Chapter 3 available here
For the first time in a LONG time, Cassie was ecstatic.
For nearly a year, Gregory had left her alone at the orphanage, all by herself, with no friends and an abusive staff. Cassie would spend most of her days either at the orphanage's school, or alone in her room, speaking to no one when she was able to.
Several months ago, during Utah's cold fall, Cassie found out that Gregory, then a homeless child, snuck into a pizza place known as, "Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex," in order to seek shelter, but he was met with an undead serial killer and another one, who was alive. Gregory survived the experience with the help of one of the animatronic mascots.
Now, Gregory had been adopted by the night guard, who also helped him throughout the course of the night. Cassie, while glad for her friend, tried hard to locate Gregory, but to no avail. Many times, she attempted to break out of the orphanage and find Gregory from there. However, there was one problem- Cassie simply couldn't leave.
Ever since Gregory got fed up and left, the orphanage ramped up security to the max. Escape attempt after escape attempt failed the young girl, who grew more and more hopeless. Eventually, she was labeled unfit for adoption by the orphanage, and she was put in some form of solitary. Cassie had since been removed from orphanage records, and now, she was kept as some form of slavery. All she did was chores and sit in class.
One day, in the middle of the summer, Cassie woke up, lying in her rickety bed. The room she was confined to was surrounded by broken, wood walls. Dust ate away at the rough surface of the floors, and the roof had ash and girder dropping to the floor regularly. This building was half a century old, and the decay of the building was a good sign.
Cassie's bed was extremely rough and cold, and the low quality of the mattress was single-handedly responsible for some of the worse sleep of her life. Really, Cassie did not remember a better place she spent her nights at. Cassie was told that she had amnesia, on top of being homeless. The first ten years of her life were a blur. Then, she remembered waking up in the orphanage with Gregory, and spending over a year in this place.
"Ugh. Just another day..." the orphan sighed.
Cassie performed her morning routine, sporting a red sweater and jeans, before walking out of the door to the rest of the orphanage she called a prison. Down a hall with decaying, green walls and dusty, smooth wooden floors, there was a cafeteria for those who ate within these walls.
In the cafeteria, the sound of kids yelling and eating erupted, startling an exhausted and tired Cassie. A very impatient-looking staffer handed her a tray filled with old-looking food. The quality of said items from the kitchen was disgustingly low.
Cassie tried to force the apple slices down her throat, but it was simply too hard to chew. So she decided, once again, to opt out of eating.
"ATTENTION, ALL OF YOU!" a shrill, feminine voice boomed across the cafeteria.
The owner of the voice was that of a woman, the director of the orphanage. She had a loudspeaker in her hand, and this particular device was able to amplify someone's voice to unholy levels of loud.
Silence instantly crossed over the dining hall as everyone looked at the speaker's owner- a short, stocky old lady. None of the orphans knew her full name, but everyone referred to her as "Madam Edwards."
"SETTLE DOWN. Now, we decided to take you all out on a field trip. It was supposed to be today, but it was postponed to tomorrow due to an emergency at the place we're going. Everyone could use the quiet around here, and we don't want you going crazy from being piled up in here all day. But when we go, I expect you to be on your BEST behavior. Trust me, if y'all aren't on your best behavior... there will be consequences," the harsh, frail woman announced, with a noticeable tone of distaste.
Instantly, the noise levels of the old cafeteria surged to an all-time high. The children began to get excited at the prospect of a field trip, an ESCAPE from this disaster of an orphanage. Thoughts of finding Gregory at the restaurant began to race through Cassie's head. If she played her cards right, maybe she could escape!
However, Cassie knew that if she screwed this up and got caught, she may never see the light of day again. Madam Edwards would see to it...
~~~
Freddy was facing a major predicament at the Pizzaplex.
Roxy had been decommissioned, William Afton had been growing more and more paranoid by the hour, and there was a potential threat in the Pizzaplex that could harm any guest who found their way through the doors of the Pizzaplex.
