Chapter Text
I’m late.
Jeremy Fitzgerald had worked for Freddy’s since this new location opened, and he’d bounced around a few jobs. He was a mechanic for a while (even if he had no real clue how the robots worked), and their simple design made putting Foxy back together easy, but after management declared that Foxy would become ‘The Mangle’, he was deemed no longer needed and moved to the Night Shift.
Honestly, Jeremy preferred it at first. He could sleep all day and work all night, with no worry about what he runs from every day. However, things got complicated on his first night- the animatronics not only moved, but they seemed to stalk him . Those recordings on the phone scared him, too. He doesn’t know who this guy is, but for the past week, he’s been avoiding and hiding the animatronics, all making sure that “Puppet thing” never leaves its box.
He was in such a hurry today. He had overslept and is now running to the front door. He opens it up, closes it behind him, locks it up, and looks at his watch. It’s already 2 AM.
Jeremy sighs, realizing he’s probably gonna have to beeline to his office…and as he turns around, he comes face-to-face with an animatronic, and he feels the blood leave his face.
The animatronic is Bonnie- the blue one, the new one. It’s leaned down, eye level with the man, staring into his eyes. Its mouth is open, and Jeremy closes his eyes tight, waiting for whatever horrible thing this monstrous machine might do to him.
“...ah!” it’s robotic voice says out loud. “Mister Fitzgerald! You’re late!”
Jeremy is confused. He’s only ever heard these things speak during the day. Its voice is disjointed like it’s taking pieces of pre-recorded messages. On top of that, it sounds…gentle, almost? He opens his eyes, seeing the animatronic tilting it's head at him. It’s stood up straight now, and Jeremy’s always disliked how truly massive the animatronics are.
“Erm…I’m…sorry?” Jeremy said nervously, wincing. These things had always crept closer every night, the Blue Bonnie especially.
“Oh, it's alright!” Bonnie declared, letting loose a prerecorded laugh. “I’m certain we can let it go, just this once! It’s only your first night!”
First night?
This was Jeremy’s seventh night.
Was Bonnie…broken? Geeze, he hoped not. He just hurried away, leaving the animatronic to watch him walk away before continuing whatever path it would take on it’s free roam.
The night went on, and hours passed. He sat at his desk, working to keep the music box wound up while keeping an eye on the animatronics. And well, it was…different. Calmer. Not even like his first night, where hardly anything moved, it was like he had come to a totally different restaurant. The old animatronics in Parts & Storage were dormant and unmoving, the newer ones were just wandering around and almost seemed to be chatting with each other, and singing on stage…it almost looked like they were rehearsing .
Then he heard it. The crawling across the walls. Flashing his light down the hallway, Jeremy’s eyes opened wide as he saw the Mangle creeping towards him. The worst, and creepiest part, was that the flashlight wasn’t stopping them in their tracks like it was supposed to. He scrambled for the mask, slamming it on his face as the Mangle, without any radio sound this time, entered the office. It then began to outlook around, scanning the room. But…this wasn’t like last time. It didn’t look like it was searching for him, like they always do, even if it looked a bit…livelier. It was weird. Usually, the animatronics are so bionic in their movements at night (except for the older models, ironically), but their movements had been somewhat smoother. Even the Mangle. But now, it’s quiet, no radio static, just looking around, and moving to rest upon the desk…
Wait, what?
The Mangle wasn’t leaving. It couldn’t see him, but it was just walking the hallway, and he realized it. It can’t see him at all . The mask doesn’t make them think he’s one of them, it makes him downright invisible to them. But why? And how? It was already hard enough breathing in this thing, but now he realizes this thing is just gonna wait for him to “get back”. And then he saw it. The small, flashing yellow light on the tablet for the cameras, and the blood drained from his face. The music box was running out.
The animatronics were all creepy enough, but the Puppet scared him the worst . The music box only ran out once , and it was last night. It moved faster and with more precision and fluidity than any other animatronic, and the bells rang for 6 AM when it’s weird three-fingered hand was just inches from his face, certain that the metal beneath that cloth was moving at the speed of a bullet.
But that wasn’t the worst part, god no.
When 6 AM comes, the animatronics stop moving, and he leaves. It’s up to the day shift to move them back to their normal positions before they open their doors.
The worst part was that while the Puppet stopped it’s moving towards him…it didn’t stop moving . Those weird, glowing eyes unlike any other animatronic staring into his soul, and it moved it’s hand away from his face, and walked back to it’s box .
Jeremy realized he couldn’t rewind the box normally. So he stood up, and began to walk. Slowly. Every step, careful not to make a sound, while the Mangle’s two heads twitched around, waiting and searching as the two eyes between them looked in all directions like a chameleon.
