#mutecall

[Cassidy's latest kill had gone about as well as it could have. With some..."encouragement," the entire band had ganged up on the guard, allowing her to attack him herself. Paws clamped around his head, pinning him for the animatronics to drag him away -- but not before the guard's face practically melted, blackened tears falling from dead eyes, his face permanently frozen in terror. Sammy usually prevented her from controlling the suit for fear of this happening ( Sammy was how she'd come to understand her "power" in the first place ), but she'd been able to take over tonight. Perhaps that was what motivated her to push herself and the others as far as she had.]

[One of the others clamped onto his arm, prompting her to finally let go. The dragging of a limp body echoed through the empty halls. Slide, thump, slide, thump. She'd heard it a million times before. Once he was stuffed, it'd all be over...so she hoped. Her efforts to kill the guard were, quite literally, blind. But at least she recognized this one's voice -- she didn't know from where, since her memories were more faded than the others', but the recognition filled her with hope. This man had worked the day shift before. He just had to be the one.]

[...But that was when she heard the voice again. Wasn't he dead!? She'd just heard the others cart off his corpse!]

[Her face scrunched up in anger. This wasn't happening. Maybe she was just hearing things -- his stupid voice was always coming from the phone, anyway.]

[But it persisted. Pointless questions of where it had wound up, what was happening, the works. Typical questions. The ones they'd all asked themselves when they "woke up."]

[With a growl, Cassidy finally snapped, slamming her translucent hands on the sides of her head.] ❝ Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!! ❞ [She turned to the direction of the voice, her anger palpable.] ❝ You aren't supposed to be here! Aren't you supposed to see that stupid light or something!? Move towards it! Leave us alone! ❞

Shuffling in the hallways, the creak and groan of old endos carrying the weight of thick padding (and something else?). Lurching shapes and glassy eyes that stare at you through static-laced camera feeds.

And the thump-thump-thump of footsteps off to the left, too slow to be Foxy but too light to be any member of the band.

"Hello, Mr. Goodman!" calls the cheery mirror of your own voice. Recorded and remixed enough to land firmly in the territory of uncanny valley, despite how genuine the animatronic acts. Phone Guy plants itself at the lefthand entrance (the security room is for Authorized Personnel only!) and waves, as happy to see you as it ever is.

"Anything to report?"

THINGS I HAVE SAID WHILE PLAYING HW2 || STILL ACCEPTING! || @mute-call

mute-call asked: ❝ I know you can't tell, but I'm fingergunning you. ❞

❝ Ugh. ❞

[A defeated groan is her instinctive response; not only was she seeing ( and hearing! ) things now, but her mind was apparently so cursed that the figments of her imagination were finger-gunning at her. If anything, that SHOULD be proof that this self-proclaimed ghost might be real, but April would be a skeptic until the day she died. Maybe there was some deep, dark part of her psyche that would unironically finger-gun at people. Awful.]

❝ Good for you, I guess. ❞ [She reprimanded herself, yet again, for speaking to what was clearly some repressed version of her psyche. Maybe the night shift was getting to her a little too much. She could only hope that her friends would actually TELL her if she was acting "off" -- that hope was the only thing between her and a potential visit to the psych ward.]

plotted starter for @mute-call

Jeremy had been doing relatively fine with the night shift. Holding his own and staying alive against all the animatronics with not a lot of confusion or fear up until the other night when he had seen something he’d never been told about prior.

Everything was going as he expected and by now Jeremy was so in tune with things that he hardly flinched when Toy Chica peeked from the vent or Withered Bonnie was right before the desk. He just put on the Freddy Head and waited until he knew they had left.

However around 5AM? Was it? When all the ‘withered’ gang were out of the parts & service. Jeremy pulled up the monitor and quickly went through the cams only to stop on parts & service when he saw Withered Freddy sitting against the wall. But that couldn’t be Freddy because he just saw the damn bear on another camera and he certainly didn’t just magically become a dark shade of purple. He’d been pretty shaken up for the remaining hour afterwards.

As much as he just wanted to forget what he saw and just carry on with being such a flawless and picture perfect nightwatch-man the image just wouldn’t leave his mind. He had to ask someone.

So here he was. Gently knocking on the door of his fellow employee’s office.

“Uhm. Mr.Bell? May I come in? I wish to ask a question or two but if you don’t have the time right now that’s alright!!”

@mute-call asked: “What should we do now?”

The vampire holds up one of his plush children, a DogDay named Waggles, as he inspects him for injuries. The little one just pouts and squirms and whines in his grip. Once down, Nico lets Waggles plop down on top of his head and hold on, his little tail wagging a mile a minute.

"Is this on some company credit card?"

She barely spares him a glance over her shoulder, exhaling a thin stream of cigarette smoke up towards the sky. The rooftop terrace was all but empty; the rest of the patrons had clustered back inside, shying away from the hazy coral skyline, the encroach of clouds marring one half of the horizon. A tiny string of garden lights had only just flicked on.

[Lately, Callum had noticed a concerning pattern of stutters and errors in Phone Guy's speech and mannerisms. Dialogue would skip, party booking and appointments would be rife with mistakes, and he couldn't count the amount of times he'd had to pull PG back into Parts & Service to patch him up.]

[All of those patches were temporary fixes, in the end. Callum knew, deep down, what the issue was. He'd just been delaying the inevitable.]

[Akin to Glamrock Freddy ( he'd really have to go back and personally fix that damned bear someday ), PG's latest crash had been in front of a crowd of children, presumably because the amount of guest input had been so overwhelming. PG's crashes and glitches had become an unfortunate regularity. No matter what he tried now, PG wouldn't be the same unless...unless Callum completely replaced his defunct parts and reset him.]

[The process would effectively erase any "extraneous" data from PG -- namely, his memories. Callum knew that PG was a machine, easily "replaceable" in the eyes of a simple-minded few, but he found himself...grieving, almost. He'd never felt such crushing sadness over a process that would ultimately be required. He hadn't shed a tear when his wife and child left; in fact, he'd only been irked that his wife had publicly divorced him. He'd been using them as a form of publicity, advertising that he, too, was a family man -- so having that relatability stripped was frustrating, to say the least.]

[Now, however -- now Callum was facing a true loss. PG was his ally, his closest friend, his right-hand man. He was devastated that he'd have to wipe that bond from PG's hard drive. It felt like he was killing the closest friend he'd ever had.]

[When he eventually forced himself to wheel PG back into Parts & Service, he did something unprecedented. He rebooted the animatronic just to say "goodbye." These days, simply booting PG up took a good few minutes, so Callum took the time to prepare himself. He took a few deep breaths, willing his tears away. PG's last memory shouldn't be of Callum crying. Not that it would matter in the end, but...he wanted PG's last image of him to be positive.]

[PG awoke with his usual "ring, ring," whirring back to life. Callum smiled at him.]

❝ Hello, hello, Phone Guy. How are you feeling? ❞ [He hadn't done any actual repairs, but rebooting PG should have the desired effect of momentarily bringing him "back to life." Once he started crashing, though, that was Callum's cue to shut him down once and for all. He just hoped that wouldn't be anytime soon.]