It Won't Be That Bad

Ch 9

Speaking from experience, usually the first night wasn't always that difficult.

Michael sighed softly and leaned back against the back of the chair, his eyes scanning the surroundings with agility and caution. This place was quiet, there was no sound at all apart from the sound of the fan turning on and spinning, cooling the room. The rest was silent. The eldest Afton moved the chair forward closer to the table to take the tablet and check each room once again. Even though he didn't feel the sensation of terror as much as past experience, but still; being alone in a restaurant with several animatronics that he didn't know what their systems were like was still quite scary.

What would they do? Would they 'live' or not? They were just a new artificial intelligence program, not possessed by agony souls or operating for decades.

It was still one in the morning when he pointed the camera at the stage. The three main crew members still stood still in their respective places with completely unchanged default poses. So maybe they wouldn't be alive—there was no reason for them to act like they had their own realms of consciousness. Unless his father's artificial intelligence deviated from the program for some unknown reason. Even if they were active, he hoped they wouldn't wander around and just be active as entertainment in their respective places.

If he was really terrorized, then he would be the one to sue his own father this time.

Michael stifled an irritated groan and cursed why time was going so slowly—he wanted to go home and sleep in his soft bed rather than being here for the next seven days. He hadn't done this in a long time, after all. Checking the rooms in the restaurant again, he found nothing strange at all. The restaurant had not officially opened yet, so he indeed doubted that those animatronics would be system activated. Supposedly (if his guess wasn't wrong) nothing would happen while he was on guard for a week.

Talking about opening a new restaurant, Michael seemed hesitant. No, he wasn't doubting whether the restaurant would succeed or fail, but about his father. The case regarding corruption seemed to have been sniffed out by the public even though only a few media could be counted on one hand and had the issue in the gaps in their news, so he was a little concerned about his own father. Can that man handle it? Michael sighed, it could be that the lawsuit of his father's employees caused his reputation to be destroyed and what they had built would be in vain.

However, he couldn't be pessimistic about that, after all his father was innocent (at least in this case, exclude the murder he committed just for fun).

Cold sweat rolled down his forehead to his cheeks when he checked the room where the white animatronic fox was, had Mangle been staring at the camera all this time? However, that was actually not the biggest problem. There was something else that often bothered him every time he checked the room. Honestly, he would rather face Funtime Foxy than an animatronic that resembled him. He also checked the other three animatronics and there was still no change at all, so he assumed that tonight would pass without any obstacles.

His knuckles suddenly stood up, Michael glanced around quickly and frowned, he pursed his lips. He looked at every place he could and found nothing at all, so he took a deep breath as his hand gently rubbed the back of his neck. Then he checked the time again; it was almost half past three already?

Michael folded his arms in front of his chest and knitted his eyebrows, in his mind he wanted to leave this place and sleep in his bed, hugging his husband for more warmth in the cold night. In the end, he closed his eyes as he leaned his back once again against the back of the swivel chair.

The atmosphere was bright when he opened his eyes, confusion immediately hit him. What happened? Why was this room illuminated by morning sunlight? Michael slowly stood up from his seat, this office was still like the office his father had just recreated at this time, but it felt like something was different. The aura of the office changed, it felt more ... suffocating. He knitted his eyebrows, did he sleep until morning? If so, his father would definitely nag him because he was supposed to note down any irregularities if something happened.