CHAPTER 4

It was safe to assume that it was clear something was going to go horribly wrong the moment Freddy had trouble thinking of the human in the office as a human. And judging by the other animatronics' expressions, it was clear that they were experiencing the same feeling. But the one who seemed to get it the worst was Bonnie who was visibly shaking with the need to leave the stage. The question was, if they were not seeing a human, what was he supposed to be? Their programming had a very clear idea.

After the pizzeria, closed no human was supposed to be at the pizzeria. Which meant that their programming told them that this creature in the office was not human. So the only other thing it could be is a mere endoskeleton. But also according to their programming, this was not allowed and therefore the creature had be in a suit. What this meant terrified Freddy. The sudden need to fix the mistake was overpowering. He looked worriedly towards his family. Only to see that Bonnie was already gone.

"Oh no." Freddy whispered.

He was terrified. He was creeping towards the office, and he couldn't stop himself. He was being forced to fix a supposed problem that he had been presented with. Bonnie as the sentient robot knew that the creature was human, but his programming was positive that he was an endoskeleton. Bonnie knew if he stuffed that man into a suit, he would die.

Even though Bonnie was mad at the man for how he had treated them when he came in, he was still a person, and Bonnie was NOT prepared to become a killer whether his programming told him to or not. Yet he still found himself approaching the door. Until the door was slammed in his face, and his programming momentarily released him and Bonnie ran as fast as he could back to the main stage before his programming could arrest him again.

"Freddy!" Bonnie cried, yelling at his brother who was still fighting with himself.

"Shh. Don't worry." Freddy whispered. Freddy could see that Bonnie was getting angrier the more frightened he felt with this situation.

"Where's Chica?" Bonnie asked quietly, doing his best to control his anger at his inability to control even his own body.

"She took off shortly after you did." Freddy said quietly.

"I thought I really would kill him. And I might have if he hadn't slammed the door in my face, momentarily releasing me." Bonnie fumed. It was clear to Freddy that this situation had gone from potentially terrible, to very horrific. Neither Bonnie or Chica seemed to have enough control to overcome their programming. And Freddy was worried he too might loose the control he had managed to scrape together. Foxy hadn't even left his cove, so no one had any idea how he was.

"At least the night guard seems to be able to keep you guys out." Freddy said, trying to comfort Bonnie as Chica also came running back, hugging Freddy desperately.

"What is going on?!" She cried. "I know he isn't an endoskeleton. So why do I still want to put a suit on him?" She asked. Freddy was thinking hard.

"Because our consciousness is not connected with our programming."Foxy said, stepping out of the Pirate Cove cautiously, as if he expected himself to loose his control at any had been sitting in his cove trying to contain himself, but he had an idea as to what was going on, and he wanted to tell the others. But as a result, he could feel that he was loosing himself.

"I think Foxy is right." Freddy said.

"Can we do anything abou-" Chica froze. Then took off towards the office again, Bonnie following. Fear was growing in all of the animatronics. They wanted to fix this, but how could they? Freddy was glad that at least he could remain in control and comfort the others, because he knew that they were going to really need him at the moment. Except apparently, for Foxy, who seemed to be doing okay with his control.

That was, until the camera's constant flashing caused his systems to reset, allowing the programming to gain control, and Foxy ran towards the office. Freddy could hear Foxy banging on the door from the stage. Soon, all the animatronics returned to the stage, but they could do nothing about what was happening.

"Freddy, what do we do?!" Bonnie asked, going into hysterics.

"Just take some deep breaths, and try to take control of the programming. We are alive. Not robots. Just think that over and over." Freddy said. " It's helping for me." He assured Bonnie and Chica, as well as Foxy who was loosing his control at his cove every time the tally light on the camera flashed too often, which was quite often, since apparently the security guard felt the intense need to look at every camera every couple of seconds.

They tried to listen to Freddy, but still they could not hold themselves together. It was all so unexpected. How could any of them have possibly prepared for any of this? The night went like this, with Bonnie and Chica loosing their control every so often and heading to the office to be shut out and return to Freddy. Freddy didn't know what to do. For the first time, he felt completely helpless. He was slowly loosing his control more and more. Finally, five am came around.

Foxy eventually lost it when the tally light made his systems reset, and he ran as fast as he could towards the office. Being a fox, he was way faster than the others and the security guard barely managed to close the doors in time. Foxy banged on the door a couple times. The banging echoed through the otherwise silent pizzeria before returning to hide in his cove with his own thoughts.

"Okay. Just one more hour." Freddy whispered to himself. Bonnie and Chica were freaking out. They wanted the nightmare that this night had become to end, as fast as possible. It didn't help that with each hour, they came closer and closer to getting into the office, though they managed to hold themselves back enough for the security guard to close the doors.

Bonnie was furious with himself. He couldn't understand why he couldn't regain some level of control like Foxy and Freddy. Every time he felt his feet force him towards the office he became more and more angry. Chica on the other hand was terrified. She didn't want any of this, but a few times when she almost got into the office, she could see just how terrified the man inside was.

Indeed, since there were windows Bonnie and Chica could see just what effect their pursuit was having on the night guard inside, and they could see just how terrified the man was, and how desperately he looked at the cameras to keep an eye on where they were going.

The time passed agonizingly slow. Even so, when it came to five fifty, Freddy allowed himself to hope that they would all get through the night without incident. But he was wrong, when the power suddenly shut off. Along with Freddy's control.

The sudden darkness broke what was left of the defensive wall that Freddy had built himself in his mind. He felt his body leaving the stage, but he had no say on where he was going. He didn't need more than one guess to know where his programming was making him go, and it filled his heart with dread. He came to the doors, the hallways and the room dark, due to the lack of power to give light. Freddy stood at the door, his eyes flashing, giving him some light allowing him to see the situation in front of him. What he saw made him feel sick.

The man inside the room was completely terrified. The animatronics were scared about the thought they would take a life, but he was scared that he was about to have his own life taken, no matter how miserable that life was, he was not interested in losing it. But now Freddy had come to claim it. The fear so clear on the man's face had been caused by him and his brothers and sister. They never wanted this. But they had no choice to go with the sickening intentions of their programming.

A small music machine that Freddy didn't know he had started to play one of Freddy's personal favourite songs the Toreador's March. Freddy knew that when his song ended, he would be forced to make his move. He struggled anyway's, trying to make the jingle last as long as he could. Then relief filled his body as the bells chimed six am, and the man before him was once again a man.

Freddy wasn't sure why six am was the magic time, but Freddy took it gladly, and retreated to his stage where the other animatronics were already seated. Fear was still clear on his face, and on the face of the night guard who ran from the pizzeria, likely never to return. And Freddy wouldn't blame him.

"Holy shit." Bonnie said. Freddy didn't even complain at his use of language. They were all in shock at what the last six hours had been like.

"I'm so glad I'm me again!" Chica sighed. It was indeed a relief to everyone when the programming finally laid off them all. It had been a tough night, and Freddy knew that this was surely just the beginning of a nightmare. There was someone he needed to talk to.