22- Daniel

"Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." - Hebrews 13:1-2

The newly named beings were content for a moment, even in their unimaginable turmoil. They had each other. It wasn't much, but they had each other.

How long was it before they both secretly started to stir, to long for something else? As always, each had a quite different reason than their counterpart. The woman's was simple: the apartment was small, and she was increasingly unsettled the longer they stayed. Maybe it was the sharp taste of salt staining her throat with each can of bacon soup, only to be quenched by water that only sometimes was without a grey stream of ink from the faucet. Maybe it was how the walls seemed to close in, growing tighter and tighter as she walked down the short corridor between the three rooms. Maybe it was the collage of monstrosities she found tucked behind a corner, making her scream so loudly that Sammy ran to her side. She noticed the way he pulled her back, the manner he dragged her into his side with a gasp of his own, the tone in his voice when he saw she was only surprised by a collection of pictures upon the wall and apologized for having grabbed her with no purpose, how he forgot to scold her for screaming at all.

Francine noticed how he seemed to stir, too, and it added to her anxiousness.

The novelty of recent events was of great distraction, but even the personification of everything he ever wanted couldn't cease his yearning, his prayers. Sammy had a routine for decades after all, a well-worn path that felt so deeply unnatural to stray. His worship was his life. Despite feeling that somehow, certainly, all this with the woman was for Bendy and done in his name, it still ached so much to tread the waters of the unknown.

Sammy had hoped in vain that strumming the banjo they had found would be enough to quench his fires as they rose from the ashes; it was not satisfying to his own standards of faith. As this dawned upon him over the period of rest, it drifted beyond his heart and the woman could see his clenched fists and hear his soft groans. The murky varnish of demons couldn't smother the anguish of his soul, even as it crawled over and inside every inch of his body.

How long had it been? Maybe a day. Maybe a few. It was enough for the two disciples to hunger too irresistibly for something they'd seen before- the very same thing.

"It's time," he suddenly spoke. The woman found Sammy in front of her as she awoke on the gurney, her eyes squinting since they were still unused the such a dark, shiny figure covering so much of her vision.

She shifted one of her arms to lift herself just a little, unwilling to fully come back from much needed rest. "…H…huh?"

The prophet's mask stared down upon her; even as it looked nothing like the being itself, what that face represented was still hard to take in as it hid someone she thoughtlessly wanted to accept. Francine had a knack for reading his body language- had no choice in the matter, honestly- but she only caught an inkling of an emotion: that he was determined.

"The believers must honor their savior." This statement rung so fervently, despite it being recited so, so many times in his life. It was a psalm that would never lose its meaning. He noticed the scrunch of the cloth under her fingers in nervousness, and so he was aware it required elaboration. "I'm going back to the domain of hymns, the…place we were before, where I offer the ink demon my prayers." She could only assume he meant the music hall. She physically perked up at this idea; it was the only room that had truly brought her comfort. She could easily feel again how mesmerized she was surrounded by the instruments, how it reminded her of home. This sentiment was enough to ignore what the earlier statement of his could mean. And just as she thought all this, he spoke once more.

It was a plea. In her loud internal conversation, she hadn't absorbed the great pause, the great worry and hesitation of his that took the air and drenched it with disquiet; it was dropped upon her and made her stomach sink.

"My dear sheep… Promise me you won't leave your shelter while I'm away."

And with that, her lightened mood was swallowed up by loss- the loss of a possibility she only just discovered she had. And just as abruptly, she didn't know how to argue. There was something about him, something unsettling and apprehensive. It was less that she respected his request and more that fear of the unspoken left her obedient, so she gave him a nod.

Sammy left her behind to continue blissful sleep- escape from reality- but as soon as the only door she hadn't touched clicked in the distance, she was helpless to a will that demanded she run to his side. Obedience waned into a desperate need for security as soon as she no longer felt his dread.

Francine was unknowingly running towards what Sammy was most afraid of in this world of fears.

"Hello?!"

Hello…hello…

As she stepped out of the heavily locked saferoom and called out to him in that boisterous yell, a welcome returned from the walls in her own voice. She frowned when another didn't join it.

"SAMMY?!"

Sammy! Sammy…! Sammy…

The echo came from a corridor to her left, and she could see it quickly turned a sharp corner. He must have been just beyond, and so she ran that way. Around the next bend, the hall was empty. Ignoring the thump in her chest, Francine decided to turn the next corner as well. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again.

…

Lost.

It was only then that the heaving of the machinery around her was finally heard, their sputters and coughs pounding into her until it put more breath into her than own lungs. As the woman hyperventilated to the beats of metal, direction was forgotten, and she didn't know which way she came from. So stupidly, so illogically, she then saw the darkness ahead and went into it. It was no longer known if she intended to find him or to turn back; Francine simply wished to leave this loudness, and that instinct threw her into the den of lions.

Bjn-n-n…

"Tsk!" Sammy mumbled under his breath. No matter how he fiddled, he could not repeat the clarity of sound in his own banjo that the borrowed one of the apartment possessed, the one this one used to possess as well. "That girl…" he thought with a strike of venom. And just as he did, the emptiness, the quietness of the recording room surrounded him, penetrating from all sides. Not even the searchers wanted to give him company, as they often did. He was truly alone. Sammy looked at the broken instrument upon his lap; even in its pathetic state, it told him to not blame her for how it pained…how Sammy pained, as well.

