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Henry Emily’s world had first broken in November 1984, when he’d found his 9-year-old daughter’s corpse lying in an alley.
Her face was bloodied and there was an enormous bruise across it, and next to her there was a brick with similar patches of blood on it.
(i wasn’t there)
(i wasn’t there)
(i hurt her)
(i failed her)
Even now he’d still sometimes wake up in a cold sweat, that image fresh in his mind from his dream. And that was on the nights when he actually could get to sleep.
Her death was ruled an accident - something about the brick falling out of the wall, and there’d been a thunderstorm that same night - and he had vague memories of the funeral, but it had been a very long time ago by now, and he’d mostly formed a mental block around those kinds of memories.
They hurt too much.
He’d found Charlotte in the side alley by the kiddie pizzeria he and his best friend had created - Fredbear’s Family Diner - and the place had been shut down a month later.
He couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.
They’d rebooted it the year after as Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, but really William had been in charge of almost the whole thing - Henry was still grieving, still constantly on autopilot, his mind still back at Fredbear’s. He wasn’t really properly registering anything, and spent a third of his time zoned out and staring blankly, one-third automatically doing whatever he needed to do for the day without really registering it and one-third crying.
And his routine hadn’t changed much since then.
The tragedies hadn’t stopped with Charlotte, either.
Five children, one after the other, across the course of the summer of 1985 (Susie Jannison, Gabriel Hendrix, Fritz Alexander, Jeremy Rushby, Cassidy Decker, their names were still seared into his mind) had vanished without a trace. They’d arrested one of the security guards on suspicion first, and then one of the kitchen cooks had been actually charged, and he remembered both arrests clear as day.
And then there was the disappearance no one had been arrested for. Little Elizabeth Afton. William‘s daughter, Henry‘s niece in all but blood, who’d (supposedly) run away during the grand opening of Circus Baby’s Pizza World - the first and only spinoff of Freddy’s/Fredbear’s and something Henry had initially been more involved in, but William had pretty much taken over the whole thing once Henry shut down from grief - and never been found. And it had only contributed to the cloud of depression choking Henry‘s mind.
(my daughter my niece)
(those five kids)
(why is this happening)
They were the only things running thing through his mind for… he didn’t know how long.
And as the cherry on top of the whole tragedy, soon after, they’d been threatened with shutdown over sanitation, accusations of blood and mucus oozing from the animatronic characters’ eyes and mouths, and it had all been too much for the whole establishment.
They’d shut down by year’s end, and not long after, William had fully broken contact with him.
Too many times since then, Henry had found himself holding a knife to his own wrist, or staring at an open bottle of pills, or with one end of a belt looped around the shower-curtain rod, the other around his neck, with him weighing the pros and cons of suicide.
(i’ll see charlie again)
(but i can’t give up )
(well, what’s there to keep living for?)
(your daughter is dead. your niece and nephew are gone. your best friend left. your daughter's mother ditched you years ago. even your own mother is dead. there’s literally no one left for you)
(mom wouldn’t want me to do this)
(and neither would any of the others)
(what does it matter? they’re gone)
(just do it)
(you’re a miserable waste of space who couldn’t stick your nose out of your own damn office to save any of those five kids)
(and you weren’t there for your niece or nephew either)
(or your own fucking daughter)
(wherever she is, she hates you)
Still, he’d never actually pressed the knife in, or swallowed the pills, or jumped off the edge of the bath.
And he was actually grateful for that.
Because a year later, a reason to live had shown up on his doorstep.
“...Uncle Henry?” said Michael, shivering, pulling his coat tighter around himself. “...Can I come in?”
Henry’s mouth had hung open in shock for a few moments, before he quickly nodded, and his nephew ran inside before curling up on the couch, shaking.
“Hey, hey…” said, Henry, sitting down next to Michael. “What is it? What happened?”
Michael opened his mouth and tried to talk, but only a choked sob came out.
Henry extended an arm to him. “May I?”
Michael shook his head.
“Okay.” said Henry gently. “Take as much time as you need. I’m right here.”
It was only after Michael had fallen asleep like that that Henry got a proper look at him, and noticed the bruises.
Angry purple, blue, green and yellow bruises of all sizes up and down Michael’s body. His arms, his neck, his shoulders and even a few on his face…
He felt sick to his stomach
(god no)
He knew William had been having a hard time with Michael ever since a so-called ‘prank’ of his had gone wrong on his brother’s sixth birthday. Evan was scared to death of the animatronics at Fredbear’s, and Michael knew it. He’d tossed him into Fredbear’s mouth, thinking Fredbear would harmlessly nibble on him, not knowing of the retractable parts - the springlocks - in the mouth.
