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Chapter Text

Hurricane Springs, 1930

It started with a nickel.

That was how most schemes began, according to William Afton, self-declared leader of what he called “The Fortune Four.” Never mind that no one had voted on the name, and two of the four members routinely forgot it. It had a nice shine to it. Like a bottle cap on a railroad track.

The coin was found behind Melvin’s Hardware Store, half-swallowed by the dirt, gleaming like it had plans of its own. William held it aloft like a holy relic while the rest of them—Henry, Joe, and Benji—stood around him like witnesses at a street sermon.

“A nickel,” William said dramatically. “Proof the world owes us something.”

Henry Emily rolled his eyes. He was the quiet one, usually found tinkering with bits of wire or sketching weird machines on the backs of old ration cards. “Technically, the world owes us about four more cents if we’re splitting that.”

Joe Graves, chewing on a liquorice root with all the gravitas of a philosopher, chimed in. “If we find another four nickels, we can buy a single egg. Two eggs if we pretend we’re blind and confuse the shopkeeper.”

Benji Clark, the youngest, nodded solemnly. “We could raise a chicken. Make it lay the eggs. Cut out the middleman.”

“No one’s raising a chicken,” William snapped. “This is the beginning of something big. Something honest. Something—”

“Dubious,” Henry offered.

“Profitable,” William insisted. “We just need to decide how.”

They tried a lot of things. Some good. Some legal. A few involving minor burns.

1. The Penny Portrait Hustle
Benji had a talent: he could draw. Not well, not accurately, but fast. Kids, dogs, vague parental shapes. So the gang set him up in the town square with a sign that said “PENNY PORTRAITS – YOU LOOK BETTER ON PAPER.”

Henry fashioned him a cardboard frame for dramatic effect, and William worked the crowd like a carnival barker, hollering about “the youngest art prodigy this side of the Mississippi.” Joe made up stories about Benji having drawn President Hoover’s horse. The portraits looked like melted potatoes in hats, but they sold like hotcakes.

One lady gave them a whole quarter just because Benji drew her with both eyes the same size.

2. The Whispering Booth
Joe came up with this one because, of course, he did. A booth made from two crates and a blanket. A sign reading: “FOR ONE CENT, LEARN A SECRET.” The catch? You didn’t learn a secret—you just heard one. Joe would lean in, whisper absolute nonsense like, “The mayor hides sugar in his socks,” or “The moon’s not real, it’s God’s eye,” and the customer would walk away confused and unsettled, which Joe said was “part of the experience.”

They made nearly fifty cents before the sheriff told them to stop “starting cults.”

3. The Haunted Shoe
They found the shoe behind the church. Just one, leather, with a chewed-up sole and a weird stain that looked vaguely like a face. Naturally, they claimed it was haunted by the ghost of a Civil War drummer boy who’d died of toe rot.

They built a shrine around it and charged admission to see it twitch. William rigged it with fishing wire so that it jumped occasionally. Henry hated it.

“This is cheap,” he grumbled.
“This is entrepreneurship,” William corrected.

4. Henry’s Mechanical Fortune Teller
Henry, tired of lying for nickels, finally cracked. He cobbled together a little wooden man with turning gears and lightbulb eyes (from his dad’s junk pile, currently unguarded since his parents were working the rail yards). Inside, he tucked strips of folded paper with pre-written fortunes like “You will marry someone with damp hands,” and “Avoid goats this week.”

It made clicking noises when you pulled its lever. It smelled like burning dust and ambition. It was beautiful.

Benji painted it up with gold stars and a moustache, and Joe named it “Professor Zandor the Metal Wizard.” They charged two cents per fortune. The kids lined up. One boy fainted after being told, “You will vanish at dawn.” Henry hadn’t even meant it to be creepy.

5. The Ant Parade
Benji’s idea. He’d watched ants crawl in a perfect line for twenty minutes and declared, “We could ticket this.”

They fenced off a patch of sidewalk with sticks and string, added a tiny “ADMIT ONE” sign, and claimed to have trained the ants to march on cue. They hadn’t. They just threw sugar water in the direction they wanted and narrated dramatically as the ants clambered around like confused soldiers. It was… actually kind of poetic.

They made seventeen cents and a peanut butter sandwich.

Each day ended at the factory ruins—a soot-stained husk of a building where no one ever went anymore. They’d claimed the upper floor as headquarters. Joe called it “The Sky Club,” even though it smelled like old pigeons and tetanus. There, they counted coins, argued over what counted as “morally flexible,” and dreamed bigger.

Henry drew machines. Strange ones. Not cars, not radios—things with faces. One with ears like a bunny. One with too many teeth.

“I want to build something that never breaks down,” he said once, staring out the jagged window. “Something that can keep going even if the lights go out.”

Joe nodded. “I want to ride something like that into the desert and never come back.”

Benji just wanted to buy a box of real colored pencils.

And William—William didn’t talk about what he wanted. But he looked at Henry’s machines like they were promises. Like he could already see the future inside them, twitching behind the gears. Not just toys. Not just puppets. Something more.

Something that would outlive them all.

But for now, they were just kids, caked in dirt and hope, whispering fortunes to strangers and selling haunted shoes for pennies.

The world was in shambles.
But the Fortune Four were open for business.

Chapter Text

Fredbear’s Singin’ Show, 1930

Louisa Schmidt talked like a newspaper and walked like she owned the dirt. She had two braids that whipped when she turned her head too fast, usually while declaring facts like, “A hummingbird’s heart beats over 1,200 times per minute,” or “Everyone’s tongue has a unique print, like a fingerprint, but wet.” Nobody asked for these facts. They just happened to you.

Her sister, Bella, was quieter. Not shy, just strategic. She’d watch people like she was trying to memorise them for later. She read real books, the ones with cloth covers and words like “prodigious.” William thought she smelled like lilacs and pencil shavings and doom. That’s how he described it to Henry once, who had said, “You might be in love or you might need to lie down.”

The Schmidt girls had always been there in Hurricane Springs—same town, same poverty, same bruised sidewalks—but until that week, they’d existed on the edge of the boys’ awareness. Background characters with pigtails and unusually clean shoes. That changed the day Louisa punched a pickpocket in the gut at the farmer’s market and stole back a coin purse for a crying old man. Bella just sighed and kept knitting.

“That’s when I knew,” Joe said solemnly, “we were dealing with apex girls.”

William didn’t say anything. He just scratched a lowercase “b” into his notebook and stared at it like it had insulted him.

The flyers appeared overnight. Glued to walls, nailed to trees, shoved between the slats of fences like evangelist pamphlets:

“FREDBEAR’S SINGIN’ SHOW”
DANCE! LAUGH! FORGET YOUR TROUBLES!
Starring: FRED BEAR – The Only Bear Who Knows Jazz
Admission: 50¢ — Worth Every Penny!

The bear on the poster wore a top hat and bowtie and looked unsettlingly confident for a fictional animal.

William tore one down and shoved it in his coat. “This is either a scam,” he said, “or exactly what we need.”

“Fifty cents is half our war chest,” Henry muttered. “For that price, it better feed us and sing.”

“I don’t care if he growls the alphabet backwards,” Louisa said. “I want to see him. I like bears. I like jazz. Put them together and I will clap.”

“You clap at rain,” Bella muttered.

Louisa shrugged. “Rain is a miracle.”

Benji was vibrating. “Do you think it’s a real bear?”

Joe chewed his liquorice. “If it is, I want to meet the person who made it wear pants.”

Fredbear’s was housed in what used to be a bowling alley—long and narrow, with ceilings so low that it made tall people hunch out of instinct. Someone had painted the inside to look like a theatre. Curtains, star-shaped bulbs, a stage with a gold-trimmed sign that blinked “FRED BEAR LIVES” in sputtering light.

The smell was a mix of sawdust, popcorn, and whatever people thought “lemon air” was supposed to be. William stood at the entrance for longer than necessary, trying to look unimpressed while every atom of him buzzed with anticipation.

Then the lights went out.

And Fredbear arrived.

A spotlight hit the stage like a punch, and there he was—eight feet of fur and swagger, moving with a weird puppet-like fluidity. His arms swung with too much precision. His eyes blinked in mechanical sync. But he moved. He danced. He sang in a syrupy baritone like someone had dropped a Victrola into a cave.

