EXTREMELY QUICK NOTE
This story, and the chapters that follow, were created in the default notepad of my computer. You know, the one that doesn't have any sort of spelling or grammatical checks. I think I got almost all of them in a 30 second check this website provides on its own. If there are any issues, I'm not sure if I'll change them unless 1: They're super big and glaring. 2: This story gets received well.
I have a few chapters done already, broken down into 'nights'. This story isn't going to be the same as stories I've tried to write in the past have been. This one doesn't have a looming enemy, dark mysterious plot, or constant pressure nagging at the protagonists/readers neck. It's gonna end up being a 'Nights of interest' kind of thing, where the most interesting parts are gonna be the characters, how they interact with each other, and how they're relationships grow.
With all that said and out of the way, all that I have left to say is that this story obviously isn't 100% true to the lore. I tried just sticking it onto the end of the 'Cawthon' series of games, to create a happier epilogue for Micheal Afton.
Oh right, this story follows Micheal Afton after Pizzeria Simulator. It takes place in the Pizzaplex from Security Breach, but very little of the lore from that game is actually going to apply. Most of it is just going to be peaceful storytelling. I'm gonna post a couple chapters tonight, another one in a couple days from now (to double check everything), and then continue writing from there. Thank you for reading!
Here we go.
I don't know how I'm still alive. This time, I really should have been killed for good.
The pizzeria burning down with all of the remaining souls trapped inside of it was months ago. It was supposed to be the end of everything. In most ways, it was.
I, by some comical stroke of luck, am the only survivor of the building's collapse. I wasn't in great shape when I woke up, but I guess I got 'lucky'.
Since then, I've just been.. around. Without having to nip at my father's heels 24/7, I felt like I ran out of purpose. I likely did, in actuality, but I never felt any real urge to just up and kill myself, so I remained. Father couldn't do much with the money he received from the various Freddy's locations, so I took it upon myself to 'inherit' the money to at least create a comfortable life while I decide what to do next.
I was acutely aware, however, that William was no billionaire. I had some money to spare, but under no circumstance was it infinite. It was drying up with every passing day. I, after all this time, was in the market for a job. It felt wildly out of place to be searching for someplace to work after achieving the one thing I intended to live for, but after a while..
I found one.
Another location was built. The PizzaPlex. I scoured all around to try and figure out what was 'with' the place. What horror did it hide, what secret invention of my father, what unbelievable suffering would I alone be responsible for bringing to an end. You would not believe the result I found.
There just.. wasn't.
No deaths, no souls, no possession, no purple murderers, no secret intentions. It was seriously just.. A place for kids to come and have fun. I could not believe it. A part of me still can't.
I applied for a job. Night shift, obviously. Believe it or not, color was starting to return to my skin, and less of me looked like I was rotting, but I still didn't want to be standing in front of a crowd for the remainder of my life.
It's been a few weeks, and I've made myself familiar with the place and the people. The animatronics.. Aren't the greatest fan of me. They aren't violent or anything, I'm just not the most riveting conversationalist, and respond to attempts a little coldly, or sometimes just not at all.
I'm not trying to be some kind of omega-edgelord, it's just.. I've made a big point of communicating with as few people as possible, that this habit is a little hard to break. I don't dislike the talks we have, but I perfectly understand why anyone I talk to doesn't. I'm not overwhelmingly worried about it, though. Making friends hasn't been something I've felt the need to do in a very, very long time.
As time passed on and on, I started to get less and less paranoid. I'd scoured the place from top to bottom, repeatedly, and every time the result was 'not a damn thing'.
So here I stand, walking past all the animatronics rooms, headed for the auditorium. I hear the gang bustling with excitement about today's show, apparently all gathered in Freddy's room. To my knowledge, I'm pretty sure they aren't supposed to hang around in other animatronic's rooms, but I'll be damned if I give even the slightest fuck about how they spend their free time. As long as they aren't breaking something. My hand is on the door to enter when a splitting voice attacks my ears.
"Mikey!"
Oh boy.
I turn around, and sure enough, there he is.
This boy, I kid you not, is named 'Trudge'. He joined the DAY team a few days after I successfully get hired as the night guard. He struggled to make any kind of friend at first, most of the other day crew hardly acknowledging his existence with how soft-spoken he was. But for some reason, whenever I'm around, he doesn't shut the hell up. To this day I have no idea what could possibly have attracted this kid to me, but he even stays a little while into the night shift just to tell me everything about his day.
Running all 5 feet of him up to me, I turn around to acknowledge that he exists.
"Heya Mike!"
"Heya.."
"You gonna be here all night today?"
"Yeah, I still.. Work here.."
He laughs, pretty loudly. "Awesome, bro! You'd never believe what happened today!"
"What's that?" I say, holding in a sigh that will surely accumulate to something greater once this conversation is finally over.
