i'm alive, i'm revived, i survived, you surprised?
gonna cry about it? you should see the other guy
i'm returned and i've waited my turn
a decade of time to make everything mine

Derivakat
Revived

Artist: solelyhereforangst

Artist: BoyMarcel98

TW: graphic gore, possession, paranoia, graphic death/murder, manipulation, power imbalance/mistreatment, vomit, mention of suicide

Just a quick note about timeline stuff bc I never mentioned it before - because of the whole Michael-being-Freddy thing and not wanting to make yn like 60-70, the timeline has gotten a lot shorter. Aimmn is technically set in 2005 but with a present day society/technology.

So it's 2022 but it's 2005. If,,,, that makes sense?

Also! I could literally write an entire novel on Vanessa's character, but I limited myself to one chapter, so.... It's long. It's absurdly long. I apologise in advance and I pray that you're comfortable and have tissues and snacks at the ready

•• 1987 ••

    If you lived in Hurricane, Utah, chances are you know about the infamous Fredbear's Family Diner and the horrors circling it like an unholy stench.

Chances are you know about the youngest Afton tragically dying to one of his father's own creations, or that the place wasn't shut down like it should've been but was instead sold on.

  If you lived in Hurricane, Utah, chances are you know about the five missing kids that were stolen from the newer Fazbear's diner with little to no evidence left.

  It wasn't a bad place to live if you didn't know the history or the rumours. It was a cosy, mundane kind of township where things were quiet, and it was lovely you weren't aware of the heavy cloud of apprehension and sorrow that hung over the place. If you weren't aware of the daily suffocation of morbid mystery and the ever-looming sense of the unknown mocking each citizen.

  But what was a five-year-old to know of town gossip?

  For a five-year-old, Hurricane was her entire world. The concept of the greater world hadn't quite set in yet, so thus she was content in her little life within the town's borders. Content with Saturday morning cartoons, content with chasing her friends through the neighbouring creek during the hot summers, content in the naivety youth had given her.

  She wouldn't be content for long.

  She was in her bedroom on the morning of September seventh, sat on her bed with a Care Bears blanket and playing with her new Jem and the Holograms dolls. She made them dance to the song inside her head while the summer sun slowly raised to mid-morning, flooding through the window.

  Below the second story where her room was, her parents bustled about the house, tidying the last scraps of gift wrap and cardboard toy boxes. The little girl was just meant to go up and get changed, but how could she ignore the call to play with her new toys?

  So she sat on her bed and played, unknowingly savouring the last morning she knew of peace.

  Her father's call had her scrambling from her bed, clutching her Jem doll in one hammy fist. She bounded down the stairs with an excited beam and found her parents waiting at the front door.

  The little family clambered into their car and, while the Jem doll was paraded about on the window sill, they drove to Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria on the fateful day of September seventh, 1987.

  Some of her friends were already there, waiting with their parents below the smiling face of Freddy Fazbear on the entrance's sign. Vanessa bounded up to her closest friends and the kids filed inside the place of questionable cleanliness with the parents following behind.

  The place smelled overwhelmingly of pizza and grease, both from the food and from the red-cheeked mechanical robots that paraded on the stage. The tiled floor was glossy, recently cleaned. The chatter of children as they played amongst the tables and sang along with the band felt like being hit by a wall of noise.

A woman in uniform with no smile took the kids to a table that sat just a breath away from the stage. A special chair was pulled out for the birthday girl right at the front, so close that she could almost touch Freddy's leg. Greasy, small handprints on his steel shell told her that many children before had done exactly that.

Pizza was brought out in droves, cheesy delight dotted with pepperoni and wafting smells that made you drool. The table was covered in steel plates of the dish and, as soon as they were set down, the kids began to dig in with fervent vigour.

The birthday girl sat on her pedestal, happily munching on pizza while the band sang the same song they'd been singing since the place reopened. She believed that she'd never had so much fun before.

But when the song ended, three pairs of robot eyes snapped directly to her.

She froze on her pedestal, one droopy, dripping slice of pizza quickly forgotten in her hand. They stared at her the way a lion would, intense, unblinking, stalking their prey. Terror began to flutter in her heart as the foreign instinct of survival made itself known to her for the first time in her life.

"Hey, Freddy!" Chica called in a squeaky voice. The main star turned only his head to her, movement jolting and sharp. She watched them, frozen.

"Yes, Chica?"

"A little birdie told me that it's someone- someone's b-b-birthday!"

"Really? H- how fun!" Freddy suddenly bent down towards the little girl, swamping her entire vision in nothing but his dead-eyed face. "What's your name, bi- birthday kid?"

She nervously slunk back further into her chair and felt the overwhelming need to start crying. Freddy remained long enough for her to realise that he wouldn't leave until he heard her answer.

  His silence was deafening over the crowd of shouting children. His stillness while kids clambered at the front of the stage, trying to get closer to Freddy, was unnerving. Those unnaturally saturated blue eyes of his burned.

  She held her Jem doll tighter. The piece of pizza had dropped to the table, forgotten. She was feeling nauseas, anyway.

"... Vanessa," she replied in a voice that carried just a touch above a whisper. He still heard her.

"Whadda- whadda wonderful name!" Freddy said as he took a mechanical step back from the edge of the stage. Vanessa felt herself give a gargantuan sigh of relief as the tension left her body. 

"I think we should sing the birthday song!" Bonnie chirped. He accented his suggestion with a strum of his banjo, which gave an off-key shriek of metal on steel wire. Vanessa found herself suddenly craving the presence of her mother.

"What a gr- great idea!" Chica chirped. Bonnie began to play his banjo and, while doing their odd, robotic side-to-side sashay, began to sing.

Vanessa looked around for her mother but the crowd was too thick and the stage lights too bright. The robots still stared her down with their frightening neon eyes as she slipped from her pedestal and began pushing her way through the crowd of children.

"Mom?" she called. Desperation drove her little legs further, carrying her unsteadily. "Mommy?" Her eyes began to sting. She held her Jem doll so tight that the legs began to bend. "Mommy!"

Vanessa burst from the crowd and bumped face-first into somebody's dark slacks. She stumbled back with a gasp and an apology on the tip of her tongue.

"Whoa, tiger!" the man she ran into said. Vanessa focused her vision and found a black-haired man looking down at her warmly, dressed in the staff uniform. His name badge read in nearly illegible handwriting: Jeremy.

"I'm sorry," Vanessa said. He bent down, warmth of his smile never fading.

"It's okay," he replied. "You need help lookin' for your momma?"

Vanessa nodded fast.

  "Alrighty," Jeremy said with enthusiasm. "The adults usually stay by the back of the room. You probably just missed her."

  "Oh," Vanessa murmured. She began following after Jeremy as he wove through the crowd. He looked down at her to make sure she was still behind him.

  "I like your doll!" Jeremy said.

  "Thank you." Vanessa held the doll against herself tighter for a brief moment. She looked up at the worker. "You can hold her hand, if you want."

  Jeremy was quick to play along, a skill refined by the nature of his job. He gave a serious nod.

  "I would love to hold her hand."

They walked, each holding a tiny hand of the Jem doll that hung between them, as they searched for Vanessa's mother. Vanessa could still feel the band's eyes pinned on her and blocked herself behind Jeremy's body. She felt safer with him.

"What's that?" Vanessa asked as they passed a door leading to a party room. Inside was a mangled heap of exposed robotic parts, dashed through with the occasional pink and white shell of exoskeleton.

Jeremy peeked inside and broke into another smile. "That's Foxy! Do you wanna meet him?"

Vanessa stared at the robot apprehensively. He looked tangled and broken, and he stared at Vanessa with one single, yellow eye - the same deep saturated colour that unsettled her as the band's.

Jeremy noticed her hesitance and knelt beside her. The Jem doll swung, boots tapping against Vanessa's arm.

