There was something weird about turning seventeen a second time.
Link didn't know when his actual birthday was, given the circumstances, but he'd always celebrated it in the summer. Saria had always been into that weird astrology stuff, the positions of the stars and the Hylian creatures that represented them, and she insisted that, based on his personality, he had to have been born under the sign of the Lynel. He didn't follow that stuff at all, so he'd gone with it. Just smile and nod and all that.
Now another summer was beginning—the summer between his junior and senior year of high school in Hurricane, Utah—and so the assumption was that he was seventeen now.
Again.
Only this time, he got to live out the seven years prior to it.
He didn't know how to tell Mike about the weird feelings that came with this. He had told Mike about his time travel before, that he'd been in that seven-year sleep, been seventeen for awhile, but then sent back in time to relive his childhood in a healthier, more proper way. He didn't talk about it too much, because it freaked Mike out. All that time Mike had spent defending himself from possessed animatronic mascots, and somehow, he acted like Link's past was scarier than Freddy had been? But they had talked about it. A little.
He remembered a funny conversation he and Mike had, when he was thirteen or so.
"Now you're going to start being interested in girls," Mike had said. "Let me know if you ever need any advice on dealing with that." Mike had finally been able to get himself a serious girlfriend once his life had settled down a bit, and was no longer a constant nightly struggle for survival.
"I think I know how it goes," Link had said, shrugging. "Remember, I used to be seventeen for awhile, and I was all stupidly hormonal then too. So I've already made out with girls a few times."
"Ugh, it's disturbing hearing a kid as young as you saying that."
"Well it wasn't when I was this young. It was before, when I was older." But somehow that made it even harder for Mike to wrap his head around. And who could blame him? "You probably don't even want to know about the time I was engaged."
"You were engaged?!"
"I was a sheltered little weirdo and I didn't know what she was talking about." He shuddered to remember it. "Hell, even the first time I was making out with a girl. She obviously wanted it to go all the way, but given the seven year coma crap, no one had even given me the talk yet. And we got interrupted anyway. So at least I'm still a virgin."
Mike's head was in his hands.
"Oh my god, stop saying words."
Yeah, it'd been weird. But things were normal now, as normal as they were going to get. Link had been living with Mike in Hurricane for six years. And things had calmed down for Mike too. The tragedy of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza was fading into the past, as every tragedy should.
Until they saw something weird in the local newspaper. Something about a new attraction that was opening up in the nearby amusement park later this summer. There were some advertisements for it, as well as a help wanted ad, looking for someone to run it as their summer job. But the disturbing part was the theme of the attraction.

It was a haunted house.

Based on the "unsolved mysteries" of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

Featuring actual relics salvaged from the derelict pizzerias that had been left to rot over time.

"That's screwed up," Mike said when he saw the ads. "Like, do they realize that I'm still alive in this town, and that's my family tragedy they're making into a haunted house? I should call them or write them a pissed off letter or something, and let them know how disrespectful that is."

"No, don't," Link said, all too quickly. "I think what we need to do is let them open it, and then we go there and check it out."

"I'd want to vandalize it," Mike said, crossing his arms.

"No. I mean, yes, it's really disrespectful of them to do that to your family. I agree. But that's not why we need to go. They said they'd collected relics from the pizzerias themselves. And you know how many people died there, and how the remnants of the ghosts attached themselves to the animatronics and stuff."
"Yeah, and?" Mike was scowling.

"And we don't know if there are still ghosts there that need us to help them pass on, that need to be set free. Think about it. We managed to clear the ghosts out of the rebooted pizzeria with the toy style animatronics. And we managed to clear the ghosts out of your dad's underground bunker thing where Elizabeth was being kept. But there were other locations. At least one other pizzeria that we know about. And a diner. And what about Cassidy? We never found the ghost of Cassidy."

"You're right." Mike sank into himself as he went from indignant rage to gloom and defeat, seeming to realize that the sad parts of this still weren't over yet. And, after all, because he still carried the guilt of what had happened to his little brother Cassidy.

Because Cassidy wasn't murdered by William, or even by a vengeful ghost.

Cassidy only died because of something Mike did.

"So, you know what I think we should do?" Link asked, practically snapping at Mike, if only to keep him from spiraling into another pit of self-loathing because of the accident he'd caused on his little brother's birthday.

