Author's Note:

Welcome back and thank you, again for your readership!

Night Five

I dove through the window, feeling the broken glass tearing at my clothes and likely my skin as well, but with all the adrenaline, I barely noticed it. I scrambled down the hallway, desperate to put some distance between myself and that mechanical monster.

I looked around for a place to hide. I rounded the first corner I saw, and as soon as I felt fairly sure that I was out of his sight, I saw a curtain behind an old Freddy costume at the north end of the hall, so I slid back behind, still able to peek out through one corner of the curtain.

My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest, and I tried to slow my breathing to make myself less obvious.

I then started to feel as though my hiding place might be more of a trap than a safe place. If I were spotted, would I be able to get out? I was too terrified to move, though.

I waited for a few minutes, trying to calm my breathing, trying to be as quiet as possible, listening as carefully as I could to hear the Spring Bonnie animatronic if it were approaching from one direction or another, to hear if it were in the vents, or anything. For a surprisingly long time, I heard nothing. I needed to get around him, to get back to the control room by myself. If I could get back there without the bunny following me, I could regain control of the situation.

I decided that it had been long enough, and I had to risk moving just a little bit, just to get a better view of what was going on. I shifted in my hiding spot ever so slightly in order to get a clearer view of the hallway, to see if I could see anything else, to hear anything else while still remaining mostly hidden.

Nothing.

I leaned a bit further.

"HELLO!"

The child-like voice rang out from the speaker right next to me, startling me so badly that I felt a surge of blood all the way down to my toes as my heart went straight back to panic mode. I gasped loudly and quickly covered my mouth before looking back out at the hall to see if anyone was coming.

I had a moment to consider what had just happened. That sound only played from those speakers when someone operated the controls to make that happen. The Spring Bonnie animatronic was still inside the control room, and it was looking for me on the camera system! All this time, I had been thinking of it as a mindless beast, perhaps even a zombie. Could it actually know what it was doing?

My mind made the next logical step. If it had been watching for me, and then played that sound... it might have seen me move when the sound played! It might be heading straight for me. My hiding spot was no longer safe. It was risky either way, but I had to make a move immediately. I started running.

I went a little further away from the control room, I went further to the east where there was another hallway parallel to the one where I had just been hiding, and I went there, hoping that the animatronic would have taken the shortest route to reach me at my previous hiding spot.

After rounding the corner, I slowed down and listened. I heard nothing. I slowly moved back south, down the far hallway, back toward the control room. If the Spring Bonnie animatronic were heading straight for my hiding spot, it would be going north along the other hallway, just west of me. That wall separating me from that path was the thing on which I was relying to stay out of sight.

As I got to the south end of this eastern hallway, I could hear the stomping of the animatronic moving.

Whump.

Whump.

Whump.

I knelt down to the ground to be less visible, and I slowly peeked around the corner to look back west, toward the control room. I just caught a glimpse of the animatronic turning north, going the way I went when I initially ran from him.

My plan was going okay so far. I just needed him to get far enough away from me for me to move back behind him and get back to the control room without him hearing me. "How sensitive is his hearing?" I wondered silently. Thankfully, it was at least weak enough not to hear me breathing around the corner.

Whump.

Whump.

Whump.

I listened as the animatronic moved closer to my old hiding spot. It sounded like he was halfway down the hall now. I was about to peek around the corner to make sure that the coast was clear, when I started to hear the alarm for the ventilation system going off back at the control room. The speakers for this were only in the control room, not throughout the facility, so it was not as loud as usual where I was hiding, but it made me stop in my tracks. Did the bunny hear it? Was it going to come back?

Whump.

….

Whump.

Whump.

After a brief pause, the bunny apparently had decided to ignore the alarm and keep going north, much to my relief.

Bracing myself against the wall to make sure I didn't slip, I slowly stood up, took a careful look at the floor in front of me, checking for anything that might make a sound, and I started to carefully walk back across his path.

It felt like I was crawling through peanut butter, like I was directly within a line of sight of him for ages, so completely exposed, but his back was turned, and he didn't notice. It probably only took a few seconds, but it felt like forever before I made it across the hall, and back with a corner blocking me from the animatronic's vision.

I picked up the pace slightly and moved down toward the turn I would have to make to get back into the control room. I just barely noticed the broken glass in time to avoid stepping on it. Though the alarm was helping me to mask the sound of my movements, I didn't want to take the chance that he would hear the cracking sound if I walked over the broken glass.

Just as I was on the home stretch, heading straight for the seat at the control console, I heard a loud BANG echoing through the facility.

