Ink Demonth 2024 Short Stories - Bendy : The Untrusted AU

Day 5 : Secret

Thomas winced as the old wooden door produced an ear-piercing sound against the ancient floor. He carefully scanned the room, ensuring nobody was hiding inside.

A king-sized bed by a cabinet just by the door, the floral patterned, dull green walls, a closet with a door that's barely hanging on its hinges diagonally opposite to the bed, and a large, wooden desk and chair by the window opposite to the door.

Thomas slowly made his way in.

Wally and his wife left to go into town today, so they asked Thomas to babysit the kids. In truth, he was already crashing at their place, so it wasn't a difficult favor. In any case, they were probably also concerned about him suddenly disappearing again.

He let out a long sigh.

Thomas' gaze swept across the room again, landing on a single, seemingly insignificant notebook among the piles of paper on the desk. He quickly made his way over, softening his steps as to not wake up the napping children.

The notebook was clearly at least a decade in age, just from the texture of the leather cover Thomas could feel alone. Any paper sticking out was clearly yellow, even browning at the edges.

The cover seemed to be intentionally repeatedly scratched with a sharp object, as there are many marks clustered here and there, and just some marks scrawled around. It was as if someone tried to murder the book.

One of these marks was definitely the place where the original owner engraved his name.

Thomas' finger swept over one of the spots and tried to imagine a name there.

Henry Stein..

He looked back down, before quietly opening the notebook.

The first few pages were of not much importance. There were sketches of unknown characters, and nearly neat handwriting pointing out the flaws in each design, or to self-memo. Each page was marked with a date.

He then landed on a page.

April 13th.

It contained grievances about Joey, worries, concerns and the like.

The bottom of the page was dyed black.

Thomas' traced his finger up to the next page.

The next page was entirely black in color, its hard texture indicating that it was dried ink.

Thomas took a sharp breath.

He turned the page.

The handwriting had changed, so did the drawing style. It became sloppy, like an amateur artist attempting his first drawing. It continued on for a few pages.

Until it all became handwriting entirely.

Thomas' eyes widened as he read the contents.

"[scribbled out date]

The ink machine..."

"[scribbled out date]

Sammy is starting to act strange.."

"[scribbled out date]

Susie has left us."

"[scribbled out date]

It's too dangerous. Everyone's acting too rashly."

"[scribbled out date]

Joey doesn't seem to like Alan too much."

"[scribbled out date]

The meeting with Nathan wasn't in the appointments. Just how many people is truly in the know of this insane scheme?"

"[scribbled out date]

If someone finds this notebook, here are the things you need to know..."

As the words kept going on and on, and the secrets Thomas desperately tried to hide from the world was laid bare for him to see through the eyes of someone else, he felt his chest tighten.

Just as the sentences slowly reached the date when the near destruction of the ink machine happened, he felt the strong urge to shut the book in shame.

However, the last sentence on one of the pages stopped him.

"If you're Thomas- god, I hope it's you, Tom.

Then you should keep reading.

I'm sure it'll be useful to you.

Sorry.

Sorry I can't help anymore than this."

Thomas stared blankly at those words for a moment.

He carefully flipped to the last page.

It was empty.

He took in a deep breath, then began to retrace back to the latest page.

"Dorothy Newsome is the one who tipped off the news station.

She asked me for intel. This is her point of contact : ......"

After the method of contact, the writings stopped there.

That incident had happened a little over two weeks ago.

Wally was still writing down every little thing, solving, investigating and eliminating the red herrings by himself.

Thomas closed that book gently.

He gazed outside for a long, long time.

The realization that he wasn't alone to bear the burden of those horrifying secrets began to slowly settle on to him.

Bendy : The Untrusted AU - Act 3 (Part 3/5)