Friday, July 14, 2017, 9:15 PM
Mike nearly fell over as he used one arm to brace himself against the wall. The box of tapes he received came from William Afton's disgruntled ex-wife, who wanted to help him accomplish something he never thought possible. Allegedly. He raised an eyebrow as the magnetic film unspooled. This might have been a trick by Auric.
"I should provide some exposition first. Sit down and get comfortable; this might take a while," the voice said. Considering the dozens of tapes in the box probably held 50 or 75 hours of audio, yeah, he guessed it would. Mike unplugged the player with sweaty hands, which caused Henrietta's voice to deepen and fizzle out, before hesitating to plug it back in by the couch.
His life had been perfect for the last 17 years. Oh, global events certainly hadn't, but his own slice of reality could scarcely have been better. Did he want to dispel the peace he and his friends had earned through their own blood? He could have thrown out the box or buried it in the deepest part of the crawlspace he had for a basement. A drop of sweat beaded on his forehead, and his stomach knotted.
Then he thought of his wife and friends. After all these years, he knew they'd have a range of opinions about what they should do… but all of them would want to be told about this. So would Mike if he were in their shoes. He sighed, knowing what needed to be done. Before that, though, he saw no problem listening to the first tape tonight. With that, he plugged it in and slumped down on the couch as the reel spun up. He thought about Auric and everything the abomination had done.
Auric caused relatively few of the world's many problems. It's not like he was responsible for national conflicts or global warming. His evil was of a more intimate kind. Assuming Henrietta told the truth about having figured out how to kill him, though, didn't they owe it to his thousands of victims to destroy him? The monster was beyond saving, Mike knew, so he didn't need to consider redemption. If this were any human, even one like Phil (or Henrietta's dead ex-husband), he would have hesitated.
"I don't want to say too much about myself, because it doesn't matter in the end. This isn't my story. I should give you context to how I fit in, though. First, I met William – my future husband – when we were students at Caltech back in the day." What, the 60s? He could barely imagine that era, though it only occurred a little more than a decade before his birth. "And we got married and had a kid. You know how it goes. Believe it or not, he wasn't a bad guy at the time." Mike struggled to believe that, though he couldn't really judge. Her voice got strained slightly. "That changed after Elizabeth died. There was an industrial accident in 1983. Killed her and took out William's spine."
"That's when he changed. He became twisted. Bitter. I couldn't take it anymore, so I got a divorce. The lawyers made sure I 'only' got a few million dollars, but that was fine with me." Mike rolled his eyes at hearing about that, and she thankfully didn't go into more detail. "We kept in touch, though. He didn't tell me everything about his work, but I could tell he had some insane ideas he wanted to kick off." That piqued Mike's interest a little. "He was going to Tibet to see lamas and consulting with Theosophists and researching the Dead Sea Scrolls. I'm not sure I could call it 'conspiracy theory' stuff, but it was adjacent." What did he expect to find, if anything? Maybe she'd answer that.
"I was concerned, but he never did anything illegal, as far as I knew. I figured it was a bad way to cope with grief… and I wasn't wrong. Then, around 1988, he told me he was trying to create artificial intelligence by partnering with a pizzeria owner and a demon." She paused, either allowing the words time to sink in or barely able to believe them, herself. "And I laughed at him." Mike cringed, knowing he probably would have done the same thing. There was no other way to take that but a bad joke. "It wasn't until weeks later that he sent me the first photos. He… he was trying to impress me."
"I was horrified. But he told me that if I called the police, if I got anyone to stop him, Auric would haunt and torment me for the rest of my life, and that there was nothing I could do to stop him." Mike's teeth clench and his foot angrily tapped the floor; he hadn't felt those reactions in years. "So I didn't. I kept quiet over the years as he told me more and more about his progress – or lack thereof." Mike sighed. He couldn't judge her. After all, he kept quiet for the same reasons. Well, that and the fact the government would haul off his friends to experiment on. But he wasn't innocent, either, in that he had the power to inform someone.
