--Previously--
After I had my daily dose of nostalgia, I gathered the information I had just heard from him. It pained me, knowing I'd have to look through every single bin just to find some keys.
"God fucking dammit."
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After about 10 minutes of searching through every bin, I managed to find some old keys, thinking they were in fact, gramps. I wasn't wrong about that! I made my way back to the area, unlocking a door that had a sign above it, reading 'CLOSET'. I had a bit of trouble unlocking the door since it was very old, but it wasn't too much stress.
Inside the closet were a few cans of bacon soup, some other empty bowls, and another audio log.
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Every artistic person needs a sanctuary. Joey Drew has his and I have mine. To enter, you need only know my favourite song:
The bass fiddle sings with deep articulation,
The violin shudders with a piercing voice,
The bass fiddle returns and sings aloud,
The violin again screams.
Sing my song and my sanctuary will open to you.
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Now, I never understood this. Was there something I was missing? I never recalled seeing any instruments anywhere, nor did I recall any sanctuary. This was all just getting annoying! All I wanted was to open an office and pull a stupid lever, but now I have to do all this complicated stuff! Now I get the point gramps was trying to make out. It really must've been hard working in this place, whether it just be a janitor or an animator!
I put the keys on the shelf and walked away from the room. Maybe I was missing something. After all, I had not yet explored all of the areas of the music department.
'Bass, violin, bass, violin...'
I kept repeating this to myself so I wouldn't forget. I knew this was important, but where am I going?
I saw another way I could go, next to the sign that read 'RECORDING' was an open door. So I walked through it. And there I was, in the room the music room. The instruments gave that away. The room was rather large and had a small stage where most of the instruments were. This was what I needed the code for. So I played all of the instruments in order.
It didn't do anything. Though I did originally feel like I was missing something, so I decided to explore the place some more. I had explored the left side of the department, but I hadn't yet made it to the right side, so that's where I was planning to go. Once I was there, I saw stairs leading up to somewhere. I hurried up the stairs and into the next room. The room was filled with posters, a desk was there with its chair away from it. In front of the chair was a projector. From this room, I had a view of the room below this one. It was the music room. Looking at the projector screen, I had a feeling I'd have to turn on the projector for something. Only just now had I noticed the audio log on the desk.
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Every day the same thing happens, I'll be up here in my booth, the band will be swinging, and suddenly Sammy Lawrence 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 he dashes from the projector booth and down to the recording studio like the little devil himself was chasing behind.
Few seconds later, the projector turns off. But Sammy, he doesn't come out for a long time. This man is weird. Crazy weird.
I have half the mind to talk to Mr. Drew about all this. But then again, I have to admit, Mr. Drew has his own peculiarities.
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I gathered that I was playing the right music, I just needed the projector to be on. Right away, I turned on the projector and dashed downstairs just like Sammy used to. Then I did it. I played the bass first, then the violin, and repeated that pattern once again. The guy was right, it did work!
In his so-called 'sanctuary' was a desk and chair, next to that was a toilet -because that's normal- and 2 large pipes were sticking out of the wall. In between the two pipes was another pipe going from the ceiling to the floor, on it was a valve and it was labelled as 'FLOW'. On the wall, there was a message, the message specifically read...
'SING A HAPPY SONG,
WHISTLE A MERRY TUNE,
WAIT FOR HIS ARRIVAL,
HE'S COMING VERY SOON.'
I just ignored the writing, knowing I'd have no idea what it meant. Instead of pondering for the next hour, I spun the valve and waited for something to happen. Nothing. Nothing but a cut-out appeared in front of me, scaring me half to death.
'I've had enough of this...'
I sighed and left the room, but the door for me to escape the music room was shut and a group of those ink blobs popped out from the floor. Again, I panicked and forgot how to use the axe properly, so I ended up spinning, looking like a 4-year-old. Unfortunately, I accidentally threw the axe across the room. I expected to be killed instantly, but no, the beings disappeared. This left me feeling confused. I looked around the room until I saw someone. Though I hadn't seen them properly the first time I came across them, they looked similar to me. Quickly, the figure of ink teleported away to who knows where. I scratched my head and grabbed the axe, straight after, the door opened. Not wanting anything else to happen in this room, I ran to the door.
