#dsaf-ghost-pals-au

Keys walks out towards the second room down the hallway, curious about the suits she assumed were in there.

How desolate…

She looks up at the photo on the wall. The purple figure seemed familiar to her but she couldn’t place where she knew him from. Keys noticed the green bird looking thing on the floor, she picked it up.

“I’ve got to wear this beaten up thing….?”

It appears to be just a parrot onesie that was rather beaten up. She shrugged and decided to put it on.

It smelt like dust and mildew almost unbearably so.

Keys walks out towards the dinning room, it still seems empty and barren. A plain pizza is sitting on one of the table booths, seems someone ordered it and left as it still looked warm. A familiar shriek comes from nearby, she looks down towards the noise.

Large bugs seem to be swarming Mr Cawthon.

“PLEASE HELP ME!”

Keys steps back and towards the pizza, not really wanting to fight these swarming insects. She reached for the pizza before noticing two of the bugs attempting to take the pizza from her.

Keys sighs and takes off the hood of the costume and squares up.

“My fuckin pizza..”

The bugs seem to scatter, taking the pizza with them much to the annoyance of Keys. Mr Cawthon stands up slowly seeming rather shaken from the experience.

“s-so so many bugs… th-they chased me from the-the arcade, they j-just kept coming…”

Mr Cawthon keeps fiddling with his hands as he keeps muttering about the amount of bugs. After a moment he calms down a bit, he reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out some small plastic coins and a blue paper rectangle.

“Th-thank you for helping though! Here h-have some faz t-tokens!”

He hands her the Faz-tokens happily.

Keys looks down at the tokens in her hand rather confused on how she was meant to react, she didn’t really want them but put them into the pocket of the costume.

“Uhh cool.”

He looks around scanning the dinning room.

"Have y-you seen Luke any-anywhere around here? He's m-meant to be wearing th-the yellow suit i-in the back. He's a-about your height with shoulder l-length bl-blonde hair."

“Nope haven’t seen anyone here but you, does this place ever have any customers?”

"S-Strange, this place i-is supposed to be b-busy at this hour. Luke hasn't c-come in for thr-three days now then..."

He seems concerned and looks towards the direction of the kids cove before quickly whipping back to Keys.

"Well I-I have a feeling th-that it'll be o-ok to close early and-and let you go h-home. Please m-make sure to n-not take the costume with you, e-employees aren't allowed to br-bring company property home."

Mr Cawthon waves to Keys as she begins to walk back to the saferoom to return the suit.

She places it back on the ground the same way she found it. Keys notices a sticky note taped to the other suit but shrugs it off, it wasn’t her business to read. She walks out back to the dining room and out the door. Mr Cawthon waved again from inside the doors.

“I’ll see you tomorrow Keys!”

Keys sighs and looks around at the empty parking lot, only half an hour had passed. Hopefully there’d be customers next time. She begins her walk home.

Keys approached the front doors of the establishment with a large 'Help Wanted' sign beside the door. She sighs and walks in.

A large empty looking dining room sits off to the left, she enters looking for someone to talk to.

"Hello?"

Suddenly a figure rushes into the room, they seem to be unable to stop themselves and-

The figure stumbles back to their feet and seems unphased by the fall they just had.

"Hi- Hello! Welcome to the new and improved Freddy Fazbears... Well I-i mean its not new or improved... B-but we're one of the last locations standing so that's some-something atleast!"

They pause and stand up straight.

"Uh cool...? I saw the sign out the front and was wondering if you were still hiring?"

They nod and give a thumbs up.

"Yeah we're in need of a day guard at the moment, we weirdly seem to keep loosing staff..."

"Well would you like a tour before we talk paperwork?"

"Sure, I don't really care either way."

The telephone man seems rather excited to be giving a tour, they almost slip on their skates for a second time.

"So this is the dining room, here you can do tons of stuff! Like uh.. you can serve pizza and... you can also perform for kiddens in one of our special costumes. It-it uhm might not be as professional as our other ones but it's wearable."

They begin walking towards another room and lead her into the adjacent room, quiet mechanical sounds coming from it.

