Chapter 11: Hunted

Damien fell back out of his chair in surprise and sudden fear. The robot rabbit moved again, turning its head to look out the door of the room it was in.

The robot was alive! But how?! Was it programmed to do this? Was it supposed to walk between these rooms, and follow people around to scare them? That had to be it, right?!

Damien pulled himself back onto his chair. Maybe he should call somebody... He didn't want to bother his boss with something that was probably so trivial, and the old phone he had been given didn't have a redial option to call Phone Dude. He could call his parents, or a friend, but they would probably think he was crazy. Not that he could blame them.

His parents had been happy to see him excited about this job... he couldn't let them down by quitting now, especially not over what was probably just a robot doing its job and following its programming. It was spooky, but it wasn't like he was in danger of any kind, right?

Glancing back at the cameras, Damien realized the robot had left the room he was looking at. He switched the cameras again. Now Spring Bonnie was in a room uncomfortably close to him, staring at the camera again.

Maybe it wasn't a threat at all, but Damien still felt threatened. There had to be a way that he could keep the robot on the other side of the building, and away from him.

That was when he noticed an icon on the bottom corner of each camera. It was a little speaker icon, but there was no speakers on his end. The cameras didn't pick up sound, at least not to his knowledge. He clicked the icon, and a child's laugh played in a hallway perpendicular to the one right outside his office. He heard a few loud, low thuds, like the footprints of something heavy, and Spring Bonnie appeared on the camera to the hallway, staring at it, head tilted.

The sound. Spring Bonnie followed the sound. But now the robot was much closer to Damien's office. If it moved down the hallway, surely it would see inside the glass. Damien glanced to his left, where the door to the office was. It didn't lock. It didn't even latch. It was a swinging door that wouldn't hold back a light breeze, let alone a six or seven foot tall machine that only needed to close it's teeth around his head once-

Damien shook away the thought. It was just a robot. it wasn't actively trying to find him or hurt him, even though he felt like he was being hunted. No, it was only an animatronic. In fact, it's original purpose was to entertain kids at birthday parties! It probably wasn't even capable of hurting him.

But it was still uncomfortably close. Surely it wouldn't hurt to keep the thing far away from his office. Damien chose a room on the other end of the hallway Spring Bonnie was in and pressed the speaker button. He couldn't hear the child's laugh, but he knew Spring Bonnie could. He watched the robot react to the sound and lumber on down the hallway.

This would be fine. Something to keep himself busy. To keep his mind from wandering.

Damien let out a breath, when he heard a rattling sound from the vents, like something heavy was climbing inside. Curious, he checked the camera, only to see Spring Bonnie crawl its way into a vent.

Now it was time to panic. The cameras had a second layer, where he could look at the vents. He hadn't known why that would be necessary at all, but now he was grateful for it, as he watched a robot that nightmares were made of slither through the vent directly towards his office. Damien started mashing buttons in a blind panic, when he heard a door slide shut, and watched Spring Bonnie crawl directly into the new metal door that was closed in the vent.

Why there was even the possibility to close a door inside the vent, Damien didn't know. The way the vents were even laid out was stressful. Who had made this building? Why? Was his entire life leading up to this, that some sicko would make this building strictly to trap him in it, being hunted down by a bloodthirsty robot version of his missing twin's favourite childhood character, as his own death stared at him through cameras in the form of the hollow shell of Fredbear, a beloved friend that had quickly turned deadly in a matter of just five minutes and one traumatizing birthday party-

Damien forced himself out of his own thoughts. He couldn't panic. If Spring Bonnie really did want to hurt him, which it surely didn't, then he had to keep his wits about him. A panic attack could give the twisted yellow creature time to find him. He had to stay calm, he couldn't panic.

As he looked back at the camera, Spring Bonnie was climbing out of the vent. It looked at the camera, and almost looked... annoyed? Could emotion even appear on its face? Surely not. He was seeing things. Maybe Spring Bonnie wasn't even real at all, just a figment of his imagination, like the nightmares from years ago...

Real or not, it didn't matter. It never mattered. He would keep it away to keep his peace of mind, or what little of it he had.

"I'm not scared of you." He muttered to himself, watching Spring Bonnie. The way it stared back almost felt like it had heard him. Was there an intercom system through the cameras he didn't know about? No, there would be a microphone somewhere if there was.

As the night wore on, Damien noticed a few things about Spring Bonnie. It couldn't hear the child laughter from two rooms away. It crawled into any vent it could see at any moment that wasn't closed. And it felt more and more alive as 6 am drew closer and closer. Damien hated how real it was starting to look. How it was almost human. Maybe he was sleep deprived, or maybe his grief and trauma were finally driving him insane.

"I'm probably going crazy." Damien sighed, yawning, as the morning shift worker pulled up to the building to relieve him for the day. Spring Bonnie had been relatively well-behaved the rest of the night, making Damien wonder if there ever had been any real danger at all.