Author's Note: This chapter has sections where characters are texting. These sections were originally written in the Pages app on my phone, with right-aligning text and emoji in mind, but I have translated the emojis to emoticons and adjusted the formatting to the best of my ability so that it's actually readable on this site. I think it worked out pretty well, but if it didn't please let me know.


Wednesday was odd. It was the turning point when you stopped reminiscing about the past week and started planning for next week. Ginger looked forward to the weekends, but Moon despised them. The weekend guard (Sasha or something?) was much closer to a typical Fazbear employee. While Ginger excelled at nearly every aspect of the job, it was clear that Sasha only wanted to survive her shift. She and Moon never talked, and he was glad to only have to deal with her two days a week. The only good thing about his weekend was the extra sleep he got on Sunday mornings. Resting was nice, but he would prefer to have a competent security guard.

And he had one, for now at least. She had already lasted far longer than he had predicted. Very few guards had stayed this long. Most stayed for a week or two, but some quit as early as the end of their first shift, assuming they weren't fired. For whatever reason, she wanted to stay here. She was so different.

She was extra excited to see him today. As soon as he slid down, she ran over to the ball pit.

"Gabe! GabeGabeGabeGabe!"

"Good mor- ok." She grabbed his arm and pulled him behind the security desk.

"I. Have. News." She was bouncing up and down slightly.

"Cool. What is it?"

"Okokok SO! You know how the Daycare Attendant has been 'undergoing maintenance' since the storm? Well apparently they haven't been to Parts and Services AT ALL!"

"Oh?" He didn't like where this was going. If anyone could figure out the truth, it was her.

"Yeah! Alice from the ticket booth—do you know Alice? Doesn't matter. She told me some Faztech spilled the beans yesterday. There wasn't even an official evaluation or anything, they were just gone."

"What happened to them, then?"

"That's the thing, nobody knows! Some people say they were too damaged, and they were scrapped right away. Others say they were stolen. I'm leaning towards the second option, mostly because I really want it to be true."

"You do?"

"Uh, yeah. If they were stolen, they might still be in one piece."

"Too bad we'll never know for sure."

A mischievous smile spread across Ginger's face. Uh oh.

"Actually, I might know how to find them." She pulled up the FazTrack website. Double uh oh. "You see, each animatronic has its own built-in tracking device. As long as it's still active, we can find it anywhere within a 100 mile radius."

If she searched for his and Sun's signal, she would know for sure! He had to stop her without looking too suspicious.

"Hey, Ginger, this is great and all, but don't you think someone else has already tried this?"

"If they have, they haven't told me. Corporate's trying to cover it up, remember? For now, I want to try to solve this mystery myself. You can help if you want."

"I think you need more help than I can give you." Moon wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He tried to guide her away from the monitor, but found himself frozen in place as their eyes met. It was all he could do not to lean in more. The situation was alarming, but he kept his composure. "Do you even know how to use this?"

"Sure I do! I just click this, aaaaaannnd… nothing."

"What?" This was enough to snap Moon out of his trance. He grabbed the back of the nearest chair and analyzed the screen. Sure enough, it was blank. Neither of them were showing up. Why weren't they showing up? He was glad that their secret was safe, but this didn't make sense. He knew they had shown up the night of the storm. What had changed?

Were they becoming more human? He had heard stories where magic spells became permanent after a certain amount of time. What if they couldn't change back? What if they had to stay this way forever, forced to eat the cafeteria's leftover pizza until they died?

"LOOK!" Ginger pointed to the screen. A faint tracking marker appeared for a fraction of a second. Relief flooded Moon's mind. "Did you see that? There was a blip!"

"I didn't see anything."

"Shoot!" Another banned word. If she was anyone else, she would be on thin ice. "You must've missed it! It was right… here? That can't be right."

"Maybe you were reading it wrong?"

"No, it… the signal was right here. Like, right here, practically where this desk is."

"That's the one place we know it can't be coming from."

"I know, but…" Ginger looked all around the play area, as if expecting Sun to suddenly pop out from some unseen corner. "…um…underground, maybe? There's a basement under here, right? I don't know. This is weird. I'll have to look into it on my own time."

"Yeah, for sure. Oh, and Ginger?"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful."

