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Description

Henry panted desperately as swung his weapon at the monsters surrounding him. He was overwhelmed by the creatures of ink, they seemed to appear quicker than he could destroy them. And his weapon… did nothing to help him.

A plunger. Why in God’s name had ‘Alice’ given him a plunger?! And why had he taken it? He was better off with the length of pipe Boris had scrounged up from somewhere. Of course, he’d given it back to the wolf so the toon could defend himself –but considering he was cowering in a nearby corner, Henry was deeply regretting that decision.

A hand full of claws raked across the animator’s back, making him jerk and yell in pain. Another incomplete toon, Striker, threw a punch into Henry’s right wrist, making him drop his weapon with another agonised cry. And, as if they all realised the old man was defenceless, the monsters immediately rushed him like a frenzied mob.

With a last, terrified yell, Henry was pulled to the ground and the world went black.

---***---

Henry groaned as he returned to consciousness. His body felt strange. He could feel the pain from where those monsters had attacked him, every punch, every bite… But, somehow, it all felt far away, as if it had happened to someone else, and he was only feeling an echo of the assault. Similarly, he couldn’t feel the floor he was lying on. It felt like he was floating in mid-air, or suspended in water.

He opened his eyes.

It was dark… so dark…

Where was he?

He turned his head from left to right to look around. Although, if he was being honest, it didn’t feel like he’d moved at all. He couldn’t feel air passing down his throat and into his lungs, or his clothes rubbing gently across his skin, just the dull, far away ache from the attack.

And then, he heard something, something barely on the edge of hearing. It sounded like… a laugh? Or, was someone crying?

“Hello?” he called out, unsure of who could possibly be in this inky blackness, but instantly glad for the company.

His heart stopped.

Inky blackness… ink.

He was dead, he realised. Those monsters, those incomplete toons, had killed him. His form had burst like a bubble, like he’d inflicted on them, and now he was dead.

Except, it was worse than that; he wasn’t dead. The ink that formed him had been drawn back into the rest of the tempest that flowed throughout the studio. He was now a part of that river, the dark puddles, along with every other unfortunate soul in this place.

And then the voices, so soft and far away before, suddenly came crashing upon him like a tidal wave. It was as if his realisation had broken the dam that had separated him from the rest of the flood.

Now, his ears were filled with the words of others around him, so many voices that they must have ranged into the hundreds. Male and female. Young and old. Lucid and mad. Sentences started, but would have no end. Punchlines to jokes without beginnings. Laughter, pleading, crying, and screaming.

“We won’t reach the deadline. We have to reach–”

“Where are the lights? I can’t see! Who turned off the lights?”

“–think that shot would make through editing? I mean, really…”

“I don’t want to work here anymore!”

“Let us out of here!”

“Yeah, me and the missus have got this big holiday planned. We going–”

“Joey!”

“– the belle of the ball, I'm the toast of every town. Just one little dance, and– I’m sorry, can I do that again?”

“It’s just a dream… It’s only a dream…”

“I don’t understand. I only wanted to serve him. I am loyal. His will is my command!”

“Sammy?” Henry muttered in amazement, though he could barely hear himself in the cacophony. Flinching at the sound around him, he raised his own voice to be heard. “Sammy, is that you?”

Somewhere, within the darkness, Henry felt a presence flinch at being addressed, as if it had never happened before. In fact, every voice around him seemed to flinch at one of their own being called out. It was almost like… like they’d been stuck here, in this studio, in this inky abyss, crying out for all they were worth, hearing the other voices, but not recognising them. Each and every one of them alone in this unseen, screaming crowd.

“My Lord… I only wish to serve you! I will do better next time! I will sacrifice it all, whatever you please! Can I get an amen?”

The poor man sounded even worse in here than he did previously. His worship of the little toon devil felt even more twisted, more obsessive, to Henry. It was if another little piece of him had been lost in this place.

Bits of your mind swimming, like fish a bowl.

Maybe ‘Alice’ wasn’t too far wrong. This place seemed to leech everything from its inhabitants, its prisoners, until there was nothing left. Nothing but a lost prophet, a fallen angel, an incomplete toon.

“Amen.”

A voice called out in response to Sammy’s cries, no louder than a whisper. A great hush fell upon the voices. For a moment, no one spoke. But then, slowly, the voices began to return, all of them saying a single, chilling word.

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

The voices echoed mercilessly in the darkness. They were all around Henry, some sounded far away while others felt at his ear. Their word, that one word, rattled around in his head. It pounded like hangover. It wanted out.

