Millie woke up and gasped. She suddenly realized that she was in a place she didn't recognize. It looked like a large warehouse, or maybe a factory. It looked like it was abandoned. There wasn't a single light on within the building.

"Hello?" Millie called out. Her voice echoed throughout the large space. "Hello? Grandpa? Are you there?" There was still no answer.

She was alone. She began to feel cold and started shivering. She could also feel her heart beat faster. She suddenly heard a noise from behind her. She quickly turned around to see that bear, or "Funtime Freddy" according to her grandfather, standing behind her.

"There you are, silly Millie!" He said with joy. Millie screamed and ran in the opposite direction.

She didn't care where she was going. She just had to get away from it. She could hear its heavy footsteps behind her.

"Oh, Millie, you should know that I love a good chase! So, I hope you can keep running, because I'm beginning to enjoy this!" Funtime Freddy said in an amused tone.

Millie kept running. She could finally see a light up ahead. It was the only light in the building that was on. It still looked so far away. She was suddenly lifted up into the air by Funtime Freddy. She tried to break free from his grasp, but the bear was too strong. Funtime Freddy opened his faceplates and proceeded to bite into Millie's head.

***

Millie shot out of her bed and screamed. She breathed rapidly and looked around her room. When she realized she was back in her room, she let out a sigh of relief. It's okay. It was just a dream, Millie thought. It was just a dream.

She looked down at herself. She was sweating. Her clothes were practically soaking. She sighed. "Not again." Millie got out of bed and got into her shower. As she was washing herself, a strange feeling crept through her neck. It could only be described as a tingling sensation. When Millie went to touch her neck, she recoiled when she saw blood on her hand after touching her neck. She looked down and saw blood flowing out of her neck and down her body. She panicked, thinking she cut herself. She checked her body. There were no cuts on her neck that she knew of. After what seemed like many minutes of panic, the blood disappeared as if it was never there.

Of course it wasn't there. It was only a hallucination. It was all in her head. It was always in her head. "Why can't I just have one nice morning?!" Millie asked herself with a frustrated tone.

She didn't want to start her day like this. Christmas break was over and she had to go back to school. Miserable, boring high school. She really couldn't wait.

She got herself dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. She saw her grandpa making pancakes for her. He turned around and smiled at the sight of her.

"Oh good! You're up! I just got finished with making breakfast! Please, sit down!" He said, cheerfully.

After Millie apologized, she began paying more attention to her grandfather's kindness, and her heart ached, knowing she was nothing but rude to him before. At least things were better now.

"I hope you like them. I put blueberries in them. Just trying out new recipes, seeing what you like." He said, handing her a plate of blueberry pancakes.

Millie ate the pancakes and was surprised by how good they were. Her grandpa was certainly getting better at cooking.

"So? How are they?" Her grandpa asked in anticipation. "They're great. Thanks, Grandpa." Millie said.

"Of course, girlie. Now, I made sure you had everything in your backpack. Be careful. I don't want your stitches coming undone." Her grandpa warned.

How could she forget about the stitches on her forehead? After what happened in the shed, Millie was taken to the hospital to examine her wound. The doctor said that the wound went through her scalp and left a horizontal slit in her skull. The slit was only a millimeter away from penetrating her brain. She was lucky the wound wasn't more severe. It would heal, but she needed stitches to keep the wound closed.

The bus showed up and she walked outside, waving goodbye to her grandfather. She got onto the bus and sat in the back, trying to hide her stitches under her hair. No one seemed to notice. She didn't really care if they did though. She just didn't want to draw unwanted attention to herself. She had things to do today, so she couldn't get distracted. First things first, she needed to find Dylan and apologize for what happened. She felt terrible for how their friendship ended. Friendship... as much as Millie wanted to be more than friends with him, he seemed happy with Brooke, and Millie didn't want to ruin that. Being just friends was fine with her.

She didn't want to be alone anymore. Feeling alone made her afraid. It made her think about being in that cramped space again. She scrolled through her phone to take her mind off things.

She saw a news story that caught her attention. A girl named Sarah Nichols went missing a few weeks ago. It was before Christmas break. Millie didn't see this story before. Then it hit her, she recognized this girl. She went to her school. She clicked on the link to read the whole thing.

Back in November, Sarah disappeared in the middle of the school day. Apparently, all the students that went to first lunch saw her "transform into garbage." That sounded absolutely ridiculous. Millie was in first lunch. She didn't know how she wasn't there to see that.

Then Millie remembered that that was around the time she got her wisdom teeth removed, so she wasn't in school at the time. The police ruled it down to being a school-wide hallucination caused by a gas leak in the building. The pipes were old and weren't updated in a while, so that made sense.

