Ink Demonth 2024 Short Stories - Bendy : The Untrusted AU

Day 25 : Offering

Wally waved the brownish-yellow envelope around mindlessly. The air in some parts of the studio is damp and hot, so he often used whatever he had on hand to cool himself down.

"Speaking of which, I haven't open it!" Wally stopped, looking down at the envelope and laughing to himself. He leaned clumsily on his mop, fumbling with the envelope until a piece of old paper fell out.

"Mm.. hm. Okay." Wally nodded to himself, making mumbling and approving noises. He suddenly jolted up, his calm expression earlier turning perplexed. "What is this!?"

............

Sammy Lawrence, who was holding the same piece of paper, stared at it for a bit.

"What's that?" Jack asked, leaning over to look closer. Sammy didn't stop him, but he knew with Jack's eyesight, he couldn't really read the letter's contents clearly.

The music director let out a long, exasperated sigh, before standing up from his stool and leaving the recording booth.

..........

Grant Cohen looked at the contents of the paper. He looked over it a few times before, before it was sent out to the designated employees.

Perhaps, to others, they'd assume it was sent to everyone. To him, though, he knew the letter was specifically sent to a set amount of people.

He tried to pinpoint the similarity between all of them, but he could only think of one reason.

He couldn't help but mutter under his breath.

"Why?"

......

Shawn, Thomas, ...

........

Henry...

...

Joey stared at the six objects laid out in front of him, upon the large work table scattered with candles and other objects.

But most importantly, ink.

He drew a circle most often used to represent a door or a path opening to a supernatural being. After laying everything out as correctly as he could, he heaved a sigh of relief.

Joey solemnly looked down at a cold metal box in the center of the circle. He carefully opened it up, the stench of flesh and blood blocked out by an icy mist filling the room. In the center of the box was a human heart, dyed oddly sepia, but not entirely. It barely thumped, weakly pumping like a dying corpse.

He took out that heart, taking away the box and leaving only the organ in the circle.

The giant ink machine loomed over his head, looking upon everything in the studios.

Joey took a deep breath.

An offering...

"Take it." Joey said bluntly. "It is your heart, isn't it?"

The ink on the table immediately had a reaction. The darkness swirled around, corrupting all the objects on the table, before condensing into the center and right at the heart. The candles' flames turned black as they were quickly extinguished, and the other trinkets Joey intentionally placed turned sepia and black.

The heart in the center began to pump with vitality, as Joey felt his head spin. The space around the heart began to distort, opening up a small seam like a the fabric of reality being torn apart itself. He tried to pry into the space behind the seam, only to see nothing but an endless vortex of ink, and a jumble of monochromatic static.

After a few prolonged seconds, the environment in the room was awash with saturation again, besides the objects on the table. Joey's throbbing head began to ease, and the creaking of the ink machine's chains could be heard again.

The ink machine's shadow still loomed over Joey.

He gazed up upon it, smiling brightly.

"You sure are happy now, aren't you?"

Bendy : The Untrusted AU - Act 1 (Part 1/5)