Saturday, March 6, 1982

Freddy Fazbear's Pizza had opened with much fanfare the previous summer, and it was followed by countless news coverages and interviews, all highlighting the restaurant's groundbreaking animatronics technology. The technology that William had come up with and Henry had stolen. And it had earned Fazbear Entertainment the fame and fortune that William knew was rightfully his.

They had taken it from him.

Henry had taken it from him.

And to add insult to injury, there was nowhere William could go to avoid being reminded of this betrayal. All over town there were posters, billboards, and flyers advertising Freddy's. And even when the newspaper didn't run any articles on the place, it offered coupons. The television was similarly inundated with advertisements for the restaurant. And practically every child in town had either a toy, stuffed animal, or mask based on its animatronic characters. There was even a fucking cartoon in the works.

Seeing the incredible success of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza was just too much for William to bear, mostly because he knew that he would never be able to achieve it for himself. Sure, the new endoskeleton he was developing would be significantly more advanced than the one used by Fazbear Entertainment, but it wasn't anywhere near as revolutionary. At best Circus Baby's Pizza World would come to be seen as a serious competitor of Freddy's, but more than likely it would just be seen as a copycat. And to make matters worse, the time William had spent on making a better endoskeleton had given Fazbear Entertainment a big head start.

No matter how William looked at it, he was never going to enjoy the success that Henry now did, and it was driving him mad.

William was sitting alone in his home office and going over his finances while Clara and the kids were out.

He let out a frustrated sigh as he rubbed his forehead. In his efforts to outdo Henry, he had gotten precariously close to going over budget again. Between the costs to develop a better endoskeleton and animatronics with a wide variety of functionalities, as well as the costs to make his restaurant more competitive with Freddy's, he had almost spent the entirety of the additional one and a half million dollars that Henry had given him back when he sold his stake of Fredbear's Diner.

Of course, it wasn't bad enough to ruin his plans, provided that he found a way to supplement his finances. A simple, low-wage job would do, but William wasn't at all happy at the prospect of having to do something so demeaning.

"Honey, we're home!" Clara suddenly called out from downstairs, breaking William's concentration.

With a slight smile, he stretched his arms a bit before he got out of his chair. He then left his office and went downstairs to see his wife and children who had just returned home carrying shopping bags.

"Welcome home," William said with a warm smile as he approached them. "How was your trip to the mall?"

"Oh, it was quite fun," Clara replied, smiling back as she unpacked one of the shopping bags. "Wasn't it, children?"

"Yeah!" Michael agreed.

"Mm-hm!" Elizabeth concurred with a big smile on her face.

"Father! Father!" Evan shouted excitedly as he pulled a stuffed animal out of one of the shopping bags. He then rushed over to William and held it up for him to see. It was a Foxy plushie. "Look what Mother got me!"

William, completely flabbergasted, stared at the thing. Then, in anger, he tore the stuffed animal from the boy's hands and proceeded to rip its head off before throwing it to the ground.

Evan looked on in shock and then burst into tears. "Waaaaah! Father, why are you so mean?!"

"William, what is wrong with you?!" Clara scolded him as she rushed over to comfort Evan. "There, there, love! Mother's going to fix him right up, don't you worry." She briefly turned to glare at William.

"Jeez, Father, what crawled up your butt?" Michael asked jokingly.

"You shut your damn mouth, boy!" William shouted back, making Michael flinch.

"Michael, Elizabeth, help comfort your brother," Clara instructed before she stood back up. She then turned to her husband and said in a very stern tone, "William, in the laundry room. Now!"

William and Clara then went into the laundry room and shut the door, the former folding his arms and looking away.

"William, I know how you feel about Freddy's, but you can't take it out on us! Especially not the children!" Clara scolded him.

"Why the hell did you buy him that thing?" William asked, glaring at her.

"Because, like it or not, he loves these characters," Clara replied, folding her arms as well. "And he begged me to buy him one."

"You could've just told him 'no'," William shot back.

Clara let out a sigh of exasperation as she rubbed her forehead. "William, you can't control what your children like. You of all people should know that."

William's shoulders slumped slightly and he looked away in shame.

"Look, all of the other children in town have Freddy toys, and Evan keeps seeing these characters in ads and on the telly. Is it really so surprising that he'd want one?" Clara pointed out.

William just kept sulking. Finally he said, "I'm going for a drive."

Before Clara could get another word in, he left the room. Outside, Evan was still bawling his eyes out, while Elizabeth hugged him and tried to comfort him. Michael, meanwhile, was trying to make light of the situation in an effort to cheer his little brother up.

William strode towards the entrance, where he grabbed his coat and his car keys before leaving.

The constant reminders of Henry's success had made William turn to alcohol to drown his sorrows and to reflect, and JR's was about the perfect place to do so. Not only was the dinky bar relatively close to his home, but it also wasn't the kind of place anyone he knew would ever go to.

As he ordered beer after beer, William pondered his current situation and what he wanted to do.

He needed to get a job of some sort, but it had to either be one with few hours and a decent pay, or one that was more laid-back so he could continue working on his restaurant while still performing his duties. However, he loathed the idea of having to ask someone for a job or do any kind of work that was beneath him.

