FNaF Origins | The Crying Child

(V2) Chapter 1

Henry silently observed two children sprint around red-and-black checkered tables, their shoes squeaking on the wooden tiles.
He could feel the joyous vibe of the restaurant mixing in with the smell of pizza and sweat. The room he was currently in had gray walls, with two pairs of bold red doors on either side. Many posters (most of them drawn by children, as shown by the quality) hung from the walls in their many prominent colors. Rows of tables lined up towards a stage, and black chairs were scattered everywhere. Parents were sitting in some of them as children flowed around it, zooming to different rooms and back again. It was quite packed, which had surprised Henry when he had first walked in the pizzeria that morning.
     The wall in front of him, far away, held a small, compact stage that was supported with gray metal pillars holding spotlights and soft red curtains. Henry already knew they could open and shut smoothly from a single press of a button.
Hoarding the stage were two animatronics Henry had built himself: one was a yellow bear and the other was a yellow rabbit. They both wore royal-purple accessories. The bear held a shiny yet obviously fake microphone and the rabbit, tragically, held nothing. There were wall decorations behind them depicting a sun and some clouds. Stars hung around them from strings connected to the ceiling. The bold blue and red spotlights made them all shine in a rich lavender.

The animals would, as Henry had programmed them, occasionally play a short song and then joke to a non-existent audience. They were, though, able to look around with cameras Henry had attached carefully in their eyes, allowing them to focus momentarily on a moving target. It wasn't much, but it was something not many technicians could do, and it always gave Henry a tiny wisp of pride. He knew he would eventually try to add some type of memory recognition to them, but it would be a while before he got into that. The robots' movements were slow and had a jagged quality to it.
Henry's focus wavered from the animatronics as he heard a tiny, happy shriek come from one of the children he was watching moments ago.
He pushed himself off the wall he was leaning on and slowly followed the boy and girl, who were heading off towards the stage. He scratched the seam of his uniform on one side of his chest quickly as he continued to follow. Clothes weren't a top priority to him, but the type of material in this one was too rough.
He approached the stage as the boy, who had brown, untidy hair and brown eyes, nervously shuffled behind the girl. He wore a pale blue shirt with jeans. His cheeks and chin seemed somewhat round, which immediately reminded him of William.
The girl, on the other hand, was curiously watching the animatronic rabbit focus on her for a moment before distracting himself to chat with the bear. She had long, flowing brown-black hair and was wearing a special short yellow dress. She was facing away from Henry, but he knew she had hazel eyes and sharp features.
The girl told something to the boy, who nodded after hesitation. She then scanned around before she caught sight of Henry a couple tables away and started racing towards him.
"Daddy!" she called, stopping by his feet. Her eyes shined with excitement, and she had a familiar, soft smile that always cheered up Henry.
The boy, tagging along, seemed to have calmed down from his uneasiness and was listening in to the conversation.
"Do they have names yet? Isn't one of them Fredbear?" The girl pointed to the yellow bear, who was starting off a tempo to a short song. He held his microphone up as his jaw tried, but failed, to sync with the deep, melodic voice.
"Yep, that's Fredbear," Henry confirmed in a soft voice, used for whenever he talked to children. He crouched down, getting a lower view, and gestured towards the other robot. "That bunny is Bonnie." He chuckled involuntarily, suddenly reminded of his oddly secret name choice for the animal.
"Don't they go off the stage sometimes?" the boy asked, eyeing them as the song ended and the curtains closed. One of the workers, wearing a similar purple uniform to Henry's, entered through a door near it labeled "Employees Only". It had an additional drawn picture of Fredbear below holding his hands up as if he was stopping traffic.
"Sometimes," Henry agreed. "They always like to meet everyone. I've heard that if it's someone's birthday, they bring the cake out and sing a song."
The girl gawked slightly in awe and spaced out a little, as if imagining her own birthday. The boy simply blinked, not changing his expression.
Henry laced his fingers hastily through the girl's hair, straightening the stands that he knew always stuck out. "Try to go a bit more slow," he warned them, focusing on the girl for just a moment longer. "Especially you, Cassidy. I don't want anyone tripping on our first day here."
The children nodded and ambled towards a different room to the right of the stage.
Henry stood up again, and in the chaos of shouting and talking he heard the door by the stage creak open again. Glancing over, he saw a yellow bear step out, similar to the one behind the curtains, and slowly pace to the room the children went to. As the suit passed by, he waved at Henry and gave a muffled greeting before heading off.
Being a worker at the pizzeria included wearing a sticky, sweaty suit for about an half-an-hour each day. The suits were specially designed with springlocks, a certain mechanism that Henry had invented years before, that tightened and held the different metal pieces to the sides. It would allow the suit to have enough room to be fully worn as a costume.The locks still had some defects in them, but every few months or so, Henry would figure out a better way to hold them back safely. It was very easy to push them all into the suit for wear, but it was hard to take it on and off without having them snap open and fold out. Using the suit required weeks of training at most.
A memory quickly resurfaced, one of his familiar workshop at home, and he allowed his mind to replay it out of fondness.
