((AN: So hey, yay, I'm still writing, and I have a completely new story from a completely new thing! XD
So, while horror games aren't my thing and I've never been keen to play them myself, I've watched other people play the Five Nights at Freddy's games and I've found myself getting deeply intrigued by the deep and tragic backstory behind each of them, culminating beautifully around the end of the recently released FNAF 6, or more commonly known, Pizzeria Simulator. And as many things do which give me ideas, I decided to write about at least one or two missing moments.
This story was almost going to be a full-blown novelization of FNAF 3, or a short one at least, but I ended up stalling on it because the canon story seemed to keep changing, at least at the whim of the fans. x3 But after the final game, I looked back and realized that this one was still fairly plausible; the Purple Guy, AKA William Afton, IS the one inside Springrap, and he IS the murderer...but I decided to just go with this one-shot. I do have a separate story being written that will be from Micheal Afton's point of view as well which I hope to finish...until then, I hope this quick little drabble is enjoyed...it's also a little practice for me to write suspense stories, or a small bit of horror.
I kinda believe that in FNAF 3, there are in fact two real animatronics haunting you; but only Springtrap directly deals with you. The Marionette would be hanging out behind the scenes and helping to put into motion the actions that would free the children, because it's never been far behind them, if you think about the lore. You would hallucinate the Marionette, like all the others, yeah, but the one you catch on camera has to be real at least. It has a reflection on the floor. :3
Hehehe...that said, enjoy! I'll come up with that second story hopefully soon...and I'm also thinking of writing drabbles dealing with a certain OTHER Nickelodeon favorite show of mine that's recently had its movie. ;) That is, if anyone would like to see that from me, but, either way, it'll be nice to get back to writing fanfics. My muse has been on a long vacation.
Characters and everything belong to Scott Cawthon.))
The Rise
The Marionette awoke to clamor, a muffled cacophony going on somewhere outside of its hiding spot. At first, it wanted to dismiss the noises; but as they kept going on, the wafting sounds of rubble being moved and clutter being kicked away and...can it be?...voices, the puppet-like creature knew that it wouldn't—and probably couldn't—ignore it.
A portion of confusion reigned in the dead mind that had been possessing the Marionette. It didn't really even know how long it had been asleep; or when it fell asleep. Or how long it had been since the last time it heard the soft, tingling song of a music box—to which it still knew every note—lulling it into a state of calm. The last thing it remembered, the last waking memory, was coming back in a hazy blur, ever so slowly...but also being drowned out by the unconscious need to move toward the noise.
The gift box it was kept in had been stashed atop a high shelf inside a storage room, far back into the darkness of a backstage area of a dilapidated pizzeria. A thin, spindly black hand moved to push back the slightly-open top of the box, admitting it into a world of faint, wavering light. Pushing itself out into the darkness and crawling with expert silence into the space, it waited and listened to the murmuring, echoing noises.
As it waited, it did what no animatronic or robot there could do: it thought. The masked puppet thought, and it wondered what could be happening here in this place...so long silent and touched naught but by the living hands of rats. So long...how long had it been? Long enough that the paint and wallpaper lining the walls were practically all sloughed off by moisture and time...long enough that some of the ceiling in the dining area had caved in, failed by the eaten support beams...long enough that the exposed wires were no longer sparking. And it had been long enough that the Marionette almost couldn't move its limbs when it awoke; stuck in one position for countless hours, days, weeks, months...
Footsteps. And voices, coming closer. The puppet waited, and listened. There were three sets, at the very least, cutting a jagged path horizontally through the room, past an empty stage.
"...Telling you man, they've cleaned this place out!" a male voice exclaimed in a loud whisper. "We won't find anything else here. I mean, maybe another old drawing, or some old costume part, but nothing that'll be useful to the attraction..."
"Dude, come on, don't be a downer," said the lead male voice, who was a bit more confident and just a bit more boisterous...thus, louder. His voice rang clear ahead of them. "The training tape said that there used to be some sort of 'safe area' here somewhere. It was walled off, s'why we didn't find it before. I wanna check inside."
"You sure they didn't check there already?" A third voice, female, whispering much like the first one. "Every time we've come here, we haven't found anything. We're wasting our time."
The first voice piped in. "Yeah, and this place still gives me the creeps, even when it's empty. Can we leave it alone now?"