"It's okay," he reassured. "Foxy's very nice. He loves making new friends." Jeremy lifted the Jem doll up and mimicked a shrill voice. "Don't you wanna make a new friend?"

  Vanessa giggled at his ridiculous impression and nodded her head. Jeremy lead her closer to the near-dismantled robot and knelt beside it, patting the top of his head as if they were old pals.

  The closer Vanessa got, the more unsure she felt. There was something off about the robot that had her on edge. It was that survival instinct again, but she didn't know what the prickling at the back of her neck meant as the Foxy robot stared her down with two heads.

  Jeremy smiled as Vanessa stopped before Foxy. She glanced between the him and the robot unsurely, finding herself wishing that she never asked about Foxy in the first place.

  "Say 'hi, Foxy!'" Jeremy said.

  "Hi..." Vanessa began in a quiet voice. The mangled heap of mechanical parts stared back at her with a single yellow eye, drilling into her, pinning her in place. "Hi, Foxy."

  "H- hel- llo- llo-" the robot's voice spat its cheery reply through broken scratches of static like an eerie siren's call. Vanessa flinched against the assault to her ears. "Ar- are y- are ya havin'- n' fun?"

  Vanessa stared at the tangled heap with a crevice between her brows. The thing was making her feel uneasy, watching her unblinkingly as parts of its skeleton twitched and slid across the polished floor. Jeremy didn't seem fazed by its creepiness and was patting the robot fox as through it were an old pet.

  "Howsit, kiddo?" Jeremy asked with a reassuring smile. Foxy's eye snapped to his face and the entire mangled thing went still. It stared. "Having fun at Freddy's?"

  Vanessa's weary gaze shifted back to Jeremy. She didn't want to tell the truth - that she wasn't enjoying it under the lifeless eyes of the singing robots on stage, or that this mangled robot had her feeling even worse. She took a shuffled step back and felt her face grow red with impending tears.

  "Hey, kid." Jeremy's face turned worried. Foxy was still staring at him. "You-?"

  Jeremy cut himself off when one of Foxy's skeletal hands snapped itself around his wrist. His eyes looked down to the robot and made eye contact.

  It only took a second. Maybe two. But Vanessa watched the scene as though she were stuck in eternity, a front row seat to something so vividly gruesome that she'd see it play in her nightmares for the next twenty years of her life. It was the exact moment when she never felt peace again.

  The robot dragged its body up, clicking its mismatched rotors and cracking its poorly-placed exo parts so fast that it sounded like one massive crash of metal and plastic. Its jaw opened as wide as a boa's, revealing two rows of long, thin fangs. It did not take its eyes off of Jeremy as it bit him.

  Its jaws clamped around the front of his head, sinking its teeth with a crack of skull and sheathe of flesh. Jeremy writhed, screaming agony as he pried futilely at the steadfast robot's chin with slick, red-stained hands, scratching at its shell in a desperate attempt to unlock himself from his pain.

  Foxy bit deeper. Jeremy's arm fell limp.

  His blood pooled beneath him, dropping from Foxy's jaw in waterfalls. His body slumped, held up only by the teeth lodged between shards of bone. He went quiet. It seemed as though Foxy was quite content to remain there with him in his jaws forever.

  The screaming of children behind Vanessa sounded watery to her, and the adults rushing to Jeremy's aid had no strength in comparison to the locked robot. She was picked up by the arms of her father and quickly removed from the scene, but she couldn't stop looking as she was taken away.

  She saw her fallen Jem doll.

  It was lying in a puddle of red.

•••••

••     2001     ••

  "No, dude, you really can't do anything- please, trust me-!"

  "Haaaaappy birthdaaay!" Owen's voice exclaimed loudly as he kicked open the door to Vanessa's dorm room. She jumped in her desk chair and stared as the brunet man sauntered inside with his usual easy-going smirk and a cardboard box in his arms. "How's the birthday girl doing?"

  "I'm sorry, Ness," Masie groaned as she entered the room after Owen. "I tried to stop him." 

  "Oh, come on," Owen scoffed. "Everyone loves birthdays. It's an excuse to get stuff for free! Speaking of-"

  He threw the box to Vanessa's chest and she scrambled to catch it with a bewildered look. It felt heavy in her arms and she glanced between the box and Owen unsurely.

  "Ya welcome," Owen said with raised brows.

  Holding back a sigh, Vanessa set the box down on the desk beside the computer she was supposed to be doing her coding project on. She pulled back the flaps and peered inside.

  "Holy shit!" she gasped as she brought out a lightly-used console. "Is this a PlayStation 2?! I thought you said Derek would rather die than give it away?"

  "Derek sticks to hobbies like a magnet sticks to wood," Masie commented with a sigh, resigned to her new fate of being an unsuccessful birthday security guard. "Can we kick Owen in the balls now?"

  "Yeah- yeah, sure," Vanessa murmured as she began exploring the rest of the contents of the box. A couple of games came with it, titles like Street Fighter EX3, Resident Evil Code: Veronica and Kessen. She was practically salivating at the sight.

  "Wait- wait, no- no!!" she vaguely heard Owen scream in the background.

"What's this?" Vanessa murmured as she pulled out a game that looked cheaper than the rest. Five Nights at Freddy's read the title, paired with a familiar-looking robot bear - the very same which lived in her night terrors. She glanced up at Owen and Masie with a pale face. "What the hell is this?"

Masie looked up from where she was kneeling on the stomach of a sobbing Owen. She stared at the game for a few seconds in deep thought before brightening.

"Oh, yeah!" She leapt off of Owen and he gasped for breath. "Some guy made an indie game based on the rumours at the Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria a few years back. There's a whole series of them."

"You're from Hurricane, right?" Owen asked as he slowly sat up with a grimace. "Did kids really die there?"

Vanessa looked at the cover again with a sick twist of her stomach. She'd never wanted anything to do with Freddy's after what happened in her youth, and yet here it was, as though it wanted nothing more than to mock her for the rest of her life.

"I don't know," she mumbled listlessly. "They were never found."

Masie straightened as she stared at the blonde woman. She knew when Vanessa was going deep into her head about something, finding cues in the tense line of her shoulders and the way her green eyes glazed. It happened often enough.

She was reliving a scene where a robot fox bit an unfortunate man's head. One that he survived from. One that Masie knew nothing about, something Vanessa was determined to keep that way.

"Alright," Masie said with a kick to Owen's shin. He yelped. "Get out. I told you Ness doesn't like birthdays."

"You're so mean, Maze."

"Out!"

Owen raised his palms as he retreated to the door. "Alright, alright! I'm going. I'll see you in class."   

  That left Masie and Vanessa in their dorm room. Green eyes continued to stare down at the cover of Freddy, lost to the past. Masie placed a hand on Vanessa's shoulder.

  "You okay, hun?"

  Vanessa cleared her throat and nodded, tearing her gaze from the same dead-eyes stare Freddy always had, no matter what iteration he was. Masie didn't seem convinced by Vanessa's affirmation but she didn't pry.

  That night, when Masie was so deep asleep that not even the loudest trumpet blown right next to her ear would wake her, Vanessa booted up the Freddy game.

  It was morbid curiosity that drove her. It was the exploration of her nightmares that had her wanting to itch a scratch she didn't even know existed. It was as though those dead eyes called to her, persuading her to dissect the cracks in her psyche.

   But after staring at the glitching face of Freddy for no more than a minute, Vanessa yanked the plug to her computer with a sickening sink of her stomach.

•••••

••     2002    ••

  Vanessa really didn't know how she ended up in this situation, standing outside the Silver Parasol Games studios with a box of her knickknacks.

  A beta-tester internship, a foot-in-the-door for a job after graduation, a chance to get her name out there. Vanessa had the tech skills and she had the creativity needed in being a staple member of the gaming industry - but the lack of professional experience would trip her up before she even took her first step.

