Sayori's POV
It's been about a week since it all happened. After we were all found by the Manager, he quickly drove us over to the nearby hospital, simply called Project Hospital, where we were all taken in and placed under care for the time being. Thankfully, they told us there was no permanent damage, but we would all need time to recover from what happened. While we were there, we overheard some conversations from the doctors talking about the restaurant. Apparently, after we were taken in, word started spreading around the town about what happened there with us and the robots, and no ones been back there since. I guess that was a good thing. No one should have had to go through what we did. I'm just happy we all made it out of there alive. Hat Kid and I were let out earlier than the others, after some checkups of course, since we had basically no injuries from that night. I told them about our head pains though, but they said they couldn't find anything out of the ordinary. I was a little upset, but I guess I couldn't blame them for it. I really wanted to stay with the others until they got better, but Hat Kid really wanted to get back to looking for her time pieces, and Monika told me I should go along with her, saying it would best if we stuck together in case something else happens, and help me take my mind of off what happened. I really didn't want to leave, but I did say yes to it after a while. We weren't really doing anything sitting in a hospital room after all. We decided to stay within the town for the time being, and not go too far until everyone had recovered. Even with that in mind though, there were still a lot of hourglasses to find. We had been searching around for most of the day today, so as we walked down the sidewalk, I turned over to Hat Kid to check how we've been doing so far.
"So, how many does that put us at now?" I asked her. She quickly ran through her pockets for a moment before holding up seven fingers.
"Seven already? That's great!" I spoke excitedly. "At this rate, we'll have them all in no time!" I gave her a reassuring smile, and she gave me one in return. I couldn't help but feel genuinely happy for her, as I could feel a warm feeling of joy grow inside of me. I placed my hand on my chest. It felt nice, I just wish I could feel this more often. I quickly turned my thoughts away from that as I noticed Hat Kid looking at me with a confused look, her head slightly tilted to the side.
"Well, we should probably start looking for the next one." I said to her. "How many more do we have left to find in the town?" Hat Kid perked up, as if she realized something, and placed her hand on the side of her hat, shutting her eyes and concentrating on something. After a short pause, she quickly held up a single finger, before pointing it over towards the other side of town.
"Only one? Then what are we waiting for?" I said, my cheerful expression returning to my face. "Let's go!." Hat Kid nodded in excitement and the two of us took off, skipping down the sidewalk towards where her final hourglass was. I could feel the enthusiasm beaming from Hat Kid as we started running. In hindsight, I'm glad Monika asked me to do this. While there still was a part of me wishing I was with the other in the hospital, I was super glad I was out here helping her, knowing how important these time pieces were to her filled me with a sense of joy that I haven't felt in a long time. Following behind Hat Kid as we ran, feeling the breeze blowing past us, my hair flowing in the wind, the freshness of the air and warmth of the sun pressing against my skin. It was refreshing, being genuinely happy for once. I felt as free as a bird. I wanted this to last forever. If only the others were here with us, then this would be perfect. We ran like this for some time before Hat Kid came to a stop, turning around towards me and gesturing over to her left, looking proud as if she was presenting where her final hourglass was. However, when I turned to look over towards where she was pointing her hand towards, the feeling of pure joy I had been carrying inside me suddenly turned cold.
"Um, Hat Kid…" I said to her uneasily. Hat Kid, confused, followed my gaze over to where I was looking, only to share the same horrified expression I had on my face. Out of every place the last timepiece could have been…
We were standing outside of Freddy's again.
"Oh, that's right!" I suddenly realized, turning towards Hat Kid, who looked back at me with interest. "We never got the time piece for working that shift, didn't we?" Hat Kid looked up in surprise, as if she just realized this as well. Then, out of nowhere, those terrible head pains we had that night suddenly came back. My mind was filled with constant flashes of images of those robots, their skin rotting away, their insides showing and their eyes black and empty, yet they were still staring straight at me, along with loud, ear piercing noises of robotic screeching and what sounds like children screaming in fear before they suddenly got cut off by something. I couldn't make out anything in particular, from just how much was thrown at me all at once. My hands stuck themselves to the sides of my head, twitching as I winced and whimpered from how much it hurt. But just as soon as it hit me, all of it just disappeared again. I was finally able to open my eyes again to find myself dropped to my knees, Hat Kid laying on the ground, slowly pulling herself back up to her feet. I guess it happened to her as well. I quickly stood back up and went over to help her. We took a moment to calm ourselves down from that before looking back over towards the restaurant. I still couldn't believe we all nearly died in there, and here we were considering going back inside again. It didn't feel real. Was it even worth it to go back there, just for one time piece? I know these mean a lot to her, but I don't want her getting herself hurt, or even killed, because of them. I knew it would hurt to tell her no, but at this point, I wasn't sure if this was for the best or not. Hat Kid looked back and forth between me and the restaurant, before taking a deep breath and starting heading toward the building. I quickly realized what she was doing, and grabbed her hand to stop her from going forward. She spun her head around suddenly to look at me, her expression both shocked and wondering why I stopped her.
