Work Text:
This place creeps Mike out. The dark lit hallways, the vintage walls, and the patterned floor. The office he’s confined to doesn’t help the impression of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza either. The fan squeaks annoyingly with every turn and doesn’t seem to have an off button. Old trash litters the desk from whoever was here before Mike.
His father’s business has barely changed since Mike was here last, and he can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not. Mike barely knows why he decided to work here despite his vow to never return. Sure Mike needs money, the rent on his apartment got raised, but surely there’s more than just that to justify working the night shift at the place where your father practically abandoned all of his children for and where your younger brother got killed. Maybe it’s to get closer to Evan or to dad. Maybe it’s because Mike needs to repent or some shit for how involved he was in Evan’s death. Maybe it’s because Mike will always be a part of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza whether he wants to be or not. That’s a depressing thought.
The clock on the far side of the desk ticks over to a new hour, now reading six a.m. Thank god. Time for Mike to leave this hellhole. His first day-- or rather night-- on the job wasn’t too bad. The animatronics only walked around a little, never coming all the way up to the door to the office, but that doesn’t stop Mike from almost having several heart attacks. He doesn’t remember the animatronics moving around when the restaurant was closed. Although he was younger then, and the guy on the phone explains that it’s normal. (Sure doesn’t sound that way.)
Mike stands from stool he’s been sitting in for the past six hours, and makes his way to the exit of the restaurant. The animatronics have all returned to their assigned places, and the curtain to Pirate Cove has fully closed. Yet, Mike feels as if someone… or something… is watching him. He elects to ignore the feeling as he gets out the keys and unlocks and swings open the front door to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
As Mike walks through the now open door, his foot should fall onto cracked pavement, but instead, it lands back on the checkered tile floor of the office. His keys are no longer in his hands, either, but rather back where they were in his back pants pocket.
What… is going on?
Mike spins around widely. There’s nothing new in the office. It’s the same one that he had just left. Then Mike’s eyes land on the digital clock. It reads midnight, not six in the morning.
Mike nearly jumps out of his skin when the phone rings and the recorded message starts playing.
“Uhh, hello? Hello? Uh, well, if you're hearing this and you made it to day two, uh, congrats!” the voice says.
Wait, that isn’t the same as last time. It isn’t his second night, it’s only his first. The phone guy said so at the beginning of Mike’s shift. Mike stares at the phone as if it holds all of the answers he desires.
“I-I won't talk quite as long this time since Freddy and his friends tend to become more active as the week progresses,” he continues in bad quality.
As the week progresses? Does this mean that Mike is actually in his second day? This is so confusing. Mike leaves the recorded message to its rambling and exits the office. He doesn’t make it a few steps down the barely lit hallway before he sees a large silhouette. Bonnie stares Mike dead in the eyes. He takes a hesitant step backwards and suddenly, Bonnie rushes at him. Mike scrambles back into the office and slams his fist into the button that closes the door. Heavy metal slams shut, and Bonnie bangs angrily on the other side. Mike pants and stares at the door in shock.
“I don't know. Anyway, I'm sure you have everything under control! Uh, talk to you soon,” phone guys says before the audio clicks off.
Mike suddenly feels like he has never had less control in his life. Not even when he was shoving Evan’s head into the mouth of a jolly old animatronic and the jaws clamped down.
< < = > >
Mike doesn’t think about his family a whole lot. He knows that’s probably not a good thing, but remembering his family makes him remember his childhood which holds a lot of trauma. Both Elizabeth and Evan died in the same year, with Mike’s sister mysteriously disappearing and Mike himself practically murdering Evan in his own teenage stupidity. God Mike hates that version of himself. Then mom and dad split up as dad got more involved in his work. Mike moved out as soon as he could, only keeping in touch with his mom. William doesn’t even try to call Mike.
But as Mike struggles to stay alive in a job that should simply be watching cameras and making sure no one breaks into an only family restaurant, he starts thinking about them all quite often. Mike talks to Evan even though he’s not there (probably a side effect of the hallucinations Mike seems to be seeing). He misses Elizabeth and his mom, wishing he looked harder for his sister and didn’t move out of his mom’s house quite yet. And Mike loathes his father. He hates the man for creating whatever the fuck these animatronics are. For establishing a restaurant for families that eventually drove his own six feet under.
Mike should probably get a therapist. Especially after this. That is, if he survives this.
He quickly checks the camera, taking note of the battery in the corner. One in the third night, Mike ran out and had to sprint to the door with Freddy chasing behind him. He had barely made it out that time. Mike’s back was mutilated by one swipe of Freddy’s paw. He doubts he could have lived through another.
The nice thing about the resets is that Mike returns to the office without any injuries. However, if he doesn’t actually finish the shift at six, he’ll be stuck in the same day until he does so.
