Bum…. Bumdebumdedebuum!

It's-a-me! Yours The Author! Coming to you late for my twentieth birthday present to myself… finishing this story! Hooray!

So, college is done for me…for now. I'll be back there sometime in mid-August, but for now… I write!

Now, this chapter might have a slightly different feel to it, given that it's been so long since I wrote for this story. I had a lot of ideas for comedy in this chapter, so I hope you like them! Unfortunately, I'm the only real BatIM fan in my house, so I couldn't get a good judgement on whether this was a good chapter or not (my little sister, The Deviant, thought it was too long, but I think it's consistent with the other chapter lengths… right? Let me know with a review!).

I'm also kind of bummed because I'm sick and I can't hang out with my friend who's moving to Alabama on June 1st, or go to the anime con downtown this weekend, or go to a friend's wedding, so pretty please review?

Anyway, I won't keep you. Have fun with this chapter!

Chapter Five: The Last Reel

The Holding Cell: Part One

"Captain's log… I think it's Saturday now." Henry blinked slowly and peered through the grates opposite his cot. The cell was small and dirty, with metal grates on one side of the outer wall and wooden boards on the other side. There were ink splashes around the room, and papers with small sketches on the floor. "This reminds me of the time I taped myself in a box and mailed myself to my own house," Henry said quietly.

The room had a certain tension to it, a kind that couldn't be interrupted with loud voices. Even his captors were fairly quiet when they spoke. Now, however, there was the soft sound of humming coming from the outside.

Henry slowly pushed himself up from his cot and stood, bringing his phone with him. He peered through the boards at the angel.

She had her hair in a ponytail, as she had since they had met. She was wearing the same black dress as Susie had been wearing, though this angel also had boots and a ripped jacket over her top. She was painting something Henry couldn't see with a bucket of ink and a brush on the wall. The song she was humming sounded… familiar, reminding Henry of those songs he'd hear in his cartoons.

"I know that song," he said, flinching a bit at how loud his voice seemed in the quiet. The angel stopped humming.

"Everyone knows that song," she replied. She turned to look at him. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"I was invited by an old friend… and now I can't leave. Like I was telling my viewers, it's like being—"

"Taped in a box and mailing yourself; yeah, I heard you. Who even watches your videos?"

"Only the coolest dudes and dudettes. You know. Anyway, you were saying?"

"You know more than we do. One minute, we don't even exist… just thoughts. And the next minute… this place."

"Are you gonna let me out of here?"

The angel set down her brush. "Down here, strangers aren't good things. How can we trust you? We don't even know what you are."

"My name is Henry." He lifted his phone to his face so the viewers could see his gorgeous state of being. "I used to work here, until I quit to become a famous YouTuber. Which, obviously, is working out perfectly so don't me about it."

The angel hesitated, looking away for a moment. "I… honestly don't know my name. So, they call me Alice. But I'm no angel."

"Who even calls you Alice?"

"'Only the coolest dudes and dudettes. You know.'"

"Haha, very funny."

"You go back and rest. We'll talk again later." Alice picked up her brush and began writing again.

The Holding Cell: Part Two

"It's only for a few hours, no need to worry. I won't go far, only up to level six. Just stay here and keep an eye on Henry, okay? I'll be back as soon as I can, I promise."

Henry put the phone camera up to the grate near his bed and watched as Alice hugged Tom (he had heard her call him Tom at some point earlier, while his phone was still offline) and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. "D'aww," Henry cooed. "Tommy has a giiirl-friiieeend!"

SMACK! Tom smacked his axe into his robot hand and glared at Henry. He walked to the side of the room that was blocked to Henry by boards and pulled up a chair, sitting in it and facing Henry as he continued to smack the axe against his hand threateningly. Henry peered through the boards, zooming in on Tom's cartoonishly angry face with his phone.

Henry reached his free arm out of the boards and made a grabbing motion with his hand. "C'mere, Tommy, I want to boop your snoot."

