Hello again, everyone! Thanks for joining me for the third part of my ongoing FNaF series. This entry takes place in the winter… you can probably sense a pattern emerging in the names. Though it's sort of a misnomer in this case, because most of this fic won't take place at Freddy's. Hopefully that piques your curiosities.
As I said way back in the final A/N of my first Freddy's story, this entry is going to be a combination of FNaF 2 and Sister Location. It'll mostly lean toward the latter, though I admit that I've also been influenced by the more survival horror feel my Dead Space stories have captured. I also have no idea how long this story will be. Almost certain it'll end up shorter than ASaF since I don't have to introduce the characters and setting, plus it takes place over a much smaller period, but I'm not sure by how much. Speaking of short, this is the briefest chapter I've written in a long while. Prologues tend to fall on the short side, though.
Reviews, follows and favorites are great, if you want to leave any. Otherwise, I don't have much to say besides advertising my Discord server, An Invisible Server. It's a place for me and my fans to hang out, talk, chill and so on. I admit that I'm not a very interesting person, but if you want to join, I'm sure you'll find a welcoming community. Just remove the spaces and asterisks:
www*.discord*.gg / HPcMTpxVsH
Thursday, December 21, 2000, 12:00 AM
The clock struck midnight upon the winter solstice. Auric heard no bells, yet he felt the power course through him, swirling around his shell. It ebbed and flowed through nights and days as it always did, generally growing sharper as the days shortened and the air grew cold. Now his power reached one of its two annual apexes, so much that his faux fur could scarcely contain it. While not originally from Earth, Auric spent thousands of years upon it – long enough for him to become attuned to the planet's cycles and natural magic. Altered his very nature with seasons, equinoxes, eclipses and so on. Different than magic in deep space, where nothing ever changed.
"It's time," Afton muttered next to him, checking his Rolex. Looking down at the man nearly elicited something bordering on sympathy from Auric. Wasn't whom he used to be, deteriorating by the day since summer and especially in autumn. The accident that crippled him quickened his withering of late: more skin and bone than muscle or fat by now. He was scarcely strong enough to wheel himself about. Eyes shrunk into the occipitals. All in all, he was close to resembling a skeleton. "Let's get out there," he grumbled, managing to push himself along through force of will.
No matter how much his body wasted, Afton always retained his mind… and his anger. The aura coming off him perpetually glowed like red-hot iron. Every morning he awoke with vengeance at the time and people he'd lost since beginning this nearly 20-year campaign. Or perhaps he merely raged against the dying of the light. Either way, his vaporous life had nearly scattered to the wind. This may have been his last chance to make the impact he sought.
Auric scratched himself as they continued along, pondering the precession of the ages. The time and date needed to be precise to accomplish the feat before him, yet they also added a certain atmosphere to the proceedings, at least for his audience. The stroke of midnight upon the shortest day of the year was hardly an event for him, yet humans experienced only a handful from birth to death. He and Afton both appreciated showmanship, so they agreed it was only right to let rabble observe. More prosaically, he needed a source of strong emotion to fulfill the ritual. The cretins beyond were about to witness an act of creation unseen since the beginning of time, one that would take all his strength to perhaps accomplish. Bah, what do I know of "perhaps"?! He shook his head to banish the thoughts.
He was Auric, Auric was power, etc. All these things had been established. Nothing was impossible for him. He but needed the right application of force, and even the strictest laws of nature crumbled to dust. Reminded himself of this as they reached the stage's threshold, beyond which all Afton's employees waited to be enthralled. More likely because their careers hinge on it, he mulled. None of them were permitted to escape their employer's final feat, a thing he'd labored for years to bring about.
The same could be said for Auric. Creating life was among the most difficult tasks ever attempted. From the Golem to sentient restaurant animatronics, each required complex rites, summoning circles, mystical components, and metaphysical texts from the Akashic Records to forge or gather souls to animate bodies. Even he wasn't quite sure whether he created them wholesale or plucked them from an infinite multiverse. Either way, they always entertained. What he was about to do surpassed even that. It was a thing he once truly did think impossible, but much study into matters arcane convinced him otherwise.
