The lights flashed, and I could hear the night guards heavy breathing. I shifted forwards, peering around the corner, my endo-skeleton creaking in protest. A phantom, I think it was Chica, was fading into the shadows. Its shriek echoed through the empty building.

The Nightguard turned to fix the ventilation with the systems control panel, but when he saw me, a terrified scream tore from his throat and tears began to stream down his face. He pulled himself into a tight ball on the swivel chair and stared at me. His eyes filled with dread and fear.

I pulled my heavy body around the corner and lumbered forward. The guard took a couple of gasping breaths, his voice, weak with his fear, reached my ears.

"P-please d-don't kill me."

I took the final few steps forwards. The man shrunk back and then fainted. The lack of oxygen, and the fear overriding his brain, forcing it to shut down. I reached out and dragged the limp body into my arms, spun on my heel and walked out of the guard room and into the dark facility.

While I walked to my destination, a phantom appeared beside me. There was a grim smile painted on its face and the large holes where its eyes should have glowed with a feral intelligence. I gave a jerky nod and then pulled my conciseness into the metal skull. A place where I could dwell on my thoughts and actions.

I knew what they were going to do with the poor man. I had seen it a million times, and at one point, long ago, I was the one that started it.

They were going to kill him in the most painful way possible. They were going to force his soul to join theirs in an eternal punishment.

Guilt filled me. It felt like bile was rising in my non-existent throat. Shame filled my being, and If I had been human, I would have been crying.

They would tear his body limb from limb and shove what was left in a suit. And then he would be stuck. Broken, in pain, and alone.

When I felt the phantoms control over my body slip away, I crawled back to awareness. I was standing in the shadows of one of the rooms. Probably placed there by the workers that were building the attraction.

Night had fallen, and the few windows in the building looked out into the starless, moonless dark. The faint sound of the introductory call echoed through the building to my location. The camera in the room I was in whirred as it moved to surveyed it.

The call was silenced, and dread shot through me. I always hated it when they silenced the calls, thinking this was just going to be another night guard job. It gave me more free reign to terrorize them.

A phantom brushed by me, its sickly green glow filling my vision as it told me the game plan.

I moved through the building, stopping every now and then to listen for the childish voice to pull me away from my path. Or perhaps even a shriek of panic when the guard noticed I had moved.

I heard nothing, so I continued. The guard still me, and I suspected that they weren't even looking at the cameras.

Lights flickered around me, and I dropped into a crouch. The metal joints of me endo-skeleton creaked as I got into a crouch and crawled into the vent. As I crawled forward, loud thumps echoed around the building. A feral scream and yelp joined the banging sounds and alarms started blaring. I was getting closer to the security room, and dread began to burn in me.

The alarms stopped screaming below me. After a few more moments of crawling, the vent slammed in my face, cutting off my path. I pulled back, rubbing my nose with a metal paw. It didn't necessarily hurt but it felt weird getting smacked in the face with a wall of metal.

'Always so nice.' I thought bitterly as I made my way out of the ventilation shaft. When I finally righted myself, more alarms were blaring. They stopped short, and then the voice of a child lead me away from the room, back to where I started

The puppet was leaning against the wall. It waved at me when I lumbered past it. I just ignored it.

I finally reached the room the voice led me to, and then footsteps sounded in the silence. I swivelled my head to look back the way I had come.

After a moment of nothing happening, I turned back around to make my way to the guard's office. The puppet was still leaning against the wall. Freddy and Chica had joined it. Their faces, while incapable of showing emotion, seemed to be laughing. Not at me, but at the guard.

Freddy pointed in the general direction of the exit. It seemed that the night guard had run.

I reached the exit door, my nonexistent heart felt heavy, and my thoughts trying to fight my actions.

The night guard, a teenage male, was pulling pathetically against the door. His moves desperate, his breaths coming in gasps. The sound of my footsteps pulled his attention from the door to me. His eyes widened when he saw me. His gasps turned to whimpered sobs.

As much as I hated what the phantoms made me do, I had no choice. I owed it to them, as I had caused this whole mess. I had created the monstrous feelings that drove their souls to have revenge. I had to kill the man.

I took a couple more steps to the guard. He flattened himself against the wall. Alarms in the security room were going off, leaving a ringing in my ears.

A few more steps.

Tears began to trail down his face. A face that reminded me of one of the original kids that I had killed. Memories began to bombard me, what was left of my humanity, though shabby and torn resurfaced. My sanity, though battered by how my life had turned out screamed at me to let him go.

