Here is a longer chapter for being absent for a while.

Without further ado, Onto the Story!

Chapter 2

Her glare pierced the back of the person, shadowed by the closed curtains and Haesel's own figure blocking out light.

"I said to turn around, you prick. You are breaking and entering my home and wreaking my room." Haesel growled, her eyes narrowing further as she hear the others enter the apartment and coming close enough to hear the conversation but not crowd Haesel.

Slowly, the figure, now identifiable as a guy close to her father's age, turned and Haesel saw slightly crazy eyes meet her own.

"My name is Shawn Flynn. Did you get a letter from a guy named Joey Drew recently, as in last night? And if so, was he asking you to meet him at the old studio?" Shawn asked, his Irish accent being subconsciously noted by the animator.

"Yeah I did. What are you looking for exactly in my room? The note or something else?" Haesel asked, her voice calmer now the intruder was identified.

Moving her hand slowly, she flicked on the light so she could see the person clearly, only for him to yell too late about the light.

What she saw shocked her and scared Mariah, who was right behind the animator. Half deformed and cover in what looked to be ink that was far too thick and had been left in a bottle for too long, Shawn created a gruesome picture as he appeared to be made of both flesh and ink. One eye was completely sunken in his face, ink dripping over it to obscure the sight while the other was bloodshot. Half of his hair was matted by ink while other was stuck together by blood, as if someone tried to knock him out but missed the vital point and caused a head wound. His clothes seemed far to big for him, sagging if not for the fact they were soaked in ink making them stiff.

"What happened to you, Shawn? Who did this to you?" Haesel asked while Mariah and Lewis started talking over each other.

Seeing the man was about to collapse, Haesel signaled for Drew to help her get the distraught man to her desk seat when his legs finally gave out on him.

Kaylee brought a mug of Haesel's tea for the man, who gratefully accepted the warm ceramic, even if he didn't drink from it.

"Joey Drew did. Who ever he fired thirty years ago have been getting letters, all different but with the same basic message. 'Come to the studio for a surprise.' That man is not to be trusted. I was a fool to return to that place, and I barely managed to get away from that madman and his plans with my memory intact. As for what he caused to happen, I can't tell you much about it. What I can tell you must be told in utter privacy." Shawn said, looking at the quartet in the doorway.

"Figure it out fast, Princess. We'll be in the kitchen when you need us." Drew said, pushing the others out before closing the door.

Taking a breath before turning back, Haesel watched for a few seconds as Shawn studied that character sheets pinned all over the room on the million cork-boards she had. His focus was on the two sitting over her bed.

"Who is this character? I've never seen her before." Shawn pointed.

"Mackenzie Muse. She was my own original character, well she is based on one of my dad's own ideas mixed together with unique assets by me. I do shorts for her. Wanna see some of them?" Haesel replied, cautioned as she moved closer to access her laptop.

Shawn only nodded to the strange animator, watching her with a paranoid eye as she pulled up the website with the shorts. Pulling up one, she turned her attention to the toy maker in her chair. His attention was on the screen, focused on the characters and their actions.

"Joey had this song playing, I remember that. He was playing these shorts while he worked. What he does is use black magic and ink to strip a person of their mind. Sometimes he uses a drawing to transform them. Other times its just ink and magic. No one gets out alive." Shawn said, barely flicking his eyes to the young lady beside him before returning to the screen.

Haesel sat on her bed, watching the old toy maker with caution as she digested the information given to her. Why was Joey Drew targeting her specifically? Shawn said he recognized the tune, something that could only be heard on the site as the tunes were each uniquely created for the episodes. He also said that the shorts were played while Joey worked, so how did he find the website in the first place? They weren't as popular as studios and had a very small following. There was also the fact that even with the bios on the website, there was no personal information that could lead anyone to the apartment. There was also no connection between Haesel and Joey Drew Studios other than her father, who had been out of the business for four years by the time she was born, and nothing on her bio could connect her to the studio other than her last name, which would be a stretch to connect. So that left only one option, Joey Drew in some way had stalked her in her daily life to find out information she didn't share with others.

"Mr. Flynn, is there anything else you can remember when you were at the studio that Mr. Drew mentioned that could clue you in as to why he was targeting me? Dad would have been a better choice if he was getting revenge on the old workers." Haesel said, her brow furrowing at the path her thoughts had taken.

"Joey mentioned that you were Henry's only child. No one else had any. I don't even know who Henry is, many of the people who worked there were told by older workers that was a taboo subject. Joey went crazy if anyone mentioned him or messed with the lone work desk." Shawn replied, turning to face the young animator.

"Miss Ross, I'm begging of ya, don't go to the studio. I don't what Mr. Drew is planning for you, but it sure isn't going to be pleasant."

Shawn started to lunge to grab Haesel's hand when he noticed the thinner sitting in the trashcan, tightly sealed. There wasn't a single bottle of ink in there, so it struck Shawn's interest.

"Why is this in the trash? An animator like yourself should have it sitting somewhere you can access it when you mess up." Shawn went to reach it with his ink hand.

