Warning: This story contains Blood and Gore, Violence, Dark Themes including (but not limited to) Suicide and Murder, Drugs and Alcohol, Reference to PTSD, and Coarse Language.
This story is not connected to any others I have uploaded on this site. However if you do enjoy this story, I encourage you to check out my other work.
Disclaimer: I do not own Five Nights at Freddy's, which belongs to Scott Cawthon. The characters of Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie the Bunny, Chica the Chicken, Foxy the Pirate Fox, Mike Schmidt, Phone Guy and William Afton, as well as Fazbear Entertainment and Freddy Fazbear's Pizza all belong to him. Any reference to real persons or events is purely coincidental.
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This chapter is just a quick intermission between Night 1 and Night 2. The animatronics are way more aggressive than they are in the games, mostly for lore purposes. Just thought I should throw that out there. And yeah, because AU. Night 2 should be out in a few days :) Enjoy!
Chapter 3
The Third Song
The first time Rachel flown, it had only been 3 years since the crash. By then, she already had 4 rules that applied to her life.
1. The only true pain is in the mind.
2. Everything is painful in some way.
3. Everyone deserves to die for something.
4. Everyone dies eventually.
Rachel's life for the past 3 years had consisted mostly of sitting in her room and listening to the music box. If she wasn't listening to the music box, it meant she was either out, eating, or sleeping. Miss Marr from the orphanage thought that it was an unhealthy lifestyle, but it wasn't as if Rachel cared. Her grades were straight A's, even if she had no friends at school; in fact, she had no friends at all. After her parents, she'd been scared to grow close with another person. They had only died because she was in the car. And she had no doubt that she would meet the Purple Man again one day.
So she became the quiet, solitary kid, who sat in the corner, reading a book. It was in all of this time where she sat alone, reading or thinking, that the rules had slowly arrived, one by one. Rachel had lived by those rules every day, looking at the people she thought she had known with new eyes, instead seeing something else. Nice people became monsters, and bullies became crying children. But she had no one to look at her, and tell her what she was. And knowing what she knew, that was no way to live.
It was why Rachel was on the roof that day. It was a tall building; one of the tallest in the city. She didn't stand at the edge, and she didn't intend to. She intended to run. The music box was on the ground, the notes of My Grandfather Clock chiming, and the ballerina spinning. She hadn't heard Pop Goes the Weasel since the day of the crash, though she was pretty sure it would start playing any moment now.
Gently, Rachel stood, leaving the music box to chime away merrily. She didn't feel nervous; she'd accepted that there was nothing left for her in this world. She didn't believe in an afterlife either; she was pretty sure that when you died, so did your mind. But she was willing to believe that not being able to think was better than a terrible life.
So taking a running start, Rachel jumped. She'd closed her eyes as she hurtled down, waiting to hit the road below her. It should have felt okay. Maybe even relaxing. But the drop felt like forever. Slightly annoyed, Rachel opened her eyes, and screamed as she saw the road below her. She wasn't falling; in fact, she was still at the same height she'd been at when she'd jumped off the building.
It was only when she looked behind her that she saw the wings. They were huge, each one easily larger than her body. They looked like an angel's wings, with white feathers, giving off a sort of warm glow. Rachel hadn't realised they'd been flapping for her this whole time. Earlier she had wanted to jump. Earlier she had wanted to end it all. But now…now she was just fascinated.
She let the wings carry her back to the roof, where they then retracted into her back. The music box was in exactly the same place that she'd left it. But it didn't play My Grandfather Clock. Nor did it play Pop Goes the Weasel. Instead there was new tune playing from the box, though it took a few seconds for Rachel to realise what it was.
"Swan Lake." She muttered as the tinkling chimes sounded. "Just how many songs have you got, huh?" She picked up the music box, dusting it off and closing it before taking the elevator to the ground floor. She didn't realise how many people had seen her. And she didn't see the newspaper claiming that there was now proof of angels and Heaven. Rachel didn't read the news. Same old story, after all. Everyone dies eventually.
xXx
Rachel splashed the cold water onto her face, looking up into the grimy mirror in front of her. Mike hadn't appeared to tell her to wake up, and she was starting to wonder where he'd gone. Was he back in his office? That was most likely. She had some trouble thinking of another place the manager would be, other than…well, the Manager's Office.
