Prologue - At the End of the Beginning

For what seemed like the millionth time now, the woman found herself yet again looking up towards the clouds in hopes of finding new figures she had not yet seen in her time spent in her enclosure.

Dressed in a collection of hand-me-down clothes that resembled a stereotypical female detective from the novels she'd read as a kid, she found herself disappointed by the lack of variety that lay in the clouds at the time.

She at first thought that maybe she'd just lost her child-like imagination, but quickly shoved that thought away. After all, she was wearing her favorite outfit, and while wearing it, there was nothing, not even the finest of details, that could ever go under her radar. At least, that's what her mother had told her, and she had no reason up till then to not believe it.

Said outfit consisted of a pristine brown trench coat, red tie, and white button-up shirt alongside a red plaid skirt and black, beat-up, perfectly sized black boots and long socks. To any outside viewer, she looked like a grown woman doing her best to cosplay a female Columbo or any other generic detective outfit. Thankfully, since she was the only one around, no one would be around to judge her, not anymore.

This routine of looking up at the facade in the sky was something she would indulge in every so often when she got bored, which was not as often as one in her situation would have believed at first.

She herself had never considered it, so she never pondered whether she would be bored spending her days in such solitude. It took thirty years of being in the space before she finally realized that all that time she had only been bored a handful of times for an insignificant amount of time. Or at least, an insignificant amount of time to her.

She had lost all sense of time when she'd arrived, so she sometimes pondered over whether or not she had been perceiving time wrong, and maybe she'd unknowingly spent decades lying on the floors of the space while tackling an incomprehensible boredom.

While resting on the blazing concrete that did not affect her comfort, which she had previously discovered shortly after her arrival, she'd found herself mindlessly debating over what she should do that day.

Clean the entire place from top to bottom? No, she had already done that at some point, probably that day or that week; she wasn't sure. All she knew was that she remembered doing it long enough ago that she was not interested in doing it again.

Cut the grass in the domain she resided in? No, even if she tried, it would all just instantly grow back like last time. The properties of the space made it impossible to permanently damage any of the land in which she resided.

She had once attempted to clear the part of the forest available to her behind the building, but instantly gave up the moment she realized that the weeds she'd cut almost instantly grew back to their original stature.

This was something which, to her surprise, pissed her off more than the fact she was forced to sleep in a decrepit building for the rest of her...life? 'Existence' was probably the better word for it, she thought as she kicked her feet wildly in the air in frustration with her current conundrum.

At one point, she'd been embarrassed of herself as she found it weird that she'd often indulge in immature tantrums when things didn't go her way. Not knowing where she'd got it from, she'd often become ashamed of herself for being so unruly.

Surely, she thought, she had to have gotten it from somewhere, someone; all she would have to do is find out the cause, and she could nip it in the bud. It wasn't until she saw her mom freaking out like a toddler in her office over having lost a case that she realized she had gotten it from her. With that knowledge in mind, she began bearing that side of her with pride.

Other people, including the boy, often commented on her immaturity, something her bosses and teachers would never believe when hearing rumors of it from her colleagues and peers. Whenever she was in front of other adults, she would always do her best to be as mature and proper as possible, just like her beloved mother had so diligently taught her to be.

"Appearances may not be everything, but they make a substantial difference in the ways we are perceived by others," was a statement she would often tell her daughter when she'd misbehaved as a child, as a gentle reminder.

Other adults likely may have seen it as a negative concept to have a child memorize growing up, but she knew her mother had only the best of intentions for her, even if she wasn't the best at expressing them.

They had a reputation to keep up after all. Her mother was heavily regarded as the coldest yet greatest defence attorney in Hurricane, not only that, but she too had married the most renowned and awarded detective in Utah, who'd become infamous for his mercilessness against the depraved. And in time, their daughter would become the most important reporter in American history, or at least so she believed.

She didn't like thinking of what could have been, so she was always busying herself with new investigations to take on during her time outside of prestigious classes.

Unfortunately for her, all she had now was time to think as she found herself having almost nothing to do anymore.

She spent an unknowable, to her at least, amount of time just lying there. To her, it seemed like only a minute had passed since she'd rested on the cracked concrete, but maybe she'd already spent a millennium proposing and denying what simple chore she could do to help ease her soul.

Before she could think of an alternative solution to her mildly irritating boredom and depressing thoughts, she felt that familiar tingle across her body of someone passing through the walls of her case, which she had named 'The Borderlines'.

