Fritz Smith

“AAH!” Fritz cried out, wriggling his body in a vain attempt to reduce the pain emanating from his chest. The progress from the previous day left him motivated to spend yet another night experimenting with his soul, but as the first cracks of daylight filtered through the garage window, all he felt was completely, utterly, drained. But this was too important – if what Bon-Bon had told him about blending in had even a hint of truth to it, and he knew it did, then these experiments might be the one thing between him and a normal life. At least, as normal of a life as he could hope for, animatronic parts notwithstanding.

Once the pain subsided to a dull throb, Fritz got back to work. The past night had mainly consisted of him colliding those strange particles inside his soul with one-another and hoping for the best. Unfortunately, hope alone simply wasn’t enough, and although he’d manage to become more consistent with the sorts of hallucinations he could make himself (and hopefully others) experience, it still did him no good if they worked for less than a second and set him into a fit of blinding pain every single time. He thought he might get better with practice, but all he managed to improve was his own pain tolerance. Fritz chuckled – if nothing else, getting stuffed in that suit probably helped him on that avenue.

He could keep scrambling his soul day-after-day, but it was slow, painful, and even if he wasn’t damaging his soul in the process (doubtful), he would still probably go insane doing it. There had to be another way. The problem was that Fritz was barely able to control his soul, much less understand the underlying mechanics of it. So, he was left to blind experimentation – preferably the kind that didn’t smash his soul into bits.

In light of that fact, Fritz focused inwards, carefully observing the inner workings of his soul and trying to think up a useful experiment that wouldn’t hurt badly. He’d of course repeated his initial experiment over-and-over again – slowing down one of the particles in his soul and waiting for another to smash into it. He’d also tried flinging the particles off of the grid his soul was attached to, which, unsurprisingly, hurt. In one bout of recklessness, he even tried slowing down multiple particles and mercifully blacked out instead of enduring the pain of his soul rupturing when they exploded. So it was to safe to say that any experiment involving explosions was off the table.

As he carefully scanned his soul, Fritz noticed something that caught his curiosity. It was ever-so-subtle, but the particles seemed to simply vanish as they reaches one part of his soul. Normally when they hit a dead end, they would simply wrap around to the backside of the grid. It was hard to tell from a causal glance whether a particle simply went to the other side or if it actually disappeared, but after a few moments of careful focus, he was certain that was exactly what was happening. Curiously, he directed a few particles to go into this “void”, and was astonished when they not only disappeared but did so completely painlessly.

After testing it out with a few more particles, he felt confident enough to try out an idea on the border between crazy and genius: exploding a particle inside the void. First, he slowly nudged one towards it, then sent another speeding towards the first, just fast enough that they would collide but only once they left his soul. Fritz braced himself, nervously watching as the second particle sped into the void, and felt… nothing. Once again, he sent a pair of particles in, this time configuring them to actually do something. As soon as the second particle crossed the threshold, Fritz felt a high-pitched squeak emanate from inside his head. It was no different from any of his previous experiments, save for one important detail: he felt no pain. This could work. Not only was he able to practice it, but he could actually make use of his newfound ability. Grinning, Fritz set to work, suddenly reinvigorated and ready to figure out how to do something useful with it.

……

Jeremy Fitzgerald

Jeremy woke up with the groan – his late night really took a toll on him, and the thought of what he’d have to do that day only cemented that feeling. Pleading Ben’s case to his boss would suck, but was nothing compared to having to check the animatronics for corpses. He shuddered at the thought, then, putting his worries behind him, got out of his bed and started getting ready for the day.

For once, the house quiet, and Jeremy was grateful for the small reprieve after the hectic last days. He quickly made his breakfast – cereal – and let his thoughts drift to the day ahead of him. He needed to come up with a good cover story for Ben. That’d certainly entail him explaining why he was still there – perhaps he needed to make an urgent repair and had to get a part he’d left at his house. That still left the issue of the broken window and Ben’s empty car. He could probably chalk it up to there being an intruder, but they hadn’t made a police report. Maybe he could claim they forgot to because they were tired and scared, but calling the police was literally Ben’s job, so even if they believed him, Ben might just get fired anyway. But maybe if Ben scared away the intruder and later had his car break down-

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“JeREmY!” His thoughts were interrupted by Fritz’s voice, although it sounded slightly garbled. There was still some holes in his story, but he’d workshop it later. Looking up from his cereal, he began to search the room for Fritz, but was surprised to find that the fox was nowhere in sight.

