Author's Note

Well, hello again! Apologies for taking so long on this chapter, but I found it surprisingly difficult to write. I had pretty much the same problem that I had with Chapter One: a struggle to balance providing information with advancing the plot. Hopefully, the result was worth the wait.

Without further ado, on with the chapter!

- KromeDome97

Chapter Six: Restless

"Hey, I'm going to head backstage and see what's going on," Mike informed his coworker, whose name he could never remember, "If I'm not back in ten minutes, tell someone that I've gone missing."

"Sure thing, Mike," the young man droned, with a mouth full of salami sandwich. Mike could have scolded him for eating on the job, but he really didn't care. He had far more important things to worry about.

The first Fazbear Four concert, the main event of Freddy's opening day, was supposed to be underway, but the animatronics had gone missing. The customers saw this as a disappointment, but Mike saw as it a harbinger of something far more sinister.

My God, Henry might have been right, he realized as he sped off to the stage.

He recalled the events of the day before, when a phone call interrupted his time munching on popcorn and absorbing the latest episode of The Immortal and the Restless. It was his last day to relax before starting work at his father's business, so his tolerance for inconveniences was at an all-time low. Still, after picking up, his annoyance became surprise when he recognized the deep, stern voice on the other side as Henry Emily, asking him to come over to his house as soon as possible. Henry was his father's business partner, fellow visionary, and inseparable friend.

Actually, those descriptors weren't entirely accurate anymore, especially the "inseparable" part. Ever since the disappearance of his daughter Charlotte, and what a tragedy that was, Henry just... fell off the grid. Neither of the Afton men could get into contact with him, and it was assumed that he had walked out on the Freddy's project altogether. Nearly two months had passed since then.

It wasn't like Mike could blame Henry for that, though. He had seen the toll that the loss of a child could take on a parent. He had seen it in his father.

The image of Mike's little brother Norman, waning in a hospital bed with his head wrapped in bloody gauze, haunted him to this day. He still remembered the shameful excuses he gave as the boy was wheeled off to the hospital, and his parents were notified that their youngest son had cracked his head open on a bed of rocks. Norman didn't have to bike on that treacherous trail. He didn't have to cave when Mike, all to eager to ride through it himself, egged him on and called him a baby. He certainly didn't have to do it without a helmet.

However, no amount of excuses kept the hum of the ECG from signaling Norman's end; they only dug a deeper hole for Mike to crawl out of. From then on, his parents were so cold that he feared frostbite every time they looked his way.

It was ironic that Henry went incommunicado, because for years, he was Mike's father's main source of companionship as he dove deeper into his work. Mike's mother obviously didn't appreciate this, because one day, without warning or explanation, he woke up to learn she had left the Afton house for good. It didn't take him long to deduce why he was excluded from this permanent getaway, but by that time, he was nearly old enough to strike out on his own. When the time came, strike out he did, hoping to eek out enough of a living to get himself through college and seek better prospects.

This was why he was surprised when his father called to offer him a place in his upcoming entertainment empire. This was why he braved the numbing routine of his training and was determined to be well-rested before he had to do the job for real. This was why he would make a concerted effort to, for once, make his dad proud.

This was why it was so heartbreaking to find out that his father was a murderer.

The string of reveals began after Mike drove to that lonely abode. As he exited his car and neared Henry's house, he was amazed to find himself in such a forested area. Granted, there was a forest near Freddy's Fantasy Park as well, but this felt far more secluded, far less manipulated by human hands. Hints of sunlight peeked through the trees, dewy blades of grass tickled his ankles, and the birds still tweeted their morning tunes. It would have been a tranquil scene, were it not undercut by anxiety about what was important enough for Henry to break his months-long silence over.

Mike soon came upon a clearing with a lonely house. The roof was a deeper green than the trees, and the siding was so pale a gray that Mike wondered if it used to be white. The house's only company was a tiny driveway caked with muddy tire-tracks, still fresh from the way they shone, and a wooden shed a few yards to the left. No fence or garden spruced up the place, and the only lawn ornament was a car so shabby it made Mike's used junker look like a Porsche in comparison.

Just as he was about to walk to the door and knock, Henry's voice rang out from just behind him.

"Hey, Mike," he greeted.