Her face beamed with joy as she immediately realized that she had been saved from the displeasure of coming up with something to do on her own.

Now that someone else was here, now that he was here, she could finally have something to do with someone after having spent so long alone in her cage.

Of course, she always knew she could bend the rules a little and escape from her enclosure for a little while, but doing so always came with the risk of leaving parts of her behind in the real world.

Due to previous experiences, she knew that would likely create a mess that she didn't want herself or her only friend to deal with in the future. After all, they, or rather, he, already had so much going on; adding something else to worry about would do the boy and her no good.

After waiting for God knows how long, she finally heard his footsteps approaching her, and after realising that he was directly in front of her, she attempted to contain her giddiness and prepared to welcome the boy back to her home.

After so long, she once again finally had a visitor, something she had been excitedly waiting for what seemed like a lifetime to her.

When the footsteps finally stopped mere feet in front of her, she got up with a jolt and looked at the boy before her, who quickly averted his eyes to the dismay of the woman. This did not affect her glee, though, as his mere presence before her made her happy enough that a mere glance away was not enough to deter her from conversation.

"Oh! Hello! It's been a while, hasn't it?" she cheerfully asked as she waved wildly at the boy before her.

"I guess it has..." said the boy as he continued averting his gaze from the strange lady towards the rows of trees that lay throughout the outskirts of the large building before them.

Having found himself at his wits' end yet again, the conflicted boy, clad in his usual attire of an extremely rough-looking Aegean-blue hoodie and torn black pants, stood before the oddly dressed and strangely gleeful woman who sat in the middle of an empty parking lot and prepared himself to glance at her once again.

For the first time in the last four months, he had once again passed the threshold between his world and the one she'd resided in for the last three decades to meet with her for guidance.

The boy was desperate to hear what she had to say since the last time they met, but due to his stubbornness and fragility, he had avoided having this conversation for as long as possible.

The boy even at one point believed that maybe, since everything was over now, he maybe didn't need to have this conversation, that maybe, just maybe, everything would resolve itself on its own, and that he would be able to move on from his problems as they would fade away in time.

To his dismay, though, he'd returned. Just like he did before, time and time again.

The boy knew he would, though he never allowed himself to think about the possibility that the man would keep his promise.

Before yet again facing the woman whom he'd, for lack of a better term, ghosted for four months, he looked up towards the sky, which, despite knowing it to be just a facade, he could not help but bask in its beauty.

Weirdly enough, he was not at all deterred by the sun, which shone directly on his unaffected eyes.

This place, as told to him by the woman before, had a lot of strange properties, which made sense to them considering just where they were.

The buildings, plants, objects, and even beings inside could not be damaged for any substantial amount of time, the food could not be consumed, and nothing could be turned on or off.

It was a space stuck within a single second in time.

The same second in which he'd learned that Bronwen Light, the goofy and cheerful woman who stood before him, had mysteriously passed away within the grounds of the formerly dubbed last remaining Freddy Fazbear's Pizza on Earth.

"It's nice to finally see you again, Max Donovan," she stated as she began calming her excitement.

Looking up at the building which ominously resided behind Bronwen, Max recalled the moment that he'd first arrived in this space.

He'd been understandably bewildered by the area before him, which was further worsened by the presence of a fair-skinned, weirdly, in his opinion at least, dressed woman with long messy hair who looked no older than twenty, kicking her feet in the air while lying on the roof of said building with her head hanging over the ledge and screaming obscenities for no apparent reason.

He could not fathom what emotion he was feeling at the time. For the first time in his life, he'd felt the feeling of having no words for the situation before him.

Who could judge him? He'd just faced the most horrifying night of his life, so having it juxtaposed by something he could only conjure in his wildest dreams had fried his remaining brain cells and left him dumbfounded with his mouth agape.

Before he lost his mind, the woman opened her eyes and screamed before scurrying away towards the roof of the building and hiding away for an entire minute.

Or was it longer? He wasn't sure; he hadn't exactly been in the right state of mind to count the time.

She would soon return wearing an entirely different demeanor. Rather than acting like a lunatic on some form of drug he did not know the name of, she instead physically conducted herself and spoke in a mix of both a distinguished young lord and a compassionate mother figure.

Oddly enough, he felt more welcomed and warm than he had been when they'd first met eyes. Maybe it was due to her dramatic shift in tone, maybe it was because her eyes seemed slightly more lively than they had before.