"I couldn't sit on my hands forever, though. I knew that something would eventually topple the house of cards. That turned out to be you." Mike wondered how exactly she knew. Was William feeding her information to impress her, or did she have a source on the inside that not even Helen knew about? "Not necessarily the kind of person I expected." He decided to take that as a positive. That was when her tone turned almost nostalgic.
"So, I retraced William's footsteps, using the snippets he told me and all the money I had to my name. What's the point if you aren't going to use it, right?" Can't take it with you. "It took years, but I learned everything he did. I went to the same places, found the same people and studied the same texts." Mike couldn't imagine absorbing such information. He spent four years in college, but business made more sense as an academic field than space magic. Doing that would have driven him mad.
Maybe she is.
"Now I'll get to the point," Henrietta said, shaking off the funk of old memories. "Auric's power changes based on celestial phenomena." Mike knew that. He'd never seen it in action, but the demon mentioned several times that his abilities were greatest on the summer and winter solstices. He may not have been native to Earth, yet he spent enough time there that his energies became aligned with those of the planet. Mike had never been able to wrap his head around it, yet he found himself gripping his knees.
"And one event temporarily makes him vulnerable: a total solar eclipse. There's one coming up when you get this." Mike's eyes widened and flew to the calendar on the far wall. Barely more than a month until the eclipse set to sweep the nation. People all over the country were talking about it, and even Mike made plans to see it. Those were now officially canceled. "I need to stress that he's only weakened in the totality, a band of darkness only about 100 miles wide. It's not hitting Washington, unfortunately, but it will go through central Oregon, so you'll need to get him there somehow. Do it, and he'll become mortal… though there are several more steps to that, which I'll detail later."
Mike shot up and ran to grab his laptop. His legs shook so much that he almost dropped to one knee. Even if he missed a sentence or two, he needed to start researching, everything else be damned. He'd try to keep one ear open, though he already didn't hear a full paragraph as he ran to and from his bedroom.
"If you miss the window, there's another total solar eclipse cutting through the Midwest in 2024, if you can find a way to lure Auric to Illinois or the like." That wouldn't be necessary; they'd do it right the first time, and he wouldn't need to spend a good chunk of his life stewing. "After that, there are no total solar eclipses hitting the United States until 2044, so unless you want to wait until you're almost a senior citizen, you need to do it sooner rather than later. This is assuming Auric hasn't left the country by then."
As she spoke, Mike frantically searched for every total solar eclipse happening between that moment and, say, 2050. Not because he'd miss this golden opportunity… just to see his options. 2019 in Chile, 2021 in Antarctica, 2027 in Egypt, 2028 in Australia. Yeah, he couldn't see himself luring Auric to any of those, and he didn't expect the demon to leave the Pacific Northwest when he'd been there for the last several decades. Eclipses lasted between a few seconds and five minutes. Even the longest provided no margin for error.
His head spun. He knew these events were rare, yet he hadn't comprehended just how infrequent. Only one happened every two years or so, and given that most of the planet was open ocean or the poles, a lot of them were only observed by a handful of people. What an amazing world he lived in. He cocked his head towards the tape player while his eyes remained fixed on the monitor.
"The specifics – what I've researched all these years – are most of what's on the other tapes. It took thousands of hours of study, and I hope I've been able to synthesize it into a few dozen." That reminded him of his thesis. Well, if this woman went to Caltech, writing something similar should have been old hat. "I thought about including my theories about what Auric is, exactly, but I still don't know for certain. I have a few hypotheses… and you don't want to know them. I may never sleep well for the rest of my life." A shudder crawled up his back, and he almost thought the monster was in the room with him. "It's not important to the science of killing him, though, if you want to call it that." Was 'science' or 'killing' the word supposed to be in air quotes, he wondered.
