The Artist, the Glitch, and the Multiverse

Unknown

   Ink popped into the Anti-Void, appearing at my left. He squinted, blinked twice, and then looked at me. "Where is it?" He demanded, paintbrush in hand.

It took some persuading, but I eventually got him to come look at the portal. He's still a little wary of me after the fight, which is understandable. I knew he'd never really trust me.

I point to the portal, which has still sustained itself over the last five minutes. He walks over to it and reaches out his hand, going to touch the weird portal like I did. I slap it away frantically, and he actually gasps a little in shock. 

"I'vE aLrEaDy TrIeD," I mutter, now feeling both bad and awkward about slapping his hand. "It...It'S wEirD. dOn'T tOuCh It."

Ink frowns a little, and looks in the direction of my hand, as if expecting to see what happened to it. I quickly shove it into my jacket pocket, as it's still glitching like crazy, though it's back to it's normal shape. He just shrugs it off, turns back to the portal, and bends over to continue examining it.

Then, he carefully reaches into one of his pockets, pulls out a pencil, takes a step back, and chucks it at the portal. It disappears with a weird, distorted THUMP! He furrows his non-existent brow, then lets out a defeated sigh. 

"I'm just as confused as you are. I don't understand why it looks like this, or why it's acting is way...much less where it's coming from," he says, muttering the last part to himself.

 My soul sinks, filling me with dread. If Ink can't explain any more than I can about it, that's not good at all. We're the only ones knowledgeable enough about the multiverse to even remotely understand this kind of stuff.

"What'd it do?" Ink asks, bringing me out of my thoughts. 

"HmM..?" I say, only half listening. 

"When you touched it, what happened?" 

"It, UhM, gLiTcHeD mY hAnD. mOrE tHaN uSuAl. AlMoSt ErAsEd It." I take my hand out of my pocket and hold it out for him to see. It's covered with glitches, obviously, since I glitch all the time, but these behave weirdly. They dance around my hand, making it slightly distorted, and they make noise, almost like a dull static.

Ink pries his eyes away from my hand and looks at the portal again, his mismatched eyelights holding the slightest echo of fear, but he does a good job at hiding it. 

"And you're ok, right?" He asks sheepishly, shrinking under my stare and averting my eyes. You can't blame me for staring. He's the last person that should be concerned about my wellbeing. 

"Y-yEaH," I manage to stammer out. "Wh-WhY? dO yOu NeEd To CoUnT mY fInGeRs AnD tOeS? sEe If I'm OkAy?" I grin, making fun of the short skeleton. Ink rolls his eyes and shakes his head, but I hear a laugh escape him.

Suddenly, as soon as it had appeared, the strange portal vanished, leaving no evidence that it was ever there.

Ink made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a "Huh?", whereas I'm just staring in silence. There was a warping sound from behind us and we turn to find another portal, but on the floor of the Anti-Void. This happened again and again until there were white, glitchy rifts everywhere. A distorted electronic noise, came from all of them. Then, as though on a signal, the glitches began to spread.

We ran for it.

We went about ten yards, which gave me enough time to summon a portal of my own. Ink ducked through it without hesitation, and I followed soon after, the distorted noises piercing my skull as they slowly increased in volume. I got one last look at my closest thing to home before I closed the portal on the other side. Glitches covered everything. The portals were no longer there, but an ever-growing horde of glitching bits of code spread like a fog in every direction, leaving nothing behind. Not my strings, which littered the ceiling. Not my puppets. It was all being

E r a s e d.