Wednesday, January 12, 1983

For the past several months, William had been working on modifying his Funtime animatronics so that they could collect Remnant for him by killing and capturing human subjects. Young children, to be specific. Not only were they small enough to be hidden inside of the animatronics themselves, but they were easier to lure away and manipulate than adults.

It was for this purpose that he had given Funtime Foxy the ability to release scents, as well as mimic voices and replay particular phrases in order to lure in targets and misdirect potential witnesses. Ballora had received similar modifications to misdirect and lure in targets. Circus Baby and Funtime Freddy, on the other hand, were modified to keep track of the number of children and adults present so that they would only capture targets who were on their own.

Of course, the one addition that had been the most difficult to develop for Circus Baby and Funtime Freddy was the actual storage tank to hold the collected specimens. It wasn't enough for it to simply hold the subject—it also needed to contain the Remnant so that it wouldn't possess the animatronic.

It was late in the afternoon, and William Afton was hard at work in the barn, where he was making yet another attempt at designing a Remnant storage system. He was so focused on his work that he failed to notice that Elizabeth had entered the barn and approached him. It wasn't until she spoke up that he finally noticed her.

"Daddy? Daddy, is she done yet?" She asked.

Keeping his attention fixed on his work, William simply waved her off. "Not now, Elizabeth. Daddy's working."

"But what's taking so long?" She asked.

"Go play with your brothers," William replied, ignoring her question.

"But I don't wanna play with them," Elizabeth pouted. "I wanna play with Circus Baby!"

"Leave, Elizabeth," William said in response, raising his voice.

"But Daddy—"

He slammed his hands down on the desk hard, startling the girl. He then turned to her and snarled, "Would you stop your incessant nagging!"

More than a little shocked, Elizabeth's eyes welled up with tears as she rushed out of the barn.

Relieved to finally get some peace and quiet, William simply returned to his work. Of course, he wasn't able to get much of anything done before someone else barged into the barn.

"William, what is wrong with you?!" Clara scolded him.

William rolled his eyes at having to deal with yet another disturbance. Turning to face his wife, he replied, "She was bothering me!"

"'Bothering' you? She was 'bothering' you?!" Clara stared at him in disbelief. "That is your daughter, William! Your six-year-old daughter! You can't yell at her like that!"

"This is my house, and I can do whatever the hell I want," William snarled. "Now leave me be, I have important work to do."

Clara looked at him as if he was a stranger. "What happened to you, William?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but he found himself unable to say anything. Then for a moment, just a moment, he saw Charlotte in his mind's eye—his hands wrapped around her little neck, her face cold and wet, her eyes staring up at him, pleading to let her go. He shut his eyes and grit his teeth as he pushed the image out of his head.

Turning his back to his wife and resuming working on his designs, William simply replied, "Just leave me be."

Clara frowned and then left him to his work.

Monday, May 23, 1983

After years of planning, hard work, and research, the day of the grand opening of Circus Baby's Pizza World was finally drawing close.

William had sent out flyers, put up posters and billboards, as well as aired commercials on both radio and TV to build excitement. The only thing that remained before the restaurant's grand opening was to invite a small number of families to further build excitement and, more importantly, to give William an opportunity to properly field test his animatronics. While he had initially considered calling in one or two members of his newly hired staff for this event, he figured that he could handle things on his own given the small number of guests that had been invited.

As it so happened, Michael was having his tonsils removed during this test run, and because of that William had to bring Elizabeth and Evan with him to the restaurant. This wasn't an issue, of course, as there were plenty of games, rides, and entertainment to keep them preoccupied. All William had to do was to keep them away from Circus Baby and Funtime Freddy—a simple matter, of course.

Elizabeth had kept begging to go see Circus Baby perform the whole ride over to the restaurant. But knowing all too well how busy he would be, William kept telling her no. It wasn't until he promised to personally take her to see Circus Baby the day after the event that she relented somewhat.

Evan, on the other hand, just kept quiet and hugged his beloved Fredbear plush tightly to his chest.

Upon arriving at Circus Baby's Pizza World, William brought Elizabeth and Evan to the game room. He left them there to play while he got everything ready for the guests, making sure to check in with them every five minutes or so.

By the time the guests arrived, everything necessary for the event was up and running—including the animatronics. William personally greeted everyone entering the restaurant, all the while documenting anything and everything of interest in one of his notebooks that he had brought with him.

