I awoke, lying on my side on the fog covered ground.

For the second time, I wondered how that was possible. At least this time, I had at least some of my memory. I could remember the monster, a large humanoid, with his invisibility granting bell that had crushed my back, impaled me on the hook, and left me to get eaten by the spider out of time and space.

I sat up. I may have been alive, but there was... some part of me missing, I could feel it. The spider had taken something from me, and I wasn't sure what it was. Not my memory, that had already gone missing, but something far more personal and vital. But... I couldn't put my finger on what, exactly, had been taken. I seemed intact, uninjured. I picked myself up, and my legs supported my weight.

And, once again, I had no idea where I was. It wasn't the auto yard where I was before. I could see trees, but to scattered to properly be called 'woods'. It even felt different, less oppressive, if only slightly. I looked up towards the heavens, trying to get a sense of night or day. But I couldn't see the sky, only an impenetrable fog. It was light enough to see, but only barely.

I could have waited, to sit down until someone found me. But, in this place, I had no idea if that was even possible. So I picked a direction and started to walk, picking my way carefully through the trees and fog.

There was no sound, no birds, no woodland animals, not even the sound of wind rustling through the branches. The only noise was the sound of my feet thudding against the hard packed dirt on the ground. I had never done very well with silence – I was pretty sure of that – and only after a few minutes I started to call out in the fog. "Claudette? Ace? Kate?"

There was no reply.

One thing kept coming back to my mind as I wandered. When I'd been put on that hook, the whole world had momentarily burned in fire. That had to have been some memory of my normal life. Where had that memory had come from? Had I been in a burning building? If I had, why? Was I dead? Was this an afterlife? Was there something I'd done to deserve it?

I walked for what I thought was hours, calling out every few moments, trapped in these thoughts, pushing my way through the mists of this fresh unknown hell. There had to be something out here somewhere. There had to be an ending somewhere. Eventually, through the fog, I saw something glinting. I reached down, feeling a metal handle. I pulled it from where it was obscured by a shrub, and found a metal box, any cover completely faded by time. It was latched shut, but it was easy enough to open up.

I was hoping for food, some type of instruction of how I got here. Something... anything. What I found was... junk. Springs, wires, cogs (or perhaps sprockets) and absolutely nothing that I had any use for.

Well, it was a neat box at least. I latched it back up, and continued to move through the fog, calling out once again. A short time after I found the box, I could hear someone else calling out to me. "Hey! I'm over here!"

As I approached, I could hear the sound of running water. And then... I breathed a sigh of relief. It was Claudette, she was sitting on the bank of a bubbling brook. It had to be the most normal thing I'd seen since I'd woken up in the auto yard. With bright green grass on either side, it really didn't look like it fit in with the rest of the... well.. world.

"Michael, how are you doing?" Claudette asked, concerned.

I sat down across from her, setting down the metal box. "I'm so confused," I admitted. "I thought I was dead. But I'm not. Why?"

"Here, even death is no escape," Claudette said, sighing. "And no, I don't know where we are either. I've been through so many of those 'Trials' where we first me. It's always the same. There will be four of us in there, trapped. There are unpowered exit gates that we can only open if we turn on five generators first."

"And we're hunted by the creature that can turn invisible?" I asked.

"By... something. There's several of them, but never more than one at a time," Claudette explained. "There's a woman who hurls axes, the large man and his traps, and a nurse that can teleport," she stopped at that last one, and I could see the fear in her eyes. "I hate her so much."

I looked at her, listening to the babbling of the stream. "What about that other thing?" I asked finally.

"What other thing?" she asked.

"That... spider..." I began. I didn't even want to remember it.

"We just call it the entity. It is, as far as I know, in control of this place. It chooses us for the trials. Then it kills us on the hooks, or if the trial breaks down."

"Breaks down?" This was just getting better and better.

Claudette gave me a wry smile. "You'll know it when it starts to happen, it takes time for it to break down the trial. Use it wisely."

"How do we get out of this place?" I asked. I suspected I wouldn't like the answer.

"Nobody knows," Claudette said grimly. "We're all looking. I've seen so many people in the trials. Occasionally, I've met people outside of them, like you."
It wasn't that it was a lot to take in, but it sounded pretty hopeless.

"That may sound hopeless, but none of us have given up," Claudette said. Okay, so my thoughts must have bled onto my face. "Someone, Dwight, I think, suggested that if we were ever to truly give up then we would be changed into one of the beasts. Set to hunt those who hadn't given up. So, promise me you won't give up, Michael."

"I'll do my best," I promised, taking a deep breath.

