[BATIM/BATDR]A Lonely Sepia Melody

Part 13

Charlie staggers a bit as Bonzy grips his arms, quickly twisting him around as they, with a speed Charlie hasn't seen the Keepers match, jackhammers a fist through the Searcher. They rip the ax out of the Searcher's grasp and cut its ink mass in half, uttering no words while Charlie's knees go weak and he presses a hand against his chest, though knowing the wound is on his back. He knows how this ends and it will not be a fun return on his end.

Oh , he thinks, now I'm looking at the ceiling. His back is thumping as rhythmically as his heartbeat and he feels that knowing his heartbeat is in his back is a very bad sign. After dying what has probably been over 50 times, Charlie knows the signs of a nasty return.

He gasps as he starts to lose feeling in his body and Bonzy's face is above him, shouting words that land on ultimately deaf ears. He tries to get his mouth to open enough to tell them that it'll be alright. And it seems like he somehow succeeds, but their face twists into something utterly furious as they shake their head. There's a weight on Charlie's hand and he tries to curl his fingers as the lights go dimmer than dim. There's warmth under him and he finally understands what it means to be warm again. He remembers purposefully letting the Projection- Norman...cut into him a few times in the beginning just to feel warm.

But now, he feels the ink pluck his soul from his body and drag him into its consciousness, whispering words that don't make sense to him. And the lights go out before turning on too bright as Charlie awakens in a tunnel of swirling murmurs and hushed breezes that remind him of a time he once believed in happy endings.

Shifting slightly, he swims through this tunnel, slowly.

It's like floating. He forgot what it felt like, after having avoided death for an impressive many weeks. Floating in warm space with thin air. His fingers tingle, his cheeks feel wet, and the gold ink in his eyes blinds him as he half floats, half swims to the beckoning dead end.

"You've been lost." The Ink whispers. And Charlie shakes his head- or he thinks he does- he tries to. He's not lost. He's existed in this place, this hellish studio for a long, long time. He knows where he is. "Forget what you know. Embrace what you've been given. That's not what surviving is. Surviving is hiding and sticking to what you know. Who is Charlie to bend to the will of that which is played with the mind of a madman and his will. Joey Drew ruined them all and the Ink helped him. But he cannot continue his bitter rant as the Ink whispers once more. They sound like orders but they tug as his chest and his cheeks pulse vibrantly.

"Rebuild with the new half given to you. Reconnect your twin Creator." A new voice called out to him. "New Creator." This time Charlie knows he shakes his head as he reaches the end of his journey, already starting to feel the pain of his back being sewn together. A whine escapes his throat as the voices scream together in a mass like off-key windchimes in a shop. "Creator!" "Open your eyes!" "Find your Dreamer!" "Rebuild the Tainted!" "Your eyes, Creator!" "Your Dreamer-!" "Your eyes-!" "-Creator-!" "-Lost-!"

His back hurt. His mind scraped against every nerve in his body and Charlie felt very, very cold as his back was knitted back together forcibly by the will of the ink. And it felt very much like breaching a determined bubble when his eyelids finally flew open.

Gasping, Charlie reached out of the Ink, dragging his limp body out of the dark and the abysmal return. He hears warbled noises as his ink-covered hands scrape against the floorboards and slowly his waist and hips and thighs and feet are exposed to the air. As soon as he feels the Ink recede, Charlie moans a bit in pain at the fire that momentarily laces his back before curling in on himself for a bit.