William Afton was known to have a tragic life. His daughter, Elizabeth, had disappeared without a trace, leading to the closure of his new establishment, Circus Baby Pizza World. His son, Evan, died in front of an audience in a bloodbath, accidentally killed by his older brother. Fredbear Family Diner didn't even survive a day after that tragedy. Even his wife wanted nothing to do with him. All he had left was Freddy Fazbear Pizza and his eldest son, Michael. Anyone else might have given up, locked themselves away with a bottle of beer, and slowly faded away, away from the controversies surrounding this dark franchise.
But not William. Everything was fine in the best of worlds. He had heard complaints about the animatronics behaving strangely, coincidentally since he had stuffed the corpses of those brats into those costumes. It further confirmed his theories. Those seemingly silver and terrifying eyes were apparently no coincidence. Perhaps he had discovered the next step after death – that of eternal life.
The manager of Freddy Fazbear Pizza read with a long, smiling face the newspaper reporting the deaths of Gabriel, Jeremy, Susie, and Fritz. Names he would never forget. Suddenly, someone knocked, and the man mechanically wiped away his smile.
"Come in?" he asked.
It was Henry, not looking like he was having fun. Henry again. Didn't he see that he had nothing to do with him for the moment? William bit his lip and then put on a friendly smile for his old friend.
"Henry, what brings you to my office?"
His partner simply sat across from him and sighed.
"Will, I think you know what's been happening lately..."
Mr. Afton simply pulled out a file.
"No, look, it's summer break and we have a lot of costumers. Everything is fine."
Mr. Emily raised an eyebrow.
"You know damn well what I'm talking about. Our pizzeria is literally a crime scene. The police are looking for these poor kids, and..."
Henry saw the man across from him holding back a smile and thought it was nervousness.
"...and I think parents are worried about the safety of their children after what happened with E... Evan and Fredbear," Henry mumbled, holding back tears.
William didn't cry. He wasn't even affected by the mention of his youngest child's death.
"What I mean is that the Freddy crew might look a bit too much like Fredbear in design and mechanism. Maybe we could make them smaller? Cuter? Ones that don't resemble that skull-crushing machine."
This time, his friend had a real reaction, and William slammed his fists on his desk.
"You want to replace our animatronics?!"
Henry sighed.
"If things continue like this, I'm afraid we might have to give this franchise a fresh start and officially forget about Fredbear and Springbonnie."
William shrugged. He didn't want to set aside the fruits of his murders; he had so much to discover.
"I'll think about it," Mr. Afton simply said.
Henry smiled and headed for the door.
"Oh, and... I've contacted an expert to analyze the animatronics."
"What?! But I'm the one who usually does that work!"
"I know, but I thought maybe we'd need an outside perspective."
An abominable idea suddenly made William smile. He got up and put a hand on his friend's back to lead him.
"Oh, but of course! Introduce me to this man, and I'll give him some instructions."
"Uh... okay?" Henry said, confused by his friend's rather suspicious change of mood.
...
"Is it you, Mr. Afton?" asked a man around William's age, carrying a toolbox.
The manager vigorously shook his hand.
"Welcome to Freddy Fazbear Pizza, my friend," he greeted with an enthusiasm that seemed to come straight from a cartoon.
Henry coughed awkwardly, observing the expert's perplexed expression.
"Um... I'm here for the checkup," the man replied.
William regained his composure and gestured for the man to follow him.
"I believe you can make your way home, Mr. Emily. I'll escort our guest to the maintenance room to provide him with instructions."
Henry nodded and silently wished the man good luck.
...
William stopped in front of the maintenance door and turned to the professional.
"Do you know how to examine an endoskeleton-type animatronic?" He asked.
The man nodded. "Yes, well..."
"Excellent, here's the manual for Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy. You'll find it to be a piece of cake," William said, handing him the manual.
The man gave him a perplexed look and reached out to take the manual.
"Oh, and one last thing, put on this costume."
"This costume?"
"Yes! Employees are supposed to wear a purple costume."
"But... I'm not really a full time employee."
Mr. Afton's gaze grew colder.
"It would be a shame if the other employees thought you had broken in and were trying to tamper with the animatronics, wouldn't it?"
"I... I suppose, yes."
The manager regained his smile.
"Perfect. Now, put this on."
The man accepted and, with his flashlight in hand, entered the dark room.
William checked his watch.
11 PM.
If his theory was correct, the missing children would soon awaken. William couldn't wait.
...
The room was completely dark, and the man quickly searched for a light switch. He knew there were only inanimate and deactivated machines, and yet... he felt like he wasn't alone. The employee then found a string hanging from the ceiling, pulled it, and let the small light bulb dimly illuminate the surroundings. He jumped when he was surprised by the lifeless face of Freddy sitting in front of him. The others were around him.
