Author's Notes: I heavily recommend you read my drabble Another Tuesday Afternoon before reading this chapter as it gives better context. (And for anyone who reads this main series, all of the drabbles I write and post here are canon and as things develop, I'll likely reference them more and more so I recommend reading the drabbles in general. All Bendy works on my account here are canon to my Hymns AU). You can find Another Tuesday Afternoon by going to my profile.

67- I Remember You

"I will remember my song in the night; I will meditate with my heart, and my spirit ponders…" – Psalm 77:4

"Ugh!"

A splat against the ground echoed from underneath Alice's heel as it slammed down onto the searcher. Nose wrinkling in disgust, she was reminded that this was why she hardly ever left her cloud nine. The sight of these pathetic, writhing…wormlike things pulling themselves out of the ooze was enough to make her skin crawl- let alone when puddles formed new mass and became arms reaching out for her. But no, it wasn't an angel's gentle mercy they craved- it was surely her perfection; for some reason they craved to attack once in a while even someone as she made of ink- maybe because she reminded them of what they really wanted: her shreds of humanity.

And that she simply could not give away. Not again.

A throaty hiss emerges from underneath her feet once again but was promptly silenced, a head newly formed with a gaping, dripping mouth collapsing back into the puddles hardly two seconds after being born to suffer once more. She skirted the sole of her shoe across the black smear on the floor after this second stomp- both for good measure and to satisfy something inside her that desired violence for even approaching her so recklessly.

"Horrible thing!"

She tried not to empathize with the searchers, tried not to remember they were once people…tried not to consider that maybe in some way, they still were.

But that was precisely the kind of being she had left her haven to find.

It wasn't any sort of dual personality that made Alice so split on her feelings and behaviors. No, that would be too easy of an excuse, and to find refuge in such an idea would be a disservice to her complexity, her history, and her pain. A stomach that didn't need to exist still churned now to remind Alice that even if dark magic was the medium, no one in this studio had needed much more than a push to twist inside out into caricatures of the things that scared them most. Not her, not Sammy, not-…

…Norman.

And before she knew it, she was in the elevator to descend yet again- not alongside someone she hated mere hours before but to find someone she had tried to forget.

But never could.

That made the angel curse herself. Do you know how much work it is to detach yourself from the place- the people you once thrived among? To dismiss it all because there's no possibility to reach anything even akin to peace in this hell otherwise?

"A lifetime," her sweeter voice lamented to the other, "It took a lifetime."

And then, a reply:

"And it only took a visit from just a girl to feel it fleeing from my fingertips."

Her figure became silhouetted as she crossed into a realm she knew well but avoided, eyes narrowing down at the abyss of ink as one hand rose and curled its fingers onto the banister. It hollowed her- just for a moment- but a small, frustrated groan rumbled her throat as she came to realize she was delaying the inevitable. A quick turn and broken lips stretching side to side in an open frown, she descended from her royal tower down, down, down to the one who may have been the lowest of creatures in her rotten kingdom.

A frown became a scowl as that tape came into her life once again, right at the entrance of the maze. She hated it- she remembered the first time she found it. Norman's voice once again, here to comfort her as her body melted over and over beneath her own self when she first emerged from the puddles. To a black and white slug, it was like a voice from above- and surely, if Norman was still alive, he'd be her saving grace like he had been every time before. As Alice firstborn dragged herself into the maze, the image was so clear to her desperate mind: his gentle smile, pushing wrinkles deeper into his face; half-lidded eyes of a beautiful dark brown, gazing at her with a glimmer of understanding and sympathy she wasn't even sure she had for herself; and she could feel his hand touching hers, skin calloused with age delicate with hers as an elderly gentleman helped her out of her seat after a lunch break together that went by far too fast.

All of that was gone forever the moment she knew he was too.

There was the shadow of a human-like figure coming looming from one of the clearings of this maze; over the sound of her heaving, wet breath she could hear the clicking of projectors. The lights blinded her eyes- made her panic and flail in her already horrified, agonizing state of body and mind- but she kept moving. Norman? Norman?! Someone was there. But as she grew closer, Susie began to understand that this shadow was only human-like for a reason.

Something in the shape of a person was threaded like a string through quilt- wires that sparked and spat through cuts and tears, their brief lights flying across this corpse to reveal a rubbery texture or maybe one like that of wettened leather. The thick lines and coils loosely cocooned him, minimal enough to make this thing inside visible but strong enough to let him dangle in the air like a hanged man left to decay as a symbol of worse to come for those who sinned. The mess of wiring converged towards the top to secure the black web's prize to the wall and ceiling, leaving unperceivable from neck-up what remained of this former mortal being.

A spiderweb of tubing and electricity crawled around someone who was no longer mister Norman Polk, a gloved hand dangling just a few inches beyond the perimeter of his net of a coffin.

And even in all her dawning fear, anguish, and misery, Susie had to reach up to hold it once again.

That's when the mechanical man sputtered to life once more.

Something radiated in shuddering rays of light from where his head should have been in this tangle, and then- then she saw the wires shift as something beneath them tried to move but couldn't. In response, a groan- and that's when an already dropping feeling in her dribbling chest began to plummet. It was a sound she had never heard before, the screech of an animal unmet by any human ears, and it was muffled, yes, but…

It was muffled by the speaker at his chest, not by anything above it.

