Lally's Game is the first installment of the anthology book series: Tales from the Pizzaplex. Written by Kelly Parra and Andrea Waggener with Scott Cawthon, it was released on July 19, 2022.
Summary[]
Five Nights at Freddy's fans won't want to miss this collection of three chilling stories that will haunt even the bravest FNAF player...
Some secrets are better left hidden... A forbidden artifact from her fiancé's past beckons to Selena. Jessica leads a double-life from her friends and coworkers in the children's wing of a hospital. Maya can't resist the temptation to explore an off-limits area of Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex. But in the world of Five Nights at Freddy's, everything comes with a price to pay.
In this first volume, Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon spins three sinister novella-length tales from uncharted corners of his series' canon.
Readers beware: This collection of terrifying tales is enough to rattle even the most hardened Five Nights at Freddy's fans.
Plot[]
Frailty[]
A young man crashes his sedan in the middle of the storm. Two paramedics try to resuscitate the man with a defibrillator, but he is already dead. As the victim's body is draped under a tarp and the paramedics mourn the loss, a figure looms over the deceased man holding a knife. One of the paramedics sees and tries to apprehend them, but they disappear. Suddenly, the man wakes up somehow alive again.
Jessica works as a janitor at her local hospital, trying to be unnoticeable and only speaking when spoken to. The hospital staff find her both kind and somewhat strange and delicate. As she sweeps the floor, she overhears the young boy's parents planning a celebration at Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex for their hospitalized son who is getting healthier. The parents then notice some bits of silver on their son's chest, and when they call a nurse to ask what the flakes are, the nurse is unsure as well.
Jessica heads to the hospital's chapel and looks down at her fractured pendant, which was once a full heart. Jessica's job as the janitor was cover for her real motives; to use the pendant to help people in need. She had saved both the man who crashed during the storm and the sick boy at the hospital by scraping off bits of the pendant with a knife, with the pieces of the pendant somehow healing whoever it landed on. Jessica goes to the altar and prays that she can continue doing good and fulfill her purpose.
Jessica leaves the altar after talking to Father Jeremiah and hears a cartoon playing in a room. She follows the sound and sees a boy with curly hair. She takes out a knife and scrapes some of the pendant onto the sleeping boy holding a stuffed green elephant. The boy wakes up just as Jessica is done and asks if Jessica is an angel. She says she’s not and tells the boy to go back to sleep and count elephants, because elephants are his favorite animal.
At school, Jessica gets an eraser thrown at the back of her head, and a guy named Robert asks what they're problem is. Mrs. Willoughby says that the class will have to build a class robot, and they’ll each have one partner to choose. Jessica is instantly ignored, but Robert becomes partners with her.
The next day, Robert and Jessica are working on their project. Robert says that Mrs. Willoughby gave a list of what he can use and do and what he can’t use and do. He says he wants to go to the junkyard to go look for some scraps, and Jessica suddenly gets scared. She says she has to go to her job and quickly leaves. She walks to the cemetery, heads inside the abandoned building in it, and looks at all her stuff: Her sleeping bag, toiletries, candles, etc. She’s able to live here because the workers here never clean this place due to the dead families in here that are over a century old.
Jessica is cleaning when Nurse Macy walks up to her and ask how she’s been and asks some personal questions that Jessica tries to avoid. Nurse Macy says she’s happy because people in the hospital are doing better. She says people are being somehow healed, and no one is sad, and everyone is eating and smiling. Nurse Macy asks Jessica to clean some silverware and complains about the metal flakes scattered around everyone’s room.
Jessica and Robert present their robot; the Mini Bot 5000 to their class and are greeted with praise. They have brownies over at Robert's house to celebrate, but Jessica feels like she doesn't deserve it. She is surprised that he treats her so kindly. She had distanced herself from other people to focus on her goal, but Robert reminds her of her old life. Robert asks her out to prom, and she instinctively agrees.