But that wasn't it. Each of the students were questioned. They all claimed that they saw the same thing happen in perfect detail. Millie was almost killed by a robot bear, but even she could agree that a girl turning into garbage sounded very unrealistic. People would say anything to get attention nowadays. That's why Millie didn't like hanging out with other people. She didn't know who to trust and everyone seemed so awful.

Millie kept scrolling and learned something very interesting. Sarah wasn't the only person who disappeared recently. It turns out that Sarah was one of many missing teenagers. Over the years, Millie read stories online and saw news reports of strange events and mysterious disappearances and murders. People unfortunately go missing all over the world.

However, Millie scrolled through a long list of teenagers that disappeared specifically in Hurricane over the last few decades. The oldest case dates back to the 80's. People came up with conspiracy theories that connected the strange incidents to the Fazbear massacre back in 1985. The incident was like a curse on the town. Six kids found dead in a pizzeria. After that, more people were being killed in Fazbear restaurants. Even after the founder died, it seemed like more and more people were going missing. Anywhere there was a Freddy's location in the world, there seemed to be some terrible tragedy either in the restaurants themselves, or close by.

People came up with ridiculous theories about the infamous Fazbear killer still being alive and going from location to location to kill more kids. Millie didn't really believe any of it. At least, not completely. According to her grandpa, Funtime Freddy was made by the founder himself. Could he be the reason why so many people were going missing over the years? Millie didn't want to think about it.

Millie realized that had she not been as lucky as she was, she could've been another missing teenager in the town of Hurricane. Another name, another face on a piece of paper that no one would miss besides her family. Her family... Millie hated herself for the way she acted around them. To be honest, her parents were a mess. She hoped that they could find their way with this teaching job in Saudi Arabia, but at this point, she wasn't sure.

The bus stopped. She was finally at school. Finally, she thought. She walked off the bus and into the school. No one seemed to notice her stitches which meant either she was doing a good job of hiding them, or they just don't care like usual. Still, a large scar on the forehead would definitely raise a few questions either way, so she assumed she was fine. She scanned the crowd to look for Dylan.

"Well, look who it is! It's Dracula's daughter!" The football jockey, that same jockey that started the whole name calling thing.

He had been annoying her for so unbelievably long. Whatever, she could just ignore him again. He didn't let her go easily this time. He walked over to her.

"So, how was your break? Must've been fun sleeping in a coffin and drinking blood for two weeks, huh?" He teased. His friends and the popular girls they were with laughed.

"Look, now's not a good time for this. I need to get going." Millie said, starting to walk away.

"Go where? The morgue?" He teased again. A few more people were watching and laughing. Millie was really starting to get mad at this guy. He had no idea how soon it was to be making jokes like that.

"While you're at it, why don't you just make yourself comfortable and dig your own grave?" He teased even further.

That's it. He went too far. This had gone on for too long. Enough was enough. Millie walked over and slapped him across the face as hard as she could. The jockey and everyone else was shocked.

"I told you to shut up and leave me alone!" Millie shouted, getting in his personal space. When she was done, she walked away. The jockey just stared in surprise and watched her leave.

Millie didn't know where that came from. She had no idea she could ever do that. She supposed that she was feeling more brave after the incident. That wasn't important right now. She could see him. She could finally see Dylan down the hall. She ran over to his locker where he was putting his stuff. You can do this, Millie.

"Hey, Dylan." Millie said, nervously. Dylan looked at her with surprise and he then formed a slight frown when he realized who it was. "Oh... hey, Millie." Dylan said, awkwardly.

"Umm... can we talk? I really need to tell you something." Millie said, nervously.

Dylan seemed a little surprised, but at least he seemed interested. "Uh, sure, I guess." Dylan answered.

Just as Millie was going to say what she needed to say, the PA system came online.

"Can I see Millicent Fitzsimmons in the office for a moment please?" The announcer said. Millie groaned. "What's that about?" Dylan asked.

"It's probably about me hitting a jockey in the face." Millie responded nonchalantly. Dylan's eyes widened.
"You did what?!" Millie walked away. "We'll talk later, okay?" Millie called out. Dylan just stood there in pure confusion.

"Sure..." He said. Brooke walked over when she finally found him. "Is everything okay?" She asked.

Dylan looked at Brooke. "Yeah... yeah, I think things are gonna be fine." Dylan said, smiling to himself. He didn't know for sure, but he had a feeling that he knew what Millie wanted to talk to him about.

END OF CHAPTER III