[Please Note: This fanfic will deviate a bit from the established and fan-theorized plots of the video games a bit, so that I can put my own personal spin on the characters and storyline. Just wanted to put this disclaimer here so no one thinks I'm trying to stick strictly to the perceived plots of the video games. Hope you all enjoy the fanfic! It is rated M because of themes of violence and sexuality, so if either of those things bother you, please only venture ahead if you feel comfortable! Otherwise hunker down and enjoy the story!]

Laurel sighed a bit wearily, seeing small traces of her breath solidifying in the cool air. The heating systems were often shut off during the night shift to keep the animatronics from overheating, especially since they were run so heavily during the days. Because of that, though, she often had to sit in the cramped office in three or four layers of clothing just to avoid getting frostbite. And of course, the coffee machine had decided to stop working tonight, so she hadn't even gotten her ceremonial mug of caffeine to keep her awakre. The bags under her eyes felt like ten pound weights thanks to that; she'd have to complain to her manager in the morning.

It was only her second night on the job, and she was wondering why she'd decided this was a good idea to begin with. Actually, it hadn't even been her idea; her mother had insisted she do something 'productive' with her first winter break from college, which had been "mom talk" for "get a darn job." She'd found the Classified section of the newspaper left on her desk the first day she'd gotten home and had already been wondering why she'd left the warmth of southern California for this snow-ridden town in upstate New York. Several jobs had been circled, though she noticed her mother had placed a few extra rings around a job for an overnight security guard position at a local restaurant. Her mother had explained to her that it was the third incarnation of a long-standing but somewhat marred restaurant chain from her childhood; Laurel could even remember her mother telling stories about going to a certain diner in the 70s, and a pizzeria in the 80s as well, that were based on some characters from an old television show. Laurel hadn't been too interested at first, but it was the only job available around that didn't require previous skills or experience. Also, they were paying a buck and a half above minimum wage, so at least she was making more here than washing dishes during long shifts at McDonalds.

The manager at the current location had been fairly nice to her, if not a little leery it seemed to hire a female for the job. He explained that the only female staff they'd really had before had primarily either been workers in the old animatronic suits and waitresses who did private functions. Laurel had been adamant about working hard, however, and even recounted how these restaurants seemed important to her mother. Fortunately, he'd relented and given her the job after just a bit of persuasion, though she had a feeling it was in part due to her being the first, and possibly only, applicant for this job.

Once the job was secured, Laurel had spent a few days before her shifts started to familiarize herself with some of the history on this place. She'd even dug her mother's old video cassettes out of storage to watch the old "Fredbear and Friends" cartoon that she had always talked about. It was schmaltzy even for the 1970s, but she found the characters kind of endearing and cute.

The histories of the previous restaurants, though, were not as nice. The rumors of children and staff members being murdered were still being whispered around this town even two decades after the pizzeria had been closed down in the late 80s. In all truth, hearing about those stories made her skin crawl, but she'd chalked a good share of it up to just that: rumors. There had been an arrest made relating to some kind of violent crime, but the details on it were pretty faded at this point. It wasn't weird for her to think, either, that a place where kids and families were typically crowded into might be a possible prowling location for a child predator. It did make her feel a bit queasy though, and she was pretty glad that at least the new restaurant that she was working in, cheesily renamed "Freddy Fazbear's Funapalooza", now had a state-of-the-art camera system in literally every room aside from the restrooms. Though, with that said, she still didn't know why her manager had told her to stay put in one place at night and keep the doors locked into the office. Her job was just to make sure there was no one trying to vandalize or break into the place, and she had the police on speed-dial. Still, though, it seemed stupid that she had been forced to pee into an empty coffee can the night before since she was locked into the office overnight without access to the bathrooms. She'd have to look up the Labor Laws on that once she got home.

