Chapter Text
“Hello? Is it working? Can you hear me?” A few more static lines, and on the screen displayed none other than the jubilant face of Wally Franks. Despite the faded lighting, the unmistakable gleam in his eyes told mischief, dark intentions that he usually had people in the studio be victim of. He backed away from the camera, his lean and young build making an appearance, covered in the usual clothing of a janitor. His hat tipped slightly to the side, but he didn’t bother to arrange it as he tossed a mop off-screen, sending a proud smile at the camera.
How Wally found something to even film himself with, it was a mystery. Wally himself was a mystery, only thwarted by the truth that his mind was literally ‘way out of here’. Still, Wally didn’t seem to mind, not as his hands made a gesture to show the viewer his surroundings: the janitor’s closet.
“Welcome to Joey Drew Studios, everyone! I’m Wally, and I’ll be your guide for today. Want me to show you how Bendy cartoons are made? Well, you’re in luck! That’s exactly what I’m gonna do!” He picked up the camera, limbs vanishing at the corner of the black-and-white film. He licked his lips with the effort as he lifted the camera, angling it to his face, features visible in the camera. “The closest place to here is actually the Music Department. Mind if we go there first? Who am I kidding? You ain’t gonna answer! Just stay tuned!”
The screen displayed more static before that was replaced with the footage of one of the members of the studio sitting on a chair by a table, a plate of lunch right in front of him. Wally’s extended hand tapped his shoulder as a band played in the background. Only when the man turned around was his face recognizable.
Wally’s disembodied voice chuckled. “Hah! Hello, Henry! Not on your desk right now, it seems.”
A smile in reply. Henry Stein didn’t look offended, nor did he sound offended when he replied. “And you don’t seem to be sweeping the floor.” He placed down his fork, next to a portion of rice and what suspiciously looked like part of chicken. On his side was a can of bacon soup. “Who told you to film?”
“Me.” Wally walked closer to Henry before scanning the entire room. Oh, and what a familiar room it was, how organized it looked before the collapse. The sad, sad collapse. Wally whistled at the band, where one of the drummers messed up by dropping his stick during his cue. There was laughter in the background from one of the other band members. “How are they doing?”
Henry’s face returned to the camera. “Sammy’s been doing a good job with the songs lately. I don’t know if he was inspired by anything, but for certain, the work he’s been doing is great. He should get a raise.” Henry lifted a glass of water to his mouth.
Wally made a sound. “Speaking of Sammy…”
The footage flashed static once more, then revealed the beautiful face of actress Susie Campbell on the screen. Her eyes were wide with surprise, her lips shaped like a heart. Wally’s hat made an appearance, as if he were the one holding the camera as he made an introduction to the female, which was most likely the case. His voice said a second later, “Greetings, Ms. Campbell.”
Smiling warmly, Susie waved to the camera. “Wally Franks! Is this a new assignment?”
Wally, sounding like that was a repeated question, replied sarcastically. “Gosh, yes. Mr. Drew deserves to give me a bigger salary. But anyway…” He made a clicking noise, mimicking the numerous clicking noises caused by who heck knew then. “Mind if we visit the cranky music director for a while?”
Flushing lightly, Susie’s eyes brightened. Though they never confirmed publicly, it was already known in the whole studio that she and Sammy might’ve had more chemistry than a regular pair of employees. And a regular pair of friends. “Yeah, okay!”
Static.
“Hey, Sammy! Turn around, won’t ya?” Wally’s unmistakable voice rang out as Sammy sat with his back facing the camera, crouched over a table, most probably writing another piece. He gave zero attention to Wally’s call, only resume his work with an audible grunt. Still, that wasn’t enough to silence Wally. “Lawrence! Sammy Lawrence!”
Susie, who was also off-camera at the time, tried to call him as well. “Sammy! Turn around! C’mon, just for a while!”
“I’m busy!” Was Sammy’s quick reply. When it came to Susie, he was more active. But with Wally around, he continued putting on a face, one of the grumpy songwriter that he normally was. Though he still didn’t turn around, not to show his face to the camera despite being admittedly handsome. And the thing was: he knew it. He just didn’t care at all. Not when it was Joey. Henry. Wally. Or anyone else. For Sammy, his main goal was Susie. He had written his best songs for her to sing, which was a reason he secretly liked Alice Angel as a character. Not Bendy. Alice.
The shouted statement was not enough for Susie though. She sounded quite proud when she cooed to him, “Will you turn around if I told you that we had chocolate cake?”
