Disclaimer: Welcome one and all, to chapter 2! Break out the popcorn, 'cause we've got a show for you!
TravisUmbra: It'll be slow at the beginning, but I have BIG plans for this. I hope you won't get bonely reading this! Heheheh. Puns…
Mr. R3M: I am, thank you. Hope you enjoy this chapter!
Guest: I am glad I have your interest.
JustBeStill: Well, it's a prologue after all. But thanks for favoriting and following!
Andonexus KotD: Oh, Bendy came true all right. Just wait a few more chapters.
DarkRose66: Thanks! I liked yours too.
I own Kate, everything else is TheMeatly's.
"Speaking"
Thinking
"Reading"
Edited: May 8/18
"Alright, Joey. I'm here. Let's have a look at whatever you wanted my dad to see," I said quietly, before letting out a ragged cough. A cloud of dust from closing the door floated up around me, filling my lungs. "When was the last time this place had been cleaned?" The entrance hall was lit by a few candles from farther down the corridor and several randomly placed lights, allowing me to clearly see through the thick cloud of dust particles drifting through the air. The familiar smell of an artist's ink swept over me once I got used to the mustiness, and I eased up slightly. It was just an animation studio, Kate. An abandoned animation studio, but an animation studio none the less.
Glancing at the walls, I slowly made my way towards the open space at the end of the corridor. "The Dancing Demon." I raised an eyebrow at the old promotional poster beside me. Actually, there were posters all over the place. "Bendy in Sheep Songs, with Boris the Wolf." Bendy and Boris… Bendy and Boris-aha!
Now I remembered! Dad's stories of his old job revolved around some cheeky little demon named Bendy, and his friend Boris, a wolf who played the clarinet. Joey Drew Studios had built a small empire around their star, the Little Devil Darlin', but then Joey happened and… y'know the rest. I had loved watching the tapes as a kid, but as I got older, those memories were... just that. Memories. Stuff I hadn't thought about in years. I loved those old videos to death that I somehow busted one up in the player from overuse. Never could recall how that cartoon ended anyway.
"Now, what am I supposed to be seeing in this horrifying place of creepiness?" I joked, wandering down the hall until I finally entered the main room, passing under the "WELCOME" sign. Other hallways branched off from there, and drawing tables and chairs littered the area. "Joey Drew Studios" was written on a casing over three massive wheels mounted on the left side of the wall, to the right of a hallway on the right. What first caught my attention was the running projector in the corner, and a single Bendy cutout propped up in the corner with its face lit up in the yellow light. Randomly placed blanks were scattered about, patching under holes in the walls or just laying discarded from not being put to use.
"Hmmm… well, this isn't strange at all!" Fear the sarcasm! Fear it! As well of the quiet crackling of the empty film cycling through the film wheels, and distorted music flowing from the machine, I could feel the hairs on the neck stand on end from how creepy it was. Why would that even be running? It's not like anyone but Joey and me were here… right?
"I swear, Kate, you're getting more paranoid by the minute just standing here." I spun around in my black dress shoes, and headed down the wing on the right. "Just find out what he wanted from dad, and you'll never have to be here again." Continuing my path under the old yellow light bulbs on the ceiling, I chose to take the path by the wheels. Passing a lopsided dresser, and a sign indicating where certain directions led such as the art department, I turned a corner again only to pause as my eye caught sight of something. A Bendy plush sat on the seat beside the dresser, leaning against the backrest. It looked so out of place, but right at home at the same time. "Now what are you doin' here?" I picked up the harmless object, and ran a hand over its soft velvet head. "It's pretty off-putting walking around by my lonesome, you know. I don't suppose a strong demon like you would protect me?"
The doll remained silent, and I stifled a laugh. "I had a feeling you'd say that. Let's go then, my brave knight. Onward!" I held Bendy up to my chest with one arm, and marched down the hallway into the next room after making a left turn. Whatever brave feelings I had right then, had upright disappeared very, very quickly. Like a slap to the face.
"Dreams come true?" Okay, that wasn't normal. Tightening my grip on Bendy, I placed a hand below the sentence, and felt the dried ink that had dripped down the old plaster. Looking up at the small light above me, I noticed a large ink stain on the ceiling, dripping down onto the creaking floorboards and oozing outwards. Okay! Time to get moving! Right now, here we go!
"Man, what a waste of ink." Backing up, I threw a nervous look down the hall. And there's a dark ominous hallway. No huge light source that I could make out, only a smaller light on the side of the wall, but there was something… something off about that. As I glanced wearily at the gated door on the left, I turned to the right and carefully stepped over one of the ink pipes my dad had talked about, stretching across the floor between the walls. A chart displaying the amount of gallons needed, and a keep out sign didn't ease my growing nerves.
I was normally an easy going person. I could handle mostly anything, and not much scared me. However… seeing a giant black pit far, far below you from a balcony with massive chains threaded into the abyss can make you act… different.
Dozens of cracks in the ceiling let the afternoon sunlight stream in, but doing no help in me seeing what was below me. "Now what do you suppose is down there?" I asked Bendy. Spotting the power switch to my right, and the battery cartridge beside it, I only could assume I needed a power source. "Hmm..."
