Shadows in the Corridors

''Pup told me to do this. I blame her.''

Chapter 1
Rain poured down, forming puddles on the pavement, as the five friends dashed through the night. It was nearly too dark to see, and they needed to get to shelter. It was getting dangerously cold, and the rain wasn't helping.

Turning a corner, the figure in the lead scanned the avenue. Green eyes blazed under his baseball cap, and black hair blew in the wind.

"Look, over there. Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria," he yelled to the others in a deep voice.

The five crossed the street hastily, not bothering to check for cars, and dashed inside the pizzeria.

Inside the cheerily decorated building were rows and rows of tables, plates and party hats set out at each plate setting. It looked like a party. In the front of the room, a massive wooden stage sat, covered in props. It looked like one of those watch-while-you-eat restaurants to Silver.

Gray took off his light black jacket and hung it on one of the chairs. He grinned and clapped Silver on the shoulder, which was hard to do, as his friend was several inches taller and musclebound. "Guess we'd better stay the night and dry off!" he grinned.

Behind Silver, Pup bore a worried expression. "I don't know about this... I've heard bad things."

"Like what?" Asmo, the fourth member of the group, asked skeptically. "What could hurt us in a pizzeria?"

"Well, I suppose they probably have ovens to burn and knifes to chop," MC murmured quietly. "But if they were used for criminal purposes, the pizzeria would probably have been shut down already."

"Like what?" Asmo asked Pup again.

"Well, I heard that... um... one time, a person got bitten badly by one of the animatronics."

"Animatronics?" Silver asked, unwilling to be scared of anything a pizzeria could throw at him.

"Mechanical animals that dance during the day on that stage over there. At night, they go kind of... crazy. They come out and attack anything living in the corridors, believing they should be in an animatronic suit. But the suits have all kinds of stuff in them, and the people are crushed to death. There was one time someone's face got bitten off by one of them!

"They called it the Bite of '87, since that was the year it happened. That animatronic has never been see- what?"

Gray was giggling madly, doubled over and gasping for breath. "Bite... of... '87!" he choked, laughing harder. Silver whacked him on the back.

"But where are these so-called animatronics now?" MC mused, hand on his chin.

"Hunting us, probably," Pup said cryptically.

Chapter 2
"If they're metal," Silver wondered, "do you think I could beat one in a fight?"

"I don't think you could," Pup told him. "Caspiea might, though... Caspiea?"

There was no reply.

"She probably just went to use the bathroom or whatever," Gray said dismissively. MC continued thinking.

Finally, he burst out, "If these animatronics are in fact real, how could their AI change so drastically between night and day?"

Pup replied, lifting her hands above her head, "Child souls. You see, one day at this pizzeria, five children were taken backstage by a man in a Freddy Fazbear-" she indicated the brown bear grinning over the pizzeria logo "-suit. They were never heard from again.

"It is believed that their souls inhabit the suits now, seeking revenge on their attacker." She shivered.

"Well, I dunno about you, but I'm gonna go to the kitchen. I'm soaked, and a hot oven might help dry us off."

MC cocked his head. "That's a logical choice. I think I'll go with you."

Silver and Pup just shook their heads, collectively deciding to stay in the lobby and dry slower. The story had thoroughly scared both of them. "We'll just wait here for Caspiea," Pup murmured, teeth chattering.

Gray, shaking his head, left with MC for the kitchens.

Silver and Pup waited in the near-darkness, the moon obscured by rainclouds. Outside, it was still raining hard.

"D'you think Caspiea got taken by an animatronic?" Pup asked suddenly.

Silver wasn't there to reply. Instead, a dry creaking answered her.