Chapter Text
Bunnies.
Normally, they are fluffy bundles of joy that look like living cotton balls, but now they're starting to become your worst nightmare.
Round, pitch-black shadows resembling bunnies follow you everywhere. There's no way of stopping them, and your warm glow only invites more. As soon as they see you, they come crawling towards you. Yet, you don't have a single weapon to defend yourself with.
So you run.
You run through the castle's ruined, grey hallways and rooms. The only thing lighting up your path is the lantern you're holding. You don't know where and how you got it, but its glow seems to be never-ending. No matter how many rooms you go through, the warm, yellow light follows you around.
It makes walking through the castle a bit easier.
You continue on running through one of the hallways, following a red carpet's path until you come across a curved wooden door. You grab the handle only to find it's locked. How unfortunate. You're gonna need a key, but you weren't exactly paying attention to your surroundings as you ran away from the crazed shadow bunnies. To be honest, you don't know if there's a key to begin with.
Either way, your only option is to go back.
But before you can even move, you hear a monstrous squelch from behind you. You immediately duck, barely dodging the shadow’s sharp teeth. You turn around to look at your attacker and a single white eye greets you, black drooling from its mouth as it looks at you like you're its dinner.
You try to fend the monster off by punching it in its eye, however, it doesn't have a physical body so it only dissolves like smoke before reappearing. In the midst of this, more shadow bunnies have noticed you and your lantern's glow and are crawling towards you, rendering it impossible for you to escape.
You grimace as the creatures grow closer and open their mouths, ready to strike and tear you apart from limb to limb-- but before any of that can happen, your whole body freezes suddenly.
"I'd prefer not to be eaten today..."
The voice coming from your mouth isn't yours.
You don't question it, like the body isn't even yours to begin with and the rightful owner is taking back its control. You can't even think clearly, everything's happening so fast and before you know it, your legs are moving on their own.
They sprint through the monsters' bodies and to one of the torches in the hallway. You use the lantern to light up the torch, then you move onto the next one. This continues on until you've lit up all six torches.
You hear a click: the curved, wooden door is now open… and you're back in control.
You can only let out a sigh of relief before breaking into another run after hearing a squelch too close to you for your liking. The bunnies don't follow you through the next room, but that's only because now you've become the prey of other shadows.
Unlike the last ones, these don't crawl.
They stand tall, around your height, but their ears once again resemble those of a bunny. You barely manage to escape their sharp teeth, running down the hallway and into a closed space with a single chest in it. You open it, hoping to find something useful… but instead, you find a beating heart that you can only assume is human.
"Oh, how nice." Once again, the voice coming out of your mouth isn't yours. You put your lantern down and your hands reach to grab the heart.
You can hear unnerving screeching coming from behind you as the shadows draw closer to your form, but you're forced to ignore them as you're not in control.
You can't move, run or hide.
You can only endure it as the shadows' claws grab your limbs and tear you apart from the chest. Unable to reach the heart inside it, the voice laments as if something more precious than their own life was taken away from them.
Before you know it, the lantern's light dissipates along with your own warm glow, and you're left alone in the cold darkness to suffer at the hands of the shadows.
...
You wake up with a start, your mind fuzzy from the weird dream you just had. You can't remember it too well, but it definitely talked about not-so-friendly bunnies.
"What the hell, man…"
With a yawn, you rub your blurry eyes and sleepily look around your bedroom. You notice there are multiple old, dirty clothes on a random chair in the corner, but you have no energy to stand up and put them in the laundry basket. Somehow, you feel like you're back in high school and you've just woken up after a long, 2h "after-school nap".
You lazily check your phone only to see that it's 9:25 PM. Your eyes go wide at that, now fully awake as you realize that you're supposed to be at work at 10 PM.
"Fuck, I over-slept!"
You scramble out of bed to get ready. You don't know when you fell asleep, or even if you had dinner or not, but right now it doesn't matter as the only thing you care about is making yourself look presentable.
There's a 30-minute break at work, so you could always get something from the vending machines if you felt hungry… or you could order a shake, though you're not sure whether the staff bots would make one after closing time.
You shrug, you've always wanted to try one of those over-priced pineapple Chica shakes.
Anyway, back to getting ready.
You grab some casual clothes from your closet and immediately head to the bathroom. You splash your face with cold water to fully wake yourself up and then proceed on changing outfits. Though, only after putting your shirt on do you realize that your bedroom's blue led lights made it look a few shades different than the vibrant orange it actually was.
