1983

1983, November

"... Hello..?" Charlotte asked meekly, looking from the big security camera on the inside of the restaurant to the security device that she had watched her father build. It was midnight, and as the sun prepared to establish dominance over America, her six-year-old body shivered in the cold outside. She had tried the door, but it wouldn't open- someone had locked it, but it wasn't supposed to be locked. She jumped up and down in front of the window, waving her hands wildly... she quickly lost the energy required to jump.

Charlotte wept quietly, wondering for how long she would be out here in the rain before her father- or at least someone- noticed her out in the rain and let her back inside. Suddenly, the side of the diner was lit up with bright lights, like floodlights. But they were the lights of a car, a purple car, specifically a model 1983 Ford Thunderbird, but, of course, Charlotte didn't know that. She smiled with tears and raindrops slipping down her cheeks, and waved to the man who stepped out.

But she suddenly stopped waving as she saw that the tall, built man was holding a knife. She froze there, her arms suspended in the air, hoping the man couldn't see her; after all, his face was silhouetted against the car's bright lights- maybe he couldn't see her. But, no, of course he did, and Charlotte knew he did. She was dead-center in the middle of the car's headlights.

I'm going to die, she thought, as the man walked toward her. He put a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face the inside of the diner. What is he doing?

And the last thing that Charlotte saw before her own slaughter were the eyes of Henry Emily's security puppet, staring back at her. Then the man dropped her limp body off behind a couple of trash cans, and got back into his car, quickly driving off; leaving her like a meaningless piece of trash. Charlotte Emily's cheeks became stained with gray tears, dead tears, that not even the rain could wash away.

Mark opened his eyes, looking at the cameras ahead of him. He saw a purple car driving away through the check-in counter's window. Mark decided to leave the office to talk to Henry. As he did, though, he saw the car, again, pulling out of the parking lot; the man in purple was looking at him through the rearview mirror and the diner's window. And then he drove away.

Mark shook his head, and tapped Henry on the shoulder. "Sir?" he asked.

Henry looked at him with a bright smile; he must be entertained by these customers, and judging by the parents he talked to, that clearly went both ways. "What is it, Mark?" he asked brightly.

"Sir, I think we should be... concerned about something outside," Mark said, grasping at words in the dark of the brightly-lit diner.

"Concerned?" Henry asked, his face turning cross. "How so?"

"There was a car outside the diner. Just sitting there, and when I looked through the window on the camera, the driver pulled away and left the parking lot; but he was looking back at me, Mr. Emily."

"Hmm..." Henry thought. "Show me where the car was," he said, then looked apologetically at the customers. "We'll get back to that conversation," he chuckled.

And then Mark led him out of the diner. Henry had to lift up his Fredbear's Family Diner coat- golden-yellow, of course- to block the heavy rain. Mark stopped dead in his tracks as he turned the corner.

"Mr. Emily!" Chandar yelled.

"What is it?!" Henry called back, barely audible over the sounds of cracking lightning and a seemingly infinite rain.

"A child!" Mark exclaimed.

"Let's bring them back inside, then!"

"... Sir, you don't understand," Mark said, barely a whisper, though Henry could hear him by now.

Henry looked onwards, at the two trash cans... there was Charlotte Emily, a bloody wound in her back that faced the sky, and the broken security puppet, sparking violently, its body over hers. And Henry cradled his daughter, his daughter whose soul nearly reached heaven, but still lingered nearby, in a machine just as broken and just as scarred as herself in New Harmony, Utah.

A town where, nearby, an intelligent man had evaded the soul of Charlotte Emily just before she awoke again. And in his evasion, the intelligent man slaughtered an innocent animal in order to make his way to safety. And he took the slaughtered animal with him as he made his way back home.

An Excerpt From...

1985

William Afton calmly rested his palm on a small stack of pictures. Through the cracks of his pale fingers, the Brit saw his best friend's face- Henry Emily's face- breaking through the neck of a Fredbear costume. He pushed the stack to the very right edge of the table, then looked at the blueprints in front of him. They modeled those of metallic animals. Symmetrical wires laced around the animatronics' skeletons, looking like the muscular system of a human body.

First, there was one of a humanoid fox. The wiring in its thighs and lower legs looked like fishnet clothing, and its bare torso was strongly built. A booming speaker was traced over its chest, alongside a bowtie that peaked just below the neck. A ruff of hair poked out at the top of the fox's head, and it had two pointy ears. Its arms were slim compared to the legs, especially with the future plating that William planned to install, which he had also traced over the animal's skeleton. It had blush in its cheeks, made from pink, plastic balls that could be installed into the head to exaggerate the pink cheeks. Its fingers were long, polished white; the fingernails were even longer, and polished even more strongly, to be decorated a hot pink. Finally, there was a metallic tail to be installed at the back of the animatronic's slim waist; a border was made near the tip of the tail, marking where it would transition from that polished white into a dark purple color for its tip. There were a couple of notes that Afton had hand-written off to the side of the sheet:

Name: Funtime Foxy; Height: 5.9 feet; Weight: 200 lbs.

He had written more, body-specific notes below these statistics. For example, the head (identified as, "A") was noted as being a, "Light-activation sensor".

The second one William had titled, "Funtime Freddy". It looked like Fredbear; it was bulky like him, tall like him, and heavy like him. However, this robotic bear animatronic was six feet flat and weighed 350 pounds... much larger than the original golden bear. The biggest difference, however, was the hand puppet that Funtime Freddy had attached to his right hand. It was stuck in a brightly-smiling, waving pose.

But there was something else special about this robotic bear. Aside from the facial plates that William had lightly outlined over the thing's skull, it had two layers of wiring protecting its head. The inner skull looked like a thick, human head; it had fewer wires covering its insides. The second, outer skull, however, had wiring that basically acted as solid, metallic plates. This bear's joints were stiffer than the fox's, too, and bigger. The animatronic had plush on its cheeks, too- just like the fox's. Again, they were plastic balls, hot pink, protruding from the outer facial plates of the thing's head.

But even outside of all of that, there was something even more special about this bear... the cavity in the stomach, just big enough for a human to be kept inside.

William Afton looked at the last two blueprints, but...

No.

He calmly picked up all four blueprints, aligning them together with the help of the wooden desk he was sat at, then calmly rested the four blueprints into a drawer to his left; like burying your own child, he gently closed the drawer, not letting one sound emit from it. He stood up from the stool and walked to the edge of the room, into the darkness. His one lantern only lit up the desk, and now he waited in the shadows, before opening the door- the gate- that led to the outside of his obsessions. Leaving the room, William Afton locked the door to his workspace, and slipped into bed next to his wife.

His child was sleeping in just the other room... William Afton smiled, but then his smile faded minutes later as he slipped into a nightmare of her death.