Work Text:
Michael Afton sat in his cramped office, thoughtfully twirling a wrench in his hands.
The dim light of the desk lamp illuminated his tired face, and his violet eyes slid lazily across the monitor screens, where the cameras were broadcasting the same empty, gloomy corridors of the pizzeria.
The creak of the old fan and the steady hum of the equipment intensified the evening routine. He should have bought a portable console to keep him from dying of boredom.
Michael had just about resigned himself to another boring shift when something went wrong.
First, the lights began to flicker.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly-as if the lights were shaking from bad voltage. It happened in this old building, and Michael had experienced electrical problems many times before. He didn't pay attention right away, still twisting the key in his hands, but suddenly the lights went out completely.
The lights went out, and never came back on.
And the room plunged into darkness.
“No,” he muttered through gritted teeth, jumping up sharply from his chair, “No, no, no. It's only the beginning of the night.”
The blacked out monitor in front of him didn't bode well.
An unpleasant itch of unease began to grow. Not only was there no electricity in his office, but the entire pizzeria was in darkness. Monitors, lights, security systems - everything went out.
Michael listened intently into the surrounding darkness, hearing only the distant mechanical clicks somewhere in the distance.
“Great, just GREAT. How am I going to make it to the end of my shift now?” ran through his head.
He glanced at his watch – it was about fifteen minutes before his shift started.
Michael couldn't imagine how to make it through the night with no cameras, no lights... no protection.
His fingers gripped the wrench tighter.
Michael fumbled desperately for a flashlight in his desk drawer. He turned it on and directed the weak beam sideways, illuminating part of the office. The flashlight's light was weak, but it allowed him to make out the nearest objects. Michael breathed a sigh of relief at having some source of light.
In the darkness, a flashlight flickered across the walls of the office, illuminating old, shabby posters of animatronics. Those once-cute creatures now looked like sinister shadows, taunting Michael.
Trying not to panic, Michael left the office and headed down the hallway.
He knew he needed to go to the back room backstage and try to restore power. Without power, the security system wouldn't work.
The corridors of the room were eerily quiet. Every step, the clatter of shoes echoed on the walls. The black-and-white tiles underfoot were slippery from water leaks from the ceiling.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
KNOCK!
Michael froze, listening.
A faint sound came to him out of the gloom, as if someone or something was moving nearby. The sound was coming from somewhere near the arcade room.
It couldn't be an animatronic, since the night shift hadn't started yet. A glance at the clock confirmed that there was still plenty of time, and the animatronic activation was not due to begin.
Cautiously Michael made his way toward the room from where the strange sounds were coming from.
Soon Michael reached the door and stopped, listening. There were faint sounds coming from inside the room. Someone or something was in there. When he finally decided to open it, he froze in shock.
Inside the room sat a man. A living man.
“How did this man end up here?”
A young man in a purple shirt and pants lay on the floor, among the debris and dilapidated equipment. A faint moan escaped his lips. The man struggled to his feet, standing with his back to Michael and holding onto the edge of one of the slot machines.
“Who are you? Where did you come from?”
At that moment, the man turned around, a look of utter surprise on his face. He froze in place, his eyes widening with shock at the sight of Michael.
“Wow,” the man muttered. “You look creepy in that bear mask.”
For a moment, Michael felt his breath catch. A breath he hadn't had in decades.
A younger man stood before him, almost an exact replica of himself, but in much better physical shape and with a youthful charm.
It was him, a younger “him” from the days when he had gone in search of his missing father. Seeing this man gave Michael a painful and bitter sense of nostalgia.
“You're shining a light in my eyes, buddy,” Michael-2 muttered, trying to cover himself with his hand.
Michael, confused and shocked, could only stare silently at his young reflection as if it were something incomprehensible.
“Before I woke up here, I was at work...” he said, looking around. “My name is Michael. Michael Afton. Who are you? How did I end up here?”
Yes, this was getting really strange and even a little disturbing. Michael had never encountered versions of himself before, and seeing himself young and healthy, as he had been before the tragedy with Ennard, was scary.
In order not to get tangled up in his own thoughts and memories, Michael decided to give his younger self a different name - Eggs Benedict.
It was the name given to him in the underground “Circus Baby Entertainment Center and Rental Office” designed to store robotic animatronics. A place Michael couldn't get out of in one piece, with all his insides and his stomach intact.
Michael grimaced and said with slight irony:
“Well, I'm Michael, too. Like you said, Michael Afton,” he grinned slightly. “Nice to meet you, that's all.”
Eggs looked at him in surprise. Michael sighed and glanced quickly at the watch on his wrist.
“Look, I wasn't going to deal with that shit,” he said dryly. “I've got more important things to do right now. I've got to fix the problem with the lights, or we're not going to make it through the night.”
