It was chaos. Pure chaos. A wife gripped her husband's arms so tight it felt like it was going to tear through his shirt. She had a horrified look on her face, her eyes bloodshot and puffy from sobbing. Her face stretched into a look of pure, motherly savagery.
"No one's responding, I've been talking to several different faces. The police refuse to help!" She wailed at him. Her hands trembled on his shoulders. The husband looked just as bad. Almost worse. He was dead silent.
Tonight, it started off peaceful. It was the calm after the storm of excitement they felt at that crazy Pizzaplex. But the calm was soon torn to shreds.
The parents remember, they were home after what felt like hours of travel. It was midnight. They got out of the car, the father walked to the back door in which he was sure his little girl was leaning on, sleeping away.
But once he knocked at the door, listening to hear his daughter stir from her sleep and open the door begrudgingly, like she did so many times before, but nothing of the sort happened. He furrowed his brow, when the car's headlights shut off with a click and the door didn't open.
"Hey," he called out patiently and gently, perhaps she was fast asleep? He opened the door slowly, the car's inner lights turned on with a flash. His eyes grew wide as saucers, his grip was still tight on the door. He was staring at an empty seat. There was no (y/n.)
"Gummy bear?" He called out, his voice was hesitant and shaky. His calm wavered when he didn't get a response. He frantically yelled for his wife who was inside already, who came out with a wary look in her eyes, this could only mean one thing.
They left (y/n) behind.
When they got over their shocked paralysis, their sobs and cries, the mother called several people: the police, the Pizzaplex, and Fazbear Entertainment. The father looked for any possible information on the internet on what to do.
The police said that the parents had to wait till the Pizzaplex opened up for their search to begin. The mother questioned them, but in the end, it was a losing war for her.
The Pizzaplex itself never picked up, no matter how many times they called, only a robotic voicemail answered. "Please wait until a patient employee picks up your call, thank you."
An employee never picked up, the mother yelled at the robotic voice until her voice was hoarse and her eyes were misty with frustration and panic. It was hopeless, they never did answer.
And finally, Fazbear Entertainment answered. If only a brief moment. The mother cried at the woman on the phone for help, but the woman murmured the same thing the police said, "wait until it opens at 6 AM."
The mother yelled at her "why!" But the woman hung up. The mother threw her phone at the wall in anger and despair. Breathing harshly and clenching her fist. There was no greater pain then a mother losing her child.
When all hope seemed lost, the parents sat on the couch. The father held the mother who cried into his chest. Muttering about their daughter.
"My baby," she sobbed, "my poor baby." The father rubbed her back, he had a distant look in his eyes. He had a thought appear in his head, information he was hesitant to speak about. It was better than nothing, but they could face rejection again judging by the status of this guy.
"I found something earlier," the man murmured looking into his eyes. "There's a man who could probably help us, but I'm unsure..."
"Really? How... how come you never said this before?!" The wife looked angry but relieved at the same time. She sat up with a look in her eyes, it was a look of fragile determination. She would never give up on her child. But the man wouldn't either.
"He is known to be very secluded." the father stood up from the couch, grasping his car keys already from his back pocket. The husband and wife were already at the door, "but I will not give up on her."
______________
They arrived at a very empty part of a quiet neighborhood. It was the very last house on the street. Placed as a dead end. It was surrounded by grand oak and maple trees whose branches swayed in the nightly wind. The parents are starting to feel the tiredness creeping in them like a spider on a web.
They parked their car just outside of the wide, front driveway of the house and stepped out with wariness. The house was two-stories and was white, but looked grey in the shade of the trees. All around the house was dense forest except the front.
A single light dimly shone through the curtains of one of the second-story windows. But the parents saw no shadows that could've been a person, through it.
They walked up the concrete driveway that narrowed down into a short stepping-stone path that led to a porch which held the front door. A light suddenly illuminated due to built-in motion triggers. It was bright, and the parents squinted away from it.
The father knocked hesitantly on the door, then twice, then a third time a bit more urgent. They heard quiet, fast-paced steps coming from the other side of it, then the door opened harshly.
The first thing they noticed was the young man staring accusingly towards them with sharp looking eyes. The second thing they noticed is that he sported a gleaming, black shotgun in his hands that were tightly holding it, pointing right at the parents' shocked faces.
