Five Nights at Freddy's: The Lost Souls [Reboot Book 1]

Chapter 11: The Workshop

The elevator doors slowly opened, revealing an industrial facility beneath the Pizzeria. It was a labyrinth of metal and computers. Many partially built animatronics littered the location. Many were twitching and spasming.

It dawned on me that the previous night guards were likely trapped in these unfinished animatronics.

At the center was a stage with four fully completed animatronics. On the left was a version of Freddy I hadn't seen before. He was white and pink, and clearly made of different material. On his right hand was a Bonnie puppet. On the right of the stage was a version of Foxy. It had the same design scheme as the new Freddy. It had a bow tie and gave the vibe of a sort of announcer or performer instead of a pirate.

At the back was a blue and white ballerina with her eyes closed. The design seemed more adult than the rest. She spun slowly, eternally. Lastly, at the forefront was a clown girl with red pigtails and green eyes. She held a microphone.

Out of those four, the front one seemed to be the only alive one. She looked at me and William as we entered.

William strapped me to a table. The clown girl walked up and looked down at me. “Hello, Mike,” she said in a familiar voice.

It was a girl's voice with a British accent. I recognized it as Elizabeth's voice, the girl I'd met at the library.

“Elizabeth?” I asked. “I thought you were a human!”

William cackled. “Oh you're quite mistaken. Elizabeth here has been watching you for a long while now. You may be confused, so allow me to show you how.”

Elizabeth stepped back. There were a series of pins on her animatronic body that closed in on her. The plating on her compressed in a way that gave her the shape and form of an adult woman. She still had the clown aesthetic though.

She then pressed something on her chest that let out a quiet humming, her form then changing into that of the Elizabeth that I knew.

“What the hell?” I exclaimed. “What's this sci-fi bullshit?”

“It's an illusion,” William explained. “With a combination of sound frequencies and Elizabeth's animatronic body, she can create the illusion of being a human girl.”

“Will we be killing him now, father?” She asked, sounding too eager.

“Not yet,” he answered. “Bring me a syringe of remnant.”

She walked away slowly. William looked down at me. I noticed now that his movements were stiff, and precise. For whatever reason, the suit made him unable or unwilling to move more fluidly.

Elizabeth came back with a syringe and handed it to William. He took it and looked at it, examining it before looking at me. “This is going to hurt,” he said with a chuckle.

He suddenly injected the syringe into my chest. A superheated substance was injected inside me. I cried out in pain as the fluid was dispersed into my bloodstream.

“What the hell is this?!” I exclaimed in agony.

“Remnant,” William stated. “It's a superheated substance made from metal possessed by souls.”

The burning soon subsided and I was able to relax a little now. I caught my breath and glared at him. “What's going to happen to me?” I asked.

“If all goes well, you should survive,” William explained. “But, this test will not be pleasant for you.”

He reached over and grabbed a cleaver of sorts. He examined it and then looked at me. “Try not to bite your tongue off.”

He brought the cleaver down on my wrist, slicing it clean off. I cried out and thrashed in my bindings. I looked at my now severed hand, blood pouring from the wound. “You son of a bitch!” I screamed.

My wrist was in agonizing pain. Before I could do anything else, William took my severed hand and held it to my wrist. I watched as he did, clenching my teeth.

To my surprise, my wrist slowly started to reconnect to my hand. The skin reattached itself, my bone fused back together and I regained movement of my hand. The pain also subsided completely.

Elizabeth clapped excitedly. “It worked father!”

“Seems so,” William replied to her. “It seems we're one step closer to bringing your brother back to us…”

I panted and caught my breath once again. The pain was gone now and I squeezed my fingers together. “Was cutting off my hand necessary?” I asked.

“You took that well Mike,” William replied. “The last guy died of shock. And to answer you, yes it was necessary.”

He leaned close. “You've done well so far. Endure this and you may get a chance to live through this.”

As he said that, I saw sitting behind him was the slumping Golden Freddy costume. It was clear that only I could see it. It was shaking and squirming in place. It was as if it wanted to move, but was unable.

The next few hours were unbearable. He performed multiple tests on me, removing my hands, feet, fingers and other parts of me. Making sure to reattach them each time. I became numb to the pain eventually. I could only assume he was testing the potency of what he injected me with. Cassidy, in her Golden Freddy visage, watched. She appeared to get angrier and angrier.

The room began to shake violently and the lights shut off. William dropped his cleaver and stomped his way out of the room. Elizabeth followed him out.

It was quiet. As I laid there alone, the sound of the elevator doors opening invaded my ears. I looked over slowly as they opened completely.

Standing there was Charlie. She was crutching her wound in her hand. Blood leaked down, but despite this, she endured and made her way to me. She limped slowly and stood over me on the operating table.

“Mike, thank God you're ok…” she said between pained breaths.

“You need to run,” I said. “Get out of here.”

“Not without you,” she replied as she unlatched me from the table. She helped me up. I put my arm around her to hold her upright.

“How'd you get the power off?” I asked.

“I didn't do that,” she stated.

I looked back over at Cassidy, who'd disappeared. She was the one who did this. Somehow she was able to help Charlie save me.

We limped to the elevator. As we stepped inside just as the lights came back on. I hurriedly pressed the start button for the elevator to go up. The doors closed and the elevator ascended slowly.

“What did he do to you?” Charlie asked as the elevator went up.

“I think it's best we talk about this later,” I said as the elevator stopped at the top. It opened slowly.

Standing before us were the animatronics. Their eyes were red, from William’s control. We were cornered.

They stared at us. There was no way for us to escape this now. We were trapped.