Mike's stomach twisted harder, but the tickets in his hand were from the Puppet. Surely she wouldn't lead him wrong.
He swallowed hard and stepped up to the counter.
The blonde man stood patiently behind it, that comforting smile stretched across his face like a mask. Underneath, something sharper glittered—maniacal glee, cold and patient.
"Hiya, kiddo! Whatcha got there?" he asked, nodding at the tickets.
Mike handed them over with clear reluctance, fingers trembling just a little.
"Oh ho! Look at that… you are one lucky kid."
The man walked around the counter and knelt beside him. His nametag caught the light in big, bold letters: AFTON.
Mike lost focus as Afton leaned in close, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper right against his ear.
"You won the private tour of your favorite fuzzy friend's home… I'll tell ya a secret." His smile stretched far too wide, teeth flashing like a death sentence. "You'll be the only kid alive to brag about it."
Mike's stomach knotted tighter, but the tickets were already in the man's hand and the offer felt… special. Like the Puppet had chosen him herself. He nodded before he could stop himself.
He followed Afton past the excitement of Pirate Cove, past the singing on the main stage, until the eerie silence of the employee-only halls swallowed every last sound of distant joy. Lights dimmed one by one behind them. Their footsteps echoed down the narrow corridor, away from prying eyes.
Afton's voice stayed cheerful through empty small talk, but there was something off in the way he kept glancing sideways at Mike—like he was measuring him for a suit. The Parts & Service room door creaked open at the end of the hall.
Afton held it wide. Mike stepped inside and took in the dirty, dusty space: wires and pipes snaking along the walls, black-and-white checkered floor smeared with dark oil stains, spare endoskeletons slumped on tables like broken bodies, and hollow suits of unfamiliar animatronics leaning against the walls.
His gaze was still sweeping the room—taking in every subtle warning—when hot, wet pain punched into his side and chest in rapid succession. Sharp. Deep.
Mike gasped, eyes widening in shock as he looked down and saw the blade sliding out, glistening red. The world tilted violently. Adrenaline surged, but his legs buckled. He collapsed, vision blurring, and forced himself to go perfectly still—playing dead with every ounce of willpower he had left. Don't move. Don't breathe loud. Just… don't.
Afton stood over him for a long second, breathing steady, then grunted in satisfaction. He grabbed Mike under the arms and dragged the limp body toward the open golden bear suit. Metal edges dug cruelly into Mike's back and sides as he was shoved inside its cold, unyielding confines like meat into a grinder. Wires scraped and caught on skin. The heavy chest plate was forced shut around him with a metallic clang, pressing the wounds tighter.
It all happened so fast his body could barely keep up.
He lay trapped inside the suit for what felt like hours, pain throbbing in time with his faint heartbeat. Through half-lidded eyes he watched Afton pace the room, flipping through schematics under the weak bulb. Finally the man placed an unfamiliar device against the chest plate. It beeped and sang softly, as if reacting to something—searching, probing, hungry for whatever remnant it could find.
After one last check, Afton slipped into a yellow bunny suit, the fabric rustling like dry leaves. He walked out of the Parts & Service room without a backward glance, like nothing had ever happened. Not a single trace of guilt or shame.
Hours dragged past like blurred trees from a moving car.
Mike couldn't explain it, but he knew any careless movement could finish him. The suit pressed in from every side, cold wires and jagged metal waiting to bite deeper. Blood felt sticky and warm against his skin. The only sounds were his own shallow, ragged breathing and the distant, lonely creak of the empty building settling for the night.
Then… a new sound.
Something faint. Scraping. High above.
Mike's eyes flicked upward into the pitch-black ceiling vents. The noise came again—slow, deliberate clicks of joints bending at impossible angles. Whatever it was, it was moving across the ceiling, deliberately avoiding the security cameras. Crawling. Hunting.
A single white stripe appeared first—long and thin, painted on a limb that unfolded like a spider's leg testing the dark. Then another stripe. Then the edge of a white mask, glowing faintly in the emergency light.
The Puppet descended from the vent with nightmarish grace, her tall, lanky frame unfolding in sections. Long striped arms and legs splayed outward at unnatural angles, joints popping and realigning with wet mechanical clicks as she dropped to the floor on all fours. She didn't walk. She stalked—body low to the ground, head tilted sideways with predatory curiosity, the too-wide semicircle smile stretching across her white face while purple tears gleamed like fresh wounds. The hollow black eyes swallowed what little light remained.
She moved closer, each limb scraping softly against the checkered floor, the sound echoing like fingernails on bone. No music box. No gentle jingle. Just the terrible patience of something ancient that had been waiting for this exact moment.
The Puppet stopped inches from the golden bear suit. One elongated, clawed hand reached out—slow, almost tender—and gripped the chest plate. Metal groaned and bent under her impossible strength as she pried it open, the remnant device sparking once before dying in a shower of weak blue light.
She reached inside, thin arms sliding around Mike's small, bloodied frame with surprising care, and gently pulled his broken body free.
As darkness closed in at the edges of his vision and consciousness slipped away, Mike heard the softest whisper from the shadows—gentle, ancient, and full of quiet promise.
"I will put you back together."