Haesel's hand had a bruising grip on his wrist, stopping it short of touching the bottle.

"It's in the trash because there is thinner on the outside of the bottle and that will burn like acid on your ink half. I rarely make mistakes in my work as it is. Leave it alone. Now I think it best of you get going home or someplace where Mr. Drew won't be able to find you. As it stands, Mr. Drew is acting like a coward by targeting me if he wants Dad, so I'm gonna show him that I'm not one to be messed with. I have four people who keep constant track of what I do in my daily life and they know how punctual I prefer to be, so if anything becomes amiss, they know where to start. Drew will see you out and to where ever it is you need to hide away from the world." Haesel said, her voice like ice as she spoke, much different from how she spoke before.

Shawn could have sworn he saw a demon shadow on the wall behind her, taking her shape with horns and a flicking tail. The onyx eyes were like stone as she opened her door to let the old man out of her room. Drew, having known Haesel the longest, could pick out when her mood changed the atmosphere to a much colder type.

Once Shawn was clear of the doorway, it was slammed and locked, sealing the animator in the room.

"Sorry bout Princess, she can be a handful with the switching moods. I've known her since Mr. Ross brought her back to his home one night after she went missing, and I still don't know everything about her. Haesel is very secretive about everything, especially when it concerns her family. Henry disappeared a few years back and she took it pretty bad and shut everything out. She is like a sister to me, so it was tough to watch her break like that. Out of all of us, the rarest to see crumble is Haesel, she just always seems to be so strong at times its hard to remember that she is actually human at times." Drew said, guiding Shawn towards the front of the apartment.

Haesel refused to appear from her room for the rest of the night, worrying her friends with the cold shoulder. Even when Drew tried to get her to eat something, all he got in return was grumbles and the sound of a shattering bottle, possibly one of the many ink bottles that littered her room. The others focused on their nightly routines, casting worried glances towards Haesel's door as it remained shut.

Drew was the last up and tried to focus on anything but what he had saw when Haesel's sent Shawn from her room. In all the years he had know the Rosses, Haesel has always been a bit open to him so he could always read her and the situation that she was in. When her eyes had met his across the hallway from her room to the kitchen, they were unreadable as the gems that they mimic. Sighing, Drew put the few things that got left out away and shutting off the lights as he went down the hall.

Haesel's door was cracked enough that one could look in but Haesel would have to shift in order see the others. Her lamp was on and Drew could see clear as day on the wall Haesel's shadow as he would see any day of in the sun on one of their outings, with he exception of the fact there was devil horns nestled in longer curls that resembled Mackenzie's rather than the ones on Haesel's head and a devil's tail was flicking back and for behind her. When Shawn had first left the room at the end of the hall, he had seemed shaken as if he was seeing things he thought he only saw in the horror film that his old workplace had become. Now Drew could see that might had not have been the case and that there could be more to the eye when it came to the young animator that he had known since they were only five.

The next morning, however, her door was shut tight again as if it hadn't been open during the night, as if Drew didn't see anything amiss. None of the others saw anything out of the ordinary with the young animator shutting herself away, as was per usual her routine with editing together the shorts with their music to be put on the website. It had been a while since their last upload and some of the more avid fans were constantly commenting about wanting a new short. The only thing that was off was the smell of butterscotch that seemed to hang in the air everywhere in the apartment, along with the slight sour note left from the ink. Drew knew that those two scents together usually meant Haesel's movements, as ink always stained her fingers and there was a supply of candy wrappers in her room, even though it was obvious that she was still secluded away in her room at the other end of the apartment.

"Have any of you seen Haesel this morning? She should have come out by now due to her want of food." Drew asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"I didn't get an answer when I knocked on her door this morning. Maybe she got an early start?" Kaylee replied, eating her breakfast while scrolling through her phone.

"No way, with as a light sleeper as Haze is, there is no way she didn't hear that knocking and there is also the fact she is always the last up out of all of us. Why would she be gone so early in the morning, considering she be having to get up at 5 to be up before Lewis." Mariah commented from the living room, typing away at her laptop.

Drew frowned at the statement and set his coffee down behind him before moving towards the bedrooms. For as long as he knew Haesel, she hated being up early and liked to be up till the early hours. Knocking on the door, Drew listened for any movement in the room before trying the handle, surprised when moved with his hand.

Haesel was known for keeping everything under lock and key, a file cabinet for her sorted episodes and music, and a locked box for her materials under her bed. Whenever she was out of the apartment without the others, her room also got locked to keep her things from being messed with. Drew went in, flicking on the light.

Haesel was no where to be seen, and her bag was gone along with the letter from Joey Drew.

Cliffhanger. I had so much trouble trying to finish this without my laptop being stupid and making it hard for me to edit while typing bc the on screen keyboard kept popping up every time I clicked a new place to edit.

Next chapter: Haesel enters the Studio and Chapter 1 of the game is written by me to my best effort (which is to say is very lacking)