In the hospital chapel, she feels distraught as she is confused over whether she still has the same goal. Father Jeremiah offers to listen, so she explains that her goal was to help others to redeem herself from a bad choice she made in the past but feels guilty that she is now trying to get some of her old life back. Father Jeremiah explains that it is important to balance giving to others and giving back to yourself.
A new patient, a teenage girl named April, arrives at the ward. Jessica considers using the pendant to help her but decides to keep it for herself so that she could attend prom. Later, Jessica has a dream where a being with metal footsteps (which she recognizes) chases her and rips her limbs off her. The being takes her pendant away before the dream ends.
April's health declines heavily, which saddens Jessica as she had decided not to help her before attending prom. Nurse Macy confronts Jessica about the fake address, but an alert goes off in April's room and Jessica goes to pray. At prom, she thinks as she dances with Robert that she can be forgiven for her mistakes and feel happiness. Unfortunately, when Jessica goes to kiss Robert, grease appears on him. All the kids look at her in shock while others laugh at her and she leaves the prom, believing that she was wrong and doesn't deserve happiness.
Jessica returns back to the hospital as Nurse Macy and Colin go over April's condition. Brown liquid streaks down her face as metal parts fall behind her. They follow her as she goes to April's room and locks the door, before lifting her pendant and taking her knife out. Nurse Macy tries to call out to Jessica while Colin gets security, and eventually Father Jeremiah arrives as well. When the hospital staff open the room, they don't find Jessica but instead a pile of metal pieces with smelly grease dripping down from it. The window is locked, leaving the staff confused, and Father Jeremiah looks down at the pile in sadness and began praying. Suddenly, April's heart monitor begins beating strong and healthy.
Lally's Game[]
Selena and Cade are moving into a ranch, in anticipation for their upcoming wedding in a few weeks. Selena leads the moving crew and tells them where to place their belongings. One of the movers comes in carrying an old, dirty trunk that belonged to Cade. Selena asks the carrier to put it down so she can inspect it. When Cade walks in and sees Selena in front of the trunk, he moves her away from it. Taken aback by how uptight Cade acted, Selena asks what's inside the trunk, with Cade vaguely stating it's filled with stuff from his childhood. Cade's mom Janice offers to let Selena stay at her place while all the furniture of their new house is set up, with Selena taking residence in Cade's old bedroom.
Selena finds an old photo album, with the pictures being normal at first. But then, he saw pictures of Cade going to Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex as a kid. He had taken a photo at nearly every attraction, even having a picture with Freddy Fazbear, the namesake of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Selena noticed that most of the photos were taken in a blacklight arena called "Lally's Game". Janice walked in and saw Selena looking at the photos. She explained that "Lally's Game" was Cade's favorite part of the Pizzaplex and that Lally was an animatronic made to accompany lonely kids. One day, Lally had disappeared and was presumed to be stolen. Cade was scared without him around. When Selena asks Cade about him, he just states that someone got hurt and that he doesn't want to talk about it.
Weeks pass, with Selena and Cade getting married and eventually getting settled into the ranch. Selena remembers the trunk again. Believing it had a connection to whatever happened at the Pizzaplex, Selena finds the trunk in the garage and tries to open it, only for Cade to return. He asks in a panicked matter if it was opened, with Selena deciding to be honest and saying that she was about to do it. Cade went to the trunk and opened it himself; it was completely empty. Cade started to cry.
Selena tries to put the incident behind her, but Cade has been acting strangely. For the past week, he had been up in the middle of the night looking through the various closets and cabinets. Selena confronts Cade about it, and he reveals what happened. The Pizzaplex was going through renovations and a construction scaffolding to collapse in on Lally's blacklight arena during a game, which punched a hole in the exterior wall. The auditorium was evacuated and Lally went missing, except it never left; it followed Cade home, and Cade saw him everywhere he went. Cade was able to lure Lally into the trunk that was in his mom's sewing room and lock it inside. Selena believes that Cade's story is part of his psyche still stuck in his childhood, but Cade refuses to believe it.
