Finding The Five || FNAF Movie

16 || Breakfast Encounters

"I won't," Jonah promises, holding his hands up innocently with the keys jingling between his fingers and a soft, understanding smile on his face. Makaylen nods to him and her eyes shift to me for just a second before she opens the door to the stairs and begins to walk down them.

"Go ask her then," Mike says, just louder than a whisper as he and Abby file into the stairwell behind Jonah and I. I look back and Abby catches my gaze. "Go," Mike encourages, bumping his little sister with his arm as if to snap her out of her hesitation.

It works, and as we start to descend the stairs, she hops down next to me, slipping herself between Jonah and I. At first, she says nothing, as if she can't find the words. I know she wants to ask something; I can even feel the words on the tip of her tongue. But she doesn't say anything.

When we reach the bottom floor, I hold the door open for Abby after Jonah steps through, but the little girl stops and stares at the opening for a long few seconds. Mike comes to a stop behind her and puts his hands in his pockets, saying nothing. It's like time stops for a moment.

"Josie," Abby finally says.

"Yes?" I ask, trying to sound inviting and calm.

Abby opens her mouth, then she hesitates and closes it, and then she turns to her brother with a small, panicked expression covering her features.

I follow her gaze to Mike, who nods towards his sister before turning to me.

"She wants to talk about seeing ghosts," Mike says gently. I expect a warning to flash in his eyes— something that tells me I can't actually talk to her about it. Instead, he remains blank. Unreadable. I can't even feel what he's feeling. And again, like times before, I hate it.

"Oh," I chime, tying to buy myself time. I don't get much of it before I have to carry on. "We could... do that. If you really wanted to."

"I do," Abby says, rapidly turning to me. "I want to know how it feels for you."

"I—" I look to Mike for help, but he seems just as interested as Abby. When he sees my eyes, however, his expression changes.

"You can talk about it after breakfast, Abby," Mike attempts, and as soon as Abby turns to him, I nod a bit and smile my thanks. Abby is in the middle of asking Mike why when Jonah comes back to fetch us.

I sit in the passenger seat of Kaylen's car while Abby sits between Mike and Jonah in the back. I can feel the child wanting to ask more, but her voice remains silent as Kaylen explains that we're going to the diner she passed on the drive in and that she's paying even if we try to. I'm the first to thank her, and everyone else follows in turn.

The drive is short and mostly quiet, which gives me time to clear my head and shake off the energies clinging to me from the hotel. My mind becomes my own again once we're about a mile away, and the clarity of my thoughts and the absolute bliss of the blankness between them is overwhelmingly satisfying.

When we arrive at the diner, we file out of the car and I watch Mike as he helps Abby out onto the uneven pavement. Once our doors are closed, we turn and head to the door where Kaylen and Jonah wait for us.

The diner is small and has an oddly cluttered feeling to it, both in decor and energies. We walk in and I immediately feel as if I'm in a maze. Tables and shelves filled with trinkets and old leather-bound books fill the single open room the diner has. Three of the six available booths are filled, and two tables are pushed together to accommodate a small party of friends who all turn to look at us when we walk in.

"Hello, welcome to Tabletop Diner. My name is Tracy. How many are dining with us today?" A girl appears basically out of nowhere. She's already holding an indiscernible amount of menus and silverware packets in her hand, but her eyes search each of our faces as she waits for Kaylen to count again.