The Cliffs is the seventh volume of the Fazbear Frights series from the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. Written by Scott Cawthon with Elley Cooper and Andrea Waggener, it is the seventh book in Scott Cawthon and Scholastic's original deal for the series.
Five Nights at Freddy's fans won't want to miss this pulse-pounding collection of three novella-length tales that will keep even the bravest FNAF player up at night.
Some things must be learned the hard way . . .Reed sees an opportunity to teach the school bully not to mess with him, but ends up mangling the lesson. Robert, an exhausted single father, gets a crash course in parenting when he buys a fancy new teddy bear to watch and entertain his young son. Chris, eager to join the Science Club at school, agrees to undergo a grisly experiment to be accepted. But in the malevolent universe of Five Nights at Freddy's, there's always an education in pain.
From twisted toys to gut-wrenching games, this collection of terrifying tales is unsettling enough to mess with even the most hardened Five Nights at Freddy's fans. In this volume, series creator Scott Cawthon spins three sinister novella-length stories from different corners of FNAF's canon. Each story comes complete with accompanying artwork from a fan-favorite game artist to bring the horror to life in a whole new way.
Readers beware: In this startling world, desperate wishes have an unexpected cost, beautiful trinkets reveal appalling powers, and harmless pranks can go awry in ghastly ways.
Plot[]
The Cliffs[]
Robert, a single father has to take care of his two-year-old son, Tyler. Robert’s wife, Anna, tragically died. She had gotten swelling on her hands and knees. The doctor had told her it was a normal thing during pregnancy and to ignore it. At the next check-up, Anna’s blood pressure goes through the roof. The doctors fail to make it normal, so they decide to deliver Tyler two months early. Tyler was born, but Anna died due to many strokes. Tyler was then kept in the hospital for about a month because he was born too early and his lungs had to develop. Robert would visit skinny Tyler in his little incubator.
Robert feels like he’s not enough for Tyler and can never truly fulfill Tyler’s life because of Anna’s death. Due to Robert having to go to work to keep his house and money, Robert enrolls Tyler into a toddler daycare. One day after picking up Tyler from daycare, one of Tyler’s friends had noticed why Tyler didn’t have a mom in a picture that he had drawn. Tyler got a bit upset cause of this, but the teacher told everyone it’s okay to have a missing parent in life. Robert is upset that because Anna died, it was a lesson. Robert has to go to the grocery store and get food and drinks for Tyler. When Robert goes through the toy aisle, Tyler points at a shelf. It holds boxes of plush Freddy’s called Tag-Along Freddy. Tag-Along Freddy would connect to a wristwatch the box already contained and would watch your kid. It would send messages on what their current activity was. Even though it was expensive, Robert bought it anyway because Tyler was a mess.
Tyler becomes inseparable from Tag-Along Freddy as soon as he can hold it. He reads a book to it, has imaginary dinner with it, watches Tyler take a bath, and goes to bed with Tyler. The next day, Robert goes to the backyard and let’s Tyler play in the sandbox after breakfast. Robert hears his phone ring from inside the house, so he leaves to go see who’s calling him. It was just a prerecorded message from a company selling insurance. Robert then hangs up and heads outside only to see that Tyler is gone. The front gate is wide open and a white van drive away. Tag-Along Freddy sends a message saying “Gone.” Robert knows it’s not from his neighborhood and calls the police. The police question him about Tyler, and they begin a search party on him. Meanwhile, Robert scolds himself on being a bad dad and that he should’ve been watching Tyler.
Meanwhile, Tag-Along Freddy keeps asking Robert, “Why don’t you go to the cliffs?” Robert thought it was stupid that even a toy thought that he was pathetic. Robert ignores the text and throws Tag-Along Freddy in the trash. Robert gets the same text from Tag-Along Freddy. Robert then tries to kill it by burning it, running it over, and stabbing it. None of it works, and Robert keeps getting the same text. Eventually, Robert heads to the cliff and gets ready to jump. But before he jumps, he thinks about what Anna would think if she was still alive. He thinks about what Tyler would think if he was still alive, lost. Robert throws Tag-Along Freddy down the cliff.
Robert then hears someone screaming from below him. Robert makes his way down where he finds Tyler in a small cave. Robert gets Tyler out and they watch the sunrise, father and son now reunited. After that, they head home and the story ends.
The Breaking Wheel[]
Since the third grade, Reed has been bullied by Julius, a kid in robotics class. In robotics class, each student has to build a robot. Reed struggles to make one that’s barely functioning correctly, while his friend, Shelly, has made a robotic dog that can change sizes named Thales. Shelly’s twin brother, Pickle, made a RC car that can change into a small human and a car. Julius is making an exoskeleton with metal clamps to lock the user in the exoskeleton.
