Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

:::Under Control Of Strings:::

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Each drop was slowly driving me insane. Pure insanity. It’s unbelieveable how our precious minds can just snap, break. Or we can just lose it. Pitch black was all around me. I didn’t know where the fuck I was. Damn memory loss. I don’t know how I got here. Nor did I give a shit. I only cared about getting out of here. I could do just that, if I wasn’t under control. If I was to run, where would I go? The doors are all locked. The key is long gone.

I now experience the pain the son of God went through. Before he died. He had nails hammered into his hands and feet. He was nailed to a piece of goddamn wood. Unfortunately, he didn’t die as soon as he was nailed to a cross. He was put up to slowly die in the scorching sun. Some birds would’ve helped themselves too. I pitied the guy, sure I did.

What was it like stabbing your wrists? Agony.

Don’t do it.

If you’re doing it now, you’ve lost your mind already. You’re like a vampire. See blood, even if it’s yours. You want more. You know it’s inside you. So that’s why you make yourself bleed. You’re not aware that if you lose enough blood, you’ll drain out like a desert.

It’s a stupid idea. Just live with it.

The dripping didn’t stop. Even getting lost deep into my own thinking world doesn’t work either. Would it ever stop? It’s like a fucking water tap, that hasn’t been turned off properly. It’s a waste of water.

No, it wasn’t water that was dripping. It’s either tears, or blood. My blood. If expecting the dripping to stop was scary. What about the music box that played in the background. Somewhere in the darkness of this damn room, there’s a music box. It’s ready to stop at any minute. Then what?

That’s what’s scary about it. You don’t know. What will happen? God probably doesn’t even know. Where is God when I need him most? Isn’t that what Jesus asked himself before he died and his father abandoned him? I don’t know. I’m not catholic.

I knew the tune this music box played. It replayed repeatedly.

My grandfather’s clock.

I knew when the song ended. But it was on loop. It could stop at any time. It might not even stop at all. If only that was true. This was a music box I was talking about. They always run out. They always stop, at the end of the song or in the middle of it when it’s not even near finished. I could tell how fast my heart was beating. Wild animal trying to burst out of my rib cage. My breathing was quiet and trying to sound calm. I was pretty sure to have a heart attack soon.

My wrists were painted red of my blood. Blood poured from my wrists as they had been stabbed right through. Right past the bone and out the other end. These were both of my wrists. My feet too. Stabbed right through the bone and out the bottom. My feet and my wrists had holes in them, like they had been shot with a bullet and the bullet went right through my flesh and bones without a problem. Blood leaked from these body parts, I didn’t know if they were dry now.

They were numb, but I still got stings and shocks of pain and agony running through them like wires. My tears ruined my makeup. My stupid salty tears running down my face and hitting the ground. The physical pain hurt. It really did. But I felt more than satisfied with my tears. What the fuck did I even care about my makeup. It had dried anyway, now feeling like dried mud or dirt that had been smudged on my face.

I didn’t know how long I had been sitting in this fucking chair. It felt like bloody hours and I couldn’t move my body. It was like my body had turned off on it’s own, or it was like I was drugged for my body to fall limp like a dead one. Might as well wait for death’s warm embrace to come to me. I’m going to die anyway.

I hadn’t noticed the music box music, my grandfather’s clock was starting to glitch and slow down to a stop. Wherever the damn box was, I was trying to widen my eyes at it in fear. Fear swallowed me whole. I forgot about all the thoughts my mind had come up with. Even the damn dripping had come to stop.

There was a small click of the music coming to a full halt.

The whole room was silent.

Dead silent. No movement at all. Nothing except me having breathing problems and trying to listen to anything but my panicked breathing. I waited. Maybe for footsteps, more breathing, something. No one else was in this damned room, except me. Was I just scared about a music box? I must be more of a wussy that I thought.

“Do not fear the music box.”

I jinxed it.

A voice came from my head. A soft, slow and deep one. It sounded peaceful and calm. So damn completely calm, in this situation. What scared me the most was that it didn’t come from me. It didn’t just come from echoing inside my head, but it’s voice reverberated through this dark room. I was wrong. There was someone else in here with me. Something else. And I was at it’s mercy.

I felt another tear slide down my face. My nose is runny, I’ll find snot pouring instead of tears soon. My throat was dry, from the stupid weeping I did earlier. I had attempted to call for help. Fuck it. It didn’t work. When you’re scared, you may start crying and believe everything works and looks for hope or even a way out. You just don’t face the horrible truth that you’re trapped.

I couldn’t move my body, but only my head. I would twist my neck around as I look around in the darkness, maybe trying to catch something moving through the darkness and mist. I saw nothing. This didn’t calm my racing heart. I couldn’t breathe properly. Now I was starting to sound like I was having a panic attack or like I don’t even know how to breathe properly. Maybe both.

That’s when I felt a cold breeze move past me, it’s cold touch lingering on my bare skin and making goosebumps appear on my flesh. I hadn’t felt a cold breeze in here before. Then it came to me. Something rushed past me. It’s presence was here in this very room, not far away from me. I felt the breeze again, flying right past my face in a soft swift motion, making a few of my locks flip. A sharp gasp is torn from my throat as something took a strand of my hair and let my hair slip from its grasp and fall back down. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it’s ghostly presence. It was like a ghost. Just like a ghost. I manage to untangle my vocal cords and fill my throat with my saliva.

“Where are you, fucker?!” my hoarse voice screamed at the top of my lungs. My screech bounced off the room’s walls and I was completely sure It heard. There wasn’t any laughter, thank god. But worse. Silence. Deadly silence took control of the room again. Nothing could be more uncomfortable.

“Now that’s not how we speak here, my dear.”

The voice. It spoke again. It sounded rather amused, but disappointed at the same time. It was difficult to describe. It sounded like it was enjoying itself but it didn’t like the fucking good language I was using. I could easily compare this voice to an old man, or old lady. I wanted to wrestle out of these “restraints” but that would only cause more bloody pain and bleeding. I might not even be far from passing from bloodloss.

“Where the hell are you?!” I yell out again, my head swiping left and right, detecting for any type of movement. Although I couldn’t see anything, I still felt breaths of cold air float around me, past me, maybe even sit in front of me. I pictured something circling me, like a lion with it’s meaty prey. The lion was ready to pounce. This thing would pounce at any second. I couldn’t lower my guard.

“Right here, lovely.”

I was blinded. Only for a short minute, until my eyes adjusted to the bright blinding light that had all of a sudden switched on. A simple light from above me. It was an unprotected light from the ceiling with just a simple light bulb. Nothing else. All around me, were mirrors. Clones and copies of me were attached to the wall. Like playing movies. I was everywhere. I looked into my reflections, seeming horrified at my look of state. I looked horrible. I looked like a nightmare. Even seeing myself look so terrible almost make me sick and shut my eyes to avoid seeing it.

My body looked so hobbled sitting in a plain wooden chair with no arms rests. My legs sat apart, looking unmoved for hours and broken. My arms fell limp at my sides, just like my legs, they looked snapped and broken. They just dangled at the chair’s sides like empty swings or a noose. My feet were bare, dirty and covered of blood. My blood. I was right. My wrists and feet did have big stabbed holes in them. My hands were scarred and caked in my own crimson blood.

I noticed my own casual clothes were missing, replaced by new sweet disgusting ones. I wore a one piece sparkling black leotard. It exposed most of my glowing pale skin. I never went out into the sun often. This black clothing only brought out the brightness of my skin. Stretchy transparent black tights wrapped my long legs and a small twinkly black tutu hugged my waist. I was dressed up as a fucking ballerina. I didn’t do this. Someone obviously dressed me. And it made me so fucking uncomfortable just at the thought of it.

I would rather be naked than dressed up like a dancing doll for entertainment. I took in the horrible mess I made of my makeup. My face was painted whiter than my skin already was. Black circles was stained around my eyes. The black circles were ruined as my tears had run down them and made a mess. My lips were to glossed an ink black with a small smile made of paint being spread on my cheeks. My hair was tied back into a neat tidy bun.

The lightbulb flickered , not helping with settling my heart rate. The light was so dim, it only lit up a bit of the area, but still darkness was in the room. No one was here. Or at least I couldn’t see the fucker.

“Look how pretty you look…” the voice huskily spoke. I felt soft clothed long fingers carefully pick up one of my wrists, pulling it up. I winced at the pain but glanced down anyway. My eyes widened in disbelief. My wrist was lifting up on its own. It was like an invisible hand lifting up my hand. My jaw dropped at the sight of it being lifted up, ignoring the pain that struck me.

The holes dug right through my wrists. The blood definitely had dried. It still hurts. I noticed a tight white long piece of string that was put through the hole and tied into a big knot on the other side of my wrist so the string wouldn’t fall out. Otherwise, the string was led right through my wrist and the string stretched a long way out into the darkness. It was the same with my other wrist and even my feet. Strings were put through them too and all the string was pulled off into the darkness.

My heart ached at the sight of it. Fucker, he did this. I knew it. Meanwhile, I felt my wrist be lifted up before the string knotted through, it was suddenly tugged roughly by the invisible hand. I let out a whimper at the pain.

“Under the control of my strings.”

I grinded my teeth together as my held my tongue from screaming out curses and threats at the one who wasn’t even there. My wrist was dropped and nothing caught it so it fell back down to my side like a dead plant.

“Show yourself, asshole,” I growl out. I didn’t care if I swore or not. This guy was an absolute pussy to be hiding at all. I assumed he was a psycho for kidnapping someone, making holes in their wrists and feet and thinking them as a stupid doll. This guy needed some serious ass kicking.

For once, I heard the chuckle. It was similar to the chuckle of a clown. Pretty much like a high pitched giggle at that. It made shivers run over my skin and put me on the edge of the wooden chair. I gulped down the lump in my throat as I was forced to stare into my clone’s reflections. I thanked god that I had finally stopped crying, but now I just looked like a blonde bitch that got her heart broken.

“Now, now. What did I say about that language? That certainly cannot do.”

The voice tutted in disappointment. The voice did sound disappointed this time. I could just picture a frown on their face. I mentally smiled to myself. But his final words did make my heart leap in horror. He was going to do something. He was bound to do something about it. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I inwardly cursed to myself.

I then felt deadly shocks of pain shoot through my limbs. My feet, my wrists. The strings that knotted through the holes, were lifted up from the darkness and risen up to the ceiling. The strings were pulled upwards, pulling on my limbs and agony taking over. I then caught on with what was going on. A puppet.

I was meant to be a puppet. Whoever the fuck did this to me, the puppet master. Who handled the puppet. The strings through my wrists and feet, they’re to control the puppet’s movements.

I am under his control, I thought terrified. A deep sharp tug was pulled so hard on my strings, the strength was enough to lift me up and make me scream in torment. I was lifted back down as I heard a light soft mischievous chuckle bounce off the room’s walls and echo in my ear.

My knees buckled as my body began to tremble.

“Not bad,” I heard the voice hum to himself. He sounded like he was deciding on something. God, probably something worse.