The two waited at the vestibule. Neither hesitation nor doubt hindered either, for both knew what must come to pass. However, Afton stayed his hand, seeming deep in introspection. That inspired Auric to supply a last admonition. The man was not his friend – a god could not befriend an insect – but, like Phillip, he provided much amusement. More interesting to talk with, too. The effort ahead posed no danger to an immortal, yet mere humans may not have been so fortunate. Auric informed him before that it would be wise to stay away while his underlings gave emotional kindling for the fire.
"Afton, I will warn you one final time before the end. What I am about to do may not produce the results you crave. There may be side effects." He gazed down at the man, who challenged with a steely glare of his own.
"I don't care. This is what I've always wanted. My entire reason to toil for the last 17 years." He looked away and shook his head, uncut gray hair partly obscuring his face. "I hoped to find a way to do this without you and your tricks. Maybe someone else will one day, but not me." Auric's muzzle pulled into a smirk. He was happy to help the desperate if they paid his price. Would have been no fun if people accomplished everything they wanted on their own. "My time is almost up, and I have no heirs. This is my final chance. If it goes awry, I'd rather die now than spend my last few months regretting everything that could have been." Understandable. Afton was hardly the sort who wanted to live connected to tubes and IVs. Either way, his end quickly approached.
It mattered little to Auric. Hundreds or thousands of humans surely possessed Afton's wealth and similar levels of depravity. It would not be difficult to find one once he passed and his people scattered to the winds. Besides, I obtained more than a decade of entertainment out of Phillip and company before they proved too meddlesome to endure. That was what he told himself. The Warden and his companions did not truly trounce him. No, he grew tired of their antics and departed of his own accord.
Perhaps he could believe that one day.
…
Iota-Tau's eyes narrowed as William Afton and Auric walked onto the stage before him and everyone else. Well, neither really walked, per se. His boss hadn't been able to use his legs for the last 13 years, at least. The possessed bear costume thing more stumbled; it never quite got the hang of using limbs. Not its own, anyway. He and the rest of his few dozen coworkers barely flinched from the creature anymore. Since Phil died and all their operations were moved to this new facility, the pretentions of secrecy were dropped, and Auric went from being a legend among the Fazbear crew that haunted all their dreams to a productive member of the team who hung out by the water cooler, even though it didn't have a stomach.
The ones most disturbed were from the cadre of executives and advisors Afton mostly kept around as yes-men. The boss owned 100 percent of his own company, so he didn't have to worry about quibbles like stock or a traditional board of directors. Guessed he just liked having more people around to watch. Either way, most of them hadn't seen Auric personally, at least not much. Unused to being before something powerful and otherworldly, cold enough to send shivers through the room as all the heat was sucked from it. Jealousy plucked at him as he saw Agent Omicron near the front, who was smart enough to wear a coat. That was the least of his concerns, though.
They were just supposed to ignore the monster that drove friends mad and tormented them almost as much as whatever poor sap got suckered into the night guard "job". He despised the situation, as did many others. His stomach still turned at the sight of the thing, even if it no longer reeked. Supposed that was at least one good thing. Their complaints got the beast to take a much-needed bath and get all the mold out of itself. Now it was purely gold and not covered with brown and puke-green splotches. Nobody asked, but it became clear that this integration happened because the boss ran out of time. He always looked sickly, but these past few weeks seemed to age him a decade. Still, far be it from him to complain.
Once Afton kicked the bucket, Fritz was free to retire with the small fortune the boss set up for them. Would have left this Hell long ago if the money was anything less than extraordinary. But he was still with them for the time being, so he began to speak. The showroom was small enough to not require a microphone, yet his voice still sounded strained and hollow.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for attending this 'presentation' tonight. It's late, but you're all used to it by now," he said, coming to fore while Auric stood behind him. True. Midnight masses were a BRIAR hallmark. Back in the day, most thought Phil's quirks made their briefings happen in the dead of night. Only now did everyone realize that it was for Auric's benefit. The thing became more active during the small hours of the morning… as did the magic it manipulated. Magic and robots. He regretted not going to trade school every day.