When she'd woken up, it had been because she'd heard something break. Rachel had instantly tumbled out of the chair, followed by a stream of colourful curses which definitely didn't belong in a children's pizzeria. But there were no kids around the Office, so at that moment she was hardly worried about being fired.
But hell, she was tired, even after her 8 hour sleep. Plus, she was pissed after finding out the animatronics wanted to kill her. What was even worse was how Mike hadn't told her about their behaviour, and that was when her mind was really blown. Why hadn't he said anything about it? The animatronics wanting to kill you was a pretty big piece of information to leave out of the contract.
Suddenly, Rachel's stomach twisted as she remembered there hadn't been a contract. Was that why Mike had been so willing to hire her, after those three simple questions? Because people didn't usually last long on this job? Because human life was disposable to him? If that was so, then hiring people without telling them about possible death was his case of Rule 3.
Straightening herself and drying her face with one of the bathroom's paper towels, Rachel set off for the Manager's Office. When she entered the Dining Room, the eyes of the animatronics instantly all rolled towards her. They didn't stop performing, but they didn't take their eyes off her for the next ten seconds. A few of the parents began murmuring about the 'poor quality' of the robots, and instantly their eyes shifted to them. Rachel used that opportunity to knock on Mike's door, almost falling over to get into the room.
"Someone's in a hurry." Her boss said in a snarky tone, from the safety of his desk. She hissed in annoyance, her bones still aching from last night. "Did they stare at you?" He asked, grinning like an idiot. "They did that to me too. Did it to everyone before me." Rachel stared at Mike, realisation settling over her.
"You took the shift too?" She asked, disbelief evident in her tone. He chuckled a little, putting his hands together.
"I did. I finished my week a few months ago." He wiggled his thumbs, looking at her curiously. "How was your first night?" He asked as she sat down. "It was…well." Rachel thought back to the previous night, and shuddered. "I don't think that kind of experience can be described with words."
Mike nodded sympathetically, looking into space.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the animatronics. I would have, but…" He shrugged his shoulders and took a sip from a soda pop on his desk. "I don't own this company, and I don't make the rules. That privilege is for Mr Fazbear himself. I just enforce them, a beast of burden like everyone else working in this godforsaken place." He sighed as she frowned at him.
"Why do you even work here, then?" She asked, as she tried to put together the information he had given her. "You're telling me this job doesn't…bother you? Seeing those…things, up there on the stage, it doesn't make you shudder?"
Mike laughed at her expression, then turned serious.
"I still get nightmares. Every day, I walk through that door," He pointed through the wall towards the front door. "And I see those monsters standing on the stage. And they see me. I don't even think they know who I am, I don't know if they even remember my face. But damn, they make it clear who's in charge of this place."
Rachel looked back at the door behind her, and he held up his hand.
"It's alright. This place is soundproofed." She nodded, though her expression told another story. "I still see them as murderers. Whenever some poor soul walks into my office to sign up for an ad they saw in the paper, it kills me. Because I can't do anything to stop them from signing up, or else, I," He pointed at his chest. "I…I die instead." A terrible image filled her mind, of Freddy somehow hearing Mike's conversation with a new guard, running into the room, and tearing his head off, his blood splattering all over the room, and his vital organs hitting the ground like marbles.
"And when the shift comes, they walk into the Office, 12 am strikes, and the damn recording starts to play. Some of them believed it, some of them didn't, but the one thing they all had in common was simple," He said, motioning towards the door of his office. "They hide, they stay inside, they slam the doors, and they pray to God to survive." Mike leaned forward, his expression one of great curiosity. "And that's why you interest me so damn much."
Something about his voice put Rachel off. It was so…smooth. Like he'd practiced this speech for 2 years in front of a mirror.
"In all of this company's history, not a single night guard has ever, ever, left the Office as a strategy of survival." Then she noticed his right index finger, pointed directly at her. "That is, until you arrived." There was a sudden shift of atmosphere in the room, as if it wasn't her boss sitting in front of her, but someone else. Someone like the Purple Man.
