Just a Happy Ending

The Shepherd

The Demon King was enjoying itself. Sammy was in a waking nightmare. Pain akin to stakes being driven through his skull assaulted him while the Demon King kept dragging him through nightmare after nightmare.

No, not nightmares. Twisted memories. What he was seeing was real, in an ink-drowned, torturous sort of way. He saw himself when Susie left and his descent into bitterness afterward. He saw how Jack and Norman tried to help him but gave up. He saw Joey's twisted face s̶m̷i̸l̴i̶n̵g̴ as he dropped Sammy into the Machine. He heard the voices of the Well, begging for a leader, a P̵r̶o̴p̵h̶e̴t̸ to lead them to the light. They clung to him, tore at him, s̴c̴r̶e̶a̷m̵e̴d̵ at him!

His broken body b̷o̵i̵l̶e̴d̸ in the ink and a thread holding together the very seams of his being was stolen. His bones glued back together, woven with ink. The Well leeched every drop of blood from his heart and stuffed it with ink, shoving it back into a half-completed body. He inhaled, ink filling his chest where lungs should have been. The Well peeled away at his mind, injecting itself into his consciousness and locking him away.

The Demon King filtered its words directly into Sammy's head, making it sound like Joey but with a demonic resonance."Remember when your so-called savior goaded you into dissolving the Prophet? It wasn't his first try..." the Demon King chuckled darkly, throwing Sammy into another memory.

Sammy came to in Joey's destroyed office. He gripped an axe in both hands and stared down Henry in the doorway. Henry looked strange. A small gold light glimmered under his shirt and shone in his eyes. His face wouldn't quite come into focus.

"I'm not leaving without him," Henry declared.

"THEN DIE, HERETIC!!!" The Prophet charged. Henry shut his eyes and let out a cry as the blade sank into his chest. He fell, the Prophet falling with him and letting the momentum bury the axe deeper as they hit the floor.

Henry choked on the blood rising to his throat. His vision blurred. The Prophet planted a foot on his shoulder to lever the axe out of his chest. Blood splattered and soaked the floor.

Sammy regained control. His hands lost their strength and let the axe clatter to the floor. Beneath him, Henry's blood pooled across the wood as the man gasped for whatever breath his shattered body would allow. The gold spark in his eyes faded as a smile lifted his lips.

Sammy wailed when Henry stopped breathing. That... that smile! That cursed smile that forgave him without words! That slipped into the beyond with no fear or regret! That smile that died for him!

Sammy buried his face into the broken, blood-soaked chest, begging the world to answer him why. Why? Why? Why!?

Why was his freedom at the cost of his friend? Why had Henry been willing to do it? Why hadn't he fought harder to stop the blade? Why had Henry forgiven him?

The Demon King lifted Sammy off the ground by his head, returning him to the void. The beast's grin widened, "It took the fool fifteen times before you finally managed to put in the modicum of effort needed to save him. Pathetic, really. I expected better from you."

It dropped Sammy. The inkling folded to his knees, trembling and fighting off the audible sobs tearing at his throat.

The Demon King stood above him, regarding him like a pest, "You weep for that which is illusory? You may not have the dog's form but you were always just as pitiful."

The comment piqued Sammy's attention. He managed to lift his head and stutter, "Wh-what?"

"You were supposed to be the first wolf," said the Demon King, crouching down and tilting its head, "But as always you were a disappointment. You lost the one useful thing about you in order to keep your voice. You weren't the wolf, but nor were you any longer a prophet. You merely became the perfect lap dog."