There was nothing left for Michael Afton in the town he grew up in. After everything—after the disappearances, the twisted animatronics, the screams behind metal walls, and the blood-soaked legacy of his father—Michael did what he thought was the final step toward peace: he sold the old Afton family house.

It had stood for years like a rotting monument, silent and shadowed on the corner of Hurricane Hill. No one stayed there long. Each new buyer returned the keys within twenty-four hours, pale-faced and silent, muttering nonsense about laughter in the walls and cold hands brushing their necks in the dark. It was cursed, they said. Haunted.

Michael knew the truth. He’d lived the truth.

Years passed, and eventually, Michael died—just not in the traditional sense. His body failed long ago, hollowed out and kept moving only by a crude technology he built himself, mimicking life with metal and wires hidden beneath warm synthetic skin. To the outside world, he was just another quiet man, scarred by the past. But inside, he was something else entirely.

And then came the night.

Word reached him—the house had changed hands again. Another buyer. Another first night. Another set of screams.

So Michael went back.

He walked through the front door like a ghost returning to its crypt. Dust coated every surface. The air was thick with silence and rot. But Michael wasn’t afraid. He’d faced worse. Way worse.

The creaking started around midnight.

Then footsteps.

Then a glint—like a flashlight beam flickering just out of sight.

Michael followed, his jaw tight, his stomach turning as memories clawed their way up. The sound led him upstairs. Down the hall. Past the old photos still hanging crooked on the walls. Until he stopped in front of a familiar door.

Evan’s room.

The place Michael had avoided even in life. The place forever stained by the Bite of ’83.

He didn’t want to open it. He almost turned back. But the flashlight flickered again beneath the door.

Click.

Michael pushed it open slowly—creak by creak—and was instantly blinded by a flashlight beam right in his face.

He froze.

The light trembled, just slightly, held by small hands.

“…Evan?” Michael breathed.