"Are you… sure about this?" I asked her. Hat Kid's eyes fell towards the ground for a moment, as if consumpliating my question, before her gaze brought itself back towards me, the uncertainty of her expression struggling to remain hidden behind the determined look she gave me as she nodded. I had a feeling I wasn't going to be able to change her mind about this.
Taking a deep breath of my own, I replied to her softly, "Ok, but I'm not letting you go in there alone." I took her hand, and the two of us slowly made our way to the front door of the restaurant. As we got closer, I couldn't help but notice that compared to when we were here last week, the building looked strangely, lifeless. The lights on the sign were out, and pieces of it were missing, revealing the wires and metal beams that supported what was there before. The color of the bricks was faded, and green mold was growing on them. The most strange part of it though was the glass doors we came through before were now replaced with a single rusted metal door. Even the parking lot we walked across looked abandoned, with cracks on the road, the street lights were missing, and not a single car in sight. It almost looked like a completely different building than the one we were in before, like we just walked into a ghost town. Even before we stepped inside, I could already feel my hands sweating, my arms shaking and my heart racing, dreading what was inside. I placed my hand on the door, since there was no handle on it, taken aback by how cold it was. I looked down at Hat Kid again, seeing her just as nervous about going in as I was, but I knew she was going through with this no matter what. With a heavy sigh, I slowly pushed the door open.
What we didn't see before going in though, was a cloaked figure hiding in the shadows of the brick wall that surrounded the building.
The door opened with a loud creak, and we gasped in surprise from what we found behind it. The restaurant looked nothing like what it was when we first came here. The hallway we stepped into only had a few dusty light bulbs to let us see, giving the whole place like a greenish glow to it. Wires hung the ceiling and pipes filled the corners that connected the walls to the ground. The walls themselves were grey with a bunch of dark stains on them and had dozens of chips and breaks in them. The floors were still titled, but were covered in spider webs, pieces of rubble from the walls and crumbs from whatever was picked over by the rats and bugs that lived here. Our footsteps echoed as we walked through, and there was this awful, rotten egg smell that filled the room. We stepped forward past the door that shut behind us, where-
"GAH!" Both of us yelped and jumped back in surprise, as Freddy himself was standing right in front of us! However, it thankfully turned out it was just his head and torso handing on a dusty coat rack, giving us both a sigh of relief. His jaw hung open and his eyes and ears were missing, and it was also covered in black patches of wear and tear. How could it be this dirty when it looked just fine last week, and if he's like this, then what happened to the others? An empty door frame on the right of the hallway led us into what seemed to be the security office, given the desk that rested in the far corner of the room. A large window covering most of the wall hung right above where the desk was, a vent sat on it's left, with cute drawings of the characters hanging right below it. Next to our feet laid a box filled with paper dolls and random parts of other robots that kinda looked like the robots we saw before, but these were hard and plastic, and their colors were a lot brighter than the other ones were. A trash bin filled with crumpled up pieces of paper sat next to it, and on the desk were other pieces of trash with bobbleheads of the characters with big, cartoon eyes and buck teeth. More drawings, these ones looked they were made by young kids, to the right of the window and the end of the desk rested a old, black telephone that sat just above a large open hole at the bottom of the wall, which looked to lead into the buildings vents, but were big enough for someone to crawl through.
"What is this place?" I thought out loud, my nerves out of control. I looked back over to Hat Kid, who stood behind me close to my legs, both of her hands clasped onto my own, clearly scared by this place. I wish I could tell everything was going to be alright, but I knew neither of us would believe that. Right now, we just needed to find this time piece and get out of here as fast as we could.