After a week, the couple begin renovating the house, and a few weeks later they decided to invite some work friends over for a barbecue. They play a game of charades and once they finish Selena goes out into the garage to get more cream sodas, however when she gets them, she spots Lally. She takes Cade to the garage to show him, but Lally's gone when they get back. The next morning Cade leaves early to avoid Lally, and Selena tries taking a hot bath, but feels watched and hears noises around the house. She goes two weeks hearing the noises before she decides to visit Janice again for more answers. Janice explains that the game was only for two, which is why she thinks Cade liked it so much, and why he was furious when a kid named Daniel played with it, repeating to his mother "The game is only for two!". Afterwards, Daniel was killed in a horrible accident. Selena asks for more information on Daniel, but Janice ignores the question, so instead she asks more about Lally, and Janice reveals that Lally never actually moved, and instead the game was made believe hide and seek.
When Selena returns home, she grabs two suitcases and plans to flee, but she hears noises and begins looking around for the source. She finds nothing and breaks down crying, questioning her sanity. Suddenly, Cade covers her mouth and tells her to be quiet. He warns that if she upsets Lally, she will end up in the trunk. Selena asks if he was the one who killed Daniel, but Cade says it was Lally. He then says "The game is only for two." Terrified, Selena grabs a lamp and whacks Cade on the side of the head. Cade staggers back and falls into a coffee table, and Selena runs towards the kitchen, but when she spots a white figure and hears Cade move, she runs upstairs instead. Realizing she made a dumb mistake, she decides to hide inside the closet of the guest bedroom, hoping for Cade to leave. Then, she hears someone whisper to her in the closet, saying "Hi." Selena screams.
Cade slowly drifts in and out of consciousness as Selena screams, and he eventually fully passes out. We he wakes up, he runs around the house looking for Selena, eventually heading to the guest room to see the trunk. He opens it, seeing the remains of Selena inside. Lally whispers "The game is only for two." from the ceiling.
In the far future, Cade has remarried to a new woman named Debbie. The two moves into a new house and they go into the attic, which Debbie plans to turn into her art studio. Debbie notices the trunk, but Cade leads her away from it, saying it's only childhood baggage. As they leave, shadows consume the room and as Lally's eyes appear above the trunk.
Under Construction[]
Maya, Jaxon and Noelle visit Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex to celebrate Maya's 16th birthday. As they explore the Pizzaplex, they go into a debate about the legitimacy of stuff they learned in physics class such as quantum immortality and the "Many Worlds" theory. Relating to the many-worlds theory, the argument is that a person never dies as their consciousness continues to experience existence in other realities, and when the argument gets too heated Maya hurries her friends off to visit the Pizzaplex's premier attraction: an AR unit titled "The World Celebrates You!" which claims to give the illusion of a perfect birthday party where everyone is inside the Pizzaplex celebrates the user.
After stopping by a VR booth Maya drags her friends to the AR unit, however Maya is devastated to learn that the booth is closed with a sign on the exhibit reading "Closed, Under Construction." Maya ignores it and enters the AR unit, and her friends join her. Maya quickly puts on a sensory headband as Jaxon gets the machine working. Suddenly, she experiences a large birthday party where everyone in the Pizzaplex celebrates her birthday, and all her family has come. She is overjoyed and joins in the celebration before leaving the AR unit and joining her friends on the Fast Freddy.
Maya is given the perfect birthday party with her family, friends and teachers all there to celebrate. Glamrock Chica appeared rolling in a big birthday cake as the entire band sang her the Happy Birthday song. Maya exits the booth once it's done, satisfied with her experience. The friends went about their business and continued enjoying the Pizzaplex's many attractions. The next day, Maya has a traditional birthday with her family and neighbors. This party also goes off without a hitch, although Maya has a throbbing headache throughout the celebration.