I went back to the office to see if the ink was gone, but it wasn't. The pipe was still leaking a ton of ink, and the small puddle of it was still there. I tested the door. Locked. So I went back. I noticed a place I had not yet explored, the infirmary. But there was a notice:
-NOTICE-
ANYONE FOUND FAKING ILLNESS WILL BE DOCKED A WAGE#
NOT SICK. NOT PAID.
That message gave me nothing to worry about anyway. It had nothing to do with me. Once I reached the bottom of the stairs, another one of those ink beings popped out from the ink puddle that was on the ground. After I got rid of the creature, I finally had time to look around the room. Ink covered most of the floors. When you first enter, there's a bunch of chairs and even a desk against the wall. I was confused as to why there was a random bed in the second half of the room. Next to the bed was another one of those Bendy cut-outs. I never bothered to touch it. Next to the cut-out was a lever and a pipe with a missing valve. I'd have to find it soon...
I pulled the lever and it activated something I never knew about. Well, it never activated anything, it just opened a door that not even I knew was closed. I rushed down the stairs and looked to my left. Right away, I knew I shouldn't dare go down that path -even though I had no chance of getting there anyway-. There stood a shadow of a familiar man, it was the man that I had encountered a while back, the man I never dared to speak to, Sammy. If that's even his name.
Immediately, I went the other way. There was writing in ink. 'DOWN HERE WE'RE ALL SINNERS' it read. There was a long corridor filled with ink, and I saw another one of those ink figured again, whatever they were called. Except, they looked a little different, they were wearing a hat. It was then that I noticed they had the missing valve in their hand. I quietly crept over and attempted to reach through the boards to grab the valve, but sadly, it got away. I groaned, chopping the wooden boards down with my axe.
'THE SHEEP WILL COME TO SLAUGHTER' was another message on the wall. I never understood the meanings of these messages. Actually, I didn't even know what half of them really meant. I carried on, trudging through the ink. That was until I came across a desk with an audio log on.
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I love the quiet, and that's hard to come by these busy times.
And yeah, it sure-
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I paused it, never thinking it was a useful message. And eventually, I got away.
At the end of the tunnel was another room. In the middle of it stood that familiar ink blob with the hat on. They still had my valve. I saw 2 levers, so I switched the one on the left first, wondering what it could do. It lifted a wooden box and I took this to thought.
'Maybe I could trap the inked person...'
I just needed to get them in the correct spot, so I chased after it. After a few minutes, it finally got into my trap. I prayed that the second lever was going to crush that ink blob. Not out of cruelty, I gathered all beings here were immortal, so they wouldn't die or anything. I flipped the other lever, but the blob managed to teleport somewhere else right before they would be crushed. Thankfully, they dropped the valve I needed.
"Sorry I had to do that..."
Once I was back to where I needed to be, I placed the valve onto the pipe and spun it. After that, I figured that I was done, and all I needed to do now was to go back to Sammy's office and pull that lever. Then, I'd finally be out of this department.
Finally, I was at Sammy's office. And I was right, there was only one more thing left to do, and that was to pull the lever. Thankfully, the ink had gone away and that pipe had stopped the flow of ink leaking. I didn't quite understand how that worked, but at least it did, right?
I opened the door to the office, and inside was the lever I needed to pull. There was also a desk with a music box on top of it, next to the music box was a blueprint of the ink machine. I played the music and went back to the lever, the lever had the words 'PUMP CONTROL' above it. I pulled the lever and used all my energy up by running out of the room.
Finally, I was about to escape this department, or so I thought. Once I was almost at the stairs, I got hit in the head by something. Before I passed out, I saw a man, and these specific words come from his mouth...
"Rest your head, it's time for bed"
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A/N: I'm kinda proud of this chapter, it's the longest one of this book so far! And with that, I made art!
Word count : 1886 words
Amberzoeheart~