Her first two nights, however, had been pretty uneventful thus far, albeit kind of creepy. She swore that she saw those animatronics sometimes shifting slightly here and there, and sometimes she thought they were watching her or looking into the cameras. There were also odd noises; sometimes she heard what she swore were music boxes or chimes playing in the distance, though it was hard to hear. The cameras that were positioned all around the main "ballroom" where the banquet tables, prize counter, and the massive entertainment play-place and stage were often picked up noises from outside. The animatronics themselves were high in number too; according to her boss, they were several 'generations' of robots owned by the company. The ill-fated "Fazbear's Fright" attraction that had burned down a few years ago had destroyed a lot of the old décor from pizzeria, but somehow the animatronics that the employees had salvaged were saved. Apparently they'd been placed into a storage shed out back before the fire had happened. The company had also pulled an assortment of the Toy animatronics and spare parts out of cold storage as well and remastered both the old and newer animatronics. To Laurel, though, it felt like there were all the more eyes watching her there.

She sighed a bit and stood up; the locking mechanism overnight clicked, which meant that she could finally leave the office and head out. She just had to make one more round through the restaurant to make sure that everything was secure and she could leave. The entire place was still pitch black because of the automatic shudders over the windows, though she could see out the doors as the dull winter light shone in. As she approached the front doors, however, she furrowed her brow a bit and realized that it had snowed a lot harder overnight than she had originally thought; the snow was piled so high that there were only a couple feet that allowed any light inside, and she couldn't see outside even standing on her tip-toes since she was so short. She cursed a bit, realizing that since it was Monday, they likely hadn't even plowed the parking lot. How was she going to get out of here? Standing on top of a box, her apprehension was confirmed: her SUV was literally under a pile of snow, and the parking lot was absolutely buried.

She growled a bit, and somewhat nervously hit her mother's number on her cell phone, flicking on her flashlight as she started to do her rounds through the building. She heard her mom pick up, sounding groggy since it was so early in the morning.

"Hey mom…yeah, my shift just ended, but I have no idea how I'm going to get out of here and come home. It snowed like three feet overnight I haven't heard a damn car go by in hours because of it…no, I won't watch my language right this moment. I'm scared out of my mind here! This place is freezing and dark, and the weather's so bad that no one from the opening crew has even shown up even though they were due here a half hour ago…yeah, I wouldn't be that worried about leaving the place empty and locked if I could even get to my car, the snow's so high that I can't even get out the doors…hold on, my boss is calling me. I'll call you back after I talk to him…"

She paused and put her mother's call on hold, walking along slowly and shining her flashlight into the empty "VIP" party rooms that could be booked for birthdays. "Hello? Hey…yeah, sorry, I was talking to my mom…yeah, this place is about buried to the roof right now…what…? What do you mean the morning crew isn't coming in? Yeah, I know the streets are horrible…yeah, I'm not surprised that school is canceled either…look, I don't know what to do. I can't even get the doors open to leave, and now you're telling me that the guy that plows the lot out is stuck two cities over because of the blizzard…how are you expecting me to get out of here? I don't even know how to turn on the main generator yet…wait, you're breaking up…hello…?"

She suddenly felt her heart sink a bit as she heard the telltale crackle as her phone battery died; she was inwardly cursing herself out for having been playing games on it half the night to keep herself from drifting off, but if the coffee machine hadn't been broken, maybe she wouldn't have resorted to that. Now she didn't have any way to get ahold of anyone. None of the landlines that had been wired into this old building still worked, and she'd left her charger at hom like a boob. At least, though, her mom and boss knew she was stuck here; surely someone would come and bail her out soon enough right? She wanted to believe that, though looking out the window, she realized it was snowing extremely heavily again, to the point that it was a total white-out.

Well, there was no point in killing herself with stress for the time being. She was suddenly feeling warmer, probably from anxiety, and took off her winter coat and laid it over a chair in one of the private rooms as she continued doing her patrol. Not that she expected anyone to be coming by to vandalize the place in this weather, but at least it was something to do. She cringed a bit as she passed a fun-house mirror in the hallway, noticing the tacky purple color of her security outfit again.

