FE VR, Coming to a Store Near You

It was finally here. The Freddy Fazbear virtual experience finally arrived.

A young boy excitedly took the game from his mother as soon as she returned home with it and raced into his living room, practically vibrating in his excitement to play the game. She followed him there at a more sedate pace, not able to find it within herself to scold him. This had been all her precious little boy had been talking about for weeks, after all.

“Mom! Mom! Help me set it up!” The child, a youngster named James, stamped his feet petulantly, face scrunched in what his mother considered an adorable pout.

“Give me a moment, dear,” was all his mother said in response, crouching down to fiddle with all of the expensive virtual reality equipment she had bought just for this.

“But I want to play it nooooow!” Another foot stomp accompanied the whining.

Freddy Fazbear’s had had an interesting life cycle. There hadn’t been a proper restaurant open in decades, with one exception. That exception had burned down within a week, however, so it was hard to really count that one. Coincidentally enough, the most recent official Fazbear property before that, a haunted house, had also burned down inside a week.

Between merchandising, a surprisingly long-running cartoon, and urban legends aplenty, however, Fazbear Entertainment had managed to hang on by the skin of its teeth all these years. The recent revival of the franchise as a horror-themed one was seen as in poor taste by quite a few people, but nobody could say it hadn’t been a smart idea; the company had probably made more in the past few years than it had in the over thirty years since the last location closed.

Thus the company’s most recent foray. A virtual reality game with a lot of marketing and big promises behind it, and one which plenty of children wanted as a result. Children such as the one waiting with his arms crossed, pout worsening and face a blotchy red.

The mother stood up and dabbed at her forehead with a sleeve. “All done. It’s ready to go.”

Jame’s mood did a one-eighty. “Yay! Thanks, Mom!” He ran up to his mother and squeezed her legs tight in a hug, to which she ruffled his hair. Then, he detached himself from her and very nearly teleported over to the VR setup.

One consequence of it having been so long since the last Freddy Fazbear Pizza had closed its doors was that James had never been to one, had never experienced what a proper Fazbear birthday was like. Neither had his mother for that matter; even she was too young to have been allowed to run loose at the restaurant. Perhaps because of that, turning on the game and finding himself within a pizzeria, massive curtains stretched out in front of him, was enough to leave him in awe.

A few hours passed. The boy was having a blast. This game was everything he had dreamed of and then some. It was awesome! So real, so scary, and so fun! He shrieked when he failed and was scared, and he whooped when he was victorious. The attempted crotch chop at an animatronic during vent repairs only to fall flat on his ass when it jumped at him had even drawn a laugh from his mother, who was watching over him.

Like all good things, though, they had to come to an end. “James, dear, it’s almost dinner time.”

James peeled his virtual reality headset off and turned to face his mother, already busy in the kitchen behind him. “Aww, but Mom-“

“No buts,” she said, playfully wagging a wooden spoon at him. “Dinner will be ready in about a half hour, so finish up whatever it is you’re doing. We’re having spaghetti.”

James pouted, then turned back around to continue playing. He could squeeze out just a bit more game time if he was lucky. Now that he knew dinner was being made, though, the smells coming from behind him were a bit distracting.

James replayed a few levels, eyes keen. There were collectable tapes to be found, ones he had missed at some point. He almost had all of them, he thought, but the ones he hadn’t already found were proving to be tricky. He didn’t really understand or even particularly care about what the recorded voice was talking about. It was a collectable, and that was all he needed to know.

Some more time passed. At last, James was convinced that he found every tape, or at least every tape he could find at this point in time. He didn’t have all of the, but then again he also didn’t beat every level yet. The spooky apparition the developers had put in the game kept getting closer with every tape, and he couldn’t wait to see what happened when he got all of them.

It was while James was imagining what the near future held that his stomach growled, and he was reminded of dinner. Oh no, it had been way more than a few minutes! His mom was probably really upset with him, doing that thing where she looked at him all frowny and crossed her arms and said she wasn’t mad, just disappointed!

James hurried to take off his headset, distantly noting that it was much darker outside than it had been when his mom last spoke to him. He spun around to face the kitchen. “Mom, I-“

James went quiet. His mother was laying on the floor in the kitchen. Had she fallen asleep waiting for him? Oh no, she’d be extra mad if that was the case! She had spilled some spaghetti sauce on the floor, too, which was weird since she was normally such a stickler for cleaning that up. Maybe she was waiting to make him clean it up as punishment, that seems like something she would do.

Some crickets chirped outside. James glanced back down at the headset in his hands. Well, if he was already in trouble, then a little bit more wouldn’t hurt.

One more level. The final one, and James would be done with the game. It was a weird one, though. A twisting maze of doors and locations. Choices were made, like trying to decide between vanilla and chocolate for his preferred cake flavor, and a couple of times he had even taken too long and been forced to start over. At last, though, James made it to the final room. He snagged the last tape he needed off of a table in front of him, followed a rabbit that beckoned him from behind a curtain, and sat through some credits.

James was just about to take his headset off in triumph when he remembered the final tape. He may as well give it a listen, right? When he popped back into the hub and gave a little jump at how close and how visible the rabbit thing was, he took a moment to brush it off. It didn’t even cross his mind how similar it was to the one behind the curtain in the game’s ending.

The last tape was listened to. Rather, it may have been more appropriate to say that it was heard; James didn’t care much to pay attention to the woman’s voice. No, what was important were the bragging rights. Everyone he knew at school had gotten this game, after all, and he wanted to be able to lord over them about how he got every tape. There was no way anyone else had gotten them all; none of them were as observant as him!

Then something strange happened. James was teleported to a weird room he didn’t recognize. The bunny man was back, standing in front of him. The computer monitor and switch that James normally used to select levels was still there, as well, in between them, but he didn’t look down at them once, too enraptured by the rabbit man.

The rabbit reached an arm out, and James reached out his hand to accept it. Across the city, hundreds of other children reached their hands out as well.

“Well,” a voice whispered, “How do you like the name, ‘Jimmy’?”