He bit his tongue to keep the word from slipping from his own lips. He didn’t know how, but he knew that if he gave in, it would take a piece of him with it. That part would never come back, never re-join the whole, and it would be the start of him slipping down to what his old co-workers had become.

Fish in bowl.

He had to get out.

He forced himself to recoil from the voices that sounded so like the people he once knew. He forced himself to try and kick and push, to touch something so he could swim up and out of that inky black. He had to keep trying. He had to get out.

The ink surrounding him burst, giving way to dull, hazy light and cool air that chilled his throat. As his vision focused, he found himself staring at the little devil himself and yelped in alarm at the figure before him. At that moment, his legs gave out and he landed on the floor with an audible bump. Thankfully, the fall gave him space to look at Bendy and realised that he was staring at one of the many sculptures that littered the studio’s halls.

He’d been startled by a statue.

“Henry!” a terrified voice yelled from the hall behind him.

As a pair of pounding footsteps drew closer, he looked over his shoulder to see Boris join him. There was an odd mixture of total panic and utter relief on the toon’s face that wouldn’t have been possible in the real world. He barely had time to speak before the wolf collapsed beside him and pulled him in to a rib-shattering hug.

“Oh Henry! When you burst like that and didn’t bounce back, I was so scared! I thought maybe you were gone for good!”

“Need… air,” the animator gasped.

“Sorry!” Boris flinched back, releasing the old man from the tight embrace. “Are– are you alright? What happened?”

Henry held up a hand, silencing anymore questions the worried toon wanted to throw at him. Once he was certain the wolf had calmed down slightly, he returned his hand to the ground to support himself. He took a few seconds to breathe before turning back to his friend.

“Boris, can we…” He trailed off as he shifted, pulling himself to the wall. He leaned against the physical support and sighed in relief, relaxing slightly. “Can we just… not talk for a while?”

“Oh. Uh…” Boris’s ears laid flat against his head, a chastised look graced the toon’s face. Quietly, he also moved across the floor, positioning himself against the wall and next to Henry. He looked at the man worriedly before nodding. “Sure.”

Henry didn’t answer back. He simply let his head fall back and rested it on the wall. He could feel Boris’s arm next to his, an unexpected, gentle warmth radiating off the toon, and he scooched closer and leaned against the toon.

In a world where everything was trying to kill him and that death was… that, it felt nice to be touching the only friendly person in this hellhole. And, as Boris leaned into him, Henry had the feeling that he wasn’t the only one who needed physical comfort.

After a few moments of staring blankly ahead of himself, Henry noticed that the toon was trembling. Blinking his vision back into focus, he looked over to the wolf and realised that the toon was crying. Alarmed, he moved back slightly and turned to face Boris fully.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Henry,” Boris said in a miserable tone. His breathing hitched for a moment before calming down. Great tears rolled down the wolf’s face. “I– When you went down– I wanted to help, honest I did, but… but I– I–”

“Boris, it’s–” Henry paused. For a moment, he wondered if he should tell the toon the truth or what he wanted to hear. When the wolf gave him a teary, wretched look, he sighed quietly. “It’s probably for the best. You’d likely have been pulled down with me.”

Boris didn’t look happy at the assertion, but nodded acceptingly. He looked down at his hands resting in his lap before reaching behind his back. Slowly, he pulled out the GENT pipe and offered it to the animator.

“I think this is better with you.”

Henry took the pipe without a word, but patted the wolf’s knee in thanks. The pair sat quietly for a couple of minutes before he broke the silence.

“Have you ever returned to the ink like that?”

“Nope, never.” Boris shook his head. “Joey says it’s cause we’re perfect, me, Bendy an’ Alice. He says there’s nothing in us to burst like that. Was it– was it bad?”

The whole event flashed through Henry’s head. The suffocating black, the feeling of not only being weightless but bodiless, the chaotic screams of every other soul trapped in the ink…

“Yeah, it was bad,” he stated simply. Then, drawing a deep breath, he stood up and pushed the whole ordeal to the back of mind, where he would deal with it at a later, safer date. “Come on, let’s go get her ladyship downstairs those… whatchamacallits.”

“The power cores? I grabbed the three you’d already found when you, eh, burst,” Boris announced, standing up as well. “So we only need to find one more!”

“Great, just one more,” Henry replied unenthusiastically. As he began to continue his search, he looked back to the Bendy statue. “Let’s try not to do that again.”

Boris nodded in agreement.

