Freddy Fazbear Pizzaplex was hiring, and you scored the job by taking a couple of online surveys and a video-call interview that lasted for maybe ten minutes before they asked your size in uniform, asking to come in Monday in plains clothes for a tour, then Tuesday as your official starting date.

Today was Monday, you’re standing at the front doors and you’re starting to wonder if you might risk hating it here.

It’s not the pay and you doubt it’s going to be the coworkers, given that most of the staff was replaced by automatons and what little human staff did remain held rumors that they kept to themselves. Most human employees did the things that robots couldn’t do; customer service, building maintenance and repairs, troubleshooting sound systems and other fine tuned or messy work that is either impossible for a automation to do, or dangerous. Besides, some folks get a little creeped out being surrounded by robots with no living worker in sight, so it wasn’t unusual for the ticket busser to be a pimply kid who’s working a summer job.

Yours will be…something like that. The pay is $30 an hour with benefits. That’s not something you can afford to pass up on. You could deal with the snotty kids and overbearing parents if it meant rent was paid and you could chip away at your student loan debt.

The only catch is that you may be doing a little bit of everything. By a little, it’s pretty much all of it. From janitorial work to stocking kitchen shelves to refilling paper in the play passes machines, if there was a job you were capable of doing, you were expected to complete it. Did you qualify for a lot of the more advanced work? No, of course not. But the company can’t afford to have their best mechanics busy plugging something back up that fell out of a wall outlet, so that leaves the meager repairs to you along with some occasional manual labor. Robots couldn’t pass the human verification captchas on most of the equipment’s computer’s anyways

So you are staff. Simply: Staff. The ‘jack-of-all-trades’ employee with mediocre at best skills and specialty in none. Starting today. Well, technically tomorrow.

You’re starting to think for the pay and work the opportunity is almost too good to be true until you walk inside, and the entire place is buzzing with action. Immediately there are children screaming, some of joy and others of a tantrum, while parents are consoling them. Some teenagers are goofing off the distance, mocking some janitorial bot that rolls by. The whole place is neon lit, bright colors against a darkened atmosphere, and you understand now why Fazbear Entertainment preferred to keep the inside of their pizzaplex dim even when it was the middle of an afternoon.

No one greets you, which is strange considering you were requested to arrive at this specific time and place. You stand awkwardly in your spot for a moment taking in the scenery, briefly entertaining the idea that maybe they didn’t hire you, and just forgot to send you a good ole fashioned e-mail of rejection when a staff bot rolls to the front of you. It stops a few feet away, the two of you locking eyes. It’s oddly painted face starts to creep you out after a moment of silence. “…Hello-?”

“Take a map.” It thrusts something towards you. A paper baggie, neatly rolled with a Freddy sticker on the front. It’s eyes seem very focused, repeating it’s phrase. “Take a map. Take a map. Please, take a map.”

Creepy thing. You hold out your hand for it and it drops them into your palm, looking closer. Your shirt uniform, a map, (obviously), a small key and a tiny rectangular pin with your name printed on it. Oh goodie, it recognized you as an employee already. You’re not going to question how it already had your information in the database so quickly and the dystopian implications of it. “Thanks?”

The staff bot straightens and assumes a posture of theatre. “Thank you! Welcome to Fazbear Entertainment, home of Freddy Fazbear and his friends. Here we serve award winning pizza, music, various entertainment in a safe fashion for kids of all ages along with relaxing and engaging activities for entire families. Are you ready to be apart of the Fazbear family?”

You look behind it, towards the entrance. There were the bots standing at attention while a couple of teenagers were busy punching holes into kid’s passes. Past the security bars was a grand statue of Freddy Fazbear himself, along with some other grandiose decorations. Gift shops were situated to the sides, logical splots to wring more money out of families as they’re coming and going. You look towards the closest one. Perhaps there’s a clerk or someone in there that can point you to-

“Are you ready to be apart of the Fazbear family?” The staff bot repeats itself. It rolls forward a few inches. “Are you ready to be apart of the Fazbear family?”

Oh, it’s still talking to you. “Uh, yeah.” It continues staring at you for a moment. It’s strange, so you try to put a little bit more excitement in your voice. “Totally ready. Siked to be here. You know, working. Here. At my job. Yeah.”

A couple of parents are looking over in your direction with a mixture of expressions between pity and bewilderment. You’re considering just walking away when it rolls back, turns to the side and gestures for you to follow. It speaks in an automated voice. “Here at Fazbear Entertainment, we strive to be the best in customer satisfaction and employee safety. You should have received an email about company policies regarding dress code, code of conduct, emergency procedures, information about PTO and other employee concerning information. Following me, I will give you a tour-”

Ah, so they sent a robot to give you a tour and brief you before your first actual day. Not a human person. Got it.

Looking towards what little human employees there were don’t help, they don’t even seem to notice your presence. Turning back to the staff bot, you realize it’s several paces ahead of you and moving onwards without any indication that it knows you’re being left behind, so you’re forced to do an awkward jog to catch up up, following it further into the pizzaplex.

Overall, the place was pretty freaking cool.

This was, for certain, a kid’s dream wonderland of neon lights, greasy food and overpriced plushies of animatronic characters. There wasn’t anything like this when you were younger. Well, there was, but it couldn’t live up to the absolute magnitude of this place. It was huge, and you’re not even halfway done with the tour yet, much less gone back through all the employee-only spaces that you’re certain you’re going to have to utilize if you wanted to navigate this maze effectively. Not to mention you couldn’t imagine the amount of electricity this building uses, The arcade section must be wracking up thousands of utility bills by itself.

