“Hey, kids!”
Creepy.
The only word that was able to describe this place; creepy. The old, dilapidated rooms creaked and twisted with each careful step, no matter how slow. It was pitch black, with only their narrow flashlight lighting their way. The old, patch-eaten walls were once a brilliant, almost blinding, shade of what she felt may have been a blinding white, but were now a dull yellow.
She simply chuffed in annoyance; it was dark, and had a sinking feeling that the place would crash down on her head at any moment; they were definitely paying her double for this. She sat down, and set the light down to adjust and tighten her hand wraps; “always be prepared for a fight” was her motto for any sort of raids. Despite her orders, she didn’t know what this place was, what its purpose was; to her it was just another broken building, or worse, a joke raid; she always hated when her boss sent her on those. She growled at the thought, as her past seven raid orders were joke raids, and she didn’t want to deal with another.
She grabbed her flashlight and stood back up, and kept moving forward, and moving deeper. As she moved along, she saw a light down the hall; a dim, yellow one. She quickened her pace only slightly, what with the fear of the place collapsing sill heavy on her head. As she reached the strange beacon, she saw what it was clearly; a series of art boards. Now it clicked; this was an animation studio, and judging by the style of the character, an old one. All of the art was in black and white, and looked like one of those old-timey, black-and-white cartoons, with solid bead eyes, and those signature large, cartoony white gloves. Strange thing was that she had never seen this character before; it seemed like something completely different. The character had a perpetual grin on its face, with what looked like a flat white face. They lacked a neck entirely, with its head floating above its jet-black body, wearing a cute bow tie and large black shoes, entirely unlike the big brown ones of Micky Mouse. What stood out to her the most was what she thought was his hair-do, which looked like a pair of horns. Above the main reference picture, she saw a big name scrawled in even bigger lettering:
“Bendy the Demon”
A demon, for a kid’s cartoon? She snickered at the thought; that probably explains why she never saw it. She snorted into giggles as a new thought entered her mind, that that devil horn hair-do looked like someone else… It was probably a terrible idea, but her impulses told her yes. She just needed to find an art utensil, which then seemed to magically appear next to her free hand. With a pen in one hand and a flashlight in the other, she got to drawing. She completed it in haste, and she busted into chortles afterwards; on the back of one sheet, she had drawn a picture of a face-palming Mandy, with a bouncing Bendy next to her, with the caption “The Grim Adventures of Bendy and Mandy.” She continued to snicker, not caring what she had done, and failing to notice that all of the seemingly ancient paper looked untouched compared to the rest of the building. After more laughter, she managed to calm herself and pushed forward in a random direction.
After a while of exploring and not seeing anything of worth, she decided to make her way to the exit. The bright light of the flashlight couldn’t blind her from the infuriating truth; the ceiling had collapsed right in front of her only exit; a wall of unmovable debris and metals. She had not heard any crashing noises, so this both confused and infuriated her. Strangest of all was that the debris seemed to be covered in an unusual black slime; she didn’t even think of touching it. She went from giddy to enraged in half a second, with a brash reaction reflecting that, as she punched the nearby wall at full force. “Ssssss…..” she whimpered and winced as she dropped the flashlight, which shattered on impact. She gripped the now-broken hand, tightening the bandages even tighter.
Great, now she has a broken hand and can’t see, best series of events ever.
As she gripped her hand harder, a series of loud clangs jolted her from her previous focus. The sound of what seemed to be rushing liquid all around her unsettled her, and almost shook the entire building. Then, the lights began turning on; seems like her flashlight wasn’t too inaccurate. The walls were an off-color white-yellow, except leaning much more to the yellow side, and the walls seemed to have been eaten away by something. The new lights gave her a clear view of the building; it was a lot smaller than she thought, with the place only having a few rooms. The lights seemed to light up in a trail, which she decided to follow; she had nothing better to do, right?
