Ups and Downs

by Blackmoondragon1415

'Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure, measure a year' A what-if plot based around the Henry and the Ink Machine AU on Tumblr by thelostmoongazer.

2. Ch1: Where The Demon Sleeps

A/N: Here we are, the rewrite of Chapter 1 through 2! Hoping I was able to still capture the same magic the original had, though it was definitely fun working with the updated layout! If anyone spots any inconsistencies, missing bits, or grammatical errors, feel free to let me know!

As always, Bendy and the Ink Machine belongs to themeatly, and the HATIM AU is the creation of thelostmoongazer on Tumblr! Thanks for clicking!

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Where The Demon Sleeps:

If one had asked Bendy exactly how he had gotten back to the studio, he really couldn't have said much or given particulars. The entire trip to the now old and dingy city was a blur, right up until he stood a block away from the building that he had been made in. As he halted, about to go down the street, the memory of the note still folded messily up in his pocket seemed to break through the haze.

We all hope to see you soon.

The little devil stared at the building, and he couldn't help but be torn between the impulse to run inside, and complete terror at the very thought. The latter was coupled with a certainty that if he went in, he might not come out.

Which had to be at least somewhat silly. Joey was…many things, but he wouldn't kill the devil, surely….

Even still, there was something coming from a dark corner of his brain that could have been home to dreams, memories, or an overactive imagination, that kept an alarm bell steadily droning in the forefront of his mind.

It could have also been helped by the fact that the studio itself, even from this distance, looked far more decrypt than Bendy remembered it being. The windows on the upper levels were boarded up, the varnish cracked and old. He had heard whispers that it had closed down suddenly, though it was something completely different to see the physical evidence in front of him. Clearly the studio hadn't been running for quite a while, and the fact that this was where Joey would have Bendy go had that mental alarm growing just a little stronger. Albeit, even as he thought this his feet carried him down the street as he nervously tugged on his scarf and hat. The devil barely noticed a faded green truck that was parked on the other side of the block as he quickly hurried up to the door before pausing, the dread gumming up his limbs and making his hands so tense they vibrated against the warm summer air.

Bendy stared up at the door, the clashing senses of panic and obligation warring for dominance as the alarm in his mind reached an almost physically audible level.

"HEY, KID, GET AWAY FROM THERE!"

The shout caused the devil to whirl back to the street, a yelp escaping before he had time to smother it. As it turned out, the truck that he had discounted when he'd walked up had not been unoccupied; a man was hurriedly getting out of the driver's seat and making his way over. He did not look or sound particularly happy, and Bendy briefly wondered if the studio wasn't as out of commission as it looked. Still, questions as to whether or not the man was a night guard for a possibly still-running studio really didn't occur to the devil. He just saw the man approaching, and did what came naturally after so many years of being on the streets and avoiding most human contact.

He grabbed the doorknob his fingers had still been hovering in front of, gave it a brisk twist, and opened the door enough that he could slip inside. Bendy slammed the door shut behind him and sprinted down the entrance hall to wait at the end in case the man was able to get in after him. Though it didn't seem to matter, given that he could hear the knob rattle but no click, nothing that heralded the door being thrown open. Which was…odd, he didn't think he locked the door when he closed it.

But when the sounds died, and Bendy carefully padded his way back to the door, he could see that the lock had been flipped so maybe he had somehow?

However, it seemed as though the devil would have to take a hammer to the door to get it to open again; his efforts to turn the lock yielded nothing but sore fingers.

The dread crashed back in, right on the heels of the thoughts that screamed that he was stuck, that this was a bad idea, that he should have just kept running when he had the chance-.

But, no. No. Boris, Alice, Henry…Joey had said in his letter that they were missing him. Meaning they had to at least still be in contact with each other.

He had to at least try to find them, try to figure out what had happened since he left.

Since you left them behind…

Bendy swallowed, resting his head on the door and taking a deep breath before straightening and turning back to the dark and ink-smelling studio.

Strange as it was, things still looked familiar enough. The devil's feet knew where he wanted to go before his mind did. He went into the large front room, turning left and going down a small hall into an office he knew well despite having last seen it thirty odd years prior. The rarely used door on the right had been stripped off, leaving the open frame bare. In the left-hand corner, a drawing desk sat just the same as he remembered, and after a moment of thought he took a closer look at some of the papers. A drawing of his smiling face sat tacked on the wooden surface, with a smaller note stuck to the side reading simply 'no' in big block letters.

"You an' me both, pal." Bendy couldn't help saying as his face gave ground to a wane, weary grin. It immediately fell a little when he glanced to the side and caught sight of an odd outline next to the desk.

It was a promotional cutout of himself, smiling down at him from a few inches over his own head. Clad simply in just the trademark white bowtie, the painted, two-dimensional face of the small toon's cardboard counterpart grinned a little ominously in the low light. At first, the fact that the cutout was tucked away here of all places befuddled the devil, until he remembered that people likely didn't care about where they put things once everything shut down.

Still, something about it just seemed, off, somehow. Like there was something about it staring him straight in the face.

The feeling unnerved him enough to leave, though when Bendy turned around he properly noticed the open doorway opposite the desk. He could just make out the shapes of another animation room, his feet cautiously taking him over to the threshold as his eyes readjusted to the dark. He could make out the faint shadows of desks, small discs of light present on a few. There was a light beaming down on another desk sitting in the far corner, drawing Bendy's attention to it. He padded over, taking care not to trip over the small step to a raised part of the floor. As the little devil came closer, he could see that the light illuminated a picture on the desk, one of himself. The demon in the image was tail-less, arms spread as though welcoming or surprising someone, and staring off to the upper right-hand corner of the page. Bendy didn't recognize the drawing style as Henry's, though granted it had been a while.

And, either way, it didn't help him much right now. A quick glance behind him brought the devil another interesting sight; what looked like a small bathroom with the door missing, instead blocked by planks of wood…nailed on the inside of the door frame? Stepping away from the desk, Bendy edged closer, peering through the boards to see the ultimately empty bathroom occupied by only a toilet, trash can, and another Bendy cutout tucked away in the corner. The last got a quizzical blink in and of itself, as the devil toon could think of no reason why it would be left in that particular spot, with the room boarded up like it was…

…Maybe he was just overthinking it? It seemed so small in retrospect, but the two odd nuggets of information just made the devil gnaw at the image like a stubborn dog with a bone. Trying to peer at what he could from this end didn't reveal anything, and he didn't want to try climbing through just in case he ended up getting stuck, so he tried to turn his attention back to the room. It was only when he did that Bendy realized…the picture he'd just been looking at on the easel didn't look quite the same as he remembered it. The arms were still outspread, but the post had changed entirely; now it looked like the devil on the page was coming out of a tumble, arms spread wide with his hands splayed open.

It looked similar to what he remembered seeing, but it definitely wasn't the same drawing. And there had been no sound, nothing that would indicate that a page was being flipped, or anything.

But, if nothing had moved, then how did the drawing change?

The thought brought an icy, squirming feeling to the center of the devil's guts, pushing him to make a hasty exit, and Bendy hurried back out into the front room that he'd passed through before. He frowned a little at the sight of a projector pointed at the back wall and just, running with nothing playing, along with the reels on the opposite wall, the clicking noises of the mechanisms loud in the quiet-.

Wait, quiet. That was, well, part of where the unnerving-ness was coming from. Even from his earliest days here Bendy could remember the constant hum of machinery through the walls, to the point that he had come to regard it as white noise. Granted, if the building really was abandoned, then the ink machine likely wouldn't be running, but if everyone had really left, then why had Joey told him to come back here? Heck, if Joey was here, then how on earth had he let the ink machine get turned off? From what Bendy remembered, the man had been almost fanatical about keeping the thing running, to the point that people often complained that he let other repairs go unchecked for too long just to pay more attention to the needs of the ink machine.

Unfortunately that hadn't extended to the pipes funneling the ink through the building, so people often had their work cut out for them dealing with that.

Still, the lack of noise made Bendy wonder if the ink machine was even still here at all, and well, only one way to find out. Heading down the other hall, Bendy almost walked past the small alcove before something dark on the far wall caught his eye, causing him to stop and take a few steps back. There emblazoned on the wall in dark ink was the phrase 'DREAMS COME TRUE', scrawled over what looked like a bunch of empty animation cells.

That was definitely new. Though Joey didn't really seem to care what happened to the building, he probably wouldn't have wanted someone just writing some bunk on the walls. Though, now that he was taking in the words, Bendy was pretty sure he heard Joey saying something to this effect at least a few times. Not very often, and usually it was slipped into conversation with others, but the devil distinctly remembered when Henry had been telling him about how he and Joey met, how the studio head had gotten him into animation by encouraging him to 'follow his dreams' or something similar. It had surprised the devil initially, but in retrospect, Joey had always been a very determined sort of person when it came to pursuing what he wanted…

Ah, geez, Henry… Bendy quietly shook himself out of the reverie and made to push on. He could try to figure out what that meant later. Right now, he had to find Joey.

As Bendy walked down the hall he paused at one of the office doors, under which a light filtered out from. Blinking at the odd sight the devil quietly approached, his ears picking up the sounds of something playing music. Perhaps it was Joey, but something kept him from simply knocking or trying the handle. Not that his old standards of eavesdropping really told him much; the keyhole seemed to be stopped up and peering under the door just gave him a very limited view of what looked like the legs of a desk and a chair. Hardly a sign of life, but he supposed they could be standing on the far sides of the room, where he would have trouble seeing them unless they moved.

Well, since scuttling around on the floor wasn't telling him much of anything, Bendy decided to get a little bolder. Pushing himself up to stand, one white glove latched itself around the doorknob with all of the stealth it could muster. However, efforts to turn the thing revealed that it also had a bad case of being very much locked. This…was not really relieving, given that while Bendy could understand someone maybe leaving the lights on, having both the lights and a radio playing seemed to stretch the boundaries of what would seem plausible to forget on a final sweep. Not to mention, where was any of that getting power from? The devil might not know much regarding buildings but he did know, mostly through experience, that the abandoned stuff rarely if ever had electricity flowing.

Stranger and stranger, and not the least bit inviting. Still he couldn't just leave, and the other thing that he'd come to see was still lying in wait for him at the end of the hall, around another corner. The plaque on the top before it was simple enough, the black lettering spelling out the words 'INK MACHINE' in clear, legible text. He could even see the chart that he remembered Wally writing on a few times, recording how many gallons of ink were coming from the machine. The last entry was for 423, though the initials at the bottom weren't that of the janitor. T.C? Who was that?

Well, it might have been a mystery, but it wasn't one that Bendy felt he had to solve just yet. Turning to go further, the devil rounded the corner and hopped over a pipe running parallel to the floor, turning again to come into the cavernous room's catwalk. He'd only been allowed in here a few times, though even those had been enough for the devil to know that something about the room was definitely wrong. For starters, the ink machine itself was not actually present. There was just the chains and the shaft it was supposed to be in. Looking to his left, Bendy could see what looked like some sort of power box on a shelf, along with a trunk. To his right was the switch to lower and raise the machine, along with the, generator, or lift, that ran the winch. The room was also in more disrepair than Bendy remembered, with a few holes in the ceiling that had light gently streaming through.

Movement down over the railing of the catwalk caught Bendy's attention, and a quick glance showed him another running machine that might have been a generator of some kind. That might've been what was running the power in this place. Question is, who'd have turned it on?

Still, that wasn't the main issue at hand. The ink machine was. It didn't take a genius to figure out how he was to get it, but there was only the one power cell. Where was the other one? In the lull, Bendy reached for the one he'd noticed on the shelf, struggling a little with the bulky heaviness of the thing. Thankfully it didn't require too much effort to levy into place, clicking in easily as could be. Not to mention, Bendy now had a thought as to where the other might be located. A quick check of the trunk yielded that it was unlocked, and contained the second power cell along with a gear and a few cans. Breyer Label bacon soup, more of Joey's merchandising ideas. It wasn't terrible, and Bendy would probably say that after thirty years of living on the street he'd definitely encountered worse things culinary-wise. Didn't mean that there weren't better things than that, though…

Once the second power cell was put into place, the only thing left for Bendy to do was to pull the switch, the chains chinking as they drew up through the shaft.

Following them up from the darkness was the imposing, metallic shape of the ink machine, the mechanisms giving one last gasp before grinding to a halt as the boxy, gear-riddled hulk rose above the lip of the shaft, enough that the pipes and hoses attached to the bottom could be seen. For some reason, Bendy couldn't help but feel a little intimidated by it, not even just because of the vast difference in size between him and it. In the days when the studio had been still up and running, the ink machine would be constantly churning away, and producing ink which came out the spigot on the front. The few instances in the devil's memory that it had been turned off for any sizeable length of time ended in an entire day where the thing would do nothing but make loud, pretty horrific noises. Joey told him later that it had been because of some backup in the machine from not being run.

But, even with the explanation, Bendy had not been entirely pacified and neither had Boris. It hadn't been helped by the fact that everyone, animator and maintenance worker alike tip-toed around the thing for the following week. It was almost a more paranoid version of the usual behavior involving the machine; people definitely didn't like working with it very much and would often find excuses to avoid dealing with it directly.

Not that Bendy could say he blamed them, as even now something about the ink machine seemed off, even more so now that it hung silent and looming in the open room. It had never been quiet, not since-

-whirring and clunking that seemed loud enough to pop his eardrums, Bendy almost wanted to cover his ears though his body felt heavy and resisted his attempts to move. However, as he tried to shift, the sounds began to lessen to a few creaking clanks before stopping entirely, and in the yawning quiet he could make out the sound of…footsteps? But instead of just normal left-foot, right-foot it was left-foot, thunk, right-foot, like something was hitting the floor in between strides. The little devil finally managed to pry his eyelids open, his first view of the world blurry and swimming though he could make out shapes moving at the edges of his vision. The figure did something and a sudden chill wafted over the small toon, causing him to fumblingly curl up with a shiver and a whine.

"Now, now, is that any way to greet your maker?"

Maker? The little devil tried to angle his head to get a better look at the shape, the person, but his vision was still foggy, and the room was not very well lit, only a few flickering candles about for light. It grew bigger, the sounds indicating that the person, whoever they were, was coming closer. The small toon fought the urge to ball up tighter, though his tail flicked close to his form. And suddenly someone was touching him, turning him over onto his back and lifting the upper part of his body. Bendy groaned at the sudden shift (and also their hands were cold!), though his eyes were finally able to make out some features of his 'maker'.

The first thing Bendy noticed was the dark eyes looking intently at him from behind circular glasses, windswept black hair long enough to the point of almost obscuring the man's vision. He also looked like he hadn't shaved in a while, the signs of stubble clear around his chin, the sides of his face, and on his top lip. The man's expression was hard to puzzle out as he stared at the toon's pie-cut eyes, almost as though waiting for the devil to do something. Bendy blinked, before reaching up with a shaking, white gloved hand to the man's face, fingers brushing against the pale skin for a moment before the man quietly took the small hand in his unoccupied one, a thumb rubbing back and forth over the tiny knuckles as a soft, awed smile broke through the impassive veneer.

"There you are. Hello, Bendy."

Bendy found his own face pulling a grin in response, though at the word, a name, his name?, he frowned, brow furrowing as he worked his jaw and vocal chords to speak.

"Be'nny?" He said at first before he tried again, this time a little slower. "Ben-dy?"

"Yes, Bendy. That's you." The man replied softly, though his smile fell a little at the need to clarify what he was saying. The little devil nodded to show he'd understood, before a yawn forced its way from his mouth and caused his body to stretch against the hand propping him upright. As pie-cut eyes blinked dozily against a newfound wave of tiredness, a faint chuckle came from the face overhead.

