Wonders of Heresy (Bendy and the Ink Machine)

10- The Knight

"Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to slaughter, oh hold them back." - Proverbs 24:11

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Someone found a door heavy with locks wide open with no one in sight. He heard a mutter in the distance, the machinery down the hall muting a scream.

As Sammy started to run as fast as he could, he finally touched upon the total panic and vexation of a word the woman had uttered many a time:

Shit.

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"I..."

There was so, so much Francine couldn't fathom that had arrived regardless. The smile ahead had widened, a portal that housed two souls. Who is this? ...Why is this? How can they possibly stand before her? How do they even exist?

Surely, this one was different than the prophet- much more solid, the woman observed. The only sign of molding was the pliable stretches of flesh that clawed into the left side of their face. Alice Angel's meticulous sculpting had paid off, in that sense, and hid most of an eternity of scarring, mutilating surgery. Besides that?

Alice saw the mortal's head lift up and down and its eyes shudder with awe. They responded with tender pity.

"My cherub," the cartoon began with the softest wisp of a breath, "look at you!"

Like a child, Francine's shoulders automatically twitched into her own view, and she started to investigate with a twist of her arms and hands. What was she supposed to be looking for?

"You're a complete mess!"

And the prophet's sheep discovered this to be true. The black, rotting carcass of a searcher was splattered all over her body, sharp spots against her smooth hide, soiling her second shirt so soon after releasing it to the elements. She felt she was a mess before that, she had to admit. Hair roots sticky with ink, and frizzy with abandoned care. Skin itchy, flaky, and pimpled. Face sore with the effort of shouts, making her eyes sting with every blink.

"Come here."

As she bathed in the angel's light, the woman puckered a frown and unconsciously gripped her wrist. Something didn't feel right. Why wouldn't Sammy mention...- and indeed, they must have been- ...another human being?

Those last three words were what drew her in.

She thoughtlessly got close. Very close. A round nose almost touched the small cracks in the pane of glass between them, each small line revealing how the window stood against time- a delicate barrier that somehow weathered the black storm of immortality with only a few holes to show for it. Francine had to crane her neck to look up at this person.

She found she had unwittingly lifted her hand towards the being much taller than she, exuding otherworldly glory and possibility under a spotlight within this cage of a recording booth. The seraph's face softened with a sigh and two hands rested parallel between their owners, only separated by the window between them. Their palms only felt the ridges of old glass, and yet it was as if they were holding each other so soon after they just met.

"We..." the being began with great longing in their chest, "...deserve so, so much better."

And although "better" meant drastically different things to them both, Francine found herself in agreement. However, something caught in her throat- not a tickling inquiry but a coarse, scratchy one, one that hurt to contain like sandpaper down her windpipe.