April 5, 1975

"Are you going to discuss the injury to your hand?"

Dr. Sanderson clicked her pen in anticipation as she waited for a response. Despite all the help she had given him over the years, he always hated the way she seemed to latch onto everything he said. He supposed that was part of the job, but it always made him anxious. He refused to look at her. Instead, he focused on the clock in her office.

"Not answering doesn't make the time go any faster," she said, seeming to read his thoughts. "If you chose not to speak during your session, that is entirely up to you, but you have made so much progress. I'd hate to see it wasted. Lately, you haven't been yourself, and I'm worried it might be the latest stress at work."

"It's those stupid robots," he said, his hands clenching into fists. He winced as the movement disturbed the cuts on his knuckles under the bandages. "They're changing everything. They closed down the old restaurant, you know? One minute, Fredbear's Family Diner buys a few of the damn things, the next thing you know, they get bought out by some corporation, shut down, and reopen as some new, fancy kids' party place. And it's not just the robots. They've got all these new, flashy video games now. It isn't even a place for families anymore! Now, it's just kids, birthdays, and trying to capitalize on it. It's just disgusting.

"And that's not the worst of it. Now, they've brought in these new robot suits. They can be an animatronic one minute, turn a few cranks, and then it's a suit for entertainers to wear."

Dr. Sanderson began writing a few notes. "That's a good thing though, isn't it? That means they're trying to work with you, ensure you still have your job. You were worried about that."

He shook his head. "It's only temporary," he said. "It's just to put us at ease and make us think that. But watch, eventually the whole operation will be run by machines. Cooking the pizzas, cleaning, entertaining… That's where this world is going, you know, all these machines. What do they think people are going to do for work?"

Dr. Sanderson let her pen come to rest on the arm of her chair, a clear sign she had heard enough. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's talk about here and now. Has something changed at work? You mentioned the new animatronics that could be used as suits. Is that something they're making you use?"

His fingers dug deeper into the leather chair. The mere mention of those new suits still made him uneasy. "Yes. They took away the old mascot, cloth suits. Now, we have to wear those. It's how I cut up my hand. I punched one of them. Turns out there's a lot of metal parts in 'em."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"I was angry," he said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I wanted something to take out that anger on. At least it wasn't a person. You told me, doc. You told me to express myself without hurting people."

"Yes, but punching a robot and hurting yourself is not a healthy outlet. She sat up, the leather squeaking. "Why did it make you angry?"

He thought that was a pretty stupid question. "I already told you; these robots are taking our jobs. I may not have one. Of course, I'm pissed!"

For several seconds, all either of them could hear was the ticking of the clock. When Dr. Sanderson did that, he knew it meant she was going to bring up things he did not want to hear.

"I have a feeling," she said at last, "that it's not so much about the new technology, but rather the suit they took away from you. When you first told me about this new job, it was a step in the right direction. I had never seen you so excited. You described your job as being 'like a superhero who made the world better by making children happy.' That's quite a job description for someone entertaining children in a fake rabbit outfit. Not many people would see that kind of job with such optimism.

"I think that the replacement of that suit with another modern one makes you feel as though you're losing that part of your identity. But try thinking about it this way. It's just upgrading your new persona."

His teeth began to grind. "It means I'll lose my job in the long-run."

She sighed. "Tell me something, what was it about that suit that you liked? What did it represent to you?"

"I don't know. It was friendly, you know? It had this big smile on it that makes people feel welcome. It just… it looks like someone who could be a friend. When I wear it, I'm not some angry young man kids are afraid of. I'm someone they like, that they smile to see. And that makes me smile, you know? I can make any kid, no matter how miserable they feel, smile."

"You give them the happy childhood you never had," Dr. Sanderson finished. "Isn't that what this is really about?"

He chuckled. "I knew you would get to that part, doc. You always do."

She began to shuffle through his file. "Because it is a key component of understanding your behavioral disorder. The jealousy you harbored toward your step-brother, mixed with his death at a very young age, and what your father did to you both, it's a lot for a kid. And you feel left out of your own childhood. You never had a chance to just be a kid. And that child in you is calling for help. That suit represents the friend and protector you wish you had growing up. Losing that is a big deal."

He looked away, not wanting to go back to that. "What happened to 'punching a robot is not a healthy outlet for your anger?'"

She put down her papers. "It's okay to be angry at the situation. I'm only saying to find a better outlet for it. The world isn't out to get you. That's what we're working on: to see the good in the world and not bottle up our emotions and fears about it."

"So, what should I do?"

"Give the new suit a try," she said. "You might like it. After all, technology is doing some amazing things. From what you've described about these animatronics, they could do some amazing things. Maybe you'll find it will make your character more expressive."

"It looks scary to kids. All those teeth? It doesn't look friendly at all."

She closed her notes, sighing. "I'm asking you to try," she said. "I'm pretty sure your new boss isn't going to be giving you a choice. You'll just have to make do with what has been given to you."

He started to stand up, knowing his time was up. "Story of my life, eh doc?"

"We're working through it. Remember what I said: The world isn't always conspiring against you. Sometimes inconveniences happen and we have to work through them."

He did not seem to be listening. "At this rate, I had better get to learning how to fix all the parts in those robots. That's all us humans will end up good for: fixing the machines that took our jobs."

"I'm serious," she said, her tone becoming firm. "I don't want to have to hear about an incident at work. You need to find a way to handle this change."

He took a deep breath and put on his best smile. "I'll try."