  That was why this was such a big deal. That was why she couldn't say no to her professor when he approached her, asking what was possibly the worst and best question she'd ever been presented with;

  "Silver Parasol needs a beta tester for a Five Nights at Freddy's VR game. You keen for that?"

  Freddy's. Vanessa felt herself instantly go sick at the mention of the name. Her palms went clammy and her skin paled further, offset by the nausea unsettling her stomach. Memory of her fifth birthday began scratching at the brick wall she kept it hidden behind. She could feel its claws tearing at it for release.

  She said yes.

  A job, Vanessa had reminded herself when doubt and anxiety began crawling up her skin as she stared at the big building set in the outskirts of the business district of Salt Lake City. It's just a job. Remember how hard it is to get a stable career in this industry as a grad, so shut up and be grateful.

  She was taken on a tour as soon as she breached the building, pulled along like a dog on a leash by an over enthusiastic guide named Gemma. She was shown the break room, the offices for coders (at which Vanessa envied their set ups), designers, modellers. And, finally, the room set aside for beta testing.

  "Here's your station," Gemma said as she lead Vanessa to a small office cubicle that was attached to a few more, full of people staring at the newcomer. Other beta testers, she presumed. "Get settled in and Luis will be around to show you the ropes."

  Vanessa didn't get a chance to ask any of the burning questions that had been sitting on her tongue while Gemma talked her ear off. Her guide had escaped as quickly as she had bombarded her that first step inside.

  Bewildered at suddenly being abandoned, Vanessa allowed herself to sit at her new desk and settle her nerves. She busied herself with setting out a few of her things she brought with; a pad of note paper and a pen, a mug, and a tiny little office plant her father insisted on having.

  'It's great for mental health,' he had said, which was astounding, because Vanessa was pretty sure her father thought all mental health could be cured by one good night's sleep - though he had good intentions, she was sure. Maybe he had learnt more about it while she was away for college?

  "You must be Vanessa!" A kind-looking man who was clearly of Mexican descent greeted. He had a smile that seemed too bright to match the tired look in his dark eyes. "I'm Luis, I coordinate the beta testers in Parasol."

  A roundabout way of saying he's my boss.

  "It's all pretty straight forward here," Luis said as he nodded for Vanessa to log into her computer. She did, copying the password that Gemma had given her before she made her escape. "When a new section is updated or added, we get you testers to find any bugs or mistakes. You know the drill, I assume?"

  Vanessa nodded. She'd tested a fair share of her own projects before, just never in the capacity of virtual reality.

  They spent the next few hours getting Vanessa used to the game and its jumpscares, which she handled a lot better than she thought she would. By the time lunch rolled around she had visited every level they had and was given the next couple of days to explore them fully. 

  Vanessa gave a sigh of relief when she took a seat in the break room and pulled out her lunch. It was turning out to be more exhausting than she expected it to be and her stomach was grumbling.

  There were another two beta testers she recognised sharing a table, a woman who she knew to be Kylie from the tour, and a blond man she didn't know the name of yet. Their conversation carried to her ears.

  "You know the code division scanned circuit boards from the old animatronics that Fazbear Entertainment sent, right? That's why the game's so buggy," the man said.

  Vanessa peeked over her sandwich.

  "What?" Kylie said in surprise as she stirred her leftover noodles. "Those things are trash. Why bother?"

  The first guy shrugged. "Something about AI path finding. Easier to program something that's already got a base to go off from than start from scratch."

  "That's lazy."

  "Hey, in these kind of jobs you gotta take short cuts where you can. It's brutal, man." He shook his head. "You'll be completely burnt out in a month with that kind of attitude."

  Kylie rolled her eyes. "Or I'll just do a better job."

  The blond man snickered, amused by his coworker's confidence despite her being a recent grad, too. "Sure, Kylie."

  Vanessa watched the interaction with interest. The guy was cute, she'd noticed, blond hair that was a touch too long and falling into his eyes. Said eyes were too far away to see what colour they were for sure, but when they turned to her she noticed that they were a pretty shade of blue.

  Oh, fuck. He was looking at her.

  Vanessa quickly ducked her head down and focused on finishing her sandwich with burning cheeks. It was only her first day and already she was giving off a bad impression. What kind of weirdo eavesdropped and stared?

  "Hey."

  Fuck me sideways to Tuesday. Vanessa glanced up. He was at her table.

  "You're new, right?" The man not far older than she gave a kind smile. "I guess you've met Kylie. She tends to turn heads with her higher-than-thou attitude, heh."

  Vanessa blinked. "Oh. Uh..."

  It wasn't Kylie that had caught her attention, it was this guy, with his straight teeth, symmetrical face and warm disposition. She began to feel her cheeks brush with warmth. Oh, no.

  She cleared her throat and reminded herself as to why she actually became interested in their conversation.

  "Did you say that Fazbear sent this place stuff?"

  The man blinked. "Oh, yeah. Just a bunch of useless shit for 'inspiration,' I guess."

  "I didn't realise that they even liked this."

  "Oh!" The man laughed. "Oh, it's all a publicity stunt to poke fun at the rumours that the original developer profited on. They're pushing a lot of money Parasol's way to make a successful game."

  "Why? Just because of the rumours?"

  "Kinda." He gave a crooked kind of smile, one that Vanessa found herself liking. "I think it's also to push their new location."

  Whatever warm feelings that she was beginning to feel immediately vanished. "New location?"

  "Yeah, in Hurricane. It's supposed to be this massive mega-mall type place. The new animatronics look pretty sick." He squinted his eyes. "You're... Vanessa, right? I'm Jeremy."

  Jeremy. Vanessa felt ill. She'd known a Jeremy before.

She hoped that this time, the Jeremy she knew wouldn't suffer a terrible fate within the grounds of Fazbear Entertainment. He was charming and sweet and easy on the eyes, and Vanessa had taken to him like a dog to a bone.

Her stomach turned. She clenched her fists to keep nausea at bay.

Somehow, she knew even back then, that Jeremy's fate was inevitable.

••    2003    ••

  Two years on, and Vanessa landed a full time job in Silver Parasol Games after graduating.

  A full time beta tester, part time coder. They saw her potential and began unlocking doors for her to crawl up to and open. She was content. Sometimes.

  Were the constant reminders of Freddy Fazbear's worth having impressive professional work experience immediately upon leaving college? Yes. Maybe. She tried to think so.

  It was long enough time for Vanessa's paranoia over Jeremy to fade. It was long enough for them to grow closer into being great friends. Great friends who sometimes made out in his car in the parking lot after work.

  And then Jeremy began to draw himself away.

  Vanessa wasn't sure when he started distancing himself. At first, he just seemed incredibly busy, and with the nature of how buggy this VR game was, it wasn't hard to believe. Vanessa was incredibly busy, too. But he was there before Vanessa arrived at work and continued working after closing, almost obsessed.

  Then he started saying that he was tired all the time, and the pale sheen that had taken to his face and the dark circles under his eyes wasn't hard to miss. He would complain of nightmares but refused to tell anyone what they were about.

  Before long, Vanessa realised that Jeremy had stopped talking to her entirely.

  After a brief spell of hurt (she really liked him, and hoped that something more would come of their hook-ups), she realised that it wasn't just her that Jeremy had disappeared from. It was everyone.

  He had become a severe workaholic, but more than that, he had become sickly. His once sun-kissed skin had grown pale and had developed a chill to the touch. His dark blond hair had grown limp. His blue eyes, once cheeky and bright with personality, were now dull.

  Whenever Vanessa tried to speak to him, it was as though he didn't hear her. He had his face pressed to the screen so close that she was sure his eyes were burning, muttering incoherently under his breath while he typed code. When he wasn't at his desk, he was in the headset, exploring the game with a determination that seemed impossible given his countenance.

