Michael once again heard the bell chime twelve as he sat in the cold, all too familiar office. He strained his ears, listening to the slow, dismal music box and the pitter patter of rain on the roof. He rubbed his eyes, trying to keep them open. His vision swam. And the door to the hallway was hard to focus on in the blinding light. The phone… rang? He hesitantly grabbed the phone, and raised it to his ear.

“Uh…. hello? Hello hello? W-what the hell are you doing there? Didn’t you get the memo? The place… the place is closed down, at least for a while. They… they found a body… in the back. They had this… old prototype suit, a black rabbit. They found… well, they found the old night guard there… look, just… just finish your shift, and get the hell out. We’ll swap you to the day shift, we have one more event scheduled for tomorrow… a birthday party. Look, for both me and your’s sake, do not, and I mean this, do NOT mention ANY bodies at the party. Make this kid feel welcome, make him feel happy. The parts and service room will be… locked, as to hopefully prevent the little guest from… ‘accidentally” finding the body in the suit. We uh… we can’t get it out… every time we try, some weird black goop coats the technician's hands, and they almost get stuck to the thing. Just… g-good luck tonight, ok?”

They had already hired a new guy, and so fast too. He hadn’t slept in 2 days though, so he wasn’t too sure. Hissing pistons pierced the dead silence, startling Michael. He fumbled the flashlight, and flicked it on, looking at the bear down the hall.

“It's been a while, Hasn’t it michael?”

Michael’s blood froze, and he felt dizzy. It… it followed him… it followed him here, of all places. He couldn’t get away from his own nightmares, no matter how hard he’d try. He wanted to drop to the floor and cry, just like Evan did when Michael used to torment him. He sighed, and kept the light on the bear. He wasn’t going to die from this nightmare, for Evan’s sake. He stared the bear down, watching his twisted grin go wider. The shadow version of Freddy dipped behind the corner, reminding Michael of all those twisted nightmares Evan claimed he had. He took a deep breath and got ready to fight this shadow off. He grit his teeth, and held the light, not taking any chances

He heard thudding coming from all sides, everyone was after him tonight.

He took a deep breath, placed one hand on the mask, and took a seat, preparing for what the night would bring.

Michael could hear a lot of noises throughout the pizzeria as he wound the music box. Checking the stage, he saw every toy animatronic gone… “This night shift is stupid.” Michael ended up mumbling, trying to subvert his own fear with bravery, it seemed to fail him. Clicking the light, he saw nothing greeting him.

Then he turned toward the left side vent, and pressed it…. Toy Chica smiled at him from the vent.

“New guy, you shouldn’t be here.”

Michael would yelp, and instantly put on the mask as Toy Chica came into the room and observed him.

“Freddy, what are you doing here? You should be in the back.”

As Toy Chica left, Michael took off the mask and flicked the hall light on, and looked down the hallway, narrowing his eyes… no… no it couldn’t be… The familiar golden face greeted him in the hallway. Fredbear laughed, and lumbered down the hall, his ruined golden fur glinted in the harsh flashlight beam.

“Did you forget me already?” Fredbear boomed, his semi-unhinged jaw creaking loudly. He raised his arms, and slowly stumbled down the hallway. Michael grabbed the mask, and equipped it, his breathing becoming rapid and strained. Fredbear’s single working eye peered in, trying to figure out if anything was alive in there. Michael’s breathing got faster… watching Fredbear scan his face. Fredbear clanked off, wandering the empty halls, singing an old tune Michael hadn’t heard for years. He took deep breaths, and counted the footsteps slowly receding into the darkness. He wiped sweat off of his brow, and listened to the faint singing of Fredbear and the hissing of pistons in the hall. He hesitantly flicked the light on, and watched withered bonnie freeze in it. The light flickered, and the power cut again, the power down hum of the lights almost deafening, until it dropped completely. Michael jumped in surprise, and knocked the music box off with his elbow. He gasped, and fumbled for the box, finding little fragments, and the hand crank. He peered over the table, and saw two bright red piercing eyes peering down the hall.

“I Know you're in there, michael.” the black bear chortled, walking down the hallway in complete silence. The large bear stopped in the office, and grabbed the desk, flipping it. Michael aimed the light at its face, trying to blind it. The living nightmare snarled, and disappeared in a puff of sour smelling black smoke. Michael fumbled for the tablet, and flicked to the prize corner camera, and watched in silent horror as the box slowly opened, and three long spindly hands grabbed the box rim, and it flipped out of the box like a circus clown, and slithered across the floor.

“Box…. stopped…”” The voice whined with a low whirr.

