I stopped shivering and being paranoid. I didn't have a choice to be afraid anymore. Everyone around me, Sarah, my mom, the mechanics. They were all vicariously brave because of me. If I crumbled, they would too. I felt it.

I carpooled with Lilly and Sarah, and though the first 20 minutes were silent, Lilly piped up.

"So what are gonna do?" she inquired, rolling down the window and throwing a piece of chewed gum out the window.

Sarah tensed up. It was obvious she just wanted to ignore this for as long as possible.

"Sarah, we can't ignore this," I started. She shook her head. My eyes narrowed and I nudged her. I pulled the tape out of my pocket. She looked confused.

"He gave it to me, last night, after he tried to kill my mom," I spoke lowly, emptily.

Sarah looked aghast.

"He hit you in your home?" Sarah disbelievingly gasped.

I nodded. She looked at the tape as long as she could, but had to turn to the road and continue driving.

Soon she began shaking, wavering terribly. Sweat poured out of her arms and forehead. The obvious message was of fear, anticipation, and most importantly; deja vu.

Without looking away from the road, she stated, with that edge of fear in her voice, "I know where we can play this."

We walked through the back employee door, opposite the right side of the monitor room. We stamped into the monitor room, where Sarah took a few glances at the equipment, then crouched low, and pulled an ancient-looking TV/cassette player hybrid from the 80s. She put the cassette in after I removed the sticky pad.

A familiar view encompassed the static-filled screen.

Our pizzeria?

No, it wasn't. It was….similar. Not Fredbear's either. What was this place?

A terrifying metal endoskeleton slumped its way across the old screen. Maybe it was my imagination, but sometimes, it twitched, looking towards the camera, other times it would spasm in the direction of the camera feed and mouth the words 'Help'. The feed died. Then it returned. Jack?

"Father...I found them. I found them all. I did what you wanted, but where are you? Where did you go?" the rough voice of Jack Afton called.

Them? Was he looking for the prototypes?

Then it hit me.

Dad Afton had experience building the animatronics...and Jack looks young here...does that mean that Afton worked somewhere else?

He wanted us to know. To know of this place. But why?

"I don't get it, who was that? Your uncle?" Lilly nervously muttered.

"No, that was Jack, our cousin," Sarah said half-heartedly. It was obvious she didn't understand what Jack had meant. But I did. Not because I smarter, or better than her. But because Afton taught me about the animatronics. Not their origins, but their very beings. I knew from the sketches of the animatronics that there were previous models – but it didn't make sense as to where those went. He never spoke of the prototypes, but now I knew they were there, once. Before Jack found them. Where had they gone? What had he done with them? I didn't think they would understand, so I kept quiet. But it didn't make a lick of sense. Why show me that if I wouldn't know where this restaurant was? He wanted me to find it.

The feed once again died, but restarted in our own pizzeria, attached to one of our own cameras. Our feed had been maintained securely, but he had access, he had complete access to our servers, information, closing times, everything.

He was telling us. Mocking us.

"You think you can protect them? Save them?"

"You can't"

"I am a shadow in the night"

"I am god"

"I am your nightmare"

It was horrifyingly true. Staggeringly terrifying, to see him observe us. It didn't matter what we did, we couldn't protect them.

That's when I thought of something. This was a challenge, no doubt. A claim of dominance. But it also allowed us a moment of pause. He wanted our data badly. What other streams did he have? One of years prior. We needed to deprive him of that data.

"Sarah, I need admin access to the Pizzeria," I said, coldly.

She turned abruptly to me, and said, "You have a plan?"

I nodded. "It may deprive us of evidence against him, though." I stated with a warning.

"Will it hurt the bastard?" Sarah spat.

I smirked, "Devastate." I worded.

She half-smiled, and handed me an admin keycard. I slid it through the computer hooked up to the entire system, and quickly messaged a buddy of mine, Keith.