The next morning, during her birthday party with her family, she begins feeling mild headaches where the AR headband nodes touched her skin but chalks it up to pure coincidences and enjoys her party, where Gran gifts her a gold rose pendant. The next year, on Maya's 17th birthday, Gran dies from breast cancer surrounded by her family, then shortly after Pappy is diagnosed with brain cancer, then Gramps is diagnosed. When Nana gets cancer only a few days after Gramps and Pappy's passing, Maya begins to realize something is wrong. At school, everyone nonchalantly mentions their relative's getting cancer, but no one except Maya is concerned.
Maya spends her summer treating all her sick friends and relatives as much as she can, including her father. Despite the upheaval, one silver lining was that Maya's neighbor Mrs. Carpenter was having a baby named Cecilia. When she and Noelle go to visit, Maya is offered the chance to hold the baby. She is horrified to see that the baby looks like a "jelly-filled, lifeless rag doll", but Mrs. Carpenter and Noelle see it as a normal baby. Every newborn in the world had no face, and only Maya could see them like that.
As time goes on, more of the jelly-things are being born across the world, and they grow up into adult blobs in a matter of days. By Christmas, Maya's entire family has grown ill. Maya notices how dull the world is getting, with the only colorful thing left being her gold rose pendant, which she uses to help push her through the following days. The jelly-mannequins begin to multiple faster each day, with Maya witnessing one give birth while going to treat Jaxon, and they begin to pile up all over public areas, including her own house. After treating Jaxon, Maya returns home to find that both of her parents have passed away, and her two cousins, Axel and Abril, are refusing to eat.
She goes to check on Elena but discovers that she forgot to restock on medical supplies, so she gets in her car and drives to the nearest chemotherapy dispensary, avoiding multiple "Road Under Construction" signs. After getting the supplies she stops by the Thompsons' house to treat the only living member, 11-year-old Donny, who gives her a late, handmade 17th birthday gift. The road is block by the creatures, so she runs home to treat her family. Maya returns home to find Abril crying, and as Maya calms her down Axel passes away.
She has an epiphany that everything bad happened after she left the AR booth, and questions if the reality she is in is the true one, or a false one created by the technology. She brushes it off, however, and goes to treat Elena. Maya gives Elena her medicine and begins to lay down next to her, but when she does the creatures shatter the window and began flowing into the room. Maya goes to help Elena up, but quickly discovers that she had passed away seconds before the window shattered.
Suddenly, the conglomerate of jelly burst into her house. Maya runs into the garage discovering that some of the creatures had made it in when she was closing it earlier, and they had multiplied rapidly. Maya holds onto her gold rose pendant as she is consumed by the creatures, and the sensation of being crushed and suffocated overwhelm her, but she was still conscious. Maya was trapped, unable to die, forever.
Epilogue[]
A large crew of workers are tasked with emptying out an old Freddy's restaurant and beginning construction for Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex. The plan was to remodel the old place into a museum directly above the Pizzaplex. While construction workers began building up the Pizzaplex's exterior framing, the renovation crew were tasked with emptying out the pizzeria. One of those reno team members was Gil, who wanted to be a part of the company's tech team, only to be shunted with everyone else in excavation. Gil was partnered up with Danny, as they grabbed the animatronic endoskeletons strewn throughout the abandoned restaurant and put them into a pile.
Theo and Bryce see a delivery truck pulling up to the site. The new animatronics for the pizzeria were being delivered. After signing the paperwork, the two checked up on the new arrivals. While all the other animatronics were in mint condition, one of them (the guitarist) was broken and discolored, with its rabbit ears being the only distinguishable feature remaining. Gil, while on break, noticed the damaged robot and took interest in it. He snuck into the bottom of the truck to take the dismantled model. Theo notices, but Gil gives him an angry glare, intimidating him into silence.
Carlo noticed Gil tinkering with the animatronic and asked what he was up to. He simply promised that what he was doing would help them get the endoskeletons out of the pizzeria. Gil decides to use his programming skills to the test, linking its systems with his laptop in an attempt to add a "clean-up protocol" into its systems. Danny, Carlo and another worker named Owen arrive to see Gil's work. As Gil turns the animatronic on, its white eyes turned orange, and the robot flatly requested instructions.