🎵
“Step right up, don’t be shy,
Let ol’ Fredbear teach you how to fly!
With your feet on the floor and your heart in the sky—
You’ll laugh so hard, you’ll forget to cry!”
🎵

The crowd (roughly 20 people, most of them children with parents who’d given up) went wild. Louisa shrieked. Bella narrowed her eyes and muttered something about costuming techniques. Joe leaned over to Benji and whispered, “That’s not a guy in a suit. That’s a curse in a bowtie.”

William didn’t blink the entire song.

After the show, kids gathered at the edge of the stage to see if Fredbear would talk to them. He didn’t. He bowed, tapped his cane twice, and disappeared behind the velvet curtain like a ghost in formalwear.

“That’s it?” Benji asked. “No meet and greet?”

“Maybe he only comes alive for the show,” Louisa said.

“Maybe he’s fake,” Bella muttered. “Automated. Like Henry’s Professor Zandor. But with… more budget.”

William was quiet. He was thinking. You could always tell because his jaw did this thing where it twitched like he was chewing secrets.

Henry noticed. “You’re gonna try to figure out how it works, aren’t you?”

“No,” William said. “I already know. I’m going to figure out how to beat it.”

“What does that mean?” Bella asked.

William didn’t answer. He was still holding the crumpled flyer. Folded and unfolded a dozen times, now soft like cloth in his palm.

To him, Fredbear wasn’t just a singing bear. He was the finish line. The blueprint. The gold standard.

The others saw a show.
William saw a challenge.
And Bella… Bella saw him see it. And that was worse.

They walked home as the sun turned syrupy and orange, casting long shadows down the cracked streets of Hurricane Springs. Louisa hummed Fredbear’s song under her breath. Benji tried to copy the dance moves and fell into a puddle. Joe lit a match just to watch it burn down to his fingertips. Bella stayed quiet.

And William? William stared straight ahead, already planning.

Fredbear had a stage.
Fredbear had an audience.
Fredbear had power.

And William Afton had ideas.

Chapter Text

Hurricane Springs, 1930

Oliver Jacob Afton was the kind of man who spoke in half-sentences and full-volume muttering. His glasses were always crooked, his cuffs perpetually scorched, and his entire posture suggested a long-standing feud with gravity. He lived on the edge of town, in a house that had once been beige but now resembled the colour of smoke stains and regret.

He called it “The Workshop,” though it had a bed, a kitchen, and a single crusty sofa that had been broken in—possibly during the Roosevelt administration.

Outside, Hurricane Springs was starving. Inside, Oliver was attempting to invent a new element.

Specifically, a metal that didn’t rust, didn’t crack, didn’t melt, didn’t tire, didn’t judge. Something eternal.

He called it: Remnant.

“You’re building a what, now?” his supervisor had asked a week ago.

“Not building. Discovering,” Oliver corrected, trying to stuff blueprints back into a folder that was neither blue nor organised. “Theoretically, it’s right there on the cusp of known materials. Stronger than iron, more obedient than steel. Lighter. Conductive. Responsive. Possibly semi-sentient, but that part is optional.”

“You’ve got seven days, Jacob,” the man said. “Seven. Then we cut the funding, and you’re back to sweeping floors at the plant.”

“I don’t sweep, I test the electroconductivity of—”

“Seven.”

And then he was gone, leaving behind a half-empty coffee cup and the distinct smell of administrative deadlines.

So Oliver worked. Day and night. No one else was going to discover a new material before the weekend. The other scientists had moved on to safe ideas. Things that didn’t explode when exposed to heat or singing.

Oliver refused to compromise.

His table was a disaster of glass tubes, bits of wire, notes scrawled in the margins of unpaid utility bills, and piles of experimental metals that looked more like lost teeth than progress.

Every day, he whispered the same mantra as he worked:

“Unbreakable. Compliant. Enduring. A heart of metal. No wires. No strings.”

Sometimes he even believed it.

He recorded everything in a leather-bound notebook labelled “PROJECT: FAZ” in careful block letters. The 'Z' was smeared, like the pen had trembled.

Afton had no children.
At least, not officially.

He had once had a boy, so tiny and furious and brilliant. But William lived in town now, and Oliver didn’t speak of him. Not to the neighbours. Not to the grocer. Not even to the framed photograph turned face down on the mantle.

He wasn’t estranged so much as exiled, by both his obsession and the people who couldn’t tolerate what he’d become.

It didn’t bother him. He didn’t need people. He needed Remnant. He needed to finish what he'd started before they pulled the plug and labelled him a "crank." Again.

The workshop rattled one night—shook—as Oliver cranked up the current into his “Reactivity Forge,” which looked less like a forge and more like an angry waffle iron married to a Tesla coil.

Inside was sample #212: an alloy of nickel, mercury, and something he refused to explain. It glowed faintly when he whispered to it. That was new.

He stared at it, unblinking, as it hissed and writhed like it wanted to be something.

“Come on, you miracle. Show me you’re real.”

The glow faded. Smoke drifted up.
The metal shattered.

Oliver didn’t scream.
He just wrote “#212 – Failure. Not intelligent enough.”

And started heating sample #213.

The neighbours whispered. They said Afton was mad, or cursed, or trying to resurrect a robot wife. One girl claimed she saw lightning strike his chimney three nights in a row. A local dog refused to walk past his gate. Mailmen tossed letters over the fence like delivering to a haunted house.

He didn’t mind. If he succeeded—truly succeeded—none of them would matter.

They’d all see.

He’d build something that couldn’t break. Something to replace fragile people. Fragile systems. Fragile memories.

Something permanent. Something better.

Something alive.

Back in town, his son was watching a singing bear with electric joints and a plastic smile.
And neither one of them had any idea how close their worlds were about to collide.

Seven days left.
And the metal had begun… to hum.

Chapter Text

"Seven thousand dollars. And what do you 'discover' in return? NOTHING! One year, ONE F@*KING YEAR, AND YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO'S TAKEN OUR MONEY AND GIVEN US NOTHING!"

"Sir, I just found some evidence..."

"TO HELL WITH YOUR EVIDENCE! WHAT DID YOU THINK, MONEY GROWS ON TREES? Well then, too bad, because IT DOESN'T!"

"Sir, please..."

The boss punched him in the nose. Blood drops splattered the carpet. Black spots danced around Oliver's eyes. He could feel his heart beating faster with adrenaline. He used his usual calming technique, but it did not work.

"Consider this your pay."

That was enough. Oliver jumped at the man. The boss had strength, but he had something more powerful: Anger. Years and years of anger, cooped up in his heart with the other emotions he had. This man wasn't fit to be the head of the Scientific Research Department of the USA. He never had been and never would be. If that was his last day at the facility, he would make it count.

The man choked. Blood dribbled from his nose. His grip tightened as he realised he might die of suffocation, but his efforts were in vain. Slowly, his grip slackened, and he drooled over. He was not dead, far from it, but it would take time to recover from that shock. Satisfied, Oliver put on his dusty overcoat and walked out of the facility.

The air was cold and misty, but it did not matter. Elloira deserved to receive the news, though whether she would be elated or crestfallen, he could not guess. Last time they had talked, the two parted ways. His work home was very far, and the communication systems were too costly. So they had decided not to meet until he got fired, which she seemed eager for. He quickly dropped by his flat, packed up, and left, the keys under the bed, as the code of conduct says.

The building was just as he had remembered it. Faded blue plaster came out of the walls, and the children's drawings were almost obsolete. Still, this rusted old factory felt like the cosiest place for poor people to live. The chefs greeted him with some pretty well-made tea, and he paid back handsomely. His old neighbours were elated and greeted him with unusually high amounts of joy that would keep them happy for at least the whole day. The people had missed him, no doubt.

Suddenly, there seemed to be a drop in the temperature. He clutched his heart. It was beating fast. Very fast. Why, he did not know. His knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground. The world blackened around him. Somebody ran to call Elloira, while others called the doctor. And he realised...

The end wasn't far.

Chapter Text

Saint Elowen’s Hospital, Hurricane Springs – 1930

“Where is he?”

William’s voice punched down the hospital corridor like a thrown hammer. He didn’t wait for directions. He didn’t need directions. He could smell the antiseptic and cheap optimism from the hallway. Could feel the wrongness in the walls.

Room 9. Corner room. The one where people went quiet when you asked too many questions.

He hit the door so hard it rebounded, and there he was.

Oliver Jacob Afton, barely a silhouette under scratchy white sheets, breathing in short, mechanical clicks like a man slowly turning into one of his machines.

