30- By God's Grace

"'The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.'" – Exodus 14:14

He remembered, and once again this memory pierced him to his core. But unlike before, these recollections were…recent, in a way. They were the images of past society captured like a bug in amber, held in Francine's young hands. The glinting horns that swayed in harmony; the faded, blurred recording of a couple swing dancing; and the-…

As it came time to reminisce the sounds she immersed them in, he found it difficult to find words that properly conveyed such revolutionary emotion. Besides a few old records and radios that could hardly play at all, he had been deprived for the vast majority of his life the joy of someone playing music for him. Maybe that's why he was so determined to make his own- a spiteful vengeance against the forces that wanted him to just lay down and die, even when they knew that was just not possible.

Shoulderblades grazed against the wall he leaned onto, not even an inch away from the doorway to Heavenly Toys, but not daring to go any further lest it somehow tip Alice off to his waiting presence. Like when he was in front of the sign that held his name, his mask rested towards Francine- well, only this time he couldn't see her. And so he observed the space she disappeared to, sight weak with worry and emotional exhaustion.

He still felt it, though, in his fingertips. They curled in and out with both unease and wonder, fresh from three kinds of touch: that of her face, the piano, and of course- her phone. Each of the three had a special, striking cadence pulsing from his palms like a heartbeat...but…

As he stared at the emptiness ahead, still anticipating her call or arrival, he didn't know it was both she and him that felt vibrations of the past course through their whole body, filling them with awe and dread. His heart began to race like a beating drum.

How much longer could he wait?

There's a very precise kind of ache one may experience like Francine did as she pressed a button on the elevator's panel, uncaring which level she picked since she didn't know at which Alice would even be. A forceful yet dull pain clasped the bottom of her skull and crawled down the back of her neck, eventually aligning with a heart sore from its anxiety.

The doors clanked shut, and the passing levels put bars of light and shadow over and around her, as if she was a prop in her story instead of its lead. And indeed, she was beginning to feel how small she was.

But then it became more. As the design of the elevator's carved walls wrapped over her and the deep, heavy creaks of machinery echoed into the box, the transporter became a cage. Her eyes darted, unseeing, and her chest started to sting as its thump grew stronger and stronger.

Yes, the numbness of absolute terror had waned, and she was finally allowed to accept what just happened- not just of her empathy for the projectionist, but that for herself.

She stumbled back into the corner closest behind, one hand stroked against her throat. That's where it was- that's where his hand was. Just as quickly had her own touch cause her to feel sick, even after she then retracted it to cling to the wall. Her breathing shallow and quick, she evoked to her mind again the sound of the door slamming open, blinding light swallowing her like a path to the afterlife. She could feel now how sore her face still was, the unwitting projectionist roughening it with his cold, calloused fingers as she…she…

As she thought for sure she was going to die.

Even if she now knew that for some reason this did not happen, it couldn't lessen the realizations of her mortality. And god almighty, she thought she could meet Alice again? Someone who harbored actual animosity towards the woman?!

It all fell upon her so suddenly and with such might that Francine collapsed in that small corner before the elevator had stopped, holding herself around the knees and digging her head where the walls met like it was a mother's arms.

She was so overwhelmed- so scared of this path she had chosen- that she didn't hear the door ahead slide open. That or she simply didn't care.

Either way, the pitter patter of feet was left unnoticed.

A monster unfamiliar to her entered the room from a hall just beyond, an inhumanly large, gaping mouth heaving irregular gasps of air. Their head perked, a single eye out of two sockets twitching up ahead at the sound of quiet sobs. Wild with ferocity of unknown origin, Piper stepped forward around the last corner, ready to attack-

And he was there.

As the woman cried to herself, so aware of her vulnerability that she forgot to attend to it, she did not hear nor see what the Piper did. Not even the strokes of grey enveloping the whole room could awaken her from the distress of mortal flesh. Not even the demon's giant, looming shadow that lay ahead her feet, nor his raspy, unnatural breath. Not even as he stood so close that the drips almost fell upon her skin, clinking gently against the metal and beginning to pool a few feet from where she lay.

