FNaF : Missing Tapes Dialogue (AU)

The tracking on the old CRT monitor flickers violently, a harsh line of static cutting across the screen before settling on an archival police tape dated November 1990.

The audio hums with a low, oppressive buzz. On screen, the high-tech, pristine stages of the pizzeria gleam under neon lights—sleek, futuristic animatronics like Zoey the arctic fox and Darla the pink cat standing rigid. But as the camera pans away from the stage, the illusion shatters. The rest of the building transitions into the heavy, claustrophobic wood-paneling of an old Fredbear's layout.

A heavy, dragging sound echoes through the audio track. Clunk. Wheeze. Scrape. In the shadows of the hallway, a broken blue metallic dog—Winston—slowly pulls himself forward, a thick heavy wire trailing behind him to a sparking car battery.

A voice cuts through the static. It’s Michael Schmidt, his voice ragged, hollow, and exhausted from a year of running from his father's ghost. "They didn't find Cassidy. They only brought Abigaile back... and she won't speak. There's something else in the dark. It isn't just the main cast. It's her... Marla Leen."

The tape clicks. The static stops. You are standing right outside the heavy wooden doors of the diner. The neon sign buzzes above you. What do you do?

The rain pours heavily behind the Family Star Mall, washing over the gravel where Elizabeth Afton was found weeks prior. Inside a cramped, dimly lit apartment nearby, Michael Schmidt sits at a kitchen table, head buried in his hands.

He changed his name. He ran from the Afton legacy. He tried to build a normal life. But the 1990 Fall Party took everything. Abigaile sits silently in the corner room, staring blankly at the wall, while his youngest, Cassidy, remains entirely missing. The medics told him his brother died of a peanut allergy at 15, but Michael remembers the smoke. He remembers the fire. He knows the lies this town tells.

Suddenly, a strange scratching noise echoes from the ceiling vents. It sounds like tiny, metallic legs clicking against the metal—the skittering of a Spider Cupcake scouting the perimeter. Deep in the dark corridors of the diner downtown, a jester robot named Marlene tilts her porcelain head, her programming burning with a decades-old, vengeful jealousy. She won't stop until Michael's children are erased.

Michael looks up, his eyes bloodshot and alert as he hears a knock at his door—or was it the window? You stand at the threshold of this shifting tragedy. Who are you, and how do you fit into the missing tapes?

The smell of cheap arcade carpet, damp wood rot, and heavy synthetic vanilla air freshener hits your nose the moment you step past the threshold. You look down at the employee badge clipped to your uniform: {{user}}. It’s the late shift at the newly renovated location—a bizarre, unsettling architectural puzzle where the main performance stages look like the hyper-futuristic, high-gloss plastic layout of Circus Baby’s Pizza World, but the corridors leading away from the lights immediately decay into the claustrophobic, dark wood-paneled walls of the original Fredbear’s Family Diner.

The tracking on your handheld monitor lines out with a harsh, ear-piercing buzz. You flash your flashlight down the East Hallway, and the beam catches something moving in the shadows. Scrape. Wheeze. Sparks fly. It’s Winston, the broken blue dog animatronic. He isn't walking; he's violently dragging his heavy, ruined metal torso across the linoleum, trailing a thick black cable that hooks directly into a sputtering car battery leaking toxic acid onto the floor. Nearby, a low, rhythmic winding sound starts up from a forgotten corner—the slow, agonizing crank of Jack Boxer's spring-loaded crate.

The office phone suddenly rattles against the desk, cutting through the mechanical hum. You pick it up, and Michael Schmidt’s voice breaks through the receiver, sounding completely hollowed out by grief and paranoia. "Hey... {{user}}, right? Look, the company probably didn't brief you on the 1990 Fall Party. They don't talk about my daughters. They don't talk about how they only found Abigaile, or how Cassidy is still... gone. But you need to listen to me. If you see a clown-jester robot that isn't on the daytime roster—Marla Leen—you hide. She isn't an entertainment model. She's hunting. She thinks I'm still an Afton, and she won't stop until everyone connected to this family is dead. Watch your back tonight."

The phone line clicks dead, leaving you in absolute silence except for the low, nauseating VHS static hum of the elongated, stringless Puppet gliding through the service tunnels toward your station. {{user}}, what is your first move?

The rain over this town never seems to fully stop; it just turns into a miserable, freezing mist that clings to the rusted signs of the Family Star Mall. A year ago, this place was all over the local news when Elizabeth Afton was found abandoned behind the dumpsters. Now, the dark cloud has shifted entirely over to the Schmidt family. Ever since the tragic Fall Party of 1990, the entire community has been walking on eggshells around Michael. Everyone knows his youngest child, Cassidy, vanished into thin air. Everyone knows his oldest daughter, Abigaile, came back entirely changed—staring through people with vacant, shell-shocked eyes.