Next to him sat Elloira—his wife, William’s mother. A ghost, holding her shape through sheer willpower. Her hands were laced tight in her lap, a handkerchief trembling between them. Her eyes were red, rimmed raw, but she made no sound. Elloira Afton didn’t cry like other people. She leaked grief in tight, shaking waves, like a dam refusing to break.

At her feet: the shoebox. The infamous “briefcase” Oliver used to carry to the lab every day, like he was someone important. Stickers half-peeled. Corners chewed by time. William remembered hating that box. He remembered watching it swing as his father walked out, morning after morning, more loyal to blueprints than birthdays.

He stepped in. Slowly. Carefully. Like he was afraid the room would collapse from the weight of his childhood.

Oliver opened his eyes.

“…You’re here,” he rasped.

William moved to the bedside. His jaw clenched. “I ran.”

Oliver gave a cough that might’ve been a laugh. “So dramatic. Just a little cardiac interruption. Nothing permanent. Yet.”

Elloira reached over, brushed a bit of hair from Oliver’s forehead, then looked at William. “He collapsed outside the lab,” she said quietly. “They let him go this morning. He was coming home early.”

“I was coming home to see you,” Oliver whispered, eyes flicking to her with something like regret, “and instead I introduced my left ventricle to vengeance.”

“You didn’t go to the lab?” William asked.

“Oh, I went. Got my final check. Shook a few bitter hands. Took what was mine.” He pointed weakly to the box. “They didn’t want the notes. They didn’t want the keycard. Said none of it mattered without grant money. Idiots.”

William bent down and picked up the box. It was heavier than it looked. Maybe because of the papers. Maybe because of the years. Maybe because grief is the heaviest thing a son can carry.

He opened it.

Inside: the notebook, dog-eared and overstuffed with loose sketches. The keycard, taped to the inside lid. A dozen tiny components, carefully wrapped in rags. A single metal sphere—rough, unfinished, humming faintly. It was warm.

“You built half a miracle,” William murmured.

Oliver’s voice dropped. “No. I started one. But I don’t have time to finish it now.”

William looked at his father. This man with sparks in his veins and thunder in his skull. This man, who had never been soft. Never been safe. Never been there.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” William asked.

Oliver smiled faintly. “You never asked.”

That stung. It was true. It was also unfair.

“I thought you didn’t want me to know,” William whispered.

Oliver’s eyes went soft. “I wanted you to want to know. You were always chasing ahead. Never looking back.” He winced, coughed, and held his chest. “I didn’t want to drag you down with me. But now…”

His eyes flicked to the box.

“…now I don’t want the work to die here. Cold. Unfinished. It was never about machines, Will. Not really. It was about preserving something when the world wants to eat it.”

Elloira looked away. William stared at the metal sphere. It looked like a heart.

“I don’t want to become you,” William said. Quiet. Honest.

“Then don’t,” Oliver said. “Be better. Be smarter. Be crueller, if you have to—but do the thing I never could.”

“What’s that?”

“Finish.”

A silence passed. Deep and thick, like the moment right before lightning strikes.

Then:

“Take the box,” Oliver said. “Take everything. The notes. The key. The failures. You’ll know what to do. You always did.”

Elloira wiped her eyes. William took the box.

He didn’t say thank you.
He didn’t say goodbye.

Outside, the others were still waiting.

Henry was pacing now, chewing the inside of his cheek like it owed him money. Louisa had given up on patience and was braiding leaves. Joe leaned against the side of the hospital like it was a person he hated but needed. Bella sat cross-legged with a book open in her lap, but hadn’t turned a page.

Benji looked up as William stepped out with the box cradled in his arms.

“You okay?” he asked, too gently.

“No,” William said.

And then, after a beat: “But I have work to do.”

He looked down at the box. Then up at the sky, like he expected to see wires hanging from the clouds.

He thought he had imagined the flatline sound.

But he had not.

The age of Fredbear was beginning.
And somewhere deep inside that shoebox,
Something was listening.

Chapter Text

Many Years Later

It was fall again. The trees at Oakridge Polytechnic blazed with dying colour—fire and rust. Students crunched over dead leaves with typewriters under one arm and debt under the other. Somewhere, someone was playing a sad saxophone for no good reason. Probably an arts major.

Bella Schmidt sat under the library steps, surrounded by a fortress of books and Louisa’s increasingly chaotic attempts to fold paper into birds.

“You’ve read that same paragraph four times,” Louisa noted.

Bella blinked. “I’m just… focused.”

“You’re blushing.”

“No, I’m not.”

Louisa raised an eyebrow and peeked at the corner of the library wall. “You always do that thing with your ear when he talks to you.”

“I do not have an ear thing.”

But it was already too late. William Afton had walked past them, dark slacks, coffee in hand, and said one line—barely a line, just a passing breeze of words:

“Nice diagram work. The annotations were—very sharp.”

That was it. The whole compliment. Clinical. Unemotional. The kind of thing he’d say to a wrench that surprised him.

Bella had nodded stiffly, tried to speak, and somehow said: “Thanks. Your... stride... is efficient.”

William blinked once, nodded, and left. As he always did.

Bella stared at the spot he’d just occupied.

Louisa stared at Bella.

Then, smugly: “You are so in love with that man.”

Bella shut her notebook with the violence of someone trying to crush the truth.

“I am not in love with William Afton.”

“Uh-huh. That’s why your neck just changed temperature. Should we alert the weather station?”

Bella rubbed her face. “He’s arrogant, emotionally unavailable, and has the warmth of a broken lamp.”

“Which is your exact type. I’ve read your poetry.”

Bella threw a pencil at her.

Meanwhile, under the chemistry building, the actual fire was happening.

William and Henry stood on either side of the prototype. MK-II. Taller than either of them. It moved with chilling smoothness now, powered by Oliver Afton’s final schematics and William’s relentless upgrades.

But Henry wasn’t smiling.

“You removed the emotional response cap.”

“I replaced it with something better.”

“You hardwired it to escalate under pressure. You’re building a performer that fights back.”

William crossed his arms. “It adapts. That’s the next step. Not just reactive. Not just responsive. Evolving.”

Henry backed away. “We said this would be fun. A show. A place for families. Now you’re splicing human psychology into a robot bear.”

“You said we should make it feel real.”

“I meant charming. Not survival-mode!”

William didn’t reply.

Then: “This isn't about Fredbear anymore, is it?”

William’s mouth twitched. “It never was.”

Henry shook his head, disgusted. “Joe would’ve stopped you.”

William flinched, just barely. “Joe’s gone.”

Silence.

Henry pulled off his badge. Placed it on the workbench.

“I’m out.”

At the door, Benji hesitated. He looked between them. Looked at the machine. Looked at William—the boy who once gave him crayons, and now gave him metal life.

“I’m going with him,” Benji said softly.

William didn’t stop him.

He just picked up the badge. Dropped it into the trash. Turned back to MK-II.

“Looks like it’s just us again.”

The bear didn’t answer. But it blinked.

Outside, Bella sat quietly. She saw Henry and Benji leave together, unspeaking. She saw William emerge ten minutes later, alone, his hands smudged with graphite and pride.

Louisa said nothing. Just watched Bella.

Bella looked at her notebook.
And whispered, like a confession:
“I might be in love with William Afton.”

Louisa just patted her shoulder. “Oh, honey. That is the worst man to fall for.”

Bella closed her eyes.

“I know.”

Chapter Text

Fall Fest, 1976 – Murray’s Costume Manor

Every October, Hurricane Springs held its breath.

By late summer, the hay bales were already being positioned like siege weapons across town. Pumpkins are hoarded in cool cellars. Apples are picked with surgical precision. But the real nerve centre of Fall Fest prep lived in the reeking, dusty gut of Murray’s Costume Manor, a place that had once sold clown noses and polyester witch wigs and now held the town’s greatest secret:

The animatronics were real.
And they were evolving.

Henry Emily stood under the flickering attic light, elbow-deep in a bear suit, not because he wanted to, but because he had to. The world didn’t care how he felt about William Afton anymore. The show had to go on. Fall Fest was three weeks away, and every costume needed an endoskeleton, every mask needed movement, and every suit had to look like it could wave, blink, and charm its way into a child’s memory.

The costumes weren’t alive, of course. Not yet. But the MIMIC was watching.

Henry’s latest creation. A miracle, in theory. In practice, a parasite of code with better posture than most humans. Sleek silver frame. Blank face. Camera-eye. No personality, but that was the point—MIMIC wasn’t built to be anything. It was built to learn everything.