Nevermind that there were spaces that were damaged just out in the open. The stage play area had crashed floor boards. The neon lights in the maze area were flickering and you don’t even question it when the bot rolls right by Monty’s room. The signs and closed curtains speak for themselves, but you still notice the small cracks in the glass. It was obvious they installed some pretty heavy duty glass to handle strong impacts, always to prevent kids and other trouble makers from bursting into the animatronics room without the proper permissions. But as you walk away, you note claw marks near Monty’s room’s entrance door, scrapped around the doorframe, and start to wonder differently.

No wonder this job came with such good pay. There was so much here that could go wrong, small gears in a bigger machine that higher ups needed a scapegoat to toss the responsibility onto. Some of the meager tasks you were expected to fix didn’t come with failsafe or safety nets. Which...may explain the amount of waivers you had to sign on your digital employee contract, not like you actually read through them anyways.

It’s easy to tune out the staff bot eventually, letting it ramble as you followed it through hallways, room to room and attraction to attraction. Occasionally it will stop, gesturing to the attraction or room or whatever location it’s moped you to and go on a edited spiel about Fazbear’s history and it’s goal to make this the happiest place on the planet before it gets to the point and explains it’s function. You almost envied it’s rollers when your legs were starting to hurt.

Okay, actually, You’re legs were really starting to hurt. You needed to take a break for a moment, maybe stand or sit in one spot and process all the new information you’re being bombarded with.

You stop walking for a moment, and instead of saying anything, you just watch the staff bot out of curiosity as it keeps moving forwards without you. It’s stream of talking never ends and it gets further and further until it turns a direction and you lose it behind a wall. Ah, well. You had a map. You could probably figure out your way around and just google Fazbear’s history later.

You’ve stopped just outside of an open door, leading to a smaller office or gift shop inside. A sign decorated with clouds and pastels glows neon at the top. The Daycare Pick-up.

A couple of parents are talking amongst themselves here and there, but it’s mostly empty with plenty of space in-between them. (Except for the giant statue of some characters in the middle. In a daycare pick-up office? Really?.) No screaming kids. Not perfect, but a good spot for some reprieve. You can hear the faint music of the Glamrock animatronics play over the building’s speakers. Most of the older kids would be in the main area, enjoying the show, leaving the younger ones too small for big stage to play here instead. Dimmer in here, too. Most of the light was streaming in from the bright room connected to this one, see-through glass and grate separating the two with it’s entrance being a slide to one side and a set of stairs on the other.

The faint sounds of children’s laughter echoes up from the lower floor. You rest against the window’s sliding to peak through the glass.

A handful of kids, from toddlers to a little bigger were cramming themselves into small spaces. You spy a few tucked away into the tunnels of the jungle gym, one hiding behind a fake cutout of some grass and another sinking into the ballpit, trying to cover himself up as he giggles out of view.

Hide-n-Seek, and they seem to be enjoying themselves. You search for the seeker in faint amusement, but feel your face fall a bit when you don’t spy a child that isn’t trying to hide.

A glance towards the other side of the room reveals a security desk, but the chair was empty. You scan again for an adult on the bottom floor, squinting to see maybe a uniform darting about in the playpen or jungle gym but nothing appears. Do they really have all these children down there unsupervised? Their parents don’t seem concerned, whichever ones were still here in the office talking amongst themselves. Those kids can’t be older than four or five, give or take, and they were down there alone? Who makes sure the kids get picked up? And by the right parents-?

A small (delighted) scream breaks you from your thoughts. Your eyes dart to source of the noise, landing on a small girl giggling as she’s pulled (pulled? hello?) out of the tunnel. From your angle, all you see is a child being dragged out from her ankles, but going by the wide smile and bubbly laughter, this was perfectly fine.

A blur of colors and movement shift through the jungle gym until it exits into the open area. The girl laughs, clearly unbothered as she’s twirled and danced with by her capturer. The seeker tosses her gently into the air and catches her again, letting her hang off of it’s arm until she’s placed gently on the playmat, ushering her towards a collection of toys and plushies. It moves gleefully, darting away to presumably search for more hiders while giving you a proper full view of itself.

It's a yellow, bright and gangly thing.

…and it’s a robot. Go figure.

If the mechanical features and design catered to it’s surroundings didn’t give it away, it’s height surely did. That thing was tall, and it’s limbs were slightly longer to it’s body than compared to human proportions. It looked like it could hold full sized toddlers with one hand and then some. It seemed to be sun themed, with a warm and yellow color scheme and flaps (or, what you’re assuming to be flaps, but they sink into it’s headpiece slightly when crawling into a tunnel, so they must be made out of some sort of plastic or metal) that act as ‘sun rays’.

Hell, it was even dressed as a jester. Moved and played like one too.

You watch as it finds the children one by one for a few minutes, gathering them together in the middle of the play area and letting them hang off it’s outstretched arms. It’s middle swivels around 360 degrees, delighting the children that get to whir around with it. After a few minutes, it says something you don’t catch, and all the children scatter again. They giggle and scamper into little hidey holes as the robot covers his face, ‘counting’ you presume, as they play again.

You smile at the sight, narrowing your eyes at the robot’s design before turning away to look around the rest of the room. A couple of posters sported it’s look, as well some plushies and the massive statue in the middle. A few promotions of energizing candy, and one that puts you to sleep. You almost chuckle at your delayed realization.

It's the Daycare Attendant. Duh, why didn’t you realize that earlier?

Some other posters sported it's counterpart, with a cooler color scheme and a ‘moon’ design. You only saw one robot though. Maybe the other one was reserved for evening time.

You turn back to the daycare area as the last of the children have found their hiding spots. You search for the seeker (the Daycare Attendant, you realize. Of course Fazbear Entertainment would sink money into a robot nanny than team of human beings who each needed a living wage) and count each child in it’s place. The robot is still standing in the same spot, the counting having been finished by now.

But it hasn’t moved to search for children. Instead, you find that it’s head turns to look up at you.