Evan died a week later in hospital.
William had been just as devastated as Henry was about Charlotte, tears in his eyes almost every day, staring blankly at nothing just as Henry would later do in his own grief, even literally crying on Henry’s shoulder a few times.
Still, he seemed to recover over the next two years, and by the end of 1985, despite the fact that Freddy’s was being shut down, he seemed almost himself again, cheerful, lively and talkative.
And yet, Henry couldn’t shake the feeling there was something different. Something off.
His geniality seemed to have an almost plastic quality, as if it were some sort of product made in a factory that he was showing off to everyone. His smile seemed a little forced, the joviality in his tone almost sounding rehearsed. And Henry swore there was something equally strange about the look in his eyes - the shine in them almost giving them the quality of the shiny eyes of a doll, instead of the genuine shine of excitement and joy they’d once had.
It was as if his grieving best friend had been replaced with a cheery robotic clone that had his mannerisms down almost perfectly, but not quite.
The possibility had first entered his mind then, but Henry pushed it away. (he’s still my best friend, no way he’d do that)
Still, as the months went by, the possibility became harder and harder to ignore. But he still tried, not wanting it to be true.
But now, he was looking at living proof William had hurt at least one person.
When Michael woke up the next morning, Henry didn’t make him eat anything (even though Michael could have used it, Henry could see the shapes of his bones starting to show.) Instead, he kept sitting beside him on the couch, patiently listening as Michael spilled out everything..
“Elizabeth’s gone, and Mother’s gone - she killed herself. Father found her hanging from a tree near our yard … and you k-know Evan’s dead too… (he’d had to take a long pause there) and Father hates me… if I say something wrong he hits me, if I mess up he says I’m worthless and does… worse… (he seemed to have trouble finding words) …and… he shoved me down the stairs, he pulled a knife on me, he kicked me, he broke my nose, I keep getting black eyes… I’m not supposed to be out of the house, but I ran away. Uncle Henry, if I stay there he’ll kill me.”
Henry was silent the whole way through.
And yet, hearing Michael, his heart broke all over again.
(i knew you)
(i was never without you)
(we did everything together since we were SEVEN)
(i thought you were a good person)
(i thought i liked you)
(i thought i could trust you)
(how COULD YOU)
(HOW DID YOU FOOL ME)
Henry shook with rage, betrayal, sadness and a million other emotions besides.
“Michael.” he said firmly. “You can stay here as long as you want. You are not going back to that house.”
Michael had been very quiet his entire stay. Sneaking around whenever he wanted a snack or a drink, jumping at the smallest of noises, recoiling whenever Henry opened the door to the spare bedroom.
The damage William had done was obvious.
(he was a teenager)
(he’s still a teenager)
(he did something unbelievably stupid)
(and that is no excuse to do what you’ve done)
(nothing is)
Michael left some months later. He’d brought some money he’d been saving up at ‘home’, and with some contribution from Henry he’d been able to get enough to buy his own apartment somewhere in New Harmony.
And once he’d gone, Henry’s mind ran wild.
(he hurt Michael)
(he fooled you)
(he recovered over 1985)
(oh, sure, he had his arm around you during Charlie’s funeral, but his eyes were still dry)
(face it)
(you already know he’s a monster)
And yet, some tiny part of Henry seemed to block him from fully processing the obvious.
Some tiny part that still cared about William, some tiny part that held all his memories of him, remembered how they’d grown up together and worked on their shared dream since they were in college and how it felt opening Fredbear’s side by side and how William was one of the few people he felt entirely comfortable talking to, how it had felt to be best friends with him…
That tiny part desperately, desperately wanted Henry to be wrong about everything.
(it could be a misunderstanding)
(he could have genuinely just moved past it)
(who are you to say that he seemed fake that last year?)
(you’re forcing things)
(forcing your assumptions)
(he wouldn’t do that)
(he wouldn’t do that)
(he wouldn’t do that)
(hewouldn’tdothathewouldn’tdothathewouldn’tdothathewouldn’tdothathewouldn’tdo)
(would he?)
His broken, argumentative train of thought kept going and going and going until July 1987, when two more kids had turned up dead. Marcie and Max Campbell, siblings, aged 5 and 9 respectively, who’d eaten poisoned candy that some toy store had been giving away on its opening day, and the owner had been arrested despite her pleas of innocence.
