Just a Happy Ending

Lifeline

It was like falling in a dream. The sensations were all there, yet Henry was being pressed upon from every side. Cold waves rolled over him and touches like fingers snagged his skin. And the voices. Stars, there were so many voices. A multitude of words and shouts and pleas stabbed at his ears and pried at his throat, urging him to join in their chorus of torment and chaos.

For a moment, he almost did. He inhaled and let his teeth part. But a small hand gripping his shoulder stopped him.

He remembered. Bendy told him not to scream. He clamped his mouth shut, instead silently swearing he would help the voices be calmed once more. The gold ink gleamed from his hands and the pressure around him immediately vanished along with the voices.

Henry landed face down on an ink floor. "Bendy? You alright?" he asked with a groan.

"I'm okay," the imp responded from his side. "You got us into the tunnel. Nice!"

Henry regained his feet and turned a slow circle. The two of them were in a very familiar tunnel. Ink swirled and pulsed toward a faint gold light. Henry wondered where he would end up if he went into the light.

"So... we walk away from the light?" the man guessed.

Bendy sidled up Henry's body to his shoulder, "I think so, yeah. We need to find the others but the ink will try to keep us away. O-or it'll try to trap us."

Henry ignited his power as a precaution, "Best be on our guard then."

Bendy followed suit and the two, against their better judgement, turned away from the light and strode into the dark.

The tunnel stretched before them without an end in sight. Henry's gold vision kept catching glimpses of something beyond the tunnel walls, but it was too distorted to see. Extra pangs of anxiety kept creeping around him. "Hey, bud. Is it just me or are we... feeling each other's emotions?"

The outside emotional signal abruptly stopped. "S-sorry! I didn't think that would happen! Empathic tethers are really hard to do on purpose and I did it on accident, I swear!"

"It's okay, I'm not upset. Just curious. Empathic tether, you said it was?"

Bendy let out a small sigh, "Yeah. It's kind of like we're tuned to the same emotions radio channel. We can't change the channel but we can lower the volume. S-sometimes it gets hard to control and the volume goes all the way up, but mostly i-it's pretty quiet."

"You've pulled off some amazing things, little buddy," said Henry with a smile, "I'm proud of you."

Bendy didn't say anything, but a note of flattery wafted through their shared feelings.

As the tunnel kept stretching onward and as Henry kept walking, the man's attention turned to the gold on his hands and the light in his chest. "Bendy. If you don't mind me asking..." he stopped and stood in the writhing tunnel. "Why me?"

Bendy leaned his head over so he could better see Henry's face, "What do you mean?"

"I mean... everyone here has souls and to a degree they all have power. Sammy's lets him make music that has an uncanny ability to predict the future, Norman has his keen perception and knowledge of the past, Buddy has a determination I wish I had at his age, and I can only assume the rest of them have some similar spark." He looked at the pie-cut eyes peering from over his shoulder, "Why am I the special one with the absurdly bright soul and powers?"

Bendy studied the floor before a small smile crossed his face, "Actually, I've been thinkin' about that. Those sparks you mentioned, those inner talents and abilities, that's what gives a soul its glow. Creativity can make it... extra sparkly. The more someone has honed their talent and the more they apply their creativity, the brighter their soul can get. So Sammy would have a brighter soul than... I dunno, the washout violinist who never cared to learn how to read music."