BANG!

Tom threw the axe at Henry and it bounced off against the boards. Henry retracted his free arm. "Hmph," he said. "'Tom', more like 'Tom-me no likey.'"

The Holding Cell: Part Three

"Henry?"

Henry looked up from the sketches he was painting with an inky finger and looked up at Alice. "Hang on, folks, my speedpaint series will have to pause for a moment." He stood up and saw Alice place a bowl of soup on the ledge of one of the boards.

"Here. You must be hungry. Sorry, its all we've got." Alice turned and walked away.

Henry reached for the bowl, but Tom walked up to where Alice had been standing and blocked Henry's soup with his robot arm. "Um," Henry said.

Tom watched Alice disappear down a hall on his left before turning to glare at Henry. He smacked the soup off the ledge with his arm, pointed at Henry, and clenched his fist.

"Aaaaaliiice!" Henry whined loudly. "Tom is—"

BANG! Tom punched a board, nearly cracking it in half.

"—doing absolutely nothing rude to me at all."

The Holding Cell: Part Four

"…I know you're watching me. It's just… a little creepy."

"Aw man…" Henry didn't lower his phone, but continued recording. "I just wanted my fans to know what's the haps. Besides, you're the one who writes on the walls."

"You have no fans. Anyway, we all write on the walls. For some poor souls, it's the only way to be heard. But you don't want to touch the ink for too long. It can claim you and pull you back. That's how I met Tom. I was messing with things I shouldn't have been and he… he was there."

"Fascinating lore, Angel. Hey, why do you call him Tom? Isn't he a Boris?"

"He just seems to respond to it."

"Well, I don't think he's very fond of me. He's a meany-pants."

Alice snickered, then turned to Henry. "Let me show you something." She pulled something from behind a table in the main room and walked to Henry's ledge in the boards. "Awhile back, I was mapping one of the upper levels when I noticed something reflecting off a piece of glass."

She lifted a panel of glass with lights along the inner edges with a small stick for holding onto it and set it on the ledge. "I held up this glass, looked through, and on the wall behind me was a hidden message! Right there, in plain sight!"

Is this a new game mechanic? Henry wondered.

"So, I kept looking, and found more and more messages everywhere in the studio! But you can't see them with your eyes," she tapped the side of her face, "only through this. Take a look."

Henry picked up the handle with his left hand and held it at eye level. Sure enough… "'She will leave you for dead,'" he read aloud.

Alice blinked. "What?" She took the glass back and looked through it at the wall Henry had been looking at. "Huh… that wasn't there before. I wonder who 'she' is."

"Gee, I wonder."

Alice narrowed her eyes at him before handing the glass to him again. "I don't know who's leaving them, but I think they know how to get out of here."

Henry looked at Alice through the glass, admiring the halo over her head. "Where does it all lead to?"

"Nowhere."

"…Oh."

"I followed them for a long time… just lead me in circles." She looked down at a spot on the floor. "I don't think I'm meant to leave this place, Henry. But, maybe… you are."

Henry lowered the glass, but held up his phone a bit higher. "Alice… please let me out of here. Pleeease? With a cherry on top?"

"Tom thinks you're dangerous."

"And what do you think? Come on, woman up a little."

"I… I think… you're the hope I've been waiting for." She pulled away from the ledge and turned to her wall of ink. "Go to sleep. Maybe tomorrow will be better."

Henry opened his mouth, then closed it. He glanced at the mysterious glass, then slowly put it under his pillow and paused the video for a nap.

The Holding Cell: Part Five

Henry awoke to the sound of metal twisting against metal. He slowly got up, unpaused the live video feed, and peered through the boards. Alice seemed to be twisting the bolts holding Tom's arm together while chiding him. "That was really stupid, Tom," she was saying. "You shouldn't have gone out there. Now that he's seen you it's only a matter of time… before he finds us here."