“Fritz? Are you there?” Jeremy asked into the empty room, slightly puzzled.

“OvER heRE!” Jeremy flinched at the sound that felt like it came from someone standing directly to the right of him, quickly turning to face the source. Again, he found nothing there.

“What the fuck?” Jeremy exclaimed. Intent to uncover the mystery, he marched towards the garage door and unceremoniously swung it open to face a grinning Fritz. Suddenly, he realized what had happen, and it equal parts excited and terrified him.

“No way,” Jeremy said. “You actually figured it out?”

“Yup!” Fritz replied, this time significantly less garbled – and yet, his mouth remained closed.

“That’s incredible! I can’t believe it works this well – I mean, who would have thought any of this would be possible – but this isn’t even the limit of what you can do, right? I mean, even if it is, this is pretty fucking amazing – I don’t know if it’s quite worth being stuck inside though.” Fritz expression fell slightly. “But hey, I’m sure you’ll figure something else out. Great job on this! Anyway, I gotta run – see you later, and good luck!”

With that, Jeremy rushed towards the door, hurriedly grabbing his jacket and keys. He’d be lucky if he wasn’t late, and he knew damn well that wouldn’t help the credibility of his story.

……

Fritz Smith

Fritz was elated. He’d spent so much time messing around with his soul – often to his detriment – and it was finally starting to pay off. Learning how to project his voice was relatively simple once he was able to practice it without giving himself migraines. After a few hours of practice, he was almost a natural at it, and that would certainly only improve as he started using it more.

Auditory illusions were an incredible step forward, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine how it might come in handy later on, but there was something even more important that they unlocked: if he could make people hear sounds, why wouldn’t he be able to make them see images? He supposed that’s what Bon-Bon meant when he mentioned “blending in”. It all seemed so unreal, but with his recent success, he could just about taste it.

But, that was for later. He’d spent the whole night experimenting, and he really needed to do something else. The TV didn’t require any thinking, and seeing as he was thoroughly tired of doing that, it felt like a match made in heaven. He plopped himself down on the couch and put on a channel that seemed interesting enough, and waited for Ben to wake up.

……

Ben, to his credit, didn’t jump at the sight of the animatronic sitting in the couch in front of him. He did seem quite confused, however, but after a few seconds of contemplation, he apparently remembered enough of the previous night in order to approach Fritz.

The first thing Fritz noticed was that Ben seemed quite shaken. Not so much as he had been the previous night, but still enough to be apparent. He seemed less scared of every shadow jumping out at him and more sick and worried.

Ben looked towards Fritz for a few moments, before finally deciding to speak. “I saw her – my sister, Cassidy, I mean.”

Fritz gave him a puzzled look, and Ben continued, explaining his strange dream from the previous night.

“She asked me to go back to the pizzeria… and she asked me to bring you with me.”

Fritz pondered that. “Well, then it’s a good thing that that’s already the plan – so long as Jeremy helps you keep your job, that is.” Ben gave him a curious look. “Which he will! Despite how bad it looks, I’m sure he’ll figure something out.” Fritz quickly added.

“Anyway,” Fritz began, his eyes still glued to the TV, “what do you usually do during the day?”

“I guess I just read. Sometimes I go to buy groceries? That sounds a bit sad now that I say it out loud, but I’ve been so dead set on finding Cassidy that I really haven’t been doing anything lately.”

“Hah! You’re just as bad as me. At least I have an excuse.” Fritz said, gesturing to his animatronic body. “Anyway, I’m sure Jeremy has some books somewhere – no guarantees that they’re interesting though. Once he gets back, we’ll find out whether we’re breaking into Freddy’s or if you’re opening the door for us.” He said, giving Ben a grin that only served to made the night guard more uneasy.

……

Notes

Sorry for how long this took – it’s been a while since I’ve had some downtime. Also, I promise I’m not writing a magic system into my FNaF story. Fritz will get his illusions and whatnot, but you all read the story’s summary – we’re doing science and philosophy, specifically the really fucked up kind that asks: if a soul gives life to things that don’t already have it, what gives life to a soul?