Without really much prompting the man adjusted his hold on Bendy before lifting the small toon up to be propped against his shoulder, a small squeak at the shifting being the only bit of noise. Though the movement had initially startled the little devil, he quickly burrowed his face into the coat the man was wearing; the material scratchy, but at the very least warm against the still prevalent chill. As the man began to move, the noise of footstep-thunk-footstep started again, the strange rhythm lulled Bendy into a sound sleep-

-And back in the present the little devil shook himself, snapping out of the momentary daze as his brain caught up with the rest of him. He hadn't thought about that in, honestly a long, long time, but it could probably be expected that the familiar settings were drawing some of those old memories out.

But, even if these settings were familiar, they still left him back at square one; in a locked, abandoned building with seemingly no one, though Bendy had the distinct feeling that there was more to everything than he was seeing.

Still didn't help though, if anything it left the devil more frustrated at the whole thing, the tension in his gut winding steadily like a trap waiting to be set off. Letting out a gusty, annoyed sigh, Bendy turned to go back out the way he came. Maybe there was some hint down the other hall…

The devil caught sight of another cut out leaned up against the wall behind the trunk, giving it only a glance before he headed out the door, over the pipe, and took a right down the adjoining hall. If he remembered right, the 'offerings' that Joey had set up, supposedly to help keep the ink machine running, were in the break room, which was down this hall, make another right…

And right in between another animator's desk and what looked like some sort of stall with a gear, a few reels, and another cut out, the little devil passing all of it to hurry on.

Still glancing about Bendy continued, only to jump out of his skin as a board dropped from the ceiling at the juncture ahead with an absurdly loud crash that reverberated through the empty halls. The devil threw himself against the wall at the noise, a hand coming up to pull at the fabric of his coat as though to waylay his heart trying to eject itself from his chest cavity in fright.

The sight of the offending bit of wood did cause the tension to ease down some, though Bendy still took a minute to get his breathing back under control, noting how a small drip of ink seeped out from under his hat. He was letting himself get too jumpy, it was just a loose board, probably plenty of them around here. The place looked like it was falling apart anyway, perhaps he should merely be surprised it took this long for something to break…

Casting a wary glance at the ceiling above the hall, Bendy padded along as quietly as he could muster, taking the right at the juncture and making his way into the break room.

Which was…empty. Well, mostly, the switch was still there on the far side of the room, the panel next to it flashing the warning 'low pressure' against a black background. But from what he remembered there should be more tables, chairs, maybe a place for coffee, that sort of thing. But it looked like everything had been stripped out a long time ago, just leaving the six pedestals in their respective spots. All of these, though, were empty. The offerings were gone, either locked away somewhere or having been removed from the studio entirely.

"This is a waste of time…" Bendy couldn't help muttering to himself, even though there was no one present to commiserate to. Still, the spoken affirmation to the thought that this was all some merry goose-chase joke being played on him made the irritation well up like blood from a cut. Even though a small part of him wondered that if this was a joke, who the hell even knew he existed, and knew this much, to pull something like this.

Even with paranoia whispering into the devil's subconscious, Bendy turned on his heel and trudged back out the way he came, head down and an irritated growl twisting his mouth as he fought to keep down far more than just a verbal observation regarding the situation. If this was some kind of a joke, then the jokester in question better pray the toon devil didn't catch up to him, because Bendy was more than willing to give this idiot a piece of his mi-whatinblazeswasthat?!

When Bendy had rounded the corner to leave the break room, the last thing he'd expected was to see someone standing in the juncture, especially when there had been no sound in the studio, no apparent sign that anyone else was even walking the halls. But, lo and behold, there was a figure standing there, causing the devil to leap back behind the corner to give himself more distance. However, upon peering out, the toon noticed that the shape had a distinct grin, and familiar, pointed horns that looked very memorable to the little devil, because he'd seen the exact same thing just a few moments ago.

It was a Bendy cutout, sitting innocently in the hall as though it had been placed there from the start, which it hadn't been as the devil was sure he would have noticed it when he'd walked through earlier. It hadn't even been remotely close as far as he knew. And even if it had been pushed off down the other hall, how'd it get right to the center of the hallway?

…It, it had to be a joke, right? Cardboard didn't move around on its own (though a somewhat snarky part of Bendy reminded him that the same could be said of ink), but if someone had been carrying the cutout, wouldn't he have heard them walking around? In this quiet, he would have at least heard some footfalls, or the sound of them putting the thing down. Especially given that the wood at the back weighted the cardboard down, and Bendy remembered having some difficulty moving them.

Unless, it wasn't a person moving them…

Stepping warily out from the corner, Bendy walked slowly around the cut out, staring at it like it might move if he took his eyes off it for too long. However, the lights flickering in a room down the other hall caught his attention, and as the devil's pie-cut eyes turned to the source of the blinking lights, he caught sight of a very familiar figure strapped to what looked like some sort of table.

"Boris-?" Bendy called, voice slightly hoarse. His feet wasted no time in carrying him forward, eager as he was to see a friendly face. Albeit something pricked at the corner of his mind, whispering that something was wrong, why wasn't Boris calling out to or answering him, but for the moment exhilaration shoved the concerns away.

"Are you alright? Who tied you up?" Came tumbling out of his mouth before Bendy really had the chance to think over what he was saying. "Y'should've said somethin', pal, I woulda-!"

Just as he got over the threshold, the lights came on and stayed on uninterrupted, and Bendy immediately saw exactly why Boris wasn't answering. Black stained everywhere, great splotches and puddles all around the wolf's form. The straps sagged slightly as they tried to hold up the weight of the canid toon, the head hanging down over the one binding the neck, the eyes crossed out like they would be in a cartoon, if the character was-.

And…on the wolf's chest were lines of white that were out of place, Boris was solid black after all. The gleaming rigidness of them confirmed Bendy's initial, detached observation that they were the taller toon's ribs…and immediately his stomach gave a lurch, the devil clamping a hand to his mouth as a heave forced its way through. Bendy felt his legs wobble, causing him to reach out to the doorframe like it was the last, stable thing in the world, clinging to it with the desperation of a drowning man as he let himself slide to kneel on the floor. His head bowed, ink and tears starting to drip as a sob pushed its way through a very constricted throat. Words also slipped through before Bendy really registered what he was saying. The sounds blurred with the sobs that were coming one after the other but things started to come back into focus enough for him to realize that he'd been apologizing as though the wolf could still hear him. Which was silly because Boris was…

Was…

Bendy looked up at the prone wolf again, this time focusing on the whole, sordid scene in front of him, rather than the bite-sized chunks he had been trying to process before. It looked no better, the sheer gruesomeness of the whole thing further cementing the horrible, horrible idea that if Boris were conscious for…whatever happened, then he would have likely been in agony before actually dying.

The thought sent dozens of others into motion in Bendy's mind; was this what Joey had meant, what the hell had the man, if this even was Joey's work, been doing that required this of all things, where the hell was Alice, had something even worse happened to her…

Bendy suddenly paused, taking his shaking hand away from his mouth as something occurred to him. His fingers twitched towards his pocket, but he didn't take the letter out again; he could easily remember what that one line had said.

The studio has, unfortunately, suffered during the decades since your absence, and everyone has had to make sacrifices to make ends meet.

He knew something was wrong, had let it chase him out the door, but hadn't tried beyond asking Boris to come with him to get either of the other two toons to leave. He didn't even wait for Henry to come in that morning, maybe he could have explained it to the man and then Henry could have taken them all away, somewhere far, far away from this horrible place…

You were foolish, the devil's thoughts whispered. You thought you were the only one in trouble, you were selfish and look what happened. Boris is dead because of you, and Alice could be too.

This is all your fault.

Bendy was not sure precisely how long he sat there, just that his legs were starting to grow stiff by the time he felt able to move again. He tried to avoid looking too closely again at the…body, but his averted eyes catch another bit of horror scrawled onto the wall to his right.

WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?

Not him, that's for sure. Even though part of him wanted to be as far away from this place as possible, another, much louder piece declared that he shouldn't just leave Boris here, strung up like some sort of horrific trophy. Bendy should at least, try to get him down, right?

It's the least he can do…

Albeit Bendy wasn't even sure how to go about doing that, and glancing around revealed nothing that would be helpful. No levers, buttons, or anything else that might lower the slab Bor-, the body was on. A few tentative tugs at the straps hardly yielded anything either; they were on too tight, and Bendy was pretty sure he couldn't catch the other toon. Even with…

Fighting down a shudder, the devil toon looked down, eyes landing on a patch of earthen floor out of which a small plant was growing. The sight was so paradoxical Bendy couldn't help but stare for a moment. Giving himself a shake, the toon snapped out of his trance, moving around the slab to look at the back. A faint sound started to become audible in the devil's ears, almost like a hissing, or whispering, but Bendy pushed the observation to the side for the moment so he could take stock. The one thing he did find was a pipe running straight into the back of the board, and presumably Boris by extension. Judging from the coloring, and the ink seeping from the bottom, it was one of the many pipes around the studio used to funnel ink everywhere from the ink machine.

As soon as that processed, a strange, almost ludicrous idea started to take root in Bendy's mind, fueled by the memory of the multiple times ink had been used to patch him and the other toons up when they'd hurt themselves, to make him feel better if he dripped too much, it becoming a resource so precious that it was the one thing the devil would steal that wasn't food or water while on the streets…

It couldn't work, not for this surely, things were too far gone, he was deluding himself, trying to give himself false hope…

But…

…what if he wasn't? What if the idea not just could, but would in fact work?

What if he could fix this?

Bendy walked back around, eyes quietly roving up his best friend's mangled and silent frame, a hand coming out to shakily grasp at the edge of the table, right next to where Boris's own, long-fingered hands lay, lifeless and still.

It was a desperate idea, perhaps born out of the vain thought of trying to somehow cleanse his conscience along with making it up to his best friend, so maybe Bendy could tell him in person just how sorry he was…

But he had to try, right? He had to try, for Boris.

He wouldn't abandon his friend again…

Taking a few steps back, Bendy turned away from the sordid scene with a new purpose in mind. He needed ink, a lot of it, and the only place he knew he could get it…was the ink machine. Which was currently turned off.

Well, obviously he'd have to turn it back on, but the first thing he'd need to go about checking was where the offerings were. Hopefully they were just stuck somewhere and not gone entirely…

Wait, wait wait wait, he knew where some of them were! Or at the very least, he knew where one of them was, and if that one was still here, then…!

Even with that revelation pumping through his ink, Bendy still refrained from running back to the juncture, instead trying a door to the left of where he'd come in, throwing a wary glare at the back of the cutout as he went. He was a little reluctant to turn his back on the thing, though now thinking on it if he did happen to catch it moving, then what would he do?

Well, there would probably be screaming involved. And running, though Bendy wasn't sure how the mechanics of that kind of a chase would work. Thinking on it brought the sudden image of the cutout gliding soundlessly on the floor behind him, so Bendy forced himself to put that thought on hold before he made himself the first case of a toon suffering from a heart attack.

Thankfully, the room Bendy entered was more or less the same as the animating room behind Henry's office, quiet but dotted with desks and chairs here and there. There were also a few boxes, making the devil wonder if this was another place where everyone had packed things away once they'd left. He didn't see anything worth noting in there, apart from a door to the left at what looked like the end of a kind of hallway. As he approached, Bendy found himself having a brief flash of intuition at where exactly this was going to open up to. He was proven right upon seeing the hallway leading back to the other part of the studio, with the ink machine room to the left and the animation foyer to the right. His new perspective did cause him to see that a door he'd walked past earlier, the one after the office that had had light coming out, was now ajar.

Had it always been like that…? While the thought did foster some guarded paranoia, Bendy's memories of the studio weren't so faded that he didn't have some foggy idea as to where this one lead. Padding over, the devil pushed the door open all the way as quietly as he could, looking out on a staircase leading down into a large room. Even though a lot of the furnishings and life had long-since ebbed out of the room, the tables and chairs were familiar enough-.

- For the toons, the times when the break room was cleared for them to romp around in was pure joy. Even more so when Wally, after helping them move the furniture one day, managed to produce a small ball from his pocket, giving it to the incredulous pair. Looking at the small sphere rolling about in his hands, Boris quietly lowered the ball so that Bendy could see too, before looking at Wally as though the janitor had some further nugget of information to give.

"What's that look for?" Wally asked, confusion flickering across freckled features at the lost stares he was getting.

"I-It's nice, Wally-." Boris started, Bendy cutting in a moment later.

"-Bu' what're we s'pposed t'do with it?"

"What're y's'ppose t'- It's a ball, guys, you bounce it, throw it, whatever you want!"

"Oh…" Boris hummed, letting Bendy reach up and grab the ball. The little devil looked at the ball before letting it fall, and found himself utterly amazed when it easily bounced back up. His efforts to catch it went a little awry, though Bendy was able to grab it before he sent it hurtling under the staircase, Wally chuckling a little at the relieved look flashing across the devil's face.

"Why don't you two take some time to figure out how t'play catch? Holler if y'need anything, I'll be right upstairs!"

"Okay, Wally!" Boris replied cheerily, watching the janitor thump back up the steps before the sound of rubbery bouncing caught his ear, the wolf looking down just in time to see Bendy dropping and catching the ball as it rebounded off the floor. The smaller toon was beginning to faintly smile as his movements grew more and more sure, though he was quickly aware of Boris's eyes on him. However, looking from the wolf to the ball suddenly lit an idea in the devil's mind, his smile turning faintly into a smirk before he acted on the impulse.

"Hey, pal? Catch!" The mischievous devil punctuated his words by lightly tossing the ball up at Boris, the taller toon's hands flying up to catch the ball before it could bop him on the nose. Though he did manage to grab it, Boris's hands still clunked into his face. By the time the wolf felt able to lower them, Bendy had already darted across the room, utterly unheeding of the affronted whine following in his wake from the canid toon.

"Ben-dy, that wasn't fair!"

"Well, look at it this way, pal, you can try 'n get me next!" To emphasize his point, Bendy began to leap up and down, arms waving as he tried to cajole the wolf into throwing the ball back.

"I don't wanna hit you though!" Boris cried, completely confused by the devil's words and his behavior. The response caused Bendy to halt for a confused beat before he clarified.

"No, pal, catch! Throw it back! You're not gonna hit me, promise!" A brief pause, before the smaller toon seemed to realize that throwing it like he had probably didn't endear the wolf to the idea any, and put in an addition. "'m sorry for throwin' it at you like that, pal!"

Even with the apology Boris seemed a little doubtful, though he still lobbed the ball cautiously over. It bounced once against the ground before Bendy was able to catch it, the devil hopping a little to grab it. Bendy looked up, a smile taking root as he tossed the ball easily back. Boris too started to get into the mood once it became clear that it was not just a one-up, that it was a game. A few more lobs back and forth and a lot of the nervous jerkiness had started to vanish as the pair grew more and more entrenched in their play, their positions starting to shift to opposite sides of the room. Boris was still controlling his throws, but they were getting progressively harder as Bendy proved he was able to catch them.

The mood took a sudden about-face, when Bendy caught a particularly hard throw from Boris, the force of which caused him to stumble back into a cutout that had been propped up against the staircase. The devil completely fell back onto the cardboard, bending it against the stairs and causing the head to fold and break off. Even though he was already moving at the first sign of trouble, the clatter of the cutout falling apart made Boris dash to the other end of the room, knees crashing against the floor as he knelt next to the startled devil.

"Ben, I'm sorry, are you okay, I didn' mean t'-!"

"'m fine, Boris." Bendy tried to say, and he wasn't lying. He was more stunned by the suddenness of how events changed than hurt, but he barely had time to elaborate or calm the wolf down before a clatter came from the top of the staircase. Bendy couldn't see exactly who'd come in, but judging from the clopping coming down the stairs, and the look on Boris's face as he took in who was descending, he could guess.

