Five Nights at Freddy's: Ghosts of the Past Episode 1

Chapter 7: Narrow Miss

"Go... upstairs. I WILL find him," Roxy muttered.

Without another word, Roxy ran up the steps to the path leading outside the Daycare. Roxy ran down the hall of the Lobby until she reached the elevators. Then, she picked up a scent. It smelled similar to the blood spots she smelled earlier. It was the scent of Gregory.

"It's Gregory. I can SMELL him!" Roxy exclaimed. She ran into the functional elevator and pressed the button to go up. Inside the elevator, she could smell traces of the boy. Gregory had indeed gone up.

It wasn't long before Roxy reached the Atrium, where Gregory was supposedly wandering. When she stepped out onto the large balcony just above the floor of the Atrium, she began to sniff around for any scent of Gregory. The carpets reeked of the boy, and all of the smells seemed to lead down an escalator to the Main Floor.

"Gregory? Where are you?" Roxy called out in an unnerving tone. Roxy walked down the escalator, the clanking of her metal feet echoing through the open arena. When Roxy reached the bottom of the escalators, she began to smell more traces of her prey. She was drawn toward the snack bars below the second floor. The traces of dirt, sweat, and blood began to practically scream out to Roxy's sense of smell. That's when she realized a nearby vent was airing out the smell of a person. Someone was there, or maybe they never left...

"I found you!" Roxy exclaimed. She tried to lunge inside the vent, but she was too big to do so. Roxy began to kick the sides of the vent from outside, the sound of aluminum being smashed raging around that section of the building.

"You can come out now, Gregory! You're going to die," Roxy snarled. She eagerly scratched away at the vents, hoping to attract help or get inside the small space surrounded by metal.

That's when she heard a light tapping in the vents. Roxy stopped all movements and waited, longingly, to see if anything would come out...

It was a small Music Man toy-animatronic. Roxy did a double take on the inside. These toys were meant to navigate the vents and spy- or chase down- Vanny's targets. Surely, it would know of Gregory's whereabouts?

"Vanny caught the boy not too long ago, but he escaped. Have you seen him in the past few minutes?" Roxy interrogated hopefully. The toy stared at Roxy from the edge of the vent for three seconds, then finally, it shook its head.

Roxy let out a yell of rage, and slammed her fist onto the Music Man toy, ending its very existence.

~~~

Gregory stifled a laugh as he watched Roxy from above, as she was yelling in rage at the fact that she lost him. Hiding his old bandages in the vent was the perfect strategy to throw her off. For now, he needed to find Freddy.

There were a few places he could go look. Freddy's room was one, but that would mean he would have to go back through the way he came, and Vanny was currently downstairs. However, it seemed like the most probable. Gregory needed a way to get back to Rockstar Row.

"How do I get back? There must be SOME kind of clue..." Gregory mumbled. Then, he decided to check places that Freddy could have been before he was caught. One place he could try was the Recharge Station where Freddy was at when Gregory went downstairs. Sure enough, at the Atrium's only recharge station, there was a small purse with a tablet sticking out, just outside the red tube.

"This has to be it, I know," Gregory mumbled. He turned on the tablet and transmitted the information on it to his watch. Then, two notifications popped up on Gregory's watch.

"Two messages? This has to be interesting," Gregory thought. He opened the first message, which was a note from Freddy.

"Gregory, if you are reading this, just in case you need to get back to my room, I have a path for you if your clearance is still too low. Go to Roxy Raceway. Somewhere just outside the entrance, I stacked several boxes for you to climb over a construction fence. From there, you will walk through a construction zone and a storage zone. You will end up in the backstage and from there, you can find your way."

"Okay, it looks like I need to head over to Roxy Raceway. The entrance isn't far. Now what's the other message?" Gregory wondered aloud. Gregory checked the other message on his watch, but it demanded a 4-digit code.

"Are you serious?! I'll have to ask Freddy about that, but it looks like I need to go," Gregory said. He ran toward the roll-up door that was supposed to lead to Roxy Raceway. The door automatically opened for him, and what he saw was a maze, surrounded by wood, crates, boxes, and construction equipment. This place was evidently under construction.

"Whoa! I wonder what's going on here. Now where are those boxes?" Gregory said. It wasn't too long before he found a set of boxes stacked in a stair formation, running above a railway. Gregory climbed on the boxes and went over the wall, then he landed in a small room with construction equipment. In the far left corner, there was an orange door that led out.

"This is surprisingly convenient!" Gregory said. He walked out of the door and navigated a dark pathway of blue construction boxes. He reached the end of the path and ended up in a dark storage hall. Flickering lights illuminated some corners and exits, but the middle of the room was dark. Security drones, like the ones Gregory saw earlier, were making pattern walks around the room. On the other side of the room from where Gregory was, there was a long hallway that presumably led to the Backstage area. Green walls and concrete floor lined the storage hallway as it grew closer to the Backstage.

With not much time to spare, Gregory took a mad dash down the halls, his footsteps echoing on the concrete and sounding through the somewhat wide walkways. He navigated around various props and equipment in the halls, and made it to a set of red double doors that led to the backstage. Thank goodness. The backstage had a set of bleachers for a chorus, a microphone set, and multiple stage props and decorations. There was a gated off exit on the side of the room. Gregory walked through the door and made it back to Rockstar Row, in the familiar, colorful environment that he was introduced to when seeing the Pizzaplex for the first time, but hiding a much darker secret.

"I made it! I need to check Freddy's room," Gregory said. He ran down the long museum-like corridor, past Chica's bright green room, Monty's blocked off Green Room, and Roxy's cool but colorful room. Then, he made it to the familiar orange-and-red decorations of Freddy's room. Gregory walked through the door inside the room, hoping to find Freddy.

He found nothing of the sort, but in the Back Room, he DID discover something else, something he thought he would never see in a million years...