On a half day at school, Pickle gets ready to leave the school. Julius sticks out his foot. Pickle trips and slams his nose into another desk while blood spurted. Pickle covered his nose with one arm and held his robot in the other and ran out of the room. Julius had also been complaining about Pickle and Julius’s robots using the same frequency as each other’s robots. Reed, always being fed up with Julius bullying everyone, decides to confront Julius. When the students and teachers leave, Reed and Julius are still in the class. Reed wants to say something to Julius, but he’s too afraid to say anything. Julius makes fun of Pickle and talks about his exoskeleton. Julius puts it on to show it off and how it works, but the circuits spark after Julius tries to fiddle with the wires, which knocks him unconscious for a minute. Reed quickly locks the clamps at the wrists and ankles, leaving Julius trapped as the exoskeleton could no longer move. Reed decides to let Julius stay overnight and learn his lesson as Reed quickly leaves the building.
On the bus ride home, Shelly, Pickle, and Reed talk about the breaking wheel; a torture device that was used to split people's bones and crush them, distorting the victim's bodies. Reed decides to later sneak back into the school and release Julius early, after he realizes that Julius's situation was similar to being stuck in a breaking wheel. Ory, Shelly and Pickle's little brother, plays with Pickle's tiny RC controlled robot. Reed fears that Pickle's remote is still connected to Julius's exoskeleton, and that he was being actively tortured by following the tiny robot's erratic movements. He hears loud sounds outside the house that corresponds with Pickle's robot, and instantly thinks of Julius.
The Girard siblings believe that it's the wind, and head outside to get some sodas, leaving Reed all alone. Then, something breaks into the house, and Reed sees Julius inside the exoskeleton. Julius's fleshly, mutilated body is attached to the exoskeleton, and his bruises and bone fractures are similar to what the breaking wheel would do to its victims in medieval times. The exoskeleton chases Reed through the house until it finally locks Reed down. He attempts to apologize to Julius, but he realizes that it is useless. The exoskeleton reaches for Reed's throat.
Soon, the Girard siblings return home. Ory picks up the remote and plays with the robot again. He smashes all the buttons on the remote, which causes the robot to spin and thrash uncontrollably before self-destructing.
He Told Me Everything[]
Chris, wanting something more in life, joins his school's science club. In order to pass, he needs to participate in an experiment hosted by Dr. Little, who is known for doing a "life changing experiment," once a year. Despite the cult-like nature of the experiment, Chris has to in order to graduate the class.
The experiment involves a "Fazbear Mad Scientist Kit," containing "Faz-Goo," a pink sticky substance in a biological container. The user must remove a piece of their teeth from their mouth and place it in the goo. Then, the user would have to stick their index finger inside of the goo so that it could "feed," off of the user's blood cells. This create a completely new being out of the user's teeth, who talks to them with their own voice, supposedly telling them something "they'll never forget."
Not wanting to remove a part of his own teeth, Chris took a baby tooth that he had been keeping and put it in the Faz-Goo, which made the process take longer than everyone else in the lab. Students in other cubicles have had their own successful experiments, their faces filled with wonder, telling their teachers that they were "told everything." Chris' goo was still processing, to the point where he was the last student in the entire building. After taking a nap, he finally woke up with a completed pink substance that was on the table in front of him. The newborn goo creature resembled himself and was still connected through his index finger, pulsing with life. He pulsed in exactly the same pattern as his heartbeat. Chris was conjoined with this thing, both held together by their index fingers.
This unghastly sight causes him to fall unconscious. Chris wakes up and realizes that his eyes had disappeared and were now placed on the pink creature's face. Chris realized that the creature was absorbing his body, becoming him, while he was becoming the goo. Realizing that this clone of him would replace him, as if nothing had ever happened, Chris tells his double everything about himself, his hopes, dreams and desires. He tells the clone to be good to his family and not to harm anyone. Chris melts and dies, while the Faz-Goo duplicate of him lives on. The next day, Chris' copy put the remains of the real Chris in a bag and approached the teacher. In wonder, Chris tells the teacher that "he" told him everything.
Epilogue[]
Larson sees the Miscreation run out of the factory, still taking form from more infected objects. He hides behind a large forklift outside the factory, dropping the bag of evidence he had during his escape.
Jake, who is still inside the Stitchwraith after being ejected from the Agony, had survived, but Andrew is missing. The giant trash monster began sucking in the remaining debris, with Jake being caught in the pull. He notices a female endoskeleton with a long neck trying to avoid getting sucked in as well. Eleanor pins Jake to the ground, her eyes glowing brightly. Jake sensed that she was reaching right inside his soul. He felt a similar evil, like when he was fighting the Agony inside the garbage compactor, coming from Eleanor, but it was stronger. Jake then realizes that there was also evil within him, being infected by Afton during their battle, and Eleanor was somehow extracting the bad energy from him and absorbing it. She lets herself go and combine with Afton.