Tom turned his head away from her, seemingly gazing at her wall writings. Henry caught Alice's eye and he finger gunned her with his free hand. Tom glanced up and Alice quickly returned to adjusting the arm, though not before Henry made a move. "You can fix me anytime, Angel C-ake!" His voice cracked from old age.

Alice immediately wrapped an arm around Tom's neck. "I have a boyfriend," she said defensively. For a brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Tom's eyes turned into hearts. Henry gained five subscribers for wholesome content.

Henry shrugged. "Worth a shot." He returned to his cot.

The Holding Cell: The Finale

There was a loud thump, and Henry jolted from his, like, fifth nap or something. The room was shaking.

"We can't just leave him!" Alice was saying. "Not with the ink demon right outside the door!

Henry unpaused his lived stream and peeked through the boards. "What's going on?"

"He's coming; we have to move on!" Alice said. The room rumbled and the three of them looked around, as one is wont to do during such a situation. Alice grabbed at the board ledge and pulled. "Tom!" she cried, "we have to let him out!" She continued to pull until Tom gently put his robot hand on her shoulder and shook his head. Alice slowly let go of the board. "…I'm sorry," she whispered. The two ink people ran out the door.

"I TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE YOU!" Henry shouted after her.

"NO YOU DIDN'T!" Alice yelled back.

"I IMPLIED IT!" And then they were gone. Henry flipped his video screen to face him. "Hello, everybody, my name is Henry and welcome back—finally—to my let's play live vlog of Joey Drew Studios. I've been filming on and off for at least a day, but we should finally be back on track for the game. I just got left behind, and the Ink Demon is coming, so I probably should do something about that. I mean, not that that's a real problem for me, since he's a coward who won't face his dad, but I'm tired of being in a box. I need to pee!"

He looked around the cell and scratched his chin… then snapped his fingers. "I'll pee in Alice's ink bucket! It's not like she needs it. There's always fresh ink to be found all over this place, anyway. Now, how to get out of here… oh, I know!"

Henry reached under his pillow and looked around the room through his phone through the mysterious device. There was a lot. "Oh, cool, my bed is a coffin. That's nice." He gazed at the scribbles all over the walls and found a message near a rack of cooking tools reading "take the spoon". He tugged at the spoon and the wall moved to the side, revealing… revealing…!

"Oh, a toilet. How… lovely. Why was this hidden? Like, what purpose would that serve?" The message above the toilet read: "Look inside, you'll need this".

"No way I'm touching that thing—oh, wait, not inside the bowl, inside the… other part thing." Henry pushed the top cover on the back of the toilet to the side with the edge of the device, revealing a pipe. "Will this thing break a board of solid wood? Leave your guess in the comments below!" He smacked the board lightly and the whole thing shattered like glass. "…Why am I not surprised?"

Beyond the Safe Room

"Ah… refreshing," Henry said as he wiped his hands on his pants. "Nothing like a good pee to get you ready for a new game day! Now, let's take a look…" Seeing nothing through the glass, Henry stepped into the messy hall… just as an ink creature popped up from a puddle. "Hecker!" Henry smacked the thing with his pipe and it melted away. This repeated for a few minutes: Henry would look through the glass, see nothing, and nearly step on an ink creature before it melted away.

Launch the Barge

"So when I have the thing up, I can't move," Henry noted as he entered the next room. "I suppose every mechanic needs its drawbacks; otherwise, the game is too easy. Anyway, why is there a boat in here?"

The room was fairly large; at least, compared to the rest of the rooms he had been in for this chapter. There was a boat sitting on top of a wooden dock, which reached into an inky river. Henry saw a glowing switch and smacked it with the butt of the glass handle. It flicked on, and the boat lowered partially in the river. "Okay, now how do I get in the boat?"

He hopped uselessly near the front of the boat, to no avail. He smacked the boat with his pipe, also to no avail. Finally, after a few minutes of struggling, he leaned against the lever in frustration. The lever moved back to its original position, and the rest of the boat landed in the ink river.