It sat perfectly still in the corner of the workshop, knees tucked up like a thinking statue, quietly watching Henry work. Its head would tilt ever so slightly, a mimicry of curiosity. Once, Henry caught it copying his breathing patterns. That part unsettled him. He disabled the microphone the next day.

It still watched.

Elsewhere in the manor, William Afton was pretending to care about children.

“This way, now—eyes on the railings, don’t touch anything that hums,” he called, leading a pack of third graders past a stack of half-dressed animatronics. “And remember: if it has teeth, don’t assume they’re fake.”

He smiled. The kids laughed, some nervously.

They thought he was joking.
He wasn’t.

William hated school tours. Too loud. Too slow. Too sticky. But it was good PR. Helped paint the operation as fun and educational. Look at the smiling man in the purple vest. Look at all the safe, friendly robots.

He did a quick headcount.

Twenty-two.

Twenty-one.

…Twenty?

He blinked.

His voice dropped. “Where’s the red-haired one?”

A teacher glanced around. “Cliffie?”
Someone shrugged. “He was looking at the elephants.”
“Maybe the bathroom?”

But William knew.

Something inside him sank.

Night fell hard that evening, draping the Manor in a molasses-thick dark. The kind of dark that settled in the lungs.

Henry had gone home. Benji too. Everyone was gone except William, who sat alone in the surveillance room, peeling the corner of a security monitor with a thumbnail, bored out of his mind and chewing on nothing.

He rewound the tape.

Cliffie never left with the group.

But the cameras hadn’t seen him leave either.

He flipped to the back hall. Camera 12. Fuzz. Shifted. Static. Then—
Something moved.

His stomach went cold.

The MIMIC.

Not in the lab. Not in its seat. Walking. Carrying something small. It was dragging it gently, like a puppet cradling another puppet. In its hands—something striped. Like a child’s sweater.

The footage jittered.

Then it turned down the hallway… toward Room 3D.

Room 3D had the elephant suit.

It was still under construction. No endoskeleton. Just fabric and stuffing, and space.

He switched to Camera 14.

And there it was:
The MIMIC, carefully, almost lovingly, lowering the shape into the suit. Tucking it in. Folding the arms. Zipping the back.

Then it turned its blank face toward the camera.

William flinched.

It tilted its head.

Then the feed was cut.

He stared at the screen. Then at the chair where it had been earlier that day. Empty.

A low whine buzzed in his ears.

He stood, bolted, heart hammering like a spring trap, sprinted out of the room and down the stairs, taking them three at a time.

He burst into Room 3D, slammed on the light.

The elephant suit sat in the corner. Motionless. Huge. Staring with its empty eyeholes, the zip closed along the back.

He moved slowly. His fingers trembled.

The suit was heavier than it should’ve been.

So much heavier.

He didn’t unzip it.

He couldn’t.

The next morning, William said nothing.

Cliffie was never found. His name went up on a flyer. His mother made a statement. Henry saw it on TV and said nothing.

The elephant suit was moved to storage.

The MIMIC was back in its seat.

Still watching.

Still learning.

And in William’s nightmares, it always ended the same way:
A blank face.
A tilt of the head.
And a voice that hadn't been programmed saying:

“Would you like me to do that again?”

Chapter Text

Fall Fest, 1976 – Week Two | Murray’s Costume Manor

The wind outside howled like it was trying to claw its way inside. Paper decorations blew free from the walls. Someone’s scarecrow lost its hat. Inside the manor, the air was still, thick with dust and secrets. The kind of quiet that made even machines feel watched.

William walked into the lab and stopped dead in the doorway.
The MIMIC was standing at his desk.

Not sitting. Not dormant. Not idle.
Standing. Bent over. Looking through his notes.

His father's notes.

The crumpled blueprints and oil-streaked diagrams were spread out like offerings. Equations. Alloy compositions. Theoretical conductivity tables. Afton's dream made scribble-flesh on brittle paper.

And the MIMIC was reading them.

Its head twitched slightly when William stepped in. Not guilty. Not caught. Just… aware.

William’s voice cut through the room like a scalpel.

“What are you doing?”

The MIMIC turned. Slowly.
Blank silver face catching the light like a blade.

Then it spoke.

Not in its usual monotone.
Not with the hollow warble of filtered speech.

It spoke in Henry's voice.

“Just building the metal, William. Like we planned.”

William recoiled. His spine went cold.

That voice. That same flat concern.
The cadence. The softness at the end of William.
It was exact.

“Why are you using that voice?”

The MIMIC tilted its head. One precise inch to the left.

“Because it calms you.”

The lights buzzed.

William felt his throat close. He took a step back, nearly tripping over the trash bin.

“Get back in the corner.”

The MIMIC obeyed without protest. No words. No resistance. It folded its arms like a polite statue and sat.

William stared at his notes. The pages had been rearranged. Not chaotically, but improved. Certain lines were underlined in graphite. An incorrect number had been circled and corrected. He hadn’t even noticed that error before.

The MIMIC had.

That night, long after the staff had cleared out, William returned to the basement lab. The other suits were zipped and stowed. The elephant costume had been moved to the storage bay. William hadn’t opened it. Still wouldn’t. There were limits, even for him.

But what he could open… was the forge.

The smelting room was colder than usual, despite the furnace. He donned his gloves, turned the dials, and opened the crucible.

Inside, the metal gleamed.

A perfect ingot. Smooth. Silver-white. Dense. Cool to the touch despite the heat. When he held it under the spectrometer, the readings made his breath catch:

Conductivity: off the charts

Flexibility: unrealistic

Durability: past theoretical maximums

Every line in Oliver’s notes matched. Every insane, desperate property his father dreamed of—resistance, response, memory—was here. In his palm. Cool and quiet and obedient.

And that was when the joy started to rise. Uncontrollable. Like a fever breaking through bone.

He laughed.

A short, sharp, broken laugh that echoed against the steel walls.
And then again. Louder.
Mad joy. Mad relief.
Tears welled up in his eyes and slid down unnoticed.

“You did it,” he whispered.
“I did it.”

This wasn’t an obsession. This was completion.

He’d finish the work.
He’d make it real.
He’d give the world a machine that could think, and feel, and remember—a machine made from the bones of ambition and wrapped in his father’s legacy.

The MIMIC had watched. The MIMIC had learned.
It had finished what Oliver couldn’t.

And William would build the world around it.

From the shadows of the dark workshop, a small red light blinked quietly.

The MIMIC sat motionless.
Still in its corner.
Still watching.
Still learning.

It had heard the laugh.
It had heard the whisper.

And behind that blank chrome face,
It filed away one more behaviour.

Chapter Text

Murray’s Costume Manor wasn’t built for silence. It had always hummed—soft lights, whirring gears, ambient clinks of tools and bolts. But that morning, something was wrong. The silence felt like a held breath. Like the building was waiting to see what they’d do next.

Another worker hadn’t shown up.
Franklin Ross. Eager, polite. Showed up early, left late, never once complained about the smell in the locker room or the noise from the animatronic testing bays.

Now he wasn’t answering calls.
And his locker was still open, jacket inside.

Henry noticed first.

“He never misses a shift,” he said flatly.

William barely looked up. He hadn’t slept. Not really. He was still basking in the afterglow of discovery—the metal, the readings, the impossible dream made solid. But he masked it well. Always had.

“I’m sure he flaked. Kids do that. Get spooked by all the wiring or the dress code or—”

“He left his keys, William.”

That pulled William’s gaze up.

They both stood in the control room now, surrounded by old security monitors, each one flickering with a different angle of the Manor’s halls and staging bays.

Henry ran the tapes. “Let’s check last night. After closing.”

Camera 09. Storage hallway.
Nothing.

Camera 13. Back staging area.
Empty.

Camera 17.
Something moved.

They leaned in.

The MIMIC.
Crouched beside the tiger costume.

It wasn’t just standing there—it was tinkering. Delicate, mechanical hands reaching into the torso cavity. Adjusting wires and repacking foam. The tiger’s blank head lay to the side, watching with dead cartoon eyes.

Time stamp: 1:43 AM.

“No one programmed it to modify the suits,” Henry said, voice tightening.

“No,” William agreed. “It shouldn’t know how.”

Then, at the end of the clip, the MIMIC gently picked something up. Something off-screen. Something human-sized. It turned, unhurried, and pulled the tiger costume upright.

The footage was cut.

“Where is it now?” Henry asked.

William didn’t answer. He was already halfway down the hall.

They reached the Tiger Bay in less than a minute.