He wasn't quite sure at that moment whether he found her presence to be intimidating or sublime. The only thing he was completely sure of was that she was crazed in some way, shape, or form. He would have felt bad judging her merely by her looks, but having seen her response to his sudden appearance, he was inclined to go against his usual code of conduct.

He was often reminded of that first encounter whenever they would meet, as she would often flip-flop between personalities whenever they met, something which brought him a sprinkle of whimsy in times when he would feel otherwise.

But today, it seemed as if nothing would break away from the feelings which he harboured in his heart, feelings which had haunted his mind for the last four months, during which he had been avoiding her. Or rather, avoiding the inevitable.

"Now, if I may ask...what is it you have to say to me after all this time? After all, it's been how many months since you last visited?" she quizzically asked, despite them both knowing she knew the answer already.

Despite the slight jab she had understandably taken at him, he did not falter in his wish to speak his mind to her, though he found it hard to put his thoughts into the right words. After all, this was the first time in a long time that he would allow someone to see into his heart.

"I–Ever since that night...every single day since...I've questioned whether or not it was okay for me to keep on living," he said as he positioned his right hand on his chest.

"For months, I've spent every waking hour trying so desperately to find a reason to keep on living."

As he continued speaking, his words and manner of speaking seemingly became more confident, or rather, concrete, as the right words found him before his nerves and shattered mind could stop his mouth from running.

"I so desperately wanted to believe that she was right, that you were right, that I did have a choice, that my life was in my hands, that I alone got to decide what to do with it..."

For those gruelling four months, he'd spent nearly all of that time suffering alone, stuck inside his mind, trying to move on or at least hide away from a future that he knew he was doomed to eventually confront.

After all, he was the one who'd asked for it.

Now, it was far too late to ask for a different fate.

"But no matter how hard I've tried, I've always found myself recalling everything that's happened since that night that everything went to hell–and time–and time again I've concluded that I don't deserve to live."

As he continued, his feigned confidence turned into a spiral into despair.

He couldn't stop himself anymore; his body couldn't stop itself either. Nothing could prevent his mouth from revealing the grotesquely rotted and decrepit form his psyche had shaped into.

"It may be true that I've been given a gift...but it–isn't meant for me; it's for them, for you, to ensure you all achieve your Happiest Day."

Max hadn't even realized that his left hand had been tightly gripping the lower right side of his hoodie until he tore through and felt his plain white T-shirt.

After noticing the tears, he slowly and gently removed his hand and placed it on his side as the hoodie returned to its previous condition.

"This life, this body, this second chance, none of it belongs to me, not anymore," he defeatedly stated as tears began escaping his eyes.

He attempted to stop them from flowing by rubbing his eyes repeatedly and forcefully, but it only served to make them, somehow, flow even harder than before.

"Is that what you truly believe?" Bronwen gently asked as she began slowly walking towards the man who finally revealed himself to her.

In a matter of seconds, she had reached a close enough distance to allow her to soothe the man's heart in the same way her father had done for her countless times in the past.

Since she was only a foot shorter than the man, she was able to extend her hand just enough to rest her hand on the top of his head and gently ruffle his soft, partly curly, but primarily straight hair.

She counted from zero to eleven as she continued to ruffle his hair before stopping and removing her hand from his head after reaching the final number.

Just like the dozens of times beforehand that she'd done it to him, that was the exact number of seconds he would need to regain his composure enough to begin thinking clearly once again.

"What other choice do I have but to believe?" he pleaded as the tears finally began subsiding, allowing him to remove his shivering hands from his tired eyes.

She closed her eyes and gave out a sigh of relief, thankful that she would get to finally open his eyes to the truth that seemingly everyone but him had already figured out.

"I'll show you..."

As she began the first part of her sentence, she turned away from the man and began walking straight towards the pizzeria's entrance.

However, after taking five steps, she noticed that he had yet to inch any closer. So before uttering the last part of her sentence, she halted, completely turned back around to look at the man who had yet to move from his position, and extended her right hand out to him.

"Follow me..." she said in a compassionate tone as she tilted her head slightly to the right, relaxed her eyes, and gazed at the conflicted man who'd reluctantly stayed stationary.

After hearing that all too familiar phrase, he finally mustered up the courage to walk again, and so confidently took her hand, which she responded to by closing her eyes and giggling slightly before turning back to face the entrance.

The gentleness of her smooth and cold hand calmed any nerves he had previously had, and having noticed this, Bronwen began walking hand in hand with him towards the entrance of the pizzeria in unison.

