The Beast Made of Ink

Chapter 1: The Storage

-Your P.O.V.-

Your name is Y/N L/N, the Grand-niece of Henry Stein. The year is 2019, and your father passed away from cancer a little over 10 years ago, while your mother died giving birth to you. You, being only nine at the time of his death, needed a new guardian, and with no other living family in the area, the state ending up sending you off to another state to live with your Great-Uncle (appropriately called Grunkle) Henry.

Henry was in his 90's. Your now dead grandfather whom died in the war would've been 120 this year, making them roughly 30 years apart, his brother being the oldest out of all his siblings while Henry was the youngest.

You were never a crybaby, you've always been the type to laugh it off or suck it up for as long as you could remember. You were a complete tomboy, preferring overalls and sneakers over dresses and flats any-day. You never whined, or begged and you always smiled, finding that frowning was the last thing you ever wanted to do, because in your opinion, you had already frowned way too much in your short lived life, right along with being scared. You were kind and sweet, always putting others before yourself, and never thinking of your own needs first. You always felt the most happiness when you made others smile, and to Henry, those were only some of the many reasons as to why he loved hanging out with you.

It had been a year since the death of your father, and with the time that you were apart from him, you had started to realize quite a few things.

Like the fact that the way your now deceased Dad would drink and hit you wasn't normal. Neither was how he'd lock you in a dark closet for days on end, only to let you out before you starved to death.

He wasn't a kind man, and comparing your father to the kind and sweet Henry, who has few words but much heart, has helped you realize that what your father would do to you was wrong.

Time had passed, and in the past 10 years, you and Henry have grown to become quite close, and with the new closeness between the two of you, you had also ended up telling Henry of your abuse. Saying he was ashamed of your father is putting it lightly, as the yearly visits to his grave on the day he died became the yearly event where the two of you would sneak tubs of ice cream into a cartoon movie at the theater, hiding the tubs in an oxygen tank case, using your Grunkles old age as an excuse.

But unfortunately, it seems that all good things must come to an end. Last year, the day after your 18th birthday, Henry had died, leaving you alone.

Henry never had any children, his love for his cartoons that he had created being the largest joy in his life, right along with raising you. Due to these two things, Henry had decided to leave all his assets to you, his will telling you to sell his house for the money so you can go to college along with letting you keep anything of importance made you move to tears multiple times in the months since his passing. He also left you a key to his storage, saying the same thing of "Whatever you wish to keep, please do".

Henry was your rock, and ever since his passing, a lot of things that have saddened you over the years, such as your fathers abuse, had started to come back to you. After a month long major depressive episode that occurred 6 months ago, you had realized that you need to get your life back on track, and that you cannot let the past control you. You can allow your past to influence you and your decisions, but that doesn't mean that you can let it control you, and that includes the life that you had with Henry, along with his death.

Because of your sadness and recovery, you haven't been able to look through any of his belongings that he has in storage to decide what you will be keeping and getting rid of. Now though, a year and three months after his death, you have arrived at the storage facility where the rest of his things are being stored in.