Five Nights at Freddy's belongs to Scott Cawthon. I don't own any of these characters. Enjoy!
(Note: In this fic, Bonnie is referred to as female.)
EDIT: For all of those who are following the story, I figured I'd update you here: the sister story is now up! It's called 'A Haunting Sense of Guilt' and should be on my page. While this story is done and the second story doesn't have to do with any suggestions that I have received through reviews, I have decided to do something: on the Tumblr blog fnaf-prompts I'm going to write the suggested chapters as requests! Keep an eye on that page for when your suggestion will be written! Thanks so much for all the kind reviews, they've made my day xoxoxo
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"Yeah, so do you think you could grab that for me, Mike?"
An overwhelming feeling of chilling dread spread down Mike Schmidt's spine. He most definitely didn't want to leave the secured room – which wasn't really completely safe itself – but knew he would have to retrieve the item in questioning to get on the owner's good side.
"Yes," he hesitated, swallowing the lump that rested in his throat, "Absolutely. You can count on me, sir."
"Good, thanks a lot. It shouldn't take you more than five minutes." His boss then let out a deep, gruff laugh. "And if you happen to run into Freddy and the gang, tell them I said hello!"
Mike forced himself to chuckle a bit, because he wasn't too sure if his boss knew that the animatronics were murderous psychopaths once the clock hit six. Judging by the way the older man had worded his sentence, Mike was almost positive he was joking with the (still) underpaid guard.
The owner of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria hung up on the other line and Mike's shaking hand slowly placed the phone back on the receiver. All he had to do was go and get the boss's laptop which he had left on a shelf in the backstage while demonstrating the upgraded, new animatronic parts to a group of robotics students on a field trip. Except, there was only one problem: that would involve leaving the safety of the monitors and walking around with the animatronics very close by.
But, what if doing that got him a raise? It wasn't much, but every little favor counted. He had worked for Freddy's as the night guard before – back in 1993 – and he had been paid four dollars a week. Now, he was being paid $9.25 to do it, but raises were always well appreciated, especially when he had a daughter at home to take care of. They had offered to pay him two dollars more than the minimum wage to get him to come back. Because he was a sucker, of course he had. But he also expected that the animatronics wouldn't try to stuff him in a suit since they were all fixed up real nice.
Oh, was he wrong.
Nervously, Mike checked all the cameras again to make sure where the animatronics were. The curtains on Pirate's Cove were now kept open 24/7 since they remodeled it, and at the moment, Foxy was contently standing on the deck of his ship, eyes steadily on the camera. Freddy's eyes were only seen in the bathroom stalls, but it was easy to tell he was there. The candy-colored rabbit lingered by the kitchen, her permanent smile plastered eerily across her face (that didn't mix well with her blacked out eyes at all). Mike could tell by the sound coming from the east hall that she was on the move, but he left the doors alone. The other animatronic was nowhere to be found; she was probably in the kitchen somewhere.
His legs shook terribly as Mike lifted himself up from the comfortable office chair, setting the monitor on the desk in front of him. Time to sprint straight into the battlefield.
He left through the west door, the carpet making quiet shuffling sounds as the heels of his feet dragged the nearly brand-new checkered floors. As he emerged into the dining area, he saw Foxy's head snap almost instantly to the side, faint whirring sounds audible as well as his eyes adjusted themselves to see the guard better. Mike froze in place, beads of sweat beginning to roll down his forehead so badly you'd have thought he'd just ran a mile. Gathering the courage to step forward, he slowly began to move across the dining room, weaving through the tables. Foxy's head followed him the whole way, with Mike watching him in return—and fear of his safety.
"Hi, Foxy…" Mike choked in a whisper, taking his focus away from the robot fox to scan the rest of the room before taking the next step. His heart shot out of his chest and he fell into the chair behind him when he noticed the blue, porcelain-faced rabbit standing only two tables away from him, silently watching with her chaotic green eyes.
"S-Stay there!" Mike yelped, stumbling into the table again, quickly turning his head to fix the chair before looking at the rabbit again. Absolutely nothing about her moved an inch. "Let's pause the game a moment, y-yeah?" He backed up toward the end of the aisle. Now all he would have to do is change his direction by a ninety degree angle and back up some more and he would hit the backstage door. "I'm not trying to provoke you, I'm just grabbing something." The bunny stayed put, smiling wide like she always did. Mike looked behind him for a few steps to make sure he wasn't going to back right up into an animatronic. The backstage was much darker than it used to be back in the nineties, so he could never see too well when watching that room. All he knew was that Freddy went back there a lot more than he had before the restaurant had closed, so fingers crossed he wasn't in there now.
