Forgotten Memory

What happens to us when we die?

It's a question that Max often asked himself while he spent his free time watching horror movies. No matter the genre, whether it was raunchy 80s slasher flicks or modern eldritch horror gore-fests, he always couldn't help but question what fate had in store for the victims of the monsters after their grueling demise.

Does Heaven exist?

Does Hell exist?

The thought of whether something beyond his realm existed haunted him. For many, the thought of creatures existing that were far beyond human imagination was a horrifying concept, but to Max, the opposite was true.

The implications that would naturally come about if said places existed were not what he feared. The thing that kept him up at night was what it would mean for him and those he loved, but if they didn't.

He figured since ghosts and demons were around, then angels would be too, and they were far stronger than any other creature that could bring harm to him. Plus, even if he would die at the hands of a foul beast, he would surely find himself at Heaven's doorstep and would be able to live for eternity in bliss.

But if they didn't exist, if Heaven was merely just a human construct, if there was nothing after his life, would everything he had done been for naught? Would any of his choices have mattered? Would the way he'd lived his life mattered? If nothing awaited him beyond the boundary, then just what was he living for all that time?

Max was not a religious man, nor had he been raised as such. However, having experienced so much at such a young age, he couldn't help but turn to ideas that would protect his fragile mind.

He would one day see his grandparents again.

He would be rewarded for his efforts.

Someone was always watching him and giving their support even when no one else was watching.

He would be forgiven for his mistakes even when everyone else would refuse to.

He would never be alone.

He wasn't alone.

He did everything to believe in those grand ideas, even if it meant disappointing his atheistic parents who'd carefully raised him in a world of 'science and logic'.

However, no matter how hard he tried to believe in them, he would always find himself constantly questioning them. He was a monster, wasn't he? Even if those places didn't exist, he wouldn't be able to see the only two people who'd ever loved him. He would never see the bright and warm smiles of his grandparents ever again, would he?

He wasn't human. He wasn't loved by anyone or anything. Not even God could love a boy as defective as him.

Should I just die then?

Even at the age of ten, Max knew what it would mean to commit suicide. He knew that he would be throwing away any chance of obtaining happiness had he decided to leave the Earth and become one with it. But it was hardly enough to keep him from drowning at the beach beside his childhood home. It would only be the fear of awakening in front of Hell's doorstep that would keep him grounded on the Earth's crust.

Despite what he would tell himself, he did not truly believe he was a monster, or at least didn't want to believe it. Would a monster do everything in its power to help those around it? He didn't think so. Monsters were selfish, monsters were killers, monsters tore things apart; he was no monster, wasn't he?

"What did–what the hell did you do to him!?"

Max found himself in front of a beige and white two-story home, standing on the sidewalk as two figures were in some sort of conflict with one another. One was a young boy in rugged clothing who knelt on the ground, and the other was a nicely dressed lady in her late thirties.

He looked around, inspecting the neighborhood he had suddenly appeared in as the sun slowly hid below the skyline and the moon began its descent.

It took a few seconds before the reality of his situation began to dawn on him.

Cringing at the situation that had been unfolding in front of him, he continued to watch as the young boy continued to be berated by the menacingly tall, enraged lady.

"Huh? No– I– I didn–"

"What the fuck did you do to him!?"

"Tell me! Explain it to me! What the fuck did you do to my son!"

Beside the boy was the decomposing corpse of a calico cat who couldn't have been older than two years old, lying on the concrete path in front of the boy and lady's shared home.

Despite the rotting, it was still clear that it had received some large blunt-force trauma that had crippled it and likely eventually led to it starving or dehydrating because of the blistering heat from the summer's sun.

However, the corpse was noticeably in an unnatural state. It had patches of fur missing from different places across its body; three of its limbs were egregiously misplaced; it looked like a failed art project. A mockery of the being it was attempting to appear as.

One may have at first believed that whatever collision had occurred had twisted its limbs around and broken its bones enough to displace them.

However, upon further inspection, it could be seen that the problem wasn't that the bones weren't in their sections, but rather that all three limbs were not in their right locations.

The stench of the corpse enveloped the surrounding atmosphere as the boy sat beside it with tears flowing uncontrollably from his eyes, while the lady continued laying down insult after insult at him.