…um. Awkward.

You blink at the blank white eyes staring back at you, a permanent smile on it’s face. It has no expression to gauge what it’s feeling, and it’s body langauge was not very telling either. Not that you can trust a robot’s body language to be as reliable as a person’s, but still. It’s looking at you, standing ridged and unmoving as you’re uncertain of what to do.

You tilt your head in confusion, and to your surprise, it mimics you. You tilt it the other way, and it follows that too, like a watchful puppy. A creepy one with an unreadable gaze. It’s scoping you out just as much as you were it, and there’s no telling how long it’s known you’ve been watching. Curiosity gets the better of you. You raise your hand and wave, timid and careful to test the waters.

Suddenly it’s posture straightens, hand raising upwards and giving you a very enthusiastic wave back. A smile cracks on your face as it’s arm practically blurs from the movement, hearing the faint, muffled sounds of bells jingling rapidly. You think for a moment it’s smile has brightened, though it’s gaze doesn’t break. t’s friendly. Whatever ‘test’ this thing had just conducted, you seemingly had passed it.

Then, a soft thud from the ball pit area and a child begins to cry. The animatronic stops it’s waving immediately, attention torn from you and seeking out the crying child with rampant speed. You watch as it cradles the girl, whispering comforts and cooes that you can’t hear from behind the glass as children slowly start to exit their hiding places to see what all the ruckus is about. It even pulls a bandaid out from a pocket in it’s pants, showcasing it to the girl and putting it gently on her elbow as she wipes her tears.

Freaky robot. The kids really seemed to like it, though.

You’ve been resting here long enough, it’s time to get back to that staff bot, or at least map your way out of the pizzaplex so you can prepare for your first day tomorrow. You sit up, sparing one more glance towards the robot and it’s charges before exiting the daycare’s office and walking in the general direction you last saw the staff bot roll off to. If it noticed you leaving, you wouldn’t be able to know.

You have to search for a bit, even ducking into a few employees-only areas, but the staff bots there don’t seem to mind even with you in plains clothes and you chalk it up to your face being in the employee’s registry already. It’s probably why that Sun bot was staring at you too, just for database reference.

You eventually find the staff bot standing in front of a hotdog stand giving a history lesson about Fazdogs to an empty space, and decide to go home and wing it for later.

---

Your first actual work day you are given a short shift, nothing extensive, just to test the waters. You spend most of the day exploring than doing any of the actual repairs and attending to the tasks that’s needed, and due to the lack of human supervision over your position you find yourself ending up with a lot more free time than you expected.

The staff bot greets you the next day as well, giving a prerecorded compliment on how you look in your uniform and a small reminder that any damages to your uniform will result money being taken from your paycheck for the proper replacement. It handed you a walkie-talkie, and you almost get excited at the idea of someone human trying to reach you for any reason before you hear an automated voice speak on the other end telling you that someone threw up in the men’s bathroom and you were expected to be there to clean it.

As the jack-of-all-trades employee, you will not have set shift hours. You may work mornings one day and nights the next. Tonight, you worked from six to closing, which put you at the end where the pizzaplex, while still lively, was easier to naviate as you tried to find your way to the tasks that need done. They did send you an email in the morning with a curt greeting that listed a few damages around the building, and stated your job performance would be judged by whether or not you had completed them in a reasonable amount of time, or at least by the end of the week.

So you spent your shift fixing guard rails in Monty’s golf, adjusting steering wheels on go-karts in Roxy’s raceway and cleaning up messes that the staff bots are either too stiff to get to, or simply incapable of removing. You’re not sure how kids even got slime on top of the Freddy statue, but you’re really hoping they don’t get the idea to throw any more up there while you climb your way to it’s shoulder and peel the sticky layer off of the top hat. Parents tended to ignore your presence and kids would sometimes laugh and point, but you were left well enough alone unless someone needed directions to a specific attraction, and even then the Map bot would interrupt and take care of the conversation with you.

The animatronics were…nice to you.

They weren’t rude. At least, not all of them. Monty completely ignores you, doesn’t even acknowledge when you enter to roll in more plates and silverware to the birthday party they’re having to cater. (A shame. In your own childish way, you think the alligator is pretty cool, and you almost had half a mind that you’d get to talk to the band members at least once since now you work here.)

Chica gives you a friendly wave and smiles at you with a beak full of cheese, and you smile and wave back. She’s a bright faced chicken, popular at parties. From across the room she tilts her head towards an open pizza box and it takes you a moment to realize she’s suggesting you take a slice. You’re not sure if that’s her robot programming or an attempt to actaully greet you, but you shake yourhead with a smile, pointing to your badge to indicate that you’re on the clock, and her face never changes from her smile in what you hope is understanding, if she’s even capable of that.

You don’t really talk to them, there’s not really a need to, but it’s nice to at least be acknowledged. You don’t introduce yourself and allow them to get back to their birthday party.

Roxy, surprisingly enough, acknowledges you, if only to frown and tell you to hurry up when you’re tasked with vacuuming the carpet of her stage room. You try to do it as quickly as possible, seemingly an invisible nuisance to the wolf that sits at her vanity and inspects her hair. She mumbles something about it’s losing it’s bright color and needing a touch up soon and you wonder if she’s talking to you or simply outload to yourself, but you responded out of habit anyway. “There’s some green water-based spray paint in the janitorial closest. It was in a box with a bunch of other different colors.” You say, remembering you saw it earlier. “You’d look great with other colors too.”

She doesn’t turn to face you fully but you can see her half-glare, half confused look zeroing in on you in the mirror. You finish your work quickly, pack up the vacuum and leave her alone for the time being.

