Author's Notes:

This is my version of Michael Afton's story. It's divided into five parts (for different periods of his life), and each part will have five chapters, for twenty-five total chapters, plus an epilogue. It's mostly game-based, but I wanted Mike to interact with more people, so I borrowed some characters from the novel trilogy.

As a standard disclaimer, I don't own these characters, places, etc.

Part I: The Crying Child (1983)

Chapter 1: The Birthday

All the joy in our house died with Liz.

That's not the kind of thing I could say to my friends, or they'd call me a cry-baby. Instead, we rampaged through the mall or raced our bikes down the shimmering summer streets or pumped Kiss at full volume through hand-me-down speakers, and I could sometimes almost forget. Sometimes when we laughed, I couldn't hear the doubts that whispered to me in the silence.

My friends never thought anything was wrong with my laugh or the ear-to-ear grin that crinkled my eyes at the corners. I passed the Normal Test. Not like Mum. When she smiled, it was only with her mouth. Her eyes didn't shine like they had before. She and Liz both had sparkling green eyes and hair like pirate's treasure. Now, as Mum faded away from us, Liz faded, too.

None of the rest of us looked like Liz. We were like one of those cartoon families where the little girls looked like their mum and the boys took after their dad. I thought I was different from Dad at first, but my light hair faded to his mousy brown as I got older. My blue eyes were brighter than his grey ones, but they had the same narrow, hooded shape. I also noticed more and more that I stood like him and walked like him and had some of the same tics. Evan was worse, though. He could've been Dad's clone.

It was this little Dad-clone that trailed his spoon through his Fruity Pebbles with his hand resting on his chin and his skinny elbow propped on the table.

"You can't have my Count Chocula," I told him again. "You picked your cereal this week, and now you have to deal with it."

"I know." Evan looked like he wasn't going to say anything else, so I went back to decoding a hidden message on the back of my box. Of course, once Evan opened his mouth, he couldn't leave it at that. "That's not what I'm worried about. It's… it's about my party."

"I don't care." I kept my eyes fixed on the box, like I was still working on it, even though it was made for little kids and I finished it in less than a minute. It wasn't my fault that Evan didn't have many friends, and mine had to come to his stupid party to fill out the ranks.

"I don't want to have it at Freddy's."

"My friends are only coming because it's at Freddy's. Good luck having a birthday party by yourself."

His voice was tiny – even more than usual. "Maybe that wouldn't be so bad."

My friends couldn't wait to visit Freddy's. That's all they'd been talking about all week – which games they'd play and what pizza they'd eat. (The Twisted Pizza was pulling ahead as the strong favorite.) I frowned at Evan. "Do you know why we have our parties there? It's because it's cheap and easy for Mum and Dad." Dad co-owned the restaurant, and the rest of the animatronic-themed pizza places in the franchise, along with Uncle Henry. That meant that all of us Afton kids and Uncle Henry's daughter always had pizza parties. Our friends loved Freddy's, so it always worked out.

We actually could've afforded a nice party somewhere else. Evan was too little to remember when we lived at the old house, back when money was tight. We shared a room then, and a smelly second-hand bunkbed. Now, we each had a big room and a full-sized bed. At this new house, Dad had a real office inside, instead of a converted garage, so I hardly ever saw him working anymore.

I was picturing that old garage, with its row of dead-eyed animal faces, when Evan said, "We could have a family picnic or something."

I blinked away the memories of Dad's old animal suits and told him, "Too late. Everyone already made plans. You can't change your mind now." His mouth was still screwed up on one side of his face, like he was thinking through another argument. I cut him off before he had the chance. "Besides, you like Freddy's."

"I did. Not anymore. The animatronics..." His big eyes grew watery, and I tensed, bracing myself for a waterfall of ugly tears. "I told you what they did – what she – did. To Lizzie."

I slammed my hand onto the tabletop as my heart pounded. Evan jumped and I said, "Stop lying!" louder than I meant to.

"I… I know what I saw." And there came the tears.

"No, you don't! Give it up." The air seemed to leave the room, and I had to escape. I pushed myself away from the table and staggered out of the kitchen on spaghetti legs. How dare he bring Lizzie into his make-believe world? How dare he twist her memory into something sick and wrong?

"Mike!" Evan's voice rang out behind me, and I swiveled to face him in the red hallway, surrounded by pictures of happier versions of us.

"What!?"

"Why don't you believe me?"

"Why don't you believe Dad?" I snapped back. "He said a shelf fell on her. It was an accident. A dumb accident. Maybe the shelf had animatronic parts on it. May it just looked like one of them did what you thought." I couldn't say the words, but Evan could.

