Broken Hourglass (Sanscest Multiship)

Chapter 9 - The Bigger Picture

On the other side of the door, there was an argument going on. That was typical. What the adults were fighting about now, Ink had no idea.

Of course the small child had no clue that the argument was about him.

"You need to learn how to control your fucking kid!"

"He's four! You were the ones who didn't supervise him! I was only doing what you asked!"

After a while longer of them screaming at each other, the door finally opened and out stepped his mother, quickly shutting the door behind him. He was clearly very frustrated and using magic, cleaned off the wall which Ink had drawn all over, causing the argument.

"Hi, Mom!," Ink greeted him.

"What in the world we're you thinking? You can't just draw all over everything!," his mother replied, harsher than he should have. That became immediately clear as the small boy burst into tears and ran off to his room to hide.

With a sigh, Ink's mom went to go find him, it was never very hard, he always 'hid' in the same spot.
—
Stepping through the portal was like going into an entirely different world. Of course, everyone else, besides Geno and Fresh, seemed a bit sick and disoriented. Ink felt fine though. Sci seemed especially effected, having to dry heave for a minute and almost falling over.

It was bright, in a different way than the previous place. Sunlight filled the open field, illuminating a farmhouse a few hundred feet away. Despite it looking normal, Ink couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong here.

"Hey! What do you all think you're doing here?!" Someone shouted at the group. He wore a strange hooded grey shirt that had purple striped, matching his eyes with black pants.

Ink grabbed his shirt, instinctively reaching for something that was not there. Had it ever been there? That wasn't important right now, what was important was trying to piece together what these images he kept seeing were and why they're significant.

The artist studied his companions. 1, 1, 1, 1/2, 1, 1, no?, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 0? That's odd. Doesn't add up. Supposed to be 17, 18 if you count the outline. 4 for the corners. When did that happen? That leaves 2. Circle.

"Epic!" Fresh greeted the person excitedly. Right, that. He had forgotten for a moment. Epic walked over to join them.

"New recruits? I don't remember seeing them before," Epic commented.

"I'm not really supposed to be sharing, but we're in for a not good time this time, and for some reason the new boss thinks these homedogs are the answer," Fresh explained.

"I've still got some gear laying around, I could-"

"No, you're still recovering, bro. If it would be coolio with you, can we crash here for a bit?"

Ink didn't really catch the last part of that conversation; he was distracted by and entirely different one.

"What did your parents not love you enough or something?," Dust asked.

"I was raised by a tree," Dream said.

"How does that even-," Dust started to question before being cut off.

"It was a magical tree," Dream explained defensively. "Why is this so hard for people to understand?"

"I get it," Nightmare interjected. "I was also raised by a tree, and unlike my birth mother, Tree Mom actually loved me."

There was an awkward silence until Dust said, "That's rough buddy." He patted Nightmare's shoulder.

Seems weird, but Ink's never been a good judge of normal. Being stuck in a white room for years will do that to you, but even before that... was there anything before that? Time seemed to pass so slowly there.