𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧𝐤 | Ink Bendy x Depressed! Reader

✒️ONE: What could go wrong?

"Dad, where are we going?" My older brother, Jake, asked.
Dad chuckled, "You'll see."

I sat in the back, smiling softly and looking out the window. Trees were blurred out as we passed them, followed by a couple of far away houses. The things the mind of a child notices. Country roads, guiding us, with the gravel below our tires. Every now and then, we bumped up, and my brother and I would look at each other and laugh. Those feelings of completion, of love, of compassion. That was home. I sighed with contentment, drinking in the scene.
Everything was perfect, I couldn't ask for anything more. Mom and dad were talking to each other, as we drove onward to our destination. Jake was reading a book, smiling softly, while I eventually went to sleep, thinking to myself— What could go wrong?

We went onto the highway, passing a couple of cars. The gravel was replaced with smooth roads, and they rushed on by, another blur of shiny metallic color to any bystander.
Funny how everything can change in one second.

The car in front of us stopped with a screech. Mom screamed loudly. I woke up with a jolt, looking to her, and her round eyes pale as she grabbed both her children's hands instinctively, "Mom?"
Before we could even notice, the wrecked semi hit our car as well as the one in front of us, damaging the two cars. We were thrown into the ditch, with a hard landing.
Nothing else could be remembered after that.

Seconds my life had changed. And in hours, a life was taken.

We were at the hospital. The doctors came to us, looking grim. Mom looked at them, with hope twinkling in her eyes. Hope that would soon turn to dust.
"I'm sorry ma'am, He didn't make it...."

November third; my birthday. Today marks the seventeenth anniversary of my father's death. Candles were lit at my bedside, as I sat up with a start, gasping for air as if I was back in the hospital room, clutching my brother roughly with small hands. I've never sobbed that hard in my entire life. The sobs seemed to tear my five year old body in half. Sometimes my own sobs from that memory haunts me.

The flame on the candle burned brightly, standing tall as if to brag to me; hah, you forgot about me! Take that!
Swearing under my breath, I blew it out, and it went away as silently as it came, a silver of smoke puffing up to the ceiling. Such a small life that flames live, burning brightly and then being put out, just because it was an inconvenience to somebody else. If I didn't put it out though, I would have a burning home. It was bad enough I had it blazing all night, but still the moment I put it out it felt like a cold wave was allowed to stroll in.

It was just another bad day in a bad life, I thought, though the thought was eating my heart alive. This was my usual routine on this day, mope until I didn't even have the energy to mope anymore. Sometimes tears came, sometimes they didn't. But every time on this day, my depression came to wrap its icy embrace around me. At the end of the day, I knew something was there with me in my time of need. It just wasn't the something I needed.

A sad life for me, and a sad life it will stay as. I've just turned twenty-two on this winter day.
"Another year older," Dad would say with a chuckle. How I miss his voice. I miss his face too, but it's been blurred out over time. The only way I get to see him is through old photographs, photographs that don't capture the lights in his eyes or the sweetness in his smile.
Another way I can get close to seeing his face is through my older brother Jake. Mom says he looks just like him. From the beaming gaze down to his posture. Anybody could tell the boy's father was Henry Stein. Though when you crossed Jake wrongly, you could tell Linda was the one who birthed him. With anger preaching out of his lips, his tongue was like a viper's bite, which ended any fight with the slash of words, not the spilling of blood. And it hurt ten times worse.