She watched him leave, apprehension creeping up. She always worried about her patients, some more than others…


His hands seemed to shake during his entire drive back home. A part of his brain wanted to listen to Dr. Sanderson, but the other part was too mad to think straight. He knew these would be the kind of answers he would get from her, but it did not help. How could they just replace him? How could they just replace that beloved character with something so ugly and overbearing? What kid would want to hug a stiff, metal-filled rabbit without a grin? He was Bonnie the Bunny, and they had ruined the character!

Oh sure, he was not the only one that had been treated like this. Freadbear was the main mascot of the diner. But Evan, the guy who played the part, did not like his job. Hell, he hated kids. He did not care what Evan thought. Evan probably did not give two shits what costume he wore so long as he got paid. What did it matter to him that he was no longer Fredbear, but now Freddy Fazbear, a new name they came up with to give the new corporation a catchy name? The corporate bastards!

This alone would have driven him insane, but he had one thing to help keep his cool, one item that could keep him from completely losing it. He looked over to the box sitting in the passenger seat, one yellow-brown, floppy ear hanging out of the edge. They were no longer going to use those old suits anyway. They would not miss it.

When he got to his apartment, he hauled the heavy mascot suit in and pulled it out to examine. There were a few stitchings around the arm that needed fixing, but he could repair it. It was definitely an old and worn suit. The inside still smelled of old sweat and was darn near nauseating, but he had it, and nothing could stop him now.

When he had first been hired at the diner as an 18-year-old nobody trying to make it on his own, he really was at a low place in his life. He was finally legally free of his dad and step-mom. But, he had no way to make a living, and all his recent actions at and outside of school had landed him sessions with Dr. Sanderson in the first place. Nonetheless, he took this opening when it popped up. At first, he thought he would just be waiting tables, and he did for the first few weeks.

The diner had always had Fredbear as their mascot. Once a month, the servers all drew straws to decide who had to wear the heavy, smelly suit for a meet-and-greet with the kids. He rather liked it and found he was a pretty good entertainer in it. The owner and his wife thought so too.

One Easter, Mrs. Wilson, the owner's wife, ahd stitched up a new costume, an Easter Bunny for the kids to meet. She had made the suit just for him. Somehow, she knew that wearing the costume made him feel special. "You're good with the little ones," she had said. "Not many people have a gift for making children smile."

It was not a very special suit. It was yellow with a purple vest and bowtie, the same yellow and purple colors of the restaurant's color scheme. It was clearly very handmade, the stitches easily seen on the arms and legs. The eyes were a little too wide, but cute. All the same, he loved it. Mrs. Wilson was the only one who knew he was seeing a therapist and had a troubled childhood. He could never thank her enough for that special gift.

And that was how he had helped create Bonnie the Bunny, a character he loved playing. After Easter, the idea had gone over so well that he had been moved to be a regular entertainer in the Diner with that suit, along with Evan being saddled with Fredbear. For about a year and a half, he was happy, actually glad to get up in the mornings.

But that all changed with the arrival of the new animatronics. They were big, ugly, and just so… lifeless, he thought. They had butchered Fredbear and Bonnie, turning them into Freddy and that god-awful, purple thing they pretended was Bonnie. And why did they need two more characters like the chicken and the fox? The fox was a pirate? Why the hell did they do that? Nothing in the diner's theme screamed pirate.

That was the beginning of the end. Shortly after, the Wilsons died, and their son sold the business to a new corporation, one partly owned by the same company that made the animatronics. They named themselves Fazbear Entertainment, after the Freddy Fazbear character, shut down the diner, and reopened as a strictly pizza place, geared towards children. They kept the animatronic characters and rehired the old staff, including him. But then they brought in those cursed hybrid suits that he now had to wear.

Well, not this time. He would not let himself be bested by this company. He would not let the true spirit of Bonnie the Bunny die, not when the Wilsons had been the parents he never had.

He slipped on the old suit and admired it in the mirror. At least, here on his own, his good memories did not have to die. What harm could it do so long as he kept the suit at home for his own amusement?


Author's Notes: One of the big reasons I wanted to redo this story was to really work on providing more backstory for the characters. The original version was too heavily tied to the action of the games.

Much as I love the Game Theory videos on FNAF, one thing has never been solved regarding the murderer himself: motive. I know with Pizzaria Simulator, the notion of "remnant energy" did help fill in some of those gaps, but not all of them. Game Theory maintains that Afton became obsessed with remnant energy, either to revive his children, Elizabeth and Michael, or to capture the secret of immortality all for himself. Either way, according to the videos, he doesn't find out about remnant energy until after he sees the animatronics, now possessed by the souls of the victims of the "missing child incident," walking around, meaning he was killing before finding out about remnant energy. So, why? I know everyone's pretty satisfied with the "he was just a psychopathic killer, don't read too much into it" kind of answer. But, even someone crazy has something that rationalizes their actions, so what was it? Unfortunately, I can't answer that regarding the Game Theory timeline of events, but I can try and answer it with my own version of this story. And that's what I set out to do in this chapter...or at least lay out the groundwork for it. Trust me, having your job taken over by machines is not the final straw that broke the camel's back to go start murdering people, but it does establish our killer's mentality and the key factors that motivate his later actions.

Finally, after Help Wanted came out, despite the fact that it is telling a different story with cursed code coming to life, it does offer some small tidbits of things in the past: namely Glitchtrap's design. It's very clearly a character costume that existed pre-animatronics in the story. And honestly, while most of the FNAF characters were kind of "meh" in the scare department, Glitchtrap truly is a terrifying creation. Maybe it's just the VR experience making it feel too real, or the way he moves in his final scenes. But either way, you can tell someone truly frightening was under that mask, and I wanted to find a way to incorporate that in this story. I hope it works.