Gregory

“What happened,” I hear a voice ask from above me. The sound echoes through the empty metal chamber I’ve trapped myself in, filling my ears and nearly giving me a headache. This is bad. What if someone hears him? If staff looks to far into this, I’m either gonna get caught or fried. Shit. The voice continues on for a few more short-ish sentences, before the booming echo and my anxiety get to be too much for me to bear.

“Hey, man. Shut the fuck up.” As dangerous as it is to say anything, I have to try to save my skin and eardrums. My own voice echoes throughout the cavity as well, just a lot more quietly. Before I have the time to realize what’s happening, the animatronic I’ve hidden myself in swings around violently, throwing me around the metal hell. I cover my head, trying to keep from getting a concussion. The hearing loss and getting hunted are bad enough, I don’t need anything else working against me.

“And don’t move so fast,” I plead, my head still in my arms.

As soon as I finish talking, the front of the cavity opens up for me, almost like it’s trying to help me- like it knows I’m ****. I feel eyes on myself as soon as I get out of the animatronic, but I try to keep that from bothering me. I can’t stay in that thing like that any longer and, at this point, I would take any chance I could get to stretch out my limbs and un-cramp myself.

After a few moments, I look up, almost making eyecontact with the animatronic- Freddy. Without seeming to notice me, outside of a little ‘eyebrow’ raise, Freddy tilts his head, the tint of his eyes changing to purple. I stay silent, not wanting to risk provoking him.

We both stay quiet for a few seconds, maybe a minute, just staring at each other. After the time passes, he straightens his head and his eyes change back to yellow, something that looks like concern- at least, as close as you can get with a robot- covering his face. I bite the tip of my tongue, trying to calm myself down. He hasn’t done anything bad to me yet and I don’t wanna start shit with the only chance I have to get out of this nightmare of a complex.

“How did you get in there,” Freddy asks, his voice softer than I expected, but a lot louder than I’m comfortable with.

“You were asleep,” I remark, trying to keep this conversation short. The longer it goes on, the more likely it gets that the security guard lady will find me and I can’t risk that to make a robot feel better. Freddy, on the other hand, doesn’t seem at all worried about anything, other than how I got inside of him. It is a fair concern, just not one that I have the time to deal with. He tilts his head and stays silent, forcing me into talking again. “When you were asleep, I opened your stomach hatch and climbed in. It was the safest place for me.”

Freddy lectures me on his stomach not being for “stoaway teenagers” before asking me why I was even in there.

“Hiding. Why else would I be in a giant anthro-robo-bear’s stomach?” He pretty much completely ignores my tone, quickly turning back to interrogating me.

“Who are you? My scan did not give me a guest profile. You are not in our system.” Relief suddenly washes over me at his comment. He has no idea who I am.

“Thank God.” I cross my arms out of habit, using it like a security blanket from the six foot something anthropomorphic bear in front of me. “I’m Gregory,” I say, reaching my hand out to Freddy to shake his. He slowly- and half-assedly- reachis his hand out in return. I take his hand, initiating the shake with no help from him.

Confusion- or whatever counts as confusion for hunks of code and metal- spreads over his metallic, mostly golden face. Freddy, probably accidentally, comments on the ‘strangeness’ of what I just did, before something in his code reminds him of handshakes. “I... have said that out loud, correct?”

I nod, my lips curling up in a smirk at his obvious lack of understanding of how humans really work. No matter how far AI’s come, it’s still clearly behind someone who just barely became an adult. Pretending his fuck-up didn’t happen, Freddy turns back to trying to figure out who I am.

“Regardless, I do not know who you are and I should. I will contact the main office about this obvious mix-up.” I shrink back a little at a combination of his volume and the possibility of him just giving me over to a woman that I couldn’t trust if my life depended on it. Freddy goes silent for a moment and his eyes turn green for a moment, before quickly switching to red. “Strange. I cannot connect to the server.”

A mix of fear and relief flood over me. I don’t know if I should be more glad that he can’t unintentionally fuck me over or more worried that she’s trying to completely cut me off from any form of help. In the end, frustration and worry wins, since iffy help is a million times better than practically no chance to get help at all.