"I'm sorry I'm only telling you this now. It should be 2017 by the time you hear this, but I'm recording in March, 2001. You might not be alive. I might not be, either." That explained why she recorded on cassette instead of MP3. In 2001, while tapes were on the way out, at least a few people used them. Mike still had his Walkman that long, after all.
"The reason I waited is because of Auric. He may have been spying on you, considering he's so obsessive." Mike considered that very thing, so it made sense Henrietta reached the same conclusion. Over the years, the temperature in his office dropped 20 degrees for a few minutes every month or two, and he occasionally felt eyes on the back of his head. That may have just been the lingering PTSD talking, though. If it was Auric, he never revealed himself. "If you started planning how to kill him in, say, 2002, he might have caught on. That's why you're getting this so late in the game; there's little chance of him finding out." Mike accepted that answer. And, honestly, he'd rather only worry for a month instead of for 16 years.
"That's all I have for this time. When you're ready for the next tape, it'll be waiting for you," she said. For a moment, her gloom lifted, and she sounded as happy as someone in her situation could. "Good luck. Good luck to you all." The tape unspooled in the player for a few seconds that felt like small eternities; Mike almost expected demonic noises to start or sounds that would reveal a secret message if played in reverse.
That only happened in horror movies and the occasional record, though. Instead, the tape just stopped. That was all. He released a breath he didn't know he held. Something seemed to brush the back of Mike's neck, which made him flinch. Just my overactive imagination, he told himself, actually believing it. Before he did anything else, he wanted to check something.
Henrietta Afton, Mike typed into Google, erasing the eclipse results. Unlike search engines of yesteryear, ones of the present sorted and organized unimaginable quantities of data in less than a second. Obituaries were on the first page. He checked multiple to see if he got the right person, and indeed he did – the former wife of a mysterious, disappeared tech mogul, etc. She died from a stroke in 2013. It must have been in her will to not mail this box to him until only a month before the eclipse for the reasons she described. Good thing he still lived at the same location.
Mike sighed. Unless he found a medium to do seances, he couldn't ask her for advice. The only things he had were his friends, his wits and whatever else was on these tapes.
He looked over at the box of recordings, probing them as he pondered. Part of him wanted to listen to another. Just one more, the voice whispered at the back of his mind, as if this were like watching episodes of One Piece. "One more" would keep going until dawn broke, and he'd be a nervous wreck who had gotten no sleep. He saw the future, and it was exhausting.
Therefore, he ripped off the Band-Aid and pulled the plug on the player. For good measure, he slid the tape back into its sleeve and put everything back in the box. That'd keep him from caving in the middle of the night. He'd take it to the others, and then they'd decide what to do.
The only thing to do before bed was to brush his teeth. Something seemed to move in the mirror, but every time his eyes focused on it, the blur disappeared. Unnerved, Mike finished his oral hygiene in the hallway, digging his toes into the carpet and trying to stare at the blank wall instead of looking left or right. Henrietta's words got to him; the hair on his arms stood on end.
It… it must have been years since I was this scared, he thought, spitting into the sink. The last time he remembered being so on edge was right after 9/11, when the entire country went into a paranoid tailspin for a month, waiting for Al-Qaeda goons to pop out of thin air. Mike hadn't been immune to the fear. That had been after the last time he saw Auric, and no horror movie scared him so badly since then, either.
He entered his bedroom, which was the same he slept in since he was a child. Didn't see any reason to "upgrade" to his parents' room. His finger hovered over the light switch… I think I'll leave them on. It wouldn't help if Auric really did come, but it might make him feel a little safer. His fear almost shocked him.
Upon covering himself with the sheets, he glued his eyes shut and wished Foxy were with him. She handled her terrors better than him. The bulb above him burned through his eyelids, and he saw it almost as brightly as the sun. That was fine. God, he prayed, I don't know what we're going to do, but please don't let anyone die. After years of struggling with his faith in the face of unprecedented doubts, Mike made peace with being a Christian.
