Flickers of Faith (Bendy and the Ink Machine)

7- Drifting Rooms

Author's Note: The art for this chapter is by Slipnslideblog (Silver) on Tumblr.

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"And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place..." – Acts 17:26

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Footsteps were unfathomably so soft yet so loud in Sammy's ears as he mindlessly sauntered back into the apartment's hallway. The place was still instinctively unfamiliar, and yet he couldn't take in its simple sights as was normally his way; his wandering companion's cellphone was more than enough to enrapture his full attention. Although the gaping hole of his mask maybe wasn't wide enough to display more than a mouth, it was enough for an audience to see solemn yet disturbed interest in what he held within his grasp.

The black glass lined with thick, pink plastic stared back at him. Almost like a solid, still version of the machine's ink, it seemed like a portal. Sammy certainly knew it was; much of its nature alluded him- as was to be expected when only just beginning to learn about well over half a century of society that had continued without those of the studio- but he comprehended that somehow, someway it collected and archived films from past and present. Seemed to do more than that, too, but that was looking in between the lines of her explanation in the music room, a gentle smile on her lips and eyes glimmering with whimsy as she observed his staring at the screen.

What more could it do, he wondered...as he was unsure how to even turn it on as she had done herself many a time. Sammy allowed his mind to drift even as the revelations and mysteries of the past few moments left his heart aching; it was like a billowing wind had blown through him and he was scavenging pieces of the debris to mold a raft, a place to stand and wait out the waves of sorrow and doubt as he waited for his friend to return.

He could see his hands tighten around the phone, twitching with a slight quiver of dissonance that he needed to cast aside before it spread. Yes, she would certainly return. He would just have to weather the storm that came with her absence.

The mask lifted from facing his cupped hands as he passed the threshold of the hall, entering the room she had claimed as her own. It wasn't until now, however, that Sammy finally saw how she had truly tried to build her own sanctuary in this world after everyone else seemed to deny her theirs.

At some point without his acknowledgement, Francine's bag was emptied and spilled out the remnants of her previous way of being, staining the room with nostalgia for her and newness for him. The few items from her past delivered by the ink demon so they may follow her from her old life into the next were scattered across the room's surfaces. His hands and their phone lowered as his chin lifted, taking it all in. Red caught the corner of his eye first- that all too familiar blemished mahogany, the color of her introduction. The prophet thoughtlessly walked to the gurney as upon it rested that strange cloak- that... "hood-ee," as she called it before- the woman had worn when she first ran the halls and confronted salvation. It had been shed like shorn wool but not forgotten, at least not by the sheep. Just as he reached one hand and grasped at the cloth, he recognized the care she had treated it with after inky abuse; the dark tinges of her own body and of the black puddles were much fainter than before, tangible memories almost entirely retracted from reality as she had clearly put effort in washing them away.

Suddenly it was just like when he had held this shirt to his chest days before. Even as he understood it was being tainted again now with his touch, he still didn't want to let go.