Parables of Empathy (Bendy and the Ink Machine)

10- Reunion

"When the LORD brought back the captive ones of Zion, we were like those who dream." - Psalm 126:1

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And then she began to doubt.

There's an ache left in your heart if one expects something in particular. The more important it is to you, the worse it feels, as if something was taken away from you even if it wasn't yours in the first place. That's the pain Francine felt as she journeyed all the way back from whence she came.

Oh, how did it make her stomach turn to hear music pump from her phone once again, vibration filling her hand with an energy she no longer possessed.

Down through the black lake once more.

"Don't trust him."

She remembered when they first met. How the light glistened over his torso as he stood over her. He took her. He took her.

"Don't trust him."

Being tied up was the most horrific moment of her entire life as they waited for Bendy to take her, like a crucified scarecrow. His anger at her rescue, his lord's sparing. His staring. His staring.

"Don't trust him."

Nothing could explain how it felt to put her life in his hands. She felt like a lamb to the slaughter every second up until they finally clasped hands for that first time. It took so long to finally comprehend that she was safe with him, as safe as he could make her.

But was she ever?

It's easy to pick out the bad things, isn't it? Especially when you felt so firm about someone you cared about, so steady in your goal to save him and yourself. Especially when you're suddenly not so sure that everything you believed in was the truth at all.

That's what she had to face as she was confronted by her own relentless pursuit of what would bring her comfort, now unknowing if it was what would truly help the lost souls she had so briefly met yet cared so much for.

If it was all just a pencil and a dream, then none of these people deserved any of this. Maybe nothing could make them deserve this. She couldn't think of anything that would.

"Don't trust him."

Alice was...so scared of the demon. She could tell. It was Francine's folly to absorb the reverent tone Sammy preached for his lord, a never-ceasing faith that made the former musician center his entire existence around it. And now she had realized that unconsciously, a faith had started to grow in her too. He saved her life after all. He gave her the phone back. And like an ubiquitous god, Bendy had followed her during this epoch of tragedy. Certainly he...he had to be something akin to godliness, at least brushing the rim of that line between mere magic and complete and utter omnipotence.

But if he was a god, what kind of god was he?

Ironic timing to ask herself this as she finally stepped out of the toy factory, a gasp escaping her lips as eyes shot open.

There he was.

And there was Sammy.

"Don't trust him."

And just as she gazed upon them, they gazed upon her, like she was a miracle shining as it descended down to greet them. But even so, as Bendy's eyeless watch slid past the inky waterfall that tried to separate them, he was somehow still the one that held all unearthly glory.

It was particularly blaring to accept as Sammy rested by the demon's feet, a desperate reach- a plea- interrupted as what he longed for had returned.

And just like that, the woman found two of the same face doing nothing but waiting for her. But with all the thoughts spiraling through her head, the usual amazement of the demon's presence coincided with a new, much more disturbing thought, now that she saw the lord and his prophet together at last.

Conspiracy.

Drip.

It hadn't before in this moment, but suddenly the splash of the ink demon's aura had come to her, lapping at her feet like gentle waves. And from the ceiling, a single, small drop of ink had fallen onto her wrist, a touch as tender as the angel's.

It reminded her she really didn't know which deity she should trust.

And as she blinked down at her forearm at this, observing the bead of liquid void spread over her shape, she finally looked up again to see the remains of shadowy oblivion incarnate step out of the room, Bendy entering his portal once more. She could have sworn he looked at her one last time, just as he did so.

Then it was emptiness.

Sammy remained as he was, in his pathetic, begging state, asking his lord to let her come back. But she had come on her own. Relief battled with absolute perplexity as a quietly panting, near-sobbing Lawrence kneeled at the rightmost exit exactly where she left him; she now saw the aching, suffering man he had always been.

She didn't know if it was a man that cared for her alongside worship of the demon or despite it. How strange is it that a simple phrase can change so many before it, valid or otherwise.

She had no choice but to come to him, all the same.

Arms formerly stretched out to his lord now came for the woman until the two beings met in the middle. The spot on her wrist was smeared even more as he pulled her back out of the angel's lair as fast as he could. It was a reunion steeped so deeply in discomfort that she didn't notice the stairs she used to come down to him were only moments ago so broken that falling onto their debris would have killed her. He didn't feel the paper in the hand he clasped.

A song of twinkling dread came from her other hand as their figures lapsed into the darkness of machines.

Someone was beginning to regret their curiosity.

"God help her."