Larson, who witnessed Eleanor attack the Stitchwraith, looks out at the town nearby, realizing that The Agony could hurt more people. He promises to stay behind and stop him, in his son Ryan's honor. Larson heads back to the factory, grabbing the bag of evidence he dropped. When he took another step, he was struck by the Miscreation and impaled on its metal, crashing through a wall.
Larson starts to catch his breath - still clinging on to consciousness. He started to hear voices shouting at him not to give up and escape. When Larson opened his eyes, he was greeted with the face of Miscreation looking at him. He also realizes that all of the Miscreation's parts were moving on their own and making strange noises, as if they were singing on stage. Larson makes his escape, getting away from the Agony, and making his way back to the forklift outside. He notices that the bag was glowing, and voices were coming from it.
When he opened the bag, the evidence is revealed to be the charred remains of The Marionette; its mask and some of its limbs inside the bag. The voices he heard got stronger. Larson could see the phrase, "Take me to him," in his mind, being the voice of Charlotte speaking to him. Larson jumped into the forklift, started it up and rammed into Afton, piercing him and launching him out of the factory and towards the water nearby, intending to drown him. The Marionette comes to life and escapes the bag, going inside of the Miscreation, giving Larson the time to escape. The detective crashes to the ground, as The Agony destroys the forklift.
Larson, still determined to fight, stalls for time by talking to Afton, stating how inhuman he has become. Afton responds, proclaiming he was the embodiment of agony. The Agony's parts moved again, starting to sing. But then, without warning, Eleanor is able to eject herself from the gigantic pile of garbage, crawling away and escaping into one of the factory's vents. The Marionette, within Afton's new form, makes its components tear the Agony apart from the inside, causing all the parts to crumble and crash into the lake. Larson watches as all the infected items, as well as the Marionette's mask, sink into the bottom of the water; Afton was now defeated.
Jake, who had watched everything unfold, comes to Larson's aid. Jake realized that Larson had been infected by Afton when he stabbed him, so he channels all of his energy from Fetch's battery pack into one of his arms and heats it up to the point where it shines. Holding Larson with his other arm, Jake takes his warm hand and burns away Afton's infection, also burning away some of Larson's flesh in the process. Jake hears police sirens, and leaves Larson to be rescued.
As Jake leaves the factory, he comes to a startling realization; Afton's soul wasn't as powerful as he thought it was. He was barely clinging onto life, using the infection as support. Jake believes that there was something else powering the Agony, and it was an even worse threat then Afton himself.
The book was previously titled The Breaking Wheel, but was changed later on, however it's revealed later on that The Breaking Wheel is actually the second story in the book.
The breaking wheel, the book's second story title, is a reference to a Medieval torture method used for breaking the criminals' bones and/or bludgeoning them to death as a public execution.
This is the first Fazbear Frights book that has a background in its cover.
The Cliffs[]
When Tyler is found, he mentions following a dog to the Cliffs. This may refer to Fetch.
Although it is implied that Tag-Along Freddy is encouraging suicide, it is possible that he knew where Tyler was, and was telling Robert to go there to save his son.
On March 21, 2021, Dawko theorized in his discussion video about The Cliffs that Robert went insane over Tyler's disappearance. After his near suicide on the Cliffs, he imagined Tag-Along Freddy as Tyler to cope, while the real Tyler was still missing or dead.
The Breaking Wheel[]
Unused cover art.
There was unused cover art that caused the book title to change from The Breaking Wheel, due to being too scary.
This is the second in the whole series to not have any connection to Fazbear Entertainment, restaurants, or others. The first being The Real Jake.
It is unclear whether Reed dies before the Girald siblings return home, or if he is saved just in time.
This is the fourth story with an ambiguous ending that's left up to interpretation. The other three are Count the Ways, Fetch, and Dance with Me.
He Told Me Everything[]
It's implied that what happens to Chris happens to everyone in his class, and that Dr. Little was knowingly cloning and killing everyone.
It is possible that when Chris is cloned, he is still living. If the Faz-Goo took all his organs, it would make sense that Chris' conciseness is still stuck in his brain and can't escape.
Josh mentions a Revengers movie, a presumable parody of Marvel's The Avengers.
This is the third story of the Fazbear Frights series where the protagonist's identity and appearance are stolen by the antagonist. The first two are To Be Beautiful and Lonely Freddy.
Chris and Oswald may live in the same neighborhood. Both stories mention that the town was built around a mill before it was shut down. This story specifies that it is a steel mill.
If this is true, then He Told Me Everything must take place after Into the Pit, as the mill shut down when Oswald was seven but many years before Chris was born.