…

"Of course. Why not? Next, I'll pull the lever again and ice cream will come out."

Down the River

After figuring out how to moved the boat forward, Henry was sailing so… very… slowly… down the ink river. There was a dark tunnel by the dock that the boat was headed towards. The boat itself seemed to be locked on a certain path, or, at least, Henry couldn't figure out how to turn the boat left or right.

The tunnel was just beginning to get a bit brighter when the rudder stopped. Henry looked at it behind him. "Dang, the ink down here sure is thick. Or thicc, whoever says that about inanimate liquid. Gotta unclog it with a pipe, because that makes sense."

Just as he turned to the rudder, there was a loud splashing sound. Henry turned back around in time to see a giant gloved hand reach up from the river, making grabbing motions and stirring up the ink.

ShootshootSHOOT!

Henry smacked away the ink blobs clogging the works of his boat and pushed the lever up again. Again, this repeated for a few minutes: Henry would move forward, stop to unclog the rudder, and internally or externally freak out over the large ink hand (That's so cool! Hashtag: Shake Hands with Bros!).

The Old Song Returns

"Well. That could have been a little shorter. The novelty of a giant hand was cool, but it wore off pretty quickly. I will have so much advice for Joey in terms of game design, if I ever find him." Henry stepped off the boat and onto the dock of the new location. He, obviously, snapped a selfie of him and the fishing ink guy near the side of the room (hashtag: Bro Fish), then panned the camera and glass around the room.

The room was like the setting of a small movie setting, with little houses that didn't seem to lead anywhere and an almost old western feel to the place. In the center of the back of the room was a doorway blocked with boards. Henry held his glass to the door and read aloud: "Once people, now fallen into despair. Huh. I wonder what that means."

He walked towards the doorway… and screamed like a man when the boards broke apart and the music started.

"BETRAYED! ABANDONED!" Sammy Lawrence roared as he burst through the boards, wielding an axe. "I trusted you! I gave you everything! And you left me to rot! Why? WHY?!"

"Jeezing heckers!" Henry yelped as Sammy swung at the gamer's head. "I'm just going to… leave?" Henry peeked at where Sammy had entered and found a dead end, no mysterious scribbles or anything. He turned to Sammy. "Did you just stand in this room the whole time, waiting for me? Why? WHY?!"

Sammy smacked him with the backside of this axe. Henry's vision darkened for a moment, but he quickly recovered and smacked Sammy with his pipe. It snapped in half, though not before taking Sammy's mask with it.

Sammy covered his face. "NO! Don't look at me! Stay away!" He hurried to the center of the room and stood stock still, facing away from Henry.

Henry reached out to him. "Uh, dude? Are you cool now, or—"

Sammy grabbed Henry with both hands by the neck and lifted him into the air. The game graphics wouldn't show you this, but Henry could sense what the game designers were aiming for. Sammy was meant to have three gaping holes in his face, two for his eyes and one for his mouth. Unfortunately, this did not show itself in the game very well. Henry's concern for this fact was quickly replaced by the next thing Sammy said.

"You lied to me! You said I'd be free!"

"I didn't say squat, dude! Take a chill pill!"

Sammy threw Henry on the ground and held him in place with his foot while he took a better hold of his axe. "Well, I'm going to free you now! Free your head right off your shoulders!"

Henry's vision was dark, but he could see a figure slowly stepping towards Sammy. "Sheep, sheep, sheep, it's time… for sleep-!"

There was a wet smacking sound, and Sammy fell over with a grunt. Henry's vision cleared, and he saw Sammy lying next to him with an axe in his head. The axe was removed, and Henry looked up to see—

"Tom!"

Tom stood above Henry, holding the axe. He smacked it against his metal hand once… then flipped it around, holding the handle to Henry. Henry grabbed it, and Tom pulled him to his feet, bringing a second axe out of nowhere and holding it after giving Henry his old one.

