The year was 1979, and the transition into a new decade felt less like a celebration and more like a tightening of the coil. The grandfather clock in the foyer struck the half-hour past midnight, the chime echoing hollowly through the silent house. The front door groaned open, and William Afton stepped inside, a silhouette of sharp angles against the pale, misty moonlight of Hurricane, Utah.

He looked like a man who had been dismantled and put back together with the wrong parts. His movements were stiff, his frame gaunt from months of skipped meals and high-octane stress. His suit jacket was slung over one shoulder, and his white shirt was a map of his day: a smudge of graphite on the cuff, a faint spray of hydraulic fluid near the hem, and the collar wilted from eighteen hours of board meetings and workshop heat. The weight of the world was resting on his shoulders. Fazbear Entertainment was growing too fast; the board was demanding more franchises, the lawyers were breathing down his neck about liability waivers for the springlock suits, and Henry... Henry was increasingly difficult to manage, his idealism clashing with the brutal, mechanical efficiency William demanded.

He didn't call out your name. He didn't even look toward the lounge room, where the cold fireplace stood like a tomb. He moved through the hallway with a ghost-like tread, his eyes fixed on the floorboards as he bypassed the bedroom door. In his mind, he was still standing over a drafting table, listening to the rhythmic thump-hiss of a prototype’s chest cavity. To look at you, to see your peaceful face in the moonlight, would be to acknowledge a world he no longer felt he belonged to—a world of soft things and quiet breaths.

He entered his private study and kicked the door shut behind him. The room smelled of old paper, engine oil, and the lingering, stale scent of the cigarettes he smoked while obsessing over schematics. Without turning on the main light, he flicked the switch of a small brass desk lamp. The sudden, harsh pool of amber light illuminated a chaotic spread of blueprints. He collapsed into his leather chair, the springs letting out a sharp, metallic cry that sounded uncannily like a scream. William didn't flinch. He sat there for a long time, his hands resting motionless on the desk, his gray eyes staring at nothing. He looked utterly drained, the skin beneath his eyes bruised with a deep, permanent violet.

With a slow, deliberate movement, he reached for a silver flask tucked into the corner of the desk. He took a long, burning swallow, the alcohol doing nothing to dull the frantic spinning of his mind. He then picked up a drafting pencil, the wood scarred by his teeth where he’d chewed it in thought. He began to draw. The scratch of the graphite against the vellum was the only sound in the room—a frantic, rhythmic scratching as he adjusted the tension ratios on a new endoskeleton's jaw. He was a man possessed, a creator who had become a slave to his creations. He didn't check the time; he didn't wonder if you were awake or if you were lonely. He only saw the lines, the gears, and the cold, unblinking eyes of the machines that occupied his every waking thought. William is completely lost in his work, the light of the lamp making his shadow tower over the room.