Jeremy Fitzgerald stared at the flickering fluorescent light above the security desk. It buzzed with the persistence of a dying insect, a sound that seemed to scratch at the inside of his skull. He adjusted the brim of his cap, the cheap polyester of his uniform itching against his neck.

“Fazbear Entertainment,” he muttered, spinning the empty swivel chair. “Family fun. Pizza. Animatronics that cost more than my car.”

He pulled the tablet closer, tapping the screen to cycle through the camera feeds. Static hissed, then cleared to reveal the Party Room.

It was empty. Confetti littered the checkered floor like the aftermath of a small war. Long tables were draped in white cloths, birthday hats perched on chairs as if waiting for ghosts.

Then, the camera feed for the Show Stage flickered.

Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy stood in their frozen tableau. Jeremy leaned in. There was something… off. In the shadows behind Freddy, something moved. A thin, black shape with white stripes.

“What the hell?” Jeremy whispered.

He tapped the screen, switching to CAM 08. The Prize Corner.

The music box was unwound. The melody, “Pop Goes the Weasel,” was usually a tinny, annoying loop, but now the silence was heavier. The large gift box in the center of the room was open.

The Puppet was gone.

Jeremy felt a cold prickle of unease. He switched back to the Show Stage. Freddy was looking directly at the camera. His eyes, usually painted plastic discs, seemed to have depth. Wetness.

Mom? Mom, where are you?

The words didn’t come from the speakers. They bloomed in Jeremy’s head, a child’s voice, desperate and terrified. He dropped the tablet. It clattered against the desk, the screen cracking slightly.

“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay. Just old wiring. Radio interference. Get a grip, Fitzgerald.”

Night 2: The Tape

The next night, Jeremy found a VHS tape sitting on the desk. No label. Just a black cassette with a piece of masking tape on the side.

Curiosity, that fatal flaw of every horror movie protagonist, took over. He slid it into the VCR hooked up to the small monitor in the corner.

The screen flared with the Fazbear Entertainment logo—a smiling Freddy head that looked more like a bear trap than a mascot.

“Welcome to the new Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza!” a narrator boomed, his voice sounding like it was being filtered through a tin can. “A magical place for kids and grown-ups alike!”

The footage cut to the new animatronics. The “Toys.” They were sleek, shiny, made of hard plastic that gleamed under the stage lights. Toy Freddy with his red cheeks. Toy Chica with her bib that read “LET’S PARTY!”

But then the tape glitched. The narrator’s voice distorted, slowing down into a demonic drawl.

“The… old… models…”

The image shifted. It was a still frame of the back room. The Withered Animatronics. They were slumped against the wall, broken and torn. Withered Bonnie was missing his face, just a dark void with two glowing red pinpricks. Withered Chica’s jaw was unhinged, gaping wide like a scream frozen in time.

And standing next to them was a golden bear. Slumped. Lifeless.

But the eyes… the eyes were censored. A black bar covered the upper half of the face.

Why censor a robot? Jeremy thought. Unless there’s something stuck in its teeth.

The tape ended with a static-filled message: “They remember. They are waiting.”

Jeremy ejected the tape. His hands were shaking. He looked at the hallway leading to the office. It was pitch black, a mouth waiting to swallow him whole.

Night 3: The Phone Call

The phone rang at exactly 12:00 AM. It made Jeremy jump, spilling lukewarm coffee onto his lap.

“Hello? Hello?”

It was the Phone Guy. But he sounded different tonight. Strained.

“Uh, hey Jeremy. Night three. Nice work making it this far. Quick update. The company sent the Toy Animatronics back to the factory tonight. They found some problems with their systems… facial recognition glitches. So, you won’t see them around.”

Jeremy let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. No Toys. That made things easier.

“The old animatronics are still in Parts and Service. They’re not supposed to move. They barely work anymore. If they move a little, it’s just the servos locking up. Trust me, they’re not going anywhere.”

The call ended. Silence returned to the pizzeria.

Jeremy picked up the tablet. He checked Parts and Service.

Withered Freddy was sitting on the floor. Withered Bonnie was leaning against the wall.

Wait.

