"Another day, another dollar." Wally Franks said as he punched in, putting his card in its slot before walking back up the stairs, ready for another day's work. After exiting the break room, Wally walked towards the janitor's office, taking out his keys to unlock it. After getting out his broom and dustpan, and relocking the closet, he got to work. He began making his rounds around the animation studio, sweeping the floors throughout the presently silent halls. Wally was always the first guy at work, being one of the employees that had a set of spare keys to the entrance. His job, as the janitor, was to cleanup the studio in the morning and during work hours.

Wally was a morning person, so it didn't bother him much. That's one of the reasons why his boss, Joey Drew, had hired him in the first place. It was one of Wally's best qualities, his other being hard-working, which was why he didn't mind being the only janitor in the studio, as well as its mechanic. A little while later, as Wally was sweeping close to the front entrance, Joey entered the studio, his jacket draped across his arm, a smile on his face as usual. His usual smile, well-tailored suit, and slicked back brown hair made his image as he closed the door and walked into the front room, greeting Wally as he walked in. "Good morning, Wally!" he greeted cheerfully, Wally smiling in return, Joey's smile having always been contagious.

"Morning, Mr. Drew, you doing alright today?" Wally asked, holding his broom and dustpan as he turned his attention to his boss. "As busy as usual." Joey said, slight frustration showing through his smile. "I still can't think of a character that could liven up our cartoons. We need to widen our audience if we wanna keep this studio running." Wally nodded in agreement, sighing as he shook his head, his messy blonde hair shaking with it. "I hope you can figure it out soon, sir." Wally replied, starting to sweep again as Joey walked towards his office, going up the stairs that led to it.

Once he opened the door to his office and stepped inside, he put his coat on the hall tree in the corner of his office. He then took out the mail he had gotten out from the mailbox in front of the studio from his coat pocket, laying it out on his desk as he sat in his wooden office chair. After stretching his neck a bit, Joey looked through the mail, some being just advertisements for different products, the other being the newspaper. However, one envelope caught his eye, opening it with his envelope opener next to his pencil and pen holder. It was an application for a job as an animator, from a man named Henry Sutton. From his resume, he was a twenty-three old man who had just graduated from a college in town, well, the only one at least.

He seemed pretty enthusiastic about animation, and even included a few of his drawings, which were very impressive, almost rivaling Joey's. Joey read over the application, him knowing that they needed a new animator, since their previous one, Alex Renfield, had just quit to move to Pennsylvania with his wife, since his mother-in-law was growing ill. Joey would do the animation himself, but he was too busy with writing the scripts and dealing with business matters. So, smiling once again, Joey took out some paper and a pen, and began to write a reply to Henry's résumé, saying he would like for him to come by the studio at some point. Even though his résumé was convincing enough, Joey wanted to get to know Henry first, to discuss his goals in life, what his personality was, and so on. After writing his letter, and sealing it in an envelope, he wrote on the front the address that Henry had given for Joey to send a reply.

Joey then stood up from his desk, and walked out of his office, heading back outside to put the letter in the mailbox, so Henry would receive it in the morning. As he walked towards the entrance, he passed by the music producer of the studio, Sammy Lawrence, one of Joey's best employees. Sammy was taking off his coat as Joey walked up to him, Sammy running his fingers through his hair to get it out of his face as he glanced at Joey. Sammy was probably the most good-looking man in the studio, his devilish good looks doing him justice, his voice being the icing on the cake. He was a pretty nice catch, as many women had said about him, and even the men themselves had to agree. Joey smiled again as he made eye contact with Sammy, Sammy taking his hands out of his hair as he turned towards Joey.

"Good morning, Sammy!" Joey greeted, Sammy smiling slightly as he spoke in reply. "Good morning, Joey." he replied, Joey speaking soon after he finished his sentence. "You finished with that song you've been working on yet?" he asked, Sammy signing as he answered. "Not yet, I'm afraid. I just can't seem to find the right notes to end the song with." Joey nodded and patted the young man's shoulder, knowing that it sometimes took a while for Sammy to finish a piece of music, though it was always a masterpiece once it was finished. "Well, good luck on that today then." Joey said, walking out of the studio towards the mailbox, Sammy heading down towards his music studio downstairs as he did so.

After a while, the other employees of the studio came in, punching in for another long day's work at Joey Drew Studios. There also a rumor going around that Joey was thinking about changing the studio's name once they finally got more money in to add on to the studio. However, they knew that Joey was really just a man of ideas, sometimes not even carrying out those ideas. There was also a sort of competition amongst the animators about creating new characters for the cartoons; to create the next big hit. Many hours a day, usually when most of the work was done for the day, the animators would draw characters they thought would be the next ones Joey would want, and brought them to his office. Joey often turned them down though, or just said they would probably be some side characters in another animation.

He was looking for something unique, something new to put in his cartoons. He just couldn't figure what he wanted. Everything he drew himself wasn't what he was looking for, and the drawings the animators did wasn't what he wanted either. Joey really didn't know what he wanted, really. He hoped he would come up with something soon, or the company might be doomed. Hopefully this Henry would have some ideas of his own. 

(Welcome to the opening chapter of Written in Ink's Prologue/Prequel, The Lighter Side of Hell. I hope you've enjoyed what you've read so far. I will be working on this story while working on Written in Ink as well, so you can see what happens in this story, and how it leads up to the beginning of the Written in Ink story. After a lot of thought on changing the story or keeping it the same, because of the story progression of Bendy and the Ink Machine, I've decided to keep the story as is, with only a few minor changes. I will adapt this story to the recordings the characters and employees or Joey Drew Studios left behind in the game, and going on from there. This story is also a way to tell the origins of some of the characters in the Written in Ink story. Well, more like the characters' ancestors more than themselves, such as Sylvia's mother and Henry's daughter's origins, for example. Since Chapter 5 of BATIM will be coming out later this year, I will adapt this story to whatever is revealed in, sadly, the last chapter of the game, which I predict will be a BIG one. There will be problems with the story if Henry is confirmed to be a good version of Bendy, a reanimated version of it, like some theories state, but I'll work through that if that bridge is ever crossed. Until then, I hope you will read this story, enjoy it, and read it along with the progression of Written in Ink. ^^ )