So first off, let me just say ten-thousand WOWs for all the well-wishing I’ve received since I got home from the hospital. I really appreciate it. I am still recovering, somewhat slower than I would like, but I’m sure much faster than is customary. Still, I figured I would post early tonight, seeing as sleep’s song is already a’calling. Seems like all I’ve done since I got back is sleep and for a chronic insomniac like me, that’s pretty awesome.

But when I’m not sleeping, I’m sort of on my feet. I went to the store and while I wasn’t able to walk, I could at least drive myself in the scootabout. Little victories.

I even made an attempt at painting. Behold the Bison in his native habitat: Morphine.

But it is going to be an early night, so even though it’s only nine o’clock on Friday, I have already uploaded the latest chapter of my FNAF fanfiction, Everything Is All Right, Part Three: Children of Mammon. If you’re reading along, you can find it over at fanfiction.net or archiveofourown.org. If I haven’t convinced you yet, or if you’re just waiting for the whole thing to be finished before you start, please enjoy yet another teaser and let’s see if I can’t weaken your resolve.

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Step by silent step, Ana reached the end of the hall and stopped just on the other side of the plastic. Two pairs of animatronic eyes didn’t do much to light a room this size, but after the perfect blackness of the hall, they were as good as searchlights. Ana’s sugar-skull tee was a beacon; her sweaty skin all but glowed. If they were watching this doorway, there would be no way to avoid letting herself be seen when she came through, no matter how quietly she did it.

She moved to one side, hunkered low, found an edge along one of the hanging sheets and peeled it back just a crack. She studied the room beyond like it was new territory, a potential battlefield. The kitchen was just to her left, closed off by more plastic; a good ambush spot. In the back of the room, in the little hall that ran between the playground and the gym was another hiding place. Her bedroom under the curtained table, another one.

Those were the possibilities. As for the certainties, there were long shadows that shouldn’t be there on what she could see of the lobby floor and movement behind the dirty glass set in the West Hall door. So two at least. No, three. The gift shop door she’d left wide open was now almost closed and when Chica’s head turned that way, she could make out the pale blur of a watchful face, framed by scraggly hair and an unkempt trailer-trash beard. She knew him. What was his name? Trey? Trig. Trigger-Man. One of Mason’s distributers. So.

She could also see some familiar crates and her big toolchest over by the cashier’s station in the open end of the lobby. They hadn’t been able to fit all her stuff into whatever car they’d brought, so they’d had to prioritize, taking most of her big-ticket equipment, but leaving most of the tools. That was good. If she could get to them, she’d have a weapon, which was of course why they left it there, where the little light coming through the open lobby doors would have to shine on it even if Bonnie and Chica’s eyes were off. They were trying to draw her out.

Ana gave the Better Idea Fairy a full minute to show up, but the bitch must have gotten stuck in traffic, so she shifted onto the balls of her feet and took a deep breath.

“LET’S ROCK!” said Bonnie.

‘Yes, let’s,’ thought Ana and burst through the plastic at a run.