Mike's sweating, clammy hand gripped so tightly onto the doorknob he thought he would pull it off. He never liked to leave the back office. Ever.
"I'll be right back, okay?" Mike grinned to try to mask his fear, waving a few fingers at the animatronic. Under his breath, he mumbled, "Stay there…"
With that, he went inside the backstage.
…
Upon opening the door, he was hit in the face with so much dust that he encountered a chain of sudden sneezes. You could definitely tell that nobody went back here often, because all of the light bulbs were burned out and the room looked exactly the same as it did back in the 90s, whereas the rest of the restaurant had been remodeled quite nicely.
Thankfully, Freddy wasn't back there, so Mike's nerves loosened and the knot sitting on the base of his spine untwisted itself, putting him at ease for the moment.
He could barely see and squinting only made the matters worse, so he began to carefully feel around the shelves for the laptop. First, there was nothing but disembodied mascot heads (that hopefully were empty), spare parts, and empty sections of the metal structures. Mike let out a sigh. He wasn't paid enough for this.
Nearing the corner of the room, he shuffled sideways so he didn't happen to walk right into a piece of something that could've been jutting out. If there was something, he was expecting it to poke him in the side, and that would be when he moved. Instead, his ankle suddenly hit something thick that he wasn't expecting and he tripped, crashing directly into one of the metal shelves.
Mike gripped two shelves with white knuckles, gaining his footing again. Once he was done being shaken from the fall, he turned to see what it was he tripped on.
There were four possible things he could've tripped on, but he only hit one—and that was an animatronic's leg. More specifically, a purple one.
Mike's jaw hung open a bit in awe as he floated toward the corner. In the midst of twenty years, he had forgotten almost completely about Freddy Fazbear's Pizza until they had called him, wanting him to work there again. He had, however, forgotten all about Bonnie and Chica, who sat limp and motionless in that one corner. Chica's suit was ripped from disrepair, her infamous "Let's Eat!" bib no longer on her neck, its whereabouts unknown. One side of her jaw was disconnected from her face and hung loosely. Her eyes were blacked out not from possession but of deactivation instead, her head resting rather human-like against Bonnie's shoulder. Bonnie's suit had two extra buttons that must've been added after Mike left all those years ago, but other than that, there wasn't much change in her, save for a few rips here and there and the lack of a damn face.
Mike grew extremely puzzled when a pang of emotion hit him in the chest. It was extremely sad to see the two basically dead, coming to rest in that one dusty corner of the restaurant that no one ever went in. Even if they had tried to kill him all those years ago, it was very uncomfortable to see them like that. All those kids that were grown up now; had they any idea what their heroes looked like and that they were replaced by Candy-Coated-Porcelain-Face and Miss-Chica-Knockoff-But-Is-Now-A-Duck? They wouldn't want to see this. It was sad. Mike suddenly felt empathy for those kids, but remembered that he was looking for the laptop. Catching one last glance at the two animatronics, he started his search for the laptop again, blindly groping the shelves.
Eventually, his fingertips caught feeling of smooth plastic, and he slid the laptop into his grip. Ironically, he didn't feel relief. The knot returned to his back and dread lumped in his throat like starch, sick to his stomach at the fact that he'd have to walk back into vulnerability.
He tucked it under his left arm and twisted the doorknob, pushing the door forward. Instead of it opening smoothly, it hit an object that was in the way of the door. There was porcelain-face, smiling twistedly at Mike through the small opening.
Mike let out a yell of terror and ripped the door closed, locking the lock as if it would do anything. He fell backward into the island that sat in the middle of the room in shock, setting the laptop next to a naked exoskeleton. He would wait a bit before leaving the room.
He stood in silence, his breathing synced with the raspy, pained breathing that was coming from the same room…
Wait, what?
Mike let out another yell, frantically scanning the room for Freddy, but he was nowhere to be seen. Slowly leaning against the island, he decided that it was just his imagination, waiting for another minute, thinking about how much longer he had until he got to go home. His thinking was interrupted by a sudden, loud, pained sound of inhalation that sounded all-too familiar. Mike froze again, not moving an inch. He was then met by a collection of clicks and whirrs, and out of the corner of his eye, he could make out two tiny red dots in the corner.
