Author's Notes: The art for this chapter is by MetallicArtist, and the art within is by Insane-Control-Room, both on Tumblr.
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"And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight." – Luke 24:31
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The world utterly tore apart for, against, and because of Joey Drew. The studio had been a hellscape- an ever twisting, turning labyrinth ensnaring everyone in their own personal slice of perdition and suffering- but never had it been like this, even beyond the turmoil of Henry's presence soaking into the walls and making them more hostile and deadly than ever seen before.
It had never been Henry himself though that caused that instance of terror. No. It was a reaction to a reaction. Now Joey was reacting once more, the universe carved by his soul becoming something fearsome as serenity failed him and left only woe.
The openness of Francine knowing what he really was left him vulnerable to all, and it only became more and more ghastly as seeing the worst happen made an already scared man completely and utterly mortified to still be standing.
The shore of wood and ink disappeared- but not because either material no longer ceased to be; instead, it remained to create new, treacherous shapes. The invisible threads of magic weaving between the floorboards lifting Joey and Francine above the lapping black had begun to split apart as the force of unsureness made the black ocean slip away.
And away.
And away.
With the loudest, most furious cries of crumbling reality surrounding them, the two spots of color in the studio witnessed the ink around them rumble, rise- threatening to swallow them entirely- and then crash down.
Down deeper than it had been before.
Until the broken edges of the wooden island were bare, jagged edges spiked to kill dripping an onyx liquid.
Down.
Down.
Down.
As Francine watched that drop fall over the edge, realizing that the ocean had not gone away at all, but had simply become an abyss cascading vertically down- no. Not only down. Around! Rising, falling, swirling, stirring.
She recognized it. This was arising upon the dawn of another form of existing- the kind of existing that briefly enveloped but did not take her when she chased the ink demon and he left her falling through the floorboards. The same living, wet darkness that swelled and bled like a wound with its own mind- she realized- had never left her.
The puddles had always been there, waiting to take her too.
The glittering pit that cut and groaned all around them was distressed, though- something defined by the word bubbling and twisting like ropes melting into each other, far more mobile, far louder than when they encased her last.
Unsettled.
How incredible it is that this wasn't the most unsettling detail of all.
It was not only a moat, not only a cavern descending into the depths of watery underworlds. No, as vertically it streamed and swelled forever, horizontally across the plane of reality, a horizon with no end began to have one. The impossible became possible, and nightmares became true.
As the tides pulled in and caved into the core of the earth, with it pulled patchwork realm of a lonely king. The groans of a world imploding all around compelled Francine to clasp over her ears, its shake buckle her knuckles to not fall over- as if it could stop a damn thing.
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A Rock in the River
FanfictionI've always asked what there was to live for after I died. My answer was to exist, to try to reach the unfathomable glory of the god whose dark, dripping smile loomed over us. Every waking moment in a life with no rest was filled with prayer- a pray...
