*leans in*

So, I dunno how people remember THIS lil story, but waaaay back when, (as in, this was a group whose contest in honor of the release of FNAF3 I joined just a month before this), there was a group on DeviantArt that hosted a series of weekly art and writing prompts for the fandom. I only filled out one as far as I can remember, and I don't encourage hunting that story down. Not just 'cause I think I've vastly improved since, but because it'd be best to go into this blind-'this' being the spiritual successor to that old 'fic!

Also-for the sake of fairness, I'll tell you that Jordan's last name is Harris, since I drop the other two's last names in this!

"Really, doesn't this seem like a lot?"

Jordan shoved his hands into his pockets, pulling his rain jacket a bit tighter around himself. "I'm serious, Keith. Something's wrong. She wasn't at her apartment, she isn't answering her phone-"

"Hey, whoa, man." Keith held up his hands, trying futilely to calm Jordan down. "Alright, alright, that's, uh… not good, I'll give ya." He finished unlocking the front door, and flung the door open. "Iris? Yo, where are ya?"

"Iris?" Jordan's tone was far less nonchalant, but honestly, Keith started to feel anxiety bubble in his stomach, too. Iris Rastrick was a lot of things, but subtle wasn't one of them. It should've taken about two seconds to know if she was here or not. And yet, the idea of her leaving her post, going completely off the radar… it didn't sit right.

He heard a guitar chord, and turned to see Jordan yank his phone from his pocket. "That's her!" He swiped at the screen, furrowing her brow. "She… she says she's alright, but she's stuck."

"What?"

"Yeah, went to check some backroom and got locked in. She says she'll explain when we find her."

"Crap." Keith shoved his hair from his face. "Alright, does she, like, know where she is? Can she lead us to her?"

"I dunno." Keith picked his way through the mess of Fazbear's Fright, while Jordan followed close behind. Jordan was a big guy, and he didn't know the building as well as Keith, so he was a bit slow, but his concern seemed to do a pretty good job at giving him an edge. And Keith had to admit, he wasn't as aware of what was in the building as he'd like. Admin stuff had gotten in the way, and yeah, maybe he'd been forced to just ask the salvage teams to throw stuff in, tell them that it'd get sorted later, without even seeing some of it.

Including the animatronic.

The animatronic that Iris always said freaked her out.

The animatronic that was one of many that supposedly murdered guards.

He didn't want to think about that.

The salvage crew had said it didn't even have enough electronics to work anymore. Then again, they said that with the sly, amused tone of somebody running a con. He'd been too busy being annoyed, worrying if he'd just been handed a pile of parts again, but it never occurred to him that they might've left a fully functioning Fazbear animatronic in the building, which of course wouldn't be a problem to them because everyone knew those were just stupid rumors-

"Hey, Jordan?" Keith hated the way his voice shook. "You hear anything yet, man?"

No answer. Keith turned on his heel, seeing nobody behind him. He swallowed hard, then called out, "Jordan?" He searched the room, raising his voice just a tiny bit. "Hey, not cool, 'kay?" His fingers tapped on his leg, and he took one step forward. "...Guys?"

His phone chimed. He glanced down at his pocket, then up at the horribly-empty room, then he finally grabbed his phone, only to see a text message.

'Keith, where the fuck are you?'

Iris. He hurriedly typed a reply.

'where are you?! jordan and i are looking everywhere for you.'

'Back by the office. There's a hidden door, I was dicking with it and got stuck, alright? Please, Jordan needs your help to get it open.'

'where is he?'

He was left on read for a few painful seconds before she started typing again.

'He's already here. Didn't you hear him? He said he told you he was gonna get me.'

'crap, sorry, must've missed it. hang in there, okay? coming to get you.'

He hurried his footsteps. He'd started moving towards the office as soon as she'd said it, but he picked up the pace now. It was still hard to shake the feeling that something was wrong, but he told himself it was just his working himself up into a pointless worry about the 'bot combined with Iris being stuck, with a dash of guilt because wow, did he really get so lost in his head that he blew off Jordan? Not a pleasant realization.

He must've started chewing on the string of his hoodie while he was texting, and he spit it back out as he reached the office. "Hey, guys! Sorry! I'm-"

He froze when he was met with nothing but dead air. Peering into the office, he took a shaky breath. Nobody was in there. Nobody was around at all. Where was this room Iris mentioned? He worked his way down the hallway next to the office, eyes flitting around, looking for any sign of his two employees. Then, finally, he saw it.

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Tall, person-shaped. "Jordan?" Keith yelled after him, but he had already vanished around a corner. "This isn't funny, man! Ya' had me worried sick-"

A panel of the wall had been slid back, revealing a small area behind it. The inner structure of the room was visible, with beams peeking through rotted chunks of the wall. The only light in the room was a small glow sitting atop one of the beams. Taking a step forward, Keith was suddenly able to see the figure standing by the glow-like a shadow, translucent, dark, fuzzy at the edges. He flicked on the flashlight on his phone, and for a half-second, he could've sworn that the man-shaped thing glowed with a deep purple light before fading away.

He was so baffled that he almost didn't notice the new message in the conversation, the one that must've landed right before he pulled down the menu to get to his flashlight. His heart sank, and without even reading it, or thinking at all, really, he ran up to the glow. Iris's cell phone.

"No, no, no no…" He shook his head. This couldn't be real. He was imagining things. This wasn't real.

'Mr. Keith Schmidt, right? I don't believe we've met,' said the text.

"Where are they?!" He turned quickly, searching the room. "Where are my friends?! What did you do-"

He froze, hearing the creak of metal outside the room. He stumbled backwards, slapping his hand over his mouth, as if that did him any good now. Even if he hadn't shouted, his breath sounded to him as loud as a ripping storm, his heartbeat thundering. Something hit the ground outside the door, and it took him much too long to recognize it. Jordan's head was pointed at a horribly off angle, his mouth hanging just a bit too far open to ever be natural.

His eyes were so locked onto his friend's broken body that it took him until it stepped over Jordan's corpse for him to finally look up at the hulking yellow beast.