Abominations for Solutions

Antivoid

A cooling sensation glossed over Gradient's body as blank space suddenly gave way to a sort of pixelated opening within the wall of the Omega Timeline. He was scared. So scared. He gripped onto his protector's brown scarf, harder, letting out a series of frantic shrieks. In response, the protector pulled Gradient closer towards his body, mumbling a series of random words and phrases to himself. Gradient's eyes began to lull closed, taking in the warmness of the scarf and the strange satisfactory elements of his protector's voice.

"No!" Gradient's first word. It was "no" because he didn't want this to end. He hated the feeling of himself being lowered towards the ground of an infinite, airy white space that filled his soul with some sort of hanging dread. He did everything in his power to make it stop. He gripped the protector's scarf, wanting to stitch it to his fingers so that he could be with him forever. But he could feel himself continue to drop, looking up at his protector's worrisome expression, which was growing farther and farther away from him. But his fingers still gripped at the soft fabric.

At this point, Gradient was hanging off of the ground, swinging pathetically on the fluffy brown scarf that almost immediately afterwards unraveled entirely, sending him plummeting towards the ground in a painful heap. Gradient winced, shoving away the excess fabric as to only reveal his face. He began to sob uncontrollably, the tears, the wrenching pain, sourcing from somewhere within his soul that told him of what was happening, what was to come. He wasn't ready for loneliness, not when he had experienced what life could be when it was rich with attention and empathy.

Gradient's mind was frantic, it roared with the phrase, "please stay, please stay", over and over again. But he couldn't say it, he only felt it everywhere. He extended an arm out towards the protector, his hand barely visible due to his large floppy sleeves. Gradient's wide smile was turned slightly downward, he could taste the tears that sprang from his glossy eyes.

Please stay... But the protector only kneeled down toward Gradient, keeping his troubled gaze casted onto the ground. He patted him on the skill a few times, peering back at the wavering opening as a frown slit across his face. Gradient didn't like that expression. It made him sick. The protector slowly turned his head back towards Gradient, his eye sockets displaying strange shapes, wearing fear. No. Gradient reached his other arm out towards the protector, but he only straightened himself, turned himself within the opposite direction. Gradient screamed bloody murder.

"Please...!" Gradient choked on his sobs, tripping over the coiled brown fabric as he tried to chase after his protector. He felt himself twisting, the world becoming blurry, his thoughts rendered mere blurs of what he wanted to propel into the world. He thought he was going to die.

"N-no. PleaSEe," Gradient's small glitchy voice echoed into the whiteness.

"Be safe, Gradient." Gradient... me? But before the last echo could reflect back, his protector was already gone, leaping into the gaping opening, which immediately sealed shut. Sealing Gradient. Forcing him to listen to the last echo of his desperate cry dissolve into the void.

Gradient grasped his face, his occasional cutting sobs sounding multitudes of times louder than they should. He curled himself up into the brown scarf, his heart aching with a pain that he couldn't describe. Ink was gone. There was nothing left for him to grasp onto other than the flopping fabric that was already beginning to feel cold within Gradient's multicolored fingers. He heaved horrible clouds of aching and sadness from his chest, slouching his figure into his lap.

Ink protected an infinite thing, the multiverse. But truly, Gradient wasn't one of those things that he was going to forever protect.

It would take someone to make him realize that. Eventually.

"Hey. You know, you really shouldn't be out here. He's going to come back soon." Gradient gasped, whipping his head in the direction of the lazy yet affirmative voice. Off within the void's glowing aura stood a black and pink splotched being, his arms crossed across his body.

He was so beautiful. He kind of looks like me. Gradient's cries turned into whimpers until they died off, leaving his face cold.

"I'm Paperjam, by the way."