“Of course you can’t.” I half-heartedly throw my hands up, before sighing and explaining the whole situatoin to Freddy.

“Who? Is your mother looking for you? I do not see how she could do that- if she worked here, you would have a guest profile.” I’m a grown man- I don’t need my mommy to take care of me and she sure as hell isn’t looking for me.

Before I get the chance to say anything, I hear footsteps from outside. As a reflex, I turn to the door, half expecting it to fly open, even though the sound came from near the window on the other wall. I signal for Freddy to stay quiet. He doesn’t know what that means. I whisper at him to shut up, before creeping towards the window. I pull back the curtain enough for me to see something through it.

It doesn’t take long for a scarily familiar figure to walk past the window. Fear shoots through me, hard enough that I can practically feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins in my blood. I let go of the curtain and lean back hard enough to nearly throw myself to the floor, holding my breath and praying that she doesn’t see me.

“What is wrong, Gregory? That is Vanessa, the head security guard, she can help you.” I stand up quickly, almost physically trying to stop Freddy before he does anything stupid like trying to get her attention.

“No. No no no no no. I don’t trust her,” I whisper. I can’t tell if it’s more directed at myself or Freddy.

“Why not? She is here to keep patrons safe.” I feel fear and frustration trying to creep over my face at his insistence, but I push it back, trying to keep myself calm so I can do something productive.

“Look, man, I don’t know who she is, what she’s like to you, or whatever. What I do know is that she’s trying to get me and I don’t think it’s gonna be good when she does. Now, is there any other way for you to talk to me that isn’t that loud?” Heat spreads through my ears and I can tell that I’ve lost the fight against my own face. So you’re working against me, too, huh? Great.

“Here, take this Freddy Fazwatch,” Freddy says, grabbing one of the things and handing it to me. I can’t help but laugh to myself about the name. Freddy Fazwatch? That’s so gimmicky. I can’t help but look the watch over when I take it from him; it looks like a weird mix between a kids’ toy and something that won’t be out for the next ten years. Despite the strange appearance and that it’s a sign of me putting way too much trust into a possibly evil robo-bear, I put it onto my right wrist.

Almost as soon as I finish doing the strap, a strange noise blasts out from something in the room. More quiet than Freddy, but still too loud for me to be completely comfortable with it- at least when it startles me. “What the fuck was that,” I whisper-yell in surprise, still trying to keep my voice quiet in the face of shock.

“I have sent you an encoded message.” I look back down on the watch and accept the message prompt on the screen, causing an audio message of Freddy’s voice to play- this version of it being way quieter than Freddy himself; quiet enough that it doesn’t make me anxious.

The message explains that, to get Freddy out of the room to help get me out of here, I need to get into some back room to do something that will help me get him out of his own dressing room and why he can’t do any of this himself.

When the message ends, I hit the green button he told me to, causing a door to swing open. It almost hits against the wall, sending a burst of panic through me. As soon as the door stops moving, Freddy sends me another message, this time telling me to crawl through some open vent to get out into the open and come around to open the door from the outside.

Even though he just suggested that I should expose myself, putting me in God knows how much danger, I get stuck on him making fun of my weight. I re-cross my arms, calling out his insult and asking if he called me a lightweight- mostly to give him a chance to own up to what he did.

“Oh, no. Quite the opposite, actually- that I am a roughly multi-ton hunk of metal and machinery,” Freddy responds, his voice as flat as ever. I shake my head at him and mumble to note his point, before going into the dark, dingy back room.

I reach the uncovered vent pretty soon after entering the musty space and look up at it for a moment. The near void of the space starts getting in my head, but I push through it and jump up to get my arms into the vent, using them to pull the rest of my body into the space.

As soon as I get fully inside, the space somehow gets darker. I look back to see that Freddy had closed the door, leaving me completely isolated in the tight space. Great. Even the robot’s gonna leave me. I turn back around and start crawling through the tunnel, as fear starts pushing away my frustration. Despite my hesitation, I **** myself to crawl through the vent, my slender build making it a relatively easy job.