Freddy is busy nearly always. He was the favorite, the face of Fazbear and the band, the one that all the children liked to flock to when first coming around before they branched their interest to the other animatronics, and he looked like he greatly enjoyed his job too. You haven’t seen him alone not once today, always tailed by a gaggle of kids or families trying to pose for photos. Constantly bombarded with attention seems so stressful as a job, but he handles it with ease and a smile. You don’t want to distract him, so you don’t introduce yourself to him either.

It’s nearing the end of your shift and closing time for the facility when your stomach starts to growl. Your employee badge secures you one free meal at a shop per shift, within reason, and you use it to check you out a sandwich, bag of gummie worms and small carton of orange juice. The food isn’t a lot and the menu is obviously catered more towards children rather than working adults, but it was free so you can’t complain.

Now you just needed a spot where you could eat it. Employee break rooms were not scattered about the facility, (you think that has something to do with the lack of actual human staff) and you didn’t feel like walking all across the length of the building just so you can sit in a predesignated chair, so you search for a different quiet spot.

Most families are starting to pack up, usually walking in the direction of the gift shops or the front doors as it hits 9oclock. You walk in the opposite direction as them, watching as crowds and bundles of people grow thinner until there were only a few stragglers here and there that wanted to milk as much time in the pizzaplex for the amount of money their entry passes cost them. The noise quiets a bit, save for the ever faint music playing over the building’s speaker, and you find yourself outside the main entrance of the daycare.

It looks empty and the door was shut and probably locked, but the lights are still on. You don’t see any kids running around so at least you know the parents picked up their kids already, which meant a room full of relative silence and calmness as the evening settled. Luckily for you, there’s a couple of empty cafeteria tables situated nearby. You plop down in one of them, placing your food on the table and absentmindly checking your phone. You have another hour until your shift ends and the building closes, so you munch your sandwich on company time and mindlessly pick at the mysterious purple stain that you find on the knee of your pants.

You sit there in relative silence, scrolling away when you get the sudden burning feeling that someone is looking at you.

Uncomfortable, you look up from your screen and scan the surrounding area. All the patrons have left, making you the only living soul in the room. The stairs and top half were empty as far as you could see and most of the shops were closed by now, so there couldn’t have been anyone lingering.

Mouth half-full of sandwich, you ignore the feeling and return to your scrolling, if only to immediately look back up again because the feeling seemed to have intensified. Great, now you’re scanning the room to think maybe a lost plushie is somehow giving you the stink eye, gaze trailing across until it looks through the Daycare glass-

That Sun thing is at the glass, staring directly at you, hands clasped together and you jump from your seat. “The fuc-!”

You fall off the stool and land on your ass. Good going. Now the rest of your sandwich is ruined on the floor and you just made a fool out of yourself in front of a literal robot jester. It’s head tilts, watching as you curse as you scramble to your knees and dejectedly gather the remains of your dinner to plop it back into your paper lunch bag as trash. Swallowing down the rest of your mouth full (You almost chocked, but you’re trying not to look anymore stupid than you just did), you sit back in your stool and ignores the feeling of embarrassment.

It’s just a robot. Not like it can judge you anyways.

Except it kind of feels that way. It’s still staring at you, ridged with it’s hands politely clasped together, head tilted to the side as it takes you in through the glass.

You busy yourself with trying to open the bag of gummies and find that it’s really hard to ignore the thing when it’s right there. Against your better judgement, you make eye contact with it, and find that it’s white eyes are just as creepy as you found them yesterday. “Uh.” You don’t even know if it can hear you through the glass, so you raise your hand in an awkward greeting, just as before. “Hi.”

That apparently seems to do the trick. The animatronic becomes animated, almost jumping in it’s spot and returning the wave with strong enthusiasm that’s kinda of scary to see in a being thats so big. Seriously. It looked like it had a one, maybe two feet of height over an average adult. Why Fazbear Entertainment needed a Daycare Attendant so damn tall was beyond you, but you suppose it was so it would be easier to see in a gaggle of children, or to scan the daycare for wayward young ones better.

You stops it’s waving, smile forever etched on it’s face and seems to bounce in it’s spot, kind of like how a human would when they couldn’t hardly contain their excitement. They did a good job mimicking human body language in this one, then again you don’t know what you expected from a company that’s been making animatronics for decades. “So you’re the Daycare Attendant.” You speak to particularly no one, chewing on a gummy.

You have no way of knowing if it can hear you, but it seems to nod and you can’t tell if that's by coincidence, or if that thing has the capability to read lips. “Cool.” You’re not sure how to talk to it. You read everything about the Fazbear band members and their respective personalities, being the main attractions of the pizzaplex, so you had an idea of what to expect or how you would approuch them. You knew nothing about the yellow jester that was making hand motions to you through the glass. “So uh, guess we’re coworkers?” You pause for a moment, motioning to the top of your own head. “I like your…flaps. The sun ray things.”

The hand motions continue. It’s a very excited, jumpy thing, you realize. It pauses every now and then to wait for your reaction, but you’re awkward enough to just stare as it stares back, and tries again, making specified and calculated movements with it’s hands. It repeats itself several times, and it finally dawns on you that it’s using sign language. Neat! You’re not as prociefent in it as you’d like to be, so you quickly grab your phone to do some quick research.

It pauses in it’s movements as your attention directs to your phone screen, angling it’s head as if it was trying to see what exactly you were googling for. You find your answer, search up a diagram and a small guide, and turn back to it so you can mimic what you think the meaning is. It watches with abrupt attention as you attempt to sign. “New friend? Is that it?”

Your response is it’s immediate excitement, returning the motions with quick and giddy speed. New friend.

It starts to sign at a rate that you can’t possibly keep up with, so you raise your hands and give it a small smile. “I can’t hear or understand what you’re saying.” You speak, watching as it pauses and ever so slightly starts to deflate. “Sorry, buddy.”