“Again.” Before I had time to swallow and react to the word, my strings were pulled up again with a giant lift and I was hoisted up into the air again. The pain ringing through my feet and wrists.

A howl escaped my lips as my bones were jerked at and sprained in the process. The blood from my holed in limbs bled again. Crimson blood leaking from my wounds and more tears slipping from my eyes. I began to sob again, uncontrollably. The jump was only for a second before I was dropped back down again. As my feet touched the floor again, I felt a little light headed but barely kept my balance at all.

“Please! Stop it!” I cried out as my tears fell and my body shook like an earthquake had just hit. All I got was another sick evil giggle of the puppet master as he was amused by my torture and suffering. He was a psycho, a coward, a mother fucker. I ignored the horrible scent of blood that filled my mouth and didn’t dare looked down at my blood that was spilling from my dying limbs. I was sure to pass out from blood loss, maybe even die of it.

“Well done. I believe it is time for our beautiful ballerina to put on a show for us, don’t you think?”

The voice snickered once more. I felt sick to my stomach and my heart dropped and my face deathly paled. More fear grew within me as I began to weep more. Small little begs and pleads leaving my mouth. I didn’t want this. What did I do to deserve this? To be tortured like this? I just wanted to get out of here. Go home. Go back to the life I had just before all of this. Even if I can’t remember anything before this or if I’m suffering from memory loss.

The pain hit my like a train.

A banshee like scream was torn from my throat as the affliction struck me once more, worser than ever. My body was heaved up so high into the air, I was sure to nearly touch the ceiling. My arms were uplifted by the strong chain-like strings and my feet were brought up with them, with the assistance of the string. I was pulled forwards as well, making my body leap like a rag doll.

When my body came back down the ground again, my ankles were damaged as they collided with the ground. My body fell forward, ready to tumble over. But my body was kept balanced the the horrible strings. There was a humming in the room from the mysterious controller and I dreaded feeling my body was dragged right off the ground again, my lips responding with a dying wail. My body was limp and just like a corpse. I didn’t have to do anything, but I was pulled through torturing pain of Hell.

“Please, stop! Let me go!” I could only cry and stutter out the begs as he carried on lifting me up and dropping me down with torturing pain and discomfort. I only heard the disgusting giggling of amusement from all around me as he controlled me. This torture would have no end.

“Ahh, but you are my entertainment for tonight!” the voice cried out with joy and happiness. He didn’t care about my suffering that he was causing but only the dying performance he was controlling me to act. I could only wish this thing would go and rot deep in Hell. Not even God would save me from this. All around me, I saw my body being driven around the dimly lit room exactly like the puppet I was. He moved my withering body like a ballerina. He made me leap, curtsy, spin and skip around the room like a lifeless toy doll. As my feet were forced around the room, I noticed I was leaving a trail of blood behind and my head was feeling heavier and heavier by each second. My eyes would falter closed for a minute before snapping back open into consciousness again.

It honestly felt like long torturous hours before the strings finally let me collapse to the ground for sure. Nothing stopped my body from plummeting to the bloody floors beneath my feet. I couldn’t stop myself and I let myself collide with the floor. My hands and feet were bleeding dry and they were all numb as I could barely move them without hissing in pain.

I heard him laughing in victory at my last straw as I could take no longer. My throat was dry and burning within as I choked and coughed.. I was sure I would die here, right in this spot. This would be the end of me. At least it would free from this torturous Hell. My tears hadn’t finished pouring yet and my blood still dripped from my wounds. I was bleeding dry to a pulp. Yes, I’m going to die, I thought to myself.

My weeps were so quiet, I was sure not even he could hear me. Nothing could save me. I’m as good as dead.

I brought my face up from the filthy checker boarded floor as I looked around me. My body looked hideous and disgusting. I didn’t bare to look at it and turned my face away from all the mirrors around me. I used my elbows to pull myself up into a lazy sitting position as my feet ached and were too sore for me to move.

The giggle reverberated through the room and I already had enough of hearing it right from the start. But unlike all his other laughs, that came from all directions around me, this one sounded right in front of me, slowly coming towards me. Fear still took me by the heart and my heart would still drop to my stomach. My vision was growing fuzzier and fuzzier but somehow I still managed to keep conscious.

“You wish for me to show myself? Well, as you wish, my dear.” The voice came once more with a little girlish giggle of evilness. My skin crawled and I sniffed and wanted to wipe my tears.

I didn’t hear any footsteps coming towards me, but I could feel a cooler presence approaching closer and closer. My vision growing thin and dilated, I still took notice of a tall skinny black thing floating towards me.

A ghost? I wandered off. As it got closer, I finally saw it in full detail and horror crossed my features. What the fuck? This thing, it wasn’t even human. No, of course not. God’s creation? Hell no. A ghost? Close enough. Something from my own nightmares that wasn’t as scary as expected.

It’s body represented a sock monkey. It’s body, was as skinny as a stick, a tube, a skinny tree trunk. I could hardly even call it a body. It had a thin waist too. It’s height being about 6-7 feet tall, towering over mine no matter what, even when I was sitting. It’s legs were as long and lanky as it’s arms. So long they were about half it’s height. It’s whole body being as black as midnight, blending in with the darkness. It had three white buttons sewn on it’s skinny small chest. It also had three long curled fingers that were gripped onto strings. My strings.

Its neck was as skinny as a pencil. But its face, wore a white mask. Two deep black hollow eyes that stared right into your soul with no pupils or anything. They were just empty. It had rosy red cheeks, a wide hollow smile that was stretched right across its face. Two purple stripes flowed down from its eyes to its wide mouth. Its lower arms also had stripes of white and even on its lower legs did it have white stripes too.

This thing wasn’t human. I didn’t know what the fuck it was. Something from a bloody circus or something. Its body hovered above the ground, just like a phantom, it wields my strings in its hands. It was the one who had control of me. It did all of this to me. My blood boiled as I hid the fear and horror deep in my eyes and held back a row of curses behind my lips.

It floated towards me, its face looking down on me, its mask hiding it’s real expression. I wondered if it even had a face behind that mask.

“Wh-what the fuck are you?” my voice groaned out as my eyelids were slowly closing. A heard the joyful tittering from behind the mask as its feet touched down on the ground with its sharp legs and its knees bend down so it could come to my height. Its hollow emotionless eyes stared right into my own. My broken sad eyes, that knew what was coming to me. I knew what would happen next. I glanced at its strange three-fingered hands and saw that my strings, weren’t just held by it, but the strings were stuck to his fingers. Like they were sewn right into the finger tips.

I looked back at its face. No nothing was seen on its disguised mask. Nothing in its eyes. It was impossible to tell what it was thinking.

“The puppet master,” its muffled voice replied from behind the mask. I felt the curiosity and urge to rip the mask right off its face but I didn’t have the strength or knew it was a good idea.

Some things are just better left unknown.

There was more silence. Except breathing. Not just my gasping of a breathing, but deep soft breaths coming from behind the mask. Impossible. It lived. It wasn’t a ghost or a thing of my imagination.

My legs were all too sore. I knew I was going to die soon. I felt myself drifting away as my eyelids were struggling to keep themselves open. I glimpsed down at my bloodied hands. I couldn’t see my pale skin color any longer. Just red tainted my skin. Bruises, scars, blood. My body was dying. I, was dying. I couldn’t take this anymore.

I saw it lower its head, it’s mask facing down. That’s when I finally saw it. A tear. A real tear. It slid down the pale mask and dropped onto my bloodied hand. It was real. I didn’t know what to feel.

“Forgive me,” was the small voice that escaped the mask. My body started to fall but I felt long thin arms softly catch me and slowly lay me down on the cold ground. It wasn’t the best death bed, but it would do. For me. Little lyrics played in my mind as my body slowed and so did my heart, one beat at a time.

He holds my body in his arms

He didn’t mean to do no harm

And he holds me tight

(Oh) He did it all to spare me from

The awful things in life that comes

And he cries and cries

I know he knows that he’s killing me for mercy.

“Look what I’ve done to you. I’m sorry. Your soul will be free. I promise you.”

His whispering words were like my lullabye and I felt the soft three-fingered velvet coated hand running through my tangled messy hair, blood dying my curls. He had a soft touch, I was thankful.

With that, my eyes closed for the final time.

Chapter Text

:::Freddy's Coming For You...:::

She had another nightmare again. Waking up in sweat, crying or even screaming. This time she woke up with a gasp and awoke in complete pitch black. She heard the storm raging outside, the wind howling like the wolves and the thunder roaring like the waves of an ocean. The lightning flashed and struck the earth, she didn’t know where.

Sarah Robinson was used to waking up like this. She had grown used to it over the last five years, almost every night. It all began with a simple incident. They called it the Bite of 87. But you all should know how that went. That one day still haunted Sarah and she could never forget about it. That was years ago of course.

Sarah found herself wide awake, unable to fall back asleep. So she found no point to go back to sleep asleep. The storm was too loud, like an annoying alarm that woke her up for school every morning. Every time she would've woken up from a nightmare, she would find herself either wide awake and not even near tired or too frightened to go back to sleep.

Finding sleep useless, Sarah left her safety zone by ripping off her heavy bed covers and climbing out of bed. When her feet landed on the plush carpet and stood, she first felt a little lightheaded, but that was only for a short moment. On her bedside table sat her lamp and one of her favorite books 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. That was it. Sarah attempted to switch on her lamp. Keyword; attempted.
She cursed under her breath when she found each time he clicked the switch on and off again, no light would shine. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness and she could manage to feel her way around the room until she could see better. It was cold in her bedroom. Her parents would not let her have a heater in the Winter and it was always toasty warm for them in their room but freezing in Sarah's.
The white nightgown that she wore was almost too big for her. It fell all the way down till she could only see the tips of her toes. It was like a long-sleeved dress that hung around her body helplessly. It had a high collar, long sleeves that stopped at her wrists luckily and was quite ruffled. Sarah's auburn hair was loose and wavy from her braid that day. It was so long it fell down her back till it was at waist height. Sarah was unnaturally pale, like a zombie her skin was. She never saw the sun often, or she just didn't like it.
Sarah came to stand in front of her walk-in wardrobe. Her hands rose to take grasp of the handles but stopped before she lifted them. Sarah's breath hitched. She heard something. Shuffling somewhere in the room. She couldn't locate where, but her ears only told her they weren't far away from her.

Her heart's beating picked up and began to race with fear. She feared who it was. Or what it was. Her head spun with guesses and ideas, but her body stayed as still as a statue. But her train of thoughts didn't last when her ears caught the sound of snarling. It wasn't snarling of a dog or any animal. It was rugged and cavernous. Sounding like metal scraping against metal. It chilled the 11-year-old girl to the bone.

She closed her eyes as she heard the sound closing in by the second. Her body refused to move in the slightest and she was all but a sitting dark. A lamb ready to be slaughtered. Her body stood tense and she frantically tried to calm the racing of her heart.
She waited.
And waited.
That's when she heard it.