The louder voice sighed and stopped. Flashlight beams could be seen crisscrossing the walls now from where the puppet hid. "You guys ain't got no sense of adventure; look, I ain't about to give up on Fazbear's Fright just 'cause we ain't been lookin' hard enough. I'm tellin' ya, dude, there's gotta be something in that 'safe room'. So let's just look inside, and if we don't find nothin', we'll walk out and work with what we got, and you can go on bein' a pansy, alright?"
The other male growled. "Alright, man...it's your show."
"Damn straight," the loud one said with a chuckle. The flashlights led a straight path back on track, headed towards the restrooms. "Let's go; take the crowbar and start testin' the walls up here."
The female sighed. "This is such a bad idea...hope the guys outside'll come look for us if we die."
"Ain't no more people or robots here, Roz," grumbled the first voice.
"Well, I hope to God there are robots," the loud voice hummed, tapping along the walls and listening for something hollow. "That'd be a bona-fide perfect find."
"Geez..."
At all of the conversation by this point, the Marionette was intrigued...even just the sound of human life had brought more effort into re-tuning its movements (and finding that it could also still just float and follow them quietly). What were they doing here? There was nothing left here for humans. No sounds of children laughing and playing...no loud mix of human speech and cheesy music over the loudspeakers, and no bright sounds of video games being played...
...And no animatronic performers.
Heck, there hadn't been another human in the ruins of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza soon after it had shut down, to its knowledge...well, except for one, which had been expunged rather forcefully.
For a moment, the Marionette thought of scaring them out of the ruins. But then again, why exhaust itself? None of them were a night guard...and for certain, none of them were...him. It decided to keep a safe following distance of the humans, floating up onto the ceiling and hanging there. Its pale clown mask with painted tear stains and empty eye sockets would only be seen if one of the humans even thought of looking back and up.
Finally, after reaching a corner beside the restrooms, the lead human stopped. His crowbar knocked harder on the wall, revealing it as hollow due to the dull noise. He grinned widely. "Ha-HA! Eureka, my friends! Alright; Daniel, help me pull out the wall. Roz, keep the flashlight up."
"Yes, your highness," the female said with a roll of her eyes as the other two set to pulling out the wall.
The creature watching them moved a little closer, eternally shielded by the dark. For a moment, it wondered why the humans had such an interest in tearing off that wall in particular. All that the walls ever hid were the mortar and brick foundations...
But during these thoughts, the events of the last night it had been awake came back to it a little more quickly now...still with such clarity that the puppet could have sworn it happened yesterday.
It watched with grim, cold satisfaction as the intruder got a look on his face that none of them had seen before, and that all of them were attracted to right then: pure fear.
He'd snuck in, so very easily like the rats he resembled, and lured the old animatronics one by one towards the hidden Safe Room. The room that they'd never been able to enter or even see. It was there that, one by one, they were all destroyed. His face was openly gleeful, nigh on laughing, as the deeds were done...just like it had been when he'd first taken their lives. It was HIM. It had to be.
But he hadn't totally destroyed them. The shells were broken beyond repair, yes...but not the essences belonging to those shells. The souls of the children he'd killed, so long bound to the robots and waging a nightly war against every adult that dared tread where they lived at night, wearing a night guard uniform...any of them could have been HIM...
The Marionette didn't join the chase. It was having enough fun watching the scene unfold, laughing with the children that it helped. The children, tears streaming eternally down their ghastly faces, had the monster on the run...eventually, trapping him inside the Safe Room. Even if they could no longer interact with the world through Freddy and his crew, they'd be DAMNED if they'd still let a murderer go.
The man scrambled and scraped around the room for a place, or even a chance, to stand his ground...the five ghosts and the Marionette were drawn to his fear, eternal anger raging, eternal sadness winning...
He then found it; the last costume still lying in the moisture and filth of the floor. He'd moved to put it on, hoping that becoming one of the mascots would—as it always seemed to do—dissuade the children. He'd smiled again behind the mouth of the dull gold Spring Bonnie suit. Laughed...jeered...
...Until, all too late, he'd forgotten just what lying in that moisture did to the spring locks.
With a quick chorus of CLACK, SHING, SHLACK, the murderer was iron-maidened by the metal animatronic parts. He fell to his knees and back, screaming until he could no more, twitching and bleeding...dead long before he fell motionless, suit and all.
The children merely watched, as did the Marionette, until it was all over and no life could be felt in the room.