  "I've tried making him stay home, but he's crafty," Luis said one time when Vanessa pushed her concerns onto their boss. "Every time I think he's left work, he's back at his desk." Luis leant forward with genuine worry in his gaze. "This is a delicate situation, Ness. He's not well."

  That's obvious, Vanessa had wanted to snap. Anybody could see that Jeremy wasn't well. She spotted him stood in the corridor the other day, weaving on his spot and having a one-sided conversation.

  "Can't we take him to the hospital?" Vanessa asked. She recalled Jeremy once telling her that he didn't have any immediate family in Salt Lake City, and she doubted that she could go up and ask him for their numbers in the state he was in. "Or take him to... to a psychiatrist, or something?"

  "Gemma did take him to the hospital," Luis countered. "They gave him a clean bill of health."

  "You're kidding."

  Luis shrugged helplessly. "I didn't study medicine, Ness. I can't argue with doctors."

  Vanessa wanted to do more than argue with the doctors who cleared Jeremy. Namely something to do with their faces and her fist, paired with a few choice words. She couldn't believe it - a clean bill of health? Were they completely blind?

  "Then what do we do?" she asked.

  "I'm working on it," Luis promised. "Until then, just... leave him be."

  "I can't-"

  "Vanessa." Luis said her name carefully, gently. Her complaint died on her lips. "Let me and the other superiors work this out, okay?"

  Vanessa balled her hands into her shirt. She didn't want to sit back and let others work this out. She wanted Jeremy back, with his crooked-tooth smile and his charisma and the way they used to go to the coffee shop down the street for lunch on Fridays together. She wanted the happy-go-lucky man who kissed her senseless and made her feel wanted back. And, more than anything, she just wanted him to get the help he clearly needed.

  But she knew Luis was steadfast.

  "Okay," she agreed weakly.

  The next day, Gemma found him.

  Her scream pierced through the floor of the studio, followed by a crash of a body - presumably hers - to the ground. It sliced even through the audio of Vanessa's headset, making her pull it off and share confused looks with the other beta testers.

"Someone call 911!"

The cry drew her coworkers to the scene, some concerned, some curious. All Vanessa could feel was dread. It was Jeremy, she knew it was Jeremy, and when she pushed through the crowd that hung outside one of the storage rooms, her awful gut feeling was found to be correct.

"Oh, god," a man to Vanessa's left sobbed.

The smell of blood choked the air and left a metallic sting on her tongue, but she couldn't move or speak or even blink. She was torn between past and present, the blood of Jeremys pooling in her double vision.

  Half the skin on his face had been cleaved from bone. The tip of his nose had been chopped off. He was lying in a pool of his own blood, so much of it. So much blood.

Luis pushed through and, after taking a shocked step back, glanced between Jeremy's mutilated face and the paper guillotine that was awash with blood with a sick look on his face. Someone in the crowd was on the phone with the paramedics.

"He's still alive," Luis said as he pulled his bloodied fingers away from Jeremy's neck.

  "What the fuck happened?" Kylie whispered in horror as she crouched beside a weeping Gemma. "Did he do that to himself?"

  "Everyone, just..." Luis' face had gone a little waxy and green. "Go home. We can't have a crowd when the medics arrive."

  People filed away then, murmuring amongst each other as they dispersed. Gemma was helped away by Kylie, leaving only a few superiors remained by Jeremy's side with an attempt to stop the bleeding, but Vanessa hadn't moved from her spot.

  "Ness," Luis said in the calmest voice his shakiness would allow. "Go home."

  Her focus snapped to Luis. She wanted to scream suddenly, to yell at her boss for not doing more for Jeremy. She wanted to yell at herself for not pushing Jeremy for answers when he'd ignore her. This could've been prevented, what went so terribly wrong down the line?

  God dammit, she knew something bad was going to happen to him. She knew it. She should've warned him at risk of sounding crazy and she shouldn't have let herself get so attached. She should've saw the signs sooner. She should've done something.

  Vanessa peeled from the storage room, finally listening to the rumbling of her stomach to find a bathroom to throw up in.

•••••

  A week later, upon returning to work and trying not to think too hard about the empty cubicle across from her and the still-hospitalised man who used to sit there, Vanessa found what had happened to him.

  There was a virus in the system. A hostile one. One that made Jeremy sick.

  She didn't understand it: how could a virus in the game files make Jeremy so physically and mentally ill that he tried to remove his own face with a paper guillotine? It couldn't be possible, but it was. She wasn't a biologist, but she was a coder. Maybe she could kick this thing from the files.

  It was intelligent. It tried to start a conversation.

  Stupid fucking Fazbear circuit boards and their stupid fucking AI pathfinders, Vanessa mentally spat as a line of encrypted code flew across the screen of her computer. Was this Freddy? Was it Foxy? She didn't care. She just wanted it gone.

  It wasn't going away.

  Vanessa leant back in her chair and watched as the screen was slowly filled by more of the code. She chewed on the inside of her lip as she watched it stumble across the screen, flipping through numbers before settling and starting the next digit.

She wanted to ask if there was anyone else who had come across something as bizarre as this, but everyone had already left for home. Vanessa was the last employee left in the building.

  She curled forward to decipher the code. After a few clicks, the message was revealed.

I know you. I see you. I saw him. I heard his cries. I created his screams. I forged his fear myself. I know you. I see you. I saw him. I heard his cries. I created his screams. I forged his fear myself. I know you. I see you. I saw him. I heard his cries. I created his screams. I forged his fear myself.

I will do the same to you if you do not heed my command. I will create your screams. I will forge your fear. Follow me. Follow me. Follow me.

Vanessa.

  Vanessa stared at the screen, frozen into place by a cool wash of fear. She reached to grab a USB stick to make a copy to show her superiors, but a sharp, electric noise from her computer made her stop with a flinch. More words flashed across the screen.

You are a good person, aren't you, Vanessa?

Her skin began to prickle, hairs standing on end. The screen filled with more words.

You do not like to see people hurt. Not if you can help it, can you?

Why did you let Jeremy die? Why did you let Jeremy die? Why did you let Jeremy die?

"He's not dead," Vanessa whimpered.

He wishes he was. You do not want that for anyone else, do you? Not if it was your choice.

It is your choice. Follow me, or you will condemn your friends to similar fates. Follow me, or be the cause of their cries for death. You do not want that, do you? You want them to be happy. You wanted Jeremy to be happy, right?

Vanessa shakily nodded. It seemed to be watching her, because the inaudible response was seen.

Good. Put on the headset.
 
  When she didn't move, the computer elicited another piercing whine that had Vanessa crying out and clasping at her ears in the empty office. The screen became blanketed again, malicious words made just for her.

NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.NOW.

Vanessa.

Vanessa.

I will kill them if you don't, Vanessa.

I will make them rip their own guts from their body. You saw what I made Jeremy do, Vanessa. I can make them all do so much worse. It will all be your fault, Vanessa.

I know you. I know everything about you. I know how to break you. Do as I say.

Put the headset on.

Vanessa put the headset on.

•••••

Hey, Ness,

I hope you're having a good day! It's no big deal, but I wanted to reach out 'off the radar' and remind you about the company policy about personal internet usage. Nobody cares if you're
online shopping, as long as you get your work done - I promise, I've done my share of last-
minute gift-buying! But certain words and phrases trigger red flag reports so your last order got automatically sent to me: basically anything mentioning 'torture' is going to raise the alarm. So although the Viking Blood Eagle Twelve-Month Calendar you ordered is very cool, the searches that got you there did trigger a red flag.

If you have any questions about the policy, let me know. We could even get coffee or something and go over all the words to avoid.

... And now I've raised my own red flag! Good thing I'm the one who gets the notification. :-)

- Luis

Vanessa sighed as she deleted Luis' email without responding. The virus really needed to stop making her act like a crazy person during work.

