"And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." – 1 Corinthians 13:2
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"Prophet" is not a title without a past. He stumbled into faith and there he would remain, both a blessing and a curse to a man with nothing left but a trapped soul and a heart that begged for what he once had.
To be a prophet was to be the consolation he needed most in a position no human being was ever designed to endure- to be forced to live through an extended death and feel the suspension of blood in its veins and breath merely drift out of lungs as if the body was held still but the world moved on without him.
That's how it felt for Sammy to die.
He heard Susie scream. As the very same person's recollection swarmed his ears today and forced him to listen, he could finally see it in all its horrific clarity; like frozen pictures and slowing film, he could almost reach out and touch what he remembered. Before him was a young lady with pale skin, dark lips, and wide, wide eyes. He could see the glitter of ink reflect in them as the summoned rush of shadows rose as a tidal wave from behind him, gushing past his waist and flying in droplets onto her skin and clothes in the brief half-second before it ate them alive. Then his dark skin became darker, and everything became nothing.
From the innocent visage of the imaginary come to life burst forth its personification of immortality through animation and ink. From the posters and cutouts and sketches of Bendy gushed the black flood that would choke out everything but the very core of each employee or visitor's being. From the face of what he would accept as his lord came that which would claim him forevermore.
And it rose to the ceiling until he couldn't hear, see, or feel anything but the cold of void and endless eternity seep through his skin like water through paper towel. It covered his shape until it became his shape, a snap at the edges of his body as the ink converged into itself and cocooned him until liquification. And from the form of a man this black began to lax, smooth, and then melt away into the rest that had done the same as he.
From the many bodies of men came the massive puddles of souls- the place, person, and thing he would know far too intimately for far too long.
Felt? Did he feel? He did but he...didn't. To be numb would in itself be a sensation, and that's not what this seemed to be.
Somehow he felt pure nothingness, and it drifted in and out of him like he was a spec of sand in the riptides of an ocean.
He did not comprehend yet that it was not that he was surrounded by ink but that he had merely become it.
And so had everyone else. He could feel them- he could hear them. Voices, voices, voices. Everywhere. How close? Close. How far? Far. Endless like the universe was gone and filled to the brim with only the sounds of what it used to have. It was all within reach- all touching him, smothering him- and yet he couldn't touch it at all.
A gaping breath and a splash. He felt a hard surface underneath a slam of his palm- wood- and suddenly all the weight and weightlessness left him from the torso up. He didn't realize what he was doing, but he did all the same; Sammy dragged himself out of the puddles. He couldn't feel his legs.
For the longest time, he saw nothing. He sensed something different- not the same sensation that wrapped around and through him- but it was almost somehow worse. Splash, splash, splash. It fell in the rhythm that was only intended for his walking feet, but it was that of his arms, hands, and elbows.
And then he began to see- blurs, like looking through the porthole of a ship through misty glass in the early morning. It was so damn dark. Where was he? Where was he? Where was he?
And as he began to focus on the present, he didn't notice the memories of his past slipping away.
Somehow, he began to stand. A surface came to his right side and he slammed into it, exhausted and his new body ready to give up so soon after it was born. Eyelids no longer needed closed, and a mouth carved from tangible emptiness heaved a breath that shouldn't have existed.
Spinning. Nothing stayed still. Sammy heard himself groan and clutch desperately at the thin lines between the boards at his side, trying to keep balance. Was it his new legs giving way or the room itself that was moving? He'd never know.
Posters- already forgetting that they were simply advertisements for the cartoon he composed for. He may have never known if what came next was hallucination, reality, or right in between: prophecy.
The pictures of dancing demons- the very ones that leaked the sea that swallowed him before- crawled out of their papers and drifted to the floor, smoky like fog with no firm body, staining a trail from the wall to the floor and towards where he stood like ink droplets guided through a brush's cleansing water.
Just as the faceless faces reached for him, black washed over his sight and they were gone.
He'd only know what it was like to see the hand in front of him, shiny sludge that twitched just as he did. Even with his failing sight, a few seconds of ponderance left the impossible true.
Sammy screamed.
And something heard him.
Drip.
Liquid had swished in his ears for a second of forever in his time amid the puddles- a substance beyond mortal comprehension and existence. But somehow this- this was different.