But to the sad confusion of the spirit in the puppet, it didn't feel very satisfied...and as it could see, neither did the others. One by one they each returned to the suit masks of the animatronic they'd been a part of. Freddy...Bonnie...Chica...Foxy...even an old golden Fredbear.
And itself. No happiness, no closure, no celebration.
It was just like any other that they'd enacted their vengeance on. In the end, it didn't matter whether or not they'd gotten their murderer. The children were too far gone, drawn to their characters and their masks, lost in their dark world. Only the Marionette seemed to have an idea that they no longer needed to be trapped.
No longer...and yet, they weren't free. Why? What would it take?
They still cried, somewhere deep down. The puppet thought it could feel it, and also felt regret for what it had done to them...instead of helping them by giving life to the animatronics via their souls, it had only made things worse. It didn't occur to it that they'd never want to leave, or never could.
...It only wanted to help...
...The Marionette was jarred out of its memory by the sounds of the false wall being torn away, the old nails wrenching easily free of their hold on the inside beams. Behind it was an entryway that had been covered over with boards. They set to work prying them off, one by one, slowly revealing the secret passage.
The creature watching them merely tilted its head, wondering what the humans hoped to find back there.
"WHOA...!"
Oh, the Marionette trembled slightly. Right. The suit.
The humans gathered closely around the entrance to the old Safe Room, the excitement in their voices throwing a buzzing echo through the building. "Dude!" the leader exclaimed, "Check it out! It's an honest-to-God animatronic! It's got all the parts and everything!"
"Huh!" the other male, sounding just as interested, moved his flashlight into the darkness. "You're right! Looks real banged up, though. The suit's got holes all over it, and half its right ear is gone."
"...And something in there stinks!" the female yelled, holding her hand over her nose and mouth. "Sweet Jesus! They really hid stuff like this back there?"
"There's years of mold in here, 'course it's gonna smell bad, Roz," said the one called Daniel with a roll of his eyes. "Unless you believe it's got a rotting human body in it..."
"Holy...oh, this is gonna be perfect for the attraction!" the leader crowed. "It's so awesome, and creepy! We can clean it up and stand it somewhere near the back...gotta find some way to control it, if we can...guys, help me get this thing up!"
The other two humans went in. The Marionette inched forward slowly, keeping out of the line of sight...but hesitated at the door. Something inside of it didn't want to see that suit again. Even though the body inside was long dead, in its mind, there was still a reek of malevolence about the thing.
But then again, if the humans were looking to get it out of the place...good riddance, thought the puppet. The thing cast a foul presence and didn't deserve to have the restaurant be a final rest. Perhaps even the other children can have a little peace without it.
Finally...a little peace...
"Oh, ew...what's this puddle under it? It's all black!"
"Oil, I guess? Who cares? Like I said, we'll get the thing cleaned up later. It's late, and our first priority is getting it out to Fazbear's Fright! Roz, lead us out, will ya? Daniel, think you can get the legs?"
There was a shifting of metal and a shuffling of fur, and a grunt. "Ack, nope, this thing's heavy. Call one of the others in here. Dude, I swear those bits look like organs..."
"It's probably part of the costume, stupid. Yeah, we're gonna need two more sets of hands for this one."
It was at that point, seeing the flashlight beams moving towards the exit, that the Marionette made a beeline back up to the ceiling, and slowly backwards to the way from which it had come. It was a simple, small satisfaction to know that the suit and the body inside—the puppet had nicknamed the amalgam "Springtrap", fittingly—were going to be gone soon enough.
As it turned away from the sight, it could still hear the humans conversing. "Yeah, dude, this'll be a real hit. I think it's an old one, too!"
"How do you think? Was there ever a Bonnie this color?"
"There was a golden Bonnie animatronic once...Fredbear's Diner, I think, where the place got its start..."
"Quit talking, or you'll go into the whole legend about the Bite of '83 again," one male sighed. "This one looks that old, though, gotta admit..."
"Well, whatever, dude...let's come back later for those old arcade machines, too. We can put the robot where we put the original suit masks."
Soon enough, more humans scrambled in with flashlights and other various devices to help get the decrepit Springrap out, wherever they were going to take it. The Marionette could only stand so much noise, anymore, and started to retreat backstage—just barely suppressing the urge to make itself seen and scare them away. If it could just get back to the gift box...and sleep...join the others...
But when it reached the door, it paused. Something the human had said was repeating, over and over again, as if trying to get the attention of its exhausted spirit.
"The original suit masks...original suit masks...suit masks...suit..."
"Masks..."
