"Ugh, my head." Henry rubbed what could only be a bump as he pushed himself off the floor. "What happened?" He was standing on yet another pentacle circle.

"Well, I guess there is only one thing to do." Henry said to himself as he strode forward with axe in hand. "Press on and see if I can find a way out." Unlike before, this place was an extension to the old studio, and he was unfamiliar with the layout. He would have to proceed slowly. Presumably, the quake he had felt would have alerted Jeanne, and his hardy and thick-skinned niece would probably rush in to help. Hopefully, she would have noticed that the hole near the exit was freshly made. Jeanne could protect herself, but Henry was kind of hoping that she would stay away. If only he had brought his pocket watch along and checked the timing...

He headed down the stairs, coming face to face with an altar, with ...'He will set us free?' Henry tilted his head in confusion. "What the hell?" A banjo resting against the wall, several bowls of ...eggs? Round balls of white? Candles lit up and cans of bacon soup. Yeah, he wasn't in Kansas anymore, but this was starting to get a little creepy.

"How did this place get so big?" He thought to himself after playing the recording. Sammy had gotten weird over the last few years, but this was really taking the cake. The pentacle again, with Bendy and a few candles. This time though, the pentacle was more elaborate. Henry hissed as he encountered the ink flood at the end of the corridor; so much for his trousers-

"Did a figure just run past me?" Henry waded through the ink flood, but he could not catch up even as he called after the dark stranger in his line of sight. As he finally, finally made his way across the corridor, he looked to the left, then to the right. The left only contained a dead end, with pentacle, and Bendy cutout. And more bacon soup cans! Noticing a pattern, he decided to take some bacon cans for himself. It would probably come in handy, even as an antique for his nephew to collect. Especially with the cans with Bendy on them. He turned to the right, finding a series of flashing lights next to a gate. Probably had to find the switches for the gate to open, or he'll be stuck here. Hunting high and low, he flicked one right next to the altar, finding another near the ink pipe (how did anyone open the gate if it took so long!) and finally one behind the shelf of bacon soups.

As the gate opened, Henry gingerly made his way to what appeared to be the band studio. He recalled that before the advent of travelling bands, studios used to have their own in-house bands. Now, they took singers who already performed lived, and gave them themes to compose in order to boost their ratings. It was a simpler time, he reminisced. He turned on a cassette tape, and listened to Alice Angel's voice actor, smiling in memory as Susie Campbell enthused about her old role.

"Maybe we can get together and have a good laugh about it." He thought to himself.

At the end of a corridor, he found the stairwell. Unfortunately, it was flooded with ink, and unlike before, he wasn't sure how deep it went.

"Looks like the stairwell's flooded. If I'm going to get out of here, I'll need to find a way to drain it." Already, Henry could feel fatigue settling in, and he was irritated, just as Wally probably had been.

Passing by another projector room, he played the recording of yet another employee. This time, it was Norman Polk, who had stayed on after him, and as he heard the conductor protest about Sammy's erratic actions, he was reminded of the instruments. What if...

"AARGH!" Ink creatures, one after another, hurtled towards him, with arms raised in supplication as they rushed towards his axe. Heart palpitating wildly in his chest, he madly slashed at them as more and more Bendy cutouts started to appear everywhere. From within the recording studio to above the projection room, they were practically littering the place. Henry could have sworn that when he went to the projector overseeing the recording studio, more and more cutouts had been scattered amongst the recording studios, yet when he rushed down, there were none there but at least two present at the balcony he had just been at.

Out of the pan, into the fire. Henry cursed in defiance as he charged towards the ink creatures (would they never end? Henry thought to himself as he swung his axe across them.) Breathing heavily, he killed the active ones and headed towards Sammy's office. After a minor detour in which he hunted for the keys that Wally the janitor had lost (eventually turning up in a garbage can; what Wally was doing throwing keys together with the trash was slightly distressing but Henry decided to turn the other cheek) he found that in order to even open Sammy's 'sanctuary' (Henry had to hide a laugh at that. Sammy was sensitive to that kind of thing, and he probably used this as a deterrent to prevent others from entering his office) he had to play the instruments in a specific order. It was just a bit cheesy, but Sammy was melodramatic and he was even worse while they were setting up Joey Drew Studios together. If he recalled correctly, Sammy had hissed like a spitting cat when Joey and Henry had surprised him with cake. Granted, it was cake thrown at his face, so maybe Sammy was reasonably less pleased with the cream smashed all over eyes.

