Just a Happy Ending

The Toymaker

Sammy had entered the first door expecting nothing. Funnily enough, 'nothing' is exactly what met him.

A perfect nothingness. Blackness everywhere. Sourceless light illuminated him and the infinite expanse of black all around him. The floor was so pitch dark it was hard to focus on.

Sammy's first concern came when the door vanished, leaving him alone in the silent void.

His second concern came when he turned around and spotted a Piper.

His third concern came when he realized he couldn't summon his scythe.

Well, Pipers were bumbling and stupid. They could be outrun.

But where was there to hide in this empty abyss?

Sammy refocused. The Piper wasn't an immediate threat. It was a safe distance away and was just... standing. It also held a Bendy plush, which Sammy thought was unusual.

A thought occurred, prompting Sammy to call to the Piper. "Hey! Do you know where this Husk is I'm supposed to find?"

The Piper's hand slowly gripped around the plush, sending a sad, strangled squeee- through the air. An equally slow release of the toy emitted the remaining -eeak.

Sammy's eyes narrowed, "Okay... was that supposed to be threatening?"

The Piper's fingers tensed.

Sque-.

Its mouth took up Sammy's field of view.

-eak.

He pitched forward, quickly regaining his balance and wondering what just happened. The Piper was nowhere in sight. Sammy turned a full circle, finding nothing. Then, the floor splashed over with the sepia floorboards of the Studio. The wood stretched outward until it reached a wall, then colored upward, like a paint bucket had been spilled and began washing over everything.

The scene kept filling in until the Machine came into view above Sammy's head. Its spout dripped ink over the mass of what it had just spat out.

Sammy took a step to investigate when another figure walked straight through him. He inhaled sharply and straightened as the Prophet approached the mass under the ink and unceremoniously hauled it out.

Sammy flinched at the sound of Joey's voice. "What even is that?" the director asked.

The Prophet batted ink away from the ink thing, "I believe it is the lead member of the Butcher Gang. Charlie is a leprechaun, after all. The Machine found it wise to associate the two."

"Hm." Joey gestured at the toon, whose deformed features were becoming more obvious, "Why is it so... hideous?"

The Prophet's masked face tilted, "These are in accordance with the wounds I and my congregation inflicted upon the host."

Joey let out an inhuman growl, "He's supposed to be a match for this thing! Why is it imperfect?!"

"The Machine works in mysterious ways," the Prophet hummed.

"Bah! 'Mysterious ways', I am its master! I need perfect models!"

"Perhaps," offered the Prophet, "It has learned from the last two perfect toons and reasoned that perfection means disloyalty. Perhaps the only way for these creations to wish to remain is to make them imperfect."

"That makes no sense," said Joey. "I understand what it did with you, but there's no reason for others to be so... off."

Sammy looked at the not-really-there Joey. "What do you mean, 'what it did with' me?"