A/N: First and foremost before you start reading I'm going to ask you read these oneshots on AO3 instead - I use a few of links, both to refer back to the event in which these collection of one shots are being made for (Ink Demonth) and to refer back to bonus content and artwork/artists for the one shots that have been collabed. I'm under the same username there as well as here. In each story I will try to put google equivalents to links, but for art that has been collabed I will have to redirect you to the AO3 version of the story if you wish to view it. Most of these A/N are copy/pasta'd from AO3 with minor changes. Apologies in advance if this is not something you wish to bother with - lack of art or bonus content, these one shots should still be enjoyable.

This chapter is a collab with the artist, Valonide. They created a character called 'The Siren' for this part of Ink Demonth. There's going to be more chapter collabs with them as the month goes on. I'll make it known in each chapter accordingly.

We also did an audio version of this chapter that can be found on Youtube. Consider it a first day bonus (and don't expect anymore for the rest of the month). You can find a link to it on my profile!

This chapter is based off a song. It's "When Summer is Gone" (Harrison & Whittle) performed by Jack Hylton. Specifically if you're looking on Youtube it's the gramophone one.

My goal is to do 1k words per chapter. If I do less in one (minimum 500 words), I'll pick it up in another. At the end this whole collection should be 31k+ words. It's also my personal goal to stick to the BATIM universe and only do AU's tied more directly to canon as opposed to, say, doing super out of this world AU's (like Bendy and Boris and the Quest for the Ink Machine) minus the days where said AU's are the basis of the day, or the crossover day. Or the free day. Or the OC day, maybe. We'll get there.

This is posted up a couple days late on here simply because I wasn't sure if I wanted to put it up here at all, but I'll do my best to work around the constraints on this site for those that'd prefer to read it here.

Nostalgia was a powerful motivator. Even as a child Henry remembered his parents yearning for the old days, cursing paper as a medium. For a time when paper was new and cheaper than chalk, it helped Henry learn how to draw. He never understood why older people would fight back against something that was so helpful, and yet he still remembered his parents showing him how to clean a slate, how to clean off all the dust the chalk would create, and most importantly how to clean out the chalk erasers.

He never understood the point to it all. Not until he returned to the old studio. Not until he'd spent days mucking through the depths, falling through floorboards, fighting monstrosities. At times he found a few old doodles or a couple of posters. Episodes he remembered so fondly working on back in the good ole days. Memories he'd smile at. Memories he wished were still real and true.

He remembered very clearly finding an old tape of his in a room right before it flooded. The only one he remembered recording with Linda, at home, before bringing it into work with him the next day. A reminder of who he was working to support, when the image of the studio was falling apart for him. When Joey was working them all to the bone.

Henry wouldn't consider himself a cryer but he cried long and hard that day. It only steeled his resolve to keep going farther in, even as his chances of getting back up somehow kept dwindling. Even as the studio threatened to collapse in on itself, to bury him down there alive. All of it to finish this and find a way out - to get back to her.

It had probably been about a month in when he had heard the music playing. He tensed, wary as the melody started up. It was distant - distant enough to barely be able to make out what it was. He had just been on the verge of some stairs that spiraled downward into the studio when it had happened. He was understandably alert. After the music department he had been wary of any and all music. Even though he feared the worst for Sammy, if he had somehow still been alive…

But this wasn't a banjo that had been playing, the only instrument he'd seen the former man carry around. He walked back, fingers curling over the edge of the doorway as he peered back out into the halls.

It sounded like an old gramophone. The crackle of a record, the static of a song. A song he hadn't heard for ages, not since after he'd left the studio. It wasn't one even remotely related to Bendy or anything Joey Drew had ever endorsed, and yet it played anyway. He could barely hear the lyrics from where he was standing, yet the beat was enough to get him to start humming. To feel the vibration in his bones. To remember sitting by the fire on a cold winter evening. Listening to records and reading a book. He remembered sharing these moments with Linda, with his family too, when he was a child. It warmed his heart, made him think of happier times.

It carried his feet away from the stairs and closer to the sound. He hesitated, approaching a hallway away from where he'd originally come from. It was flooded with ink. A frown creased his brows. He'd specifically avoided this path because of the ink, but the tune kept playing, ever closer. With a sigh, he trudged on. If only he could get close enough to hear the lyrics… Just a few...

A chair was at the three way crossroad down the halls. Closed doors were scattered to either side as he moved towards it. Henry sat down. It was close, close enough to where he could hear the faint ghostings of a voice. "Don't tell me again, love is not in vain," Henry spoke under his breath, singing along, "that it will remain here, when summer is gone."

He stayed like this for a time. Enjoying what he could hear from the gramophone. His foot was tapping before he stood up. It was a good break, but he needed to get moving. He paused when the lyrics looped, a thought dawning on him then. When had the record been reset?

Then another thought encroached upon his mind, his heart stilling in his chest at the thought. How long had the lyrics been that clear? Eyes widened as they looked down the hall, the music echoing across the walls.

Ink splashed as a clawed hand gripped the corner. The horn of a gramophone turned to face him. It was tarnished and mottled in black spots. Oozing and pulsing, tubes went in and out of the ink of its body, wrapping down to the floor. It stained the ground as it trudged onward, an inky tail bending and pushing it forward, like a slug.
ink demon
Henry took a single step back. It stilled. His heartbeat was in his ears. The song, crisp and clear, continued to play even as it screamed. Its body coiled up, springing forward as its clawed hand gripped at the walls. Anything to try and push forward faster with its handicap. Henry took off in a sprint down the opposite direction, hobbling as fast as he could with a limp and an axe gripped in his hand.

He had been lured in. He didn't know why this thing had lured him, but it had, and he'd fallen for it. In a single notion of gaining some semblance of hope from nostalgia and an old dream, he'd run into a monster. Not like the Butcher gang, no - but like the projectionist. A single trip down memory lane and it might get him killed. The lyrics knelled again.

If love's like a rose, that blossoms and grows,

then withers and goes dear, when summer is gone.