Many, many years later…

Night Four:

Camera…

Window…

Nothing…

Ventilation Error…

Reboot All….

Play Sound…

Audio Error!

Reboot…

Reboot!

Hurry! He's getting closer!

Reboot Complete

"Hi!"

A little boy's voice echoed from a room far from the security office. Jack Stevenson pulled on the collar of his purple uniform and squinted as the screen as he clicked on the camera for the room where he had last seen the metallic monster.

Springtrap (as Jack had decided to name him after listening to some very annoyingly-voiced instruction tapes which informed him that the possessed animatronic that was stalking him was actually an ancient Spring-Suit) turned. His decrepit ears twitched and his greenish-yellow body slowly spun around, following the sound of the child's voice.

Jack was unnaturally fortunate that Springtrap was still restricted by his programming, at least to a degree. His servos locked up when six o'clock rolled around, and he was drawn to the sound of a child's voice, just like Phone Guy had said he would be.

Jack sighed in relief and checked all of his systems once more. Camera good, audio good, ventilation good. That was the most important part: the ventilation. If that one started to go awry he would start hallucinating. Visions of the old Fazbear and Friends characters would assault his senses, jumping right at his face and scaring him near to death. Of course, those visions couldn't actually hurt him, but the sound of his yelps and the sound of the warning alarms going off would certainly garner the attention of a certain Springtrap. And if that happened, he might as well stick his head out into the hallway and scream, "Yo! Springtrap! I'm over here, come rip my head off!"

Jack himself was still planning on ripping Douglas' head off when he got his hands on him. The 'dude' had bailed out just as everything started to go horribly wrong. He hadn't gotten a phone call from his 'buddy' since Springtrap had arrived at Fazbear's Fright (The Horror Attraction) and started hunting the actor/security guard/canary in a coal mine down. Perhaps Douglas had sensed that something was wrong with the animatronic they had managed to find and had (wisely) decided that his life wasn't worth minimum wage.

Maybe Jack was a fool for staying. Any smart person with an ounce of common sense and a lack of suicidal urges would have quit the instant the seven-foot robotic rabbit started creeping towards them, glaring through cameras, clearly furious.

But Jack came back. Twice. Not because he needed the job (he did, certainly, and getting a job in the current economy was a miracle in its own right, almost as much of a miracle as surviving to six), but because he needed to.

At first he had planned on quitting, but several factors stopped him. First of all, he didn't want this monster to break out. By acting as bait, he was sort of protecting the general populace. He didn't want this beast to get out and possibly hurt some innocent kid.

Second of all, calling the police on this would likely be rather pointless ("911, what is your emergency?" "There's a giant possessed robot bunny rabbit that's trying to kill me!" "All right, sir, we're sending over representatives from the Saint Mary's Mental Health Center. Please don't touch anything until they get there.")

And then there was the biggest reason: he needed to know what was going on.

His curiosity had become unbearable ever since the first night that Springtrap had started stalking him. The beastly bunny had ended up right outside his door, and he had been face to face with the monster for almost five whole minutes, his heart pounding as he waited for it to pounce.

But it had just stared at Jack, likely waiting for him to look away before it jumped. Jack was lucky that it had been five fifty-five when Springtrap decided to peek in. Otherwise he would probably be one dead night guard by now.

But while he had been gawking at the abomination, he had noticed several things.

At first he had thought that those old stories about faulty programming and animatronics mistaking guards for endoskeletons were true, but then he had looked into Springtrap's eyes. Although they were florescent and robotic eyes, there was an obvious spark of life in there, and it was an angry spark of life. Springtrap wasn't just a machine that was dispassionately performing the will of its programming: it was really alive, and for some reason it was pissed.

Not only that. When Jack had allowed his eyes to scan the rest of Springtrap's worn-down body he had spotted what he could swear to be rusty-red bloodstains and organs peeking out of the ancient animatronic. How Douglas and his little excavation squad had missed that was anyone's guess, but either way Jack was convinced that someone was inside Springtrap, very dead and very mad.

It was then that Jack started to recall old urban legends about dead children's spirits wandering the halls of Freddy Fazbear's when the clock struck midnight and old crime reports about a murderer wreaking havoc at the family restaurant. After seeing Springtrap up close, Jack started to suspect that those legends weren't just scary stories made up by children and superstitions spread by adults.

So he stayed, hoping beyond hope that something would happen, that perhaps one of the phantoms would stop scaring him and would instead speak to him. Tell him everything that had happened, why all of this was going on, and how he could stop it.

But so far, nothing.

He growled in aggravation and began to seriously consider walking right up to Springtrap and demanding answers. Sure, the rabbit would probably eat him before it politely conversed, but at least he wouldn't be doing nothing.

"Come on!" he called out, though he knew that making any noise was dangerous. "Give me something to work with here! I'll try and help if I can, but give me something!"

There was only silence.

Huffing, Jack shook his head and went back to his pattern.

Reboot All….

Window…

Camera…

Thanks to everyone who's reading and reviewing and favorting and following. And if you're not….what are you waiting for? Tell me your thoughts!

And just to be clear: this story is being told a bit out of order. All shall be explained…

Also, remember: this is a sequel to The Favorite. Please go read that one if you haven't already! You'll enjoy it, promise :)