Mike jumped a bit, then slowly turned around to face the man. He had to admit, he was saddened by what he saw. His memories of Henry, sparse as they were, were of a man who glowed with exuberance and creative energy, but a grizzled, gray shell of that man stood before him. The only hint of Henry's old self was the warm smile that he showed to Mike, but even that was undermined by the gloomy look in his eyes.

"Hi, Mr. Emily," said Mike, trying not to let his pity show, "How have you been?"

"Oh, please," Henry gently rebuffed, "Call me Henry. You've known me for long enough."

That was only technically true, since Mike had rarely interacted with the man, but he was in no mood to argue.

"Anyways, I've been pretty busy lately. Yourself?"

"I've been fine," answered Mike, "Today's my last day before I start working at Freddy's. It's the first day off I've had since my training started. Father's probably busier than ever making sure everything's set up. You know how much of a perfectionist he is."

"Quite," Henry forced out a chuckle before his tone became grimmer, "Speaking of that place, and I'm sorry to cut the small talk short, there's something... serious you need to know before you check into work tomorrow."

Mike tensed up.

"Like what?" he dared to ask.

"Walk with me, and I'll show you," Henry instructed, gesturing to the shed.

Mike did as he was told, and when they neared the shed, he saw how pitiful of a condition it was in. Blotches of a foreign substance riddled the outer walls, and it looked like someone had punched a hole in the roof. Was Henry really working in here, and on what?

Henry held out a hand to stop Mike before walking into the shed on his own. He came back out with a stack of papers in hand, each one roughly as wide as his arm span. When he took a sheet from the top of the stack and held it up, Mike saw a series of outlines for the Freddy Fazbear animatronic. These, he realized, were blueprints.

"Where did you get those?" grilled Mike.

"I snuck into Will's house last night and took them from his workroom. Fortunately, he kept them in the exact same drawer as he did back when I worked with him," Henry admitted, without the usual smugness of an unrepentant thief.

Needless to say, Mike was taken aback.

"You could have gotten yourself arrested!" he shouted.

"Far worse would have been in store for me, I assure you," said Henry, "but I have a duty to keep what happened to my family from happening to anyone else."

Far worse would have been in store? A duty to protect others from his family's fate? What could he have possibly meant by that?

"Tell me, Mike, do you notice anything strange about Freddy's design?"

It took Mike a few seconds, but he was able to figure it out: "His stomach is too big."

Indeed, Freddy's endoskeleton and other internal devices would have had plenty of room if his potbelly was half as large. Freddy was always meant to be a portly character, but this was ridiculous, not to mention a waste of space and fabric.

"You see," Henry explained, "When William and I designed the Fazbear Four, we weren't just making robots that would perform on stage for a few minutes at a time. We wanted them to engage with the customers, to immerse them in the Freddy Fazbear experience. For instance, Bonnie would play with the kids on the playground, Chica would call out peoples' orders at the food court, and Foxy would sing sea shanties and tell stories to kids who got tired of the carnival games. Heck, we even wrote out an algorithm for Foxy to play hide and seek! As for Freddy, he would jump off the stage during birthday parties in the plaza, and run over to the birthday kid to give them a special Fazbear hug."

"That's why Freddy's stomach is so large. You were going to put cushioning in there to soften his hugs, weren't you?" presumed Mike.

"No," denied Henry, "but I'm getting there. Before we started building, Will thought up some features that I thought were brilliant at the time," he flipped through the blueprints, pointing out the relevant features as he went, "Bonnie got long arms to catch kids who fell off the playground equipment. Chica got a throwing mechanism to toss back items that ended up behind her curtains. Foxy got an alarm system connected to the games, in case anyone tried to break or steal them. Then, there was Freddy..."

Henry pulled out the next sheet, showing what looked to be a miniature Freddy. It's eyes were goofy, it's teeth blocky, and Mike could feel the softness of its paws from the drawing alone. If someone were to make a puppet of Freddy, he supposed this is what it would look like.

"This is what we called a 'Freddle', and the plan was to make three of them. Freddy's stomach would act as a storage compartment for them during the night, but during the day, they would keep the children safe. If a kid got lost, then the Freddles would find them and lead them back to their parents. We even mapped out a system of tunnels under the park, so they could get around the park quickly, and we would be able to instruct them from a control room under the stage. Sadly, William found a use for these ideas that I never could have imagined."

