Night One
There were harsh, static whines filling the air as the lights flickered on, bathing the facility in sickly light. It was motionless inside of the horror attraction. The halls were devoid of life, but covered in posters and lined with objects recovered from those outdated and abandoned restaurants. The collection had grown over the many years since they had closed down, and now there was this wretched place. It had only been put together very recently. It hadn't even opened yet, but already there was some eerie sense to it.
The few employees could feel it, creeping along their spines each time they came in. Not all of them liked to think about it or even take it seriously, but those who did described it as an acute feeling of wrong. It was as if being there, in itself, was against nature. In full honesty, they would also admit, the fact that the ventilation system didn't work without help added to the sensation. They would have to worry about whether or not they would be able to keep their breath in their lungs while that heavy feeling in their chest expanded.
If they were asked when it had started, they would answer that it had grown apparent when they brought in him. A strange, jaded creature with faded silver eyes that must have once glowed from electricity. The animatronic suit he wore resembled a rabbit, with an eternal grin curling along its face. He had jagged tears covering him, gaping and wide and exposing wires and textures that looked strangely like decayed human flesh. "All the better for the attraction!" the manager would say, but those who had to be around this thing felt something deep within. He unsettled them in ways they had never felt.
He had been lain against the wall, but he'd slowly fallen over, onto his shoulder. They hadn't bothered to fix him, yet, figuring that they would do so when the horror attraction was ready to lift off the ground. For the longest time, he had been silent and dead. Years had passed him by, and he had hardly taken any notice to them. Every once in a while, he would see again, but his eye would still appear lifeless; he merely lacked the care to get up and act, and thus remained a dead man. He had been passed around from one place to another, occasionally awakening to find himself somewhere new, but never once did he find the desire to move.
Pain. There was so much pain inside of him. He remembered it all with such poignancy. One minute, he had been in the midst of victory; another, filled with fear; and then he was crushed and decimated by one of the very things he had created. He shouldn't be alive, if this could even be called life. Each movement, each twitch, was an effort, now. He was forcing his muscles against the spring coils, further tearing the flesh and sinew by the strain. He would wither faster if he moved too much, and the fear of the spring coils splitting right through him and destroying his spine was too vivid to bear.
And yet.
In spite of this, he found himself more awake now than ever before. He was surrounded by scenery that had travelled full circle. The clock had struck midnight, and his eye moved. It lighted upon the door leading out of the room. He was in some place small, now that he was looking at it. Boxes and clutter were clustered around him, wires hanging limply from the ceiling overhead. His diaphragm began to move as if his crushed lungs might be able to take in a breath, but of course nothing happened. Pain sliced through his body, reminding him of why he had remained for so long, but a new restlessness started to invigorate his soul. A desire to get up and do something began manifesting itself within him. He had played dead for long enough. It was time to see what sense he could make of his new life.
His horrible wheezes took up the sounds of the storage room. There were no lights in here, not yet, but there was a small hole in the door, filtering in some of the light from the hall. Not that he needed it. He could see exceptionally well in the dark. In fact, brighter lights harmed his eyes, he had found in those snippets of time in which he roused. This environment was perfect for his awakening! It was dark, dusty, and generally everything the humans wouldn't like. That meant fewer prying eyes upon him, and less attention to where he was. There were also no cameras, a fact he quickly noticed with a brief survey of the place. He was all to himself.
He looked down at himself with a slow, measured tip of his chin, afraid of moving too quickly. He could see his hands at his sides, and as he slowly twitched his fingers, he felt the familiar shaking in his limbs. He was unstable from the mental and physical stress. Getting up was going to be no small feat... He put his hands down on the ground, planting them and forcing power into them. He applied pressure to the surface of the floor and began pulling himself up, sliding his left leg under himself. It forced a grimace from him, for that knee had been in an accident in life that had left him dreamless.
Convincing himself that there was purpose in his actions, he mustered up the courage to pull his other leg up and attempt to stand. He gasped as it crumpled under his weight, and a moment of black later he found himself lying on the floor in a heap. It was still nighttime. He grew incredibly weary in the daylight, and he saw no sign of this. He hoped he hadn't been out for the hour, but there was no way of identifying. Time was meaningless to him, trapped in here with no sense of it. He didn't even have impending doom to give him a sense of time; his fate had already fallen upon him. He simply had to embrace it or stay in the back of a storage room for the rest of his eternity.
The spring coils whined and snapped as he dragged himself against the wall with his arms. Touching his head to it, he wheezed quietly for a moment. Come on… You can do this. You have to, he told himself silently, a wretched gasping noise coming from his throat as he prepared for the effort again. He curled his fingers, pressing his knuckles into the crusting tile, and made a second attempt. He moved his arm back, quickly, holding it against the wall and using it to help him reach his feet. His body shuddered and fear bubbled in his chest, wondering if he might collapse again.
He straightened gradually, staring down at his feet before raising his gaze to sweep it across the room. He was standing. He was actually standing! Triumph washed over him and he raised his head, unable to help but puff out his chest, even if only a bit, in pride at what he had done. It didn't last. He, in his glorified mindset, attempted a step with the wrong foot, only to start tumbling forward. Desperately, he reached out with his arms, snatching hold of one of the nearby boxes and clinging to it. A wail forced itself from him, the pain returning like the sharpness of a knife, trailing along his spine. He struggled to wheeze as if he needed the air, pulling on the box to try to straighten before he snapped in two.
At last, the jaws of agony sinking into his back faded slowly, and he leveled himself, staring at his hands. He was so weak… Something moved in the edge of his vision and he turned his head, sighting a reflection of himself in a mirror. He jerked his gaze away, the glimpse he'd caught horrifying him. What had he become? Why was he alive? Questions started pouring back into his mind. He had gone over them a million times while he came in and out of consciousness. Now that he was more awake, he wondered if that was part of the reason that he had chosen to get up, now. He felt like he was teetering on some thin line, tempting the edge like it was a curious thing.
He wasn't going insane. No, that wasn't it. He was merely trapped, he told himself. Stuck among the spring coils and the wires and the pain. He was something new; he wasn't the man he had once been. He was even more restless and alone, his spirit stuck within an intense turmoil it had never experienced. He needed something new to identify himself as. He needed to be able to recognize himself with a new light.
He staggered back to the wall to lean against it, slowly lowering his head and peering through the crack in the door. The dim light outside turned on and off, occasionally bathing the world around it in darkness. It only looked slightly less destitute and sickly than the room he was presently in. He fiddled with the door handle, but it didn't budge. His fingers tightened on it. Yet another cage. He was trapped again, and only further did the spring coils bear down on his body.
There it was. The name was right within his grasp, and he snatched it before it could leave. Springtrap. Yes, that was perfect. He would abandon the man he had been. Resolve slowly firmed in his chest, forming steel out of what remained of his heart. He was Springtrap, now, and if he was to find a reason for life, he would need to make one. He was about to get busy.