The expression on Joey's face made something in the devil's stomach freeze, though the trance was broken as Boris let slip a whimper before withdrawing entirely, standing up like an accused man in front of a judge as the studio head approached. The sight forced the devil to his feet, the ball falling from his hands as he moved to stand in front of Boris.

"Joey, it wasn' his fault, I threw it too hard first-."

"Where did the two of you get this?" The studio head's question as he prodded the ball with his cane cut right through Bendy's hastily constructed defense, the pair stymied as they scrambled to catch up.

"Uh…"

"W-We…"

"Come on, one of you must have gotten it from someone." Joey barked as he bent to pick up the ball, making the pair jump. Before they could say a thing, the sound of someone else coming to the top of the stairs rang out, most likely drawn in by the racket.

"Hey, everything alright down…there…?" Wally's initial call faded at the sight of Joey, the studio head looking up at the janitor with the ball held out in his hand.

"Franks, just clean up the mess down here. Now, where did you get this from? One of you has to know."

"Wait, Mr. Drew!" Wally spoke up as he came down the stairs, somehow not flinching or turning away as Joey's baleful stare turned to him. "That's mine, I gave it t'em, thought it'd be better if they had somethin' t'do while I was cleanin' upstairs."

"…I see." The studio head replied after a moment, during which the toons still pinned under Joey's gaze fidgeted like someone had held their feet to a roaring fire. "Alright, Franks. You probably ought to take this back. If anything, I think a point has been made here."-

-It was almost the same, surprisingly enough, barring the addition of some curtains in between the beams. There were even things on the tables, Bendy carefully maneuvering about the room as he came close to see. Some of them had his face on them, they were scrapbooks of animation stills if Bendy was remembering correctly, but there was one set aside from the rest that caught the devil's attention, a black hardcover with the title The Illusion of Living.

Well, if you were going to hide a book somewhere, where better to hide it than with a bunch of other books? Bendy had to at least concede that the idea was relatively foolproof, even if it also made him wonder if there was some other offering somewhere, maybe tucked out of sight? Checking the closet, Bendy found nothing but stacks of soup cans.

Peering around some more also drew the little devil's attention to a nook at the far end of the room, one that he noticed was boarded up. The more noteworthy observation was that it sounded like there was some sort of machine running down there, maybe another generator for the lights? Whatever it was, it was making some sort of flickering, illuminating a sign on the far wall reading, DANGER, KEEP OUT.

A thought suddenly occurred to Bendy, making him back away from the boards and head towards the stairs with the book in hand. Namely, if there were machines running, then there had to be someone in the studio maintaining them. And he hadn't even seen another living soul yet.

It was the sort of situation that desperately needed a plan, though the best Bendy found himself able to come up with was get the offerings, save Boris, and then try to break the door down. Despite the internal screaming that that was hardly a plan, the devil pushed the thoughts aside as he got to the landing, remembering the initial thought he'd had regarding the location of at least one of the offerings. It wasn't too hard, really, he'd seen it before.

Hopping back over the pipe, Bendy made his way back to the ink machine room, heading straight to the trunk and levying the gear into his arms along with the book. The two items together made it a little hard to get back over the pipe, but Bendy still managed it, speed-walking to put the offerings on their respective pedestals.

Hands free, he went back the way he'd come, turning right to go into the animation foyer instead of back into the break room. As Bendy came back up on the office he'd tried to get into earlier, the light coming from under the door suddenly flicked off, the click of a light switch loud enough that he jumped with a breathy gasp, legs working on overtime to quickly carry him past the slab of wood as though something were about to burst forth and give chase.

Everythin's goin' nuts, this was a mistake, it's all wrong wrong wrong I need to get outgetoutgetout-! The toon's mind screamed, just as a calmer, more mournful line of thought went for Boris for Boris for Boris don't run don't leave them behind all your fault.

Swallowing back a terrified whimper and another squeeze of guilt to his guts the toon pressed on, moving a little faster than before.

He decided to quickly check the alcove next, rewarded by the discovery of the wrench propped up against the nearer wall, next to a door. Perhaps a little earlier the devil might have tried the handle but now he just passed the slab of wood a look and moved back out into the front room. Immediately cutting across to Henry's office, Bendy briefly paused at the sight of the cutout still in its place against the wall. He didn't let himself think on it much, instead focusing on the fact that there was nothing here that looked like one of the offerings. Which lead him to check the room behind Henry's office, and where he spotted the familiar inkwell tucked in on the lower plank of the desk with the plain paper drawing on it. It was only when Bendy crossed the room to get it that he noticed that the drawing had changed again, his ink-and-paper counterpart lying on his stomach with his head resting on his hands, as though he were inquisitive as to what the three-dimensional version of the devil was up to.

His grip around the inkwell becoming dangerously tight along with the spanner in his other hand, Bendy retreated from the desk, not daring to turn around until he'd gotten to the step leading back up to the door. Hurrying through the foyer, Bendy didn't let himself calm down until he was putting the offerings back on their pedestals. Taking count, the devil's head nearly spun like a top as he picked out what was still missing. He was almost done, just two more, the doll and the record. They had to be around here somewhere, right? The others had been, after all.

With the new objective in mind, the devil left the break room. It was only when he walked through the juncture that he realized that the cutout that had been sitting there was gone.

The simple observation caused the devil to come to a complete halt, eyes widening for a moment as the thought sunk in. Turning, he gave the intersection another long look just to confirm that yes, it was definitely gone from the hallway entirely, not even sitting in front of the, the other room. Even peering back down the hallway he'd come gave no hints as to where it had gone, everything as rundown and silent as it had been beforehand. Someone could have come out and moved it while he'd been in the downstairs break room, the front room, or even Henry's office. But still, Bendy was sure he'd have heard at least something, footsteps, anything. Henry had often remarked that the walls of the studio were paper-thin, and the small toon could only surmise that that quality had grown worse with time and disrepair. So, why hadn't he heard anything?

He, didn't have an answer. At least, not one that he really felt comfortable considering when it was just him by himself in here with no idea as to what he was facing, if he was facing anything.

On a last whim, Bendy tried to look up at the ceiling, just in case through some crazy freak of nature it had somehow gotten up there. He ended up having his hat partially in his eyes for his trouble, but at the very least he could report that the ceiling was cutout free. So, where had it gone?

Not that he was really itching to find out, and with no hints, Bendy was forced to drop it. He was almost done, he just had to remember that. Then he could help Boris, and if all went well they could try breaking down the door and absconding the studio, come back at a later date to figure the rest out.

As the devil toon came out into the hallway, with the still-open door to his right and the corridor leading back to the ink machine and animation department to his left, it suddenly struck him that there was a whole part to the floor that he'd not explored yet. And, from what he'd seen, there hadn't been any sign of the record or the doll anywhere else.

Bendy almost wanted to think something to the effect of 'what's the worst that could happen' regarding the situation, but given what he'd seen he hardly wanted to tempt fate any more than he currently was. His memories told him that there were a few rooms, mostly other offices, but ultimately the hallway should end at a theater room. It seemed simple enough, but given that Bendy was facing down the prospect of walking through the now-decrypt corridors alone he was decidedly less than enthusiastic. Still, with nowhere else to look, he knew he'd have to try it.

Bendy walked past the doorway leading back to the ink machine, almost carrying on through another little alcove before something odd caught his attention, causing him to stop and look back. There was a small table sitting in between a pair of doors, on which was resting what looked like a tape deck. He remembered seeing a few of the gadgets in shop windows from time to time. But, why would there be a tape deck in here, especially given that he was pretty sure there hadn't been any tape decks back in the day? From the looks of things, there was a tape inside, cajoling Bendy to reach for the play button. Immediately the room filled with a very familiar voice, one that had the devil tilting his head as he settled down to listen.

"At this point, I don't get what Joey's plan is for this company. The animations sure aren't being finished on time anymore, and I certainly don't see why we need this machine. It's noisy, it's messy, and who needs that much ink anyway? Also, get this, Joey had each one of us donate something from our work stations. We put them on little pedestals in the break room. To help appease the gods, Joey says. Keep things going. I think he's lost his mind, but, hey, he writes the checks. But I tell you what, if one more of these pipes burst, I'm out of here."

And with that, the recording clicked off, though Bendy had already placed the voice of the person speaking. That had been Wally, Wally Franks. While he and Wally had never been particularly close, at least not in the same way he and Henry had been, the man had been kind to him, Boris, and even Alice when she came along, often leaving food for them to eat after hours. The rest of it certainly sounded like the janitor, given that Bendy was pretty sure that out of everyone in the studio, Wally more often than not ended up having to deal with the mess the ink machine caused given his job. The bit that had been news was the mention of the offerings being used to 'appease the gods'; Joey had never mentioned anything like that to him, but the man had certainly been protective of the objects, seeming to consider them as extensions of the ink machine. Still, Bendy couldn't help but feel like there would have been more of a mention of the ink machine itself if this had been after he was made, so maybe the recording was from sometime beforehand…? It didn't really help him much, not with what he needed to do. Hopping down off the chair, Bendy continued on.

With two right turns, he was standing in the theater room, the place just dark enough for it to be uncomfortable. Mitigating the foggy black was an emergency light tucked into the little nook for the projectionist to sit in at the back, the dull glow lighting up the shelves on the far wall. It was enough that the small black outline of the Bendy toy was easily visible atop the tallest shelf. Problem was, how would he get up there?

Well, just looking at the shelves gave him some ideas, and Bendy wasted no time in using the lower ridges to clamber steadily up the levels, coming within easy grabbing range of the toy after a few long moments. As he held the small doll in his hand, he couldn't help a small smile as he clambered back down-

-endy, please, you're gonna get hurt!" Even with the worried, whining tone in the other toon's voice, Bendy couldn't shake the grin from his face as he eased himself back to the next level on the dresser, a whistling bit of laughter accompanying a happily curled devil-tail.

"C'mon, Boris, I've been climbin' these longer than you've been around!" The devil cajoled, letting gravity swing him around on a heel and a hand he glued to the edge of the border. Even though the smaller toon had perfect control of the movement, the wolf's arms still twitched upright in case he needed to catch his smaller, more-adventurous friend.

"I know, but y'need t'only have an accident once…" The idea of him actually messing this up was laughable and would probably be insulting if it came from anyone else except the taller toon, whose ears were back and tail held close to his legs in worry. Bendy's flippant look steadily faded to something a bit softer as he took in the pinched expression on the canid muzzle, and decided to throw Boris a bone, so to speak.

"Ah, y'know I'm aces at this, though if it makes you feel better…catch!" And with the last word the devil easily sprung off the border he'd been standing on and into the wolf's hurriedly outstretched arms.

"Ben-dy." Boris whined, a fond undercurrent marring the long-suffering tone. The little toon merely smiled his finest pacifying smile up at his best pal, shrugging in a sort of lazy, noncommittal gesture as he relaxed in the wolf's hold.

"What? I got down, didn't I?"

A not-entirely serious eyeroll was Boris's only response to that observation, as he instead gave Bendy a light bear hug before letting the little devil's feet hit the floor. Still, he wasn't done fretting just yet.

"Still don' like the idea of you climbing around on those, 'specially without someone makin' sure you don' fall…"

"Well, that's what I got you for, right?" Bendy returned as he and Boris sauntered up the hallway to the break room; hopefully someone had left something good they could have for dinner that night. "You watch my back, and I'll watch yours. That's what pals-

-His eyes were burning when he finally reached the floor, but by this point Bendy knew what he was doing enough that his feet found stability with no trouble, even with a hand occupied by his prize. Blinking, Bendy held up the little toy in one hand, giving the plush, worn fabric a light squeeze to hear it squeak. It had been so long since he'd seen something like this. He knew that…he was a cartoon, he was not supposed to be real, and that the studio around him had been dedicated to making animated shorts of him and his pals, but they only ended up managing to produce a small bunch of…merchandise, he remembered Joey calling it.

However, they'd all only had the toon devil, and nothing involving the wolf or Alice. The latter he sort of understood given that she was new to the show and things like toys took time to make. But Boris had been around nearly as long as Bendy, and in all the time the devil had been at the studio he'd never once seen a small, squeaky version of the wolf to go along with the Bendy doll.

When Bendy had asked Joey why there was no Boris toy floating around somewhere, the studio head had quite simply said that there was no demand for it. Bendy's response had been to point out that, well, every Bendy needs a Boris, 'cause that's how the pair of them were. Pretty much inseparable, at least until Joey had put them to work in the studio.

Even still, Joey's answer to what had seemed like a well-reasoned argument at the time was to give the idea a quiet hum, and state that they would see.

From what Bendy remembered, and saw, Boris never got a toy of him like Bendy did.

The small, smiling face blurred under a film of tears, Bendy sniffling before hurriedly scrubbing at his eyes to rid himself of the moisture. He didn't have time for getting emotional; he still had plenty more to do. Albeit, the only thing that the theater room yielded apart from chairs and an old projector was the valve in the back, the mechanisms lit up by the emergency lighting that Bendy had noticed before. Shifting around to properly see, the little devil was able to make out the sign plastered above, Ink Pressure.

Putting the sight in the back of his mind, Bendy headed back out the room as he tried to take stock again. Alright, he had the toy, he'd gotten the gear, the book, the spanner, the inkwell, that might've been everything except…

When he made it back to the offering room, the devil immediately realized that his instinct had been correct; he was still missing the record. But he'd been all over the place, and he hadn't seen hide nor hair of the thing anywhere.

Heading back out, the devil toon took the left turn instead of heading straight, nearly passing the office that had been plaguing him for much of his short stay before he noticed something rather crucial. The door was ajar, much like that of the break room, the tiny sliver of light faintly glowing against the dark and dingy wood.

Remembering both that this had been the office that had apparently been occupied, and that the break room had disgorged something worthwhile, Bendy carefully reached out and pressed a hand to the wooden door. Gently pushing it open, the little devil nearly flinched away before the sight of the empty, cramped office registered. Peering around, leaning in rather than putting a foot over the threshold, Bendy took in the shelf and desk jammed up against the wall, the radio out in the open which had to have been playing the music he'd heard.

While the radio at least was a sign of life, Bendy could see no hint of who had been using the room. Perhaps they had slipped out when he was in the other parts of the studio, and though the idea of a person moving about stealthily was far more believable than a cutout, Bendy could easily say that he wasn't sure which was worse. Eventually creeping away from the door, the little devil got a look at a piece of paper sitting on the desk, with words scrawled upon it in runny ink.

HE WILL SET US FREE.

…What the heck was that about? Bendy had no idea, and the ominous tone to the whole thing made him back up from the desk, looking and listening for any sign of…well, anything. Be it a trap or something completely out of left field, he'd like to have some idea of what was coming.

However, the devil's path backwards had let him get a broader look at the whole corner of the room, his eyes dropping to the space underneath the desk. And there, sitting in between the desk and the wall was the record in question, which Bendy wasted no time in grabbing and rushing back to its pedestal. The little toon was about to go and try flipping the lever when his eyes went to the panel on the left, still blaring its message of 'low pressure'.

Of…course, things could never be that easy for him, could they?

Letting his head clunk on the wall next to the switch for a moment, Bendy briefly let himself slump with nerves and general exhaustion before pushing himself back upright and heading out of the room. For Boris, he had to do this for Boris. Just one more thing…

More on autopilot than anything else the devil headed back to the theater, the weight of the past few hours more than starting to catch up with him. Rubbing his fingers against his temples, he let out an exhausted sigh, wanting more than anything to just…stop for a second so he could catch up and let his mind fully wrap around it all. Everything about this was so confusing, horrifying, and nerve-wracking that he wasn't even sure where to begin, though Bendy knew that if he tried to stop now, he might not continue.