Description

Henry panted desperately as swung his weapon at the monsters surrounding him. He was overwhelmed by the creatures of ink, they seemed to appear quicker than he could destroy them. And his weapon… did nothing to help him.

A plunger. Why in God’s name had ‘Alice’ given him a plunger?! And why had he taken it? He was better off with the length of pipe Boris had scrounged up from somewhere. Of course, he’d given it back to the wolf so the toon could defend himself –but considering he was cowering in a nearby corner, Henry was deeply regretting that decision.

A hand full of claws raked across the animator’s back, making him jerk and yell in pain. Another incomplete toon, Striker, threw a punch into Henry’s right wrist, making him drop his weapon with another agonised cry. And, as if they all realised the old man was defenceless, the monsters immediately rushed him like a frenzied mob.

With a last, terrified yell, Henry was pulled to the ground and the world went black.

---***---

Henry groaned as he returned to consciousness. His body felt strange. He could feel the pain from where those monsters had attacked him, every punch, every bite… But, somehow, it all felt far away, as if it had happened to someone else, and he was only feeling an echo of the assault. Similarly, he couldn’t feel the floor he was lying on. It felt like he was floating in mid-air, or suspended in water.

He opened his eyes.

It was dark… so dark…

Where was he?

He turned his head from left to right to look around. Although, if he was being honest, it didn’t feel like he’d moved at all. He couldn’t feel air passing down his throat and into his lungs, or his clothes rubbing gently across his skin, just the dull, far away ache from the attack.

And then, he heard something, something barely on the edge of hearing. It sounded like… a laugh? Or, was someone crying?

“Hello?” he called out, unsure of who could possibly be in this inky blackness, but instantly glad for the company.

His heart stopped.

Inky blackness… ink.

He was dead, he realised. Those monsters, those incomplete toons, had killed him. His form had burst like a bubble, like he’d inflicted on them, and now he was dead.

Except, it was worse than that; he wasn’t dead. The ink that formed him had been drawn back into the rest of the tempest that flowed throughout the studio. He was now a part of that river, the dark puddles, along with every other unfortunate soul in this place.

And then the voices, so soft and far away before, suddenly came crashing upon him like a tidal wave. It was as if his realisation had broken the dam that had separated him from the rest of the flood.

Now, his ears were filled with the words of others around him, so many voices that they must have ranged into the hundreds. Male and female. Young and old. Lucid and mad. Sentences started, but would have no end. Punchlines to jokes without beginnings. Laughter, pleading, crying, and screaming.

“We won’t reach the deadline. We have to reach–”

“Where are the lights? I can’t see! Who turned off the lights?”

“–think that shot would make through editing? I mean, really…”

“I don’t want to work here anymore!”

“Let us out of here!”

“Yeah, me and the missus have got this big holiday planned. We going–”

“Joey!”

“– the belle of the ball, I'm the toast of every town. Just one little dance, and– I’m sorry, can I do that again?”

“It’s just a dream… It’s only a dream…”

“I don’t understand. I only wanted to serve him. I am loyal. His will is my command!”

“Sammy?” Henry muttered in amazement, though he could barely hear himself in the cacophony. Flinching at the sound around him, he raised his own voice to be heard. “Sammy, is that you?”

Somewhere, within the darkness, Henry felt a presence flinch at being addressed, as if it had never happened before. In fact, every voice around him seemed to flinch at one of their own being called out. It was almost like… like they’d been stuck here, in this studio, in this inky abyss, crying out for all they were worth, hearing the other voices, but not recognising them. Each and every one of them alone in this unseen, screaming crowd.

“My Lord… I only wish to serve you! I will do better next time! I will sacrifice it all, whatever you please! Can I get an amen?”

The poor man sounded even worse in here than he did previously. His worship of the little toon devil felt even more twisted, more obsessive, to Henry. It was if another little piece of him had been lost in this place.

Bits of your mind swimming, like fish a bowl.

Maybe ‘Alice’ wasn’t too far wrong. This place seemed to leech everything from its inhabitants, its prisoners, until there was nothing left. Nothing but a lost prophet, a fallen angel, an incomplete toon.

“Amen.”

A voice called out in response to Sammy’s cries, no louder than a whisper. A great hush fell upon the voices. For a moment, no one spoke. But then, slowly, the voices began to return, all of them saying a single, chilling word.

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

“Amen.”

The voices echoed mercilessly in the darkness. They were all around Henry, some sounded far away while others felt at his ear. Their word, that one word, rattled around in his head. It pounded like hangover. It wanted out.

