A/N: Hey guys, hope you had a great week! But if you're like me and you also had to spend hours studying for those dreaded finals... then that's probably not the case. So forgive me if this chap feels a bit short compared to last week's exceptionally long one.

Also, it's Mother's Day! I know that it's pretty unlikely that any mother might be into this story, but still: A big applause to any mom that might be reading this for loving the ordeal they have to endure for so many years: us.

Finally your reviews, as always, made my week. I loved your reactions to last week's chap! Don't worry: a bit of cliffhanging every once in a while is a pretty good arm exercise. And yes, I love a good dark tale. And yes, stuff's about to go down for our friends. And now that you know that, happy reading...

Chapter 9: Haunting laughs

The white light coming from the ceiling lamps above me stung my eyes as I woke up to the sound of a beeping alarm, feeling strangely tired. I slowly stretched my arms to start up my locked servos, only to find out that they were all running smoothly. Weird, since I had slept in the backstage room through the whole night. But when I turned my head around I realized that I was in the arcades.

I pushed myself up on my feet and looked around the room; there were no signs of any of my friends. The clock on the wall said it was 6:05 AM, meaning that the place would open in less than two hours. Confused, but not afraid, I walked towards the door to the dining area. I was about to the exit the room when I saw a familiar yellow figure crouching in a dark corner, looking absolutely terrified of something.

"What's wrong Jack?" I asked, walking to him. Jack's eyes met mine, stopping me in my tracks. He was terrified of me.

"Jack?" I said as soothingly as possible as I got closer, "Are you o-"

"P-Please… d-don't hurt me…" he cried, his voice was drenched in fear. "I don't wanna play… I don't wanna play…" He traced X's on the tiled floor with so much force it left a faint yellow mark.

I tried to laugh it off jokingly. "What are you talking about buddy? I would never hurt you."

"I t-thought you were g-good…" he sobbed, "B-But I heard you l-laughing s-so hard at him."

I began to worry a bit; did he have a nightmare? "Okay, who was I laughing at?"

He looked up at me like I was a stranger. "The f-four of you were all l-laughing at the m-man… t-the guard… he had so much p-pain." Jack's voice suddenly went up to a high-pitched whimper, "He was c-crawling, begging you t-to stop… there was so much b-blood coming out of h-his belly… so m-much blood on the f-f-floor…"

Jack covered his face with his hands and shook his head, "B-But you… j-j-just laughed! And y-you said t-to the red one that i-it was unf-fair because h-he was there first, a-and then the b-brown one said that they got there late b-because of you, and t-then…"

I let him cry it out for a moment, being sure that it was all a bad dream of his. "Then y-you saw m-me on the stage, and t-told me to come play w-with you, and you k-kept on t-telling me how f-fun it all was…"

Little by little I saw it in front of me once again. The blood, the fear in the guard's face and Jack's eyes, and how I laughed at it like it was the funniest thing in the world. I shook my head in disbelieve. How was it possible that he wasn't taken over by the same… thing that took over us?

"You kept on c-calling me with a weird n-name," he continued, "y-you said t-that I was being r-rude because I d-d-didn't play along w-with you… and you said that I w-was going to be s-sorry if I didn't s-stop being so rude."

I felt something cold run through me as I saw myself storming to the stage with balled fists while Jack stumbled backwards.

"And I got s-scared so I started to run away f-from you, and you r-ran after me, a-and you started to y-yell at m-me, saying that if I d-didn't behave and didn't p-play along you wouldn't be my f-friend anymore."

I leaned against an arcade machine as I started to feel sick. I said that, and I meant every word of it.

"And I ran in h-here, a-and you came in b-behind me. And I ran into a c-corner, and…"

A wave of disgust came to me as the image of what happened next played in my mind. "Please stop Jack." I begged, "I don't want to hear anymore."

"You g-grabbed me." said Jack with sudden calmness, "And y-you threw me t-to the floor… and you called me a lame c-coward…"

"Please." I whimpered. "Please, please stop Jack."

"You s-said I was useless."

"No, I didn't! I never did!"

"You s-said I was broken… that the world would b-be better without m-me."

"I didn't want to say it! Believe me!"

"You said t-that if I didn't start p-playing, you would s-smash me to bits…"

"Stop… please…"

"…until I l-looked like the p-pile of t-trash that I was."

"I'm begging you."

"That y-you were never my friend, and t-that everything you said was a l-lie."

"You're my friend Jack, that's the truth; I promise."

"YOUR PROMISES ARE ALL LIES!"

The two white pinpoints in his eyes started to shine so brightly that I couldn't look at them; there was no longer any fear in them, only anger. I took some steps back, unable to believe the amount of light that came from those two tiny dots.

"I don't wanna play." he whispered coldly as he looked down, his eyes slowly starting to fade back to dim pinpoints.

"Neither do I," I replied quickly, "that wasn't me last night, that was…"

"I mean, I d-don't want to p-play with you again."

Something in the way he said these words hit me like a freight train. No; I couldn't lose him. I would not lose him.

"Doing stupid things," I whispered with a broken voice, "doesn't make us stupid; it makes us human. I'm human Jack!"

"N-No." he said flatly. "You're a monster."

I looked into his eyes one last time, hoping to see at least some of the happiness and friendliness that I had taken for granted for these past three week. There was none of that left; only resentment. I stood up silently, knowing that there was no way to prove him wrong. As I walked out of the room I heard my own laughs from last night echoing in my head, mocking me cruelly. I didn't care. I deserved it. I broke my promise yet again. I failed to protect Jack from the worst monster of all.

Me.