He didn't have the luxury of stopping, either. He had to…at least try to save one person he cared about from this mess, the one that was sitting right in front of him. His mind still played that mantra, for Boris, for Boris, all your faultallyourfaultallyourfault…

His eyes looked up just in time to catch a flicker of motion at the end of the hall, a familiar, grinning shape peering out at him before ducking back behind the corner, the cutout was moving, it was looking at him, THE CUTOUT WAS MOVING-!

With a holler of fright, Bendy rushed to the other side of the hall, crashing into a closet door and jarring it open, tumbling through to land flat on his back. The devil quickly scrambled to his feet, trying to hide behind the doorframe for a moment before he realized that a door had actually opened. Readjusting his hat, he peered around the tiny closet, recognizing the shelves of projectors and film reels. He knew this one, actually-

-Bendy flinched awake at the click of the lock and the creak of the closet door opening. Eyes widened as he took in the shadowed visage of Joey in the poorly lit hall outside, and though he was unable to see it in the dark, he knew the man was staring down at him.

"Bendy, come here." The blank calm in the studio head's voice made his insides writhe like no tomorrow, but the devil obeyed anyway, getting up and coming to stand in front of Joey, stance somewhat folded in on itself. He hated that tone, the calm, quiet one, hated it worse than when someone yelled. Yelling at the very least was a definite sign of anger, and Bendy knew how to react to anger. That tone though, could mean anything from a lecture to being locked in a closet to being thrown away from whatever it was he was messing up, so he opted to stay wary for the time being.

"Look at me." A flinch and gulp, and Bendy did, head craning back to see what he could of Joey's face in the dark. A faint glimmer from his glasses was all pie-cut eyes could make out, and Bendy felt his tail flick close to his legs as he instinctively tried to make himself smaller. The silence carried for a moment before Joey finally started speaking.

"Wally finished cleaning up the mess you made in the break room, but if I catch you playing with the offerings again, we will have to take more drastic measures than just spending some time in here. Do you understand me?"

Bendy resisted the urge to wipe at some of the ink he knew had started dribbling down his face at the mention of 'drastic measures', though he felt his tail curl even closer to his feet.

"Bendy, did you hear me?" Joey broke in, a harder tone leaking into his voice, causing Bendy to nearly leap out of his skin, words tumbling from his mouth.

"Y-Yeah, I hear you, Joey, 'm sorry, I won'…do it again…" The last three words came out a little softer, partially due to the fact that Bendy remembered that Joey never liked hearing the devil 'talk back to him' when Bendy was in trouble. Part of his punishment was that he had to stay quiet until the studio head would come to get him. The little toon hoped that the response didn't violate that particular part of his sentence; scary though Joey may be, Bendy certainly didn't want to be locked in the closet again. Joey might not let him out at all next time…

But, tension eased as the studio head stepped to the side, gesturing for the toon to leave the confines of the closet. Bendy quickly walked out, Joey closing the door behind him and easily fell into step with his cowed creation as they went down the hall-

-Bendy forced himself to relax and relinquish the death grip he had on the doorframe, taking a few deep breaths as he tried to keep his heart from beating out of his chest. Nothing had come round the corner after him, and he didn't see anyone in the room down there, so where had the cutout, or anyone that might have been moving it around, have gone to?

He got his answer a moment later when he tried venturing beyond the closet, hugging the far wall and catching sight of the familiar bit of cardboard leaning up against the opposite side. Despite the tension that settled in his gut at the very sight of the thing, Bendy threw a glare at the frozen smile, pointing to his own eyes before pointing at the cardboard lookalike's. He hoped at this point he was merely getting his message across rather than inviting death or more terrifying games of peekaboo, but at this point he was beyond caring enough to stop himself.

Still, he didn't take his eyes off the cutout as he went into the room, turning around entirely to walk in backwards just so he wouldn't lose sight of it. This unfortunately was probably not wise, as he was entirely taken off guard by the projector suddenly clicking on in the room behind him. At the same time music started to play, the sudden burst of sound in the dead quiet causing Bendy to fall backwards before scrambling to hide behind a chair to his right. Though, apart from the sudden presence of a cheery, whistled tune, and the screen showing a grainy image of the devil darling himself…dancing, there was no sign that there was even anyone else in the room with the little toon.

Not that that was reassuring in the least, as Bendy slowly pushed himself upright and stepped out from behind the chair. Hurrying to the corner where the pressure valve was tucked away, the little devil fought with the aged mechanism before something started to give, the wheel creakily spinning in it's socket. Just as Bendy turned it to where it couldn't go any further, a groan suddenly sounded from a pipe running along the back of the theater. The noise cut off in a thunderous crack, Bendy grimacing with a gasp as ink started to flood the floor. Coming out from the nook, the small toon splashed through the growing pool, and was forced to go through the spurting leak, which so happened to be right above the door. Covering his mouth, Bendy kept his head down so as not to get too much of the muck on his face, making it to the other side before his frame finally gave in to the impulse to give a disgusted shudder.

Even still, the little devil tried to keep the mantra going in his mind, that he could just finish this, for Boris. He had to try for Boris. Hurrying back around the corner, Bendy was highly relieved at the lack of dripping or spurting ink in the hallway as he ran back to the offerings, and the power switch. It seemed to take barely any time for the devil to make it back, though he paused in front of the switch for a moment, glancing at the panel which now flashed a cheerful 'ready!'. Perhaps there was some thrill of foreboding curdling the little toon's ink, but he still reached up anyway and pulled the lever down.

Only to jump with a strangled shriek as the lights went out and he was left in total darkness. His heart felt like it was hammering out of his chest, and though Bendy knew the layout of the room around him it felt like danger could come from anywhere. Suddenly, like a trainwreck the reason he'd gone through so much trouble in the first place came crashing back in, and in an instant the devil toon blindly turned to run to the doorway in the dark, feeling his way around the corner.

The candles in the room Boris was in gave Bendy enough light to see by as he made his way down the corridor, though they didn't give him enough warning to see the spreading puddle of ink on the floor in front of the wolf, which was spurting from the hole in Boris's chest. Bendy skidded to a halt just quick enough to avoid having some splatter on his face, the realization of what he almost walked into range of enough to make his stomach turn again.

The urge was quickly overtaken by a sick swoop of dismay when it became clear that whatever amount of ink that was pumping into Boris through the pipe, it clearly wasn't enough to heal the damage.

The devil froze, horror and absolute hopelessness warring for space in his mind, breathing growing stilted and his hands pressing to either side of his head as he tried to contain everything that threatened to overwhelm him. He just needed to think, there had to be a solution, Boris couldn't… he couldn't be…this was supposed to work…!

And suddenly, with another spurt of ink, an idea began to take hold in the devil's mind. Boris needed ink to heal, but the pipe wasn't giving him enough. He'd need more, a lot more, but the only place Bendy could get it in here was…

"…the ink machine." The murmur was barely audible in the newfound rumbling that seemed to seep through every board in the floor, but the idea had taken root nonetheless. Wasting no time, Bendy turned on his heel and dashed back through the door and down the hall, taking the right and then a left, leaping over the pipe and nearly falling flat on his face as he halted in front of the doorway to the churning mechanical monstrosity.

The reason he'd stopped so quickly was, well, if he didn't he would have crashed into what looked like some sort of hastily-made barricade. The door was blocked, a bunch of planks nailed to the bottom and one put in sort of vertical to the doorframe.

He couldn't go in.

The fact that the small toon hadn't heard any hammering, and the fact that they looked pretty solid given that the person doing the work could have only had a few minutes, immediately set him ill at ease. There were a bunch of odd ink splatters on the floor near the boards that almost looked like someone had walked in ink and tracked it in the hall. The ink machine itself was also making quite a bit of noise, Bendy able to see how much the thing was shaking through the spaces in the boards. The sight nearly caused the devil to groan; the last thing he needed right now was to break it…

Still, he wasn't about to completely ignore what seemed like a very clear warning to leave the machine alone, so instead of trying to climb through the gap in the boards Bendy inched closer to see if he could peer over the barricade. Maybe he could spot the reason they'd blocked the room…?

Something tall, black, and looming suddenly stood up, blocking the gap in the boards. Bendy immediately flung himself away, a startled and horrified scream erupting from his throat. Pushing his hat back, he caught sight of long limbs, thick and gloopy with ink, and something white at what seemed like the thing's chest. Not that the toon really cared beyond simple observation given that the monster started to break through the boards, a gurgling cry sounding off like a hunting horn. There was the faintest hint of a sound under the vocal mire, something that didn't quite fit. Bendy couldn't really care less at the moment, his attention more focused on scrambling to his feet and running for his life. Ink had begun to pour from everywhere, the ceiling, the walls, even seeping up through the floorboards. He'd honestly have been more disturbed by the volume of the stuff if he wasn't terrified senseless. The studio itself creaked and groaned, steam venting from spots that blurred in Bendy's vision as he ran past, the door to the other half of the floor slamming closed along with the other office doors.

Dashing down the hall and around the corner, the little devil almost skidded past the exit before grabbing onto the wall to stop his momentum, ink splattering about from both that and another door slamming closed on his right. Bendy could have cried with relief upon seeing the exit sign, though that hope became quickly dashed as he remembered that the door was still very much locked.

"C'mon, c'mon, don't do this to me, not now…!" The devil babbled, trying to twist the doorknob with both hands before he noticed the sound of gurgling, rapidly-dripping ink coming from somewhere behind him. He threw a frightened glance back, feeling a solid slab of panic settle into his gut as he took in the distinct shape of the ink monster as it started to round the corner and effectively trap him between it and the door. Completely giving in to terror, Bendy began to pound on the wooden paneling, a strangled cry for help escaping his throat though he couldn't look away as the creature came closer and closer.

It paused just a few feet away before it put its arm on the floor to pull itself further forward, causing something to creak and judder under Bendy's feet. The monster too noticed the shaking, as it pushed itself backwards just in time for the floor to drop away, and suddenly Bendy was standing on nothing at all.

Now in cartoons, that would have been a moment of great comedy, with perhaps a bracing grimace or a 'what're you gonna do' shrug right before the character dropped out of sight with a whistle of gravity taking effect. For Bendy, gravity took hold before the realization that he was falling did, the sight of things flitting through his field of vision as he fell past them driving a strangled yell from his throat.

Which cut off in a sploosh as the devil splashed down into a room flooding with enough ink to come up to his chest. Choking down a holler of pain as he impacted with the floor through his liquid cushion, Bendy surfaced with a sputtering gasp of air, picking out the shape of a dresser in the far corner of the room. Swimming through the ink, Bendy pulled himself up onto the relative safety, feeling very much like a drowned and injured rat.

Pain bloomed in the side that he had fallen on, and Bendy simply lay there for a moment as his mind caught up to his probably heavily bruised body.

He had fallen through a trap door. Someone meant for someone, maybe him, to fall down here. It was all on purpose, and it all made sense. The way Boris was…set up, just so he could be seen, the presence of the offerings, it was all done so that Bendy would turn the ink machine on. And, then down here. Whoever had set this all up, whether it be Joey or someone else, did not seem to be done with the devil just yet. Or perhaps it was some kind of weird trap designed to catch people that snuck in. The thought seemed absurd at first, but his memories lent some credibility to it when he recalled that the trap door was only tripped when the monster had put its weight on it along with his. Still, the exit door had been locked…

With all of these thoughts buzzing about his brain, Bendy was extremely tempted to just lie in that one spot, taking some solace in the somewhat naïve notion that nothing could happen if he just refused to continue being herded into whatever ink-soaked nightmare his old home had become. There was also the fact that falling from what seemed like a few stories had definitely done some damage, with pain pulsating through his entire left side, that also kept him curled up on the dresser for what seemed like a few minutes, watching as the level of the ink never seem to rise any higher than mid-chest height for him. It looked like it was draining somewhere, for sure. Question was, where?

What eventually got him to move, though not as quickly as he would have liked, was the sound of ink dripping down through the opening, as well as the echoes of something large and kind of incensed moving around at the top of the shaft. More than a little worried about the possibility of company, the devil rolled over to sit up, hissing a little when he tried to put weight on his left leg. Looking down, Bendy caught sight of a puffy swelling running from knee to at least his ankle, the faint dribbles of ink next to his foot hinting at open wounds.

Great…Still, he couldn't stay here. If the thing was coming down after him, what would probably be best for right now would be to get a head start.

Though with the ink at about his neck that might be easier said than done. Albeit, the longer Bendy sat up on the dresser the more he noticed that firstly, the flow down the chute was tapering off, and secondly, the floods were starting to lower as the ink drained out. If he had to guess, he would say that it was seeping out under the door he could now see across the room. Despite his disgust, the little devil forced himself to hop down once the dark floods were at his ankles, trying to keep his weight mostly off his injured leg and side.

Limping his way to the door, Bendy reached up and gave the knob a twist, hobbling on through. Now he was in a room with what looked like a long staircase, and though he knew his injuries wouldn't like what he was about to do, Bendy steadily began to limp his way down. The only bright side to the situation was that the more the little devil descended, the further down the ink level went, the way mostly clear except for a few slippery spots here and there on the steps. Three flights later it felt like someone had taken a hammer to his side and leg. Not to mention he could feel driblets of liquid running from his injuries to his feet. He'd be needing ink soon, without a doubt…

There was just the matter of finding some that wasn't just, sitting out somewhere, as while Bendy could say things weren't great he wasn't desperate enough to try whacking one of the pipes. Who knew what kind of bunk was swimming around in that stuff…

No, he'd be better off just finding some of the little jars he sincerely hoped had to still be somewhere in here. Maybe there was a closet around or something…

Like the one that sat to the right of the staircase he'd come down. Still, he wasn't optimistic enough to call that luck just yet. Wincing at the pain still pounding through his side like an annoyingly reliable drum-beat, Bendy limped his way to the dingy door, a slightly unsteady hand plying at the knob for a moment before getting the door open. Well, it wasn't stairs going up, but a hallway wasn't too bad…

Though it would probably be better if the hallway didn't end somewhere like a room where the only other way out was blocked by more boards, with a familiar scrawling on the wall to the devil's right proclaiming 'HE LIED TO US' with an ominously accusatory air. For a moment, Bendy was more than a little stumped, with heading back out of the question and the way forward blocked, until he caught sight of an old fire axe mounted above a table.

Thank everything that he didn't have to reach too much to get the darn thing because at this point Bendy was fairly certain that his side and foot would turn to mush if he had to put any more weight on them. The axe felt solid in his hands, and it took Bendy a few moments to figure out a way to swing it that didn't have him twisting too much. The boards placed across the opposite door were good practice for him to figure that part out. Even still, his side and leg were really not liking him by the time he was done. On the other side of the door was another cluster of old wood lying in his way, and by the time that was over he was quietly mouthing the word 'ow' on repeat as his hurts pulsated in time with his heartbeat. Rounding a corner, Bendy caught sight of another closed door at the end of the hall. Leaning on the axe for a spell before continuing on, the devil just focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

"Please, please be a closet wi' ink or somethin'." He muttered under his breath, reaching out to grab the knob and giving it a twist. To his relief, it wasn't locked, and opened easily.

Breathing heavily, the little devil stumbled into the room, and immediately paused at the sight of a pentagram drawn on the wooden floor with lit candles, followed up by three coffins on the opposite wall.

Please let there not be any actual bodies in here… Though despite the thought, Bendy couldn't help but realize that the presence of any more cadavers at this point probably wouldn't surprise him. Horrify him, definitely, but not surprise him. With his track record it seemed likely enough…

Also it was, getting hard to think all of a sudden though that could also be contributed to the pain still dully pounding through his left leg and side. The small toon took a few shaky steps forward, putting a foot over the border of the pentagram on the floor before he realized and feeling something akin to an earthquake start to ripple up his feet, the candles suddenly alit and filling the room with smoke. With a yelp, Bendy toppled forward into the circle, passing out the moment he hit the ink-stained floor.

