"Happy Birthday!"
He grinned at the people holding his cake, at his friends and at his parents. He loved it here, especially today, his birthday! He was opening his presents when somebody shouted, "Bonnie's show is about to begin!"
Everyone else ran off to join the show, but he was glad for the peace for a second. He'd finally got the book he'd always wanted to read, and he couldn't wait to begin. He wandered around for a bit and finally found a small spot that was away from everyone else. He sat down and picked up the book. His hand had just rested on the cover when...
"I hear it's your birthday."
Purple. The colour of nightmares. He was awake and saw it. He was awake and saw the 5 pale, floating figures. He was awake when one came to him, a small boy, who smiled and said something. Then, he was asleep.
When he awoke, he already knew where he would be. He already knew what had happened. He didn't know who he was or how.
"Happy Birthday!"
She grinned at the huge cake that they settled down in front of her, and promptly cut herself the largest piece. She had short yellow hair flopped over one eye. She was kind and warm-hearted. She sat down with her cake, and pushed the negative thoughts about her already being overweight and short. Today she had convinced herself to forget all that and enjoy herself. She was watching Bonnie's Show when her stomach grumbled. She got up to get herself a second slice. She walked away from the show into the dining hall. It was empty. She guessed everyone was at one of the shows. She walked over to her party table and cut herself a piece. She jumped at the hand on her shoulder, at the voice that came from nowhere. "So you like birthday cake?"
Flashes, streaked with purple, through her mind. She was screaming as another flashback ripped through her when suddenly her mind was calmed. Something glided over to her, a pale figure. "It will be OK," it said, "I am here to help."
Her mouth didn't feel right. Her head didn't feel right. She didn't feel right. Confusion clouded her mind for a long time before she took in her surroundings. A room, dark. She didn't see any more. She didn't want to see any more. Somehow, she knew what she would see. She got up and ran, with strange, heavy footsteps, out of the door.
"Happy Birthday!"
He glared at the cake, but one can only be angry for so long when the cake was so delicious looking. Reluctantly, he grinned, got himself and his mates a piece and sat down.
"So, who's show are you going to?" asked one of his friends.
"I don't know," he said, "I might go to the combined one. You know, with all of them?"
"Pshh! Yeah, right! Go to the babies show, why don't you? Baby."
His friends nodded in agreement.
"I'm not a baby," he said, "I could do anything you dared me to."
A tense silence filled the room. His friends held their breath.
"All right," the friend said, smirking, "I dare you to go into the girl's bathroom and…put toilet paper all over the stalls."
His friends reeled back, some giggling. "Ew," they said, "you'll get girl germs!"
"Fine," he said, "I'll do it while you're at Foxy's show. I'll bring you something to prove it, too."
The others grinned at him. In the distance, Foxy's show's theme was starting up. With one last look at him, they all stood up and left. He took a deep breath, and walked towards the bathroom. He was surprised when someone said, "Don't look so grumpy, it's your birthday, right?"
His body felt lighter and heavier at the same time. He looked around a dark, empty room. Something dark was on the walls and floor.
Something triggered in his memory. The grin of someone... Purple...
His own screams racked his body and the last thing he saw was the ghost of a little boy.
"It'll be OK," he whispered, "I'll fix you."
Something inside clicked on. Heavy metal eyelids slid up and suddenly his eyes had to adjust to a bright light in his face. Something inside him felt heavy and not right. He couldn't... ... But he didn't know what he couldn't do. All he knew was that he had been d-d-
Screams came again, but this time they were different. Aggressive, even, not his own. He looked at the room that he was in. He saw the stained walls and shied his eyes before he saw something... Never mind that. He picked up something off the floor and, with considerable effort, heaved himself up onto his feet. He felt... Heavier, taller. And his movements were unnatural. He turned to a door and found it ajar. Slowly, he walked through.
"Happy Birthday!"
