Five Nights at Freddy's: Robotic Electric Movement

Rise and Grind

August 18, 2014, 9:30 am

William Afton's alarm clock woke him up suddenly. That only meant one thing: today was the monthly meeting. He groaned.

This is what happens when your company gets bought out by a soulless megacorp, he thought bitterly. After drinking a cup of tea, he started changing his clothes. He decided against wearing his purple suit from The Good Old Days. Instead, he put on a dull grey suit with a purple tie.

* * * *

10:30 am

Thankfully, William didn't need to drive too far. The Fazbear Entertainment headquarters was located in New Harmony, which is about a twenty minute drive from Hurricane.

As soon as he stepped into the office, all the high level executives rose to greet him. Bob Kennedy, the CEO of Fazbear Entertainment, looked down from his PowerPoint presentation to wave at William.

"Good morning, Mr. Afton," he greeted warmly. He was the very image of the corporate salaryman: smoothly pressed suit in dull colors, slightly balding, tightly trimmed hair, and a proud chin. He seemed nice enough. Just a little... boring.

William faked a smile. "You too, Mr. Kennedy." After taking a seat, he fake laughed. "So, when are we getting this party started?"The other execs chuckled at William's "joke".

William hated every second he was here. He hated how fake and corporate everything here was. He didn't even feel alive. In fact, he hadn't really felt alive since the eighties...

Mr. Kennedy turned on the PowerPoint presentation. It depicted a graph that slowly declined.

"As you may have heard, our stock has dropped about seven percent this year. Naturally, the stockholders aren't too happy about this. Kids nowadays just aren't interested in our toys. We need fresh new ideas to blah blah blah blah blah..."

William mentally zoned out around this part. He hated all the corporate jargon being thrown around. Way back when, it was his old business partner who dealt with this stuff.

But Henry's not here now, is he?, William thought at least a little bitterly.

"Thoughts, Mr. Afton?" The CEO's question snapped William out of whatever he was thinking about. Being used to his partner's inattentiveness, Mr. Kennedy reiterated his question. "How would you address our current under performance?"

William waved his hand dismissively as he came up with a half-hearted answer on the spot. "Well, kids are always on their phones nowadays. We could address this by adding phone integration into our toys."

The executives all gasped in amazement, as if they were the Lord's disciples hearing the Gospel. Then, they started clapping and cheering.

"Wow, what a concept!", one of the executives cheered. "I never would've thought of that myself!"

Mr. Kennedy beamed at William. "Y'know, I'm glad I have you as a partner," he smiled. William couldn't have rolled his eyes any harder.

* * * *

12:00 pm

The meeting went on for another agonizing hour and a half. The whole time, the executives were either discussing boring profits or huffing each other's farts. Normally a mixture of both. When it was over, William breathed a sigh of relief.

After picking up lunch from the local Chinese restaurant, William drove back to what could be described as his second home. He parked his purple Cadillac at the warehouse. The only other car there was a red sedan.

The warehouse was an unsightly block of red brick. A faded sign outside read "AFTON ROBOTICS". William stepped to the entrance and went inside.

The inside was just as bare as the out. Long tables lined the place. Shelves brimming with mechanical parts dotted the scene. Various works-in-progress were covered by bags. Long vertical windows shone sunlight into the place. Everything had a fine layer of dust on it.

William remembered when he and Henry first bought the place. They both had big plans for their emerging business. But now, it is merely a remnant of itself, being mostly abandoned. William smiled bitterly. Oh, how things could fall apart so fast.

He spotted his young assistant waiting by one of the tables. In front of her was a half assembled toy rabbit. When Clara saw him coming, she smiled and waved him over.

Clara was an intern from the local college. With mousy blonde hair and a red turtleneck, you could easily imagine her carrying a thick stack of books at any point.

"I forgot you had a meeting today, so I came a little early," Clara said sheepishly. She looked down at the assembly on the table. "I figured, with the extra time I could make some progress on little Ralpho here."

William looked down at the thing. One of the ways the factory was kept afloat was by accepting commissions for custom built animatronics. Ralpho here was ordered as a birthday present by a family in the Midwest area.

Clara flicked a switch in the toy rabbit's back. Immediately, it started to spin its head and bang its cymbals together. This lasted a few seconds until the head got stuck and the arms jerked together.

Clara frowned, clearly displeased. "Darn it! The head mechanism keeps getting stuck on the arms." She flicked the switch off. Admittedly, William's assistant is improving quite a bit. However, he couldn't really bring himself to care that much.

"It's alright," he fake smiled. "You're doing a good job." Clara's face turned red with flattery.

"Oh, uhh... t-thank you," she said. Then, her eyes lit up, as if something had just hit her. "Oh! I almost forgot to show you something!" She pulled out her phone and typed something on it.

William leaned over to get a better look. "What is it?", he asked.

"Have you heard of 'FreddyFazfan1989'?", Clara asked. She finally pulled up a video on VidTube. "She found some original Freddy Fazbear animatronics and is restoring them!" She showed her phone to William.

* * * *

In the video, Stella was scrubbing dirt off of Bonnie's fur. "A few nights ago, Bonnie here ran away," she told the camera.

"I can attest," Kyle the cameraman said. "He tried to eat me!"

Stella smiled. "C'mon! You know Bonnie doesn't eat people. He just wants to play!" She looked over to the dirty bunny. "I just wish he'd played somewhere that wasn't dirty..."

* * * *

Clara returned her phone to her pocket. "The only thing I don't like is how she keeps trying to appeal to the creepypasta audience," she said. "Like, she pretends that they come to life at night." She looked over to her mentor.

"Like, if anybody should know that's impossible, it's you, right?"

But William was already zoning out. He thought back to a few nights ago, when he saw Freddy and Chica wandering about. He also thought about Stella who, despite the supernatural barriers, was able to communicate with them clearly.

Then, a wonderful, terrible idea entered William's head. He finally realized how he could escape the numbness of his day to day life, and return to the excitement of his youth.

For the first time that day, William smiled genuinely.