Something snapped inside Henry when he read about it in the paper.
(two more kids gone)
(murdered)
Freddy’s and Fredbear’s all over again. A kid-friendly business, supposed to be fun and safe, something people should have had happy memories of, but now its name would always be associated with horrific crimes against children, of urban legends and warped stories and permanent scars left on Hurricane.
Seeing it happen again made something in Henry come right to the surface, something made of rage and sadness and a desire to ensure this nightmare would never repeat.
And so, he’d started searching for William. Searching for him so he could fully confront him and put an end to the pain he knew for sure that he’d caused, and the pain it was becoming more and more horribly clear that he had caused.
As it turned out, William had moved out of his house entirely, and when Henry first started searching he’d come across an empty building and a FOR SALE sign outside the place.
No one wants to buy it, you know. They keep saying it’s cursed. Dumb stories like that. Just because the previous owner partially owned Freddy’s-
But Henry didn’t give up.
He’d asked where the previous owner had moved to, but they didn’t know.
So he searched the town himself, and turned up nothing.
But he kept looking. In adjacent towns, in surrounding empty areas, in places further and further away…
Somewhere along the line, he’d left his own house.
Not in the sense that he’d moved out. He’d just genuinely fully left his house, not wanting to be in Hurricane any longer, and never looked back; packed what he had and set it down in some building in Silver Reef. A ghost town no one lived in or ever came by except the occasional tourist, and even then none of them ever found him.
He made sure of that.
Still, there was always the possibility Michael might come back and find his house empty. So he’d left a note under a loose floorboard in the spare bedroom; a small compartment Michael had discovered and used to hide snacks and notes and drawings he thought Henry would be mad about.
Look for the house in Silver Reef marked with a green ‘X’ at the bottom left of the door.
He’d been there for ages, still driving around obsessively searching for William, even posting and asking online in some cases if anyone had seen anybody resembling him, with nothing else in the world except a damaged old house in an abandoned town and the small robotics workshop that had once been set up in his garage now set up in the cellar of the house, only pushing onwards for the possibility that one day he would find William, and for Michael and the possibility of him having to come back.
His hair had grayed, his vision had turned worse and worse over the years, he could barely take a step without pain shooting up and down his leg and the sound of cracking every time he moved it too much, and there were enormous purple bags under his eyes from all the nights he’d spent staring at the ceiling in his insomnia, trying desperately to go to sleep but seeing images of Charlie and Evan and Elizabeth and all the rest on the backs of his eyelids every time he closed his eyes.
(i failed you all)
(and i’m still a failure)
(i’m so sorry)
(i hate myself too)
(please let me sleep)
(please)
And some amount of time later, on the day everything had changed its course in his ‘life’, Michael did indeed show up on his doorstep again.
His head was wrapped in bandages, his clothes hung off him, and he looked like he was having trouble standing up - having to lean against the side of the house for support, steadying himself with his hand.
“I found your note, Uncle Henry.” he croaked. “Can I co-”
“Yes.”
Michael stumbled into the house, tripping over his own feet and nearly collapsing onto the floor, but Henry caught him.
Michael winced.
“What happened to you?” Henry finally gasped out.
Some grating, raspy sound resembling a laugh escaped Michael’s throat.
“You wouldn’t believe a word if I told you. Sometimes I try and wake myself up from this insane nightmare.”
“So do I. Just tell me.”
Michael flopped down onto a chair and took off his bandages.
Henry almost screamed.
The face below the bandages was fully rotten. A sickening purple hue, desiccated, toothless, chunks of hair missing, what hair there was left tangled and crusted with fluids, parts of the skin gone, leaving gaping holes in the neck and cheeks and to top it off, what looked like a scar running down his neck into his shirt, roughly sewn up.
“Heh…” croaked Michael at Henry’s expression of shock and fear. “ That’s why I don’t take these off. I don’t even go out in public if I can help it these days.”
“W-wh-wh-what… happened?” stammered Henry once he’d found his voice.
“Oh, sit tight. You’re in for a long, stupid story.”
And he told Henry.
How he’d accepted a position at Circus Baby’s Entertainment and Rental, the place the characters from Circus Baby’s Pizza World had been moved to after Elizabeth’s disappearance, and how the animatronics had killed him and worn his skin to escape, and how he’d rotted over time and they’d discarded him like an old piece of rubbish, and how he’d somehow still been alive - in the loosest sense of the word - afterwards.
