AoN: Countdown to Madness

Release

3rd Person POV

The cafeteria bustled with noise, teens conversing at tables and around the large room. Everyone is going on about their day, not a care in the world that didn't involve them. One particular table was packed, a certain blonde standing off to the side with his arms crossed.

He couldn't have, could he?, the male thought, It'd be completely stupid but—

"Hey babe!", a voice broke his thoughts away, making him look over to a black-haired girl who hugged him tightly.

"I heard the police were talking to you about that fire yesterday.", she said worriedly, "Did they try to charge you with anything?"

The boy pulled a smile and wrapped his arms around her, "Oh, please! They didn't have anything on me. So I talked to some friends around that house, it doesn't prove anything."

"Good. I don't know what I'd do without you."

~~*~~

Josh POV

Man, Freddy was right when he said this place was spacious.

For a horror attraction, this place feels like a maze! Even with the cams making a map, or what I could make out as one, it's hard to find my way around here. At one point, I found myself at some backdoor exit. I even saw a burned, broken up fox-thing hanging on the ceiling and watching me. It didn't seem to talk, so I just left it alone.

Eventually, I finally found the arcade room. Like mostly everything else here, it was dark and had that same green color. The machines looked pretty dusty and had cheesy pictures of some of the robots, one of which being a very prettied-up Chica. I'm not even gonna try and sense of that one.

I go over to a random machine and press a button. The screen seemed to flicker a little before showing what looked like a show stage. It had some 8-bit sprites of a bear, rabbit, and what looks like a duck. Call it a hunch, but I think it's supposed to be the old Freddy Fazbear restaurant.

I move the joystick around, seeing the bear sprite move around the stage. The graphics seem kind of outdated for an arcade machine, not that I'm an expert on them. It just seems kind of weird for the graphics to look like this— not to mention the little two-frame animation the bear sprite has.

I move the sprite down to another screen and get a glimpse of another bear heading down further off-screen. I'm not sure if I like this minigame— if you could call it that. No title screen or anything like that, just a flickering screen and then it just drops me in. It doesn't help with the words "follow me." in white text on the bottom corner.

    As I explore the map more, it doesn't seem that big. There's the stage, a purple curtain area, a few halls, some maintenance room, and an office. The place is pretty deserted, what with the gloomy colors and puddles with water dripping. When I couldn't find anything else worth looking at, I finally follow the purple bear. We ended up going around the map again before going to what I think is the front entrance— one of the exits looking boarded up.

    I move the bear up to the top, but it stops for some reason. The letters "E-R-R"  in the corner and blinking red. I try again, but then some smaller purple sprite comes down and turns the bear into a pile of pieces! The loud noise doesn't help with my racing heart, nor does the entire screen flashing before going black. God, my head hurts...

I step back a little and rub my eyes, my head throbbing more as my vision starts to blur.

"Now you're going to start caring."

Who is that? It sounds familiar.

"Says you, you don't know them the way I do..."

Wait a minute...

"Your so-called friends won't be around for long."

I let out a sharp growl, "Jack..."

"Who's Jack?"

I didn't jump at the voice, looking over to see a really skinny guy floating near one of the arcade machines, the same burnt look as some of the other phantoms.