Ouch, Chii, that hit me right in the heart,” he said sarcastically as the others laughed. However, there was something subdued about the laughter, as if they were all remembering something they would rather, well, not remember.
Bonnie was the only one who noticed.
“So you guys aren’t adults?” Freddy questioned, furrowing his brow.
“Oh no, we’re adults,” Spring told him with a laugh. “Mangle and Alfred are both nineteen, the rest of us are eighteen.”
“That’s just barely an adult.”
“You know, for kids you guys sure have a large vocabulary,” Mangle laughed, dropping down in her seat. She seemed to be in a much better mood now that she had had her bath and, supposedly, her coffee. “What are they teaching kids in schools these days?” she added to her friends, who all gave her matching wry grins. Something else seemed to pass between them.
“We’re just smart,” Chica declared with a huff. The adults chuckled as they all took their seats and began eating. Chica blinked and looked at her friends, confused, before looking at the five Animals again. “Aren’t you guys gonna say grace?”
They paused and looked at the children, then back to each other uneasily. Several seconds passed; it looked like they were speaking to one another silently. Maybe they are. “Uh…” Spring trailed, as if looking for the words as he turned to look at the five children. “We’re not… uh… believers,” he finally managed, wincing slightly as he did. Apparently he was expecting the children to make some comment about it and Bonnie knew that if his parents were there they would have made some comment about it.
Probably call them devil worshipers who were brainwashing their children.
Instead, though, Foxy asked, “So we can just start eating? We don’t gotta say thanks?”
“Well, you should probably thank Chii for cooking, but no need to say grace if you don’t want to…” the rabbit trailed off.
“Cool!” Foxy cheered happily. “Thanks, Ms. Chii!” he added before digging into the pancakes. The others were a little more hesitant but followed suit.
Goldie wasn’t sure if it was polite to say grace in a non-believer’s house, so he didn’t. To be honest he still didn’t know what to think of his parents’ beliefs himself- he was sure he’d understand them better when he was an adult himself. Right then, all of the questions he had for his parents tended to go unanswered or answered with a simple "you'll understand one day."
Either way, he did notice when the adults relaxed and resumed eating.
Breakfast (dinner?) wasn’t really a quiet affair, as less than a minute in Mangle accused Blu of doing something, which then prompted the rabbit to throw a chunk of strawberry at his friend, which somehow ended up hitting Alfred who immediately got agitated and threw it back, smacking him in the forehead with it and leaving a clear red, syrupy mark on his blue fur. This, of course, broke whatever silence had been held over them.
Bonnie couldn’t help but think as he watched the adults’ friendly bickering that they were more childish than him and his friends were. And he was only eight.
After they had finished eating, Mangle and Spring gathered the dishes and went into the kitchen while Chii began wiping the table down, removing any syrup that got on the table during the miniature food fight.
The storm seemed to have calmed, but they could still hear rain against the wall outside and thunder still rumbled in the distance. They were still stuck there.
“Chica,” Chica finally stated, staring at Blu. Blu, who had been trying to scrub the strawberry juice and syrup out of his fur, blinked and looked over at her, confused. “I go by Chica. So stop calling me “kid.””
It took another moment for Blu to finally understand. “Oh! Well, nice t’meet’cha, Chica!”
“A bit slow on the uptake,” Chii giggled and Blu pouted at her.
“Don’t be mean,” he whined to her, earning a slap to the shoulder. “Hey, I just said don’t be mean…!”
The children giggled. Those two were like a brother and sister. Actually, Bonnie mused as he watched them bicker and laugh, they all acted like siblings. They must have known each other for a long time. Like me and the others. I wonder if that’s how we’ll be when we're grown.
“So who wants to play games until the storm’s over or you guys and gal fall asleep?” Chii suggested suddenly, turning to look at the children. Her smile seemed more natural this time. “It’s almost ten o’clock but I kinda doubt you wanna sleep in our house.”
It was true. Besides, none of them felt sleepy. So they all, even Freddy, nodded excitedly; games sounded good.
“I’ll go see what we have,” Alfred chuckled, standing up and heading out of the door connecting the dining room to the sitting room.
“Let’s go out into the living room,” Chii suggested. “That way there’s more space.”
