29- A Friend

"Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act." - Proverbs 3:27

How soon was it that there came yet another fork in the road.

"THE DEMON"

"THE ANGEL"

Francine both physically and mentally leaned from one side to the other, trying to figure out which way seemed safest. The left- the demon- seemed darker from this angle, but…

A small giggle rang from overhead.

…Angels weren't exactly the most uplifting concept at this moment. Might as well investigate her choices, right?

And so Francine stepped into the most hellish of the paths. It would soon be clear it wasn't only hell as a metaphor. Her heart nearly jumped into her throat as she found the hauntingly familiar sight of a hallway totally entrenched in ink. No way. No way she'd go through that again, and so she turned around so she may take the journey of angels.

Pah-tunk!

"…You've got to be kidding."

No, whomever had the power to open and close the routes of this studio's past was certainly not fooling around. The entry of the heavenly lane had closed shut. Francine lifted and lifted the metal gate until her fingers ached, and not even a few kicks of frustration could unhinge it.

Shit and goddammit.

From where she stood, a sliver of the doorway stared at her like a slit eye. And it was then she recognized that a hero's epoch to great treasure required every drop of bravery one possessed.

Feeling the voice on her tongue waver in fear, she made the decision to take out her phone and press "play" on her music shuffle. As she stepped into the river Styx once more, she hoped it could calm both her and whatever monsters lied in wait once she broke through their veil.

"Now that…is a beautiful, and positively silly thought."

The last three words drifted out to her more quietly than the others, either a consolation or a warning to an odd girl that just wanted to feel like a person again. She memorized the printed name and the sound of the tape, pondering this psalm.

Maybe Norman would be able to tell her about Joey, too. She wondered if he was with them somewhere, isolated within his own little slice of a haven in this perdition like everyone else seemed to do.

More so, she hoped that there wasn't a reason Sammy hadn't mentioned him either.

Someone was left with the weight of yet another upon their shoulders, yet another that deserved to be saved. But what could they do?

First, the splatter of ink pouring down the middle of a ceiling, unavoidable like a baptism, resting upon her shoulder like a kind touch of the hand.

Next, a turn around the corner with Bendy after Bendy in procession, his delighted sneer plastered to stare at every angle, never ceasing his vigilant watch of the being that had intruded his realm.

Then, a toyshop filled with ink so thick it piled like snow plowed to the side of a road after a blizzard, settling over and around shelves and giant dolls. "Tick tick tick tick tick!" the dancing clocks had chanted like criers for a king…or watchdogs of a warden.

Despite all these things, she only ever thought about…well…she supposed she was thinking about everyone, but especially of her friend. She was trapped in the bleakest of worlds with a man that knew nothing about himself besides that he was not who he was intended to be. There was an angel who did carry such knowledge, but she was so scornful of the prophet that it had to be considered what happened in a past life to merit her fury. Yes, the woman trusted Sammy- the good nature left to him now must certainly be the core of his essence- but…

…He must have done something that hurt her.

A hand gripped around the railing that traced one last room before she'd descend to Norman. She let her phone rest upon it, too, its weak speaker somehow enough to spread notes all around the chamber. She felt like a warrior seeking for a mythical seer to guide her way, begging for answers so that she may survive.

Francine felt her pulse pluck the inside of her wrists as she looked past them, down to the strikingly massive elevator; with the lyrics of this song fading away in a finale, she noted that it seemed to have been enough to pacify the dark beasts of the studio. A sigh passed her lips in gratitude, and she paused the music for good.

She wandered down the stairs and entered her cage, the angel calling from overhead a final time to remind her that it was Level 14.

There was a strange purr of emptiness here after that long journey down. And it seemed like…it seemed like…

Another universe.

She stood at the top of a tower overseeing a cavity somehow even bigger and more vacant than the entrance to Heavenly Toys. It took her breath away- as well as any hint of confidence she had before. Francine was so small now; she never noticed how less vulnerable one was when the walls seemed to be closing in. Now that they were as wide as a clearing in a forest, she felt like a young deer, unknowing and unseeing of dangers ready to pounce from the shade.

