Okay. Let me make something crystal clear: I wouldn't count myself as a fan of FNAF. However, I do know quite a bit about this franchise, mostly thanks to Matthew Patrick (better known as MatPat) and I have a ton of respect for the series' creator Scott Cawthon. So this little Halloween special (which I bet most people won't even read) I decided to do something a bit different.

Now that that's out of the way, here's the other thing I want to make crystal clear: this isn't a theory. I'm just taking bits of stuff that we know from across the lore, mixing a bit of other people's theories in order to make, what I can only describe as a movie pitch 😅. Since Hollywood has been putting off making the actual movies they have the rights for, I decided to do it for them. If MatPat or Scott Cawthon come across this, tell them I'm just doing this for fun.

Okay. Now that we're with that out of the way, let's get to it!

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We start this retelling back in 1964. In St. George University, Utah, Henry Emily was busy reinventing the world of Robotics before it even really took off. With a brilliant mind and child-like imagination he managed to create working animatronics made from metal and wood. Unfortunately, no business he tried to sell his invention to was willing to believe him. Despite this, Henry refused to give up and spent the better half of the next decade upgrading his creations.

In 1968 Henry, now out of college and working as an Engineer with no relations to his robotics work, gets married to a woman whose name is unknown, but for simplicity we'll call her Belle.

On May 13th, 1970 Henry's daughter, Charlotte "Charlie" Emily was born. On July 24th that same year, Michael Afton is born.

In 1971 Henry is first approached by a businessman and Vietnam war veteran named William Afton. He heard about Henry's impressive work and wanted to offer him a chance at a partnership, where people (especially kids) could appreciate his handiwork. Being someone who wants to make people happy, Henry accepted in a heartbeat, and Fazbear Entertainment was born that day, named after the title character Henry created.

Afton suggested that they open a restaurant chain, with the animatronics as stage performers. Henry decided to take it a step further and created two golden suits (one for each of them) which could very easily be switched between suit mode and animatronic mode, using the Springlock system that he invented. Due to lack of employees, Henry and Afton would wear the suits themselves, something which Afton didn't mind. Henry used the Golden Fredbear suit while Afton used the Golden Bonnie-Rabbit suit.

In 1973 the two men officially opened Fazbear's Family Diner. The diner and its animatronics became a national sensation soon after being first established.

In 1974 Charlotte and Michael begin going to the diner with their parents and the two for a close friendship which would only grow stronger as the two grew up.

In 1976 William and his wife had a second child: a girl named Elizabeth Afton. Later that year, the business partners expended their restaurant chain by establishing Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. The first of many.

In 1978 William's third child and second son, Evan Afton, was born, but his wife died at childbirth. This caused William to secretly loathe his son.

Between 1978 and 1983, Henry and Afton began working on Circus Baby's Pizza World. During this time, Afton began working on Circus Baby's Rentals in secret, using everything that Henry taught him in order to make inventions of his own: one of them being a tiny disc that can alter people's perceptions using sound.
He used his own son Evan as a guinea pig to test these discs, inserting one of them inside Evan's plushie (which doubled as a baby monitor). Unfortunately for Evan, the disc was a success and he developed a deep fear for his father's Springlock suits.

Like a stereotypical older brother, Michael started picking on Evan; using an animatronic mask to scare him. On Evan's 5th birthday, in 1983, Michael decided to stop bullying Evan and instead wanted to help him overcome his fear with exposure therapy. With the help of Charlotte and two other friends, Michael lifted a terrified Evan and put him inside Fredbear's mouth.
Now, even a young child's skull is pretty durable, so even if the Springlock system failed, Evan should've been fine. Unfortunately, Afton had tempered with the animatronics in hopes of salivating his thirst for violence with zero consequences. Afton's alterations worked like a charm, and Evan's skull was shattered. He was rushed to the hospital, but was pronounced dead a few days later.

This experience, and the lack of empathy Afton displayed, caused Henry to quit Fazbear Entertainment, leaving Afton to take care of everything. He fought a legal battle to keep the diner open, but ultimately lost, and Fredbear's Family Diner was closed for good.