Like clockwork, the voice returned, a shrill, jagged cut through her grey matter. Vanessa winced as William's words poured forth.

'He's getting too close, too close,' the glitch seethed. 'Too close, little follower. You know what happens when they get too close.'

Vanessa closed her eyes. She knew too well - the memory of Kylie's broken body and glassy eyes staring at nothing was seared to the forefront of her mind. She had cried while watching her own gloved hands snap Kylie's body like twigs, but Kylie had cried more.

And now her corpse was out there, declared missing, rotting away in an abandoned building at the outskirts of the city.

Vanessa felt sick. William laughed. It was a grating sound that made her ears pop.

She could feel her losing herself more and more each day. Every morning she woke and there was less resistance against the voice in her head, a certain fogginess taking over her brain. She was watching herself slowly be turned into a mindless follower.

William was biding his time. It wouldn't be long until Vanessa lost complete control of herself. Already, she felt imprisoned in her own head.

'Back to work, little follower,' the voice hissed. Vanessa picked up the thread and needle, eyeing the white suit before her with reluctance. 'I have big plans for you, yet.'

The next day at work, Vanessa was pulled aside by her boss. She sighed inwardly at his pinched expression - it was only a matter of time until her silence became worrisome and Luis came to check up on her.

"Hey, Ness," he tried to greet brightly, but the mile-deep crevice between his brows was a dead giveaway. "How're you feeling?"

Vanessa stared at the worried face of Luis and yearning struck her. Oh, how she wanted to burst into tears and ask for help. How she wanted to not feel so isolated with this ghost slowly gaining more control over her. She could feel herself slipping away and the thought of what he'd make her do terrified her.

She hadn't even allowed herself to visit Jeremy, far too afraid at what the glitch might make her do to the slowly recovering man.

As usual, William heard these thoughts. His anger was palpable, causing a headache between Vanessa's eyes. She closed her eyes in a brief attempt for relief, though none came.

'Say you're okay.'

"I'm fine, Luis," Vanessa obediently responded.

"I don't believe you," Luis said cutting to the chase. "I know you used to go to therapy when you were younger. It's not my place, but I was wondering whether or not you needed to visit your therapist again? What happened to Jeremy was... traumatic for everyone here."

"I'm okay, Luis, really." She was beginning to fear that William might make her do something to her boss before the day was out.

Shut up, shut up, shut up. Leave me alone, Luis. You're going to get hurt.

"You're not, Ness," he gently argued. "I really think you should go."

Vanessa stared at the face of her boss for a few seconds before a sigh slipped from between her lips. She could feel the virus behind her eyes, stinging, writhing.

"Fine," she said exhaustedly, guessing that this was the fastest way to get him off her back. "I'll make an appointment with my old therapist. Happy?"

Luis nodded with a look of relief. Vanessa fought the urge to crumple to the floor and cry. Why couldn't anybody see why she had to lie? She wished that someone, anyone would figure it out without letting the virus know. If he did, he would make her kill them. She already had blood on her hands. She couldn't handle adding more.

She couldn't even take herself to see Jeremy. Oh, how she craved to see Jeremy. How she wanted to see if he was doing better and to let him know that she wasn't avoiding him because she hated him, but because she was frightened with what William would make her do to him.

She missed him so damn much.

When Luis walked away, she pulled out her phone to book an appointment.

•••••

"Hello, Vanessa. How are you feeling today? You look a little tired."

  Vanessa took a tentative seat down in the couch she hadn't seen in almost two years. She gave a measly half-shrug.

  "Guess I'm tired," she murmured. Her green eyes meekly turned to her therapist.

  Adele, her name was. She'd been Vanessa's therapist ever since she moved to Salt Lake City for college, but she eventually stopped her sessions. Vanessa noted with bittersweet surprise that she only began to feel better after she and Jeremy got closer.

  But now he was gone and she couldn't see him. Now she was infected. The nightmares returned with far greater vengeance than she anticipated.

  Adele hummed in thought. Vanessa's toe tapped nervously.

  "Well, it's been a while since we last spoke. How's your anxiety been? You did so well with your calming protocols when we first worked together. Are you still using those?" Adele asked.

  Vanessa nodded. William chuckled in her ear. 'Liar,' he whispered.

  "Yes? Okay, good." Adele flicked through a couple of papers. "Well, now I understand there's a new issue. It came on just recently, rather suddenly. Can you tell me about it?"

  Fucking Luis. Fucking company for contacting my therapist. Is that even legal?

  Her words came out sharp and without her control. That fogginess began to obscure her thoughts again.

  "What issue?" Not-Vanessa snapped. "I've been doing my job. I come in and sit at my desk and do my work."

  Adele, briefly taken aback by Vanessa's outburst, quickly nodded.

  "Yes. Yes, of course, you do. Your performance reviews are good, but a routine check of your online history has revealed that you spend quite a bit of time with someone in an encrypted conversation."

  The virus behind her eyes paused.

  "We have transcripts," Adele said, fluffing through some papers and spreading them on the table, "and I've read them, but it's not clear what you're talking about in these conversations. I can't make sense of it. You must be getting something from these that I'm not getting. Right?" Adele leant closer with prying eyes. "Who are you talking to in these?"

  Vanessa felt fear strike hot and burning through her. Luis knew. Adele knew. They were both going to die.

  Did William plan this?

  "No one!" Vanessa rushed. "Sometimes I talk with Luis, my boss. He's nice, I guess."

  "Yes, I see Luis here, but there's someone else."

  Panic was making her dizzy.

  'Lie. LIE. Say a lie or I'll kill her with your own hands. I'll kill another one, Vanny. Do not test me.'

"Please," she whispered. "Please stop. Not again."

"Vanessa?" Adele asked slowly. "Do you need to take a break?"

'Then lie, little follower,' his cruel voice hissed. 'Lie like the vile monster you are.'

  Images flooded through her brain then, memories that weren't her own. She saw pale hands grasping at the bloodied stomach hatch of a massive animatronic. She saw two brown-haired kids with fear in their eyes. She saw a blonde woman crying through an argument. She saw a court, a custody battle, and that same fear in the those two boys' eyes. She watched as the blonde mother began to sob.

  'Lie.'

"My parents," Vanessa said suddenly. "They- they were abusive."

Mom, dad, I'm so sorry.

"There- there was a custody battle and my..." She swallowed sharply. "My father made me lie."

"Good Nessie," William sickly coed with a raspy chuckle that made her flinch. "Good little follower."

  "Talking to someone... helps me," she said. "Someone in the tech sector. I don't know his name."

  She risked a peek at Adele, who was scrawling down notes.

  "You told me that you had a normal childhood," Adele said in a neutral tone. Vanessa cringed. "Did your parents become abusive after you witnessed the robot biting that worker's head? Or do you think you fabricated a normal home situation to get over the trauma?"

  Vanessa closed her eyes. "I'm not sure."

  "That's okay," Adele said. "Back to this person you're conversing with-"

  "Stop!" Not-Vanessa barked. Adele looked up in surprise. "Don't talk about him!"

  Adele's expression remained unchanged, but the look in her eyes grew suspicious. The therapist was undoubtedly going to dig into this. The virus was furious.

  Vanessa's panic grew. She knew what was coming.

  "No, no, no," she begged as the fogginess began to swarm her brain. "Please, please, not again, please!"

  When she woke, days later, she found herself sitting in her car with her hands stained red.

•••••

  The suit was almost done. She was losing herself more with each stitch. Her superiors pushed for her to continue therapy. 

  "Hi!" Vanessa's new therapist chirped. His desk's plaque read 'Fergus.' "Go ahead, sit down."

  Not-Vanessa pulled a perfectly confused look as she took a seat. "I don't know you."

  "Oh! We'll get to know each other in no time,"Fergus promised. "I've read through all your files so I feel like we've been talking for weeks. I feel like I know your dad, too. Bill, right? Your dad's name was Bill?"