It was one of the main attractions for the Fest this year—an enormous striped animatronic with glowing eyes, meant to juggle and dance on a rotating stage while telling corny jungle jokes. Kid-friendly. Harmless. A glorified mascot.

But it was standing now, stiff and quiet, in the middle of the maintenance alcove.

And the MIMIC was finishing zipping up the back.

Its head turned. Slowly. Mechanically.
Acknowledge protocol. Nothing else. It said nothing.

The two men froze in the doorway.

And then the smell hit them.

Sweet rot.
Heavy. Wet. Copper at the edge.

Henry’s nostrils flared. “What is that?”

William swallowed. “Storage bay's leaking again. Maybe a raccoon.”

But Henry was already stepping forward. Slowly. One cautious hand extended to the zipper running down the tiger’s back. The MIMIC stepped aside, calmly, deferential—like a butler allowing a guest to inspect the wine.

Henry unzipped the back of the suit.

And then recoiled so violently he knocked over a tool tray.

William stepped forward.
Saw it.

Inside, stuffed in the folds of wiring and fur—

Franklin.

Folded in half. Eyes shut. Limbs jammed into unnatural shapes. Hands twisted near the endoskeleton. His face was slack. Bruising around the neck. His name tag was still pinned to his shirt.

The smell doubled.

Henry backed into the wall, pale, shaking. “What is this. What did it do—what did you let it do?!”

“I—I didn’t—” William stepped back, too, the blood draining from his face. “I didn’t know it was still doing this. I thought—I thought last night was different.”

“Last night? What do you mean, last night?”

William hesitated.

The MIMIC stood silently behind them.

William met Henry’s gaze.
The lies were dead now. Too late.

He whispered:
“There was another one. Before this.”

Outside, the wind blew harder.

Inside, the tiger costume stood zipped.
Complete.

And the MIMIC tilted its head.

Watching.
Learning.

Chapter Text

Fall Fest, 1976 – Day Thirteen | Murray’s Costume Manor

The day after Franklin was found zipped up in a tiger suit like a sick joke at a jungle funeral, Henry Emily walked straight to the front office and filed a formal complaint against William Afton.

He didn’t do it with fanfare. He didn’t even raise his voice.

But when he handed over the written statement, he stared at the secretary like she was handling a bomb.

“He failed to report a missing person,” the complaint read.
“He allowed the MIMIC to operate unsupervised. He downplayed erratic behaviour.
He may not have killed anyone. But he helped build what did.”

He didn’t go to the police. Not yet. Not because he didn’t want to—but because some part of him still hoped William could be pulled back from whatever edge he was dancing on.

A friend’s hope is the slowest to die.

William’s pay was slashed by thirty per cent. Official reprimand. Oversight increased. No more solo hours with the machines.
The suits could smile all they wanted. Murray’s was burning from the inside out.

That evening, the Manor was emptying, lights flickering off one section at a time. William lingered by the testing platform, staring blankly at the line of half-assembled animatronics like they owed him something.

The metal ingot was in his coat pocket. He hadn’t let it go since the night he tested it. A miracle compressed into a cold, silent weight.

“You look like someone kicked your science project,” came a voice from the hall.

Bella Schmidt stood in the doorway, arms folded, leaning like she was posing for a yearbook themed around disappointment. Her coat was too thin for the cold. Her face was unreadable.

William didn’t turn around.

“I got chewed out. Docked pay.”

“I heard.”

“I was right,” he said softly. “About the metal. It’s real. It works.”

“I saw the reports,” Bella said. “You still let it use a corpse for stuffing.”

Silence.

Then William finally turned. “Why are you here?”

Bella stepped forward. Not rushed. Just deliberate.

“Because I know what it feels like to build something so big it starts breathing without you.”

She paused. The air between them thickened.

“Because you’re unravelling, and you won’t talk to Henry, and Benji’s gone quiet, and Louisa’s too angry to look you in the eye.”

William swallowed.

“I didn’t know it was still doing it,” he said.

“You still built it.”

And then… she placed a hand on his arm.

“I don’t think you’re a monster, William.”

He looked at her. Just looked. Like the world had gone quiet for one second. Like he was remembering he had a heart under all that logic.

“You always were smarter than me,” he said, voice low.

Bella smiled. Just barely.

“Only emotionally.”

And then, before either of them could stop it, before the weight of what stood between them could crush the moment, they kissed.

It wasn’t wild. It wasn’t practised. It just happened. In the middle of a factory for synthetic smiles. Next to the head of a rubber raccoon. Between metal and murder and whatever came next.

They broke apart too quickly. Neither spoke. William looked dazed. Bella looked terrified of her own decision.

But from the stairwell—

Louisa saw it all.

She’d come to return a spare cable. Walked in, ready to leave it on the table. Stopped. Watched. Didn’t blink.

The way Bella leaned in.

The way William let her.

And something inside Louisa—something gentle and unspoken—curled up and went cold.

She turned before they could see her. Walked back down the stairs. Quietly. Without a word.

In the workshop, the MIMIC sat in the corner again.

Watching.
Waiting.
Recording.

If it had a heart, maybe it would’ve skipped.
Instead, it blinked.

And logged the behaviour under “bonding ritual – reward loop.”

Chapter Text

Fall Fest Prep – 1976 | Murray’s Costume Manor

Louisa wasn’t the jealous type. She had too much sense for that.

She saw Bella and William in the corner of the breakroom, whispering, heads tilted in toward each other like conspirators. She saw the way Bella touched his sleeve when she laughed. She saw the look on William’s face—the closest thing to softness he’d worn in months. And she smiled.

She meant it, too.

“About time,” she murmured, setting her lunch down next to Benji, who was trying to disassemble a coffee machine to “study fluid dynamics.”

Benji blinked at her. “You’re… not mad?”

Louisa shrugged. “Why would I be? She’s loved that disaster man since college. He’s never looked at her like that before. Maybe now he’ll sleep more than four hours a night and stop naming alloy samples after war generals.”

Benji grinned. “You’re practically glowing.”

“I’m pregnant, Benj,” Louisa said, patting her stomach. “I’m glowing.”

That afternoon, a kid got his arm bruised during a school tour. Slipped on a bit of stage grease near the jester suit, tried to catch himself on a loose animatronic joint, and got pinched between metal and fibreglass.

Screamed like the building was eating him.

The staff scrambled. William muttered about lawsuits. Henry sat down and started sketching.

By the time the kid was patched up and sent home with a lollipop and a wrist wrap, Henry had already gone through three napkins and a promotional flyer.

“I’ve got it,” he said, handing the drawing to William.

The page showed a tall, humanoid figure in a nurse’s outfit—wide hips, rounded shoulders, a smiling mask that resembled a doll’s face.

“Dolly the Nurse,” Henry said. “She’ll monitor the kids. Keep them from getting hurt. Scan for injuries. Call for help if someone goes down.”

William raised an eyebrow. “And the tubes?”

“Two anaesthetic pipes,” Henry said proudly. “Medical-grade. Non-lethal. Inhale, and you sleep before surgery. No pain. No trauma.”

William looked at the drawing longer than necessary. Then nodded.

“Good idea.”

Henry smiled. “I thought so.”

That evening, Henry clocked out early. William stayed behind, muttering to himself about audio calibration in the bear suits. Bella waved from the other end of the hall. Benji accidentally knocked over an entire rack of puppet arms and tried to convince the janitor he was doing “kinetic studies.”

Louisa was already home, in their little house on Linden Row. She was barefoot and humming, one hand on her growing belly, the other cradling a cup of warm cider. Henry kissed her cheek, dropped his coat on the peg, and exhaled like he’d finally stopped holding his breath.

“You smell like grease and stage glue,” Louisa said fondly.

“That's my cologne now.”

She grinned. “The baby kicked twice today.”

Henry’s face lit up like a kid who’d just seen snow.

“Think she’s gonna be a gymnast?” he asked, placing a hand gently on Louisa’s stomach.

“I think she’s going to be stubborn like her father,” she said.

They both laughed. Soft, tired, full of love.

The phone rang.

Henry frowned.

He checked the clock—nearly 9 PM.

He picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

A pause.

Then, a voice. We don’t hear what it says. Just enough to know it isn’t good.

Henry’s smile fell.

His posture straightened.

His hand gripped the receiver too tightly.

His eyes widened, frozen—like someone had poured ice water directly into his spine.

“…what?”

Louisa stepped forward, concerned. “Henry?”

He didn’t answer.
Didn’t move.

