Pixel Drop gets a Job

"Hey, you must be the kid that accepted the job! Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's pizzeria. Lemme show ya to your office."

Pixel Drop's new boss happily chirped. Her boss was a rather friendly looking mare, smile on her purple face. She also had a rather enthusiastic tone to her voice. Huh. Seems like Pixel got a good boss. A friendly, nice one, it seemed. How splendid.

The purple coated, slightly brighter pink (striped with violet) maned mare motioned for Pixel Drop to follow down the dulled down, rainbow hallway. Pixel Drop couldn't help but look at the surrounding walls and such while she followed her new boss.

The walls were rather dirty looking things, with their checkerboard patterns with a dulled down rainbow where the whites of the checkerboard would be. The walls were all scratched and horrible looking. Considering the fact that these things were made out of concrete, there were a couple big cracks in them as well. Made the place look run-down and old. Which, keep in mind, it was.

As the two walked down the hallway, her boss began to ramble about some seemingly unimportant things. Something about the previous Night Guard quitting suddenly or something like that. It didn't sound important, honestly. Though, what did seem important was a poster that was on the hallway's wall. It caught her eye. Personally, it seemed a bit.. Off.

She stopped in front of the poster, her boss just continuing to walk on.

"Hey, what's the thing on this poster?"

Pixel asked, her boss stopping in their tracks before turning around. With a quirked eyebrow, her still unnamed boss looked over at said poster. The poster itself was of a bright blue bunny with some cartoonishly big eyes. It's eyes were a deep green, as it's eyes were opened wide. Something about this bunny just didn't seem right. The way it was looking at the pony taking the photo or the way the pony had illustrated it made the bunny look metallic. Robot-like, actually.

"Oh, that's Clyde. He's one of the animatronics you'll be watching over during the night shift. Now, there's no time to loose, I have to introduce you to the cast and get you into your office. Follow me."

Her boss smiled before continuing down the hall. Pixel Drop hesitated. She was thinking of just running out now. There was no detail about looking over creepy robots in the job description. No, no there wasn't. Hopefully there was still a chance to get out of this job while she still could.

...

It.. just felt like a blink. It felt like a blink, a teleport. Time had flown so quickly that now she was in another room. Alone. It was a large, square room. Televisions were piled up on every corner of the room. Kind of a weird aesthetic choice, but whatever. What was also a weird aesthetic choice were the starry streamers hanging down from the gray ceiling.

Pixel noticed the fairly big flaw in this room. There was huge, almost gigantic doorway straight ahead. This doorway was pitch-black. It was impossible to see down into the hallway without a light-source. Luckily enough, on the desk in front of her, there was a small flashlight that she could use.

Pixel picked up the little flashlight in her hoof and shot a beam of light down the corridor. Nothing was down there. Why would there be? It's not like some sort of monster would be down there. Hah. That'd be.. ridiculous. This place was already creepy enough with its prison colored walls and its weird noises. Yeah, those weird noises.. Didn't sound very inviting. The place was creaking all by itself. Considering that the floor was tile and the walls were concrete, Pixel could only imagine why the place was creaking. It was a mystery that would probably never be solved, she guessed.

Pixel looked over her wooden desk. There were a couple things on the desk. A desk fan, a phone, and a sort of tablet device. The tablet glowed softly as Pixel picked it up in order to look at it. On the screen was a rather.. Strange scene. Well, not so much strange as it was a tad unnerving.

On the screen was the time, the REC in the top right corner and that was about it. Well, for the interface portion at least. What was being shown behind the interface were three things. Mascots, of sorts. Tall robots that stood on their hind legs. There was one recognizable face in the crowd of three robots. The blue bunny from the poster was standing there, next to the brown bear. On the other side of the brown bear was a chicken with a cupcake.

These robots were just standing there. Pixel decided she would put down the tablet for now. She didn't want to look at those things.

You remember that phone? Well, it started to ring. Pixel knew not to pick up the phone. How did she know this? There was a posted note on the phone's buttons that said 'Don't pick up the phone' in black Sharpie. So, that's exactly what Pixel did. She let the phone ring out.

"H-Hello? Hello! Hello!"

