Chapter Text
Gregory was an enigma, to himself and to the world.
From the moment he entered it, he seemed powered by rage and spite alone.
The doctors had declared him stillborn. A limp, cooling body that refused to breathe. His mother had gone silent with shock, staring at the tiny, unmoving shape in the doctor’s hands.
Then his father opened his mouth.
“Figures,” the man snarled, voice thick with contempt, “Useless woman, can’t even give me a kid who—”
And that was when the dead little baby moved.
It was small at first. A twitch, a spark—
Then he came back to life with a violent, furious scream. As if the sound of his father’s disgust had yanked him back from whatever darkness he’d been drifting in.
The doctors nearly dropped him. His mother sobbed with relief and his father swore, storming out of the room.
Gregory didn’t remember any of this, of course, but his mother told the story often enough that it became a kind of myth. The day her son fought his way into the world out of sheer stubbornness.
She always called him her little trooper.
She’d sit beside him at night, brushing his hair back, telling him stories of impossible people doing impossible things. Soldiers who crawled through mud and fire, fighters who outsmarted monsters, victims who refused to stay victims.
“You’re like them,” she’d whisper, “You’re strong. You’re clever. You don’t give up.”
Gregory absorbed every word.
He didn’t take shit from anyone.
He stood up to kids twice his size, stood up to adults who thought they could push him around. He even stood up to his father, though that never ended well.
But...
A seven‑year‑old could only do so much against an angry drunk man with a gun.
The night everything fell apart, the house had felt wrong.
His father’s footsteps were heavy and uneven, soaked in alcohol and rage. His mother’s voice was small, pleading, and Gregory knew that tone. He knew what came after it.
He didn’t cry.
Didn’t cower.
Didn’t freeze.
When the gun went off, the world didn’t shatter.
It narrowed.
It became rope fibers digging into his wrists, the taste of blood in his mouth as he chewed through them. It became the sting of glass as he smashed the already cracked window with his tiny shoulder. It became the sharp, bright pain when he grabbed a handful of broken shards and hurled them at his father’s face.
He didn’t think, he didn’t feel.
He just moved.
Like the heroes in his mother's story.
He hit the ground outside hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs, but he didn’t stop. He scrambled to his feet, legs shaking, and ran.
And he ran.
He skipped from town to town, never staying long enough for anyone to ask questions.
Sometimes he walked until his legs shook, sometimes he hid in the backs of trucks or clung to the underside of train cars, letting the metal rattle through his bones.
Once, he even managed to jump onto a moving freight train, fingers burning as he hauled himself up. Splinters digging under his nails as the wind whipped past him, cold and sharp.
But it carried him farther away than he’d ever been before.
Distance became his only safety and movement became his only rule.
It was somewhere between one nameless town and the next that he realized something important.
Every adult he met was either stupid, cruel, or dangerous. They talked too loudly, grabbed too quickly, and assumed too much. They asked where his parents were, why he was alone, why he was dirty, questions that made his skin crawl.
Questions that felt like traps.
So he stopped answering.
He stopped trusting, stopped expecting anything good from anyone over the age of eighteen.
He learned to hiss when cornered, to bite when grabbed, to scratch when someone tried to drag him somewhere “safe.”
People left him alone after that.
He slept under bridges, in drainage pipes, behind dumpsters. He stole food when he had to, begged when he was desperate, and hid whenever he saw a police car.
He kept moving, always moving, until the world behind him blurred into a long smear of bad memories and worse nights.
Eventually, after weeks, or maybe months, time didn’t mean much anymore, he felt something shift. The air smelled different, the streets looked unfamiliar, and the people didn’t glance at him twice.
Finally, he was far enough away.
Far enough that no one would recognize him and that he truly felt his father would never find him. For the first time since that night, he let himself breathe. To settle.
But only by a little.
He had found himself in a bustling city, the kind that never slept and never stopped throwing things away.
For Gregory, that was a blessing.
The alleys behind grocery stores were treasure troves. Bags of bruised fruit, day‑old bread, half‑eaten sandwiches tossed out because someone didn’t like the crusts. Seriously, the amount of perfectly good food people wasted was ridiculous.
He learned which dumpsters were safe, which were poisoned, which ones were guarded, and which ones were worth climbing into even if they smelled like death.
Other homeless people tried to pick on him at first. A kid alone was easy prey.
Or so they thought.