Michael in his few seconds of panic, crawled backwards into the vent, and out of sight, praying the spindly toy didn’t find him.

“Music…. B-b-box…””

Michael held his breath, silently scooting out of the vent into the connecting room. He crawled through the other vent in the party room, waiting until the puppet went back to bed, its low whine piercing the silence.

“Box…. b-b-box…”

Michael stumbled into the kid's cove room, trying to not wake the sleeping Mangle up. Mangle snorted in her sleep, muttering about a ring. Michael elected to ignore that, trying to stay as quiet as possible. Mangle shuffled in her sleep, and growled quietly. He snuck out of the room, and sat down, exhaling in the arcade room. He glanced at his watch, reading the time. Only 3 am, halfway there. He scanned the room for any threats, and stood up, shutting the flashlight off. He slowly crept out of the arcade, and down the hall back to the office. He listened quietly for any abnormal sounds as he walked through the nearly pitch black hallway, like hissing pistons or whining voices.

Nothing.

He slowly realigned and reseated the desk, and sat behind it, scanning the hallway sleepily. He checked the vents, only to jump back in surprise when a happy yellow rabbit face greeted him. It waved, its oven mitt hands grabbing the edge of the vents, hauling himself out. Michael scooted back in alarm, that suit shouldn’t even be here. He hid under the desk, covering his mouth to stifle his breath. Springbonnie crawled out of the vents, and looked around, scanning for movement. He stopped at the desk, and craned his upper torso down, looking at the still Michael, dead in the eye. Springbonnie clicked his jaw indecisively, looking for anything human… or rather, anything alive. After looking around for a while, it ducked back into the vents. Michael deduced Springbonnie only followed his movement.

The night only got more stressful as animatronics came from every side… minus Freddy, who Michael strangely hadn’t seen at all. Michael had gotten so used to using his flashlight that he was afraid it’d dwindle to nothing. It was getting harder to keep his eyes open. He’d started hallucinating goopy black rabbit heads staring at him from dark corners, stuck in permanent death throes. Most of the camera’s lenses were coated partially in a sticky black goop, making it hard to see much of anything, other than the occasional yellow ear or arm, or a pair of red eyes in the pitch black corners, but only when there was nobody else in the room. Fredbear was easy to fool, his old photoreceptors weren’t smart enough to pick suits from people. Springbonnie relied entirely on movements, staring Michael dead in the eyes sometimes, before thundering off. Nightmare barely appeared, only ever standing at the far end of the hall, not moving, just grinning his maniacal grin that betrayed only bloodlust. Nightmare grew more brave as the night dragged on, getting closer and closer with each passing minute, until Michael could count his bloodstained teeth.

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He stared it dead in the eyes, not letting it get any closer. He threw the desk fan at it in anger, praying it would leave him be. The fan bounced off the bear, and landed on the ground with a loud thud, some pieces quickly flying off.

“Cute.” The bear responded, looking in disgust at the office desk fan that assaulted him

The bear wandered backwards into the shadows, not taking his eyes off of Michael.

“Let's have my most trusted friend give you a spin, hmm?” The large black bear said, clearly having a plan.

“I think an old brown bear should be a worthy substitute for me.:

As if on cue, bright blue eyes greeted Michael from the darkness. However, he didn’t seem to be fully focused on Michael.

“Do you really think I’ll follow orders from you? I’ll kill him completely on my own.”

“You’ve failed 3 times already, this is your last chance.”

“I refuse to be belittled by the likes of you.”

“I could tear your head off of your shoulders right now if I so elected to.”

“I would love to see that, you black recolor,” Freddy turned his attention back to Michael, now ignoring the animal next to him. “I’m going to rip you to shreds, Mikey.”

Michael dove into the vents, trying to put as much distance between him and Freddy. Freddy followed suit, the loud stomping of the bear could be heard throughout the vent… Freddy was fast. If Michael didn’t think of a plan, Freddy would catch him and tear him apart right then and there. Michael knew what happened to Jeremy. Michael picked up speed, crawling on all fours throughout the vent system, adding as much distance between the two.

Freddy was heard charging through the vents, the loud thudding and banging of metal around Michael was ear-shattering, Freddy was getting closer.

“MICHAEEEEEEEEEEEL!” The bear screamed as he grew nearer.

Michael had an absolutely stupid plan, but a plan nonetheless. He crawled through the vents to kids cove, and waited until Freddy was near enough to execute it.

Sure enough, a few seconds later, he heard Freddy’s deep laughter behind him. Michael aimed a kick at Mangle just as Freddy rounded the corner, and scooted back into the vents, hoping the hodge podge of parts would keep Freddy occupied now that it had been woken from its nap.

