hope you guys are having a good tuesday! :D

Freddy's had started as a place meant to provoke happiness and imagination. And for its first few years, it accomplished that. For so many children, it was the refuge they wanted, be it from home, school, their loneliness, or the parts of their lives that were otherwise so dreary. Even Michael remembered those times. Before his jealousy took hold of him, he remembered the magic of Freddy's.

He remembered Henry and his father performing as their signature characters and how they somehow brought those suits to life.

He remembered helping around the first diner and delivering meals with his mother when Henry and William were too busy to come home and eat.

He remembered how much Freddy's felt like a second home.

So, it almost felt wrong to be wiring the fire starter that would burn down the place where it all began. But no matter what it once held, it had rotted from the inside out and there was nothing left to salvage. And there never would be.

Michael frowned, fixing the last fire rope to the detonator. Everything was going to start here, right outside Parts & Service... as soon as Henry gave the word, they'd leave the restaurant and a timer would ignite the rope. If all went accordingly, the fire would engulf the building in a matter of minutes, destroying the animatronics still left inside... and this tragedy would finally be over. All of it.

He sighed, straightening to his feet with hands on his waist as he observed his work.

"How is it?" Henry asked, suddenly coming up behind him.

The boy glanced at him before looking back at the ground. "All looks good. Should work out well. What about you?"

Henry reached for something in his pocket and handed a radio to Michael. "I think my part is ready. I'll come in at eight-o-clock tonight."

He nodded slowly as he took it, gaze unfocused.

"Are you alright?" Henry questioned quietly, noticing his change in demeanor.

Michael nodded again. "I just... had a dream about that kid again..." he murmured curiously to himself, not looking at anything in particular as he toyed with the radio in his hands. The man's brow furrowed.

"What kid?" he prodded.

Michael thought back. "That one I saw in this room our first day," he elaborated. "The one I saw... when my dad and I were here," he continued, eyes unmoving as Henry came to stand beside him as if trying to see what he saw. "Have you figured out where you know him from?" He asked hesitantly.

The boy shook his head. "I know I've seen him somewhere, I just can't put my finger on it. But I had a dream about him last night... he didn't say anything. He was just looking at me, like... like I did something wrong."

Though he couldn't imagine what that something might be, it was undoubtable that that was how the child felt. His glare was so full of hatred that his emerald eyes seemed to pierce whomever he was looking at. It was a strange kind of dream because Michael realized that when he'd woken up that morning, he could still distinctly remember what he had looked like.

The same black curls that hung around his face... the freckles spattering his delicate skin. A little scar over his cheekbone and dark lashes like that of a doe.

But most of all, he remembered his twisted frown and those vengeful eyes which bore so deeply into his own.

It was the child he'd seen that night, and later when they'd first arrived. But perhaps more sealing for him than his appearance was that it radiated the same anger that filled Parts & Service when Michael had come to rescue Charlie. It was hateful, unrelenting vengeance.

"Have you still been having these... visions?" Henry questioned, breaking the boy's thoughts.

He nodded. "They've been more frequent, actually," he answered quietly. And they had. It was unnerving seeing shadows of things that weren't there, or hearing things that hadn't been said. And he really did wonder if he was going mad... all he could do was hope that whatever happened tonight would end them. And even if it didn't, he would have accomplished what he set out to do.

"Do they worry you?" Henry prodded further. Michael shook his head.

"No... and if I wasn't having them, I would never have known that Elizabeth was haunting Baby and we might not even be here. It's just information, wherever it's coming from," he spoke, sliding the radio into his jacket pocket. "But anyway- is everything ready to go?"

The man nodded, and as if on cue, Laura rounded the corner, hailing them with a wave. "Dana just got the last party started," she informed, coming to stand next to them.

And indeed, Michael could hear carnival music playing from the dining room and imagined that their cheaply acquired animatronics were performing for another crowd of children.

"I guess it's not quite the last party," he spoke, putting one hand in his pocket. "There's just one more tonight."

"The last one this place will ever have," Henry murmured.

Michael looked ahead to the party rooms that flashed bright lights down the hallway to where they stood and firmed his stance, eyes hardening.