"Do you remember any more about what happened before you came here?" Claudette asked me. "What's Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, anyway? I don't think I'd heard of it."

"A magical place for friends and family alike," I responded without thinking about it. "It was a family pizza restaurant. There were four animatronic mascots, Bonny, Chica, Foxy, and of course Freddy himself." Wait, was that it? I mean, I was wearing their security guard uniform, was that the restaurant I had been hired to build for Henry? Must have been. "I must have worked there." I finally told her.

"Huh. Like Chuck E Cheese's... but fewer rats," she mused. She thought for a second, then unclipped a pouch from her belt. "Michael... I'd like you to take this. It's got healing supplies in it. I don't know how, but it never seems to run out. If you get hurt out there, use this to stop the bleeding. It'll still sting like hell though."

"Thanks!" I said, taking the pouch, clipping it onto my uniform. "Don't you need it, though?"

"I can make more. I recognize some of the herbs out here, so I'll just restock. Don't worry about it."

I sat there, trying to piece together all of this. That I was trapped was almost too much to take. There was a way out. There had to be.

"Michael," Claudette said. I think she said it three times before she actually got my attention. "Fog's rolling in." She was right. The brook was almost obscured by a low rolling fog, and it was building quickly. "Another trial is about to start. Michael, take your tool box! Quick! And... good luck"

"Claudette?" I asked, grabbing the tool box from the ground.

There was no reply.

"Claudette?!" I shouted.

I leaped to my feet, feeling my way to where Claudette had been a second ago, but she wasn't there. I stumbled through the fog, which by now was impenetrable. I thought I was going to land in the creek, but instead, I stumbled out of the fog into what appeared to be a campfire circle.

There were three other people there, a young Asian woman, wearing what looked to be sporting wear, though I didn't recognize the team that was advertised on her shirt. There was a slightly older, and much taller, dark skinned male, wearing what I thought was a doctor's long coat. The last one was an older woman, wearing a a bloody suit over a red blouse. We looked from one to the other of us. "Hi?" I said. "I'm Michael."

They just stared at each other for a moment, a weariness in their eyes. They met my gaze, and nodded, a weary smile on each of their faces, and introduced themselves as Feng, Adam, and Jane. As they finished, Feng put up her hand. "It's coming." And as she spoke, we were engulfed in fog once more, my heart beating in my ears.


The fog faded, and I looked around. I had been transported again, and this time, I knew I had been to have been transported, because I was indoors. It was a dimly lit room, with a boarded up window of one side. The only light came from a bright neon light on one of the walls. A large table sat in the center, though there were no chairs to be seen. The metal 'toolbox' of scrap banged against my side.

I stared. This room, it felt familiar, and I wasn't sure why. Still, if this was a trial, there was no point to staying in one spot, that would be a great way to get myself back up on a meat hook. I hadn't seen one yet, but I was pretty sure I'd see one again soon.

I slipped down a short corridor into a similar looking small room. No table this time, but there was a set of large shelves empty shelves to one side. And there, in one corner, was a generator. There was only one problem, the generator was surrounded with black spider-like tentacles.

I stared at it. What did that mean? Other than I wasn't going to be repairing that generator anytime soon. So... I had to find a different one, I guess. I walked carefully out to the area creeping through another short hallway, past a large meathook, decorated with more flickering neon. At the end of it was a large room with several tables and a large protrusion – a stage, jutting out into it.

And on that stage were three of the four animatronics I had just told Claudette about. Freddie the bear, Chica the Chicken, and Bonnie the Bunny, though there was no sign of Foxy. I felt like they were staring at me... and while they didn't move from the stage, their large plastic eyes followed me to the generator right below the stage. This one wasn't entangled by the entity, so it was time to get to work.

I worked slowly and carefully, determined not to cause another explosion that would alert whatever was hunting us this time to my presence. Blue to blue, red to red, I muttered to myself. I stopped for a moment, looking around, was something nearby? I could hear footsteps echoing down the halls. But they receded instead of growing louder, and I went back to the work. Maybe that scrap was worth something after all. I found a few extra cogs and a couple of extension cords, which I could just plug in instead of threading the gaps, which made it go somewhat quicker.

It was when I had the green cord that felt it really should have gone to this green plug and didn't quite reach its destination that I felt it. An oppressive feeling that was restricting my progress, I shoved the green cord in a spot where it did get and, while I didn't make the generator explode, it tried. It sparked something fierce, and a few of the connections I had made fell out again, setting my progress back.

I was cursed. I could feel it.

More than I had been before, I mean.