Withered Bonnie was looking at the camera.

Jeremy blinked. He switched to the Main Hall. Empty. He switched back to Parts and Service.

Withered Bonnie was gone.

“No,” Jeremy whispered. “He said they don’t move.”

He frantically tapped through the cameras. Party Room 1. Party Room 2. The vents.

There. In the blind spot of the Left Air Vent.

A face. Or rather, the lack of one. Withered Bonnie was staring up at the camera, his single red eye glowing in the darkness. He raised a hand—a skeletal, metallic claw—and waved.

It wasn’t a friendly wave. It was a mockery.

Then, text appeared on the bottom of the tablet screen. Not from the system. Overlaid on the video feed.

IT WASN’T ME.

Jeremy frowned. “What?”

The text changed.

WRONG PLACE. WRONG TIME.

The feed cut to static. When it came back, it showed the Show Stage from the first location. The original Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica. They were looking down at something on the floor.

A man. He was wearing a security uniform. He was screaming, but there was no sound.

The animatronics were dragging him. They were dragging him toward a suit. A yellow bear suit.

“I’m going to try to hold out until someone checks…” the Phone Guy’s voice echoed in Jeremy’s memory.

The screen flashed.

GABRIEL, I FEEL LIKE IT WASN’T HIM.

I AGREE. HE LOOKED DIFFERENT.

NO. I ENJOYED PUTTING HIM IN THE SUIT.

Jeremy dropped the tablet. The voices weren’t coming from the speakers. They were whispering from the shadows of the office.

“Who’s there?” Jeremy called out, grabbing his flashlight.

He shone the beam down the hallway.

Nothing.

Then, a laugh. A deep, mechanical laugh that vibrated in his chest.

Freddy.

Night 4: The Kitchen

The shift started with a bang. Literally. Something heavy crashed in the Kitchen.

The Kitchen camera was audio-only. A black screen with a speaker icon. Jeremy turned the volume up.

Clanging pots. The sizzle of something… cooking?

Then, the heavy thud of footsteps. Not human footsteps. Metal on tile.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

“Chica,” Jeremy muttered.

He checked the other cameras. Withered Chica was missing from Parts and Service.

Suddenly, the Kitchen camera feed flickered. An image appeared.

It was impossible. The camera was supposed to be broken.

But there she was. Withered Chica, standing amidst the stainless steel counters. She wasn’t cooking pizza. She was arranging… things.

Knives. Cleavers. A meat tenderizer.

She turned her head slowly, her jaw hanging loose, swinging with the momentum. She looked directly into the lens.

PIZZA.

The audio distorted into a screech. Jeremy ripped his headphones off.

When he looked up, the office lights died.

Total darkness.

The hum of the ventilation system stopped. The only sound was Jeremy’s own breathing, ragged and fast.

Then, two white lights appeared in the hallway.

Eyes.

And then the music started. The “Toreador March.”

Jeremy fumbled for his flashlight. He clicked it on.

Freddy Fazbear was standing three feet away.

He wasn’t the cartoon bear on the posters. In the harsh beam of the flashlight, his fur was matted and stained. His metal endoskeleton showed through rips in the fabric. His teeth were sharp, square, and far too many.

Behind him, hovering in the air like a ghost, was the Puppet. Its white mask seemed to float in the dark void.

EVERYTHING IS FINE, the text scrolled across Jeremy’s vision, burned into his retinas.

Freddy lunged.

Jeremy screamed and threw the flashlight. It hit Freddy in the snout with a thunk.

The bear recoiled, glitching. His head spun 360 degrees, the servos whining in protest.

Jeremy scrambled under the desk. He curled into a ball, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.”

He stayed there until 6:00 AM chimed.

When he crawled out, the hallway was empty. The flashlight lay on the floor, broken.

Night 5: The Nightmare

Jeremy tried to quit. He called the manager, a guy named Scott, and told him he was done.

“Just one more night, Jeremy,” Scott had said. “We have a replacement coming Monday. Just finish the week. Double pay.”

Jeremy needed the money. God help him, he needed the money.

He walked into the pizzeria at 11:50 PM. The air felt heavy, charged with static electricity. The animatronics were back in their places, silent and still.

