Hello!As of August 14, 2019, some details of the previous chapters have been changed. Mostly some names and smaller details, but for the most part the story is continuing as it is.

Chapter 6

Night 1: Occupational Hazard

Dear Stupid Piece of Paper.

I hate this job. And I love it. We have a love/hate relationship. Like the Doctor and River Song, except they don't really hate each other, but they're dangerous to each other. Sounds about right. I might be crazy staying here. I'm rambling.

I have to remember, Ruby…she's still a kid, whether she wants to be or not. I was too harsh on her. She…didn't lie about the…ghosts. I know that. Obviously. It wasn't that I didn't believe her, I just didn't want to believe it. It's too much. They were just kids…Memory usually doesn't go back that far. But I remember. Maybe. It all hazy. I don't really know what I have forgotten. I wish I could've forgotten entirely everything some days.

Back then

The Toys

"Is it fair, though?" Toy Chica said.

"Who cares! It's a night guard," Toy Bonnie scoffed.

"I'm just saying," Toy Chica mumbled, "If she's in a wheelchair, doesn't that make it a bit unfair?"

"What are you suggesting," Puppet was calmly but with an edge. "That we close our eyes and count to ten?"

Mangle chortled a bit, and Toy Chica looked up at the twisted up fox, hanging from the shelving above them.

"A night guard wouldn't care about being fair to the children they would hurt," the Marionette pointed out. "Doesn't disregarding her difficulties even the score?"

"I supposed."

"Glad we agree."

"It doesn't really make it fun if we can get to her too easily, Puppet," Toy Freddy spoke up with a reserved tone. He flinched when Puppet looked his way.

"Perhaps. Very well. Here's a suggestion," Puppet said. He was quiet for a minute, contemplative. He hummed, though he didn't seem happy with his own solution to appease them. But at the same time, he was patient and preferred drawing things out if he could. "We don't attack her immediately tonight. Get close but draw it out until she understands what is coming for her. At the same time, lull her into a false sense of security. That way she'll come back tomorrow, but she underestimates us."

"Ugh," Toy Bonnie mumbled. He crossed his arms and winced at the sound his elbow made. "We can still scare it though right?"

"Of course. Not too much, though."

"Okay." Immediately Toy Bonnie turned to leave the cage and head down the path he liked to take.

"You're so impatient!" Toy Freddy called after him in annoyance.

Toy Bonnie ignored him and was out of sight.

"Hmph! I was going to go!" Toy Chica complained, her earlier reservations gone.

"If you go at the same time, you'll give each other away," Toy Freddy reminded as Puppet slipped out to go "wherever."

Mangle rolled her working eye and nudged Toy Freddy's arm with her nose then Toy Chica's.

"I'm fine," Toy Freddy said as Toy Chica waved Mangle away in annoyance. "Puppet helped me put my arm back on." He didn't mention how they all knew it was probably going to fall off again in a couple days.

Mangle crooned.

The rest of them sometimes got really annoyed when Mangle was concerned for the rest of them when she was literally in pieces. She had bits of her scattered across their small room.

"Hey, Mangle!" Toy Chica said, "I think I saw some old oil cans in one of the storage closets on the second level. The gate was locked though. Think you can help me break it?"

"I'll help you break it," Toy Freddy insisted, throwing a glare at Mangle.

She just rolled her eye and settled down. There was no point in her going out just yet. She was tired and freaking out the night guard could wait a bit.

Hedy

It was quiet. Nothing happened.

Hedy waited in silent terror for at least ten minutes, daring them to attack the guard cage. When she finally decided that doing so would get her nowhere, she cursed herself for wasting time.

Of course, she knew what this situation could be. She shuddered thinking back how she was sitting next to the robots minutes before, inspecting their supposedly lifeless (unconscious?) metal husks.

Honestly, she wasn't even planning to sign that contract. Maybe…she was planning on making "decent" effort then tell the company they weren't salvageable. She had no idea. She thought she was still in the collecting information stage at this point. That idea was out the window.

She had no idea what she wanted. Earlier. But at this very moment, she wanted to live. And somewhere in this building were a bunch of idiots who get off on terrorizing strangers who happen to get locked in a warehouse. That or a psycho murderer who was planning this for a long while and orchestrated a whole thing while hiring actors to play as lawyers who would lure her here (fifty-fifty on the unlikely scale, taking into account her trauma and paranoia).

OR, even more likely, she got herself mixed up with Freddy Fazbear's curse like an idiot DESPITE being one of a handful of individuals who took the rumors seriously. Not that she could tell people that. It was a story relegated to teenagers and creepypasta fanatics.

A better way to say it would be that the Fitzgerald Curse caught her again. If you're a Fitzgerald in this town, there will be an attempt on your life involving robots. Granted, she had a small sample pool but still…

Cameras. An eerily familiar voice reminded. Check the cameras.

Right. Her arms felt weak and jelly-like, but she smoothly pulled her wheelchair up to the desk again.

"Okay you S.O.B's," she muttered, hands clenched on the computer mouse. The thing about movies is that in those cool hacking scenes, there's an awful lot of typing. That's not often the case. It's actually way more boring

Someone inside the building sent her those messages. She already tried using the network and Wi-Fi to find controls that could open the doors, but those were on a hardline system somewhere else in the building.

She opened everything. Every file she could get into. Fortunately, the security cameras were routed through the computer. Unfortunately, some of the people who worked here kept some…personal stuff on there. There were a couple video games at least. Good ones.

Hedy closed out of them and clicked through a few of the feeds.

This was horribly familiar, in a vicarious sort of way.

"Got you," she whispered, pulling up an IP address search. She put the map that showed the various sections of the warehouse and where the security cameras were alongside the search map.

This computer was only pretty much for communications and security cameras when it wasn't business hours. Everything external was locked up. She couldn't even get online to log into her email account to send for help. Upside, whoever sent her those messages was using the same Wi-Fi, which meant a basic understanding of IP addresses was a lot of help.

Hedy squinted. She clicked on the camera in that section and froze.

Her stomach sank as she found a feed that showed the containment cage where the Toys were kept.

Even as she watched, the chain-link kennel-like door swung gently in the grainy picture.

That was the cage where the Toy bots were being kept. She couldn't see inside except for vague shadows, but that wasn't what freaked her out.

The door to the cage was slowly swinging back and forth as if someone had simply walked out moments before and slammed the gate behind them.

She swallowed.

Uncle Scott stayed at that godforsaken place for a reason.

Her brother still had nightmares into his thirties.

But her dad told her the robots were the closest to life any line of code could get. They could learn. Expand.

But that didn't make any sense. Sure, but they were still machines, right?

Jeremy didn't think they were alive.

However, a machine didn't message her threateningly.

Whether they were self-aware or this was some weird programming didn't change the danger that she was in, but it might help her find a solution. She needed more information.

The looked toward the back of the room at a dirty red and white box the thing with the keys had left behind.

It was the Puppet, she knew.

…Did that jerk seriously go through the effort of moving it all the way to the room from wherever it was just to freak her out?