“So-so this is the Arcade, I-I’d rather not spend too much time here it has a weird aura… b-but you can play games in here on your break-”

He jolts back and shrieks, standing frozen for a moment as if transfixed on some unseen source in the air. They begin slowly stepping out of the arcade and down to another room.

The room stinks of rotten pizza and plastic, the phone man seems to still look uneasy. He motions towards the center piece of the room which was a colourful children's play area with a large ball pit that took up most of the room.

"So this is kids cove, its our area for the kiddens to have fun. Employees are no-not allowed on t-the equipment and especially not in the ball pit. T-too many after hours incidences..."

"Seems lame, why would anyone want to play on this thing anyways?"

“I wish I-I knew. I wish I knew.”

“Lets just-just get to the end of the tour so w-we can talk business.”

He walks out of the room to a hallway with two doors, he leads Keys’ into the first door.

The phone man opens one of the drawers and brings out a red contract with a few signatures on it, he hands a pen and the contract to Keys.

“You’ve just go-gotta sign the red contract and-and the job is yours. Nothin scary, we a-all signed the contract.”

Keys looks down at the paper, she skimmed the contract. Not really caring about it if she got paid.

Keys signs the contract and hands it back to him and he returns it to it’s draw.

“With that out of the way, what’s your name employee?”

“My friends just call me Keys. Not that I have friends who talk to me.”

“Oh thats… I hope you can make new friends here then!”

He holds his hand out to shake, Keys stares at it and doesn’t take it. Leaving David just holding his hand out. His hand appeared to be badly scarred with symmetrical patterns.

He pulls back his hand after realising that Keys wasn’t going to take it.

“Uh um I-I’m the-the assistant manager of this location, you can call m-me Mr Cawthon. You’ll h-hopefully see the manager a-around somewhere.”

“P-please tell me if-if you see him…”

He left Keys alone in the office. Keys sighs and looks up at the clock.

The air clung with smoke and Keys could feel her lungs struggling to breathe, coughing as she fell to the ground. Flames licked the walls and coated the room, the heat was so incredibly intense.

She reaches out for the door with someone else's hand, the fire burning more and more as she felt like she couldn’t move. Gasping for air as her vision goes dark. Keys startles awake in the saferoom and knocks her head against the wall by mistake.

She holds her head and sits there trying to make sense of what had happened.

What did that bear thing mean by save them...?

Keys shakily gets to her feet and begins to make her way out of the saferoom and down the hall. The Office door sat wide open with the dim telephone ringing coming from inside which caught Key's attention.

She peered inside to see Mr. Cawthon sleeping at the desk, Keys still felt too dizzy to question it.

Keys continued onward and passed by kids cove, it felt almost eerie after dark. A quiet giggling seemed to emerge from the darkness as she walked past.

The kids cove appeared empty and yet the giggles continued as she walked past, too tired to investigate right now. Keys approached the arcade, one more room to go through before the exit.

One of the machines buzzed with life while its screen displayed nothing but static. The buzzing seemed to fill up the room and got louder the longer she was in there, Keys covers her ears and quickly leaves through the dining room. Stumbling down the path back home while still soaked in blood which caused her clothes to cling to her skin, she hated that feeling and desperately wanted to get back home. Keys holds her arms as they stung as a soft breeze blows by, the blood had stopped seeping from her wounds. Keys reaches her apartment and goes inside.

Keys walks to her sink and splashes her face with water. Pausing not having properly seen just how much blood was on her hands.

Keys takes note of the scars along her hands seeming so familiar but she couldn’t place where she’d seen the patterns before. Her own reflection in the mirror catches her eye.

She stared at herself, the idea that she had died earlier that day finally setting in. Keys continued to stare at the scars on her body as the pain began to subside.

Keys sighed tiredly and tried to wash off the remaining blood on herself and took off her torn and bloodied clothes to soak in the bucket she had in her bathroom. She walked back into the main room and flopped into her bed to sleep, feeling so incredibly tired.

Keys wakes up in her room and tiredly sighs.

She yawns and begins her morning routine to get ready for her first proper shift at Freddys.

One new message huh…

She stares at the number trying to think of who it could have been, the message date seemed to be from an hour ago. Keys shrugs and deletes it, continuing on her morning routine.