Henry huffed and puff as he sprinted back and forth across the corridor. Turn on the projector, play the banjo, then the piano, then the bass, and back to the piano again. It had taken a few tries, mostly because he had forgotten the pattern and had to restart the pass code all over again, but finally, the projector shut off and a gate opened up that allowed him to access the ink flow valve.

Was that an Bendy cutout that just appeared out of nowhere?!-

Henry was more distracted with the ink creatures that appeared once again to attempt to...press-gang him? He wasn't sure of the exact word, but the creatures had no reason to go out of their way to chase him. The chance of keeping his clothes intact was getting ever more remote by the second...

"We're good." Henry sang to himself. "We're good." Now that the ink had been drained away, Henry opened the door to Sammy's office.

Once in, he found some blueprints for the Ink Machine (Mark 2? That was definitely not a good idea) and attempted to put them away, only to realize that he had yet again forgotten his satchel. Henry usually brought the satchel around; it helped to remember to keep things in one location, but bringing the sling bag around was another matter altogether. Henry folded the papers instead, and crammed it as far down his pocket as he could before turning on the radio in a rare moment of guilty pleasure.

Sammy Lawrence would have shrieked at him if Henry had touched his table in the old days. With even less patience on his best days compared to Henry, the music director was like a cactus when he interacted with his coworkers. Henry was privately scared of the former factory worker who had decided to switch occupations; but at the same time he admired the talent it took to compose songs at the rate at which Joey demanded them too.

Whilst wandering about the basement, Henry had heard his coworker two times through the tapes. One was normal Sammy, complaining about the Ink Machine and people coming in and out of his office to flip the switch. Henry could get what Sammy was driving at; Louis would have been irritated if someone else had decided to hover his shoulder as others must have done when Sammy was in the room.

But the other was weird though.

He appears from the shadows to rain his sweet blessings upon me. The figure of ink that shines in the darkness. I see you, my savior. I pray you hear me. Those old songs, yes. I still sing them. For I know you are coming to save me. And I will be swept into your final loving embrace. But loves require a sacrifice. Can I get an amen?

Hilarious, Henry thought. He had mildly freaked out when someone who sounded like Sammy had repeated the last statement, but upon thinking it further, Henry blamed it on the faulty tape recorder. After all, it was not as if Sammy would have been still around. Unlike the animation industry, Henry was pretty sure Sammy was probably slinking around the music industry, which was wider and more popular among the younger ones. In fact, Henry would not be surprised if Sammy had moved out of the industry altogether and composed for some of the more popular singers that the interns were fond of. Sillyvision was small fry in comparison to those larger record companies. Not to mention Sammy was ten years younger, and had only dropped to do cartoon animation after the factory in which he had been working in went bust after the Great Depression. His life was ahead of him, much unlike many of those who had been drafted by the US army.

It's time to believe. That sounded...horribly familiar, like the scribbling on the altar and Sammy's cassette tape that had been placed there as well.

Wait a minute. If Sammy was the one to record both the cassette tapes (and he had uncharacteristically called his songs stupid) then he had to have been the one who scribbled both messages down as well. Henry felt fear fluttering within his chest, but he decided to take a half-glass full approach to it. Sammy was not stupid. The moment Sillyvision appeared to be going out of business, he would have left by then, but maybe after Henry left, he would have stayed on because Joey was their friend and someone had to look after the old Great War veteran after the healthier of the two animators had 'struck the big one' in being unexpectedly drafted for the military.

That was really a tough time.