Sammy stopped, abruptly freezing in place at her words. It was almost as if he had stopped moving, stopped breathing altogether. Then to Susie and Wally’s victory, he turned around, his eyes looking tired, but with a small hint of amusement. His lips, however, and his muscles only confirmed fatigue. Though only one trace of happiness, he was still a perfect portrait, a beautiful man.
“You’d have to be crazy to not love chocolate cake,” Sammy said hoarsely.
Behind the camera, Susie burst into laughter as Wally clapped and yelled, “Yeah-hah! We got him to look!”
More static, then another scene. This time, an image of Wally and Shawn Flynn giving each other a high five. Static again, and it was Norman Polk teaching Wally how the projection was turned on. The next, it was Wally pestering Thomas Connor, who rolled his eyes in annoyance. Then Grant Cohen, Bertrum Piedmont, Lacie Benton…Wally had gone through the whole studio without getting reprimanded by anyone, but only praised for his genius idea.
“Are you watching the tape again?”
Thomas suddenly pressed the pause button, fumbling with his remote as he did so. He spun in his seat, meeting the cartoonish eyes of his wife, Allison Connor. Her hair, which was supposed to be gray with age, was midnight. Her wrinkles were replaced with fair, unnatural skin. Her pale arms were cloaked by glistening, pitch-black ink.
Because of the Ink Machine, the machine that turned them into what they were now.
A Boris clone. A perfect angel.
Alice Angel.
Being transformed into a Boris clone, Thomas couldn’t speak. So all he managed was a quick nod, that with a sad glance at the small television of the private room they managed to find in Joey’s heck of an animation studio. How time had turned such a creepy place into Tartarus, how time had turned the place where happy couples played into a place where people broke apart. Thomas dropped the remote on the wooden floor, which created an loud, clattering echo.
Allison approached him carefully, her hair a dark curtain over her shoulders. The perfect angel. The perfect Alice. But she never wanted to admit it, not even when she looked at the mirror. Because she always said that the mirror never reflected her heart as it reflected her body. In reality, all their insides were just ink. They themselves were living ink. And Thomas wasn’t sure if that inky heart was what Allison saw, or what she wanted to see.
Glancing at the screen, Allison met the eyes of Wally Franks, still so young with that full smile. And yes, the last they saw, he wore that same smile as he held the hands of his grandchildren. And then, they had the same smiles. But now…
Inky tears. Wails of the betrayed.
That’s all there was in this tragedic story of Joey Drew and his dreaded Ink Machine.
Allison stopped walking, putting a hand on the hips that weren’t supposed to look this narrow for someone so old. “For the what time?” She asked, a hint of sarcasm in her youngish voice. Her best way to make Thomas smile, because all of them rarely did so anymore.
Thomas swiped one of his gloved fingers over a shallow puddle of dark ink. With that done, he scribbled a quick message on the floor between them.
The hundredth time.
And Allison smirked. Thomas smirked too, even when it felt weird while sporting a wolf’s snout rather than a human’s lips. At least, it was the closest they’d get to a smile. Whenever they did smile, Thomas couldn’t help but wonder if that smile would be their last. Maybe tomorrow, they’d be killed by inky friends turned foe, and they’d forget everything. Who they were. It was a possibility here in the studio, and that possibility was everything but good.
Crossing her arms, Allison said, “Are you ready to go?”
Through the depths of darkened hallways and twisted turns in a never-ending studio? Sure. That’s all they’ve been doing before winding up here again at the end of the day. Or night. Who knew what time it really was outside. After all, there were no windows, and the clocks no longer ran despite their ticking. Another lie.
Without hesitation, Thomas stood up, feet kicking away the remote. He nodded once more, pie eyes serious as he did so.
Allison grabbed an elongated bag that leaned by a wall, unsheathing a sword. A weapon she had made for herself a while ago, a decision born from the experiences of dealing with inky blobs and monsters. Allison’s craftsmanship was excellent, the sword sharp and slicing when she swiped. And Thomas knew that he got that from him, being his wife.
He found the idea silly that she wielded a sword while all he got was a Gent pipe. And he was the repairman.
She sighed. “C’mon then, Tom. Maybe this time we’d get lucky.”
She said that almost everyday. And each of those days, all they got were dead ends.
But Thomas didn’t hesitate. He followed her out of the room, leaving Wally’s bright smile behind once again.
Hours of walking around in the studio didn’t tire Sammy. In fact, he always seemed to get stronger with each step deeper, and his pride rose with each passing moment. It didn’t matter if he was now disfigured, his once wonderful aura shifted into a pathetic creature. At least the muscles stayed, and the pack he got from daily exercise.
