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Everything was great! ...For a moment.
Just a moment.
Error had finally told everyone that he didn’t really want to destroy. That he was being made to do it by Fate. For one, single, precious moment, everything was great.
Blue was so excited that now his friend had finally opened up about this after so many years and now they wouldn’t have to fight anymore! Dream was so happy to have been mistaken about his brother. That there was hope for things to be made right between them, that it could be realised with some work.
“Ink, please stop. Just join the truce with us.”
“Ink stop! All you’re doing is hunting Error! Please!”
“You’re being selfish Ink. Just stop creating.”
“Ink, you’re better than this! You know you're better than this! So just- just stop it!”
“C’mon, stop. I know it’s hard for you to care, but that doesn’t mean you should hurt others.”
“Why are you doing this?!”
“Okay, I’m being serious now. You need to stop.”
“We tolerated this for a while so that you could get used to the new status quo, but this has gone on long enough.”
“Ink. You have one last chance to stop or we’re- we're leaving. This is your final warning ”
“Again?! Really?!?! That’s it! I’m out! I won’t tolerate you hurting another person on purpose any longer!"
“Stop hurting others for no reason.”
“You selfish git, just stop it already!”
“I don’t care if you have a soul or not. What you’re doing is wrong and I won’t let you continue on like this!”
“I trusted you! You selfish asshole!”
“I thought you could change. I guess I was in the wrong for thinking so highly of you.”
“You’re not welcome here, you soulless freak!”
“Get out! Nobody wants you here!”
“A waste of space.”
“I never liked him in the first place.”
"You only care about yourself.”
“I always knew there was something off about that guy.”
“What kind of person encourages such fucked up worlds to be created?”
“Get out! You self-centred asshat!”
“I knew he wasn’t quite right, but I didn’t think it was this bad.”
“Stay the fuck out of here and never come back!”
“I know you thought he was your friend, but just forget about him! He’s not worth it.”
“Get away from me you freak!”
“I never want to see you here again!”
“I heard he actually enjoys making all those messed up universes.”
“Just forget you ever knew him, he’s only hurting you.”
“Any similarities between him and a monster are purely coincidental.”
“You worthless fuck.”
“Leave.”
“Get out!”
“Go away.”
“Creature.”
“Disgrace.”
“Useless.”
“Forgettable.”
“Waste of space.”
“Horrible.”
“Worthless.”
“Pathetic.”
“Soulless.”
“I wish I never even met him.”
“Just forget about that thing.”
“Just forget about him.”
“Forget about him.”
“Forget him.”
“Forget.”
“I never want to see your stupid face again.”
“You utterly, utterly worthless being, never try to speak to me again!”
And then it all went wrong.
Ink tried to stop, at first. To keep the peace. He never wanted to hurt Error. He never wanted to hurt anyone. He just wanted to help.
He held on for as long as he could. Stopped for as long as he could bear it. Even tried to get to know the gang and Error now that they were finally at peace.
But it didn’t take long before Her strings tightened and the whispers grew louder. Before he could barely move without hearing his bones creak from the effort. Before he was unable to move without feeling agonising pain. It was tortuous.
Then, one day, he was tried to leave the Doodlesphere.
Except he couldn’t.
Any time he tried to make a portal, Her strings kept him from moving. No matter how hard he fought against them, they refused to budge. And then the whispers began to feel more like screams, deafening him more the harder he struggled.
He fought long and hard, but no one can fight forever. He passed out from exhaustion and when he awoke he found himself sitting at his workbench, hand clenched around a brush. The urge to create felt stronger than ever. Whispers of ideas overpowering his mind.The strings were now so tight no matter what he did. The only things he could move somewhat freely were his arms.
Unable to take this claustrophobic pain any longer, he gave in, hoping that the pain might finally stop.
He allowed himself to create, following the whispers’ instructions. He made whatever AUs he was he was told to. Whatever the voices said to make, he did without resistance. By the third Bad Brother AU he'd mentally checked out completely.
He couldn’t watch himself bring such atrocities into existence.
When he finally came back to reality after who knows how long, he found a number of new AUs hung up around the Doodlesphere. And for the first time since the truce had neen brought into effect he could barely feel the strings as they tugged at him, could barely hear the wind that almost sounded like whispers. It could almost be called pleasant.
The next time he tried to make a portal it worked, but when he saw what was waiting for him on the other side he almost wished it hadn’t. Instead of seeing his friends smiling at him, they looked angry and betrayed.
“How could you do that, Ink?! Why would you do such a thing?!”
“Did you want to hurt Error?! He was finally making progress recovering and the you-”
“Can you at least explain why you did it? Please, just- I’m sure you have a good reason for all of this…”
“Yeah, you seemed to be really trying to get along with Error. You wouldn't ruin that without a good reason, right?”