But he felt Laura's hand slip into his, breaking the resentment that was rising in him, and he looked down at her. She offered a small, faint smile, eyes searching his own. "Are you ready for this?" She whispered. He just gazed down at her, wondering that for himself before he gave her hand a squeeze and held it tighter.

"As I'll ever be."

2 hours later...

Michael unlocked the office door behind him, hearing the lights all shutting off around the restaurant. As he walked back to his seat, his eyes passed over the monitor that showed all the closets the animatronics were locked in. They'd all finally ascended into the vents, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep them occupied.

Charlie especially. She was ferocious and angry. He was glad Henry wasn't here to see it this night.

And thinking of Henry, he strained his ears, listening for any sound to come in on the intercom system. It was just whatever he had to say, and then they'd both hurry out to the parking lot where Dana and Laura were waiting for them. They'd stay long enough to make sure the fire burned everything out and then get out of there.

He sighed, sounding off another lure in one of the far corners of the ventilation system and heard the subsequent scurrying of metal on metal, taking off to find the source of the sound.

He almost couldn't believe this was really happening.

They were all here... the last remnants of his father's crimes... the last people to pay a price for his selfishness and cruelty.

Well... except for himself, perhaps. And Henry.

Michael felt like he'd finally reached a point where he could separate his sins from his father's. Yes, Evan's death may have turned the tides for William in many ways, but it had done that for everyone in their family. And yet, the only person who resorted to murder to "fix" his grief was one man. William.

"You still would have found reason to do what you did... you always had that in you," he murmured aloud to himself, watching the monitor. "And I'm sorry it had to be me and my mistakes, but you can't make this my fault anymore."

He sighed.

Despite this realization, he still felt like he needed to be here and do this himself... to atone for Evan's death. It was finally time to repair what had been done and prove to himself and his family that he was really, truly, sorry.

Even if that meant putting them to rest. For good.

Michael straightened, ears perking and heart beginning to race as he heard the intercom turn on.

"I'm sorry, Evan... I'm sorry for everything," he whispered, as if the boy could somehow hear him. "I'm sorry I wasn't a better brother. I should have been the one to protect you. Instead I was the one you needed protecting from."

He swallowed, feeling a lump rise in his throat.

"But I'm going to put this right. I'm putting this nightmare to rest like yours should have been. I hope you can forgive me."

He stood, and walked to a lever on the wall and pulled it down.

The office generator slowed to dead silence as the fans stopped and the lights dimmed to their auxiliary brightness. It was only seconds before he heard Molten Freddy's deranged cackle echo down the vent chambers. Something crept nearer to the office.

"Fool... you played right into our hands..." Baby spoke in a harsh whisper from somewhere close. "Did you really think that this job just fell out of the sky for you?"

Michael turned on his flashlight, glancing back down at the monitor that was running on the remaining power it had left, trying to find their locations. Metal scraped on metal as the glint of a claw winked at him from one of the vent cameras.

"No. This was a gift, for us." She continued, and he could hear the malicious smile in her voice. "You gathered them all together in one place, just like he asked you to. All of those little souls in one place, just for us. A gift."

Michael watched the screen carefully, flipping between cameras.

"It wasn't dad who called you, Lizzy," he murmured to himself as he looked through them. "I've just got a lot of practice with those illusion discs."

She continued, unable to hear him.

"Now we can do what we were created to do... and be complete!" She praised, and Michael suddenly looked at the left vent as something appeared ready to strike. "I will make you proud, father! Watch... listen... and be full-"

But she had no time to finish as someone else began to speak on the intercoms.

"Connection terminated," Michael heard Henry relay. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, Elizabeth... if you still even remember that name. But I'm afraid you've been misinformed. You are not here to receive a gift. Nor have you been called here by the individual whom you assume. Although, you have indeed been called."

An eerie silence filled the building, as if every occupant were hanging on to his words.

"You have all been called here," he continued. "Into a labyrinth of sounds and smells, misdirection and misfortune. A labyrinth with no exit, a maze with no prize. You don't even realize that you are trapped."

Michael heard one of the animatronics hiss and a clanging echoed in the vents angrily. He checked the cameras again as the room began to grow warmer, watching them start to crawl around in frantic trails as if to find some hidden way out.

Henry spoke, as though he were aware of their desperate attempts to escape. "Your lust of blood has driven you in endless circles. Chasing the cries of children in some unseen chamber," he said knowingly. "Always seeming so near, yet somehow out of reach."