But the tablet had a new file on it. NIGHTMARE.mp4.

Jeremy didn’t want to watch it. But his finger hovered over the play button. He pressed it.

The video was from the perspective of an animatronic. The camera was inside the head. You could see the metal teeth framing the view.

I am Freddy.

The view turned. Withered Bonnie was to the right. Withered Chica to the left.

Then, a red figure appeared in the distance.

Foxy.

Foxy was running. Not down a hallway. He was running through a field of static.

STOP HIM.

SAVE THEM.

The video cut to a room Jeremy had never seen. It looked like a safe room. There were arcade cabinets pushed against the wall. And in the center, a golden rabbit suit.

Springtrap.

The suit was twitching. Fluids were leaking from the joints.

OLD FRIENDS.

The screen went black. Then, a single sentence appeared in red:

HE IS STILL IN CONTROL.

Jeremy looked up from the tablet.

The office was full.

They were all there.

Withered Freddy blocked the hallway. Withered Bonnie stood by the left vent. Withered Chica was in the right vent. The Puppet hung from the ceiling, its long, spindly arms reaching down.

And behind Freddy, a golden bear slumped against the wall. Golden Freddy.

Jeremy stood up. There was nowhere to run.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice trembling.

The animatronics didn’t attack. They just watched.

Then, Golden Freddy’s head lifted. The black voids of his eyes bore into Jeremy.

WE WANT HIM.

“Who?”

THE PURPLE MAN.

“I’m not him!” Jeremy yelled. “My name is Jeremy! I’m just a security guard!”

Withered Bonnie stepped forward. He reached out with his handless arm.

YOU WEAR THE BADGE.

YOU SIT IN THE CHAIR.

YOU ARE THE GUARD.

The logic of the dead. It didn’t matter who he was. It mattered what he represented. To them, he was the adult who failed to save them. He was the authority figure who let them die.

Or worse. He was the killer returning to the scene of the crime.

Freddy stepped forward. The music box melody began to play, slow and distorted.

Jeremy backed up until he hit the wall. “Please.”

Freddy reached out. His massive paws grabbed Jeremy’s shoulders. The grip was crushing.

“No!”

Freddy didn’t bite him. He didn’t slash him.

He lifted him.

Jeremy kicked and struggled, but the animatronic was immovable. Freddy carried him out of the office, down the dark hallway, toward the Back Room.

The door to Parts and Service creaked open.

Inside, there was a spare Freddy suit sitting on the table. It was open, the metal crossbeams and wires exposed like a ribcage.

“No,” Jeremy whispered. “Please, no.”

IT’S WARM INSIDE, a voice whispered in his ear. It sounded like a little girl.

Freddy shoved him.

Jeremy fell into the suit. The metal frame dug into his back. He tried to scramble out, but Bonnie and Chica were there, holding him down.

The Puppet floated over him. It reached down and touched the spring locks on the side of the suit.

CLICK.

The sound was deafening.

Metal snapped. Gears ground. Jeremy felt a hundred sharp points drive into his skin. The suit compressed.

He screamed. He screamed until his lungs were punctured.

The last thing he saw was the Freddy mask being lowered onto his face. The darkness swallowed him.

The Aftermath

The police report said Jeremy Fitzgerald went missing.

They found his car in the parking lot. They found his uniform cap on the floor of the security office. But they never found a body.

The pizzeria closed down a week later. Health code violations. A foul odor coming from the animatronics. Blood and mucus leaking from the eyes and mouths of the mascots.

A few months later, a new tape surfaced on the dark web.

It showed the Parts and Service room.

The camera zoomed in on the spare Freddy suit in the corner. It was slumped over, lifeless.

But then, the eyes flickered.

Not the mechanical eyes. Human eyes. Bloodshot, terrified, and trapped behind the mesh.

A hand—a mix of metal and rotting flesh—twitched.

Text appeared on the screen, green and glitchy.

JEREMY IS HOME.

And in the background, if you listened very closely, you could hear the faint, distorted sound of a music box playing “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

The nightmare wasn’t over. It had just found a new player.