The voice on the telephone greeted after Pixel left it to go to voicemail. She didn't recognize the voice of this pony. Maybe it was one of the day shift members that she would never get a chance to see.

"Uh, hello and welcome to your new summer job at the new and improved Freddy Fazbears pizza. I'm here to talk you through some of the things you can expect to see on your first week here to help you get started down this new and exciting career path."

Well, the way he made it sound certainly made this whole situation less creepy. Maybe she would just be sitting here for six hours doing nothing but fiddling her hooves.

"Uh, I want you to forget anything you may have heard about the old location. Y'know, some people still have a negative impression of the company.. Uh.. That old restaurant was left to rot for quite a while, but I want to reassure you that Fazbear entertainment is committed to family fun and above all, safety."

Oh, yes. How very interesting. This certainly didn't put Pixel off at all. Considering she knew absolutely nothing about this place. She was just here to work and get paid. That's it. Pixel grabbed onto the tablet again just to look at the screen. She looked down at the icon in the bottom right of the screen. It seemed to be a map of the place.

"The company spent a small fortune on these new animatronics, facial recognition, advanced mobility.. They even let them walk around during the day. Isn't that mean.." The voice stopped to cough for a second, "They're all tied into some sort of criminal database so they can detect a predator a mile away. Hey, we should be paying them to guard you."

This guy's humor wasn't the best, was it? Pixel looked down at the map. She poked at one of the other box areas with her hoof. The screen switched over to a new location. It was a new room labeled 'Parts & Service'. The screen was black, so Pixel just decided to go to switch the screen to a different room.

"Now, with that being said, no new system is without it's.. kinks." Pixel didn't like how he said kinks. "Uhh.. You're only the second guard to work in that location,  uh, the first guy finished his week but complained about.. conditions. Uhh.. We switched him over to the day shift."

Good for that guy, Pixel guessed. It doesn't seem too hard to sit around in a concrete room for six hours, in her opinion.

"So hey, lucky you, right? Mainly his first concern was that characters seemed to move around at night and even attempted to get into his office."

Yeah, okay-.. Wait, WHAT? Characters, those robot things, would try to get into this room? Oh, Pixel WONDERED HOW THEY WOULD GET THROUGH THAT GIGANTIC GATE WITH NO CLOSEABLE DOOR OVER THERE. Or even these, NOT SEALED OFF AIR VENTS. Bloody hell.

"Now, from what we know, that should be impossible. That restaurant should be the safest place on earth. So while our engineers don't have an explanation for this, the theory is that the robots were never given a proper night mode. Sooo when it gets quiet, they think they're in the wrong room and when they try to go find where the people are.. In this case, that's your office."

This is terrible. This is absolutely horrible. Why did she accept this job without actually asking what she would be doing? She's going to be supervising these horrible nightmare machines all through the night. She only hoped Celestia's sun would rise early.

Pixel was just clicking on all the rooms. She looked at every single one. Nearly all of them were pitch black. Not a surprise, it was piss dark in here. It was night and even with the lights on, some places stayed unlit. This is when she noticed a little button, off by the bottom left of the screen. When she pressed it, a sort of flash light lit up the room. The current room she had selected was the 'Prize Corner'. It showed off all the little toys in there. Kinda cute, if their eyes didn't glow in the dark.

"So our temporary solution is this, there's a music box over by the prize counter and it's rigged to be wound up remotely. So just every once and a while, switch over to the prize counter video feed and wind it up for a couple seconds. It doesn't seem to effect all the animatronics but it does effect.. one."

One. One?! He's got to be shitting her. Well, one was better than none, she guessed.

She also noticed a full, white circle by a text box that says 'Click and Hold to wind'. She tapped on the box and held it, hearing the sound of a winding music box. Delightful. It's not like that would do anything, seeing as how there was a full circle. Probably meaning it was fully wound.

"Uh, as for the other ones, we have an even easier solution. You see, there may be a minor glitch in the system. Something about a robot seeing you without a costume on and wanting to stuff you into a suit.. So, hey, we've given you an empty Freddy Fazbear Head! Problem solved!"