"Bro- today I got lunch at el chips and was eatin' my nachos as I walked around, so I didn't have to say I was on break, when I bumped into someone and dropped them upside down on the floor."
Sounds pretty typical so far.
"But as I was cleaning them up, Chica went and got me more nachos! I didn't even ask! She just appeared next to me partway through cleaning and was like 'Lookie what I got for ya!' and gave me the food with a big smile!"
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that, despite the regular crew not interacting with him much, he and the animatronics got along like bread and butter. Some more than others. Chica and him get along particularly well. So well, in fact, that I can see her out of the corner of my eye, standing patiently, pretending like she isn't waiting for me to stop talking with Trudge.
Well tough luck, Chica-chee, I call dibs...
Don't really like admitting it, but I like having him around. Someone who's willing to talk to me makes me feel a little more human, I guess.
I push through to the auditorium, Trudge hot on my tail.
"And she, like, got me a large order instead of a medium, which is the size I got! Isn't that friggen awesome?"
"Yeah."
"Oh- did you know there's a bowling alley here?"
"Yeah."
"I most certainly didn't! It's not even really themed to anything, its just a bowling alley. Wanna go play bowling?"
I'm not looking at him directly, but I swear he's jumping up and down.
"I have to continue working. We'll play later." A promise I'll most certainly regret.
"Oh, right! You gotta do your job! What do you like to do here? Can I help? I promise it won't be like last week!"
"There's nothing I need help with. Thank you, though."
"What about making sure all the arcade games are powered?"
I refuse to let him try helping me do that again. I make a 90 degree turn and start my trek to the 'music' section of the pizzaplex.
"Can we go talk to the DJ?"
"You don't need my permission."
"Well I don't wanna go if you're not going! You're more fun."
"...Yeah, we can go."
"Oh hell yeah!"
Trudge shoots his hands into the air and starts jogging ahead. Truthfully, I don't have any overwhelming desire to talk to the DJ, but it's a little fun seeing him so happy. He's a contagious little thing..
It doesn't take any longer than 5 minutes to reach it at a leisurely pace. This place is a damn maze, but when you finally start to know where you're going, it suddenly seems a lot less huge.
I pause for a second to take in the area. The speakers are thumping, but the music isn't loud enough to be annoying. Pretty impressive how they managed to pull that off. I'm not particularly against being here, despite how noisy it tends to be. I've always been fond of anything to do with music. It does a wonderful job of making you feel different emotions, which can be an amazing distraction in particularly stressful times.
It comes as no surprise that Trudge is found making sound effects with the DJ. I walk in as casually as I can, and just kinda position myself along the side of the wall. Unfortunately, this didn't seem to be discrete enough.
"There were like, 50 kids in the bathroom at once. Think I'll only ever use my apartments bathroom after that ordeal." Trudge explains, talking as if he was featured in a Ted-Ed. Some-fucking-how, the DJ looks seriously invested in this story.
"Ain't that somethin'!" The DJ 'haws' in the most exaggerated Mexican accent I've ever heard as if any of what Trudge said was intended to be funny, at all. "That's wild' kid! What do you do if you can't hold in anymo'?"
Suddenly, I feel an overwhelming desire to leave.
"Well usually I can find some kind of secluded place in the restaurant that's got SOME kind of - Mike!"
I stare at him in response. Trudge starts jumping his way over to me. How is it possible a human can have this kind of energy past midnight. He worked an entire day shift today!
"A-ah! Mikey-boy! How's it hangin' man?" The DJ takes a sec to adjust to my presence, audibly fumbling through the first part of his sentence.
"I'm doing alright, thank you for asking." I respond, looking back at Trudge, indicating that the conversation was already over.
"Have you seen how big this guy is?"
"Yeah."
"He's awesome, though! I could talk to him forever!" Trudge exclaims, jumping and turning back towards the DJ.
I'm pretty sure he didn't even notice, but the presence of the 'though' in that sentence probably wasn't the greatest choice he's ever made within earshot of the big guy.
"You could stand to lose a few pounds yourself, man!" The DJ playfully responds, to which Trudge giggles mischievously.
"Mike! Tell DJ about your day!"
"My day started 10 minutes ago."
"Oh 'something' must have happened today! Go tell him about how, uh.."
"Don't be shy!" The DJ interjects following Trudge's contemplative silence.
"Alright, I.. Uh.. Saw Chica today..?"
"Ahh- That's cool! Nothin' lifts a guys spirits like a chica, ha-ah! Where'd you see her?"
"There-ish."
I point to the same entrance Trudge and I walked through, where a bright white and pink chicken robot was trying to make herself less obvious. I'm pretty sure I hear a yelp before she pulls her body out of view, as if everyone hadn't already had a good long look at her before she retreated.
"CHICA!"
Jesus christ. I was standing right next to you.
Trudge jogs over happily, already letting his mouth run loose before Chica is even willing to admit her presence. It doesn't take long for Trudge to come back, practically dragging the poor girl behind her.