The more he drank, the more William's thoughts began to shift to Henry. His former best friend. The man he had trusted most, who William thought would always have his back. The man who had betrayed him and stolen his greatest achievement, claiming all of the fame and fortune that came with it for himself.

The pain of Henry's betrayal ran deep, and William was yearning to make him hurt too. To make him suffer for what he had done. To ruin his dreams and everything he had built.

But William struggled to come up with a way to do that.

One idea was to get a job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza and sabotage it from the inside. Of course the problem was that Henry would undoubtedly suspect that given how their last meeting had ended. No, the only way to do that would be to somehow mend their friendship so that he could avoid Henry's suspicions, but that would take too much time to be believable.

Finishing yet another glass of beer, William kept thinking. He came to the conclusion that the only realistic way for him to mend his friendship with Henry in a short amount of time was if they came together following some kind of crisis or tragedy. But how could he possibly engineer something like that?

William lost his train of thought when the bartender called out to him. "Alright, Will, I think you've had enough for tonight! I'm cutting you off."

"Oh, come on!" William complained. "I haven't had that many!"

"Maybe not, but I don't think any of us here wants to listen to another one of your drunken rants about Freddy's, so I'm cutting you off," the bartender explained.

"Let me just have one more," William insisted.

"No, Will," the bartender replied sternly. "It's time for you to go home."

"Fine," William relented. He then got out of his seat and trudged over to the exit.

It was raining outside and, much to William's surprise, night had fallen. He checked his watch and saw that it was 8:15 PM.

William frowned as he watched the downpour and then hurriedly made his way over to his purple 1973 Chrysler New Yorker. He unlocked the car and entered it, quickly closing the door to escape the rain.

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he considered what to do. He wasn't too keen on going home just yet, preferring to wait until everyone had gone to bed. He could just go for a drive to clear his head, of course, but then he had a better idea.

He could drive over to Freddy's.

Once there, he could take a look around and see if he could find a good way to sabotage the restaurant.

William quite liked this idea and smiled to himself as he turned on the ignition.

The drive to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza didn't take very long. After all, the city wasn't that big. But when he arrived, William was surprised to find Henry's five year old daughter, Charlotte, locked outside of the restaurant. She was jumping up and down in front of a window, desperately trying to get someone to let her back in.

William furrowed his brow. How the hell could Henry let a five-year-old get locked outside in this kind of weather, let alone his own daughter?

He got out of his car, intending to help her, but then he got an idea. It was a horrible, monstrous idea, but it was the perfect solution to all of his problems.

William smiled and walked over to Charlotte, who was sobbing to herself.

"Charlie? What are you doing out here all by yourself?" William asked.

"Huh?" Charlotte turned around. There was a look of relief on her face when she saw who it was. "Oh, Uncle Willy!" She sobbed and pointed at the window. "The older kids are being really mean to me and won't let me inside, and I'm really cold!"

William knelt down and hugged her. "Shhh. There, there."

Charlotte leaned into the hug, resting her face in the crook of his neck as she continued to sob.

William frowned. Part of him wanted nothing more than to take Charlotte home with him and give her some hot chocolate. Maybe even make her some soup. But he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind. He needed to focus.

He broke the hug and stood back up. He then smiled and held out his hand to the five-year-old. "Come. I'm sure we can find a backdoor of some sort."

Charlotte sniffled and rubbed her eye, and then took his hand. "M'kay… Thanks, Uncle Willy."

William led the girl into the back alley. They walked past some garbage cans, and then he suddenly stopped.

Confused, Charlotte looked up at him. "Uncle Willy?"

William hesitated, wondering if he was really going to go through with this, knowing that if he did, there was no going back.

But he made up his mind, and he took a deep breath to steel himself.

"Uncle Willy, you're scaring me…" Charlotte said, sensing that something was very wrong.

Suddenly, in one swift motion, William turned towards her, put his hands around her tiny neck, and squeezed.

Charlotte tried to scream as she thrashed about, desperately trying to get out of William's grip, but it was to no avail. Terrified and confused, she stared at him with pleading eyes, wordlessly begging him to let her go.

It was too much to bear, and it made William loosened his grip on her neck for a moment, but only for a moment. He knew that if he let her go now, his life would effectively be over—everything that he had achieved, everything that he had built, every sacrifice he had made would've all been for nothing.

Grinding his teeth, William shut his eyes and squeezed her neck once more, and he kept on squeezing it.

He could feel that her movements were growing more and more sluggish. And then, finally, she stopped moving altogether.

William slowly opened his eyes, afraid of what he was about to see.

What he saw was Charlotte's half-open eyes and motionless body.

She was dead.

William gasped and let her go, only to watch her limp body fall onto the ground and get soaked in the rain.

He found himself unable to tear his eyes from her, and he began to hyperventilate as what he had done finally sunk in. It was hard to believe that this was real.

William took a few steps back and was only then able to look away. As he continued to hyperventilate, he looked down at his hands.

The hands that had killed Charlotte.

Then, without really thinking about it, William ran back to his car and drove off.