     There were two wooden desks and he was sitting next to one that had more piles of metal parts, mechanisms, and wires, placed here and there without the proper tidiness it needed. Small, sketchy blueprints surfaced on walls, the desks, and even around the floors on occasion. A lamp from the other desk glowed a faint rich orange, The dark windows portrayed that it was nighttime. Dust flowed silently around the more untouched works. Henry held two pieces of metal, wound together and held back: the finished "springlock". Summoning both of his children, he had shown them the working of it, joking with it as he triggered it and created a deafening snap.
"It could bite off your finger!" he teased, but then his seriousness surfaced again. "Be sure not to ever touch these." He gently put the lock back onto the table, shifting other used parts over. "Sometimes I put them in the robots, so you need to watch where you place your hands."
He turned back to them, suddenly noticing with slight shock that they were nodding with pure uneasiness. His own tone replayed in his mind and he winced a little by how harsh he sounded.
Guiltily, he hoisted them up in a big hug (easily, because they were very light) and calmed again after he heard their surprised giggles. Dust flowed around them, barely noticeable yet shielding them from everything else outside their bond. The father laughed along with them. "Just be careful," he whispered in their ears, warmth enveloping him.
He suddenly felt a small tap on his shoulder. Starting a little bit, Henry realized he was staring at the doors where the guard had last left and didn't know how long he was doing it for.
Looking over his shoulder, he met a familiar face and his heart's quick pace slowed down steadily.
"Are you okay, Henry?" William asked in a hushed voice, as if this had happened once before.
"Y-yeah, yeah," Henry stuttered in reply, turning towards him. "It's great to meet you again, after these... few months." He shifted out of awkwardness.
William smiled back in an unusually bright way. Loosing his daze from thinking out, Henry took greater detail of his lifelong friend.
He was wearing the same uniform as him, along with the tiny, long rectangular badge that classified both of them as cooperating owners. His brown hair remained untidy, but it didn't stick out as much as it usually did and he had clearly shaved. His brown eyes held specks of green, and he seemed robust. Henry had to take another moment to notice that William had lost some of his uptight posture, and the usual black rings around his eyes had faded. He could quickly tell that William had started to gain weight, but no matter what, he still held that familiar, observing expression, as if he was making hidden calculations at every moment.
Henry knew that sometimes people mistook them for each other because of their similar introverted personalities, but Henry wasn't as tall as William. His hair was darker and more smooth. Henry's eyes were a pure hazel, and it was obvious he hadn't shaved for a while. He was wiry, though it wasn't noticeable from a distance. He was about 31 years old, and William was 33.
Both of them have known each other since they were teenagers; they both took an interest in robotics and together had a long dream of working as partners. William loved to focus more on the business aspect and was the main reason why the restaurant they were in, Fredbear's Family Diner, had become such a sudden hit. Henry had worked on many more kinds of robots in and out of his franchise, but he wasn't at the pizzeria as much as William was.
William shook his head a little. "I thought you weren't coming," he teased, "especially since you were interested in that other project of yours."
Henry gave a small chuckle. "Cassidy wanted to go so badly. Charlie, though, wouldn't care more or less."
"Ah," William mumbled. "Well, is Michael still with her?"
"Yeah, they just left moments ago..." Henry drifted off as William unexpectedly held a stern expression.
"Have you seen Sammy, though?" he asked in a hushed tone.
Henry shook his head, and William tensed for a moment before regaining his composure.
Sammy had always been seen with Michael, and Henry knew their family wasn't as considerate and peaceful as his own was. William had told him of a few incidents where Sammy would be so disrespectful to Michael that he had to completely intervene and separate the two far apart. Secretly, Henry had seen William harshly criticize his older son privately.
William interrupted his thoughts. "Have you tried on your own suit?" he asked.
     Both of them had their own assigned suits, as with the other workers; Henry was supposed to wear Fredbear suit, while William used Bonnie.
"No, not yet. Well, not here, anyways."
"I have with yours. It's pretty sturdy, but it shows a bit around the neck. It's the most touchy there, too." He rubbed his neck instinctively, his lips pinched. "I almost activated them in the backroom when I had to look behind myself."
     Henry felt a tiny flash of panic. "I'll have to fix that later," he hastily replied. "Sorry about that." He started to fumble a bit with his fingers, which was a nervous habit of his.
     William simply raised his eyebrows and looked down, as if in deeper thought, and then shortly glanced to where Henry had been looking.
     The springlock had first been tried on with the rabbit animatronic, and Henry had accidentally activated them the first few tries, thus giving it a secret side-name of "Springbonnie". Luckily, though, he hadn't put any mechanics in, so he didn't get any physical damage. He knew it was a tight fit for a suit and had inwardly scolded himself for molding the model like that. Even though he had no idea how, William was always one who had managed to work with it the best, oddly enough with his body type.
     Both owners stayed silent for a long moment, unsure on what to say.
     The suited worker eventually returned to the room they were in and then shortly after left for the other one, followed by children and a couple of employees. He took graceful, gentle steps as he passed by tables, accidentally bumping into an empty chair.