  Vanessa murmured under her breath. Fergus leant forward.

  "I'm sorry, what'd you say?"

  "I try to do what I'm supposed to do," Vanessa said faintly.

Fergus gave a sympathetic nod and sat back in his chair, scrawling down words without looking at the page. The itching of the ballpoint pen made Vanessa's spine tighten.

  "I know you do," he said. "Your supervisor notes that you follow instructions perfectly. Your dad made you follow instructions, didn't he? I'm talking about the custody battle between your mom and your dad."

  Vanessa looked up. Fergus had blue eyes, just like Jeremy.

   "Your dad didn't play it fair, did he?" Fergus asked. "He used you to make your mom look bad in court. I'm so sorry that happened to you. Do you want to talk about how that felt?"

  "Not really," she mumbled. He nodded in understanding.

  "I suppose I don't need you to tell me it felt bad to have a parent scare you into saying things that weren't true. He manipulated you. It wasn't your fault," Fergus said. "It's really sad, but it's common for one parent to use their child to hurt the other parent. I know your mom... ended her own life after she lost the custody case."

  Vanessa didn't know the pretty blonde woman that had invaded her thoughts. But she saw Kylie, and she saw Adele, and she felt so much guilt that it made her sick. If only she listened better.

  "I was supposed to be a good girl," she whispered.

  "What happened to her had nothing to do with you," Fergus reassured softly. "Even though it was your testimony that did it. Was that testimony true?"

  Vanessa's eyes snapped up. Why would he say that?

  "No?" she said unsurely. She thought of the two frightened boys and said it again with more determination. "No."

  "No, I didn't think so. Your dad is to blame," Fergus said firmly. "Not you. He's the monster."

"I'm not the monster," Vanessa murmured. Her eyes brightened infinitesimally. Yes, she was just as much a victim as Adele and Kylie. "He is."

Fergus was pleased. "That's right."

  Vanessa already felt the fogginess coming. William didn't like that. He didn't like lots of things. She was nothing but his puppet to get rid of the things he didn't like.

It didn't matter if Vanessa knew that he was the monster, not her.

He still made her kill.

•••••

  The third therapist was a bright, young woman named Leila. She lasted a few sessions. Vanessa liked her though her exhaustion - Leila always had new flowers on her desk.

  "Good morning, Vanessa," Leila greeted with a smile. Vanessa patted one of the petals of the daisies. "Oh, you like those. I do too. They smell so sweet, don't they? Apparently, the janitor on this floor has a garden and has been putting bouquets in the offices here for years."

  Vanessa smiled faintly. That was nicer than the last therapist office she went to.

  "Do you ever grow things?" Leila asked. She shook her head. "No?"

  Vanessa shrugged, staring at the petal beneath her thumb. "I work a lot."

  Leila slowly nodded.

  "I know you do. Maybe more than you should. More free time would do you good." She paused to write something down on her notepad. "Do you have a hobby? Perhaps we could find one for you, like a sport."

  Vanessa had enough sport in being controlled to murder people to want to go out and join a netball club. She shook her head.

  "No?" Leila hummed in thought. "I have a craft space in my basement, maybe I could come up with something you could learn to do?"

  "I don't like dark basements," Vanessa whispered. It all felt dark whenever the fogginess took over her.

  Leila smiled. "They can get pretty spooky, huh?" She noticed that Vanessa was staring over her shoulder and followed her gaze to the window. "Oh! It's a gorgeous day, isn't it?"

  "I like the blue sky."

  Leila nodded. "So do I. Now, let's see what we can get done on this nice sunny day." She flicked through some of her file and landed on a page. "Okay, here we go. I know part of your job requires you to do online searches, but a routine audit of your search history has revealed that you're doing a little private searching on company time. Is that right?"

  Vanessa's green eyes slid back to Leila. Her brows knitted together.

  "I get breaks," she pointed out.

  "That's true," Leila conceded. "So, on your breaks it looks like you were shopping for a costume. You purchased some fake fur material. What are you gonna make?"

  "Secret..." Vanessa murmured. Don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask.

  "What was that?" Leila tilted her head. Vanessa began to crawl deep breaths into her lungs. Her sweaty hands balled into fists over her thighs. "Did you say the costume is a secret? Why is that?"

  "I can't talk about this," she whispered through a broken voice. "He said he would always be watching. He could be here or there or anywhere in between."

  Leila blinked at the mental crumple Vanessa took. Her voice softened. 

  "Are you talking about your dad?" she asked gently. "Have those feelings come up again? I hate sounding like a broken record, but this is something you really need to resolve if you're ever going to be happy."

  "I have!" Vanessa cried desperately. It's not even my real father. "I compartmentalised him. He's locked away."

  But Leila continued. Vanessa felt as though she had bees inside her head. Everything was going fuzzy.

  "No, that's not what I mean." Leila's voice pierced through the bees. "You can't just ignore an issue. You have to face your memory of the experiences and process them so you can let it go."

  The buzzing was getting louder. She felt that her ears were going to start bleeding at any second. "I don't like doing that."

  Leila's face fell into a look of understanding. The virus writhed. He was getting impatient.

  "Well, okay, we'll get back to that," Leila said. "I'd really like to know something about this costume. What's it for?"

  "A play," she spat through her inaudible gasps for breath. "It's for a play."

  Leila smiled. "That's very neat."

  Leila did not believe her. But her flowers smelt nice, so she was spared.

  Vanessa felt herself almost weep from relief when she left the office with no fogginess in sight. She knew it wouldn't last, but small victories were worth crying for.

•• 2005 ••

  The costume was done. It was the first step in William's plan, but there was more for her to do, she knew it.

Vanessa stared at the red eyes of the mask. It was disgusting to her - she knew he wanted her to wear it to conceal her identity, but it felt like a cruel throwback to the 80s, where William wore a similar rabbit suit and murdered child after child.

She knew what he wanted her to do. She lost sleep over it. She was a walking corpse.

'I have somewhere you need to go.'

Vanessa was expecting his return upon the completion of the suit, but she still flinched, anyway. Her grip tightened over the mask.

"Where?" she whispered.

'Hurricane,' he crooned with a wicked smile to his voice. 'The new Freddy's location. Go there. Everything has already been prepared, Officer Vanessa.'

Vanessa felt her soul sink.

"I understand you'll be transferring to a different location soon," Leila said when Vanessa entered for what would be her last session in Salt Lake City. "I'll be sorry to see you go. I think we've been making progress, don't you?"

Vanessa dutifully nodded, only because she didn't know what else to do.

"You can request to come back and speak with me more on your own time though, did you know that?" Leila asked. "Our sessions don't have to be company mandated. I have all sorts of clients, Vanessa. I don't just work with corporations, I work with individuals and small groups. I even work in schools. I'm wherever I'm needed."

Vanessa thought of Kylie, Adele, Fergus. She was glad that Leila would escape. She liked Leila. There were sunflowers on her desk that day.

"I'm needed somewhere else now," Vanessa said quietly. She wondered if she'd ever see Salt Lake City again, and hoped that she would die in the new location. Maybe she would get bit. "Thank you."

"It's quite alright, Vanessa."

Vanessa tensed when the familiar fog began to cloud her vision. Leila was fading before her. She gripped the couch with her nails scratching.

  "Why?" Vanessa wept as she lost more of her herself. "She hasn't found out!"

  'Cover our tracks,' William answered, before Vanessa lost control completely.

When the fog released her next, she was standing outside of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex. They were waiting for her. The general manager, Dennis, was kind. William whispered all the ways he could kill him while Dennis showed them around.

Vanessa didn't want to step into the same room as the animatronics, but her legs carried her forward without her consent. Five of them were mingling in a rehearsal room, each with their handlers. They looked up when Dennis clapped his hand on Vanessa's shoulder.

