Horror Fan Fiction ❯ Bendy and the Ink Machine ❯ Moving Pictures ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: This work was inspired by the popular horror indie game “Bendy and the Ink Machine.” I do not own the rights to the game or any of its canon characters. All rights reserved to their owners. 

This series will combine the feeling of the gameplay from the game along with some extra plot points and changes I made to the story to help it feel more complete, and because I want to be creative when writing this out. I am also adding in a lot of the dialogue from the game into this work, and I will change or edit some of them for the sake of the story. This is also my second fan-fiction writing, so please take it easy. 

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Dear Henry, 

It seems like a lifetime since we worked on cartoons together. Thirty years really slips away, doesn’t it? 

Anyway, if you’re back in town, please come visit the old workshop. There is something I need to show you. 

Your best pal, Joey Drew 

Chapter One: Moving Pictures

(1963, Present Time)

“All right Joey, I’m here”, said Henry Stein as he entered inside of the old workshop he hadn’t visited for decades. It really does feel like a lifetime ago, he thought. He was in his early fifties, slightly grey hair, with a horseshoe mustache. He remembered the days when he and Joey would work on the animations for the cartoon characters right here in this workshop. Seeing all of the drawings, the character designs, the filming, really felt like taking a trip down memory lane for him. He and Joey were the best of friends back in the day, and Joey was much more than just a boss to Henry. They had a great friendship during the few years Henry spent working at Joey Drew Animation Studios, and wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t left the company to spend more time with his new wife. Not that he hated his life, but that he was curious of how much different it would’ve been for him. “Well, let’s see if I can find what you wanted me to see”, Henry said to himself. He began to look around the hallway as he entered the workshop. He could see posters on both sides of the plaster walls of all the productions he worked on in the past. The Dancing Demon, Sheepsongs, Little Devil Darlin...ah, I loved those ones, he thought. As he took notice of the posters, Henry also took notice of a leak in the wooden ceiling, as he could see something dark dripping from the left side of the hallway. It looks like ink, he thought, but why is there so much of it here? Nevermind, it’s not my mess, and besides, I got to see what Joey wants. 

He continued to walk across the wooden-planked floor, until he reached the work area. He could see several things scattered across the room: doorways, a few desks, more hallways, and the film rolling in the back. It seemed so empty since Henry last visited this place. He decided to take a right to see if he could find his old work desk, but when he walked around the corner, there seemed to be some strange graffiti at the end of the room. In big, black, smudgy words it read out: DREAMS COME TRUE. Henry took specific notice of how the bottom line at the final E kept going along the wall. Well, I guess Joey doesn’t care much for vandalism, he thought. Better just keep going. He left the graffiti alone and continued to walk down a dark hallway next to him. As he proceeded, Henry could see something in the room at the very end, but he couldn’t tell what it was. He got closer, and could now see that it was some sort of weird machine. He read across the title that stood right before the room with the machine: INK MACHINE. 

“So this is the Ink Machine, huh?”, Henry said to himself. “I wonder how you turn this thing on.” He was rather curious to see what this machine was capable of, since he had absolutely no clue just by looking at it. As he looked around the strange machine, he could see there was a giant tube of ink attached to the back of it. It’s an ink machine, I mean, of course it’s going to need ink, he thought. He tried seeing if there was an “on” switch to the machine, but he couldn’t find anything. Guess I’ll have to look around, he thought. He exited the room, and went to one of the separate rooms to see if there was anything to turn the machine on. He didn’t see anything of too much particular use, mostly just a desk, the same-old hallways, and several odd cutouts of Bendy the Demon lying around the place. Henry remembered designing this character: his oval-like dark body, his little-white bowtie, his white gloves on his hands, and a kind-of adorable demon head he drew for him, plus his big grinning smile on his face. As he was looking at the Bendy cut-out, he heard something crash on the floor. Henry was startled, and checked to see what made the noise. When he arrived, he saw that a board from the ceiling fell down. Looks like Joey isn’t paying his repair bills enough, he thought. As he was about to go back, he saw something on the right side of him that completely shook him.