Alice walked over to them, holding the sword she'd had when they first met. "That was close," she said. "You're lucky we were—"

"AY!" Tom and Alice jumped. Henry held his fist to the wolf man. "Pound it, Thomas, pound it!"

…

SMACK!

"Let's go get some TATER TOTS!"

"…Anyway," Alice said as Henry shook out the hand Tom had smacked away with his metal arm. "You're lucky we were in the neighborhood." The room began to shake, and, once again, everyone looked around the room wildly.

"Was that the ink demon?" he asked.

"I don't think so," Alice replied. "The searchers and lost ones built this place. Sammy must have been keeping them at bay. Now that he's gone…" The room shook again, "looks like we're in for a fight. Get ready!" The room shook one last time, making puddles leak onto the floor around them. "Watch out, here they come!" Sure enough, searchers popped out of the puddles and began to advance.

"Wait!" Henry cried.

"What's the matter? We can't really delay this!"

Henry held up his axe, phone, and glass. "I can't hold all of these things at once!"

Tom face palmed and Alice groaned. She took a piece of rope from around her waist and threw it at Henry.

"Yay, that's happy!" Henry cheered as he tied his phone to the glass so the viewers could see what he could. "Now, let's do this!"

After the War

"I think that's all of them," Alice said at last.

"That only took, like, eight years," Henry grumbled.

"Oh, hush. Anyway, you never know where they're gonna crawl out next. Probably best if we stay together from now on. Henry, think you can lead the way?"

"What?" said Henry. "You two know this place better!"

"Not this area. We don't need to come this way that often."

"Oh my gosh, fine. Just don't blame me if we go the wrong way. Wait…"

"What is it?"

Henry held up the glass with his phone on it. "I just want to make sure…" He aimed the glass at Tom. There was a bone in his mouth. "My man!" Henry reached up to Tom's face. "I'm gonna boop your snoot, okay?"

Tom smacked Henry's hand away with his robo arm.

"Ha ha ha. I feel hurt." Henry shook out his injured hand. "Anyway, follow me, lads!" Henry opened a side gate and led the two others towards a hall with a few boards as a floor. "Okay, watch your step, and-!"

A board snapped under Henry's weight and fell into the dark abyss below.

…

Alice held her arms in front of her. "Excuse me what the frick."

"It's in the Vault"

Is the first message Henry saw once his vision cleared. The first sound he heard was the opening bars for that Alice Angel song… Lonely Angel, or I'll Be Your Angel, whichever it was. Henry pulled himself to his feet and checked to see his phone didn't crack. Once he was satisfied with the condition of his phone, he walked towards the larger room the hall ended in, not particularly concerned with where the axe had gone.

The room was fairly large, but not well lit. There was a Little Miracles station in one corner, a mini ink machine in another corner, a hall leading to more halls, and a door near the back. When Henry went through this door, he saw a wall of pipes, three of which were replaced with golden light images. "Isn't that interesting," Henry muttered. "Yet another fetch quest. Let me guess, the mini ink machine makes other pipes, and I have to find ink blobs to make them?" He returned to the machine and checked the panel on the side. "Joy."

Joey Drew's Office and the Pen

"Not these guys again," Henry groaned as he watched a Butcher Gang member walk by. "I'll have to keep out of sight… is what I would say, if these guys posed a threat. I'm gonna take it slow, my dudes, so take a potty break if you need to."

Henry began his trek through the maze of halls, walking by Butcher Gang members casually and striding, eventually, into Joey Drew's office. The desk was large, and there were diplomas placed almost randomly on the walls. There was a tape recorder on the desk. Henry turned up his phone's sensitivity (which was probably broken at this point, but whatevs) and held it to the recorder's speaker.

"I know how much this part means to you, Susie," Joey's voice said. "Alice means a lot to me, too."

"IT'S JOEY DREW!" Henry yelled unnecessarily.