It shuffles on it’s feet for a moment, almost in uncertainty. You don’t even entertain the idea of opening the Daycare doors because of how close it is to closing time, and you’re not sure if you even had the authority to unlock them. Given the cameras situated around the pizzaplex, you didn’t want to be written up or fired on your second day if you were caught. So instead you stare awkwardly at each other until you have the sense to check your phone for the time, unsure of what to do.

When you turn back around, the Daycare Attendant is gone. “Oh. Okay, bye then.” You’re a little disheartened, but it’s fine.

You’re chugging the orange juice carton and debating on packing up and making your leave when a blur moves out of the corner of your eye. You turn back to the glass, peering into the well lit daycare center as you search for the movement. There, just behind a cardboard cutout of some clouds, you spy it. Or really, the sun rays that peak out from behind it’s hiding place. You blink as the Attendant’s face slowly rises from out behind it. You make eye contact, and it vanishes again, darting behind cover.

It repeats this. Popping out of somewhere you can’t see, disappearing again just to reappear behind something else. Sometimes when you catch it, it’s head would rotate in a playful manner before it disappeared. You track it with amusement, gummies and orange juice have now been forgotten as you sit there and watch as it’s head pops out from a tunnel, hands covering it’s face before revealing itself. A grin finds it’s way onto your face and it’s response is a giddy twirl, hopping and disappearing behind something else just to repeat the same motions.

...Was this thing playing peekaboo with you?

To further solidify your theory, it pops out from the ball pit, arms up and excited. You cannot hear it through the glass (a smart idea, sound proof glass that prevents other families enjoying their stay to be unbothered by screaming and playing children) but it looks happy, and you have a feeling that it’s laughing.

It’s kind of endearing.

You glance around the room. There were no families around given the amount of time until the building closes. You’re not sure if the cameras were live and part of you wouldn’t care even if they were.

Whatever. The security guard could laugh at you for all you care. You wait until the animatronic disappears behind something else before you bolt from your seat, running up to the entrance of the daycare where the large doors and cloud décor around it gave you ample cover. You hide yourself from it’s view. The angle from here should conceal you from it completely, and you peak carefully to see that you were right.

The animatronic pops out of hiding once more, excited and giddy just to freeze. It stares at the spot where you were sitting, the abandoned food left over on the table. It’s head tilts and it’s arms slowly lower. You think you read confusion and disappointment in how it’s body starts to sag, and you almost feel bad. Then it’s gaze starts to roam the room in search of you and you quickly duck behind cover, crouched to make yourself smaller.

This was childish, but you can’t remember this last time you did anything this silly. Just pure, innocent fun. You’re almost giddy yourself as you prepare to move. As quickly as you can, you pop out from behind your hiding place to face the daycare with a wide smile-

-just to have the Daycare Attendant pop out right in front of you, wide smiles and inches from your face with only layers of glass separating you. You let out an (undignified) yelp as you stumble backwards in surprise. The Attendant’s grinning face is spinning, it’s hands outstretched in play and watching as you recollect your composure. For a moment, it stills, watching as you recover.

Your momentarily shock melts into soft laughter at your own ridiculousness, and it’s giddiness returns, coming out of hiding fully to dance and bounce and bound around.

“Okay, okay-” You chuckle, holding up your hands in mock surrender and trying to conceal your fluster. “Alright, you win-”

The intercom interrupts you. “The Pizzaplex will be closing in five minutes. Please collect all your children, your belongings and your complementary drink refill tickets at the front desk. We hope you had a great time, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!”

The announcement cuts and you let it sink it. That’s probably your cue. With a sigh, you gather your abandoned food and trash into the remaining paper bag, pocketing your phone and double checking your badge was in your pocket so you could clock out in time. Turning back to the daycare, the animatronic is still watching you, but it looks…nervous. It’s hands fidget and it’s slightly slumped over, (whoever programmed these things to have such human-like body language needed an award, because it was getting oddly too realistic). More than likely, it heard the announcement from it’s end as well.

It looked…nervous. Lonely?

(Why? It's a robot.)

“Hey, don’t worry.” Your tone is soft though it cannot hear you, it cocks its head to the side as it reads you anyway. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll wave at you if I see you.” You punctuate your sentence with a small wave goodbye.

It responds with it’s own, the never ending smile appearing strained now. Weird.

You should leave before you get in trouble, so he bid him goodbye again and turn on your heel to leave. Lights are turning off as you walk, bathing the hallways in neon's instead of fluorescents. You turn back around to see if it’s still watching you as you go, but the daycare’s lights have been shut off, and there’s no one standing at the glass.

---

You awake that morning to an email detailing a list of tasks that needed to be completed by the end of the day with a note at the bottom that read you’re not scheduled to come in until the night shift. Meaning: midnight. The early hours of the morning. Great.

After the initial groaning and stuffing your pillow back over your face (maybe an inconsistent schedule was a bad idea after all) you sleep until the late afternoon in hopes you won’t be dead tired when your shift rolls around. You wake up disoriented, slightly peeved off now that you’ll have to cram your studies for later, and skim over the rest of the email as your heating up a microwave dinner.

The tasks look fairly simple, shorter than yesterdays. You’re only working a half a shift it seems as there’s so little to do. Check underneath all the tables in the cafeteria for bubble gum and other undesirable sticky things. Replace the complementary Fazbear diapers in changing stations. Fix the hinge on one of the kitchen freezer doors that hold all of the ice cream as it wasn’t shutting properly. Buff out the scratches around Monty’s room wall (in parenthesis, it emphasizes to do this particular task quietly.) and fix one of the flickering lights in the daycare.

The last task has red letters bolded typed underneath. Under no circumstances are you to turn off lighting or electricity in the Daycare. The Daycare Attendant may offer to help you fix the lights. Do not allow him. Fazbear Entertainment is not responsible for any bodily or emotional injury caused by employee negligence. Please see your employee contract for more details.