Ink was overwhelmed by the barrage of questions. It took a minute for him to just process everything. He really didn’t mean to upset his friends. He just wanted the pain to stop.
He opened his mouth to explain everything to them when suddenly the strings tightened up once more. The ones on his face moved to cover his mouth and the whisper swelled to a fever pitch.
‘No no no no no! Not again! I can’t take this again!’
So he stopped trying. As soon as he gave up on trying to explain what had happened, everything stopped hurting as though it had never begun in the first place.
In lieu of answering his friends’ questions, he elected to hang his head in shame.
“Look, I understand that you’re used to creating all the time, but please do your best to stop. It’s only hurting our friends. Is that okay? Can you do that for us?”
“I-I’ll try my best.”
And he did. He really, truly, did try.
But he was already worn out from resisting before and it wasn’t long before he gave in again. The pain was so much harder to bear the second time. He tried reaching out for help a few times.
But any attempt he made was stopped by the strings. Once, only once, he managed to let something slip out without being stopped, but it was brushed aside by his betrayed friends.
Error might have noticed, but he'd been avoiding Ink ever since he'd broken their unspoken truce.
...They weren’t as nice about it the second time he broke…
“Ink, what the hell!”
“Why would you do this again Ink?! You said you’d try!”
“I… I did try...”
“Well, until you figure this out we’re not letting you near Error or the gang. You’ve put them through enough already.”
“I truly wish we didn’t have to do this, but until you get your act together we just can’t have you making things worse.”
“I understand…”
“They need some time. For now, just work on avoiding another repeat.”
But then it happened again…
And again…
And again...
And again...
And again...
And again...
And again...
And again...
And again...
And again...
And again...
And again...
And again...
And again…
Each time closer together than the last. He was having a harder and harder time stopping them. And once people noticed, they started getting angry at him. They couldn’t understand why he would do something he knew hurt someone else. Wasn’t he supposed to be their protector? But what kind of protector purposefully harms another person?
At some point people began banning him from their AUs. A few even going so far as to ask Error to edit their code so Ink would be physically unable to enter. So they could avoid the colourful skeleton. So they could forget about him.
It was hard, but at least his friends hadn’t completely given up on him yet. At least he hadn’t been completely abandoned.
Yet.
“Ink we can’t keep doing this.”
“You keep saying that you’ll try to stop and then you turn around do it again.”
“We’re willing to give you one final chance if you take it seriously this time.”
“You need to promise that you won’t create again though. No more ‘trying’, no more ‘I’ll do my best’s. You have to actually do it.”
“I-...I-” He wanted to agree, he wanted to more than anything, but he couldn’t bare to make a promise he knew he could never keep. He just couldn’t hurt someone he cares about like that. “can’t.”
They left him.
“I wish it didn’t have to be this way.”
“Me too.”
He could see the tears running down his friends’ faces as they turned to leave.
“Ink… goodbye. Please- don’t try speak to us again.”
“I understand… goodbye.”
And then they were gone. The last people he had left were gone for good. He was well and truly alone.
In the distance he heard the small pop of a portal opening and the faint noise of a conversation.
“I hate this.”
“I know. I do too, but we just can’t keep going on like this.”
“You’re right, it’s just so hard.”
“I know, but it’s gone on for far too long. We need to just forget about him and move on.”
Ink didn’t leave the Doodlesphere for days after that.
Where he finally did muster up the courage to leave and get a snack, he found himself… unwelcome-
“Get out of here you prick!”
“Stay away you disgusting creature!”
“Leave us alone you soulless piece of shit.”
-Needless to say he didn’t stick around for very long.
It was clear to him that no one wanted to see him. They all hated him. In fact most of them had blocked him from entering their AUs at this point. The only ones who hadn’t were his newest creations. Every once in a while he’d leave his self imposed exile to visit one of them, but it never seemed to take long before they hated him too.
He was too annoying.
Too bouncy.
Too excitable.
Too irritating.
A bother.
A nuisance.
Not good enough.
And the worst part was that if he stayed long enough, his old friends would show up and try talk him out of creating more. They’d even tried to restrain him, tried to stop him from going back to the Doodlesphere. Even going so far as to get the gang involved.
The last time that had happened, it had turned into a full-on battle. So he decided to stop leaving altogether.
Then, one day, Dream, Blue, Error and Nightmare showed up in the Doodlesphere.
For a moment, the sight of his friends in his home made him hope that maybe, just maybe, they would be nice to him.
Then he saw their faces. They were sombre.
“H-hel-lo.” Ink called out, voice rough and scratchy from disuse.
