You Are My Sunshine

The Missing Children

Ayla left the Daycare through the theater and walked up the stairs, heading to the Atrium. Hours went by as she started working on the stage. She fixed the multi-colored lights so that they will move when locked on the animatronic glamrocks. Next, she focused on the stage getting the platforms to move in place so it will be able to lift the glamrock band up from the floor. That will defiantly dazzle the crowd!

She swept up the floor cleaning up any residue or trash out of the way, tying them up into bags, tossing it into trash bins to be taken out. Next, she headed up towards the third floor of the Atrium towards the sound booth to get the music set up and fix the speakers. Giant holograms of Freddy, Roxy, Chica, and Monty appeared on the stage playing a demo of their songs.

Ayla wiped her forehead with her arm, wiping away the sweat that was dripping from her face. She stood back admiring her masterpiece. Soon enough, more and more guests came piling in seeing her work as well, amazed by it all. The children were screaming in excitement over the giant holograms of the glamrocks on stage. Speaking of the glamrocks, she needed to go check with them to get the group ready for the show tonight!

Just as Ayla was about to hop on a elevator to go to Glamrock Row, a young woman came sprinting up to her, grabbing Ayla by her shoulder, surprising and scaring her. Ayla turned around, confused and saw tears were running down the woman's face as she was crying hysterically.

"Please, you got to help me! I've lost my daughter!" She cried.

"What's her name?" Ayla asked her.

"Emily! Oh my god!" The woman exclaimed getting more hysterical. "I only I just turned away for just a minute and now she's gone! My baby!"

"Okay, calm down and come with me," Ayla told her as she led the mother with her into the elevator. "I'll take you to the security office. My boss, Vanessa, will get this sorted out. Maybe she'll be able to find out what happened."

Ayla took the missing child's mother to Vanessa's office. She informed Vanessa on what had happened. Vanessa was sitting at her desk going through the cameras, searching. While, Ayla was leaning against the wall, waiting, and the mother was sitting in a chair across from Vanessa from her desk. Strangely enough nothing came up. The camera went dead at the Atrium, the last time the child was seen, static appearing on the screen.

"Piece of crap equipment!" Vanessa hissed. She sighed looking down at her desk, writing down the woman's report. On her desk, underneath a folder, there were several pictures of eight other children that had gone missing as well. "So, you're saying that you left your daughter at the Atrium in a huge crowd,-"

"I didn't leave her!" The mother defended. "I turned my head away only for a second and now she's gone! You got to help me, please!"

"Well, maybe you should've been a better mom and kept a closer eye on her." Vanessa remarked. The mother's eyes widened in shock at her words. "How dare you! I AM doing what I can! I'm trying to find MY daughter!"

Vanessa looked up at the mother, with pressed lips. "Okay, I'm going to break this down for you. I need you to stay out of this. I am going to notify the police and we'll let the proper authorities do their work and hopefully they'll get to the bottom of this. I can't believe another child has gone missing again."

"Again?" Ayla questioned. "How many are there?"

Then there was loud yelling coming from outside of Vanessa's office. The three turned their heads at the door.

"Let me through! I need to get in!" A man had barged right in as he roughly pushed aside an employee, who was trying to stop him from coming in. He was followed in by a group of people as well as they walked into the office.

"Dave, I strictly told you not to let anyone in my office, unless it's an emergency," Vanessa berated him. "Can you not even do that right?"

"Sorry, Vanessa, I couldn't hold them back. I thought he was going to kill me!" The shaken worker replied. "These are the parents of the other missing kids."

"What about MY daughter!? Are you even looking for her?!" The father shouted, who had stormed, first, into the office.

"What about MY son! My poor baby's scared and lost right now and you're not doing anything to find him! This place should've never been reopened! It needs to be shut down!" A woman yelled out with her husband beside her.

Ayla's eyes widened. Shut down? NO! She'll never see the Glamrocks or Sun again! Before she could speak up, another parent lashed out.

"This happened to my son as well! When are you or the authorities actually going to do something and find him!?" A father demanded. Other parents chimed in, demanding an answer raising their voices in top of each other. Vanessa slammed her hands on her desk, silencing them. She stood up and walked around, facing them.

"Without any clues to go on, the case is at a dead end right now. But, as soon as I or the police find anything, we promise, we'll notify you." She assured them. One by one, each of them left the office as Vanessa led them out. Ayla remained behind, thinking.

Nine children missing in the same place?

This is too much of an coincidence. There's something going on here.

Vanessa had came back in seeing Ayla still in her office. "Sorry about that. I know that was overwhelming."

Ayla snapped out of thoughts, shaking her head. "Huh? Oh yeah, overwhelming...." She said. "If you don't mind me asking, who is in charge of this place? I've never actually met the owner or manager. Does he know how badly run down this place or the state of the animatronics?"

"He's never here," Vanessa explained to her. "I'm in charge of everything that goes on around here. Anyone who has a problem comes directly to me. The state of the animatronics don't really matter to me as long as they can preform their jobs properly as they were programmed to do. Why do you care?"

"Well, I've noticed that the animatronics act way more differently than any other robots that I've came across. At first I thought that it might be because of their advance AI but, that's not the case. These animatronics, they can feel pain, think, experience emotions, the same way that we do-"

"like I said before, that's because it's in their programming. They're meant to entertain children. You don't actually believe that they're actually "alive" do you?" Vanessa laughed. Ayla bit her lip, keeping quiet. She clenched the strap of her bag tightly in her hands.

No. The love that Sun had given her that was real. It wasn't just because of his programming.

"Listen, I've got a lot on my plate right and I don't need anymore nonsense right now," Vanessa said. "Just do your job and I'll do mine. Get the robots up and running for tonight's show."