"All my characters do! In fact, I'll let you in on a little secret: I, too, believe my characters are more than just drawings. They're alive. They're part of us. And I want people to know them as well as I do. I want people to be able to shake their hand, spend an afternoon with them. Love them. Susie, I'll be straight with you. I'm putting together a small project… a little ceremony. If it works, a lot of dreams will come true. And I want you to be a part of it. I want you to bring Alice to life once again. Whaddaya say?"

*Click*

"…Huh." Henry glanced around the room. "Joey Drew, what did you do?"

He was about to leave when he bumped into the desk, knocking something onto the floor. It was a pen.

Grunting heavily (he was an old man, after all), he leaned down and picked it up. It was a very fancy fountain pen, and when Henry drew a line on the desk to see if it worked, no ink came out. Making a connection, he aimed his phone and glass combo at where he had made a mark. Sure enough, there was a gold line on the desk.

"Does this mean Joey was the one writing these messages?" He glanced around before sticking the pen in his back pocket. "I'll just… take this…"

After the Puzzle: In the Vault

The vault door was torn off the wall, and Henry walked in with ease. There wasn't much in the vault, aside from a few boxes. One was lit by a light, almost like a "look here for the next step of your let's play" sign. He opened the box, revealing… some blank reals.

"Looks like whatever was here was taken a long time ago."

Henry jumped and turned to see the wolf and the angel. "Don't. Scare me. Like that!" he wheezed. "How did you get down here?"

"It pays to carry a rope. You should try it."

Henry stuck his tongue out at Alice, but quickly sobered up. "Look," he said," I know where we need to go… but it's not going to be pleasant. The ink demon has something that we need. I'm going after him."

"You want to go to his lair? Are you crazy? That's death!"

"That's where the trail seems to lead."

Alice sighed. "Well, it's probably close by, probably through that door." She pointed at a sealed door on the side of the vault. "But it won't be easy to open…" She put a hand to her chin and pondered. "I'll need three gears, a crowbar… hmm, some kind of counter balance—"

Tom walked to the door and punched it in half.

"…That works too. I guess."

"Hacker skillz, my man!" Henry put a fist to Tom's arm and bumped his hand. Tom gave Henry a look before walking through the door. Alice and Henry looked at each other before following.

The Old Desk

"Hey, here's my old desk." Henry pointed at the desk in the corner of the hall. "How did it get here? I thought it was on the first floor."

"Things are weird here, Henry," Alice replied. "Let's keep moving—wait."

"What is it—"

"Quiet!" Alice pointed down the hall to another hall lined with glass. "Don't make any noise…"

Henry peered through the windowed hall. The ink demon was shambling down the way.

Henry threw himself against the glass and screamed "HI BIRHTDAY BOY!"

Bendy jumped at the sudden noise and fell over before he crawled unnaturally quickly down the hall on all fours like a spider.

"…You. Are. An idiot." Alice said.

Henry shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?"

Alice sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Let's just get this over with."

The Ink Machine

"Wow," Alice breathed. "I've never seen this before…"

Henry whistled. "It's something, ain't it?" The ink machine seemed bigger than it had when Henry first saw it at the beginning of his live stream. Gaskets blew out steam, gears turned, and a huge inky river separated the group from the colossal thing. Henry gained a viewer.

Alice glanced at the river. "I don't see any way across… nothing to build a raft with."

"We'll have to wade across," Henry stated.

"We can't," Alice replied. "We're not like you, Henry. If we go in there… well…" she turned to face him. "a drop of water in the ocean is rarely seen again."

Henry groaned. "Then I guess it's all up to me. And I don't even know if this let's play is worth the extra subscribers anymore. I don't really know why this is all happening to me."

"You're here for a reason, Henry. There's always a reason." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Even if it's not a very good reason."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh at the YouTuber, why don't you?"

"It's time, Henry. Set us free."

Henry looked at the glass with his phone attached in his hand, then at the river. "The least you could do is give me a weapon." He looked at Tom, who held his axe close and shook his head "no". He turned to Alice. "Give me your cool sword."