For the part they played in the death of a child, Michael and Charlotte became overcome with guilt and they decided to avoid any Fazbear establishment from now on. Despite being reassured by everyone (including a judge) that Evan's death was an accident, Michael would be tormented by this incident for the rest of his life, swearing to "put him back together".

Now, you may be wondering why Afton would want to temper with the animatronics with the specific goal of hurting someone? Other than being rather heartless, it was due to experiences he had during his service in Vietnam.
Afton had a near death experience during Vietnam, which left his torso scarred. He was pronounced dead for a few minutes, and this sparked a determination in him to obtain eternal life, else death come for him again. Combine this with another moment where he began enjoying killing the enemy soldiers and yet another moment where he personally witnessed the power of agony-fueled Remnant in a battlefield of dead soldiers, and the results were apparent. When he returned home he was a changed man. A man determined to unlock the secret of eternal life... through death.

After Evan's death, Afton discovered that his remnant went on to posses the Fredbear suit. Acquiring this knowledge led Afton to modify the animatronics Henry built for Circus Baby's Pizza world, turning them into automatic child kidnapping machines. Children perfect for experimentation. Since most of the kids vanished shortly after visiting a Freddy's establishment, the restaurant chain began to get a bad reputation.

Back to Henry, he began to suspect that Afton had something to do with the bad things that happened around Freddy Fazbear's. In order to protect his daughter, Henry built an animatronic marionette to act as a security guard for her. The marionette was controlled by a wristband that Henry gave to Charlotte.

In 1985, Afton decided to take a more hands-on approach to his Remnant research. Using the Golden Bonnie suit from the diner days, Afton lured 5 kids: Suzie, Gabriel, Jeremy, Fritz and Cassidy into a back-room in a Fazbear Pizzaria, where he murdered them.
Charlotte was Cassidy's babysitter at the time, and so when she went to look for her, she stumbled upon Afton's grizzly scene. Cassidy was still alive when Charlotte found her, and the last things she saw were Charlotte promising to get help for her, and William Afton stabbing Charlotte to death.

Charlotte had activated her wristband, and the marionette not only called the police but rushed to save her. It got there too late and while laying on top of her, she possessed the marionette's body. Still determined to save the children, Charlotte used her new abilities to stuff the children's bodies inside the main four animatronic performers: Chica, Freddy, Bonnie, Foxy and the golden Freddy (which was already partially possessed by Evan). The children gained new life in the animatronics and they swore vengeance on their killer.

Despite there being footage of the children being last seen with Afton, the bodies were not recovered. This led to him being discharged due to lack of evidence.

Grief-stricken, Henry and Belle attempted to commit suicide together. They used one of the animatronics Henry built: a ballerina named Ballora. Henry's life was saved by paramedics, but his wife succeeded in her attempt; her going on to posses Ballora. After discovering the supernatural goings on in his former chain, Henry discovered that Afton was responsible, and he vowed to make him pay for his sins.

Later that year, much to Michael's disgust, Afton opened Circus Baby's Pizza World. However, the restaurant closed the same day it opened. The media was fed a cover story about a gas leak, but in reality another tragedy occurred.
Ever since Elizabeth first saw the main animatronic of the new restaurant: Circus Baby, she wanted to play with her, which her father forbade. That day, Elizabeth finally disobeyed her father's command, and the animatronic ripped out her internal organs for it. Much like the other children, Elizabeth went to posses Circus Baby. However, whether it was due to Circus Baby's murderous programming, or because Elizabeth was already sociopathic, her new body corrupted her. Unlike the other possessed animatronics, who just wanted to escape their fate, Elizabeth wanted to follow in her father's footsteps.

Right after these incidents, Afton was forced to program a facial recognition system into his new animatronics to try to prevent another incident. Which proved to be futile, as Afton succeeded in murdering another batch of kids sometime before or during 1987.

In 1986, Michael discovered that his sister possessed Circus Baby. Wanting to get answers and closure, Michael applied for a job as a night guard in Circus Baby's Rentals. There, he discovered the atrocities his father committed, but he was unable to tell the world. See, the possessed animatronics managed to fuse into a mass of wires and eyeballs named Ennard. Their goal was to invade a living human body to escape the compounds of Circus Baby's Rentals, and Michael was the body they chose. Well, they chose to do it to William for revenge, and since Michael bears a strong resemblance to his father, he was chosen by accident.

