Paint Is Meant To Fade

Chapter 15: But He Refused

Ink's POV
      He couldn't think straight. The volume of the hospital room was jabbing daggers into his poor mind. His skull was throbbing. Everything came at him in a hurricane of noises and symbols. All the words he could say, as well as the words of others, formed a monstrosity. It leaped and dug its claws into the inside of Ink's skull. Tears welled in his eyes. Shoving through the paled white curtain, Ink didn't notice the lack of color around him.
     
•••

      Ink gripped Error's hand tight. He didn't know when it had happened, but somehow, color couldn't seem to refract through his eye sockets, losing his ability to perceive any color.

It didn't matter... Oh as HELL it did.

      He couldn't see Error like before. The blue, the red, the gold... He couldn't tell the difference between red and green. Nothing made sense. This didn't make sense. You couldn't just lose the ability to see color. That wasn't how it worked. What was going on??
      A flash brought him to a familiar place. The void. And then back again. And now, the colors snuggled into their rightful places. Something was up. Ink couldn't tell what it was, but it he would have to figure it out, before something more... Permanent came his way.
      Error has been having contractions for six hours now. He seemed to be reaching his breaking point. Perhaps, the child would show mercy on Ink's friend. The nurses had failed to get Ink to leave and thus asked him to move to the opposing side of the bed, for easy access to their patient. Ink would continue to talk to Error, who would make a valiant effort to respond, though, his answers were... Less than perfect.
     Ink often imagined throughout the wait, that Error's heart monitor would fall flat, and turn to dust in his arms... But he didn't.
      He could see Error's body crashing in within itself, after the exhausting expenses of the child's first breaths. Leaving Ink to care for his son. This wouldn't have been as horrible, if Error wasn't the one passing away... But he didn't.
      Error would turn to dust before he could ever meet the child. Before he could give them a name. Ink will be lost in tragedy. How would he ever have the nerve to tell the child that his father, a caring, loving friend, passed away, and his other creator, Fell, was not meant? That the child was only an... Accident? But Error... He... He refused.
      Instead, the glitch hitched back. He screamed. His grasp on Ink's hand tightened, and the doctor rushed to the end of the bed, voice suddenly, and disturbingly calm.
      "Alright, Error. I need you to take deep, long breaths. I'll have to ask you to push. Don't stop, until I say so, or one of the other nurses say otherwise," she commanded.
      Error took in a gasp of air, and nodded.