41- Sinking Memories
"And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life." – 1 John 5:20
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
With a soft, almost teasingly sweet plunk!, one of the bathroom faucets leaked drop after drop of water into a sink stained with ink. True, sometimes the water in the plumbing was tainted with dribbles from the ink machine's leaks, but it wasn't today; clear drips fell down alongside the occasional solid black streak that fell from beneath Sammy's mask. He watched them slide and smear their path to the piping, bits of him running down this abyss of a drain to end up who knows where. The sight of it caused a tightening of the man's knuckles, the overhead lights' reflection moving over his glossy form as his grip tensed.
Sammy finally lifted his head to look in the grimy glass above the sink, face to face with a man melting away. If his solidness or lack thereof was a reflection of his emotional stability, then his body was the true mirror. How did he feel? Empty? Lonely? Wrong? He couldn't place it- not at all. It was simply a deep, unwavering discomfort that sought to take over his entire being like an army sweeping over enemy countryside.
…Faith. Yes, it had to do with his faith-
He shook his head in a single but firm swing, drops of his ink splattering in a thin line over the porcelain. He caught a glimpse of a scowl behind his mask, gritting teeth and curling lips. The last time he was this angry, the prophet recalled who he was and how his master would judge; when the woman first arrived and Sammy didn't know what to do about her survival, he trusted the ink demon above his own instincts of stress. For the sake of his soul and their salvation, he recomposed.
The fact he couldn't do so again now only made this moment sting worse.
A hefty sigh got stuck in his throat, escaping his mouth as a groan. Might as well have been a groan of pain. What was he to do? It had been proven so briefly before that Francine shouldn't be by herself- that this was certainly not what his lord had intended for her- and yet Sammy not only allowed her to leave but told her to go. This was his fault. All his fault.
Suddenly the sight of his sickly, inhuman body in the mirror was unbearable, and a closed fist slammed its side at the glass.
A quivering gasp came out and slowly unfolding fingers started to tremble as Sammy saw the face of his lord where his hand had hit, masking peeking from beneath his palm as it began to stain his own reflection. It was amazing how intact his guise was; despite decade upon decade of suffering and peril, it was still recognizable as the visage of the ink demon. No number of scrapes or blows to the wood and paint could take away its glory.
…By his god's grace, it and Sammy were still unbroken.
A second sigh, one of realization, one of remorse as Sammy relaxed his fist, and a flattened palm reverently touched the face of his lord before falling back to his side. Conflict boiled in his hollow chest like a cauldron brewing doubt. The ink demon knew them, watched them, cared for them. The nature of his master once again alluded him, and he suddenly felt so very unsure about his sheep's pursuit of truth.
He witnessed his lips purse behind the hole of his mask before turning away to leave.
Truth…truth…
As he leaned one arm onto the doorway of the bathroom, he knew what the truth was. This whole time, he tried to escape it. He blocked out the memories of Sammy Lawrence to the point that passing his name over and over, day after day, could hold no meaning. It was both the obscuring curse of the studio and his own unwillingness to remember that caused his ignorance. It made sense to be ignorant, after all; to recall what he used to have in reminiscence rather than hope meant to long for what he would never have again. If-…when the demon released them, he could regain his body. He could regain his mind. But he could never once again be who he was when he was.
Realizing there was something his god couldn't give him was absolutely unbearable, and-
"NO!"
With a slight forward bounce of the head, Sammy screamed at no one besides himself to stop. Regardless of whether or not this thought was true, it was not to be acknowledged for the sake of his own emotional security. His foundation of faith could not afford to have another crack, lest it crumble beneath his feet and plunge him into the oblivion so many souls trapped in the studio allowed themselves to be taken by.
His panting chest straightened a bit as Sammy spotted the table in the living room just up ahead. The photo. Even as it threatened to oppose everything he was, he had to see the photo. He knew its image revealed who they used to be.
But as he reached the table he had surely left it, it was gone.
As he had been lamenting his decisions and the very nature of his existence in the bathroom, something happened in this room. There was no sign of it now- and so Sammy assumed the woman took it with her- but something had happened to that photograph before he could find it.
Ink had dripped little by little from the ceiling, weighing the aged paper till it was pinned to the table and eventually drowned entirely by its black. The small pool that had formed bubbled just a bit before dissipating into nonexistence, leaving nothing but the surface of the table, like maggots cleaning a bone of its flesh.
All that was there to take was her phone, and so with reluctance, Sammy did so- unsure what it could do for him but also unsure what else he could grasp to save himself.
For some reason, Sammy felt he couldn't save Francine this time; he couldn't the time before, after all. And now she was chasing what he knew he could never. But as he remembered his lord standing over him- preventing the prophet from rescuing his lamb- Sammy also accepted that despite his sin, she would be okay. Even if he could not comprehend his ways, the ink demon would watch over his friend, even as she pursued the unattainable.
Francine could hear the rough breath of the ink demon over her shoulder- could feel it too, unless that was simply the supernatural cold that seemed to follow in his shadows. As she had chased him, she still hadn't answered for herself exactly what she was doing, just what she wanted to say. She identified a feeling- "to be okay"- and nothing more. As the god of this realm stood over her, precisely where she wanted to be, she had never once asked herself if she knew what to beg of someone she deemed to be all-knowing.
