Chapter 2 : Living Hell

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Heya! So here is another chapter. Me do hope it's not too confusing since Me think that Me confused Me self when writing it. Welp, Me do not own BATIM!

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'Where am I?'

A candle illuminated in front of Henry's eyes

'J-Joey…'

Coughing ink into one hand, he used the other to slowly push himself up. Sitting in an upright position only made things worse, his head began to spin again, an acidy flavour climbed up his throat, worst of all was his aching eyes. Henry stopped moving in hopes to recover himself

'Darn…'

Deep, slow heavy breaths did help with the acidy flavour but not so much with the irritating sensation in his eyes. It felt as if they were burning

'I must have gotten ink in my eyes. For fuck sake they could have at least kept this place clean!'

Rubbing his eyes agitatedly, Henry pushed off the ground to fall forward bumping into the wall

'Ow!'

Henry's eyes were red from pain and anger. He rested his head on the wall

'Stay calm… Just snap out of it Henry, this is all just a fucking dream. Joey isn't here… No one is'

He shut his eyes tightly, maybe it was all just a bad dream. Maybe this was just his mind trying to create a reason, a story, something for all the missing memories. Opening his eyes revealed the same ink stained walls

'Heh, idiot… It never even works in the movies. Haha'

Henry turned around to face forward leaning his back against the cold wall. The room erupted with laughter

'Hahahaha! I'm going crazy! Hahahah!'

Abrutly, the laughter stopped. Sliding down the wall, Henry began to shake all over, he placed his hands over his face.

'No…'

He spoke bitterly, his lips were cold, his words heartless

I AM CRAZY! HAHAHAHAHA!'

A heavy handed slap hit him right across his face

—-

'What are you doing solider!? Stop daydreaming and start doing! No matter how hard a situation gets just get up and say fuck you to it's face! You did that to me didn't you!? So STOP whining and get up!'

—-

Henry let out a wavering sigh, had he really lost control that badly? Did he really let the situation get such a good hold of him?

'Damnit Henry!'

He smashed his fist against the wall

'You got to think this through. You received a letter from Joey who you haven't seen, heard from and don't know if he is alive. He told you to come to an abandoned studio. You found Boris the Wolf dead with his insides missing…'

His teeth clenched to the thought of the somewhat friendly looking wolf

'You turned on an old ink machine, that was the most genius of things I've ever done.'

Henry frowned at himself for being so foolish, to think that Joey could possibly be alive, to think that turning on an old abandoned machine would do any good.

'You've awoken an ink looking demon that looks like the Bendy cutouts expect… Less friendly, is trying to kill you and is an ACTUAL demon.'

Henry felt more at ease after taking a few moments to think about all that happened to him. Sitting on the floor, he looked up to see ink stains dripping.

'(sigh) I better get up, sitting here won't do anything'

Almost immediately after pushing himself up he regretted doing so. On the floor where he had fallen was a pentagram drawn with ink, candles surrounding it made it look like some sort of summoning place. Leaning down to touch the pentagram, Henry could have sworn it was warm. Was it emitting some sort of signal?

'Strange…'

His fingers went sliding around the pentagram, he rubbed the dried ink thoughtfully

'Who could have drawn this? It looks so perfect. WAIT!'

Henry stood up searching though his pockets

'No no no no no!'

Hastily, he search his pockets once again

'This can't be true!'

Putting a hand to his chest, he felt a warm circular object.

'I-It's safe, hah'

Henry glanced at his pentagram neckless. It was black just like ink but compared to other pentagrams, something was different about this one. Henry's name was carved on the back. It baffled Henry that others would get terrified when they saw the pentagram neckless, people would scream, shout, start praying and saying amen. Strangely, Henry didn't enjoy when people would think the neckless was cursed, he would deny to take it to any priest, exorcist and the church. The pentagram had been around his neck on the day he was supposively taken to hospital and operated on. One of the nurses had told him that when they tried to take away the neckless, he would start to mumble someone's name. Whatever anyone thought of the pentagram neckless wasn't important to him anyway.

Tightening his grip on the pentagram, his mind trailed off

'Who… Who gave it to me?'

Henry shook his head releasing his grip on the pentagram, this wasn't a time to ponder about other things, he needed to get out, he needed to find Joey. Next to an old wooden chair was his axe with surprisingly, no ink stains and completely fine.

