CHAPTER ONE: MOVING PICTURES
When I cleared the white light from my eyes I looked around very confused. It looked like I was back in my apartment, same cluttered mess, same noisy air traffic, same everything. For a moment I thought that I screwed up somehow, until I noticed one key difference, there was a letter slid under my door, that I know for a fact, wasn't there when I left.
As I picked up the parchment, noting that it looked yellowed and rather old, I quietly started reading it, while breathing out the small worry that something screwed up. It was almost the same letter used to start the game.
"Dear Lily, It seems like a lifetime since we worked on cartoons together. 30 years really slips away doesn't it?" How the hell does thirty years slip anywhere? Hell, i'm an immortal being, and 5 years still feels like forever and a half.
"If you're back in town, come visit the old workshop. There's something I need to show you. Your best pal, Joey Drew." I slowly blinked, I knew nobody of this name, and I never worked on animation at any point in my life, so I wondered how in hell this was going to go down. Also where the hell was the animation studio?!
I huffed and left the mock up of my apartment to wander around looking for an old animation studio. It was surprisingly easier to find then I first thought, while my street looked the same the rest of the town did not, and it wasn't too hard to find an older looking building that seemed in desperate need of a paint job, along with maybe a couple carpenters. The place seemed like it was falling into disrepair, and seemed primarily abandoned.
I took a quick look around and noted no one that would notice if someone was breaking into an old animation studio, and quickly made my way inside, surprisingly, the front door was already unlocked, no need for my lock picks here. "Convenient." I chirped as I waltzed on inside the building.
I barely made more then two steps inside when I heard a loud slam behind me, I jumped and whirled around and noted that the door had closed on it's own. A quick test of the knob proved that it had also locked itself too. I shrugged, figuring something like that would happen, at best I'd find either the key or another way out, and at worst I'd have to pick my way out.
"Alrighty then Mr. Drew, what did you call me here to see?" I mutter as I make my way into the main room, using a small flashlight since the building was so dark. I flinch when I hear a clank from a room, I couldn't tell if it was nearby or far off though, either way, the light started coming on, as well as a projector and, for some reason, giant film reels on the wall started spinning.
"Convenient." I mutter as I turn off my light and slip it into my coat pocket, out of sight, but still close enough in case I need to bounce it off someones skull. I looked back down the now lit hallway and noted the posters on the wall, 'Bendy in; The Dancing Demon', 'Bendy in; Sheep Songs, with Boris the wolf', 'Bendy in; Little Devil Darlin', I smiled as I looked all around and even noticed the cardboard cutout of the little devil himself by the projector. I couldn't help but to coo at the little cutie-pie and gave it a pat on the head.
I decided to start wandering around the building, out of a sheer lack of anything to do. Along the way I began testing doors, finding that all of them were locked, Along with noting the writing on the walls, like 'Dreams come true.' I snorted, whoever came up with that idea clearly forgot the nightmares are dreams too. I eventually found my way into a room labeled 'Ink Machine' that, unsurprisingly had a gigantic machine in the middle of the floor.
"So this is the ink machine, huh?" I mutter to myself as I look the thing over, wondering how the the hell it worked and what it was supposed to do. It was then I felt my phone vibrate in my back pocket, I pulled it out and noted that it had updated itself with a new note, despite not having any service here.
"New task: start the ink machine? Why would I wanna do that?" I raised a brow, before sighing and shrugging. Horror genre, pushing to see just how stupid or careless they can make their main characters. I leave the room and continue to wander around, before finding a cassette player, with a cassette already loaded into the dock, I could barely make out a name written onto the cassette, Wally Franks. Out of curiosity I pushed play.
"At this point, I don't get what Joey's plan is for this company. The animations sure aren't being finished on time anymore. And I certainly don't see why we need this machine. It's noisy, it's messy. And who needs that much ink anyway? Also, get this, Joey had each of us donate something from our work station. We put them on these little pedestals in the break room. To appease the gods, Joey says. Keep things going. I think he's lost his mind, but, hey, he writes the checks. But I tell you what, if one more of those pipes burst, i'm outta here."
