BatIM Five Trials

Chapter Seven

The room was still and silent as Jade started to rouse back to consciousness. "Nngh. . . my head. . . what. . . what happened. . ?" She asked no one in particular as she forced her eyes open, and the ringing in her ears slowly started to fade. Once her vision cleared, she saw she was still on the symbol. The room was brighter, and was no longer shaking.

She finally shifted, raising herself to where she was sitting up, slowly as to not make herself dizzy from suddenly rising up. The first thing she looked for was her axe, which oddly enough, wasn't anywhere within her radius. She about panicked until she saw it leaning against a coffin, but oddly seeing it did not soothe her. It couldn't have fallen there when she passed out. . . so someone must have come in and moved it.

But. . . who moved it? This question came to her mind as she finally stood up and got the axe. She realized that she was pretty much trapped in the room without it, seeing as behind her the entire area collapsed, and the door leading to whatever was ahead was blocked by three boards.

Trying to shake unsettling thoughts off her mind, she hoisted the axe and made quick work of chopping the boards blocking her way.

There's only one thing to do. Keep going, look for a way out. Surely whatever's ahead will be afraid of an axe, right?

When she opened the door, the first thing that caught her eye was a large sign, just like on the floor above, except this one instead said TRIAL TWO in big bold letters, and had a pentagram on the top center in place of the Bendy head on Trial One's sign. Just below that was a sign which read Utility Shaft 9.

Trial Two? Just like that Trial One thing upstairs! How many of these things are there? A sudden cold dread filled Jade as she thought of what could be ahead. Did that Trial One thing have Bendy as its feature or something? What's down here?

She refused to think about that for the time being, holding the axe's handle a little tighter as she proceeded down the stairs. On her way down, a board fell, causing her to yelp and swing her axe at it. When she realized it was only a board, she just stared at it.

Really? I was scared of a board? As this thought rang across her mind, she let out a bit of a laugh as she walked by it, giving a little glare at the splintered wood as if it would respond. When she got down the stairs, she found herself standing still again as she saw the ink message. He will set us free.

He? Who is he? I hope 'us' includes me, I want out! She thought to herself, pretty much ignoring the existence of the message afterward as she moved on. Soon after discovering the ink message, she then discovered a recorded message with the label Sammy Lawrence. Being the curious cat she is, Jade pressed the play button and listened.

"He appears in the shadows to rain his sweet blessings upon me. The figure of ink that shines in the darkness, I see you, my savior. I pray you hear me."

"Those old songs. . . yes. . . I still sing them, for I know that you are coming to save me, and I will be swept into your final, loving embrace. But. . . love requires sacrifice. . . can I get an amen?"

Jade shuddered at the words, feeling a certain kind of chill suddenly run through the air.

"I said, can I get an amen?" Jade jumped, turning around quickly as if her life depended on it, tense and ready to strike anything that got too close with her axe.

"Who's there?!" Jade demanded, scanning the room over a few times. Nothing revealed itself, but she could swear the voice which had just called out sounded just like the recording.

When still nothing had shown itself, she proceeded forward with caution to the hall ahead, where right in her vision was a Bendy cutout leaning on a wall with another of those symbols behind it.

"You. . . you're the reason I'm in this mess!" Jade said to the cutout as she hoisted her axe, and swung it as hard as she could. The blade went through it like a hot knife through butter as it crumbled. Jade glared at the shards angrily as she panted, having exerted more effort in one swing than she thought she could. After calming down a bit, she moved forward, satisfied with the fact that she had taken out a bit of her frustrations which hid themselves under her nerves.

She proceeded forward, which was a right into another hall, which went left into a longer, ink flooded hallway. She stared at the inky mess for a moment, watching the ink leaking from a couple pipes into the pool below.

"Well, so much for not having my shoes soaked through any more than they already are. . ." Jade muttered as she stepped into the liquid. She immediately shivered from the contrasting temperatures of the ink and the air around her, but forced herself to keep going. The ink was thicker than any liquid she had walked through before, and was dragging at her feet. It made the walk feel long, and something about the liquid felt. . . off.

Her thoughts about the cold liquid were broken as she heard murmuring from the other side, and a figure was walking across the doorway, carrying a Bendy cutout. Jade knew she had to act.

"Hey! Over here, excuse me!" She called out, hoping to get help or make a friend. Two minds together were always better than one, after all. To a bit of her dismay, the figure ignored her and only kept walking.

"Hello?" Jade tried calling to it one last time, but it kept going on its merry way. Jade kept going through the hallway, and when she got to the other side, she looked left toward where the figure went. . . only to see a dead end, the cutout having been left behind with the pentagram behind it once again.

"What the. . . am I hallucinating?" Jade asked herself, feeling increasingly uneasy. Nothing replied to her self-questioning, so she did her best to shrug it off and went the other way. This didn't come to too much success as far as distance either, because a gate blocked her way.

"Oh great, of course." Jade muttered, "I'm trapped again." She looked around to see if there would be anything to help her open the gate, and her eyes soon met a lever with three flashing lights beside it.

"Looks like I need to activate something to open this gate." Jade muttered to herself after trying to pull the lever and failing. "I'd better get to looking."

Jade turned around and walked away, deciding to start her searches in the area she was in before having to cross the ink flooded hallway again. Back to the dead end where the figure had vanished to, Jade realized she had failed to notice one of the most obvious things. A structure of shelves with cans of soup on them. She mentally facepalmed at her ignorance as she picked up one of the cans to read what it said.

Brier Label Bacon Soup: Just the way the Lil' Devil likes it!

Jade couldn't help but chuckle a bit at first, but then she wondered how long it had been there.

She shrugged, figuring no one would answer this question as she decided to search the shelves for anything to help open the gate. It didn't take too long to find a switch hiding behind the cans, which Jade examined for a minute before flicking it. She glanced back at the gate to see one of the yellow lights went solid while the other two remained flashing.

So that's how it works, she thought to herself as she began searching the rest of the shelf, moving soup cans around to do so. Her search revealed no further cans, so she figured the other two switches must be further back.

She walked back into the ink hall before realizing maybe there were switches along the wall here as well. Sure enough, her thoughts had been correct. There was a switch by a board in the hall, and Jade flicked it as well.

Alright! One more to go. She thought to herself, feeling encouraged as she kept searching. Nothing more was to be found in the inky hallway, so she went back to the first room she had entered after waking up. It didn't take long when Jade looked through the room thoroughly to find the final switch hiding between a couple of boards along one of the walls. She gave it a flick, and jogged back over to the gate, excited to make some progress toward what was hopefully an exit. An exit, she hoped, that would be coming soon.  

(Hey everyone! Wolfy here, welcome to Trial Two! What terrors await Jade in the second Trial? Stay tuned~

~Wolfy