-man's expression was like looking at someone that had had something thrown in their face and they hadn't quite recovered. It almost begged someone to actually do something, but Joey didn't move to stop the wide-eyed, disbelieving expression and Bendy started to feel uncomfortably on the spot.

"Well, Henry." His creator eventually said, breaking the silence. "Anything to say?"

"Joey, what is that?" 'Henry' responded, not taking his eyes off of Bendy as he spoke-

Dark hallway, he knew he wasn't supposed to be here but he kept going…

-we can go right now, Boris, let's just get Alice, an' we'll just go! No strings attached!" Bendy said, shoving the last of some ink bottles into the little bag as he got up and turned. His face fell as he looked up at Boris and took in the unsure, halting expression on the wolf's face. Somehow, he already knew what the taller toon was going to say before he even opened his mouth, and could only feel resigned as-

Everything nearly an inky black except for a ray of light from under the window curtain, the faint shapes of a desk, chair, bookshelves…

-flew through the air before he realized what had happened, Joey's harsh shout of 'OUT' echoing in his nonexistent ears as he connected with the opposite wall. Bendy lay there dazed for a moment before the sight of the door slamming closed registered. He drunkenly stumbled to his feet, running over to pound on the wood as he remembered what Joey said, how he couldn't be outside yet because people might try to hurt him.

"JOEY! Joey I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please le' me back in, Joey! Please! I-I don'-!" The devil stopped, feeling something dripping down the back of his head, reaching back and feeling a small patch of loose ink. He was hurt, he was stuck outside and he was hurt, there was no telling what could happen-!

A sudden gasp down the hall made the devil jump, slowly turning to make eye contact with a pair of men coming down the corridor to investigate the noise. There was a brief moment of silence, with both parties staring at each other before one of the men gave a shout followed by Bendy giving a terrified scream and bolting down the hall, frenetic noises and shouts echoing in his wake-

An old and worn book in his hands, the lettering hard to see in the low light but it doesn't look like anything Bendy'd been taught to read…

-Pain ripped through him as he slid down, rocks catching at inky skin and tearing gouges in the devil's back. Despite his best efforts Bendy let loose a yowl that sounded like it was erupting from his lungs, a way to hopefully release some of this agony rather than let it rattle at him any more than it already had. He came to a grinding halt at the bottom of the quarry, his limbs moving slower and with far more twitchiness than he'd like to flip over onto his front and push himself up. Every movement is like falling down the stairs again but so much worse somehow, sharp and dull all at once in a way that cut and pounded at the little toon's frame.

But the memory of his accident at the studio rattled other memories from Bendy's mind, ones of voices that calmed and stayed with him through the pain, hands that healed and carried him…

…ones that were no longer present. The more he tried to run, feeling ink stain the inside of his jacket and turning the fabric sticky and stiff, the more that fact hammered itself in with every pulsating throb of pain running through his back. He felt so completely alone. And he had no one to blame for that but himself-

Ink leaking in spurts from the pages, and though he'd moved it away from his face it still splattered everywhere, on his hands, his arms, a few drops on his face and there's a hissing, chittering, gurgling noise coming from the darkness around and all he wanted was to run run run RUN….

But it traveled up his arms, the little toon closing his eyes as he could feel something slippery jumping the gap between his head and his body to start to ooze over his face, images flashing through his mind's eye that made no sense, the ink machine, a wheelchair that he'd seen once before in a closet in Joey's office, a dark, empty space, but not so empty, the devil could see something moving in the black, many somethings, and somehow he knew he was being watched, faint shines like eyes beginning to appear, but so so many and they were all focused on him…

---

When Bendy opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that the axe was leaning up against one of the coffins, metal edge lit by the gentle flickering of the candles. The second thing was that he was feeling a lot less in pain then he remembered being when he'd initially hit the floor. Sitting upright, pie-cut eyes narrowed as he scanned his leg, looking for any hint of swelling or injury, and finding nothing. Brushing a hand across his left side didn't sting like he thought it would either, the white glove coming away clean. He looked, and felt, practically good as new.

For his immediate needs, this was great. No need to go scrounging around for ink for a good while.

However, if he were to start giving in to the paranoia that had his ear since last night, this could only lead to something worse. In all of his life, Bendy needed ink to completely heal from anything from a cut to a stomach ache to falling down a flight of stairs. The injuries he'd gotten from falling down that hole were among some of the worst he'd had, for them to just vanish like this…he'd never seen the like. And right now, coupled with the other things he'd been seeing today, the little devil had the distinct feeling that this wasn't going to be good for him in the long run.

Glancing down at the pentagram on the floor, Bendy hurriedly got to his feet, stepping out of the symbol and opting to observe it from the sidelines of the room. He'd never seen anything like this out on the streets, and, was pretty sure he'd never seen the like inside the studio either, although…

Something about this just set all of his internal alarms off, at least in a subtler way. Similar to the cutouts upstairs, or even the ink machine, Bendy felt like he had to keep an eye on the circle, had to watch it. And if he didn't…something else, something even worse than before would happen. He didn't know what, but he had this unshakable feeling that something was just a tick away from starting up, and he wasn't going to like what it was.

The feeling drew him back to the axe, and Bendy made quick work of the boards blocking the other door, reasoning that the less time he spent in the room the better. Also, heading back meant going back to where the shaft was, and he didn't remember seeing any other doors that way. Still, when he cleared the debris, the fact that he was greeted with more stairs going down was not something that made him feel any better regarding his situation.

What didn't help was the fact that when he approached the top landing he caught sight of a board dropping down onto the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

"Great…" He muttered into his scarf, carefully walking down just in case the steps were suffering from structural issues too. Reaching the bottom landing with no incident, Bendy continued on, only to come face to face with what looked like an altar of some kind, with little bowls set up and cans of bacon soup strewn about, lit candles offering some light to the whole, strange affair. If that had been all, perhaps he might have shown more of an interest in the food, it had been a while since he'd eaten, but above the altar was another bunch of dark letters, this time spelling out 'HE WILL SET US FREE'.

Yeah, maybe if he was well and truly starving, but there were times when stealing only brought you more trouble, like if the person you were stealing from happened to be crazy. Besides, these candles couldn't stay lit all of the thirty years since he'd been gone, someone had to be down here relighting them and replacing them when they burnt down. Whether that was Joey or someone else remained to be seen, but given what he'd seen upstairs, Bendy could say that he wanted to avoid a meeting if possible.

Nothing down here looked the least bit like it was going to help him, the presence of more coffins off to the right along with a familiar ink-circle drawn into the floor just cementing that fact in the little devil's mind. Yeah, he was going to be giving that set up a wide berth, thank you very much.

There was another weird-looking shrine off on the back wall, and Bendy meandered his way over after taking a good look around just to be sure that he was alone. The presence of a cutout down the hall didn't alleviate his nerves much, but they hadn't hurt him upstairs. Moved around, scared him, but didn't hurt him. Maybe that was a good sign?

"Yeah, an' maybe there's a way out around the corner…" Bendy muttered in an answer to his own thoughts, mood plummeting further at the realization that he was not at all sure where he was in the building. However, the dismal atmosphere was somewhat interrupted when he noticed another cassette deck on the other shrine. Maybe this one would have something worth listening to, like the one upstairs?

"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 that you hear me."

The voice sounded familiar, but the words were throwing Bendy off too much for him to really place who was speaking. The only thing he could really liken this to was one time on a city corner where there had been a man with a black book and signs. He'd been talking a lot about salvation and saviors, but something about the words or the tone had put off the devil, and Bendy had walked away as soon as he could.

"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."

Still nothing ringing a bell, but where in blazes had he heard that voice before?

"But, love requires sacrifice. Can I get an amen?"

The recording clicked off with a pop that rung through the decrypt room, Bendy jolting a little at the sound and his mind a-twirl with thoughts regarding what he had just heard.

And, coming from behind him...

"…I said, can I get an amen?"

Bendy practically leapt from his skin at the voice, the unrecorded, somewhere in this room, VOICE, a yelp almost breaking free from his lungs before he clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the noise. He didn't want to give anything down here more leverage when it came to sneaking up on him, especially when he was sure that none of it meant him well. At least, not a well that he would be comfortable with.

Still, as pie-cut eyes tried to sort through the dimness of the room and the hallway across, Bendy found that if there had been someone present before, they were gone now. He wasn't sure if the thought made him feel any better, but there it was. The little toon quietly inched down the shelf to get a better vantage point to look down the hall, pulling his scarf up in an automatic gesture. Still, nothing. He could make out the cutout, but they weren't exactly capable of producing noise. At least, as far as he knew.

Bendy froze for a moment, fear and logic both inputting that he wasn't safe here. Though while the latter stated that while there was someone else here, someone who might try to hurt him, and he had to keep going as there was nowhere to go back to, the former could only offer incoherent whimpering and curling up in some nook somewhere with the hope that things would blow over. It was, more tempting than it should be, honestly.

But logic won out, with the argument that if he kept going and got out of here he could have as much a breakdown as he wanted then.

Granted, there wasn't anywhere else he could go except forward.

Hefting the axe, Bendy slowly padded his way down the hall, trying to keep his footfalls as light as possible so as not to make any noise. Still, nothing loomed out from the darkness at him, and he easily reached the other end to stand face to face with another cutout, though this one had one of the ink circles scrawled on the wall behind it.

Yeah, no, he was already acquainted with the damage each of these things could do, he didn't need to see what would happen if they teamed up. Hurrying along, Bendy came to another doorway leading to a hall. What gave him pause was the fact that he couldn't see the floor. There were boards scattered about, just like everywhere else down here, but they didn't look like they were resting on anything.

Bendy took a step forward, and his foot sank into the substance with a small PLOOSH. Immediately he yanked himself back, now knowing exactly what was covering the entire hall and not liking what he would likely be doing in the next few minutes. A full-body shudder rippled through the devil's frame, and he had to suppress a holler of frustrated disgust at the whole situation. Given that he was a little less preoccupied by blind panic this time a bunch of thoughts regarding the connotations of walking through ink when it was basically what flowed through him like – no, don't even think that word.

Taking small, shuffling steps back to the doorway, Bendy briefly swallowed down a disgusted whine before taking a step forward, and ending up feeling like the air was sucked out of his lungs when he immediately plunged in up to just above the waist, axe automatically held over his head. The stuff was cold, thick, and he briefly wondered if the floor had just, rotted out or something ahead and he was just going to not be standing on anything and plunge out of sight and die down there and no one would find him 'cause no one would even know he was gone-.

Forcing his brain to just stop for a minute Bendy took a deep breath, letting it out in a whistling little whine that sounded far more pitiful than he'd like. And then he started to walk. Small steps at first, feeling out the uneven floor under the ink as he went. He held the axe over his head, though he paused for a half-second near some of the boards, just on the off-chance he needed to grab onto it for leverage or balance.

Bendy had gotten about three-quarters of the way to the end of the hall when a flicker of motion through the doorway up ahead caught his attention, causing him to instinctively freeze in place. A figure was walking through the hallway, someone tall and wearing mostly black. The most distinct thing was that they were carrying a Bendy cutout under an arm, the grinning face looking outward to where the little devil stood as they went past. Bendy didn't dare call out to the person, something a little more potent than his instincts from thirty-years of vagabonding keeping him quiet. However, once they'd gone by, he tried to slosh through the remainder of the ink as quietly as possible, climbing out onto the wooden floor and peering round the corner to see…

…No one, apart from the cutout sitting innocently in front of another circle drawn on the end wall. There wasn't even a door or another room that the figure could have gone to, just a hole to the left. Which hardly looked likely, given that from what Bendy had seen they'd been at least the size of a full-grown adult. The small toon would have a problem fitting in that gap himself, even if he took away the few boards nailed over it. The only other thing in the hall was a shelf on the right loaded with cans of what looked like more bacon soup, and from the looks of things it was part of the wall. Nowhere to hide, so where did that guy go?

On one front, it did sort of explain the disappearing act back with the recording, if the speaker and whoever that was were one in the same. On another, it was even more creepy to think of that there was someone wandering around who could just come and go like that with little to no warning.

All the more reason to get out of here as quickly as possible. Though for Bendy, the other end of the hall he'd walked into was blocked by what looked like a mechanized gate of some kind, judging from the panel next to it. Looking it over, he easily picked out a switch, but upon flicking it found that nothing happened, apart from it moving back into the off position. Great, perfect, now he was well and truly stuck…

Still he decided to take another crack at looking over the panel, noticing three little light bulbs lined up on the opposite end from the switch, all flashing on and off. They weren't buttons, but maybe…

Yeah, and? He was just going to find buttons off somewhere, right?

Bendy let some of his frustration out by thunking his head against the wall, at least three times. It would be like Joey to make things get as screwy as possible; that might actually be why he and the other toons were never shown this part of the studio…

Meandering his way back down the hall, Bendy looked to the shelf before walking over and grabbing some cans, his rummaging uncovering a small button mounted on the wall. The sight caused the devil to blink, pie-cut eyes looking from his find to the panel still visible at the end of the hall. As he pushed the small square button, a small light lit up on the corner of the plastic around it, and a glance down the hall confirmed that one of the lights had stopped flashing and instead stayed lit.

Well, one mystery solved, but he still needed to find two more from the looks of things. The devil combed the hallway for a moment before a suspicion started to build in his mind, and he turned back towards the ink-flooded hall. Bendy did try to go a little faster this time around, though as he stepped onto the mercifully solid wooden flooring he definitely knew he would need to get another jacket once he'd gotten out of here. The first of the two buttons was pretty easy, as it stood out against the wood of the shelf that the cassette deck was sitting on. The other one was, quite frankly, a headache and the only reason that Bendy found it was because his hand brushed it by accident when he was feeling out the ruins of what looked like a jukebox on one of the walls.

Oh well, he got it, now he could get that gate open and hopefully be one step closer to being out of this place. Another trip through the hallway and he was back at the panel, flicking the switch and watching as the metal slab rose up and revealed a small corridor and a boarded-up doorway. As soon as the gate was fully up, a light flicked on somewhere in the room beyond.

Well, that was useful if not kind of ominous.

Though, the one bright bit of sunshine in this was that once Bendy broke through the boards blocking the other doorway, he knew where he was. The music department, as the lit-up sign across the foyer room so helpfully pointed out to him. And if Joey hadn't changed the design of the music department then that meant…!

Bendy dashed to the right, going into the first doorway he saw with a smile starting to form on his face. Which dropped right away when he noticed the fact that the stairwell, the one leading down to the exit, a surefire exit from the building, was completely flooded with ink. From the looks of where the ink level sat on the door, trying to go through it would end with him soaked to his horns.

The toon devil just simply stood there, taking a few long blinks to confirm that what he was seeing was in fact true before he put down the axe. Holding up a finger to let the world at large know that he needed some time, he took his hat and scarf off, balled them up, and screamed into the wadded fabric.

It took about a couple minutes for him to be done with that, pale face a little flushed with his residual temper when he finally slipped the hat and scarf back on. He still wasn't quite done, instead taking a moment to gesture angrily at the ink pool as though it was responsible for everything going wrong. 'Course, it wasn't like the ink could answer back and give the devil something to actually yell at, so after a bit he simply slumped, reaching down to grab the axe before he noticed a switch on the wall. Joey had mentioned pumps somewhere in the building, maybe this was the way to turn one on?

The small bit of hope that the thought kicked up was quickly dashed, as when Bendy flicked the switch the only thing that happened was that the lights in the music department came on behind him. Silver linings, he'd have a bit more light to see by in order to figure this out. There had to be a pump switch somewhere, it just wasn't in the obvious place (thanks, Joey), so he'd just have to hunt around. At least he mostly remembered the layout of the music department, so that was something in his favor.

