Chapter 1 - Restlessness
For what had felt like the longest week of his life, Mike Schmidt had been forced to live on the streets. The experience had been sobering, if utterly scarring, and he'd vowed to himself to never again complain of his life as long as he had a roof to sleep under, and to never again allow such a fate to befall him. Forced to drop out of college when his parents had died in a car accident, the 21-year-old youth did not have much to live for; nevertheless, his dignity had now become his most prized possession, and he was willing to risk life and limb to maintain it – literally.
[ooo]
The flickering light of an archaic street lamp filtered through the thick dust-glazed windows of the small kitchen, dimly illuminating a grimy counter and the scattered remains of a paltry lunch. All was silent and still, as the soft velvet shadows of nightfall slowly but surely took hold of the small outskirts flat. Hours passed; suddenly, the grating sound of an old-school alarm clock rang across the apartment, causing octogenarian neighbors to grumble in their light sleep. Mike woke up with a start, nearly falling out of his bed, and felt his way around the bare hardwood floor as he tried to find and silence the offending device. Eventually the jarring noise died down of its own accord, though not before stealing any last shreds of hope the young man may have had of getting more rest (he had hid the clock under his bed for that express purpose, but the result was no less dismaying).
Stretching, he began to shamble towards the bathroom, and groaned – he really, really did not want to go to work on a Saturday. He had to, of course, he needed the overtime pay if he was to be left with any money for food after he paid his bills. He couldn't even afford to be late, because the doors closed automatically at mid-night, an expenditure that the dingy establishment he was employed at did not seem fit to support. Yet it does, he thought darkly, and I think I can make a good guess as to why. Mike Schmidt worked as a night-guard at a Chuck-e-Cheese style pizzeria, watching the camera feeds on a high-tech tablet from the safety of his bunker-like security office, which had magnetically locked iron bulkheads for doors – in itself seemingly innocuous enough of a job description, except that (anecdotally at least) this sort of profession did not normally involve being hunted by murderous, revanchist machines. To make matters worse, the building ran on a limited power supply for the duration of his shift, and the security office doors opened automatically when it ran out – ironically, to stop anyone from being trapped in. Freddy Fazbear's, as the place was called, was not long for this world, that he knew. Murders and mysterious happenings besmirched the past of the company; five children had been brutally killed by a madman, their bodies never found by authorities, and not long after the much-famed animatronic mascots – Freddy the Bear, Bonnie the Bunny, Chica the Chicken and a fourth, decommissioned one, Foxy the Pirate – had begun to act oddly and smell, as a former customer had eloquently put it, like the living dead. It did not take a genius to figure out that the robots were haunted, Mike reasoned, and his skepticism of the paranormal had been obliterated when he'd first seen the anthropomorphic purple hare walk off his designated spot on the stage, but that didn't explain why they seemed so determined to take it out on him in particular, and in the most grisly of fashions at that – according to the messages left by a previous guard, the animatronics would attempt to stuff him into a Fazbear suit if they managed to catch him.
Now, that didn't seem all that awful, Mike had thought, until he'd found out that the suits were filled with wires and crossbeams meant to give the mascots their trademark expressivity, which also had the unfortunate side effect of crushing any human being pressed inside them like a particularly fluffy iron maiden. Tonight was his sixth night on the job, and judging by the trend so far the robots would be more violent than ever before. This information alone should have deterred any sane person from ever setting foot there again, but something inside Mike had snapped after his life had first taken a turn for the worst, and now he was coming back as much out of economic dependency as because, deep down, he was nearly... addicted, to the rush of adrenaline and the imminence of potential death. Adding to that, he was also curious – were the animatronics really possessed? Why did they hate him so much? Could he convince them to leave him be? Talking to them before-hours did not seem to have any effect whatsoever, and during the night circumstances were much too harrowing to let his guard down like that. All this, he considered as he brewed his evening coffee (cheapest brand, only fit to keep him awake and murder his taste-buds) and packed himself a couple of sandwiches, in the unlikely scenario that he would be allowed enough of a respite to eat them. Well, hope springs eternal, he thought, and with that began his nightly hike to his workplace.
1:45 AM, and the metal psychos were already out and about. Mike glided his office chair to the door controls, shutting the bulkhead in Bonnie's face as the robot reached menacingly towards him. The rabbit's head twitched violently, as if gripped by a seizure, baring the hidden jaws of its endoskeleton at the camera before leaving. The young man pooh-poohed at the sight with practiced indifference, and went on to check Pirate Cove – Foxy's usual dwelling place. The curtains of his abandoned stage were already parted, the mechanic fox glaring at the camera with burning yellow eyes that – Mike felt – had no place on a supposedly lifeless object.
"You're gonna try and rush me down, aren't you," he mused to himself. "Well, knock yourself out. I can hear you coming a mile away, I don't even need to stare at your ugly mug."
No time for idle chatter, though, already the right-hand door was assaulted by Chica. Mike moved to close the door on her, and had to scoot back the other way to shut Bonnie out, who had returned in the hallway with a garbled, static-filled screech.
"Now, where's Freddy..."