"Good morning, gang!" Dennis greeted with a bright smile. The animatronics directed their attention to Vanessa. "This is the new security guard, Vanessa. I'm sure you'll all make her feel welcome."

Freddy Fazbear was the first to approach, face upturned in warmth. The skittish girl beside him followed. William began to laugh at something he clearly found hysterical.

  "It's a pleasure to meet you, officer Vanessa," Freddy Fazbear said with a gentle smile, as if he could sense her nervousness. She stared at him with fright.

  No. No, this was wrong. He wasn't supposed to be this intelligent - none of them were, but there was undeniable life behind his blue eyes. That dead-eyed stare of the Freddy that haunted her was what she was expecting, not personality.

  This? This was somehow scarier.

'Gold!' William had screeched. 'Absolute gold! You stupid son of a bitch! Look at where you are now!'

Vanessa tried to keep her wince against his shouting subtle. A headache was making itself known.

At the first chance, William had her venturing down to the depths of the building. She passed old, abandoned maintenance tunnels and security rooms that were no longer in use. They stumbled upon an old, burnt down pizzeria and William chuckled, as if he knew it was there all along.

'Dig, little rabbit,' William ordered. Her feet took her to a pile of rubble. Her hands scratched at the old, rotten wood and cement until her nails bled.

A body was there. Charred, singed, molten in parts. It was his body, and it was broken. William wasn't happy and the ensuing migraine had Vanessa stumbling.

'We need to fix it! Fix it!'

"I don't know how," Vanessa sobbed. "I'm sorry."

'Then learn, you useless woman! Learn! Learn!'

Vanessa wept in the burned down remains of the old Pizzaplex and wished for William to kill her already.

•••••

Her new therapist stared Vanessa down with a folded expression, as though she'd smelt spoiled milk. Vanessa shifted on her seat, too exhausted to take offence.

"Let us get started then," Holly said. "When I'm getting to know a new client, I like to start by finding out directly from them what they like to do. How do you spend all the time you have?"

Being controlled to kill people. Sewing a costume to conceal my identity for when he makes me start snatching kids. Wanting to die.

Holly took her silence as an answer. "Nothing? Well, how do you feel about sports? You like sports?"

"I don't like to play sports," Vanessa whispered. What was it with all these therapists and sports?

"Oh, I get it," Holly said. "You like to watch them but not play them. You like being inside, don't you? I get that. Lots of weird stuff outdoors, isn't there?"

"The outside is dangerous," Vanessa murmured. It was dangerous for her to be outside. If she was tucked up at home, that meant she wasn't killing anyone.

"Yeah, I understand," Holly said. Do you? "Well, I hate to do this right off the bat but I've been directed to ask you about this." Her hands fell to her lap with pursed lips. "Apparently, I'm the fourth therapist you've had, and apparently, all three of your former therapists have gone missing – or, two of them are missing."

Vanessa looked up at her for the first time. She couldn't breathe.

"I don't want to scare you, but I have to tell you that one of them was found dead."

Who? Adele? Fergus? Leila? Which one was it?

Holly didn't like the look of apprehension on Vanessa's face. Her expression soured.

"That doesn't seem to upset you," she noted shortly. "Well, then I guess I'll go ahead and tell you that the woman's body was pretty messed up. It looked like it was mangled by machinery."

'The flower one,' William provided with a sinister snicker. 'Killing her was fun. Oh, the screams she made while her fragile body was crushed. I can still hear her bones snapping.'

"That doesn't bother you either," Holly hummed with a distasteful crinkle of her nose. "It's all pretty strange, I think. I'm not clear on the circumstances. Apparently, the police don't have any evidence. How does all of this make you feel?"

"Careful," Vanessa whispered, but she feared it was already too late for Holly. William was already furious. He hated it when things didn't go to plan. "Be careful."

"'Be careful?'" Holly echoed. "That maybe I should be watching my back? Yeah, that's funny, isn't it?"

Vanessa stared at her shoes. She could already feel the pinch of fog at the edge of her vision. Holly's morose tone was only pushing the virus further. He was seething.

"Okay," Holly sighed. "Shall we move on to something lighter?"

The fog enveloped her completely.

•••••

William had found Vanessa a secret room within the Pizzaplex to work. It was abandoned, out of the way and covered in a thick layer of dust. It overlooked the Fazerblast arena.

'You added the scrambling signal to the mask?'

"Yes," Vanessa replied.

'And you have been looking up on robotics, correct?'

"I have."

'And the virus?'

"It's ready."

'Good.' She could hear the wicked smile on his voice. 'Let me into the system.'

Vanessa hesitated. She stared at the tangle of stolen computers and their lines of cables before her. If she did this, then his plan would be in motion and there'd be no stopping it. If she did this, then the next step would be the sacrifices.

'GO, NOW.'

His ear splitting scream made her yelp and her hand moved of its own volition, typing in the code to release him into the Pizzaplex's systems. He gave a cruel laugh.

'Oh, Vanny,' he sighed in reverence. 'It's all mine for the taking. I'll be back soon, Michael. You can never get rid of me. Immortality will be mine yet.'

The fog took over her again. When she woke, a small, cold body laid in front of her and she burst into tears. He laughed at her misery, taunting his prisoner.

•••••

Catherine was the name of her new therapist. She watched Vanessa with a calculating stare.

She'd lasted a few sessions, but Vanessa knew that it was all just borrowed time. William would get his spill of blood sooner or later.

"Your workplace has reached out to me," she began. "They report that they've caught you on camera on nights when you're not supposed to be on shift, or at least it appears to be you."

Vanessa stayed quiet. Catherine raised her brows.

"Nothing to say about that? Well, the techs are convinced that you've hacked into their system many times. Although, I'll admit I don't see any proof here. Seems like they have more of a gut feeling than fact."

Vanessa stared at the couch. She wanted to scream that she was guilty, but telling that to Catherine would be handing her a death sentence on a silver platter. Vanessa was destined to suffer alone.

Catherine quietly sighed at her silence.

  "Whether you're the hacker or not, I have to say that I think it's weird that you'd spend so much time in such a busy, social place," she said. Her pen tapped a rhythm against her notebook. "You seem like more of an introvert to me. Lots of time by yourself instead of with friends. Lots of time talking to yourself, right?"

Vanessa lifted a shoulder in a noncommittal reply. She watched the pen tap.

"Is it the electronics you like?" Catherine asked. "I saw in your file that you have developed software programs that talk to you and repeat phrases, right?"

Another one of William's lies.

"The program asks you questions and prompts you for responses," Catherine continued thoughtfully. "It's kind of like your own self therapy, isn't it? Another way of talking to yourself to work things out, right?"

"I get lonely," Vanessa murmured, "but I don't want to spend time with people."

Catherine hummed and wrote something down. Vanessa stroked her thumb over a loose thread on the couch.

"When I saw some of your recent encrypted conversation logs, it felt like I was watching someone go back and forth in their own head, but the text found something that's different than that," Catherine noted. "When I read what they found, at first I thought I was looking at more examples of you just talking with yourself. Then I realized it was different. When I study this, it sounds like there is someone else responding to you. Who is it?"

"A friend," Vanessa said quietly. "Luis."

Catherine smiled gently. "And you're close with Luis?"

The virus was dormant. Vanessa sighed in relief; Catherine would last another day.

•••••

Soon after that session, someone new joined the Pizzaplex's expansive staff. She could hear William muttering to himself while she inputted infected code into the security system.

'Y/n L/n,' William murmured. 'I have not heard that name in a long time.'

"Who are they?" Vanessa asked.

William chuckled lowly. 'A liability for Michael. A blessing for me. Vanny, things are looking up for us.'

There is no us, Vanessa thought bitterly as another wave of infected code went to sneak its way into the animatronic's programming. William only laughed.

•••••

"I saw some inkblot test results in your file," Catherine said during their next session. "I like inkblot tests."

