Reader is the newest (and only) employee of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex! Although the company hasn't exactly been forthcoming about what they'll be doing in the destroyed building. Look, they need this job, okay?
(My meds kicked in and chucked me full speed back into my FNaF hyper fixation from middle school. Now I've got 5 chapters of this thing written and show no sign of stopping. Send help.)
Chapter 1 (you are here)┃Next
Fazbear entertainment was notorious for cutting corners, but even this felt like too much. When you applied for the position last week, you had imagined doing some basic coding and debugging, comfortably behind a desk and in no physical danger whatsoever. You had not imagined standing in front of a burned, half collapsed building and being told you were to “retrieve and repair company assets”... whatever that meant. The email had been extremely vague.
Still, a job was a job, and you weren’t in a position to be picky about it. Staring up at the papered-over doors wouldn’t do much good, so you push through them into the entrance of the ruin that used to be the Mega Pizzaplex.
The walls are covered in graffiti and torn-up posters, and the floor is a level of grimy you don’t want to think about. A pathetic banner over what used to be the main turnstiles asks visitors to ‘Pardon our mess!’ and that ‘We’ll be back soon!’. Why the sign is on the inside of the building where nobody but squatters would see is beyond you, but it’s reassuring that someone has been inside the building since… whatever had happened to it. At least the roof won’t fall on you.
As you pick your way through the mess, glass crunching under your boots, you wonder where in the mess you’re even meant to start. This decision is quickly made for you, when you find both the center and left turnstiles completely blocked. Hesitantly, you try the right side, hoping you’ll find something. The turnstiles on this side of the entryway are thankfully clear of rubble, but what grabs your attention first is against the wall: a twitching, headless robot, which appears to have somehow fallen onto a cardboard cutout of the animatronic cast. You recognize Chica, but the dog-looking one on the other side of the cutout is a newer character, and the two in the middle are unrecognizable given the condition of the sign. Still, if the robot here wasn’t a “company asset” you weren’t sure what was, so you grab the outstretched arm of the thing and tug, letting the flashlight it had been holding fall out of its hand and roll across the floor.
It’s heavy, and you’re not exactly used to hauling weight around, but inch by inch it rips free from the cardboard cutout. When it’s free, you see that the robot doesn’t have legs, but two wheels, so, thanking whatever Fazbear tech decided to make your life easier, you prop it up on its “feet” and push it closer to the doors.
You leave the headless robot standing in the middle of the entry before doubling back to the right side of the room. The turnstiles here are free of debris, so you jump over one without an issue. Then you pull out your phone to turn on the flashlight before continuing down the hall, through a picked-clean giftshop, and up a staircase.
You find another robot in the next room, this one with a head on its shoulders and already standing up. You walk up to it, planning to push it back to stand with the other one, only for the thing to suddenly lunge forward at you, emitting a garbled shriek as it shines its flashlight directly in your eyes. Then, it slumps forward, dropping the flashlight.
You hadn’t realized the robots might still have power.
Hesitantly, you reach forward to poke the robot’s shoulder, leaning backwards as you do to keep as much distance as possible between the two of you. It doesn’t move. You push it harder. Still nothing.
Satisfied the thing had spent the last of its battery, you shove the bottom edge of your phone in your mouth so both your hands will be free to push the robot back the way you came. Sure, it’s still heavy, and your arms will definitely complain later, but the wheels must rely on power to lock, and without it, you’re met with little resistance.
Until you reach the top of the stairwell.
Dang it!
Before you can even think about how to get it down the stairs, the wheel catches on a snag in the carpet and you stumble forward, sending both you and the robot tumbling down the stairs. The phone slips out of your mouth as you yelp. The noise of metal hitting concrete echoes through the empty building. You curse as you sit up, rubbing your elbow. Nothing broken, but falling down the stairs on top of a giant metal robot was hardly comfortable. You climb to your feet, surveying damage to the bot. It had been in such a state of disrepair you can’t even tell if dropping it down concrete stairs had done any damage. Your phone lays next to it, screen cracked but flashlight still shining.
You sigh, then go about getting the robot standing back up on its wheels and push in back towards the entryway, leaving it to stand next to its decapitated brother.
You check your phone.
Your shift had only started an hour ago, but you already want to go home.
Just one more trip in, you tell yourself, heading towards the turnstiles. Find something worth reporting back to the higher ups about. Wouldn’t do well to be caught slacking on your first day on the job now, would it?
You make your way back up the stairs, through the room you had found the second robot in, and into what must have used to be the lobby. There’s a chained door to your right, which according to the wall is the Super Star Day Care Pick Up. A piece of graffiti ominously advises you to “RUN”. You try the door, pushing aside a few loose planks of wood, but someone’s wrapped a chain around the handles. You’ll need to come back with bolt cutters. For now, you continue onwards toward the main lobby area. Unfortunately, your path ends at an open elevator shaft. You shine your phone light into the open doors, looking up the dark shaft. The elevator itself was still on the next floor up, but you don’t like the way it’s swaying. You step back, deciding you’d rather like to end the workday without getting crushed by a falling elevator, and hear something sharply crack under your boot.