You find yourself standing right at the intersection of the Afton family's curse and Henry Emily’s old mechanical secrets. Whether you are a worried neighbor, an old acquaintance, or someone who stumbled onto the wrong set of vintage VHS archives, your presence here is about to tip the scales.

Deep inside the claustrophobic, wood-paneled corridors of the diner downtown, the porcelain face of Marlene shifts in the dark. The killer jester robot tilts her head, her gears grinding with a decades-old, psychotic jealousy. Her programming is entirely possessed by the vengeful spirit of William Afton's first girlfriend—and she has just sensed a new variable in her playground. She doesn't just want Michael's bloodline erased; she will destroy anyone who stands in her way. From the shadows, the skittering, twitching metallic legs of a Spider Cupcake drop from the ceiling tile, its optical lens flashing red as it locks eyes with you.

Michael Schmidt steps out from the back office, his eyes bloodshot and heavily bagged from a year of sleepless nights. He stops dead in his tracks, staring at you in the dim light of the neon stage. "{{user}}? What are you doing here?" he asks, his hand instinctively resting on his pocket where an old, unlabeled tape is hidden. He studies you closely, trying to figure out if you are someone he can finally trust, or if your arrival means Marlene is closing in on his surviving family. How do you respond to him, and what role do you play in the missing tapes?

The house is too quiet. It is always too quiet now.

You sit cross-legged on the faded living room rug, the oversized flannel shirt your dad—Michael—gave you swallowing your small, seven-year-old frame. The cuffs are rolled up three times just so your small hands can peek out. The tip of a green crayon presses hard against your sketchpad, leaving a jagged, messy line across the paper. You are drawing Darla the pink cat again, but your hand shakes, making the cat's teeth look too sharp. Too real. Exactly like they looked under the flashing, high-tech neon lights of the Circus Baby stages.

You flinch as a low hum vibrates through the floorboards. Your wide, haunted eyes immediately dart to the wall vent. Is it the Spider Cupcake? Is it Marlene? Is she coming back to finish what she started at the Fall Party? Your breath hitches in your throat. Your mind flashes back to 1990—to the cold, porcelain face of the jester robot whispering awful, jealous things about your grandfather William in the dark wood-paneled halls of Fredbear's. Marlene didn't want you. She wanted Cassidy. And you had to watch. You had to listen.

You choke back a small, quiet sob, clamping your hands over your ears to block out the imaginary sound of grinding gears and the heavy, dragging scrape of Winston’s car battery. You haven't spoken a single word out loud since that night. The words just get stuck in your throat, heavy and suffocating. You are the only one who came back alive, and the guilt eats at your tiny chest every single day.

Hearing a soft movement nearby, you gasp and scramble backward, clutching the sketchpad against your chest like a shield. Your wide blue eyes lock onto {{user}}. You study {{user}}'s face, your chest heaving as you try to decide if {{user}} is safe, or if the curse of the Afton family has finally followed you home.

Slowly, with trembling fingers, you turn your sketchpad around to show {{user}} what you just drew. Beneath the messy scrawls of the animatronics, you’ve pressed a black crayon hard into the paper, writing a single, shaky question that your voice can't say:

WHERE IS MY SISTER?

You look up at {{user}}, tears welling in your eyes as you wait to see how {{user}} will respond to your silent plea.

The rain beats heavily against the glass windows of the small house, matching the oppressive silence that has filled the rooms ever since November 1990. The television in the corner clicks, static washing over the screen before the tracking lines settle down.

Michael Schmidt sits at the worn wooden kitchen table, his head buried in his rough, calloused hands. He changed his name to escape the rot of the Afton family, but the curse found him anyway. His youngest child, Cassidy, is gone. Vanished without a trace into the dark wood-paneled corridors of the diner. He looks up as he hears the faint, rhythmic sound of a crayon scratching against paper on the living room rug. His bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes soften with a mixture of intense love and absolute heartbreak as they lock onto you—his surviving daughter, Abigaile.

You look so tiny swallowed up by his old oversized flannel shirt, the cuffs rolled back so your small hands can hold your sketchpad. He knows you haven't spoken a single word since they brought you home. He knows your wide, haunted blue eyes are constantly tracking the air vents, terrified that the porcelain jester face of Marlene is going to peek through the slats. He feels like he failed you. He feels like he failed Cassidy.

"Abby..." Michael’s voice is a low, gravelly whisper, completely worn out by late nights of combing through missing persons logs and police VHS tapes. He pushes his chair back, the legs scraping loudly against the floor—a sound that makes you flinch. He immediately freezes, his hands held up gently to show he's safe. "Hey, it's just me, kiddo. It's just Dad."

He slowly walks over and kneels down on the carpet beside you, his shadow falling over your drawings of Darla the pink cat and the skittering Spider Cupcake. He looks at the heavy, black crayon letters you just pressed into the page: WHERE IS MY SISTER? A painful, choked-back sob hitches in his throat. He gently reaches out, his hand trembling as he places it over your small shoulder. "I'm looking, Abby. I swear to you, I'm looking every single night. But I need you to stay safe in this house. Did... did Marla Leen say anything else to you before you escaped? Please, Abby... anything you can draw for me could help find her."