As he slowly drifted off, he only hoped his dreams weren't too disturbing.
Saturday, July 15, 2017, 8:00 AM
Phil cracked his eyes open, and his mouth opened in a deep yawn as his arms stretched over his head, popping his shoulder servos. Light filtered from cracks in the ceiling, a few raindrops painting its cover. Thanks to the pane of glass held in place by a seal he clumsily installed, he hadn't gotten wet for the last few months. With all the mold and mildew cleaned out, the supply closet wasn't a terrible place to sleep. Not a five-star hotel, but with the rabbit-eared TV (how appropriate) in the corner that he salvaged from the local dump and electricity drawn from the building itself, it was almost as good as a Motel 6.
No toilet, but that was what he used the shovel in the corner for. In fact, now was a good time to use it, so he grabbed it and hopped outside to do his business. After that, he pondered what to do for the day.
There aren't many options, he thought, lightly tapping the mattress he slept on. I could watch television or read a book or mindlessly scroll on that phone I stole. Even after 17 years on his own, he never quite got the hang of unemployment. His residence was as good as he could make it, so he had no excuse to fiddle with adding new things.
He needed a walk to clear his head. Fortunately, he lived in an interesting place. Always new things to see, even after multiple years exploring. He headed out of the unassuming storage closet and locked up, placing the padlock key in the pocket of his purple jacket. The coat should have been destroyed after all it had been through, but he learned enough sewing skills to keep it held together. He tried to keep it as purple as possible, yet large chunks had been replaced by patches of other colors, which made him look like a hobo from the Great Depression.
The twisting maze of hallways opened before him, and he stopped to see his neighbor. "Hey, Jeff!" he exclaimed, knocking on the stone wall beside a black curtain. "I'm coming in!" He yanked the covering aside, revealing a full-body endoskeleton covered in gore staring back at him. An organic eye hung out, and its metal teeth morphed into bone. Fleshy arms grew from its back, melding with steel. It may as well have been a TOY drone that escaped ENNARD.
Good thing it wasn't real.
Well, the metal parts were. The "organic" ones, however, had been molded from latex. It was convincing enough to make Phil scream the first time he saw it. At this point, though, Jeff was just the guy next door. He had an apartment, just like Phil! Phil talked to him sometimes.
Perhaps, he idly thought, his mental health could have been better.
"Well, it was great seeing you," he said, giving the prop a pat on the shoulder. "I'll tell everyone else you're doing OK!" I have to keep reminding myself he's… it's not real, he thought, shaking his head. Unlike me. He was real, he told himself. Phil had memories and experiences. I think, therefore I am. Some philosopher said that a long time ago. Voltaire?
He walked through more winding halls, silently nodding at the other animatronics. They stared back with dead eyes. Versions of the people he loved were among them, though those no longer held the same shock value they once did. Seeing Bonnie bash a night guard to death against the metal doors and a dozen similar scenes were now merely distasteful.
Eventually, he made his way outside again, where rain gave way to the lightest of drizzles. The paths getting paved earlier that year meant he no longer needed to hop through mud, which he appreciated. He observed the empty lines to the half-dozen other frightful buildings, which were themed to different aspects of the Fazbear legend.
The only one Phil never ventured into was the one about him.
Eventually, he found himself at the front of the park, marooned in between an empty expanse of foggy asphalt and the gates, above which hung a sign that must have been reproduced on hundreds of billboards and known to half the teenagers in the country, if the stuff he saw online was to be believed.
FAZBEAR'S FRIGHT: THE HORROR ATTRACTION
The massive words were scrawled in jagged, bloody letters. Beside them were depictions of his family turned into 12-foot-tall murderers. Freddy, his hands covered in gore, reached down while his mouth opened impossibly wide, human remains visible behind it. Chica's flesh had been burned off her head, revealing some Terminator-esque fusion of metal and meat. Same with Bonnie. Foxy was the most interesting, though.