How he’d accepted the position because his father had told him to.
How he’d accepted it because Elizabeth hadn’t run away - William was designing the animatronics at Circus Baby’s to capture, to kill, and Elizabeth had made the mistake of being alone with her father’s own murder weapon.
How she possessed Circus Baby now, and how Michael had been sent to free her.
How Circus Baby and the others had killed Michael - tricking him into going in front of the Scooper, a giant metal shovel of sorts designed to tear out endoskeletons from heavy, durable robots, and essentially torn his guts and skeleton out in one go.
How Michael had found some of his father’s old blueprints at the facility and come across one for the Scooper - a blueprint that noted such things as a ‘remnant injector’ and ‘remnant reservoir.’
What remnant even was. It was the stuff holding Michael up, the stuff that allowed Elizabeth to possess Circus Baby, the stuff that had been injected into all Baby’s fellow animatronics to give them sentience beyond any normal AI.
Soul energy, basically.
And he’d somehow sourced the stuff in the other Funtimes out of himself.
(he was fucking around with WHAT)
How the original four animatronics from Freddy’s - Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy - had it too, and how William had killed those five children in 1985
(...)
(it’s true)
(it’s true)
(it’s true)
(he really fooled me)
and their bodies were in the animatronic suits, with their spirits possessing the characters.
How even Fredbear (my old suit) had been possessed when Cassidy Decker had been stuffed into it, and the springlocks had been tripped on purpose.
How the souls had even gotten to be in there in the first place. The Puppet, a former security feature of Fredbear’s Family Diner who could respond to signal codes the children’s armbands sent out - well, one code in particular (even if they were too late and so was I) - was still protecting kids, transferring their souls into the suits, giving them new life.
How Charlie was possessing the Puppet.
(she’s still out there?)
(she’s still here)
(still protecting everyone)
(does she know I’m still around?)
(my girl)
(my sweet, beautiful, brave girl)
(i love you)
(i’ll never stop loving you)
(never)
How William knew that - he’d witnessed it. Witnessed Charlie putting Jeremy’s soul in Bonnie, had eventually analyzed the others with a tool he’d developed - a small, black, diamond-shaped piece that was placed in the metal parts and sent out a specific frequency that could detect the souls inside. Still, it apparently couldn’t detect excess remnant like the stuff Baby’s fellow animatronics had inside them - only a whole mind, a whole soul, a whole person possessing something. He’s found a blueprint for that one too, but hadn’t ended up taking it with him.
It had turned up positive for all of them.
How Fazbear Entertainment had attempted to reboot Freddy’s twice more without Henry’s input, once in 1987 and again in 1993, and Michael had taken the night security job at the place both times, trying to get close enough to the animatronics to destroy them and put a fucking end to this madness.
It didn’t work either time.
How eventually, they’d attempted some cheap amusement park attraction based on the ‘unsolved mysteries’ of the pizzeria, and at first it had just been some stupid, insensitive, money-grubbing haunted house, but had taken a turn for the actually dangerous when they’d broken into the old pizzeria and found a real animatronic - the withered, rotted old yellow Bonnie suit they’d used alongside Fredbear, although over time it had turned a stomach-churning shade of green and stank of rotting fabric fur, filthy water and human remains.
Michael could see them getting close enough during the day, peeling back the fur to reveal a tangled reddish-brown mess that smelled even worse than the rest of the suit and in some places, appeared to be almost fully fused to it.
That suit had been William’s personal property, and Michael had almost immediately guessed whose remains they were.
Especially since the damn thing had been after him ever since it had arrived, every night for five nights in a row.
Still, at the very least William wasn’t around any longer. Michael had burned the entire haunted house to the ground, with him in it.The only reason he didn’t stay inside himself was because his sister and the other souls were still out there, and he had to help them too.
And so, Michael had gone to find Henry, and ended up here at his house.
Henry had stared at Michael the whole time, silent, wide-eyed, almost disbelieving.
(this shit was all going on right under my fucking nose)
(and I had NO IDEA?)
(this isn’t a good joke at all, Michael)
Michael’s expression and tone were dead serious the whole time.
(Michael?)
He sat there, deadpan, a corpse that was somehow animate and moving around - just like in his story.
Henry couldn’t see any bone under the bits of skin torn away.
Or anything at all.
(this is not real)
(this is NOT REAL)
(this cannot be FUCKING HAPPENING)
Henry burst out laughing.