Before I know it, Trudge, the DJ, and an embarrassed Chica are all knee deep in gossip between each other. Seeing my opportunity, I make no sudden movements, and calmly walk out of the room. Chica had been following us ever since Trudge and I had started talking, but I decided to get my daily quota of 'Trudge' before I let her take up the rest of his time.
Not in any rush, I wander back through the west arcade. DJ music man is a jarringly different animatronic, for obvious reasons, though he acts similarly to the normal sized ones. In fact, I would even go as far as to say he's one of the friendliest animatronics in the entire facility, which is truly saying something. He made a genuine effort to try and strike up a conversation with me, which is more than I can say for most of the others. None of the animatronics are particularly rude or anything, but simply don't go out of their way to communicate with me. Not that I'm complaining, the opposite really. Kind of a win-win in my-
Oh. Whoops.
Stopping just before I run into something, I break out of my trance to see what I was a hair away from running into.
The answer is hair.
Uh oh.
"Ugh. What is it you could possibly be doing here?"
"Hello, Roxanne.."
Sure enough, there stood the silver wolf, arms crossed and looking at me in disgust.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing. Just passing by."
"Don't lie to me!" She huffs angrily. This might be a new record for how little time it took me to piss this thing off.
"You don't come here, ever. And the second I come here to be alone, you, of all people, show your discolored face."
She leans down to poke my forehead.
"You ever hear about makeup, corpse?"
"Yes."
So, quick diversion back into what I was thinking about before, about the whole 'none of the animatronics are rude' thing. Roxanne is the, uh, exception.. I don't know what it is about me that sets her off, but every single time I interact with her for any period of time, she gets so sick of my shit. The first time she called me 'corpse', I remember freezing on the spot, thinking that somehow she knew what I was. Nope. She was simply displeased with my physical appearance, and by reacting negatively, I unintentionally secured that name as my official 'slur'.
"So what? You're looking like this by choice? Do you have any idea what you look like?" Roxanne stands back up, as is suddenly, physically repulsed.
"Yeah."
"You must be pretty confident, then. Take it from the best- You look like shit." She says, placing her paw on her chest when she said the word 'best', as if she could possibly be referring to anyone else.
My face does reflexively cringe just a little bit. Hearing any of them swear will never not be jarring, though its for a good reason. Freddy and Chica might as well be incapable of saying anything that could ever possibly be interpreted as a bad word. Monty does extremely rarely, but never towards another person, only ever for comedic value, and even then, it's still exceptionally rare. Roxanne does not have this problem. She obviously doesn't swear during the day, and never in front of the kids, but whenever she does swear, I'm usually on the receiving end of it.
"Hello?" She demands.
"I'm still here."
"Then say something, weirdo! Surely you've heard this from your co-workers as well, what do they think of you looking like this." She points at my face accusationally.
"I don't know."
"What, don't you care how you look to your co-workers?"
"No."
"...The hell do you mean 'no'?"
I just stare at her in response.
"Wouldn't they like you better if you were, at all, presentable?"
"Probably."
"So then what the hell do you mean 'no'?!"
I continue to stare. I don't really have an answer for that question, I just don't care. The whole reason I got this job was to avoid being seen as much as possible.
"Ugh!" She throws her hands downward, obviously frustrated with my response, or lack-thereof. "Why won't you answer me when I talk to you!?"
"I don't have anything to say."
"Oh shut the hell up!" Roxanne finally breaks, marching past me, gritting her teeth. I have literally no idea what she's so angry about. "And stop following me!" She calls out from the other side of the room before her footsteps fade away behind me.
As there is no longer an animatronic obstacle in front of me, I continue walking like I was before. Before long, I make it to the auditorium again. Near the other side, on the same level, stood Monty, looking at me with interest/concern. I wouldn't be surprised if he heard my interaction with Roxanne, her voice can carry pretty far when she gets upset.
"You alright over there?" He yells from across the auditorium. I lift up a thumbs-up in response. He simply nods and continues going wherever a Monty wants to go at this hour.
The only one I haven't seen tonight is Freddy, though this isn't too big of a surprise. Him and I get along pretty well, but he recognizes better than the others that I simply don't like talking in my spare time very much. Lately he's been hunkered in his room, tinkering with the Faz-Watches.
I decide that I've come close enough to doing my 'rounds' as I feel like I needed to do. Once I give the place one big look over, I can usually just sit in one of the security offices as long as I'd like. I do a quick scan of the parts of the building I didn't visit today on the cameras while walking to a nearby office. Everything looks just about the same, so once I get seated, I get comfy.
I brought a laptop with me to work one day, and haven't bothered to take it back since. I only ever used it while I had free time in the office, so here in the office it sat. I get it booted up, and think if I needed to get anything done today.
Worst case scenario, I can always get a game running on this thing if I get too horrendously bored.