For one thing, she was depicted as male. That was a common mistake fans of the restaurants made. It always struck him as odd to see his sister with a distinctly more grizzled, masculine muzzle and a lack of breasts. For another, well, it was enough to say she had been made into more of a monster than the rest with the kid whose head she chomped down on. Clearly, the artist behind this heard of the "Bite of '87". Together, it formed a cornerstone of horror, one that several studios looked to produce films about.
He didn't mean to oversell it. For all the advanced technology and fame it drew, it was still a thrill ride. Phil lived there long enough to know the only monster present was him. That still makes it scarier than most haunted houses. He sighed and walked back to his hovel, happy to have wasted 30 minutes.
The animatronics must have known about it. Given that the place hadn't been shuttered, he guessed whoever owned the restaurant (could it still have been Helen?) never filed a lawsuit. Nor did the family of James – the kid who was gratuitously killed on signs across America. Maybe there had been some sort of deal they hadn't heard about, or maybe the place was able to get away with it because it was a drawing, and they didn't show his face.
To the place's credit, it didn't lean entirely on the visages of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy. They had their own mythology which invented original characters, like Music Man and Yenndo. At least someone was being creative. Well, maybe the person who owned the place wasn't, but people on the Internet discussed the minutiae ad nauseam. Phil never participated, but he hung around on Reddit and /x/ to see if anyone caught on to the truth.
I'm so fucking pathetic, he thought, stomping around the grounds as he prepared to enter another spiral. He was a 52-year-old man – he'd almost forgotten his age several times, but he committed his birth year to memory – who lived alone and spent all his time online. That ignored the part where he died and came back as a robot! He laughed, startling some birds nearby.
Morbid as it seemed, this was the perfect place for Phil to live. It stood abandoned from December to July, meaning he had the place to himself for half a year. Almost. Salem had the same homelessness problem as the rest of the region, but Phil scared off occasional squatters. The second he lurched toward them, growling and doing his best impersonation of rabies, they ran away screaming, never to return. He'd thought a time or two about killing them. It'd be quick, easy and not result in people saying they saw a green Sasquatch around town. Had to hold onto his humanity, though, if only for the sake of his decaying sanity.
Soon, it'd be August, and the staff would return. That meant the kickoff to Halloween season. With about 100 paid actors running around, nobody noticed one more person "in costume". All he needed to do was get a little dirty and perhaps apply some red makeup, and he easily passed for a moldy, psycho version of Bonnie. Or, if he didn't want to be as involved, he could play the part of an animatronic. As a robot, he was very good at standing completely still. His former family had been able to do it for hours at a time, and it turned out he could, too.
It was almost the time when he could interact with people and not be alone. It didn't help much, but he'd take it. Not speaking to anyone for months at a time made him want to tear his fur out. How did Foxy do it? Maybe he should have asked before she and the rest threw him into the snow. Not that he blamed anyone. The only fault was his own. He shook his head as he entered his room and locked the door behind him.
Maybe things would have turned out better if he'd been honest from the beginning. Or maybe he'd have been expelled immediately and have lost out on his few fond memories. It was impossible to know. Still, he'd never stop wondering.
He slumped over on the beanbag chair where he spent his waking hours. Even if he had no captors, the entire planet was his prison. He mindlessly picked up his phone and looked through what happened in a world he could never again be part of. August can't come soon enough.
8:00 PM
Mike sat in his office, tallying the day's inventory. That proved to be a supremely easy task when all parties were required to order ahead. It must not have even seemed odd to customers anymore after being the status quo for so long. The most he needed to do was discern what cuts of meat and fresh vegetables to order from Seattle. Even that was mostly dictated by Chica, the restaurant's head chef! Sometimes, it seemed Mike did nothing but put on a friendly face. Not that he complained; Fazbear's was a team effort, one that his friends cared about even more than he did. There might not have been a more dedicated group of employees in the world.