I took another step.

My emotions fought against themselves. Memories resurfacing, reminding me of how my actions had caused all this trouble to begin with.

This time, I hesitated in my steps. The guard had slid down the wall to the floor, his wide scared eyes still fixed on me.

I had never meant to kill the kids. Maybe hurt them, but never kill. And after that night, I was against myself. It was what had driven me to destroy the animatronics, to kill myself.

I stared at the man in front of me. He was more of a boy than a man. Probably around the age of nineteen, and going to die young because he chose the one job in the universe guaranteed to get him killed.

'Kill him!' One of the phantoms whispered from behind me, 'What are you waiting for? You didn't hesitate to kill us!'

I finally chose a side to my raging thoughts, took a few more steps forward. Then, I did something I never thought I would have the courage to do. I reached my hand out to help the young man to his feet.

Angry howls filled the halls, and I could hear the children's souls whispering furiously.

The man pressed himself further against the door if it was possible at this point, unsure of what I was doing, but knowing it had angered the phantoms.

I hadn't spoken in so long, and not since I had died in this suit, but I force my rusted, broken jaw to move.

The metal creaked and the bones snapped as it moved, "I...wi-l-l...h...help...you...g-g-g-g-g-g-g-get...o-u-t...of...he...here."

The man looked at me with fear and confusion. I held out my hand again.

"Pl-please...t-ru-st...m-m-m-m-me." I croak out, despite the pain that it inflicted on me.

The boy hesitantly reached up to grasp my metal and fur covered paw. I pulled him to his feet as gently as I could. He gasped as I pulled him away from the door.

His voice met my ears as I dragged him through different rooms, "Where are you taking me?"

"Th-e-e-e-ere...is...a...ro-oo-oo-oo-oo-mm...i-n...whi-which...the...g-g-g-ghosts...ca-annot...enter."

I walked passed several broken down rooms, lights flickering, walls cracked and falling apart. This was more than just the work of the architects. The presence of the phantoms deteriorates anything that they touched.

When I reached the room in which I start each new shift, I pulled a curtain form the wall. Behind it was a small door, which leads to a secret room. That was where I had stayed as a human before I started destroying the animatronics. Its where I hid after I had killed the children.

I gently shoved the boy towards it.

He turned to look at me. His fear was replaced with suspicion, "How do I know that this isn't a trick to kill me. I've heard stories about every night guard working at this place disappear. I mean, not that it chased me away like it did most people."

I shook my head, "Y-y-y-yooooou...w-will...j-ju-just...h-h-h-h-h-have...to..trust...me."

The boy glanced at the hidden door once before looking at me. His eyes softened and he nodded, "Thank you."

He turned around, opened the door, and then crawled into the hidden space. I walked away when I saw him secure the door.

I wandered around the horror attractions halls. The lights flickered, and red alarm lights flashed. The sound of the alarms themselves had gone away ages ago. They were set to go off if the night guard disappeared from the premise of the building, and as far as I was concerned, he was gone.

I stepped into the room closest to the office and took a hurried step back as a chicken got into my face. Anger radiated from its form, as did it radiate from the other phantoms.

The chicken screeched in my face, 'You! You are a traitor! Why did you spare him when you had no problem killing us!?"

Her voice was a mixture of the little girls and the scratchy whisper of the phantom.

Regret bubbled up in my thoughts. I was only a human then. I made a human mistake, but it ended up affecting me even after death. I hadn't meant to kill them.

But why did I end up killing them?

Because I was lost in the moment? Because I forgot that children are far frailer then adults? Because I couldn't help myself.

It's my fault they're stuck here, in this hell hole. It's my fault they cannot rest.

Regret filled me as the other phantoms joined Chica in surrounding me. Black ebbed my vision, and I could feel the children's souls tying my soul to the suit, making it so that I could never leave it. I don't even think I could have left it before.

The room began to spin. I wanted nothing more than to go back into the past and fix all of my mistakes. I wanted to make sure that the night guard made it out of here alive. I wanted to help the children find peace.

My last thought before the darkness claimed me was, 'I want to stop feeling this regret, and instead feel peace!'

This was written way back before Sister Location was released for playing and FNAF was still brand new. The whole story didn't exsist and I was basing this on another theory at the time.

I hope that you enjoyed reading it none the less. Have a great rest of your day/night.

~Bittersweet Treats

1984/2039