The boy stood there, not saying anything back, and looked back and forth from the corpse to his hands, making sure to avoid the glare of the lady who was tearing his heart to pieces.

"You... You fucking monster! You're... You're just like...

"You... Fuck you!"

What have I done...

I did what you wanted...

What did I do that is so wrong...

I was trying to save it...

I thought...

You said you wanted him to come home...

You said you missed him so much you could die...

So I tried...

I tried to bring him home...

I thought it would make you happy...

I miss you too...

You were trapped in that room...

But I brought you out...

So why are you yelling at me...

I found him...

I found him behind the cornerstone...

But he was broken...

You don't like broken things...

If you saw him broken, you would have become broken too...

So I did it for you...

I fixed him...

I did it for you...

Why aren't you proud of me...

Why are you so mad at me...

All I did was...

I...

Please...

Mom...

Please don't yell at me anymore...

Please don't be mad at me anymore...

Can't you see...

Everything can go back to normal, right...

After all, he's home...

I...

I put him back together...

"What was I supposed to do back then?" Max asked as he knelt beside the boy who was uncontrollably crying and wailing as his mother disappeared into their home, slamming and locking the door closed, leaving the corpse on the concrete floor for him to deal with.

At the window furthest from the entrance to the home, Max could see his father scowling at the little boy on the sidewalk before shutting the blinds and walking away, presumably to do god only knew what to his already distraught wife, leaving his disappointment of a son behind to fend for himself.

Not knowing what to do or say to alleviate his younger self's broken heart, he turned away from him and walked down the concrete path, just as he had done every other time he was confronted with the memories of his childhood.

Max liked reading visual novels and 'choose your own adventure' books alongside playing story-driven video games because he got to see all the choices available to him. Sure, he would more often than not choose the 'wrong' dialogue options and would find himself facing a 'Bad End,' but he would be allowed to go back to a previous save or completely restart from scratch and try again.

Through said games, he would slowly but surely grow to understand the consequences of his actions, particularly when it came to the effects his choices would have on other people. In the real world, there was no going back; every decision everyone made was permanent and there was no going back. There were no alternative routes; everyone, including him, had one shot.

His parents may not have taught him how to live, how to make friends, how to do anything, but those games showed him how to do so. They taught him how to be the closest to normal that he could have ever been.

But fiction could not somehow replace all the things that were missing from his developmental years. He didn't know how to read rooms; he didn't know how to keep people's attention; he didn't understand social cues; he didn't know how to make others happy; he didn't understand so much for so long.

At the end of the day, he was still alone. And every night, his past would confront him, which he would always run away from, leading to sleepless nights after sleepless nights.

But on the night of his fifth anniversary with Alice, one of the only people who ever gave him a chance in life, he decided he wouldn't run away. He wasn't going to end such a beautiful and happy day cowering in fear from a past he was too much of a coward to face.

As Max looked down at the woman who was tightly embracing him as she drifted off into her sleep, he began psyching himself up to once and for all confront his past. For the first time, he would finally be both willing and ready to act to once and for all gain control over his life.

No longer would he keep himself awake to avoid the memories that had haunted him for over a decade.

No longer would he allow the memories of his parents to sully his happiest days.

If he were to follow through with the promise to marry her that he had made only a few hours beforehand, then he would have to fight and beat those fears.

Max looked across the room towards the table where his television rested, which the pair had left on before they'd gone to sleep. Alice had trouble sleeping in the silence, so even though she would never ask, whenever she'd come over he would be sure to leave it on for her.

He'd thought it was an endearing quirk of hers and found it cute that she had tried to hide it for such a long time. He'd only ever found out about it when he'd been allowed to sleep over at her place for a sleepover the two had with Mike after graduation.

That night, he'd been awoken by Jeopardy playing obnoxiously in the room, loudly enough that he was shocked that nobody had barged in to shut it off themselves.

Max knew Mike was a heavy sleeper, so he didn't question his dormant state, but he figured at the very least Alice would have been bothered by it in her dreams.

So, being mindful of the other's 'beauty sleep', but primarily himself, he begrudgingly got up from his futon and turned it off before turning back to slump into his original position.