"What?"

"There was a help wanted ad. It said they needed someone to work in the haunted house itself, playing the part of the security guard. And apparently there would actually be cameras they'd have to watch, to make sure no one steals any of the relics, or does anything else sketchy in the dark."

"What, do you think I should apply for that?" Mike asked. "Since I was the security guard back when it all really happened."

"No. Not you." Link shook his head. "You've done your time. You've dealt with this more than anyone should have to. I'm going to apply for it."
So, that weekend, he went to the amusement park by himself to ask for an application, and filled it out and handed it back immediately. It seemed he made a positive impression on the guy at the desk—either that, or there weren't many applicants to begin with—because by the time he went home, he already had a date and time to go back for a job interview.

"Congrats," Mike said, though something about it was hollow. Well, they both knew why that would be.

Link just sighed.
"How am I supposed to dress for a job interview? Do you think I have to wear a tie? I hate ties. They remind me of being choked by a Redead."
"Redead?"
"Sorry. Zombie."
"You've been choked by a zombie?"
"Yeah?"
"Goddamn. It's been years and you still freak me out." Mike shuddered. "Anyway, I don't know how job interviews go at decent companies. I'm used to Fazbear Entertainment, where they're desperate for help, and are trying not to tell you that the last person in your position got killed. So I don't know if I can be much help."

Link shrugged.

"I'm not going to wear a tie, but I'll dress nice in all the other ways. I mean, they'll hire me if they know what's good for them. Because if they don't hire me, I'm going to end up in there before it opens whether they like it or not. If I have to break in, I will."

Mike shook his head. "Couldn't you just go in as a guest when it opens?"

"And let there be a chance that random innocent people get killed by a vengeful ghost?"

"True," Mike said with a sigh. "Good luck on your interview, kid. I don't want to have to bail you out of jail for trespassing."

And that was how, later that evening, Link found himself sitting in a small office inside a trailer, dressed all tidily like an office worker, and hiding an ocarina and the puppet mask inside his backpack. Yeah, he'd told Mike to leave it at Charlie's grave, but it seemed Mike never did, and now he was kind of glad he still had it. It might prove useful now.

He was nervous for all of two seconds, until the guy interviewing him walked up to him and shook his hand. That guy smelled like weed. So the standards were obviously low.

"Hey, man. You're here because you wanna work at Fazbear's Fright? Man, that place is gonna be awesome. I legit can't wait until we pick who we're hiring, so I can show them all the cool stuff we got in there. You won't believe some of the stuff we found, man. We got in contact with some dude that was an architect for the buildings, and he, like, told us there were some secret rooms that didn't even show up on the cameras. There was a hidden room sealed behind a wall, and the stuff in there had to be ancient, man. There was this rabbit thing that—wait. The interview. Yeah. Sorry, man."

"Yeah, the interview..."

The interview itself was simple. Most of the things the weed-smelling guy asked Link were things he already answered on the application. The only one that gave him any pause was being asked why he wanted to work here. Obviously he couldn't be honest with that answer, but he hadn't rehearsed a fake one.

"I, uh, spent a lot of time in the pizzeria, as, uh, a kid." Wow, he sounded like an idiot.

But the standards were obviously very low. He was hired on the spot.

The amusement park guy seemed a bit too eager to drag Link into the horror themed fake pizzeria. The place wasn't even supposed to be open for weeks, and he wanted him to come in and work now already, to get a feel for the place and understand how everything worked. Well, that made sense, but the amount of "you gotta see this place, man" it was interspersed with was concerning.

The stuff in there was interesting enough, considering that was the main reason he was here. He made sure to take a lot of time looking at everything, seeing if he could feel any weird energy coming from anything. But most of the stuff was... well.

There were a bunch of posters. There were a real lot of kids' drawings, the formerly white paper turning yellow with age. A mask of Foxy the pirate that had been turned into a lamp, but thankfully the rest of the body wasn't with it. A model of the puppet, wearing a mask that looked awfully similar to the one Link was hiding in his backpack. Obviously, it didn't have any of the same mystical properties. He waited until weed guy wasn't looking so he could poke it. It was paper mache and not a real artifact from the pizzeria at all.

Well, yeah. He knew he had what was left of the real Charlie Emily in his backpack.

