All he has to do is keep walking, the air around him becoming thick and soupy, growing denser until even the sky above is swallowed by it. With every step, it weighs down on him, the water from the air surely soaking into his clothes, pressing into his skin and leaving him feeling gross. Still he keeps moving

The air is a creepy kind of silent now, the sounds of the town they’ve been running around having disappeared. Birds, water, random screams, everything is silenced. A vacuum of sound, the kind of pure silence you feel in your bones. He’s been in worse places, or so he thought.

“Lukey!”

The sudden chipper, Irish voice cuts through the fog like a knife and he freezes, glancing around in a panic. No. That voice is impossible. The water sloshes around his feet as he slowly sinks, but in a moment, he’s moving again. He has to keep moving, or he’ll sink beneath the water. And that voice isn’t real. It can’t be real!

A figure steps from the fog beside him. Scruffy, stubble, splotches of ink across his apron, a few on his arms; the sign of a hard worker at Drew Studios. On his face sits a big grin, one that Mad can still remember making him feel welcome, but now it’s just hollow and haunting.

“You don’t look very well. Like you’ve seen a ghost.” says the figure.

“Fuck off.” Mad barely mutters as he passes by, not even breaking his stride, continuing on, refusing to stop. No. This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. He refuses to face it. He won’t let it reach him.

“You’re not a friend.” For every step that Mad takes, the figure is still nearby, not very far at all, though he doesn’t appear to take any steps. There’s no escaping him.

Sure, it may look like Shawn Flynn, the guy who was supposed to instruct Lucas during his brief apprenticeship working on the fabled ‘ink machine’ at Drew Studios, but Mad is no fool.

“My ol’ ma used to say, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.” ‘Shawn’ folds his arms, pulling at his cap in that nervous habit he always seemed to have.

“Or,” Mad suggests, “it’s something sinister pretending to be a duck.”

The dollmaker sighs and glances  to the side, over the inky black water. “You could have saved us, you know.”

“I did.”

“You killed us.”

“You were already dead.” Mad’s footsteps begin to slow, though he focuses as much as he can on putting one foot in front of the other.

Sure there were people, but he soon figured out they were puppets. Shadows of the people who once worked there, all working with the singular goal of helping Bendy to break free of the power that bound him to the Studio,  “I did what I had to to stop Him.”

“….did you?”

Mad’s stops dead. “Bendy is dead.”

“Now you and I both know that’s not strictly true.” Shawn’s hands sit on his hips, tilting his head slightly as he gives a wry smirk. “As long as there is an ink grunt, Bendy can and will, come back.”

“I killed them.” He burned Drew Studios to the ground, burning away every last drop of ink. Without it, Bendy can never come back. No ritual sacrifices, no ultimate power or enslavement. Bendy has no power here.

Shawn smiles, shaking his head. Reaching one finger up, it comes to rest on Mad’s chest.

“Not all of them.”

Mad stands there, the lake’s icy water slowly creeping its way up his legs, chilling him to the bone as he closes his eyes.

One of them got him. At the last second, as he was setting the fire, desperate to break his way out of the studios seventh circle, one of the grunts got him and though every other drop burned in that Hell hole, one small part remained….in Mad’s lungs.

Each day it spreads, getting worse and worse, stripping away more and more of him and one day it will leave nothing but a monster husk like the ones he found in Drew Studios.

One day, Mad will be gone, and if this night is any indicator, there will be celebrations as he becomes one of the monsters. Mad…..Lucas...will cease to be. Bendy will find a way to rise and the suffering will start again.

“You know you could stop it right now.” Shawn has moved, standing sideways on now, giving a shrug, “Just stay right where you are and the lake will keep the ink from ever reaching anyone else.”

Mad blinks, suddenly realising he’s up to his waist in the water. He wades, arms oustretched for the next platform. It has to be there. He can’t be past the point of no return yet. Mad is not giving up, this isn’t over!

He doesn’t want to die. Even though it would save the world. Even though no one wants him alive, probably not even Natemare. The asshole has to be sick of Mad by now. Why else isn’t he here? Why did he run to those weirdos? It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t need anyone. Not his parents, not his brother. Let them think him a murderer. He doesn’t need anyone to get him out of this. Just like he didn’t need them to get out of the ink.

Mad’s hand finds something solid and he heaves, scrabbling to hoist himself onto the next platform which immediately begins to sink beneath his weight.

Without hesitating he drags himself to his feet and starts to shuffle, having to go a bit slower than before as he drips water from his entire lower body. The last thing he needs is to slip, fall and break his neck.

So he keeps going, like he always does. Maybe he starts crying. Nobody will see. Shawn doesn’t count. He isn’t real. The spectre keeps talking, but Mad just blocks him out. He doesn’t have to last forever, just longer than Alex and then he can walk out of here and it will be over.

Who knows how long it’s been when the invisible platform beneath Mad’s feet suddenly lights up, then the next, then the next, the light bright enough to cut through the fog.

“What the-?”

“You won.” Shawn explains, giving a brief cheery wave that makes Mad want to vomit before fading away. A sudden weight appears in Mad’s hand. The artefact. He did it…..he survived. Once again, the best thing he could have hoped for.

Mad runs, following the lit pathway back to the shore, the journey a lot shorter this time around, seeing all the disappointed faces as his feet tread on the solid ground again. He looks like a half-drowned rat but everyone looks terrified of him. Mad ignores them, walking over to Dirk who’s staring at his twin in shock. Mad shoves the artefact at his chest, forcing Dirk to take it, before shoving past him and heading back into town.

Nobody asks about the challenge. Nobody says a word to Mad. They probably think he drowned Alex with his own hands. It doesn’t matter. Let them think him a murderer.