GUESS WHO'S BAAACK?! Hooooo boy so do I have a looong tale of my absence for you. Lemme just break down a few questions before they even get asked.

1. Yes, I'm back. Hopefully heralding the return to more regular updates because now I have an actual project to work on, especially since now the stress in my life has minimized in several major ways.

2. Yes, I am aware of about a bajillion things that happened in both Sister Location and (probably) in the books that are gonna make this REALLY hard to write. Haven't read the books yet myself so I won't be factoring them in too much, but I do have some ideas for how to incorporate SL. (PS - if anyone wants to buy me the books, I'll gladly point out my Amazon account :P)

3. This story is gonna be told from two perspectives. Joseph Adams, and Alex Redding himself. Odds are I'll post them both in single chapters instead of trying to divide them up.

4. Yes I did write a novel, waaaay back in November. It's been sitting on my hard drive crying out for me to give it a full edit for ages. Eventually I'll publish it on Amazon as well, and I'll gladly point you fine people towards it in hopes that you'll give me money. :P

5. This space intentionally left blank.

I think that covers it all, right? Good. Ask further questions in reviews if you wish. I've blathered on enough, so let's get this show back on the road!

POV: Joseph Adams.

Location CBAF, Cordon Entrance

I shook my head a little bit as I put my cruiser into park outside the cordoned-off fencing. Truth be told, I wasn't completely sure why I'd bought into this ghost story; all I had to go off of was a letter from a missing man, a folder from someone I'd seen driven to alcoholism, and a top hat. Normally this wouldn't even be close to enough for me to devote any resources to it, let alone go out myself, but this was a much more personal case. Something about it all had made far too much sense for me to just let it go.

I sighed for a moment, before slowly climbing out of the cruiser, making sure to grab the top hat and folder as I did. I checked my things, as well – my standard issue baton, cuffs, taser, pepper spray, and a .45 automatic sidearm. Mentally I smirked a bit; Alex had always been the ace at hand to hand fighting back during Academy, but when it came to the shooting range I always had the advantage over him. Remembering our time there made me remember where he was now, laying in a hospital bed comatose. I focused once more, making sure I had everything as I set out down the worn, overgrown road towards my destination.

As I walked I had time to think everything over. This had all started roughly three weeks ago, when I'd been leaving the hospital. I'd only come in to check in on Alex, see if there were any updates. On my way out, I'd been stopped at the front desk – a package had arrived, addressed to me. When I took it back home and opened it up, I'd discovered it was from Frederick Faz, a former higher-up at Fazbear Entertainment that had disappeared some years ago. He had been a friend to Alex and the animatronic band, so his vanishing had left more than a few questions left unanswered. I'd attempted to look into it once or twice, but had no luck – he did not want to be found. Faz had left a letter, explaining that even though Alex had taken out Golden Freddy once and for all there was still at least one lead left in the entire Fazbear Entertainment mess, and that it was up to me to try and stop it. He had warned me of another enemy – one even more bloodthirsty than Golden Freddy had been.

He told me that the enemy was connected to the defunct Candy's Burgers and Fries, another animatronic-themed restaurant that had opened to compete with Freddy Fazbear's. In a twisted way, that made sense; early on after the 'Toy Incident', the new band had gone with some AI researchers to Candy's to try and see if there was anything interesting about the animatronics left there – after all, in its heyday Candy's had been a close competitor to Fazbear's so it made sense there could have been some AI technology involved. That had apparently not ended well, and orders were given to cordon the area off and keep the general public away. Luckily, I wasn't the general public so they'd waved me through – being connected to a hero had its advantages.

Regardless, the thing that had really caught my eye was that there could be a lead to both replacement Fazbear endoskeletons and, more importantly, backups for the band's AI. This was critical – in the years between Faz's disappearance and the events of two months ago, every last member of the band had been 'killed'. Their endoskeletons were destroyed in what seemed like tragedies and their memories had been wiped from the trauma, effectively rendering them 'dead'. This had been the catalyst that drove Alex to booze and obsession in the first place. If there was any chance of bringing them back, I had to take it for his sake.

Faz's letter hadn't explained much beyond that, but I had found a folder at Alex's house talking about Candy's – apparently he had recovered it from Faz's abandoned house. Labeled R-A-T, it had numerous schematics, news clippings, and other information gathered from and pointed at Candy's Burgers and Fries. What little I could piece together had suggested that Candy's had acquired a Fazbear endoskeleton and had attempted to adapt it for their own purposes. Whether or not they were successful was unknown, but I had my own suspicions; whether or not I was right would involve me checking the place over. I'd managed to talk the research team into letting me have five days open and investigating the property, though I hadn't been able to make it here until evening.

I laughed softly to myself. Five nights at a long-abandoned kid's animatronic restaurant. Wasn't this exactly what Alex had to deal with, so long ago? I chuckled once more as I came around the bend of the path... The laugh dying in my throat as I looked up at the foreboding looking, dark building. I shuddered a bit, fishing the key out as I pulled a bit of tape off the door, starting to unlock it.

