HOME | DD

Description
Freddy doesn't fuck around. Ten minutes into the shift and Mike is glued to the Monitor, squinting through the static with his heart in his mouth. The image quality is terrible. He can just barely make out the shape of Freddy's broad shoulders where the android looms over the show stage. Everything else he see is blue. Frothing, raging blue.

“Keep looking at him,” Jeremy says grimly. “He moves more slowly if you watch him.”

It takes Mike a second to get a hold of his tongue. “What about Foxy?”

“Drop in on him too, if you can. But if he slips by you, I can get the doors closed in time.”

There's no room for hesitation in Jeremy's words. His expression can only be described as 'resolute.' For the first time since that awful first meeting, Jeremy seems to be in complete control of him. It's more than a little intimidating. Watching this transformation up close makes Mike feel like even more of a mess. But he's a mess with a job to do.

Freddy is still looking up at him through the blurry mass of pixels. It's hard to tell, but Mike doesn't think he's moved since he got to the stage. He's just standing there, huge and terrible. Not breathing, not blinking. Like a doll.

No. Bonnie is like a doll. Freddy is... something else.

Mike doesn't want to look at him. He's afraid to look away. But he can't keep the Monitor on all night, and a sound from down the hall takes the choice out of his hands.

The camera in Pirate's Cove is clearer. It renders the sight of Foxy half out from behind the curtain in loving, gory detail. Mike processes the scene in glimpses. Black surrounding an iris burning a sickly yellow. Black pools soaking into the scarred floor. Black claws driven through the curtain, slicing it to ribbons in their haste to pull it shut.

Foxy's face is in ruins. The androids' blood is black.

The Monitor trembles in Mike's hands as he lowers it, searching out Jeremy. His partner for the night is set up near the doors, phone in his lap, staring down the darkened hallway. As Mike watches, Jeremy begins to pick at the skin of his fingers.

“Foxy looks awful,” Mike says. “I don't think they cleaned him after... after.”

Come to think of it, does anyone clean the androids? They're mascots, right? Ms. Sanchez can't just leave Foxy like this. But who would dare give him a bath?

“Is he just going to stay like that?” Mike asks. He doesn't expect the plaintive note that enters his voice, but there is it anyway. Probably Bonnie's fault.

Jeremy leans forward in his seat and presses a finger to his lips.

“Quiet,” he murmurs. “Something's coming.”

Not someone. Something. Mike shuts his mouth and waits. Time ticks onward, unseen and unmarked. He aches to check the clock, but something tells him that this isn't the night for that. They're going to need every scrap of power to make it through this.

Movement. Mike squints into the dark, Jeremy stiff and silent beside him, and searches for a gleam of crimson. It doesn't come. A bright pink glow approaches instead. Chica prowls down the corridor in a swirl of yellow hair and equally yellow dress. Mike's stomach sinks a little. He isn't sure why. At this distance, she's not exactly easy to make out, but she doesn't look... stained, the way Foxy did, or injured like Bonnie. There's no reason for Mike to feel afraid and disappointed rather than afraid and relieved.

All the logic in the world can't stop the frown that tugs at his mouth. Something seems off. It niggles at him as she draws closer, her steps whispering against the floor. Thirty feet away. Now twenty. Now ten. Almost close enough to reach out with her skinny arms and –

The door slams in her face.

Mike lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. “Excellent timing.”

Jeremy grunts in response, staring fixedly at the shiny metal in front of him. “Check the Cove again.”

“'kay.” As he raises the Monitor, Mike realizes what was bothering him. “Since when does Chica make noise when she walks?”

Green eyes flick toward him, then back to the door. “They all get a little noisier when Freddy's active.”

That, as it turns out, is one hell of an understatement. Foxy screams at the camera before he ducks behind the curtain again. Chica is pacing outside the office, back and forth, back and forth. If Mike listens close, he can make out the sound of something rattling in her chest. Bonnie, when he finally ventures out into the pizzeria, is surrounded by the screech of metal and metal and an irregular grinding. The same sounds Mike heard when Bonnie began convulsing in the bathroom. He hasn't caught any twitching onscreen yet, but he doesn't exactly have a lot of time to watch the pretty rabbit. Bonnie's kept well away from the office so far, but Foxy's upset. And Freddy –

A sickening crunch echoes through the hallways. Something big and solid just broke. Chica pauses mid-pace. Mike looks helplessly at Jeremy, whose face has taken on the cold cast from their first meeting. After a second, a trail of soft footsteps lead away from the door.

Jeremy lets the door slide open and resumes keeping watch. “Check the Monitor.”