"Hello, little Sarah," said a deep masculine robotic voice. Sarah recognized it immediately. HIM. Why him of all of them? Why was he even here? Oh, wait. That's when Sarah realized her mistake. It was dark in here. Pitch black. She needed light, to keep them away from her. She failed well at that. Sarah squeezed her eyes closed tighter, not wanting to hear the heavy feet shuffling along the carpet come behind her and feel the breathing behind her, towering over her small tiny form.

'Please, please leave me alone. Leave me be. Go away,' Sarah repeated in her head, frozen. She felt it. A large cold metal hand is placed on her shoulder, so big it can hardly fit there. Sarah's heart sped up on instinct. She wanted to move so badly, but her body refused.
"It's been a while, hasn't it? I've missed you." Sarah's skin crawled when a cold sharp finger blade ran up her spine bone, all the way up and getting caught in her hair. The blade was sharp, ready to tear skin if it pushed any deeper. Sarah didn't move a muscle.
The finger blade in her neck came up to her head, suddenly beginning to dig into her skull, making her wince and tears appear in her eyes. She held back a cry. "Have you missed me?" The voice is suddenly right in her ear, spitting it as it's laced with venom and the voice tone had darkened and now sounded demonic. Sarah's mouth is dry, her vocals tangled. She couldn't speak. If she could, all her lips would've let out were sobs.

The clawed hand on her shoulder squeezed her shoulder till it drew blood and it showed through the white fabric of her nightgown. Sarah finally found her voice. "No, I haven't." The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop it. It was the truth. Also, she wanted to prove that he didn't scare her any longer. That was years ago. She had grown used to them.

Instead of more growling or even a shout of fury and anger, she heard laughing. He was laughing. It shocked her definitely. The large metal clawed hands removed themselves from her and the shuffling continued, now circling her. The monstrous laugh frightened her a lot and send chills across her skin. She was afraid, and she couldn't help it. He knew all of her fears, he struck fear into her heart. He was her phobia.

"How long has it been? 3 months has it? And over those 3 months, you've grown so... alive," he purred out the last word with a mix of a growl with charm. He sounded very impressed. It sickened her. In the corner of her eye, she saw them appear. The two hollow glowing orange eyes. Blazing fiery eyes that stared at her from the darkness. These eyes burned right into her soul, they knew her fear, her worries, her secrets. Everything.

The owner of the blazing orange eyes circled till they were standing right in front of her, towering over her, almost hitting their head on the ceiling. His height was terrifying, intimidating, especially for a small girl like her. Her height only up to meet his withered hips. She couldn't see him properly, but she could simply spot the outline of his large body in the dark. She had seen his entire full appearance before, and it wasn't nice looking. At all.
Sarah heard clicks and scraps of metal and gears as his body twisted and bent down to look down on her. The rotting fabric growing incredibly old and decayed, it was just falling off his body. It was disgusting.

"Look at you, growing up so fast. Soon enough you'll be a young woman," he chuckled bobbing his head up and down in agreement. His voice was slightly raspy, but it never lost the growl. "And will claim you're not afraid of us anymore," he finished with a dark hiss. Sarah looked around her room, eyes searching for some source of light. Finding nothing, but recalling something. A flashlight. She remembered where she left it.
Under her bed.

No. Luck was just not on her side. She looked back up to lock eyes with the animatronic again, swallowing hard. "Because I won't. I'm not now," her voice spoke with courage that surprised both her and the nightmare. She saw his smoldering eyes widen and the shade of his orange eyes darken into a ginger. She heard a growl come from his mouth and the gears inside his stomach working and ticking. He reminded her of a ticking time bomb sometimes, ready to go off at any time.

He lowered himself, bending his back all the way down to come face-to-face with her. Their faces now an inch away from colliding. Sarah finally got a better view of his face. How hollow his eyes were, surrounded by torn away metal. The two rows of sharp needle-like teeth in his jaws. How bits of fabric from his face had molded away and metal was shown.
Sarah tried to concentrate her gaze on the nightmare's flaming orange eyes but always found her eyes falling down to stare at those vicious teeth that were ready to be stained with blood.
Her blood.

He noticed.

And a bellow of a laughter like a lion escaped his jaws, startling Sarah at first and she even heard it bounce off her bedroom walls. It sometimes reminded her of a robotic but demonic version of Santa Claus's famous laughter.
"What are you doing here, Freddy?" Sarah growled, furrowing her brows at the large monstrous version of a teddy bear. She somehow had grown this burst of confidence and anger and her tone of voice dripped with both of them. She was honestly quite proud of herself.
"That's Nightmare Freddy to you, girl." The nightmare growled back at her, his voice darkening to match her tone. She saw his blazing pupils squint as he scowled at her as he had no eyebrows or eyelids.

Nightmare Freddy's eyes were always wide but pupils large enough. His dark voice sent a shock of fear through Sarah's body but she didn't show any fear of her facial expression, holding it to a hatred expression. Nightmare Freddy quickly lost his anger and reached a big mechanical arm around her shoulders and grasped her upper arm from there. He spun her around and pulled the small girl close to his large metal body, her back to him, her height so small her head ended up only past his pelvis area.
Sarah was extremely uncomfortable being this close to him, especially having his cold frightening touch feeling her. he was a giant compared to her. She felt his dagger-like claws caress her skin through the thin white cloth of her nightgown, teasing to rip the entire piece of clothing off. He didn't make the move.

She heard Freddy bend down again, the mechanics in his robotic spine snapping as his gears worked hard in his body. The fabric made a sickening popping sound but he didn't mind it at all. She heard his breath come close to her ear.
"I only wanted to come see how my special girl was doing," he chuckled into her ear, not making her feel any less uncomfortable. She grit her teeth. "I was doing better when you weren't here. Leave me alone," she hissed at the dark creature. She saw Freddy frown out of the corner of her eye and saw him lean back up to his full height again. She felt his body vibrate with another annoying chuckle.

"Oh how rash you have become over the last few months, my dear. But I would be lying if I said I wasn't impressed." She could easily hear the smile from his tone, it was easy to tell that he was happy even when unable to look up at him. Sarah's body acted all on its own, she broke free of the nightmare's grip, not caring if his claws tore a piece of her nightgown. Sarah's feet took her instinctively towards her bedroom door where hand knew just where to grab the doorknob. When Sarah pulled and twisted at the doorknob, it didn't even budge. Sarah's heart froze.

It was locked.

All hope drained away from her. Her knees began to tremble when Nightmare Freddy's cackle called from only a few feet away and he shuffled towards her from the darkness. But Sarah wouldn't give up so easily. She could've just given up right there but she didn't. Plan B. Her feet then carried her back over to her huge bed where she quickly got down on her hands and knees and reached under the bed mattress. Sarah's heart was pounding against its rib cage and her face was already beginning to get sweaty. She hadn't located where Nightmare Freddy was in the dark, but he was somewhere. She didn't worry about that at the moment.

Sarah's hand searched frantically for her flashlight she kept under her bed, but only found plush carpet. Sarah grew frustrated and needier. That's when pain shot through her fingers like she was bitten by a rat with shark teeth. Sarah let out a scream and quickly brought her hand out from under her bed to observe it. Her eyes grew wide like a deer in the headlights when she saw the damage. Bringing her hand up close to her face. She saw a small bite mark from sharp needles. It was deep enough to draw blood. Lots of blood. Blood flowed down her fingers, her hand, coming down her arm. She almost seemed hypnotized by the red crimson blood. And she knew what caused it.
Stupid Freddles.

A scream is torn from her throat when a large clawed hand grabs her by her upper arm and pulls her up with enough inhuman strength to even bring her feet off the ground. The claws painfully stab her skin as she is dragged up and she is thrown onto her bed. She bounces not once but twice on her springy mattress until she looks up and sees Nightmare Freddy standing above her with claws up and ready for bloodshed.
Sarah noticed that Freddy's eyes burned a deadly blood red as he flashed his sharp jaws at her warningly and his claws had some of her blood coated on them. The sight of it scared her to the core. It made her quake in fear for real.

Something crawled onto her chest, something with sharp claws and a small shape and weight. Sarah lifted her head to see a Freddle sitting on her chest. She saw two others about to mount onto her lying form. She saw their scary faces twitch and shake. Their haunting white pupils that saw her fears. The two rows of needle pointing teeth. Their tiny bodies with torn holes and shredded skin. Sarah went to shake the pests off of her but two large taloned hands took a strong unbreakable of her ankles so she couldn't move her legs at all.
Sarah looked to see Freddy tilting his head to the side like a daring her to make a move. He had bent his back a little while leaning forward. Sarah noticed another Freddle crawling out through one of the torn holes in Freddy's chest but Freddy didn't even seem to notice. A wolfish grin came to the nightmare's jaw as he smiled at her. He taps a shredded claw against her skin playfully as he lets out a sigh and his body settles with a hiss from inside.

"Alright, let's make a deal, shall we?" His eyes observed her surrendered form with mischief twinkling in his eyes. His red eyes slowly fading back into an orange again. His eyes went to lock with her blue ones. Sarah stared at the nightmare like he had suddenly grown two heads. She cried out when little jaws dug into the skin of her arm and she hysterically shook it.
"Don't bite. yet" was Nightmare Freddy's order dipped in an animalistic growl like an Alpha wolf. The biting stopped instantly and Sarah stopped panicking. His words. He commanded the Freddles to stop. For now. She visibly gulped and found the words to speak. "What deal?" Freddy's eyes smiled at her before flashing his teeth and looked down at his claws that were still wrapped around her ankles. Sarah had given up on trying to struggle. With the Freddles watching her with their ghostly white eyes and a nightmare teddy bear looming over her. There was no escape here. She didn't have much of a choice.

Freddy started to carefully drag his index claw up Sarah's leg, making the hairs on her bare legs raise to the point and goosebumps appear. She gulped once more, harder.
"If you answer this riddle correctly, I will let you awaken." His eyes darkened as he said those final words, but he was a bear of his word. Sarah was about to let the words slip from her mouth without a second thought until she stopped herself, wariness taking control. She rose a brow at him.

"And if I answer it wrong?" Freddy nearly laughed aloud, but his little Freddles cackled like little demonic elves and looked to be enjoying the show. They surrounded her body like a cult; at least 3 or 4 of them attempting to scratch her or bite her while Freddy had his full attention on her.

Freddy tried to smirk as his index claw sliding up her calf poked deeper, causing her to wince and wanting to stop the tear that rolled down her cheek. He leaned down as close as his body could allow him, sneering his fangs at her.
"Then I'll put you in a coma and you'll be trapped with me. Things will go my way from there," he growled with a purr in his last words. Sarah shivered. If he had a tongue, he would be licking what used to be his lips. Sarah's imagination went wild with worried and horrible thoughts in her head. It was a good thing she was good at riddles. She could only hope it wouldn't be too difficult.

Nightmare Freddy was one of the most strangely well-mannered animatronics out of all of them. He had his polite speech, but a dark triggering personality. He could read anyone's fears and phobias like a book. His mind was deep and dark and full of terrible thoughts that no one would like to know. But this still doesn't make Freddy her favorite of all of them. None of them were her favorite. She had no favorites.