But the axe was a dead weight in his hands. He dragged it down the hallways, even if that created a loud, screeching sound as friction acted up. Only when he sensed the looming presence of foes did he raise the weapon, and he never missed a shot. The technique was planned perfectly in his mind, and that made him happy that the fact that his critical thinking skills never vanished.
And yet he was still stuck here, in this inky, dark abyss, he called a body.
Black everywhere, even on his face. He couldn’t feel it, couldn’t tell if he was blinking, when his mouth was agape from momentary shock. No, it was only theories for Sammy, how he must’ve looked and behaved when he did.
Did Sammy ever even smile? Cry? Bite his lips in irritation? He could never be certain, not anymore.
So it was pointless to feel anything except betrayal.
Joey Drew--the creator--lied to them. And it was funny, that Sammy had once even believed him. He never trusted Joey, not even thirty years ago when he wrote those old songs, songs he still sang for his own entertainment. When he couldn’t sleep, to calm his nerves. Wait, did he still have any nerves? Or was it only ink and artificial hearts?
A cracking sound to his right had Sammy spinning, axe already swiping, and boy did he get the bullseye. The creature’s head hovered over the axe’s metallic tip, the body slumping onto the wooden floor. Like every other ambush, Sammy’s reflexes always resulted in being sprayed by inky blood. Now was like every other.
Then the creature’s whole melted, disappearing beneath the floorboards. Back to the Ink Machine, to be reborn again into who the heck knew. Another creature who would die again and be reborn again? Undoubtedly. Sammy concluded.
“I would’ve pitied you a long time ago,” Sammy whispered emotionlessly at the spot his assailant once lay.
But not anymore. Pity was a waste of time. In this place, nobody felt pity for anyone except for themselves, because dang were they just pitiful creatures.
And so he began dragging the axe again, back to where he began his time of privacy.
Sing my song and my sanctuary will open to you.
The room where he once conducted a band full of colorful and merry melodies, now a place where monsters spawn. When Sammy was certain that he was alone, he approached his instruments, playing his secret formula to open up his sanctuary. The playful clucks of his favorite banjo, to the bass fiddles that hummed a quick song. Then the drums that always followed the beat of adrenaline and heartbeat, when the time came to a grand performance and recording. The piano, with delicate presses speaks grand. And the violin that shudders.
Joey and Norman would stand together on the balcony as the latter switches on the projector. Then Sammy would raise his baton, and the band would sing in unison, the instruments’ tune reverberating through the room. Sammy once heard a comment from Wally Franks that he got goosebumps once.
Those were the days that Sammy was successful. Bold and happy (if not a little cranky). Now, the band was empty--dead, corrupted, missing. Sammy felt alone then end there, even when he was never close to any member and never recalled their names.
A click, and a door opened. Sammy approached it, and was greeted with the view of his old sanctuary. Just like he left it, toilet seat included.
He seated by the desk, propping the banjo by the side on his lap. A few rotations on the pegs and he was strumming, an old song that drifted in the air. One of his old songs, one he recalled writing for creepy smiling demons and wolves.
How naive he used to be.
As he began singing, the animation popped in his mind: Bendy, seating on a table like his own, a quill in hand as he attempted to write a Shakespearean poem to his lover of the heavens. Hilarious how desperate Bendy was, that he decided to turn on a radio, and Sammy’s song will play. Then Bendy would weep, slamming his fists on the paper as thunder pounded outside alongside the rain. A song of rejection, of failure to capture one’s heart.
Sammy never knew what the experience was like while writing that song. That was Jack’s job.
Now, it haunted him in a way that he wanted to tear himself apart.
Joey…Joey Drew.
That buffoon.
It was all his fault.
His notes turned into screams of agony, and the banjo was no longer singing. It was an echo of his hurt, his anger and resentment. Sadness and rage coiled, and Sammy’s grip on the fingerboard copied his way of holding the axe. A scream, and the banjo was sailing…
But never hit the wall.
Instead, collided with the floor, and Sammy fell silent.
He sat down aggressively, panting heavily. His fingers trembled. Ink ran down his body like sweat would have done before. He tried to clear his mind, but voices continued to whisper. Sammy did not have the strength to shush them, to bury their words into a vault. His heart only welcomed them, even when he didn’t want them to come. Involuntary. A trait so human that he felt even lower.
Sammy sank his head into his hands.