I just need more of a challenge, he thought. Could I turn around a struggling small business or be a cog in a Fortune 500 company? He'd never know because he'd never work anywhere else. Neither of those particularly appealed to him, anyway, but it'd be nice to know the degree he spent four years working toward was more than a nice piece of paper to hang on his wall.
He looked over the ledger once more before shutting it. Saturday was often the busiest, but they had an unusually light load that day. It was still crowded, but "only" booked to 75 percent capacity. Other owners might worry people lost interest, but Mike thought nothing of it. There may not have been much to do in Whitewater, but the region had plenty of great activities: fishing, kayaking, and the big city was only an hour away. He hoped some of the regular customers went outside on a beautiful day instead of playing video games for hours. Mike smirked to himself, knowing he would have sounded ancient if he said that aloud. He didn't spend enough time outdoors, either.
Regardless, it was time for the main event. He stood up and exited Phil's old office, which put him face-to-face with the guard room he once called his own. Shockingly, seeing it brought good memories instead of bad. He almost died dozens of times inside, and scars on the windows from claws or a certain hook testified about how close he came. But it was also where he learned that he was stronger than he ever expected. It was where some of the most defining moments of his life occurred. Time was the only reason he saw the place through rose-tinted glasses, yet he'd rather have good memories than bad, no matter what the situation.
Not that it mattered to anyone but him and the animatronics. Since Mary moved behind the main stage with the rest of the gang (except Foxy), there was no reason to maintain the place. Therefore, it had been shuttered and left to gather dust. Mike spotted the computer through cracked glass. They'd gotten rid of the cameras, too, since they also had no meaning.
"Hey, uh, everyone," he announced as he entered the main area. Bonnie and Chica, glued to a fighting game, looked over at the same time. Mike suppressed a snicker, remembering a few funny times kids thought they were dating instead of siblings. Chica almost vomited the first time a child asked if Bonnie was her boyfriend! "Like, there's something I want to talk about."
He decided to not tell them before work to not throw off their game. Now, though, he ran out of excuses. He needed to bite the bullet and tell them what he already knew. Freddy, yawning, also hopped off the stage while scratching his back.
"What's goin' on?" Bonnie asked as he and Chica wrapped up their bout of Tekken. At this point, all of them were so good they barely needed to look at the screen.
"I'll tell you once I get it," Mike muttered. "Just, um, make sure everyone is h-here. Please." Freddy nodded, though his muzzle creased in concern. Mike rarely acted so cagey. Therefore, he hurried into the evening air while the summer sun set behind the trees. The same sun was important to killing Auric, if his benefactor was to be believed.
His shoes tapped on the tar as he reached the only vehicle remaining in the lot. He grabbed the handle on the passenger door, which smoldered after 12 hours of solar exposure, and yanked it open, grabbing the box and extension cord he included before closing the door with his foot and heading back. Though it only took a minute, everyone had assembled around the central table. Not June. She was the other person he wanted to tell, but she was still mourning and in a different state. He'd make sure he told her when she got back.
"What's going on?" Foxy asked as Mike dropped the crate onto the tablecloth. Her left ear twitched slightly, the earrings in it clacking together.
"It's quicker if I play this," Mike said, holding up the tape before slotting it in. Then he fumbled with the extension cord; they sat far enough from the wall that he knew it would be needed. "This w-was on my porch last night." She raised an eyebrow. Everyone except Mary looked supremely skeptical.
"Is it from a crazy fan or aspiring serial killer?" Foxy followed up, only half joking.
"Not quite." Though he'd been stalked a few times, it wasn't as common as he once feared. Mike had been sure not to make his full name or personal address public after the Fazbear legend picked up steam a few years ago. Even in the modern era, where all information seemed to be available, that turned out to be easy when hewas the only human employee. He never made a LinkenIn account or an official Fazbear's Twitter or common things for businesspeople to boost their brands in the 2010s. He thought about making something to "refute" the "myths", except the myths were mostly true.