She enters a somewhat busy dining room, customers sitting at tables and children playing.

A very stressed looking Mr. Cawthon rushes towards her, slipping and catching himself to not fall. Weaving between some customers to greet her panicked.

“W-why did you come in a-an hour late? Didn’t y-you get my mem-memo? I’m-i’m sure I called the n-number you g-gave.”

Oh so thats what it was.

“I’ve been r-running everything a-alone, Luke st-still hasn’t come in and-and I can’t f-find the m-manager anywhere.”

Mr. Cawthon speaks quickly and panicked, fidgeting and looking about frantically.

“Do you want me to put on the parrot thing again?”

He nods in response and points towards the room left of the entrance which appeared to be a stage.

“Th-theres some instruments be-behind the c-curtains if y-you want to perform w-with the ro-robots. I’m s-sorry that i f-forgot it on th-the tour.”

Mr. Cawthon rushes back to serving tables as Keys heads to the saferoom once again.

She puts on the costume and takes the tokens out of the pocket after hearing them jingle, forgetting that they were there.

She wondered why her boss had given her them at all but it wasn’t that important to bother with. Keys walks out and back towards the stage.

The two animatronics stand on the stage, towering over the children guests they waved to. The pirate fox seemed so lively while the rabbit seemed more stiff and robotic, just how she remembered them when she was little. She walks around groups of children to get onto the stage, looking behind the curtain to spot some instruments.

Keys smiles upon finding the keyboard and sets it up. The robots seem to respond to the instrument being on stage and made quiet clicking noises as they prepared to perform with her.

She performs for the cheering children, continuing to smile as she does so.

Maybe this job won’t be awful.

She continues to play for about an hour before Mr. Cawthon came out to the stage as the crowds died down.

“You p-played wonderfully, ha-have you played the k-keyboard before?”

“A little, I don’t play as much anymore.”

She shrugs not wanting to make a big deal of it as she steps down from the stage. Mr. Cawthon seems still very impressed.

“C-Can y-you play l-like that in the yel-yellow suit tomorrow?”

“I mean sure…?”

“Amazing, I-i think today has g-gone mostly ok. H-hopefully the manager c-comes in soon so-so I can tell him about h-how well things ar-are going.”

Keys looks disinterested and looks up at the clock on the wall.

She looks back at Mr. Cawthon who continued to babble about wanting to see the manager again, it felt like he hadn’t seen the guy in years the way he spoke.

“I’m gonna go on my break.”

“Oh-oh uhm you can- you can take your b-break in the office if-if you’d l-like.”

Keys nods and heads to the office. She sits down on the chair in the office, staring at the monitors ahead of her. Most of them were broken and only displayed static.

Not much of a security office heh.

She looked down at the drawer that she remembered that the red contract was in, Keys was a little curious and opened the draw. It seemed to weirdly only have two sets of paper. The red contract and a single sheet of paper, it had ‘Important note for Assistant Manager PG45_02 S.Cawthon’ written on it. Her curiosity got the better of her and picked up the sheet of paper.

“Has-has he not read this before? Surely he’s read this..”

Keys seemed confused on how Mr. Cawthon seemed unaware that he was the manager of the location for however long this ‘Harry’ person had been gone. Well that was one missing person found, she wondered if something similar happened with Luke. Keys opened the other drawers to no avail, no other papers. She sighs and looks up at the clock again.

She decided to go back out to the arcade, the chatter of children echos from the kids cove. A spark of light rushes towards the room from the corner of her eye, she turns around trying to find the source but dismisses it as a trick of light.

Mr. Cawthon approached with something shiny in his hands.

“I was a l-little too frantic e-earlier and f-forgot to give you-you your name tag s-so here you go.”

He hands it over to her, Keys take it and pockets it.

“Thanks...”

She considers asking him about the note in the drawer, she goes to speak but stops herself. It wasn’t her business she told herself.

“Is there anything else I’m supposed to do for today?”

“N-no it’s a-all good, thank you-you for helping a-and coming in for y-your shift! You can g-go home n-now, it g-gets quieter from h-here on o-out so I can ha-handle it till t-the night guard comes i-in.”