She had to keep going though, not just for Sammy but for herself. This was her life now, she realized with prickling dismay. She had lost her family by her own volition and mercy, and so these beings of disgusting immortality were all she had left- at least for now. And so, she felt she needed to understand them and this existence, as what the people of the murk possessed was now and forever hers to bear as well.

"God help me," she whispered to someone outside of herself.

And they would.

This voice was different, but of course it was; she hadn't heard it before. Still, it was…unexpected.

Norman Polk spoke about himself in such a way that she could not deem if he was speaking about the projectionist in the life of the studio or of one present after its death. Her head lifted, absorbing the overwhelming abyss. Yeah, this must be the place. As the recording clicked in a finish, however, she had to ask herself:

Where to start?

Again, a right and a left. Gosh, there were so many of these, and the repetition of this decision was wearing her down to the bone. Well, she went left once, might as well go left again.

It was such an unbearably dark hall. Distracted, she splashed just a bit too forcefully as she stepped forward; it made her shudder to feel the biting, cold ink drip down her ankle. A compulsion came over, her phone already again in hand and ready to turn on its flashlight…before a thought came. The tape said…he liked the dark? Or at least stayed in it. Truthfully, it wasn't well understood, extremely vague to the woman's limited acquaintance to the studio.

She squinted a bit, noticing a flicker just up ahead. A pale shape solidified before her as she approached, and she found a projector was sitting on a low table. Her gaze trailed with its light until she beheld its picture.

It was so unsettling, even as she comprehended that somehow, someway, electronics seemed to maintain their spark, just like…-

She slipped her phone back to its pocket, content with the tease of streaming lights she could glimpse up ahead. Maybe it was nonsense, but the logic of this whole building seemed to be that anyway. And so, she resolved to walk forward without mixing her luminescence with that of a man she wished not to upset upon meeting.

Despite the sloshing of her feet, the noises around her again seemed to match the pace of her heartbeat or vice versa. She never recognized before the clattering of the projectors was so loud, so fast, at least when the only other sounds were that of her steps and-

Wait.

She stopped where she was, flooded with the yellowed film of cartoons intended for a wall by her side. She listened.

Something was moving.

Delicately, she crept around the next corner. Yet more streams of cream, fuzzy light waited ahead. But…

Yes, something was definitely moving over there. One of the rays bobbed up and down ever so slightly, its source out of sight. Was it..?

"Norman?"

The beam ahead stilled…but nothing more. Her fists clenched. This was suddenly so much harder; a first call of curiosity left her mouth with ease, but it was dawning upon her that it was really, truly, falling upon someone's ears.

"Norman? I'm Fran-…Francine. Alice sent me- sent me too-"

Her lips shook just as much as her sureness did. God, who was he anyway? Why in the hell did she just agree to come here without asking the angel a single question? She felt her head tremble, strands of hair shifting unpleasantly onto the sweat of her temple, but she was already too bothered by what was ahead to pay mind.

The light seemed to tilt at its source, almost like a cocked head listening in thought. Whatever was going on, Norman seemed to…be waiting. For what? What else could she say?

And in this moment, she made yet another strange, stupid decision. Maybe if it did something to the searchers, it could help here, too…

And so she began to hum. Despite the back of her mind begging her to stop- that it may be demeaning this person's intelligence- it was certainly more for herself. It was the only thing that seemed to keep her composed nowadays, the single ability at her disposal to survive the suffocating blackness and its fiends. A tinge of firmness gradually came to her voice, remembering how Alice said they were blessed with song- that it was what made them human. She felt something akin to the hope and desperation Sammy held when he prayed to his lord, teaching himself again and again that lifeless life could still have purpose.

As the melody parted ways, lingering through the halls like a bottle of red dye dumped at her toes and spreading wherever the flow of ink led. She watched as one trail seemed to lead around the corner, towards the organically stirring radiance.

It jumped up, scattering its ray more towards the woman's direction. Her growing smile fled as soon as it came once a deafening, unholy screech drenched the room.