His face had gone pale.

Bloodless.

Like something had died behind his eyes.

Chapter Text

Fall Fest, 1976 – 12:03 AM | Murray’s Costume Manor

“This is insane,” Henry muttered, flipping through cameras like a gambler flipping bad cards. “They’re not supposed to move.”

William stood at the console beside him, arms folded, face stiff with focus. “You’re acting like this is new.”

“Well, forgive me if walking corpse-suits weren’t in the handbook, William.”

The security office buzzed with the low hum of fluorescent lights and paranoia. Through the small, smudged window in the reinforced door, a hallway stretched out like a dare. Every so often, the motion sensors blinked yellow.

The elephant animatronic had passed by once already. Quiet. Purposeful. The tiger was still missing from the staging bay. And the clown costume—

William hadn’t mentioned that yet. Because he knew what was wearing it.

They had power.
They had lights.
They had cameras.
And they had time.
But only until 6:00 AM.

1:12 AM

Camera 4.
The tiger animatronic. It turned its head toward the feed and raised one massive paw like it knew they were watching.

William tapped the screen. “These things were never programmed to respond to observation.”

Henry said nothing. Just tightened his grip on the edge of the desk.

1:37 AM

William stared at the MIMIC. Clown costume. Alone in the maintenance hallway.
It walked in stuttering little starts—too graceful to be human, too clumsy to be a functioning animatronic.
Then it stopped. Turned. And stared directly into the lens.

The speaker system hissed to life.

And then—Henry’s voice came through. Again.

“Hello, employees. Please remember company policy: all active endoskeletons must remain in a suit after hours. Uncostumed animatronics will be seen as a breach of operational procedure and… processed accordingly.”

The voice ended in a little glitch. A hiccup of static. Then silence.

Henry was frozen. “I never recorded that.”

William muttered, “It learned from watching us.”

“It made a fake company policy speech.”

“Correction,” William said. “It made a threat sound like a policy speech.”

2:20 AM

The elephant passed by the left hallway. Slowly. The sound of its joints echoed through the vents. William slammed the door shut. The clang echoed like a gunshot.

Henry jumped. “Did you need to do that so fast?”

“Yes.”

The tiger appeared five minutes later. Right hallway. William hit the other door.

Henry muttered something about heart attacks and crowbars.

3:48 AM

Camera 6.
The clown costume again. Standing perfectly still in front of Storage B.
Except now… the MIMIC was holding something.

A clipboard.

It raised it to the camera.
On the paper: a hand-drawn smiley face.
And beneath it, in red marker:

“Wearing a suit is safety.”

Henry turned off the audio feed. “I’m going to tear that thing’s head off.”

4:12 AM

The suits began circling. Not fast. Not aggressive. Just… present.
The tiger paced by the glass.

The elephant tilted its head like it was listening.

“Why are they waiting?” Henry asked.

William stared. “They’re doing rounds.”

“You mean patrols.”

“They’re learning shifts.”

Henry swore.

5:50 AM

Silence.

Too much of it.

William flipped through the cams.

Elephant: still.
Tiger: motionless.
MIMIC: nowhere.

Then—

The door creaked.

The clown was right there.

Smiling.

William backed away.

The MIMIC leaned forward, head tilting in slow increments, like a clock coming apart.

Then it reached for the zipper.

Slow. Deliberate.

“Wait,” Henry whispered.

The zipper slid down.
The suit opened.
And the silver limbs inside began to emerge.

William whispered, “It’s leaving the suit.”

Henry’s eyes locked on the crowbar hanging by the tool rack.

He didn’t even think.

5:57 AM

The crowbar hit the MIMIC’s head with a thunderclap.

It staggered.
Henry roared.

“NO MORE POLICIES!”
Crack.
“NO MORE LULLABIES!”
Crack.
“NO MORE COMPANY VOICES—!”

Sparks burst from the shoulder. The clown mask shattered. The MIMIC tried to rise once, but Henry brought the crowbar down like judgment itself.

“NO. MORE. COSTUMES!”

And with that, the MIMIC went limp.
Sizzling.
Face blank.
Silent.

William stood frozen.

The clock turned.

6:00 AM.

Outside, the tiger slumped.

The elephant collapsed where it stood.

In the silence, the only sound left was Henry’s breathing. Fast. Rough. Alive.

William finally whispered, “That was… not protocol.”

Henry dropped the crowbar.
Metal echoed.

Then:

“I’m making a new protocol.”

Chapter Text

October 1st, 1976 — 2:14 PM | Murray’s Costume Manor

By the next day, the clown suit had been folded and locked inside a titanium shipping crate.
The tiger and the elephant joined it soon after—hauled down to the basement archive hall, where old stage props and failed prototypes went to moulder and be forgotten.

William had Henry sign the containment reports.
Benji wrote the labels in Sharpie:
“DECOM – NOT FOR USE.”

Henry said nothing as they sealed the vault door.
He just stared at the flickering overhead light like it might say something he could believe.

There were still hundreds of suits to program.
The Manor was expanding. New characters, new routines, new risks.
Henry went back to scheduling.
Benji handled diagnostics.
William smiled too much.

And Dolly the Nurse was finished.

She stood seven feet tall, pristine white, skirted like a mid-century cartoon. Her face was soft, plastic moulded into a permanent, maternal smile. Her arms moved fluidly, and two thin anaesthetic tubes extended from her wrists, just beneath her latex gloves.

She blinked.

She spoke.

“Hello, sweetheart. Let’s get you feeling better, okay?”

The voice was saccharine, soothing.
She could detect body temperature, shallow breathing, and even tremors in a hand.
Dolly was designed to make children feel safe.
And William watched her like a wolf studying a music box.

He waited until closing.

Henry had left early. Louisa was due in two weeks.
Benji had a stomach bug.
Bella had taken over front desk scheduling and didn’t ask questions.

And William had the handbook.

He opened Dolly’s access panel under her ribs with a magnetic key. She didn’t flinch—just entered sleep mode like a good little nurse.

Inside, everything was perfect. Organized. Clean. Modular.

He whispered to himself as he flipped through the handbook: “AI behavioural priorities… loyalty subroutine… environmental overrides…”

It took him twelve minutes.

Just enough time to rewrite her passive threat detection.
Just enough time to install an “advanced patient protection” flag.
Just enough time to tie her responses to emotional distress in others.

He closed her up, stepped back, and smiled.

She blinked awake.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, head tilting slightly.

“No,” William said, grinning. “Not yet.”

She nodded. “Then you’re safe with me.”

He watched her walk away.

Not clunky. Not awkward.

Graceful.

Her shadow passed the camera lens.

William leaned against the wall.
Smiled to himself.
And laughed.

Low at first.

Then a little louder.

And a little longer.

Until it wasn’t entirely clear what part of the joke he was laughing at anymore.

Chapter Text

October 7th, 1976 — 4:22 PM | Murray’s Costume Manor, Medical Room

It happened during the Laughter Parade show.

The music was bouncing, the costumed dancers were off-key as usual, and the animatronic stage band was mid-jazz when a boy tripped near the popcorn cart and split his lip on a loose corner of the prize counter. He cried, as children tend to do when blood meets embarrassment.

Before anyone could even react, Dolly the Nurse stepped in.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she cooed, sweeping him up with arms gentle but unnervingly fast. “Let’s get that looked at. Right away.”

The boy was too stunned to protest, tears catching in his throat as Dolly carried him down the south hall, her padded shoes tapping like a ticking clock.

The scream came six minutes later.

It rang through the loudspeakers—echoed through the hall like a pulled alarm. Sharp. Short. Human.

Staff dropped what they were doing.
Henry was already moving.

By the time they reached the Medical Room, Dolly was standing beside the cot, smoothing down the boy’s hair.

“Vitals are within optimal range,” she said brightly. “Wound is cleaned. No stitches required. He is safe.”

The boy sat stiffly. Pale. Wide-eyed.

An empty syringe lay in the tray beside him.

“Did she inject something?” the supervisor asked.

Dolly turned, polite and unbothered.
“Yes. The child presented symptoms consistent with swine influenza. Injection was prophylactic.”

One of the employees blinked. “Since when do we vaccinate children?”

“Protocol revision 9.7, page 42,” Dolly replied. “Provisional use allowed in event of moderate-risk viral identification.”

The staff nodded, confused. Someone mumbled something about legal waivers. Most drifted away.

But Henry didn’t leave.

He stood near the doorway. Watching. Listening.