As Bendy walked back through the door, his eyes caught sight of some smears of ink at the base of the sign. A minute ago he would have said they were just puddles, but looking at them with the better lighting outlined the suggestion of a shape mired in the ink, like someone had balled something up and let it soak. Despite the thrill of foreboding that the sight induced, Bendy gulped and took a step closer, pie-cut eyes narrowing as he tried to figure out what was soaked in the ink.

Only to have it leap from the puddle into a half-humanoid shape, arms spreading wide like it was propelling itself up from the depths. A shriek catching in his throat, Bendy threw himself backward, feet almost tripping over themselves in their haste to get away from this new monstrosity. The situation only got grimmer when it began to pull itself forward by its arms, and outright left the puddle to start gliding across the floor towards the devil. Backing to the stairwell door Bendy instinctively raised the axe, swinging to connect with the thing's shoulder once it came close enough. The singular strike caused it to splatter across the floor, but its spot was immediately filled by another inky horror. This one actually came close enough for Bendy to have to push it away with the handle of the axe, his feet taking two more steps back as he finally worked up a swing. Remembering the massive puddle of ink behind him Bendy hurried to the side, letting a barrel be at his back while another three creatures tried to get him. One went down pretty quick, though the second tried to rush him from the right while the third came from the left. Taking a chance, Bendy dove in between them, spinning around just in time to see the two collide and fall to pieces.

Breathing heavily, the little devil stood there for two seconds before looking down and noticing that his foot was right near one of the puddles. With a choked holler, Bendy hurled himself away from the ink to land on the floor, scrambling backwards on his rear until he hit the wall. Cradling the axe to his front, the little toon huddled against the barrier, shaking and more than a little rattled.

What in blazes even were those, why did they look like people, what were they doing here, what happened what happened what the heck even happened?!

Despite the questions rushing through Bendy's mind, nothing gave him any answers. At least, nothing that made much sense. The only thing that happened was that the gate for the offices rattled open, and music began to play over the loudspeakers. The sudden bursts of sound and vibration caused the devil's small frame to jolt before balling up even more, eyes wide as he pushed his hat back from where it had started to slip. Though once the upbeat, showtunes melody sunk in, an incredulous snarl set in behind the scarf.

"Oh, just, joy, always wanted a good bit of SHOWTUNES T'SEND ME OFF WHEN I'M BEIN' MURDERED!" Bendy hollered up at the offending speaker, though if the person playing the music took any heed it wasn't terribly obvious. Huffing with frustration and nerves, Bendy got to his feet and stamped over, thinking of seeing if he could hit the thing with the axe before he noticed another cassette deck on a shelf under the speaker. Only problem was, one of the ink puddles was right under it. The odd lumps that had preceded the ink monsters were gone, but Bendy still shied away. Looking around, he thought for a moment before climbing up on the ledge of the sign and using that to reach the cassette deck. As he pressed play, the music cut off, leaving the recorded voice on the tape to play through unhindered.

"So first Joey installs this Ink Machine over our heads. Then it begins to leak. Three times last month we couldn't even get out of our department because the ink had flooded the stairwell. Joey's solution? An ink pump to drain it periodically. Now I have this ugly pump switch right in my office. People in and out all day. Thanks, Joey. Just what I needed. More distractions. These stupid cartoon songs don't write themselves you know."

The recording cut off with a pop, leaving Bendy to climb down from his perch in silence. He knew Sammy was a grouch, and honestly, they hadn't had much by way of overly positive interaction, but kept from leaving three times because of the Ink Machine leaking? That must have been some point before he was made, given that Bendy had never heard of this beforehand and from what he'd known, there'd always been a pump down here. Given his little episode a few minutes ago, he could more or less understand what he remembered of Sammy's temperament. Course it was thirty years too late, but better late than never, right?

Wait, Sammy said that the switch was in his office…! Bendy quickly turned to go down the hall, though his memories of where exactly the music director's office was was a little muddled so he opted to try the first door to the right. Which…opened up to a room with an organ in it.

This couldn't be Sammy's office, could it? If it was, the music director got a more rotten deal than Bendy had thought. The little devil crept his way across the room, peering about for a switch or a lever on the wall somewhere. And of course, nothing.

Sighing, Bendy backed up, stopping when his spine touched the organ. Without thinking about it he reached back and placed his axe on the keys, immediately yanking it away when the weight caused a cacophony of noise to ring out in the small room. Which was quickly followed by what sounded like an aggravated moan coming from behind the organ.

Bendy leapt back, axe rapidly going from being held at his side to up and at the ready in case something tried to break through the instrument to get at him. But, seconds crawled by, and nothing happened. The little devil slowly stepped back towards the door, backing through the doorframe without taking his eyes off the organ before he turned to the right and power-walked down the hall.

Alright, so hopefully that wasn't the place he needed to go, because he was pretty sure he was never going in there again even if his life depended on it. Besides, Bendy realized as he took a deep breath, it couldn't have been Sammy's office because the pump switch wasn't there. He was just…going to avoid thinking too hard on what happened. After getting jumped in the foyer Bendy was hardly going to trust anything that moved or made noise of its own accord in here.

He hesitated a few moments before trying the next door on the right, though this one certainly looked more like an office. Albeit, as Bendy walked in and peered around, he knew this couldn't be Sammy's office either. For starters, the presence of two desks seemed a bit out of place for a director's office; at least, he figured that Sammy being in charge of everything would get him his own spot. Catching sight of a can of soup on one of the desks, Bendy picked it up and brought it over to the light by the other desk so he could see. More bacon soup from the looks of it.

Well seeing as he hadn't really thought to grab any from that shelf before he got distracted by the switch, he slipped it into one of the outside pockets on his coat. On a whim he turned to glance up at whatever was on the second desk, and caught sight of what looked like paper with his character expressions penciled in. He could remember Henry talking about something like this, way back when. It was supposed to be a reference when it came to drawing characters, or made it easier to figure out how a character would look when they were feeling a particular emotion. Funnily enough, it was one for Bendy himself. Slightly less funny was the fact that whoever the artist was, they'd drawn his expression exactly the same for every prompt, a somewhat frozen smile that was a little too similar to what was on the cutouts.

Besides, Bendy liked to think he was a much more expressive guy than those lifeless bits of cardboard…

Leaving the room, he continued onward, getting to the end of the hall and catching sight of a sign hanging over what looked like a window to another office. Though the lighting still wasn't great, Bendy could make out Sammy's name, with an arrow pointing to the left.

Well, finally, something was going his way today, was the initial thought when he started to turn in the indicated direction, a faintly relieved smile playing across the toon's pale face. Which was rapidly dashed when he caught sight of the dip in front of Sammy's office door, filled to the brim with ink seeping down from some pipes over the entrance.

Another brief bit of hope presented itself with a closet to the right, but much to the devil's dismay, it was locked.

"Typical." Bendy began to mutter under his breath. "The only door that's locked on this floor might have the one thing I actually need…!"

Whirling back around, pie-cut eyes briefly scanned the disaster area that was the office entrance before alighting on a cutout propped innocently up just inside the depression in the floor. Before the little toon fully realized what he was doing, he marched over to his cardboard lookalike, and began ranting in a tone that never went higher than a stage whisper.

"You. You think this is funny? You're havin' a lotta laughs at my expense right now, aintcha? Well lemme tell you somethin' bucko, I am not happy wi' all this rigmarole that you got me doin' just t'get out of here! An' y'know what? I am so not happy that I'm seriously considerin' gettin' me some'a the candles, gettin' as many'a you as I can find an' settin' up a nice big bonfire t'show you just how not happy I am!"

Breathing heavily, Bendy maintained eye contact with the painted, grinning face before he realized that, weirdness or no, he'd just spent the last few minutes thoroughly chewing out an object of ink and cardboard. Y'know, instead of doing the smart thing like trying to figure out how to get through the door so he could use the pump and get out of here?

Rubbing the heel of a hand into one of his eyes, Bendy had to admit that whatever boost he'd gotten from the circle back there had long-since started to fade. Now everything down here along with his nerves were just making him more exhausted but he didn't dare consider the possibility of sleeping. Not with all those things lying in wait somewhere, along with whatever or whoever the heck that was, that he still hadn't seen hide nor hair of since back on the other side of the gate.

Turning with a completely drained sigh, Bendy was about to head back down the hall when his eyes caught sight of something perched on a shelf over the ink puddle; another cassette deck.

Well, it was probably worth at least trying to listen to it, the majority of the other ones had been helpful or informative in some way before, apart from that weird street preacher one. Still, it begged the question of how the little devil would go about accomplishing that, given that in order to come within range of pressing the play button he'd have to go into the ink. And after what happened back in the foyer he wasn't about to take any chances with puddles of any size, no sir.

However, looking at the axe did give Bendy an idea…

Standing on the edge, the devil took a moment to balance himself before reaching out with the head of the axe, trying to hook the tape deck and pull it towards him. It took a bit of wrangling, and Bendy almost ended up throwing himself forward to catch the thing when it dropped, but everything worked out, and he was now in the possession of one cassette deck.

Going to the other side of the hall just to get some distance between him and the ink, Bendy sat down next to the closet door, pressing play and settling down to listen.

"So I go to get my dust pan from the hall closet the other day and guess what? I can't find my stupid keys. It's like they disappeared into thin air or something. All I can think of is that they must have fallen into one of the garbage cans as I was making my rounds last week. I just hope nobody tells Sammy. Because if he finds out I lost my keys again, I'm out of here."

Bendy blinked as the recording clicked off, mind going in two separate directions. The first was that Wally's keys, the keys for the closet he was currently sitting next to, were around here somewhere, in a garbage can? The second was that the janitor's thoughts regarding Sammy were likely right on the money; the music director tended to be brusque, with a somewhat brittle temper on some days. Bendy had often wondered why Sammy seemed particularly hard on Wally but if ink leaks were such a common problem, then maybe there was a reason behind it. Not a very good one to yell at Wally for seeing as he did work and tried hard to keep up with things, but it was a reason.

Alright, so he had to find the keys…if the closet didn't yield anything worthwhile then Bendy figured he'd try to break the glass of the window with the axe. He decided to go looking room by room, though the one with the two desks didn't have anything beyond paper, and from his vantage point in the doorway Bendy could see that there wasn't a garbage can near the organ.

Across from that room was another little knoll, leading down into what looked like it might've been a stairwell if not for the fact that it was filled to the top step with ink. Glancing up at the wall above brought Bendy's attention to a sign, the paint chipped but the words legible enough for him to read even in the low light; INFIRMARY.

And, in smaller print under that was spelled out: Anyone found faking illness will be docked a full weeks wages. NOT SICK, NOT PAID.

Had they always had that sign? Maybe, but Bendy could say for sure that he'd only ever come down into the music department a handful of times. If it was there, he hadn't paid much attention to it. Looking back on it, from the perspective of thirty years away from the confines of the studio, the little devil had to admit that the policy seemed more than slightly warped. How was one to be judged when it came to 'faking', after all?

Still, even with his gripes, the fact remained that he certainly couldn't go this way. Heading back out into the hallway, Bendy hurried back through the foyer. There was another trash can there, though that one didn't have anything out of the ordinary in it either. Continuing on around the sign, Bendy trudged into a little alcove with a door, some stairs leading up somewhere, and a poster of Alice's debut cartoon on the wall. The sight caused the devil to pause, something quietly lost and forlorn flitting over his face before he caught himself. Still, the bit of paper was the closest he'd come to actually seeing the angel since he'd gotten here…

Shoving the thoughts aside, because he knew they wouldn't do him any good spinning around his brain when he was trying to get out of this deathtrap, Bendy moved to check the trash can sitting next to the wall. He still came up empty. Well, at least there were other options to try, though Bendy stole another glance at the poster as he opened the door—

-he hurt, everything hurt, though at least he'd stopped falling. That was the one ray of sunshine in what seemed like the pulsating mass of pain his body had become. Bendy knew he should have been more careful, knew that bits of the studio were falling apart and everything needed a tune-up as of twenty years ago, but he'd thought the door had been locked, which was why he'd leaned on it in the first place. He certainly didn't expect to go tumbling backwards down a flight of stairs.

The dissonance from a pair of voices overhead caused the little devil to try moving, only to wince with a pained whine as his many hurts protested at even the suggestion. Still, he knew who was speaking; they'd seen him fall.

"B'ris? 'lice?" He mumbled through what felt like a bruised jaw, trying to open his eyes to see though only the left responded to his instructions. Both toons were looking down at him, Boris's expression stricken in the low light, and Alice had a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide as they stared. Bendy shifted, trying to maybe turn himself over given that he kind of landed in a weird position, but the resulting hurt felt like fire running through his ink, an agonized wail sliding from his mouth before he could stop it.

The noise spurred the pair into action, both falling into a kneel next to the prone devil, though Bendy's senses greyed for a moment as he tried to power through the pain without passing out. When he opened his eye again Boris was gone and only Alice was present. She'd gently eased his battered head onto her lap, a hand resting on the left side of the little devil's head while the other rubbed hesitant lines into his shoulders, doing her best to avoid any lumps, swelling, or leaks of ink.

"Al-Al'ce?" He asked, tongue feeling thick in his mouth, which made sense given that he was fairly sure he'd bitten it on the way down the stairs. Still, something was wrong… "Bo-ris?"

"It's alright, Bendy, Boris just went to go get Henry and Joey, they'll be here soon. Everything will be alright." Alice jumped in, her face giving the best comforting smile she could muster to the foggy, heavily bruised pair of eyes staring up at her. Why wasn't his other eye opening? His left arm stung a little when he moved it, though before he could even come within range of touching his face Alice carefully snagged his hand and lowered it back to the floor.

"It's alright Bendy, just don't try to move too much. Your eye's just bruised is all." Well, that explained plenty, though Bendy had the feeling his eye was the least of his worries at the moment. Suddenly, something occurred to the little toon, and he felt a lopsided smile start to settle achingly into his face.

"Bendy?" Alice asked, eyes furrowing in incomprehension at the strange look.

"B'ris sai' I on-ly needed on' acciden' t'happen. 's gonna never lemme live it down." Bendy gave another slow blink, the sharp pains from before starting to fade though the duller aches remained. "Th'ght the door w's locked…"

"It, usually is." Alice conceded from over his head, eyes briefly glancing around the mostly dark landing before snapping back to Bendy as his singular eye slid closed, soreness and exhaustion starting to drag him down into mercifully painless darkness. "Bendy, stay awake, please? I don't think you're supposed to try sleeping when you're this hurt."

It, sounded like a reasonable bit of medical advice, but the devil really didn't want to stay awake when every part of his body felt like it had been hit with a hammer and his head was starting to pound in time with the other aches. However, the fact that a tremor had had made its way into the angel's previously calm tone was enough of a reason for Bendy to force his eye open again, though focusing on anything was extremely difficult all of a sudden.

"Hurts, Al." The little toon couldn't help but whine, his eyelid starting to slide down again despite his best efforts.

"…It certainly looks like it does." The angel replied faintly, her thumb brushing under his left eye. A clatter at the top of the stairs caused Alice to look up to the top landing, though Bendy finally lost the fight with his exhaustion and his eye closed, mind sinking into a half-present haze. He could faintly hear voices, recognizing Alice, Boris, and Henry.

"-he alright?"

"Where's Joey?"

"Couldn't come fast enough with…just bring him upstairs. Joey'll help him."