Shocked, angry, upset, terrified laughter that wracked his whole body and made him fully collapse to the floor, tears pouring out of his eyes, clutching his chest.
Michael watched him, trying and failing not to look devastated.
“I knew.” he mumbled. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me-”
“No… NO! I believe you! You’re… fuck, you’re living proof! You’re a walking corpse, right here, right now, no bones or guts or anything! I can see it through those holes in your face! It’s just…” Some of his laughter started to turn into screams. “I JUST DON’T WANT THIS TO BE REAL!”
It continued for a few minutes, his borderline deranged laughter mixed with screaming, his tears still streaming down his face, clutching his head in his hands, trying to make sense of something, anything.
(HOW IS THIS REAL)
(HOW IS THIS REAL)
(HOW IS THIS REAL)
(HOW IS THIS REAL)
“Look.” said Michael. “You want more proof? Here’s more proof.”
He put something on the table, and Henry finally got up to look, the laughter and screaming quieting down a bit.
On the table was a blueprint and a small black diamond. "Stole them from the facility." said Michael flatly.
The blueprint was for the Scooper, and showed the metal shovel Michael had described, along with the remnant reservoir and injector.
“NOTES:,” it read, just by the ‘remnant injector’, “Leave trace line amount on interior. Over-usage/Over-exposure negates effect.”
There were more notes by the reservoir. “When heated,” it said, “no observable motion. Keep in heated tank at sustained temperature. Substance should be malleable, but not more. There is a possibility that overheating might neutralize the effects permanently.”
At the bottom right corner there was a small tag. “Afton Robotics, LLC.”
Henry stared.
(it could be fake)
(pretty elaborate fake)
(pretty elaborate story)
(why would Michael lie about something like this?)
(especially about Charlie)
(William lied to you and you believed him)
(he’s not William)
(and just look at him)
(he really is a walking corpse)
(no insides, no skeleton)
(nothing)
(and you saw that sewn up scar on his front)
“...How do you know everything he did?” said Henry eventually, his mind finally landing on the right thing to say.
“I eavesdropped. Whenever he was in the basement workshop. He talked to himself, he talked to whatever he was working on in there… I didn’t believe it myself at first, but he definitely didn’t seem insane, and eventually when he wasn’t there I started sneaking into the basement alone, and I found his equipment and all those blueprints for Baby and for the others and for that little diamond - R.A.S.O.R.S, it’s called. Remnant Accuracy, Specification and Operation Radar Signaller. That’s when I first started fully believing it all… then one day he confirmed it. He finally caught me listening to him ranting about Elizabeth and broke my jaw before threatening me to never tell anyone what I’d heard or he’d break a lot more than my jaw. And of course, I’ve only had everything he’s said confirmed further over the last few decades. And…” He sighed. “I am so sorry I didn’t tell you the first time. I was still scared, still in shock from everything, and I still got nightmares about him coming back for me that I thought were going to come true and I thought he might kill you too... some of the stuff he was saying about you... but I'm not scared anymore. Far from it. And besides, there’s nothing he can do to me anymore now, is there?” The tattered remains of his lips curved up in a bitter smile.
Henry took a few deep breaths.
Somehow, having more proof - physical proof, even, that this insanity was real made it feel a little less insane. At least to him.
(this is real)
(this is real)
(but how do i know?)
“...How can I know for absolute certain you’re telling the truth?” he asked Michael.
“You gave them all security tags with little signals attached to them, and remnant can make the technology with it inside still work even after years of wear and tear and disuse. It makes it work perpetually, by kind of giving the metal itself life of its own. At least, that’s what I heard from Father. If you still have the technology, I’d say go check their tag signals.”
And Henry did.
It had taken a while to get everything going - almost everything from his garage and study in Hurricane had been moved to the house in Silver Reef, but it still took a while to boot up technology from the 80s and feasibly connect it to (somewhat) modern software in order to properly track the locations of the security tags, and narrow them down to specifics.
Michael had, of course, stayed the whole time. He’d insisted he needed to be there when it was ready, but even so, he was always welcome with Henry regardless.
Always.
Eventually, after days setting up the system with Michael's help, Henry had finally managed to connect everything and get the signals up, and went about tracking them down.
He’d detected the signals from Baby’s three fellow animatronics - Ballora, Funtime Freddy, and Funtime Foxy - almost straight away, and what’s more, they all appeared to be in the same place.
Scratch that. They all appeared to be in the same thing.
