Author's Note:

Hey! Glad you came back for another night! ;)

I meant to mention this before, but I decided to name the murderer "Vincent" after the name a number of fans have given him. As far as I can tell, this name has no basis in anything canon, but I felt like making that small nod to the fans. :)

Speaking of the fans, one of the things that I feel makes Five Nights at Freddy's such good fodder for fan fiction is the degree to which things are left to the audience to figure out, the amount of mystery mixed in. That said, I have watched all three games, and I have read several fan theories out there. However, I found inconsistencies in all of them. I spent hours trying to figure out a theory that matched everything canonical and matched it well, and I honestly could not think of one... so I made one up!

This means that some of the things I write will conflict with certain details from the games. My goal was to create a story that was consistent within itself that tells the important parts of the story I want to share, and that sticks to the canon most of the time, you know, where I can.

Enjoy!

The smell of stale pizza... and blood.

The console was being temperamental, slow to respond, impossible to read.

Outside the window, a torrential downpour, a clap of thunder... and a heavy metal hook suddenly pounding against the door, a sharp scream and the impossibly firm hold of a hydraulic press crushing his body.

Karl awoke from his nightmare. He was surprised that he could even dream after only a couple of hours of sleep. He stumbled out of the twin-size bed in his studio apartment and slipped on a shirt, pants, and a lab coat. He then grabbed his badge from the nightstand and slipped it back over his neck.

He took another look at it, considering how he had let Springtrap see it, wondering if there were any other pieces of personal information that he had inadvertently leaked. At least all the badge gave Springtrap were Karl's name and picture. He tried to remind himself that Springtrap was not a threat bolted to the wall in a concrete bunker, but it still made Karl feel uneasy.

"Jeez, Karl, you look like crap, buddy." Dave, one of Karl's co-workers, teased him with a grin. "Have you been trying to have a life? You know that's not allowed for grad students, right? Ha, ha, ha!"

"Yeah, who knows?" Tammy, another co-worker, chimed in, "You might end up deciding that you're too good to use your degree for tedious grunt labor!" The other lab workers shared a brief laugh.

Karl grinned weakly and resumed his work. He was measuring the limbs of crickets that had undergone some sort of experimentation, and then taking them apart with forceps to examine the internal organs with a magnifying lens to check for abnormalities. This might be slightly less mind-numbing if Karl even knew what he was testing for, but this was some sort of blind testing. They didn't want any of the measurements to be tainted by the expectation of specific results, hence underpaid, uninformed grad students were used for the work.

Not much more of this. Karl thought to himself. Once I present my paper and get my master's degree, I will be pushing the state of science to a new level. I'll publish books, I'll get my doctorate next... everything will be different.

"KARL!" Dave called out.

"Huh?!"

"You've been holding that one sample for five minutes."

"Oh? Oh... right. I guess I... spaced out there for a minute."

"Ha, ha! No worries, man! Just put it back in the dish for now, anyway, it's time to go. Lab's closing."

"It is?" Karl looked at the clock and saw that it was 6:00 PM already.

"Yeah. A little advice? Go home and get some sleep, buddy. You look like you could use it."

"OH, no, um... I have to meet Salina."

"Oooh! Well, be careful your hot date doesn't wear you out too bad! The professor still expects you to get some work done, y'know?"

"Ah, no, it's... not like that. It's for research."

"Suuuure, buddy. That's what the kids are calling it nowadays."

Karl grunted and headed out the door.

Karl arrived at the coffee shop and ordered a Swiss mocha. What Salina had told him about them earlier got him thinking about giving it a try for helping him keep awake.

Salina waved to him "Hi! I saved us a seat!"

Karl smiled back warmly. He was looking forward to speaking with Salina. She was pleasant, and to him, she represented a glimpse into his future, an invaluable resource to bolster his groundbreaking research.

"Thanks, Salina. I decided to give that mocha a try."

"It's nice, right?"