"I miss the kids, Mike." Slowly groaned a female-sounding monotone voice, followed by more raspy breathing. Mike knew exactly who it was and was extremely panicked, turning carefully at the corner to look at Bonnie, whose head twitched in a similar way that it used to right outside his door, only at a much smaller scale. In this instance, it was twitching to adjust her eyes, which were trying to focus on the frightened security guard. The latter went completely cold with terror; how did Bonnie know his name?
"I miss being onstage," she croaked, her head going still, facing Mike. He neared her, wondering why she wasn't completely deactivated. She sure looked like it.
"Why would… they… rid… of… us…?" Her system seemed to be running slow, as all of her words had several second intervals between them. It might've been Mike's mind, but he could've sworn he heard emotion in that robotic voice of hers that used to sing along with Freddy. All three of them always appeared to be overjoyed when onstage, but he always thought it was an act. Freddy, he could see it being one. Chica? He would never know. But Bonnie… had she been?
"Chica… Chica…" her head turned to look at the head resting on her shoulder, "She used to… be aware back here… like… me. But then one day… she… stopped responding to… me."
Mike knelt down on one knee so his face could be level with Bonnie's eyes, that brightened and dimmed at random. She turned her head again so she could see him and her left arm started spurring mechanical sounds, as if she was trying to move it.
"Dust mus…t've gotten into… her… cortex." She let out a struggling, distressed sigh. "I… miss… her…"
Mike felt so bad for the animatronic, despite the fact she hunted him down all those years ago. He had lost his best friend in a car accident a few years back and the following months after were the worst of his life, so he could actually understand where Bonnie was coming from. Bonnie didn't say anything for a minute and stared at Mike, as if she was expecting him to respond. He wasn't sure what to say – his mind failed to find the words, so he just awkwardly looked at the floor, clicking his tongue. Bonnie inhaled again and he looked back up, listening again.
But she didn't say anything. She just looked back down at Chica and didn't move her head, and decided to get back up and see if candy-bunny was still there. He scooped up the laptop and slowly twisted the doorknob, pushing the door out. He was delighted to see that he was in the clear.
Mike turned his head back to the corner, smiling at her sadly. "Bye, Bon—"
"—Mike, please stay… and talk… to me. I miss human… contact. I miss… the children. I miss… being onstage… being normal… being Bonnie Bun…"
Hesitantly, Mike closed the door and stood in front of it, hugging the laptop to his chest. He wasn't really afraid anymore, willing to let the poor robot vent a little more.
"I am… full of… an uncomfortable… bug, if you will, Mike. This bug… is making my circuits.. . run strangely, and there… is… this… lingering… sense of something I cannot explain." Her jaw had not moved at all throughout the entire encounter. There must've been a speaker that was concealed by her face that helped her voice be heard, while her jaw just moved at random. She cut him off before he could open his mouth to speak.
"Is this… Is this what had caused children… to leak tears when… they… would drop pizza or when… young ones… would see how large and und… er… stand… ing… ly scary we could be…?" Bonnie's arm stopped clicking because it suddenly jolted up as she gained control of it again. At first, fear shot through Mike's body, wondering if her legs would work too and it would be back to square one. Instead, her arm moved over to Chica and rested itself on her arm. Fear replaced itself with sadness.
"I do not understand… my cortex cannot decode what this sense is. Mike… is this… sadness?"
Mike stood still for a second before swallowing and nodding his head. "Yes, Bonnie," he said quietly, "You're sad."
"I… do not like sadness, Mike."
"Neither do I."
There was uncomfortable silence, but it spoke many more words than they ever could. Finally, Mike stood up and walked to the door, opening it wide. As he went to step out into the dining room, he heard her gravelly breathing again.
"Don't forget… me, Mike." He peeked back into the doorway at the limp animatronic. "Please… let me live on… in… your mind. Do not let me die there."
He nodded firmly and gave her a sincere smile. "I won't, Bonnie."
He expected her to respond to him, but she looked at Chica again, sighing with her newly-discovered sadness. He closed the door behind him and with strange confidence, strode right across the dining room, Freddy a few tables over.
The man that spoke to him on the phone all those years ago that let him know about their AIs and free-roam mode and all that; his words echoed in his mind.
So, remember, these characters hold a special place in the hearts of children and we need to show them a little respect, right?
Never would Mike had thought he'd agree more.
…
Yay! That was real fun to write. I'd love it if you'd leave a review, but please, no flames; I will take negative reviews if they're civil. There is now a second chapter, so if you're interested, it's there!