Instead of either of his old friends and teammates replying, it was Nightmare who spoke with a snippy “Hello.”
“Wh-what brings you here?”
“You need to stop this. You’ve refused to do so thus far and we’ve decided that we’ve left you to your own devices for long enough. You don’t seem to care at all about the balance or anyone else but yourself. Now, we’re going to have to use our last resort, the last thing we can think of to try convince you to stop…”
And so they did.
They locked him away in the Doodlesphere, unable to exit, unable to escape. There was a tiny, letter-sized hole in the barrier so that if he'd finally agree to stop creating, they’d know to let him out.
The knowledge that there was an escape he'd never be able to use was almost worse than the strings.
He had never noticed before, but the Doodlesphere was incredibly quiet. As though if you spoke into it, it would merely swallow the noise as though you had never spoken a word in the first place. It was incredibly lonely. To see his universes grow, but never knowing how. To see the things he put so much work into making turn from him so quickly.
Slowly, after the whispers were satisfied that he had created enough, they began to stay louder than usual. Instead of ideas, they began talking about other things. Tormenting with ideas of what the Multiverse was like in his absence or what his friends were doing, saying, thinking about him.
They told him that he was being forgotten about. That his friends celebrated his banishment and then forgot about him. That every once in a while, when someone did actually remember him, they remembered him as a horrible, awful, disgusting, soulless, freak and they were glad he was gone. They told him that even before all this they thought the same things, they just didn’t want to say it to his face.
That his friends never really cared for him.
That they always wanted him gone, but didn’t know how to tell him.
That they would have done this already if he’d given then an excuse.
That everyone hates him now.
That everyone always hated him.
That he had already been forgotten.
That nothing he creates likes him.
That everything he’s made wasn’t good enough.
That it was too sad.
Too happy.
Too fluffy.
Too angsty.
Worthless.
Rubbish.
Pathetic.
That no matter how hard he tries, he’ll never be any good.
That he is, and always has been, a complete and utter failure.
And he had no choice, but to listen. To endure the abuse they’d spew at him. To remember the people who had abandoned him.
However, the strings were nearly worse than the voices. Seemingly at random, they would tighten pain fully, uncaring of how much they hurt him. They'd suffocate him as easily as they broke his bones.
Sometimes he would still try and fight against them when they called him to create. He’d do his best to resist, but the call of the Creators’ required an answer. One that he must give.
**********
Ink was looking at his vials. Soon he would need to take them again. And yet… he didn’t want to. Normally he would hate feeling void and empty, but now…
He wanted nothing more than to be numb.
He-he couldn’t take this for much longer. He was breaking, cracking, slowly but surely the last of who he was, was being worn away with or without his paints. So why not ease his pain and stop feeling. Keep the last fragments of his personality being held together by a thread together. Put his emotions away and let the apathy consume him.
“No, I can’t. No, I-I just can’t.”
‘Good.’
**********
Ink couldn’t breathe. Not that he needed to, but his mind couldn’t recognise that as he was strangled for the third time that hour. His phalanges clawed desperately at his neck, digging into his vertebrae, leaving deep scratches behind. Inky blood was dribbling down his neck to stain his scarf black.
Strings suddenly tightened around one of his arms, pulling it away from his neck, apparently trying to dislocate his shoulder. Light-headed, he looked around insearch of something to stop it. Out of the corner of his eye the gleam of something shiny caught his eye. The knife he had been holding before this started.
Reaching for it with his free hand, he grabbed it triumphantly. Bringing it around to the ensnared wrist, he began slashing and cutting and tearing at the string, uncaring of how much he got hurt in the process.
The floor below gained an inky puddle as he continued his onslaught. Part of him tried to point out that they had never broken before so why should they now? But the less rational part of his mind ignored it and continued to mangle his wrist.
********
Ink looked back at his vials for the third time.
“I should really take them already. I need to stop putting it off. Look! My colours are starting to fade already!”
Yet he made no move towards them.
“Do… do I really need to take them? I mean, all they do is hurt me. I’d be just as well off not taking them, they’ve been feeling more dull recently anyway. At least that way everything would hurt less. No more betrayal, no more sadness, no more shame, no more fear, no more longing, no more loneliness… yeah… yeah, I’m not going to do it! I’m done! I can’t take it anymore! Happy now? I’m fucking done!”
Ink roughly picked up his sash and carried it out of his work room. Once out of that room, he plucked out each vial one by one, surprisingly carefully, and proceeded to throw every single one of them at the ground violently.
The whispers screamed at him as he did this. Telling him to stop. That he’ll regret this. But he ignored them. Only twinges of emotion were able to make themselves known, but as the vials shattered on the floor, so too did his emotions. Before long he was entirely monochrome.
