Author's Note: This chapter's art is by MetallicArtist
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"His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him." - Exodus 2:4
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Blood.
Ink.
Blood.
Ink.
Sammy's mouth widened only to drown. It ate him inside out. He could hear her scream. He could hear Susie scream.
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"That...is your name..." Still pink, still wet eyeballs shifted in their sockets, nervous of what she felt inside her and then of what she saw ahead. Her words were steeped in mourning; for some reason she was still clinging to life. "...Right?"
His back stayed facing away from her, tar overlapped by strips of cloth.
"I just...that name keeps coming up everywhere. And I- I found this." She feebly lifted a tape to show him as if he could see behind his own head. For all she knew, he did.
The grey box slowly rested back into her stomach as an awareness was born. He was shaking.
Oh god, what had she done?!
"I'm- I'm SO sorry! I- I should have thought- I should have known-!" She shrunk backwards, awaiting his fury. He obviously didn't want her to know his name or at least not to acknowledge it. He had avoided the topic like it pricked sewing needles into tongues. She was so stupid.
She recalled her escape- consumed by grief she had forced open the office door, diving into the cancerous flow of ink only to fail to find her prized phone. It wasn't even ankle deep. But even so, it was just...gone.
The fear from the river eventually came back to her and she picked herself up and out. Preternaturally, most of the ink that clung to her body sunk back down to the puddle like metal shreds to a magnet. Some, however, still hung as leeches to dirty garments and bare hands.
She kept moving forward but hadn't gotten far when she heard his arrival, and yet this was enough searching to grasp in her hands a truth. It was his voice- definitely his voice- inscribed with a claim. Sammy Lawrence.
It was clear now to be forbidden fruit as she and he joined paths again. Her jaw clenched. She was prepared; not sure for what, but she was prepared.
Or so she thought.
"Sammy?" She bit her lip, ashamed to immediately be so accustomed to the word; it was thoughtlessness awaiting rage.
Again, unfulfilled expectations. He stood there noiselessly, refusing to respond.
Unable.
He kept shaking, and she finally comprehended.
Then empathy persuaded common sense.
She gradually followed a counterclockwise path that met him at the cusp of the office wall and the pool of ink he stepped into. Instead of fleeing the spider's web, she entangled herself further within. The light and shadow shifting as she moved, he emerged before her as a thin silhouette- a glossy, bare chest with boney arms. Maybe arms lacking bone, instead.
If one expected the response he gave, it would be anticipated after a touch against his slimy outer crust. But no; it didn't even provide a chance for her to step over whatever was sinking by his side. As the sole of her shoe joined him in the puddle, he finally turned.
...And he flinched away from her, shoulders tight and ready for savagery from where she stood. A yelp echoed down the corridor, repeating his admission.
It was a genuine, stinging dread. She could feel it.
They stared at each other in heavy breath and emotional nakedness. Her face flushed red from tears and ire, and her muscles hardly lifted themselves anymore. His face was captive by another not his own, only willing to tease the teeth in his head as he gaped. His frame stayed tautened and trembled with reflexive agony.
The beings smothered in black saw their sensations lapse through each other, drops of dye spreading on opposing ends of a bowl of water- two people that ached in their souls from the trials of reanimation.
From then on, they were equals.
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Her knees bent, encompassing between her thighs a near-empty tin can smeared with goo; more of it coated her arm with a swipe to clean her face. She leaned her back against a corner and could be barely glimpsed from the few yards away in the hall where they met.
Across was the man drooping over a chair, loose with fatigue. Even in his trauma and exhaustion he went out of his way to find her food. She disregarded the possibility it may be spoiled; a sick stomach was more welcome than a vacant one. Despite her fears of him- of this place- she was grateful.
As this was all he had done since he found her wandering, it was obvious something deeply troubled him, maybe as much as these things troubled her.
"...Yes," he conceded.
She scrunched her face, having said nothing to prompt this. "E...excuse me?"
"That..." Even in times of uncertainty, his voice had always proven to be forward as an arrow; it wavered now with the distress of change. "That must be my name."
Plastered over the walls, engraved into plaques, and even labeling recordings of his own words- he had not recognized the remnants of himself scattered around him. Song sheets inscribed with his creations and identity had flown from a music stand of his existence; they only drifted as far as an office fan could stir loose papers through a bureau with no open windows. And yet he never gathered them.
Still could not.
It was true. These surrounding clues to the mystery of his past brought no relief; it only made him scared, scared that his humanity was so shattered that even with pieces spread before his eyes...that it still wasn't rebuilt. Yet, his mind strained past distress and into faith.
"Thank you, Bendy." It was a quiet breath laced with the weight of tribulation. He did not see the woman's confused expression slacken into worry.
He had only briefly explained..."Bendy" to her.