…Nice. Not only did you have to climb up to a notable height to even reach the damn lights, but you run the risk of getting electrocuted as well. At least they provided health insurance.

You eat, get dressed in uniform, pack and make your way to the pizzaplex. Your key opens the front doors and secures with a click locking behind you, raising the shutters and allowing you inside.

First of all, it’s much darker at night, save for the neons and the slight glow of advertisements. Second of all, the quiet is what gets to you. You don’t see another night shift worker. At least, not a human one. There are a few staff bots scattered about mopping floors and wiping off counters, another couple of security bots roaming around with flashlights. One points it in your direction, carelessly into your eyes (what the hell? that hurts, you know!) staring at you for a minute before continuing on it’s way. Creepy.

With a deep breathe, you start working.

The shift goes by pretty mundanely. You refilled all the diaper stations in the building by an hour in, and gave a quick scan of all the tables to look for gum, goo and anything else that would leave a smell. (You find a couple of Mr. Hippo magnets stuck under there. No idea why.) while putting any sort of family belongings in the lost-and-found bin on your way out.

Turns out the freezer with the broken hinge wasn’t actually broken. Rather it just had something stuck in-between the space of the door not allowing it to shut completely. You pull out another Mr. Hippo magnet (Seriously? Did kids and staff hate these things? They’re everywhere.) and toss it in the bin, satisfied when the freezer door shuts tight.

Next was Monty’s room. You’ve put that off towards the end for obvious reasons, but it was probably quicker and easier to do than the Daycare’s task, so with a heavy chest, you make your way towards his room with a small sander and paintbrush.

You’re nosy, so you check out their rooms out of order just because you can, totally not because you’re procrastinating Monty’s room. Chica is rocking out with her guitar in her room as you pass her by, oblivious to you, and you’re not keen on interrupting her fun just to say hi.

Roxy is at her vanity again, though you can’t hear what she’s saying. She sees you in the reflection of the mirror and turns her head if only to wonder what you’re doing here so late at night before turning away with a huff. You notice her hair is brighter, freshly done with a new strokes of dye or paint making the white brighter and the green saturated. You throw a smile and a thumbs up to her mirror. Her eyes dart to your reflection but you’re already passed when she double checks.

Freddy’s room has the curtains closed, but you see him through the cracks doing something with the plushies of himself. He’s stacking them up together. It’s really cute. He almost notices you peeking through the curtains, looking up right as you step away before you can get caught.

Monty’s room is still closed off with the curtains drawn, much to your relief. You hear…something happening in there. Loud noises and bangs that don’t spell good things. Quickly, you work to buff out some of the scratches around his room, starting with the ones that near the entrance over to front of his room, just underneath the glass.

You’re almost done when the sounds suddenly stop, stomping coming closer and the sound of curtains being pulled roughly back. Monty stares down at your wide-eyed figure. Not knowing what else to do, you raise the small sander up in greeting, mouth pulled up into a toothy smile. He glares at it. The curtains shut closed with more force than what was necessary. Geeze. At least you understand now why he was popular with the young trouble makers.

Now that all that was taken care of, the last was the Daycare lights.

You smile because you think of the sunny animatronic. You frown when you realize you’re going to have a lug a giant ladder all the way down to the daycare and back when you’re done with it.

It sucks. After retrieving it from the utility closet, you sigh at the absolute length of the ladder. One of those tall, extension based ones that you see used more on firetrucks. It’s heavy and dragging across the carpet in a way you’re pretty sure because it wasn’t meant to be carried by less than two people, but you manage.

It clacks against the tile as you arrive to the Daycare’s front doors, one hand on the ladder and the other shuffling for your keys to unlock it. No one comes to greet you, and the silence is only penetrated by the sound the ladder scraping across the floor. The lights are still on, you notice, making it probably the brightest room in the building. It also makes it infinitely easier to see the flickering overhead light in the main area, just above the play mats. The ladder will have to be dragged over there, then. Lovely.

You don’t see the Daycare Attendant anywhere, which was…disappointing. You were kinda looking forward to seeing it again.

...him, again. The email referred to it as a him. That’s oddly sentimental.

You’re so caught up in your own musings you accidently mistep, which would have been fine if the side of the ladder didn’t wack painfully against your ankle. With a hurt yelp, you lose your footing and fall right into the ball-pit, flailing as you go down. “Motherfucker-!”

Curses spew as your shoulder smacks against the bottom of the pit’s play matts, which hardly cushions your fall. “What the hell? C’mon, what the-” Colorful plastic balls are swarming you and in a moment of disorientation and embarrassment, your arms are out swinging like they’re going to drown you, a bundle of limbs and awkward movements when every time you try to stand up, there’s plastic ball underneath your foot that slips you back under. “Fucking, stupid ass balls and their stupid ass, motherfucking- son of a bitch, what the hell is sticky in here?!”

You go down face forward screaming when you trip over the edge of the ladder that has also fallen into the ballpit with you. Lucky. You hope whoever the fuck is on security duty is out doing rounds instead of watching the cameras. But forget being embarrassed, you’re fighting for your life in the ballpit. “I fucking hate-, stupid ass balls and your stupid pit of sticky shit and -motherfucking shit-!”

You think you’ve almost got your balance to break free when something hard wraps around your waist (oh god, another employee? A staff bot maybe?), and you are promptly pulled out kicking and screaming at the unknown assailant. “Oh, no no no you motherfucking-, don’t you FUCKING touch me! Don’t-don’t make fun of me, I’ll fucking kill you-!”

You’re pulled from the ballpit flailing, yelling and kicking your capturer in the chest. “What are you, the fucking lifeguard!?”