Using the same mechanism that killed Elizabeth, Ennard scooped out Michael's organs and took over his body.
But their solution was only temporary, as he began to decompose. Realizing that this would blow their cover, Ennard "abandoned ship" and left Michael to rot. Luckily, Henry caught on to what was going on with Michael, so he was present to save Michael's life. By replacing his organs with mechanical ones, he was able to do so.

After comparing notes, the two started working together, determined to stop Afton and release the children's spirits.

Their plan went into motion in November 1987, where Michael applied for a job at a Freddy Fazbear's pizza under the alias Fritz Smith. His resemblance to his father got him in trouble with Charlotte's new form, as she viciously attacked him for murdering her and the children. After 5 hours of going back and forth, the two figured out who the other was and they managed to reconcile. His superiors caught wind to him tampering with the marionette during the night and fired him for it (and for his unprofessional odor).

Michael managed to smuggle the marionette out of the restaurant and into Henry's hands. After another touching reunion, Henry managed to create a facade body for her; a body which combined her human look and the look of the marionette.

In 1988, ashamed of his father's doings and finally being old enough to do so, Michael legally changed his name to John Cawthon.

Nothing important happened for a few years, until 1993, where Michael managed to land another night-guard job; this time, in the same restaurant where the children went missing in 1985, which reopened. This time, he decided to use the alias Mike Schmidt.

During his 5 night employment, he tried to release the children's souls by messing with the animatronics. Unfortunately, his resemblance to his father got him in trouble yet again; this time from the very souls he was trying to help.
They kept trying to kill him until the 5th night, when Evan's soul caught wind of his brother's presence. The golden Freddy suit appeared in front of Michael and Evan screamed "it's me" until Michael heard.

Inside some sort of dream realm, the two brothers met again. Michael begged for Evan's forgiveness, but the latter reassured him that he never blamed him. He saw Michael torturing himself for years, and just wanted to tell him that he forgives him. After the heartfelt reunion and farewell, Evan's soul was finally able to move on. This convinced the other souls that Michael wasn't his father and that he just wants to help.

Unfortunately, Afton caught on to what Michael did that night, and since he was still the owner of Fazbear Entertainment, he got him fired before he could save the other kids.

This proved to be Afton's comeuppance, as later that night, he dismantled the animatronics himself, wanting to continue his experiments. This unwittingly freed the childrens' souls, allowing them to haunt Afton. Refusing to give up, he hid inside the spring Bonnie suit; but because of the leaking roof and rainy day, the Springlocks malfunctioned and snapped, seemingly killing Afton. Thanks to this and Michael's help, the childrens' spirits managed to move on. All but Cassidy, who was the only one who noticed that Afton had survived.

His experiments with Remnant proved useful after all, as he was able to fuse with the springlock suit while still being alive. However, he was still trapped in the building. Henry, Michael and Charlotte caught wind of Afton's survival and paid him a visit. After Henry reminded Afton to not keep the devil waiting, they lit the restaurant ablaze, Afton cursing them and promising that he'll come back.

Without anyone in charge and after years of bad rep, Fazbear Entertainment closed its doors in 1994, after 21 years of supposed fantasy and fun.

But the story didn't end there. 10 years later, in 2003, the owners of an amusement park managed to recover Afton's body (without realizing that it was in fact, a body). In the past decade, the events at Freddy Fazbear's became nothing more than an urban legend, and the park owners capitalized on the stories by creating a horror attraction based on them, and now they finally had their first real animatronic.

Henry and the two kids were quick to react. They bought the attraction from the original owners and set up a trap for Afton (now called Springtrap) as well as any remaining haunted or bloodthirsty animatronic. Michael and Charlotte gathered Springtrap, Golden Freddy, Ennard and Circus Baby (which split itself from Ennard) and after a long battle, they manage to trap them inside the ride and incinerate them. This separated the remnant from the animatronics and finally managed to kill Afton.