Three different signals, all coming from the same entity. Three different signals, and yet the same exact body for all of them, showing up in the data and on the screen clear as anything.
Multiple Tags Active in Source
All Funtime Security Tags:
001: Funtime Freddy - Status: Present, Active
002: Funtime Foxy - Status: Present, Active
003: Ballora - Status: Present, Active
004: Circus Baby - Status: Absent
(that shouldn’t be possible)
Henry had no choice but to face it now.
“Y-you really were telling the truth…”
Michael looked over Henry’s shoulder at it. An expression of shock flashed across his face.
“...How the hell is Baby not there?” he gasped. “Did she leave or something? Can… can they leave that thing I…I…where is she? You need to check her next… you need to. If she’s out and alone, and Elizabeth is still in there somewhere…”
He held his head in his hands in what seemed to be a combination of despair and fear.
Circus Baby’s tag was easily detected next - active and working strong as ever, and indeed, she appeared to be in her own body.
Somehow.
Security Tag of Source: Funtime Security Tag 004 - “Circus Baby”
Status: Active
WARNING: Certain parts appear to have suffered heavy damage. Separate tags and codes are communicating high-scale damage and degradation attached to parts that may block their frequency out. Handle with extreme caution upon choosing to repair.
“I… I don’t know how that’s…”
“Did they find a way to eject her, do you think? Or maybe she left on her own?”
“Yeah… yeah, maybe she escaped on her own, maybe she’s really free now…”
But beneath his hopeful tone, Henry could still detect a note of fear in Michael’s voice.
“I… I have to go.”
“What? And try to track down Baby? She got you killed the first time! Who knows what she’ll do to you this time? How do you even plan on getting Elizabeth out?”
“Read the blueprint for the Scooper, Uncle Henry. Remnant can be destroyed by overheating. This time, when I find her, I’ll be ready. I’ll know what to do. Besides,” he added, “she’s my sister. I’d do anything for her, anything to stop the nightmare she’s trapped in. Look… you’d do the same for Charlie, wouldn’t you?”
(i would)
“...Yes.” admitted Henry quietly, staring at his shoes, a sudden bout of shyness overtaking him - something he never felt with family members.
Michael leaned over and hugged Henry tightly. “I need to go find her. She’s separated from the rest of that monster now, and Father’s already gone… I need to help her. I’d planned to stay for longer, but I think you can understand the importance here.”
“I can.”
“Well… goodbye. And thank you. For everything.”
Michael went back upstairs, and Henry heard the cellar hatch open and shut, then the front door, then the faint noise of a car driving away.
He was alone again. Alone in a dingy, dusty cellar filled with nothing but metal parts and stray wires and tools, with a few monitors glowing faintly on an old desk, providing most of the light in the room. The rest came from a flickering lightbulb dangling from the ceiling.
And he was still sitting there, still staring at those monitors, still trying to fully comprehend what was happening.
(elizabeth’s soul is trapped in a murder weapon)
(the metal inside the other three is possessed)
(freddy, bonnie, chica, foxy and fredbear were possessed too by the five murders)
(my daughter put their souls there)
(this)
(i)
(just)
(i don’t know)
(i don’t know)
He checked all the security tags for Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and Fredbear - slowly, deliberately, staring blankly as he used to do, still numb.
All Fazbear Gang Main Security Tags Inactive
Secondary Tags Active:
Freddy: 10/20 tags active
Bonnie: 5/25 tags active
Chica: 10/25 tags active
Foxy: 5/15 tags active
WARNING: Having any tags inactive poses a great risk in the case of theft of certain parts. Please reactivate or replace tags immediately.
(what)
(what)
(what)
(WHAT)
He double-checked the Funtimes’ security tags, but realizing there was no way to tell if it really was the same source, decided to run an analysis on the whole thing.
The results on the screen made him physically sick.
Multiple Security Tags Active in Source
Funtime Security Tag 001: Funtime Freddy
Funtime Security Tag 002: Funtime Foxy
Funtime Security Tag 003: Ballora
Multiple Secondary Endoskeleton Tags Active in Source
Funtimes:
Funtime Freddy: 45/200 tags active
Funtime Foxy: 30/150 tags active
Ballora: 30/150 tags active
Fazbear Gang:
Freddy: 10/20 tags active
Bonnie: 5/25 tags active
Chica: 10/25 tags active
Foxy: 5/15 tags active
Fredbear’s Tags Active:
Fredbear: 5/15 tags active
WARNING: Having any tags inactive poses a great risk in the case of theft of certain parts. Please reactivate or replace tags immediately.
