The Cliffs | The Breaking Wheel | He Told Me Everything
"It was sometimes called the Breaking Wheel. They called it that, because it was used to crush the bones of the condemned." Ew, huh?
Oh, how Reed hoped he was out of his mind. He had a very, very, very bad feeling, though, that he was as sane as anyone. For some reason, he’d just become clairvoyant. Or was it omniscient?
Or maybe it was just observant and sensory-aware. Because he could still hear something that was definitely not tree limbs crawling against the house.
Reed's high school class is assigned to put together an exoskeleton for their own projects. Everyone else seems to be putting theirs together fine, but Reed's struggling, just as he suspected he would be in this class. He's not very mechanically-minded, after all. But he manages to draw the ire of the school bully who sits in front of him, Julius, who is unfortunately as smart as he is sadistic. When class is over, he shows Reed how his exoskeleton will fit, and tells him he plans to put Reed in it and forcibly enslave him. Suddenly, a power surge strikes, and Reed sees his chance to trap Julius in his own exoskeleton. He tells him that he'll just leave him there for the night, so he has an idea of how he treats everybody else.
But once Reed is at his friends' house, he starts to feel guilty. Is it torturous to leave Julius there? Is it just payback, or going overboard? And now his friends' little brother is playing with his friend's exoskeleton... whose remote was messing with Julius's... hold on, how far can that reach? Can it reach the school? And if it can, what is doing to Julius?
The twentieth Five Nights at Freddy's: Fazbear Frights story, and the second of the seventh book, The Cliffs. (It was originally supposed to be the first and title story, but the cover art was deemed "too scary.") It was adapted into the graphic novel collection in 2023.
Tropes related to “The Breaking Wheel”:
- Accidental Murder: Reed locks Julius in a springlock-type exoskeleton as a punishment for bullying him and his friends. It's not until Reed hears Shelly talking about medieval torture devices that he thinks maybe it wasn't as harmless an idea as he thought. And once Ory starts playing with the remote, making it spin and bend in unnatural ways? Oh no...
- Adaptational Dye-Job: The Girards are supposed to have black hair, but they have a medium-brown in the graphic novel.
- Adaptational Hairstyle Change: For Shelly, who's distinctly described as having chin-length hair that she chews on and bangs. The graphic novel makes her hair very long and parted down the middle. It's also supposed to be thick, and her graphic novel appearance makes it thin.
- Ambiguously Brown: The Girards are described as "dark," with thick black hair, thick eyebrows, and large noses. Considering Ory is a Hebrew name, they may be of Middle Eastern descent. The graphic novel just makes them white.
- Asshole Victim: Julius is a sadistic bully who takes joy in the suffering of others. He also suffers one of the most brutalizing deaths imaginable.
- Big Brother Bully: Implied, as Reed is making an exoskeleton solely to put around his sister's doll and scare her.
- Body Horror: Hot DAMN. Julius's corpse is described in detail, described as looking like "some kind of crudely sewn cloth version of himself" forced into a jutting skeleton. The image is so startling that the story had to be changed from the title of the book to the second story, as the proposed cover illustration was just too scary.
- Bookworm: Shelly, who's always reading something or other.
- A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: The Girards; high-schoolers Pickle and Shelly are the boy and girl, and six-year-old Ory is the baby.
- Brainy Brunette: Pickle and Shelly.
- The Bully: Julius is known to push people around and attack them physically, with nobody ever really doing anything about it. He's apparently been tormenting Reed and his friends for six years.
- Cheerful Child: Ory is constantly smiling and laughing, and is very playful.
- Childhood Friends: Reed's been best friends with Shelly and Pickle since they were in kindergarten.
- Color Motif: Shelley is described as loving green and white, "the colors of purity and life." Ironically, when it came time for the graphic novel adaptation, the artists put her brother Pickle in those colors instead of her.
- Constantly Curious: Shelly is always reading some book on a different subject, always fascinated by different stuff. Unfortunately for Reed, her current interest is in medieval torture devices.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The fact that Julius is probably going through this is what drives Reed crazy as he sits in the Girard's house. Pickle let Ory play with the robot in a way that would make it bend unnaturally, which would in turn do the same to Julius's body... and we see the result of that when Julius's exoskeleton comes for Reed. With Julius dragging Reed to his exoskeleton and entangling them together, it's likely that Reed followed in this same fate.