It seemed to work, and Freddy had seemed to stop, evidenced by the sounds in Kids Cove.

“What???” Mangle whined, “I WAS NAPPING, AND YOU JUST HAD TO WAKE ME UP, HUH??”

A few seconds of silence, but then, oddly enough, Michael heard Freddy speak calmly, much to the confusion of Michael, “Listen closely, you rotting mess of mangled parts, I have something important to discuss with you.”

Freddy seemed distracted, it was a perfect time for Michael to escape.

Michael ran to the back room, and flicked the power on, hopefully causing another distraction so he could hide somewhere else.

Peeking out of the back room, Michael saw that the place was once again suspiciously empty.

“No… no no no he’s back…” Michael stuttered, scanning in fear for the black bear….

Nothing. The time on his watch read 5:30 AM. Something suspicious was going on. He took a deep breath, and wandered around the dim pizzaria, listening for something, anything. The place seemed entirely abandoned in a twisted, unnerving way. His footsteps echoed off of the walls, the dead silence almost too much to bear. He looks at the main stage, with nothing on it, a strange sight to behold. It felt apocalyptic, there was torn papers and graffiti all over the walls, the tables were either broken or flipped, and anything of value that was there before was missing. The doorway to the arcade was boarded up, and a sign on the door read a word Michael had a hard time reading backwards… though he was sure it read condemned.

Maybe that shadow was really playing tricks on him, they wouldn’t just… pack it all up and still make him watch over it. He wandered the empty halls, looking at the yellowed walls, jumping when the nothings that fell over made a noise, every whistling of the wind through the holes in the cracked walls making him jump. Every so often, something would make a sound out in a different room. A chuckle, a sigh, a scream, but they had no source. Some rooms had a puddle of black goop, roughly the size of a person in one of those nasty old prototype suits, still fresh, slowly seeping outwards. He shuddered, and wandered to his office, which to his horror, had a blood stained night guard cap on the table, the crimson liquid still fresh. He picked it up in the least bloody part, and read the name plaque on the hat, which had a name mangled and washed away. He made out M__h_el, but other than that, it was a useless piece of junk. What disturbed him the most, however, was the fact that the front, around where the human's frontal lobe would be, was torn out, as if bitten and torn by sharp fangs. He shuddered, and put it down again. He grabbed a fire ax that was leaning against the wall in the corner. He held it, feeling the strangely warm wooden handle, like someone used it recently. He gripped it tightly in his hands, and went back to the main party room, and swung through the boards covering the arcade room, but he wished he didn’t. The room had pictures drawn by young children, torn and soaked from years of rain and neglect. Some arcade machines were tipped over, their names scratched off, the mascot's face mangled and distorted, almost impossible to tell who was who. The prize counter was stripped bare, and the puppets box was thankfully empty. He walked quietly through the arcade, until the sound of one of them booting up startled him, and he raised the ax over his head as he turned towards it. The screen had a simple message on it, with a black rabbit in the background, stuck in a permanent agonizing scream. The screen flickered a shade of purple, almost like it was glitching, until eventually, a single message was spelled out for Michael to view in terror:

“It's me.”

Michael didn’t know what to do, except run. He ran back out into the main room, taking heavy breaths, leaning against a table.

Turning to his left, Michael could see the outside world from a small window, the sun starting to come up and light the brisk parking lot. Almost there. Something shuffled behind him, startling Michael. He turned around, and raised his flashlight, seeing two unmoving red pinpricks.

“Tomorrow is going to be an exciting, exciting day.” The shadow mused, knowing something Michael did not.

“I pity your bloody end.”

The pizzeria felt as if it was wavering, just with the presence of the shadow, but even then, it felt like someone was watching the two of them.Michael took one last look at his watch, reading it, but it took a bit to register that it was 5:45 am now. Michael felt unease for the next minute, locked in a staring contest with the red eyes. For a split second, he could swear a purple bear was staring back at him, his toothy, cartoon grin. The shadowy bear just watched, not moving at all.

“I know you’re over there, Freddy..” the purple bear snarled, his toothy maw looking less friendly.

No response. That’s when Michael realized that his feeling was correct, he turned around, and saw in the darkness, the dull blue eyes of Freddy Fazbear. However, Freddy wasn’t responding, seemingly just observing. However, as soon as he turned back to face the Shadow, it was gone.

Michael didn’t know how to feel, unnerved, scared, mad? His question was answered when he heard the voice of Freddy behind him,

“It’d be a real shame if something were to happen at that party, Mikey.”

Michael left the place as fast as he could, he didn’t care that it was ten minutes before he was supposed to be done, he knew he’d have to return again, against his will.