The sensation of being lifted caused a wave of pain to roll through the little toon's body, a whimper easily met by a calming voice, Henry's voice, quietly speaking reassuring phrases and bits of nonsense to the little devil, lulling him back into a half-asleep haze-

-Bendy blinked, the room swimming into focus as he rose up from the memory-induced fog. Out of all of the things he was expecting to see behind the door, a pool table wasn't one of them. There was also another gate sitting on the opposite end of the room, though the devil found it was stuck tight. Quite frankly it looked as though it hadn't moved in years. That observation in mind, Bendy figured that maybe he really didn't need to see what was back there. Not to mention there weren't any trash cans in here.

His loop around the room did alert him to the fact that the billiard balls were set up like somebody was raring for a game. Bendy paused to consider the table more closely, peering over the lip of the border at the triangular formation. How did one play this game again…?

Oh, right, they had to hit the white one and use that to steer the balls into the holes. At least, Bendy thought that might've been how it went, he hadn't exactly had a wealth of opportunities to play.

Operating on a spark of impulse, not to mention the place was dead quiet, Bendy levied the axe to rest on the edge of the pool table and angled it to strike the white ball. With a series of clicks, the triangle shattered into individual balls rolling all about the billiard table. Bendy was about to try hitting it again before he noticed something odd about one. What he had at first thought was a design similar to the other balls was instead revealed to be an iris and pupil, all the more visible as it rolled around on the old pool table. Not to mention, it certainly wasn't pie-cut or toony in any way. He was definitely looking at someone's eyeball. A real, human eyeball.

Bendy's stomach flip-flopped at the realization, his feet shakily carrying him out of the room. Closing the door behind him the little devil immediately hurried for the stairs, hoping to put some distance between himself and…that.

Despite the adrenaline from the whole experience the spurt of energy was quick to run dry. Bendy's steps had slowed by the time he got to the top of the stairs, head hanging and tail dragging against the floor. Absently, he noted that he was in what looked like the projectionist's booth, though for the moment he paid it no mind. Instinctively he went for the space between a chair and the wall, shaking slightly as he eased down to sit. There was a garbage can in the corner, though that was as devoid of keys as the rest. Instead of getting back to his feet to continue Bendy stayed balled up on the floor, head resting on folded arms as his shoulders shook. He didn't move for a long while, the eventual start of a headache causing him to creakily raise his head to massage in between his eyes and catch sight of some spots of ink dotting his sleeves.

It was annoying, but it wasn't as if he had no idea about what might have been behind the sudden burst of pain. He had been losing a fair amount of ink since he'd woken up, it was only natural that there be some physical symptom starting to make itself apparent. There'd certainly been no shortage of things for him to get stressed over. Also he hadn't exactly eaten anything since the warehouse, however long ago that was. The slight shape in the devil's pocket reminded him of the soup, and he pulled out the small can to have a closer look. Still bacon soup, and he could make out nothing that looked like an expiry date…

On a whim he cracked open the top, giving the stuff inside a hesitant sniff. The odor of pork product was more than a little present, his mouth twisting but the devil did have to concede that there was no familiar rotten reek that would have been present if it had gone off. Just concentrated grease and bacon odor.

Before he could think too hard on what he was about to do (or get another whiff and loose his nerve), Bendy threw the can back and drained the soup in three gulps. Shuddering at the feel of the syrupy, gloopy mush traveling down his throat, the little toon put the can in the garbage as he wiped his mouth on his ink-spotted sleeve, and tried not to think too hard on how great it would be if he had some water to wash the taste out of his mouth. While he was trying to clean up, his eyes happened to light on a cassette deck perched on the railing of the booth, right next to a projector. Curiosity exhaustedly piqued, Bendy reached up to grab it, pulling it down to rest on the floor next to him as he pressed play.

"Every day the same strange thing happens, I'll be up here in my booth, the band will be swinging, and suddenly Sammy Lawrence just comes marching in and shuts the whole thing down. Tells us all to wait in the hall. Then I hear him. He starts up my projector, and dashes from the projection booth and down to the recording studio like the little devil himself was chasing behind. Few seconds later, the projector turns off. But Sammy, oh no, he don't come out for a long time. This man is weird. Crazy weird. I got half a mind to talk to Mr. Drew about all this, I really do. But then again. I have to admit…Mr. Drew has his own peculiarities."

Though tiredness still pulled at his limbs and thoughts, the flow of information was enough to get Bendy's brain going again. From what he remembered Sammy had been many things, but he wasn't crazy, often having a sharpness to him that was only rivaled by Joey. If he did this not just once but multiple times, there had to be some kind of reasoning behind it. Especially if this was still following the ink machine and Sammy was dealing with the leaks and the pump being in his office. It must have been one heck of a secret if Sammy was the only one to know about it; Bendy would have thought that the sharp-eyed projectionist Norman Polk might've known a little more. The behavior itself didn't seem crazy, per say, insomuch as just odd. Then again, it wasn't like he and Sammy were pals, so maybe he'd figured something out while he was holed up down here. If anything, Boris and Alice were…

Bendy stopped that line of thought right there, shaking his head against his folded-up arms before pulling himself to his feet.

He didn't have time to reminisce or get upset. He needed to keep going. He could have that breakdown once he got out of here. All of these were put as fuel to the devil's mind, like promises for a job well done, much like Joey and to a lesser extent Henry would do for him and the others, except failure in this case would likely mean severe injury or death, so…

…just stop thinking for a bit.

Peering down to the band stage, Bendy noted the presence of a cutout down in the middle of the instruments with a touch of wary irritation. That would be fun to deal with…Still, nothing really looked too out of the ordinary…

There might be a couple more garbage cans he could check though. Even still, with the words on the recording resonating through Bendy's mind it seemed only fair that he give the projector a try.

The machine clicked on easily enough, the reel playing a blank white screen which dark, pie-cut eyes stared at before concluding that nothing was going to happen, and he might as well get a move on. The little devil hurried down the stairs and came round to the other end of the sign, continuing right this time instead of down to the offices. Silently opening the door, he stiffened upon noticing that the cutout was gone from the band stage, and from the room entirely it seemed. Unless it had tucked itself away behind the door.

A quick, cautious glance confirmed that that was not the case, and the little devil tried to keep a solid knot of dread from tying up his stomach. Passing a look up at the ceiling as he walked in, Bendy noticed the projector quietly click off overhead, his eyes drifting from that booth to the one next to it.

Tilting his head, the devil tried to see what was in the other compartment. Actually, now that he thought of it, how did anyone even get up there? He was pretty sure he'd gotten to the other doors and there hadn't been-.

The horribly familiar sight of a frozen grin cut the little toon's thoughts off cold, and his feet skittered back against the stage. His brain only caught up with what his body was doing when the sudden resistance caused him to fall backwards onto his rear. Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to look away, given that he knew without a doubt he was looking at the same cutout that had been down on the stage just a minute ago. Was there another door around somewhere?

A brief, cursory look revealed nothing, but there was a recording booth lit up across the room, a door clearly present. Glancing between the cutout and the booth, Bendy walked closer to the other end, reaching up to see if he could maybe put a hand through to the inside and nope, that's glass. Passing another look up at the cutout just to be sure it hadn't moved, Bendy's eyes landed on another gate. It looked exactly like the one that had let him into the music department, maybe that was the way to get to the other booths?

…If that was the case, maybe he'd better not open it. Granted, what were the odds that he'd end up needing something behind this? Too high at this point, given his luck.

Though something that had been said on the recording upstairs was starting to come back to Bendy, the mention of Sammy turning on the projector and running down here, even going so far as to stop the whole band mid-recording. Maybe this was where he had been going? But if that was the case, why did he have to be so cagey? Pressing the side of his head to the gate, all Bendy could feel was a slight vibration through the metal. Not strange in and of itself, everything kind of vibrated in the studio from what Bendy remembered. Maybe there were mechanical parts or something…

Stepping back from the door, the little toon looked back up at the booth over his head just to confirm that yes, the cutout was still there before catching sight of another garbage can next to the piano. And, lo and behold, this one actually managed to produce a set of keys. As he turned, Bendy ended up facing the recording booth again, and this time his eyes lit on something under the window.

It looked like another cassette deck, the sight of which gave Bendy only a half-second's pause before he picked it up, deciding to settle himself partially behind the piano. He glanced up again before he hit play.

"It may only be my second month working for Joey Drew, but I can already tell I'm gonna love it here! People seem to really enjoy my Alice Angel voice. Sammy says she may be as popular as Bendy some day. These past few weeks I have voiced everything from talking chairs to dancing chickens. But this is the first character I really felt a connection with. Like she's a part of me. Alice and I, we are going places."

This was…Alice's voice actor, right? What was her name again? Bendy could remember her a little, though she'd often be down here and so busy that he maybe only got to meet her a handful of times and usually in passing. She seemed very nice, perhaps Alice knew her better than the devil did his own voice actor.

Actually in retrospect if how Alice's voice actor had viewed Alice was any bit different from how Bendy's voice actor had viewed him then Alice was probably way better off.

And, while it had been nice, the little toon figured that he better get a move on with unlocking the closet. He left the tape deck on the floor and ran out, giving one last look to the cutout in the booth before leaving. Heading back down the hall, Bendy couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief once he'd managed to get the closet door open. Though at first, he was a little underwhelmed by what he found. Just some more weird food things in what seemed like little bowls of ink, some unlit candles, and he couldn't even begin to have a hope of seeing what was on the topmost shelf. However, one bit of proverbial sunshine came in the form of another cassette deck sitting up on the middle shelf. Bendy pulled it down and tucked himself against the side wall of the closet before pressing play.

"Every artistic person needs a sanctuary. Joey Drew has his and I've got mine. To enter, you need only know my favorite song. The banjo playfully clucks, the bass fiddle sings with deep articulation, the drums thunder in triumph, the violin shudders with a piercing voice, the drum echoes out once more. Sing my song and my sanctuary will open to you."

And with that, the tape clicked off, leaving Bendy in silence. Well, he definitely knew what Sammy had been doing when he'd run downstairs to the studio from the projector booth; he was playing the combination for this, sanctuary. Judging from what he'd heard earlier, the projector also needed to be running as well, or else why would Sammy have taken the time to turn it on?

Question was, did Bendy really need to get into the sanctuary? He wasn't sure what could be in there that would be useful to him now, except maybe the opportunity to take a break. However, breaks weren't what he wanted, he wanted to get out of here!

Maybe, maybe there would be something that would help him, though honestly the little toon couldn't see how, unless it was something to get rid of the leak in front of Sammy's door-.

Wait, what if it was?

The thought firmly in mind, and really it wasn't as though the devil had very many options at this point, Bendy walked out of the closet and immediately looked up at a flicker of motion in front of him. There was another ink-covered horror coming from the pool across, drawing towards the devil. Its form glistened eerily in the light as it pulled itself down the hall, Bendy not reacting as fast as he would have liked though his axe left a sizable impression in its head. It stopped, fingers and arms twitching to a halt inches from the little devil's frame before the whole body fell apart into loose ink, leaving a small puddle, and a very startled and disturbed toon in its wake.

His breathing was coming a little too fast, he realized as his feet began to back him up into the closet door and his fingers were gripping the axe with such force that it was starting to hurt. He needed to…stay calm, that was it, just stay calm. He could go check out Sammy's sanctuary and hopefully, fingers crossed, there would be something that he could use to get him at least one step closer to getting out of this nightmare.

Almost there, just breathe, in and out, that was it…

It took a few minutes, but eventually Bendy managed to stave off the jitteriness and maneuver himself down the hall, a little more guarded than before and with adrenaline still rattling about his system. Passing a glance at the organ room, the devil came level with the end of the hall, and almost had all of his hard work undone when a puddle disgorged another dark, gloopy monster which beelined towards Bendy. In this case the nerves came in handy, as the toon devil was quick to bring his axe down on the thing's head.

To his credit, Bendy didn't freeze up quite like he did before, but there was a brief moment of disorientation before he remembered that he had to turn on the projector first. His legs didn't shake too bad on the stairs, and by the time the toon reached the booth he'd managed to get his breathing back under control, taking a few more moments to steady himself with his hands clenched tight over the axe handle. Bendy didn't dare close his eyes though, still gazing down the stairway as though waiting for something to come up and trap him in the booth.

It took a few minutes to come out of the panicky haze, but Bendy eventually snapped back into the mindset of what he knew he needed to do; turn on the projector and run downstairs to play the instruments below. A gloved hand shakily reached up, taking a moment to find the button before turning the mechanism on just as his feet pushed off on the floor.

Bendy was almost embarrassed to say that it took him three tries to actually get the set-up needed, and if he were to blame anything in particular it would be the lack of reach his legs had when running and the fact that corners were involved. What made it even worse was what the cutouts were doing while this was going on; instead of simply hiding around corners waiting to scare him, they moved from the band stage to the other booth that Bendy couldn't get to, and grew in number from a mere two to at least five by the time he was done. Even still, he did manage to get the right combination of instruments played before the projector turned off on the fourth go around. Panting with the amount of heat having built up under his clothing, Bendy had a moment to gloat, sticking his tongue out at the cutouts before a sudden grinding noise caused the little toon to yelp and try squeezing himself into the shadow of the drum. He waited a few moments before stepping cautiously out and to the edge of the stage, coming down to see that the gate was now open, light casting long rays across the floor.

So this was Sammy's sanctuary, the devil thought as he stepped quietly to stand next to the piano, looking into the room to see a long hallway with instruments tucked away on the sides. The corridor branched off, keeping him from seeing what lay at the end of it though with no other options Bendy treaded carefully inside. Coming around the corner, the devil paused at the sight that met his eyes, for a few, varied reasons.

One reason was that the floor was occupied by another one of the spell-circles that Bendy had been seeing all over the place, this one bigger, and nearly encompassing the few pieces of furniture in the room. The other reason was that apart from the presence of a desk, a stool, and a banjo, the circle was also partially eclipsing the space a toilet occupied. The contrast was almost comedic, Bendy not sure if he was to be afraid of the scene or think it funny. Even if nothing in the studio seemed particularly primed to be. What completely drove even the very idea of humor from the situation was the writing on the wall behind the desk.

SING A HAPPY SONG

WHISTLE A MERRY TUNE

WAIT FOR HIS ARRIVAL

HE'S COMING VERY SOON

…If this was in the same vein as the 'HE WILL SET US FREE' messages, Bendy was fairly sure he wanted to hurry up and get out of here as quickly as possible. It did cause the gears in his mind to turn, the idea presenting itself that Sammy had written this. But, from what the little devil remembered, the crazy ramblings seemed so unlike the music director. Sammy had been kind of sarcastic, a little grumpy, to the point that Bendy wondered precisely how Boris got on so well with the musician.

Small miracles though, there was in fact a valve that looked like it might be the one that cut the ink flow to the broken pipe in front of Sammy's office. Even had a nice little sign on it saying so. Edging around and trying to keep his eyes on the circle as well as the objects partly in it, Bendy managed to make it to the wheel.

Unfortunately, he had to turn in order to make a dent in actually moving it, and his feet were just on the rim of the circle inked into the floorboards. As Bendy looked away from the scene, shuffling his axe in his arms to grab the wheel, a faint noise started to rise in his ears. A sort of whispering, like what he'd heard upstairs in the room with Boris. He hadn't paid much attention to the sound at the time, but with the adrenaline powering him Bendy felt like his senses had been upped to the nth degree. Which let him realize that the noise was definitely not the pipes hissing. But, if it was whispering, then where was it coming from?

Glancing back at Sammy's bizarre little setup, not to mention the writing on the wall, Bendy's gaze dropped down to the circle, eyes widening for a moment as a brief flash of intuition went through his mind. Another memory briefly pushed through, of what had happened in that room with the coffins, the thought crowning the panic that roared to life in the little devil's mind. Yanking the wheel, he managed to make it creakily turn on its axel, frantically pushing until he wasn't able to push it any further. Whirling around, Bendy made sure he was holding the axe at the ready as he skirted the edge of the circle before speeding in the direction of the door.