Pixel put down the tablet. On the floor, next to the gray office chair she was currently sitting on, there was a helmet of sorts. It was shaped like a bear's face. This was probably the thing he was talking about. She put it up onto the desk so it could be easily reached.

"You can put it on anytime and keep it on for as long as you want. Eventually, anything that wandered in will wander back out. Uh.. Something else worth mentioning is the Quartz Modern design of the building. There's no doors for you to close. Heh. Uh.. But you do have a flashlight. Even though your flashlight will run out of power, the building will cannot. So, you don't have to worry about the place going dark."

Pixel sighed. First day on the job. Fantastic. How long was she going to stay here for? A week, she promised the company. Great. Fantastic. She was going to complain to her boss tomorrow.

"Uh, I think that should be it. You should be golden. Check the lights, put on the Freddy Head if you need to. Uh.. Keep the music box wound up, piece of cake. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

With that, the message was over. It was currently 2AM. Time progressed rather quickly in Equestria. A lot quicker than on Earth. I won't go into detail, but I'll just sum it up by saying that the planet Equestria is on spins a lot faster than Earth does.

Pixel looked back at the tablet. She wound up the music box some more. It had lost a tiny fraction of it's wound-up-ness. It wasn't something she needed to worry about for now. She switched over to one of the other feeds. She looked back over the stage. Something was missing.

Suddenly, the phone began to ring again. Pixel snorted. Didn't the message just end? Whatever. It didn't matter. He must've forgotten to mention something. She let it ring out as she tried to look for what was gone from the screen. The realization was swift. That blue bunny from before was gone. Crap. Where did it go? Pixel frantically tapped around the map, pressing the flashlight on each room to try and find said bunny.

When he appeared on screen again, his face was RIGHT UP TO THE SCREEN. Nearly made her throw the tablet in shock, honestly.

The phone picked up again.

"Sorry, uh.. I forgot to mention that if you ever see a puppet out in the hallways after your shift ends, just put it into the big present box in the prize room. I have no idea why, but the boss gets real mad if that puppet isn't inside the box. Uh.. I doubt you'll see it at all, if you're winding up the music box."

So some weird puppet was connected to the music box being wound up, okay then. Pixel stared at the bunny on screen, whispering 'stay there, butthead' before switching to the stage camera. You know, just to check on the others.

"Alright. That should be it. Uh.. Goodnight."

He hung up again. Pixel kind of wished he didn't. It was creepy being here with nopony else in here except for the huge robots on this small screen.

Suddenly, a little warning started to flash up on the screen. It was an orange caution sign and it blinked from the Prize Corner. Tapping on the room, Pixel noticed the circle was quickly diminishing. So, she held it for a couple seconds. Pixel recognized the song that the music box played. It was a song called Grandfather Clock. Old childhood song, it was.

This job was pretty boring on the first night. Though, she didn't know what would be coming at her in a little bit. Who knows, maybe the bunny moved. Hopefully not.

Once fully winding up the music box again, Pixel went to check on the bunny's previous location. Gone. Just then, she heard a clanging in the air vents. The one to the right. Oh shit. Was.. was the bunny in the vents? Pixel shakily put the tablet down and looked over at the vent to the right of her.

A hand slowly made its way out of the vent. A blue, robotic hand. It clung onto the wall next to it as it began to push the rest of its body out of the vent. Oh shit, oh shit.. Pixel panicked. She fumbled, dropping the tablet onto the floor to grab the mask and shove it onto her face. The tablet clanged against the tile flooring of the ground. It cracking was the least of her worries right now.

Her breaths were quick as she felt sweat slowly beginning to form as she saw the bunny crawl out of the vents. It was slow, torturously slow. Like it was taunting her. Trying to make the atmosphere settle in. Its big, green eyes stared down at her. The bunny was huge. It was extremely huge. It was as tall as Celestia herself, maybe even taller. The way it stood was unnatural and weird. On its two hind legs.. It's like this robot was designed for the pure reason of being creepy.

The robot stared at her. It slowly approached, a manufactured plastic smile on its blue face. Pixel felt herself cling onto the chair with her hooves as it approached. It stopped not a couple feet away from her. It had gone around the desk instead of in front of it.

The blue bunny bent over, meeting face to face with Pixel.