(He could swear that fox head had two eyes whenever it stares at him from the dark, but light on the face reveals otherwise…)
Jeremy crept forward, moving towards the puppet’s room. He went to the dead quiet of the room, hardly able to see a thing, and found the music box. Manually winding it up as far as it could go, he sighed in relief as the thankfully soothing music began anew. He turned to return to his office, and his eyes widened as he saw it.
The Puppet.
Standing in front of him.
Jeremy held his breath, as if it would make a different. The Puppet reaches forward, using one finger to lift the mask off of his head and letting it clatter to the ground. Despite the eternal smile on the machine’s face, the eyes seemed full of disdain.
“Erm…I was just, er…rewinding your box! Technical difficulties in the office, you see…” Jeremy said with a nervous laugh, moving towards the door out of the room. The Puppet’s very body rotated with no movement to continuously face him. “It won’t…won’t happen again!”
“Hey, Marion, have you seen-” a jovial, robotic voice says, and Jeremy whips around to see the rosy-cheeked visage of Freddy. Jeremy hadn’t picked his mask back up, and the animatronic’s eyes met his own. “Why, there you are, Mister Jeremy!” The animatronic brought it’s arms forward, and Jeremy winced for the impact, but found himself lifted up. The cold, metallic arms of an animatronic were weirdly good at giving hugs. “Pleasure to meet ya! Sorry, I’m a hugger!” the cartoonish voice of Freddy declared before putting him down. “We’ve been lookin’ all over for ya! The others and I put together a little ‘Welcome’ party! I can’t remember the last time we had a night guard!”
Was this…not a glitch? Jeremy began running through ideas in his head. Maybe…maybe the animatronics were broken before , but they’ve been fixed? Acting like they’re supposed to, now? It’s the only thing he can possibly think of.
“Erm…okay.” he says meekly, still deathly afraid but realizing it may be best to just do whatever the giant robots tell him to do.
“Wonderful! Do you wanna come with, Marion? There’ll be cake!” Toy Freddy suggests.
The Puppet tilts it’s head at Freddy, movements still as limber and weirdly human as ever. It holds up the three fingers on one hand. “Three things, Freddy…” the Puppet spoke for the first time, and Jeremy felt his blood run cold.
That voice was unlike any other animatronic. Through the nights, he had heard their voices. The newer models have prerecorded voice lines that they were designed to stitch together if they had to form new sentences. The old animatronics had the same thing, but the speakers are broken, and all have this underlying static (and occasionally makes it sound like a child is talking at the same time as them). But the Puppet’s voice sounded like it came from a person. No stitched-together lines, no disjointed words, it didn’t even sound like it came from a speaker.
And it sounded like a little girl, but if a little girl was an adult, if that made sense. Was that who they got the voice from? Some child actor that knew how to act like an adult? It just made it sound…creepy.
“One, we do not eat. Two, I have work to do and would request you do not distract the others with this. Three, stop calling me Marion .” It spoke with hatred in the final lines.
“Oh, but what else am I supposed ta call ya?” Freddy asked, seeming to be unaware of how weird this other machine was.
“...nothing.” The Puppet moves past him. “Pretend I don’t exist.”
“Now, I’m a fan of make-believe as much as the next guy, but I’m not so certain-” Freddy begins, and the Puppet looks back at them.
“Don’t you have a party to begin?” the Puppet asked, and Jeremy could swear those eyes flashed green for a second.
Freddy halted, then righted himself. “You…are…” the words sounded like the same emotionless drawl he’s used to hearing come from Freddy. “...right as always!” Freddy went back to his apparently jovial self. “Come on, Mister Jeremy!”
Jeremy had no clue what to think of all of this. He knew these things were advanced, knew they interacted with each other like this in the daytime, he just wasn’t sure how far it went. Didn’t think they did this at night, too. Freddy formally ‘introduced’ him to the other animatronics (the Puppet and those storage animatronics aren’t here, he would wonder to himself) and watched as Chica brought out an ice cream cake. He wasn’t used to seeing her this close without her beak having fallen off.
“I looked around, and this was the only cake I could find!” Chica said. “Welcome to your first day, Mister Jeremy! Feel free to take whatever you don’t eat home!”
“Um…thank you?” Jeremy blinked. He never in a million years thought this could be happening.
Jeremy looked down at the cake, and he felt nervous. He didn’t know why. It just looked…off, somehow. Not poisoned or anything, but the words upon it unsettled him. He felt like he was missing something.
CONGRATULATIONS:
YOU WIN!