Not like he was a ghost, though. The people in town knew him, as did the vendors he did business with. He even kept in touch with some of his friends from college, which would once have been mind-boggling to him. Hell, one got married last year, and he got invited to her wedding! But, in terms of the business, Fazbear's kept a low, low profile. They thought about hiring actual bouncers before concluding that would have been a step too far. Again, too much attention. The restaurant used to have security to prevent the animatronics from hurting anyone, and now they seriously considered getting people to prevent the animatronics themselves from being harassed. Well, life had always been strange for them.
Mike plugged the cord in, and the tape played from the beginning. He limped to the table and sat, just as interested in the faces of his fellows as the words themselves, which already etched themselves into his memory. Their reactions were expected, though still remarkable. There was shock, surprise, hope, fear, and so on as the reveals kept coming. It was how he would have looked if he could have seen himself in a mirror.
When the tape concluded, Mike half expected all Hell to break loose. Instead, though, it was eerily silent. Nobody summoned the will to speak. Instead, all were flabbergasted enough to hold their tongues. Mike wasn't sure if he'd be able to add anything. At least it wasn't as bad as the last time they got such shocking information. When Fritz burst through the door at Christmas and started babbling about another robot killing everyone, it felt like a punch in the stomach. Here, there was hope, mixed with danger though it may have been.
Crazy as it sounded, they had a chance to end this forever.
Mary was the one to speak first, which she did without skipping a beat. "I possess perfect recall and can condense information." She cocked her head at Mike before swiveling it around to all the others; this belonged to them all. "If I may have access to the tapes, I can listen to them all and learn exactly what is being discussed."
"Good idea," Foxy said next, managing to get her mouth working after it flapped a few times, "though I'd like to listen to them, anyway." They all trusted Mary, yet there was nothing like hearing the words for themselves. She nodded. All of them needed time to digest what had just been learned. Bonnie and Chica glanced at each other, and Freddy stared out the glass doors. If they didn't start that night, though, it needed to be the next day. Only a little more than a month remained before the eclipse. It would go both agonizingly slowly and all too fast.
"That's all," he said, standing up but leaving the tapes. Mary could have at it if she wanted to parse them. Given her limitless patience, it should have only taken until tomorrow night or Monday morning. That gave him a great excuse to not worry about the inevitable for one more glorious day. Foxy had the same thought as everyone else dispersed in a daze.
"Are you up for more episodes of One Piece," she asked him. Added a sultry blink, as if he needed an incentive to stick around.
"Let's do it," he replied, already walking toward the Cove. He swung an arm around her waist for good measure. Stroking her long, fluffy tail put him in Heaven, and it took some self-control to resist squeezing her ass. Though I don't think she'd mind. "I'll, uh, stay the night, too, if that's OK."
"Fine with me," she churred. A peck on the cheek made his face burn, and he already knew it'd be a wild night once they finished watching TV.
"I'm not gonna cook anything tonight!" Chica called out to nobody in particular while throwing her hands in the air. They'd survive one night without a gourmet meal.
Mike pushed aside the purple curtain for his wife, trying to forget his worries. There was no reason it couldn't just be him and her having a nice, intimate time. They'd worry again tomorrow. That's so far away, he told himself, knowing in his heart that it would come as quickly as a heartbeat.
8:45 PM
Auric yanked the knife from his still-fresh victim, life and heat leaving its mortal shell along with blood. With its last few drops of being, it looked at him with scared eyes as he wiped the cruor on a pine tree. Did it regret coming here? I certainly would. He chuckled under his breath as he grabbed the shovel and started digging in the rocky soil.
The youth of the species were always impressionable, he thought as he threw the first scoop of dirt over his shoulder. That had never been truer than these last few years, when global communications began an exponential rise. From what he recalled during his universal travels, this was a stage of development many species evolved into. Indeed, it was usually among the last before they wiped themselves out through one means or another. Not always, but often. Enjoyable for him, as it allowed him to discover potential conquests far more easily. Such as the fool he'd just eviscerated.