(how are they there)
(HOW ARE THEY THERE)
(HOW IS THIS HAPPENING)
It didn’t take long for him to find the abandoned 1993 location. Not long at all.
There’s been four of those places and every time they shut down, they just ditched them. Every time. Money-grubbing at its finest. Not even wanting to clean up your own dirty work. Even though we’ve actually got a petition going to demolish them all, did you know that?
Henry couldn’t say he didn’t approve, but as he threw the rock through the window, climbed in, and started searching, flashlight in hand, eyes darting here and there and every which way, not missing a thing, he was incredibly glad he’d gotten there in time.
Michael told me they just recycled the original four for parts here, and brought Fredbear but never did anything with him… where are they?
And what did happen to the rest of their parts? The ones not in… whatever that thing is?
His questions were answered once he came to the dining area.
At first he was taken aback - the place looked almost exactly like how he remembered it did in Fredbear’s.
Did they take a design reference or something?
Oh, god… it’s been forever…
A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. It was nearly a perfect clone of how he remembered Fredbear’s.
The walls with their colorful patterns, the neat little rows of tables and cups and chairs and plates, the stage at the front, the stray confetti scattered across the tiled floor, the-
Chica head?
He blinked a few times, shone his flashlight to get a proper look. But it was still there. An empty head from a Chica suit, lying on the floor just behind a table.
He stepped closer to get a better look, and almost tripped over something.
He shone his light behind him, and there was another object on the floor: a curved, patterned, rough piece of metal. It almost looked like a rib.
A rib from an endoskeleton…
He stared for a moment or two, before walking away, going around the rest of the room to see if there was anything more he could find.
A bright blue plastic eye.
A metal jaw.
A rusted old hook.
(this is where they ended up)
One purple rabbit ear.
A familiar Fredbear head.
(it made them part of itself)
(got in here)
(broke them)
Metal teeth, metal rods, all sorts of plastic and steel parts he no longer even remotely recognized, scattered all around the floor along with torn-off pieces of the suits they’d once been in.
(how did that thing get them all in the same place?)
(how?)
A few rotted, greenish pieces of fur here and there.
(Wait…)
None of the other suit parts he’d found were rotten.
Dirty, yes. Moldy, yes. Water-damaged, ripped up, moth-eaten, yes.
But not fully rotten.
The clump of fake fur he held in his hand was a revolting shade of olive-green; almost the exact color of vomit. It was sticky, uneven in its texture with some of the top of the felt almost fully rotted away, an absolutely disgusting sight to behold.
Perhaps it had once been yellow
“...and that old yellow Bonnie suit Father used to perform in? He was in it. His corpse was basically one with the damn thing. I think he accidentally tripped the locks. It wasn’t even yellow anymore, it was just this awful shade of green…”
but he couldn’t know for sure.
(michael said he burned that place down)
The piece of fur was slightly blackened at the edges - almost as if it had been singed.
(he’s gone)
(he’s gone)
(he didn’t survive)
(he didn’t do this, that thing did)
(he wasn’t here)
Perhaps once, Henry would have left it at that, with his mind arguing with itself, too scared of the answer he’d get if he actually looked to see if it was true.
Once.
He drove back to the house in Silver Reef, booted up the monitors, and looked for Bonnie’s security tag.
The other Bonnie.
Security Tag Active
Those three words on his monitor were all he needed to know.
(he kept on hurting them)
(even after everything)
(what the fuck does he have to gain here?)
(what? other than more pain? some sort of test subject?)
(what does he WANT?)
He ran upstairs, collapsed onto his mattress, and sobbed.
Loud, agonized, broken sobs.
There was confusion, rage, fear, longing, a horrible sense of being in over his head, and dread.
Dread for what was going to happen next. Dread for what else that monster could do in the future if he wasn’t destroyed-
(remnant can be destroyed by overheating)
The thought entered his head, just like that.
It wasn’t much.
But it was something. Something from which an idea could grow.
He and William had sometimes worked like that, when trying to come up with something for Fredbear’s. Suggest a small idea, often an implausible one, and let it evolve and grow. Shape and refine it into something that would work.
It had initially been William‘s idea for a music box-themed attraction, and while the idea he’d initially proposed had been implausible, and he’d known it (musical cryptograms were far too complex, but he was interested in them) they’d both been able to reshape and refine it because they knew it was an implausible idea with potential, and eventually it had become the Puppet, which could respond to codes of sorts - bracelet codes, to keep track of kids in the pizzeria and keep them safe - and one kid in particular had a unique code and unique bracelet color so the Puppet wouldn’t ever forget which one was Charlotte Emily -
CHARLIE!