Henry flipped to the next blueprint, which would have been identical to the last if not for a few, striking details. For one, the Freddle's eyes no longer had a cartoonish charm, but instead were beady lights that burned into all who gazed back at them. Even worse, the blocky teeth and fuzzy paws were replaced with bone-crushing fangs and flesh-rinding claws. Mike could hardly believe his own eyes.

"It seems he came up with a few ideas while I was gone too," added Henry.

The man had one last blueprint to show Mike. This one didn't appear to be an animatronic character, although it could have been a part of one. This looked like a wearable rabbit head, the kind one might see on a walk-around mascot. Exactly two images of this head, from the same angle, were shown on the page. One showed a series of sharp, metallic parts, held back by a series of locks. The other showed those same metallic parts, having converged on each other once the locks had been released. A crude smiley face was drawn next to this image.

Mike gulped. The purpose of this device was clear.

Henry shed a single tear before continuing, "When I lost Charlie, I found myself wary of everyone, finding danger in everything. That included your father. I tried to push the suspicion out of my mind, tried to dismiss myself a man consumed by grief, making connections where they didn't exist. Then, last night, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to find out for myself, and I found out that I was right."

Mike was dumbfounded. Though he couldn't deny what he saw in the blueprints, he couldn't bring himself to think his father was capable of something so heinous.

"Henry... you can't really mean that."

"I do!" Henry snapped, gripping both of Mike's shoulders, "The control room, the tunnels, the inventions, they're all part of a scheme, one which will take the lives of countless children if it comes to fruition! I need your help to foil it!"

He let go of Mike and ran in and out of the shed, having switched out the blueprints for an index card and a lighter. Forcefully, he handed both to Mike.

"When you check into work tomorrow, get backstage as soon as possible. There's a hidden trapdoor there, next to a four-by-three rectangle of tiles. Step on the right tiles in the order that I have written on this notecard, and the trapdoor will open. Go down the stairs, bust into the control room, and do whatever it takes to stop your father! I would probably be dragged out by my heels if I were to step foot in that park, but you're William's son! Perhaps you could talk some sense into him, before it's too late! If you can't..." Henry indicated the lighter, "then burn the place down, if you must! I'd rather destroy our life's work than allow this madness to continue!"

Mike was at a complete loss for words.

"Please!" begged Henry, "Will you help me?!"

Mike struggled to decide. His father was hardly the nicest guy around, but to believe him a murderer was unfathomable. Still, the blueprints didn't lie. For whatever reason, his dad thought it best to give the Freddles five sets of bladed weapons, with an entire tunnel system to sneak around in. For whatever reason, his dad thought it best to turn a mascot head into a deathtrap. God knows what he might have done to the Fazbear Four.

Besides, if Mike snuck into the control room and found out Henry was wrong, then it would cost him his job at most. If he didn't, and Henry was right, then it would cost lives. He was hesitant to throw away his one chance to get his fathers pride, but was it really worth the alternative?

His thoughts once again turned to Norman, the suddenness of his death, and the rift that formed in his family afterwards.

No, it wasn't. Mike could replace his job, but no one can replace a lost loved one.

"Okay," agreed Mike, "I'll help you."

Henry gave a tearful smile, "Thank you. Now go, and do whatever you have to do to prepare yourself. I'm counting on you."

Mike, thankful for Henry's permission to leave, waved goodbye and set off for his apartment. Henry wiped his tears, waited a few minutes to make sure that Mike was gone, then stepped inside.

During the drive home, Mike heard a thunderous crack echo in the distance.

Someone must be setting off fireworks, he figured.

After a day of nervous lounging and a nearly-sleepless night, Mike checked into work as planned and braved the bustling crowds, looking for the perfect opportunity to sneak backstage. The Fazbear Four's disappearance, ominous as it was, gave him that opportunity.

Once Mike fumbled his way backstage, he pulled out his flashlight, issued to every employee by the company, and scanned the floor for the set of tiles Henry referred to. Sure enough, a rectangle of four tiles by three tiles, only slightly darker than the otherwise wooden-planked floor, showed themselves to him. He pulled out the index card for reference, and he stepped on the proper tiles in the proper order.

Row 1 - Column 2, Row 4 - Column 1, Row 3 - Column 3, Row 3 - Column 2

With a click and a scrape, the trapdoor opened, showing the way to a spiral staircase straight out of a medieval dungeon. The smell of mildew made him curl his nose as he tiptoed down the creaky stairs, unable to shake the feeling that someone or something was about to jump out at him. After what felt like five, stressful minutes of walking, he finally reached the bottom. An unlabeled, metal door blocked his path.