He looked at the body, which had now completely expired. Where did the soul formerly within go? It was something he often wondered. Though a spirit himself, Auric was cut off from whatever came next – if anything. It was not his domain, and he only mused out of boredom.
Speaking of bodies, Auric didn't know why he kept this one. He looked down at the golden fur on his arm, which had been largely excoriated, revealing gold latex beneath. It was weak, slow and not particularly suited for his work without soldiers to support him. Then again, one didn't need great strength to wield a blade – especially when one's victims were willing. Nostalgia, he supposed. It would be no great loss once it inevitably crumbled, yet he decided to don it until that happened. At the very least, it didn't get tired. He flung more clay, and he could keep going all night if needed.
The sun sank below the horizon, yet he tunneled without pause. It may have been unneeded, but other humans finding dead children in the forest would have limited his enjoyment here. He wanted to savor every moment. Not every day that he found such an ideal spot to perform his handiwork.
This town was nearly identical to the last hamlet in the mountains he inhabited. Similar demographics, population, environment, terrain and so on. The one notable difference was the presence of a booming tourism industry, bringing people from far and wide in pilgrimage. The town had been the setting of some puerile tale about humans and monsters and good and evil. Then again, that may have become true of Whitewater these last few years, as well.
Auric could not have cared less about the specifics. The point was that the story had been popular among teenagers for the last decade, and he decided to take advantage of that fact, though perhaps somewhat too late. Still, once he whispered into a visiting ear and revealed himself as a true creature of the night, many were happy to meet him. So many dreamed of encountering a vampire or a werewolf, and Auric sufficed well enough.
He looked up, finding that the clouds had parted. Stars and the moon cut through the canopy and illuminated the pit he just finished. His celestial companions offered no judgment. They were beyond such things, as were his actions. The people of this plane had no right to question his proclivities. Fortuitously, not many alive even knew he existed. With that, Auric tossed up his tools and crawled to the surface, startling a beast gnawing on dead flesh. It scampered into the woods, driven off by instinctual fear.
With that, Auric grabbed the carcass by its shoulders, flinging it into the chasm with great effort. Bones snapped when it hit the bottom, sounding like the crunch of leaves. The only remaining action was to cover it with earth. Then the body would finally return to where it began.
And where it belongs.
…
Hello, everyone. We're getting into the action quickly this time around! I had thought about establishing the new status quo of Mike as the manager of Fazbear's a little more, but I decided that it was self-explanatory enough. We might see a few glimpses into the specifics of his job, even if it isn't the story's focus.
Instead, we're concentrating on how to kill Auric. It's been a long time coming. I've known for a long time that the 2017 eclipse would be the key. That's in no small part because I saw it myself! I was in college, and the eclipse path went right over us. An incredible experience, and I decided it'd be the perfect celestial phenomenon to have happening overhead during a climactic battle. It's kind of weird to write historical fiction about an event that happened while I was actually writing – during 2017, I was fumbling through the early chapters of ASaF.
Including Fazbear's Fright was very fun! Again, my depiction was inspired by real life. I'm from St. Louis, and there are two haunted house attractions called "The Darkness" and "Creepyworld" that are open around Halloween. The Darkness is supposed to be one of the most advanced in the country, in that it uses almost exclusively animatronics instead of actors, while Creepyworld is a traditional fairground. I went to both when I was in high school and college. A combination of them is the kind of vibe I'm trying to hit! You can look up videos on YouTube if you're interested. I'll also explore the lore that's developed around Fazbear's in this setting.
Thanks to Jack.13cz, djboss9309 and ThatOneGuy for reviewing the first chapter. I appreciate your guys' input; it makes me feel like an accomplished writer to have people leave feedback on my work. I'll see you all next time!