As we turned around to head back, I accidentally hit the metal drawers of the desk with my knee. I yelped in pain as I jumped back, rubbing the part of my leg that got hit. Then suddenly, something started playing from the desk.
"Hey, man- okay, I have some awesome news for you!" A voice started talking from the phone. I've never heard his voice before, but it sounded like someone a bit older than us. Both of us turned over towards the voice as he continued.
"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."
"W-What did he mean by that?"
"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!"
"Wait, h-hang on!" I called out, as if I expected a response from the recording. But before I could do anything, a different voice started speaking.
"Uh, hello? Hello, hello!" Oh hey, it was the manager's voice too! Maybe he might be able to answer something about what this 'real one' was.
"Uh, there's been a slight change of company policy concerning use of the suits. Um, don't. After learning of an unfortunate incident at the sister location, involving multiple and simultaneous spring lock failures, the company has deemed the suits temporarily unfit for employees."
"Oh my god, did something happen to them?" I asked out loud to myself.
"Safety is our top priority at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, which is why the classic suits are being retired to an appropriate location, while being looked at by our technician. Until replacements arrive, you'll be expected to wear the temporary costumes provided to you. Keep in mind that they were found on very short notice, so questions about appropriateness/relevance should be deflected. I repeat, the classic suits are not to be touched, activated or worn." The voice suddenly cut out, making a weird, garbally noise before it clicked, and the voice continued.
"Management has also been made aware that the Spring Bonnie animatronic has been noticeably moved. We would like to remind employees that this costume is not safe to wear under any circumstances. Thank you and remember to smile; you are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."
The phone beeped to show that the recording ended. I had to take a minute to realize what I just heard. Not only did something happen to these workers, but then they were just supposed to act like nothing ever happened? That's horrible! I felt sick to my stomach just thinking about it. What could have happened to them, and who was that 'Spring Bonnie' that got moved? Could that be the one they found? I looked over to Hat Kid, who was pressing herself against my leg in panic, shaking and scared over what it could be. We needed to find this timepiece soon.
We left the office and went right past the window into another hallway on our left. This time we were greeted by more posters, wires and another robot on a coat rack, this time Bonnie with a single light shining from his right eye. We weren't frightened by it this time, now that we knew they weren't moving. We were just too nervous about whatever the real one was to really notice it, but we still tried to be as careful as possible as we walked towards it to a fork in the road. On our right was a hallway that looped back around, the head of Foxy hanging on the wall to our left. The empty frame on our left into another straight hallway with more posters and cardboards cutouts of pizza on the walls, with more hanging wires and paper stars that we walked through. A dirty arcade machine with a blue screen lit up the hallway, which took a right turn into another hallway, where we were greeted with boxes wrapped like presents, more children's drawings and silver tubes on the wall, and the empty head of Chica on the floor acting as a makeshift light. At this point, I was starting to get really worried. If none of the robots we saw before was the real one the guys on the phone said they found, then what was? Suddenly, the awful head pains came back, hitting me all at the same time. I leaned against the wall, holding my head in some vain attempt to make them go away, but of course, it didn't work. Although, it was different this time. Rather than being flashes of the robots we saw before, these ones were dark green and looked brunt, with empty, black eyes with white pupils, and along with the sounds of kids screaming, there was also what sounded like an older man laughing maniacally. The flashes of these new robots showed up in front of me, before jumping towards me with a high pitched scream. I screamed in terror, following back onto my butt. I heard the same happen to Hat Kid, then again, just like earlier, they just stopped. Just what were those things? Why did they show up this time rather than the other ones? Who was that laughing, and why? I shook my head, pulling myself back up to my feet, helping Hat Kid up as well. All of these questions, yet we didn't have any answers. Maybe I could ask Protag about it when we see them again, but right now we really just need to find that time piece soon, before something else happens.