'I better find a way out of this shit room'

Two boards blocked a door beside two large coffins.

'Coffins? Two? Don't tell me that's were Joey and possibly Sammy are… Shit. Not today and not any day'

Henry tried to ignore the thought of his friends being dead, it wasn't everyday you see two large coffins next to a pentagram drawn with ink on the floor of an abandoned studio. Walking up to the wooden planks, Henry tired to sway the axe at them but failed to hit

'Urgh, there is still ink in my eyes'

He quickly rubbed his eyes again before lunging the axe again this time smashing the wooden planks into pieces.

'Take that you wooden helleboards!'

Smirking with confidence, he strolled into a larger area, it was the same ink covered walls but he had a strange feeling that someone was watching. Written in bold, black ink on the wall was "HE WILL SET US FREE" with a Bendy drawing beside it

'Bendy? A saviour?'

Henry scratched his beard

'Beats me'

—-

Drip. Drip. Drip.

'Why? Why!? WHY!?'

Bendy screeched out at the endless inky room. The melting demon stood hunched over glaring at at a cutout of himself. His white gloves were completely distorted, partly melted into his body. Reaching out with his left hand, his glove barely touches the cutout

'Why did he do that… Why did he…'

His voice changed to become more subtle than before, the aggressiveness was gone, the demonic disfigured voice faded.

'He looked. Like.. H-…'

He retracted his hand turning it over to see his palm.

'It's been so long since he last held my hand… Hah… If I could even call this corrupted glove thing a hand anymore'

His grin wavered as he tried not to frown, he didn't want to upset his old friend. Staring at the cutout brought back memories for Bendy, memories of being a star, a well known cartoon show featuring him, Boris and Alice. It felt like it had been an eternity since then, all those days running around trying to bring the show together. The lights would always be aiming at him, he was usually the centre of attention and he loved that, he loved that feeling of happiness, content, joy.

'Have things really changed that much? It doesn't matter… It couldn't have been him. It's impossible'

Bendy tilted his head down slightly like a hurt dog, just knowing it was his fault everyone was gone hurt the most. Disgust started to swell up inside of him, something started to tick

'If that wasn't him. Then it had to be.Joey!'

Bendy snarled as black veins started to climb up the walls, his body started to melt worse, his horns spiked up fully. Absorbing more ink around him he made himself taller, his gloves disfigured into claws

'You did this didn't you Joey!? THIS WAS ALL YOU!'

Venom oozed from his words.

'You filthy shit!'

Bendy raised up his right hand, he slashed though the wooden pillars and wall, it gave way with a loud bang as it fell. The ink demon growled, erupting anger flowing though him

'I've had ENOUGH of your dirty tricks Joey'

It was too much to handle, to think Joey would got to the extent of dressing up as his beloved friend just for the fun of it. Inky tears made it difficult to see, his throat felt stiff

'H-… Heh… You would hate me wouldn't you? You'd never forgive me. I can't even say your name'

Tears of ink blobs hit the ground, they melted into a large ink puddle beneath his feet

'I'm so sorry… Boris… Alice… I was too weak wasn't I? I couldn't save any of you, he took you all… He took you all away from me! He took you away!'

It couldn't be helped, he was powerless against Joey. All he had to do was say a few prays and create a new pentagram and he could hold him still for as long as needed. Boris was ripped away from him weeks after the incident with Henry.

—-

'P-please! Joey! No! Don't take Boris! Take me instead!'

Bendy wailed trying to convince the man holding Boris by the throat

'Sorry Bendy, your too unstable. Plus, Boris here would do perfect for the second part of my experimentations'

Demonically smirking, he tightened his hold around Boris's neck, the wolf let out a yelp of pain while choking

'NO! STOP'

Bendy lunged forward trying to get a hold of Joey's legs. Joey didn't move a muscle

'Lord, purify-'

He began chanting an old prayer used to suppress demons, Bendy fell to the ground, his body heating up. Joey looked down at the demon

'If you don't get up, I'll spare you for now~ hahahaha'

'B-boris…'

—-

Bendy couldn't really remember what happened to Alice, all he knew was that Susie was the last person with her on the day she changed. One second she was her sweet, friendly kind self and the next she became some sort of monster. Her body was deformed, the angelic eyes changed into blank lifeless holes, her halo was broken and horns became bent.