He had tense shoulders, and a tight-lipped frown on his face. He had these hazel green eyes that looked between the parents every few seconds, brows furrowed. To top it all, he had soft, tawny brown hair on his head.
His face twisted to a scowl when he saw that they were frazzled, but ordinary-looking people at his doorstep. His tense shoulders slumped ever so slightly, and the shotgun lowered to his hip. It all happened at the shocking pace.
"What are you doing here at this god-awful hour?" He spoke with a surprising calmness but irritation and accusation laced in his voice. The parents' tense bodies relaxed as well, he was no longer pointing that shotgun at them.
"We are sorry to disturb you," the father spoke to the man like he would blow up any moment. Eyeing the shotgun in his slim hands. "We are looking for Mr. Cawthon? This is where he lives, right?"
The man's nose twitched slightly. The frown on his face deepened a bit more. He shut his eyes before opening them again. The fire in the green hues was distinguished to a small ember and replaced with chilling calmness.
"You are speaking to him. What do you want?" His voice was level and confident. His chin high like he was a king. The parents glanced at each other. This was the longest they've been in a conversation with somebody who could help them. There was no turning back now.
"It will only take a little of your time, Mr. Cawthon. We are not here to cause trouble," spoke the mother with hope in her dreary eyes. The young man eyed them, and then behind them, before he stepped out of the way, silently inviting them in.
When the parents got in, the door shut behind them with a click before Mr. Cawthon passed them. They followed him into what looked like a tidy living room.
The man sat down. The parents thought he would look much older, but Mr. Cawthon looks to be in his late 20s or early 30s. They were surprised for someone at such a young age to have such a status.
Mr. Cawthon was one of the grand owners of Fazbear Entertainment. One of the earliest too. Both the parents looked into it online. It described him as a very private person. But his information was still on the Fazbear website for those to reach him.
Cawthon, with a sigh, waved his hand. There was tiredness in his eyes but the parents doubted he was sleeping before they came. "Now, tell me what you're doing here past midnight. I don't see why there is such a pressing matter for you to come here at this time."
The mother lost her calm demeanor. All the frustration was building up in her with all the countless times of rejection she faced. She has a damn good reason as to why they are here. She and her husband lost a child in a large four-to-five-story mall, all alone.
She still couldn't believe her stupidity for losing her daughter. She blames herself. She wanted to drown herself in self-anger, but not right now, her child is her priority, first.
She slammed her hands on the mahogany coffee table. Her eyes are a wild fire of emotions. It was not directed to Cawthon himself, though it caught him by surprise. He raised his eyebrows, blinking.
"Our child is lost in your Mega Pizzaplex. I have talked to many people but none helped me," she said, her voice dancing around the edges. "Mr. Cawthon, she needs to be found, and you are the last person we know who can help."
The young man glanced between the two of them, as silent and still as a statue. Suddenly, he inhaled sharply. His hands, who dropped the shotgun next to the couch, clenched his pants tightly.
"You will never catch me even a few miles away from that damned place," Cawthon's voice wavered darkly, teeth gritting. There was a hidden and concealed wild, terrified look in his eyes. The air around them felt tense. The mother began to glare at him.
"What?" Exclaimed the mother. She curled her hands up into fist. "There must be security guards in there who you can contact. You are the owner of that place."
The man shook his head harshly. "No, not anymore. I have long since retired from it. This is not a problem you should bring to me."
"It said that you are the owner!"
"Then they didn't change it! I don't belong there anymore."
They began to argue. The mother was spitting rebuttals at Cawthon's face and he bit back, closing her down only for her to come back with another argument. The father watched the fight nervously. He is surprised this man hasn't kicked them out already.
The father's eyes trailed across the room. Only to see a small closeted room who's door was slightly open next to the stairs. In the dim lighting of the living room kitchen, he could see there were hung up newspapers plastered to the wall. This caught the man's eyes.
The father slowly got up and shuffled to it, hesitantly opening the door further. He didn't want to snoop like this, but something felt off about this, what is with the obsessive news paper clippings.
The argument between the mother and Cawthon was zoned out from his ears. They didn't even notice him getting up in the first place.
In this small room, everywhere on the walls there were newspaper clippings. Nearly all of them mention Freddy's reopenings and openings. The restaurant's destructions and shutting downs.