You don't think it looks too bad though, and the pizza in the middle makes sense since this is going to be your first day working at Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex. Originally, when you applied for the job, you didn't think you would get hired. Working at such a famous Mega Pizzaplex sounded like something out of a fairytale.
It was something that an ordinary robotics engineer graduate like you would probably never achieve.
Except, just a few days ago, you got an email that confirmed your job as both an animatronic engineer and nightguard. The advertisement had made it clear that they were short on staff, but you thought that there would be other waaay more experienced mechanics applying for the job and that Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex would choose them instead of someone like you .
Still, you're grateful. The pay is really good and the email said that you'll be working directly with all of the animatronics. You couldn’t just miss out on an opportunity like this one!
You wonder what the animatronics are gonna be like. You've only gone to the Pizzaplex once, but there was a long line to greet them and you'd only been there for the afternoon so you never got to say a single "hello" to them.
As for the food, the pizza the Mega Pizzaplex made was… definitely something. You'd read multiple complaints online from people saying that they recycled it, but you'd decided to try it anyway as a fun little experience. You tried to convince your friends to order one too, but they refused to get it because of all the horror stories they heard about it, instead going for the tacos.
You couldn't blame them, because the pizza you got tasted nothing like how it looked; it looked alright and possibly even appetizing, but it tasted HORRIBLE. The cheese was probably the worst part of it, but the toppings were weird, too; two of the slices were smaller than the others and had sausages on it, which, by the way, you hadn't even asked for!
Also, the sauce was too sweet and the dough wasn't fresh. You were surprised to look around and see some people actually eating and somewhat enjoying it. The children especially were scarfing it down as if it was some amazing, Neapolitan pizza.
You still can’t believe a place like the US exists… living in it constantly feels like a bad fever dream.
It takes you a while to realize you’ve been side-tracked, standing in front of the mirror as you thought about past memories instead of actually getting your bag ready and driving to your new job. You check your phone and thankfully you're still on time, 15 minutes may have passed but it wouldn’t take you too long to drive to the Megaplex. The dirty clothes on your chair would have to wait until after 6 AM to go in the laundry basket because after grabbing everything you need, you finally leave your apartment and get on the road.
One of the pros of having the nightshift is that since you leave at night, there isn’t any traffic, so you can just sit back, turn on the radio and enjoy the ride. At least, that's what you wish you could do. In reality, you can't help but feel nauseous from the anxiety building up inside of you. You start to regret picking this job. Socializing with new people has never been your forte and you're scared that your coworker will think you're weird.
You shake your head and try to not think about it, but the more you try, the more the thoughts get worse, and eventually, it feels like you're drowning in them. "Stop it, brain! There's no use getting anxious, I haven't even met my coworker yet." You tell yourself.
The email said that you have a coworker by the name of Vanessa, a young woman in her 20s that only recently started working at the Pizzaplex as a nightguard.
Apparently, she has no prior experience but was hired anyway. You don't exactly understand why they chose an inexperienced person like her, but you also don't understand why you got hired in the first place.
The company seemed especially urgent about finding new nightguards. Speaking of, you have no idea what happened to the nightguards before you, and as much as you want to know, you assume the reason would probably make you want to work there even less .
With a sigh, you snap out of your thoughts and realize that you're in front of the Pizzaplex. You quickly park your car and walk up to the tall building. You check your phone to see if you're running late, but luckily you're right on time: it's 10 PM sharp.
You can see a redhead with a bob cut waiting for you behind the glass doors. Knowing that you're gonna have to talk to them makes you nervous, so you take a big breath to calm yourself down before walking inside the Pizzaplex.
You look to your right and spot emerald-green eyes watching your every move. "Hello, you must be the new mechanic and nightguard. I'm Cora, it's a pleasure to meet you." The redhead introduces themselves, voice bored and monotone. From the looks of it, they're not too enthusiastic about having to be the one greeting you. If anything, they sound a bit pissed off, although the formalities and their soft features betray the venom in their voice.
Cora probably already knows your name, but despite that, you decide to introduce yourself as well. "Hey, I'm ____. It's a pleasure to meet you, too." You smile, hoping to ease the tension a bit.
But Cora doesn't smile back and instead ignores you, wanting to get the Pizzaplex tour over with as soon as possible. You don't blame them, it's late and their eyebags tell you that they could use some sleep... However, it'd be nicer if they were a bit kinder to you.
