Night 26, 12:00AM

You'd been working at Circus Baby's Pizza World for some weeks now. The pay was...well, not exactly what most would qualify as "good." You were given the option to select how you'd like to be paid on your first night on the job, but because of a bug in the tablet you were provided, you were stuck being paid in supermarket gift cards. How this was legal, you didn't know.

But it wasn't all bad! Your job was to come in of a night and do maintenance on the animatronics so that they were in peak condition for open hours. Now, these animatronics were especially complex, with the most complex of all being the star of the show: Circus Baby. She had hundreds if not thousands of moving parts and hidden features to make her appear as human as possible while still maintaining that sleek, chrome aesthetic. The most complex among these parts could be found hidden away inside Circus Baby's shoes, which a lot of people didn't know were removable. The towering animatronic had incredibly detailed feet with synthetic skin, both of which contained a tremendous amount of sensors to replicate a sort of nervous system. It was a technological marvel for its time. And for that matter, it had become your primary point of interest each night to keep you from becoming bored.

Not even an hour into your shift, you'd brought Baby to Parts & Service and sat her down for maintenance. As was the norm now, you ignored the pre-recorded instructions being played over the intercom and went about securing the cutesy yet massively intimidating animatronic and removing her shoes. As an added measure, you bound her toes together with a heavy-duty cable tie. Circus Baby did not take her eyes off you throughout the procedure, and chimed in with that soft, strangely unnerving voice of hers once you were done.

"I don't think this is necessary. You could always start with something else. When was the last time you began with maintenance on my face? Or my arms?"