Foxy1984 logged onto channel Mechanical Wonders.

Foxy1984: keith, you there?

Springfoxy223: yup, whats going down?

Foxy1984: need a hand

Springfoxy2: with?

Foxy1984: can you send me a loop&delete command prompt for securcam 1800, a-series?

Springfoxy2: oddly specific, and tyrannosaurusly old. let me look. any reason why?

Foxy1984: ill fill you in later, but right now, lets just say that its gonna save some lives, alright?

Springfoxy2: always up for saving lives, long as theres a dame that needs it. here;

Springfoxy2 has attached and sent you file !

Good.

I quickly download the file and copy it to each and every executable in the library of camera feeds. The only way to view the feed is to watch it directly, which would be a guard's duty. Otherwise, the recorded footage loops itself, and deletes any pre and post-loop footage, preventing post-live recording viewing.

"Done!" I said with a satisfying click of the mouse.

"What exactly is that gonna do?" Lilly said, with a questioning glance in her eyes.

"It'll prevent him from retrieving any data from the cameras." I called proudly.

Suddenly Sarah's eyes widened, and she leaped into an embrace with me.

"You're a damn genius Silan! That means we can actually prepare real defenses! He won't be able to predict them!" she spurt. I smiled.

Your move, murderer.

Business went on as usual, but some parents and some mechanics volunteered as part-time guards, so we had more than 20 adults roaming the place during the light hours. He didn't show up. There were some six parties, though nothing special occurred with them. I had quickly been accustomed as one of the captains of our security team, along with Sarah, Jamie, and the gravel-voiced man named Sledge. While Sarah ran interference, and kept up external defense from the public and police, I made sure to fix up all the electronic bugs in the place, even installing new generators, motion sensors, extra cameras and the like, whilst Sledge and most of the guards were responsible for the actual guarding. At first, most of the guards didn't trust me, but Sledge's word meant a lot, and if he said I wasn't a murderer, I wasn't a murderer.

We had kept Chica offstage, though, her presence was indeed missed. It was painfully obvious that we had to get her out there, so we finally got around to installing stench insulation to prevent any mishaps with the corpse. Chica acted normally, and the kids seemed tenfold more happy with her.

As the last partygoers left, and the night shift of 40 some guards came in, the pizzeria's lights were turned off, and flashlights were on. Most of the guards would be on the outside, while me, Lilly, and Sarah watched the cameras from the inside, to watch for any external and internal intrusions. One "He's here" would be enough to make the entirety of the guards rush in, preventing him from an easy escape. It was an ideal situation.

I strode to the mechanic's corner, to pick up Lilly and head back to the guard's office.

As I turned the corner, I noticed Lilly working on a shoulder of Chica.

Suddenly…

IT'S ME

….?

IT'S ME

Chica bolted upright to stare me in the eyes. Lilly looked on in horror, as Chica had been turned off for the night.

IT'S ME

Chica tilted her head to the left, and opened her jaw, wide.

Then she ran.

You'd think a half-ton animatronic would be slow, but you'd be wrong.

Good thing I had good enough reflexes.

I sidestepped and dodged Chica's remittere, narrowly dodging her metal teeth's contact to my neck.

IT'S ME

She quickly recovered, though, and lunged again, this time, successful getting contact, knocking me flat on my back.

IT'S ME

Lilly grabbed a flashlight from near her, and stood up.

IT'S ME

Chica proceeded to stare at me for only a few seconds, then jarringly opened her jaw as wide as it could go, and nodded her head all the way back

She's preparing to bite!

IT'S ME

IT'S ME!

Then it all stopped.

A light shone in from my right, where Lilly had flashed Chica's eyes.

Instead of the blank and plastic empty eyes that were customary in the animatronics, there was bright blue eyes in Chica's sockets. Her head was cocked to the side, questioningly.

Then, an atrocious thing happened.

"What are you doing down there?"

She spoke.