Chapter Text
Second night, and Chica was still loathing this place. Despite her hoping that the day would go better the previous night, it hadn’t. More complaints came in about her design, an old man with particularly bad eyesight tried to hit on her, she enjoyed watching him get kicked out for becoming increasingly violent over her “denial” (read: ignoring of) his advances, and 2 hippies climbed up onto the stage and forced them to stop a show and close early by threatening to pour sugar into the band's pneumatics. She was pretty sure that wouldn’t have done anything, but the management and engineers didn’t want to risk it. Wonderful, just great, absolutely freakin’ awesome. Despite the last few hours feeling like a whole year, she was ecstatic when the evening crew left and the night began. 12:01AM, the night was fresh, and she had a newfound excitement about her next exploration. But first, enlisting a little help wouldn’t hurt!
“Bonnie.”
Nothing.
“Bonnie.”
The slightest shift of her body.
“BONIBELLE!”
“WHAT CHICKADEE!” The bright blue bunny wheeled her head around to face her. Literally. She kept her body forward as she turned her head to face Chica. Sometimes Chica forgets they can do this, it unnerves her to know how robotically they act when compared to regular humans.
“Weeell,” Chica began, her voice curious “I was wondering if you maybe wanted to-”
“No, Chica.” Bonnie replied, sounding exhausted.
“Wha- you didn’t let me finish!” Chica whined.
“No, I didn’t, because I know what you’re about to say. You want to go explore the building and you want me to come with, and like every night for the past month, I’m going to say no, and you’re going to go off on your own grumbling about it all the way, while me and Freddy stay on stage and recharge.” Bonnie explained, sounding exasperated with each sentence. Chica stopped, she didn’t know what to say, Bonnie had a point.
“But c’moooon, it’ll be fun!” Chica started again. “And-”
“Just- not right now Chica. Maybe tomorrow.”
Chica looked disheartened, before stating, frustrated, “Well fine then! If you want to be like that then so be it! I’ll go off on my own and have a great time! And I’ll tell you aaaall about it and you’ll be sorry you didn’t come with me!”
“Uh huh, sure.” Bonibelle sighed before powering down, the faint red glow on her cheeks indicating she was charging. Chica stared for a moment, before once again stepping out from behind her keyboard and hopping off the stage.
She stared at the empty dining room, the guests gone and the room quiet. The chairs were put up on the tables, and a few wet floor signs littered the ground. She checked her internal clock, 1:12AM.
“Dang, that argument must’ve taken longer than I thought.” Chica stated as she walked forward, her feet clacking against the linoleum floor. She stopped right in the center and looked around her. She could hear the music box from the arcade faintly playing that same familiar song, and to her right could see the, assumedly pirate-themed, daycare, its silver-starred curtains moving faintly in the breeze from the AC. Chica made the decision to head into the daycare, passing by the entrance and through the daycare’s curtain door. As her eyes adjusted to the even dimmer lights in the room, she saw… she saw…
Dear GOD , the room was a mess.
Papers and pencils and crayons and markers all littered the ground. A small, curtained stage sat in the corner and a ballpit sat along the same wall as it. There were toys thrown about everywhere, books were half-hazardly sitting on the ground, small plastic chairs were overturned and tossed about, and was that blood???
As Chica moved towards the unknown-splotch-that-definitely-maybe-was-blood, she felt a small bump in the carpet. Looking down, she saw nothing, so she moved closer to the splatter. No, no, it wasn’t blood, it was just some red acrylic paint some kid had probably thrown during a tantrum, Chica felt silly, of course the daycare wouldn’t have blood splatters in it, that’s stupid! Before she could say anything, she felt a whirring and a crank, and all of a sudden, the curtains to the stage pulled back, and Chica gasped at what she saw.
It was another animatronic, some sort of canine, but it was absolutely mangled . Its endoskeleton jutted out randomly, with wire and bits of casing hanging on desperately to what little remained of the original structure. It had two heads, one skeletal one that connected directly to the things wrist joint, and another that was clearly what the original animatronic was, a pink and white fox. But before Chica could reach out to it, a tune began to play, and the thing sang.
“C0M-COM3, AL1 Y0# Y0U-YON6 FE110WS AND- 4ND LIS-LI5-1IST3N TO M-!” The Mangled Animatronic whined and whirred. Chica heard the pneumatics hiss and yell and listened as the servos in the jaw skipped and cracked as the things jaw swung and snapped open and shut. She stumbled backwards and tripped over a book that laid between her and the exit. As the thing rose, its movements sporadic and jerky, Chica tried to regain her footing.
“W3Y- WE. H3Y! B10W TH3 M4-MAN D0WN-OWN!”
Chica rose to her feet and threw the book as hard as she possibly could at the thing, before turning around and rushing as quickly as possible to the exit. As she turned to look back at the daycare, her steps sounding loudly against the floor, she ran right into..!
… Freddy?
“Jeez Chickadee, are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” The bear was a welcome sight, his round and jovial appearance bringing calm to Chica’s frantic mind. It wasn’t anything romantic, more so like seeing your best friend after the worst experience of your life.
Well, Chica supposed that’s exactly what it was.
“Freddy! You gotta- There’s a- I don’t- MONSTER!” Chica stammered out, frantically glancing and pointing at the entrance to the daycare, becoming more and more panicked by the second.
“Whoa, hey, Chica calm down! I came over to see what all the commotion was about. Here, why don’t you calm down for a minute and then you can show me this ‘monster’ you’re talking about.” Freddy was calm and collected, and Chica was glad he was, because if Bonnie were here, well Chica was probably getting a hefty dose of “ I told you so ”. Chica wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Freddy asked her again.
“Now, why don’t you show me this ‘monster’ you were talking about?” Freddy asked. Chica took a deep (simulated) breath before motioning to the daycare. Freddy walked towards the daycare, and as he moved the curtain aside, Chica winced and looked away for what was surely about to happen-
“Chica there’s nothing here.”
“...what?” Chica rushed towards the curtain and peered beyond it. Sure enough, the daycare was exactly as it was before she entered it, minus one book.
“But- But- But I know what I saw!” Chica quickly stuttered out. Freddy looked at her, concerned, the bear’s face wrought with worry.
“Chica, when did you recharge last?”
“I- uhm, I don’t- I think last friday?”
Freddy looked at a calendar on the wall, the date clearly stated as March 11, 1986. The bear sighed, before looking at Chica again.
“Here, why don’t we head back to the stage and recharge for a bit? I’m sure your battery would appreciate it, as well as your motherchip.”
Chica glanced once more at the daycare, before sighing and agreeing. As she passed through the main dining room, she looked at the camera, the blinking red dot once again giving away that someone is watching. She just looked at it tired, before going to move towards the stage. As she stepped back onto the stage, the clock chimed 6AM once again, and the night was over. As she powered down to recharge, she watched the nightguard leave again, noticing how he fidgeted with his keys before leaving. Before she fully fell into the recharge cycle, she had just one more thought.
“Tomorrow is another day.”