Indeed, the fire still burned inside him. Despite being where the prophet knew he belonged until the days of suffering passed, it wasn't enough. How cruel it was for him to have to endure this feeling. How…selfish he was for thinking at first that he didn't deserve this.

Sammy felt this way because as the comprehension consumed his suddenly unskilled hands, a sensation emerged all around him where the silence used to be. They called. Just as she was here with him last, the old strings called for her. They called for someone new to praise in their lord's name. To him, it was as if he was being shunned for refusing to bring her back, but he knew it was really he that longed for her revitalizing presence.

He was aware how despicable it was to want that of her, but even the shame of asking her to risk safety again wasn't enough to stop him. The banjo was placed down yet again as the inevitable reunion was set in stone. He dragged his feet to the exit, and Sammy prayed this was really what Bendy would want of him; heaven knows what would happen to her if not for the company of her shepherd.

Finally. Finally, there was light. Her heavy breath was taken by what waited. A giant- a…a MASSIVE thing was in the biggest room she'd ever seen in her life. It created a noise, a splash somewhere down below where the cascade of ink fell to. The waterfall of Bendy, surrounded by him in every corner of her sight, was finally enough for her to realize.

"This isn't the way."

Her chest thumped and shook her fingers as the Heavenly Toys stared at her, as if she interrupted a party uninvited. They stared, they stared, they stared-

"This isn't the way!" She finally managed to persuade herself and began to step back. However, something then invited her to stay.

She couldn't make out the words, but something was behind the falling river that centered the room. A staircase by the right side twirled behind into the undiscovered, the only spot she couldn't see. There was another, too, but decay and the rot of ink seemed to cause it to collapse into unclimbable, splintering wood. Francine's eyes twitched down at her hands clasped into her chest. She was reminded of something by this sound he was hearing- she remembered when Gabby first went missing and her hands tried to hold herself just as they were now. Despite the horror of what this sound could mean, Francine closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and listened.

Beyond her flooding pulse was the sound of someone else lost and hurt as herself. That was enough for her to bury her doubts and charge ahead through the chamber of watchful toys.

Gears sputtered here, too, as Francine came to the workshop. Ah, well…she was kind of right all that time ago, she supposed with sarcasm. She still didn't know the purpose of all these pipes and the ink each seemed designed to carry, but her naïve belief when she first entered the studio that they were related to some sort of production line was now affirmed. The toys across the belt smiled teasingly, but she took it in stride. After all, this distraction helped her calm down and take direction.

She closed her eyes to listen again but didn't need to. It was evident now without concentration that the voice was certainly beyond the mess of toy shelves blocking her path, much closer than before. Francine was so frightened, so apprehensive now that she could hear it clearly; she doubted the shrieks in her heart that reminded her of Gabby. Surely, if there was someone else here, she shouldn't interfere, she should run away in terror and hope they never cross paths.

As if it could hear the worries clambering inside Francine, the voice finally reached above a murmur and became comprehensible, forcing her eyes to shoot open.

"Hello..."

This word again welcomed her, but the echo this time was unnaturally close after, almost unified. It must have been the thick walls that separated she and this person that distorted their sound. There was a great, great pause in this speech that seemed to twist the room around her; she finally leaned onto a worktable to steady herself. Suddenly, it came upon her that this wasn't a monologue- it was a conversation. And so, she needed to steady her voice too, at least enough so to speak at all.

"H-…h-…" Oh dear god. Francine was choking on her own words, too overwhelmed by the presence of someone beyond the door to even interact with them. A cold sweat ran over her forehead.

"My, my…you seem so…scared." The last word was different than the last; it was sweeter, a different tone- like an entirely different person. Francine somehow decided to try replying once more.

"Y-…yes," she panted, and suddenly the rest tripped out of her mouth in panic. "I'm so scared! I- I'm-…"

Francine stopped herself, not just shameful of her vulnerability but realizing she was confessing to this person she didn't know- actually thought couldn't even exist. There was a few seconds of noiselessness where Francine finally grasped why she was drawn deeper into this cavern of playful terrors. Sammy never talked about anyone else. He never acted like there was another truly sentient being besides himself. They seemed to be alone in this world, two beings destined to walk side by side in the shadow of Bendy, waiting for his mercy. The shock in this moment hadn't yet laid way to the necessary questions, and so every utterance beyond the wall came as those of divinity, of unreal and amazing truths.

"Why don't you open the door, so we can finally meet? There should be a lever just outside that'll move these shelves between us."

Francine was getting a headache from how her cheeks kept pushing against the corners of her eyes in distress and disbelief, but she still managed to push past her stunned state to twist and face where she came from. Unwittingly, she lifted herself up so her full weight was on her feet, and then the woman trudged to trace the cables on the floor that led to the switch this person had promised.

As a thick clunk! ran through the walls after it was pressed, Francine's palms went back to her side. One leg turned to lead her back, but the other was glued to the floor as her gaze finally had enough lucidity to reveal that just outside the staircase, some of the ink puddles on the floor were moving.

"Oh, you were very noisy coming to see little old me, weren't you?"