I'll Make You Mine

Nightmares Don't Mean Anything: Ink

(A/N: I already know I’m going to get comments about this, so I’m saying it now. Yes, I’m aware that in Underverse canon, Ink and Cross were real friends and they fell out because Ink couldn’t bring Cross’s friends back from the dead. I took the creative liberty to change them to be on bad terms. Reason? Spoiler alert, I want some reluctant caretaker action between those two. Angst. Whump. The works.)

As the Protector of the Doodlesphere and the Guardian of Creativity, Ink has seen some very, very weird things. So it was no surprise that said things would give him weird dreams. But this one? It was at least in the top ten.

It started with Ink floating in the middle of the Doodlesphere. It was in the same condition as he remembered it being earlier that day with him and Fresh. But something was still . . . off. The yellow void looked more purple than usual, or at least darker. He looked around the place and his AU-senses tingled. A lot of them were missing. A lot of positive AUs. They were either destroyed or corrupted by a Code Purple, the latter was the majority.

Ink wasn’t sure what else drew him to the Omega Timeline, but he had the urge to go there. It might’ve had something to do with the cold come tingling feeling the light gave him. Something told him the people needed him there the most. He opened the portal with his hand, like tearing open a paper bag, and leaped in.

The first thing that jumped out to him was the air. Sure, the Omega Timeline was a void with decorations and there wasn’t a natural sun/moon cycle. But that didn’t explain why it was so dark and cloudy; it was never like this without a reason. Ink could tell it was daytime, but there was almost no light. Even the buildings, which were usually somewhat bright and friendly were all dark. Gray banners dangled from the streetlamps with a teal apple in the middle of them. And then there was the biggest question on his mind. Where was everyone? The streets were empty with almost no lit lights. It looked like a ghost town. Ink shuddered. He never liked being alone, he always preferred the big busy AUs.

Ink looked around the town in confusion until a massive statue in the town square caught his eye. He knew the Omega Timeline pretty well since he lived there for centuries, but he’d never seen this before. He also never saw vandalism, at least not in this part of the Omega. And it didn’t even look good. It was a giant rock with two people on it, two skeletons. They were both in fighting positions. The one in the front held a bow the one on the right held a giant hammer. It was hard to tell their expressions because of all the spray paint and dirt covering them. Ink walked around the statue. He didn’t understand why there were three clear spaces, but only two statues.

Why was he missing?

And why did Dream and Blue look like they were in pain?

Ink walked up to the sculpture’s memorial plate and squinted. He read the words out loud. They were easier to read than usual, probably because this was a dream. There was no way he could read the little handwriting with vandalism on it. “‘A long time ago, there were three skeleton monsters named the Star Sanses. The leader of the group was Dream Joku, the former Guardian of Positivity. The other member was a boy named Blue Pop-Prince. Nobody knows the name of’- huh?” Ink’s mouth hung open, unable to believe what he was reading. “Oh come on, you remember Blue but forget me? Why am I the forgotten one?”

“It’s tragic, isn’t it?” Ink turned around to the voice on his left. He was familiar, but he couldn’t place his finger on him. He was a skeleton covering almost his entire body in a fancy silver cloak with a fur hood. Underneath that, he wore a circlet of black thorns and had an eyepatch. It wasn’t one of the kinds with a strap, but it fit on his eye socket. His yellow eye light was dull and tired, like sleep was a foreign concept. He had a weird crescent moon mark on his cheek too.