She followed Alfred through the door and Blu hummed happily. “Chii, Mangle, Spring and I collect a lot of games,” he told them, heading towards the door still rubbing his forehead. “Alfred doesn’t play much, he prefers reading, but when he does play he kicks all of our a- butts,” he fumbled, holding the door open for the five children to shuffle through. “And he has a blast doing it too, the cheeky devil.”
“Who enjoys what?” Alfred questioned as he returned with a handful of boardgames, which he set on the table in the center of the room.
“Ah, it’s nothin’, Al,” Blu claimed innocently, dropping down onto the floor next to the table.
“You know there are couches for a reason, right?”
“Yeah.” Alfred and Blu stared silently at each other for several seconds before Alfred sighed and shook his head. Blu grinned.
“Do all of you share a bedroom?” Freddy suddenly asked, frowning. “There were five beds in that one room.”
Chii, Alfred, and Blu frowned a bit and glanced at each other. “We all have our own private qu-rooms,” Chii started slowly.
“But we also prefer being with each other,” Blu continued, leaning back on his hands and sitting cross-legged. It looked funny, considering the fact that he was wearing a suit straight from prehistory as far as the children were concerned. “It’s nice to not be alone, even as we sleep.”
“But it’s just as nice to sometimes be alone and keep individual knick-knacks and hobby items in our own rooms,” Alfred finished with a shrug. “Some nights we like being together, some nights we like being alone.”
Bonnie was sure he was missing something. “But why do you share a room with girls?” he questioned curiously, tilting his head. Blu and Alfred blinked, looking at each other.
“Is there something wrong with sharing a room with your sister?” Blu asked, confused, as he looked back at the children. It was clear by the look in his eyes that he didn't understand the concept of brothers and sisters sleeping in separate rooms.
“Sister? You guys don’t look anything alike,” Chica snorted, crossing her arms. That was an understatement; only two of them were the same species and even then it looked like they were two different breeds of rabbit, anyway.
“Blood doesn’t make family,” Chii said, pulling one of the chairs from the corner and sitting in it. “We’ve all known each other our entire lives, we grew up in the same home and were raised by the same people and we’re as close as anyone can platonically be.” They didn’t understand that word, “platonically.” It was much too big for them. “Because of that we’re family.”
“Does that make us family?” Foxy questioned, looking at his friends.
“Well, if you want to think of each other as family, then yeah,” Blu laughed. “But you guys are still just children, who knows how you’ll all feel about each other in the future. All of you have different parents, right?”
“Not us,” Freddy and Goldie chorused. “We’re twins,” they added, still perfectly in sync. “I’m older, though,” Goldie added with a grin. Freddy huffed.
“By twenty minutes.”
“Twenty-three.”
Chii giggled. “How cute,” she murmured to herself but Bonnie still caught it. “By the way, I’m not sure we ever properly introduced ourselves,” she said louder, “But I’m Chii and these are my friends Alfred and Blu. Mangle is the white vixen and Spring is the golden rabbit.”
“We know,” Foxy declared proudly. “We’re smart like that.”
“We’ve been hearing you guys call each others’ names since, well, earlier,” Goldie pointed out. “Oh! Oh! My friends call me Goldie!” he added suddenly with a grin. Freddy elbowed him. “What? It’s not like I gave them my real name!”
Chii and Blu exchanged amused glances at the children's antics. They seemed to be relaxing, letting Alfred set up whatever boardgame he chose for them to play first.
“Well, I’m just Foxy,” Foxy told the adults with a wide grin. “I don’t like my real name so you get no more from me!”
Freddy sighed dramatically and cast his eyes heavenwards. “If we get kidnapped I blame you guys,” he said accusingly to his friends, earning laughs from the young adults. “I don’t have a nickname.”
“His name’s Freddy,” Goldie put in helpfully, yelping lightly as Freddy elbowed him again.
“Heh, your name sounds really close to Alfred’s,” Blu noted with a laugh. Alfred rolled his eyes.
“If it makes you feel better, Freddy, I don’t have a nickname either,” Alfred told the bear, slightly amused. “Neither Spring nor I.”
“Spring’s his real name?” Goldie asked, surprised.
“Yes.”
"Oh... well... that's... nice?"
Blu snorted. “Convincing,” he said. “I used to call him Easter Bunny. Frustrated him to no end.”
