Chapter Text
Lucie has had a lot of bad days, those days where all she wanted to do was curl up in the corner and cry. But the worst one?
The absolute worst one?
That would be June 26th, 1985. That day was one that held a special meaning for her, for it was the birthday of her son, Gabriel. Gabriel had been your average sort of kid, who loved going out into the wide open space that the town of Hurricane had a lot of and who enjoyed playing games with his best friends, Fritz, Jeremy, Cassidy, and Susie. In recent months, however, there was one thing that had been on his mind now, like a company hunting for customers, and that was Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.
Having opened up only a couple of years back, Freddy’s was on surface level just your mediocre pizzeria, where the pizza tasted like cardboard and the ball pit usually smelled like it had been used as a bathroom at one point. If there was anything that made it somewhat unique, however, it was that being one of the first tail chasers of the Chuck E. Cheese franchise of restaurants, it had a band of animatronics.
There were four of them, or so Lucie had thought: Freddy Fazbear was the leader of the band and greatly resembled a giant friendly bear – his job was to lead the other two animatronics, a yellow chicken obsessed with pizza called Chica and a purple bunny who loved to rock named Bonnie, in a plethora of songs that were considered both catchy to children and which were sufficient enough at promoting the ice-cold and delicious drinks and pizza at the pizzeria. There was a fourth one which had his own performance, however, and that was Foxy the Pirate, whose main role in the pizzeria was to act like a stereotypical pirate and figure out plans to steal from the other three.
Personally, Lucie found them sort of creepy – if it wasn’t the staring, unblinking eyes of them, then it was the sluggish, inhuman ways they moved. Still, they were robotic animals, which for a young child living in the 1980s would feel like the absolute coolest thing that they would have ever seen, and it was certainly the opinion taken up by Gabriel as they drove by the restaurant one morning.
Although Lucie had no intention of going there – ever since his father had passed away, it wasn’t as if they really had enough money to go there – but he had asked to go there on a semi-regular basis, and he had studiously watched the new Saturday Morning cartoon of the characters as it aired on their old tank of a TV and gotten knock-off plushies from the flea market, so she had decided to surprise him that morning by taking him there. That, and he had been a good help around the house, helping out with the chores and everything so he did deserve a good gift.
“Where are we going, Mummy?” Gabriel had asked as they opened the door to their car and went in.
“It’s a secret.”
“A secret? Ooh, is it two fighting dinosaurs!”
“…maybe.”
“… are we going to Freddy’s?”
“… who knows?”
Gabriel continued peppering her with questions as they drove through the town – a place struggling through the economy and which was filled with boarded-up shops and people huddled in corners asking for spare change. Lucie knew that these were not sights that any child should see, but it wasn’t as if there were any alternative routes to Freddy’s – after all, these signs of decay were everywhere.
Soon, the giant visage of Freddy and friends greeted them as they entered the car park of the pizzeria. At this, Lucie could see Gabriel’s eyes shine up with excitement.
“Wait, we’re going to Freddy’s!”
“Yup. You have been a good boy helping out around the house recently so I wanted to give you something good for your birthday!”
At this, Gabriel got even more excited, quickly unbuckling himself and practically launching himself out of the car when Lucie went to open the car door.
“I’m going to Freddy’s! I’m going to Freddy’s!” he sang as he bounced his way to the front doors of the pizzeria.
Gabriel was not the only one who had been given the opportunity to come to the pizzeria that day – as he lept into to the building, his friends were waiting for him.
The first one waiting was Fritz, showing off yet another gap in his tooth as he charged into Gabriel.
“Gabriel, you came!”
“Of course I did! It’s my birthday!” he replied as Lucie took in the appearances of his friends – Susie wearing a bow on her head and a purple dress, Cassidy wearing a light blue short-sleeved shirt, Fritz wearing a slightly grubby red and white shirt, and Jeremy wearing a purple jumper. “What’s the plan today?”
“I’m going to spend time with Foxy!” shouted Fritz, “He’s the coolest one of all!”
“I’m going to play the arcades.” replied Suzie quietly, her voice still somewhat laced with sadness after the recent death of her dog.
“I’m going to save up enough Freddy coupons to buy a Bonnie plush,” suggested Jeremy.
“I don’t know yet, but I’ll probably just wander around until I see something I like,” said Cassidy.
“Well, I’m going to eat pizza and watch Freddy!” said Gabriel, his tone quite confident as he spoke.
And so, giggling, the children went their separate ways. Lucie followed Gabriel as he charged into the Dining Hall with the speed that an 8-year-old had.
***
The place in question was filled with children, who ran around the place, screamed a little, and jumped around as if they were high on candy, which in fairness they probably were. Gabriel quickly took an unoccupied seat in one of the tables and watched the stage with intent.
In front of them, Freddy, Chica, and Bonnie had already been set in place, their eyes closed and their head tucked down as if they had died standing up. Soon, however, their eyes slowly opened and they creaked and rattled into place.
“HEY THERE, KIDS!” said Freddy Fazbear, his voice loud, booming, and robotic. “I HEARD THAT WE HAVE A BIRTHDAY KID IN OUR MIDST TODAY!”
“YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!” said Chica, her voice equally as ear-shattering and her arm slowly creaking up to show off a cupcake with a face and a birthday candle on it. “IT MEANS THAT WE MUST BOTH EAT LOTS OF PIZZA AND SING THE FAZBEAR AND FRIENDS BIRTHDAY SONG!”
Bonnie began stringing his guitar. Well, it looked like he was stringing his guitar, but the actual audio for it came not from the guitar, but from an internal speaker.
Soon, the animatronics went into a version of the “Happy Birthday” song.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM US! HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROM US! I HOPE YOUR BIRTHDAY IS FREDDYTASTIC! AND WE HOPE YOU SPEND IT WITH A SLICE OF FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZA!”
How the kid’s ears were not left bleeding was a mystery, but it didn’t, and so, as the animatronics went back to their regularly scheduled routine (Lucie had mainly tuned it out by this point, but it was probably something saccharine-like the importance of friendship), Gabriel went back to quietly eating his pizza.
“So what do you want to do next?” she asked him.
Gabriel thoughtfully tapped his finger to his chin.
“Probably go to the arcades myself and play with Suzie!”
Lucie smiled, satisfied that her son was having a good birthday.
Then, although she wouldn’t realize it until that very night, the day went for a turn of the nightmarish kind.
Lucie soon noticed a new mascot bound up to them. Although she had initially believed it to be an animatronic, what with the mascot’s resemblance to them, she soon realized that it wasn’t the case judging from both the more human-like way he leaped up to them and the fact that she could see a glimpse of a face underneath the costume. As for the suit itself, it looked like a golden version of the Bonnie animatronic that was currently up on stage.
“Is that the birthday boy I see?” questioned the bunny, his smile a little too wide for his face.
Gabriel nodded.
“Then congratulations! We have a birthday party set out for you in the backstage in this very building. Do you want to come?”
From here, Lucie could see a brief expression of doubt flicker over Gabriel’s face, but it quickly faded as he practically bounced off the seat.
“Will there be extra gifts and stuff?”
The bunny costume gave a seemingly hearty laugh.
“Of course there is birthday boy! There will be special limited edition plushies and all of the pizza and coke you can dream of. In fact,” and at this, the smile widened. “your friends are already there as we speak. We even have a dog there!”
Gabriel turned towards his mother, his eyes like that of a puppy.
“Can I come to the party? Please? Please?”
Staring at the costume, Lucie felt a look of dread and horror wash over her. After all, there was something… off about the man, something strange about the way he smiled too widely, laughed too loudly.
She brushed it off. He was clearly an employee of the place and seeing as the place was filled to the brim with children and employees who were there for the children’s safety, it was unlikely that Gabriel would come to any real harm.
“Okay Gabriel, but don’t take too long. We need to be out here by 5.”
“Thanks, Mum!” said Gabriel, giving her a tight hug before leaving with the costumed man.
Several hours passed as Lucie sat in her chair and sipped the drinks of the pizzeria (warm in spite of what they have you believe). She watched as the place got even more hectic and the children became even louder. In spite of this however, during those hours, she had seen no sight of either Gabriel or his friends. She wasn’t concerned at first until she took a glance at her watch and saw that it read that it was five minutes past five. Heart tightening with fear, she got up from her seat and went in search of an employee.
It wasn’t long before she found one. The employee in question was fairly young in both looks and demeanor and didn’t seem to be keeping too strong an eye on the children. Although it was a sign which indicated that he was likely a teenager just there on a Summer job, it was a fairly foreboding sign nonetheless as she went up to the young man.
“Hey, I’m looking for my child. Have you seen him?” Lucie asked as she went up to the teenager.
He looked over her somewhat languidly before replying.
“Maybe. What do they look like?”
“Well, Gabriel is pretty small for his age, he’s black, has got bushy brown hair, and a yellow t-shirt. Oh, and I last saw him with this giant golden bunny – I think he was one of the mascots!”
At this, the teenager frowned in confusion.
“What do you mean giant golden bunny? We don’t have a giant golden bunny! … I think.”
At this, Lucie’s heart sank.
As she descended into full panic and her walking became more and more fast-paced, she kept trying to locate Gabriel, peeping into every room and asking all of the employees as to his whereabouts.
Despite her attempts however, all she got was slight concern, empathy, and a lack of information.
What struck out the most though was that of all the responses, none had recalled the mascot costume ever having a role to play in the current pizzeria. She realized then that she shouldn’t have been complicit that day, shouldn’t have ever let Gabriel follow the mascot, should have followed him to see what was waiting for him.
For the record, one of the employees, a young woman stationed at Pirate Cove, was eventually concerned enough to issue a missing child alert and the place was evacuated and closed whilst Gabriel and his friends were located.
In spite of this, however, none of the children were found, neither that day nor any other day – it was as if they had vanished into thin air.
Lucie Mitchell cried that evening, cried for the fact that her heart had been broken into a million pieces, for the fact that her future had been erased and a new future had been handed to her on a rusted platter, and for the fact that her son, her beautiful lovely son, was taken from her, perhaps for good.
She was unaware of it at the time, but elsewhere, deep within the now tainted pizzeria building, a new lifeform made from a borrowed one woke up and wept for the end of their previous life as well.