Hoping to solve this mystery and to avoid another Vanny incident, Freddy decided to spend the rest of the day interrogating his father. He was expecting no results to come of it, but something inside the bear animatronic urged him to follow through, that there WERE answers waiting for him.
As Freddy walked through the construction-clad facilities of Roxy Raceway, his mind began to race, thinking about his animatronic friend who had just been destroyed. Roxy, despite being one of the most popular animatronics, did not have an easy life. Roxy had been overridden by Glitchtrap, burnt under a car, rebuilt in a new body, and stuck with all the memories of the night.
Freddy began to realize, that the life of an animatronic was TRULY difficult.
Remembering his animatronic friends, and what he had to do to protect them, Freddy found the door that led to a metallic stairwell, down to a room with shiny, concrete flooring and gray walls with a large, green stripe on each. The room was illuminated by dull, white lights.
On the wall across the bottom of the lime-green stairs, a repaired elevator awaited Freddy to go to the Ruins. Ever since Vanessa rescued Gregory, this place had been under construction for a long time. They fixed the elevator and the structure of the Underground to keep it together and to stabilize the rest of the Pizzaplex.
The bear animatronic recalled what happened after he and his father were stranded under the Pizzaplex. The iciness of the air bit away at the endoskeletons of both Freddy and Afton, and both were plagued by the darkness resulting from a lack of power.
Freddy was broken, could barely see, and only stayed active through Michael Afton's soul. His father was held in place, chains restraining him to the wall. The Blob, an entity unknown to Freddy, guarded the Ruins, ensuring that Afton would never get the chance to leave. Trying to pry answers from William Afton was the only thing that kept Freddy from total nothingness. A few days later, Vanessa finally came to his rescue.
The endless cycle of interrogation and no answers plagued Freddy for the next several months. Freddy never slept or went on recharge, because he never needed to and simply never had the time. Being awake forever, however, was havoc on his mental state. Continuing the same thing over and over again grew dull. The only thing that truly made Freddy happy was Gregory.
It was for the children's sakes that he was doing this, so that they may be safe from whatever evil influence was over the Pizzaplex. But above all, Freddy wanted to give Gregory peace.
While Freddy was deep in his thoughts, he was instinctively driven through the now-repaired Ruins, seeking answers from William Afton. The chasm, instead of a cave, looked much more like a large storage unit. It was far more organized and built-up than the Sinkhole. A hallway, not unlike the design of that from the Endoskeleton Warehouse, led Freddy from the elevator to the dining area of a now-repaired restaurant, the ground clad with checkered tiles and the gray walls holding checkered stripes outlined with red.
To the right of the entrance, there was a metal door with an orange, metallic handle and a tall, rectangular window in the middle. Freddy opened the door, prepared to walk down another stairwell.
Down this green stairwell, rested the cellar where William Afton was restricted to. Once the house of a maze of animatronics, this was a small basement with chains holding the old, rabbit-themed, corpse animatronic in place. The rest of the underground had since been destroyed and filled with concrete. This depth was now the deepest the Pizzaplex would ever go.
"Father. It has been a very eventful day. I wonder if you would like to hear about it?" Freddy asked, his tone giving off no sign that Afton would ever have a say.
The old machine's purple irises were burning with some kind of passion that Freddy knew not to be normal to this animatronic. Instead of his arms tugging away at the chains, the chains were loosely bunched up on the ground, as Afton was standing against the wall. He was frightened.
"What... is the matter?" Freddy asked, concern in his voice that he never felt for his father in DECADES.
"LISTEN TO ME, BOY!" Afton exclaimed, urgency stabbing at the bear animatronic.
"What is the matter, father?!" Freddy asked urgently.
"They're WATCHING me. It's a sign- they will come for me! HE sent them. And they're gonna KILL US ALL!" Afton screamed.
Freddy's jaw was now hanging over the floor. Afton was puzzling, yet scaring him at the same time. He had no idea what Afton was talking about, but it was nothing good. Seeing that he was not going to get any answers from the old fossil, he retreated back up the stairs, preparing to warn Vanessa.
