Repeating Steps

Pressure

The world stumbled as it blurred, Ink finding his way back into the Doodlesphere by mere chance.

As the adrenaline in his system faded, pain that had already felt intolerable only got worse. Being greeted by a familiar golden sky did not bring Ink relief, but it did calm him down. He was safe now. The pain would stop soon.

The inane, whispered chattering of the Creators surrounded him, penetrating his mind. Some voices whined at him, impatience threaded through their tone, while some greeted him more kindly, as if being reunited with an old friend. Some were less amicable, though Ink never ignored them. Whether it was repetitive insults or out-right screams, Ink listened to all of them. It was his job to, after all.

Eventually, the sight of him seemed to bore them, voices returning to subjects Ink could only half understand.

The last of his energy running out, Ink slumped down against the Doodlesphere floor, his knees hitting the false ground with a loud thud. His ribs cried at the action, Ink sitting listlessly. He had no way to ease the pain.

He took a shaky breath. "...How is Broomie?" Ink muttered, voice slurred as it refused to get any louder.

There was a myriad of positive responses. They were doing well, Ink managed to gather. They were about half way done, one voice had helpfully informed him. 

Only around a week left then, Ink thought to himself.

Voicelessly, Ink thanked the Creators. Ink didn't think he could use his voice even if he tried to. He knew they hadn't needed to fix them. Shouldn't have fixed them, Ink corrected. They had anyway, doing it out of the kindness of their souls. Ink would never stop being thankful for them, He didn't know what he would do without them.

It was harder to keep his eyes open, Ink realized oddly.

Why were his ribs taking so long to heal?

Despite not wanting to, Ink raised his hand to his ribs carefully, mindful to make sure he didn't disturb what progress had already been done. Lightly feeling the side of his shirt, Ink felt dread pool in his stomach as he realized his ribs hadn't seemed to heal at all.

No, he thought, thinking himself delirious, That can't be right.

With harsher movements, Ink contorted his body to physically stare at his injury. Looking underneath the shirt he had lifted up, showed the fractured, messy state that was the left his of his rib cage. Nothing was missing- thankfully- but parts of his ribs were holding onto each other as if held together by mere thread, and his very ribs seemed almost... brittle, small shards of bone crumbling at even the slightest movement.

Dust-like, something whispered in his mind.

Ink shook the thought away. Ink didn't dust. Not even in his most fragile states, did he ever start the process that other monsters seemed to so easily fall into. Ink couldn't dust, because Ink had no soul. The comparison was absurd. The thought itself was absurd.

This entire situation was kind of absurd though, wasn't it? Something hissed. 

It sounded like him.

Ink took a sharp breath. Something had changed recently. It had been apparent ever since he woke up. At first, Ink thought it was just a side affect of his injury- as ridiculous as it sounded. What other option was there? Sure, such a small injury causing Ink to act mad was- well, mad. But it wasn't as if there was any other reason available, was there?

Most of it, up until this point, could have been chalked up to Ink's own mind acting strange. His memory being off, though that wasn't anything new, even if it was worse than usual. Sure, crying at the sight of Blue was odd. Yeah, his trust in Cross just evaporating was out there, but that was all it was. Strange. Odd. Out there.