"We've produced several androids in the past weeks from our Techno-Organic Yield method. These have been mere proof of concept tests for what is about to be performed tonight." A coughing fit interrupted him, yet Fritz's mind raced. He knew the prior cyborgs (which few among them saw so far) led to something, yet no one knew what. Speculation went wild based on what little they knew of their boss. The only reason they knew as much as they did was because of magazine and newspaper articles from Afton's prime archived on the web, all from before 1983. His kid died that year, and that was the last the world at large ever heard from him. "You'll see exactly what that is when all is said and done. I won't waste more of your time. Auric, take it away."
Afton rolled to the side, and the freak stepped forward. The costume that was its skin might once have appeared warm and friendly when stretched over an animatronic endoskeleton. Now, it was anything but – the last thing in the world any sane child would ever want to interact with. Or him, for that matter. He cringed as its unblinking eyes surveyed the crowd, appraising the meat. They might have been on the menu if it could eat.
Fritz thought it would speak. That its rusty axe of a voice would chop into his brain and rend it to pieces. That a wave of psychosis would be unleashed upon them all.
Fortunately, it didn't. That hardly made what it did do comforting.
Upon the platform were all sorts of things, mundane and exotic, that he forgot when the odd couple emerged. Now these things came into focus again: charcoal drawings of Norse runes, censers burning with salt and rare herbs, fragments of obsidian and even precious gems meticulously strewn about. All this surrounded a coffin-like box. Whatever Auric wanted to give life was inside, and it got around to that as its body crumpled to the ground.
A few of his colleagues sighed that the creature was gone, but not him. His mind wandered back to November 1987. Even not being in Fazbear's at the time, he remembered the smell of ozone, the buzzing in his ears and space distorting as reality rewrote itself to let that-which-should-not-be exist. Animatronics weren't supposed to be alive and have organs and minds and souls, so the universe capitulated. Then he blinked, and everything happened again. That same sweet, pungent scent, the gong in his head, his vision swimming as the lights flickered. The worst and weirdest part just started, though, and this was something he hadn't the discomfort of feeling before. Like something leeched off him.
He'd heard Phil say once before that Auric needed people for this to work, which was why he brought that first set of animatronics to life in the middle of a birthday party instead of literally anywhere else. That strong feelings drew dimensions nearer to each other, which presumably helped in some way. Auric didn't feed on his soul (he hoped), but his apprehension and that of everybody here fueled this planar engine. So he stood there, fearful. He'd been a mercenary for over a decade, and things scared him stiff sometimes.
At least nobody saw that terror as the lights went out. Some fizzled with whimpers, some fried like eggs, some popped and showered sparks upon them all; Fritz yelped as a couple burned his shoulder. All died and left the crowd in darkness. The exception were Auric's pinprick golden eyes, leering at them through utter black.
The ringing in his ears subsided, and silence ruled for a few seconds. Despite not being able to see, he knew the collective reaction was one of mixed hope and dread. What did it do?! Did its "spell" work? Fear turned to creeping dread as Fritz got his answer. A whining creak broke the stillness, followed by a dull thud. Whatever was in the casket stirred. Scratching, scrabbling at the door.
"Someone turn on a flashlight, damn it," Afton tried to shout from the stage before bursting into another coughing fit. "And Auric, get it on a leash!"
"I… am trying," Fritz just barely heard the specter say as a couple of his friends turned their lights on. He felt his heart race in his chest as shafts of light affixed to the stage, blinding Afton, who raised an arm to cover his face. Auric had no such reflex, staring straight into the rays. Both their shadows fell on the curtains behind them, creating imposing figures. That wasn't the most unsettling thing about the situation, though.
The container's lid had been wrenched from the hinges and rested upon the ground. While he couldn't see within from this angle, Afton's expression indicated that whatever used to be inside wasn't any longer. The man spat something at the spirit, but Fritz couldn't decipher it over the terror fermenting in his head. The whispering reached a fever pitch as his teeth chattered. Then a small clatter rang from above, echoing in the void.