Mike lifts the tablet with trembling hands. Freddy has moved. The camera is still covered with static, but without those unearthly eyes filling the screen, Mike can actually see the show stage – or what's left of it. The stage has been split almost in half. Splintered wood stabs upward like jagged teeth, spiralling out from a single point of impact. It looks almost like a footprint.

“What is it?”

“I think–” Mike hesitates. “I think Freddy broke the stage.”

Jeremy's mouth tightens. “Lovely. We're in for a rough night.”

It's 2 AM. Office power is already down to 50%. The dining area is pitted with craters. The restroom door has been ripped off its hinges. Something happened in the kitchen. Whatever it was, it drew Chica away and she hasn't been back since. Freddy has been lurking in the east hall for a full hour. Jeremy's chewed up the remains of his nails and started on the skin of his fingers. Mike's got so much adrenaline running through him he feels drunk. All his senses have exploded – he feels like an exposed nerve. He's picking up everything: dust brushing against his skin. The whir of the fan. The wet smack of Jeremy's teeth. The soft creak made by 300 pounds of killing machine waiting to pounce.

Freddy's rage is a physical thing. It seeps through the vents, the Monitor screen, the crack underneath the closed door, so thick Mike could choke on it.

How is he still breathing? How are either of them still alive?

The fan continues to whir quietly to itself. It sounds concerned.

“You probably don't know why we're still here, either,” he muses, staring into the black depths of the west hall. The one not occupied by Freddy. “At least your buddy is behaving tonight.”

“Talking to yourself again.” Jeremy takes his finger out of his mouth to speak. It comes away bloody. He doesn't appear to notice.

Mike snorts, still gazing into the dark. “If you expected better, you were fooling yourself.”

The blond's shoulders go taught. “I suppose so.”

“Don't worry about it. You're hardly to first to think I was better than I am.” Nothing is moving in the hallway. Mike isn't fooled. He knows what's out there. “How d'you think Fritz is doing?”

“Probably has all the doors open,” Jeremy says, licking his reddened lips. “And the vents. He brought a magazine, so I'll be shocked if he's paid attention to anything all night.”

Mike shakes his head. “Are we going to lose him, too?”

A soft, bitter laugh. “He's been like this from the start. If he hasn't died yet, he's probably not going to.”

It's weirdly reassuring to hear that sheer audacity counts as a valid survival strategy. Mike wishes he had the guts to pull it off himself.

When he looks, Freddy's eyes burn out of the glitching Monitor. The rest of the android's body is hidden in shadow or blurred into static, but the eyes are clear, always. Bonnie's eyes are cold. Chica's eyes are gleeful. Foxy's eyes are bright and manic. Freddy's eyes contain hate and nothing else. It's painful to meet that stare, but equally painful to look away.

If you get stabbed, you're not supposed to pull out the knife. Leave it in so it blocks the blood flow. You'll die faster if you try to remove it. Making eye contact with Freddy feels like a similar principle. As long as Mike is looking at him, Freddy isn't moving. Isn't breaking things. Isn't closing in. So what if meeting his gaze feels like being burned alive?

Hate. Hate. Hate.

Why does he hate them so much?

Freddy's head snaps to the side, away from the camera. Mike flinches back and fumbles the Monitor.

“Mike?” Jeremy's lips barely move and his eyes stay glued to the darkness. How he knows what's happening around him, Mike has no idea.

“It's fine. He just moved.” Mike manages to catch the device before it hits the ground. Just as his fingers close on it, a sound like shattering glass echoes down the corridor. Jeremy goes very still beside him, hands curled into fists. Mike looks back at the Monitor. His insides freeze over. The east hall still fills the screen, but Freddy –

Freddy is gone.

Show stage. Kitchen. Bathroom. Party rooms. Gaming area. Pirate's Cove. They're all silent and empty. Mike flicks through the cameras as quickly as he can. Dread sits like poison in his stomach.

“They're gone. They're all gone. Where are they?”

Jeremy says nothing. When Mike glances up, he finds Jeremy hunched over in his seat. His whole body is shaking.

Mike reaches out to him slowly, careful not to startle him. “Jeremy?”

“Trespasser.”

The word is so soft, Mike thinks he's imagined it. “What?”

“Trespasser,” Jeremy repeats, blinking rapidly. “Someone just broke a window. They're planning on coming inside. The androids only do this when they sense a break-in.”

In the silence that follows that statement, a sound drifts in through the broken glass. Laughter. Indistinct chatter in more than one voice. Nervous, tipsy, young.

“Burglars?” The word tastes wrong on Mike's tongue. “What kind of idiot tries to break into Freddy's?”