Michael took a quick step toward the room's exit. Eggs, visibly confused and bewildered, followed Michael, trying to keep up.
“Wait, buddy” he tried to catch up with him. “I don't understand what's going on.”
Michael, without stopping, nodded to him without turning around:
“We'll figure it out as we go along. Right now, it's all about the light.”
When they left the room, Eggs began to quickly shake his head from side to side, looking around dazedly at the familiar scenery.
“This pizzeria... it's a lot like the one I used to go to when I was a kid,” he said, his voice trembling slightly.
Michael stood in front, lantern in hand, and nodded grimly.
“It was. It's an old pizzeria,” he began. “…was built a long time ago, and nothing's changed since then. And it doesn't look very good, to say the least.”
Mentally, Michael added what he didn't want to say out loud: “It was supposed to be a joyful place where kids would eat pizza, adults would relax and enjoy the time. But that's not how it turned out. The place became a haven for a child killer.”
He clenched his palms into fists.
The past was resurfacing like an old wound.
“Okay. So, the security profession?” the man's voice broke through the darkness of his thoughts, breaking the heavy silence.
The tension in his shoulders eased. Michael turned to Eggs and struggled to get the words out:
“Yeah. It's my job. And as you can see, it's not the easiest.”
Eggs, looking at Michael with disgust, continued:
“If it were up to me, I'd get out of here right now.”
Well, for once, Michael couldn't disagree with the younger version of himself.
But suddenly Eggs Benedict stopped. There was a hesitation in his gaze, as if he were about to ask an important question but could not find the right words.
“Michael... ” he began cautiously, “…about our father. Do you know anything about him? Where is he now? What happened to him?”
Michael tensed at hearing that question. He wasn't ready to discuss their father, much less with himself. Silence was also the answer.
Suddenly there was a deafening rumble.
The noise was so sharp and sudden that it echoed throughout the pizzeria, making both men wince.
Following the rumbling sound came an eerie scream. It didn't sound like a child or an adult-something strange, like it was coming from a creature between two ages.
Michael turned sharply away from his younger version.
“What was that?” Eggs asked, clearly frightened. He took a step back, looking around nervously.
Michael kept his composure and stared silently into the darkness. For a few seconds he tried to comprehend what was happening before he answered briefly:
“It's no good. But we need to check it out.”
Without waiting for an answer, Michael took a quick step toward the room where animatronic parts and other old junk were stored.
Eggs paused for a moment, but then, suppressing his fear, hurried after the older version of himself. He didn't want to be alone.
Opening the door of the room, Michael froze again in amazement.
In front of him, among the dust and scattered parts, lay another Michael Afton, or just Mike. This time it was a teenager, about sixteen years old. His plain gray T-shirt and shorts were stained with dust, the nails on his hands were painted black, and the mask on his head had fallen to the side, covering part of his face.
This Mike looked fearfully at the huge animatronic endoskeleton that appeared to have collapsed right next to him. Part of the hull pressed Mike to the floor, preventing him from getting up.
A sense of deja vu flashed through Michael's mind as he watched the scene.
“Somewhere, I've seen this before...”
There were three of them now. Each version of himself, like a reminder of past mistakes, as if they were all here to remind him that you can't escape fate.
There was a small hope that this Mike would be easier to deal with than Eggs Benedict, and the kid wouldn't cause much trouble.
Lying among the dust, Michael-3, noticing the entrant, shouted loudly:
“HELP ME! Get this damn thing off me!”
Hope left as quickly as it had appeared.
Michael looked at the teenager, who was panicking as he tried to free himself, and suddenly felt a strange sense of bitter irony. A smile slid across his lips, but it quickly faded. It was strange - he had once been the boy who had laughed at others, mocked and taunted, and now this teenager, another version of himself, lay helplessly beneath the crude machine, begging for help.
“Now, now, don't yell,” Michael said tiredly, heading toward the teenager, but there was no rush or warmth in his voice.
At that moment, the door opened again, and Eggs Benedict came into the room, breathing hard from running fast.
“You could have waited for me, pal.”
But as soon as Eggs saw Mike lying on the floor, he immediately froze on the threshold and his face turned pale.
“I... That boy... is that us...?” he mumbled, staring at the teenager dazedly, as if he'd seen a ghost.
“Will you help me lift this endoskeleton?” Michael asked, nodding at the heavy metal structure that was crushing the teenager.
Eggs Benedict slowly agreed and together with Michael they lifted the heavy metal, freeing the familiar boy.
“Finally!” Mike said with irritation as the metal retreated, releasing him. The teenager was visibly relieved to be on his feet, rubbing his shoulder, but his eyes suddenly froze as he scrutinized the faces of his rescuers.
It was strange to see himself young from the outside. Michael gazed at the teenager in front of him and silently considered the sloppy clothes, the disheveled hair, the black-painted fingernails. He then shifted his gaze to Eggs, and then slowly touched his face.