Baby screamed with rage.

"But you will never find them. None of you will. This is where your story ends."

Michael turned the cameras out of the vents to the other ones around the pizzeria. He flipped to the one that faced Parts & Service, trying to check on the ignition timer.

"This place will not be remembered, and the memory of everything that started this can finally begin to fade away, as the agony of every tragedy should."

He expected to see the timer on the correct calibrations, but as he studied it, something seemed... off. He squinted.

"To you monsters trapped in the corridors, be still, and give up your spirits. They don't belong to you," Henry advised. "For most of you, I believe there is peace and perhaps warmth waiting for you after the smoke clears." His tone took on something harder as he continued.

"Although, for one of you, the darkest pit of Hell has opened to swallow you whole," he spoke bitterly. "So don't keep the devil waiting, old friend."

The room only grew warmer as Michael stared at the timer.

It was supposed to be set to lower calibration, one that would start a small enough fire to ignite the ropes that would lead to the bathrooms where the gas canisters were. But instead, it was on its highest setting.

His heart began to pound. He hadn't set it to that... and if it went off, the explosion might extend far beyond the pizzeria.

"Crap," he muttered.

"My daughter, if you can hear me, I knew you would return as well. It's in your nature to protect the innocent," Henry continued, oblivious to what was happening in the office. "I'm sorry that on that day, the day you were shut out and left to die, no one was there to lift you up into their arms the way you have lifted others into yours."

Michael stood from his chair, backing to the door.

"And then, what became of you? I should have known you wouldn't be content to disappear, not my daughter," he spoke as pained pleas began to fall from the vents as they grew hotter. "I couldn't save you then, so let me save you now."

He stepped out and hurried down the corridor to the next wing, hearing Henry's voice carrying from where he was speaking at the pizzeria entrance.

"It's time to rest, for you, and for those you have carried in your arms." Henry spoke. "This ends. For all of us."

Michael spotted the timer at the end of the corridor.

"End communication."

He froze for a moment, hearing Henry exit the building, knowing he had no idea what was wrong... but he didn't have time to say. If he didn't deactivate the timer now, they were all as good as dead.

He sprinted down the hallway, nearing the device on the ground.

He was so close... so close... it was almost within reach...

But before he could touch it, something hard slammed into his head from his blind side, knocking him to the ground.

Michael blinked, but all he saw for several seconds were stars, groaning as his head throbbed with pain. His vision finally started to return and he gasped, seeing Springtrap looming over him with a scowl on his face.

"Nice try, Michael," he growled.

Laura watched from the car as Henry set the intercom phone back on its hook and hurried back out through the entrance, his dress shoes clacking on the pavement as he climbed into the driver's seat. "That's everything," he spoke, setting his radio in one of the car's cup holders. "Mike should be out in a second and then everything will start up."

She nodded from the backseat, watching the front doors carefully.

A minute went by... two... three... yet, no sign of Michael.

"Is he coming..?" Dana asked worriedly.

Henry checked his watch, a nervous frown on his face. "He better be... the fire is set to start in thirty seconds," he murmured, blue eyes turning back up to the pizzeria.

Laura said nothing, apprehension making her freeze like a deer in the headlights as she stared at the entrance, trying to ignore her pounding heart and how sick she was beginning to feel. Almost a minute crept by when smoke began to billow from the west wing. The fire had started.

"He's not here..." she murmured, hands shaking. "He's not coming."

"What- Laura!" Henry called as she thrust open the door and climbed out, running to the front doors.

She grabbed the handles and yanked, but they didn't budge. Panic began to fill her as she searched for her keys, and she anxiously shoved them inside the lock and tried to turn them- but they wouldn't even fit inside. It was as though the metal had fused over the keyhole.

Laura shook her head over and over in denial, pounding on the window as Henry and Dana came up beside her.

"It's locked, it won't open-" she explained in a shaky voice.

"That's impossible, I didn't lock them," Henry protested, equally anxious as he tried his own keys. She didn't wait to see that they'd come to the same problem as she started running around the walls of the building, trying every door. Her panic increased at each locked one she encountered.

Laura stopped at one window, trying to peer inside only to see flames licking the walls.

