See the end for notes.

"They come alive when I work the nights
I guess I should have seen the warning signs…"


1. Not Exactly a 9 to 5

Mike Schmidt was bored as hell.

He lifted his head off the back of the desk chair, eyeing the tablet in his lap.

Nothing out of the ordinary yet. Of course, it was only 11:50 something. Place didn't go into its odd lockdown until midnight, so he had solid ten minutes to kill.

'Maybe I oughta rephrase that last statement…' He mused to himself idly.

Yeah. The less he thought about being killed the better. With a snort, Mike recalled the information given to him by the manager as the portly man left. The man hds booked it out of there so fast it was a wonder there weren't skid marks by the door.

'Stuffed into a suit. They can afford a night guard, but not a technician to reprogram these crazy motherfuckers? Gimme a break.'

This whole job smelled fishier than anything, and that was coming from the kid who'd worked in the local cannery until it had closed.

Mike tapped the stage camera idly, getting a solid look at the still animatronics. They didn't seem so scary. Recalling how large they were when he'd first walked in, made Mike reconsider his first assumption though.

Didn't really help he was scrawny and maybe one-hundred and four pounds soaking wet.

His studio apartment needed electricity, and his car couldn't go past a gas station without needing a drink. And the straw that broke the camel's back, besides getting laid off at the cannery, was the student loans that were starting to loom on the horizon. He had a couple months, sure, but that didn't make him feel any better.

'Least I get to play video games during the day.' The thought is of little comfort, mostly because a bell has just chimed somewhere, and the power flickered once before coming back on. Mike waited patiently for the generator to kick in—now the ancient laptop that is his only window to the outside to reboot. Great.

This is apparently the cue for someone else, not just the generator or—gulp—animatronics.

The phone rings.

"I…what?" Mike says, caught off guard. Before he can think to actually pick up the receiver, a voice mail kicks in. Oh.

"Uh hello? Hello hello! Uh hello and welcome to your new summer job at the new and improved Freddy Fazbear's Pizza…"

Mike blinked, but listened curiously.

This was new.


It can feel the weight of a beating heart for the first time in years.

Which is strange, it thinks to itself as it shifts around its home. Sure, there have been others here before at night. Humans. Adults. Certainly the place still had foot traffic during the day, but there were so many distracting little bright hearts from their lovely, glowing children. Because of that, it was too hard to concentrate on finding an appropriate suit for his companion.

It had been forced to wait for the night, when the place went silent and the only living soul belonged to the night guard's. Talking about slim pickings.

It had found fault with every single one of them. And if it hadn't, then he had.

That wasn't their fault though. Night guards weren't welcomed here for a reason. Not since…

Hm. Old ghosts.

Time had been ignored for so long that time itself was now becoming a problem. Locked down in the dark didn't mean it wasn't able to find out what was going on upstairs, and it had caught wind of the plans to close the pizzeria at the end of the year.

They were running out of time.

'We can't afford to be picky any longer.' It plainly tells the suit lying slumped beside its present box.

'I can feel this one's heart. This one could be different. We might have a chance.'

There is no verbal answer, but the Marionette doesn't expect one.

His companion had stopped speaking a long, long time ago.


Mike took one look in the illuminated doorway, saw the rabbit's leering face, and screamed bloody murder.

The noise resonated through the old pizzeria, as did the sound of the slamming door as Mike jabbed the button so hard it was lucky he hadn't broken his finger.

He sat there, breathing hard through his mouth as he clutched his heart.

'Shit. Mom was right. I need to take my fucking medication more.' If Bonnie didn't stop his heart before that time came, that is.

The cannery had never been this creepy!

He heard clanging in the kitchen and scrabbled for the tablet. Opening it dropped the power from a steady 80% to a whiny 74% in a matter of minutes. Oh—shit, he still had the door closed.

Mike was a quick study. Not seeing the outline of the rabbit's impressive ears meant he could turn off the light and release the door mechanism.

The laptop choked in his lap, begging for the sweet release of death.

'Not on your life, buddy.' Mike thought grimly, flicking through cameras. '…or mine. Definitely not on mine.'

There was Bonnie, suddenly lurking in the Parts and Services Room. 'Yeah you stay right there you creepy fucker. Stay with all your friends.'

Chica was nowhere to be seen—Mike didn't know if he was grateful or not for that. But it was safe to assume she was still in the kitchen—what an animatronic chicken was going in the kitchen in the pitch black was a mystery to him—and he decided to let that question remain exactly what as it was.

He had a few of his own, after all.

'I'm so fucking quitting.' He repeated like a soothing mantra as he noticed the purple bunny-man had found its way to the hallway.

Maybe he could reverse call that phone guy when he got a chance to breath, and see what his technique was for, you know, surviving. After a single night at Freddy's, he was going to need to talk to someone. If nothing else, he was going to call his mom and tell her he loved her, and admit that it was him in Christmas '74 that had eaten the pie before dinner and not their dog Sparky. (What? A little good karma never hurt anyone—or got them stuffed into a suit.)

It was only four something in the morning, and Mike was mildly hysterical.