With a decisive nod, Henry pulled the big switch and drained the stairwell. Now he would be able to make it out, hopefully in time before Jeanne firmly landed on the idea of using the car to enter the building. Jeanne must be worried by now, it should have been more than one hour–-

A violent thud crashed upon his head, and Henry, for the second time in an hour, collapsed onto the floor.

"Rest your head. It's time for bed." Henry barely made out these last few words before losing consciousness.


When Henry came to, he found himself trapped. Bound, likely with thin hemp ropes that he could break through. Also, without an axe, which was both terrifying and alarming. Still, he had his keys, and the knot securing him was not done properly. He would need a few minutes, but Henry was confident of breaking out.

There was a mysterious man, dressed in grey overalls with patches and ink on the hem. Ink continuously dripped down his face, soaking into the patchy, worn pants. One suspender was slipping off, showing ribs sticking through the skin. Henry inwardly compared the man to some of the prisoners of war that had been rescued from the concentration camps after the Pacific phase. Bare ribs sticking out like a sore thumb, and each hand had what appeared to be four fingers rather than five. Henry could barely make out his feet, as ink and bell-bottom hemlines had made his feet nearly invisible to the untrained eye, but if that man was anything like those captured during the war, he suspected that the fingernails and toenails of this guy would have turned yellow if the ink was washed off. Henry guessed that whoever it was behind the ink-spattered Bendy mask must have lost most of his hair as a result of starvation, but it was the fact that all of his sharp teeth were intact that set off warning sirens in Henry's brains.

"There we go now. Nice and tight. We wouldn't want our sheep roaming away now, would we?" The man leered in a horrifying tone as he tilted his head, yellow-stained teeth beaming in a creepy grin at Henry. However, the voice felt familiar…almost as if he had spoken to Henry recently.

Or had he?

"Sammy? Sammy Lawrence? Is that you?" Henry weakly spoke, trying to buy for time. The keys he had brought along were stealthily winding their way through the knot. Just a while before he could free himself. This man probably had not gone to war before, and thus his rope-tying skills were abysmal. Henry estimated that despite being tied to a chair, his arms bound behind him, the man who seemed to sound like Sammy lacked the experience of actually kidnapping someone. This was probably his first time at getting the drop on a war veteran.

"Who's Sammy? I am His Prophet!" The man announced, before continuing his original spiel. "No we wouldn't. I must admit I am honored you came all the way down here to visit me. It almost makes what I'm about to do seem cruel. But the believers must honor their savior. I must have him notice me. Wait, you look familiar to me. That face."

"Of course you would recognize me you blithering IDIOT!" Henry angrily retorted. "I'm your co-worker!" He kept on attempting to wring his hands free, but the last knot was a bit too stubborn for him to unwind from behind, so he had resorted to using the keys to saw through the rope. Henry needed to keep Sammy (oh Sammy, Sammy, what have you done to yourself? What kind of hogwash have you subscribed to? )

"Not now. For our lord is calling to us, my little sheep. The time of sacrifice is at hand! And then, I will finally be freed from this…prison. This inky, dark…abyss I call a body."

"Sammy, just stop and think! Why are you offering a human being? What kind of god would ask for you to kill someone? I strongly suggest that you go see a doctor, this isn't like you at all!"

"Shhh!" Sammy quietened him, before whispering, "I can hear him. Crawling above. Crawling! Let us begin. The ritual must be completed! Soon he will hear me. He will set us free!" Set who free? Was something keeping him bound to here?

"...Yeah, that's as much as I can take, you delusional twit!" With a heavy thud, Henry's eyes widened as Sammy fell to his knees. He raised his eyes in disbelief as Jeanne emerged from behind the self-proclaimed prophet.

"Uncle Henry!" She yelped, shooting forward even as Henry finally untied himself from the ropes that held him onto the chair. "Uncle Henry, what's this about? Candles and bodies and ink puddles all over! Oh if only I have a mop–" Henry nearly choked with laughter at this non-sequitur, but decided to simply embrace his niece instead.