Alice held her machete close as well. "You can't have my cool sword."

"But I want the cool sword."

"It's my cool sword."

"Please?"

Tom shoved Henry into the river.

"Meanie-pants!" Henry shook his fist angrily at them before wading across the river, making sure not to get his phone and glass messy with ink.

Enter the Machine

The Ink Machine, for some reason, had a long hallway and door entrance that Henry was now walking along in quietly. There were thin windows on each side of the hall every few feet leading to closet sized rooms, maybe eight feet tall, with ink pouring in each room from above.

There was a door at the end of the hall with a lever next to it, which Henry pulled, slowly revealing a room with a chair in the center, piled on top of a mess of ink and reels. There was a tape recorder next to the throne. Henry clicked the play button.

"It's simply awe-inspiring," Joey's voice began, "what one can accomplish with their own hands."

Henry panned around the room as Joey spoke, gazing at the video screens playing old episodes of Bendy and his pals. It was, indeed, awe-inspiring.

"A lump of clay can turn to meaning… if you strangle it with enough enthusiasm. Look what we've built! We created life itself, Henry! Not just on the silver screens, but in the hearts of those we entertained with our fancy moving pictures. But… when the tickets stopped selling… when the next big thing came along… only the monsters remained… shadows of the past. But you can save them, Henry! You can peel it all away! You see, there's only one thing Bendy has never known."

Henry returned his gaze to the chair. There was a reel on it. He picked it up.

"He was there for his beginning. But he's never seen…"

Henry flipped the reel over. "…the end," they said together. The tape clicked off. Music began to play. Henry looked up.

Bendy was standing behind the chair, watching the cartoonist-turned-gamer. He held up an ungloved hand, and the two of them watched his hand grow five times its original size. His other hand did the same. Bendy knelt behind the chair, where Henry couldn't see him… until two long horns rose from behind the throne. A large beast crawled over the throne, a many fanged grimace where a cartoonish smile had been before.

Henry raised his phone. "…Death selfie?"

Bendy roared and punched Henry through a wall.

"Sick… nasty… dog…" Henry wheezed as he got to his feet. The hallways he was now in rumbled as Bendy ran through them, slipping into the ends of halls and appearing in a different one. Henry lifted his phone glass combo to his eyes and saw arrows pointing in certain directions. He followed them, making sure not to run into his beasty boy as he pulled the levers at the end of each arrow. After four levers, a door opened, leading to a larger room with four pillars of glass and more cartoons on the walls. Henry turned a valve on the wall and the pillars began to flow with ink. Bendy entered the room and roared.

Henry ducked behind a pillar and Bendy smashed it, sending the ink flooding along the floor. Henry repeated this with the rest of the pillars. After the fourth pillar was smashed, the room blacked out. Henry stood still and listened. The music was still playing, he just couldn't see anything except the light from his phone. He leaned close to it. "I think they blacked out the room so they could get rid of the Bendy model without the framerate dropping," he whispered loudly.

The lights slowly faded back in. The beasty boy was gone. Henry exited the room and found himself back where he had started: the throne room. There was a tape player by the throne, and Henry quickly put the reel in and pressed play. The reel began to turn. Henry turned around.

The Beast Bendy (that was a good name for him, Henry decided) was right behind him, reaching out a giant clawed towards him… when the silver screens on the walls began to glow brighter. Bendy backed up and looked at the screens in confusion. The screens suddenly changed to a black "the end" screen, and Bendy flinched, reaching back to Henry with another roar. The room flashed with a bright light, and Bendy roared one final time. Henry whited out.

"The End"

The white slowly faded to… color? Henry blinked and looked around. He was in a multi colored, familiar looking room. A living room, to be precise, with a green carpet and a few chairs and lamps scattered around. A familiar song was playing from the room in next to the one he was in.