"Go away, go away.."

She muttered to herself frantically over and over as it stared at her. She could feel her heart inside her throat as it tilted its head.

"F-F-Freddy, aren-n't you s-supposed to be i-in the b-backroom? O-o-old men l-like you c-could b-break somet-thing out i-in the o-open l-like this, d-darlin. W-we c-can't have you s-scarin all t-the custom-mers now c-can we? N-No offense darlin, b-but you're t-too ugly f-for the kids."

The bunny talked. It talked in this sort of country accent. Though, the way it talked didn't concern Pixel. What did concern her was that SHE WAS BEING PICKED UP.

The blue bunny picked up the now flailing and struggling pony and held her a decent ways away. You know, as to not get hurt. Pixel was putting up a fight, that was for damn sure. The bunny was holding her pretty tight, though. Her forehooves were pinned to her sides while her hind legs dangled. All the while, she had to look at her kidnapper. Her kidnapper didn't look at her. It was busy looking at the pizzeria terrain infront of itself.

As it walked down the pitch black hallway, Pixel felt something hit her mentally. She wasn't going to die. She was going to be put in the backroom. Then, she would have to stay there until morning came. Four or three hours from now. She would have to sit back there with some old animatronics that probably looked all creepy and demonic. Also, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to walk around during the night. She might bump into one of the robots.

Oh.

Hah.

The music box.

Shit.

"Let me go!"

Pixel finally shouted as soon as she realized her life could actually be in danger. The bunny didn't reply. Pixel spasmed her legs, trying to hit the bunny. Probably not the best idea. Nevertheless to say, she was lucky to not actually hit the bunny. She was too short-legged.

Their destination was coming up. The blue bunny stopped in front of the door. It looked back down at Pixel suddenly, making her adrenaline flood from the jumpscare. Dear Celestia, she wanted to burn this place down with all these robots in it. How could children stand to be even near this nightmare-fuel machine? She felt petrified underneath the metallic monster's stare.

It traded Pixel off into one of its hands and opened up the backroom's door with the other. It then proceeded to underhand toss Pixel into the literally pitch black room. She landed with a thump onto the floor face-first.

"W-We better n-not see you o-out again F-Freddy darlin or e-else w-we'll convince h-her to tear o-off your legs. G-goodnight."

The bunny bid farewell before slamming the door. The last bit of light eminated from the small crack beneath the door. Pixel crawled over to the door, pushing her back up against the cold, hard steel door. Well, at least she didn't have to see the old animatronics.

That could actually be a bad thing. Well, they probably couldn't reactivate unless they had some personal staff reactivate them. Like the engineers or manager. Pixel wouldn't be activating those old things. No way, no how. Chances were that they'd just kill her on the spot. So, she wasn't going to be turning any of them on tonight (or any night for that fact).  For now, she would just sit here.

She took off the mask. She didn't need it anymore. If she was just going to sit in this pitch black room with robots that she won't be turning on, there's no reason to have it on. Plus, going out there now would be a bad idea. That bunny threatened to tear her legs off. Definitely not a thing that she wanted to happen. So, she'd just sit in here.

...

It sure was dark.

Oddly quiet.

...

Yup, just sittin here. In the dark.

Pixel began to hum a little tune that she had heard previously. She hummed it quietly. It seemed like something to pass the time. She hummed what she remembered from the song. It had been a long time since she had ever heard it.

That's when another song slowly began intruding her eardrums. From outside, another song played. It started off soft, but it grew louder and louder. It was another song made for children. Pop goes the weasel. She remembered it. This invading song quickly overpowered Pixel's soft hum of her own song. This made her determined to make her song louder. She turned it into a whistle.

Just as she started this whistle, the door flung open with great force. Pixel lost her backrest, as it was a pull door and not a push. She landed on her back, looking straight up. The popping weasels song had stopped. The only thing making noise now was Pixel's whistle. Which had cut off rather quickly once she noticed a tall figure standing above her. It stood on it's hind legs, much like everything else her. It had a tall, slender stature. It's fingers had a boney structure and looked sort of like claws. She quickly counted four fingers, including the thumb.