"There there." Henry stroked his niece's hair as she curled into him for comfort. "What do you do with the ink creatures?"

"What ink creatures?" She questioned, pulling from him in dismay.

"That–" Henry stared, almost willing the phenomena behind him to disappear. The monstrous Bendy was back, sprinting towards them in a ferocious run. Henry hollered in panic, alerting Jeanne who screamed as she flung ...something into the monster.

Unexpectedly, the monster screeched, hurtling away from the object. It seemed almost to scar him, and as Henry's eyes focused upon it, he realised that it was nothing more than an ink-remover, taken from the table of one of his animation interns. It was incongruous, a horrible beast destroyed by such a simple and commonplace thing. But that didn't matter, as the bottle had uncapped, spilling its contents across the floor and releasing a pungent smell.

"H-Help me..." Henry's eyes glanced towards the man who had knocked him out, and attempted to sacrifice him like a lamb to the slaughter. Worry and disgust warred within his heart. He hated how he had been trapped by the man's selfishness, how whoever this was had been insane enough to think nothing of murder, only his self-fulfillment of delusions. However, kept in such a location, starved to a degree almost unseen except for wartime...this was too hard for Henry to countenance. He simply did not want to see another of his friends to be reduced to skin and bones like many of those who had died post-war because of health complications. Finally, he decided to take action by snatching his satchel from Jeanne and whipping out a piece of glossy paper and a pen.

"Uncle Henry, hurry up!" Jeanne seemed almost exasperated at his actions, but Henry was intent on what he was striving to achieve. He had to get this out, before it was too late for both of them.

"Jeanne, take Sammy!"

"What?"

"The guy on the floor!"

"Are you kidding me? He's just tried to sacrifice you to who knows what!"

"Please!" Jeanne wrinkled her nose in disgust but threw Henry's former music director on her back, heading down the stairwell that Henry had been heading to before being struck down by Sammy. Henry finished his note with a flourish before throwing it at the monster. Thinking it was one of those things that Jeanne had hurled at him earlier, the ink monster had sidestepped the note, giving both Henry and Jeanne enough time to scurry up the stairwell, down the corridor, and through the exit.

Henry looked back at the studio, wheezing for breath as he crouched down, legs akimbo. For the first time, Henry had noticed that the majority of the windows to the studio were boarded up. Yet light shined through despite the main power source having been cut off after the studio had been abandoned. Was there an internal generator of some kind? Why was the studio not shadowed in darkness, despite overflowing with ink monsters.

Jeanne dropped Sammy onto the dirt path next to them, and if Jeanne's glare was made manifest, than Sammy would have been burnt to a crisp with the passion of a thousand suns. Alas for Jeanne, all the man hidden behind the mask did was to moan in pain, arms splayed against the ground. Henry was gruesomely reminded of one of those soldiers he had seen in the war; the Japanese had repeatedly filled his stomach up with water before forcing him to throw up by stamping on their abdomen. In fact, both he and Sammy made the same rattling breaths that thirty years earlier would have haunted Henry as a young man.

"Uncle Henry, what..who is this Sammy?" She asked, keeping an eye out for the monster. Henry sighed, wondering how to explain the whole series of events that had led to Sammy being outstretched between the two.

"It's a long story. First though, we need to get him to the hospital." As he motioned towards Sammy, Jeanne held out a hand to stop him. She went into the car, proceeded to take out a set of ropes before winding it around Sammy in loops.

"What? I can't just let him go into the car like that. Like seriously, whoever goes around in that needs professional help." The two looked at the figure just lying on the ground between the two of them. Jeanne scratched her head as she bent down, tying Sammy's arms firmly to his back.

"Uncle Henry?" Her voice held a nervous tone. "I think something's wrong with him." Curious, Henry bent down as well, wincing as his knees cracked. He shifted his position, allowing his fingers to rest against Sammy's neck. It was unsteady, spiking every so often. Almost as if he were suffocating...Henry attempted to remove the Bendy mask, but Sammy had turned his head away and try to bite him in return, so Henry let go. Every so often, the man would let out a wail of screeching pain, as though he was being eaten by ants and various insects, but otherwise, he would remain as still as a log.