It was sweet, and the smell was lovely. Karl was pleased to see how much more relaxed and open Salina seemed today than she seemed yesterday. Karl guessed that she decided that she could trust him, and he felt proud of himself for having been able to instill that feeling in her.

"Mmm, yeah. Lovely! So... tell me what happened at Fazbear's Fright."

"Well, I guess part of what I should tell you is something that... didn't happen... at Fazbear's Fright.

I got home around 6:30 the morning after my first night. I tried to get a few chores done, but I was really tired, so I went to bed.

That night, I had a dream. I dreamt about Freddy Fazbear's pizza. It was weird. I mean, I guess it's not weird to dream about a thing you've just been thinking about all night, but... I dunno, it felt... weird. There was something different about it. It felt... real. I mean, I guess dreams usually feel real when you're in them but... I'm sorry, I sound crazy, don't I?"

"No, Salina. Just take your time and tell me what happened."

Salina took a deep breath and sighed.

"Okay... It was like I was Freddy, back at the original Freddy's pizza place..."

Another Freddy appeared and told me to follow him, but I was afraid, something felt very wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I moved away, down a nearby corridor.

I saw a bright red balloon. As I stared at it, I noticed that it was being held by a shadowy figure, a small, round figure, like a child, but I couldn't see the face or any details. The next thing I remember was a series of lights, in corners... it's hard to describe. Top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right. That sequence. Then the balloon again, the figure holding it was crying, screaming, begging, "Please! PLEASE! I only wanted some cake! It's not FAAAAIR!" That appeared in my face over and over, and then I was Freddy again.

I followed that... other Freddy, and... and then I couldn't anymore. He... there was this... purple guy, and, well... he killed me. It was a pretty bad nightmare, to be honest.

The whole next day, I kept thinking about that... that balloon, those lights. I found myself tapping out that pattern, top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right, with my fingers on my desk, just pretty much whenever I wasn't thinking about it. I found myself doodling backwards N's in the margins of my paper by drawing from top left, to bottom left, to top right, to bottom right. I wondered why something like that had shown up in my dream, but then I just brushed it off.

I came in to Fazbear's Fright around 11:30 at night. As expected, Bonnie and the others had already left for the night, but he had left me a message to play when I got in.

I figured I would start playing it, but it appeared to be on a timer, and it wasn't going to play for me until the clock reached midnight. I decided not to worry about it. I had gotten there early because I wanted to look around for a bit longer, anyway. I had remembered seeing some old arcade cabinets. I wasn't sure how many of them actually worked, or if any of them were just old and broken, or if some of them were just props, set up to look like creepy arcade cabinets, flickering and flashing just for the creepy effect.

I saw one with a bright red balloon on it. It was just like in the dream. It was rigged to always show one credit inserted, so I didn't have to put in a quarter or anything, but it seemed to be malfunctioning. The script on the cabinet was so worn and faded it was illegible, and the screen itself just flashed random letters, numerals, and other weird computer symbols.

It had a set of four buttons arranged in a square on the console, and a joystick. I tried moving the stick around and mashing the buttons, but nothing happened... until I tried pressing the buttons in the specific order: top left, bottom left, top right, and bottom right. All of a sudden, the glitched-up screen became clear. I saw a white fox-head hovering over a floor. The game looked like an old platformer from the 1970's. At the top of the screen read the words: "MANGLE'S QUEST". "Mangle?" I thought to myself. What a weird name... and then I remembered something Bonnie had told me.

Apparently, in one of the stories, they tried to make a more kid-friendly version of the Foxy pirate, making it white and pink, and putting it with the younger children, who would always tear it apart and fail at putting it back together properly. I couldn't remember if this was a true story, or one of the creepy bits of fan lore, but it seemed realistic enough to be true.

There are actually a lot of things that are true that don't seem realistic enough, though... Actually, never mind that. Let me just tell you what I saw.