Before wandering off into his nightmares again, which by then he'd gotten to coexist with, he'd left his eyes open long enough to see Alice awaken from the bed. Curious at her suspicious conduct, he turned his head and watched as she went up to her counter and turned it back on before tiptoeing back to her bed to sleep.

After reminiscing on that day, he looked decently over the top of the television where, nearing the roof, his grey analog clock rested.

He quickly breathed in, then out, before reading the time out loud to himself.

"11:59 PM"

Hoping to awaken in his memories as the clock chimed twelve, he looked down one more time at his fiancé, kissed the top of her head, and closed his eyes as he too drifted off to sleep, allowing the nightmare to begin one last time.

However, to his confusion, Max did not wake in any of the previous memories that he had faced throughout his adult life. This one wasn't completely familiar to him, though he did have a vague sense of when it had occurred.

Unlike all of his previous dreams, he immediately realized that he was asleep and dreaming. If his memory had served him right, it would always take a few minutes before he would finally realize the predicament he was in, but now, there he was, for the most part aware of the situation he was in.

Max looked around to analyze his surroundings and realized that he was in the middle of a four-way intersection on a barren road with no cars in sight any which way.

Strangely enough, there were also hardly any buildings down the road on his right and behind him, with there mainly being trees lining the sides of the road right next to the grey, dirty, concrete sidewalks.

To his left, the road led down to a decently sized neighborhood with mainly one-story houses residing in the area.

At first, he thought that it was his own neighborhood where he was born and raised, but only seconds later he abandoned the thought once he realized he'd never before seen any house he was looking at.

As a child, he did his best to avoid being home, so he would often find himself going on walks around his neighborhood and playing with the stray cats that would prowl around the general location. Because of this, he had a vivid image of the entire area, so it didn't take much effort to deduce that the place he was in was fairly unknown to him.

Ahead of him, he saw a decently sized building with a beige metal sheet covering one side of the wall for a reason he did not know. It was hard to see because of the trees in his way, but on the windows to the side of the building, there seemed to be boards covering each one, making it hard to see just what was inside.

In hopes of getting a better close look inside, he got up on the sidewalk next to it and began walking down it, passing by some overgrowth that had begun bleeding into the concrete through the numerous cracks that had been made in it over the course of the years that it had been neglected by its creators.

Looking down at his feet, he noticed he was wearing a pair of shoes he hadn't owned for years. They were blue and black sneakers that he had gotten rid of two years back when they got torn in an accident he had been in.

An accident.

As he looked down at his shoes and moved them around, inspecting the dirtied design, he began realizing what memory he had been thrust into.

"No way," he muttered to himself as he looked to his right at the massive brick building which had been standing before him the entire time. One he had somehow missed or refused to acknowledge as he was inspecting his surroundings.

Max looked across the entire front of the building, recalling each and every distinct detail as his eyes came across each one at a time. The golden stars that had dulled in color over time, which rested below the glowing sign of the place's four fuzzy mascots. The wooden cutouts of each character were haphazardly placed across the front of the building.

This place. Max could never mistake where he was.

Why?

Why?

Why am I here?

Why here?

This place?

This place, which Max had found himself in, was the last remaining Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. And this memory, which he was reliving, was one he had wished would have stayed buried.

He was ready to deal with the trauma of his past. He was ready to finally confront his parents for the abuse and neglect that they had inflicted on him his entire life. He was finally ready to confront all of his fears.

But this one. This memory. While he had no clue what it was, he knew it was one he had wished had stayed buried.

One he thought he had forever forgotten, but to his dismay, was the one he was about to be forced to relive.

※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※　※

Across the decently sized driveway, hardly over a dozen cars stood parked in the driveway, spread across its many spaces. An oddly small number of cars for a place of that size.

From what he could tell, it was a location far bigger than any other restaurant he had ever been in before or seen on TV; a couple dozen people weren't possibly enough to fill out even ten percent of its total occupancy.

Of course, that thought would have only been present in the mind of someone who didn't know of Fazbear's previous history. To anyone who knew of it, it was weird to think that anyone in that day and age was still brave enough to go to, much less take their kids to, that place.