"This must be what he was talking about. Using a sacrifice…I wonder." He tapped his chin. Sammy had four fingers per hand, when Henry was pretty sure that he should have five. Rubbing away at his finger failed to reveal any skin, just more ink. Something had irrevocably changed Sammy for the worse, and Henry had a sneaking suspicion that the Ink Machine was at the root cause of it.

"Sacrifice? Anything to do with this?" Jeanne whipped out Joey's book, the 'Illusion of Living'.

"You are a darling, Jeanne." She blushed in embarrassment, but Henry gave only a cursory smirk as he flipped through the pages, stopping as he found the ritual that Sammy had been ranting about. It involved a living creature standing within a familiar pentacle, while the bound person or thing would be 'freed' from his shackles. Whatever that was, but Henry had a feeling that it had something to do with the lack of a response to external stimuli like being dropped on one's ass, though Sammy was definitely still conscious.

Perhaps by taking away the book, Jeanne and stopped the power going into the building. Yet at the same time, whatever had caused Sammy to be roaming around the studio in search of 'sacrifices' must have ceased as well. Henry explained his train of thought, but Jeanne's expression grew more bewildered as he did so.

"Seems a bit hokey-pokey, wishy-washy to me." Jeanne arched her eyebrows. Then, she glanced at her uncle.

"Uncle Henry, no."

"Uncle Henry yes."

"What's the cost? Blood? One's lifespan? Wait a minute." Jeanne, bless her heart, caught on to his hidden intent as she focused on what Henry had been indicating with a point of his finger.

"You want to use the grass around us? Would it have any side-effects on the user? What makes you think this would work?" She rapidly fired questions as she snatched the book and flipped through.

"I think this makes sense, as the ritual seemed to be a counterpart to this spell that involves binding one to an effigy. The pentacle's the same, so I think that doing the probable spell in reverse should do the trick." Henry squeezed Jeanne's fingers with his hand. "And you know what, I think that Sammy deserves a second chance. Not to mention that Louis would disapprove if we were to bring someone with four digits on each hand and covered with ink to the studio, while taking him to the hospital would immediately elicit a complaint."

"Alright..." Jeanne reluctantly acquiesced. The two set up the ritual, and using the ink that had drenched Henry's shirt, they were able to trace out the pentacle that had been used by Sammy earlier. Jeanne had turned away as Henry roughly repeated the inscription that Joey had written on the page margin, and the two shivered as light shrouded both the circles containing the randomly selected patch of grass and Sammy.

The air seemed to grow still. Something unearthly, perhaps even mystical surrounded the circle, causing the grass to rapidly shrivel and turn brown. On the other hand, Sammy, held in another circle, started coughing as the ink on his skin started to crack, peeling away from bare skin like dry concrete. Like a horror movie, Henry could not look away from hardened ink cracking and falling apart, leaving reddened skin behind. Once whatever was...summoned by the circle returned to wherever it was (Henry privately hoped that it was just a one-off exchange), Henry rushed towards his former co-worker, balancing him upon his knee in order to facilitate Sammy's breathing. Ink spattered over Henry's ruined shirt as Sammy struggled to breathe through ink-clogged nostrils and airways.

"Sammy? Sammy!" Jeanne helpfully removed the mask, provoking a cry as Sammy's bloodshot eyes opened, perhaps for the first time in years. The former music director's pupils were dilated at first, before his face darted about in panic as he surveyed his surroundings. His head twitched from side to side, drool escaping from his mouth uncontrollably, akin to recovering from an addiction. Perhaps Bendy was a kind of drug, Henry thought. Sammy's hands grasped for something and Henry offered his other arm, wincing as Sammy tightened all ten fingers around his wrist with a death-like grip.

"W-wha?" Henry sighed as he heard his colleague's voice, confused and terrified but definitely without the strange intonation of madness. What a relief.

