The Forgotten Night

Journal Entry: October 22, 2024

We left Willow Creek this morning, the old pizzeria and the Afton Robotics facility receding in the rearview mirror. The drive was silent, each of us lost in our thoughts about what we had uncovered. We’re heading to the next town, where we hope to find more answers about William Afton and his twisted experiments.

By late afternoon, we arrived at a small, nondescript town named Greendale. Our first stop was a local archives office, where we hoped to dig up more information about Afton’s past and any remaining connections to his sinister work.

The archives were run by an elderly woman named Mrs. Hargrove. She was kind but seemed troubled when we mentioned Afton’s name. She told us that there had been rumors about strange occurrences and disappearances linked to him even before the pizzeria opened. Her stories were unsettling, hinting at a pattern of disappearances that seemed to follow Afton wherever he went.

Mrs. Hargrove mentioned a private investigator named John Reynolds who had been looking into Afton’s activities before he vanished a few years ago. She gave us a lead on where we might find Reynolds’ last known address, a small office downtown.

At Reynolds' office, we found it in disarray, with papers and files scattered everywhere. We searched through the mess, looking for anything that could help us. Among the papers, we found detailed notes on Afton’s activities, including a list of locations where Afton had worked or owned businesses. One location stood out: a facility in the neighboring city of Crestwood, which had been shuttered for years.

The notes mentioned something called “The Spring Lock Experiments,” a project Afton had been involved in before his more infamous creations. The idea behind the project seemed to be to develop animatronics with advanced features, capable of both performing and interacting with people in more lifelike ways. But it also hinted at a darker purpose—something to do with "binding souls" and "testing limits."

We decided to follow the lead to Crestwood. It’s a bit of a drive, but we’re determined to uncover the full extent of Afton’s experiments. We’re also hoping to find out more about Reynolds, as his notes could hold crucial information about what happened to him and what he might have discovered about Afton.

Tonight, we’re resting in a motel near Crestwood. The feeling of being so close to another piece of the puzzle is both exciting and nerve-wracking. We’re hoping that what we find next will shed more light on the horrors we’ve already encountered and lead us closer to understanding the full scope of Afton’s legacy.

If we’re lucky, we’ll find something that will help us put an end to this nightmare once and for all. But I’m beginning to worry—what if there’s no end? What if we’re simply uncovering a legacy of horror that can’t be escaped?

- Ethan