The half-mechanical toon had not only the instincts of a hunter but also of the hunted, and so after a few seconds of witnessing the unbelievable, Bendy mercifully granted them retreat. As the beast ran, his horrid, gutting smile branded onto their back. They'd know not to give in to that impulse again, not when he was there.

A soft click rang in the air, and Francine opened her eyes only to see the darkness of a moving elevator returning, down to the right floor this time around. But it would be so strangely soon that a disciple would be destined to meet the ink demon yet again.

The speakers overhead remained silent the entire time.

Sammy was ready to fling himself into what he dreaded most, finally seeing how disturbingly long Francine had been away. He felt dread prickle his flesh like knives- perhaps a phantom of the days he could have goosebumps pluck his skin. Not a single voice had been audible since the woman left his sight, not even the angered yelling of the angel.

He had waited too long. He had waited too long. He had waited too long-

A mad dash for his friend ended as soon as it began, and one kind of fear was replaced with another. He was barely capable of voicing it.

"My…my lord…!"

Bendy had emerged from a portal of shadowy oblivion, painting the world with his ethereal darkness. On sight, Sammy fell to the floor in reverence of his master, only willing to look down upon his hands and the floor beneath them swallowed by the ink demon's essence. He witnessed drops from his own head land next to his shaking fingers, alongside the drips of his lord.

Sammy felt him breathing over his back.

"My lord, my lord, I-"

He had dared to look up, a fake face looking upon that of the one it wished to emulate. Two accursed grins opposed each other, one trembling and the other unmoved. As the prophet cowered under his deity, the grating silence that cut his soul eventually led him to a terrible possibility. It made him throw his head down in total desolation.

"I…I let her go." Sammy almost choked on his own words, barely stumbling out of his mouth. "I let her go without me," he confessed, so quiet that it was hardly audible.

…Was it audible?

Sammy's quivering, tightened shoulders rose as he gazed towards his god again, having comprehended he had yet to be torn apart once more for such heinous, unforgivable sins. Where was his penalty?

"My lord?"

Bendy was only smiling down at the disciple, his figure filling the entire height of the doorway. Light from the room ahead lined the silhouette of a being molded from the same blood as the shepherd, and it only seemed to stand there so his glory be beheld. The single reply Sammy received was the behemoth's organic stillness. His…waiting.

"Ink demon!" Sammy scrambled up to his knees, arms outstretched and accepting of whatever his talons may bring. "I've- I've failed you!" More quietly this time, weighty with realization. "I've…failed you." He looked again to his lord in preparation of the punishment he was certainly worthy to receive.

But it was only the sound of his breathing. Only the sight his unchanging sneer.

It filled Sammy with unbearable flabbergast, bits of his arms falling with his lord's rain as he confronted his cowardice.

"INK DEMON!" the prophet commanded his god.

Nothing for the one who questioned that which gave him life. Slushy forearms lowering to his lap, Sammy could only stare up at teasing omniscience.

It was recalled then that this wasn't the first time he was confronted by his lord, forced to see only the near-silent but all-knowing visage of a cartoon morphed by immortality. And like before, Sammy was left to his own devices to discover Bendy's intent for him.

What was he missing? What was he missing? What-

The shepherd suddenly bolted up to his feet, renewed by purpose and understanding.

"Y-yes! You want me to- I'll save her! I'll rescue her, my-"

As soon as he stepped forward once again, he was thrown back to the floor where he belonged.

Groaning, Sammy held his stomach as Bendy remained in the doorway, not as an inspiration but as a gatekeeper. He had deemed that the prophet shall not pass.

Some of his damned body seeped into cracks of the floorboards, melting away as his assurance did. Sammy could only guess what fate- no, what God could possibly be asking of him in this moment.

Yes, Bendy would ensure there would be no interruption as a morbid curiosity was finally indulged.