The slowly flickering lights led her down to a large room; she at first thought it was a boiler room, but the cogs and pipes filled with black fluid said otherwise. She didn’t even know what to think of it, it was definitely… something. Despite her better judgement, she investigated further, trying to investigate every nook and cranny of the room, and the strange wooden machine. It seemed to be in function, and the noises it let out were distracting, if not almost deafening. As she observed, she noticed something even stranger; there seemed to be a long hatch and a button on one side that seemed to be hastily put together from some sort of repurposing.
In another step in the already long chain of bad decisions, she mashed on the button, bracing herself and her buzzcut for the worse. Almost instantly, the hatch swung open, lodging a large, cartoony clock in her face, like a cuckoo-clock. She was knocked backwards, slamming into the wall. She rubbed the back of her head in pain; broken hand, and now a concussion; yay. She watched the clock, the clock had large, silly-style numbers, and a small pair of feet and horns along the rim. The clock seemed to be connected to the machine by a loose, bouncy spring.
The clock looked very interesting, very interesting indeeeeeee…..
She couldn’t look away, even if the though graced her mind. As her pupils swirled, the swaying of the spring-clock completely entranced her. Her eyes were precisely locked on the clock, each sway seeming to drag her deeper, and leaving her to not notice what was happening. The machine clanged and thumped as more ink was being pumped throughout, and starting to leak from the floor. The ink started to pool under her, and that’s when it started.
The ink clung to her hands first, being absorbed into her hand wrappings. Is the ink was absorbed, the wrappings started to shift, becoming more solid and connected. After a while, they started to shift into large gloves, and that was also when it started shifting her physical body. Her feet and her broken shoes started to merge and melt together with the ink, becoming large, shiny black shoes. Two of her fingers on each hand merged together for four-fingered hands, and the new large gloves shifted to accommodate the new number. The ink spread to the rest of her body, covering and becoming her. The ink began to seep into her insides and assimilated them, going from organs and bones to the same supernatural ink. Her arms and legs became coated in the ink, and as per her insides, became ink themselves, and losing any sort of normal joints. Her torso, clothes, and her groin were next, all becoming part of the same round, smooth, shiny, and black shape without any defining features. Only part of her clothes were salvaged, which were dyed white and knotted into a round, white bow tie around her neck. Her neck and head were next, her neck and hair being morphed into black ink like the rest of her. After her hair was turned into ink, her neck faded and dissolved into her torso, leaving her head floating above the body. Her hair almost seemed molded into its new shape, which bounced and sprung into a devil-horn style and fringing on the back of her head. Her face was turned into ink as well, and was bleached white, her nose dissolving into the rest of her face. Her eyes were still hooked on the clock, now being blanked out in pure black ink, and becoming much larger in proportion to the rest of her face.
Her vision blurred, and she started to get a headache; this place looked familiar, but it wasn’t. She shook her head, before a crash and clink jolted her, or him, back to reality. Now things were coming back! He looked down, to see an overly large pocket watch lying face-first on the ground, chain coiled like a snake. He quickly snatched it up and held it up to his face, to check the time. The clock was now missing its small horns and feet, now just looking like a large, cartoony watch. He hastily put the clock away behind his, into some random hammer-space location. He grinned widely; he was back in his creators’ studio after so many years! And he felt…. alive. He turned to skip away, but he slammed comically into the wall, falling backwards. He quickly bounced back, brushing his shiny body off of whatever he thought was on it.
After exiting through the proper door, he bounced his way around for an exit; judging from his encounter with his face and the wall prior, he was real, and could finally leave! The big, black EXIT sign starkly stood out against the dull, off color yellow-white of the walls. The black ink of the debris from earlier had long pooled under the blockade. He just simply sneered and grinned even wider, “Perfect.” He chimed, his high-pitched voice resounding throughout the old halls. He plunged his arms into the black ooze, and the ooze was slowly sucked up, almost as if he was wishing to enjoy that experience. After he absorbed the ink, he saw that he had grown larger. After, he squished his hands under the debris and tossed them all to his side effortlessly, the crash replaced by a silly “meow.” He was practically bouncing around the room at this point; this was it, he could finally leave! He turned the knob and slammed the door open at full force, almost tearing the door off. He hopped giddily; “Finally, some color!”
Bendy was back, and he was going to have some fun.
WRITING