The Daycare Attendant holds you quietly with outstretched arms above the ground with easy. White eyes and a blank smile stare back at you.

You freeze, your foot slipping slowly off it’s center chassis and inwardly cringing at the small shoe mark it made. “Ahhahaha.” Nervous laughter. It holds you like a nanny holding a tantruming child to do damage control. You finger gun at it. “Ahaha. Haha. Ha…Hi. Hi there. How’s it going?”

“New friend.” He speaks, and his voice is loud even speaking lowly. “Bad language is not allowed in the daycare!”

You strain a smile, your feet dangling off the floor. “…Sorry-?”

You’re swung back to solid ground and dropped to your feet with an oof, the animatronic immediately animated the moment you leave his hands. Before you even get a word out, it’s talking quickly, completely up in your face and your personal bubble and holy shit this guy was tall. “You’re sure up late! Oh! Are you planning to stay the night? Oh, oh! I looked for you today, yes I did, but I didn’t see you!” His head rotates as it talks, the sunbeams around it’s face spinning with it. This is both cute and lowkey terrifying at once. “We can do all sorts of things, like! Story time! Coloring! I have lots of pens you know, not just crayons. And we can do arts and crafts, watch movies, play hide-and-seek, and tag-that’s one of my favorites-we can dance and drink fizzy faz and stay up all night!”

You’re scrunched up in his hold, wrapping you head around the situation. “Uh-”

“Oh, friend! Did you lose something in the ball pit?” He lets you go, leaving your arms sore and darts back over to the ballpit. Your jaw almost drops open when he sticks his arm into it, pulling out the ladder that took you considerable effort to drag down here with one arm and holding it for you to see. (Of course they’d make the robots oddly strong. How do you think they’re able to wrangle and pick up so many children at once?)

He inspects the metal ladder, which looks like it weighs more like toothpicks in his hands. “Here it is! Why would you need something like this? Doesn’t look very fun, no no. Not safe to be down there though. Someone could trip!”

“Hey, uh.” You try to break his monologuing, but he in the middle of a long spew of the safety of tripping hazards and the importance of keeping your surroundings clean less your accidently trip and hurt yourself. “Daycare guy-”

“-And it’s very important that you tidy up after yourself! Leaving things like this around could get someone hurt! You couldn’t even see it down there, what if someone stubs their toes!”

“Daycare Attendant,” You try that name, and it sounds too awkward and off that you’re not surprised he doesn’t answer. “Uh, Sun..guy. Sunny? Sun?-”

“That’s me!” His head cranes forwards towards you, bouncy and excited. “I already know your name! Oh, no no don’t get a weird look, it’s in the database! And right! Here!” He pokes at your nametag on your shirt with every pronunciation. “It’s so exciting, we-I never get to see any new employees anymore, no people! No, no. But you’re not a mechanic, are you? What are you doing here? Are you trying to find somewhere to take a lunch again? Are you hungry? We have candy and soda and some bubble gum if you like bubble gum-!”

“I’m just here to fix the lights!” You speak quickly, shoulders tense and pointing up towards the ceiling. Sun goes quiet, face plate following your pointer finger to where the flickering light was, and tilts his head. “I’m uh, not on break. I’m here to fix that light. It’s the last thing I have for the night.”

The animatronics’ moment of silence is an odd change from the rambling coaster it was a few seconds ago. “Oh, right! Of course!” He suddenly falls back, keeping a respective distance between you two, dropping the ladder and bringing his hands clasp together. His expression doesn’t change, but his voice and the way he politely sinks in on himself pangs something in your chest. “So sorry to have bothered you! So sorry, please! Please do what you need to! Let me know if you need any help, okay friend?”

(Okay. Who programmed anxiety into the robots?)

“Right.” You trail off, looking above you to the task. It was a simple overhead fixture, probably

flickering because a wire wasn’t connected properly. Something that wouldn’t take too long as long as you were careful about it. “Right. Um.” You shuffle on your feet, a weird silence settling over you. In all honestly, this would probably go by even quicker with his help. “Can you…help me set up the ladder?”

Sun pipes up, if only a little. “Yes! Here, allow me!” Before you can even grab it, the ladder is picked up and trotted over underneath the spot of the light, the animatronic setting it up with ease and motions too smooth that you can’t keep up with. It’s already halfway extended by the time you walk over there. He rambles even as “I’ve been telling them to fix this light for weeks! Weeks! But they just brush me off. Oh, they’re all very busy, I’m sure. The others, I mean. And I can’t get up there myself, no. Well, I can. But I don’t like flying, and they won’t let me touch the lights anyway! No, no they don’t trust me. Which is so mean-”

Sun pauses in his speech and you pause in your footsteps. His head rotates to look at you. “You’re not going to turn off the lights, are you?” You open your mouth to answer, but he continues in a lower voice. “It’s against the rules. The rules. You keep the lights on.”

You blink, meeting his gaze with a teasing look. “ What? Are you scared of the dark?”

Sun doesn’t answer, so you’ll take that as a yes. Probably some hard encoded feature to keep the lights on for the kids, regardless of electrocution risks for it’s employees. You offer a soft smile. “Don’t worry. The lights are supposed to stay on.”

The animatronic pipes up. “Good! Good.”

It finishes setting up the ladder. You swallow at the height it’s extended to, patting down your go- to tools in your pants pocket like it’s some sort of comfort. The ceiling of the Daycare was tall, at least two or three stories high considering the Daycare itself was on the first floor with an open design up to the second. As you stare up at the ceiling, a hand comes down above your head, patting you gently. “If it makes you nervous, I can do it for ya instead!”

You’re not entirely confident you want to go up that high for something that might shock you, but you give an confident thumbs up to him regardless, even though he’s still barely tapping your head with the tips of his fingers like some extremely gentle encouragement. “No, it’s fine!” Your laugh comes out nervous. “Besides, if I fall, you’ll just catch me, right?”