"Alright. Give me the riddle," she challenged with new-found confidence.
She tried to ignore the tingling feeling of Freddy's knife-like claw that was still slowly making it's way up her leg, reaching up to her knee now. His hand was pushing up the dress of her nightgown as he was doing so and it made her extremely anxious.

Freddy chuckled at her courage and already had the riddle prepared for her. "What is greater than God, more evil than the devil, the poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it, you'll die?"
Sarah listened carefully to his raspy words. Repeating his words closely in her head. She was puzzled, thinking hard but not fast, taking her time. Meanwhile, Freddy was flexing his claws, observing them closely with a disinterest. The poor have it and the rich need it, she wondered. She couldn't figure it out, her mind not able to concentrate feeling the grazing of Freddy's claw making circles on her kneecap.
She thought harder. Nothing is greater than god, though. What could be more evil than the devil? The last line definitely struck her dumbfounded. Rethinking his words over and over again, it finally came to her.
A smile finally came to her lips.

"Nothing. The answer is nothing."

Freddy looks over at her from the Freddle that had crawled onto his shoulder like a parrot pal. His eyes burned into her soul, his whole face not giving away whether she was correct or not. She felt no bad feeling sprout in her stomach. She felt more than confident. She felt happy, excited. She knew Nightmare Freddy could taste it. And he didn't like it.
The Freddles began to growl like little dogs who had their bone taken away from them as their bodies trembled and buzzed by themselves. They retreated from Sarah's body and crawled back towards Freddy, crawling up his arms and sticking to him.
Nightmare Freddy's oranges went to a much darker and more dangerous shade. Red. Bloodthirsty red. His claw finally stopped making circles on her knee and pulled away at last to her relief.

"You are correct."

Nightmare Freddy was honestly dumbfounded. The jaws of all of the Freddles went slack as they looked up at Freddy, waiting for his command or words. Sarah held back a smile of triumph. The victory was already in the palm of her hand. Nightmare Freddy's arms dangled uselessly at his sides as his claws flexed into a fist and out again. Sarah could feel the anger and shock radiating off of his shadowy body and only hoped he could hold his anger back. As she had experienced his anger outbursts a few times over the years, and they weren't friendly at all. She feared Freddy's breathtaking anger the most.
Nightmare Freddy doesn't say anything more at first and looks to be wanting to shut his eyes for a moment. A sound that must've been a sigh escaped his mouth and his eyes connected with Sarah's once more.

"A deal is a deal. But this is not the last time you will see me, little Sarah. I bid you goodbye, for now." With that, Nightmare Freddy rose a clawed hand and snapped his finger claws together, making an ugly snapping sound which brought Sarah back.

Sarah's eyes snapped open, only to see pitch black, nothing more. Her breathing had not sped up or even hitched, surprising her. She had not woken up to screaming, crying or sweating. It was unusual, definitely. But it was all a dream. Just a dream. Of course, Nightmare Freddy loved to play mind tricks on her, of her being in another dream then the dream she already was in.
Sarah stayed lying down for what felt forever, her eyes wide open as she stared up at the plain haunting ceiling. She didn't dare get out of bed this time. She adjusted herself, bringing her hands out from under the covers the rub her eyes but she froze when she caught sight of the dark-colored substance that had been smeared onto her hands and was now dripping down her arms. Panic took control and her body acted quickly. Twisting her body onto her stomach and pulling herself up. Sarah reached over to her lamp she knew that sat on her bedside table.

Unlike in the dream, it switched on this time and light blinded her for only a little. But when her eyes adjusted to the light shining from her lamp, she finally got a good proper view of the substance on her hands.
Like in the dream, she found blood oozing from sharp bruising bite marks that looked like they were from miniature sharks. It looked like bites and nips from the Freddles. Sarah couldn't believe her eyes.

It was just a dream.
Wasn't it?

Chapter Text

:::Privacy, Please?:::

You still remembered the very last time you went to Freddy’s. You had already hated the place to the core to begin with, but the encounter you had there almost seven years ago now, was the last straw and scared you off for good.

From the very day that children’s restaurant opened, you had always had a bad feeling about the place; like something wasn’t right. Every time Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza was mentioned in a conversation, you couldn’t help but feel sick to your stomach and unable to tune in to a conversation about the subject. So, you decided not to listen and simply ignore. You weren’t sure what it was about the place that unsettled you; whether it was the uncanny animatronics, the number of germs, or the horrible, spoilt kids. Maybe it was all of them. So, you came to a conclusion in your head to never to talk about place, let alone step foot into it.

However, that ship sunk the day you were practically ordered by your mother to go babysit your little sister Izzy when she went to attend her friend’s birthday that was unfortunately taking place as the location you resented most – Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Your mother was working that day and because you were still out of luck with searching for your first job at nineteen years old to help you pay for college funds and had friends that were all working, this left you with no excuse not to go.

You went with great, great reluctance.

You remembered the children’s restaurant meeting your incredibly bleak and repulsed expectations too. But it also exceeded them and went beyond your worst nightmares.

Most of the birthday party you didn’t remember very clearly, but you remembered how disgusting the pizza looked and smelt; not tasted. You avoided doing that. So that left you distastefully picking at the slimy, disgusting-looking pizza sitting in front of you. The pizza looked more like a gross-yellow mud puddle of too-well melted cheese decorated with green and brown splotches and hiding whatever was left of the crust. Your appetite had been long gone once your eyes laid on it once placed down by one of the petty waitresses that work here. You noticed they were around your age, maybe younger. You prayed for their souls.

The joyful high-pitched screams and cheers of children pierced and rang your ears and made you angrier by the second. Would they ever shut the hell up? You quickly answered your own question with a ‘no’. This was a children’s entertainment centre. Keyword: children. Children were loud, boistering, disgusting creatures packed with germs. They never shut up until they were asleep… or dead.

What?

Shaking yourself out of your suddenly darkened thoughts, you brought yourself back to reality. You looked up from your full plate of puddle pizza to look in the direction of where you little sister and her friends were sitting at the other end of the long party table you were seated at. The structure was simple: children at one end, the adults and caregivers at the other end. You were at the end with the adults and caregivers. You saw no difference between the two as the adults were just as noisy and chatty as the children and couldn’t help but roll your eyes. They occasionally tried to include you by asking you the same exact questions every parent and mature adult would ask a young person:

Have you left school? Are you at college? What subjects are you studying? Do you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend? Are you currently working? Are you driving?

It was beyond exhausting.

You tapped your fingers rhythmically on the party tabletop as you watched your sister mingle with her friends as they laughed and shouted and giggled while they ate their pizza. You noticed how happy Izzy looked with her friends and for a moment, almost forgot about the hell you were sitting in and almost felt the contagious happiness that a mother would get from a child when they saw them having a good time. It had been a while since Izzy got to spend time with friends, whether it was going over to a friend’s house for a playdate or sleepover after school or go to a school disco or party. Mother was too overworked and busy to take her to those things and you were busy with your own studies and looking for work to care.

Now you couldn’t help but feel guilty as you observed Izzy’s sweet happy expression with eyes as bright as the sun, lips pulled back into a silly toothy grin, her cheeks looking as it they were about to burst from happiness and the dimple on her chin appearing for the first time in a while.

You were brought out of your trance when you heard one of the mothers of Izzy’s friends call your name to get your attention. You turned your head towards her, eyes tired and trying to silently tell her to back off and shut up.

“So, y/n, I hear you’re still on the look-out for a job, is that right?” she asked you nicely.

It didn’t work obviously.

“Umm,” you fidget with your hands, “yeah, I am. Still looking.”

Suddenly one of the fathers sitting in the adult group at the party table caught onto your conversation and happily spoke up, “I heard that this place is always hiring.”

You inwardly scowled as that further encouraged the woman to continue talking to you.

“Ooh yes! I even saw on the front door of this place that they’re hiring new staff.”

“I wonder why,” you mumbled sarcastically under your breath.

“I’m sorry?”

The woman talking to you had a face that was a chaotic art mess- she had too much blush, her mascara had smudged a little, her lipstick wasn’t completely covering her lips and she had missed a little. Obviously, no other adult at this party table cared about her enough to even tell her that her makeup was off. You decided not to tell her either.

“Oh, yeah, I saw,” you say louder. “I-I might go for it. I ‘dunno.” You definitely weren’t going for it. Over your dead body.

The woman suddenly leans in close as if to tell you a secret and you almost leaned away but you fought the instinct. Instead, you remained still, your body tense and her fingers squeezing the circulation out of each other. You willed yourself to remain where you were while she carried on this useless conversation with a smile too-wide and lit-up eyes.

“Ooh, I think it would be wonderful to work in a place like this; bringing joy to kids every day, the yummy pizza, the atmosphere, the fun robots here –”

“They’re animatronics actually.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Never mind,” you shrug her off with a forced smile.

A couple of awkwardly silent seconds pass between you and the mother before she tries to revive the already dead conversation with another cliché question before she was fortunately interrupted by some happy screams and cries from the children at the other side of the table, making both you and her turn your attention towards them. Izzy and her friends were all looking past you in the direction of the entrance to the party room. You looked over too and felt your heart plumet into your stomach.

It was one of the animatronics. The light blue one.

It stood in the doorway of the party room, large lime-green eyes observing the party room and all its current inhabitants, almost looking like it was trapped in its own world and ignoring all the children’s joyful cries as soon as they noticed it.

It was clearly a bunny animatronic, you quickly figured as you drank in its appearance. You recalled seeing the animatronic before as soon as you entered the children’s restaurant – it had been wandering around the main game area and occasionally stopping to interact with kids and even taking photos with family. The animatronic was coloured a bright baby blue with a very lightly powdered blue-coloured belly and muzzle with the insides of its ears the same colour. It had magenta-coloured eyelids, long almost-feminine eyelashes and rosy red cheeks and you began to wonder if this animatronic was supposed to be female from all the makeup it had on it. The bunny animatronic was also decorated with a red bowtie, a black button nose, spots where its whiskers should be and the traditional bunny buck teeth. You also noticed that it was bulky and taller than the average human male by its large head and towering bunny ears.

The animatronic looked well-taken care of with its clean smooth-textured body, shiny hard casing and well-modernised and clean look but it still freaked you out. Technology of the 80s still wasn’t perfect; far from it actually. No matter how modernised and clean the bunny animatronic looked, its movements were still uncanny. It would never look human, no matter how hard robotic technicians tried.

You watched carefully as the animatronic’s head very slowly turned from left to right as if scanning everyone in the room before its eyes settled on you and froze.

You froze too.

The world slowed down to a halt and the thunderously loud noise of the birthday party within the room drowned out also.

It was just the stare down between you and the uncanny animatronic bunny. You could hear your heartbeat picking up its pace in your ears as you realise how dead the bunny’s plastic eyes looked. It chilled you to the bone. How could the animatronic look and act so alive but its eyes look so sad and lifeless? Just as you mentally voiced the thought in your head, you noticed that animatronic hadn’t powered off. It was still moving. Not its body, but its eyes. Its pupils to be exact.

