Notice: Please see the bottom for notes on major changes to this chapter as of 12/15/17 and 1/28/18.

8- Magi

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." – Matthew 7:7

Slither.

He saw several meters ahead at the end of the room a true Peter Pan shadow, a black stain in the corner of his sight that retreated the moment he tried to place it. Normally he wouldn't think much of it- they were merely the vermin of the pipes- but a weight over his spine had relayed a sharp warning.

She'd have to learn to deal with the searchers sometime- or rather, he would have to deal with the aftermath of their introduction- but he didn't have the tolerance for that today. Maybe never. His exasperation grew every time she reacted to more of his reality…her new home. He wondered if she had accepted that yet or if this too would be his responsibility. He tried and failed not to resent the position Bendy chose for him, a swish of guilt and displeasure that couldn't mix but kept striving to.

That resignation, however, created a problem. Past where the searcher roamed was the only path to his retreat.

The only physical path.

At the sharp bend also awaited the visage of his savior, intricate lines drawn behind it like rays of divine light. Ah, he had forgotten about that pentagram. Dragging himself step by step until his round, misshapen feet rested before the portal, he bowed as best he could and still balance without dropping her or himself to the floor. Admittedly he was unsure if Bendy truly used his likeliness to supervise his realm, but the prophet believed the gesture itself to be proper respect regardless. Nothing could be too frivolous if it was done in worship. He was then free to carefully pick it up with barely one hand to spare, leaving the star vacant.

Briefly, he wondered what would happen to her. Things he carried in always seemed to emerge alongside- no damage, no harm, not even a scrape. But all of them had been washed in the first tide of ink. She was not. Malice consumed him.

"Ah well."

She must have been hallucinating because she could swear she saw his legs press through a solid wall.

It was a chamber heavily swamped in shadow, her own flattened against the wall and dancing with candlelight.

It was beautiful. It was horrid.

She must have lost focus from the exhaustion, much to her dismay. They were walking and now she was here. An expletive slit her throat. She'll be dead in no time if this is how she her body reacts to this kind of stress.

There would surely be more to come, ready to take her for good.

Such certainties had to be shoved into the dark, at least for now. Not now, not now. Life outside her own pinched the fuse before it burned to self-destruction.

She didn't know when he'd be back. When did she hear the steps? Her most recent memory was a shuffle and a dizzy panorama up to the ceiling as she laid on the floor. The rotting face of a demon diminished to a new moon of oil as he turned his head away to leave.

This may be the only opportunity to be alone for the rest of her life. Wisdom froze her in place and sped time; she knew this was precious…but not how.

Subconsciously, the first logical step was to observe. With her senses lagging to catch up with her intellect, the painting before her was abstract long before it sharpened into realism.

She was in an enclosed room. She lifted her head to the candle, up on a cabinet- a weird table with short walls attached to the top. A sketching table? There was a name for it, definitely. Now the candle, it was ribbed; it curved in and out in a strange but familiar fashion. This angle was unhelpful. Once sitting up, there was-

Her lower eyelids were forced upward by grimacing cheeks. She smelled her hoodie before she saw it, crusty with bodily fluids and drying ink. Regretfully, it was the only proper layer between her and the musty air. "I hope he comes back with clean clothes," she pondered spitefully. It was less a retort of her captor and more of an attempt to forget the circumstances under which the cloth was soiled. Then she remembered there's likely another shirt to wear.

…in her car, outside.

Her fist pounded at her thigh in frustration; she was upset but then finally distinguished it was pointless to ponder the fantasy of clean clothes any longer, grunting a sigh. She only brought in-... another revelation, already.

A big one. A potential savior.

A slap hit her jean pocket, met with a solid thump. Her hands scratched so fast to grip her smartphone in her bare palm that she pushed it onto floor. Her breath was heavy with excitement rather than fear for the first time.