You’re joking of course. But he nods his head furiously, even mocking a salute. “I’ll catch ya!”

See? No worries here. The super tall, loud, gangly animatronic that watched you throw a temper tantrum in the ballpit a minute ago is promising you he’ll prevent you from splattering against the daycare floor if you oh so happen to slip and fall from way up there. Totally manageable. With a deep breath, you turn to the ladder and begin to make your climb.

Looking down will only increase your nerves, so you focus on the task at hand; reaching the light above you. It’s flickering is more obvious as you get closer to it. Not very noticeable from the floor of the daycare, when all the other lights are on as well, and honestly probably no something worth paying attention to unless it goes completely out with a few others. But if this is what you’re getting paid to do, then you need to do it. You’re fine. You got this.

Your heart leaps into your throat for a split second as the ladder suddenly wobbles, then stills. Letting out a breathe you didn’t know you were holding, you call out below to let Sun know you’ve reached the top. “See? I’m fine up here.”

Sun is making distracting fidgets below you, mumbling nervously. You can’t see him without

looking down, but you think he has a hand on the ladder to keep it steady. “Hey, friendddd-” Sun trails off, a waver in his voice that’s unusual for a robot. “That doesn’t seem very safe! Y-you know I can take care of that for you! Really!”

“It’s fine, Sun!” You’re speaking more to yourself than to him, unscrewing the light board with the screwdriver you kept in your pocket, and letting it sit on the top step as you pulled down the wires. They’re the industrial type, meant for long usage. Although there were small divots and engravings on them that shows you where to reconnect them, you know you’re still not technically qualified for this. “You know animatronics aren’t allowed to mess with this sort of stuff anyway.”

You find the wire that’s causing the trouble, flayed at the end like rats have been chewing on it. It’s still active but as long as you don’t touch the fine end, you’ll be alright. Connecting this light’s power to one of the one’s around it should work for a temporary fix, nothing a little electrical tape couldn’t handle.

This might be easier than you thought. Pulling down the faulty wire, you turn to give a reassuring thumbs up to animatronic below. “Don’t worry, this is my job anyway! I’ve got it handled-”

A sudden sharp pain in your hand. You flinch backwards, hissing and letting go before any real damage is done. A flash of light and electricity as the light’s power surges, somewhere in the room you hear a bulb burst and AC unit go quiet, the wire dangling wildly and sparking as the Daycare’s lights go dark and the metal underneath your feet wobbles with your momentum. Gravity flips sideways, air rushing past you and you take a sharp intake of breath as you fall-

Your caught falling into arms that slip under your back knees perfectly, taking most of the momentum and stopping your fall pretty hard. It takes a moment for your brain to catch up to your heart but you realize that you are not splattered against the playmats like the images running through your brain had you believe. The adrenaline rush was making you dizzy.

“Holy shit” You shudder, taking deep breathes. You pat down your body, your face, placing a hand against the hard chassis against your side just to doubly make sure it was there before letting relief take you over fully. “Holy shit. Fuck.” Wiping a hand down your face, willing your pulse to slow down. Your hand rests on the fingers gripping yours side (tightly, uncomfortably) as a show of thanks, and let out a sigh of relief.“ Nice catch, Sunny.”

No asnwer. The fingers gripping you start to dig into your skin and you wince. “Sun-”

Looking up there is no light, no white blank stare. Red pinprick eyes glare down at you from within the dark, barely illuminating the face plate’s smile. In the dark, you barely see the sunray’s are gone, replaced by something that looks like a nightcap. You recognize this face from the posters. His head tilts unnaturally to the side, eyes never leaving you.

“Oh.” You stare back into the abyss. “You’re not Sun."

The Moon’s smile seems to stretch.

Suddenly, the light flickers over head, some left over electricity sparking above you. The thing holding you screams. You’re uncermmounsly dropped to the floor. You waste no time scrambling backwards, as you watch it-him, no, them? claw at it’s face in agony, sun rays popping out of it’s head rapidly in and out and pushing the night cap askew as it writhes in pain.

“Rulebreaker, rulebreaker.” It’s voice sounds corrupted, two of them, low and angry and pained and confused. “You must be-you were warned. I warned you, I warned you! Naughty, nau-no no no. Get out!“ A voice full of glitches, it hisses at you. ”Get Out!”

You don’t need to be told twice. You make it to your feet, running towards the Daycare door. It’s been left open, and you pass that threshold without another thought. (Why were you running? It’s only a robot? Why are you scared?) It’s too long to push them closed and fumble with your keys to lock it shut, catching your breath only when you’re in the clear, your face illuminated by the neon lights that dawn across the pizzaplex.

…What the hell just happened?

A steady silence takes you over. You don’t know what else to do, so you wait. You stare through the glass and expect either a horror scene where something comes flying at you from within, or something happier like Sun popping out from behind the cloud décor. You’re not sure if your heart can take him playing peekaboo right now, but you wait for a minute. Then two. Then a few more.

Through the Daycare glass, the room is pitch black. Only your reflection stares back at you.

You remember you left the ladder inside, and the lights were fried as well. There’s nothing else you can do here. Maybe write up a complaint and forward it to management, assuming you’ll still be employed come tomorrow morning.

You highly doubt it. Your job is toast. (Just like those lights. Ha)

…Maybe it’s best if you just go home and get some rest.

There’s stinging in your hand and soreness like bruising on your sides and legs, but those are problems for a future you. Right now, you’re walking through the building, passing by each room and ignoring the weird looks the other animatronics give you when you pass them by (a male voice calls out to you, but you pretend not to hear it, or the mummering that commences when you’re almost out of ear-shot) and instead makes for the door, clocking out on the side and locking the pizzaplex behind you.