Worst part was he didn't know how it happened, it just did.

'Why Joey, you said you cared about us, you said we were all family. Why did you lie to us?! WHY?!'

There was no point in crying, no one was going to hear him, no one cared about him anymore.

'Boris is dead, my angel has been turned into some sort of monster, Joey betrayed us, Sammy went completely insane and Dad… He will never come back'

Bendy rose up from the ink

'Joey~ I'm coming for you~'

—-

Henry stood frozen in shock

'What was that?!'

On the floor above him, a loud thumb and crumbling sound rumbled through the studio

'Bendy! Shit! He must be looking for me! Fuck fuck fuck! Wait, he's a floor above me! Thank god! Urgh, ow!'

An aggressive burning came from his chest. Henry took ahold of his neckless pulling it out to witness it glowing. The black pentagram was emitting some sort of black energy making it become suddenly hot.

'It burnt me. Could it have been that word? Maybe people were right when they said this was cursed'

Frowning in annoyance, he held out the neckless away from him. Eventually, the pentagram went cold again allowing him to put it back on.

'Better watch my tongue'

Everything was silent again, expect the sound of dripping ink and all the noise he would make.

'Bendy must have left'

With a loud huff, he stepped closer to the table where a voice recorder lay dormant.

'Is it me or is this place bigger… Must be me'

Without much memory of the place, all Henry could go by was feeling which up until now, hasn't been that useful. Bendy didn't really scare Henry, it was more of what Bendy would do to him if it managed to capture him that made him so afraid. Henry tilted his head slightly while rubbing his beard staring at the recorder

'Is it working?'

Click.

In an instant, an old recording of Sammy Lawrence played, Henry silently listened to the familiar voice he hadn't heard in so long.

"Can I get an amen?"

Henry's mouth was wide open, too shocked to speak he grabbled for the pentagram pulling it away from him again. Same as before, it heated up instantly. He took a few deep steady breaths before having an outburst of anger

'WHAT?! What happened to you Sammy?! What's wrong with you?!'

Yelling at the recorder, he swayed his axe around like a mad man

'You've gone mad! Your INSANE!'

Coldness overcame his body, he innerly cringed

'No no no no no! Don't tell me Joey is the same!'

Thumb. Thumb. Thumb.

Never once had his heart raced so fast. The overwhelming realisation of truth struck him like a train

'Sammy… Did you really do all this?'

It was impossible, one man couldn't have created such a disaster. Unless

'Joey. He must have been part of this'

Henry's heart ached, all these years of being worried about his two closest friends that could just be murderers.

'No… Not yet, I won't give up on them yet! Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding!'

Recovering some slight confidence, he swallowed back the urge of screaming out for Joey and Sammy. Clenching the axe again, he exhaled and continued to explore the new found area he was in.

Walking around a passage gave way to another Bendy cutout. Instead of standing alone, a pentagram was drawn behind it with ink and some strange looking items at it's feet.

'Who the hell bought this here? Heh, maybe Bendy is trying to drive me insane'

Henry gave a light smirk as he squatted down to get a closer look of the items placed around the cutout. They appeared to be some sort of food that had been covered in ink and let to rot away. Henry cringed in disgust, facing away he stood up to continue down the path until reaching an inky end.

'A river? Of Ink?'

He raised a brow while muttering under his breath

'Must have been the machine's doing'

Reaching his left leg into the ink it sank in pulling the rest of his body along

'Crap!'

Reaching for the wall to steady himself he put his arms above the ink to push his body through the dark gooey substance. Pieces of wood lay around in the ink river, some barely blocked his path but either way he chopped them down. Trying his best to keep ink away from his face, he rubbed the back of his head as a gentle throbbing began.

'Not again'

Up ahead, Henry could see another room alit with a few candles

'Hopefully it leads to another room'

Stumbling into some wooden planks a loud clank ran out through the hall. A random stranger that seemed to be covered in ink walked across the room in front of Henry's eyes.

'Hello! Excuse me! Can you help me! Hello? No! Comeback!'

Henry hurried up nearly falling face first when trying to run across the ink river. Pulling himself out of the ink river he tumbled forward

'Ah shit!'