He walked off, partly to do his morning inspection, and partly to think. He still had a tracking signal, but it was extremely faint. Sun's signal didn't even show up, possibly due to him being slightly farther away. They had comparatively stronger signals right after the change happened. Thus, the signals must become weaker the longer they stay human. He didn't know enough about the FazTrack devices or magical shapeshifting orbs to figure out why, but it would probably be best to get things back to normal before the signals stopped working at all.

They were running out of time.

Today was an average day for Sun. Wake up, go to work, smile for the kids, tolerate Elaine, go home. What surprised him the most was how normal it all seemed. This was his daily routine now. Sure, he didn't get to see the kids as much, but at least he could greet them during check-in. Some of them smiled back, and even talked to him, which was always nice. He also didn't get as much free time, but what little he had was enjoyable. Right now, he was sitting on the couch for a moment. It was a very comfortable couch.

Moon was in the kitchen getting a snack. Although he fought it at first, he was getting better at feeding himself every day. Now that he thought about it, Sun was hungry, too.

"Will you please bring over the tortilla chips?"

"Sure." He grabbed the bag of chips along with two glasses of water and a half-eaten chocolate Moon Pie. Vanessa had bought it for him, and although he liked it, he thought it was too sweet to eat all in one sitting. "Here."

"Thanks, Gabe."

He glared at Sun. "What did you say?"

"I… thanked you for bringing over the chips?"

"No, you said 'Thanks, Gabe.' We use our real names here, Sun."

"Oh, sorry! Must've still been on work mode! Won't happen again!" To Sun, this seemed like a perfectly reasonable mistake. They called each other their real names in public a couple times, it only made sense that the opposite would happen at some point. Besides, he kind of liked their human names. They weren't nearly as easy to confuse with objects.

Moon growled, placed the waters on the coffee table, and perched himself on the back of the couch. As he started nibbling the Moon Pie, Vanessa came out of her bedroom.

"Moon, why are you on the back of my couch?"

"Because I'm not allowed on the kitchen table, or the counters, or the cabinets."

"Glad you're keeping track. Add this to the list."

Moon grumbled and rolled down onto the cushions.

"That's better. What were you two talking about out here?"

"Sun and I had a little… misunderstanding."

"Like I said, it won't happen again," Sun repeated. "Before I forget, may I please borrow your phone, Vanessa?"

"Sure." She handed it over. During the first week or so, Vanessa had watched him like a hawk, but she was much more lenient on letting him have phone time now. He was allowed to use some of the other apps, but he mostly used it to text Chloe.

"Thank you!" Sun grabbed it and plopped down on the couch. He found Chloe's contact and texted her a quick "Hi!" It wasn't long before the thought bubble with three little dots appeared, signaling that she was available to talk.


Chloe: hi sam! how was work?


Chloe didn't know how to type uppercase letters, but that was ok. She was probably busy learning more important things.


Sam: Work was great! Lots of smiling faces! How was school?

Chloe: school was good today. tired tho

Sam: We can talk tomorrow if you need to sleep.

Chloe: no it's fine, i'm going to be up for a while anyway

Sam: Are you sure?

Chloe: yes :)

Chloe: i'm so hyped for sunday!

Sam: Me too! I can't wait to see you again!

Chloe: i can't wait either :D i'm sooo glad we picked something inside. apparently it's supposed to rain next week

Sam: How do you know that?

Chloe: the weather app?

Chloe: sorry, forgot you don't have your own phone

Sam: No worries!

Sam: What's your favorite type of ice cream?


There was a whole app just for weather? While she was typing, Sun scanned Vanessa's home screen until he found the app. It showed hourly weather information for today, and a less-detailed forecast for the next week or so. Naturally, he only paid attention to Sunday. It was supposed to rain, but only a little. He switched back to the conversation.


Chloe: my favorite flavor is cookies and cream, wbu?


Chloe also liked to text with a lot of acronyms. Sun knew a few of them already, but Vanessa had helped a lot. She also helped him decipher confusing emojis. He didn't use them often, but sometimes it was fun to talk with pictures.


Sam: I don't really have a favorite. I'll eat pretty much anything.

Chloe: cool B)

Chloe: (pun very much intended)

Sam: Very cool!

Chloe: so

Chloe: do you have a favorite movie?

Sam: I do! It's pretty old, so I don't know if you've heard of it.

Chloe: a fan of the classics, are we?

Sam: I guess so. My absolute fav is High School Musical, but I think all musicals are great.

Chloe: XD


Laughter? That wasn't supposed to be funny.

"Hey, Vanessa?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you tell me what's so funny about this?"