I hopped around the little game level putting pieces back onto the... Mangle that I was controlling, avoiding the hyperactive little child character, which was running back and forth, threatening to take me back apart. I got all of the pieces, but I messed up trying to get to the game's exit. I glitched through one of the walls, and I saw my Mangle falling down outside of the game world. I thought perhaps I had crashed it or that I would have to unplug and re-plug the cabinet in order to try again, but something very unexpected happened then.

I... "landed" at another level, but it looked like some sort of glitch. I wondered if it had been some sort of mess of unused code that somehow coalesced into a halfway playable level. I didn't understand how something like that would work, but... stranger things have happened, I suppose.

I saw a large figure that seemed to be frozen in a state of weeping. What could that mean? If this were just a bunch of unused code, why would something like that have been programmed, added to the game's assets in the first place?

I found that I was still able to move. I pushed onward, and found a set of platforms to jump across. They looked like bright red balloons. I was getting quite a creepy feeling in the back of my neck. I jumped up along this set of platforms, and at the end... cake. There was a big, three-tiered birthday cake with candles at the top.

I remembered the screaming child from my dream begging for cake. I jumped for the cake, and the game crashed. The screen froze, and none of the buttons did anything. I wasn't sure what had just happened, but I couldn't help but feel somehow... relieved. I wasn't even sure why.

At this point, it was just about midnight, so I got back to the security office. I listened to Bonnie's recording start while I idly examined some of the old masks and animatronic heads that were piled in a bucket near the door of the control chamber. I smiled at the sound of Bonnie's cheerful voice again.

"Hey, man- okay, I have some awesome news for you!" I grinned. It was nice to hear the excitement, and I wanted to hear what Bonnie was referring to.

"First of all, we found some vintage audio training cassettes! Dude, these are, like, prehistoric! I think they were, like, training tapes for like, other employees or something like that. So, I thought we could, like, have them playing, like, over the speakers as people walk through the attraction. Dude, that makes this feel legit, man."

I had to agree. That did sound pretty awesome! This might actually help add to the realism even more than genuine visible artifacts. I was fascinated and ready to hear these.

"But I have an even better surprise for you, and you're not gonna believe this- we found one. A REAL one!"

Wait, what? A real what? I wondered.

"Uh-oh-uh gotta go man- uh, well-well look, i-it's in there somewhere, I'm-I'm sure you'll see it. Okay, I'll leave you with some of this great audio that I found! Talk to you later, man!"

I decided at that point to start looking around the office while I continued listening to this first training cassette. Was the "real one", whatever it was, in here, somewhere?

"Uh, hello! Hello, hello!"

This new voice sounded younger, but I realized that voices can be deceiving. Anyway, I couldn't find anything new or out of the ordinary in or just outside of the security office, so I started flipping through the cameras on the console.

"Uh, welcome to your new career as a performer-slash-entertainer for Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Uh, these tapes will provide you with much needed information on how to handle-slash-climb into-slash-climb out of mascot costumes."

Yup, sounded just like an old training tape. Very scripted and stilted. I wondered if they were going to get to food preparation. That might be kinda funny, hearing their internal food processes. Nothing on the first couple of cameras I checked. I moved on.

"Right now, we have two specially designed suits that double as both animatronics and suits. So please pay close attention while learning how to operate these suits as accidents-slash-injuries-"

At that moment, I gasped as I felt quite sure I had just found the "real one". It was on one of the camera feeds, standing in one of the hallways on the north side of the building. It was a bit like Bonnie (the giant bunny, not the person), but instead of purple, it was a sickly yellow. It looked quite ravaged by time. Perhaps Bonnie was right. Perhaps this was a real animatronic that had been used in one of the actual restaurants.

"-slash-death, slash-irreparable and grotesque maiming can occur."

Slash what?! Okay, maybe Bonnie is pulling my leg... or maybe someone is pulling his. This is starting to sound like a joke. But... I couldn't help but stare at this yellow bunny while the guy on the phone described the horrors that can occur if the suit is used incorrectly. The thing was stained and beaten up, but it was standing on its own. I wondered how functional it still was.