To the left of the room was a shelf and a foot locker. "Oh. Guess that's it." I moved over, tucking Bendy under my arm for a moment and picked a heavy battery off of a shelf. Reason lead me to believe the next one was in the box. "And what do you, I was right!" Juggling the two, I moved back over and stuck them into the machine. Standing upright, I turned around and with a sharp tug, brought the handle down. "Alright, Joey. Let's see what you're hiding."
The chains began to move upwards, making the entire room creak with the sound of old metal being strained. Put to its test. From… what though-oh, sweet potato pie.
It was… big. Big, and metal. Clearly well constructed, with gears and a giant vat of ink mounted on the side. A huge nozzle was on the front, with looked like it would move when it was activated. A built-in tray was directly under the hose, ready to catch whatever leaked… out of… ink. It was… ink.
Ah, yes. The infamous ink machine. So this was what dad had meant before. All the pipes in the whole building led to that… monstrosity. It was huge! It easily towered over me, but if it wasn't hanging over a hole that led to who knows where, and I could get closer to it, I'd be able to see for myself how big it really was. "Wonder how you turn it on?" I mumbled to myself as a gust of wind flew from vents built into the bottom. A quick scan revealed a faint dripping from the back where the vat was, disappearing underneath it. Must be leaking. Shrugging, I went back out of the room, and found the gated door was open. "Maybe had to do with the new power input. Oh, and would you look at that. Even more hallways! What a surprise!" I threw my arms up in the air, and checked out the split pathways. "Yeesh! Can't you animators make things any more complicated?" Eenie, meenie miney… that one.
The right path led past an artist's table and a Bendy cutout. I stopped for a moment, and grinned at the cartoon standee. "Hope you're having fun here, Bendy." I patted the demon on the head, smiling. "Bet it gets pretty lonely around by yourself." Nodding in agreement as if it answered back, I stepped backwards and went past him to the next crossroads.
The studio was like a maze, honestly. But seeing how large it was on the outside, made me wonder about the floors that I haven't stumbled across yet. So far, I haven't seen any stairs. Unless they were all boarded up due to safety hazards. Then again, this whole place seems to be close to falling down on the outside. "I guess this isn't so ba-" I found myself getting silenced from a board that freakin' fell from the ceiling! "Holy!" I stumbled backwards, and stared angrily up at the gap in the roof. "Not funny!"
Okay, if this Drew guy didn't show up soon, I was out!
Grumbling angrily under my breathe, I stormed into the intersection and turned to the left. Head still down, I didn't look where I was headed, until an extremely powerful aroma of ink and… metal hit me?
Pupils raising in concern, I lifted my head enough to look at where I walked. I really wish I didn't. I really, really wished I hadn't.
"Oh my god," I softly gasped. "Joey, what were you doin'?" A large black… thing, was cuffed to an upright surgical table, with three thick leather straps holding it in place. The creature was soaked in layers upon layers of sickly smelling ink. A pair of shiny black boots were still on its feet, and it wore a pair of white working overalls that were also stained with the indisposed ink that dripped off its fur. But its chest…
It was cut open. Large jagged bones that were clearly ribs poked out from in between the top and middle strap where its torso was, showing an empty inky cavity. Plants had started to spring up from the floor, breaking in from the outside, and ink dripped down from somewhere in the ceiling above its head, landing in the slight hole the creature was mounted in. A chipped tiled wall ran around the room for the lower half of it, feeding back up into peeling tan paint. I set the doll on the chair in the corner by the door, not letting my eyes stray from the gruesome dissected form of… of…
It- it can't be… "B-Boris?" I said, my voice not more than a whisper. A heartbroken, and stunned whisper. It couldn't have been anyone else. The upright floppy ears, the canine-like face… but- but it couldn't be him! Boris was a cartoon! Cartoons weren't supposed to be real! You're supposed to draw them and laugh with them! Not mount them on a surgical table, cut them open, and remove their insides!
But… no matter how much I hated this, I could not deny what I was seeing. Boris the Wolf, murdered in front of me, surrounded by two lit candles that had long since melted onto their respective pedestals and lit up for the world to see by an orange light on the floor, directed to highlight his r… rib cage. "Who.. who could've done this to you, Boris?" I reached forward, and let my small hand slip into his larger gloved one. I squeezed Boris' hand, and felt my eyes start to sting with unshed tears. Letting the limp appendage fall from my grasp, I stood back, and looked away. Through the wind drifting through the room from the holes in the walls, which… which I hoped wasn't the reason why I thought I was hearing whispering, I saw another message. Another messy, scrawled message on the wall to my right, having dripped onto the table underneath. "Who's laughing now?" My already pale face went paper white, and I stepped back to where the Bendy plush was. I'm not. I'm really, really not.
Before I knew it, I found myself sprinting out of the room, and down the other direction where the hall branched off with my Bendy toy in tow. I couldn't stay in there any longer. Boris… he shouldn't be real, but… he did not deserve that treatment. Whatever, or… whoever, did that to him… they would pay for that. "I swear, to the almighty art spirits, I will not let Joey get away with this." If that's what you wanted my dad to see, pal, then you're one sick ticket.
Done!
Just thought I'd mention, but since Bendy and the Ink Machine is such a small and really new game, chapters will be fairly small too. If I made them as big as my normal chapters, 4000 words, then this would be a very small story.
Until next time!
Angel
