What's there to live for after you die? You struggle to exist- to make it all the way to your Lord- and all that greets you is Hell wrapped through your own flesh. Purgatory must be real after all. I pray and I pray and finally, something comes. Can...
Author's Note: The art within this chapter is by Slipnslideblog (Silver) on Tumblr.
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"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." - Matthew 5:6
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There was certainly magic in that ink. It slithered away like high tide pulling back just as Sammy spotted it pool along the floor. With a brief glimmer, he was left with a wall near each shoulder and an opening just ahead. There was a sign over the doorway, bronze that seemed to rust into the same color pallet as the rest of the yellowing studio. He tilted his head towards it for a minute, taking in this simple novelty amid a world everchanging yet so very worn under his feet, and then he emerged through the gate.
He was soon encircled by a blockish pattern. There were papers everywhere, like someone before he in a craze had dug through every last folder, book, and album in search of something they had lost. As shelves of this archive towered over him, it seemed as if the pages had spilled from its crevasses like ink would spew from the ever-present pipes.
To anyone else it would have been an absolute mess- they'd be completely dismayed to try to find something among it all- but to Sammy? It was all new. He knew not how he came to be here, nor what exactly he was supposed to find, but the drive in his soul was undeniable.
Sammy was within a treasure trove of memories, the terrible things that smothered him and blinded him, and yet he would remain. As his thumb smoothed over his friend's phone, there was a nameless desire to fill his life where it suddenly seemed so, so empty.
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Everything about the world appeared so much more volatile to Francine than before. Sure, the shock that accompanied all the realizations traversing the angel's realm the first time had been distracting, but it wasn't enough so for the woman to not notice differences.
She clung to this reality without deliberating it, without asking why the elevator seemed to rattle more nor why it seemed to carry her with abrupt changes in speed. It was a likewise acknowledgement without comprehension as when she stepped into the halls, ink seeming to gush more forcefully than before, causing the pooling and piles of black along the floor to writhe; the never-ceasing pump of the ink machine made it run past her shoes like a stream, the faster the farther she tried to squirm her way out.
Indeed, it unquestionably got worse the closer she came to the room she wanted to reach. Francine, of course, wasn't present long ago when the studio was last this disturbed; she wasn't aware this was also how it once grew to treat a man visiting 30 years after its fall from glory. Yes, it wasn't familiar to her- but it was regardless a previously known, chaotic commotion to this building rotten with hurt feelings.
And abruptly, another familiarity from an unknown counterpart's journey had arrived to further mirror their blights. Its blade had a line of light glide off its edge with a glare as she turned the corner, and a heart already beating at top speed somehow broke its own record.
Somehow as the pipes seemed to hum with agitation rather than a slow vigor and their blood seemed even more alive than last she was here- even as the stare of the cutouts and toys made in their god's image never left her for a second- the sight of the axe merely leaning against a propped-up board was what finally made her stop in her tracks and freeze her veins.
Although much of the disciples' conflict was centered around Sammy's memories enveloping him, Francine still had her own. When the woman was rather a little girl, her mother once asked her to open a high cabinet to grab honey from the shelf of spices and other such wonders that seemed to make their food spark upon the tongue. Excitement- Frankie was finally tall enough to do it, her mommy had said! She could help!
There was something her mother forgot to tell her, of course.
A yank of the cabinet door was just a touch too eager, and one of the knives kept at the very top shelf within suddenly blinked away and reappeared between the toes her mother had named "this little piggy went to market" and "this little piggy stayed home." Francine immediately yelped and jumped back, slipping on the aluminum floor of the kitchen until she sat face to face with her dulled reflection upon the blade. Such falling back, however, was not necessary.
Almost right where her foot used to be, the knife never simply sputtered on its side to the floor. It stuck straight up, a quarter of an inch of its tip missing from sight.
That's why Francine hated sharp objects.
She gripped the straps of her backpack anxiously. She knew this fear wasn't severe enough to be a phobia, but there was no mistake that it was unsettling something deep inside her and the way the studio bothered her now made it like shaking a jar of bees. However, with the chipped metal's sheen staring her back, the woman accepted a truth she very much wished to ignore.
With extreme caution, Francine got on one knee, contemplated the axe, and gradually reached so its handle rested in her tightened palms. Such tenderness in her grip that came with fear and inexperience was her enemy, she realized, and so she did her best to force her knuckles firmer and to not constantly dread dropping the blade onto her feet as she once again began to walk her path.
She hoped she wouldn't need it.
If she had been unsure before about this place being different since the last time she was here, she certainly noticed now. This was the last corner before that room, right? The one where she heard his name first in passing rather than ponderance, now praying it could reveal something she hadn't looked for before. She might as well have been acting upon instinct to find it the way everything seemed swamped into obscurity with ink and shadow-
And the anticipating welling in her chest dropped like a stone, finally stepping into the cove that kept her next objective only to find it entirely blocked. She gaped at it, disbelieving even when the studio had grown and grown more hostile and uneasy the nearer she knowingly approached secrets in plain sight.
As splintered wood caged Joey Drew's tape to render it untouchable, extending from floor to ceiling with murky liquid at their ends like a swarming glue, that's when she knew something was actively trying to keep her away from the truth.
Or someone.
Ink began to drip like rain and the structures around her seemed to have cracked into new, unwelcoming shapes, and just around the bend lurked the ink demon's smile.
It slipped out of sight.
The studio thundered and wood cracked as soon as the chase began, her feet flying after those of the demon. Black waterfalls slammed. Darkness swirled. But she still ran. It was about fuckin' time she got the answers she came for.
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