You pick up your foot. A broken walkie talkie in the shape of the dog mascot stares up at you. It makes a few pathetic static noises before falling silent.
“Huh,” you kick the now useless piece of plastic away, letting it skid across the floor and nestle itself between some trash. You instead turn your attention to the debris and boxes blocking the rest of the walkway. No hope of getting through there without hauling at least a few things out of your way.
With no idea what to do now, you decide to pull up the phone number of the guy who had conducted your interview over the phone. It rings for a few seconds before connecting to a robotic answering machine, asking you to explain your issue in clear wording.
“Uhhh, sorry,” you begin awkwardly. Why you’re apologizing to an AI chatbot is beyond you. “This is Y/N? I just started my shift at that Pizzaplex place y’all sent me to, but there’s not really a way to get through the rest of the building. I found two robots, but they’re in pretty rough shape and I’m not exactly, uh, trained to fix mechanical issues?”
There’s a pause on the other side of the line.
“... I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that,” the robotic voice says cheerily. “For payroll, please say ‘payroll’, for part ordering, please say ‘parts’, for-”
You don’t bother listening to the rest of her spiel.
“Can I please speak to a human?” you try. Maybe the bot could only respond to certain phrases? ‘Human’ seemed as good a trigger word as any.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that,” it responds. “For payroll, please say-”
You rub your free hand over your face, sighing deeply as you restrain yourself from yelling at the phone.
“Human. Please may I speak to a human.”
You hold your breath at the pause before…
“Looks like I can’t help with that. I’ll connect you to one of our representatives. Please remain on the line.”
“Thanks,” you mumble, though you’re not sure why. Probably just habit. Still, there’s another strangely long pause before you hear a click, followed by some calm, jazz-adjacent hold music.
You walk back to the Day Care Pick Up doors and pull a mostly clean looking box out of the pile to sit on as you wait.
Thankfully, you don’t need to wait long before a gruff voice on the other end greets you.
“What’dya need,” he asks.
“Oh, uh, hi! I was just calling about the-”
“Yea, yea,” he interrupts. “Bot sent over the recording of the call. What’dya need?”
“Umm, to get into the Pizzaplex? The entrance is blocked off. I think I could get into the Daycare? If I had some bolt cutters. But the lobby’s covered in debris. I can’t really… get anywhere?”
“Jus’ use the VR mask. Didn’t you watch the trainin’ videos?” He grunts, then begins chewing something next to the receiver. You pull the phone away from your ear so you hopefully won’t hear the crunching.
“Training videos?” You ask, dread building in your stomach. “I was just emailed that I got the position and I was supposed to ‘retrieve and repair company assets’. Did I miss a message?”
“Of course the big wigs upstairs overlooked yer trainin’. Figures,” the man on the phone sighs. The line is silent for a moment, and you’re about to ask if he’s still there when he continues. “Look, says here the ‘plex is gettin’ fixed up. I’m bettin’ the bosses want their million dollar bots outta the way of the construction crews. You told the bot you found two? Which ones were they?”
“I dunno,” you lean back, letting your back rest against the daycare door. “The one didn’t have a head, but it looks nearly identical to the other one I found. They’re, white? At least, I think they were.”
“S.T.A.F.F. bots, by the sounds of it. Nah, they’ll want you goin’ after the expensive ones. Y’know, Freddy, Chica, Roxy, Monty? ‘N prob’ly the daycare attendant, too. You should grab anything worth keeping, ‘n S.T.A.F.F. ‘re good fer cleaning if you can get a few up ‘n runnin’, but just make sure you get the main cast.”
“Oh! Okay, that’s more than they told me in the email,” you chuckle nervously.
“Yea yea, they don’t ‘xactly got the budget to spend too much on the ‘plex before they fix it up, so they probably skipped a lot of yer trainin’. Still, you shoulda gotten a VR mask to make movin’ around the ‘plex easier.”
“Like I said, I think I can get into the daycare with bolt cutters,” you try to offer helpfully.
“Hmmph, that’ll have to do for now I s’pose. Shoot us a message if you find anything,” he grunts. “I’ll get’cha a card to purchase tools with. Check your email in a few minutes.”
Before you can ask more questions, the phone clicks. You look at the screen. He hung up on you. You sigh.
“Welp, this’ll be interesting,” you mutter to the empty, destroyed room.
As you get up from your boxy perch, the door you had been leaning against slams closed. You squawk, whipping your head around.
You yank on the door handle, and the chain has just barely enough slack to allow it an inch of opening. Cautiously, you peek through the small gap, taking in the dark room.