By the year 1993, it had been eight years since the case of the 'Hurricane Five' occurred, a case that had rocked the nation when it first happened.

How could something so horrible have happened in a place meant for children? Many parents thought, as they heard on the news that five kids had been caught on camera being lured away from their parents by a figure dressed in a yellow rabbit suit, only to never be seen again. It was a horrible story which further ballooned throughout the years as more and more incidents began occurring around its numerous locations.

So now, to think that even after all of that, parents would still be willing to trust any restaurant owned by Fazbear Entertainment was something that not many of the residents of Hurricane, Utah fathomed to understand.

One said person was Max Donovan. But despite that, there he was, in front of the very place he had pledged to himself he would never go to.

Why am I here, he thought to himself as he ruffled his hair, confused by his last-second decision to drive over there.

He had been in the neighborhood to visit his aunt, who was taking care of his sister while his parents were away on vacation because apparently he wasn't trustworthy enough to do it himself.

Feeling lonely, he attempted to call Mike to see if he wanted to hang out, but his call was rejected, and he was texted by him that he'd gotten the flu and didn't want to be bothered. He would have called Alice as well to see if she wanted to go on a date, but she had previously told him that she was going to be out of town with her family on a road trip for the weekend, so that was out of the picture too.

Being all out of options and refusing to spend the weekend alone, he decided to visit his sister at his aunt's. However, as he was driving down the barren road and arrived at a four-way intersection, he looked over to his right and got a glimpse of the large restaurant which he'd only ever before seen in black-and-white newspapers his parents had gotten after work.

He was going to keep driving after seeing no one was by him, but he instead found himself spinning the wheel and driving into the parking lot of the black and yellow building.

Now, there he was, standing in front of the red double doors, conflicted over whether he should continue on with his spontaneous decision or do the right thing and continue on his original path.

"Hello there! Welcome to Freddy's. What can I get for you today?"

Fuck, Max said to himself as he realized that he was now, against his better judgment, actually going to follow through with his impulsive idea.

"Ah... Oh, sorry, um, can I just get a small pepperoni pizza and a Dr. Pepper, please?" Max nervously replied to the kind young man as he broke his train of thought.

"Yeah, man, no problem! Would you like some Faz-Tokens to go with that? We actually have a special going on today that gets you both your order and a hundred tokens to go along with it for three dollars more!"

Max contemplated for a few seconds before responding.

"Uh... Yeah, sure, why not."

"Alright! Also, is this your first time coming here?"

"Yeah, actually, this is my first visit. I kinda just came here on a whim, to be honest." Max let out a nervous laugh as he responded to the man.

"Nice! Since you're probably going to want to conserve your tokens, I recommend you try out 'Freddy and Friends'. It's the priciest game by far, but it takes the most bang for your buck compared to all the other ones."

Max nodded as the enthusiastic young man continued with his spiel.

"The second longest game per play is probably Chica's Cupcake Party. It's also a decent game, but not really for everyone."

"Well, um, I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Thanks for letting me know," Max kindly thanked the man as he grabbed his pager.

"No problem! Have fun out there, and remember, you are the face of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza!" the young man said as he pointed at Max, who let out a small chuckle in return before making his way down a third set of red double doors.

Walking past the doors, he found himself in a zigzag hallway with presents, arcades, and vending machines spread across. To his left was another set of red double doors, slightly different from the previous three he had opened to get to where he was.

Unlike the previous three doors, this one was labeled at the top with a sign reading "Employees Only". Next to said door, Max could see a piece of paper which was nailed into the wall.

Interested in what it had to say, Max walked up to it and saw it was a list of rules which was meant to inform customers of what he could only guess were bad things people frequently had done in the past.

Usually, signs like this were naming off obvious rules for safety, but the ones on this one perplexed Max, as some of them included "Don't yell" and "Don't scream" as two entirely separate rules before then saying "Don't poop on the floor".

"Poor janitor, haha," Max couldn't help but laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of that one specifically and what horror story had led to its creation.

His awkward laughter halted, though, as he began thinking harder about the implications of the other two rules he had taken notice of.

Not wanting to dwell on it any further, he then continued walking down the hallway until he made his way into the dining room, the place where the magic of Freddy's resided.