Gregory set them straight fast. He hissed, bit, scratched, and fought like a cornered animal. After the first few attempts, word spread. The feral kid in the hoodie wasn’t worth the trouble.
He knew the rules of the street. And if there were rules he didn’t know? Then they weren’t rules in his territory. And he did have territory.
He claimed an alley beside a massive children’s mall.
Bright lights, music that thumped through the brick walls, giant mascots plastered on every surface. The whole place was obnoxiously joyful, but the alley was perfect. Narrow enough to defend, deep enough to hide in, and close enough to the mall’s dumpsters that he could scavenge without wandering too far.
Anyone who came near his alley got scared off quickly. A growl, a thrown bottle, a flash of teeth. Whatever it took. Eventually, people learned to avoid it entirely.
Over time, he collected enough scraps to build something resembling a home.
Cardboard walls were reinforced with wooden pallets. A tarp roof tied down with rope he’d scavenged from a construction site. A nest of blankets and stolen couch cushions in the back corner.
It wasn’t much, but it was his.
The child part of him, the part that still remembered bedtime stories and warm hand, felt stupidly proud of it.
But pride didn’t fill his stomach.
Eventually, the food in the alley ran out.
The mall only dumped their trash every other month, and by the time the bags reached him, most of the food was moldy or crawling with bugs. He tried to ration what he had left, counting the days on the wall with a piece of chalk he’d found.
When he finally calculated how long it would be until the next drop‑off, his heart sank.
A whole month.
He wouldn’t make it.
He’d barely been eating as it was, and winter was creeping in. Cold nights, colder mornings, breath fogging in the air. He could feel his body getting weaker. His hands shook when he woke up and his stomach was constantly cramped.
He knew the signs. He’d seen other kids on the street fade the same way.
He wasn’t going to be one of them.
So he planned.
He waited until he absolutely had to eat again, until the hunger made him dizzy and his vision blurred at the edges. Then he decided he’d spend one day gathering as much food as possible. Enough to last until the next trash cycle. Enough to survive.
He hid near the mall entrance, crouched behind a planter, watching people come and go. He needed a distraction. A crowd. Something big enough that no one would notice one extra kid slipping inside.
And then he heard it.
A chorus of shrieking children and a woman yelling, “Elena’s party, stay together!”
Perfect.
A huge birthday group swept through the doors, balloons bobbing, parents chatting, kids running in circles. If anyone asked why he was there, he’d just say he was with Elena. Kids never questioned anything anyway.
He slipped into the group, keeping his head down. No one noticed the extra body. Thank god for his painfully average face, nothing memorable, nothing suspicious. Just another kid in a sea of noise.
He followed the group deeper into the mall, heart pounding, stomach growling, eyes scanning for food. This was his one shot and he wasn’t going to waste it.
Once again, no one noticed an extra pair of hands grabbing for the greasy treat. The kids were too busy screaming, laughing, and arguing over who got the biggest slice. Gregory slipped in like a shadow, snatching slice after slice and stuffing them into his bag until it overflowed with warm, oily treasure.
His fingers were slick with cheese and sauce, but he didn’t care, this was more food than he’d seen in weeks.
When he’d taken enough to last him a while, he drifted away from the table. The party was chaotic, which meant opportunity.
He prowled along the edges of the crowd, eyes sharp and hands quick. A tray of nachos left unattended? Gone. A half‑eaten slice someone abandoned on a plate? Snatched. A cup of soda left on a bench? He downed it in two gulps.
For the first time in a long time, he let himself indulge.
A group of kids were playing some kind of tag game near the arcade entrance, and before he could stop himself, he darted in. They shrieked and chased him, and he chased them back, and for a few minutes he wasn’t a starving runaway or a feral alley kid.
He was just a child playing a game.
Soon enough, the lights dimmed and music blasted through the speakers. The Glamrock performance was starting.
Gregory hurried to the railing overlooking the stage, squeezing between two kids to get a better view. One of the kids he’d been playing with earlier popped up beside him, giggling with excitement. Gregory felt something warm flutter in his chest, something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He must have overindulged, because suddenly everything felt… fun. Bright and magical. The lights, the music, the animatronics, all of it filled him with a kind of childlike glee he barely recognized.
His companion ran back to join their group, and Gregory waved after them, grinning.
He wasn’t going to lie, the Glamrocks looked cool. They moved like real animals, fur rippling, ears twitching, voices booming through the speakers. They looked alive.
Then Freddy twitched.