Tears pricked her eyes painfully as she heard Dana and Henry calling his name from the entrance, and she tried the next door. They were coming behind her, doing the same. But nothing would open.

He was trapped.

Springtrap held a battered pipe in his remaining hand, glowering down at Michael. He raised it and brought it down in another strike, and he moved just in time for it to smash into the tiled walls behind him. The tiles chipped and fell where they'd been broken as he tried to scramble to his feet.

The timer continued to tick as he dodged another blow.

"So disappointing... so useless," the man growled angrily as he forced Michael further away from Parts & Service. "I tried so hard to make you into someone worthy of our family. And this is how you repay me?"

Again, the pipe smashed into the wall just out of reach.

"You're going to kill me, Michael?" He shouted, eyes alive with fury.

Michael watched him carefully, listening to the timer as it ticked ever closer to its ignition. His father did not appear to notice the imminent threat awaiting them.

"You're a fool for trying," he snarled. "I am deathless."

The boy tried to duck under the man's arm, but as he tried to pass him, he heard the pipe clatter to the ground as Springtrap caught him by his shirt collar and slammed him against the wall. Michael gasped, the air knocked from his lungs as Springtrap held him there with what remained of his left arm, using the other to hit him across the face.

Metal knuckles cracked across his temple and he felt something warm running from its wound. The hand hit him again, and his lip split.

"I always come back," Springtrap growled, face inches from his own. "And not you, or Henry will ever stop me-"

His hand raised again, but Michael brought his knee up into the man's torso forcefully, and he wheezed, stepping back. The boy stooped to the ground and picked up the discarded pipe, holding it over his shoulder like a baseball bat, and swung.

It cracked into Springtrap's mangled face, knocking him off balance to the floor. Before he could rise to stand, Michael moved over him and brought it down one last time.

It destroyed shell and metal, bashing into both the man's face and his chest. His father lifted one hand with a final shudder before dropping it, unconscious.

Michael stared at him, catching his breath before he turned and sprinted to the timer.

He knelt beside it, and with mere seconds left, deactivated it. He watched its power die, and looking up at Parts & Service, got to his feet and quickly unlocked it.

He stepped inside and spotted the backup wire on the far desk.

Withdrawing a lighter from his pocket, he strode to the desk and lifted the string as the door closed behind him, striking it. Its small flame danced in his hand, and with only a moment's consideration, he brought it down to the wire and watched it ignite. Like a firefly, it crept down the string, eating up its trail as it followed the path set for it. It went out under the door toward the direction of the bathrooms.

Michael breathed out a sigh of relief, touching his temple. When he brought his hand down, blood tipped his fingers.

A small price, really.

But as he walked back to the door, he turned the knob only to find it locked.

His heart dropped in a momentary panic as he made to take his keys from his pocket... only to find they weren't there.

He must have dropped them in the hallway.

Stronger panic filled him now as he began frantically trying to find a way out of the windowless room... he could smell distant smoke.

He couldn't get out.

Evan watched Michael trying to open the door and his subsequent panic when he couldn't. His eyes widened with fear for his brother's safety, knowing the fire was already spreading. He looked past the walls of the pizzeria to where his friends were, trying to get in through the entrance. But they had no more success than he did.

"Cass... we need to open the doors so they can get through- he's going to die," he said to his friend urgently, knowing he had the power to do so with control of the suit they possessed. If he was in control of Freddy that moment, he would have done it himself.

But Cassidy didn't move.

"I know." He replied flatly. Confused, Evan looked to him.

"Cassidy, we have to let him out now- we can't- we can't let him die!" He urged.

Again, Cassidy didn't move. He didn't even look at Evan. He continued to watch Michael struggle with some strange focus in his eyes, arms crossed over his chest. They'd been watching him for some time, and through all of it, Cassidy refused to give back control of Golden Freddy.

"I tried to stop all this, you know." The boy finally murmured softly. "If I truly had it my way, we wouldn't be here right now..."

"What are you talking about?" Evan demanded, confused and anxious. "Cassie, give me back control, I need to save him!" Cassidy ignored him.

"You never liked exploring our abilities in this place, but I did. Remember back when I first found you?" He questioned softly. "When I was quiet and never came out to talk to you when you were in control?"