Yeah, it’s like a game. An annoying and deadly game. A loop that Mike can never progress through unless he does what he came here to do: work a six hour night shift in the restaurant that Mike’s dad co-established. Apparently with murderous animatronics.
It was nice (albeit a bit irritating at times) to hear the phone guy with every restart, but he didn’t make it past night four. Now Mike is truly alone. The animatronics don’t count.
Mike hears something from outside the hallway and quickly closes the door. Once during the third night, he wasn’t quick enough, and Foxy had rushed into the office and nearly tore Mike’s arm off with his hook. Mike was lucky enough to be able to kick the fox animatronic out of the office and shut the door behind him.
Checking the camera, Mike sees Bonnie at the end of the hallway. Also during the third night, Mike had stupidly stuck his head out the door to check when he heard a noise. That almost got him decapitated. Chica had left a long nasty gash all the way from his scalp to his collarbone.
Mike switches off of the camera for now and stares hopelessly at the draining battery symbol. The first and second nights were pretty easy. He finished those shifts on his first try. The third night took him several attempts. Mike would dash to the front door everytime an animatronic managed to get into the office and hurt him badly enough. The fourth night was the same, but much more painful and a lot darker. Being chased through a pitch black restaraunt with glowing silver eyes behind you is not fun. The music taste isn’t either. Lullabies, seriously?
Now, Mike (why did he even create this fake name?) is on his fifth night. It’s has taken him the most time out of any of the previous shifts. Michael (that’s his real name, Mike is so similar, though) is hopeful of this time. It’s four in the morning, and the battery is at forty percent. Michael can make it.
Michael turns the camera back on and sees that Bonnie has left, so he reopens the door, quicking turn the light on and off just to be sure. He lets out a sigh of relief but doesn’t drop his guard. This job is very stressful but necessary if Michael wants to live. Which he very much does.
Rapid footfalls echoes down the hall, and Michael quickly reaches over to the left door and shuts it just before Foxy can get in. The animatronic’s pounding against the door drills itself into Michael’s brain.
The clock slowly ticks on, its changes silent. Michael is sure that the noise would have driven him even more crazy than he feels himself going from the fan. Unfortunately, the fan too respawns when Michael walks through the front door to the restaurant. Everything returns to the way it was when Michael started his first shift. Even if Michael had previously thrown it across the room or used it to defend himself from a bright yellow animatronic.
After Foxy leaves, and Michael reopens the door, there are many more attacks. Michael used to keep count, but they just got so numerous that he gave up. As the minutes pass, Michael watches despairingly as his battery drains more and more. It’s as if the world is against him when the last remaining percent disappears and the lights in the office shut off.
No no no no no! Michael was so close! The clock (which stays on no matter if the power goes out) reads five fifty-eight. Michael almost made it!
As Michael peers frantically around him while making no movements, he decides that this won’t be the end. He has less than two minutes left. He can make it.
Michael carefully removes the keys from his pocket and grips them tightly in his hand. Footsteps come down the hall. Quickly, Michael grabs the clock as the minute changes. A shape appears in the left office window. Glowing eyes peer at Michael through the glass. A dreaded lullaby starts to play.
And Michael runs.
He sprints out of the office through the right door, still clutching the clock and keys in his hands. More footfalls echo behind him, getting closer and closer. The sound of fabric and skin ripping sounds out as Foxy’s hook tears across Michael’s back. Michael stumbles and cries out in pain, but keeps running. He ignores the pain; it isn’t unfamiliar.
Michael’s heart beats louder as he hears more of the animatronics join in the chase behind him. Ahead of him, there are the front doors. The hallway seems to drag on forever, but Michael closes the distant between him and freedom.
Then a large hand reaches out and grabs Michael’s arm, the one holding the keys. It drags Michael back, but he whirls around and smashes the clock against the demented bear’s head. Freddy’s iron grip loosens enough for Michael to get out of it. He sprints away, seemingly faster than before until Michael practically slams into the front door. The entrance. The exit. The holy fucking grail.
His hands shake, and Michael nearly drops the keys, but he manages to get the key into the hole and unlock the door. He rips the door open and the keys out as several non human hands shoot out to grab him.
When Michael steps down on the grass, it doesn’t change to tile. The door to Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza slams shut behind him, and the keys fall from Michael’s hand with a muted clink.
Michael… made it. He escaped. He survived all five nights of the shift that he agreed to work at his father’s failed legacy.
Michael drops to his knees. The agony in his back and the blood trickling down it much more prominent now that the adrenaline is running off. His chest shakes with desperate deep breathes. How Michael missed the fresh air, the natural light of the sun peeking above the horizon.
He made it. And Michael is never going back. He's going to keep the promise this time.