Joey and The Ink Machine. || A BATIM AU FANFICTION.

THE OLD SONG - PART 7

"I.. yeah, I'm.. jesus.."

Henry let out shallow breaths, uncertain of why just then he began to feel anxiety dwell within his stomach. What he had seen was real. He knew this! He didn't know why the thought of it not being real induced him with such anxiety. His thoughts swirled and swelled with emotion.

He then finally spoke up after a few moments of hesitation, arching a brow as he tried to speak calmly-"No, Sammy. I know what I saw, I-"

"Hey, Mr. Lawrence!"

A voice called out from another room.

Sammy snapped his head to the direction of the voice, and as did Henry as they stood there. Henry could just barely see the head of a person poke out from one of the doors-presumably being the source of the voice.

"Ye-Yeah?"

Sammy called back.

"Can you come help us with somethin' over here? We think Mr. Franks might have accidentally broken one of the instruments without tellin' anyone again!"

"Again?!" Sammy yelled back, before letting out a groan. "Alright, I'll be back there in a moment.. just hold on."

He then slowly turned his head toward Henry, his eyes lingering upon his form with a slight bit of concern within them as he frowned. He then he let out a soft sigh, and his tone-despite still being low, became a bit more gentle. "Look, I'll see you later, Henry.. but.. maybe you should take this to Joey. I don't really remember.. any of what you described happening. So you could probably ask him if there's any workers who might look similar enough to me."

"But he didn't be-"

Before Henry could even finish his sentence, Sammy rather elegantly hurried off to the direction whoever the worker had been called him from-his long dirty blonde hair blowing behind him as he did so. He vanished into the darkness almost immediately, seemingly either forgetting about the lantern entirely. Or deciding he didn't really need the lantern in the moment.

And once again-Henry was left alone, standing in the shadows. He stood with his hands dangling by his sides, his eyes wide as he stared at the dark floor.

Well.. it.. always possibly could have been someone else. Maybe it was someone other than Sammy who just looked similar enough to him after all. After all, they were on the music floor-and most of the workers down here had been pretty large in size. Music was a tough process, so there'd definitely be a lot more than a few people. Even people who looked similar to the head composer himself.

Still.. something felt off. If that wasn't Sammy, who was it? And if it was Sammy, why was he claiming he didn't remember it?

His eyes then drifted to entrance-small and barely visible in the shadows as it stood at another wall. He paused for a moment, glancing in its direction as a neutral frown frown crossed his lips-his eyes still wide as he looked at it.

For a moment, he continued staring-until finally as he began to hear faint chattering from the room Sammy had gone into, he began to walk toward the small entrance.

His hair flung slightly behind him as he slowly walked toward it, his dark brown curls only bouncing a little as he did so-until he eventually approached it close enough, and entered the interior of the entrance. And once he did-he felt a strange humidity brush against his skin gently.

As he walked in though, he quickly processed.. light. Light being held against the ceiling of the room, and glowing onto the lower part of the area. He then glanced to the side. Sitting there on the wall was a giant lever-with an electric symbol of some kind on it. He arched a brow curiously. He then found his attention quickly diverted when he processed something else. The sound of.. water..?