"Bendy..."
"Wh-what? The character?"
"The...the demon..."
And since, it continued to pour dread down her spine.
Even so, it was wrong of her to prompt him so shortly after he seemed to endure some kind of episode, she admitted. She felt if she pressed him now it would only be more of the same he spoke in the hall- frantic and vague answers that filled her mind. One phrase among his mutterings started to harden in her heart.
"It's time to believe."
It sounded like the hiss of a snake being stoned to death; now he was acknowledging only what was said before his quivers and murmurs, as if the name she gave possessed him and left that time blank in his memory. He had been dead silent till now, had been since he took the first step out of the ink.
"Sammy," she restated softly, not to address him but to reaffirm the discovery. She expected him to at least nod in reply, but it wasn't even that she received. He sat still, head bent low and arms entirely lax as they had been before.
Her mouth skewed, embarrassed she anticipated so much. She could imagine lifechanging shock but not the release of your entire foundation of being, as must be his reality. It may have been too unkind to her survival, but this was the moment allowed herself to soften; she soundlessly promised she would be more considerate. She saw the irony in that but didn't care. Weariness degraded that grudge, at least for now and for this. It was more for her own sanity anyway.
And just after this promise she had realized in regret that out of all the things she needed to know, there was still one that had to be squeezed out of him immediately.
"Sammy." This was meant for him, sharp with concentration. He stiffened and left unsure if this was in recognition or lassitude. She pressed onward all the same.
"There's something I need to know from you, before I want to ask about anything else." It was...comfort. A counselor's tone, hoping that how it came across may distract him from whatever woe was upon him; it was a tone she conceived to lull him as best as possible into a response. She needed an answer, so she pushed past tremors in her veins and voice.
"Is that okay?"
He lifted his head and head alone to look at her, and she soon felt the risk in giving him an option. Again, he long replied with silence. She couldn't see a change in his face but still felt him watch her closely, looking through and over every inch of her. Then she saw his mouth open.
"Yes."
Too powerful to be contained any longer, her heartache was released as it became her turn to hang her head, leaving him puzzled. This vulnerability was unfamiliar and agitated him, but he somehow knew it was important. So he waited, fixed in surprise and disturbance.
Even so low to the ground and tilted away, her grimace was visible as it tried to sneer away tears and prime herself for the inevitable.
"I need to know," she began through gritting teeth, "if you've seen him."
Him? She had paused, necessitating he ponder. It left him flustered and with only one guess. "...Bendy?"
A tear finally broke past her lashes.
"N...no." With great effort she tried to remained patient, hardly keeping at bay the flood of terror she now had for his single word. Even as the flame journeyed to greet dynamite, she impudently chose to endure.
"A...a boy. Ha-have you seen...a little boy?"
His body slanted at this bizarre inquiry.
"I-I came...I came here to find him. We haven't-..." She was interrupted by a hiccup. "...He's been gone for over a week, and-..."
No amount of human strength could have made her keep going. The only reason she had come to this abyss was her speculation; the remaining places to search were those of no meaning to she and the others who sought for him- no purpose and yet all that was left, as the abandoned studio was. Her hands flattened together and pressed over her lips, but they were unable to keep inside the memories, the sensations that congealed within her.
...Gabby couldn't be here. If...if he was...
She couldn't verbalize the hell, the torture a mere runaway would have received just for walking into a building.
...She didn't want to imagine the man before her being a part of it.
No amount of human strength could accept that.
He only knew the little information she let float into the air between him, and yet it was enough. Despite his isolation, his apathy, his ignorance of the weight her body carried with her every step she had taken out of love...he crudely understood that no matter his reply, it would shape her into someone else- the someone she'd remain to be for however long he'd know her.
...Forever.
"No."
She gasped and flung her head to look at him, stunned as he gifted her this amelioration. Almost uncomfortable with his own kindness, he sat back in his chair and slowly averted their locked sight by choosing to face away. His flat profile- now unhidden by the angle of his mask- was rounded only by ridges that breathed her liberation.
"I have not seen another lamb wander past the gates in a very, very long time."
It took a few seconds before she bit her trembling lips and her eyes warped shut, still unable to keep back tears.
A sacrificial purgatory weaved through her as vines over a rusty fence, easing her against the wall behind her back- and then even further, sliding down the edge of the doorway by her side. She twisted with the descent and her watch was led away from the mask's callous smile until she lay on the floor, neck sloppily aligned with the entry like a guillotine.
From there she could see the ink-encased cage that kept her before; the face of the mask now appeared again to look down upon her from afar, the ever-watching eyes of this gallery. She could read through the window a single psalm:
IT'S TIME TO BELIEVE
And then she didn't know if she could.
She felt somehow God had let the Devil pick her instead, released from one set of chains into another.