She still had not seen the face, and she preferred to not see the face at all. Pixel scrambled into the darkness of the room quickly, snatching the mask as she did. Though, she quickly found herself stopped. Not that she stopped herself. She didn't want to stop running into the safety of the darkness that contained inactive murderous machines. She was stopped by a sudden weight on her back.

Pixel swung her head around to see what was on her. The figure from before now laid on her. Was it dead? Maybe. She hoped it was. Pixel now made out the face. It was a round head, the majority of the front was covered by a pale mask. The face of the mask was in her fur, so she couldn't see what the face looked like.

Well, the thing seemed harmless. For now. So, Pixel whistled the tune from before as she crawled back over to close the door. She didn't want anything getting in here and killing her. She didn't have her mask on anymore, after all. The door was unsurprisingly heavy and hard to close from the inside. She had to get up in order to close it. She just continued to whistle, the whistle now turning back down to a hum.

She put the unidentified figure next to her as she leaned up against the door again. This was going to be a long night. Well, now she had a.. friend. Well, not really. It was just sitting down next to her while she hummed. At least it kept her company. Knowing that something that wasn't trying to kill her was now right beside her, it made her slightly comfortable. The unease from being in this place still didn't settle, though.

All through the night, all she did was hum the same tune over and over. What tune? Grandfather's Clock. She hummed it, over and over again.

The three hours felt long and torturously boring. There were a couple things that changed through the hours. The thing that she had put next to her had placed its head on her shoulder. She could feel the side of the mask rubbing up against her shoulder. She still didn't know what the face of the thing looked like. Neither did she want to know. Maybe it was better for the both of them if she didn't know. As long as the two got along, she was content.

Pixel found herself at 6AM. A loud ringing echoed through the halls of the building. It was obnoxious and high-pitched. She remembered her boss saying that the sign that it was 6AM was a bell of sorts. Well, that was it. Pixel gave a grin as she pushed on the steel door once more. Her acquaintance fell over, just as she did a couple hours back. All the lights in the building were now on, even the ones in the backroom.

She really preferred to not see what was sitting in the back of the room. She cringed and shivered at the sight of those things DIRECTLY STARING AT HER. Nevertheless to say, she was going to get her mutual ally and mask. So, when she looked down at her mutual, she was greeted by a sleeping face. The mask literally had a closed eyed face on it. Well, it was better than it having a huge grin.

Pixel grabbed the mask and put it on for an easier transport. She looked down at the thing that sat by her all night. It looked like some sort of puppet of sorts. Minus the strings. Wait, didn't the guy on the phone talk about a puppet? Well, nevertheless to say, she had to put it back in some box in the Prize Corner.

She picked up the black (with white stripes) puppet with her hooves, placing it perpendicular to her back. It felt soft. Mostly because it was made out of some sort of felt. Well, at least it wasn't scratchy and weird. Better to be soft.

Pixel trotted down the halls, going past the stage where the blue bunny and other mechanical animals stood. Their eyes were closed as they stood in place. She hissed underneath her breath. Folding her ears back as she glared at the blue bunny. She was going to have that thing reprimanded for threatening her tomorrow, she swore.

As she trotted into the Prize Corner, she looked around. There were some really creepy drawings all over the walls. All made by children, she presumed. They were all doodled on lined paper. Some showed the animatronics, others showed the black puppet that was currently limp on her back. Maybe this puppet thing was out here to get her as well. She hoped not.

She just couldn't wind the music box because that blue bunny took her away to the back room. She'd keep it wound up tomorrow night. She didn't want to see if this puppet was out for blood, like the guy on the phone described the animatronics to be. Well, actually, he described the animatronics to be more of things that see ponies as skeletons or something like that.

"Alright, you go in here."

Pixel said to herself as she placed the puppet into the box. She closed the box soon after. She walked off without another thought.

After returning the mask back to her office and picking the tablet off the floor, Pixel headed out the door. Well, that night was eventful. She was going to complain to her boss tomorrow. No way was she not going to complain to her boss about that blue bunny's threats and the possible life endangerment in this place. She was gonna sue the place if she ever got injured. Luckily enough, nothing but a few scratches and bruises today.

Hopefully the next night, she wouldn't even see any of those robots.