A Strange Revival A Chance Encounter

Chapter 1: Awakening

The last thing he could remember was the heat.

More than that, he remembered feeling peace. He hadn't felt peace for years. Many years. However, now, when he thought about this... Wait. That was exactly the issue wasn't it. He THOUGHT. He shouldn't be able to think! He should be dead! Finally dead. But if he could think and recollect, maybe he wasn't dead after all.

Michael pried his eyelids open. How long had they been closed? His eyes probably would have burned if they had still been organic. Wherever he was, it was pitch black. Maybe he was dead after all. He reached his hands out and felt around him. He found that he was not even able to fully extend his arms. Upon further examination, he was in a tube of some sort. He could feel something like hinges at a certain point on the tube's walls.

Must be a door then, he thought.

Now that he had examined his surroundings a bit, Michael decided that maybe he should examine himself. The last time he was conscious, he was practically falling apart. He could only imagine what he was like now.

He touched his face first and was shocked when he felt eyebrows and eyelashes. His hand migrated up to the top of his head. There was hair. How could he have hair? Michael had worn a crappy Party City wig for years, post Scooper. And he seriously doubted that spending his "final moments" in a burning building would have restored his hair growth. Any amount of hair would have been a surprise, but he practically felt like he was a teenager again. His hair had grown quite a lot and felt thick and healthy. He stood there for longer than he would care to admit, just running his hands through his hair.

After he had recovered from some of the shock of this discovery, Michael decided that he ought to try and open the door to the tube and uncover where he was.

He felt around in front of him until he reached a handle, he pushed on it and it swung open with a loud screech. Wherever he was, it was barely lighter than inside the tube. His eyes adjusted extremely quickly, too quickly as a matter of fact.

Michael knew exactly how long it took for his eyes to adjust to the darkness normally. Years of working night shifts of course, but more than that, he was the one to perform maintenance on his animatronic eyes. He usually had to concentrate on the adjustment too, however this was instantaneous.

The walls of the room he was in were scorched, ceiling tiles were littering the floor, the tiles were pulled up and littered the ground. This was his Pizzeria. This was the building that he thought he would experience his last moments in. Finally, he was going to have a place to rest.

Keyword: WAS. Obviously.

There were animatronic parts, computers, and circuit boards littering the tattered tables and shelves. He attempted to take a step toward them but found that he was stuck onto something. He turned back to face his cylindrical tomb and found that he was connected by chords and chargers, protruding from a panel in the back of his skull, and another in his back. He forcefully ripped them out.

Someone had replaced his parts. Sure, a charging system was more efficient than the old animatronic batteries that he used to place in each of his limbs individually. But this felt so violating. He reached behind his head and clicked the panels shut and felt a shiver shoot down his spine.

Newly freed from his tethers, he walked over to the shelves and examined their contents. Lots of computer parts, animatronic parts that he recognized, and some that he didn't. They looked shiny, clean, new. The ones he recognized were caked in grime. He moved up to another shelf. It contained empty jars and vials. They were stained, clearly not well cleaned. The labels that stood out to him said, "AFTN BLD SMPL."

This should have concerned Michael, but his attention was quickly redirected to some of the other containers. "REMNANT" read some of the labels.

He staggered backwards. If he had the ability to throw up, he might have done it right then and there.

"I thought this was over." He gasped out into the empty room.

He frantically spun about the room, looking at it. The evidence. That everything he and his Uncle Henry had sacrificed had been for nothing. Someone was harvesting Remnant. Again.

Michael rushed over to the door out of the room. He rattled the handle, desperate to separate himself from this revelation, but it was locked from the outside. He was panicked for a moment, but he quickly realized that there was a large vent cover laying on the ground. He moved one of the shelves out of the way and revealed the open vent.

He backed away from the vent and went to rifling through the drawers and papers on the desk, searching for some supplies. He was able to locate a flashlight, and in the bottom drawer of the desk, was a large backpack. He pulled the bag out and quickly unzipped it. Inside he found the burnt remains of his old uniform, name tag, and some other belongings. At the bottom of the bag were the most important items, however. The charred animatronic remains of a little pink and white bear, and an entirely un-charred little golden teddy bear, sporting a purple top hat. It should have been burnt to a crisp, but here it was, gazing into Michael's eyes, just like it always did.

Michael let out a shuddering breath before stuffing everything back in the bag. He briefly closed his eyes, mind racing with a thousand thoughts. He pushed them down and focused on the one thing he could do for now, get out of this nasty room.

He got down on his hands and knees and crawled into the vent.