Requested by africkenfricker here's your fourth request.
Henry had been working at the studio for almost a year now, when Joey decided to try something. All he said after telling Henry and a few others to meet him down in the deepest room of the studio, was that he wanted to experiment with bringing their cartoons more life than before.
Despite the strange location, and slightly confusing wording Joey had used, Henry agreed with a shrug and went down to the room after work had finished. The four others Joey made come down was Norman, Sammy, Jack, and Wally.
Henry pushed the door to the room open and was met with a dimly lit area, a few candles surrounding the centre of the room. This creepy aesthetic immediately set Henry's warning off in his brain, telling him Joey was up to something bad.
Norman and Sammy were already there, although Joey was nowhere to be seen at the moment. The other two looked up at him when he entered. "Any idea what crackpot thing Joey wants is to do now?" Sammy demanded instantly.
"Afraid not, and this so far doesn't look too promising." Henry said, gazing around the dark room with a shiver. A few moments later, Jack and Wally entered.
"Ooh, spooky. What's Mr.Drew want us to do here?" Wally said when he entered, giving a nervous glance around. Joey entered behind him.
"Good question, Willy. I'll show you guys in a moment here." Joey said. Wally squinted at him.
"Actually, it's Wally, sir." He corrected, earning an annoyed glare from his boss. The five watched as Joey sat on his knees in the centre of the room, beckoning for everyone else to do the same.
"Circle up." Joey instructed. Everyone went still, staring at their boss cautiously. Henry hesitantly went first to sit beside Joey, wondering what in the world this man was planning. Soon, the other four reluctantly sat in a circle, all feeling anxious.
Joey pulled something from the inside of his coat, placing it in the centre. It was a Ouija board. Jack leaned back a bit, and the others all glanced at Joey. "Joey, what the hell are you doing with this?" Henry hissed, looking at the board as if it were poisonous.
"I've been thinking, our cartoons exist only in imagination, in spirit. Not in real life. So what if we pull their imagination and spirit into life, by summoning them?" Joey explained, smiling as if he just had the most glorious idea to ever exist. Everyone stared at him, horrified.
"Mr.Drew, with all due respect, spirits and ghosts don't exist, this is just a simple game to scare stupid teenagers." Sammy said, rolling his eyes because he obviously thought his boss was being idiotic. Norman and the others all nodded in agreement, to which Joey frowned.
"Well then, that means you wouldn't be afraid to try it? Might as well if it's not real, huh?" Joey said, giving a dark, bloodthirsty grin to Sammy. The blonde sighed, shrugging.
"If it gets you to stop with this, then sure." Sammy agreed, looking no more than bored and annoyed. Norman and Jack looked a bit iffy about it, but didn't seem all that scared after Sammy had said that.
Wally on the other hand, looked as if he'd rather be anywhere else than where he was at that moment. "How do you know Sammy? Did you do anything like this before?" Wally demanded, nerves getting the best of him as he scooted closer to Jack and huddled against him.
Jack looked at him for a moment before wrapping an arm around him. "Well, no, but there's no way it actually does anything." Sammy huffed, crossing his arms.
"If this were a horror movie, you'd be the first to die. Never doubt the existence of the paranormal, and you just might live." Wally shuddered.
"I see your parents were overprotective." Sammy muttered so only the people on either side of him, Norman and Henry, could hear. Norman gave a weak smile and Henry raised an eyebrow.
Personally, Henry wasn't sure if he believed in it or not. Guess there was only one way to find out. "Well, let's get this over with then?" Henry suggested, putting his hands on the one loose piece on the board. Everyone followed suite, going very still.
Instead of asking questions to ghosts like you were supposed to when using a ouija board, Joey started muttering something under his breath. After he finished, the candles suddenly sputtered and died. Wally have a whimper and pressed himself closer to Jack. Henry squinted through the darkness of the room, seeing everyone had froze.
After a minute or two, nothing happened. "See, child stuff." Sammy huffed, taking away his hands. The others did the same. A white glow suddenly came from the ouija board, and a black blob began to rise from it. Everyone backed away, eyes wide and terrified. Everyone except for Joey.
"It's working! I knew my idea would work!" Joey shouted, a power-hungry look overtaking his face. The blob suddenly lurched at the man and the others either stared transfixed and horrified, or looked away as a sharp hand plunged into Joey's chest, ripping out his heart and splattering blood all over the wall and floor.
Joey fell to his knees, then fully collapsed on the floor, bleeding out. The hand dropped his heart into the floor with a splat, and completed taking form after Joey had completely died. The creature was tall and dripping ink, a large grin plastered across its round face, and spikes poking from its back. A thin tail whipped around behind it.
"A life for a life, pretty fair deal if ya ask me. He died, I came ta life. Anyways, why'd this crazy fucker want to summon a demon anyways?" The thing asked, looking around at the five terrified humans, all with their backs pressed against the wall.
Henry, voice shaking, decided it was best to respond to the terrifying inky monster. "H-he wanted to bring his cartoons t-to life-wait...are you Bendy?" Henry squinted at the tall demon with the familiar grin.
