//------------------------------// // Nightmares of the Past // Story: Sunset's Five Long Nights // by Starscreamerz628 //------------------------------// After waiting outside the restaurant for half an hour, Sunset finally heard a pleasant sound: the engine of Applejack’s truck. The red pickup rolled into the parking lot, and as soon as it stopped, Sunset practically sprinted over to the vehicle. As soon as Sunset buckled up, Applejack started the truck and drove off. While they drove, Applejack took notice that Sunset looked a little bit jumpy, and the look of her eyes didn’t help that. Her eyes were bloodshot and had some slight baggage under them, indicating that she didn’t get so much as a wink of sleep last night. “Are you alright Sugar-cube?” Applejack asked as Sunset looked over at her. “Yeah, of course I am,” Sunset nervously replied, “Why wouldn’t I be?” “You’re looking around everywhere like Death itself is after you, your eyes look like you haven’t slept in days, and you’re twitching your fingers like you’re trying not to let go of something,” Applejack replied. Sunset knew she had to find a way to make sure that Applejack wouldn’t think she was crazy, so she decided to fabricate a response. “I think I’m just a bit jittery from my first night job,” Sunset said, “If I just go home and take a quick nap, I’ll feel a little better.” Applejack knew that there was something that Sunset wasn’t explaining, but knew that her friend was right about needing sleep and decided to shrug it off. After a 30-minute drive, the two arrived to Sunset’s apartment building. “Listen, Sugar-cube,” Applejack said as Sunset prepared to exit the truck, “Fluttershy has to work late at the shelter today, so I’ll come by tonight to give you a lift to work.” “Thanks, AJ, really appreciate it,” Sunset replied. “In the meantime, Sunset, I really mean it when I say that you should try and get some sleep before then,” Applejack continued, “I think the reason you’re so jumpy is because you probably didn’t get any sleep before you started last night.” With a nod, Sunset walked out of the truck and into her apartment. After walking inside, Sunset dropped her bag on the couch, went to her room and changed into her pajamas. Sunset took her uniform and put it in the wash before going to her room, setting her alarm, dropping on her bed and closing her eyes. However, sleep wouldn’t come to Sunset as easily as she had hoped. As she lied down on the bed, Sunset began a series of intense dreaming. … Sunset found herself standing in the office of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. However, it seemed that things were not quite as she remembered. The desk she was sitting at had several balls of crumpled paper, a fan, and several collectibles of Freddy and his friends, but Sunset noticed that they looked different. Deciding to shrug it off, Sunset looked to her right side and saw that there were drawings completely adorning the wall. The drawings depicted kids having several interactions with the animatronics, though Sunset never saw some of them before on her first night shift. To her left, she saw a large poster with Freddy and the other animatronics, with the word “CELEBRATE!” written in bold letters. However, Sunset noticed that they looked completely different than the psychopathic robots from last night. Freddy was a lighter shade of brown with a tan muzzle and underbelly, had whisker spots on his face, wore two buttons under his bow tie, had a red stripe on his hat, and had red rosy cheeks. Bonnie looked drastically different from how she remembered him. Where the other Bonnie was purple and had magenta eyes, this Bonnie was bright blue and had green eyes. He also had eyelashes, whisker spots, eyebrows, buck teeth in his upper jaw, a red bow tie, and also had red cheeks. Chica also looked different. Her whole body had the appearance of a human female rather than a real bird, unlike the other Chica. She also had baby blue eyes, and had a bib that read “Let’s Party!” instead of “Let’s Eat!” She also had bright cheeks like the others, but they were pink instead of red. Sunset also noticed that there was also an airshaft on either side of the room. Before she could question the purpose of having open-air vents right next to the floor, she heard the sound of a phone ringing. “Uh, hello? Hello, hello?” the voice over the phone said. Sunset recognized him. That’s the same guy from the phone last night, Sunset thought. The recording continued. “Uh, hello and welcome to your new summer job at the new and improved Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Uh, I’m here to talk you through some of the things you can expect to see during your first week here and to help you get started down this new and exciting career path.” Ha, new and exciting, Sunset thought sarcastically. “Uh now, I want you to forget anything you may have heard about the old location, you know. Uh, some people still have a somewhat negative impression of the company. Uh… that old restaurant was left to rot for a while, but I want to reassure you, Fazbear Entertainment is committed to family fun and, above all, safety. They’ve spent a small fortune on these new animatronics, uh, facial recognition, advanced mobility, they even let them roam around during the day. Isn’t that neat?” Not if they’re trying to stuff you into iron maiden-style pajamas, Sunset thought. “But most