- Deadly Prank: Reed just wanted Julius to get a little scared, maybe sit overnight at the school. He didn't want him to get mangled beyond recognition.
- Downer Ending: The short ends with Ory leading the robot out of the house, supposedly with a mangled and deceased Reed attached to it now. The graphic novel short ends with the implication that Shelly and Pickle are about to "check on" Reed and find the disembodied corpse of their best friend.
- Girliness Upgrade: For Shelley, between the book and graphic novel. The book describes her as having short hair that she chews on, baggy clothes, stubby fingernails, and a preference for green and white. The graphic novel gives her long brown hair and a form-fitting pink-and-blue outfit. Interestingly, though, her beaded bracelets are cut.
- Haunting the Guilty: Julius, whose robot ends up in the Girard's house, whether he wanted to be there or not, and wants vengeance on Reed for leaving him in the suit.
- Heroes Love Dogs: Shelly specifically builds a Robot Dog based on the family dog, who is in training to be a therapy dog.
- Humanoid Abomination: Julius becomes simultaneously this and a Mechanical Abomination when he's locked in his own exoskeleton which is unknowingly controlled by Pickle's remote due to the same frequency to the exoskeleton's remote, causing his body to be mutilated and merged with it. His arrival to kill Reed spares few details on his appearance.
- Improvised Weapon: Unable to find anything else, Reed tries to hit Julius with a spare microscope.
- Killed Offscreen: Julius, when his exoskeleton starts contorting with Ory's remote.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Julius wanted to put Reed in the exoskeleton, so Reed left him in there. Reed left him in there, so Julius came for revenge.
- Missing Mom: Reed's mom died prior to the events of the story. He feels like his dad hadn't handled it well.
- Monster of the Week: Julius, fused to his own exoskeleton.
- The Mourning After: His mother's been dead for a while, but Reed's grief still blocks him off from a lot of people.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Sitting in the Girards' house, Reed gets incredibly antsy and near-breakdown levels of despondent over having left Julius in the school overnight.
- No Full Name Given: For Reed or Julius.
- No Social Skills: Neither Pickle nor Shelly have any social skills whatsoever. It's a family thing, and neither of them can tell when Reed is obviously in distress or lying.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Pickle's real name is Dilbert, but nobody calls him that.
- Patient Childhood Love Interest: Reed is hopelessly in love with Shelly, but she hasn't noticed, thinking of him like family.
- Plot Parallel: On the bus ride home after leaving Julius in a metal suit, Shelly just happens to be reading about medieval torture devices.
- Rejected Apology: Reed tearfully apologizes to Julius's corpse, saying he hadn't intended this to happen. Whether Julius's spirit is still angry and refuses his request, or the robot is simply moving without thought, is unknown, but it still scoops up Reed and fuses it to itself.
- Robot Dog: Shelley's school project, based on her own family dog.
- Robot Master: Definitely Pickle, with Shelly also having completely finished her Robot Dog long before the due-date.
- Sadist: Reed concludes that Julius is one, considering how much he loved to cause pain throughout the years he'd known him.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Reed bought Shelly a word-of-the-day calendar and immediately regretted it; she's been using those long and hard-to-pronounce words as frequently as she can.
- Sibling Team: Pickle and Shelly, two twins who do everything together.
- Stereotypical Nerd: Both Pickle and Shelly, who would much rather read than interact socially with anyone else. Their father apparently also qualifies, though he's never onscreen.
- Uncertain Doom: Reed. He could have already been dead by the time Ory picked up the remote, or been killed by Ory causing the exoskeleton to spin and thrash. Alternatively, he could have just been badly injured, or even gotten away just in time.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: First, Reed, for leaving Julius in the exoskeleton in the first place. Then Ory, who was simply playing with his brother's toy, unaware that it was also controlling someone far away...
- Villainous Crush: Implied; Julius tells Reed mockingly that Shelly would be very pretty if she put some makeup on.
