Bendy and Friends

Chapter 2: Ink Machine

Joey waltzed into the building, the wooden floor creaking beneath him. "Home sweet home!" He shouted, cupping his hands. The sound echoed through the relatively empty building,

The cat, who was still on his leg, stared at him. "What?" Joey said, flicking several switches on the wall. He'd forgotten what they did a long time ago, but he really couldn't care less about what happened.

Electricity raced through the exposed light bulbs on the ceiling, causing one to shatter in an explosion of glass.

The cat screamed as shards flew pointedly towards the dartboard hung on the wall.

"Oh, the memories!" Joey sang as he twirled around the filthy room, kicking up what looked like fake snow all around him.

Joey sighed, and remembered why he was there. "I really didn't want to come here." He said, looking at the cat. The cat's face twisted into a malicious grin, and then into a sympathetic look.

Confused about the cat's emotions, Joey took off down a random hallway.

His phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket to see what it was.

"Hey Audrey," he said, pressing a button and nimbly lifting the phone to his ear.

"Who is this?" She said from the other line.

"Um, you called me, so I certainly hope you know who I am."

"Ooh, ok," She said excitedly. "Let me guess. . . Is this my mom?" She exclaimed.

"W-what? No! It's me, Joey!"

"Oh, right. I just called to tell you to record anything you see on your phone. Pictures or videos work fine. Thanks, bye!" She rushed, then hung up before Joey could even register what she said.

"Um, ok." Joey said loudly, shoving the phone roughly into the pocket of his loose jeans. He continued walking for a while.

After a while of walking and explaining his life story to the cat, they stopped in front of a certain room with the door closed and boarded up. Near the top of the wooden door was a collection of scraggly letters that made out, "Ink Machine".

The cat anxiously meowed as Joey used his nonexistent superhuman strength to attempt to rip off the boards.

"You can't take those off with your hands." A quiet voice said from behind him.

Joey glanced over his shoulder to see nothing. "Um, is there something I can use? Like an axe?" He said to the dark abyss behind him. The room sat where the lights pretty much ended, so beyond that point was eternal darkness unless you had a flashlight.

"Look to your left." The voice responded, still nowhere to be seen.

Joey looked down where the voice had directed him, and was pleased to see that a tiny hatchet sat between the floorboards. He bent down and picked it up, swinging it around. It was barely the size of his hand, the blade no larger than his thumb. "Thanks!" He said, and got to work at trying to cut them down.

"That probably won't work either." The voice said, echoing through the room.

Puzzled, Joey let the miniature hatchet fall to the floor. "Then what am I supposed to use?" He said, looking all around him.

The boards suddenly fell off, then flew down the dark hallway.

"Never mind, I guess," Joey said, and opened the door.

A hot breeze swept against his face as he revealed the dark room. The cat grumbled as Joey flicked on the lights and a nasty smell overtook them.

"Ah, the ink machine! Of course! Loved this thing." He said, striding towards the hulking machine and knocking on the metal coating. "That's pure . . . metal. Of some sort." He said awkwardly, turning his gaze to the walls. He frowned, as the word PENS was written on the wall. Although there might have been an I between the N and the S.

He noticed an old torch hung on the wall, and immediately gripped it in his hands and lit it up with a lighter he conveniently had open in his pocket.

"C'mon, let's go." He said, heading out the doorframe and wandering down the dark hallway.

It started out peaceful, even as the floor creaked and something seemed to be moving in the dancing shadows from the torchlight, but after a few minutes Joey started to notice things on the walls.

It wasn't like before, in the ink machine room. That was probably just innocent teenage graffiti. But this was different in an ominous way.

There were things like "He will set us free"  and "The creator lied to us", but his favourites were "I forgot how to make Kraft Dinner" and "Stop telling me random facts about chicken".

He pulled out his phone and started taking photos of what he could, and took several different winding paths until he started hearing a muffled voice calling out from somewhere in the building.

"Hello?" Joey called out, glancing around the hallway intersection he currently stood in. His stomach grumbled in response, and his mind went back to the walls with the messages relating to food.

The muffled voice echoed throughout again, causing him to break out of his thoughts about food. He instantly regretted leaving the leftovers in the car.

"Uh, who's there?" He yelled, not bothering to wait for a response before he started opening nearby doors in hopes of finding the source of the noise.

Eventually he came across a room that sparked his interest. It wasn't particularly large, but his attention slid to a thin door in the corner of the room as he started wondering about the noise. Like any typical horror movie, there was a good chance there may be a tied-up person behind that door. But this wasn't a horror movie, just his possibly-haunted abandoned workplace.

He raked his mind to try to remember what was behind the door. Supply closet? Bathroom?

He didn't really care what was behind it, but it made a difference if he at least had a vague idea of what was behind that door.

He positioned himself outside the door, the cat grumbling on his foot.

Why was he even obsessing about the door in the first place? It's because there could be anything behind a closed door in this place, he thought. Besides, I'm helping Audrey with her work.

He repositioned, preparing to kick the door down, but then realized the door was unlocked. Actually, it was open. How convenient.

He grasped the icy-cold knob, and slowly opened the door with caution.

The cat sneezed, sending termites and dust flying up in a cloud around them. Joey coughed, covering his face just enough so he was able to still see.

He gasped as he took in what was behind the door, inhaling what was probably not a healthy amount of termites and dust.

Cliffhanger teehee ;)
Even though it continues on the next chapter :O