He bit his tongue to keep the word from slipping from his own lips. He didn’t know how, but he knew that if he gave in, it would take a piece of him with it. That part would never come back, never re-join the whole, and it would be the start of him slipping down to what his old co-workers had become.

Fish in bowl.

He had to get out.

He forced himself to recoil from the voices that sounded so like the people he once knew. He forced himself to try and kick and push, to touch something so he could swim up and out of that inky black. He had to keep trying. He had to get out.

The ink surrounding him burst, giving way to dull, hazy light and cool air that chilled his throat. As his vision focused, he found himself staring at the little devil himself and yelped in alarm at the figure before him. At that moment, his legs gave out and he landed on the floor with an audible bump. Thankfully, the fall gave him space to look at Bendy and realised that he was staring at one of the many sculptures that littered the studio’s halls.

He’d been startled by a statue.

“Henry!” a terrified voice yelled from the hall behind him.

As a pair of pounding footsteps drew closer, he looked over his shoulder to see Boris join him. There was an odd mixture of total panic and utter relief on the toon’s face that wouldn’t have been possible in the real world. He barely had time to speak before the wolf collapsed beside him and pulled him in to a rib-shattering hug.

“Oh Henry! When you burst like that and didn’t bounce back, I was so scared! I thought maybe you were gone for good!”

“Need… air,” the animator gasped.

“Sorry!” Boris flinched back, releasing the old man from the tight embrace. “Are– are you alright? What happened?”

Henry held up a hand, silencing anymore questions the worried toon wanted to throw at him. Once he was certain the wolf had calmed down slightly, he returned his hand to the ground to support himself. He took a few seconds to breathe before turning back to his friend.

“Boris, can we…” He trailed off as he shifted, pulling himself to the wall. He leaned against the physical support and sighed in relief, relaxing slightly. “Can we just… not talk for a while?”

“Oh. Uh…” Boris’s ears laid flat against his head, a chastised look graced the toon’s face. Quietly, he also moved across the floor, positioning himself against the wall and next to Henry. He looked at the man worriedly before nodding. “Sure.”

Henry didn’t answer back. He simply let his head fall back and rested it on the wall. He could feel Boris’s arm next to his, an unexpected, gentle warmth radiating off the toon, and he scooched closer and leaned against the toon.

In a world where everything was trying to kill him and that death was… that, it felt nice to be touching the only friendly person in this hellhole. And, as Boris leaned into him, Henry had the feeling that he wasn’t the only one who needed physical comfort.

After a few moments of staring blankly ahead of himself, Henry noticed that the toon was trembling. Blinking his vision back into focus, he looked over to the wolf and realised that the toon was crying. Alarmed, he moved back slightly and turned to face Boris fully.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Henry,” Boris said in a miserable tone. His breathing hitched for a moment before calming down. Great tears rolled down the wolf’s face. “I– When you went down– I wanted to help, honest I did, but… but I– I–”

“Boris, it’s–” Henry paused. For a moment, he wondered if he should tell the toon the truth or what he wanted to hear. When the wolf gave him a teary, wretched look, he sighed quietly. “It’s probably for the best. You’d likely have been pulled down with me.”

Boris didn’t look happy at the assertion, but nodded acceptingly. He looked down at his hands resting in his lap before reaching behind his back. Slowly, he pulled out the GENT pipe and offered it to the animator.

“I think this is better with you.”

Henry took the pipe without a word, but patted the wolf’s knee in thanks. The pair sat quietly for a couple of minutes before he broke the silence.

“Have you ever returned to the ink like that?”

“Nope, never.” Boris shook his head. “Joey says it’s cause we’re perfect, me, Bendy an’ Alice. He says there’s nothing in us to burst like that. Was it– was it bad?”

The whole event flashed through Henry’s head. The suffocating black, the feeling of not only being weightless but bodiless, the chaotic screams of every other soul trapped in the ink…

“Yeah, it was bad,” he stated simply. Then, drawing a deep breath, he stood up and pushed the whole ordeal to the back of mind, where he would deal with it at a later, safer date. “Come on, let’s go get her ladyship downstairs those… whatchamacallits.”

“The power cores? I grabbed the three you’d already found when you, eh, burst,” Boris announced, standing up as well. “So we only need to find one more!”

“Great, just one more,” Henry replied unenthusiastically. As he began to continue his search, he looked back to the Bendy statue. “Let’s try not to do that again.”

Boris nodded in agreement.