importantly, they’re all tied into some kind of criminal database, so they can detect a predator from a mile away. Heck, we should be paying them to guard you.” That caught Sunset by surprise. This isn’t the same place I was at last night, Sunset wondered, this must be the previous location. “Uh, now that being said, no new system is without its… kinks. Uh… you’re only the second guard to work at that location. The first guy finished his week, but complained about… conditions. We switched him over to the day shift, so hey, lucky you, right?” What kind of conditions? Sunset thought. “Uh, he mainly expressed concern about that certain characters seemed to move around at night, and some even tried to get into his office. Now, from what we know, that should be impossible. Uh, this restaurant should be the safest place on Earth.” Then explain how I was being hunted by two of those things last night, Sunset snapped internally, And safest place on Earth, my ass. “So while our engineers don’t really have an explanation for this, the working theory is that… the robots were never given a proper ‘night mode.’ So when it gets quiet, they get confused and think they’re in the wrong room. So they try to find where the people are, and that happens to be your office. So our temporary solution is this: there’s a music box over in the Prize Counter, and it’s rigged to be wound up remotely.” Sunset looked down at the desk and picked up the tablet. She scrolled through the screens until she came across a room labeled “Prize Counter,” where she saw another button on the screen with a timer next to it. She saw that the timer was ticking down and pushed the button, winding it up again. “So just, every once in a while, wind it up for a few seconds. It doesn’t seem to affect all of the animatronics, but it does work on… one of them. Uh, as for the rest of them, we have an easier solution. You see, there may be a minor glitch in the system, something about the robots thinking you’re an endoskeleton without its suit on, wanting to stuff you into a suit, so hey, we’ve given you an empty Freddy Fazbear head, problem solved!” Sunset looked to her left and saw that there was indeed an empty mascot head right next to her seat. “Uh, now you can put it on anytime, and leave it on for as long as you want. Eventually anything that wandered in will wander back out. Uh, something else worth mentioning is the quirky modern design of the building. You may have noticed that there are no doors for you to close. But hey, you have a light! And even though your flashlight can run out of power, the building cannot. So don’t worry about the place going dark. Well, I think that’s it. Uh, you should be golden. Uh, check the lights, put on the Freddy Head if you need to, uh, keep the music box wound up, piece of cake. Have a good night, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that, the message ended and Sunset was left alone in the quiet room. She looked at the tablet again, and saw that the music box was winding down again. After winding it up, she picked up the flashlight and shined it down the hallway in front of her, only to find nothing out of the ordinary. “I don’t get it,” she said out loud, “Why is this place so much different from the one I’m working at now?” Then it dawned on her: this must have been the original location that Mr. Fazbear told her about. Putting down the flashlight, Sunset looked at the tablet and flipped through the cameras, seeing a huge room, like the party room at the other pizzeria, but this one had a statue that looked like a human child holding a large balloon in its right hand and a sign that read “Balloons!” in its left hand. Deciding that the scene was safe, Sunset moved to the next camera over, seeing the same three animatronics from the poster in the office. All of them were standing perfectly still, but Sunset knew better than to believe that they weren’t going to move. Deciding to check some of the other rooms, Sunset flipped through all the other cameras and saw that nothing was out of the ordinary. But then she saw a yellow triangle appear next to one of the rooms. Flipping over to the room it indicated, Sunset saw that it was the room with the music box. As she prepared to wind up the music box, she saw what looked like a large gift box with its lid open, revealing the strange denizen inside it. Sunset couldn’t see much of it, but she could see that it had a white mask-like face, a large head, and a ridiculously skinny body and limbs. Deciding not to get a closer look at it, Sunset wound up the music box to its maximum before she turned back to the stage where she saw the other animatronics. However, she noticed that the blue Bonnie was missing. Knowing very well that if an animatronic was missing from the stage that it was never a very good sign, Sunset flipped through the camera tablet until she arrived to a place labeled “Party Room 3.” At first, she only saw a darkened room, but then she noticed an odd silhouette in the corner of the room. Clicking on the light icon on the bottom of the tablet screen, she saw the blue rabbit holding his guitar in the middle of the aisle between the tables. Flipping back to the stage, Sunset noticed that Chica was also gone. Knowing very well how this would go, Sunset quickly went through the cameras until she saw the yellow robot in a place labeled “Party Room 4.” The teen noticed that