“Yes, I clearly remember that day he nearly tackled you out the window,” Alfred sighed, rolling his eyes. “Luckily for both of you Chii, Mangle, and I were there to save your tails.”
Chii hummed a bit, though it sounded more like a “shut up right now” hum than a “good memories” hum. Apparently that was exactly what it was, as whatever Blu was about to say was cut short and the rabbit shut his mouth obediently. Satisfied, Chii turned to Bonnie and smiled at him. “And what about you?” she asked. “You have a nickname, too?”
Nervously, Bonnie shook his head and then said, “My name’s Bonnie, though…” Honestly, he expected a laugh or something. Bonnie? Isn’t that a girl’s name? Are you a girl? He’d heard it before from schoolmates. In fact, that was how he’d met Foxy and the bear brothers; some classmates had been making fun of his name and they had swooped in to save the day.
However, none of the adults laughed. Instead, Blu said, “That’s a nice name, Bonnie! Sounds kinda familiar… huh...”
“Well I should hope it’s familiar, Bonito,” Chii giggled, looking at her blue friend. “Yours sounds really similar.
“Bonito?” Freddy questioned, brow scrunching.
“That’s Blu’s real name,” Alfred informed the little brown bear.
“Oh yeah,” Blu mumbled, so softly that Bonnie almost didn’t catch it. Then the blue rabbit grinned at the children. “Caught me, my name’s Bonito~! But I much prefer Blu, really.”
“Blu is better,” Foxy agreed in the most serious "wise" voice an eight-year-old could muster, causing the others to laugh.
“Are we gonna play games or what?” Alfred asked, smiling slightly. “I have a feeling the rain won’t stop for a while.”
The children eagerly agreed and chose their pawns, happy to play the game with the three childish adults and just as happy to let the other two join when they had finished their chores. The rest of the night passed this way until they had fallen asleep around midnight, worn out by a mixture of the fun and the late night up.
When they woke up the next morning, they were all in Bonnie’s bedroom, confused about how they got there. All of them were sure of only one thing; that night had not been a dream, and their parents’ relieved-but-angry reactions to finding them in that room only proved it. And even though they never went back to that mansion on Lakeview Road, they often found themselves talking about the night they became friends with the people “haunting” the old house.
However, time has a way of playing tricks on the mind, turning fond memories into dim memories, and dim memories into barely-remembered dreams. They stopped talking about the mansion and that one stormy night by middle school, and by highschool it was nothing more than a distant memory. One day came to pass when Bonnie, who had grown up and matured so much you would hardly recognize the tall, cocky junior as that little frightened rabbit who had cried at the sight of five friendly Animals, brought up “that game we played when we were eight.” It was the first time in years that they had spoken about it and each agreed that it had been a fun game; who knew a child’s imagination could be so strong and vivid and seem so real?
Only one of them was confused. Only one of them said that it hadn’t been a game and earned strange looks from his friends. Only one of them still believed, wholeheartedly, that what they had all experienced that night had been no game. That the shadows, the flickering lights, the pancakes and cookies and tea and games, the adult friends who led them to one day realize that they were a family with no blood relation- that all of it had been real. He was unable to convince his friends, however; everything that night had defied any sense of logic and that was only what they could remember.
But Goldie remembered more than they did. He remembered not just the faces of the monstrosities or of the five “weirdoes,” but he could also remember the taste of the pancakes, pancakes that had definitely been pancakes but so much better than anything he could have ever dreamed. He could remember the feeling of sweet cold tea on his tongue, the alarmed expression of four adults as they separated the children from a bleeding blue rabbit, the feeling of soft fur patting his head as he finally fell asleep. He could remember all of the games they played and how the adults let them win every time, how many rules they broke playing four and six player games with ten players. He could also remember the fear they felt that night, fear unlike anything else he had ever experienced before or since. He could remember every little detail of that night… he could even remember the unnatural sharpness of their teeth.
The others wouldn’t hear of it, though, and eventually highschool ended and university began. A mixture of stress and resignation finally quieted Goldie’s protests and they never spoke of it again.
At least, they weren’t supposed to speak of it again. That had been the unspoken agreement; that night was just a fourteen-year-old memory, never to be brought back to the table, and they would focus on their own family, their own futures, and their education. It was to never be brought up again.
But then came the summer after they turned twenty-two.