At the entrance to the room, a cardboard cutout of the chicken animatronic greeted him as he made his arrival.

Squeeeeek!

"Oh!" Max yelped quietly, startled by the old man who'd barged in from the room which had a similar sign to the last, but whose name was instead 'Parts & Service'.

"You frighten too easily, boy," the old man wearing grey overalls and a hat labelled 'Janitor' said, scoffing at Max before making his way down the dining room and into the hallway that lay beyond.

"Hmph... Rude..." Max muttered to himself, diverting his attention towards the trio of rusty-looking vending machines which rested below a poster of the main three animatronics.

"Do you not get sodas from the back here? What kinda cheapskate is running this place..." Max said as he analyzed them, looking for a Dr. Pepper to satiate his fill.

To his dismay, not only was the rightmost vending machine out of all of its selections, but ended up stealing some of his hard-earned money.

"I shouldn't have come here," he sighed as he walked down the side of the room.

Eventually, he reached the back area leading to the entrance to the arcade that the cashier had spoken about. Inside, dozens of kids were spread across the room, each playing a variety of the available cabinets to their hearts' content.

Some of the more popular games had small lines formed, while most of the others had groups of two, with the remainder having one or none playing them. Unlike the other rooms, the arcade room was primarily lit up by neon tubes that lined the sides of the room, with some neon decorations of Freddy and Bonnie placed around the room.

"Well... Since I'm already he-"

Before he could finish his sentence, the lights of the entire room shut off all at once, startling Max, who was caught off guard by being suddenly plunged into darkness.

"What the fu-"

"Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls!" Max was interrupted again, this time though, by a man's voice who'd suddenly begun blasting from the speakers scattered across the large room.

While it was subtle, there was a noticeable crack or other sort of impurity in the audio, making the man sound almost robotic. Max couldn't tell if it was intentional or yet another mistake brought about by the establishment's bad budget management.

Can't afford functioning vending machines and good audio, but can afford to dodge lawsuits, he thought to himself as he began making his way towards the general direction all the other patrons were headed.

"Fazbear Entertainment would like you to put your hands together!" the man continued as kids and parents alike began cheering in unison for whatever was moments from occurring.

"For the one, and only, Freddy Fazbear!" As the man finally finished his introduction, Max walked over to the middle of the room where the black-and-white checkered floors were replaced with blue-and-red ones, with wooden splitters between the walkways and main area.

As he watched alongside the kids who were up at the front, right behind the wooden splitters between the ridiculously large stage and dining room, the large red curtains that had been hiding the magic away finally began pulling away.

"Hello everybody! You ready to have a good time?"

As the curtains finally reached end to end, the three titular mascots finally made their appearance, with the large brown being the first to make his presence known to the audience.

'I know I am!" the bear continued on as the rabbit to his right and chicken to his left sprang to life one after the other, causing a bustling roar to emanate from the crowd.

"Whoah..."

From photos he'd previously seen, the stage used to be a plain beige color, so the saturated colors and overly liveliness of the ensemble had taken him aback.

From what he could see from the back of the room, he could make out a facade of a sky made out of bricks behind the band, with plastic clouds and a sun decorating the barren wall.

Across the back section, props like presents and cardboard cutouts of trees and bushes were carefully placed around, seemingly to help breathe more life into what would have been an otherwise empty environment. To help complete the look, the stage and dining room had white stars on strings coming down from the ceiling that were too high for anyone to reach, even if they stood on a table.

"Cause it's Freddy Fazbear's Pizza! For kids, it's number...one!"

Before he knew it, the performance had enchanted Max. In no way was the band 'lifelike' in nature; they were very clearly just repeating the same programmed moves repeatedly.

But something about the rainbow colored lights that danced across the stage and illuminated the figures as they jerked around, the saturated decorations, and the enthusiasm expressed by the families in front of him ignited something in his heart.

"Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, where fantasy meets fun!"

Max never once believed in that slogan. He would constantly see it plastered across all of the company's marketing as a kid but would always scoff at the concept of anyone actually wanting to go there. Who would wanna go to a murder den, was a common sentiment shared by his classmates and himself.