And jolting to a halt when he saw a familiar painted grin pull out of sight just past the doorframe. The devil paused entirely, axe lifting a little higher as he considered his options. He couldn't stay here, and the last time he'd seen a cutout do this, it really hadn't led to any harm. The worst that had happened was he'd been spooked, and that was a pretty easy thing to fix. Just remember that he was almost out, almost gone. He could panic later.

Taking one step, then another, Bendy inched his way down the rest of the passage, coming back out to the music studio. His eyes went to the booth over the piano and immediately the little toon felt ice settle in his guts, stance growing hunched and guarded though he kept his gaze riveted to the space.

The very much occupied space, though this time it wasn't just by cutouts. Shifting around in the shadows of the booth and appearing to look down at him, Bendy could see the person from the hallway. Given the fact that they were stationary this time, the devil could make out how they weren't just dressed in black, more than they were composed of it, with a pair of overalls that reminded Bendy of Boris, and a mask of the toon's own, eerily smiling face affixed to theirs. Next to them was one of the cutouts, though the devil dismissed that as one of his problems.

A sudden gurgling noise caused the toon to rip his gaze from the figure, looking forward to see a bunch of ink puddles, ones that he was sure weren't there when he'd gone in. All had a whole mess of dark, half-formed horrors spew forth, making their way to where Bendy was.

To his credit, the little toon didn't scream, barely made a sound and even got the axe ready just in time to give a broad, sweeping swing that cut through the first two of the pack. A third almost snuck up behind the fallen, with Bendy managing to reverse the swing quickly enough for the creature to not grab him and instead get an axe through the shoulder. Another two immediately followed, forcing the devil to skitter to the side to get some distance and build up momentum. He managed to get one but missed with the second. The toon hurriedly reworked his grip to drive the axe into the thing's chest just as its arms started to reach past the flimsy protection to grab onto his coat. Just as the long fingers began to curl around his arm it dissolved, Bendy swallowing to stop himself from focusing too hard on how close it had been.

And now things were quiet, ink puddles fading and the noise of fighting echoing off the high ceiling before leaving the toon in silence. Creakily he looked up at the booth, and fought down another squeeze of fear to his insides when he realized that the person from before was still very much present, and was sitting there rocking back and forth on what seemed like their heels.

Whoever it was, they were crazy, had to be. Nobody just watched someone fight for their life like that and didn't do anything, barely even said anything and just stared like that.

While Bendy still had no idea who the person was, and still had even less of a clue as to what was happening or what role the figure overhead had to play in all of this, he knew for a fact that he didn't want whoever that was near him. Didn't want them touching him, didn't even want to be under that line of sight any longer.

Taking his eyes off the person just to be sure he wasn't about to run into the doorframe, Bendy raced out of the room and down the hall before something occurred to him, causing his steps to slow to a jog. Whoever that was had been in the booth next to the projector, blocked off by a wall. The devil was also plenty sure he'd opened all the doors, and there were none that had led him to the other booth. And, even if the person tried climbing down or across, they likely wouldn't be able to do it without hurting themselves, which would slow them down and give Bendy more time to get away.

While the thought did bring a slight ray of sunshine to the situation, the mood plummeted at the sight of Sammy's office door, with a puddle of ink still blocking it. Forcing back a frustrated, borderline hysterical scream, the little devil considered the window looking into the office, wondering if he could swing the axe hard enough to break through. Course, that would involve walking through the ink puddle along with broken glass and after everything he'd experienced Bendy was pretty sure that would only end so well.

…Okay, think. The valve in Sammy's sanctuary had to have been for something, maybe it was somewhere else he could go, somewhere which might have another valve?

The question caused an idea to form in Bendy's mind, the devil heading back down the corridor to see if his hunch had been correct. Turns out, he'd been right; the infirmary stairwell had been completely drained of ink, with the room below looking clear too.

Alright, he'd try this. But if it turned up nothing he was going to go back to the idea of using the axe.

Carefully descending the stairs, Bendy came upon a relatively small room, with a couch, a cot, and a table with a few chairs and a record player sitting atop it. The floor was more than a little slick with ink, forcing Bendy to be careful as to where he put his feet. He only had a moment to take it in before a shape rose from one of the puddles with a faint groan, the devil instinctively swinging at the noise and managing to behead the half-formed monster. Keeping a careful eye on the other puddles, Bendy edged a little further in, catching sight of what looked like a switch on the far wall, next to the cot. There was a sign above it that was partly in shadow, though the little devil was able to make out the words once he'd gotten a little further in; UTILITY ACCESS.

There was also another pipe sitting against the wall next to the switch, with a spot for a valve, though the wheel itself was missing.

…Well, at least the switch gave him something to work with. Pulling it caused a faint vibration to run through the floor, a sound like a raising gate echoing up from a door that Bendy saw as he turned to look. Hesitantly padding across to the landing, the devil peered down the decrypt staircase. He definitely could say for certain that he wasn't looking forward to this, but, on the off-chance that there was another valve down there…

Thankfully, there were no further surprises on the stairs themselves, though when Bendy got to the bottom, immediately seeing the open gate on his right, he checked to the left and saw a meshed-in opening, a space reminding him of a sewer beyond it.

A space that curved to the left, with a light down at the end casting a shadow on the wall. A shadow that looked suspiciously like the person that he'd seen up in the booth back when he'd gotten out of Sammy's sanctuary.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, and internally screaming about how had they even gotten down here, Bendy skirted towards the right, facing forward just in time to see a message written on the wall directly across from the door.

DOWN HERE WE'RE ALL SINNERS

Oh, well if that wasn't just cheery…Though Bendy couldn't say he was overly happy about the fact that he'd ended up in an ink-logged sewage tunnel. Out of all the things he could say he'd done in thirty years, walking through a sewer wasn't one of them. Once Bendy'd learned what they were, he'd also learned that it was best to stay away for the sake of his nose.

However, much like before, there was another surprise to the left. Part of the tunnel had been blocked with a couple boards, nowhere near enough to hide the bobbing, half-formed shape that sat on the other side. With the right being the end of the tunnel Bendy was forced to edge towards the monster, fueled by the thought of the masked person and what might happen if they managed to find a way through to him. What the devil found was that he needn't have worried, as the monster sunk back down into the ink once he came close.

This did not stop Bendy from seeing first the bowler hat that the thing was wearing, and then that it was holding the missing valve in its hands.

"Hey-!" He hissed out, desperation forcing him to reach through the boards after it, but it was far too late. The monster had already submerged and looked to be long gone along with the valve. Still, he now had a heading, he just had to find it again!

Swinging his axe, Bendy chopped through the lower plank before starting forward, throwing a glance or two behind him just in case the masked person was following. That effort only worked until the tunnel started to curve up ahead and brought into sight another bit of writing on the wall.

THE SHEEP WILL COME TO SLAUGHTER

It made Bendy's sloshing rush stall, the devil questioning if coming down here had been the right idea. Things like that certainly seemed to suggest otherwise, though with the memory of Sammy's still-flooded door coupled with the ink-logged exit pushed him to go further. He just had to be quick, just get in and get out, his options were already limited as it was. Briefly, the smaller toon entertained the thought of going back up and trying to find something else to use, maybe put together a makeshift valve, but he relinquished the idea given that it would take too long. With a masked nut and monsters roaming the music department, every second counted.

An odd light source drew Bendy's attention to what at first looked like a hole in the wall, before he came up on it and realized that it was, for all intents and purposes, a fully-fledged office. The sight was almost mind-boggling in and of itself, as who in the heck would be crazy enough to work down here?! Not only did everything absolutely reek of ink at the moment, Bendy could only assume that when there were people frequenting the studio, this had actually been used as a sewer. Which meant that there would have likely been all kinds of disgusting…sewer-y things that he wasn't going to think too hard about given the ankle-deep fluid he was sloshing in. He sincerely hoped it was all just ink, though remembering the eye he'd found on the billiard table, Bendy wasn't sure he'd waste too much time trying to give a definitive and researched answer. It being ink was bad enough, in all honesty…

However, the spot did give the devil ample space to stop for a breather and take stock, not to mention that there might be something of note. Hauling himself up onto the 'floor', Bendy peered about at a desk, a chair with a violin resting next to it, and a cassette deck sitting on the desk amidst old sheets of paper. Quickly checking that company wasn't coming up the tunnel, Bendy pressed play.

"I love the quiet, and that's hard to come by these busy times. And yeah sure it may stink to high heaven down here. But it's just perfect for an old lyricist like me. Sammy's songs always got some bounce, but if I didn't get away once in a while, they'd never have any words to go with them. So I'll keep my mind a-singin' and my nose closed."

Lyricist, a song-writer. Had he known this person too? Probably not, he rarely worked with the music department, Boris would have known better-.

Bendy cut the thought off, shaking his head and hurrying out of the tiny, hole-in-the-wall office to skirt along the border of the tunnel for as far as he could. It was, admittedly, hard to do with the axe, but the devil was able to get a few feet before he was forced to step back into the mire. Not that he had to stay in it for very long, as he came upon a platform with a doorway to the right. Passing by another cutout, Bendy peeked round the corner to see a room with what looked like a gas tank on the right. A flicker drew his eyes to the hat-wearing monster that he'd seen before, hovering in between the tank and a matching one on the left. Behind sat what looked like a box with chains leading up into the ceiling, though Bendy only had eyes for the inky monster holding the valve that he needed.

Dashing into the room, Bendy hurtled towards the behatted monster, just barely stopping himself from crashing into the box when it dove under the ink. Growling, he pushed himself away, the devil only needing to listen for a moment to realize that the creature hadn't left the room. From the faint splattering and groaning, it had come up again right behind the left-side, well, right-side for him now. Right back…there!

Launching himself forward, Bendy wheeled round the corner just in time to see the monster vanish under the ink, again. Groaning in frustration, the devil was about to turn when his eyes caught sight of a lever on the tank, and his ears happened to pick up on the sound of the monster coming up somewhere behind him.

Well, seeing as he had nothing left to lose and a steadily ticking clock, he might as well try it. Yanking the lever only made the box raise up, the sight causing Bendy to gape with a twitch jerking a pie-cut eye before he gave a strangled, frustrated holler through his teeth. Wheeling about, he dashed to the opposite end of the room, only to meet with the exact same result as before.

"GetbackhereIdon'thavetimeforthis!" Bendy half-hissed, half screeched as he moved about, spotting a can of bacon soup sitting on a rim of metal, along with another switch. Pulling the switch and grabbing the can, Bendy heard the racket of something dropping into the ink. The reason for the noise only made sense once he dashed round the corner with the can upraised and saw that the box had dropped back down.

The confusing thing was how quiet it was all of a sudden. The devil felt his temper stall at the change, his hand closing tightly around the axe handle and the soup can respectively as he edged forward. It took him a good moment to figure out why, the sight of a familiar bowler hat and the edge of the valve sticking out of the ink causing Bendy to connect the dots.

True, he'd been offing ink monsters almost left and right since he'd gotten down here, but this was the first that had done something other than try to get him. Now that he wasn't caught up in the adrenaline and frustration of the situation, Bendy couldn't help but wonder if there might have been a reason for that. It had looked different from the others; did that mean that this one had been more…self-aware?

The presence of the bowler hat definitely seemed to imply something of the sort, Bendy giving it a disturbed, slightly remorseful look as he considered the article while shoving the soup can in his pocket. The only thing that really pushed the little devil to keep moving after he'd grabbed the valve was the mental reminder that even though this creature hadn't meant to kill him, the others down here certainly didn't care for his well-being.

The masked person in particular came to mind, the reminder as to what he went through in the instrument room pushing Bendy back towards the door, leaving the bowler hat sitting in the ink. As the devil went back through the tunnel his eyes lit on the little office, the sudden reminder of the cassette deck making a thought fire in Bendy's mind. What if the person he'd been listening to was the monster that he'd seen?

There wasn't really any way to prove it, but the thought did make sense; this wasn't exactly a hotspot for workers. Heck, the lyricist might've been trapped down here while…while…

The thought made a pervading sense of guilt slog through the devil's thoughts, though his pace quickened as he headed down the tunnel. He couldn't help anyone, he couldn't do anything apart from getting the heck out of dodge, it was just like Boris…

He couldn't do anything, he couldn't help anyone, he'd just run, it might as well have been HIS FAULT…

As he bolted through the entryway up to the stairs, Bendy noticed that the silhouette that he had seen down the other hall was gone. Not daring to stick around or try to find out anything about where the mysterious figure could have headed off to, the smaller toon took the stairs at a run, heading up them two at a time. Bendy didn't stop until he got to Sammy's thankfully now ink-free office, immediately closing the door behind him and listening just in case he was about to have company.

The hallway beyond remained empty and quiet, the silence causing the devil to let out a sigh as he turned, and immediately felt his pulse seize when the lights in the office turned on with a click. After a few moments of silence confirmed that nothing was leaping out of the shadows, the toon walked around a pillar to the desk now lit up by a lamp. On it was a radio that he let sit, though the stuff next to that was what caught his eye. Bendy clambered up onto the chair to get more of an overhead look, adjusting his hat so he could see.

They looked like, plans of some kind? Or at the very least blueprints, and once he picked out the shape of the thing in question Bendy was able to place the subject quite easily. It was the ink machine, or an older, less complicated version of the ink machine judging from the more simplified look to it. Though Bendy could make out little scribbles of 'ink machine mrk 2' up in the corner. Mark two, as in not the first version of the hulking monstrosity he turned on upstairs. The differences that he could pick out between what he remembered and what sat on the paper confirmed that this was some sort of prototype.

Had Joey been planning on reworking the ink machine before, whatever happened happened? Or were these old plans for a previous version? And for that matter, why would the plans be in Sammy's office of all places? Even without the recordings from earlier it was common knowledge that the music director had no love for the thing.

In the end, the presence of the blueprints was interesting, but not what Bendy had come in here to find. That was behind him, on the wall opposite the door. Upon reading the words 'PUMP CONTROL' emblazoned over the lever, the little devil felt his face pull into a smile so strong and relieved that it almost hurt, and he got off the chair to get a closer look.

The switch had a fair bit of age clinging to it, like no one had tried to use it in a long while. Also, his height meant that Bendy had to grab it close to the actual panel, which he only needed to try once to be sure of the fact that he needed a leg up. Pushing the brim of his hat out of his eyes, he took in the chair next to Sammy's desk and immediately felt an idea-fueled smirk make its way across his face.

The chair only stuck to the floor for a moment, before a noise like ripping tape shattered the silence and the wooden legs slid across the floor with a low screech of noise that had the devil nearly jumping out of his skin. Listening for any reply yielded nothing, and even though paranoia had him going up to the window to peer out he could still see no one. Still, Bendy could say that he definitely didn't want to get the attention of anything else that might be roaming around, so he made as quick and quiet work as possible of pushing the chair so that he could stand atop it and get a good grip on the switch. The higher vantage point gave him a bit more by way of power, and after a few moments of leaning his weight onto it, the switch slid down into the on position. Almost as soon as he realized, Bendy was off the chair, hand grabbing his axe as he practically tore out of the office to get to the exit. He made it to the end of the hall, slowing down for a moment as something registered at the edge of his hearing. It didn't sound like footsteps, but it had been close.

Bendy turned, looking back in the direction he'd come from just in time for a terrific blow to land directly on his head. The force made his whole body spin like a top before it dropped to the floor. Through a concussion-hazed brain, Bendy wondered if he should be seeing stars or tweeting birds as he stared up at the ceiling.

"Rest your head, it's time for bed…"

A black figure appeared at the fringes of his darkening vision, and Bendy winced at the feeling of cold, slippery fingers tugging at his hat, and roughly pulling it off. Just as he sunk fully into the encompassing black, the devil could make out a light, surprised noise from somewhere over his head.