A gulp slithered down her throat. She could start with the obvious and immediate, even as the possibility of questioning it could bring her out of the demon's favor.
"Why- why am I here?" she asked with a pivot- or at least the start of one. She stopped halfway, looking over her shoulder as the sight of the inky god took her breath away. Now that she had turned, all the light from the doorway ahead had slid past her nose and fallen upon him; underneath the yellow radiance, it allowed her to observe how the ink upon his body moved, its flesh never still; it constantly dripped down, and yet like Sammy surrounded by candlelight, this light showed he could melt and melt but never entirely away.
It made her realize once again that Bendy and the people made in his image were far, far away from anything she could be or understand.
Silence followed. The only sound was his drips.
Her shoulders rose and fell in quick succession a few times as she began to grasp the situation. Eyes flew forward to stare at the watercolor aura of his washing over her and bleeding into the endless darkness of the hall, now in front of her. She couldn't see him anymore- couldn't bear to- but her right shoulder prickled with the all-too familiar six sense of knowing the demon had begun to loom closer.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
They accompanied a pained, inhuman yet so human wheeze barely whispered through a never-changing smile that stretched around his head. A pain of her own pierced her chest, her heart beating so fast it began to ache.
Adrenaline is a hell of a thing.
Francine suddenly whipped around to fully face him, eyes shut tight with fear, anger, and perseverance so she may endure whatever her foolish longing would bring her.
"What the heck happened?! Why are we all here like this?! WHAT HAPPENED TO MAKE ALL THIS-"
She had started to scream before realizing she was doing so straight at the ink demon, a shift in his stance audible enough for her to open her eyes in surprise and shut up. Two things happened simultaneously. One- a hyperventilating Francine took a step back in terror, causing her to slip on her heel and throw her back onto the door with a soft thud, the slit of light disappearing from Bendy's eternal grin as she accidentally closed the only exit shut.
Two- she saw the ink demon's shoulder roll back as his right arm lifted towards her.
She was unsure to be grateful or to curse how a glow still streamed underneath the door in dim rays, barely making visible as for the second time since her arrival to the studio, Bendy let his ungloved claws rest in the air in front of her.
…And once again, it did not move to touch her. As the muscles of her back pressed into the door, arms outstretched side to side with their fingers trying to clasp flat wood, the panting woman tilted her chin up and saw him as he was before; besides this gesture, he was still unmoving.
He was waiting for her, Francine began to realize.
The first time this had occurred, she was so in awe that she thoughtlessly reached for this being- the one she believed to be her savior. As she questioned now if he truly was, it was left uncertain if she should reach for him again.
As his beastly paw rested between them, the smaller of his two hands still so so gigantic as it stayed beside her torso, clearly she had no choice.
Maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised that yet again, his hand consumed hers- totally engulfing her flesh with his own like a swarming flood- but she was. Deathly cold for a split second, then she felt nothing at all. And then, once more…something in her hand.
The ink demon had answered her prayers. And yet, she could not understand.
"The…that…" Despite how shaky her hand was, how dark swallowed them, she could still see a photograph in her hands once his inky arm released hers. It was the very one Alice gave and Sammy took away. "How- how did-"
No answer. He simply stood, soundless omnipotence.
Her heavy breathing couldn't muddle the loudness of her thoughts- the clambering of questions and the shouting of impossibilities. But it was just-…just a photo! The scientist in her was baffled, and confusion curdled into frustration.
"What…?!" she whispered breathlessly, pulling the picture close to her face, squinting at it in hopes to see something she hadn't before. There was the man, the woman, the microphone, and the script. She repeated the list over and over to herself as she searched for something more. Man, woman, microphone, script-…and nothing else, no matter how hard she looked.
A gaping mouth and eyes tightened but still open with bewilderment turned up to the ink demon, wordlessly begging for answers. This was his response to her questions. It had to be. He was truly a mystery- sometimes entirely unfathomable in purpose- but surely this meant something.
Francine studied him as he refused to answer. His hoarse breath roughened his throat, hardly coming out like a whisper with no translation. There were no more gestures; just the ink that slowly flowed from his body and infected the floorboards, her eyes following until they fell to the picture again-
Wait- the back! She didn't check the back!
A turn of the paper, however, also bore no fruit. Nothing more than incomprehensible smudges of some kind greying the page-
Just as she was about to turn her gaze up to the god once again, his giant, barely solid hand curled all his fingers but one and gently tapped the back of the photograph.
And as he held it there, it began to change.
The smudges swirled and faded, converging like paint in water gushing backwards to their source. The ink upon the paper concentrated in place, and the fingertip of the demon lifted so she may read what was written long, long ago.
"…'with greatest love, Joey,'" she read aloud.
Wait.
Crack.
"…Joey," she repeated under her breath, her tongue sure it felt these syllables before.
Crack.
"Joey." A little louder this time for her own ears to hear and examine. She had heard it- she had heard that name-
Crack.
Her heart jumped straight up into her mouth, ready to scream as revelation sparked her mind.
"JOEY-"
The studio cracked open not even a second after the mystery did and her shout turned into a shriek. The floor fell open beneath her, and her arm threw itself up to the ink demon as he continued to do nothing but stare as she began to plummet down, down, down.
Too close. She had gotten too close. All that was felt now was a gut-wrenching fear of the totally new and unknown, of destinies unforeseen.