The blood trail started at the open door of the security office. It zigzagged around some tables of the main dining area before making a sharp turn towards the show stage. I followed it while little by little all the horrible things that we did last night came back to me. The burning in my chest, followed by a strange cold. Us telling Ferny, no, Foxy that he won only because he was closer to the office, while we triumphantly dragged the bleeding guard around the floor. A curved silver and red flash entering the stomach of the man while we laughed at his pain. And all the things I did to Jack before I suddenly collapsed on the floor, unconscious, as an alarm started beeping.

And yet I... enjoyed it. I wanted to do everything that I did. I wanted to kill, to hurt… it all felt so… liberating… maybe we should do it again…

"What's wrong with me?" I muttered angrily as I shook my head, trying to get the nagging thought out of my mind. I stopped walking and raised my open hands, taking a good look at them before letting them fall down again. I'd find a way to fix things with Jack, somehow. But first I had to find the rest of my friends.

I climbed up the show stage, pushed away the curtain and followed the blood trail to the backstage room where it became much thinner; the poor man must've bled out by then. I hastily opened the door to the hallway and stormed into the maintenance room where the trail ended.

A couple of human eyes hanging from the bloody eye sockets of the backup Freddy suit greeted me as I entered the room, immediately making me wince back in disgust. I looked at a corner that was littered with small screw and bolts to see Ferny, Sarah and my brother sitting limply close to each other.

"I…" whimpered Ferny while slowly turning his head to me, letting me see his sad and pained eyes, "I… killed him Brandon." He covered his eyes with his hand; his muzzle and hook were covered in dried blood.

"No, you didn't Fer." whispered my brother softly. "He made us do this."

Sarah tried to throw an arm around Ferny's trembling shoulders, but he shuffled away. Looking at what became of the night guard and my friends I felt something come over me, something I'd never felt before. It was the first time I had felt so much hate towards someone.

"That monster…" I growled as I clenched my hydraulic fists, "that coward… we will get him for this!"

"Brandon," whispered Sarah nervously, "please don't say that out loud."

I looked down at her, surprised by her scared tone. "Why shouldn't I?" I asked harshly.

Everyone's gazes seemed to go through me as I heard some quick footsteps become louder and louder behind me. I slowly turned around, barely catching a glimpse of a tall purple figure with a red-glowing chest standing at the door before losing all strength in my legs. Once again, I collapsed to the floor, my legs burning with an unnatural pain.

"Because I'm right here Bonnie!" called out our killer happily as he entered the room and closed the door, holding the red book in his hand.

He admired the stuffed suit while smiling and nodding perversely. I managed to crawl to where my friends were, but my legs felt too weak even to try to sit. That horrible handicapped feeling I felt three weeks ago came to me again, but this time it was much stronger. Meanwhile the man cleared some spare parts from a table before sitting on it and crossing his legs, putting the book on his side. He started to clap slowly as he grinned proudly at us.

"Very good guys!" he said approvingly, "You all played very well last night. Some of you were a bit rough on your teammates tough." I looked away in guilt as his gaze fell on me. How did he know?

"But don't worry!" he continued, "even though the first point goes to Foxy, you're all winners to me!" He clapped a few times while smiling cheerily at us before Ferny broke down again, sobbing pitifully.

"Aww, come on!" growled our killer with sudden frustration, "Look at you Foxy, whining like a baby that broke his favorite toy." He traced some vertical lines under his eyes with his finger. "Boo-hoo! Why did this happen!" he mocked childishly, "Boo-hoo! It was not my fault!"

"Shut up." hissed Sarah, "You killed that man, not Ferny."

The man let out a hollow chuckle. "Oh, please! Don't tell me you're all angels Chica; you loved it." He got off the table and walked up to where we were sitting as he pointed at us one by one. "Every. Single. One of you did. You thought I was controlling your minds? That I got some kind of evil into you? Please… everything was already there. I just set it free."

His chuckle turned into another twisted grin as he started to calmly walk around the room, holding his chin. "There is evil lurking inside each of us, longing to be come out. Day by day, we go on smiling and waving at people whilst trying to contain our true selves. Who hasn't ever cooked with his mother, held the kitchen knife, and suddenly thought about stabbing her? Who hasn't ever stood with a friend on the rail of a tall building, and suddenly thought about pushing him off?"

He turned back to us, looking like he expected an answer. He sighed when he didn't get it. "These are all fleeting images and ideas that come to us, but that we dismiss as ridiculous and forget about or lock away. And all that's needed for that liberation, for our monstrous but real nature to break free and grow into a magnificent fire, is a tiny spark that was generously provided last night. At first, you will be yourselves only when there is a security guard between midnight and 6:00 AM; but eventually it will begin earlier and end later. Just like a snowball rolling down a hill your true and evil side will keep growing unstoppably, until it completely takes over that fake sense of humanity you so stupidly hold on to. And one happy day, you will discover and learn to enjoy the delight that's killing without remorse; then we will be the best of friends without the tiniest of differences between us!"

"Listen to me you freak," growled my brother with sudden sharpness, "No matter what you do to us, we will never be like you.

The man laughed back at this. "Freddy, don't you remember what I told you a few weeks ago?"

He unbuttoned his purple security guard jacket and pulled the neck of his t-shirt down, letting us see a familiar red figure tattooed on the part of his chest that always glowed whenever he paralyzed our bodies. Baffled, we looked on at his seal that was just like ours, only there was something like a star on the bottom left corner of the triangle.

"You are more like me than you think!" he chirped happily.

A/N: Yes, your favorite character is back!

Spotted an error? Is something not clear? Please let me know with a PM. As always, there will be a new chapter next week Sunday at 10:00 PM GMT... hopefully. Have a good week guys and see you later!