Gil tasked the machine with breaking off the heads and limbs of all the endoskeletons and casting them into a pile. After briefly scanning the area, the animatronic complies. It breaks the heads and arms of the endoskeletons with ease. As Gil congratulates himself on his work, the animatronic grabs onto him and breaks his arms off. Pools of blood splatter all over as Gil screamed in agony, only to be silenced as the robot ripped his head from his shoulders. The animatronic was set on breaking the limbs and heads of anything it sees. All the other workers in the building ran for their lives to the only exit but are blocked by other workers entering into the building after hearing Gil's screams.
A bloodbath ensued. The robot tore apart the workers, with blood and sliced-off arms flowing everywhere. The only person to come out unscathed was Danny as he ran past the construction site, pleading for a construction worker on a cement truck to seal off the old pizzeria's only exit.
Characters[]
Humans[]
Frailty[]
- Jessica
- Jack
- Dave
- Unnamed Crash Victim
- Officer Manor
- Ramon Family
- Brian Ramon
- Harry Ramon
- Jane Ramon
- Nurse Macy
- Nurse Colin
- Father Jeremiah
- Unnamed Boy
- Robert
- Mrs. Wiloughby
- Mark Johnson
- April
Lally's Game[]
- Selena's Family
- Selena
- Cade
- David
- Selena's Grandmother
- Janice
- Cade's Dad
- Ed
- Bailey
- Daniel
- Debbie's Family
- Debbie
- Octavia
- Winifred
Under Construction[]
- Maya's Family
- Maya
- Elena
- Maya's Mom
- Maya's Dad
- Aunt Sofia
- Aunt Luciana
- Uncle Rafael
- Uncle Peter
- Axel
- Jaxon
- Noelle's Family
- Noelle
- Noelle's Uncle
- Davis's Family
- Mr. Davis
- Mrs. Davis
- Wesley
- Wendy
- Mr. Lambert
- Mrs. Lambert
- Carpenter Family
- Mrs. Carpenter
- Cecilia Carpenter
- Pastor Ben
- Thompson's Family
- Mr. Thompson
- Mrs. Thompson
- Donny
- Parker
- Aurora
- Mr. Vance
- Brynn
- Makenzie
Epilogue[]
- Gil
- Danny
- Theo
- Bryce
- Carlo
- Owen
Animatronics[]
Frailty[]
Lally's Game[]
Under Construction[]
- Glamrock Freddy
- Glamrock Chica
- Montgomery Gator
- Roxanne Wolf
- Foxy (rollercoaster cameo)
Epilogue[]
Creatures[]
Locations[]
- Freddy Fazbear's Pizza
- Freddy Fazbear's Mega Pizzaplex
- Freddy Fazbear's Pizza Place
- West Wilson High School
Trivia[]
- This is the second time the name "Lally" has been used in the franchise. It first appeared as "Lally's Lollies," a sponsor in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator. However, despite sharing the same name, the two animatronics don't seem to be related.
- The pendant that Jessica wears is eerily identical to the heart pendant from Fazbear Frights (specifically To Be Beautiful and the Stitchwraith Stingers), as they are both silver hearts that have healing properties.
- While it's possible that this is an alternate version or a completely separate pendant, it may be the exact same pendant from Fazbear Frights. If this is true, then Jessica is inadvertently using remnant on the children.
- The pendant not only has the power to heal sicknesses, but also resurrect the dead as shown in the beginning. If the heart pendant is made from remnant, it further supports the idea of William Afton using remnant to gain immortality.
- Jessica herself is also implied to have some sort of connection towards Eleanor, having a fear of the junkyard as well as random junk appearing throughout the hospital. It is possible that she is one of Eleanor's victims who suffered the same fate as Sarah; being turned to scrapped metal but using the pendant to keep up a human appearance. This is supported by the fact that Jessica suddenly disappears from April's room after using what is left of her pendant, leaving a pile of junk in her place.
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