Henry ran as fast as his creaking joints would carry him. Somehow, by some miracle, he managed to stay ahead of the dripping ink monster and all of his searchers. He had heard what happened to Sammy just in the other room. He could only imagine what horrible fate was in store for someone still covered in flesh and veins filled with blood.
The strewn planks of wood that were littered along the path hindered his speed. The fire axe he used was helpful in clearing a path and warding off any searchers hunting him down, but it didn't make up for the time he lost whilst doing so. It felt like an eternity before he was finally in a clearing with no more planks. He passed through a room with countless Bendy plushies lined up perfectly along shelves that reached from the ceiling to the floor. The Little Devil Darlin' he remembered drawing and adored. He couldn't stay in this room for sanctuary. The entrance he made for himself was previously boarded up with seven planks, and he destroyed all of them. Across the room was another doorway with an actual door. With hinges!
Oh thank god. Henry thought to himself.
He quickly ran through and locked the door. All he heard was silence. He leaned against the door and panted heavily. He was getting too old for this much running.
Henry hardly had any time to revel in the peacefulness of the musky and humid room. He heard a faint clanking noise before an expired can of bacon soup rolled across the uneven floorboards and stopped in a corner riddled with cobwebs. His eyes followed the direction of the can before reverting back to the place it came from. There was an entrance to another corridor that he didn't take notice of at first. Out of desperation for any way out of this damned place, Henry finally spoke to someone other than himself.
"Hello? Someone there? I know you're in here. Come out and show yourself."
Henry could hear footsteps gradually getting louder. He tightened his grip on the axe in case this being happened to be a foe. To his greatest surprise, he saw one of the last things he expected to encounter. Boris the Wolf. Alive, closed chest cavity, and no blood spots (or in Boris' case, ink spots) were visible on him. Henry wanted to scream, but if he did he might attract Bendy that way. Boris stood there looking down at the Henry with his pie-cut eyes. His clothing was identical to the old cartoons. He wore yellowed pants with matching suspenders and black heavy-duty boots under them, and unlike the ones that Henry was wearing right now, Boris' were clean, and ink-free.
Henry quietly gasped in shock before finally uttering something.
"Boris?" he asked, half scared and half surprised.
"Heyo," the anthropomorphic wolf replied quietly with a wave of his gloved hand. It wasn't like the clumsy and obnoxious wolf to speak so softly, and judging by the way his eyebrows arched in with his worried expression, clearly something was bothering him, which was an extremely rare occasion throughout the entirety of the cartoons and shorts.
Henry tried to back up, but then he remembered, his back was against a wall. Boris was in front of the only safe way out of the room and possibly out of the studio. Boris took notice of this and took a few steps in Henry's direction.
"Are you, ok? Do you need help, Henry?" Boris asked.
Henry only held up the axe as if he was ready to attack and sprint out of the room, which was an option he was considering in this moment.
"Stay back!" Henry warned, his tone darker than before. Boris backed up and held up his hands as if he was innocent.
"Gosh, I was just wondering if you wanted any help."
"The less help I get, the better!" lied Henry. He wanted any and all help he could get, but he didn't know who to trust down here anymore.
Boris slowly stepped closer to Henry again. "Look, Henry, if we-"
"Get back!" Henry half-yelled, holding the axe in the ready position again.
"Henry, stop!" a female voice spoke from behind Boris. Unlike the wolf, she was shorter than Henry, and she also recognized him almost instantly just like Boris and Sammy did. She had similarly styled eyes as Boris did, but had a more human-like appearance. Her black, folter-top dress reached just past her knees and she wore small black mary-janes on her feet. Her cascading black hair barely brushed the top of her shoulder blades and the widow's peak was perfectly in-line with her thin eyebrows. Two small, white devil-like horns sprouted from just above her temples, and a small halo hovered about four inches from the top of her head. Exactly the same way Henry drew her for countless frames of animation.