Its pupils were shrinking, the cameras in its eyes adjusting themselves. All the while still trained on you and only you.

You felt rooted to the spot, unable to escape the horrifying gaze of this unsettling animatronic that kept on staring at you. You couldn’t figure out if this animatronic was having a malfunction at a bad time or it was really picking on you. You didn’t want to know the answer.

The animatronic’s head jerked suddenly, breaking you both out of your trance-like spells and making you flinch. It seemed to fix itself and continued its surveillance around the party room. The sound within the room returns to you, including that annoying woman’s voice as she calls your name and even taps you repeatedly on the shoulder, forcing another series of jerks and flinches out of you as you finally break eye contact with the machine and look at her.

Her heavilly powdered face held a look of mild concern and worry.

“Are you alright, dear?” she asked, leaning in.

You’re still a bit dazed as you blink a couple of times. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“I’m fine.”

“Bonnie!” you heard one of the children at the other end of the party table yell out excitedly, causing you to turn to look back over at the animatronic once more. The children’s volume grew louder as you notice the bunny animatronic, Bonnie, start to move into the party room, its movements somewhat smooth for an animatronic with the exemptions of a few jerks. If you hadn’t been so anxious and unsettled by it, you would have been impressed by how fluid its movements were. However, Izzy and her friends didn’t seem to notice nor care as they abandoned their party food, jumped out of their chairs and scrambled over to Bonnie and surrounded him.

You heard the animatronic’s gears hum and click as its facial expression folded into a beaming smile and its ears straightened upwards on their sticks. You could also hear what sounded like the fans within Bonnie’s hard-cased chest cavity whirr into overtime. Bonnie held up a four-fingered, multi-jointed hand in a rigid impression of a wave as he greeted the kids as his green eyes grew large.

“Heyyy guys! It’s me, your pal Bonnie!” the silvery voice that escaped the animatronic had a southern accent and also had a mechanical tinge to it. It wasn’t unpleasant to listen to, but it wasn’t the voice of heaven either. The voice did however, sound like it was coming from a middle-aged man and with a voice like that talking to children sounded dodgy to you. You supressed a shiver.

“Hi Bonnie!” Izzy and her friends greeted back joyfully, unaware of the uncanny way the animatronic shifted and moved around as its eyes ran over each individual like it was deciding which child it wanted to eat first.

“Bonnie! Bonnie! It’s my birthday today!” Izzy’s friend and birthday girl Katie cried out, her shrill voice piercing your ear drums and most likely doing the same to the animatronic’s audio sensors.

However, Bonnie instead flicked his eyes over to her, swerved before crying out, “really?! Well happy birthday! How old are you, birthday girl?”

“five!”

You don’t hear how Bonnie reacts to that as you feel a tap on your shoulder once more, no doubt it being the mother again. It was.

“Which one is your favourite, dear?” she asked with a look of interest.

You give her a confused look.

“Your favourite robot. There’s three of them. Freddy, Bonnie and Chica. Which one is your favourite?”

You couldn’t help but frown. What sort of question was that? You also recalled there being a fox animatronic somewhere too so there were actually four animatronics. You were becoming increasingly more annoyed that she was talking to you as one did a child. You were nineteen, not five. You didn’t even know any of these animatronics, hell, you had only just caught the names from children screaming them so many times and other than that, knew nothing about them.

You look over in direction of near the party room where Bonnie and Izzy and her friends are surrounding him, telling him about the party and what their names were and many more. He seemed very occupied with the children and luckily Izzy didn’t seem to look at all scared or uncomfortable being around the animatronic. You took that as your cue to unfortunately return back to the conversation you were trapped in.

You give the woman a shrug, “I dunno. I never came here as a kid.” And you were glad you didn’t.

“Oh dear, well I saw Bonnie giving you a good long stare before. He might like you. Do you like him?”

Your eyes narrow out of both confusion and now disgust. What the actual fuck? Now this woman was trying to hook you up with a piece of machinery that had a voice that reminded you of a paedophile and just overall unsettled you.

You let a minute of awkward silence pass between the two of you.

“Not really,” you say somewhat harshly before standing out of your chair that was too low, almost falling over as you did so and stepping back from the party table as the woman watched you.

“Nature calls,” you say before turning around and taking off in direction of where you remembered the bathrooms to be in this place, passing Bonnie and the children in the progress and trying not to squirm when the animatronic took notice of you and felt his unsettling gaze follow you out of the party room until you vanished around the corner.

You wandered around the restaurant in search of the bathrooms, avoiding touching the walls and running into some of the children that ran up and down the halls. You keep to yourself and kept your head bowed until you finally found the hall where the bathrooms were located and let out a sigh of relief as you entered the women’s bathroom and entered the third-to-last cubicle. You also thanked God that the bathroom was empty.

You quietly shut the door and locked it before reluctantly pulling your pants down and sitting down on the filthy toilet. You tried not to think about how unclean and unhygienic these toilets were simply because they were toilets in a children’s restaurant. You also tried not to pay attention to how the walls of the cubicle you were in had once white walls that were now starting to yellow, had a ripped Fazbear poster facing opposite you, was full of children’s cringey graffiti and was burdened with dirt and other substances you didn’t want to even think about. You held your nose to prevent yourself from passing out because of the putrid stench and kept your head focused on the checker board floors as you did your business. However, you still doubted the floor was anymore cleaner than the rest of the bathrooms.

As much as you were repulsed by this restaurant’s lack of hygiene especailly in their bathrooms, you still mostly preferred being alone in them than going back out into the public where you were surrounded by obnoxiously loud children, stupid adults, and uncanny animatronics. It allowed you to finally be alone and have a breather. It was just so exhausting.

You weren’t sure how long you remained seated on the toilet with your pants down in the cubicle for, but you realised your time of brief happiness was short lived and over when you heard the bathroom door swing open and closed again. This was only shortly after you attempted to fetch toilet from the toilet paper dispenser, only for it to give way and crash to the tiled floor and make a noise that echoed off the walls of the bathrooms, making you cringe. At the sound of the door opening and shutting, you inwardly sighed, imagining it to be a child or adult to have come in with the intentions of using the bathroom and you started to get up and pull your pants up when you suddenly froze mid-squat with your pants half pulled up as soon as you heard it.

Footsteps. But these weren’t ordinary footsteps.

These were heavy footsteps. Too heavy to be human.

Thump. Metallic scrape.

Thump. Metallic scrape.

Your blood ran cold. The footsteps weren’t very familiar to you but it wasn’t hard to realise what they were. Animatronic footsteps. You could hear the hundred pounds of heavy metal weight hit the solid floors and painfully drag along them, each footstep loud enough to make your teeth rattle and make goosebumps rise to your flesh. Your ears also caught the sounds of a blowing muffled fan and the mechanical sounds of machinery. You immediately go to pull your pants up all the way and quietly back away from the cubicle door that you were still glad was locked.

You silently and anxiously listened as the unknown animatronic scraped its way fully into the girls’ bathroom and you couldn’t help but wonder why the hell it was even in here in the first place. Was it some malfunction? There was absolutely not reason for the animatronics to come in here. If anything, it was fucking weird that they even had it in their programming to come into the bathrooms? Who in their right mind would programme that into a machine? Or... was this even in their programming? Some glitch? You remained where you where as you waited for the animatronic to leave.

You eventually heard the metallic footsteps come to a stop, but it was too soon, too close. You hadn’t heard the bathroom door swing open and closed again, meaning that the animatronic was still in the bathroom with you. You could also still hear the muffled whirring of a fan and the occasional clicks and whines. Why was it still in here? What the hell was going on?

Curiosity sadly got the best of you as you realised there was an open gap under the cubicle door and you took the chance to slowly sink to your knees and bend down to look under the door in order to see what was exactly still in the bathroom with you. You almost scream as soon as you look under the door and forced yourself to bite your tongue.

All you could see was the bright blue feet.

Two triangular feet with three blocky toes.

Facing your cubicle.

Right outside your cubicle door.

You swallowed hard, body starting to tremble.

The feet stood still like a statue and you felt the urge to vomit as fear coiled in your belly. He was just standing there. What was he doing? Was he waiting for you? What the hell do you do? You couldn’t just open the door, he was standing right there. You backed up until you were cornered in the stall and almost jumped when you spotted two long blue bunny ears sticking out the top of the cubicle door from the other side, quivering and twisting of their sticks. It was Bonnie without a doubt. He had followed you in here. But why? What did he want from you?

Not knowing what to do and still trembling with fear, you instead remained where you were, shying in the corner of your stall next to the toilet bowl, looking down at the feet positioned under the door, waiting for the blue bunny animatronic to leave. You also held your breath in case the animatronic somehow heard you breathing.

You waited, eyes concentrated on the filthy pee-stained door.

He waited, gears clicking and turning rhythmically.

It felt like hours had passed before you heard an incredibly loud bang on your cubicle door, metal upon metal, making the heavy metallic door tremble on its hinges and the noise reverberate within the bathroom. You had also let out a scream of fright as soon as you heard the unexpected loud noise and you spotted how the bunny ears on the other side of the door jerked and turned towards you, unfortunately confirming your presence inside the stall to the animatronic. Another echoing bang sounded shortly after the first, forcing another scared yelp out of you and the door to shake again with another bang.

Then another.

Then another.

You were panicking and crying in fear now, your heart racing and trying to break out of its cage and your whole body was shaking like a leaf. Hot salty tears were running down your cheeks as you watched the door’s hinges shake and bounce, struggling to hold the door closed as the door was repeatedly hit again. You flinched with each bang, terrified that one of the hits would be the one that makes the door finally give way and lets the horrible animatronic on the other side of it get to you. You were too scared and panicked to even think about what the animatronic wanted from you; what it wanted to do to you once it broke the door down. Maybe it wanted to kill you for looking at it? You just didn’t know. You didn’t want to know.

The terrible banging continued, echoing throughout the bathroom and it was well beyond you that no one had walked in yet and wondered what the commotion was. You were trapped in a toilet stall with an animatronic bunny trying to break down the door. Each time the door was heavilly hit and the hinges rattled, you curled further and further in on yourself and cried out as your body shook with frightened sobs.

“Please!” you suddenly screamed out, terrified, “Please stop!”

Thankfully, this made the banging come to a halt and you felt a wave of relief briefly wash over you until you realised you still couldn’t hear any receding metallic footsteps and felt your heart squeeze painfully. Your eyes flicked upwards above the cubicle door and you almost choke on another sob as soon as you see the twitching bunny ears spinning on their sticks, listening for anymore noise.

Please leave. Please leave. Please leave.

Without warning, the thunderous banging starts up again, ripping another crying scream from your throat.

“What do you want?!!” you wail at the door. “Help! Someone please help me!!!”

The banging doesn’t stop this time and you almost jump out of your skin when one of the hinges pops out of place, falling to the tiled floor with a small clatter and your eyes widen in horror. Bonnie was really breaking down the door. The door looked like it was on its last legs. You hypothesized that the door would take only one or two hits more before it completely came down and you were screwed.