The biggest thing so far was some arcade game machine that still did something when it was plugged in. Not that it was playable or anything, but the screen was full of eerie crackling static. It really did help set the spooky mood for the place, and it felt weird enough that Link kept glancing back over his shoulder at it, half expecting to see some kind of creepy face come out of the static. But nothing ever did.

Maybe there were no ghosts in here. It certainly didn't feel like there were any, even as they were headed for the very last room in the place, the security office where he himself would be spending his time. Then he saw it, propped up in the hallway near the office door.

A whole animatronic. A rabbit that looked like it used to have golden fur, but had turned green with age. And it reeked. It reeked worse than something would if it was just left to sit in a closet for years. No, it smelled like something had died in it. Because something had.

It was the suit William had been wearing when Link killed him.

And now the hallway had that same feeling to it that... well, it felt like being in a hallway with a Poe. All that misery and desire for vengeance screaming out from the air itself, yearning to break free. That wasn't just William's suit. That was William.

Yeah. He knew something like this was going to happen. And now he knew he needed to do something about it. When was the guy who smelled like weed going to leave him alone in this place? He didn't want to have to try to explain anything to that guy. But he had to play the song of healing for the rabbit animatronic, to see if he could get William's ghost out.

Or maybe he had to do something else. Because William didn't exactly deserve healing.

He was only half paying attention to weed guy introducing him to the equipment he was supposed to use. They certainly went overboard with it trying to be retro, because the equipment itself barely functioned. It showed more static than actual images of the rooms, and had to be rebooted every few times you changed cameras. Apparently, you needed to reboot the ventilation as well, because the air in here was weird and weed guy claimed he had seen things when the air got too fogged up.

It was a shame Link knew he had to be professional and unassuming in this role, so he could do what he needed to do and get out. Because it took every ounce of restraint he had not to be like, "Are you sure that's not just your weed laced with something?" But he was good, and just nodded, silently promising not to forget to reboot the ventilation.

The only other thing that stuck with him was the fact that the wiring was old too, and he had to be careful nothing caught on fire, because that was a real risk. And, after that, weed guy left him alone in the place.

"Just check out the equipment, flip through the cameras, and all that. So you can get used to it before we start the place running, right? Man, is it gonna be awesome, or what?"

Once again, he needed to focus on restraint, to avoid being like, "Well, if your definition of awesome includes making a total mockery of a tragedy that affected a real family that still has someone living in this town." But once again, no. Smile, nod, do what you need to do, get out.

And finally he was alone in here.

At first, he just wandered around the place, looking at stuff, while he tried to think of what he was going to do. Did William deserve the song of healing? Or did he deserve to be killed yet again? How did you kill someone that was already dead? Well, you could kill a Redead or a Poe the normal way, with a sword. But he hadn't brought a sword. You could trap a Poe in a bottle. You could even drink it, but that was nauseating. William would probably be the most nauseating one of all.

Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the model of the puppet. It was pretty accurate, aside from the crappy paper mache mask that the weed guy probably had made himself. Was it the real puppet animatronic's body? But that shouldn't be around anymore, after what had happened back in the pizzeria. Maybe it was a backup, in case the first one broke.

He wasn't sure what inside him made him do it, but Link took the paper mache mask off the puppet body, and replaced it with the real mask that he had in his backpack. Maybe if the whole thing was back together, he could activate it? After all, the puppet was always supposed to be a security device. Maybe it could help him surveil the place. So he reattached the mask where it should have been, then knelt down to look for some sort of on-off switch...

"You just can't leave things alone, can you?"

Where did that voice come from? It sounded like a little girl. A little girl with a big attitude, who was just old enough to understand the concept of sarcasm and now was going to use it every waking second. A little girl who always had to be right. Kind of like Princess Ruto had acted when they first met. But kids weren't supposed to be in here yet...

"Up here, stupid. Sheesh. You got older, but you didn't get any smarter."

Link stood up, and noticed the puppet had in fact moved, even though he hadn't found an on-off switch. Its eerie claw-like hands were on its teeny tiny hips like it was sassing him.

Wait a minute...

"Charlie?"

"Duh."

"I thought you'd passed on."

"So did I. It was nice, too. It was like sleeping. Really good sleeping. And what are you? An alarm clock?"