He smiled shyly at his friends, feeling a little stupid wearing his eyepatch. He was shortish, nervous and wearing a red shirt. He watched everyone else getting a piece of cake, but didn't get one himself, despite the fact that he was already dangerously skinny to the point of being anorexic. Instead he sat by himself and thought about things. Somebody called out.
"Hey, Foxy?"
Embarrassed, he took off his fake eyepatch and replied, "I-I'm not Foxy."
"Doesn't matter whether you are or not, Foxy's Pirate Show is starting now! Come on!"
He loved the Foxy show. "Coming," he grinned. But someone stopped him from walking any further.
"You are the one kid who I can safely say needs more birthday cake," came a mysterious voice.
He remembered it all. All of it. He caused it. Before any of the others awoke, he ran far away from there.
-
He was frightened at first when he saw Chica. He wanted to scream, but he didn't know why. Chica was his second favourite in the band. She approached him slowly, and was about to talk when a flashback hit. Purple nightmares tore at him and when he opened his eyes Chica was standing over him. "Let me help you up," she said. "So the flashbacks are still happening for you? I've been awake for a few hours now. T-they've almost stopped for me."
Before he could stop himself he was crying. He nodded through his tears.
"I don't know what happened to us, Freddy, but we'll get through it."
Freddy. He looked down at his new brown limbs and knew it was true. He should have been scared. He should have thought "Why?", but instead he smiled. He had a sense of identity. He was no longer the boy who died, he was Freddy Fazbear.
Chica had wandered around a seemingly empty pizzeria before finding the bathrooms. She had just walked in when a reflection caught her eye. She had stared at herself for a long, long time and then she had laughed a mirthless laughter. She had been given life as a robot and she was still short and fat. She didn't get what was going on, not in the slightest, but somehow she accepted herself as Chica the Chicken.
Freddy was the first to see Bonnie sitting on the stage, and went over to him.
"Get away," Bonnie yelled, "you creepy animatronic freaks."
Freddy looked at him with sad eyes, and saw that Bonnie was crying. So he, too, knew the truth.
"Bonnie, I know it's hard," he tried.
"I-I just need some time alone," cried Bonnie, and so Freddy turned sadly back to Chica.
"At least we have each other," said Freddy.
"Yeah," smiled Chica, "we're the Fazbear Family."
Alone, alone. He had found a piece of glass discarded in Pirate's Cove and so he knew who he was. Foxy. He was glad, at least, that he was a pirate now. He wasn't ready to face the others, not yet. If they really cared, they'd come and find him.
"So, what now?" Chica asked, and Freddy saw in her expression that she looked to him for guidance. He wasn't used to being a leader. He stood up, took a deep breath and collected his thoughts. They were all together now, the girl, the three boys. The three boys!
"W-wait," he said out loud, "Wasn't there... Four of us?"
Chica's eyes widened. "The little boy in red," she whispered, remembering the skinny little child. Freddy ran into the room where he woke. The room was empty. Freddy stopped. He was missing something. Something important. Something about…No. Not something… Someone? Chica followed him in, disrupting his thoughts. "Freddy, I searched the kitchen for him but he wasn't there… When I came back.. He was just… gone."
"Who was gone?" he asked.
"Freddy, I can't find Bonnie," she whispered.
"BONNIE! FOXY!"
Freddy ran around the pizzeria, searching every room for his missing friends. He didn't know how they could have been gone. He didn't know what was happening. He hoped they hadn't disappeared. He hoped he wasn't next. He checked the Dining Hall, the Hallways, even the bathrooms. It was Chica's screams that sent him running to a place that he hadn't thought to check; Pirate's Cove. The curtains were derailed, lying like a dizzying purple, starry carpet on the floor. In the centre of the Cove was Bonnie, his eyes turned black, with strange white pupils, his head twitching, growling, shuddering, panting heavily.
Chica was sitting on the floor a little way off, nursing something. Freddy walked over to her, keeping his eyes on Bonnie. What on earth had happened?