Chica was now missing her beak, and her eyes were black with white pinprick pupils. Deciding to check back in on Bonnie’s location, she looked back at Party Room 3, but saw that the rabbit was missing from that room. She checked all the other rooms, but the blue animatronic was nowhere to be seen. Then she noticed that there were cameras on both sides next to the office. Sunset clicked on the one to her right, but she was taken completely by surprise when she turned on the light. “What the heck!?” she practically shouted. There, crouched down in the air vent to her right, was Bonnie. Panic now taking over, Sunset put the table down and picked up the Freddy head next to her before quickly putting it on. A few seconds later, Bonnie himself appeared in front of her in the office. Sweat began beading on Sunset’s forehead as she stared into the robot’s bright green eyes. Bonnie looked as though he was inspecting her over, trying to see if anything was out of the ordinary. A couple seconds later, the lights flickered off before turning back on, and Sunset saw through the eyeholes of the mask that Bonnie was gone. Throwing caution to the wind, Sunset took the mask off and put it back down on the floor. However, when she picked the tablet back up, she saw that there was a red warning sign next to the Prize Corner. Clicking on the room’s camera, Sunset’s eyes widened in horror as she saw that the large box in the back of the room was open, the timer was down to zero, and the puppet in the box was nowhere to be seen. Sunset realized her mistake then and there. “How did I forget about that stupid music box?!” Sunset berated herself. Then, it happened. As Sunset looked up, the last thing she saw was a white face leaping out of the darkness right at her. Sunset screamed as the Puppet closed in on her, and then everything went dark. … At first, Sunset thought she had received the embrace of death when she saw the darkness surrounding her, until she heard a voice from behind her. “Hello, Ms. Sunset Shimmer,” the voice said, sounding almost like a cross between a young boy and a grown man. Sunset looked behind her and saw the Puppet standing behind her. She was astounded by its height, as her head barely came up to its chest. Of course, panic welled up inside of her due to the attack, and she jumped back, ready to fight back if the Puppet got any ideas. However, the lanky animatronic knew that Sunset would freak out, as it put its hands up as a show of peace. “I’m not here to fight, I’m here to help you,” the Puppet said as Sunset raised an eyebrow. “And how exactly was nearly giving me a heart attack ‘helping me?’” Sunset asked. “I needed to get your attention the only way I knew,” the Puppet replied, “I want to help you get through your new job. I know that you signed up for the security position at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. I know the dangers of that place and I also know that the previous guard left a series of recordings to try and help you get through those awful nights. But I want you to help me as well.” “And how can I help you?” Sunset asked. “I think it’s better to simply show you,” the Puppet replied. With a wave of its hand, the tall animatronic opened an image behind Sunset. The orange-skinned girl turned around and saw what looked like something from an 8-bit video game. In a small room was a series of pixels that resembled Freddy Fazbear himself, holding what looked like a slice of cake in his hand. Sunset looked at the Puppet in confusion. “What is this?” she asked. “Just watch,” the Puppet simply replied. So Sunset did just that, and looked at the moving image intently. She saw the 8-bit Freddy walk around the room and making kids happy by giving them cake. But as she looked on, Sunset saw on the outside a single child with blue lines running down its face that she could only guess were tears. The sight made her heart wrench. How could these kids be so cruel to this one child? Sunset looked behind her and saw the Puppet close its hands into a fist, which Sunset assumed meant that the worst hadn’t happened yet. And sure enough, she was right. As she looked at the poor child, she saw a purple car pull up behind him. At first, Sunset thought it was the child’s parents, coming to take him home, but then she saw a tall purple figure walk out of the car and approach the child. At first the child stopped crying, but then Sunset looked on in horror as the tears came back even more than before, and then the child turned grey, indicating the worst: someone had murdered this child. Then the image turned to static, and Sunset turned around to look at the Puppet. “Why are you showing me this?” Sunset asked, tears forming in her eyes. “I’m just showing you the pieces. It’s up to you to put them together,” the Puppet said, “I’ll see you again tomorrow. For right now, I think your alarm is about to go off.” With that, the Puppet, and everything else around Sunset, faded into the blackness. … Sunset awoke to a series of loud beeping coming from her nightstand. Rapidly blinking her eyes to wake herself up, Sunset looked over at her clock and saw that it read 1:30 pm. Shaking any remaining sleep from her body, Sunset got out of bed and stretched her muscles before she went to her closet and got out her day clothes. After a hot shower and a late lunch, Sunset went to her computer and fired it up. She had some research to do.