Smashing his arm against the wall let him recover his balance. Darting his eyes straight up he came to see nothing but another Bendy cutout with a pentagram drawn behind it.

'Where the hell did he go?'

He scratched his beard in confusion, people can't just disappear through walls, right? Henry swayed side to side as the headache got ahold of him

'Grrr… Stay… Awake'

—-

'Henry'

A man in a tuxedo stood next to Henry. Henry of course, was drawing away completely engulfed in another world.

'Henry'

His voice became more agitated, tapping his foot he leaned in closer to Henry's ear.

'HENRY!'

Shouting directly into Henry's ear finally caught the man's attention.

'AHHH!'

Henry leaned back falling down smashing the chair into pieces then landing with a loud smack on his bottom. He hissed in pain rubbing his behind. Henry spoke bitterly

'SAMMY! Don't scare me like that you fucker!'

Henry looked at him with demonic eyes, he snarled his teeth at Sammy who stood smirking with delight at his younger friend's misfortune.

'Oh come now Henry, don't be so mad~'

Sammy extended a hand to help Henry. The other man just groaned and looked away denying to accept the offer, who knew if it was just a prank.

'Like I'd fall for that what is it you want Sammy?'

Henry folded his arms looking at Sammy

'Well~ As you can see here'

Sammy pointed at a can in his hand. Henry raised a brow staring

'Uh…'

Sammy rolled his eyes

'It's Bendy brand! BENDY BRAND HENRY!'

Henry gasped dramatically, he stood up in one big leap

'LET ME SEE!'

He looked like a kid in a candy store, Sammy couldn't help but laugh at Henry's childishness, still, he was only 20 years old and new to life in business. He handed his over exited friend the can

'It's bacon soup, we thought that it would be a good idea to start up more than just fluffy toy merchandise. So what do you think? Joey and I wanted to pass it through you before finalising it'

Henry looked blankly at Sammy, his voice stuttered from shyness

'M-Me? W-W-Why m-me?'

Sammy gave him a warm smile trying to calm him down, he swayed his arm around him

'Your part of the family! Why wouldn't we pass this by you? Don't think just because your younger than us we would leave you out shitbag'

Henry gave a weary smile

'Thanks Sammy'

—-

'W-What… Oh…'

Henry looked closer at the cans to see they were Bendy brand bacon soup. The pentagram was slightly glowing when Henry looked down.

'Hm… Could these memories have something to do with this pentagram? Your one weird neckless'

He tightened his grip on the pentagram again, a part of him wanted to remember everything, he wanted to know what happened to him. Still, would he like his past? Would it be what he wanted? Henry gulped

'I… I… I never wanted to forget… Now I'll finally remember the truth'

It was done. His mind was set. No matter what happened he was going to get his memories back, good or bad, it didn't matter. After seeing that he needed to flip some switches he decided to continue instead of sleeping, he wasn't safe where he was so sleep wasn't going to come anytime soon.

'This pentagram has to be something more than just a neckless… Well… It is a pentagram so maybe I can find a book somewhere that could give me more information about them. Since Sammy does seem to have become a pentagram maniac, it should be easy to find a book somewhere'

Henry took a while to find all the switches but managed to find a cloth he used to make a bag for carrying bacon soup cans. The room shook as a new pathway opened up for him.

'Well, time to find the truth'

—-

Bendy raged out destroying tables, chairs and rooms.

'Joey!'

Screeching angrily, he smashed another chair flinging it across the room

'Where are you hiding JOEY?!'

The floor had been almost completely destroyed by Bendy's outrage, no tables or chairs were left alive. No matter how hard he looked, Joey was nowhere to be found. He merged back into the ink swiftly reappearing in the same room with Boris.

Blob

Bendy reformed his body but instead of looking distorted, he lost a lot of ink which made him look more like his original cartoon self. His horn like things were much smaller, his eyes were cut pies and his hands were more formed as gloves than earlier.

'Boris…'

He spoke with deep sorrow

'I'm sorry buddy… I'm having some issues catching the meatbag fucker. But don't ya worry! I'll get ya out of here soon!'