"Of course, I can still always quit, can't I?" He managed a weak laugh, glancing at the right doorway. Nothing. Freddy was still on the stage—awesome, great, no really—and the curtain to Pirate's Cove was just drifting there lazily.

Wait—it was moving?

Oh…kay.

Probably just a draft. This place wasn't exactly Fort Knox. (Except it totally was. Logically this meant that if something on the outside wasn't moving the curtain, then something on the inside was. Fuck that.) Shaking his head, Mike turned his attention back to the footsteps coming down the hall. His right? Yep.

For good measure, he slammed the door button.

The power was at 42%—nope, 40%, crap—and Mike realized that using both cameras and doors was a sure fire way to lose power faster than his nerves could handle.

Mike clung to the thought that, even if the power ran out, even if one of these animatronics managed to get in the office at him, there's always the opposite door to escape from. And he was fast, faster if his life depended on it, so there was the chance he could get to the door before anything caught up to him. Provided, you know, there wasn't anything coming at him from both sides when he tried to escape.

'Great. Scare yourself, Schmidt. Like everything else wasn't making it their job already.'

But adrenaline accounts for the reflexes when the brain is flipping its shit, and it's thanks to Mike's quick thinking he fends off both the rabbit and chicken with relative ease. By five, they seem to have grown bored and don't show up at his door as often. That was odd. They almost seemed discouraged.

'Can they tell?' Mike wondered as he checked the door lights reflexively. Nada. He had to conserve power though. He was a boy scout; a lifetime ago it seemed.

"A-always be prepared, heh-heh." Mike babbled nervously into the gloom of his office. Then regretted it immediately, because for all he knew they could fucking hear him. Talk about high tech.

'Do they have some form of AI?' Mike wondered, not for the first time.

It was exactly 5:59:42 (he knows because his digital watch is now his best friend and his worst enemy) when the power hits 1%.

Then 0.

That stupid fan stops, the precious lights die, and his new best friends the doors just go on and slide up. The traitors. The tablet has gone blank. Mike finds himself sitting in the pitch black and in the dead silence.

Scratch that term, 'dead silence.'

He can hear a noise.

A noise—a song—a music box song of some offhandedly familiar tune is playing dimly down the left hall. Mike turns his head a fraction, he can hardly hear the sound because his heart is beating between his ears, blocking out everything but panic and cold, chilling dread.

Was it worth heading out the right doorway?

Maybe—

Years of video games were supposed to prepare him for this moment, but Mike finds his limbs uselessly heavy and chest aching nevertheless. He can't move, can't think, certainly can't breathe. He turns his deer-in-the-headlights gaze up at the illuminated face of Fazbear, and chokes on his own oxygen.

He can't see his watch now, can't possibly know that time is ticking faithfully along and that 6am is coming, coming…going…

Gone.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Goes his watch. He thinks, distantly, he is going to marry this watch, this lifesaver.

Silence, goes the hallway.

City powers turns on, and the petrified Mike is allowed to witness the hulking form of Freddy Fazbear, ambling down the hall. Presumably back to the stage, where Mike finds them all not give minutes later when he finally dares to inch his way toward the double doors. They're standing there, arguably innocently, and Mike can only gape at the turn of events.

He notices now, for the first time, the animatronics in all their glory. Err, or lack thereof.

The rabbit and the chicken, or duck or whatever, looks to be in the best condition, which isn't saying much. The bear—Freddy—has a staggering amount of wear and tear, and Mike almost feels bad for it. Some of the cosmetic damage is too much, but he took enough computer classes to find his way around a processor if they gave him half a chance.

Then he wonders if that damage is caused by other night guards, just like him, fighting for their lives (Holy fuck is that a handprint) and Mike has a hard time feeling anything considerate or kind at all for the damn robots.

Tomorrow, he is going to call his boss, and try and quit. These determined thoughts push his jelly legs toward his beat up, hand-me-down car.

One look at the spindle resting wearily toward E, and Mike lets his head fall onto the wheel in defeat.

'It was only two animatronics. They seemed to have a set pattern, too. And Freddy only appeared when I ran out of power, which I guess I used a little sloppier than I could have….' Mike rubbed his closed eyes tiredly. He was infamous for this, for talking himself out of doing things. Bad habit.

'If I don't run out of power again, I bet I can make it.' Besides! That phone guy was going to call tomorrow, and maybe he had made some miraculous discovery on how to outwit those animatronics.

'Stay positive, Schmidt.'

Alright. Wednesday for sure, he was going to call.

One more day wouldn't kill him, right?

…he really had to start using different phrases.


Made by popular demand, the prequel to London Bridge. Also, if the FNAF movie doesn't use McFly's song Friday Night in some way, shape or form, they are missing the opportunity of a century. It's basically a song that could be about Mike and it's scary spot on. The very first lines are "Sleeping through the day cause I work all night, get out the way things are coming alive…" And it only gets better from there. (Fun fact: In London Bridge, Mike says one of the lines in the last chapter.)

On that note, the end comments will always have the title of the song I use in the beginning.