Another left and right brought into what looked like that last hallway, this one was really dark though, with only a dim red neon exit sign above the door at the left end of the hall to give us any kind of light. Wait, 'Exit'?! Then if the time piece wasn't here, then where could it be? I looked back down to Hat Kid again, who had been hiding behind my leg all this time, suddenly perked up and ran over to the door, pointing at it when she reached it. I was confused for a second why she took off like that, but I quickly realised why. Walking over and opening the door, there it was. Floating and twisting in midair, glowing with a bright white light that filled the entire room, was Hat Kids time piece. Finally, we found it. Gasping with joy, Hat Kid wasted no time running over to grab it. Although, as I walked over to join her, I noticed something odd in the corner of my eye. I walked up to the desk on my right where it was sitting and picked it up. It was a dark grey box with two strips of leather with metal caps wrapped around it. On the front of the box were two locks, but there didn't seem to be any keys next to it. I held the locks down and started moving the box around in my hands. I could feel and hear something heavy and solid shifting around inside of it. I wish I could figure out what was inside of it, but without the keys I couldn't do anything to open it. With nothing else to do with it, I set the box back down, only to jump up in shock when I suddenly heard Hat Kid screaming. I quickly spun around to see her run and hide behind my legs, her eyes clearly terrified by whatever she saw. She was peeking over towards the far wall, and as I turned over to see, a yelp of fright escaped my mouth as I laid eyes on what had sacred her so much.
There, sitting down, arms laying on the ground, knees upwards and slumped against the wall, was a real animatronic! It looked like a rabbit robot, kinda like Bonnie, but this one was a faded dark green color, half of it's right ear was missing and it looked incredibly broken. There were tears, rips, holes and pieces of its suit missing, wires stuck out from its body, it's metal feet were completely bare and it's insides were all red and exposed. It's almost human like eyes were grey and lifeless and the rips around it's mouth gave it this really creepy smile. It also smelled really awful too, almost like something had died in it, but no matter how creepy it looked, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Was this the real robot the guy on the phone said they found? Why would anyone want something like this to be around them? I could feel my chest start to tighten and my breathing started going out of control. Just looking at this thing was sending chills down my spine. Thankfully, it seemed like it wasn't moving, so maybe we would be okay. We just had to get out of here before-
…
My heart skipped a beat and my voice was suddenly cut off. It's eyes… they moved.
It was looking right at us now.
It's hands began twitching for a moment before suddenly the whole robot started shaking out of control. Both of us gasped and took a step back from the animatronic as it shook, the sounds of scraping and clanking metal came from it. Then, as soon as it started shaking, it stopped, slumping forwards before it's hands quickly flipped over and slammed down palm first into the ground, as the robot began pushing itself off the floor and away from the wall, rising up to its feet as the metal part inside of it cranked and cracked against each other as it stood upright, it head and back still drooped forward, although it quickly straightened itself. I started to slowly back away towards the door frame we came from, not wanting to risk going around it to the door on the other side of the room. I watched it as it just... stood there. It didn't move at all after that, only bringing its hands up to look at them and curling its fingers, as if it was trying to figure out what they were. The strangest part though, was that it seemed to move almost… human-like. It didn't have that weird stop and go movement like most animatronic usually did, even the ones we saw moved like that, but this one was scarily fluent. I could feel my heart pounding in my head, my throat was getting dry and my whole body was shaking in fear. Hat Kid was behind me, her hands clutching the back of my leg and her head was pressed into it. I could feel her eyes start to water and the heat from the time piece she was holding. We had to get out of here, and fast! Not wanting to make any sudden moves, I started carefully stepping my way out of the room, not letting the robot leave my sight, being sure not to step into Hat Kid and make any sort of sound with my footsteps, and then out of nowhere, it's head started vibrating before, and then…
SNAP! With the noise of bones cracking, the robot's head instantly shot over its shoulder towards us, a sudden gasp leaving my mouth. I jumped back too far, tripping over myself and falling down onto my butt, landing hard on the cold, tiled floor. The robot dropped it's hand back down to its sides and shifted the rest of its body over to face us, it's dead, piercing gaze now shot right through my own panicked expression, as I quickly started scooting back up to the wall behind me, Hat Kid by my side, who was also pressing up against me. It leaned it's head forwards towards us before taking its first few steps, each one followed by a loud slam that echoed throughout the room. As it walked, its upper body slumped forward and it looked like it was struggling to keep its balance, almost like a zombie walk. I found myself sliding along the wall, my feet kicking against the ground to help scoot me away from the robot as it came into the same room we were in, and turned to face us on the ground. My breathing was out of control, my eyes widened to the point I was sure they were about to pop out my head and my throat went dry as I watched it stare at us. With a sudden cracking sound, it straightened itself up again, leaned back slightly and raised its arms up before it threw it head forward and...
"SSSHHHHHAAAAAARRRR!"