"Freddy, l-look what he did..."
Freddy turned to see a chunk of orange fur. After a while, he realised that it was Foxy, the fourth animatronic in the Fazbear Band. Except he was different. His brown pants were ripped at the knee, showing the bare endoskeleton within. He had a tear down his torso showing pipes and pistons, and his whole right hand was torn off, leaving metal fingers and rips in his arms. Freddy looked with shock at Bonnie.
"Why would you do this, Bonnie?"
"It was him!" Came the anguished scream. "He was the one who did this to us!"
Freddy felt like he'd ran into a brick wall as a flashback hit him. Hard. They were standing in a room, with the one in purple. It was the little boy in red who screamed and threatened and cried. It was the little boy in red who made the man in purple turn around angrily on them all and smile that wicked smile...
Freddy was awakened by Chica's loud sobs, and he realised that he, too, was crying. Bonnie was slumped in a corner, trembling. Foxy was gone. Freddy went after him, leaving Chica to comfort Bonnie.
"B-Bonnie," said Chica, "it'll be OK."
"How!?" Cried Bonnie, "How is this all going to be OK?"
Chica's tears came more freely as she said, "We are all angry. We all feel it inside us, the urge to be angry at something. But Foxy is one of us-"
"No, Chica, he isn't. He caused this for us all!"
"Damnit Bonnie! He's just as lost and confused as you are right now. Do you really, honestly think that the man in Purple was just going to let us go?!"
Bonnie jumped, shocked at the use of the Purple Guy's name, but he sighed and slumped heavily onto the ground.
"Bonnie, we're all angry and alone. We're all afraid, even Freddy. But at least... At least we're scared together."
Bonnie looked up at Chica and his eyes returned to normal.
"Y-yeah," he said, "I guess you're right."
Freddy found Foxy in the kitchen. He was shuddering and trembling. Sadly, he turned to Freddy. "Are yOu hErE to mOcK mE aSwElL?" He asked. Obviously Bonnie had also broken his voice box.
"gO oN! TaKe yOuR rEvEnGe aSwELL! AfTer aLl, iT WaS mE wHo dId tHiS tO yOu!"
"Foxy, it's not your fault..."
"YeS! YEs iT Is aNd DoNt yOu LiE tO mE aNd sAy oThErWise!"
"Foxy... Can't you tell that it would have been that way whether you were there or not? At least we were given a second chance."
Foxy's sad eyes looked up at Freddy, and he slumped into the wall. "I jUsT wAnT mY pIrAtEs CoVe bAcK."
"Oh my gosh," said Freddy, "the cove!"
Freddy ran back to see the cove. Its curtains still lay in a heap on the floor, the inside was in a ruin.
"Chica! Bonnie! Come help!" Yelled Freddy. With a groan, they lifted the heavy curtains back onto their railings. They were drab and dirty. But better than they had been.
"Now," said Freddy, "let's see what we can do about Foxy."
"Uh, guys... what time does Freddy's open?" Bonnie called.
"6 am," said Freddy and Foxy together.
"Guys!" Chica yelled, "the manager's here!"
Bonnie, Freddy and Chica took their places on the stage just as the door creaked open.
"Hhh!" The manager took a sharp intake of breath. "Oh my! Wh-what happened?"
Bonnie looked different. Freddy looked different. Chica looked different. They looked older, sadder... More alive. And all their eyes were trained on him.
Creeped out, the manager walked past them and continued, ready to set Foxy up for the day.
"Oh my gosh!"
Foxy's curtains were ripped in places, and the 'cove was torn to shreds. Foxy himself had black eyes with glowing pupils. He was standing in the shadow, limped. His hook shone in the light, somehow sharpened from blunt to deadly, but the rest of his body was torn and ripped. He looked... Terrifying.