There was another small hallway, leading to a room where it seemed as if someone was tied to a bench and ripped wide open, as Henry could see that the chest cavity was opened up. “My God,” Henry said to himself. He decided to see what the hell this was, and as he came into the room, there was something even more shocking: this wasn’t a man at all. It looked like a real-life version of Boris the Wolf, another one of the characters Henry helped Joey design. He was kind of similar to Goofy, a dog that one of Joey Drew’s rivals, Walt Disney, came up with, but with less colorful clothing and a slightly different face in all black and white. But for some reason, Boris’s chest was ripped open, and Henry could even see Boris’s rib cage, as if he had his guts ripped out of him. “Joey, what the hell were you doing?” It was insane enough that he witnessed a real-life version of the very character he created, now it was being disected?! Henry could also see that on the back of the board where Boris was held, there was a massive amount of ink splattered everywhere, which seemed to resemble Boris’s blood. On the left wall in the room there was more graffiti, reading out the words: WHO’S LAUGHING NOW? Wait, is this...what the ink machine does? Bringing our animated cartoons to life, thought Henry. But that doesn’t explain the weird cartoon dissection happening here. 

He decided that it was probably best to figure out how to find out how and why this was happening. The only certain way to know whether or not the Ink Machine had anything to with this strange dissection was to try to find a way to get it functioning again. Guess I better look around some more, he thought. Henry tried searching the other rooms to see what he could work with, and after he entered the hallway down on the left side of the room, he came across yet another strange room, but this one gave Henry more of an awkward vibe rather than a frightened vibe. In this room, Henry could see six pedestales, three on the left side, three on the right, each with a picture of a random object right behind. There was a picture of a song note, a plushy, a wrench, and several other things. And at the end of the room was a machine that read out the words on the top: Main Power - Caution. Along with that, there was another sign that read out ‘low pressure’, and this machine seemed to be connected to two pipes, one on each side, that seemed to hold ink, as Henry could see a puddle of ink right before the main power lever. He tried pulling the lever to activate the machine, but it was stuck between a rock and a hard place, so to speak. Well, that’s not gonna work, he thought, so what are these pedestals here for, exactly? Do I have to get these items and place each one on its assigned pedestal? It seemed to be worth a shot at least, since there really wasn’t anything else Henry could think of at the moment, so he decided to look around to find whatever these items were. Before leaving, Henry made sure to memorize each and every item he needed: a song note, a plushy, a book, a wrench, a gear, and a jar of ink, no surprise there. 

He left the main power room to go look around for the items needed to turn on the power. Henry was casually walking through when suddenly, as he took a left turn, he saw a cut-out Bendy standing right in front of him. “AH! Jesus, how did this get here”, said Henry, quickly recovering from shock. I swear this little guy wasn’t here before, I literally just walked past here, he thought. He couldn’t tell how the Bendy cut-out got there in the first place, so he decided to just pick it up and put it with the other Bendy cut-out he saw earlier. That’s one less problem I have to deal with, he thought. Henry continued to walk through the workshop, making sure to carefully watch for any of the items he needs. As he kept walking along the hallways, he could see that there were several sections where the wall plaster was torn off, and that there would occasionally be a wooden board in the floor out of place. This place must’ve fallen apart without me, Henry thought. As he came across a workbench near the back, he could see some sort of tape player on a shelf on the wall. Hmm… what’s this? Henry was curious, so he decided to press the middle button on the tape player, and it began to play this message: 

“"At this point, I don't get what Joey's plan is for this company. Yeah, I know, Disney Animation is a tough competitor, but I don’t see how Joey’s gonna come out on top of those guys. I mean, have you seen their cartoon’s popularity? They’re getting way more attention than the cartoons Joey’s having us make. Not to mention that the animations sure aren't being finished on time anymore, and I certainly don't see why we need this...machine. It's noisy, it's messy, and who needs that much ink anyway? Also, get this: Joey had each one of us "donate" something from our workstations. We put them on these little pedestals in the break room. "To help appease the gods'', Joey says. "Keep things going". I think he's missing a couple of marbles, but, hey, he writes the checks. But I tell you what, if one more of these goddamn pipes burst, I'm straight outta here.” 