Panicked, you looked around your cubicle for some means of escape and saw that you were trapped. There weren’t even any gaps under the sides of the stall that led to the other stalls, giving you nowhere to run.

You were well and truly trapped.

The last two bangs sounded the biggest and most forceful, the last hit finally bringing down your bathroom stall door. The door finally came off its old, rickety hinges, hit the ground with a crash and was pulled out of the way by the animatronic responsible for all this destruction. Your body quivered with fear as you watched with wide eyes as Bonnie pushed the door away and stood in the way of your only exit from your cubicle.

What frightened you most was Bonnie’s eyes.

When you first saw him in the party room, his lime-green eyes were large and friendly. Now, his pupils had shrunken and were the size of pinpricks that stared right into your soul and pinned you to your cowered spot in the corner of the bathroom stall, unable to move. You wished you could fall into the wall you currently pinned your back against.

Bonnie edged forward into your stall, footsteps heavy and metallic, machinery ticking and whining with each movement he made towards you. You were sobbing now, clawing at the stall’s disgusting walls. You felt like a mouse that had just been cornered by a cat and could do nothing but squirm in one spot as the ‘cat’ edged closer with unknown plans to either play with you and eat you afterwards or something much worse.

You forced yourself to try control your breathing through your sobbing and stay in one place as Bonnie finally reached you, stopping inches from you. He was an entire head and a half taller than you, your head only just reaching up to his clean red bowtie. You could hear all the humming and hissing going on within his plastic casing and feel the extreme heat radiating off his mechanical suit.

“W-What do you want fr-from me?” you shakily asked the animatronic.

Somehow, Bonnie’s pupils had shrunken more than you had thought possible, his magenta-coloured eyelids completely pulled back and his long, feminine eyelashes at the top of his eye sockets.

There was a high-pitched whine as the toy-looking animatronic tilted its very large head at your question, mouth opening to reveal his few blocky teeth. You started to whimper as he bent his head further down to meet yours until you both heard the bathroom door finally open, making you both freeze. Bonnie’s ears tilted towards the sound of the bathroom door.

“What the hell is going on in here?” calls a gruff male voice.

Bonnie’s head spun around a full 180 to look outside the stall and you took the newcomer to the bathroom as a distraction to finally cry out again for help as you cry out, “help! Please help me!”

“Oh my god…” you hear.

Bonnie starts backtracking out of the bathroom stall where he eventually turns the rest of his body around to reconnect with his large head to face the newcomer. You felt your legs wobble, threatening to give out and you slowly crept out of your cubicle to look at the scene about to take place as your eyes finally landed on the newcomer who was beginning to back away from the bunny animatronic that was starting to stomp towards him.

It was middle-aged man with dark brown hair and wearing dark clothing with a name badge including his name ‘Jeremy’ and his occupation ‘Security’. At first, you would’ve felt immense relief wash over you knowing the restaurant security guard had found you, but from what you could see before you, even the security guard looked taken aback at what was happening.

The security guard, Jeremy, was slowly backing away from Bonnie, his facial expression one of horror and bewilderment. He reacted like he had never seen an animatronic move in his life and he didn’t know what to do in this situation just like you. Bonnie edged closer, obviously twitching and jerking as you could see from behind.

Jeremy kept backing up until he hit the bathroom wall and held out a shaky hand in an attempt to stop the animatronic. “Bonnie, stop right there.”

Bonnie’s ears tilted at that, listening but not obeying as his large three toed feet moved closer and closer.

“Bonnie, I’m warning you. Back off!” you heard a tremor in his voice.

No avail. Bonnie kept coming.

“Hey! Over here!” the words spilled out of your mouth before you could stop them.

Bonnie’s head spun like an owl’s once more to look back at you, pupils dilating into little dots as his camera narrowed on you and then his body spun around to face you too. You almost swallow your tongue, a look of terror and disgust crossing your features before Bonnie makes his way for you, ears up straight and eyelids going back further and further revealing how wide his eyes could possibly become.

You backed away, desperately looking over Bonnie’s shoulder at Jeremy for help and to look for a solution. He hurriedly looked around the bathroom for some way to disable Bonnie, all the while Bonnie kept on his path towards you, staring you down until you started to break down into sobs once more.

“Please hurry!” you begged Jeremy when Bonnie was within a foot of you.

Bonnie started to lift a blue plastic arm, multi-jointed digits reaching out towards your face, you began to scream only for you to hear a hard thump and a glitched pained whine from the animatronic in front of you before Bonnie started to fall forward. You jumped out of the way before the animatronic fell on you and almost slid on the water sprayed on the tiled ground. A crash sounded and echoed off the bathroom’s walls when Bonnie’s heavy collided with the ground and lay there twitching until he eventually powered down with an exhausted sigh from his fans.

You looked at the one responsible for Bonnie’s disablement and your eyes meet Jeremy’s brown ones. You both breathed out a sigh of relief before you both turned your gazes down to the fallen animatronic.

“What the hell was that?” you questioned, throat hoarse from your cries and screams.

Jeremy stared at Bonnie’s large fallen form, thinking.

You were about to ask him again before he abruptly spoke up, “I don’t know.”

“Well, is it supposed to do that?”

“How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“What?”

“How old are you?”

You sigh. “Nineteen.”

“An adult,” Jeremy mumbled, more to himself and seemingly ignoring you, “he treated you like one too.”

“What?”

“These animatronics have occasional malfunctions. That, was one of them. Something wrong with their facial recognitions.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“We’ve tried to stomp out this issue, believe me, I know.” Jeremy says with a look that automatically makes you stop and suddenly believe his words without a doubt. What had this man seen at this place? How many malfunctions like this had encountered?

Jeremy then adds, “we’ve tried to get our engineers on this but they don’t really have an explanation for this either.”

Wordlessly, you lookback down at the bunny animatronic that had stalked you and harrassed you and thankfully, not injured you.

“You talked about facial recognition?” you asked.

Jeremy hesitantly hums from beside you.

“What’s the difference that he saw me as an adult and not as a child?”

Jeremy sighs tiredly and he rubs a hand across his face. “I don’t think you want to know. It’s probably best you get out of here.”

You wordlessly nodded, slowly backing up before turning and moving towards the bathroom door. You push the door open before you hear Jeremy call out to get your attention once more, making you still and look over your shoulder at him.

“Don’t talk about this to anyone. Got that?” he narrowed his eyes at you.

Not trusting your voice to speak, you nodded again before spinning around and leaving the women’s bathroom to return to the awful birthday but and you hoped that Bonnie animatronic won’t follow you this time.

Ever since that day you never went back to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Every time Izzy asked to go there, you straight up said no and that was end of story. You had seen all that you hadn’t wanted to see and your opinion was a simple and clear one. Fazbears was fucked up and you were never going back. Luckily, it wasn’t long before the place shut down for good and the company went through multiple restaurants shut downs throughout the years. However, you also heard of the multiple conspiracy theories surrounding the company, including children disappearances, theories surrounding the animatronics and way-too-many animatronic attacks on children and mostly adults.

You still remembered what Jeremy said that day: “An adult, he treated you like one too.”

There had always been something wrong with the animatronics at that restaurant; whether it was it was its facial recognitions and malfunctions or something else entirely, you didn’t know.

You just knew you were one of the lucky ones that day.

Chapter Text

:::Little Red, Little Red:::

Her wide eyes never left her bedroom door.

Her hands were still tightly wrapped around the flower vase, the bottom of it stained with blood – her hands had been rigidly clamped around it, unable to release it despite her palms being soaked with sweat. She tried to control her breathing which she was beginning to figure out that she was actually hyperventilating. The fact she had done what she had downstairs and had fled. She was dead. She was so fucking dead!

Jenna forced her hands to drop the vase and let it hit the carpeted floor hard before willing herself to sit on the foot of her bed. She tried to adjust her fought with herself for breath whilst tears threatened to spill out of her eyes. Painfully swallowing back acidic bile that tasted of her mom’s sweet pumpkin soup, Jenna looked down at her hands and watched them tremble before her eyes. There was particles and spits of blood infecting her hands, specifically her fingers, slowly crawling up her fingers towards her wrists. Her father’s blood. The longer she looked at the bodily substance the more she shook and whimpered.

Stop shaking. Please.

This all had to be some sick nightmare. It had to be. This wasn’t real. She hadn’t done it!! It wasn’t her!!

Although her thinking was scattered and she was nowhere near thinking straight, she knew her bedroom would not hide her. Not with all of its pinks and stuffed animals sitting all around the room; their dead plastic eyes all watching her, mocking her and whispering in their silent language amongst themselves. Jenna was a little bit relieved that she couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other, but their plastic gazes still unnerved her and made her want to sink into the floor.

In a fruitless attempt to calm herself, Jenna quietly countered all her stuffed animals before pausing herself when she counted the final toy. One toy was missing. Who was it--?

The sound of footsteps could be heard form the other side of the door, coming from downstairs but now beginning to ascend the staircase, pulling her out of her reverie. Jenna immediately stood up, standing in the middle of the room, completely lost and panicked. Her heart felt as if it was about to burst form her chest. She looked around herself, even sparing a glance down at the bloody flower vase she had dropped. Did she dare try defend herself again? Did she fight back? Or did she just embrace her fate? The louder the footsteps got the more rattled she became. He was coming for her.

There was a small yet drawn-out creak that caught the 17-year-old’s attention, making her gaze snap towards her white-painted wooden closet. Her blood ran cold as she watched horror-stricken at how the two doors slowly parted, opening up as if offering an embrace. Offering an escape. The closet doors stopped open slightly ajar, revealing the darkness inside, tempting her.

As she heard the footsteps becoming louder and louder, Jenna made a quick decision. Speeding across the room and almost tripping over the bloody vase, she ran to her closet, slipping between the doors and shutting them with a slam. There was a vertical strip of light that peaked through the crack, allowing her only a slit of light to see in the closet. She could them at her bedroom door now. She had to move. They’d find her in here.

Frantically, Jenna dug her hands through her coats and jackets on their clothing hangers, pushing and shoving them aside to make a path for herself. She pushed herself forward in the clothing, further into the closet, trying to run and hide until the hanging clothing finally gave way, allowing her body to fall through them, falling straight through the closet in general and into snow??

Jenna gasped, her feet stumbling on the foreign uneven footing that had transformed dramatically. When she looked up at her new surroundings she was stunned to find herself in a white forest – a wintery forest full of snow and ice.

The sun was almost centre in the pale sky above her head, peaking through leafless branches, but it lacked any comforting warmth of a summer day – a chilling winter sun it was instead. There was light yet still a smoky fog hovering over the land, lingering in the near distance within the forest. Jenna found herself unable to further than fifteen feet into the forest. There was a slight icy breeze too that occasionally breathed down her and summoned goosebumps to her flesh, prompting Jenna to rub her hands up and down her arms to generate some warmth.