Henry realized his phone was no longer attached to the mysterious glass and gasped. "My phone! Where is my phone?! I—"

"Henry? So soon?" A voice called from the room where the radio was playing. It was also very familiar… but not in a good way. Henry hid the glass behind his back and slowly entered the next room, which turned out to be a kitchen. "I didn't expect you for another hour yet. Now you're just trying to impress me." It was Mr. Joey Drew, standing by the sink in a bathrobe next to a wheelchair. He wasn't looking at Henry.

"Um," Henry began, "my phone—"

"I know, I know," Joey interrupted. "You have questions. You always do!"

"Yes, actually. About my phone—"

"The only important question is this: who are we, Henry?"

"Well, I'm me. And you're going to give me my phone, or I'll—"

"I thought I knew who I was… but the success starved me. Nothing left but lines on a page. In the end, we followed two different roads of our own making. You, a lovely family…"

"Yeah, my Mom is pretty cool to let me stay at her house—"

"And me… a crooked empire. And my road burned. I let our creations become my life. The truth is…" Joey turned slowly, leaning heavily against the sink and counters. "You were always so good at pushing, old friend. Pushing me to do the right thing." He held up Henry's cell phone. "You should have pushed a little harder. Come visit the old workshop. There's something I need to show you—"

"MY PHONE!" Henry screamed, making Joey jump and nearly fall to the floor. "My Mommy gave me that phone! If you don't give it back right now-!"

"Calm down, Henry—"

"NO! And speaking of my phone, I have a lot of problems with the studio you made me play through!"

"…What?"

"First of all," Henry began, "there are way too many fetch quests! Do you have any idea how long it took me to do that section with Susie?! It only seemed so short because The Author cut out a lot of it!"

"I am not a part of this conversation," The Author said quickly from behind her laptop.

"Just—just visit the studio, Henry. There's something I—"

"I'm not done!" Henry yelled. "The color scheme of the studio is so monochrome I'm probably color-blind right now!"

"Henry's opinions do not reflect those of the author—" The Author began.

"SHUT UP!" Henry yelled.

"YOU SHUT UP, HENRY STEIN!" Joey yelled back. "You are going back in that studio through that door—" Joey pointed at the front door. "—Or so help me, I'll break this phone!"

"You. Wouldn't. DARE."

Joey raised the phone above his head. "Try me! You can have it back once I exact my nonspecific revenge on you!"

"Hecker!" Henry yelled.

Joey waved his hand and Henry began to slide across the floor towards the opening door, which did indeed lead to the studio. "Into the studio with you!"

"Wait, one more thing."

"Five seconds. What is it?"

"…Hecker."

Henry flew through the door, which slammed shut behind him.

"Okay Joey, I'm here. Let's see if we can find what you wanted me to see." Henry covered his mouth in surprise. "Wait, didn't I… didn't I say that already? Wait…" Henry pulled out the glass from behind his back and looked through it. There were golden tally marks along the walls by the door. Hang on…

"Hang on…" Henry reached into his back pocket and pulled out the mysterious pen. He slowly drew a mark near where the tally marks ended. "But my phone… where's my phone?!" Henry pulled at the door handle frantically, to no avail. "Does… does this mean I have to do this whole thing again… without my phone?" He sank to his knees." "NOOOOOOO!"

The Actual End

Now, I'm sure this ending doesn't satisfy a lot of you… but, there is a solution! You can simply write another part! As long as you give me credit for this AU idea, you can do whatever you like with this concept! I'd love to see what you come up with! Will Henry escape the studio? What about the scythe thing and the secret black and white mode? It's all up to you! Go wild and make sure you have fun!

Now, the second most important part of posting this today… I'm posting a new poll! I have some ideas for what I want to write at some point this summer, but I'm not sure where to start. So, a few minutes after I post this story, I'll post a new poll (which you can only access on a computer, from my experience) listing some ideas I have for what to work on next. Obviously, you pick the one you like the most. Of course, if you have a different idea, you can post a review on your favorite story telling me what you'd like.

Now, have a lovely summer break, and if you have exams, good luck! Until then!