Jeremy sinks lower in his seat, his mouth trembling. “Not a burglar. A burglar would know better. Anyone who sneaks into the pizzeria after hours tends to disappear.”

“No shit,” Mike says, but Jeremy isn't done.

“Criminals... criminals talk. To each other, to informants, sometimes even to us. Even the muggers know something's wrong with this place. They also know it's never empty, and the night guards are jumpy. So... to just break a window like that...”

“Isn't exactly the behaviour of a hardened criminal,” Mike finishes. He keeps flicking through the cameras. “So who is it? What are we dealing with here?”

Jeremy wraps his arms around his middle and squeezes his eyes shut. “Kids. It's always kids. They hear the rumours, get some alcohol in them, and come straight here. Break a window. Crawl inside. They don't–” His voice wavers. “They don't come out.”

Mike sits back, eyes wide. Drunk teenagers. One of the few threats he'd actually expected and prepared for when he applied to this job. He had a whole strategy planned out to deal with them. He can't remember any of it. All his problem-solving skills have been derailed by literal murder machines. What the hell is he supposed to do?

Calm down, that's what. Jeremy's been through this before. He'll know what to do. Mike just has to follow his lead. Mike turns the Monitor off, settles it on his lap, and gives Jeremy his full attention.

“So what's the plan?” he asks.

“There isn't one.”

Mike frowns. “Is this your first break-in?”

Blond hair shines dully in the flickering light as Jeremy shakes his head. “Seventh. Or eighth. I can't remember.”

At least one of them knows what he's doing. “What did you do last time?”

“Nothing,” Jeremy says quietly.

An uneasy smile works its way onto Mike's face. “Seriously, what's the protocol for this? If it happens so often, there's gotta be some kind of guidelines, right?”

“There are. Sit down, keep quiet, wait till it's over.”

It feels like he's listening to a foreign language. The words are just bundles of sound, disconnected from meaning. “What?”

Jeremy sighs, drawing attention to the deep shadows underneath his dead green eyes. “We do nothing. They'll clean up the mess tomorrow.”

“No,” Mike says. “That – that can't be it. What kind of half-assed joke–”

The chair squeals as Jeremy rolls backward. “It's not a joke.”

“Don't lie to me!”

“I'm not,” Jeremy says. “I-it's official pizzeria policy.”

“Bullshit!” Mike shoots upright. His face is burning with heat. He can feel every artery pulsing with rage. “We're security guards! What are we even here for if not to secure the place?”

“Mike, the Monitor!”

“Screw the Monitor! I'm not letting a bunch of drunk kids die!”

Slowly, Jeremy raises his hands. Fear draws lines on his forehead, glistens like tears in his eyes. That expression makes Mike feel sick to his stomach. He looks away before he can see too much. Then he realizes what he's doing and forces himself to make eye contact.

“C-calm down. Please. I – I'll call Fritz. He's... he's better at explaining things.”

Mike nods sharply, still light-headed with anger. “Do that.”

Jeremy picks up his phone and starts dialing. His eyes haven't left Mike's face once. “Please pick up the Monitor. We're still in trouble if it breaks.”

“Fine!” Mike grabs the device off the floor and tosses it onto the desk. The cupcake almost gets squished. The shadow of an indignant yelp echoes through Mike's head, but he can't focus on anything but the too-loud noise of conversation filtering down the hall. Everything else dissipates like mist as Jeremy presses the phone to his ear.

The moment Fritz picks up, Jeremy starts talking, tripping over his words in the rush to get them out. “Fritz? Back me up here. Mike won't believe the pizzeria's policy on break-ins.”

“Because it's stupid!” Jeremy flinches away when Mike closes in to yell at the phone. Mike inhales sharply and tries to level out his voice. Doesn't really work. “Look, I can understand you being scared, but we're security guards! If we're not supposed to secure the area, what are we even doing here?”

There's a pause before Jeremy tilts the phone away and opens his mouth. “Fritz says we're not leaving the offices.”

“I didn't say we should,” Mike snaps. “I just – where's the panic button? There should be a panic button, right?”

Jeremy shakes his head.

“That has to be illegal!”

“Mike,” he says slowly, “if there were a panic button, don't you think you would've hit it your first night here?”

“Of course n–” Mike stops mid-denial. He would've. Of course he would've. He thought he was going to die. “All right, fine, no panic button. What is there?”

“Nothing. We have the doors and the Monitor. That's all. We aren't here to save people, except by proxy. Our purpose is to distract the androids. Nothing else.”

The silence that follows must seem like a helpless one. Mike doesn't know what his face looks like, but it can't be pretty. It seems to put Jeremy at ease – his fear starts to drain away, leaving something like exhaustion, but more terrible in its wake.