I slowly blink as I take in whatever information I could from the tape. The animations are no longer being done on time, he gets a giant machine that seems to cause more problems then it fixes, and he had each of the animators, story-boarders, and writers donate something from their desk, to appease some kind of god or gods. I walked away from the tape player and walked around the corner, pausing for a moment as a loose board dropped from the ceiling, and into a large, mostly empty room, baring six pedestals, six paintings hanging over the pedestals, and a switch in the back with a screen next to it that said 'low pressure.'
"I'm guessing this was a six man staff, not including Joey who probably ran the show." I muttered as I looked at the paintings and noted that I needed; a cog, a wrench, a book, a character of some kind, some form of music, and a jar of ink. I felt my phone buzz again, and with a quick peek I noted that the task had changed to fix the ink machine. Oh goodie, just what I wanted, a collect-a-thon, great.
I walked back out of the room with a sigh and paused when I noticed that a cardboard cutout of Bendy had somehow placed itself where the board had fallen. I chuckled, "hey there cutie pie, how did you...get...there?" My eyes went from the cute little cardboard creature, too, I honestly wasn't sure what. I sidestepped the cutout and went to the room behind him to investigate, and noted that the creature looked like an old version of Goofy, I could only assume that it was Boris. It had it's head lolled to the side as it's arms, legs, and upper body were being held down with thick straps of leather, and it's entire chest was open, revealing only broken open ribs. It's lungs, heart, stomach, hell all of it's internal organs were gone. I held my stomach as bile started rising to the back of my throat.
"Dear god Joey, what the hell have you been doing?" Several theories ran through my head, from Joey simply trying to bring his creations to life via Dr. Frankenstein, or that he has already brought them into this world to experiment on them. I then noticed that one of the items I need, the wrench, was lodged into his chest cavity. It was disgusting, but I needed the damn thing. I quickly pulled it out and tried not to puke while doing it. I looked to my right and on the wall I saw another message; 'who's laughing now?' I shuddered and left the room, quickly looking at the cardboard Bendy.
"What the hell has Joey been doing here? What did he do too Boris? ...What did he do too you?" I mutter to the cardboard character, I didn't get an answer. I sighed and left the poor thing there as I started wandering throughout the entire workshop looking for the rest of the items. They were fairly easy to find, just mostly nowhere near where they needed to be, including a plush toy of Bendy that I really wanted to keep, and a book that apparently Joey wrote called 'The Illusion of Living.' There was something seriously wrong with Joey. I walked back to the break room and placed down all six of the items in the proper spots. However the sign still said 'low pressure' I remembered there being an inactive button that said 'flow' on it, maybe since I have all the items in place I can see if I can go kick start it.
I set a brisk pace towards the viewing room, apparently where everyone on the team sat down to see how the finished product turned out. As I made my way down the hall I paused for a moment when I say a cardboard Bendy peek down the hallway before pulling itself back around the corner.
"Hey Bendy, ya little cutie, what're you up too?" I chirp as I made my way around the corner where I was absolutely positive that there was no cutout there earlier, plus it was also rather far away from the corner, along with a mysterious ink splatter by it's feet that also wasn't there before. "How'd ya do that little buddy?" I questioned the cutout, again, I got no answer. I went into the room, though warily eyeing the ink splatter, apparently even though the machine was off, something was still going on with the ink here. I jumped when I heard a loud click of the projector turning on with a small animation of Bendy just bouncing appearing on the wall.
I sighed to myself, of course loud noises would freak me out more then seeing things move that shouldn't be. I walked around the projector and noted that the button that was inactive before now had a light behind it, I pushed the button and walked back out of the room, tipping an imaginary hat toward the cutout, before making my way back to the 'break' room.
