The hum of the diner had become a steady rhythm in Harry's life. The soft flicker of fluorescent lights, the quiet tick of machinery, the sound of Plushtrap moving across metal surfaces—it was all part of a world he had shaped with precision.
Now, that same rhythm was the backdrop to something new.
Phase Two. The final stage of Remnant fusion.
The data from Phase One still glowed faintly on the console. Harry had spent the last several hours analyzing it—graphs of cellular adaptation, Remnant density, stability ratios. The human mind wasn't meant to process such complex energy, yet Harry was no longer entirely human.
"This will be the final integration," he murmured, eyes narrowing as he typed in new equations. "Once completed, the connection between organic and inorganic matter should reach equilibrium."
Plushtrap, sitting on a metal shelf nearby, tilted his head. "Equilibrium sounds fancy. You're basically saying you'll stop glowing weirdly, right?"
Harry's lips quirked slightly. "In theory." He paused, eyes scanning the lines of data. "If this works, the fusion will stabilize permanently. My body and soul will exist in complete balance with the Remnant's energy. No more chaos spikes, no more emotional bleed."
Plushtrap leaned forward. "And if it doesn't?"
"Then I find another way."
That was all Harry said. Calm, steady, absolute.
He finalized the plan—sequence timings, injector calibration, failsafe codes—and saved the blueprint to the diner's internal system. Everything was ready, but his body required rest before the next stage. Even with his reduced human needs, the mind still demanded moments of silence to organize its own data.
"Get some rest," Plushtrap said as Harry moved toward the cot. "I'll run simulations while you're out."
Harry nodded once and lay down. The moment his head touched the pillow, the hum of machinery faded into white noise, and his consciousness slipped into darkness.
But this time, the dream was different.
When Harry opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the quiet. Not the absence of sound—but a mechanical silence, heavy and precise, like the stillness between electrical pulses.
He was no longer in the twisted reflection of his room. Instead, he stood in a small office. The walls were a sterile gray-blue, the air faintly metallic.
Three monitors sat on a desk before him, their black screens reflecting his pale, white-haired image. A vent rested high on the wall above the desk, and two metal doors stood to either side—each marked by faint, glowing control buttons.
The faint buzz of old electronics hummed around him. Harry stepped forward slowly, observing every detail. His violet eyes flicked between the monitors and the vent.
It was neat. Controlled. Familiar, yet wrong.
"An observation point," he murmured. "But for what?"
The desk was organized—too organized. A small mug, a clipboard, and a series of faint fingerprints coated in dust. Everything hinted at prior use but not decay. Like someone had left and never come back.
He turned toward the back wall and tried the door directly opposite the desk. It resisted, unyielding. He applied more force. The lock didn't even rattle.
"Sealed," he muttered. "Or designed not to open from this side." That left the two side doors.
Harry turned left first. The panel flickered faintly when he pressed it, and the heavy metal door slid open with a hydraulic hiss.
Beyond it stretched a dim hallway lined with pipes. Steam drifted lazily from a few broken valves, giving the corridor a ghostly haze. The floor beneath his feet vibrated faintly with mechanical hums echoing from somewhere deep below.
He moved forward, silent and deliberate.
Halfway down the hall, something caught his attention—a small, open doorway on the left.
He stepped through it cautiously.
It was a narrow closet-like space. A single flickering bulb hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly as if disturbed. Rust streaked the walls, and a few empty crates sat in the corner. Nothing else. No movement. No sound.
Harry studied it for a few moments longer, eyes tracing the patterns of decay, then turned and left.
Back in the hallway, the hum grew stronger as he approached the door at the far end. This one was slightly ajar. He pushed it open.
The room beyond was much larger.
On the left, a wall of shelves stood cluttered with oddities—tools, coiled wires, fragments of broken metal masks, and scattered documents too damaged to read. Near the shelves were several tall, white air tanks, each labeled with warning stickers that had long since faded.
The air here was colder, sharper.
Harry turned his gaze to the right—and froze for a moment.
There was a stage. A small, half-circle platform with a thick purple curtain hanging limply across it. White stars decorated the fabric, the edges frayed from age.