"Sammy, it's Henry. I'm your friend, do you remember? We used to drink coffee together when we were having break." The man blinked, probably staring at the outside scenery for the first in a long time.

"H-Henry?" He echoed, looking around, searching for something. "W-Where-" he gulped noisily, Adam's Apple bouncing in his throat as he tried to talk, but his voice was far too hoarse. He continued to cough out ink, the liquid probably having been lodged in his throat for some time.

"Sammy, what was the last thing you remembered?" Henry asked, suspicion creeping in with every twitch of Sammy's head. He knew that Sammy was working at Sillyvision when he left, but now that it was evident that Sammy had not moved on but had wandered around looking for victims to sacrifice to Bendy, Henry was wary of what had happened.

"J-Joey." Sammy hoarsely replied, frowning in thought. "He told me to come to his office, said he had something interesting–-" Sammy's voice broke, and heightened into a keening wail as Sammy proceeded to sob, banging his head against Henry's neck. Jeanne clucked in dismay as Henry gently rubbed circles onto Sammy's back.

"What the hell happened here?" Jeanne snarled as she sat down with a thump. Sammy ignored this, continuing to cry into Henry's shoulder as the older man tried to comfort him. Sammy's face had grown gaunt and thin, his cheekbones visible even through the ink-soaked flesh. Henry could feel Sammy's ribcage through his skin, with his suspenders barely holding his pants up. Even after performing the ritual, Sammy had yet to recover, apart from having patches of skin exposed and somehow having regrown a fifth finger along each hand.

"Sammy, we're going to get you to a hospital to wash up and treat for injuries. I will be joining you there, while Jeanne, my niece, will get us some clothes for home." Sammy was too light, Henry thought to himself in pained frustration. Together, the two made their way back to the car, with Sammy slumped into the backseat while Henry maneuvered to slide in along with him. Jeanne released the brake, and the car reversed from the studio and entered the main road.


"I hope that we aren't going to go back there, Uncle." Jeanne said, once it was clear that Sammy had exhausted himself completely and fallen asleep despite having both hands tied behind his back.

"We have to." Jeanne startled, pulling the car to a halt along the road shoulder. She turned her eyes towards Henry, face locked into a scowl as she hissed out, "WHY? WHY ARE WE GOING BACK?"

"Because I promised that I will be back." Henry answered, eyes staring straight ahead. "I'm not breaking that promise this time."

"This time?" Jeanne repeated. "We might not even have a next time! That place is so dangerous! Ink creatures? Bendy-like monsters? I don't understand why you want to even return!"

"I have friends there." He said, patting his pocket. "I left a note saying that I'll return in two weeks."

"Oh yeah? Like Mr. Lawrence over there, who might I remind, tried to sacrifice you?"

"No, it's another kind of friend." Henry laughed. "One might even say it's a kid of mine."

"Uncle Henry, you have no kids, what are you even talking about?" Jeanne laughed as she restarted the car, rejoining traffic. Henry gave her a grin, even as he used the paper towels stored at the back of her car to gently wipe the ink away from Sammy's face. As he thought, Sammy's skin had became a lot more solid, but it was still stained, and he hoped that the hospital would be able to remove it successfully. Sammy had but strands trailing from his nearly bald head, but he did not seem to have aged in the last thirty years besides the signs of starvation and dehydration.

Just what had Sammy undergone? And what had happened to Joey?


Guys,

Taking Sammy to hospital. Be back in two weeks. Haven't forgotten. See picture as to reason why.

Henry

Boris turned over the note, having noticed it being left behind by-–he wouldn't go into that, but upon flipping it, a smile began to creep up his cheeks.

A middle-aged man had his arms wrapped around the child in the centre, a girl with twin pony-tails and a wide grin. She herself had her hands around a Bendy plushie, while two other children, boys with different skin tones and expressions watched her as she blew out the candles on a Bendy themed cake.

To Boris, it was a sign. He tucked it into his overalls tenderly, before looking at...that thing.

"I will find him." The monster roared. "I WILL FIND HIM!"