Wonders of Heresy (Bendy and the Ink Machine)

4- Creature Comforts

"But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." – Hebrews 3:13

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"Why the fuck is there service down here, anyway?!"

It was a mutter that came out so spitefully and so high pitched that it seemed comedic, but it was a legitimate question. It was also of course because she habitually tortured herself, even after the sheer number of unread messages turned her stomach again and again.

Fortunately, they seemed to die down, what must have been a total of a hundred-so messages from her loved ones eventually trickling into...nothing. So her antagonization had worked, and this is what "bittersweet" meant. How long had she been asleep to allow this to happen? She glanced to a corner of the room pensively. How long had she sat in that ink, stapled to the floor by her tears until Sammy took her away?

In such an ocean of heartache and unadulterated shock, her thoughts about that moment didn't resurface until she left Sammy behind on the bed. She didn't recall a terrible amount of detail, but she remembered him just...staring. He knelt to her level and when she finally saw him, it was a terrible connection between her eyes and the paint over his face. Wordlessly, he lifted her out of the pool previously made thicker and thicker by a...a...thing...and they left it behind. If he had said anything she wouldn't have had the ability to reply, and yet she didn't like the way his silence felt. That same sentiment remained upon the bed and refused to leave, even as she cast him out of her sight.

There was an emotion about him she couldn't place, and it made her unsure how to feel herself. This seemed to be the trend, regretfully.

The inquiries about time itself, however, were at least plausible to answer if not for one incredibly unsettling change in her phone. The muscles of her cheeks tightened and wrinkled in a frown.

It no longer told time.

The timestamps of old messages remained the same. Actually, so were the ones from right after- oh gosh was it really...?- "Bendy" gave it back to her. But...-

Holding her breath and closing her eyes until she scrolled past the bulk of the rejection, pleas, and anger, she rechecked the timestamp of her last messages to her mom and found that it displayed the hour and minute...but nothing else. All messages before what was presumably the moment her phone fell in the ink were normal; they displayed any measurement from the minute to the year. Her thumb tapped the home button.

No, the analog clock still didn't work. It was just a blank grey box against an otherwise unremarkable background. She didn't dare test it by messaging someone again, but she didn't seem to have any sign of current time at all, not even hour or minute like before. It was like its passage slowed or just...crumbled and decayed, like it was slowly eaten by the liquid abyss. She wished she could stop staring; her eyes were so sore from doing so. Quietly and abruptly, her heart rumbled up her neck so she may hear her own desires.

"You know what?"

She opened a gaming app, green light kissing dead eyes and a flat mouth.

"Fuck it." Might as well get her use out of it if she really couldn't take herself away from the thing causing her pain.

Just like many times before in her life, distracting herself couldn't numb the pain, but at least it kept the voices of unspeakable anxiety from getting louder and louder.

"People made out of ink that I'm trapped with forever. Ah shit. Ah dang."

Sarcasm couldn't save her now either, her pulse only quickening as she failed to overlook the troubles of existence.