What I got back the sign had changed and it now said 'ready', the machine was ready to be kick started. Every instinct in my body cried out for me to not pull the lever, to just go back and try to pick the lock to get out of here, but, curiosity killed the cat. I reached out and pulled the lever, there was a loud thunk from deep within the building, and I could hear liquid now freely flowing through the pipes. I smirked and nodded to myself, as I turned around and started walking back toward the machine.
I stopped just before I turned the corner toward the machine, looking down the hallway I felt the hairs on the back of my neck and arms stand straight up. The room had been boarded up, like someone had known that something was going to happen, and was trying to keep either me from going into the machine room, or to keep something from getting out. I swallowed the lump in the throat and I turned the corner.
As soon as I turned the corner I heard a small hissing noise that resembled a laugh. I slowly crept closer to the boards the noise got louder, the machine was obviously running in the back but it looked like something about about to go on it. I couldn't get any closer to the boards to look at the machine when a tall lean figure that looked more like it was covered more in tar than ink lept up and tried taking a swipe at me. I had jumped back out of reflex to keep from getting grabbed or scratched, I couldn't see the creatures face as the ink was covering the top half, but the bottom had that same grin that the cardboard Bendy's did, and on the top of it's head were two ink black horns.
"Bendy?" I questioned and it seemed like his grin got bigger as it cocked it's head to its side, on arm still hanging out of the boards while the other gripped one of the planks keeping him in. "What did Joey do to you?" I took a step forward but the sound of sloshing stopped me, I dared take my eyes off the incarnation of Bendy to look at the floor, apparently the machine sprung a leak and was quickly flooding the floor.
"Bendy the machine needs patched up, please move away so I can try to fix it." All I heard was that same hissing laughter. I tried moving forward, only to be swiped at again. "Bendy, please," his grin only seemed to get wider as he started trying to climb his way in between the boards, I quickly realized that he wasn't looking to rationalize anything, even if he could at this point, and while I wasn't sure what he would do to me if he caught me, I was sure that I didn't want to find out. I quickly turned about face and ran toward the exit, hoping that I could pick the lock before Bendy got out or before the ink raised to too high a level.
I was almost at the door when the floor gave out from under me, and I did about a ten or twenty foot belly flop onto more hard wood. I wheezed in pain as I flipped myself over onto my back and looked up the shaft I fell down. The ink was starting to quickly pour down the sides and I figured that if that floor was weak, then others might be too, so staying here might not be a good idea. I forced myself to my feet, wincing in pain the whole time, there was a sharp pain in the chest, telling me that one or two of my ribs might've cracked from the fall. My magic would heal that quickly, I just needed to find a safe spot to rest for a moment.
I hissed in pain as I walked and almost cursed when I realized that I was going even farther down into the building. Going down one flight of steps was hard, going down two was painful, going down three was torture, but four flights of stairs with cracked ribs. I was almost crying by the time I reached the bottom level, I actually had to pause to steady myself and catch my breath. I forced myself to press on until I felt safe though, and continued through a door, the exit was blocked off by more planks of wood, and facing the opposite side of it was an ax. I grinned as I pulled it off the wall, my injury would make it hard to swing, but it couldn't be much worse then walking down four flights of stairs. To my right was another message. 'The creator lied to us'
"Who did Joey lie to? And if not Joey, who?" I muttered, but my mind was still muddled by pain, and I couldn't think straight. I sighed and shook my head as I raised the ax and started feebly hacking away at the wood, thankfully the planks weren't in the best of shape so they came down pretty easy. There were a couple more down the hall and then three more covering a closed door, all coming down easily, as soon as I opened the door there was a loud crashing noise and I looked behind me and noticed that the way I came had completely caved in, there was absolutely no going back even if I wanted too. I turned to look in the room and saw that there was a pentagram on the floor and two coffins leaning against the back wall.
I sighed and staggered into the room, but as soon as I stepped into the pentagram, I suddenly saw flashes. First the ink machine, then a wheelchair, then it seemed like I was viewing Bendy standing next to a desk with my name on it through some boarded up room, then a close up shot of bendy, before everything went black.
CHAPTER END