Joey must’ve completely lost his mind, Henry thought. First it was bringing cartoons to life, then it was dissecting them and now there’s some sort of cult being formed by him? What the hell was he doing in the past thirty years? He didn’t even know where to begin with whatever these “gods” that Joey was talking about were, and why he started making his own employees donate items to please them for whatever reason. None of this made any sense at all. Well, I’m not going to get any answers unless I look around for those items, he thought. He left the tape player back on the desk and left to go find whatever he needed. As he tried searching for the items on his list, he came across two shelves on the wall, with a Bendy plushie doll located on the bottom shelf. Henry checked his list for the items needed, and wouldn’t you know, one of them was the plushie. He took the Bendy plushie from the shelf and continued to search for more of the items. He tried remembering if he saw anything when he came inside the workshop, and it just came to mind that he remembered seeing a wrench near the area where he first saw the weird graffiti painted on the wall. So, Henry thought it would be best to check there, and then afterwards look around the workshop some more to find these items. 

As he arrived back where the “DREAMS COME TRUE” graffiti was, he noticed there was a wrench, lying on top of a desk that had been pushed over for some reason. He took the wrench and continued on with his search. Right before he was about to get going, he saw something that immediately caught his eye: there was something that appeared to be a record disk hidden in the corner of the room. He was lucky that he decided to stay back, otherwise he might not have found the item. Afterwards, Henry thought about checking the film reel area he didn’t spend much time in when he first entered the place, hoping to find any more of the items he needed. He tried looking around, mainly seeing a few more work desks, film reels, and oddly, a film projector playing an empty film near a wall. Didn’t look like there was much important going on over there, so Henry just ignored it and kept searching. Luckily, under one of the work desks in the room, he found a book lying underneath it. He went under the desk and picked it up, wiping the dust off of it so he could read the title of the book: The Illusion of Living, Joey Drew. Interesting, he thought, now Joey is writing his own novels. And honestly, that’s the least insane thing I’ve discovered about him today. Well, four items down, and two more to go.

Henry tried researching the place over and over again to try and find the final two items he needed: a cog wheel and a jar of ink. He tried retracing his footsteps, making sure to keep his eyes peeled for anything he might’ve overlooked at first, trying to find anything resembling what he was looking for. This went on for quite a while, actually, which felt like around half an hour for Henry, until he came across the area where he placed the Bendy cut-out he found in the hallway. Right next to the cutout was a gigantic cog wheel, the exact thing Henry needed. Luckily, Henry was able to maintain his strength over the years, or otherwise he might not have been able to carry it with him, along with the other items. Five down, only one more to go. Think, Henry, think, where didn’t I double check? I could try the ink machine, maybe-wait, I didn’t check the dissection room entirely! Maybe the ink jar is there! Conveniently, the dissection room was close to where Henry was, so it didn’t take long for him to retrace his steps and find his way back. He still hated looking at Boris’s dissected corpse, as it made him feel like he was going to lose his lunch. Ugh...Nevermind that, let’s just get this over with, Henry thought. He tried searching around the dissection room, seeing if there was anywhere the ink jar could be. He checked one of the large shelves located in the room, where, speak of the devil, there was a tiny ink jar right next to a film reel in the middle shelf. Henry took the ink jar, feeling satisfaction for finally getting all of these annoying items, and made his way to the main power room. Inside there, he placed each item on its assigned pedestal, as he could tell by the pictures behind each one. “Well, that’s all of them. Now I just need to figure out how to get the ink flowing,” Henry said to himself. 