"This is..." Link was dumbfounded for a second, before words just started spilling out as he struggled to make sense of it all. "I was just trying to see if I could get the puppet working again as an animatronic. I didn't think it'd bring you back to possess it. I didn't think anyone could come back from the afterlife. I thought people turned into ghosts when they had unfinished business, and then once all their last sorrows and fears had been fixed up, they'd get to die in peace..."

"So maybe I still have business." She was looking around the place, and even though the puppet's face was a solid mask without any articulation, he swore he saw her eyes narrow. "Is this another pizzeria? It looks abandoned."

"No. Worse."

"Worse?"

"It's an amusement park haunted house themed around what happened at the pizzerias. They collected a bunch of old stuff from the pizzerias to use as props. And one of them is the suit William was in when I killed him. With his dead body and his spirit still in it." Link shuddered. "I wanted to play the song of healing for him, but I don't feel like he deserves healing. So there has to be another way. A way to get him dead for good."

"Oh. William's still alive. So I do still have business. My revenge hasn't been served yet." Charlie made a noise that sounded like a genuine sigh, despite being a ghost in a machine. "How about you set the whole place on fire? With him in it. And me in it. That way, you won't be able to wake me up again, you jerk."

"Charlie, that's arson."

"You don't seem like you usually have trouble with the destruction of property."

"Yeah, but if I was the last person seen in here before it mysteriously burns down, I'm going to get caught, and there will be consequences."

"That dude said the wiring in here is old and faulty and you have to make sure it doesn't catch on fire. That could be your excuse. Oopsie, the wiring caught on fire right when I left, and I didn't notice. My bad."

"You really think that'll—"

But instead of listening, Charlie spontaneously got up and walked away, into the dark hallways of the fake pizzeria. Wow. That was rude even for her. Unless... yeah, something didn't seem quite right about that. Link followed her, finding her stopped in front of the broken arcade cabinet.

"Charlie?"

"Are there weird voice recordings in here?" she asked.

"Yeah, there are tapes set up to play spooky noises and music and stuff. The controls for them are in the office, and I'm supposed to turn them on and off when people pass them."

"Oh. That explains why I heard sounds coming out of here." She tapped the arcade cabinet. "I didn't mean to randomly ditch you. It's just that this stupid thing is sound-activated, and if you play certain music, it automatically gets lured to wherever the music is coming from. Not even I can stop it. That's how Mike kept me stuck in the prize corner. If he plays the music there, I can't leave."

"So sometimes the programming of your animatronic body overrides the will of your spirit?"

"Yeah. It sucks. Someone must be in the office, turning the music on so they can drag me around." At first, she didn't seem to realize what she just figured out. But then... "William is in the office, playing the music so he can keep me out of his way."

"Yeah, we need to do something about that. But what—"

"Set the building on fire!" Charlie threw up her arms in exasperation.
Link sighed.

"Just do it."

"No!"

"Then what are you gonna do?"

"I don't know. Something. I'll figure it out. There has to be a way to kill him for good." But Link felt kind of like he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince Charlie. "I've fought some pretty crazy crap before. I should be able to handle a half dead guy in a bunny suit, even if I don't have a weapon."

"Okay, whatever, but I'm coming with you," Charlie said.

And the two of them headed toward the main office together, running as fast as they could, hoping William would still be there when they arrived.

He was.

"Well, if it isn't—"

Link didn't let the smug bastard finish his sentence. He jumped on William, knocking him to the floor, and grabbed at the metal pieces of the rabbit suit that were closest to his face, trying to pull them down toward what was left of William's throat. Charlie did her best to assist, tightening her spindly fingers around his jaw, trying to physically tear him apart. But, for all they tried, it didn't seem to be of much use. This man had already had metal beams spear his internal organs, and still had enough life force in him to be here, moving and talking. It wasn't like any more physical damage could stop him.

Then Link noticed it. The security camera, still focused on the hallway with the arcade cabinet in it, was now displaying a large, crackling fire. The arcade cabinet was burning on its own, probably because of the faulty wiring. So much for debating whether or not to start a fire, when the fire had started itself.

"See?" Charlie snapped at him, while continuing trying to dismember William and failing the whole time. "I'll hold him here. You leave."