With my next step, I was assaulted by the image and screaming of a dark and decaying Freddy Fazbear leaping up from the ground. I gritted my teeth and pushed past the hallucination, which I had known to expect with the failing ventilation system. I moved to the seat and paused to think for just a moment.

As soon as I rebooted the ventilation system or played any audio, the Spring Bonnie would know I had made it back to the control room. I had to make sure I knew what I was doing and where he was before I did either of those things.

Trying my best to ignore the alarm, and taking a brief glance out the broken window in front of me, I pulled up the camera system.

*audio error*

*video error*

Damn! I glanced back up at the window, still no sign of the animatronic, and turned over to the maintenance panel.

I tried to take a deep breath, but the air was getting bad. I knew I couldn't restart the ventilation. Not yet. Not until I was back in total control otherwise. All of the systems were in error, but I only rebooted the video and audio.

As I waited for the restart, I kept my head low and stared out the broken window, not even sure what I could possibly do if I did see that monster coming back my way. I couldn't think straight. My mind was getting fuzzy. My eyes drifted closed and I had just started to black out when a twisted visage of Foxy leapt at me from the corner of the room. Ironically, the panic of another hallucination may have saved my life, as it got me awake again, my heart pumping again.

Both audio and video had been fixed. I turned back to the camera and immediately pulled up cam 02, which had the best view of my previous hiding spot behind the curtain, where the Spring Bonnie had surely gone. I realized with a sick feeling in my stomach what the loud BANG had been earlier. The animatronic had punched a hole in the wall. Presumably, it had thought I was still back there and was trying to crush me. The animatronic wasn't there anymore, though.

Working hard to force more air in and out of my lungs, I flipped to the next couple of cameras in the area, looking for him. Luckily for me, he had headed over to the arcade and appeared to be looking for me around there.

"Gotcha" I whispered out loud. I pulled up cam 08, just east of where Spring Bonnie was standing, and played the sound. A child's laughter played, and the bunny froze in place for just a moment. It emitted a strange metallic groan, perhaps a scream, before following the bait, leading it farther away from me, deeper into the north end of the facility.

I would have sighed in relief if I could breathe well enough. It was finally time to fix that. I turned back to the maintenance panel and rebooted the ventilation system. A few seconds later, after some grinding and thumping in the old, rusty vent system, the air began to flow once more, and I took a deep breath. Compared to the breaths I had just been taking, I felt as though I could almost feel the oxygen soaking into my lungs, clearing the fog in my mind.

I pulled up the camera monitor again, and went back to directing the bunny back and forth as necessary.

There were more hallucinations, more system failures, but I stayed on top of it for the rest of the night. That rabbit never got another chance at me. When six AM finally rolled around again, I knew I couldn't stay there and let that thing run around anymore.

"Wow." Karl spoke in a hushed tone.

Salina was tightly gripping her cup. She could feel her heart rate had climbed from retelling that story. It was a tough thing to deal with it again, but it felt cathartic. It was good to be able to share it with someone without fear of being thought crazy.

"Yeah, I-" Salina began, but just then, Karl's phone alarm went off.

"Oh, uh, sorry." Karl said, checking his phone. "Wow, that late already? Sorry, Salina, I mean, thank you very much for sharing that with me, I just have to get to work."

"Work? You work a late night shift on the weekends? Where do you work? I mean, you said you worked in a lab, but... you have a night job, too, or...?"

"Oh, umm..." Karl hesitated. He had not meant to say "work" before. He didn't really want to tell Salina what he was doing at night. He was not sure how she would take it, but... then again... maybe once his research was finished, there would not be much risk to sharing it with her and... after all, she had been so helpful, it would probably be good to let her in on everything, just... not quite yet.

"Yeah, I do have another night job." Karl decided to speak. "It's just... I want to tell you about it, but... not tonight. I actually stayed out a little too late already, so I need to get a move on, but I promise, I'll tell you what you want to know later... Is that okay?"

Salina did not know what to think. What sort of night job did Karl have that he was ashamed? Why didn't he trust her enough to share it with her? Had she given him any reason to think that she was uptight about one thing or another?

Various ideas floated through her head. Maybe he makes minimum wage as a stocker at a grocery store, and he's ashamed of having a low-wage job. That's nothing to be ashamed of, though. We all have to do what we have to do to make ends meet, and it's admirable to put so much effort into something like that. Hmmm... maybe it's something more taboo? Does he work as a bartender at a gay bar or something? Does he work as a janitor... at a sex club? Is he a stripper?

