BATIM – REIMAGINED
SummaryMy name is Agnes, and my great-uncle Henry Ross was an animator and one of the higher-ups at SillyVision Studio. A studio that he helped found.
Henry went back to the Studio in the year 1969, and went missing. In mid-1998, desperate for answers, I took matters into my own hands and went to the studio. God, I wish I hadn't…
But this place won't get the best of me! I have an ace up my sleeve, something from my past, even if it is a last resort…
DisclaimerBendy and the Ink Machine, BioShock and their characters do not belong to me. My only property in this fanfiction is my OC, Agnes. 'Bendy' MAY be out of character, depending on what is actually canon for him. This disclaimer applies for the entire fanfiction, so just because this isn't copied into the other chapters, doesn't mean it isn't there.
a/n: I live! I know I should be writing my Skyrim fanfiction, but I have been lacking motivation for that one and the current chapter just doesn't want to be written. My most sincere apologies to any of my followers waiting for that. I promise to return to it as soon as inspiration strikes again. Without any further ado, I give to you the prologue of BATIM: ReImagined.
Prologue~AUTHOR POV~
1:30pm, May 8th, 1969
A young, black-haired woman sat at a sun-drenched dining table, twirling a worn leather case in her hand. A mild blue light can be seen through the seam. Upon hearing the familiar creaking of the mail slot, she looked up. Pocketing her treasure, she picks up the mail at the door, sorting through it.
"Uncle Henry!" she called up the stairs, "Mail!"
Upstairs in the study, a middle-aged man was lost in the past, looking at a black-and-white photograph. When he noticed he'd been called for, he carefully put the photo back in a box next to two old army medals. After placing the box back in the locked drawer on the desk, he left the room.
He sat in the lounge-room and picked up the mail and newspaper that was left on the coffee table. The young woman sat in an armchair, reading her own letter.
"Anything on the agenda today, Agnes?" he asked her.
"Not today, Uncle Henry." she sighed, "I wanted to go shopping with Aunt Linda, but she was already gone when I got up. Although, my parents called this morning. They want me to stay with them this weekend."
"I can drop you off tomorrow. It's only two hours' drive." Henry suggested.
"Thanks. I thought I'd have to take the bus!" Agnes beamed.
Going back to checking his mail, Henry noticed a yellowed envelope slightly stained with old ink.
"Where did this come from?" he raised an eyebrow.
"What is it?" Agnes perked up.
"See for yourself." he showed her the envelope, "This is strange. Think it's safe to open?"
"I don't see stains on the inside, so maybe..?" Agnes shrugged. Although, something about the letter sent a shiver down her spine. She thought she was just being paranoid, so she kept it to herself.
Henry went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife to act as a letter opener. He carefully got the old, crinkly letter out and was shocked at what was written.
Dear Henry,
It seems like a lifetime since we worked on cartoons together. 30 years really slips by, doesn't it?
If you're back in town, come visit the old workshop. There's something I need to show you.
Your best pal,
Joey Drew
Underneath the signature was a deep, upturned and solid black symbol with a yellowed capital B in the centre.
On autopilot, Henry went back upstairs into his study and got another letter out of his drawer. It was the last letter he received from Joey, telling him to forget ever getting his job back.
The handwriting was exactly the same. Right down to the "Your best pal" closer. But what was with that stamp underneath the signature? It looked like that shape of… no. It couldn't be.
Henry was speechless. After all these years, Joey finally wanted to get in touch with him. How did he know that Henry was back in town? He and Linda had only moved back into this small country town five months ago. How could Joey have known where to send the letter?
But that wasn't really the point… Henry had tried to get into contact with Joey Drew several times since returning from Africa after being honourably discharged from the Army in 1943. Only now, did Joey finally deign to answer him, a decade after Henry had given up on hearing from him. Did Joey realise that Henry had never wanted to quit?
Henry walked back into the lounge-room and sat down, still deep in thought.
"What's up, Uncle Henry?" Agnes sat next to him, "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I may as well have…" Henry groaned, "Remember Joey Drew? My employer at SillyVision Studio and one-time friend? He finally sent me a reply to my letters and phone calls. Over twenty years after the last letter I sent."