The masks!
As if it had been struck with lightning, the puppet made a quick and mad dash around the various rooms of the building. Indeed, to its surprise, the place had long been cleaned out. The pictures on the walls...some of the chairs and tables and party finery...
And the animatronic parts that had been what was left of the Fazbear crew, littered in pieces...gone. All of them.
The children! They are not here!
For the first time in its afterlife, the Marionette felt fear wrecking through it, keeping it from feeling the sleep that it so craved. It was channeling the spirit inside of itself...the First Child...and the fear that she once felt, along with the determination to do something.
After all...she was the one who bound their souls to the robots. She was the one with the plan for revenge, enticing them all into their new roles and nightly actions. And she was the one, once the plan was done, who'd taken the duty upon herself to stay with the children, watch over them, keep them together, be in their dreams.
It was all it could do. They still weren't at peace. All because of him...and of itself.
The humans were just about to pass through the dining room, following the ones carrying Springtrap out. If the masked puppet was going to find the lost souls again and find out what was going on, it had to act fast. Swift as a shadow, it rushed back into the darkness.
"I dunno guys...I don't feel too right about taking that thing out of there. Feels like it should've stayed, you know?"
Roz winced a little as their intrepid leader faced her, briefly shining the flashlight in her eyes. "C'mon, babe, you know my philosophy. Treasures like these weren't meant to rot in one place! They deserve to have some more use! If I were that robot, I wouldn't wanna be locked in there for...what, thirty years, maybe more? Nah...I'd wanna be a part of somethin' big again! Like a horror attraction! Wouldn't you? Now let's go!"
The girl huffed tirelessly and made to follow after the others. Just ONCE I'd like to feel like I'm not disturbing something. How do YOU know what wants to be taken out of here?
KA-THUNK!
A noise suddenly rattled out into the darkness, like of something a little heavy falling to the floor. The human train paused, all of them gasping in surprise and throwing flashlight beams at every corner.
"The hell was that?" asked Daniel.
"...No idea. I think it came from back there," said Roz, shining her flashlight in the direction of the stage. As soon as the beam of light set upon it, a few people felt a shudder run up their backs.
"Could we have missed something? We checked there, like, ten times," Daniel pointed out, his head swiveling constantly between the stage and the way to the exit, like he was considering just bolting.
There was a quiet pause, and then Roz took a breath. "I'm gonna check it out."
"You do that," the ring-leader grunted. "S'probably just a rat. We'll wait out by the truck. We gotta haul this thing back. Yo, Danny, comin' with or what?"
"Uh...I-I'll be there in a minute," he called out, having taken a few steps toward the stage himself. "Roz might need backup."
"Like hell she does..."
Ignoring the last remark made at their backs, the two of them sneaked quickly with their flashlight beams trained at the stage area. With the stairs upward having long been destroyed, the two had to hoist themselves up. It was a surprisingly large space, feeling empty and forlorn without the sight of the animatronics as they'd always been seen on the posters. Roz couldn't help but wonder what it looked like in its glory days before the...well, series of unfortunate incidents.
With much caution taken, they carefully moved behind the curtain, their lights shining inside the void-black entryway. For a moment, scanning the shelves and tables, they saw what they always saw: emptiness and dust. Until...
"Dan," Roz breathed as her flashlight fell upon the item that had fallen. "Look at this! I don't know how we could've missed it!"
Her friend tilted his head quizzically at the object: a rather large box that took on the appearance of a wrapped gift, light purple-blue and tied with a pinkish-red bow. "Dude, yeah," he murmured and knelt down to wipe off a sheen of dust. "Must've been somewhere high up and we didn't notice. Don't remember seeing it anywhere in the pictures, though."
"Well, mister Dude-Man back there would probably know what it is, seeing has he thinks he's an expert," Roz snorted, also wiping off the dust on the bow and near the edges of the lid with something akin to reverence. "C'mon, we can both take it back to the truck. If anything it'll be perfect ambience for the attraction."
"Gotcha," Daniel sighed and put his flashlight under his arm so that it would light the way back behind them. "Heave-ho."
Inside the box, the puppet half-slept, and half-listened to the voices going on around it. It took in the feeling of its container being taken along...such a foreign feeling to be touched and moved again by human hands. It had a sense that it should take one last look at the remains of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza...but it remained steadfast and still. The pizzeria was as it always had been: a painful memory from long ago. It had to go forward. It had to follow the children.
She had to join the party again.