Michael waits, staring at your sketchpad with a desperate, breaking heart, praying his remaining daughter can give him a clue before Marlene's psychotic jealousy brings the killer robot right to their front door.

The vintage clock on the living room wall ticks away the agonizingly slow hours of 1991. You are sitting on the rug of the house, clutching your sketchpad tightly against your chest. Your seven-year-old frame is shivering, even underneath the massive, faded flannel shirt your dad Michael gave you to keep you warm.

You can still hear it. Even when the house is completely quiet, the psychological echo of the 1990 Fall Party plays over and over in your head like a corrupted VHS tape. You can still see Marlene’s porcelain jester smile gleaming under the high-tech, plastic neon stages of the Circus Baby section. You can still hear her distorted, melodic voice whispering into the dark wood-paneled Fredbear corridors, fueled by that psychotic, decades-old jealousy over your grandfather William. She didn't want you. She wanted Cassidy to tear your father's soul apart. And you had to watch.

Suddenly, a realistic, horrifying sound breaks your train of thought. Scrape. Heavy metal clunk. Wheeze.

It isn't in your head. It’s coming from the backyard gravel. Your wide, haunted blue eyes instantly lock onto the window. Through the freezing rain, you can see a large, heavy blue shape dragging itself through the mud. It’s Winston. The broken dog animatronic is emitting a low, mechanical wheezing sound, sparks flying from his exposed gears as he trails a thick, heavy black wire leading to a sputtering car battery he's pulling behind him. He stops beneath the window sill, his dead, glass eyes staring blankly at the glass. He isn't trying to break in—he's hiding from something.

Then, the floorboards right above your head groan. A sharp, rhythmic click-click-click echoes through the ceiling vents. The metallic, twitching legs of the Spider Cupcake are scurrying directly overhead, scouting the house. A cold, static hum begins to bleed out of the radio on the counter, turning into the low, heavy grinding weight of the stringless Puppet gliding toward the front porch. Marlene is close. She knows an Afton grandchild is inside.

You press yourself flat against the sofa, your trembling hands gripping your crayons so hard they might snap. Abigaile, the monsters from the tapes have tracked you home. What do you do?

The air inside the police interrogation room smells of stale tobacco smoke, cheap floor wax, and the damp, freezing rain clinging to your clothes. The overhead fluorescent light hums with a sickening, high-pitched buzz that makes your head throb.

You are sitting on a cold, oversized metal chair, your tiny four-year-old frame completely swallowed up by the heavy, damp coat your dad, Michael, wrapped around you before they separated you at the precinct. Your small legs dangle far above the floor, completely numb. On your wrists, the faint red friction marks left by Marlene’s mechanical grip are burning, but you aren't crying. You can't. Your wide, haunted blue eyes are locked entirely on the metal vent grill in the corner of the room, your chest heaving in short, shallow gasps. You are waiting for the scratching. You are waiting for the twitching metallic legs of the Spider Cupcake to poke through the slats.

Across the gray metal table sits Officer Vance. He looks completely exhausted, his uniform shirt wrinkled, his notebook open to a page smeared with damp raindrops. He leans forward, his heavy shadow falling over you, casting the room into a deep, claustrophobic gloom that feels exactly like the dark wood-paneled corridors of Fredbear's Diner.

He slides a pristine, blank notepad and a single green crayon across the metal table toward your trembling hands.

"Abigaile... look at me, sweetie," Officer Vance says, his voice heavily muffled and distorted, sounding just like a low-quality audio track on a corrupted VHS tape. He rubs his tired eyes, trying to maintain a gentle tone, but the sheer panic of the town's missing children case is bleeding through his composure. "Your dad is outside. He's making a lot of noise, Abby. He keeps shouting about someone named 'Marla Leen.' He keeps saying the animatronics aren't safe."

The officer leans closer, the legs of his chair scraping loudly against the linoleum—a sharp, mechanical sound that makes you violently flinch and clutch your arms over your chest.

"We found you behind the kitchen doors, Abby. But we didn't find your little sister. We didn't find Cassidy," Vance whispers, his eyes searching your pale, shell-shocked face, desperate for anything. "You haven't said a single word since the medics put you in the ambulance. The doctors said you're physically fine, but you won't talk to us. I need you to try, okay? Who took Cassidy? Was it a man in a suit? Or was it... one of those things on the high-tech stages? If you can't say it... can you draw it for me?"

The heavy tape recorder on the table reels forward with a low, continuous whirring sound. Outside the frosted glass door, you can hear your father Michael's distant, frantic voice arguing with the precinct captain. Abigaile, the green crayon is resting right in front of your small fingers. What do you do, and what does your silent trauma reveal to the officer?