Drip.
His vision blurred even more, like grey raindrops on a car's windshield.
He didn't like it.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
He threw himself off the edge of his vertical bed, and he tried to ignore the sound of each yelp, each cry escaping his throat as attempts to run became stumbling, and then as stumbling became falling.
But he was caught. And that was the first time the prophet met his god.
Through the dark edges of his vision, a smile- a horrid, wide smile. Stretched beyond human capability. The same blood as that which formed his body dripped onto his face- into his mouth until he sputtered coughs, and into his eyes until an already dim image became merely a sketch in the middle of the night.
And once again, nothing.
Sammy would later call this his baptism.
He crawled- his legs were upright and here to stay now. He couldn't feel his nakedness, but this was still the most vulnerable a man could ever be-...never be.
Because maybe "man" was no longer the right word.
From this moment on, he was helpless but to wander the halls of the place he used to traverse with such confidence, such bravado, such knowing-when truthfully even before the ink he had known nothing at all. He was guided only by senseless instinct and the sound of his own voice echoing down to hell.
Every so often he'd see his own flesh through the blinds of ink that took his sight, and he'd scream again.
And he'd come again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The same as before, holding the soul's comparatively tiny frame, making him feel the sweat, spit, or blood of this gargantuan thing pour itself onto him- and somehow, everywhere around him too...like the whole room was to be washed with this very essence until it was all the same as he.
And it would keep happening, every time he screamed.
And each time, he'd be rendered totally blind, senseless a little longer than he was the last.
"What am I missing, my lord?"
The turning point, and the mark of the last time he would be cleansed. The demon must have seen his search for understanding, and this surely must have been what he had waited for.
The drips stopped, and Sammy felt himself being dragged somewhere new. He was left there- no longer feeling his newfound god's grasp but still sensing he was either there either physically or in spirit. It didn't matter.
He dropped to his hands and knees with a crash onto a pile of sturdy objects, something underneath him breaking. He could barely identify it as his sight kept going and going away and away, but...-
What he had shattered was the visage of Bendy, smiling upon him through his darkness.
His hands slowly were drawn to one piece in particular, almost like being pulled by a string by something invisible. Eyes stared back at him- eyes that he lacked.
Eyes to take for his own.
And then he could never see without his mask again, all the brown and white and yellow fleeing his eyes the moment his lord's face was removed- but he would never need otherwise, he promised himself. He would only need the guiding light of his master- just as he had been brought to the faith budding in his chest, he would trust.
There was nothing else to trust, especially not himself.
From that moment on there was no Sammy Lawrence. There was only the prophet and his hymns of demonic deliverance.
And that is who he remained up till he saw a man of flesh and blood stumble into his hall of song. Up until he hit him upon the back of the head and saw the smallest bit of red stain the floor where his unconscious body slumped down. Up until he carried the sacrificial lamb to his final resting place, so anxious that he couldn't even knot the ropes he knew for sure he could tie. Up until he kneeled in front of this man and with so, so much fear gently stroked his face, observing the age that had taken him, knowing that there would be no age left waiting for him in just a few moments.
And believing in his heart that this was surely good. It must be good, even if in order to give life the demon must also take it away.
The lamb's shirt was stained with blood and ink, but it still remained a powder blue. The prophet would never forget that.
Not even feeling his chest rip open and tear in two would take that memory away.
And as his lord's punishment for a misdeed he'd ponder until a woman of the same reds and blues would make him question it all over again, he was sent back to the puddles.
He would preach and preach, using every ounce of strength in his bodiless spirit to make use of the horribly intimate nature of this purgatory, begging everyone to realize what he did- that he couldn't do this alone. He couldn't save them if they didn't want to be saved.
Maybe death was meant to be the punishment, but there could be nothing worse than being alone with a salvation that could save no one no matter how much he believed. He heard murmurs thereafter in the puddles of that man and what he had done- and evidence that once again, nothing was the same but not in the way he had hoped. He had fought and prayed so hard for so long only to return to the swirling fishbowl of lost souls, alone in a crowd that would never listen to anything besides this moment's misery, this second's struggle.
And that's why she was so important. She saved him from being alone. Sammy didn't know if she could save him from all that he knew now, but there was nothing left to do but try.
...As had been his way from faith's beginnings.