A red light tinged the room and painted her face, spelling "Verizon." She had been opportunistically agitated at the lengthy boot-up before, but today her heart ached as she held air in her throat.

The loudest exhalation to leave her yet.

6%, it read.

…What now? With such few, dear minutes left to her, what was she to do?

Her thumbs gripped the screen not in use but in unbelief.

…

She had to know.

5%.

Her password was inputted, and she urgently tapped the Facebook icon.

Search: Gabriel Vahl

4%.

The first suggestion was a page, not a person. "Come Home, Gabby!" That was it; she knew it well. A quick scan seemed to show no change in itself- same pictures of a young boy with scruffy brown hair and shiny black eyes. This description was listed on the "MISSING" poster that served as the page's cover photo.

Updates. Were there updates?

3%.

Her fingerprint slid back and forth up and down, fruitlessly trying to make real what wasn't there.

None.

The right arm took a mind of its own; it gripped the phone beyond necessary for utility and there was a spark that constricted down to her fingers. Before she knew it, she had whipped the phone far out of reach. A gleeful, plump face crashed through glass and then…a thick splash.

Oh no. Oh no no NO NO NO!

There was newfound force as she threw herself over to the window in the wall as she had her to her phone seconds before. The outrage that consumed her to do so now boiled in her stomach as she peered down, witnessing the last corner of the phone dip into a black pool that entrapped the office like the moat of a castle.

2%- and then a spark accompanied by a broken black and white image, a nonsensical last shriek of its demise. A final plunk, never to resurface.

She had cried before- often since she got here- but this time. This time was different.

It was a blank, pointless chant of footfalls.

Honestly, there was no strategy in his escape. He told himself there was but knew it was a lie, scolding himself. Yet he kept going.

It was all…so much. Too much. Overwhelming, suffocating.

He dumped her as soon as possible to try to avoid the anxiety clogging inside him. It proved to be no relief at all, and he even thought of her more as the distance between them swelled.

There wasn't a location that was safe from the monsters of the halls. He knew that well. Where he had picked for her was precarious, a feather teetering on the edge of a table, waiting for wind to blow it over the cliff. It wasn't even the safest place he had; he refused her his own sanctuary, so eager to be rid of her that he couldn't be bothered to solve his own puzzle as he had done countlessly before.

And there he left her alone, a decision made by the urges of his apprehensions.

Passions circled when addressing her presence; he was unaware it was shock that stung his behaviors, that it begged for a period of mayhem and took it regardless. He didn't want to deal with her anymore. From start to finish, there always seemed to be certainty of how he felt of her- but what he felt fluctuated so terribly often.

Moments before he had assigned himself a role and was already absconding from it. It haunted him, apparitions that warped around his body and blemished his existence.

"I don't want to hurt you."

The mystification as the person before him fell to her knees in total surrender; a pause but not a hesitation in his acceptance.

"I need you."

The touch of her hand stilling, prompting him to leave her alone among the inscriptions so she may accept their salvation for them both. The otherworldly rain dripping black from the wooden sky. A brief marvel of Bendy staggering towards the lamb before suddenly stepping out of existence.

"Do you have a name?"

The mortification as her glassy eyes judged him, unnerving him like never before, challenging his solace.

"I can't."

The downward curl in his lips as she sat helpless, quietly bawling. The burden on his shoulders and they crossed the threshold into the river. The thump rippling through him, unsure which heart it was.

"It's okay if you don't have a name."

And again, these were the words that stopped him in his aimless path. He had emerged into what must have been the surface-level entrance and stared at the door. The door. It was so, tauntingly close. It was an orifice of a dragon born of black magic and childish veracities; it would greedily eat anything that stepped through its teeth and never let it out, not even in death. Even the worst of behemoths excreted the remains of its digestion. There was no such dignity for those who wandered the entrails of the studio- half dissolved scraps unable to break through the final barrier to whatever lay beyond expiry.