A couple flashlights pointed upward, trying to find the source among the rafters. The whole auditorium waited on the edge of their seats. Even Auric, who was supposed to be this thing's master, looked unsure of itself. The beams weaved along the ceiling until they found another set of eyes glowing above.
That was all Fritz saw before it leapt down with a bloodcurdling static shriek. And it wasn't the only one screaming a second later as it ripped his coworkers apart when it landed in the middle of them.
It didn't seem real for a moment. Just a bad dream. He'd had thousands of those over the years he'd done this dirty work, many equally visceral and realistic as unseen claws rending flesh as flailing torches got knocked aside, blood spattered and bone cracked. Everything would be set right once he awoke. However, he knew that this time, it was real. The nightmare he'd had for more than a decade suddenly became actual, and death stared him in the face. Therefore, he did what any brave soldier would do when confronted with mortality.
He ran.
Gunfire erupted behind him as he bolted down the hall they all came in from, barely registering that he slammed into walls along the way. Adrenaline dulled pain, but it couldn't stifle sounds of death. With the acoustics, though, he didn't know whether the monster remained where they began or if it pursued. Nor would he until he reached the elevator – the only entrance or exit to this underground realm. His only chance of escape. Fritz's lungs burned as he rounded the final corner, tripping over something and falling face first to the floor.
Blood trickled from his nose as he groaned and looked up. Through his blurry, sloshing vision, he saw the faintly glowing LIFT sign that signaled his salvation. The final rush seemed to take hours instead of seconds with the endorphins surging through him. He didn't hear gunfire or screams, but he wasn't sure whether they'd stopped or if his brain blocked them out. The creature might still have breathed down his neck… he swore he sensed something not too far behind!
But he made it. The platform remained open and at the bottom of the shaft, so he dove in and locked the doors like he was a night guard again. He was about to press the "up" button when banging on the entrance nearly made him piss himself. The words that followed and the face he saw in the murky light through a small glass aperture assuaged him that a person was on the other side.
"Iota-Tau?! For the love of God, please let me in!" Omicron shouted as he pounded on the pane. His heart fell that he was the one to make it. A mean bastard, even by BRIAR standards, and he cheated at cards. Still, Fritz wasn't going to leave him to die… were it not for the pair of glowing eyes behind him, anyway. If he let man in, monster would follow, and it'd be unleashed upon the world. His throat stuck shut, which was OK, for he had nothing to say. What could he? All he was able to offer Omicron was a sorrowful look. "No, don't leave me!" he shouted, throwing himself against the metal. "Don't leave me to – "
His words were replaced with a final scream as the beast pounced and Fritz began to ascend. A streak of blood splashed across glass, and a metal hand punched it, trying to break through.
He pressed his back to the wall and slowly slid down. Too shocked to cry but jaded enough to think clearly about what just happened. Everyone was dead. If not presently, then soon. Either accidentally or intentionally, Auric got them all killed, like he always knew it would. He needed to get help.
From who, dumbass?! He was the last BRIAR person left. Calling the police was out of the question; much as he distrusted Afton, just about every one of them agreed letting the government in on all this was an even worse idea. They'd try to make super military robots to invade Kosovo or something. Even the ones not so ideologically motivated agreed that they'd all be forced out of their jobs if cyborgs came along to do it. There was nobody he could trust.
…except them. Damn it. He debated for a moment whether to even tell them or just leave. Either I tell them, or I leave Auric and his pet trapped beneath Seattle. Auric can astral project out… and if it decides to take that thing with it… It tore through dozens of the most prepared people in the world in seconds and seemed to have no interest in anything but murder. If it escaped into the heart of the city, the lid would be blown open on the "living robots" thing in the worst possible way: hundreds of people would die before the monster was put down.
The elevator reached the top by the time he was done with his internal debate, and he sprang up. Much as he would have loved to sit and let all this sink in, there was no time to waste. He didn't know if the beast was smart enough to work an elevator, so he fished out his key and flipped the emergency stop. Good thing it still had one. Guess Afton was slightly interested in safety.
All right, I'll tell them, he thought, slumping over again in the elevator. I just need to rest first… for a while.