This wasn't a man, not by her mortal standards. She had just enough time to comprehend that much as she almost fell over herself running away, a strand of light blinding her eyes as something shadowy beneath it rushed with unfathomable speed to do…to do…

She didn't want to imagine what this thing could do to her.

Thank goodness she spotted a box in the corner of her sight just as she passed it. Francine threw the door open to the Little Miracle Station and likewise hurled herself inside, yanking the entry shut with all her might. But the overwhelming, all-consuming light soon flooded inside, that small window in the door still enough for the gape of this creature to fall upon the woman. Dust flickered like static around her beneath its illumination, matching the noise she heard just a foot or two from where she sat.

She had felt hopeless, powerless many a time during her visit to the studio, but it was never as dreadful as this. A mixture of yelling and sobbing scratched up her throat as she held herself around the legs, fingernails digging into the material of her pants in anxiety. She was going to die. She was going to die.

She didn't notice the glow soften as she grew sharper and sharper with distress.

And then, the worst kind of confirmation filled her soul as she noticed just in time the wood of her refuge rattle…until the creature managed to fling open the door, a crack thundering as it surely became unhinged. She was now fully enveloped in their sickly fire.

It was so much more horrid, however, to feel the vibration of her cries seep through fingers as they clasped around her throat and onto her mouth. Every fiber of her being poured into her screams. Even as she knew Sammy couldn't hear her, this was all she could do to save herself.

Palms, like leather soaked in water, rubbed against her skin.

…

…

…

And the grip that could snap her life in two still yet to do so.

Painfully, her eyes fluttered open to look at blazing nothingness. The red veins of her eyelids flashed with each blink as her innate curiosity quieted her shrieks into soft yelps. Most of her force went straight into her heart now, creating a rhythm that pushed back at the hands that pressed not gently, but carefully back.

No, it wasn't her blinded eyes playing games hand in hand with her adrenaline. She could not wink away the sight of a movie projector- just like the others- seated upon the shoulders of a man desperate to feel what she possessed. Wires weaved in and out of their body as if threaded by a needle, and mechanical parts that should exist amid no flesh and blood were exposed as much as she was.

Their…their… "head" tilted as she began to quiet, overlooking her like a stranger upon a frightened, lost child. It took a very long time to realize that whatever motivated their touch…was not her death.

Nor her silence.

One large fingertip rested beside her lips, the remaining ones upon that hand curled and tense around the spotted side of her jaw. The left hand laid its thumb at her neck; a single, downward jab would have been enough to crush her spine. But that's not what he wanted, was it?

She wasn't the only one shaking as his hands kept searching, uninterrupted by the tears rolling beneath his caress. It had stopped. Where did it go? Did she still have it?

The man could not remember, but he still knew- he still knew there was something about this that was special, and he craved for more impulsively.

The vibration had been replaced by another pulse inside her, much less shrill but still prevailing as it drummed under her skin. It beat faster as he slid his left hand from her throat to her collarbone, the source of this low throbbing that made every inch of her alive.

As he did this, Francine maybe began to understand- just a little, through the fog of absolute fear in the face of the glaring unknown.

A projector…a projector…

…The projectionist.

"…Norman? Are you Norman?"

The woman yelped once again as hands returned to her face, rough with excitement. Her eyes shook in their sockets, unsure what to make of this, uncomprehending what he wanted of her. But momentarily, that didn't matter. The advice of the angel echoed through her mind just after the name of this being did.

"D-do you know who Sammy is?!"

He only shifted his hands again around her face to better feel the sounds. As if it could see, the projector from up high minutely nodded up and down…not as an answer but to look her over in wonder.

"Norman?"

Nothing besides than his watching and waiting for more, a small crackle emerging from the speaker in his chest.

And that was when Francine realized he couldn't tell her a thing.

"God," she whispered breathlessly, every opening of her face wide in shock and horror. Like every other soul here besides she, Norman was a broken, deformed shell of the person he used to be. The black magic of the ink tainted his blood and tried to strip him of humanity.