Bendy tried to smile at his friend's dead body without melting which came out impossible. He placed a hand on Boris's shoulder. His drippy inky body left thick blobs of ink on Boris's body

'You're going to be fine…'

Bendy turned away as his eyes became covered in ink again, merging back into the inky pool he vanished.

Boris lay silently.

'B-(cough) Bendy….'

Barely managing to whimper his friend's name, he looked down to his body.

His chest was partly opened up as the leaked ink started fixing him up.

—-

Henry was listening to another of Sammy's recordings, this one about the ink machine and Joey's inconsideration of the pumps.

'Hah, must have been annoying'

Laughing to himself, he continued walking until reaching a room filled with instruments

'This must be the jail Sammy made for all of his musicians'

Henry went around playing the instruments, they were old, rusted and abandoned with surprisingly no ink stains. His pentagram started to burn him slightly

'Huh? I didn't even say anything'

Without a word, a black blob of ink appeared reforming it's body into some sort of oozed human thing that swung itself at Henry. It had large oversized white eyes with black pupils, it's teeth looked solid unlike the rest of it's body.

'Shit!'

Henry lifted the axe about to strike down the inky monster but was stopped by a strange tight feeling in his chest. His throat felt dry, his hands went flimsy

'What's wrong with me?!'

The ink monster disappeared instantly before Henry could attempt to attack it. Something about that inky demon was strange, maybe it just wanted to play? Henry let the axe fall to his feet

'That… Was peculiar?'

He stared blankly raising a brow

'Moving on'

Henry headed towards another recording device, this time, it was someone else, someone he barely could remember. The voice was gentle but had some sort of spiciness to it.

'Hmm'

—-

'Henry~ Bendy stole my book~'

—-

He muttered to himself

'Alice Angel'

The voice he could remember was very much different to this other person. It was always soft, gentle, dreamy, filled with hoped and dreams. In his mind, Alice was an angel with a halo, black short dress, had horns and would wear white gloves like Bendy. Henry could never get that image out of his head whenever he heard the word angel, it was engraved into his mind like stone.

It felt like hours of running up and down the stairs, Henry just thought he was going insane as random Bendy cutouts began to appear down below filling up the orchestra.

'I'm going to get a pair of glasses and go to a psychologist after this'

Henry went down to a stairway only to find it flooded with ink

'Oh come on! You fucking cursed building! You hear me?! Shit! I really am a mad man'

Sigh.

In seeing the large power switch he pushed it in hopes of getting a better view of where he was. There wasn't much change but at least it wasn't as dark. With his legs aching, he walked into a trap.

'Motherfuckers!'

Black ink blobs rose from the ink puddles, they snarled their teeth at Henry as they tried to rip him open with their somewhat, hand/claw things. Unlike before, he was able to strike down his inky opponents.

'Get out of my WAY!'

He swung the axe right at one of the melted monster's head, it smashed against the puddle and melted back into the abyss.

'Hah! Take that!'

That only made the situation worse for Henry as the rest of the melting ink monsters were enraged, they charged at him in one fell swoop. Luckily for Henry, his training at the army reserve came in pretty handy considering how much he would have to do even when he hadn't slept in days. Rushing across the room he went back inside the room above the orchestra. There was no door he could close to save himself.

'I rather die fighting than a coward'

Henry turned around to face the incoming enemy, they may have been slow but he knew one scratch from them could easily become infected leaving him for dead. With his axe raised in last hopes he closed his eyes

'Come at me'

He whispered before fainting. Falling from the floor above had left an injury on his shoulder, loosing too much blood from sprinting around the place only made things worse. An ink puddle next to him formed into another inky blob but this time, it was the same one from earlier.

It looked down at Henry with confused curious eyes, in seeing the man unconscious it took position in front of him. More ink monster things climbed up the stairs to encounter the individual ink thing protecting Henry. They all charged forward letting out a loud hissing sound, the big eyed inky monster took ahold of Henry's axe then charged forward.

—-

'Remember, always protect Henry, Joey and Sammy yall! They are our friends, our family'

—-

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Alright! That's the end of this chapter heh. Me still think Me confused Meself a lot when writing this hahaha. Sorry if Me caused a lot of confusion! Just gonna say that the next chapter will be based around Boris The Wolf! Thanks for the reviews, if ya ever think I should change something please do tell me! Dark Zoider is off to the void!