She sighed a bit as she shined her flashlight along some of the animatronics quietly. "Looks like you guys are my only company for the time being…wonder if they'll finally come and dig me out of here when I've lost my mind and am just sitting in here talking to all of you…" she chuckled a bit nervously; in all honestly though, even though the animatronics still creeped her out a bit, she felt relatively at ease around them. Though in all fairness, it was easier to be out and about with them during the day when they were playing music and entertaining the kids.

She left the main ballroom and headed down the lonely stretch of hallway towards the back storage area, which was usually the last leg of her journey, at least according to her training manual. It was only accessible within the facility, since there were no windows or outside doors that led into the room. It was the creepiest place by far to her, though; something about how dark and desolate it was really made her feel apprehensive. She swallowed down her fear, however, and mustered up some resolve as she used her key card to unlock the door and stepped inside.

Almost immediately she could feel her eyes well with cool tears as the smell hit her first; at least, she thought it was the stench of old metal from the scattered spare parts, but this was…different than last night. Her manager had actually told her that the two oldest animatronics of the company had been shipped in the morning before after having been refurbished, though he'd said one had been put down into the basement for the time being while one was in the storage closet to get it prepped to be used again. She let out a yelp as her flashlight grazed over its massive form on the other side of the room, cringing as she caught side of what appeared to be yellow faux fur ahead of her. She managed to catch herself, however, and shined her flashlight ahead.

It looked like the older version of Bonnie, but yellow, and with somehow creepier blue eyes that were staring right at her. She felt like her hair was standing on end, even though it was motionless and slumped against the wall. As she stepped closer to it, she realized that the weird smell was coming from it; it smelled more like old, rusty iron than refurbished steel.

She made a bit of a sour face as she took a closer look at it and wrinkled her nose a bit. "Hope they do something about your B.O. before they put you on the floor…geez, and they said Foxy used to scare the kids. You're downright horrifying…" she murmured as she used her flashlight to look the animatronic over; it loomed so far over her that it had to stand between six and seven feet tall with ease. For some reason, though, her sense of apprehension didn't seem to go down like it did with the other animatronics, like she was getting used to them. If anything she felt more anxious being this close to it.

When she looked back up at its face, however, she winced and then froze to see its eyes were still fixated on her, like it had followed her to that point. At first, she figured she was imagining it and turned, wanting to quickly get out of there.

That was when she heard it, an almost sickening and loud thud as she heard the animatronic shift. Its weight was immense and she could hear what sounded like its feet shifting so that it was standing erect just a few feet behind her, and what sounded like a sort of exhale of stale, musty air from inside of it. She was too terrified to turn around and look back, even with the comfort of thinking that she was just imagining it, though that thought vanished when she felt a source of heat against her back and realized that it had moved closer to her.

"Don't look at it, it…it's probably just malfunctioning and on free-range mode because of the generator being wonky…don't freak out…it'll probably go into Stand-By mode like they said if I just ignore it…" she was saying this aloud, albeit softly, to herself in order to keep calm.

That was when she heard what sounded like a raspy, deep chuckle from over her head, and suddenly felt something warm drip onto her scalp. "That's just what they tell you…so that you'll hold still long enough to make it painless…"

Laurel suddenly let out a scream and went to run out of the room only for a strong hand to suddenly clamp around her throat, a mixture of warm fake fur and bits of exposed metal parts; when she was spun around her flashlight was shining right up onto the animatronic's face again, and now it was leering down at her with an odd, vile grin across its features. Her hand was shaking and so too was the light, feeling light-headed between fear and the crushing force of its hand around her throat. She was literally too terrified to say anything though out of disbelief; there was no way that…that thing just talked to her like it was…alive…she had to be having a nightmare…she probably just drifted off again at the desk like the night before...

"I know what you're thinking…it just has to be a nightmare…none of this can be real. They're just oversized toys used to amuse children…but surely, if you came to work here…you must know by now there's a lot more to this place and its history than amusement…" Its voice had a deep, human-like quality to it, though it was also heavily tainted with a grating metallic sound that gave it a robotic intonation. Either way, its words were making her all the more terrified. How…how was it self-aware? She'd been told that even though the animatronics had been rewired with new AI and hardware, they were still simple machines…

All she could do was shut her eyes, though, and pray that she woke up. She heard it laugh lowly at her again, if you could call it that; it sounded more demonic than hearing someone chuckle at something humorous. "You can pretend that all of this is just in your head…I don't need you to be compliant…I never have."