Before long, the place was filled with the sound of children playing and laughing, and parents chatting. The kids eagerly explored everything the restaurant had to offer—playing in the game room, riding the miniature carousel, and watching the animatronics perform.

However, after seeing a group of children go to see Circus Baby's show, Elizabeth went to William and tugged on his pants to get his attention.

"Daddy, you let the other children go see her. Why won't you let me go?" She asked with a frown.

William, busying himself with his notes, simply waved her off. "Not now, Elizabeth. We'll see her later."

"But why can't I see her now?"

He turned away from his notes and gave her a stern look. "Because I said so."

Elizabeth pouted and then went back to play with Evan. This only lasted until the group that had watched Circus Baby went to the game room to play.

After talking to some of the children, Elizabeth went to William and excitedly said, "Daddy, she can make balloons! Have you seen her make balloons? Oh Daddy, let me go to her!"

William let out an exasperated sigh and said, "The answer is still no, Elizabeth."

Once again, she pouted and went back to play with her little brother.

Then, despite all of William's planning, something unexpected happened. Two kids approached him and asked for something to drink. Given that this event was partially intended to promote the restaurant, William figured that he couldn't just give them water, or worse, let them go thirsty. As such, he decided to go to the employees only area to hook up a couple of bag-in-box containers to the soda fountain.

Evan and Elizabeth looked on as some of the other kids were riding the miniature carousel, patiently waiting for their turn. The carousel was beginning to come to a stop when Elizabeth noticed that their father was leaving the game room.

With a mischievous smile, Elizabeth tugged on her little brother's shirt and said, "Evan, Daddy isn't watching. Come on, let's go see Circus Baby!"

"But I wanna ride the carousel," Evan whined.

"You can ride it later, now come on," Elizabeth insisted.

"No, I wanna ride the carousel," the four-year-old repeated.

"Fine, I'll go see her by myself!" Elizabeth said impatiently before leaving to go to the Circus Gallery.

The carousel then came to a complete stop, and most of the kids who had been riding it got off. Smiling excitedly, Evan got into the ride, which started up again not long thereafter.

Once the ride finally came to a stop, Evan climbed off of it and looked around for his father. Not seeing him anywhere, the four-year-old decided to go look for his sister in the Circus Gallery. On his way there, he passed a group of children who had just watched Circus Baby's performance.

As Evan approached the door to the Circus Gallery, he saw his big sister step closer to the stage. However, he was too far away from the door to catch sight of Circus Baby herself.

Then, just as Circus Baby came into view, the four-year-old watched in horror as the mechanical jester's abdomen split apart like a massive mouth, with a big mechanical claw shooting out of it and grabbing Elizabeth, crushing and pulling her into the animatronic.

Evan screamed louder than he ever had in his life. He turned and ran back to the game room, with tears streaming down his face as he called out to his father.

Having finally hooked up the soda fountain to the bag-in-box containers, William came out of the employees only area, ready to hand out drinks to his guests.

Then, suddenly, he heard Evan scream, and not long thereafter, the four-year-old came running to the game room, looking incredibly distressed.

"Father, Father!" Evan shouted as he ran towards him, tears flowing down his cheeks. "Circus Baby ate Elizabeth!"

William's face went pale. Without a second thought, he ran past his son and towards the Circus Gallery. After swiftly entering the room and locking the door behind him, he rushed to Circus Baby.

Praying that Evan had mistaken some other girl for Elizabeth, William worked as fast as he could to deactivate the animatronic, open her chest cavity, and then unseal her specimen storage tank. However, his prayers were to no avail as the storage tank opened up to reveal Elizabeth's mangled body inside.

William stared at the remains of his little girl in disbelief. "Nononono, please god no…"

He pulled her out of the tank and cradled her in his arms.

Tears trickled down his cheeks and he hugged her close to his chest.

This couldn't be happening. Not to him. Not to his family.

This wasn't real!

William shut his eyes and tried to will himself into waking up from what had to be a nightmare. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't wake up.

This wasn't a dream.

He opened his eyes and was once again met with the broken body of his daughter. Her face, once so vibrant and full of joy, was now still.

She was dead, and it was all his fault.

William broke down completely.

"Why didn't you listen to me?" He sobbed. "Why didn't you listen…?"