The Broken Loop

Chapter 35: The End

Pov: Ink

I listen through a cutout in the fish tank.

"That was really stupid, Tom!" Alice says to the Boris clone, fixing his robotic arm I nearly tore off earlier.

"You shouldn't have gone out there! Now that he's seen you. . . it's only a matter of time. . ." she scolds between cranks, "before he finds us here."

There's a pause before I hear the sound of an axe making contact with metal, then immediately the cranking starts again, along with the continuous sound of axe on metal.

_________An Estimated Day Later_________

"We can't just leave him! Not with the Ink Demon right outside the door!"

"What's going on?" Henry asks.

"He's coming. . . we have to move on!"

Conveniently, the studio shakes a bit, causing a can of soup to fall off the bed and onto the floor in front of the fish tank, sadly, I can't see them with this wall in front of me.

"Tom! We have to let him out!"

I hear wood creaking and Alice making noises of struggle, then silence.

". . . I'm sorry." She whispers before she and Tom run out.

A few seconds later, I hear some kind of door slide open, along with what sounds like the back of a toilet, then I hear wood break, and the sound of Henry leaving.

I wait for several moments before leaving the cutout and ink-traveling into the safe house.

Decently large, a bed inside of a cell, drawings on the floor, broken wood on the floor, a desk with a wrench on it, the two beds next to the fish tank, a toilet that was behind a hidden wall.

Does anyone even need to use the bathroom in this place? I think as I walk into the cell and look under the bed, finding three tapes.

Interesting. I sit down on the floor and play the oldest of the three.

"If anyone finds this, my name is Henry, and I'm trapped far below Joey Drew Studios, a man I used to work for. There's crazy things happening down here, Monsters, Demons, Angels, and right now two of them are holding me prisoner."

Henry sounds almost. . . Scared? Worried? Hopeless?

"I don't know how to get out of here, but there's more. There's a secret hiding in the shadows, I just feel like I'm being watched."

Watched? By who?
I feel a prick of some kind of emotion, the same one I felt when I was searching for Henry after he fell and landed in the lake outside of my lair.

"There's something more here. If anyone finds this, you must not-" some kind of noise interrupts him.
"-hold on-" the house continues.
"They're coming back." The tape suddenly ends with a click.

I quickly grab the next one and play it.

Click

"It's me, it's Henry, it's been a while since I last recorded. Mostly been spending the days doodling, passing the time the as best I can. Heard my captors arguing today, seems they still don't know what to make of me. I guess that makes sense. I guess I don't know what to make of them, either. At times like this, I wish Boris was still with me. Didn't say much, Boris but still. . . he was a good friend to have. I miss him. I just couldn't save him."

"But I promise, I will get out of this studio. If it's the last thing I do."

Click.