Fritz Smith

Fritz hardly felt alive anymore. It had been long. Too long. Maybe a year? Maybe less. When someone finally entered the warehouse, he hardly noticed. He didn’t care what they’d do to him, silently pleading them to take him. Where? It didn’t matter. Anywhere but the warehouse.

As he watched them slowly creep his way, he felt the first inkling of hope in what felt like an eternity. His prayers were answered, and he was lifted onto another dolly (or maybe the same one, he didn’t know) and transferred into another van. This one was different. Well, maybe it was different. He didn’t know, and frankly, he didn’t care. It was better than the warehouse.

The drive was exciting. He couldn’t see much, but tightly held onto every little sound and smell. Every honk of a car, every whoosh of the wind or bark of a dog. Eventually, the sounds slowly faded. He must be off the main road. He prayed he wasn’t going to another warehouse.

Once the van stopped, he was moved out, catching a glimpse of a sign along the way: “Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rental”. Fritz vaguely knew of this place, but why was he here? What the hell?

……

William Afton

Those idiots had one job. One FUCKING job. No, he couldn’t give in now. He was too close. The next breakthrough would be it. He was certain. It took them 4 months to send one phone call. ONE! But he couldn’t dawdle now. He couldn’t be stuck in the past. William knew his time was running out. He could feel it. The way they looked at him. They knew. They knew what he had done. He needed this breakthrough, and he would get it.

He had one. Finally. He knew they could possess the suits – those brats made that much obvious. But this one wasn’t his own. This one couldn’t lead back to him. He’d spent all those years in the dark, blindly experimenting with robots that had already been possessed. That research was important, but it was NOTHING compared to what he could achieve. What he would achieve.

He knew how possession worked. Well, he knew enough. And at long last, it was finally time to utilize it. He would create a new one, using the parts from that Freddy suit. He could be precise this time, choosing what should and shouldn’t be possessed. Not to restrict it, but to empower it. What can one do with a hunk of metal? Absolutely nothing. But by precisely rearranging different pieces, technology could be created. He would do the same. No longer would his creations be a blank canvas, a soul haphazardly thrown onto it like a bucket of paint. They would be precise. They would be perfect. He needed to start at once.

He didn’t create a new animatronic, scrapping one of his earlier creations, Funtime Foxy. It was sad to see it taken apart, but he couldn’t dawdle. First, he removed the storage device containing the animatronic’s AI. It wouldn’t need it anymore; it would have a real soul powering it.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

He then carefully cleaned out the putrid suit, removing the remains of the poor soul who was forced into it. A night guard, perhaps? He knew from previous experiments that removing the flesh would have no impact on possession, and he had no intention to keep it around. Then, he dismantled it, stripping the plastic from the metal and throwing it away. The soul wouldn’t be resilient if it was bound to something as flimsy as plastic.

He was left with a pile of metal. Of scrap. But he knew it was nothing but. A soul coursed through it, the haunted steel more precious than gold. He set to work immediately. Unlike with conventional electronics, the soul was smart. He didn’t need to trick it with diodes and transistors; it could do that work on all its own. Instead, he needed to create pathways that allowed the soul to interface with the mechanisms, as well as to concentrate its power when needed. A possessed machine could walk and talk, but it could never unlock its true potential. By limiting where the soul was bound to, it could precisely control its own mechanism and magnify its power, allowing William to achieve the impossible.

His first job was to integrate the soul into the machine. Allowing it to use its power would come later. First, he melted the metal. This would, of course, separate the soul from it. His fix? Contain the soul while working with the metal, then allow it to repossess the cooled metal. He’d never attempted such a thing before, but he knew how souls worked, and he knew how to contain them. He was certain it would succeed.

He formed a fairly simple structure from the metal. It looked almost like a maze, thick but short pieces of rectangular metal moving outwards. These pieces of metal would then clump up as they moved outwards, merging at certain destinations. Most of these destinations were the animatronic’s control board, or directly attached to its motors. There were, however, a few pieces that connected to nothing. He would get to those shortly.

Opening one of his drawers, he picked up a small device. It looked like a black circle, and had one opening where a piece of metal stuck out. The idea behind the device was simple: souls radiated some of their power into the air as that power traveled through them. The device was simply a grid of tiny strips of metal, ensuring a vary large surface area, yet small enough volume so that the soul could control it. When attached to a soul, this device would allow it to send out huge bursts of its power. Unfortunately, it was unlikely that such a thing could interact with the emotions and thoughts of people around the animatronic – such things were too close to a person’s soul – but could very well affect their senses. An animatronic that could take any form. The perfect killer. William would have no trouble retrieving new souls after this one was complete.

Carefully, he picked up the device and welded it onto the haunted metal. It was complete. He left extra “ports” on the metal, in case he created new machines that it could use. But he was satisfied with his work. It had taken hours to complete – nothing in comparison to the months spent on the animatronic and the device, however – and he was exhausted. He could test it tomorrow.

……

Fritz Smith

Fritz woke up. He couldn’t remember much of what happened after entering this facility, but that was alright. He could remember the warehouse all too well, and this, mercifully, wasn’t it. That warehouse wouldn’t have been so bad if he could move. Even if he could just turn his head. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even remember what moving felt like anymore.

A finger twitched. Then another. Surprised, he looked down. LOOKED! WITH HIS HEAD! IT COULD MOVE! But what he saw made his blood run cold. This was not the Freddy suit he was stuffed – the thought made him shutter – into. This suit was shiny and metallic. Something was wrong. Hah, as if it wasn’t already. But that didn’t matter. He didn’t care. Slowly, he got up and took a step. Then another. He could move again. He could even walk. No, this wasn’t possible. This SHOULDN’T be possible. But Fritz didn’t care. He could move again!

The room he was in was dark. He didn’t care. He turned his head to the other side of the room. A corpse stared back, empty sockets boring into him. His corpse. Something was wrong, but he didn’t care. There was a door to his left. It looked like it was made of metal. Like someone wanted to keep something out. He didn’t care. He slowly opened the door, and was met with more emptiness. There was a stage in front of him. He walked towards it, finding that just like everything else, it was made of metal, along with with red curtains obscuring a quarter of it. He stepped onto the stage and caught sight of a mirror to his right. He stared into it, mesmerized, and something started back. It was an animatronic – a pink and white fox. He raised his left hand, and it raised its right. Something was wrong. Something was really, really wrong. Fritz panicked, bolting off the stage before his vision suddenly went dark.