As I follow the non-branching path of the vent, I hear a female voice getting louder and louder. Even though it probably should scare me some, I know that it isn’t that woman- Vanessa. The purple lighting and kind of familiar voice lets me know that it’s Roxanne’s dressing room- not a safe place to be, but not really dangerous, either. Instead of just taking the next turn and ignoring the ‘woman’, curiosity gets the best of me and I stop to listen for a moment.

“Your performance tonight was magnificent- perfect.

“Thank you.” Did she just respond to herself?

“Your hair is beautiful. Your tail is incredible. You are stunning. No body could take their eyes off of you. Everyone was watching you. You are the best.

“Thank you. I am the best. I am the best.” Despite my better judgement, I sneak closer to the cover of the vent into her room, trying to get a better grasp on what’s happening. As I get closer, the animatronic wolf comes into view at the bottom of the vent’s opening. I knew it.

“Your fans are even watching you right now. I just know it.” Roxanne’s last statement sends chills up my spine and makes the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand up. I quickly turn away from the vent and crawl down to the next turn, trying to stay quiet and not give myself away more than I think I already have.

I continue down the passage, trying to shake the surrealist nightmare I just lived through. As I get further through the vent, I hear yelling and banging coming from one of the rooms near the shaft.

After taking a few more turns, I come up to an opening to another dressing room- Montgomery’s, based on the little bit of green coming from the broken lights. I can’t see much of anything through the vents, since the lights are almost shattered and something dark seems to be covering the opening to the vent. I don’t spend any more time looking through the vent than I needed to to realize that I can’t see anything, before turning back and continuing on my way.

After a few more turns, I come up to another vent- Chica’s, given away by the pink lights, shredding guitar, and her being the only animatronic I haven’t seen yet. Unlike the other two, nothing verbal or vocal comes through the slats in the vent cover I stare through, just the sound of the ‘woman’ practicing guitar. Isn’t that programmed into her? Why does she have to practice?

I shake off the questions and head on my way again. A light starts shining brighter and brighter into the vent as I crawl, showing that I’m getting closer and closer to freedom. After less than another minute, I see the completely uncovered opening of the vent. Without hesitation, I turn around and swing my legs out of the shaft, before dropping down onto the floor.

I take the little time I have to glance around my surroundings, a neon-lit thick hallway-like thing. Almost as soon as I hit the ground, a seemingly pre-recorded message plays over the intercom, thanking ‘everyone’ for coming to the show, offering free stuff for Freddy’s techy breakdown, and- in corperate talk- telling everyone to get the fuck out of the building.

I quickly start walking back towards Freddy’s dressing dressing room, when a familiar voice coming from behind me stops my movement dead in its tracks. “Hey, you!”

I whip around to see Roxy standing behind me, her eyes locked onto me. Without giving me the chance to register what’s really happening or what the hell I can do about it, she charges me. My feet nearly glue themselves to the floor as I scramble for something to do that could maybe save me.

Before she can get to me, a female voice comes over the intercom, completely different from Chica’s, but also a little different from Vanessa’s- it was more playful and sensual than hers, but most of the tone matched. Regardless of who the voice is, its presence is enough to stop Roxanne dead in her tracks, though her eyes stay fixed on me, a combination of anger, determination, and something that I can’t- and probably don’t want to- put my finger on flaming through them.

“Attention all animatronics- there is an intruder loose in the Pizzaplex. Anyone who finds him has my permission to do whatever they want with him- whether he likes it or not. I mean, what is he gonna do about it? He is the trespasser afterall. Just let me know if he gives you too much trouble and I’ll turn him into the police for you and get him locked up for the rest of his pitiful life! Good luck, Gregory.”

Spite drips from her voice when she says my name, somehow making me more afraid than I was before. The look in Roxy’s eyes doesn’t help the situation, as what was originally just anger and accusation with something else behind the curtains changed to full out “fuck me.”

She keeps slowly walking towards me and I feel myself starting to freeze up. I can’t really think of any options and the few that blinked through my head were bad. But I know that I can’t just do nothing, even if struggling might make things worse for me or put me in a whole different kind of trouble- I can’t go down without some kind of resistance.