His grin widened, and he faced Henry. "Glad ta be recognized. I know my form didn't come out all that right, but there's no way it could with the kind of soul that horrible man had, bad plans were in that brain'a his." Bendy scoffed, taking a few steps closer to Henry.
Henry, despite watching this thing pull Joey's heart out of his chest, didn't feel as threatened as he thought he would as it approached. "Who're you?" Bendy asked, tilting his head and crouching down to Henry's height.
"Uh- Henry Stein, animator for here. There's also Norman Polk, projectionist, Sammy Lawrence, musician, Jack Fain, lyricist, and Wally Franks, janitor." Henry introduced. Bendy glanced behind him for a few moments at the others, but didn't seem as interested in them and turned back to Henry.
They (or rather Henry as the other four went straight back to work to avoid the demon) showed Bendy around the studio and introduced him to the other workers. Most screamed in terror or stared in shock and fear. Henry, on the other hand, was growing to rather like the demon.
Sure, he was an eight foot tall ink dripping monster, but once they got to talking, he was just like the charming, funny, lovable Bendy in the cartoons. Then it came time to ask what they're ere going to do about Joey's sudden disappearance. Bendy waited impatiently as Henry went to talk to the other four about what they would tell the police when they inevitably showed up.
Bendy couldn't wait any longer for Henry even though it had been only half a minute, and stood outside the break room door where the fiver were talking.
-
"Okay, what should we do about Joeys body, and what should we tell police when they eventually show up?" Henry asked, looking around at the other four.
"How about the fucking truth? I mean, we have that demon for proof too so there's no way they won't believe us, then nobody will be blamed for the murder!" Sammy said, arms crossed tightly.
"No, we can't do that." Henry said, pacing around the two couches in the break room where the other four sat. "What would they do with Bendy? What if they try and take him away and...experiment on him? It's terrible, so we can't let them know he exists for his safety." He added.
"I guess." Sammy sighed. "Well what if we just burn him and say we don't know what happened?" He suggested.
"I don't want to watch a body burn, thanks. Even if he was an asshole." Jack shuddered.
"Hey wait, didn't Bendy say something about Joey having all sorts of other awful plans? Would that be why he spent so much time locked up in his office? Maybe workin' on stuff." Norman said.
"Probably to summon more toons, maybe Alice or Boris next." Sammy scoffed.
"I thought ya were so sure none of it was real." Wally retorted, glaring at Sammy.
"Wha- well clearly I was wrong then! But he turned out all right, didn't he? You were screaming like a little girl for nothing!" Sammy snapped back.
Wally opened his mouth to argue again, but Henry cut across him. "Enough fighting like children, lets find out what we should do. I think Norman was onto something when he said Bendy had earlier pointed out Joey had more plans. Let's search his office, it might help us with finding out what to do." Henry instructed.
"But what about Bendy?" Jack asked. Henry gave him a curious look. "Well, you don't expect that someone won't eventually find out about him, so what do we do if that happens? Is it even safe to keep him here?" He asked.
Henry thought for a moment. "I'm not sure, but you're right. When they come to investigate Joey's disappearance after he stops showing up in public, they'll probably want to look everywhere in the studio for clues. That means Bendy isn't safe." Henry said, beginning to pace again.
"Let's just focus on Joey first, and then we'll figure out what to do with Bendy." Wally suggested. "I'm sure we'll find a safe place somewhere."
Bendy, who had been listening to their conversation, left down to Henry's office again, not wanting to be caught where he wasn't supposed to be. The others went into Joeys office and looked around, finding a whole bunch of horrible plans he had.
"This should be enough to convince them he went somewhere and didn't tell us. Now we need to find out what to do with his body." Henry said, feeling queasy at the thought of having to touch it.
"I'll go put the papers in my office and check on Bendy, then meet you guys down at that room." He said, turning on his heel and leaving. He opened the door to his office, met with a demon sitting on his desk and grinning at him as he walked in.
"Hey bud, careful not to touch these okay? They're super important if we want the police to believe Joey just simply disappeared. How are you doing?" Henry asked, sliding the papers into a drawer and closing it.
"Bored. Ya won't hafta worry 'bout Joey's body by the way, after I've fully formed for about an hour, his body becomes un-formed an moves ta hell where he'll rot." Bendy chuckled, tail swishing gently from side to side.
"Oh, well that's both reassuring and disturbing. Hey, I've been thinking, since the studio isn't going to be safe for you to live due to cops coming to investigate, how would you like to come live with me?" Henry asked, watching closely at the demon's reaction.
Bendy grinned widely. "Yeah! It's kinda borin here anyways." He agreed, standing up from Henry's desk. Henry wouldn't have thought of it then, but after living with a very affectionate demon for a while, he started to like Bendy a lot more than he should've, but he didn't mind because Bendy felt the same.
(Wally, Jack, Norman, and Sammy all standing in the room where they summoned Bendy wondering where the fuck Joey went. Wally was convinced he's now a zombie hiding in the shadowy parts of the studio.)