Every time Susie looked at her hands, they were pitch-black and gooey. Icky, yucky, sticky, with a squishing sound to accompany it. But it was still her hands either way, and she had chosen to burden herself with them.
That dreadful day, when she heard words that might’ve cured her sadness. But in the end, it was a trick. She was never important as an actress, but they needed her for ventriloquism. But she said yes anyway, and look where that got her.
Underground, the air stank. Spoiled bacon soup maybe, because that’s the only sense of human life that remained to linger. But with all the ink, where could one even put bacon soup? Invisible in the darkness of the Ink Demon’s home.
Susie was kneeling on the floor, staring blankly at her skirt. Black, just like the rest of it. Only her face was paler, yellowish in this lighting. But how she changed, once beauty turned beast. Her half-halo contradicted with her horns. Her eyes, one tawny, the other a pitch-black pit, saw nothing but flashes. Quick glimpses of her past, quick glimpses of her past. A lonely angel, a new voice. A handsome liar. A set of fake friends.
Why did it seem so horrible?
All around her, more humans stood in glass coffins with tubes above their heads, ink flooding the insides as clones were being created. Susie had a hard time believing that she had exited one of those things before, and releasing herself as a crawling…thing.
Seating did nothing, but at that moment, it was everything. It served as a way for depression to just hover in one specific spot, not follow her and pummel her. Might as well suffer here in one place, let the hopelessness just play here. It wasn’t as if she denied it. She had already given up.
There was a tapping sound, and Susie turned to see a lost soul tapping his glass. His melancholic yellow eyes illuminated through his inky body.
Susie released an exhale, but stood. She neared the glass, putting a hand on its surface. The Lost One, placed his own hand on his side.
He was so skinny, Susie noticed. If he were still alive, his ribcage might’ve marked through his skin, a freaky pattern to trace. Still, he managed to stand, to try touching her from the other side of their barrier. He was still trapped, still weak, but still…
“I couldn’t get you out,” Susie said. The Lost One flinched, slowly dropping his hand. But he didn’t complain, try to speak, or to convince her otherwise. Maybe all his hope has disappeared too.
Or maybe he was scared of her.
She wondered if Sammy saw her he would be scared as well.
Like he cared. Susie learned not to let her feelings overwhelm her so long ago. Every time that led her to a dark path, one with twists so brutal that she felt as if she had entered a labyrinth without Ariadne’s string. She had no way out, no way to save herself from the monsters that lurked in the shadows.
Perhaps she deserved it.
The Lost One sat down, face tilted to the pouring ink. The ink pounded on him, and he didn’t care.
Susie decided to walk then. Not sit in her circle, but to walk through the dark hallways of this inky hallway.
Then she saw the throne room-like area, with a literal throne at the center, atop a lump of ink and pipes and audio logs. Of Joey Drew. So she ignored it and approached it.
Sat on the throne.
And for once felt so high and mighty. So beautiful and perfect, like a wave of unexplainable power washed over her. Alice Angel began connecting to her, the character she always loved warping into her mind. Lonely, but cast down to love. Waiting for love.
And perfection.
That’s what was missing for Susie: the thought of perfection, internally and externally. Because she was replaced with Pendle, and forced to suffer, bearing the words of her former friend. Lies upon lies upon lies drove her insane, a madwoman storming through the darkness. That’s all she had been. A vagabond.
Internally and Externally.
Nothing more, nothing less. Pathetic, Alice Angel, was her. The one without Bendy’s love, one apart from her Romeo. But her Romeo wasn’t a man. It was her freedom and her beauty. Her cleanliness, her innocence. Not a naive and controllable little girl, like she was. Alice Angel was always more than that. And she was Alice Angel now.
So behave like an angel. Get the throne, be the villain to the true villains. Cast down, and against those casters. The story sounded so familiar, yet she didn’t care. She was to be beautiful. She was right in all her angles, in all her truths. They’ve been the puppeteers. She was the puppet. They’ve been tugging her strings long enough already.
She gripped the edge of the chair. It felt cool beneath her palms, but that could’ve just been the ink. Liquid was ink, and ink was liquid. Reflexive Property. But cool either way, filled with so much energy. She didn’t want to leave this seat, not without bringing this strength with her.
The audio log then looked at her. She picked it up, and like it was a spoiled cake, tossed it aside. It clattered on the floor, and echoed. She didn’t mind the sound, even if it might’ve attracted a lot of monsters her way. If they saw her, she might look like their queen.
Or better, their guardian angel.
She needed their trust. She needed to be above. So she stood again, lowered herself from the throne, and wondered where she last saw a gun.