Once they reached the red double doors, they both breathed in for five seconds, then out for another five, and pushed the door open as it greeted them back home once again.

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Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The most glaring disturbance to the ears of the two who resided in the space was by far the buzzing of the two long but thin fluorescent lights, which sat diagonally on the ceiling of the cramped office space.

Not a lot of people had been going to therapy very often recently, so the lack of assistance with electrical problems was excused as being an unsolvable issue.

After all, according to the owner, the company didn't exactly have the budget to go around fixing every problem across the dozens of rooms that were inside the massive building, so the staff would have no choice but to put up with the 'inconveniences'.

'Inconveniences' was a word that practically all the staff hated down to their guts. Of course, they weren't very quiet about it either, primarily because the obnoxious buzzing and flickering of faulty fluorescent lights and the other countless disturbances weren't exactly helping their clients' mental states.

These kinds of issues aren't exactly the kinds of things you want to have when around possibly mentally unstable individuals, a lot who easily overstimulated, afraid, or easily ticked off by such things.

But that didn't exactly matter to management since they weren't the ones who were forced to deal with the angry complaints from struggling clients and the failing sanity of those who resided daily within its walls.

Wobba-Wobba-Wobba-Wobba

The second worst annoyance by far, at least in Max's opinion, was the sound of the same which rested on the south side of Mitch's office space.

It was not substantially far away from him, as it rested on the southern wall, close to the middle of the room, so the sound was a lot more glaring than he would have liked it to be.

He'd thought about asking to have Mitch move the fan to said southern wall, but he noticed that the cord on it was not long enough to reach, and that was the only outlet he had left to use, as there were none on the southern wall, so he decided not to say anything and put up with it.

He had already felt bad since he was absolutely sure that Mitch had noticed a while ago, so Max didn't want to make him feel any worse than he already did.

Mitch already had to deal with those god-awful noises for a whole 9 hours daily; the last thing the poor guy needs is a random dude he just met to complain to him.

I could never work for ten hours every single day of the week dealing with shit like this, he had thought to himself during their first meeting.

Plus, moving it would just cause an issue of overheating. It was over a hundred degrees daily in Utah those days, so they would probably end up melting if it wasn't for the effort that the fan was putting in. The hair-pulling sound is a testament to its dedication, Max had thought.

Of course, the air conditioner in the south-eastern corner was pulling its weight too, but the fan was the real MVP in Max's mind.

The room, at least, was fairly cosy looking, though the sacrifice for that was how cramped it felt when trying to move around the place.

Aside from the grey-striped armchair he sat on and the large yellow-striped couch Mitch was on, there were two identical small grey tables diagonal to one another, with one on Max's left and the other on Mitch's right.

Next to Max was a small lattice trash bin, which he'd previously joked about throwing his 'sadness tissues' in.

To his dismay, the joke had fallen short due to it falling on deaf ears, though he speculated that it was instead due to the odd choice of wording.

Max thought to himself that, since it had been a long while since he tried to crack a joke, and Mitch could probably tell, he more than likely decided to just pretend he hadn't heard it to save his patient the embarrassment.

Behind Mitch was a painting of something he didn't exactly know the form of. The other one on the southern wall, which was on the left side of the door, was clearly a desert landscape during a sunset, but for the life of him, Max could not understand what he was looking at.

After trying to decipher the artwork for a good five minutes, he ended up giving up and decided to instead focus on something else while he waited for Mitch to finish up.

Aside from the tuxedo cat sleeping on the mixed grey bookshelf with a bunch of self-help and therapy books, which he had no care in reading, there wasn't much else interesting to look at. Max wasn't a big fan of the flowers resting on the north-west side of the western wall; after all, he'd seen prettier flowers in the ruins of Freddy's.

On the table that went across the entire northern wall, there was a coffee machine and more generic mental health books alongside a decent view outside through the wide window, which rested above said items.

Max thought about it for a moment and questioned if all those books and half-drunk coffee were really meant for his clients or not, but didn't ponder further on the topic.

His inspection of the room ended as he noticed Mitch take off his earbuds and put them back in the respective sides of their case before closing it, making it emit a loud clicking sound, which in turn put Max's full attention on him.

Having finally finished watching the final video that Max had emailed him, Mitch slowly shut his laptop and gently placed it on the grey, four-legged table, which sat to his right, next to the couch he was seated on.

As much as Mitch attempted to hide his fear from his client, Max could see the very apparent shakiness in his motions and his hesitance to speak his mind.