Henry, once again, tried to search around for where he could find how to get the ink finally flowing, and decided to walk down the halls in further search of it. Oh my God, how much more of this do I have to do already? This is getting ridiculous, Henry thought. As he was walking down the hallway to where there would hopefully be the room he needed to find, a Bendy cut-out appeared from the end of the hall, peaking at Henry, and immediately disappearing into the room on the end of the hallway. This again? He approached with caution, wondering if this was some sort of joke or not, and as he reached the end of the hallway, on his right side, he could see the cut-out of Bendy, leaning against the wall, with a puddle of ink right underneath it. And right next to that was an empty screening area, probably the place where Joey would show his first test-screenings for his animations back in the day, as Henry remembered it. “I’ll deal with you later,” Henry said to the Bendy cut-out, as he came inside the screening area to search for anything. What was odd was that the projector was playing an old animation of Bendy on the screen, showing him jumping up and down very slowly, even though, aside from Henry, there was no one else in the room watching it. He decided to go up to the projector to turn it off, but then, behind the projector, Henry saw a machine in the back, with a sign that read out: INK PRESSURE: FLOW. The light on the “flow” section immediately lit up as Henry hit the machine, and it seemed as if the ink was finally flowing. Now, if there’s anything else I have to do, please tell me now, thought Henry, as he was getting sick and tired of running back and forth to get things working. 

After Henry returned to the main power room, he saw the lever at the end of the room, right underneath the sign that read “Main Power: Caution.” He pulled the lever, and this time, instead of jamming, it successfully came down, and there was another sign right next to the lever that read out: Running. Henry could hear the machine power up, as the machine began to hum and sputter out strange noises. Well, glad that’s done. Time to see what that Ink Machine does now, he thought. He left the power room and made his way to where the Ink Machine was located, trying to retrace his steps to remember where it was. As he walked along the halls, he could still hear the main power humming. Finally, he arrived outside the Ink Machine room, but as he got to it, he could see that it was barred up, mainly covered up with wooden boards. “Okay, something is clearly wrong here. I need to see what this is,” Henry said to himself as he approached the Ink Machine room. As he got closer, he heard some more strange noises, not mechanical, but more of a goopy, dripping noise instead. It kept getting louder as Henry got closer, and when Henry finally reached the entrance, there was something that would probably give him nightmares for weeks. 

It was an abomination, a horrid, dark monster, having the head appearance of Bendy, but that was the only thing recognizable about this beast. It’s eyes seemed to be covered by ink, it’s creepy smile partially covered in ink, and above all, it was even larger than Henry was, banging against the boards in the Ink Machine room in an attempt to escape. Henry’s instant reaction was filled with horror and terror, as he set his eyes on this living nightmare. Whatever the hell this is, I’m not sticking around to find out, as he ran away from the Ink Machine room as fast as his legs could carry him, hoping that those wooden boards would hold off that monster long enough for him to escape. He looked desperately for the exit, and as he ran, he could see the ceiling burst open with ink flying everywhere. Henry covered his face to make sure he wouldn’t get blinded by it, but soon discovered that now there was ink flooding the entire area, now reaching as high as his ankles. His panic was extreme, as he finally came across the work area that he came in threw, and found the exit. YES!! GET ME OUT OF HERE, Henry frantically thought. It seemed as if he would escape, but as he tried to reach for the door, the floor beneath him collapsed, as he fell through the floor, not knowing when this nightmare would end. 

Henry hit the ground hard, and even skinned his arm during the fall. It took him a while to get back up, given his age and physical condition, but was very surprised that he didn’t take too much damage from the fall. There’s no way I fell from that height while only getting a scratch, he thought. He tried looking around him, too, to see if there was anything he could use, or anywhere he could go. Around him, he could see that there was more graffiti on the walls, reading out: THE CREATOR LIED TO US. He could also see that there was a boarded-up hall as well, and, conveniently, an axe. Well, at least I got a weapon to defend myself now, he thought, and I can get rid of these boards now, too. He swung his axe repeatedly, breaking each wooden board in his way, as he walked through. This didn’t go on for too long, as shortly afterwards, there was another room at the end on the left side. Henry walked in to find that there was some sort of ritual happening. There wasn’t anyone there performing a ritual, but Henry could see some sort of weird, drawn circle, with a giant star in the middle of it, surrounded by candles. And, if that wasn’t creepy enough, there were two coffins located right behind it. This place just keeps getting stranger and stranger, Henry thought. He wanted to check it out, but as he walked near the circle, he began to feel drowsy. Very drowsy, actually. It seemed as if everything was all burring away, slower, and slower, and slower, until all that Henry could see was darkness, and passed out on top of the circle, laying on the ground unconscious.