February 26, 2012 - 9:00pm





My name is Daniel Weathers. This is the first entry into my new journal I just picked up from the local store. I feel like I should start documenting my life since my little brother just turned 9 years old today. It seems like yesterday when he was just a little baby learning to crawl. With everybody having birthdays around me, I'm starting to feel old at 23. But I'm trailing off.





The important thing is that we had a birthday party for my brother at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza earlier tonight. I remember walking in to hear and see a few singing animatronic characters up on stage, but more about those later though. Mom and dad sat down and ordered our pizza and cake as my brother and I rushed off to play the mini-games in the Chuck-E-Cheese-like funhouse. With bundles of tickets in hand, we headed back to the family table so my little brother could open his presents. His face lit up with a combination of excitement and anticipation as he ripped open the gift I gave him. It was a Transformers action figure - what he always talked about endlessly for hours on end! In some ways, I relived my childhood years by seeing his innocent wonder explode in a million ways from exhilaration.





The whole birthday experience was a blast, except for one thing. During the night at Fazbear's, I would occasionally tune in my hearing to the kid's songs that were being performed by the animatronic characters on the front stage. I couldn't put my finger on it, but for whatever reason, one of them gave an eerie feeling in my stomach. According to the song he was singing, his name was Bonnie the bunny. As I was playing Ski-ball and a few other games, I swear that he was staring at me whenever I would turn around. This wasn't a friendly stare, either. Everything about him seemed to emanate hostility towards me, and me alone. His appearance, the way his eyes protruded, the way his voice projected towards me, and even the mechanical animations that he would perform would make me uneasy. His head would bob from side to side, each rotation coming back towards me and leaving me on edge. Even while using the restroom, I remembered that the songs being sung by the characters seemed to echo in an unnatural and disturbing manner throughout the dirty stalls. I had never felt this way about such a silly thing. Because of my anxiety from the animatronics, I was eager to leave after we opened presents and even urged my parents to hurry up. They agreed, yet were confused as to why I was so ready to get out in such a rush. I didn't want to explain how I felt since it seemed so thick of me to even think such outlandish thoughts about electronic figures.





I drove separate from my parents since I lived alone in my own house that I inherited from my rich grandfather. It's a three-story old house with a discolored, moss-covered brick exterior. It's secluded nicely from the rest of the neighborhood by a line of oak and maple trees that go along the back and either side of the house. I loved this ancient house and called it my home after I graduated from college. It has some problems with wiring and plumbing that need fixing, but other than that, it is in pretty good condition. That's enough rambling about my late grandfather's 'ole piece of history. That'll do it for my first entry since it's time for bed anyway. I'll probably laugh about this whole animatronic thing later.