She observed her surroundings, eyes wide in disbelief. This is where her closet lead to? Like those Narnia books? She could feel and see everything: the winter cold, the breeze, the mushy snow beneath her sneakers that were already beginning to melt and soak through her not-so-waterproof shoes. Black and white birch trees stood guard at every turn, almost blending in with the rest of their snowy landscape, bare wooden arms reaching out towards her trying to grab her.

With seemingly no way back to a home that had never felt like hers and no way to get back it as her closet had vanished behind her, Jenna started to walk through the winter forest in a random direction. She had no destination in mind, but as her eyes drank in the peaceful white scenery around her, she began to feel calmer – the panic from before slowly disappearing. This place almost felt like heaven. It was enchantingly beautiful, like a fairytale.

What did strike Jenna as odd was the lack of sound in this forest. There were no birds, no cicadas, no whistling or howling wind shaking through the trees – nothing. All the trees looked identical too, like everything in this beautiful place was fake, like it was created just for her. Nothing seemed real, it was too good to be true. Maybe it was.

Jenna walked for what felt like years through the forest until she stopped when she heard a noise at last. The
snapping of a nearby twig. Spinning herself around and kicking up snow, Jenna immediately searched for the source of the noise, her heart rate picking up again. Was it her parents? Had they found her? Her eyes frantically searched for whoever or whatever made that noise. She scanned each tree, and her eye caught a flash of red move past, making her freeze up.

The 17-year-old focused her eyes on one specific tree, her body going rigid as she stared at it, waiting. Her breaths came out like cigarette puffs, and she could finally feel the frostbite touching upon the tips of her fingers and toes.

There was a growl that reverberated throughout the woods, rumbling in her ribcage.

Behind the tree, Jenna’s eyes widened in horror when what appeared to be a horribly large hook that resembled a pirate’s appear from behind the tree. The dark hook glinted dangerously in the pale sunlight, winking at her before it sunk itself into the trunk of the birch and dug downwards, ripping into the tree like it was prey. Jenna swallowed hard, forgetting how to breathe, especially when she caught a glimpse of a skinned metallic snout peak out next, slowly opening to reveal teeth. Lots and lots of pointed teeth.

Jenna turned and fled before she could see anymore of the red hooked creature, not wanting to see any more of it. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her through the pudgy snow as it started to betray her by becoming thinner and taller. A scream almost tore itself from her throat when she could hear that growling again accommodated by what sounded like the padding of feet chasing after – and these feet sounded heavy.

Jenna kept running through the same trees and snow until she finally saw something different apart from the latter. A cottage; a medieval-looking one with the stone-melded walls, wooden-framed windows lacking glass and straw roof. She went for it, adrenaline taking a hold of her.

There was a horrible animalistic roar from behind her as she sprinted towards the front door of the cottage, made out of the same birch woods of the trees around her, sealed with a thin hairy rope she worried would not hold. The snow beneath her felt like it was melting with each step she took on it, transformed from snow to sludge to water. Soon enough, she found herself trying to run through puddles as the ground continued to sink lower and lower, trying to catch her feet and pull her down with it. She fought against the snowy sludge, ripping herself from it, yelling as she did so.

Her body slammed hard against the cottage door, but she was unfazed and ignored any pain that struck her in that moment. Her hand grasped for the handle, twisting it violently. Jenna thrusted her whole body against the door, letting it fall open and her body tipping with it giving way. She darted inside before slamming it shut, securing it with the metal lock behind her. She could no longer hear any more chasing footsteps or animal shrieks. Only silence. Somehow that made her only more frightened.

Definitely not Narnia, she thought to herself as she caught her breath.

Inside the cottage, was warm and cosy despite looking cold and unwelcoming from the outside. The lighting was dim inside, the brightest light in the main and only room of the cottage coming from the fireplace with a singular chair sitting in front of it. The room contained a wooden sitting table accompanied with some carved birch chairs. A few small old-fashioned lanterns lit with a tiny fire in each of them hung on the white walls and above Jenna’s head she could see the wooden beams and structures that supported the straw roof. There was a small wooden bench in the corner and in one of the other corners, a few animal skins draped over a singular wooden slab (which Jenna guess was the bed).

The frostbite Jenna had been starting to get while outside reminded her that she had slowly been starting to freeze. She felt her feet drift and start to carry her towards the radiating fireplace at the end of the cottage that had the main sitting chair in front of it. However, before she could get too close, Jenna heard movement and stopped. Her heart jumped.

“Hello… Jen.”

Jenna wanted to run when a figure rose from the chair, their back facing her. The light of the fireplace cast a shadow over them, showing Jenna only a silhouette of the figure; but that didn’t stop her from being able to identify them immediately. The silhouette turned to face her, his arms behind his back. She instantly recognised the figure from their bulking large figure that towered over her and hair that littered his face.

“Dad, I….” Jenna’s voice failed her.

“You’ve been a bad lass, Jen. You ought to be punished for what you did,” her father’s voice scowled at her, growing in volume.

“No, no, dad please, please!!” she begged, her voice cracking as she burst into tears.

Fearfully, the young girl started to back away from her father’s figure as he stomped his way towards her, each foot thumping against the creaky floorboards of the cottage, his weight a little too heavy for Jenna’s liking. His shadow grew and grew the closer he got; Jenna finding it harder and harder to breathe with each step.

“It was an accident, please, it was! I didn’t mean to hurt you!!” she cried.

“Oh but it wasn’t, was it, Jenny lass?” her father asked, his voice taking on a strange accent, a hint of metal leaking into it. His head twitched uncomfortably.

Jenna froze at his words.

“What?”

Her father was only a few feet away now and he finally brought one of his arms from behind his back, revealing the large nightmarish hook she had seen in the winter forest. The hook’s silhouette appeared bigger than before now that it was closer to her and Jenna could only watch in horror as her father brought the pointed end of his hooked hand to his forehead before digging the hook into it and dragging down. Down, down, down, perfectly slicing through the human flesh, splitting it apart.

Jenna screamed.

Before her, Jenna could only watch terrified as her own father and dragging a hook down the centre of his entire body, leaving bloody strips in its wake, the flesh and bones beginning to part beneath the hook’s sharp blade. It looked like he was skinning himself, as if he was unzipping himself like he was a human skin suit. There was sicken movement beneath her father’s clothes and skin, like something was stuffed inside him before her own father, sliced in half by the hook started to peel in half, revealing the thing inside him. Jenna felt her mom’s pumpkin soup make its way up her throat for a second time today, but this time she was unable to stop it.

Bowing over, Jenna opened her mouth as she gagged and coughed; all the contents of the soup spilling out on her third cough. Orange liquid and small bits spewed out onto the wooden floor, splashing, and quickly becoming a puddle at her feet. Her body was shaking as she coughed and choked out the last of her stomach’s contents over the past few hours, even glancing up at the thing unravelling her father before her.

Jenna saw red, so much red emerges from inside her abusive father, but it wasn’t blood. It was the thing from the forest.

The red beast before her peeled away the last of her father’s skin from its metallic body, shaking the human skin off and discarding its carcass like it was garbage before its glowering red eyes finally found Jenna’s scared ones. They glowed brighter in mirth at Jenna’s reaction before giving out a great snarling cackle, a noise that grinded against Jenna’s ears in this close-knit location.

“ye really are a lily-livered lass,” the creature cackled evilly before its eyes darkened at her, “pathetic.”

Jenna found herself unable to reply, her eyes captured by the creature’s appearance instead. It at first appeared to be a robot, from the sounding of its voice and its metallic built. For a robot, it was terribly skinny, concerningly so. She could see a majority of this thing’s skinny metal skeleton, with only a few parts of it covered with scroungy red fabric. From first glance, it appeared to be a robotic fox; an extremely withered one. Its legs were bare of any fur or fabric; instead they were exposed metal skeleton legs entwined with long stray wires. At the ends of its steel feet were four sharp claws for toes that looked soaked from the melted snow outside. On its legs, the creature wore brown trousers completely stripped from the shins down, the filthy pants hanging on the fox’s skeletal hips.

The rest of the animatronic’s torso consisted of singed red fabric and fur, the fur on its belly a slightly lighter tone of red; holes and tears littered the beast’s upper body, revealing different parts of its metal skeleton beneath. It wore its dark jagged hook on its right hand, and for its left it had a torn-up red left hand topped with red finger-blades as sharp as its toe claws. Its entire head looked to be separated into two parts, held together by a few metal columns and wires. Half of its muzzle was completely stripped of skin, exposing its metal frame but its jaws were filled to the brim with hundreds of fangs, even including another mouth inside of its first mouth. Its entire head was in tatters and tears; its ears half stripped of their fabric with wires poking out of their wounds. The creature’s eyes sockets were large (having rotted away), bigger than what its eyes could fit in normally and if Jenna looked close enough, she could see right into and through the animatronic.

It was the nightmare fox’s eyes that truly chilled Jenna to her core. Those eyes saw her and right through her, eyeing her like a piece of meat, cooking her and serving her on a platter for itself to devour.

“W-what are you?” Jenna whimpered, barely able to put her words in a sentence.

A whirring sound reaches Jenna’s ears as the red beast lifts its hook up to admire it, burning orange eyes drinking in the macabre sight, it turns its hooked hand this way and that, looking at it like it was the best thing it had ever laid eyes on, seemingly forgetting about its victim who shakily stood shocked. After a moment of admiring its beloved hook, its glowing eyes switched over to her. Jenna wasn’t sure how she could explain it, but its muzzle full of teeth gave off the impression that it was smirking at her.

“I be one yer nightmares, luv. That’s all ye need to know.”

Something urged Jenna to believe it.

“Aye, but ye can call me Foxy,” he added, pointing his hook firstly at her than to himself, a sense of pride visible in both his movements and voice.

The girl jumped when at the sharp whine and pop as the metallic creature made a sudden movement – she was beginning to notice that every move it made, the rest of its body reacted with robotic-like noises. His (Jenna believed from the sound of his voice that he was a male) torso had completely turned towards her, his eyes casting a spotlight on her as she unfortunately had his full attention. He never dropped his hook to his side, always keeping it raised as his skinned metallic pedes started stomping towards her, the floorboard creaking beneath his weight.

“So, what did ya do, aye lass?” Foxy asked with dark curiosity, “did ya slice em?” he dramatically swished his hook through thin air, making Jenna jump backwards.

“what?” Jenna startled, panicking as the animatronic drew nearer, slashing his hook this way and that; swishing the weapon so quickly that she could hear the wind whistle as a response. The nightmare’s body continued to hum and creak with each movement he made.

“Did ye dice em?” Foxy swished his hook.

Jenna stepped back. Foxy took a step forward.

“Did ye stab em?” another swing.

Another step back. Another step forward.

“Did ye gut em?”

Another back. Another forward.

“Did ye cut em up into tiny pieces for laters?”

Foxy threw another dangerous swing of his hook into the air; this time however being too close and narrowly missing as Jenna felt the wind against her face and she fearfully backed away once more. Unfortunately, she found her rear accidentally hitting the wooden dining table instead, stopping her from moving back any further. Foxy continued stomping and swinging towards her until he was right in front of her, and she was face-to-face with his wicked hook.