~~~
Driving a sleeping Gregory in the back seat, Vanessa was driving her car to the Pizzaplex. The night guard was annoyed at the circumstances she was in. She didn't work the weekends at the Pizzaplex, only Tuesday through Saturday from midnight to six a.m. But what really concerned her was the circumstances calling her to work anyways.
Roxy apparently self-destructed after a serious malfunction, which meant she spent spend an entire day being repaired. The animatronics suspected a threat was in the Pizzaplex, but their fears haven't been proven. The reason why Vanessa was needed was so she could help the weekend night guard protect the Pizzaplex while Roxy was being repaired overnight, in the hopes that everything would be well when the Pizzaplex opened.
As Vanessa drove through town, she was listening to the radio as it played quietly, which was a habit of hers. Lo and behold, Sunday night's news was about the Pizzaplex.
"The Managers of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria have declared that one of their animatronic mascots, Roxanne Wolf, has suffered a serious malfunction that took an entire day to repair! Thankfully, starting Monday, the Pizzaplex will be open to customers, once again! However, in this short time period, people have already begun to wonder whether the establishment was truly safe. The last time the Pizzaplex was closed for maintenance, William Afton made an unexpected return. But Fazbear Entertainment has reassured their customers that this is perfectly safe for customers."
Hearing the last line, Vanessa rolled her eyes. It was clear as day to anyone that Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria had many abuses in their safety procedures, hygiene, building foundation, and many, MANY other things. If they found out about a dead serial killer being in the basement, then no one would ever come to the Pizzaplex, EVER again.
It wasn't long before Vanessa found her spot in the employee parking lot on the side of the building, before picking up Gregory while he was asleep and entering the Pizzaplex through the front door.
"Officer Vanessa! How great it is to see you!"
Vanessa flinched, before she realized it was Freddy who was speaking to her. The bear animatronic took a sleeping Gregory into his hands, before leading the night guard to the nearby Utility Tunnels.
"So, what's going on?" Vanessa asked as they walked.
"Roxy is in a bad state. The mechanics are staying overnight, repairing her in Parts and Service. As soon as I put Gregory to bed in my room, we need to talk," Freddy said grimly.
Vanessa could that Freddy knew something the others didn't. The information he had was very urgent, too. The silence between the two couldn't be louder, especially at the point where Freddy delivered Gregory to his bed in the back of his Green Room.
"So, what's the problem?" Vanessa asked.
"I went to go speak to my father about today's events. But when I found him, he was absolutely horrified. I haven't seen him this scared since the Blob came for him!" Freddy said.
Vanessa raised her eyebrows at this statement. What could have horrified William Afton THIS badly?
"He told me that something came by. Whatever it was, it never spoke to him, just watched him. And he believes that it was a SIGN. Something terrible is going to happen tonight, Vanessa. I can feel it..." Freddy explained.
"What about Gregory? I brought him here with me. If what your father is saying is right, then Gregory's life is in danger!" Vanessa exclaimed.
"It is. My advice to you? Leave. Come back Monday morning. You can stay if you want, but Gregory must NOT be trapped in this place tonight," Freddy urged.
However, before Vanessa could take Gregory and leave, the announcement came on the loudspeakers that the Pizzaplex was, in fact, closed.
"Oh no..." Freddy said.
"I'll stay here with him. I know every single way out of the building. If push comes to shove, I'll take Gregory and go!" Vanessa reassured.
"Still, our situation is not a good one," Freddy replied.
"Even then, I have a job to do. I'm going to Parts and Service to check on Roxy," Vanessa declared.
"Well, I would like to see how our friend is doing. Maybe she has answers for us!" Freddy agreed.
The two boarded the Service Elevator in the back of Freddy's room, taking it down to Parts and Service. But whenever the two opened the elevator door and walked out to the Cylinder Room, in front of the red double doors, they were greeted by a horrifying sight.
"Welcome! We... are expecting you," a deep, monstrous voice boomed.
Freddy and Vanessa stared in shock and horror at what was waiting for them below. The person waiting for them gave a bloodthirsty grin, showing off his deadly teeth.
"Shall we begin?"