“Did I really look like this once?”
As time passed, his memory began to fail him. Gradually, memories faded away, and Michael began to forget once important things.
“Wait...” the teenager's face stretched, and he looked at both of them suspiciously. “I've seen you somewhere. Have we met before?”
Michael sighed tiredly, closing his eyes for a second. The situation seemed absurd, and he didn't want to dive into explanations - there were too many thoughts and feelings crowding his mind.
“Long story,” Michael replied briefly.
Eggs decided to lend a hand to the older version and calmly explained:
“We're all you. Just from different times.”
Mike rounded his eyes. His mouth opened slightly, and he exclaimed with growing surprise:
“What? How is that possible? Are you kidding me, man?”
Mike's voice was a mixture of panic and disbelief. His eyebrows were drawn together, and his hands were clenched tightly at his sides. His face was thoughtful and tense for a few seconds as he tried to squeeze what he'd heard into a frame of reference.
Soon, however, a youthful self-confidence appeared on the teenager's face. Mike grinned, his finger pointing nonchalantly at Eggs:
“Oh, so I'm gonna be as handsome as you?”
Eggs rolled his eyes at such words to himself. The young man's face was a mixture of boredom and disappointment, as if he had just heard the most banal and stupid joke.
Then the teen frowned, stopping his gaze on Michael:
“What about your mask? Why are you wearing it?”
Michael felt annoyed that it was already the second person to point out his mask. Silently, he pointed to Mike's mask in the form of his former favorite animatronic, Foxy, which hung on the boy's head.
“You wear a mask, too. Don't ask too many questions, and we'll get along.”
As an adult, Michael thought about how his life could have been easier if he had just taken the day off that day.
“How many more versions of himself will he encounter? And why do they all end up here in this pizzeria?”
Irritated, Mike kicked the old spare parts lying on the floor with his foot and said in disgust:
“These animatronics are really creepy. I've never seen them before. I came here because I was playing with my friends, we were playing hide and seek in a pizza place... But suddenly the lights went out and I accidentally stepped on one of the robots. And then this old thing fell on me.”
As they stepped out into the hallway, Mike stumbled over the door sill, causing a torrent of profanity to come out of his mouth.
The swearing and the mat made Eggs grimace.
“Oh, you're such a foul-mouthed swearer,” said Eggs, cringing at the sound of the swear words. “Didn't anyone wash your mouth with soap when you were a kid?”
To this Mike replied with a note of hostility:
“In fact, we had the same childhood, if you think about it that way.”
Michael was the only one who knew the way, so he walked ahead. He left the other two Michaels behind, the conversation between them quickly turning into an argument.
In his thoughts, Michael tried to calculate the difference in their ages.
“Five, ten years, fifteen...?”
“You know, kiddo,” Egg began, his voice harsh and mocking. “You won't even finish high school.”
Mike did not hold back, and in response to this accusation, he flared up. His face reddened with anger.
“Yeah, what have you old men done with your lives? You work for pennies and tread in this swamp!” Mike's voice was loud and irritated. “And anyway, if I'm you, then you're me, so you're also...”
The teenager's words fell silent as Michael cast a cold glance at him. The answer was short and not very encouraging:
“Exactly. You're the problem.”
Michael, feeling his patience wearing thin, couldn't help himself. He was about to say something else to settle the conflict when suddenly there was a scraping of metal in the hallway.
Grinding. Grinding.
The sound was sharp and ominous, and Michael realized that something was wrong. Looking at the watch on his arm, he felt dread creeping into every corner of his mind-perhaps they were already too late.
It was the time of the beginning of his shift.
Michael turned around and opened his mouth to order the others to be quiet. If they could be quiet and inconspicuous, they could avoid the killer robots.
Before he could say a word, however, Mike grabbed the flashlight from Michael's hands and ran forward with a look of determination on his face. All they could do was stare at the teenager's legs.
“Old men, catch up, if you're so smart!” he shouted without turning around.
Mike didn't slow down, his figure rushing toward the corner of the corridor. As he turned right, he disappeared from sight. Surprised, Michael and Eggs rushed after him, their footsteps echoing down the empty corridor.
“What a fool,” muttered Eggs, running.
Deciding to tease his older versions a bit, Mike ran and could barely contain his laughter.
Right, left, then right again. Mike didn't bother to memorize where he was turning, or which corridor he was going down.
The fox mask that Mike had been hoping for fell from his face, but he didn't even notice it, continuing down the corridor without sensing danger. Suddenly he tripped over something on the floor and stopped, muttering curses.
“That sucks!”
But when his gaze dropped downward, he saw not just a nuisance, but something that looked like it had escaped from some horror movie - down there was a seemingly rather cute pink robot in the shape of a cupcake.