"I'm not leaving you to burn to death," Link snapped back.

"I'm already dead. You can't save me, not any more than you already have."

"I know, but—"

William reached up and hit a button on the control panel. Suddenly, Charlie let go of him and headed toward the door of the office. What the—oh. William had played the sound cue, and the puppet was attracted to it. William had played the sound cue in the hallway that was on fire. He was trying to burn what was left of Charlie, killing her again. Because once wasn't enough for him, apparently.

"Charlie!"

Link let go of William and dashed down the hall to try to catch her before she could walk right into the fire. He caught up to her, and tackled her whole animatronic body to the floor, holding his hands over her mask so that when she hit the floor it wouldn't break. But he had her now. She wasn't going to burn.

"You idiot," she said, almost sounding like she was about to cry. "He's going to get away, because you..."

"We'll go after him. I just can't let him kill you again like that. I know, I know. You're already dead. I just don't want you to be... redead."

"Why do you have to be so sentimental? I thought you were all numb and emotionless and stuff from everything you went through."

"Just because I probably have PTSD doesn't mean I don't care about other people. And I care about you. So shut up." Link stood up and slung the puppet over his shoulder, doing his best to drag her along as he headed back to the office.

"Thanks for caring, I guess," Charlie said. "But I bet you anything that when we get back there, he's gonna be gone."

And she was right. The office was empty. Not only that, but the exit door of the entire attraction was wide open. It looked like William had straight up left the place and fled off into the night.

"See? See!" Charlie had buried her masked face in her hands. "What are we gonna do now? How are we ever going to find him?"

"First, we've got to get out of here, before we get caught in the fire. And second, we'll have to make a trap to lure him to us. But that's for later."

"Hmm... a trap. I have some ideas."

"Tell me later."

Right now, it was time for Link to drag the entire puppet animatronic back to his car, stuff her in it, and get home before anyone found him and connected him to the fire. Ugh. For something with a slender, almost tentacle-like body, she was heavy. And, when they got home, there would be the moment of truth. They'd have to tell Mike about what happened.

Maybe he'd be sleeping, and they could wait until the morning.

He wasn't. He was sitting at the kitchen table, obviously panicking internally.

"Um. How did it go?" he asked.

"You don't want to know," Link said, sighing. But then he figured he might as well get it over with. "Well. For one thing, your dad's still alive in some kind of weird undead form, and he's on the loose. We're going to have to do everything we can track him down and kill him for good."

"Shit..."

"But I guess the good news is our bizarre found family of screwed up, traumatized individuals just got bigger, at least for a little while."

"Um, do I want to know what you mean by that?" Mike asked.

"Probably not."

The puppet was so tall that she had to duck almost in half to fit through the apartment door. Immediately, Mike went white.

"Don't worry. I'm not gonna kill you, now that I know you aren't your dad and you aren't working with him." She sat on the floor to keep her head from bumping into the ceiling. "Sorry for all the other times I tried to kill you. It was a misunderstanding."

"Yeah, sure. Misunderstanding." Mike laughed nervously. "Anyway, um...?"

"I have an idea about how to lure your dad to us, so we can kill him again," Charlie said, her tone of voice all too cheerful.

"And that is?" Mike seemed skeptical.

"Whenever there's a Freddy Fazbear's location, he always comes back, right?" she asked.

"Seems like it, but how does that help us?"

"Easy. We open a new Freddy Fazbear's location."

Mike just stared.

"Well, it's not like you have any better ideas, do you?" Charlie asked.

"I don't," Mike said. "But it just seems... weird, to have to go through all that kind of thing again."

"Sometimes you have to do things twice, I guess?" Link said. "We all need second chances sometimes. I lost my entire childhood, and ended up needing a second chance to grow up. And now Charlie is getting a second chance to get along with you, and work with you toward a common goal."
"And William is going to get a second chance to be dead," Charlie said, all too cheerfully.

"I... guess..." Mike was chewing on his lower lip. "Just... do we have to let her live here with us? I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep with that thing and its empty eye sockets looking at me all night..."

"I'll stay here in the kitchen."

"What if I have to get up in the middle of the night to have a snack, or get to the bathroom, or—"

"Then you can suck it up, Mikey."

Link sighed. This was going to be an interesting pizzeria...