“Alright then, cya tomorrow Mr. Cawthon.”

He waves goodbye as Keys walks out through the dining room, Mr. Cawthon follows her to the door but remains behind it.

“See you tomorrow Keys!”

Keys waves back and begins her walk home.

Keys groggily wakes up, her body feeling different to move as she stands up.

She looks down at the alarm clock near her bed, noticing the time as it seems she'd slept in past her alarm. Keys begins trying to hurriedly get ready to get to Freddys, half brushing off yesterdays events as a dream.

She goes into Freddys but can’t seem to see or hear Mr. Cawthon in the dining room. Keys wasn’t too worried about it as the place seemed to be open and running so surely her boss was here somewhere. Keys walked down towards the saferoom, seeing a light on under the door along with frantic muttered words that she couldn’t quite make out. She cautiously opens the door to see Mr. Cawthon staring down at the bloodied suit.

"Oh-oh god no oh g-god no no no..."

He continues to stand there seemingly with his hands on his face before he flaps his hands panicked before taking notice of Keys behind him. Mr. Cawthon turns around, his panic melting away to relief.

"THANK G-GOSH YOU'RE OK! I-i was so w-worried when you d-didn't come ba-back yesterday..."

His demeanour was more happy to see that she was back again.

“I thought I-I was going to ha-have to… n-nevermind. Do you t-think you co-could clean up t-the suit a bit s-so you can put i-it on tomorrow?”

Keys looks down at the suit then back at Mr. Cawthon with a confused expression.

So it wasn't a dream...

Mr. Cawthon takes notice of Keys pause and stare, he approaches the suit and picks up the head to hand her. She takes it and continues to not speak, eyes now looking down at the suit head.

A feeling of rage overtakes her the moment the head was in her hands, almost as if some force had taken her over. An intense rage towards Mr. Cawthon that felt overwhelming like a pot boiling over as her eyes shift from the suit head to Mr. Cawthon.

“ARE YOU ACTUALLY SERIOUS?! YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS THAT THING IS AND YOU STILL WANT ME TO WEAR IT YOU COMPLETE ASSHOLE!”

Keys shouts at him clutching at the suit head, continuing to be filled with this utter rage. Mr. Cawthon steps back a little as she shouts at him.

“NO. I’M NOT WEARING IT..."

She shoved the suit head towards Mr. Cawthon, shoving it into his chest hard. He seems to start sobbing with a black oily substance leaking from his dial before he rushed out of the saferoom, cradling the suit head in his arms.

The moment it had left Keys' arms the anger faded away as quickly as it had appeared. A wave of guilt washed over her at causing her boss to rush off like that. She fights with herself for a moment before reaching the decision to go after Mr. Cawthon.

She made her way back down the hallways and past kids cove before-

“BOO!!!”

The red figure appears out of nowhere frightening Keys, causing her to try and push them away, her hands phase through the figure. It seems to laugh hysterically at her reaction.

“HAHA YOU SHOULD’VE SEEN YOUR FACE!”

The figure continues to laugh, its tail wagging with delight. Keys is still taken a back a little at how her hands had phased through their body.

"What are you...?"

The red figure stares intently at her with the same excitement turned to curiosity, seemingly having not payed attention to what Keys had asked.

“Woah I’ve never seen someones soul be misplaced like that, thats so groovy!”

They were far too close to Keys’ face causing her to lean backwards a bit.

“That other guy had a misplaced soul too so I wonder if this person can go there too…”

The figure steps back a bit before they reach down to grab Keys’ arm, their arm doesn’t make contact but a red glow surrounds her wrist that pulls her towards one of the cabinets that the figure was moving towards.

“Hey- hey what are you doing?”

Keys spoke with alarm trying to pull away from what she was pretty certain was a ghost at this point.

“Chillax dude, either this is gonna evaporate your body or you’ll be able to get through. I can’t wait to find out which one!”

The figure giggles with delight and continues dragging her towards the cabinet, now much to Keys’ terror. They drag her into the screen as a fuzzy feeling overtakes her body just as vision goes dark.

“Woah you’re still alive hehe cool!”