But now, as he stood there, between the dining and arcade area, he had finally understood why business never seemed to stop, no matter how many tragedies occurred within its walls.

Within less than thirty seconds, a lifelong skeptic had been turned into a believer, one so enchanted with the magic he was witness to that he didn't even notice a voice cut twenty-eight seconds into the song to say, "Fun not actually guaranteed".

"Well... Let's meet the band!" Freddy exclaimed as the parents, children, and Max all unitedly jumped, clapped, and cheered unsynchronized, unable to contain their excitement at the masterclass of a show before them.

"My name is Freddy! I'm the singer in the band, got a hat, and a big bowtie!" As Freddy continued to sing, the lights all immediately pointed directly at him as his torso, head, and arms rotated to and fro like a real singer would on stage.

"I'm a big, brown bear, but DON'T BE SCARED! I'm a real fun, loving guy!"

Had he heard that line only moments beforehand, he likely would have been put off by such an ominous line, especially considering the place's history. However, by that point he had practically been completely indoctrinated into the Fazbear brand and was past the point of no return.

"Bonnie's my name! I'm hoppin' along! Floppy ears and a cotton tail!" As the second singer member of the band began his part of the song, the crackle of the audio began making itself known.

It was even subtler than it was before, but it was just prevalent enough for Max to take notice of it, even if it didn't take him out of the magic.

"My guitar is blazing, this rabbit's ' Hare'-raising!"

The crackle came back with a vengeance, annoyed because its listeners had ignored it. White noise began emanating from the speakers, rising in intensity as the song continued its course.

"Just listen to me wail!" As his sentence went on, the rabbit's voice was becoming harder and harder to make out through the noise and distortion as he raised his right arm into the air while continuing to hold the strapped guitar with his left.

The lights on both stages followed suit as they began frantically waving across them so rapidly that they seemed to begin unscrewing from their places while periodically blinding everyone in the audience.

"Take it, Bonnie!" Freddy yelled out, his voice distorted beyond recognition of its original cadence.

The blue rabbit then, in response to the bear's given sanction, struck his arm quicker than it was ever programmed to do and slammed on the guitar, smashing some of the internals and creating a dent in the instrument.

In tandem, the guitar sounds coming from the speakers blasted at an ear-piercing degree, leveling everyone in the audience to the ground as they clutched their ears in response.

Some of the older patrons began yelling out, screaming to their families as they attempted to shield their ears, which were by then uncontrollably bleeding out onto the floor.

Parents, both mothers and fathers alike, grabbed onto the children and began sprinting out of the building in mass, nearly toppling over those who were not lucky enough to keep their barrens long enough to join in the mass exodus.

Max himself was one of those unlucky enough to make it out in time. Max's hearing was known by his friends to have been blessed with some sort of buff from birth; nothing ever said within his general vicinity would ever escape them.

But after that day, he was almost sure to not even hear a pin drop in the quietest of enclosures.

As Max clutched at his progressively bleeding ears, he attempted to get on his feet but failed as the ringing only intensified as time went on. The pain was indescribable to him. It was, no doubt in his mind, worse than anything he had ever fathomed experiencing, even in his most horrifying dreams.

Max couldn't understand how it worked, but the deadly noise continued to grow louder and louder with nothing seeming to stop its ascent into oblivion.

Surely, the speakers would break down at some point, he thought, but as the seconds went by, his hope of that occurring descended to hell as his mind began tearing at the seams in order to escape the hell it had been thrust into.

Make it stop.

Make it end.

Stop it.

Please stop it.

Someone...

Someone please...

"You two would be better off dead."

"MAKE IT FUCKING STOP!"

Unbeknownst to him, the torment had already ended long ago.

Everyone who had been in the building with him had already abandoned it.

Already abandoned him.

He'd been there on his own, seemingly left for dead.

God only knew how long he'd spent there.

All alone he had been there, grovelling on his hands and knees, pathetically holding tightly onto the sides of his head to cover a myriad of horrific, metallic, static sounds which had long since died out.

But though Max had shouted out into the lonely abyss.

Someone.

Something.

Deep within the depths of the decrepit building.

Had, by some miracle.

Or by some curse.

Had heard his call.

And in response.

Shouted right back.