"AAH!" I cried in response, completely shaken by the intensity of it's screeching roar as it blasted through my ears, and the fact that when it's mouth opened to scream, I saw… a human head. It was entirely dark red, it's mouth was open and it's eyes were wide and unmoving. Were they… dead? I didn't have time to think about it though, as it dropped its hands to its side, clasped them into fist and started stomping towards us, now looking much more human than before. The second I realized what was happening, I instantly brought myself up to my knees, scooped Hat Kid up into my arms, spun around and kicked myself off the floor into a running start, dashing down the hall mere second before it reached us. I could feel its fingers barely scraping on the collar of my shirt as I ran. I wasted no time hurting down the hall and to the left into the next room, taking a microsecond to see the robot chasing after us. Thankfully, it looked like it couldn't run, but I could hear every time it stomped it's feet, and I knew I needed to keep moving. I had to get back to the door where we came in. That was the only way we were able to get out of the building. Dashing through every hallway we came through before, and taking each turn as tightly as I could, my heart was racing at a million miles a minute and my legs felt like they could give out at any moment, but I had to push myself to keep going. Even though I couldn't see the robot whenever I was able to look back, I could still hear it as it screamed. I could hear the whimpers from Hat Kid clenched tightly in my arms. It hurts to see her like this, but I promise I won't let anything happen to her, and that gave me the extra incentive to hurry for the exit. Finally, like the light at the end of the tunnel, I saw the window of the office, and around that final corner, was our way out! I quickly ran up to the metal door between us and outside and pulled it open… I said I pulled it open…
… oh no…
It wasn't opening! Why wasn't it opening?! It opened just fine when we came in! Did somebody lock us in? This door didn't even look like it had any locks on it! I kept yanking on the door, believing one of these times, it would give way for us to escape, but every time I tried, it alway proved hopeless.
"Someone help! Open the door, please!" I yelled as I banged my hand on the door, praying someone would hear me, but no one ever came. Oh no, oh no. What do we do?! What do we do?! I frantically started looking up and down around the door, before I started spinning my head around the room, looking for anything that would make it open. Then something suddenly popped back into my head. The vents in the office were big enough to crawl through right? Maybe we would be able to use those and get back around to the room where we first saw the robot, which I also saw had a door that led outside. However, the moment I took my first step towards the office, I gasped out loud, jumping back to the door from the metallic hand that suddenly lashed itself onto the corner of the wall, the horrible face of the robot peering towards us following soon after. I didn't even hear it for those last few moments! No screaming, no footsteps, nothing! Yet there it was, stepping it's gross, metallic body filled the hallway in front of us, standing in the way of our only chance to make it out of here alive. Going into the office now was impossible. There was no way we would get in there before it got to us first. I-I…
I didn't know what to do anymore. We were going to die here…
It stood there staring for a moment, it's eyes flashing back and forth between the two of us, like it was trying to decide who to kill first. My back was pressed hard against the wall as much as I could, giving myself as much distance away from this thing as I was able to, Hat Kid clenched tightly next to my chest. I could feel my heart ready to burst out of me any second now, and my arms and legs were sore from how much they were shaking, my breathing was loud and uncontrollable, and all I could do was watch as the robot brought its arm out in front of it, before spinning it towards itself and shoving it directly through the giant hole in it chest. I yelped in surprise when I saw this, but it didn't seem to have any sort of reaction to it, rather I could only hear the clanking coming from it's metal insides before it yanked something out from inside itself. Clenched in its right hand, was a large kitchen knife, which was rusted and stained, and started slowly stepping towards us, throwing the coat rack with Freddy's suit on it into the office with little effort and raising the knife in its hands, ready to bring down on us. Each footstep grew louder as it grew closer to us, its eyes stared us down, and it's mouth, despite not moving at all, almost formed a smile, like it knew what it was about to do. This was it, I was really going to die here. I looked down at Hat Kid once last time, who clutched the time piece closely in her hands, before her eyes suddenly shot open, as if she just realized something, and held the hourglass above her. Nothing happened at first, but then the hourglass began to glow brightly, light started swirling around us and a humming sound began ringing from the time piece, getting louder and brighter as the light started to engulf us. I had to turn my eyes away from how bright it was, only to see the robot standing right over us. I saw the knife in its hand swing down, and without any other choice, I braced for the end…
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-"