Her murderer is still out there and I’m just lying here crying my eyes out?
What kind of a father AM I?
(an awful one)
He raced back downstairs and looked at the Puppet’s own security tag.
Security Tag Active
For a second, a small flicker of a smile crossed his face.
(she’s still here)
Then reality set in.
She’s alone, possessing a physically weak robot that can’t defend itself…
And her murderer is still out there, and so are the other children he murdered, all stuck in that horrible thing because of him, and Elizabeth is alone and probably confused and scared, and if he did that shit to Michael who knows what’ll happen to her…?
He thought back to the pizzeria he’d broken into. How the monster appeared to have lured all the children into one place before trapping them together.
(that’s it)
(that’s it )
(this whole rotten legacy gone, all in one go)
(they need to all be in one place)
(one inescapable place)
(and it needs to be burned to the ground)
(no trace left)
(they need to be free)
(he needs to go wherever it is scum like him goes when it dies)
(this whole horrible company needs to be destroyed)
(this has to end)
(and it WILL)
Then and there, he knew he needed three things.
A way to call them all back.
A place where they would all be called to.
And a way for Charlie to protect herself for a change.
(she’ll be in there with her own murderer)
(and the thing that directly killed Michael)
(she needs something )
It took forever, but for years on end, he worked on all three.
The building was the hardest part. Still, he managed to track down what little remained of Fazbear Entertainment via old websites and tacky, slightly desperate online ads, and use his status as one of their co-founders to get them to help him build the place.
And after this building is done, you shut down. Permanently.
You’re basically a non-entity at this point. You have no establishments. Fazbear’s Fright burned down, and you’re not going to get a repeat off the ground. You have nothing except a few horror stories, and you can only exploit those for so long.
Face it. You’re on the verge of going bust anyway. I can tell.
This ends now, and your futures hopefully take a turn for the better.
The two other tasks at hand were somewhat easier, if only because they involved an incredibly similar process to what he’d done before for a living - creating something from metal and wires and a few programming tricks.
The process was almost nostalgic.
I remember doing all this…
Every piece seemed to have a place in his memory, and it all fit together like a puzzle being solved.
The signaling device was a gray diamond-shaped thing, sort of like a bigger version of RASORS - which had in fact been its base model. Its name was similar too - R. A. S. C, Remote Activated Simulated Controller. It would send out signals to whichever security tag it was instructed to send them to, linked up to the monitors so it had all the individual codes and frequencies necessary.
And then there was Charlie’s protection.
L. E. F. T. E.
Lure, Encapsulate, Fuse, Transport, and Extract. Despite it being the easiest by far of all of them to build - just another animatronic - Henry felt mildly disgusted at himself the whole time making it. LEFTE was designed to lure in the Puppet, capture it, hold it inside itself. It emitted Charlie’s own bracelet code, the one the Puppet was designed to specifically respond to no matter what, and the microphone it held doubled as a ‘dream wand’. A soother of sorts, that played a lullaby to soothe the Puppet just as the tunes of its own music box had once held it at ease, and once LEFTE had Charlie, it’d put her inside itself - a big, black, heavy steel bear that was designed to be incredibly durable and resilient, easily able to hold its own in a fight.
And yet, Henry couldn’t shake the single thought that plagued him during LEFTE’S construction, about what he was making.
A kid-friendly character designed to lure in another kid and capture them…
He already had enough trouble sleeping, and with all the late nights he was spending up anyway his eyebags were worse than ever.
But he pushed on.
This has to end.
He shoved away his intrusive thoughts.
This has to end.
I am not taking the selfish way out.
He didn’t care how hard it was, or how brutal, or how painful.
This ends for all of us.
And years later, when LEFTE had been sent to find Charlie, when all the calls had been sent out, when a job ad had been printed in the newspaper for the opportunity to run a new Freddy’s location, in order to keep up the pretense that the animatronics really had found what they’d been promised in their call, Henry Emily sat in his office in the place that had been built - a giant metal labyrinth, accelerants built in everywhere so everything would burn quicker and stronger, with no way out except a single secret exit in the security office (whoever applied for the job, he didn’t want them to be killed because of this whole mess) - and waited.
Waited for them to respond to the call.
Waited for everything to be set in motion.
Waited for it to end.