"It ate her, Mike. There were no shelves around. She was on stage with Circus Baby."

"No, she was in a storage closet, where she wasn't supposed to be. If it was one of Dad's animatronics, why didn't you tell him?"

"I tried," he wailed. "I mean, I wanted to. I couldn't say anything at first." That much was true. He hadn't talked for weeks – not until Dad gave him a new plushie "friend" to join his others. This one was a golden bear called Fredbear – one of the earlier characters from Dad's restaurants. Fredbear was a precursor to Freddy Fazbear, who was the face of the franchise. Fredbear and Evan's other dolls always calmed him down for some reason. If only he'd talk to them instead of me.

"You sure got back to talking later." My insides squirmed. We shouldn't talk about this out here. I led him into his room. "Why'd you come to me?"

He chewed on his lower lip and scooped Fredbear from his perch on the bed, which was always neatly covered with a homemade quilt from Grandma. Not like my room, where the bed was unmade and rumpled clothes plastered the floor, in contrast to his mostly-bare blue carpet. Sure, he had some toys, like a plastic purple phone and some robots, but it was unnaturally empty in here. As I stared at his floor, I almost missed his answer to my question. "You're my brother," he said finally. "If you don't believe me, how can I expect a grown-up to? They'll just believe what the other grown-ups say about falling shelves."

"Yeah, well, I don't believe you. You're a snot-nosed little liar. You're not my brother. Not until you stop making things up about my sister." I stormed out, slamming the door behind me. By the time I reached my room, I was shaking too hard to do anything but slump to the floor at the foot of my bed. A Foxy mask stared back at me with a knowing smile. There was nothing wrong with him, or with any of the animatronics.

When I was able to move again, I slipped the mask over my face, the thin elastic digging into my scalp. The world changed with my narrower field of vision. It was like I was watching everything through a picture frame or a TV screen – like the world around me was less real.

A few times, I'd asked Dad if I could wear one of the real suits – one of the springlock suits that could walk around powered by the robots or by people. Dad said I had to wait a few more years, because it was dangerous. The springlocks in the suit held back all kinds of metal pins and things when people wore them, but they were too sensitive, and they sprang apart a few times, hurting the employees inside. I heard that one man died, but I couldn't be sure. Dad and Uncle Henry wore them all the time, though, as a matching gold bunny and bear. They were always okay.

If I kept my mask on, it would dig a red mark into my skin, but I left it on anyway. I left it on while I reread some old Spider-Man comics where he faced off against Morbius. Morbius was my favorite character ever because vampires were the coolest, and this one happened to share my first name – Michael. He was a lot more interesting than your basic boring bad guy, too. Sometimes he was even a good guy.

I lost myself in Marvel for as long as I could, but Evan's splotchy red face itched at the back of my mind. I didn't want to risk seeing it any more today, so I dropped my comics with a determined huff.

I went to the dining room, grabbed two chairs, and brought them to Evan's room. I shoved the chairs under the knob for each of his bedroom doors, effectively trapping him in. It wasn't the first time I'd had to do this, so I was sure he couldn't get out on his own.

I scurried through the hall to get both doors before he realized what was happening, and as soon as I jammed the second chair into place, the door rattled urgently, and Evan screamed, "Michael!"

I cackled as he kept banging. "See you around," I said, retreating to my room again. Yeah, that felt good. But it wasn't enough.

I traced my mask with my fingertips, feeling the plastic contours of the sharp teeth and snout of the pirate fox. That was more like it.

That evening, Dad yelled at me for locking Evan into his room, and I pretended I was sorry. At the same time, I planned out what I needed to do next. I was going to make Evan confront his fears. That was what a brother was for, right?

The next day, as soon as Evan and I were alone in the house, I strapped on my mask again and hid behind the TV. He shuffled over eventually.

I couldn't see him, so I listened to his sniffles and his sneakers scuffing the carpet. I coiled my body tight like a springlock and launched myself out with a loud, pirate-y, "Aaarrrr!"

Evan shrieked and melted into a sobbing puddle. "Stop, Michael. Stop," he whimpered.

"Not until I make you walk the plank!"

Evan shuddered and went limp. Did he just pass out? Wuss.

I nudged him with my toe, but he stayed slack. My stomach twinged. It had to be because I had such a pathetic brother.

Otherwise, this felt good. I sauntered to the kitchen to make a sandwich. I was a pirate in search of plunder, and I had to maroon my disloyal shipmate in the living room.

My feet faltered on the carpet, but his cries kept me going.