I started to switch cameras. I hadn't really become super-familiar with them, yet, and I was trying to see if I could get a better angle on the new animatronic. To my disappointment, I found that the cameras all seemed to cover entirely different spots of the attraction; there wasn't any overlap. I sighed. I supposed that was efficient; they wouldn't want to waste money putting up cameras where they already had vision.

I continued listening to the recording:

"First we'll discuss how to operate the mascots while in animatronic form. For ease of operation, the animatronics are set to turn and walk towards sounds they hear which is an easy and hands-free approach to making sure the animatronics stay where the children are for maximum entertainment-slash-crowd-pleasing value."

At this point, I decided that I would go out of the office as soon as the recording was done to take a look in person, so I tuned back to the camera where I had found the yellow bunny.

It was gone.

A shiver ran down my spine. Where was it?! It had just been there a moment ago. Was I looking at the wrong camera? No... I remember it standing in that hallway. It was... right... there. I started flipping to different cameras while the recording continued.

"To change the animatronics to suit mode, insert and turn firmly the hand crank provided by the manufacturer. Turning the crank will recoil and compress the animatronic parts around the sides of the suit, providing room to climb inside. Please make sure the spring-locks are fastened tight to ensure the animatronic devices remain safe. We will cover this in more detail in tomorrow's session. Remember to smile; you are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."

I finally turned to a camera on the west side of the building, and I felt my heart thumping hard in my chest. The yellow bunny was staring straight into the camera, mere inches away. What was it doing? It was just a robot, just a machine. It couldn't possibly know what was going on.

Next, the camera feed was overcome with static, and when it cleared, the thing was gone again. Without meaning to, I started breathing heavily, my hand started twitching as I attempted to flip through the cameras to find the yellow bunny again.

I saw it on the east side of the attraction this time, just a few feet from the hallway right in front of me.

I decided I no longer wanted to see this thing up close. I was panting, sweating, gasping. I couldn't get enough air. What was happening? It was creepy, but it shouldn't have been making me panic so badly that I started to hyperventilate. I shut my eyes tight, and took the deepest breaths I could, but it was like being... underwater. I don't know how to explain it well. My chest wouldn't fill with air. Or rather, when it was full, I still needed more.

I was startled as red lights started flashing and warning horns started sounding in the office. I finally remembered what Bonnie had said about the ventilation system. I felt myself starting to black out, but I reached over for the console to operate the systems. Each system name appeared in green letters, with "ventilation" followed by a flashing red "error" indicator.

audio devices

camera system

ventilation error

Of course! Bonnie had warned me that the ventilation was bad; I had to reboot the system. A few seconds after I initiated the reboot command, I could hear the fans switching on, the vents pumping vital oxygen through that awful room again. I took a deep breath, and I was able to start to calm down. Then I looked up and saw the yellow bunny just outside my door... staring back at me with unblinking eyes.

I froze. I held my breath, even despite how desperate I was to get air back in my lungs after that last episode. I felt a tear welling up in my eye. Before, I was hyperventilating because the ventilation system had failed. Now, I was really panicking. I didn't even know why I was so terrified of this thing. Surely, a device built to entertain children would never hurt me, but I shuddered, I whimpered, and I just prayed that it would go away. I could just... sense something horrible about it.

Just then, I heard a different kind of alarm from the last one. It startled me and I yelped, but then I recognized it as the alarm clock set for 6:00 AM. I turned to the clock. Sure enough, it was six, my shift was supposed to be over, I turned back to the doorway, and the yellow bunny had slumped back against the wall, its eyes closed. I took that opportunity, and I tore out of there as fast as I could.

Author's Note:

So! What do you think?

I hope that I am living up to the atmosphere of the games. I hope that you are having fun! There is definitely more to come, and I look forward to reading your reviews!