Entrant 25: Toon Link

Night 1

12 AM

He took a deep breath and entered the office, which featured a long, rectangular window to the hallway outside, a dirt-streaked desk, a wire trash can, and a cardboard box stuffed with empty costume pieces and props. Plastered upon the walls were old drawings of the mascots of an old pizzeria, and matching figurines rested upon the desk. The remains of a brown bear animatronic suit hung outside the only doorway. Wires hung from the ceiling like tangled clusters of vines.

The complete ensemble gave the young chibi incarnation of the keeper of the Triforce of Courage the creeps. He reached for his satchel to draw something-anything-that he could use, but then stayed his hand as the phone rang to hail an incoming message.

"Hey-Hey! Glad you came back for another night!" said the man at the other end of the phone. "I promise it'll be a lot more interesting this time. We found some-some great new relics over the weekend. And we're out tracking down a new lead, right now. So-uh lemme just update real quick, then you can get to work."

"Like, the attraction opens in like, a week, so we had to make sure everything works, and nothing catches on fire! Uh-when the place opens, people will come in at the opposite end of the building, and work their way towards you, then past you and out the exit. Uh-yeah. You've officially become a part of the attraction. Uh-You'll be starring as... A security guard!"

Toon Link couldn't help but crack an amused smile as he spotted the monitors at either end of the office.

"So not only will you be monitoring the people on the cameras as they pass through, y'know, to make sure no one steals anything or makes out in the corner, but you'll also be a part of the show. It'll make it feel really authentic I think. Uh... Now let me tell you about what's new. We found another set of drawings, always nice, and a Foxy head! Which we think to be authentic... then again it might just be another crappy cosplay, and we found a desk fan, very old school - metal, though, so watch the fingers. Uh-heh..."

He turned his gaze to the wires hanging from the ceiling, and he cupped his hand to his chin. Then, he trotted to the nearest instrument panel...

"Uh... Right now the place is basically just, you know, flashing lights, spooky props. Uh, I honestly thought we would have more by now, uh, we don't have something really cool by next week, we may have to suit you up in a furry suit, and make you walk around saying, 'Boo'...hehe, uh... But, you know, like I said, we're trying to track down a good lead right now."

...and whirred it to life with a touch of his finger. Flipping the camera's view from room to room, he noticed two gray boxes near the 8-bit mini map. "Play Audio," said one. "Map Toggle," said the other. He tapped the first box first, hearing the recorded laugh of a young boy. He waited for a while as the box switched places with a row of dots and then came back. Next, he touched the second box to flip to a view of the insides of the vents. He noticed that the "Play Audio" box was replaced by small print instructions for sealing each vent.

"Uh, some guy who helped design one of the buildings says there was, like, an extra room that got boarded up or- uh, something like that. So, we're gonna take a peek and see what we can find. Uh, for now just get comfortable with the new setup, um... You can check the security cameras over to your right with a click of that blue button. Uh, you can toggle between the hall cams and the vent cams..."

He then lowered the camera and trotted to the other instrument panel.

"Uh, then over to your far left, uh, you can flip up your maintenance panel. Y'know, use this to reboot any systems that may go offline. Heh. So, in trying to make the place feel vintage we may have overdone it a bit, hehe... Some of this equipment is barely functional. Yeah, I wasn't joking about the fire. Tha-tha-that's a real risk."

Stopping by the doorway, he flipped up the maintenance panel to see the luminescent green text, which read "audio devises, camera system, ventilation, reboot all," and "exit."

"Uh, the most important thing you want to watch for is the ventilation. Look, this place will give you the spooks, man, and if you let that ventilation go offline, then you'll start seeing some crazy stuff, man. Keep that air flowin'. Okay, keep an eye on things, and we'll try to have something new for ya tomorrow night."

The phone clicked silent, leaving Toon Link to explore the camera system and maintenance panel throughout the night. All the while, he couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen, no matter how many times he glimpsed the pulsating Triforce of Courage embedded in his hand to ensure himself that this feeling was unfounded.

6 AM

The doorbell of the morning signaled the end of Toon Link's first night at Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction.

Night 2

12 AM

Toon Link marched back into the office and scanned its eerie interior as the phone rang to greet him.

"Hey, man- okay, I have some awesome news for you!" said the voice. "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."

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

As the training tape played, Toon Link whirred the fritzy security monitor to life. It defaulted to a view of the tattered silhouette of a golden rabbit-like animatronic suit in what appeared to be an arcade room. Soon, the camera view fizzled with static, and when it passed, the animatronic was gone. Flipping through the security cameras, he noted that the tattered animatronic was moving toward the air vents in another room. His eyes roved to the "Play Audio" box on the screen, and he tapped it with his finger.

The recorded boy's laughter did little to deter the runaway animatronic, so Toon Link flipped to the camera view of the ventilation system. When he spotted the animatronic crawling through the vent, he he tapped a box that said "seal vent", awaiting its progress bar to fill. Once he was sure that the animatronic had retreated, he returned the monitor's view to the hallway cameras.

Suddenly, as Toon Link flipped to another camera view, a deformed boy's face obstructed the screen. He flipped to another camera's view, rubbed his eyes, and then flipped back to the first camera view. The boy's face was gone.

"A hallucination, maybe?" he wondered aloud.

2 AM

But as he tried to flip to another camera view, the monitor went black. "error," flashed a line of red text at the top left corner.

Thus, he lowered the monitor and trotted to the maintenance panel, but his way was barred by what appeared to be the burnt visage of a decayed animatronic fox with an eyepatch over its right eye.

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" it hissed as it lunged into Toon Link's face and then just as quickly vanished.

"I'm alive?!" he gasped as he rose to his feet and shook his head clear. "Why am I alive?!"

As he flipped up the maintenance panel and rebooted all the systems, he peeked into the doorway and saw a faint shadow moving. He tensed up, sprinted to the security monitor, and pulled it up to see the rogue animatronic standing in a room a short distance away from the office, responding by playing the audio device once more. To his invisible relief, the animatronic slinked away to the source of the noise.

4 AM

As Toon Link finished rebooting the audio devices once again...

"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" hissed a decayed animatronic chicken as it waddled into his face and then just as quickly vanished.

Again, he found it hard to breathe, and he bounced back to the maintenance panel, rebooting the ventilation system. This time, he spotted the face of the rogue animatronic peering straight into the office from outside the doorway. His huge eyes fixed on his would-be assailant, he crept to the security monitor and played the audio device to lure it away.

Again and again until it went offline, he played the audio until the animatronic was a safe distance away from the office. But as he tried to flip to another camera view, the monitor went black again, urging him to return to the maintenance panel and reboot the faulty systems.

"Why again with the thing...?" he groaned, barely paying attention to the flashing red light overhead and the accompanying alarm blaring.

6 AM

The doorbell of the morning signaled the end of Toon Link's second-and last-night at Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction. He never returned or explained why he left.

Next time on Fazbear's Gauntlet...

"Okay. This is pathetic..."