"You almost scared me, Mr. Fazbear. Well, let's get started," he said to himself as he read the instructions.
The man began by opening with his tools the enormous mouth of the bear filled with square teeth capable of crushing a child's skull... Evan Afton had experienced that. After disassembling and reassembling everything, the employee found that there were no major problems with the mechanism. There was just that putrid smell of blood inside.
"Damn, it really smells like a corpse in there. It's a freacking kid's place godamnit !"
Beside that, there was no problem. So why had he been told that Freddy and his friends had been behaving strangely all day?
No joint of the endoskeleton was blocked... it must have been an artificial intelligence error. It could only be that, after all, right?
The man in the purple costume activated Freddy Fazbear Pizza to test its interaction capabilities.
Freddy's blue eyes lit up, but the animatronic remained inert.
The employee shone the light in his eyes, but Freddy didn't react.
He placed a photo of a child in front of him to see how his facial recognition reacted, but Freddy ignored it.
Everything seemed normal. Until the animatronics' eyes looked at the man's costume.
"Whoa, Mr. Fazbear, what's all this about? You surprised me," he chuckled.
Freddy continued to stare at his purple costume.
"So, Freddy, now that you've decided to react, I'm going to ask you some questions. You're programmed to respond to simple requests, right?"
"Yes," echoed the animatronic's voice box.
The employee jumped when he heard that abnormally cold voice.
"Good. You're supposed to perform in front of children, right?"
"Yes."
"And you've been behaving strangely. Did your diagnosis identify the problem?"
"Yes."
"So?"
Freddy didn't answer.
"What's the problem?" the man asked again.
Freddy's head turned towards the man, fixing him with its blue eyes.
"The problem ? We are your creations..."
The man pulled his chair away from the increasingly unsettling animatronic.
"You... you're not answering my question, Freddy. I'm asking you again. What was your diagnosis? And by the way, I'm not your creator..."
"You made us like this..."
"I just turned you on, Freddy. I didn't do anything special; it's Mr. Afton who..."
The light went out, startling the man plunged into total darkness.
He got up from his chair and, in a panicked motion, pulled out his flashlight.
It didn't turn on.
Four silver eyes illuminated the maintenance room. It was midnight.
"YOU'VE MURDERED US!"
...
William heard what he wanted. The animatronics were possessed by the souls of his poor victims... he had made an incredible discovery. Just as he was about to leave, he heard the maintenance door open, and the employee emerged, in a terrible state. His nose was bleeding, his teeth were broken, his leg left a red trail behind. There was a bite mark on his arm and a bruise on his cheek. He had miraculously survived the animatronics' rage. He gave a bloody smile when he saw William holding the door.
"Mr. Afton! Your... your animatronics! They must be destroyed! They're completely insane! Thank goodness you're here; I can't even imagine if I had been stuck with those machines..."
"Believe me, you wouldn't need to imagine it, my friend."
"Oh, really?"
"No, no. You're going to experience it," William revealed as he locked him in the restaurant at 1 AM.
"I BEG YOU, PLEASE DON'T..."
...
Gabriel, inside Freddy, burst out of the maintenance room. The Puppet had ordered them to take care of purple guy when he was alone with them, and that's exactly what they were going to do.
"Where did he go?"
"Toward the exit, think, Gabriel," Bonnie sighed.
"We can't let him escape!" Chica exclaimed.
Foxy ran and pushed Freddy and Bonnie out of his way.
"You won't get your revenge just by standing!" Fritz shouted.
Foxy dashed toward the exit at full speed. He saw a purple costume and...
"Fritz, no!" Gabriel cried.
Foxy had just noticed that he had lunged at the injured man, hook in the air, about to kill him...
"Fritz?" the frightened man asked.
"Yes. You deprived me of my eye... It's your turn to pay."
"He's not our killer!" Susie reasoned.
"Look through the window! William Afton just escaped!" Jeremy's troubled voice indicated.
It had been a long time since Fritz had stop listening. Purple guy tried to grab his hook to survive.
Don't let him. Kill him...
You're stronger. Kill him !
He killed you. KILL HIM !
The fox sank his teeth into his prey and created a bloodbath.
...
"You made a huge mistake by killing an inocent. I warned you about the dangers if they discovered your true nature."
The Puppet's voice pulled him from his thoughts.
...
William entered his restaurant at 6 AM. The animatronics had cleaned up the evidence, and the employee's body was nowhere to be found. He would never be found. However, Henry spotted the bloody handprint on one of the pizzeria's walls...
He was starting to seriously wonder if the original animatronics weren't killing machines like Fredbear.