A/N: it's here. Chapter 3 of this damn thing.

so you know how I thought someone else already had this idea? yeah. found out who. TWO other people have already had this idea ahahahahhaaaa

They're both on Ao3 so far. One story was by Star_Going_Supernova and the other was by KyeAbove… Nova's is only a chapter, but Kye's is 5 chapters, 10k words and running. so i mean

despaaaaiiiiirrrr

(*cue junko enoshima cackling in the distance*)

but gUESS WHAT? I ALREADY HAVE TWO MORE CHAPTERS DONE AND A THIRD ONE IN THE WORKS. THIS IS GETTING POSTED. I DIDN'T SPEND AN HOUR AND A HALF THINKING I'D LOST 4 HOURS OF PROGRESS FOR NOTHING

*kicks google docs in the shin*

Thanks to RainFlight31039 and Tazmanializard for reviewing.

Enjoy.

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Dear Joey,

It's been a while since we've worked together. Thirty years, in fact. Time flies, I guess.

If you can, stop by the studio, if you've got the chance. There's something here I think you'll want to see.

Your old friend,

Henry

Joey stared at the front door of the studio for a while, then went back to his car and pulled open the trunk.

He grabbed a sketchbook, a pencil, a crowbar, and a spare bag. There were a lot of things he'd left behind that he wanted to get back- reels, books and frames. A lot. Maybe a few plushies for the kids, if he had time to go downstairs… If it all hadn't been destroyed when the place went down, or got ruined over the years.

Upon arriving, he'd thought- if Henry was here, then he'd probably have the door already unboarded. Then again, it never hurt to have something just in case- just in case in this case taking the form of a hammer and crowbar. And the door was indeed still boarded up.

After grabbing these things, he looked around- but there was no sign of Henry being anywhere nearby. Just a few rusted cars off in the corner, but they looked like nobody had touched them in- well, thirty years. Plants and grass surrounded them, crawling over the windows.

Maybe Henry was planning to show up later or something… in which case, it certainly wouldn't hurt to look around and grab a few things while he waited for the other animator to arrive. Besides, knowing Henry, it'd take him an extra three or four days just to get ready.

So, with that in mind, Joey began prying the boards off the front door. Using both the crowbar and the hammer, he made excellent progress in a short amount of time. In less than a half hour, it was already clear. He put the hammer and crowbar in his bag and the sketchbook and pencil in his coat pocket.

Then, Joey Drew opened the front door and entered his own animation studio for the first time in thirty years.

He took a deep breath, then walked forwards.

The place was different. There were pipes, everywhere. Ink dripped constantly and everything looked old. Unused.

The lights were on, already, and an old projector was running, flashing nothing but light onto the wall.

"This place still gets power…?" He muttered, tapping the projector twice. He shook his head. Maybe Henry had called and had the power turned on. That was it. Obviously, he didn't want to stumble around in the dark- Henry was the one to put emergency candles on every floor. Just in case, of course.

As Joey walked around, he tried to open many of the doors- but most were locked.

And the ink- it was everywhere. Within minutes Joey had already gotten it in his hair, on his clothes.

Finally…. It felt wrong. The air felt stifled, filled with the scent of ink- ink and wood. Old wood. This isn't right, something whispered in the back of his mind. Something went wrong. Something aside from 'Bankruptcy'.

He did his best to ignore it, but he couldn't deny it was right. It sent every nerve on edge, and every sound seemed a little louder and slower than it should have been.

At some point, his hand reached back into his bag and pulled out the crowbar.

As he walked through, he found Henry's desk- which, now, had the wall behind it knocked out, opening into a new room.

The desk seemed like it'd been used- and recently. Not abandoned for years- no, this was new. There was a drawing- the ink was dry, but the paper was clean. A single swipe with his finger confirmed it.

Someone else had been here- Henry. He'd been here, and judging by the amount of dust in the air, within the week.

More importantly- was he still here?

Then he shook his head. No, the door had been boarded up… but why? If he wanted to invite Joey in to see something, then why board it up? Maybe he just hadn't wanted any others getting in and stealing anything? ...It didn't make sense.

Just as he was about to walk into the next room, Joey noticed something- a cassette player, with accompanying tape- stuck in the small space between the desk and the wall. Carefully, Joey used the crowbar to nudge it towards him- then caught it as it tipped over.

The tape had Henry's name written on it- but the tape, and the name, was old.

Hesitantly, he pressed play.

"It's not even been a week, and everything's already going downhill. We've got less funding than Joey made it out to be, and not enough time to take thirty-minute breaks. Sammy's got to spend hours at a time working on his own job- he doesn't have time to deal with all this. Wally's pretty busy too. It's been a lot more difficult to get even a few keyframes done in between random complaints and problems appearing. Thankfully, we've managed to get something mostly done- a small short. I'm sending it out on Monday. Maybe, by next month, we'll have enough to fix some of these problems. Maybe."