Loud bangs from the left-hand side announced him that Foxy had replaced his purple companion, and was currently trying to punch his way through five inches of solid steel.
"Good luck with that, buddy."
After a quick scan through the rest of the cameras, his by now trained eyes managed to discern the two pinpricks of light that marked Freddy's presence in the dining hall. The bear could be surprisingly stealthy, and Mike had an inkling that he was learning to adapt to the night-guard's technique. He prepared to switch cameras again, moving to check that the hallways were clear before opening the doors to his office to conserve power, when something unusual caught his attention on the poorly lit screen. Something he'd never seen happen before...
[ooo]
Familiar rage, primal and senseless, overloaded his circuits, causing his head to glitch wildly through different default positions. He could feel his presence in there, his still living pulse, taunting him. If only he could break that door down, or smash in that window... But, of course, his programming forbade him from damaging company property. The unfairness of it all was driving him mad, inching him off the precarious perch of sanity...
"IT'S ME."
Bonnie gathered his scattered thoughts, and set off down the hallway. The sheer absurdity of the rules he was forced to play by still frustrated him, sure, but if he continued to linger the person inside the office would never open that door again. Besides, he reminded himself, they weren't out to kill him this time. Not just yet. They needed to see his face, to make sure...
If only he could remember things better.
Back in the dining hall, and Bonnie quickly realized he wasn't the only one having trouble reigning his temper in. Blending in seamlessly with the shadows around him, Freddy was looking up at the active camera with vacant, dimly glowing eyes. His gaze then lowered itself, focusing on the brick wall that separated them from their target. For a moment, the rabbit remembered their unspoken agreement not to interact when they were out hunting, but pushed aside his misgivings when he saw the animatronic draw back, readying for a charge. He walked over with large, striding steps, and placed a hand on his friend's brown-furred shoulder.
"Freddy, don't."
The bear ignored him, shrugging out of his grasp.
"Freddy, seriously, don't." Bonnie watched him take a step to the side, then begin to walk forward, picking up speed as he went. "I barely managed to fix you the last time," he called out after him.
The ursine robot finally stopped in his tracks, turning to face him as he continued to speak at an urgent pace: "Look, I know you think you're responsible for what happened, but this is not what he would've wanted. For that matter, none of us want to see you get hurt." The rabbit relaxed, seeing the unhealthy determination ebb away from cerulean eyes. He flexed his fingers with pale, wistful sadness, hearing the small motors click and whirr as he did so. "These hands aren't really meant to hold a screwdriver." He looked up, returning to his usual jovial self. "And I doubt the wall's gotten any softer with time."
"Alright, yes, so I've gathered," the bear responded, amused. "Incidentally," he continued, pointing at the still active camera trained upon them, "you do realize he just witnessed our little sideshow, don't you?"
The purple animatronic shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "Eh, more power to him. I don't really see how it'll make that much of a difference in the long run, not if things go as planned."
Freddy let out the mental equivalent of a sigh. "If we still had working voice-boxes..."
"I tried, Freddy, I really tried," Bonnie lamented, "but all the electronics I know come from an atlas I read when I was ten, and it said nothing about fixing speakers in there; I think I'd need a soldering gun anyway, for the wiring, and they don't leave that sort of stuff just lying about in a pizzeria. Besides, what would we even say to him? 'Come on out, so we can decide whether or not we want to tear you apart?'"
"Iiit's... not very convincing, is it?" he admitted. "Okay, fair point. Guess we'll just... keep trying, then."
"Uh-huh. Actually," the rabbit pondered out loud, "I think I'll set things up so Goldy can get to him? I don't think he's seen her in action yet, and to be honest I'm growing a bit too... unstable, for active duty."
"Good idea. No need to risk a repeat of last time."
"...yeah..."
"Oh, come on now, you know I didn't mean it like that. We've all had... slip-ups."
"That cost other people's lives? Heck of a price to pay for my own damn mistakes."
"Which is why I'm making an executive decision here, and telling you to go rest. Play a song or something, if it helps you get your mind off of things. Oh, and Bonnie? I'm supposed to be the leader around here. If anyone's to blame for those incidents, then it's me."
With that, the two robots parted ways, one going towards the west hall, the other for the back-stage. New guard or old foe, the last week had been an interesting one nonetheless; and Freddy felt, for reasons he himself could not quite explain, that it was only going to get more interesting from now on.
A/N: Finally remembered to give this thing a proper Author's Note. But hey, next chapter should be up in about a minute! Now, about the story. Basically, I'm hoping to keep this thing mostly canon up to Mike's seventh night, which as you all undoubtedly know is neither the end nor anywhere near the beginning of things. The one big difference is that the children that were murdered in this story were a mite bit older than their canon counterparts, and thus have managed to better hang on to their sanity. That's about all that there is to say for now - I don't intend to ramble here over-much, so I'll leave you with a few verses instead (also by yours truly). Enjoy:
"Dark thoughts race inside me
I feel I'm becoming that which I hunt;
Memory has betrayed me,
How many innocent lives did I hurt?
I am afraid
But I haven't changed
It's still me,
It's still me,
It's me!"