"Maybe." She came over to the couch, with Gregory following close behind. Before he could show her, Chloe sent another text.


Chloe: oh yeah, that ancient movie nobody's ever heard of. is there anyone our age who wasn't obsessed with it? haven't seen it in forever tho.


Our age. Sun had never heard any of the kids talking about the movie, but Chloe must have been alive when it was popular. Which meant that he should have been alive. Which meant that he should have seen it back then, or at least known how popular it was.

"Uh oh."

"Uh oh?" Vanessa panicked. "What happened?" She yoinked the phone out of his hands and read today's conversation.

"I might have messed up big-time."

"What happened?" she repeated, confused.

"Don't you see it? I totally blew my cover! I acted like High School Musical was a super old, obscure movie!"

"That's it? That's nothing to worry about. She took it as a joke. Your cover is perfectly safe, and she thinks you're funny. From here, you could either say that you were also obsessed with it back then, or you could be slightly more honest and say that you didn't watch it until recently."

"But she said it was super popular! If I said I'd never seen it, wouldn't she know something was off?"

"Nope. I had some friends who never watched it. Nobody has seen every movie. You could say that you didn't want to watch it back then, or your parents didn't let you-"

"Oh, I can't do that one. I already told her that my parents died when I was very young."

"Wha- how did that come up in conversation? Actually, I don't wanna know. You can say you had strict foster parents, I guess? Or don't give her a reason, that's also fine. Just don't tell her anything that's going to be hard to remember later."

"Ok. Thank you for the advice."

"Anytime." She handed the phone back, and Sun finally replied.


I saw it for the first time two weeks ago. I didn't watch a lot of tv as a kid.


He felt weird calling himself a kid, even in past-tense. Fazbear wanted their characters to be ageless, hoping that would keep them timeless, as well, so aside from his estimated chronological age, he had never fit neatly into one category. He liked drawing, collecting plushies, and playing pretend, but he had always taken care of the kids, so he couldn't have been one himself. He had a job, and he looked and sounded older, but he had never really been an adult either. What was between a kid and an adult? A teenager? He shuddered at the thought. A fourteen-year-old had been smuggled into the daycare once, and he had sworn to never let it happen again. Whatever he was, he wasn't that.

"Hey, Vanessa? Am I an adult?"

"Why? What is she asking now?"

"Nothing, I'm just curious."

"Oh. Yeah, I think you are."

"Ok."


Chloe: TWO WEEKS AGO? i guess you didn't!

Chloe: did you know there are sequels?

Sun: Yes! I've seen 2 and 3! They're all amazing! I kind of wish we could see more of Zeke and Sharpay, though.

Chloe: i know right! after that end credits scene i really thought they were going to get together :') rip little me


"Vanessa, what does it mean when people 'rip' themselves?"

"She probably meant R.I.P. It stands for rest in peace, something people say to honor the dead. People also use it sarcastically after mild inconveniences. Either way, no one is being ripped apart."

"Oh, that's a relief!"

Vanessa's phone chimed, and a notification dropped down from the top of the screen.


Luis Cabrera

Heya, Ness! I did some digging, and it's actually not as…


"Who texted me?"

"Luis. Do you want me to read it for you?" As much as Sun loved to help, this question was mostly an attempt to keep control of the phone.

"No thanks. Can I have my phone back?"

"How long is this going to take?"

"A while, probably."

"May I please say goodbye to Chloe?"

"Sure."


Sam: I have to go now. Talk again tomorrow?

Chloe: of course! byeee!

Sam: Bye!


Sun handed the phone back to Vanessa.

"Thanks," she said, taking it into her room.

Now what? He had been planning on talking to Chloe for at least half an hour. She didn't even tell him her favorite movie! But, a few minutes was better than nothing.

"I'll never understand why you insist on talking to her," said Moon.

"Who, Chloe? Why? She's a nice girl."

"She's not a girl, Sun, she's a woman. A woman that you're going to have to say goodbye to someday. Every conversation you have is going to make that harder."

"Maybe. Does that mean you're going to stop talking to Ginger?"

"That's different," Moon snapped. "We're forced to be in the same room all day, you and Chloe aren't. Our relationship is strictly professional."

"Ah, yes, of course! And I assume that having long, personal conversations and exchanging gifts are new additions to company policy?"

Moon growled and pulled the drawstrings of his hoodie, hiding most of his face. Sun smiled at his small victory. Whether he liked it or not, Moon had made a friend.