Every possible blank space was filled with newspapers, some of them dating all the way back to the 1980s. But the most terrifying of these papers were the multiple missing children cases that were found somewhere in the mass of newspapers.
There were plenty of them, and all of these cases have something to do with Fazbear Entertainment. The ones that made the man's eyes widened the most were the multiple fresher newspapers that say that children are going missing in the Mega Pizzaplex itself.
"What are you doing?!" Cawthon pulled the father roughly out of the room, who yelped in surprise. "You are not supposed to be in there!"
"What is this?" The mother pushed him away before the young man could close the door. Her eyes widened as they scanned all of the newspapers. The young man protested for a moment but then knew he was exposed. His once confident personality of a king deflated into a scared, vulnerable man.
After minutes of tense silence. The woman turned to the young man. She was no longer angry, there was a haunted look in her eyes. She picked up a newspaper slightly hidden beneath others, but the heading still visible.
"You're not Scott Cawthon are you?" In her fingers, the father saw a heading of a newspaper. Scott Cawthon, owner of Fazbear Entertainment dies of unknown reasons.
The young man shook his head, there was a sorrowful look in his eyes. They were full of memories and fear. His face was as pale as a ghost's.
"Those-those things got to him." His voice quivered. He clenched both his hands into fist until they were pale. "They somehow knew... that he was... he lost his mind."
"You're his son, Amber Cawthon." The young man flinched, looking at the father who said this. The man remembered reading something about him, he looked much younger then he did now, but now the father knows that Amber lives alone, without any parents.
Amber nodded slowly and sadly. He looked like a sorrowful boy at that moment, and not the confident man that greeted them at the door. The parents wanted to ask why, and who would do such a thing, but the young man was already speaking after a long inhale.
"Listen, I can't go in that place. Neither can anyone else at night. I can't help you." He shook his head. The mother felt absolutely dismayed and crestfallen.
"Why?" She asked in the tense silence.
"There is only one security guard in that whole building. There is no way to contact her without her contacting us first."
The parents looked utterly surprised. Only one security guard in that whole building?! Why? They all stepped out of the small closet and into the living room. As if reading their minds, the man spoke again.
"The reason why there's only her as a security guard is because the whole place is secured with AI, even the animatronics serve as security. They won't let anyone in, or let anyone out," Amber murmured.
"I'm sure the security guard will help our daughter if she gets found," said the father with hope. "Maybe call the police to come and fetch her."
Amber scoffed sarcastically at that, "she's not going to help your daughter, she never did with all those other children."
The parents looked at each other in worry, the newspapers flashing in their eyes of missing children, all looking innocent like their daughter, all around the same age as her. They shuttered, what ever happened to those poor souls?
This was the most information they had all night. The farthest they got, and now they know that this whole thing is utterly hopeless. Their daughter will have to wait many, many hours alone in a large building.
"Does your daughter have her guest pass?" Amber asked with a sudden pitch in his voice, he was hopeful all of the sudden. An idea planted in his head. The parents looked at him like he grew six heads. Why is he mentioning the guest pass all of the sudden.
"The animatronics have a built-in scanning protocol to look for a guest pass on a person. Especially when it's night, from what I remember," he said with a twinkle in his green eyes. "They would probably help her and keep her safe if they know she has a guest pass."
The parents were seeing where this was going. But suddenly their relief was crushed when they remembered that they lost her guest pass awhile ago. Amber looked worriedly at their silent faces.
"Do they have facial recognition?" Asked the father, he remembered the order saying that the data of the pass is transferred online when they make the order for it. So even if they did lose their guest pass, they could still come and go as they please as their information is saved.
For some reason, it didn't work the first time when they had to evacuate. Causing all sort of ruckus, for that tired employee didn't know what to do passed the point of looking up their pass information.
The father had a nice idea, perhaps it would work this time. But he frowned as he looked at the the horrified look on Amber's increasingly paling face.
"Don't tell me her guest pass went missing..." he looked between both parents who had guilt swimming in their eyes. But Amber knew it wasn't their fault. This was not the first time such a thing has happened.
"It always starts like this, when a child's guest pass information is stolen."
I am on a groove for some reason. I was planning this scene for a while now. Amber is not a cannon character, and I thought using Scott as the previous CEO would be cool 🤓