He observed that the hole in front of the front door had finished healing, not even a scab where it gashed open. It was still unsettling to witness after all these years.

The heart of the dragon pulsed overhead, veins of pipes carrying the lustrous blood of void to the ink machine.

This was holy ground. He came here only if there was something his lord had delivered to his people, a blessing of the outside for them to keep as they bided for release. There usually weren't such small gaps between his visits; he glimpsed her here but was delayed in his retrieval as she fled to the trap- just before he could grip the hood of her squatty, dense cloak.

He knew there was no such things to chaperone to the depths now, and still he came. He instinctively, reflexively searched for the signs of his lord, and yet he was resigned to accept righteous fury for breaking the commandment.

Sinfully, he stayed.

It was still so surreal to have received this lamb. It didn't happen often, and the last one that he had in his fold was long, long past. His lord had taken for himself the wandering sheep time after time before the prophet could gently escort them to their fate instead; he had heard their helpless bleats as Bendy absolved them of their mortality. It was a heavenly ritual that his prophet knew was not for others to witness, leaving him unable to explain what it was that Bendy did to these chosen few. And it was never that the ink demon simply caressed the soul instead of quickly stringing a claw over its gullet, washing the blood over its hide and his own.

She…she…

"I think there's a lot we need to talk about."

She had no idea that there were as many questions he had for her as she for him.

A black spot in the corner of his eye.

He flinched backward, tripping onto a chair behind him. Fortuitously he had not fallen entirely- just simply toppled a chair and was coerced into balance, putting him in the vulnerable position of outstretched limbs and a chest bare and inviting to his lord's talons. It had happened enough times that he didn't correct himself but simply stayed put for the retribution.

Until he saw it wasn't his lord at all.

A lump. Its texture was splattered with the slick blood of the studio, but there were islands among them showing a dull, coarse material.

Still fighting instinctive immobility, he leaned forward in caution, flattening himself like a fox finding a freshly killed rabbit shortly after its own tail was snipped off in a hunter's trap. There was a glimmer of metal that poked through the stains. He took a step. It was something he knew. Recognition required a short intermission as this was an uncommon sight. It was a zipper.

Tension was released, knowing he was indeed summoned to retrieve manna of the outside.

Pie-cut eyes guarded the door, scrutinizing any who loitered down the lengthy hall. The cutout faced him, intimidating but permissive of his entry.

He had returned. He dreaded to feel regret in doing so- knew he likely would- but he had not left her for good. Somehow, he should not.

There was dusty, thick glass that glazed the office of someone who must have been important sometime long ago. It was ghastly with decay; the window cracked more and more with each visit, it seemed. Through the brown-yellow grime and the strobing hallway lamp, it took him a long time to notice something was very wrong.

Bendy's likeliness saw her first, over the disciple's shoulder the woman stepping through the door frame to the left and behind. Sopped pant bottoms were cut from the view as she lifted her chin into the empty space of the cartoon's vision, a small figure behind his overwhelming manifestation. She pressed something into her bosom, unknowing they both had gifts intended for one another, first tithings of union. These things would serve as both irreversible disturbances of their minds and miracles for their spirits.

A bag hit the ground in reply to her gospel.

"Sammy?"

Notes on edits to this chapter:

Changes as of 12/15/17:

The two changes are:

1) I have stated within the story that he picked the office to leave her despite Sammy having knowledge it is not the safest room.

2) I have much more strongly implied that she threw her phone through the glass window in frustration. Although hilarious, it did not somehow drop from her hands through a solid plane of glass that was at least a few feet out of her reach.

Thank you for sticking with me despite this issue, and please feel free to inform me any time in the future if there are such glaring mistakes.

Changes as of 1/28/2018:

I don't...remember...giving her a flashlight? And yet I typed that? It's gone now; she only brought her phone.

Thank you for sticking with me despite this issue, and please feel free to inform me any time in the future if there are such glaring mistakes.