Susie yelped and retracted her grasp but her new fingers were much too slow. This thing's grip was fast, instinctive, and tight. And it held on to her for dear life as the body attached began to spur and jerk about more and more violently, desperately by the second as limbs tried to move about but were restrained.

But he was unrestrainable now, and each time one of these wires tore into two and made him closer and closer to liberty, she screamed and pulled away.

Susie would never know if she pulled to free him or to free herself from him.

In one final, absolutely haunting crescendo of ferocity and noise, the inorganic womb finished tearing apart to release him to new life and into the arms of someone that didn't mother him before but rather felt his like he was a father. Some of the wires still clung to his body after its descent to the studio floor and would remain forevermore.

The being splattered into the ink beneath them, murmuring grunt-like scratches into the liquid until it rippled. And the worse part that she being nearly liquid herself, it rippled through her too.

She felt him.

And eventually Susie would learn that he felt her this way too.

But that would be another day, another time she'd come to visit him in disbelief, morbid curiosity, and grief, because today?

Today was the day she breathlessly searched for a familiar face in this whole twisted hell, crawling back against the wall until her barely formed arms and neck touched the wood behind to fully gaze upon who had entered this life alongside she.

And today was the day she would realize she would never find one such face, the illumination of reality falling upon her both literally and spiritually with a raise of the projector.

From then forward, Susie knew that Norman was gone, and she began to see that she was something else too. Nothing would- could- ever be the same, and new names accompanied new existences.

But all these years later, Alice could more than manage to identify herself but still didn't know if the creature in front of her was merely the projectionist or truly Norman Polk.

As the angel approached someone with no resemblance to the man she once cared for, that made her frown in a different sort of way. Regret, sadness…unsureness. That last feeling, especially, was the one she hated most, and it was the reason she visited him so little. It made her unsure.

It made her unsure if he was something entirely new of if everything she had called her friend was in there too.

That terrifying, appalling excuse of a head finally turned to "face" her as she stopped two meters away from his cozy corner, sitting cross-legged among the puddles with an inky heart seized in his hand. Alice had observed the way he squeezed it, put pressure on its sides…like a toy.

Brief assurance. Norman would never be so callous as to do that.

But yet again, Susie wouldn't have ripped hearts out either.

It made her grimace, an expression noticed by the projectionist with a croak and a head tilt almost like a confused dog. When she simply dug her fingers into her crossed forearms more, a louder sound emerged from his chest, and he suddenly threw himself back into the murk-stained walls.

He was scared. Alice tried not to see that how he looked before her now must have been how she did to him at that first appearance so many years ago, but that couldn't be helped. And so with nothing else to do, she released a sigh and allowed her expression to droop into neutrality.

She felt anything but neutral, of course, but Francine wasn't the person to teach her that middle ground was the only way to reconcile two extremes; no, that was none other than the person at her feet.

Norman, still shaken with the events of when the mortal woman visited him last, required a moment for adrenaline to settle and for a stance ready to run or fight to loosen into something more relaxed. That light of his flickered into something dimmer, almost as if it softened for his guest, and one slow step after another he came closer.

Norman was the only person of ink Alice ever let touch her, but it was still a begrudging acceptance. Despite learning that it didn't taint her physically, Alice was always afraid herself if she was letting a monster roam her face or if such interaction was all a voiceless, nearly mindless old friend had left to give to the young lady he wished the best for. She bit the inside of her lip to keep it from stretching in disgust or dismay as one hand held her shoulder and the other clasped much too rough for her liking at the already disfigured side of her face.

"Norman," she finally spoke, feeling her torn jaw brush against his palm.

Yet another flicker, yet another bit of static from his chest- either meaningless response to stimuli or a response meant to politely ask for her to continue. She held back an eye roll; Alice never truly thought of a reason to come- at least one to attempt to explain to someone who might not even understand.

No, she comprehended as she gently mirrored his touches to his own "chin" and the "skin" of his shoulder next to that reel breaking through black, moist flesh; no, she knew Norman couldn't give any words of comfort now like he had when Sammy had bothered her before.

But she could still lament in his presence like she never had opportunity to- before the flood of ink- of feeling the betrayal of her best friend deeming her unworthy to be the angel she knew she rightfully earned the name to.

Regardless of whether or not Sammy owned up to sins he couldn't remember, she didn't think she could forgive. It was the last thing of importance to occur before she died, and so like a ghost, Alice was forced to live on forever until her unfinished business was laid to rest like her cadaver.

But these things? They could never be given back. And that would haunt her forever, both being and never truly being neither the Alice to be revered and respected nor the Susie with dreams and a future ahead and within reach, the worst of limbos. Maybe in a literal sense Sammy only took her job away, but with all between them- all their trust and all their comradery amid Joey's chaos- it had meant so much more.

Still did, hand in hand with the prophet he became.

With only a remnant of Norman being enough for this time and this time only, the woman who deserved better melted into him and heard her own quiet mumbles echo through the labyrinth of light, wood, and ink as she spoke into his chest. A man unidentified to be himself or someone else held the girl who was much the same way, unknown if this sensation of her pressed against him was an ancient comfort or a newfound amazement depending on where his mind lingered now. He could feel her sing to him in between pauses of silence where she choked back the threat to cry- something never to be heard by even the walls themselves- much like how this projectionist once relished hearing her fill the studio with song long, long ago.