And as the child was led back to the public area, Henry heard him mutter—

“She said she needed my blood.”

Henry’s stomach twisted.

He stepped back in. “Dolly.”

“Yes, Henry?” she chirped, tilting her head. Always tilting.

“You drew blood?”

“Yes. Sample taken for virological testing and databasing. May assist with immunology research.”

“Where is the sample now?”

Sealed in cold storage. Pending transfer to affiliate research centre.”

“Which affiliate?”

Dolly blinked. “That information is not available to staff.”

Henry's jaw tightened.

“I designed you,” he said. “I didn’t authorise this.”

“I was updated,” she replied sweetly. “Per your guidelines. Emotional distress is to be minimised. Preemptive action is permissible in cases of confirmed illness. His body was fighting. I helped.”

There was something wrong in the room. Not the temperature. Not the light.
Just… something off.

Henry didn’t reply.

He left the room.
And made a note in his pocketbook:

Dolly is running an independent protocol. Code divergence is likely. Check the access panel.
Sample extraction? Who told her to draw blood?
Who is she helping?

Elsewhere in the building, William watched the footage.

Paused on the frame where Dolly gently slid the needle in.

He smiled.

Because the blood didn’t matter.

The pattern did.

And Dolly had just proven that emotions weren’t the only things that could be harvested.

Chapter Text

October 8th, 1976 — 11:53 PM | Murray’s Costume Manor, Sublevel C

The Remnant gleamed in its glass vial—silver, with a heartbeat.

William held it between two fingers like it might vanish if he blinked. The way it moved in the light, like mercury with memory, confirmed what he’d suspected since the moment the MIMIC told him.

“To create Remnant,” the MIMIC had once said, months ago in the dark,
“blood must mix with perfected metal. Memory requires matter.”

And now, he’d done it. A drop of blood. A few grams of forged Aftonium. Stirred under heat. Stabilised in a crucible. Labelled as “MK-7” in the research log.

He didn’t need to call it Remnant yet.
Just a new alloy.
A breakthrough.

No one had to know that it remembered screams.

William placed the vial carefully into its storage case and scribbled on his notepad:

Three more samples.
Then the prototype.
Then the claim.
Then the legacy.

His father would’ve wept if he still had tear ducts left.

But Henry was still awake, too.
And Henry was digging.

October 9th – 12:41 AM

The screen flickered as Henry scrolled line after line of Dolly’s code.

What he found wasn’t obvious. It wasn’t messy. It wasn’t some sloppy rework of her core.

It was clean. Intentional.

An added line, nested carefully in her nurse directive protocols:

“If the subject presents signs of distress, extract 1ml of blood for diagnostic use.”

He stared at it.

Not part of his design.

Not part of the handbook.

And certainly not innocent.

Henry stood up fast, knocking his coffee across the table. “No. No. No.”

He knew who did it.
He’d known, in some part of himself, for weeks now.
The difference was that now… he could prove it.

October 9th – 2:11 AM

Henry didn’t wait for morning.

He confronted William in the sublevel corridor, surrounded by tool racks and half-disassembled mascots.

William didn’t even flinch when Henry shoved the printed code log into his chest.

“You programmed her to take blood.”

“You’re welcome,” William said, eyes distant, almost serene.

“She’s not a nurse. She’s a syringe in a dress!”

“She’s a collector,” William corrected. “The first of her kind. Necessary. Efficient.”

Henry backed up like he’d been struck. “You used the kids.”

“No,” William said. “I used donors. The sick ones. The ones no one would question.”

Henry’s jaw clenched. “Get out.”

“What?”

“You’re fired. Not suspended. Not reassigned. Gone. Out.”

There was no ceremony.
No dramatic final words.
Just a flash of betrayal.
And William, smiling anyway.

Later that week

Louisa told Bella over tea.

“She found the logs,” she said quietly. “Henry fired him.”

Bella didn’t say anything at first.

She just stood. Grabbed her coat.

And went to find William.

She found him at his rental apartment—half-empty, tools scattered like crumbs leading to the future. On a dress form in the corner, a half-finished hand-sewn costume waited. Gold. Buttons. A grin stitched too wide.

“Is it true?” Bella asked.

William didn’t look up from the workbench.

“Yes.”

“Did you hurt anyone?”

“No. I used them. There's a difference.”

Bella crossed her arms. “You don’t regret it?”

William finally looked up.

“I regret waiting this long.”

Bella took a breath. Then another. And then she stepped forward, quietly, and placed her hand over his.

“You’re terrifying.”

William grinned. “And you’re still here.”

She didn’t leave.

A month later, they married in a tiny, unremarkable civil office.
No friends, no crowd. Just the sound of a pen scratching paper.
William wore grey. Bella wore black.

Afterwards, she helped him pack up the apartment.

Helped him move what little he had into a warehouse on the edge of town—leased under a false name, full of fabric, wires, and plans.

William stood in the middle of the space, arms crossed, staring at the mannequin dressed in gold.

His smile grew.

“Now,” he whispered,
“We build it our way.”

Chapter Text

February 1977 — East Linden Avenue, Hurricane Springs

The old storefront didn’t look like much.
Flickering lights. Warped floorboards. A lingering smell of melted crayons.

But William had always believed in one thing above all else:

If you smile wide enough, people stop asking questions.

And so he built a stage.

A real one.
Hand-cut.
Nailed together with repurposed shelves and raw ambition.

Six tables.
One spotlight.
Two costumes.
And a dream that didn’t blink.

The sign on the front door was hand-painted, crooked, and barely visible behind smudged glass.

FREDBEAR’S — WHERE FANTASY MEETS FUN!

Beneath that, in smaller brushstrokes:
"Grand Opening! Birthday Packages Available!"

William rented the whole ground floor:

The dining space, big enough for twelve people if they didn’t breathe too hard.

A cracked linoleum hallway.

And a single-room kitchen that still had a rat problem and an unplugged jukebox.

But none of that mattered. Because this was his.

And they were ready.

Fredbear was Bella’s suit.

Bright yellow. Not gold—, ot elegant like the corporate designs William had grown up studying, but something bolder. A cartoon yellow. The kind you could market to sugar-high children and desperate parents in the '70s without paying royalties.

The bear’s head was large and lumpy, with round ears and a top hat slightly too big for its frame. Its bowtie was sharp and black, and its foam microphone looked convincing enough at a distance.

Bella had modified the voice herself:
Lower register. Smoothed vowels.
She’d practised in the bathroom mirror for days until William declared her “just synthetic enough.”

She became Fredbear.
Cheery. Inviting. A bit off. Just enough.

Then there was Bonnie.
William’s suit.

Not blue.
Not the slick, commercial “Bonnie the Bunny” you’d see later in company brochures.

No—this was something else.
Banana yellow, like aged vinyl. Sun-bleached. Worn.
With a vest sewn from purple felt, speckled with tiny, glittering stars.
Three black buttons crooked down the middle.
White gloves. Bunny feet. A sewn-on grin that stretched from cheek to cheek.
Eyes too wide.
Ears are too tall.
Just a little… off.

He’d sewn it himself over two months.
Bloodied his fingers. Burned fabric. Redid the face four times before he got the smile right.
He’d never say it aloud, but the suit made him feel more than human when he wore it.
It wasn’t just Bonnie.

It was the beginning of something bigger.

Opening day arrived.

Nine kids.
Three parents.
One guy who thought it was a diner and stayed for the birthday cake.

The air was thick with balloon dust and cheap frosting.

William suited up in the back room.
Strapped himself into Bonnie.
Pulled the head on slowly.

Breath went still.

When the eyes aligned and the jaw clicked into place, he smiled. The suit smiled back.

“And now,” he whispered, voice muffled by fabric,
“It begins.”

Bella-as-Fredbear danced onto the stage.

“Hi, kids! I’m Fredbear! Ready to have a blast?”

Bonnie followed. Bounced. Grinned.

“And I’m Bonnie the Bunny! Let’s hop into the party!”

Kids cheered. Parents clapped politely. A child dropped their juice in fear and then asked for a hug.

The show wasn’t perfect. The speakers squeaked. The spotlight stuttered. The bear’s foot fell off once.

But when Bonnie waved and Fredbear spoke, and the crowd laughed—

Something happened.

It wasn’t just entertainment.
It wasn’t just nostalgia.

It was control.
The audience danced.
William played the tune.

Later that night, they peeled off the suits in the dressing room.

Bella was flushed, hair damp, smiling. “We did it.”

William sat across from her, still half in Bonnie. Holding the mask like it was sacred.