Close up, Jenna could smell a retched burnt stench waft off the red beast’s body, making her choke. She found herself trying to lean away as much as she physically could from the nightmare. She was intimidated by his height which towered over her, more so than her own father. She focused her gaze on the gaping hole in Foxy’s chest.

“I didn’t do anything!” she cried out, throat tight.

She yelps when Foxy suddenly drops to her height, crouching low and close. Suddenly, his muzzle was in her face and she was presented a full display of his monstrously sharp teeth that he bared just for her. All of his teeth were silver and well-rusted and Jenna even thought she saw a hint of blood splattered on a tooth or two. A growl rumbles from Foxy’s throat, filling her ears before she feels something cold come up under her chin, gently yet warningly tipping her chin to look up at Foxy’s simmering orange eyes. She quickly came to the realisation that it was Foxy’s hook. She didn’t dare breathe.

Foxy flashes his hundreds of fangs at her in a snarl, “don’t lie to ol’s Foxy, luv.” Jenna trembles as she feels his hook start to move upwards, caressing her skin as Foxy brought it to her left cheek. He slowly moved his hook over the flesh of her cheek, almost teasing her in feather-light touches. “I can do so many things with yer lovely plush skin…”

A sniffle came from Jenna, unable to pull away from the animatronic which had her in his clutches.

“It really was an accident, I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she began, fighting a sob, “he abuses my mom and I, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. He hits me, he hits my mom almost every day, and if he isn’t hitting either of us he’s drinking excessively. I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

“What happened today, wee lass? Don’t be shy. Confess,” he urged her on, hook glazing over her skin ever so delicately. She tried not to squirm beneath his icy touch, his rotting breath in her face.

Jenna forced herself to continue through tears, “I got home from school and found both of them in the kitchen. He was hitting her with his belt. She was screaming out for help and I thought he was going to kill her. I wanted to call the police but knew they wouldn’t be here on time. So, I wasn’t thinking straight and grabbed the closest thing that could hurt him: the flower vase.”

Her whole body was trembling at this point, the tears uncontrollable. Shamefully, she looked in any direction that wasn’t Foxy’s.

“He’s gonna kill me,” she whispered.

The hook against her cheek applied more pressure, moving her head back to face his, sharp claws coming to firmly grip her chin to keep her head still, forcing her to look at him.

“No, lassy,” he says comfortingly before leaning in, teeth winking, “I be killing ye.”

Her eyes widen.

“Shhh,” he hushes her, claws still gripping her chin as he pulls his hook away for her to gape at. “Why ye hang the jib, aye?”

Jenna didn’t completely understand the monster’s words, but she had a good idea of what he meant. She shook in his grip, wanting to free herself from it. She felt like a wave of icy water had been throw over her, summoning her fight-or-flight response as she tried to pull away. The animatronic’s dagger-like claws squeezed tighter, breaking the skin and drawing blood.

“Please,” she begged quietly, hissing at the pain of Foxy’s claws sinking into her flesh.

Foxy froze for a moment before Jenna heard a metallic sniffing sound. Out of the corner of Jenna’s eye, she noticed the creature’s jaws leaning closer.

Foxy’s guttural voice rumbled in Jenna’s ears once more, dropping a few octaves, “yer easy on the eyes, lass. Anyone told ye that?”

The 17-year-old held back another sob.

She feels one of the metallic beast’s claws carefully wipe away some of the leaking blood from her chin, brining it up between his and Jenna’s faces before opening his maw, a snake-like tongue slipping out of his mouth, pointed and made from steel. Jenna watched with horrified eyes as the metal tongue came to lap at the blood left on his finger claw, a groan leaving his throat as he did so. She wanted to vomit again.

“Delicious red too. I wonder what the rest of ya taste like, luv,” he purred.

“Please stop,” Jenna pleaded, side-eyeing the monstrous tongue that was the length of her forearm.

The nightmarish fox tilted his head at her, “stop what, lass? This?”

Before she could cry out, a cold, jarring object that felt like a strange metallic appendage harshly ran itself up her neck, lapping up the blood on her chin before running itself up the rest of the side of her face. It was chilling and surprisingly smooth and flexible, flattening itself against her soft flesh as it took as much of it in as it could before it finally left her face and lifeless hung out of Foxy’s deteriorated mouth.

That was the last straw for Jenna. She saw a slight opening with Foxy’s tongue having replaced his talons and hook and she only just slipped between his towering form and the dining table, making a run for it. She sprints for the cottage door, throwing it open before escaping into the snow again.

It was surprisingly easier to run through the snow this time. This time it felt more held together and thicker, holding most of her way as she sprinted through it in no specific direction. She almost tripped over her own feet in fright when she heard a metallic rageful roar from somewhere behind her.

Jenna didn’t dare look back as she continued to run through the snow, desperately trying to think a way out of this icy hellhole, away from this demonic fox robot that was hunting her. She kept running as she heard Foxy’s heavy chasing footsteps chase after her, drawing closer and closer.

“ye cannot run and hide from me, lass!” he roared after her, “I know what yer blood smells like. I can still taste it.” He ended his words with a bone-chilling glitchy laugh after her, pushing Jenna to run faster than she ever had before.

How do I get back? Jenna anxiously wondered to herself, her hope draining quickly as her legs were growing fatigued.

There’s another animalistic snarl from behind her as she kept fleeing. Her eyes close, finding herself begging within her mind: wake up, wake up, wake up. This all had to be a twisted dream it had to be. It was! There was no such thing as a fox animatronic named Foxy that was chasing her down. She wasn’t really in a snowy forest. She was at home, with her parents, about to face the punishment that awaited her from her abusive father. That was reality. Not this.

Wake. Up.

Jenna opened her eyes.

She was met with the familiar sight of her bedroom; too much pink; too many stuff animals stacked at the edge of her bed, too many mirrors and too many clothes all spread throughout the floor. Her bedside lamp was on, illuminating the rest of her bedroom in a orange-pink light, even casting a few shadows here and there in the darkest corners of the room. That same plushie toy was still missing, Jenna noticed as she took in her familiar surroundings, her heart calming down and a hint of relief creeping up on her.

A creak made Jenna almost jump out of her skin, making her attention snap back towards her white closet.

It was still open. Two glowing orange eyes glared at her from within the darkness of the closet.

Jenna screamed.

It screamed too, launching itself out of the closet at her; laws stretched outwards, hook raised and ready to strike.

Jenna scrambled away, kicking with her legs and her bottom dragging across the carpeted floor. She had no weapons and could only think of trying to get away. She wouldn’t have as much luck this time. The monstrous animatronic landed a foot away from her on all fours, his left hand supporting most of his weight as he raised his hook above his head, ready to bring it down onto her. His jaws were opened wide in a snarl, tongue making an appearance as his orange eyes blazed with fury.

“Ye thought ye could escape me, lass!!” Foxy roared at her, bringing his hook down, slashing the air clean in half.

Jenna screamed as Foxy’s hook struck the floor just next to her head, imbedding itself in the floorboards, only narrowly missing. She was sure he wasn’t going to miss a second time.

Foxy barked out another rage-filled snarl, frustrated that he had missed his target and tried to yank out his hook. While he fought to release his hook, Jenna took the opportunity to slip away, climbing to her feet and trying to run only to let out a pained wail when something akin to blades sliced at her ankle, bringing her down to her knees immediately. That didn’t stop her as she continued to crawl in the direction of her nightstand, her face level with the void that was under her bed. A small, long object sitting underneath her bed caught her eye, making her halt for a split second.

There’s a violent-sounding tear and pop when she hears Foxy rip out his hook, his body grating with the harsh movement. In only a few steps, he was upon her. More pain impaled her in the same ankle and started to roughly pull her backwards towards him. She wailed as his grating laugh reached her ears but she still didn’t let go of the small object that she was sneakily grabbed form underneath her bed.

“No one escapes ol’ Foxy! Not even ye!” he growled at her, snapping his jaws at her.

A rough painful kick is delivered to Jenna’s side, forcing her to scream out and roll over onto her back and look up at the creature that had been hunting her down. She could feel blood already seeping through her shirt, not doubt from the claws at the ends of Foxy’s toes being the cause.

Foxy was a giant to her, bending over her slightly as he showed off his hook once more, its tip covered in her blood. She watched his metallic tongue loll out once more and have a taste of it as he groaned in satisfaction. Her grip on the object tightened and she did her best to glare at the beast above her.

He looked down at her, fiery orbs glowing with victory and smugness.

“Ah, there’s the fieriness I knew ye had in ye. That’s my girl,” he grinned pridefully, about to release another cackle when he let out a pained yell, jumping back and instantly bringing his hand and hook to his eye. “Fuck!”

Jenna, holding the flashlight she had found underneath her bed, slowly started to sit up, holding up her chosen weapon. She watched as the nightmare attempted to rub his eyes before attempting to come for her again, only to get flashed by the flashlight again, hissing at the light in his lights. He retreated a few steps, snarling viciously and avoiding looking at her.

“I’m not your girl,” Jenna spat, flicking the light on and off at him.

“Ya fucking bitch!!” the fox roared, twitching and jerking at the light, roaring in agony.

Like a damn vampire, Jenna thought sarcastically.

With each step, he was moving closer and closer to her closet – where he had come from. Jenna continued to flash the light at him, blinding the monster who feared the light, moving him back to the closet until his deteriorated monstrous frame was fully inside the closet. Jenna painfully got to her feet, limping as fast as she could to the closet door before slamming it shut on the nightmare, the doors rattling on their hinges as she did so. She held the doors closed, even taking a few moments to listen for the red beast.

Silence.

She took a deep breath before she slowly and cautiously opened the closet doors, expecting to see the horrible fox animatronic still standing there. Instead, Jenna was greeted with the sight of her missing stuff toy. Her toy fox. It was lying on its side, its one revealed glass eye open and looking lifelessly forward while its other eye was covered up with a black pirate eyepatch.

There you are, Jenna bitterly said in her head.

The 17-year-old crouched in front of the closet, picking up the fox plushie as she turned it in her hands and examined it for anything out of place. It was in perfect condition. Its fur was a soft velvet and ran with her fingers as she ran her finger through its fur in thought.

Jenna gasped when she heard those familiar-sounding footsteps coming up the stairs, coming straight for her bedroom. Her heart squeezed, already knowing who it was.

Father.

Her punishment await her.

Jenna quietly made a choice, still holding onto the Foxy plush. She rose to her feet once more, taking a deep breath before going to stand in the middle of the room, clutching the plus close to her chest. She noticed the bloody flower vase off to the side but chose to ignore it. Instead, she let her blue-eyed gaze drift towards her closed bedroom door where the footsteps were become louder and louder. Her fingers squeeze into her toy’s plush flesh like it was a stress toy, feeling her heart pounded in her chest. In a strange way, she was back to the beginning again. Nothing had changed. She was back where started.

Her wide eyes never left her bedroom door.