13- The Giving Tree
"A gift opens the way and ushers the giver into the presence of the great." - Proverbs 18:16
The moment of timelessness was done and left behind discomfiture.
The two newfound cohorts amid the gloom were now left with no assurance of what action to take next, what needed to be done now that their cautious acceptance of one another was sealed; they had mundane living and surroundings that needed to be addressed.
It was difficult to realize this as they stood together, stunned and stinging because of their resolve in fate.
Despite being the one among them with the longest awaited, most harrowing and perspective-changing experience in this revelation, Sammy was the first to break free from the trance upon their souls. The man knew a search needed to begin.
"You require things I don't; I recall that much. I know there's more than I have here."
She came from the trance as well, perplexed until he elaborated.
"Your body- your human body. What does it need?"
Normally such a question could be answered by a 1st grade science student, but trauma and exhaustion slowed her mind. Her breath rose her shoulders slightly as her eyes narrowed and shifted to her left in contemplation.
"Water," she finally stated, "and food." The sides of her mouth pulled back in disappointment, realizing that the basics may now be a luxury. But if the necessities were indulgent, then these next wishes were ambrosia for her mortality:
"C-clean clothes would be nice." The more attention she paid to the stench from her jacket, the more she grasped it may now be clinging to her skin. "I'd love a shower or a bath, but I'm not sure how likely that would be. A bed or- or at least a blanket to sleep in, too."
One cheek pushed a wrinkle towards her eye as she glanced back at him. There was much more she'd like to have. The impression books and movies had given her that people only crave the essentials when estranged from civilization was a lie, and it made her feel selfish. But what she listed out loud were the only items reasonable to ask of him, she knew that- and again, clean clothes and amenities were pushing it; who'd keep those things in a place of business? Who'd house them here and not take what they could with them when they left?
She remembered the tin can she once held between her legs. It was a mild relief that probably gave too much hope for more to come.
"You found that soup, so there's at least some food around here. And, and maybe my bag might have my change of clothes, but…do you know if you have any of those things?"
There was a terrible pause until the lean in his neck became a nod.
"I think that can be arranged."
And so he began to leave her and the bag behind until he heard a few taps behind his heels. Sammy half turned to peer back at the lost puppy.
"No, you're to stay here," he instructed, "I don't know how long it will be until I find what you're looking for."
The woman immediately filled herself with panic. As far as she knew, there was only one of those half-man monsters that wandered the halls, but what if it came back? It seemed to leave her alone when Sammy was nearby. It wasn't simply a matter of knowing what to do if it returned; it was a matter of never being near it again.
He had correctly assessed this fear from her expression.
"Do you remember what I told you on our way here?"
Her lips smoothed over her teeth. It felt like forever ago, but it was an hour at most, if even that. It was such a strange phrase, however, that it came back to mind.
"'Stay close until I tell you to stay?'" she pondered.
"Precisely." He turned his head, back facing her once more. "I will return very soon."
And with that, the ink man trudged out of the doorway and out of her sight.
The dread that swallowed her heart was muted by the sound of footsteps etching the outside of the room. They led across her and then…upward.
And then there was an echo as his last step led him into the recording studio once more.
A brief search placed the entrance near the Bendy cutout that had eyed her this whole time, but not quite there. A few feet closer to the upper corner ahead was another opening; a film projector was aimed over her head like a machine gun as Sammy's shiny chest deceived his otherwise camouflaged physique in the shadows.
She could barely hear him say, "Watch."
Pah-clunk.
A bright stream of light scattered overhead, barely skimming her hair. By the time she realized he was gone, he was already back- by her side.
And then behind her.
Bumm…
A low note tinged the air. It barely hung before it was interrupted.
Tunk.
She turned again, but not in time.
Bing!
A tinny noise rang about. She barely caught Sammy set something down as he ran to the opposite corner. She didn't know he could move this fast.
Ting…ting-a-ling-a-ding- and it continued the scale as a dreadful, loud noise accompanied the piano. His fingers orchestrated the fabrication of a black hole in the wall behind his back. Its birthing left her troubled, and it took a lifetime before he rose from the speckled keys, staring her way.
It was eventually evident he intended for her to come this direction. She reluctantly did so, finding that the hole was in fact a room; it was a long, quite narrow hallway with some sort of metal equipment at the end, otherwise totally vacant of both items and any sign of life.
Sammy awkwardly lifted his wrist to point into his creation. "This is my sanctuary. I come here when…" He seemed to be overcome with ponderance. "…I need to escape this world of distractions."
He lowered his arm and nodded very slightly, as if he had privately made a decision. "I trust you to make use of it if someone besides myself comes to visit."
Ah, so that's what this was. It was a sanctuary of his mind now being allowed to welcome her weary, feeble body. And with this simple assurance, the woman felt her lungs release.
"Thank you." As she said this, she realized she meant it more than she thought, so it necessitated sincerity.
"Thank you. I know that…" She peered shyly at his feet, having lost the confidence from before. "…that you don't need to help me."
His reply planted within her.
"I think I do."
And so she was sitting once again on the edge of the musician's platform- this time alone-, surrounded by familiarity amid her new universe. It had been a very long time since she sat among a band, even a vacant one, and yet she noticed how she felt at home.
"Home…"
Her eyes closed with the weight of loneliness and opened again; being the only lifeform in the room, there was no change in her surroundings to reveal how much time had passed in that blink. A second, a minute, an hour, a day? She supposed it didn't matter.
That fact in itself tried to eat at her soul, but she held the wisdom that she could not lose this fight; she forced herself back to her feet and pressured her heart to find distraction. She mindlessly wandered until she found something that might ground her.
