A Shadow of the Past

Missing

Ink sat at the small table in the kitchen of Dream's mansion, deep in thought. He'd had a long talk with the sunny guardian about the negative feeling he'd felt while making Swapfell. For him, it was scary to find a new emotion floating around in his head, especially when he's creating a new AU. He knew his creations were directly affected by his emotions, so he had to try to keep them positive. Dream, however, was no help to him. He had no idea what the emotion was because he assumed he'd never encountered it before. Perhaps Ink didn't explain it well enough?

Whatever. The feeling was gone now, anyway. But, what if it comes back? What does he do about it, then?

Suddenly, he heard something. He stood up, searching for the source of the sound, but he was alone. It sounded like an echo, reverberating off the walls, yet it was inside his own head. It grew louder, pleading, crying, desperately calling to him for help. He held his head in his hands, the sound feeling as if it would split his skull open. Then all at once, it was silent, leaving him confused and scared.

"That... was weird," Ink said to the empty room. He had created a new AU just a few minutes ago, but could Error destroying it be what caused such a strange occurrence? Was he even there?
'Maybe I should check it out,' he thought, swinging Broomie down to create a portal to his new AU.

When he got there, he almost screamed. The AU's code was flying everywhere, black holes were appearing and sucking monsters in to who knows where, buildings flickered in and out of existence, sometimes being fine, sort of, and other times they were replaced by a slightly different building, and monsters were running around trying to escape the chaos. Ink had never seen this much mayhem even when Error was destroying a universe, and any traces of the glitchy skeleton were nowhere in sight. Where could he be?

Ink ran over to help a Snowdrake out from under some debris. The buildings were collapsing from some of the code not transferring back over and completing the structure, and Ink tried to repaint the whole thing. It only made things worse, as the remaining code glitched back in, making the building even more unstable.

Ink was at a loss, until Dream appeared from a portal. He looked around, then approached Ink.
"Where's Error?"

"He's... not... here," Ink said breathlessly.

"How can you tell?"

"We would've seen him or his strings by now," Ink paused to catch his breath again. "And he usually kills the monsters from one area to the next in order, not disappear and let random black holes pop up everywhere."

"Then what's causing this?"

"I don't know!" Ink really didn't know what was going on. He had thought Error was the only one capable of causing this much damage to an AU, but he was sure Error wasn't here. So, where is he?
"I can't do anything more to fix this universe. If I try to fix it, it glitches out and crumbles away again! At this rate, it'll tear itself and other AUs apart!"

"We'd better retreat, then, and find Error. As much as I hate to resort to this, we need him to destroy this universe to prevent it from corrupting any others."

Ink didn't want to admit it, but Dream was right. Could they convince Error to do that, though? He'd probably want to rub it in their faces that they needed his help. Well, Ink would just have to swallow his pride and beg Error to do what he asked. What better way to persuade your enemy to do something for you than to humiliate yourself in front of them?

Ink and Dream went to the Anti-Void to look for Error. Instead, they found a patch of dried blood near a bean bag chair piled high with blankets and pillows, and two untouched bags of chocolate chip cookies. Ink walked up to the blood, almost gagging at the sight and smell, and knelt down. Reaching down, he picked up a torn piece of clothing soaked in the dark red liquid. He heard the same echo he'd heard in Dream's mansion calling his name as he studied the fabric.