Max found it a little funny that he was ironically going to have to be the one calming down his therapist rather than the other way around.

The thought of it made Max chuckle a little, but he quickly stopped himself from letting it be heard or seen through his expressions, as he felt bad and knew it wasn't the appropriate response to the situation.

Slap!

"Ahem!"

Max wouldn't have to focus on his own feelings for much longer, as he was shocked into attention as Mitch slapped himself with his left hand, which Max had learned was his dominant one after having previously seen him write with it, before clearing his throat in preparation for his next move.

"You...you weren't lying. I-I just don't know what to say. I mean...these tapes they all, I mean, they..." Mitch's confidence had clearly not been fully regained yet, but due to his all too well understanding of the feelings of the man before him, Max was more than willing to give him as much time as he needed to get acclimated to the situation he'd found himself in.

After all, what other response would you expect from a man of science who's realized they've stumbled upon something beyond their perception of reality?

"I don't know... It's just...this is all so...impossible."

"You're right, it's impossible, or rather, it should be," Max sadly expressed as he gave a guilty look at Mitch.

Max hesitated to say what he wanted to next, but he pushed past the discomfort in hopes that he would comply with what they'd previously discussed.

"You'll keep your promise, right?"

To Max's genuine surprise, it didn't even take a second before Mitch gave his response.

"Max... You have my word that whatever you talk about or whoever you mention, as long as you wish it, all that information will remain with us in this room."

Mitch couldn't believe the things coming out of his mouth. He was a true man of science; he never once believed in such a thing as the supernatural, or any other foreign concept as ridiculous as this was.

But he could not resist the knowledge that was before him. After all, while he could not prove it then and there, he knew from the bottom of his heart that what he had seen through that screen was something beyond the bounds of what he knew.

It was no falsified string of images; the man before him had not told a single lie. He knew it; if anyone could see through the man's lies, it would be him.

All his life, Mitch had lived in a world that was never devoid of lies. There was not a single person left in the world who could tell a lie that would get past his detection.

So being fully convinced that what the man had told him and shown him was real, even when he had every logical reason to believe otherwise, Mitch could not do anything else but devote his full faith in the words of that man, in the words of Max Donovan.

"Thank you... I–I really appreciate all you're doing for me. Thank you...for everything... Thank you for believing me. I...I just–"

Overwhelmed by the sudden pressure of what he was about to do, he felt chills run up his spine and endlessly course through his entire body. It almost felt like shards of ice were being rapidly dragged across his skin. The sensation and thought of it made him ill, but he kept his composure and stood strong.

He needed to do this; he needed to tell someone; he needed someone to help him. And the therapist and award-winning novelist Mitch Mathews would be the one who could finally relieve him of his burden of knowledge.

He figured that if the world knew what happened at Freddy's, they could prevent the tragedy from happening again elsewhere.

"No, no! It's okay, take as long as you need...okay? Make sure you're ready for what you're going to say, and don't stress yourself out too much."

Knowing he was on the precipice of something beyond anything he would ever understand, Mitch excitedly awaited what Max was going to tell him.

"Go at whatever pace works best for you. I'm here for you, and I'm willing to wait as long as you need. I have all the time in the world right now."

Max steeled his nerves one last time and prepared to finally let his story, and those of the victims of Fazbear Entertainment, be known to the world.

"Okay... Thank you, again. I-I think I'm ready now."

As he heard Max utter those words, he immediately took hold of his laptop, opened a new document, and set up his camera on the table closest to him, facing them both to record the entirety of their conversation.

"Ok then... Max Donovan."

The two of them, by now, had calmed their nerves and were both ready, or at least believed to be ready, to begin a session which would forever change the trajectory of their lives, for better or for worse.

"What happened that has brought you here? Tell me everything you need to..."

While he recognized it to be impossible, Max couldn't help but feel like the irritating buzzing and wobbling sounds were quickly fading away.

Maybe it was because he had finally been able to calm his nerves, maybe it was because his mind was slipping back into those harrowing days, maybe it. Maybe the problems with the electronics had somehow been magically repaired as they had been sitting there, or maybe it was none of those things.

"From beginning to end..."

As Mitch finished his sentence, Max gently and slowly closed his eyes, then took a deep breath before exhaling, erasing any specks of hesitance that remained in his system.

He then opened his eyes and, oblivious to the consequences which awaited them both after that day, he began telling his story.

Their story.

Starting from the beginning.

All the way to the end.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hLJNKtsSEY