"I work the evening shift as a security guard and I'll be the one showing you around the Pizzaplex tonight." They explain. "The boss is always really busy, so he won't be able to greet you himself. He apologizes for that." Upon talking about their boss, their mood seems to worsen. You have no idea what happened between Cora and him, but it certainly isn't something good.
"First things first, we're going to the staff locker rooms so you can change into your uniform."
You nod and follow Cora to the lockers. As you walk, you pass colorful signs, pretty decorations and a lot of different shops. Seeing the empty stuffed toy shop makes you want to go inside and steal them all. You remember watching a video of a giant Freddy plushie and for a moment you stop, hoping to find it with your eyes. The plushie seems to have already been bought, and you notice that there's a smaller one of a different, sun animatronic in its place.
If you remember correctly, it's the one in charge of the daycare.
Cora notices that you've stopped walking to look at the shop and lets out an exaggerated sigh. "What are you doing? We have to go."
You feel a little embarrassed, you didn't want to waste her time. "Oh, sorry! It's just--" You fidget with your hands, trying to recollect your train of thought. "I saw a video of a giant Freddy stuffed toy once and wanted to see if it was still there."
"Let me think." Cora brings a hand to their chin, trying to remember the plushie. "You might mean the one in Freddy's room...but it's not for sale." They clarify.
You shake your head. "No, no! I didn't want to buy it, I just wanted to see it." You tell them, but they eye you suspiciously as if you're going to steal the plushie and take it home.
Honestly, though? You might if they keep acting like you're the reason why they're pissed off.
"I think you will have many other opportunities to see, and even squish , the Freddy plushie." She replies, crossing her arms. "Besides, you work here now and since you're a robotics engineer, you're going to be doing the nightly check-up of all the animatronics; cleaning, and security bots excluded."
You already know that, which bothers you since Cora seems to speak as if you don't know anything about your own job.
You've already been notified of your work through email: you have to go to all the animatronics, including the daycare one, and make sure they're intact and clean after a long day of work.
"Anyway, we should get going." Cora begins to move again, this time speed-walking as if they're racing you to the lockers. It seems you're starting to cut their patience low.
Man, you understand why they don't work in customer service now.
Soon, you arrive at the staff locker room and Cora hands you your nightguard uniform before leaving you alone to change. The uniform consists of a black hat with " security " written on top in all caps, a light-blue shirt, black trousers, and a dark gray belt with a pouch attached to it. You open the pouch to find it contains a high-security badge and a fazwatch.
"Wait, what? Why is this here? I thought it was only given to kids?"
Confused, you decide to put the fazwatch around your wrist and turn it on. You find that you're able to watch every camera and that there's even a small map of the Pizzaplex beside them. It's a bit uncomfortable to select which camera to watch as its screen is kind of small, but you can work with it.
You notice you can check company messages, so you click on them.
One, in particular, says: "CUSTOMER COMPLAINT -- The pizza we ordered was weird. Some pieces were of different sizes or didn't fit together. One slice even had different toppings. Did you recycle the old pizza from the trash?! I'm never coming back here unless I get some sort of major discount -Angry Mom."
"So, the random sausages on my pizza weren't there for no reason…" You shudder at the thought of having eaten recycled pizza yourself. Next time, you're gonna listen to your friends and go for the tacos.
Curious to read about more company problems, you decide to check another message: "MANAGEMENT REPORT - With Bonnie out of commission, we are making Monty the new bass player. Parts and Services has already done the prior adjustments. This could be a good thing. Monty could be even more popular than Bonnie."
You frown at the message. You remember seeing news everywhere on the internet talking about Bonnie, everyone making theories on why he was decommissioned and replaced by Monty. No one knows the real reason why and the company never replied to the thousands of questions and complaints, which saddened you since you've always liked the bunny animatronic.
You wonder whether he was decommissioned due to him being destroyed in an incident or something of the sort. If yes, you might be able to fix him and bring him back on the show... but then again, the email specifically said that you're not allowed to do major changes to an animatronic without the engineering manager's approval, and you have no idea whether his remains have already been thrown in the trash or not--
You hear shuffling from behind the door and you realize that it's probably Cora waiting for you, getting more impatient than they already were before.
"That's enough messages for now." You tell yourself, you'll look through the rest of them once your coworker is home and not annoyed with everything and everyone.
You turn off the fazwatch and quickly change into your uniform, which honestly takes you less than how long it takes you to switch between cameras on your fazwatch. You open the door to the hallway and are greeted with a pair of unfamiliar light green eyes which are definitely not Cora's.