Salina actually found herself trying to stifle a chuckle at that last thought. Karl was nice-looking, but he definitely did not have the physique for a Chippendale's dancer. She sighed deeply and reminded herself that, though she may not have said or done anything to cause Karl to distrust her, they had only been hanging out for a week or so, so she couldn't really blame him for not wanting to open up about whatever he might be doing of which not everyone would approve. She would give him time, she would let him open up when he wanted. She didn't want to push him.

"Yeah, sure, that's fine." She replied, grinning widely from her own silly thoughts. She coughed into her fist and cleared her throat to try to stifle little bits of laughter from bubbling up. "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"Yes, tomorrow definitely." Karl said, already moving out to the parking lot.

Karl drove back out of town to the bunker and took the long elevator ride down to the observation room where he would address Springtrap again.

"AAAAAGH!" Freddy Pryor's soul shrieked as he erupted from his mechanical body. The yellow bear suit that still held his crushed human body was being consumed by flames, and Freddy was completely unable to use it anymore, not even able to inhabit it.

"Why?!" He started to cry, as the figure torching both of his bodies remained completely oblivious, unable to either see or hear Freddy. "Even this? I can't even have that stupid suit? WHAT MORE ARE YOU GONNA TAKE FROM ME?!"

The other ghostly children were there watching in dismay as their newest ally lost his greatest tool. Nils turned away, unable to handle the emotion of the situation. Seeing her little brother like that, Hanna instinctively tried to comfort Freddy. "It's okay. We'll find another way. You don't need that body, there are-".

Freddy's sorrow turned to anger. His rage turned to strength and determination. "No. FUCK THAT! That's MY body, damn it! FIRE CAN'T HURT ME NOW ANYWAY!"

Freddy plunged his soul back into the body, even as the fire was tearing pieces of it away, reducing it to ash and warped metal. The pain tore through his mind, but he was determined to bear it, no matter what, to keep that body. He did not want his new friends to leave him behind or to leave them behind. They had to stick together to bring justice.

Having already died to fire once, hearing Freddy's screams was too much for poor Teo, who clutched his head and curled up, wishing that this were not happening, but unwilling to leave Freddy to face this horror alone.

The result of this test of endurance was not quite what Freddy had expected. Even as he focused his will to maintain the integrity of the Golden Freddy suit, to keep every piece of it firmly within his soul, the physical structure of it was completely disintegrating.

The fire died, and only the ash and embers remained, with Freddy's soul hovering over them, his eyes shut tight in deep exertion.

The dark figure that had been burning the mess then began to sweep up the remnants, shoving them into boxes and bags, depending on the size of the pieces.

Hanna was on the verge of tears seeing Freddy go through all of that. "I- It's okay, Freddy. You... tried your best."

Freddy's eyes opened, and a small grin appeared on his face. "and I succeeded. That body... is mine!"

Suddenly, where Freddy's soul once hovered, appeared an apparition of the Golden Freddy suit, slumped over and seated on the ground in the corner of the room.

The dark figure sweeping up the remnants seemed to notice something out of the corner of his eye. He turned to the corner and saw Golden Freddy. He saw him.

"Wha...?" The man tried to determine how he could have missed another animatronic in the room. It was impossible.

Freddy emitted a loud, low, inhuman roar that seemed to come from every direction at once. The shadowy figure of a man sweeping the remnants immediately screamed.

Less than a second passed before Helen, Hanna, and even Teo and Nils were on Freddy, stopping him right where he was.

"NO!" Helen shouted. "That's not our enemy! I know you hate him for taking this body, but he's not the one who hurt us! Let him go!"

For the man who burned the machine, there was a terrible chill following an unexplainable terror.

"Wh-what... the fuck?!" He muttered looking around. The image of the Golden Freddy was gone, the roar was gone, with no sign that it had ever happened. "God, I... fucking shadows playing tricks on me... I need to get more rest."

Freddy simmered with anger. "How do you know?" He demanded of Helen. "We can't even see faces clearly! Maybe that was him!"

"No, I think... the guy who hurt us... always wore a purple suit... when he wasn't in that yellow bunny... Please, let's just look for the guy in the purple suit. I don't want to hurt anyone else."

Author's Note:

Thanks so much for reading! I really appreciate all of your feedback in the form of reviews and personal messages! This has been such an amazing experience, and while it has been taking me longer than I originally planned, I have been loving it, and it makes me so happy to see the end in sight! I think that you will be pleased with how it all turns out. :)

I have been under a lot of stress with work, and I only managed to write this chapter after I had taken four consecutive days of vacation, so I can't guarantee that I will have a reasonable update schedule, but this story means a lot to me, and I PROMISE that I will finish it, and I will finish it in a way that I think is worthy of the time I have put into it so far. Thank you for your patience.

Until next time,

Best Wishes!