“If you need closure, you can watch over the cameras,” he says, but it sounds like please don't, you'll regret it.

It makes sense. Mike already knew they weren't here as anything but sacrifices. Freddy's is always hiring, always looking for more blood to spill. What should management care if they get volunteers? So what if the voices being carried to the office on bursts of fresh air are still young enough to crack and boom unexpectedly? It doesn't matter how young the intruders are, or how drunk, or who spread the rumours that led them here. Hell, Mike wouldn't be surprised if it was management behind the stories. It all makes sense. That's the worst part.

Mike takes a shuddering breath. It's no good. The air is boiling in his lungs. “But there's kids out there!”

Words pour out of Jeremy's mouth like water. Rationalizations, justifications, fear. Mike doesn't care.

“No, shut up! They're literal, actual children! And you're just – saying we should stand back and let them die? You think they're sober enough to know what they're doing? Like fuck they are! You're just gonna sit here and listen to a bunch of drunk fifteen-year-olds die? How the fuck do you live with yourself? What kind of monster–”

Jeremy shoves the phone at him and backs away, toward the door buttons. Mike snatches it up and brings it to his ear without pausing.

“We have to do something!” he yells.

“And what can we do?” Fritz asks, his flat voice made tinny and robotic. “They're faster than us, stronger than us, and a hell of a lot better at picking up sounds that aren't supposed to be there. Most of them are gathered in the dining hall right now, but not all of them. We move, they're going to hear, and they're going to rip us limb from limb.”

He isn't wrong, but Mike isn't done. “Fine! But there must be some sort of warning we can give them.”

“Like what?” Fritz snaps. “This half-assed security system doesn't even have an alarm to set off. The closest thing we've got is the fire alarm, and it's located right outside the supply closet and only right outside the supply closet.”

The coldness of Fritz's tone puts out the fire in Mike's veins. His thoughts have quit burning in his skull. He can't say it's helping any. “But that's–”

“Stupid? Yes. Mean? Also yes. Cheap? You guessed it.” The phone is shaking in Mike's hand, but Fritz doesn't stop talking. Maybe he can't. “We work for Freddy Fazbear's, Mike. In a contest between saving lives and saving cash, I think we all know which one wins.”

Mike feels numb. He can barely feel his mouth moving. “But... we can't just leave them to the androids.”

“Yes, we can,” Fritz tells him. “Because if we don't, we are definitely going to die.”

For a long moment, Mike says nothing. He stares at the wall, through the wall, into a future he can't bear to witness. On the line, Fritz is quiet. Jeremy is looking at him, silent, waiting. Somewhere in the darkness, the androids are doing the same thing. The seconds tick past.

It's too much. Something has to give. And something does.

Mike curls his fingers tightly around the phone. Then he gathers up every scrap of rage he has and hurls it at the wall.

Jeremy throws himself away from the sound on reflex. That gives Mike just long enough to duck past him and out the hallway. Darkness washes over him instantly. At night, the west hall is an underwater cave, buried under deep, black water. The drawings on the wall shine and flutter in an unseen current. Black words crawl overtop: SAVE THEM.

I'm trying, Mike thinks. But the air is thick and heavy around him, binding his limbs and filling his lungs with cement. At the end of the hall, there's a shadow. Bonnie is still here. He doesn't seem to recognize Mike's presence, but that's a lie. His red gaze glances off a row of crude sketches and illuminates ears pointed unerringly toward the office. Towards Mike.

If he lunged backward now, Mike could probably make it back into the office. Thanks to the confusion, the Monitor's been off for ages. He and Jeremy could hole up in there for the rest of the night and crawl out in the morning, terrified but safe. All it would cost is the lives of people he doesn't know – people who might not even follow through on what they've started.

Another burst of intoxicated laughter, closer and higher pitched. The crunch of metal on broken glass. The scrape of a stepladder settling into place.

Mike squares his shoulder and begins to run. It happens in snapshots: the hallway yawning before him. Bonnie's red eyes flashing as Mike makes his approach. The small movement of Bonnie's right arm as he closes in. The exact moment Bonnie decides to let him pass. The door to the supply closet sitting just up ahead. The fire alarm, small and grubby, easy to overlook. He slams on the red disk with all his might.

There are much more terrible sounds out there, but the sudden panic of a fire alarm going off is unmatched. Even with Bonnie watching him from just a few feet away, Mike's first instinct is to cover his ears. He staggers back, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to process the noise. It doesn't help. Sensory overload is the worst. The world is nothing but wailing until cold fingers brush his sleeve.

Words like velvet slice through the siren. “We'll continue this another night.”