Evan frowned. It wasn't a time he thought of much, because of how lonely it was. And it was so many years ago. But he remembered it, and he knew Cassidy knew that.

"What does this have to do with anything?" He pleaded.

The boy's dark green eyes met his, a deadpan expression on his face. "I was quiet because I wasn't here, Evan. I was in the past, having found a way to stretch myself through time back to that year you died."

Cassidy's eyes stared into his. "I tried to stop your death."

Evan began to feel afraid. He wasn't sure he liked what he was hearing. "C-Cassie, stop saying these things- I don't like this game-"

"You know those sound illusion discs Michael used to scare you with?" the boy answered, ignoring Evan's shudder at their name. "He didn't know, but I was the one who urged him to calibrate them to make them manifest animatronics from your father's restaurant. I was the one inhabiting your Fredbear plush. I was the one creating your nightmares and the hallucinations you lived with for so many nights."

Evan's eyes widened and he began to shake his head in disbelief. This couldn't be real.

Cassidy was the Golden Fredbear plush he so often talked to? The one always telling him what to do, the one that validated his fear of animatronics?

It was impossible. It couldn't be.

"I was trying to scare you away from the robots, Evan," Cassidy continued quietly, staring at him with a frown on his face. "It was your death after all, that pushed Afton into the spiral that led him to murder. That led him to kill me. If you hadn't been killed that day, none of this would have happened."

"No- y-you're- you're wrong-" Evan stuttered in a whisper. But he hated how everything the boy said was falling into logical placement. Cassidy ignored him.

"Despite my efforts, however, you still met your demise," he muttered with disappointment. "I realized I couldn't change the past, so I instead decided to reap my revenge in the future. I began pulling the strings that would eventually lead all these people back to Afton. Back to me."

Evan glanced back down at Michael, who was trying to find ways to force the door open.

"Years in progress... and I nearly ended things early. The Fazbear location your father was trapped in burned down... I was so close, then. But Afton escaped me yet again."

"You're lying," Evan rebuked shakily, feeling panicked and also strangely betrayed. "You're lying to me- stop it-"

"Who planted the thought in Henry Emily's head to open his notes again after they were locked away for so many years?" Cassidy demanded, voice increasing with anger. "Who made him careless enough to let Michael find them? Who was it who really left the marionette doll for your brother to discover so that I could keep Afton off my tracks? Who was it that convinced Elizabeth it was her father in the Underground all those nights?!"

Tears pricked Evan's eyes, feeling all too terrified of this boy he had come to recognize as his friend, mouth ajar in shock as he shook his head in denial.

"Who was it that inspired all of those visions in Michael's mind, leading him carefully to every conclusion I needed him to make?" Cassidy snarled, looking less like the child Evan had come to know, and more like some terrible, revenge-consumed monster. "It was me, Evan. It was me all along, and you never had the courage to notice. You were too afraid of the truth."

The boy shook with fear as Cassidy's eyes set into something cruel and hard. "It was me," he spoke softly. "And now, I'm finally going to claim my reward."

Evan tried not to cry, feeling a lump in his throat as he shook his head, tears running down his cheeks. "When I let you have control, you said you were going to help me go home!" He protested.

Cassidy gave a sympathetic frown. "I'm sorry Evan, but your father needs to pay for his sins. We're staying until that debt is paid."

Evan's eyes widened and he opened his mouth to scream as he was plunged into darkness, trapped in the recesses of the haunted animatronic they shared, though he could hear everything as he felt Cassidy reveal himself. He was with no costume. No Freddy. But he was invisible to the living no longer.

"Cassie!" He tried to scream. But the boy would not hear him.

Michael pounded on the door frantically, sweat beading his brow as the fire growing outside began to spread. He bent to pick up another tool to try and pry it open when suddenly, the air seemed to cool... he saw fog on his breath.

"What..?" He whispered to himself in sheer confusion, when suddenly, he caught a figure in the corner of his eye.

He turned, eyes widening.

It was the child from his dreams, the one he saw here their first morning, and that night with his father. But unlike any visions he'd thus far had, the boy's outline was sharp and focused... as though he were really there, hovering a foot from the floor in the back of the room.

They watched each other as Michael breathed out another cloud of fog.

"Who are you?" He whispered.

The boy said nothing for several moments.

"The one he should not have killed."