Harry stepped closer, every instinct alert.
He reached out and pulled the curtain aside.
Nothing. Empty space.
The platform was bare except for the faint outline of dust where something once stood—a large shape, humanoid in outline, long gone now.
Harry's expression didn't change, but his thoughts were sharp. An animatronic, most likely. Removed or relocated. Stage configuration suggests audience interaction.
He let the curtain fall back into place and turned toward the far exit. Another hallway extended from the other side of the room, leading—he suspected—back toward the office.
He followed it, his steps echoing faintly.
The corridor was nearly identical to the one he had come through earlier, though there were subtle differences. The air here was drier, and the pipes were marked with warning labels—"COOLANT," "PRESSURE CONTROL," "DO NOT ACCESS."
Halfway down, a door stood slightly open on his left. He pushed it open, expecting another storage room—and found exactly that.
Empty shelves. Rusted metal. A single light flickering overhead.
He exhaled softly through his nose. A mirrored design. Symmetry in layout. Typical of security structures.
When he stepped back into the hallway and looked ahead, he could already see the faint glow from the office beyond.
Returning there felt… expected, somehow. Like the dream wanted him to come back.
As he crossed the threshold, the air in the office seemed heavier than before.
The monitors on the desk flickered.
Once. Twice.
Then all three screens lit up at once, their blackness replaced by shifting static.
Harry froze, every sense alert.
Lines of distorted color ran down the monitors, forming vague shapes that twitched and stuttered. The static hiss grew louder, then settled into a faint rhythmic crackle.
Then, the images began to take form. Writing appeared first stating "please stand by" then formed a muzzle. Sharp teeth. Long ears.
An animatronic fox, its colors warped and impossible—shades of orange, white, and purple bleeding into each other like liquid metal. Its single visible eye glowed faintly as it tilted its head, watching Harry through the screens.
The static pulsed in time with its movements.
Harry stared, unflinching, his reflection superimposed over the creature's image. For a moment, the two figures—boy and machine—merged on the glass surface, violet eyes meeting white dots across impossible distance.
Then, the fox's mouth opened slightly. No sound came out, but the screens flickered as though it were speaking in frequencies too low to hear.
Harry's voice was barely a whisper.
"…Who are you?"
The monitors pulsed once—brighter, stronger—and the fox's eye flashed with eerie intelligence.
Then all three screens went black again.
The silence that followed was thick and electric.
Harry didn't move for several seconds. His pulse was calm, but his mind was racing. An entity within the dreamscape… or a consciousness carried through the Remnant?
He turned his gaze toward the dark monitors, expression unreadable.
"Connection established," he murmured softly. "But with what?"
Somewhere, faintly, the vent above him rattled—just once—before falling still again.
Harry exhaled slowly and looked toward the sealed door at the back of the office.
For the first time since he entered the dream, he felt something subtle: a pull.
Not physical—but magnetic. A call from beyond that locked door, silent but undeniable.
He reached toward it—then stopped.
The world around him began to flicker. The edges of the office bled into static and white noise.
The dream was ending.
As darkness crept in from the edges of his vision, Harry caught one last flicker of the monitors behind him.
The fox was there again—smiling this time.
When Harry's eyes snapped open, the hum of Fredbear's returned. Plushtrap was perched beside him, holding a clipboard.
"You twitched a lot," the animatronic said. "Dream again?"
Harry sat up slowly, rubbing his temple. His skin was faintly cool, his mind still echoing with static. "Yes. But not the same one as before."
He looked toward the far wall, where the reflection of the machinery shimmered faintly. "It's connected somehow… a new area and a new animatronic."
Plushtrap frowned. "You think it means something?"
Harry smiled faintly. "Everything means something."
He turned his gaze to the console where the plans for the final Remnant fusion waited, glowing softly on the screen.
"Once the fusion is complete," he said, voice calm and deliberate, "I'll have the control—and the clarity—to find out what's calling me."
The hum of the diner deepened around them. Somewhere, far beyond the walls of Fredbear's, the world continued turning—blissfully unaware that something extraordinary was beginning to stir again.