In theory, this place should be safe – they'd gone through it and hadn't found anything actually dangerous, or at least that's what they told me. In practice, though...

I rested a hand on my pistol, before taking a deep breath and pushing through.

At least Alex is getting some rest...

Unknown

POV: Alex Redding

The first thing I heard as my eyes slowly drifted open was the faint sound of a grandfather clock striking the hour. I groaned a little bit, trying to roll back over on my side in the bed – I wasn't keen on getting up just yet, for some reason I felt like crap. Groggily, I tried to remember what I'd done the day before to result in me feeling twinges of pain in muscles I didn't even realize I had. I knew I was forgetting something specific... Did I have too much to drink last night? No, couldn't be. I'd polished off my last whiskey bottle a few days ago, after I'd decided to –

And then it hit me full-force, causing my eyes to snap open. Fazbear's Fright. Golden Freddy. Springtrap.

The fire.

Shaking my head I immediately looked myself over, and found myself a bit impressed. Considering the amount of damage and punishment I'd taken, I looked surprisingly good; a few new scars, and my beard desperately needed tending, but overall I was in shockingly good shape. I wonder how long I was out...

Stock taken I looked up – and got my second surprise of the day. This wasn't a hospital room at all. In fact, it seemed like a child's bedroom... That was, to say the least, a bit disconcerting. And also eerily familiar.

I had never remembered much of my childhood – I'd talked to a few psychiatrists about it shortly after joining the police force, but had never gotten anywhere. As far as they could tell, I had some kind of mental 'blockage' that kept me from ever figuring out what had happened. All they could figure was that it was some form of trauma... And yet this room felt familiar, vaguely familiar. I wasn't even sure what it was all about. Maybe it had some connection to my childhood?

I shook my head for a moment as I heard some loud thumping outside my room, getting to my feet and climbing out of bed. There was a flashlight sitting on the end table next to me; grabbing it, I started moving towards the door. As I cracked it open I squinted, unable to see much – the hallway outside was pitch black, and apparently it was an overcast night because there wasn't even any light from the stars or moon. And yet, I could almost hear someone... Breathing.

Back when I was a rookie cop on the streets, I had been told by some more veteran officers about a set of instincts that every cop eventually learned, and learned to trust; a bad feeling about someone that gives you the extra half-second you need when they pull a knife or a gun, the feeling in the pit of your stomach that told you a domestic disturbance was about to turn violent, the voice in the back of your mind that tells you to pull that speeder over, he's probably high on something. All of it seemed to be folly to me when I was a recruit, but after several years – especially during my time with SWAT – I'd learned to listen.

Those instincts saved my life as I slammed the door roughly a split second before an inhuman scream rung out and clawed, mangled hands attempted to grab me. I heard the sound of steel against wood and leaned against the door, hoping that it would hold, expecting the ungodly beast to simply bash through the door...

Nothing. A few seconds passed, and the thing – whatever it was – thumped its way down the corridor again. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding before slowly cracking my door open again, shining the flashlight down the corridor to see if I could even glimpse whatever it was.

And that was when the third nasty surprise hit me as the beam played across Bonnie Bunny... Well, if Bonnie had been designed for a horror film, that was. Jagged, razor-sharp teeth, a mangled suit that showed endoskeleton parts clearly, claws that looked like they could gut me with a single move. The visage was a terror, and I stumbled away from the door, shaking my head rapidly as I heard another thumping on the other side. Shining my flashlight down that corridor, I saw a nightmarish version of Chica glaring at me, before disappearing around the corner once more.

Heart pounding in my ears I spun, trying to see if there was any sort of weapon I could use against them, and I got my third horrifying surprise as a brief view of a horrible, miniature version of Freddy disappeared back underneath my bed. I was panting, gasping for breath now, feeling like I was closed in somehow... I staggered back against my closet, shining the flashlight in. Thankfully, all that I saw was a Foxy plush, although something about it did not sate my unease. Especially as memories of the girl that I lost flowed back through me.

I shook my head, sighing heavily to myself as I heard more thumping in the halls outside, my heart starting to pound once more. Here I was, stuck in a living nightmare once more – the same way that I was so long ago, during my tenure as a Freddy Fazbear security guard.

Except this time, I didn't have any batons or firepower to tilt the deck in my favor. I just had an old flashlight and my wits. Add in the fact that there was still a grating feeling in the back of my mind that I was missing something, and it seemed like I was in it up to my neck.

Wouldn't be the first time, I suppose...

Man, it feels weird to be writing FNAF again. I've done so much other writing work since last I returned to Alex's adventures...

Oh. One final note.

6. Whatever ends up happening after Sister Location's story is going to represent the final Alex Redding tale. I'm saying this here and now so that after whatever-comes-next (Twisted Ones book, I think?) you all will know that Alex's adventure isn't gonna include it. The story's already gone so far off canon that I don't mind picking a direct point to cut it off. So it'll be this, Sister Location, then some form of finale. Hey, I've got other projects I wanna eventually work on. :P

Anyway, read and review... Man it's good to say that again. XD