After a moment, the animatronic opened its eyes, which began to glow in the darkness. The light of those eyes was cold and dead.
The cheerful mood was replaced by anxiety and terror. Mike froze with fear, not knowing what to do.
Why was one of his dad's creations acting like a living thing?
“What if it was really alive?”
When the animatronic, with its sinister twinkling eyes, was ready to pounce on Mike, Eggs appeared out of nowhere. The guy was holding an iron pipe, which crashed into the animatronic's face with a loud thud.
The impact was powerful and so strong that the animatronic flew off like a puppet and hit the wall with a thud before falling to the floor.
Eggs Benedict, wasting no time, reached out and grabbed Mike. They rushed swiftly in the direction Michael had indicated.
Mike, shaking with fear, followed them, trying not to make a single unnecessary sound. Once hidden, Eggs and Michael quickly gagged Mike, ordering him not to make a sound.
“Shh, don't move.”
There was the sound of footsteps in the hallway. It was deceptively monotonous, but there was a threat lurking in it. Eggs and Michael lurked behind the curtain, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. Michael, thank God, was not concerned. For him, not breathing was a simple and natural state.
Through the fabric of the curtain, they watched the animatronic slowly pass by. The robot's glowing eyes flashed in the darkness as the only source of light. Soon the light was gone, as the robot set off to roam the pizzeria.
When the noise gradually subsided, the men slowly removed their hands from Mike's mouth.
“What the hell was that!” Mike exhaled, returning to a calmer state. His voice shook with fear. “And why was it moving like a living thing?”
“They're old animatronics,” Michael explained. “They can be activated, and if we're unlucky, they'll come after us.”
Intervening, Eggs looked at Mike with a serious expression:
“It's too early for you to know,” Eggs said with a note of concern in his voice. Then he turned to Michael, his face stern and uncomprehending. “But why are you still working with them?”
Michael only shrugged his shoulders.
“Not that I have a choice. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do.”
Those words were like a confession of something intimate.
Eggs, deciding not to continue the conversation, was the first to get up from the floor. He was quickly followed by Mike, who was still a little scared after his encounter with the cupcake. Reaching out his hand, Eggs helped Michael to stand up.
“We're where we planned to be,” Michael said, getting to his feet with a grunt. Age was really taking its toll, and every movement was getting harder.
“I didn't know there was anyone else here besides us,” Mike said as an excuse for his stupid act. He was finally able to calm down and return to his former manner, full of self-confidence and youthful enthusiasm. “What do we do now?”
“First of all, we need to turn on the lights,” Michael answered, looking around. “There must be a switch somewhere among the junk and old spare parts...”
Michael began groping the wall, trying to find the right switch among the pile of old parts and dust. Michael's fingers slid along the cold surface of the wall. The flashlight, had been handed to him by Mike after his little prank.
They had only just managed to save the boy from a robot that had nearly chewed half his face off. Michael hummed. “Well, that'll be a lesson to the kid.”
At that time, Mike, realizing how tired he was getting, plopped down on the nearest chair. His body relaxed, as if all the tension and stress that had been building up over the past few hours had suddenly come crashing down on him.
Eggs Benedict, looking around and eyeing Michael, said thoughtfully:
“Hey, Michael. Is there anything Mike and I should know?”
Like a bolt of lightning, Egg's question cut through the tense silence, and Michael froze, his hands resting on the wall. The question came out of the blue.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” continued Eggs, “…you're acting strange. Why are you still staying here in this old pizza place? Why are you still dealing with all these animatronics?”
Mike, sitting nearby, couldn't stand it and wryly remarked:
“In short, why are you acting like a complete moron who can't get out of this hole?”
Benedict slapped Mike on the back of the head. The teenager shrieked in surprise and touched the back of his head, where a painful mark remained. Then the outrage began:
“Hey! Are you out of your mind? Just come over here and I'll give you a good punch!” Mike lowered his head and nodded toward Eggs. “But yeah, he's actually right.”
“If you have something you want to tell us, I'm all ears,” continued Eggs. “It seems to me that if you told us what led up to this, we could change the future. You know. Your future. Our future.”
Maybe Eggs was right and if he told the whole truth, maybe the past could be changed.
But Michael finally found the switch and put his hand on it.
“No. There's nothing to tell.”
Eggs nodded silently, no judgment in his voice:
“All right. Then how about you, Mike…”
The room was filled with a flickering, dim light.
And the loud hum of the old ventilation system began to fill the space.
Michael turned around, already pondering what he should do next. The two younger versions shouldn't have been in this cursed place for long. But how to bring them back?
At that moment, when he was completely absorbed in planning, his gaze slid across the room and settled on nothing. Michael looked around, trying to find them, as if his eyes could fish them out of thin air, but the room remained as empty as before.
The realization came: Eggs and Mike were gone.
The only Michael Afton left in the room. He's the one.