He turned away and walked back into his work room.
**********
“Are you sure about this?” Dream asked nervously.
“It’s been long enough and he hasn’t slowed down. We should check up on him. Besides, he’s been feeling… off recently and it’s concerning.” Nightmare replied.
“Your right, sorry.”
“Don’t apologise, you’re just a little nervous about seeing him again, that’s fine.”
“Oh, okay. Sorry”
Next to Dream, Nightmare sighed in exasperation. The twins continued on for a while in silence. Things had been getting better between them, but the years of tension had yet to be fully put to rest. It was peaceful though, walking through the sea of AUs. It would have been nice if it wasn’t hurting their friend.
After a few short minutes, the twins had arrived at the artist’s house. They knocked on the door, more as common courtesy than anything else, upon receiving no reply they went inside. It was surprisingly difficult to get the door open, it was like the hinges were beginning to rust or something. Strange, but not necessarily bad or anything.
Once inside the house seemed almost abandoned. The usual mess was still everywhere, but now there was a thick layer of dust that covered everything. The whole atmosphere was creeping Dream out.
“You were right brother, something definitely isn’t right here.”
“You’re telling me.”
Finding the ground floor devoid of any signs of life, they ventured up to the first floor.
“Oh fuck!”
“Oh fuck indeed.”
“No wonder everything seems off, Ink threw away his paints!”
“And rather messily at that.”
“Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit, oh fuck-”
“Brother, calm down. Let’s focus on finding Ink first before we panic, okay?”
“You’re right, sorry.”
“I swear, if you apologised anymore you’d turn into a oneman apology machine.”
“Oh hush you.”
**********
Ink could hear voices outside his door. He’d been hearing them for a while, but now they were close. He wondered who they were. Did they look like anything? Were the voices coming to visit in person? Was it just the voices fucking with him?
Whatever, it wasn’t important. He let the thought drop and went back to thinking about nothing.
The strings had decided to play with him again. This time they were strangling him by hanging him just above the ground and trying to dislocate one of his shoulders from the wrist. Mindlessly, he blandly stabbed and hacked at the strings around his wrist. He knew it was pointless, but it was something to do.
The door opened to reveal two skeletal figures.
The shadowy people looked vaguely familiar for some unknown reason. Maybe they were one of those creations come to visit him? That’d be something new.
‘Oh, they look upset. That’s not a good thing, right? I should probably greet them.’
“Hello, I’m… uhh, what was it again? ...Oh thanks. I’m Ink. Who are you?”
The shadowy people continued to say nothing, but their faces changed. What was that? Something like horror? Ink thought to himself that maybe he should make another Horrortale, maybe a Horrorswap, when he was made to create again. Absentmindedly he noted that speaking hurt his throat… huh.
“Holy fucking shit.”
“Ink, what-what happened to you?!”
“What do you mean?”
The goopy one set one of his goopy things over and wrapped around the hand that was still attacking the other, maneuvering the knife out of his hand. The other one seemed to just be standing there. It’s odd, they don’t look like anything he remembers creating?
“Who are you?”
“Don’t you remember us?”
“Don’t hurt yourself like that.”
“Okay. Who are you?”
“You really can’t remember us, can you?”
“No, now who are you?”
“I knew he had some memory problems, but not this bad.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m your friend.”
“How are you my friend if there’s no other people?”
“...What?”
“Oh, maybe you’re the friends the voices like to talk about sometimes. The ones who hate me and abandoned me? Neat.”
From their place beside the door the smaller shadowy person turned on the light and gasped.
“That’s bright.”
Looking down at himself, he saw a menagerie or scars covering him, distorting the patterns that ran across his bones. Around his wrists were worse, where the pattern was barely distinguishable with how scarred they were, faded black dripped from one of them onto the fuzzy carpeted floor. Black, splotchy stains decorated his monochrome clothes and hands.
“Oh my stars.”
“What happened to you?”
“Who are you?”
“You know us, don’t you recognise us?”
“I don’t think he does Dreamy.”
“I don’t. Who are you?”
“You’re right Nighty, he doesn’t remember us.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Nightmare.”
“And I’m Dream.”
“You look strange.”
“That’s not very nice.”
“Oh.”
It was at that moment that the strings decided to pull even harder, fully dislocating his shoulder and loosening their grip. The jarring movement sety his body swinging before the stings began pulling at his other wrist.
The strange movements and pop of his shoulder dislocating had the two unexpected guests racing closer to him. Once they were on the other side of the bean bag thrown haphazardly towards the edge of the they were able to get a proper look at him. They seemed shocked now. His neck had been rubbed raw and to them he appeared to be held off the floor by an invisible rope.
“Stars Ink, what happened to you?”