"I've seen so many people die. Young, old, in between, it doesn't matter. But none of them made it past their first night. None of them thought about unplugging the stupid fan in order to preserve power. And absolutely none of them left the safety of those two metal doors." Mike frowned, leaning back again as Rachel shuddered, wondering what the point of this conversation really was. "Bonnie had your Power drained by 12:27, and Chica broke through your window and managed to raise the door all on her own. By all previous accounts, you should be dead. You should have been killed and stuffed in a suit only a few minutes after the Power went out. But instead, you survived. And you're not even sitting in a hospital bed, with 83 broken bones and a serious case of brain damage. In fact, the only injury you suffered from last night is that cut on you cheek."
Rachel thought about that moment, flinching as she remembered the feeling of pain rippling through her cheek.
True pain is only in the mind.
"When the power went out, there was no more footage for me to see. No more images to show me what happened last night. But the audio…that's always recording, even when the Power goes out. So I heard the scuffle in the Dining Area." She gulped nervously, wondering if this was good or bad news, that Mike knew about what she'd done. "You…you fought them. You fought back against those creatures, those demons of steel, and somehow, just somehow, you came out on top. Somehow, you won. Somehow, you cut of that stupid chicken's feet, and locked that demonic bunny into a closet for the rest of the night. Somehow, you survived the night."
When she saw Mike's eyes, she could he was taking this extremely seriously. His back was hunched over, his hands were put together, and his eyebrows were furrowed.
"You are the only night guard, in all of the history of Fazbear Entertainment, who's fought back against those monsters. The only one. You showed me something, when I saw you in the Office this morning. Hope. The feeling of hope upon seeing that someone had survived their first night, that they could maybe, with just enough luck, pull of the feat that only a few could do. Only 25 night guards have ever made it past their first night. 15 made it past the second, 12 completed their third, and only 3, including myself, have survived till the end of the week. Only 3 night guards have survived this game, their own 'Five Nights at Freddy's'." He gave her an honest smile as he continued. "And I reckon you could be the fourth."
Rachel put her hand over her mouth, clutching her head as she thought about what he had just said. He genuinely thought that she could survive. He really thought so. She looked up at him, just staring at her and smiling.
"Do you know what this means?" Mike asked her, and she shook her head as he threw her something. "What it means, is that you're getting promoted." She gasped in shock as she looked at what he'd thrown at her. It was a black cap, with a Fazbear Entertainment logo printed on the front. On the back were the words 'Head of Security'.
"You've got to be joking." Rachel muttered, as she held the cap in her hands. Mike shook his head, grinning knowingly.
"No joke. I'm promoting you. Your tablet has access to the entire Security System. You can modify it as you see fit. The animatronics will see you as a regular member of staff during the day, if you decide to wear the cap. It's got a little chip, on the inside of the logo." He told her. "And if you really manage to get through this week? You're getting a good three thousand at the end of it all, plus an extra fifty per hour of overtime."
She place the cap on her head, grinning as she did so.
"Thanks, Mike. I won't disappoint you." He nodded, and she rose from her seat, walking over to the door. Suddenly, her hand froze when it touched the door handle.
"Just tell me one thing. Why isn't there already a Head of Security?"
"Because there was no one after me." An unsettling silence came over the room, before Rachel broke it by exiting the room. Mike stared after her, his thoughts currently going over the odds of her surviving the night. He took out his phone like last time, and called the same number he had the last time. Once again it took a while for them to pick up, but he wasn't bothered by it.
"Don't worry about it." He said before the receiver could speak. "She's definitely going to keep the job."
xXx
Rachel waltzed out of the room, grinning when the animatronics didn't seem to see her. She chuckled happily, not thinking about what was going to happen tonight, not thinking about whether any new problems could possibly surface. And definitely not thinking about Pirate's Cove.
As soon as the front door closed behind her, something started tapping against wooden floorboards, over and over again. Someone began to sing a tune from behind the purple curtains, a grin on their face as they tapped along to the rhythm.
"De-de-dum-dum-dum-dom-diddly-dom-dom-dom-diddly-dom, dum-dum-diddly-dum-dum-dum-dum-diddly-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum." The thing behind the curtains chuckled as they bared their teeth, their eyes glowing a bright piercing silver. "Aye, this night'll be a good one for old Foxy." He tilted his head back and laughed, though his rusted voice box made it sound more like a small shriek.
As the music continued to play on the stage however, no one heard the laughs or his mindless singing. Not even the sound of him sharpening his hook.