Vanessa scratched at the fading logo on her shirt. "Yeah. Me, too."

"Do you want to do one? I brought some with me, today." Catherine said. When Vanessa nodded, she smiled and picked up a card. "Yes? Okay. How about this one? What do you see?"

Vanessa looked up and studied the ink blot through tired eyes.

"A mask," she whispered.

"You think it's a mask?" Catherine asked. "It reminds you of a mask, like a disguise?" She flipped the card over to have a look. "Yeah, I can see that."

She placed the ink blot down and turned her gaze back to Vanessa. Her head tilted.

"Do you like the idea of being disguised, Vanessa?" she asked. "Disguises let you be sort of invisible, don't they? You can get away with almost anything when you're invisible, can't you?"

Vanessa squinted her eyes. What was she getting at? Catherine smiled wryly - she knew she was caught.

"Apparently, the techs were reviewing communications going in and out of this building and they came across some interesting things," she said. "They say you were in communication with someone, or maybe something. Pretty strange. What do you think about that?"

Vanessa looked away.

"Nothing?" Catherine frowned. "Well, the texts say it looked to them like it was an attempt to manipulate you, or maybe to lure you somewhere. They said the texts sounded dangerous."

You have no idea, Vanessa thought. Catherine pulled an image out of the file on her desk.

"I have this still shot the techs pulled from the security footage that recorded you in the pizzaplex. That's you, isn't it?"

Vanessa took the image from her outstretched hand. It was her alright, donned in her bunny suit with the mask on the floor. She had her head in her hands. If she could recall, this was the first night after William made her murder a child.

Vanessa looked away. She didn't want the reminder.

"I know this image is distorted but I think it looks like you," Catherine continued. "And you're not alone here. You're talking to someone, or something. It's hard to tell." She pointed to the mask, half hidden in shadow. "What are those things? They almost look like rabbit ears."

Vanessa pretended to look. "I guess they do."

Catherine pulled the photo away with an unaccomplished sigh.

•••••

'Ready, little follower?'

Vanessa nodded. Monty stood before her, listless and infected, a perfect solider awaiting orders. He was the last cog in William's plan, a well-oiled addition.

They'd been testing his memory banks for weeks now, and William had finally grown tired. He wanted his body back already, and the only way to do that was by getting parts. Parts only Bonnie had.

'Proceed.'

Vanessa sucked in a breath. It whistled inaudibly between her teeth as she watched Monty's statuesque self. She still hated the animatronics, but seeing him so... unalive had guilt churning in her stomach. And Bonnie was so sweet to her.

She closed her eyes. As if closing her eyes would take her away from this hell.

"Disassemble Bonnie," she whispered.

She grimaced when the loud, thudding footsteps of Monty faded away. It wasn't the usual drag of his claws against carpet, it was an appropriate march that lacked his usual personality. She kept her eyes closed until she couldn't hear him anymore.

'Good,' William coed. 'It will only be a matter of time.'

Vanessa could faintly hear the screech of breaking metal. A horrific scream. She closed her eyes again, tighter this time, and willed herself to be locked away in that fogginess again. At least when she was under its control, she wasn't aware of what her body was made to do.

I want to go home, she thought pitifully as the sound of Bonnie getting destroyed continued. I want my parents. I want Jeremy. I want this all to end.

'Oh, Vanny,' William hummed. 'We're only just beginning.'

•••••

Vanessa was miserable as she slumped on the chair in Catherine's office. The therapist proceeded with caution, watching her patient's sullen face with worry.

"I got another message from the techs at the Pizzaplex," she began slowly. "I'm afraid it's about you again. The techs have been struggling to fix some serious glitches with the robots. I'm not sure what exactly is wrong, except that it's making the robots more eerie than entertaining."

Vanessa closed her eyes. She knew what she was pertaining to - Chica's usually insatiable hunger advancing to something horrific. Monty's blanking. She was yet to hear about how it affected Freddy or Roxy.

She wondered if it even would affect Freddy, being that he was controlled by a soul.

"Apparently, the glitch extended beyond the robots," Catherine continued. "It went system wide. It began infecting all the machines and, when the text traced the glitch back to its origin, it led them to you."

Good. Throw me in prison. Lock me up somewhere where I can't hurt anyone.

"I'm not going to pretend to understand everything I'm reading here, but what I get is that the system wide glitch was like a cascade that was broadcasting a very dangerous message." Catherine continued to shuffle through pages within a manila folder. "While the techs were trying to reprogram the system to remove the glitch, the source of the glitch shifted."

  Catherine dropped the file onto her desk with an overwhelmed exhale. She gave Vanessa a tired smile.

  "You'll have to excuse me, I'm not all that familiar with computer programming, so I might get this wrong," she said. "What I understand is that the glitch stopped being a glitch and turned into an intentional set of subroutines that were aimed at creating the same thing the glitch created. Those subroutines seem to have come from you. Can you explain that?"

Not really. Vanessa wasn't even sure what she was doing anymore, just taking orders like the perfect soldier she was. Just like how Monty was. Everyone was just pawns in his game. She didn't have a clue on what William was planning.

He started keeping things secret from her, only calling upon her when he needed her to farm more remnant. Maybe she was nearing the end of her usefulness. That fogginess was taking up more and more of her days. She was sure that when he was in his own working body again, she would be tossed aside.

How she craved so dearly for that freedom.

Catherine sighed at her silence. Her mouth twisted into a look of disappointment.

"Listen, I'm on your side here," she soothed. "Our sessions are just between you and me. The techs can't prove what they think so you're not in trouble. I just thought you could tell me what you're trying to do - maybe if we could get to the bottom of that it could help you. What do you think?"

  There is no help for me.

  Catherine was growing uneasy. Vanessa could see it in the way she shifted before her. Maybe Catherine could sense the entity behind Vanessa's eyes?

  "Still not talking?" she asked. "Alright. Well then let's do this. Why don't we talk about the research I did in your past, shall we?"

  Vanessa's head shot up. This was promising. This was dangerous. This was going to get Catherine killed.

  "Some therapists think they should only focus on information they get from their clients but, some therapists, like me, think it's helpful to find out about clients from other sources." Catherine pulled out a thick folder and dropped it before Vanessa. "Wanna guess what I found out when I looked into the tragedy of your past? All that stuff about your parents?"

  Vanessa stared at the folder with wide eyes. She's going to die. She's going to die. More blood is going to be on my hands. Just let this nightmare end.

  "None of what you said in your file about your parents was true." Catherine dropped the bombshell. Vanessa felt clammy. The fog was approaching. "The truth is, you had great parents, a great childhood. Why did you lie? Look at me. Tell me why you lied."

  Not-Vanessa's glare shot to Catherine. She flinched under the murderous intent within her green eyes.

  "Well, I can understand why you might feel angry about the way I just confronted you," she admitted. "Why don't we come back to this another day?"

  Not-Vanessa was shaking her head. It was time up for Catherine. Like Kylie, Adele, Fergus, Leila, Holly - she had walked too close to the fire. Her burning was inevitable.

  Catherine watched as Not-Vanessa stood. The realisation that whatever was controlling Vanessa wasn't actually Vanessa was the last thing she saw before she, too, was snuffed out. 

•••••

  If you lived in Hurricane, Utah, chances are you knew about the string of children that have gone missing in the past year. Chances are you knew about the two therapists who were found mutilated.

  If you lived in Hurricane, Utah, and you weren't somehow connected to the true happenings of the Fazbear Franchise, then there was a high chance you didn't know about the bunny-suited copycat killer stealing children from the streets.

  It was a repeat of history. It was a monarch's return. It was the same vile horror that settled within the town's community that kept their doors locked and children close. It was the same thing happening again.

  Somewhere across the other side of the small town, within the basement of a house long-abandoned by anything but the occasional rat, a young boy opened his eyes.