Agnes gasped. "No kidding? But isn't that a good thing? Maybe he wants to make amends."
"I'm not sure." Henry said, sitting up straighter, "He wants me to meet him at the studio to show me something, but you said just yesterday that you saw it abandoned while you were on the way to work."
She nodded, folding her arms. "True… So, what do you want to do?"
Henry considered for a while.
On one hand, he hated holding a grudge. On the other hand, he wasn't the one that had a quarrel with Joey, it was the other way around. Joey was the one that had given Henry the silent treatment after the latter had been drafted to fight in World War II. It didn't seem to matter that Henry wasn't the only one in the studio that was being sent to war.
Henry had had no say in the matter. It was either quit his job and serve his country (true, he was willing to do so, anyway), or not answer the call and be court marshalled, losing a year's salary at most. Or even be locked up. That was something he could not afford to chance.
But that wasn't the only reason he'd left. He was sick of giving and giving when Joey was doing nothing but taking. Henry did the work, and gave the ideas and Joey was the one that cashed in.
It was a tough decision, whether to go and meet Joey at the studio or not. In the end, he decided it was high time to be the bigger man and bury the hatchet.
After he and Agnes had helped Linda with the groceries, he told them where he was going that afternoon.
"Wait, you're actually going?" Agnes yelped, disbelief in her eyes, "Uncle Henry, that place is a death-trap. Ask Joey to meet you somewhere else!"
"She could be right, dear." Linda commented, "Remember the times her warnings saved us from harm?"
Linda had a point. There were a few times when Agnes had forewarned them of near-death experiences that would have killed them if they hadn't known it was coming. For example, she had pulled Linda out of the path of a drunken driver one late afternoon five years previously.
And, recently, she had warned Henry not to order any of the seafood from a restaurant they dined at one night. It turned out all the utensils used to prepare seafood had been contaminated with shellfish from previous dishes, which Henry was allergic to.
In other words, she had predicted several incidents and had averted them for the most part. Maybe she was trying to do the same, now.
But meeting an old employer couldn't be that dangerous. Could it..?
Agnes held Henry's hand in hers and begged, "At least let me come with you."
To his credit, Henry genuinely considered it. But he didn't want anyone else going with him.
"No." he decided, "It's OK. I'm just meeting my old boss. We don't think we'll go far into the studio. I'll be careful. I promise."
A few hours later, he left, stating he should be back by nightfall.
Linda and Agnes waited up for him, but he didn't come back after dark. They gave up waiting at midnight and went to bed, hoping he would be back by morning.
But he was still not home when Linda woke up the next morning to find Henry's side of the bed still empty.
That afternoon, after not getting so much as a phone call, they asked around the neighbourhood for any sign of Henry. No-one had seen him, and his car was still parked in front of the Studio four blocks away from the house.
Fearing the worst, Linda called the police. A missing person's case was opened and they searched the Studio and the Music Department for any sign of Henry. Nothing was found. Nothing but an empty, ink-stained surgical table in a small room towards the back of the studio. While it was suspicious, no blood was found on it, so it was dismissed by the detectives and left where it was.
They did notice, however, that one section of wall close to the break room wasn't stained. Knocking on the wall did not yield a secret room, however, so the wall sounded as solid as the rest.
One their way out, they walked over a part of the floor that they didn't notice had been freshly boarded over.
Unable to turn up clues at the studio, the police got statements and compiled the case. Investigations went on for years, with each lead either turning out to be unrelated to Henry's disappearance or going cold before being followed up.
Come the 1980s, the Henry Ross Missing Person's case had been declared a cold case. And Linda gave up hope on ever seeing her beloved husband again.
But someone never gave up Henry for dead. She remembered the strange letter he'd got and how odd Henry had acted before he'd left.
Agnes Ross was certain that Henry was still alive, somewhere in the Studio. Something was keeping him from coming home, she just knew it. But nothing she told her great-aunt would get her permission to even walk the same street as the studio. And Agnes never had the heart to fully pursue it.
~?~
Even more time passed and unbeknownst to everyone, in a room underground, a summoning circle drawn in ink proudly stood the test of time as years went by. Even when the floorboards it was drawn on started to rot and the studio above began crumble away…