His head jerked sharply to the side, lights flickering behind his eyes. His voice crackled mid‑sentence, glitching into static. The crowd gasped. Gregory leaned forward, confused and a little uneasy.
And then a hand landed on his shoulder.
“Hey, kid,” a woman said, voice syrupy sweet, “I don’t see you in our database. Are you lost? Want to come with me? I can get you some ice cream and contact your parents!”
Every muscle in Gregory’s body went rigid.
If he were any other kid, he might’ve melted at the promise of ice cream. He might’ve trusted the soft voice and the gentle smile.
But Gregory wasn’t any other kid.
He knew what danger felt like. He knew what a bad adult sounded like, and this woman, this too‑sweet, too‑smooth voice, made his stomach twist.
She was bad.
She wanted to hurt him.
He knew it instantly.
He ripped himself out of her grip, heart slamming against his ribs, and bolted.
She shouted in surprise and lunged after him, but he was already weaving through the crowd, slipping between legs and dodging strollers. He burst through a door into a staff hallway, the noise of the party fading behind him. The hallway was cold, sterile, humming with fluorescent lights.
He spun in place, looking for anywhere, anywhere, to hide.
His breaths came in fast and sharp, his hands shook and his mind raced. He needed to disappear. Now.
He sprinted down the hallway, shoes slapping against the polished floor, breath tearing in and out of his chest. Every door he passed was locked, dark, or too exposed. Panic clawed at his throat. He needed somewhere small and quiet where she wouldn’t think to look.
Then he saw it.
A door slightly ajar, a sliver of light peeking through.
He didn’t hesitate.
He slipped inside and eased the door shut behind him, heart hammering so loudly he was sure it echoed. The room was dim, lit only by the soft glow of standby lights from various equipment. A couch sat against the wall, and he dove behind it, curling into the smallest shape he could manage. He clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his breathing.
Minutes stretched into hours.
His lungs burned from constantly holding his breath at every noise. His fingers trembled against his lips at every tiny sound. The hum of machinery, the distant thump of music from the mall, the soft laughter of other children, it all made his muscles tense.
He kept imagining the door swinging open, that too‑sweet voice calling his name, those hands grabbing him. The footsteps he eventually heard, though, weren’t hers.
Two voices drifted into the room, casual and unaware of the terrified child hiding behind the couch.
“I dunno what happened, bro. Some programmers are coming in the morning to check all the animatronics.”
“Yeah, hopefully it’s nothing too bad… I hope Freddy feels okay.”
Gregory blinked, Feels okay? Animatronics didn’t feel anything. Right?
Person A scoffed loudly, “Not this again. They’re animatronics. They don’t feel. It’s all automated responses and programming to make them look like they have thoughts.”
“No it’s not, dude! I’m telling you, they all have personalities and shit! Chica once stopped me to tell me my shirt was a beautiful shade of pink and asked if she could borrow it! And Freddy asked how my son’s soccer game went! There’s no way they don’t have thoughts and feelings.”
“Riiight. And I’m sure Freddy gets a stomachache when there’s too much cake in his stomach hatch too, huh?”
Person B huffed, “You just haven’t been here long enough. You haven’t even gotten the talk from the boss.”
Their voices faded as a door opened and closed behind them.
Silence settled again.
Gregory slowly lowered his hand from his mouth, mind racing. Stomach hatch. He replayed the words in his head. A hatch big enough for cakes and piñatas. A hatch no one would think to check, inside a giant animatronic bear who was currently powered down and unattended.
That was… actually brilliant.
Nobody would suspect it.
He crawled out from behind the couch, legs shaky but determined.
Freddy stood on his charging platform, still and silent, eyes dark. Gregory approached cautiously, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds. He didn’t know how to operate animatronics, but he knew buttons. Buttons did things.
He pressed a few at random, flinching each time something beeped or clicked. Then —
There. A soft whir. A mechanical shift. The stomach hatch opened with a smooth hiss.
Gregory stared into the hollow space. It was bigger than he expected, dark, metallic, and just roomy enough for a small kid to curl up inside.
Perfect.
He climbed in, pulling his bag against his chest. The metal was cold against his back, but it felt safe.
He reached up and pulled the hatch shut from the inside, plunging himself into darkness. With his knees curled up to his chest and everything feeling perfectly enclosed and hidden, he felt his breath steadying.
He was good at hiding.
He was good at waiting.
He’d survived worse than this.
And so he waited.