Laurel suddenly let out a strangled whimper when she felt its other hand suddenly trail along her side a bit, almost gently, like it was feeling her up. For some reason that sent her stomach into nausea overdrive, especially feeling the cold sensation of its fingers slipping underneath her blouse. She let out another strangled sound and finally found enough adrenaline in herself to fight, starting to writhe and lash out. She managed to kick a foot into his mid-drift portion, but the only thing that that accomplished was breaking a couple of her toes and causing it to laugh a bit more.

"Feisty, are we? You know…there's a distinct reason that all those years ago, they never hired any more female security guards…"

"If this…is someone's…idea…of a fucking joke…" she managed to sputter, though inwardly she was praying that it was, if only to give her some semblance of normalcy again.

"I assure you…it's not...but, if you really want to be sure, I think that I can accommodate you…" Laurel's eyes widened in abject horror as the animatronic suddenly reached up, and torqued the upper half of its head back, which caused it to snap open at the jaw; inside, she could only see what looked like old, filthy circuitry…and some shredded bits of what seemed to be rotted flesh and bits of dried blood against the metal. The stench that had burned her nostrils initially was suddenly stronger than ever and she suddenly let out a horrified scream. This time, it was loud enough to escape the room and echoed out through the facility, though he clasped her neck a bit tightly to quiet her.

"Well…now that you seem to finally realize the gravity of the situation…what do you say we cut right to upholding the 'spirit' of this place and having ourselves some 'fun'…?" Its gravelly voice held a malevolent tone, and she could suddenly feel the fabric of her blouse starting to tear under its grip. She didn't know which was more horrifying right this second; the fact that this animatronic was seemingly alive and free-willed...or that it was using said free-will to assault her…either way, she could feel her vision starting to falter as its hold on her neck was only getting tighter, seemingly to force her to lose consciousness so she'd have no way to escape at all, or call for help…not that there was anyone here to help her…her grip on its hand suddenly started to loosen as everything started to turn into a grainy, fluctuating blur…

She was jarred back to reality, however, when she suddenly felt something impact the large animatronic, and its grip on her loosened and she fell; instead of landing hard on the ground, however, something – or someone – suddenly caught her; her vision was still clouded, though she started to cough as her lungs filled with precious air again. Her throat was throbbing with anguish from the stranglehold, however.

"Arr, jus' breathe best ye' can, lass…" She heard an almost somewhat gravelly voice above her, though it had a far friendly tone than her attacker's; she was stunned, however, when her eyes finally cleared and she looked up at a very familiar animatronic.

"F-Foxy…?!" she sputtered incredulously. The animatronic glimpsed down at her and smirked a bit where he was crouching on the ground.

"Aye lass…me mateys an' di heard ye screamin' and came ta bestow some assistance…" His speech was still like a pirate's, in the same manner that he'd talk to children that visited Pirate's Cove and interacted with him during the day.

"Mateys…?" she suddenly jerked her head slightly and saw that her attacker had been forced away from her by none other than Freddy himself, along with the female animatronic Vixen. She was one of the heavily remastered animatronics, a white, love-themed and female version of Foxy that had once been crudely nicknamed "Mangle" before she'd been repaired. Her vocal registers still malfunctioned at times, so she was often in the repair shop, but at least she was no longer the tangle of parts she had used to have been.

"Foxy, get her somewhere safe…we'll keep him here for the time being…" Freddy said sternly back to his companion; Foxy nodded and suddenly took off with her, though she shuddered as she heard the villainous animatronic let out a vicious, mechanized roar at her departure.

She didn't have long to worry on it, however, before the culmination of the stress of the situation and also the fact that it all seemed like something worthy of a fever dream caused her to pass out as he escaped down the corridors with her.