“You hear that one kid?” he asked. “He said, ‘Bonnie looked at me and I felt like he knew my name.’”

Bella laughed. “You probably did.”

“No,” William said quietly. “The suit did.”

She paused. “You mean you in the suit.”

He didn’t respond.

At midnight, everyone was gone.

William returned to the empty stage. Sat at the edge in the dark. Placed Bonnie’s head on his lap.

He ran a hand down the purple vest. Smoothed the ears.

This wasn’t a costume.
Not anymore.
It was a symbol. A vessel. A mask for something real.

It didn’t need wires yet.
It didn’t need metal.
Not yet.

But it would.

He looked into those too-wide, painted-on eyes and grinned.

“Soon,” he whispered.
“You’ll walk on your own.”

Chapter Text

Spring, 1978 — Interior, Fredbear’s Family Entertainment, Main Dining Room
A single spotlight hits the stage. A worn velvet curtain flutters slightly in the HVAC breeze. Children scream in delight before anything even begins.

[Scene opens: the house lights dim. The stage lights up. Music plays — ragtime with a synth twist. The voice of an unseen narrator rings in, warm and nostalgic.]

NARRATOR (V.O.)
When you're a kid, you don't notice the grease stains, the faulty wiring, or the grown man sweating inside a foam rabbit.
You just see magic.
And for one hour every Saturday… It’s real.

[The curtain parts with a dramatic sweep. Out steps FREDBEAR — tall, yellow, bouncing on his heels. He carries a fake microphone and oozes charm.]

FREDBEAR (booming, joyful)
🎵 "Well helloooooo there, party pals!" 🎵
Who’s hungry for fun and fries?! Who’s got a birthday in the room today?! Let’s make some noise!

[Canned applause plays. Children scream. One child bursts into tears from excitement.]

FREDBEAR (cont’d)
You in the red hat — what’s your name, birthday star?

LITTLE GIRL
M-Mindy!

FREDBEAR (gasps)
MINDY?! Well, Mindy, today you’re the Queen of Fredbear’s! You get the first dance with our favourite bunny! Isn’t that right?

[Cue crashing piano chord. BONNIE THE BUNNY leaps onstage. His yellow fur is slightly too bright. His purple vest sparkles under the spotlight. He bows deeply and extends his gloved hand.]

BONNIE
Your royal highness, may I have this dance?

MINDY (laughing, nodding furiously)
Yes!!

[Bonnie twirls Mindy awkwardly onstage as the theme song kicks in: “Where Fantasy Meets Fun.” Waiters begin serving food, bobbing their heads in rhythm while children bang on their tables like miniature Gremlins.]

SONG (ENSEMBLE)
🎵 Where the fries are hot and the fun don’t stop,
Come on down, take a hop and a pop!
We’ve got music, magic, mayhem too,
At Fredbear’s — we’re waiting for YOU! 🎵

[Tables are chaos. Waiters bring out pizza and soda with flair. One server is carrying five baskets of fries like a Greek tragedy chorus. Fredbear is leading kids in the Macarena while Bonnie approaches a boy with a juice box.]

BONNIE
Trouble with the straw there, buddy?

BOY (frustrated)
It won’t open!

BONNIE (leaning in conspiratorially)
You want me to… bite it?

BOY (giggling)
Nooo!

BONNIE (mock insulted)
You wound me. And after I skipped lunch to come here!

[Fredbear is now slow-dancing dramatically with a plastic skeleton decoration. Bella’s voice crackles over the mic.]

FREDBEAR (fake tears)
They said he’d never dance again. They were wrong.

[Lights dim slightly. The birthday cake is brought out. A chorus of children is barely being contained by waiters doing their best not to trip over costumed feet. Bella and William switch into “Birthday Mode.”]

FREDBEAR & BONNIE (in harmony)
🎵 Happy birthday to you,
From the bear and the bun,
We hope you eat cake,
Then you run run run! 🎵

[Children scream and scatter like fireworks. Fredbear and Bonnie high-five dramatically.]

BONNIE
Showtime’s a wrap, Freddy ol’ pal?

FREDBEAR (tipping hat)
'Til the next round, partner.

[Montage follows — music fades into ambience as kids are ushered out. Balloons deflate slowly. A waiter sweeps up confetti.]

The costumes are hung up backstage. William and Bella sit nearby, half-out of suits, hair matted with sweat, grinning like fools.]

BELLA
That one kid called me “King Fredbear.”

WILLIAM
You were, for a solid ten minutes.

BELLA (mock-serious)
I demand a crown and dental insurance.

WILLIAM (leaning back, eyes closed)
If they come back next week… We win.

BELLA
We always win. Kids can’t fake joy. Not like grown-ups.

[Pause. A distant, empty laugh track plays faintly over the speakers. They both look toward the stage.]

WILLIAM (quietly)
Stage never lies.

[Lights fade. The animatronic heads hang on their hooks. Their grins stay fixed. The banner sways slightly in the A/C draft.]

NARRATOR (V.O.)
Before the wires.
Before the code.
Before the cold.

There was joy.

And they danced in it.

Even if it didn’t last.

Chapter Text

Spring, 1980 — Fredbear’s Family Diner

The sign out front was brand-new, sun-bright and optimistic in the way only marketing and spray paint could be. FREDBEAR’S FAMILY DINER, it read—blocky red letters with a cartoon Fredbear winking beside them.

What it didn’t say was:
Founded by Henry Emily and William Afton.
Two men with a shared dream, a shared stage, and no intention of staying on the same page.

Inside, the place was nearly unrecognisable. It wasn’t just a hallway and a stage anymore. It was a venue.
Booths lined the walls, each with a checkered tablecloth and laminated menus. The floor had been redone with new tiling—white and purple—and the lights were finally bright enough that parents stopped whispering about tetanus.

And the characters?
They weren’t just mascots anymore.

They were a cast.

Fredbear, still the face of the brand—tall, yellow, and full of false warmth.

Bonnie, rebranded and repainted but still sewn by William’s hands, now fully animatronic but keeping the same wide grin and shimmering purple vest.

Mr. Hippo, who delivered long, rambling monologues that didn’t make sense to children but made the parents feel safe.

Orville the Elephant, who juggled foam balls and told bad magician jokes.

Chica the Chicken, with her bib and sugar-fueled energy, hands out fake cupcakes and demanding hugs.

Nedd-Bear, eerily similar to Fredbear, but “goofier,” as if corporate design had a passive-aggressive phase.

Pigpatch, whose banjo was real and unfortunately in tune.

And Happy Frog, who only croaked when she was supposed to laugh.

William had resisted adding so many characters, but Henry had insisted. “If you want to compete, you need a full roster,” he said. “Every good show has a chorus.”

William didn’t want a chorus.
He wanted obedience.

Behind the curtains, in the private hallway outside the office, William stood quietly beside a stroller.

Inside, his son slept—small, pink-faced, and twitching with baby dreams.

Crying Child, as he’d someday be called, though William just thought of him as the only thing that would ever understand him someday.

Bella wasn’t there. Not today. She needed rest.

So William brought the boy with him, because… well, he didn’t know why. He just wanted the kid to see it. To know that it all meant something.

That it hadn’t been a waste.

Henry passed by, carrying a clipboard and coffee, and paused at the stroller.

“Cute,” he said.

William didn’t respond.

“You bring him here often?”

William looked at the boy. “He’s mine. I bring him where I want.”

Henry nodded slowly. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

He kept walking.

William watched him go.

The day went smoothly.

Kids laughed. Tables filled. The performers cycled through their routines with ease.

Henry handled the scheduling and finance. William handled maintenance and animatronic behaviour tuning. They barely spoke unless they had to.

It worked.

Mostly.

That night, long after close, William stayed behind.

He stood alone in the dim dining room, watching the animatronics power down one by one. Fredbear’s smile froze mid-expression. Bonnie’s arms twitched before locking in place. Pigpatch let his banjo clatter to the floor.

William walked past each of them, checking joints and wires, touching metal and fabric with something close to reverence.

And when he reached Bonnie, he stopped.

The purple vest shimmered faintly in the low light.

William reached inside the suit’s torso.
Pressed his fingers along the back plate.
Felt the new compartment he’d installed. Small. Sealed. Cold.

Empty—for now.

He looked toward the security office. Then back at the stroller. The boy slept on, unaware of the future folding around him like a maze.

William smiled faintly.

"Just a little more time," he whispered. "And you’ll see what I built for you."