Mike opens his eyes just in time to see Bonnie's immaculate purple waistcoat vanish into the gloom.

“Bonnie, what was that meant to be?”

“...good morning, Freddy.”

"Don't even try. What were you thinking?"

"How much fire alarms hurt my ears? You're lucky that your auditory sensors aren't that sharp. Mine–"

"You let him run right past you. You didn't even try to catch him."

"...no. I didn't."

"Why?"

"I've got good ears, Freddy. Even when I'm in the hall, I can hear everything going on the office."

"And?"

"They started talking as soon as the perimeter was breached."

"Your point?"

"...they told him everything. How company policy is to let us do whatever we want to trespassers. He wouldn't believe it. And when it became clear that they weren't going to do anything, he ran outside without a second thought."

"So he's an idiot."

"Perhaps."

The weirdest part of the whole night is when the firetrucks actually show up. Mike spends a good five minutes gawking at them through the windows. Even when he was being interviewed by the annoyed and frightened firefighters, he kept glancing at them every few seconds. He kinda wants to go outside and poke one, just to see if it's really painted cardboard. Or another unmarked black truck. Either or.

He should probably pay more attention to the actual interrogation he's supposed to be going through, but all things considered, it hasn't been that bad. Jeremy kind of shut down once the yelling started, but Fritz took all the heat for him and most of the heat aimed at Mike, too. That's why Mike is tucked into a party room with Ms. Sanchez while Fritz holds court in the dining hall. He's glad for the lack of attention. All that righteous fury burnt him out. The world has taken on a fuzzy quality which reminds him of the film grain in old movies. Ms. Sanchez's face keeps blurring and duplicating when he keeps his eyes open for too long. She's trying to intimidate him, he thinks. It isn't working out for her.

“The fire alarms are for emergency use only, Mike. They aren't meant to be used as a – distraction.”

Mike leans back as far as his rickety plastic chair will allow. “So random kids wandering in and getting themselves killed isn't an emergency? Good to know.”

She folds her hands together and rests them on the table. Her eyes are red and puffy, and her forehead is nothing but creases. “The noise provokes them.”

No need to specify who 'them' is. “Then why are there fire alarms to begin with? Wouldn't it be better for you if this place burned down with them inside?”

“Attempts were made,” she says stiffly. “The regeneration interfered. Also, they're much easier to deal with when not on fire. Mike, could you at least pretend to be sorry?”

“Probably,” he admits. “If I had to. Give me a little longer to bask in my triumph.”

'Triumph' might be the wrong word, but he heard the firefighters' report. They'd found beer cans and footprints clustered beside a broken window leading into the dining hall along with an abandoned stepladder. Judging by the prints, there were at least four people out there. Four people who are going to live to be hungover tomorrow. Today.

“What time is it?”

Ms. Sanchez sighs and checks her watch. “Six-thirty.”

“Does that mean my shift is over?”

She scowls at him. “Technically.”

He raises his arms above his head and stretches. “Awesome.”

“Normally, I'd suspend you for something like this, but we can't afford to be shorthanded right now. You're on-call tomorrow as usual. Understood?”

“Mmhmm. It's fine.”

Her scowl deepens. “I don't know how you survived, but you can't keep doing this, Mike. Consider it a one-off and go back to your usual tactics. Fritz is not a good role model. Sheer audacity only works for so long.”

She isn't wrong, but the way she said it rubs on his raw nerves. “I know. Dead man walking here. But those kids weren't. I'm not going to regret saving them.”

“As long as you understand.” Her gaze skitters away from him, settling on the air over his shoulder. Her mouth tightens. “I – I need to go.”

Maybe it's the adrenaline crash messing with Mike's perceptions, but Ms. Sanchez can move awfully fast when she puts her mind to it. When the door closes behind her, he's hardly even out of his seat. He stares after her, frowning slightly. What was that about, exactly?

An involuntary shiver distracts him. The air seems to have gotten colder all of a sudden. Mike wraps his arms around himself and goes to sit back down. The moment he glances at the table, he freezes in place.

There is a shadow looming over him. A shadow whose head is laced with an eerie crimson glow.

“Hi,” Mike says. He should probably run, or scream, or – you know – do something, but his eyelids weigh a hundred pounds each and his head is filled with fog. “Can I help you?”

A white-gloved hand settles on Mike's shoulder, feeding cold through the thin fabric of his shirt. It's a gentle touch, but it makes his skin crawl. Purple hair drifts into Mike's peripheral vision as the person standing behind him leans forward. Chill breath brushes against his ear.

“Talk with me,” Bonnie murmurs. It isn't a request.