He was sure that he could go no further. The door looked too heavy to break down, and his father certainly would have locked it. Still, he would have to make sure. When he turned the knob and pushed his way through, the only resistance he met was the door's weight. With a deep breath, he turned off his flashlight to avoid detection and slipped into the control room.

The room itself had no proper lights; only the roaring static on the screens of four monitors, laid in a row on a basic, metal desk, gave any relief from the darkness. A row of three more monitors was stacked on top of the four, each showing what looked to be a flashlight shining through an endless tunnel. At the center of the display was the silhouette of a man, his fingers tapping away at an unseen keyboard.

When Mike took another step, the man stopped his typing on a dime and stood from his chair, turning around seamlessly as he did so. Mike couldn't make out the man's face, but he knew in his gut who he was, even before he started talking.

"Mike, I didn't expect to see you here," said William Afton, who spoke like he had been caught taking the last cookie from a cookie jar, "I thought that weak-minded Henry would have come here instead, but I guess he was too cowardly to face me himself."

"Is it true?" interrogated Mike, "Are you really going to use the animatronics to kill?"

William let out a hearty laugh, "Only by a certain definition of 'killing'. You see, my boy, my intention isn't mere mass murder. That's far too narrow a goal. No, I aim for something greater. I aim to break a handful of young souls out of their mortal shells, then give them the gift of new life — eternal life. Allow me to demonstrate."

Mike watched as his father picked up a kitchen knife from the desk with his left hand, and an oddly-sparkly Freddy Fazbear plush with his right.

"It looks like one of my guinea pigs won a Golden Freddy plush. Lucky girl," William sidetracked as he raised the knife to the toy.

In one swift motion, William sliced open the plush's belly and set the knife aside. In its place, he picked up a dripping human heart. He squeezed the heart into the teddy-bear, combining the sounds of squishing flesh and sifting fabric. Mike thought he was going to vomit. With a satisfied grin, William procured a needle and thread, and resumed talking while he stitched the toy up.

"With the Freddles under my control, I had three extra pairs of eyes to search the park for lucky volunteers. They... prepared my subjects and brought them to me through the tunnels, where they could transport them uninterrupted. Then, I removed their hearts and gave them new vessels. These little ones will soon awaken in bodies far better than their own, the perfect combination of the natural and the artificial, and they will have me to thank for it."

William gestured to his right, letting Mike know where the Fazbear Four had gotten off too. As still as mannequins, and with eyes just as blank, Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy stood side-by-side, each presumably with a child's heart resting inside of them.

"By the way, if you're wondering where the kids' bodies are, don't. I already disposed of those useless husks. Soon, they will be found and given their loved ones' last respects, such is my generosity."

William giggled like a mischievous child and kept sewing up the plushie.

"You want to know something funny? I only intended to take four hearts. After all, there are only four members of Freddy's band. Then, one of my Freddles saw the quaintest thing from under the dumpster by Bonnie's Rockin' Gym: a little girl in a yellow dress, reaching for her lost teddy-bear. I had the perfect opportunity to find out what happens when a toy is given life. It's delightful, the surprises life gives you."

With that, Mike finally accepted that his father had gone off the deep end. It was horrid enough that he would take lives just to satiate his curiosity, especially after knowing what it was to lose a child, but all this talk of the supernatural was pure, unadulterated madness. Sadly, Mike was too late to save the children, but he could still ensure that his father never took a life again. Henry had hoped he would reason with his dad, but Mike knew that a rougher approach was in order. He pulled out his lighter and held it over the animatronics.

"Michael, what do you think you're doing?" asked William, losing the smug air about him for the first time.

"I'm only going to tell you this once, Father," growled Mike, "You're going to come with me, confess to what you've done, and turn yourself in to the police. If you don't, I'll burn your little experiment to ashes."

William flashed a horrified grimace, only for it to morph into a toothy grin.

"Oh, is my boy playing the hero now?" he mocked, "Are you trying to save the day? News flash: you can't."

A metallic screech turned Mike to his right. Facing him was a Freddle, its head poking out of a tunnel's exit, and its teeth still dripping with the blood of its last victim. It lunged from the hole and sliced Mike's throat with a single swipe of a bloody claw. His blood became one with the child's blood, and his time left to live became dangerously short.