The tape clicked off, finished.

Joey frowned. Not even a week, and they were already facing problems. No wonder the studio went down so fast- they couldn't even make it a week without issues. But they should have had more than enough money- why was Henry making it sound like he'd exaggerated the amount of money they'd had?

He turned, finally going into the new room- and noting the amount of desks scattered everywhere. As he moved, he swore the drawings of Bendy on the desks did as well- and once, he turned from a desk, then turned right back- and the drawing had changed. It was a bit creepy.

He eventually made his way back through the main room, turning down the hallway- and stopping.

DREAMS COME TRUE was inked messily on the wall. He looked at it, and noted something- it wasn't that old.

Something is really wrong, the little voice whispered. This was a bad idea.

He ignored it, continuing down the hallway.

He found himself in a short hallway. At the end was a doorway with a plaque reading INK MACHINE pinned over it. On one of the walls, an INK OUTPUT SCHEDULE was pinned up- numbers scribbled in the columns. After climbing over a pipe that was placed inconveniently in the middle of the hall, he turned the corner-

And froze.

It was a huge room. And, taking up well over half the space, was a wide pit that seemed to go down into the void, chains trailing down.

At the moment, there wasn't much there- just the chains.

He quickly realized- there was a lift, and it just needed two cells. And after looking around, he found them, put them in… and pulled the lever.

Slowly, with a bit of noise, the chains began to move- and a contraption that Joey knew was the Ink Machine raised up to hover over the endless drop, pipes trailing from the bottom back into the darkness...

Overall, the thing was exceedingly crazy… and creepy. Why was there a bottomless pit? Why not just put a regular old floor down? Why would an… ink machine need to be lowered down?

More importantly, what did it do?

After a moment of deliberation, he shook his head.

I'm not actually considering turning on the creepy, ominous machine. No, it's just the dust. I've breathed in so much of it that it's starting to replace my mind.

He pulled his hair out of his face, then groaned. He was actually considering it.

Which, in any and every instance he could think of, was a Bad Idea. Any cartoon character looking at it would instantly look back and go, 'Nope, nope, nope. That's a trap if I ever saw one.'

And yet.

"Damnit," he muttered, turning and leaving the room- and nearly falling onto his face trying to get over the inconvenient pipe.

Maybe he could just look around a little more, find something to take his mind off the ominous machine…Joey started moving, to one of the other hallways.

As he passed, he noticed one of the doors had a light shining underneath it- and muffled music played even though the door, but trying to open the door did nothing. He knocked, called out- but nobody answered.

The little voice kept whispering. It's all wrong. Something very bad has happened here.

It feels like someone died.

Soon he found his way down a different hallway, going this way, that way, around there, through here-

And then a wooden board dropped in front of his face.

Joey jumped back, crowbar raised- then he looked around, and then up- and frowned.

That was an odd time for it to fall…

He walked into a small room where six pedestals had been placed, three on each side of the room, each with a picture behind it. Each frame featured an object- a Bendy plushie, a cog, a record, an inkwell, a wrench….

And a book- a book with the title The Illusion of Living lightly scratched on the cover in white pencil, and- almost as an afterthought, in a completely different handwriting, was scratched By Joey Drew.

A chill went down the former animator's back.

On the opposite end of the room, a button rested on the wall, with a panel beside it that read LOW PRESSURE in softly flashing letters.

He shook his head, and left the room- then jumped at the sight of a Bendy cutout placed right in the middle of the hallway where there certainly was not one before.

"How did you get there?" Joey looked around, but there was nothing- nothing but the sound of ink dripping. He shook his head, and turned to the right- then stopped.

Even from this distance, he could see. His legs moved automatically, his hands curled around the crowbar.

He came to a stop in the doorway, staring at the corpse of what was, without a doubt, Boris the Wolf- chest torn open, eyes X'd out and ink dripping….

"What the hell happened while I was gone…?"

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A/N: Anyways. Cue OOC. i have absolutely no clue how best to do this. All i know is chapter 4 ending fucked me up and i hate that chapter 5 is not here. So there.

Also, new audio logs are gonna be added in! As time goes on, more and more are going to hint at what happened to cause the downfall of the studio- and numerous other things. Like, why the hell all this shit's still here even though Joey wasn't.

Now i gotta go in and watch everything about the revamps and crap… eugh. Make sure i get everything….

Right now i'm going off memory. So yeah….

Also, I wanted to ask something. I have a few drabbles, not all of them related to this AU, that are ready to be posted. If you want, I can make a separate little story for all my drabbles, and I'll throw things over there. What I want to know is if anyone has a question about the AU that I haven't answered yet. Hell, if I get enough questions I might make an ask blog

but that's a little out there. so i'll wait for a while before doing anything like that… I think.