Maddie and Emma in Bendy and the Ink Machine

Chapter Seven

We went through the door to see another toy room filled with planes and things that weren't Bendy, Boris, or Alice. We followed Boris to see that there was a switch to open the door. But, from the looks of things, we needed to flip the two switches at the same time. I told him and Emma to stay with the one over here while I looked for the second one. I followed the wire down a hallway. I found it next to a poster of the Butcher gang.

Just as I got close, one of the Butcher Gang members popped out of the poster and lunged at me. I used the pipe to whack him dead. It took a  few hits but he soon fell to the ground and evaporated. I went back to the switch and flipped it before more of the Butcher Gang showed up. I returned to Boris and Emma and we went through the door to another hallway. But we made it to a room that had a lift. Maybe we can leave through it. Boris, Emma, and I went in and, before we could press a button, the lift moved on its own, and Alice's voice started talking through a  speaker;

'You're both so interesting... so different. I have to say, I'm an instant fan. Looks like you've both got a date with an angel! Come to me now. Level Nine. Just follow the screams.'

"I'm flattered Alice but Emma's not into girls," I said out loud.

She said nothing. We traveled down to level nine and the doors opened. Alice told us to leave the lift so we walked out and went down the stairs to find another recording from Thomas;

'These blasted elevators... sometimes they open... sometimes they don't... sometimes they come... sometimes they keep on going to Hell and back. I keep telling these people, if Mister Joey Drew keeps cutting corners like this, someone's sure to end up falling to their death. And it sure ain't gonna be me. I'm taking the stairs.'

Fair point. We walked over to where Boris was. He was waiting for some doors to open up. But it only did when we arrived at the door. She's really taking a fancy to us, isn't she? We walked through and Boris started to run for it. We ran after him, telling him to slow down. But we stopped when we saw a bunch of Boris' and Butcher Gang strapped to tables, cut open. Forget the nightmare room I saw upstairs.

This is even worse. Boris just stared at one of the corpses of himself so we moved on, down the wooden plank path. Alice spoke up telling us to look around at the corpses and how it took so many to make her beautiful. And anything less than perfect was left behind. Yeah, we see that. We saw a wooden path that led me to another tape recorder. It was from Susie;

'Who would've thought? Me having lunch with Joey Drew! Apparently, times are tougher than I thought. For a moment there, I thought I'd be stuck with the check. But I gotta say, he wasn't at all what I expected. Quite the charmer. He even called me Alice. I liked it.'

Someone had a big ego. We moved on just as a door opened for us to go through. It led us to a room where we saw one of the butcher gang and Alice behind some glass. She was electrocuting him. What did he do to her? We came up to the glass and she stopped torturing him.

Alice hummed, "Now we come to the question... Do I kill you two? ...Do I tear you both apart to my heart's delight? The choices of the beautiful are unbearable. How's a girl to choose?" She chuckled, "Take this little freak for instance! He crawled in here... Trailing his tainted ink to my door! It could have touched me! It could have pulled me back!! Do you both know what it's like? Living in the dark puddles? It's a buzzing, screaming well of voices! Bits of your mind, swimming... like... like fish in a bowl! The first time I was born from its' inky womb, I was a wriggling, pussing, shapeless slug. The second time... well... It made me an angel! I will not let the demon touch me again. I'm so close now. So... almost perfect," she sighed, "Yes. I will spare you two. For now. Better yet... I'll even let you both ascend and leave this place. If you two will do a few eensy, weensy little favors for me first. Return to the lift, my little errand girls. We have work to do!"

She turned back to the Butcher Gang Member and pressed a button, closing some shutters which stopped us from seeing what she was going to do. We're not excited to do her bidding. But, anything to help us leave this place. We returned to Boris who had left the room of corpses. Thanks for leaving us with the psycho Angel.

We walked back to the main room where we were about to go to the lift when some shutters stopped us from leaving. Alice complained that her machines were hungry and to go get her some spare parts. We looked behind us to see that she had given me a wrench for this. I took it and left. We walked back to the lift just as Alice spoke up again.

'There are so few rules to our world now. So little truths. But there is one rule that we all know and respect down here. Beware the Ink Demon. Stay out in the open for too long and he will find you two. For if you both see him, you both better hide. If you two don't, well, I enjoyed our date. Now, let us begin our work.'

"This isn't a date, Alice. We're just going to do the work for you and then leave," I said walking into the lift and going up to Level K.

'Have you two met him? The Ink Demon?' Alice asked, 'They say he hears everything. Every creak of the floor. Every rustle of paper. I wouldn't run so fast if I were you two, you two never know what will draw him in.'

We arrived at Level K once she said that. This is going to be interesting.