"A-Alice?" Henry stuttered. He didn't know how to react when he saw her. Seeing one of the three characters alive and in front of him was already a lot to wrap one's head around, seeing two almost caused Henry to go into shock. His jaw was agape, again having no words to say.
Alice's small heels made faint, high-pitched clicking noises as she walked over to Henry.
"Henry, we need your help," she said bluntly. "As I'm sure you're aware, there's an evil version of Bendy loose in the studio. But Boris and I know how to capture him and save the good Bendy. The real Bendy that we know and the public fell in love with. But we can't do it ourselves." Boris nodded in agreement with Alice's statements.
"... Uh... W... W-What?!" Henry said. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down there. I've seen what that version of Bendy is capable of, and I don't want to go anywhere near him," Henry panted. "Who, or rather what is he? How do you know how to capture him, and why does Bendy need to be saved? Most of all, why do you need my help?" He waited for an answer. Boris and Alice briefly glanced at each other with slightly worried looks. Boris opened his mouth slightly as if he was getting ready to talk, but he was interrupted with a harsh banging at the door that separated them from Bendy. Low growls and groans came from the other side, and all of them took that as their cue to get the hell out of there.
Alice grabbed Henry's wrist and pulled him along with her down the corridor. "No time to explain. You and Boris need to get to the Ink Machine as soon as possible. If we run into any trouble, my magic should hold him off long enough for you guys to get in, and I'll be right behind. Once we're through, we'll tell you everything you need to know." Alice let go of Henry's wrist once they got to the base of a flight of stairs and started going up. Boris and Henry followed suit and instantly stopped in the middle of the staircase and grew silent when Alice placed her index finger over her dark lips. They could hear echoing of the familiar growls of Bendy as he crawled above them and in the walls. Once there was no sound, they resumed the climb. There was a door at the top of the steps that stood all by itself that also had a functioning handle and door hinges. a leaning column with drawers prevented it from opening all the way, but it opened just enough for the three of them to slide through the gap fairly easily.
To all of their luck, the room they found themselves in was where the Ink Machine lived. Boris and Alice immediately raced over to it, frantically changing the small hidden switches from 'pump' to 'reverse'. Henry had to trust that the toons knew what they were doing. He had never seen this machine until a few hours ago, and he had almost no idea how it worked, except how to turn it on. Before the toons changed it, the gears were all spinning in their own individual direction, but the machine wasn't expelling any ink. After it was tampered with, the gears spun in the opposite direction and ink was being poured out from it at an incredible pace. When the ink hit the floor, the surface seemed to cave in where the dark liquid touched it, giving it the appearance of a black hole. Henry was reluctant to go near it, and was stunned to see Boris sit on the floor and place his feet in the puddle. As he did this, his legs disappeared inside the hole. Within seconds, he put more of his body in it until he completely vanished.
Low grumbles could be heard in the distance and they grew louder by the second.
"Go, Henry!" Alice demanded. He was reluctant at first, but did exactly what Boris did. First he put in his feet, then his knees, then his waist, then he was gone. Henry took one last gulp of air before his face was submerged and he closed his eyes tightly. As he traveled through the ink, it wasn't watery like the ink he would use when drawing the animations. No, this ink felt thick, as if he was falling through Jell-o. That was really the only way Henry could think of to describe it: falling through Jell-o.
This weird feeling only lasted for about three seconds, much to Henry's satisfaction. He felt a strong hand grab his left ankle and pull him down faster. As his body left the inky vortex, he felt a rush of cool air on the exposed bare skin of his neck. When his entire body was on dry land, he gasped for air. Alice came down right behind him and quickly stood up. Henry was trying desperately to remove the ink that leaked into his eyes. In fact, he was so concentrated on this, he wasn't wary of the unknown world he had just entered.
A.N. Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a review for any ideas on what could happen next!
Bendy will Return...
See you in chapter two...