Dmm…
The strings of a banjo hummed softly at her touch; she felt the sharpness of them as they pushed into her fingertips. The woman was never a string player, and yet the stim of these instruments' vibrations through her nerves soothed her and deserved her admiration. In her desperation, she smiled down at the banjo and strummed her knuckles over its lines so it would speak again.
One of these bones stuck too far in between the strings and suddenly, the banjo sang so stridently.
It was an inelegant, strong sound- like someone proudly said the first word of an impassioned speech and then nothing more. She literally took a step back in surprise; it was much louder than she intended or expected. And as she did, that note flooded her and brought to the shores of her mind a memory.
Such a strange single note had reminded her how one of her favorite songs went.
Soon the banjo was in her lap and she was clumsily fiddling with the strings, trying in vain to recreate the music in her heart. After a few minutes or so she finally found a chord; there were many chords in the song, but one was enough for her. She strummed it gently in a sloppy rhythm as she recalled the words.
The lyrics came to her with ease, even as it returned to her ears in an echo that made her self-conscious, even embarrassed- yet she kept on. It was the recreation of a children's story for the heartache of adults; it told of how someone would give and give until every piece of themselves was no longer their own. It was a beautiful, thankless love that draped over the evils of being a martyr. Even with such melancholy, it was emotion that took her and repelled the tides of her desolation.
And as she opened her eyes once the last, graceless strum of the banjo and hum of her lips drifted away, someone was there in beholden applause.
Why, oh why, did she run the other way?
That was the only thought on her mind even as a nightmare nipped at her heels. Reasonably, her instinct at the sight of the searcher was to run the opposite direction of where she saw it, but this path now led her to the halls Sammy had entered, not to the safehouse that had explicitly been left open for this exact situation!
God-DAMMIT, she could have easily ran around that thing instead and dove into the sanctuary. God almighty was she an idiot! Ah shit! Shit!
She abruptly, involuntarily leaped with the front of her body as her shoe slid backward in a trough of ink; it was over ankle-deep and spread from wall to wall, splinters of cracked wood arising like corpses of the river Styx. The splash her arms made as they failed to pick her back up was accompanied from behind by a low, wet groan. She dared to look back and found she couldn't see the thing yet; she had turned a corner and by heaven's grace held a big lead in this race. A horrible, stupid risk came to her mind. As she was overcome by panic and despair, she took it.
Instead of returning to her feet to run once more, she stayed on her knees and curled into herself as tightly as possible, jamming her ink-coated sleeve into her mouth; its taste violently jerked her spine, but her hunch demanded it.
In her peripheral, a dark smudge finally fuzzed back and forth.
The woman looked so small in this endless hallway; she stayed in a praying stance amid the unnaturally cold fluid and its thorny gravestones. She shook and whimpered, trying to hold back thrashing and screams.
Hrughhhh…
A soft but throaty voice traveled some meters away to enter her heart. It almost sounded like…like a man. A man choking on their own saliva and tongue.
Drip.
As she forced her head to twitch even a millimeter towards this, she saw that the monster had disappeared.
Her arms lowered, fists still closed but loose with the palm facing her, and her back straightened somewhat; as she looked into the dull emptiness the searcher left behind, she felt a tap on her forearm.
Drip.
It was blood that formed a near-perfect circle as it fell onto her skin, birthing smaller cells of fluid over her hide like freckles of a scourge scattering from the source.
No.
No.
It was too dark to be blood.
Drip.
It fell upon her head. She could feel it trickle and trace from her hairline to her chin.
Drip.
It not only soaked into the shirt on her back, but it landed onto her neck and swam down the ridges of her shoulder blades.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
She was besieged by streaks of black that fell from the ceiling like a thick rain. Not only was it gathering- enlarging the pool underneath her legs- but it stained the walls, the ceiling.
Brushstrokes of smoke faded all around her, an aura of watercolors void of anything but a dreadful, murky wave.
Drip.
Out of the rotting wood, syrupy lines of black and white dribbled into reality; the edges slowly merged with the ink that enveloped her.
It was enveloping her, the entire puddle an extension of its grasp. Whether or not it would crush her as she sat helplessly in its palm was up to chance. Somehow, she glanced up.
The woman resembled a ghost more than she did a human of flesh and blood once Bendy stood before her.
And as she gazed upon the very face that accompanied her death, its unholy smile seemed to widen, stretching towards the back of what could be considered a head. Darkness seeped little by little from its teeth to join in the pool that touched her skin.
Drip.
Its open hand was almost as wide as her torso as its arm lifted before her, flecks of it falling to the floor. It then only stayed there...as Sammy had done before- it wasn't going to touch her. This one action changed every inch of insight within.
Thoughtlessly, she reached back towards the being that had saved her life, her redeemer.
And as she touched its ungloved paw, it engulfed her hand- not in a hold, but a swallow.
She remained silent with horror as she saw nothing- felt nothing- past her wrist, not even the small slits of raw muscle tissue that still ached from the ropes of her imprisonment.
And suddenly, a weight.
The sable soma of this being inched and crawled away, retreating as the demon's "elbow" pulled back and claws reformed. None of it remained upon her fingers, but something else did.
Smack.
Smack.
Smack.
The eyeless, sneering demon gave her one last glimpse of omniscience as it began to drag its appendages from the loch where it had poured itself, detaching from the pool to latch onto the upcoming floorboards. Before she saw Bendy melt into the vertical surface of the corner ahead, she mouthed in awe:
"…T-…thank…you…"
Author's Note: This is not a necessary read, but I'm- probably obviously- referencing The Giving Tree by The Plain White T's.