As with the others, it did not entirely succeed, but the remnants it left him made it all the more excruciating.

It was so…much more terrifying than the others, somehow, how the curse of the studio carved him into a plaything. He had no mouth to speak with, and his only voice was the static at his heart. Being so much to accept in this brief second, she had begun to cry again, but these tears served a very different purpose than those just a moment before.

Unswayed by anything but the immediate environment and the animalistic drives of a previous life, Norman began to stop rummaging over her face so he may cup it in his hands. She was untouched and unaltered, nothing like he'd ever seen. Witnessing it was like looking upon heaven itself.

He couldn't hear a thing; the vibrations of sounds were what he had learned to sense and find. And hers were like no other. Both the projectionist and the intruder were frightened, awed, and pained at each other's presence, filled with emotions that had no place in what should have been two unassuming existences. She was so weary with revelation that only pity allowed her hands to clasp his; she squinted upward to look him in the eye despite there being none, as it was the least she could do…and yet the most. He merely adjusted as she did so, maintaining his hold around her cheeks. But it was still enough of a reaction to seed a small consideration in her heart.

And through its depths, both for herself and the projectionist, this heart knew it had nothing to give besides another song.

It was…so difficult to make it out. So strenuous to keep herself from totally breaking apart in his grasp- not because of the strength he surely had but because of how frail she was observing person after person have something taken away from them that they never should have lost in the first place. Her refrain was a plea for forgiveness from someone that realized much too late the uncertainties human nature laid its foundation upon. How that there was nothing she could do for a being seemingly constructed for someone else's amusement and then discarded without a second thought.

Someone built a friend, gave him an old projector for a head. But he couldn't have stayed stable all alone as he was now.

"And we had so much fun together. We thought we'd be friends forever. And we had so much fun together. We had so much fun."

His light had grown dimmer and dimmer as the lullaby drew to a close, the last verse not even audible from her moving lips. But it didn't need to be; he felt it physically, and she felt it spiritually. That was enough.

"I built a friend."

The small world of this box and the creature in its doorway seemed to contain every drop of sadness and naivety. The sense of parenthood from before exchanged from the larger to the smaller of the two by the time it was quiet once more. And they stayed there for a minute or so, her soft sobs cradled in his hands, he unwittingly comforting her as she had tried to comfort him. His gaze could no longer be met in this exhausting moment, but his hold was so solid that all she could do was shut her eyes and pray.

The moist, callous fingers stroked one last time before finally lingering off her face, content with her gift. The biggest searcher of all had found what he yearned for, what he first felt in the walls when she arrived, and he was satiated. Forever wordless, he still knew what Francine had brought was something good to have. Something he used to love, and still did…even if it would never be the same.

And so after all that had happened, the mortal was the one granting mercy instead of receiving it like she had been promised. But he seemed to need it more than she, so that became her sole consolation.

The projectionist's looming figure retracted from the booth, one hand lowering to grip her arm. Once again, it was not tender, but it was indeed never to harm. An instinct for music came with an instinct for appreciation, and so he pulled her from the booth and led her away.

She needn't know how unusual it was for his grasp to not rip her apart.

Francine looked back one last time at Norman as he stood no further than between the two entryways of the maze. He only stared, his body stiff as the light of his skull glinted and fuzzed around her being. Still hot and burning from tears, she managed to slowly give him a wave, the slightest of smiles fighting back the tides of despair. He seemed satisfied with such a small goodbye, crackling in reply as he turned away and lurched back to his chasms, neither hoping to see her again nor wondering who she was. Maybe he would long for that later, but for now this was enough for a man devoid of everything he once held dear. Norman had never been difficult to please in life, either.

One last breath rose and fell from her, the hand she waved with now pressed at her chest in deliberation.

No, not only that, she realized.

As she too faced a new direction to a new fate, resolve whipped around her like a hailstorm. She didn't get what she here came for, but thanks to Norman, she knew where it could be found.

She approached the elevator one more time, off to see Alice.