He clutched his neck and backed up to the wall before he tripped over his own feet. He fell backwards, smacking his head on the wall and jostling his hands from the gushing wound. The waterfall of blood could flow freely now. Mike felt warm and cold at the same time.

Visions of people faded in and out: himself years ago, his father cackling like a supervillain, Norman on the hospital bed, his father placing a rabbit's head over his own, his mother walking away, his father screaming his lungs out after a clang and a crunch, the dead children begging for their parents, and his father leaning up to the monitors and letting his own life fade away. Mike couldn't tell what was really in front of him from what wasn't, and soon, he couldn't tell anything at all.

Two nights later, he woke up on the brick pavement of Fazbear Plaza. Reflexively, he felt for his neck, only to find that the wound had closed. His neck was cold. He felt his pockets next, but his lighter and index card were gone. His flashlight was gone too, but somehow he had little trouble seeing his surroundings in the unlit park. He tried to stand up, and was shocked to find how easily it came to him. The only problem he had was the incessant buzzing in his head.

He tried to focus on something, anything other than the buzzing, but it grew so frustrating that he gave up and focused on the buzzing instead. After doing that for a bit, the buzzes grew clearer, and he realized that the buzzes were not buzzes at all. They were voices.

"Please, somebody get me out of here, I'm scared!"

"Where am I? Why am I so cold?"

"I just wanna go home! I just wanna walk my dog again!"

He didn't know where the voices were coming from, but he knew who they were coming from. These were the voices of the children his father had murdered, tied to this world by some sinister force.

Some voices were clearer than others, but one stood out as the clearest, the strongest. It was the voice of a little girl, and she repeated the same two phrases over and over again:

"Hey, I found your toy! Did you go get Mama, like I asked?"

It seemed that his father's paranormal experiment had succeeded. There were ghosts in the park, and they weren't happy to be there. Mike concurred with their displeasure. However, without any tools to speak of, he wasn't sure how he could help them. Then, another voice chimed in:

"Follow me..."

Mike knew that voice. It was deeper and more gravelly than before, but he would have recognized it if it was merely a whisper. It was his father, who somehow joined the chorus of phantom voices to add his own sinister tune.

"Follow me..." he repeated.

This time, the children began to listen.

"Who was that?"

"Follow you? Follow you where?"

"Why?"

The voice of William let out a demonic chuckle, sending chills down Mike's spine. He began to elaborate.

"Follow me... Follow my words... Follow my commands... You were taken before your time, by monsters from your nightmares... Now you are trapped in their world, but I can get you out... I can set you free... In exchange, you must do whatever I say... You must follow me..."

"No! Don't listen to him!" Mike screamed at the top of his lungs, but no one replied.

He didn't know what his father planned to make the children do, but no good could come of whatever it was. Mike had to get back to the control room, as quickly as he could. If he could reach his dad, finally put an end to him, then the children could at least have a peaceful existence in this park. It wasn't much, but it was far better than servitude to a remorseless killer.

With speed and strength he didn't know he had, he bolted to the stage and vaulted himself onto it. He threw the curtains open, only to find a pair of blue, sunken eyes glaring back at him.

That began the first of many encounters that would leave Mike beaten and broken, only for his body to put itself back together, starting the whole process over. Every night, he would wake up again, try to get below the stage again, and fail again. Occasionally, he would take a break to explore the park, and there would sometimes be pain waiting for him, but never death. He could not die, and he would not leave, so in the park he stayed.

All the while, the voices of the children would fade in and out of his head. He never could hear everything they said, only snippets and short phrases, but he knew that they all fell for his father's ruse — all except for the little girl, whose name he now knew was DiDi, who kept asking about her mother and a toy, over and over again.

For years, Mike's existence continued like this, until DiDi finally said something different, just before the park would have some unexpected visitors.

"Wait...is that you? It's not safe here! Run away!"

Closing Note

Well, that's all for this chapter!

Before I go, I just want to give you a word of warning. My next year of college is going to start next week, so expect updates to be slow from here on out. Don't worry though, I don't ever intend on leaving this story unfinished. I'm more than halfway to the finish, and it'd be a waste to stop now, even if I wanted to.

'Till next time!

- KromeDome97