"Oh, Foxy..." The manager sighed. For not the first time since 1983, Fazbears' Pizza had obviously been broken into. Running into the back room, the manager got a familiar sign and scribbled "Sorry! Out of Order." on it. He planted it in front of Foxy's curtains and pulled the purple drapes closed. Then, he opened Freddy Fazbear's doors.
"We're gonna need a nightguard," he whispered.
ALONE
ISOLATED
CRAZY
With Bonnie's 'improvements', Foxy saw in the others what they did not see in themselves. The hatred, the fear. Alone in Pirates Cove, his black eyes flickered into life. He stared out at the others, smiling and singing and walking around. But he saw them for the things that they were. He retreated into the cove and sat down. They all hated him. He moved his damaged fingers and watched the metal rods in his arms move. A robot. Somehow the term didn't fit. He still thought of himself as a child. That's how the others thought of themselves. When they look at each other, they're looking at robots, but they see little children. That's what he sometimes saw. Sometimes, when he didn't see the monsters that they were. The monster that he was.
Someone came up to the curtains. "Foxy! Foxy? Where's FOXY!?"
"Can't you read the sign, stupid? Foxy's broken," said a second voice.
"B-but... I love Captain Foxy," came a third voice.
Before Foxy knew it, a deep growl left what was left of his voice box. He stood angrily and took a few slow, shuddering steps towards the curtains.
"Come on, boys and girls!"
Bonnie.
"Let's go and see the show!"
"But I want to see FOXY!" yelled the first child.
Bonnie's voice was nervous "Foxy isn't feeling well today, let's... keep away from the cove."
Back in silence, Foxy was reminded of the three words.
ALONE
ISOLATED
CRAZY.
The doors closed and Freddy walked backstage and sat down. At first, It had hurt so much to see all of those kids, as happy as he had been once. But a couple of days had passed and at least things had returned to normal... Well, as normal as you can get when you were killed, brought back to life by a mysterious ghost and turned into a pizza eating robot. Chica was in the kitchen. She was making a big pizza for everyone, even though none of them were sure if they could eat. Bonnie was with her. Foxy... No sound from Foxy. Freddy guessed he should go check on him. But for now, he was enjoying the solitude.
"Freddy!" Chica called from the kitchen, "Pizza's ready!"
Freddy glanced at Pirates Cove. The curtains were still closed. Freddy guessed that Foxy would rather be alone.
"Coming!" He called cheerily.
"You'll see when he comes who you really are."
Was that... Foxy? But Foxy's voice box was broken... And he didn't sound so... So...
"Freddy?" Bonnie poked his head around the corner.
"Hmm? Oh, sorry Bonnie. Lost in thought. Now, what kind of Pizza is it?"
Freddy, Bonnie and Chica ate the pizza in silence for a while before Chica said, "Freddy, who were you?"
Freddy was shocked at the question, but he managed to choke out an answer. "I was a happy person. It was my birthday. I loved to read."
"And mine," said Chica, "It was my birthday too. I was happy, but I was sad too. I was overweight and short and I hated that about myself."
"It was my birthday too," said Bonnie, "it was a dare… they dared me to do it. They called me a baby. If I had just refused the dare, I would be…be… I wouldn't be here."
There was a long, sad silence. Freddy, Bonnie and Chica were driven to tears. Then Freddy and Bonnie went back to the stage to shut down for the day. Chica followed, but first she darted off before anyone saw to the Pirate Cove.
"Foxy," Chica whispered,
"Foxy?"
Chica sighed. "Here Foxy, we had some pizza tonight. I'm going to leave you some, OK? OK. Bye, Foxy. And… happy birthday."
A little hurt, Chica stood up and went back to the stage. With one more look at the cove, she shut herself down.
Foxy was awake when Chica came. He saw her put the pizza down and he wondered why she had done it for him. How she knew it had been his birthday. He wasn't hungry. He wondered if it was possible to be hungry. But he ate the pizza anyway, and for a moment, the metal melted away and there was just a little boy sitting alone in the cove, happy for once.