Anacrusis: Lamplighters

Of Waking Up

Ink awoke as he usually did, slowly and reluctantly, and whilst lying down. It took him a moment to realise that some things in the world were not quite as they usually were. For example, he never had been able to say that he had jumped into the portal of Cocytus for a start, and… Survived?

    That and the interesting texture of the ground were the most noteworthy things he had noticed thus far. And the air; it didn’t smell putrid anymore, perhaps just the slightest bit stale. The darkness remained, and Ink’s usual headache was more distracting than normal.

“Woah…” Someone said through the pitch black.

Ink yelped in startlement and his internal organs dived to take cover in his throat of all places, as if a ribcage was not the most suitable place for them when danger struck.

    He tried to run, before his feet even had the chance to wake up, and he fell forward, making an audible oompfh sound when he landed amongst strange flakes of what felt like thin leather amongst moist grass. He picked himself up and started running again. But where to? Even though Ink thought he had gotten very good at seeing in the dark, he couldn’t see anything!

“Bye, then.” It was a girl’s voice.

Ink crashed face-first into something hard, cylindrical and wooden, and felt his head graze against its rough surface. He stepped back, clutching his cranium.

“You’re not even gonna say sorry? Dag. That’s cold.”

“What do you want?” Ink called out in a pained voice. There was blood in his hand, he could feel it.

“Dunno, an apology maybe? Eh? What’s that? Are my eyes open? It’s real dark. where are we?”

“You tell me!” Ink replied through his teeth.

“My head hurts, you know.” Replied the voice, “That’s your fault. You know?”

“Oh.” Ink said, and there was a moment of dead silence…

    I think I’ll take this time to explain some things (but not too much) as at this point, you’re probably a little confused. Ink is a Reaper, as you already know – not the famous skeletal Grim Reaper, as that was his great great great grandfather. He has flesh (thought not much of it) and skin which was once a dark brown, yet had been greyed with the toxic living conditions. Ink is the prince of Hell, which in his time is not a very good thing to be, as his world – known to some as the Dimmer, is in a state of decay and poverty all around. All being part of its royal family has ever gotten Ink is a high rock for him to sit on to watch the world die. The infernal fires of Heck, the ruby city of suffering, burnt themselves out long ago, and Hell has run cold and empty. That chasm Ink fell into used to be the portal to the Overworld (more commonly known as Earth), but the teleporting liquid that used to be there has been gone for millennia. It is not known what lies at the bottom of the hole it has left, as nobody has ever seen the bottom before, and nobody ever will. Anyways, that’s enough for now, because the short silence was over.

“Who are you?” Was what Ink said, struggling for words.

“I dunno, I don’t really remember anything. Probably cuz you crashed into me in that whacky portal thingy.” She, too, was clutching her head. “I think my name was… Soda? Nah, that ain’t right. Coda, I think.”

    -Weird name, that.- Thought Ink Reaper.

        But his thoughts were interrupted by a brilliant light, blue and pure in the corner of his vision. It seemed to emit a sound like a spoon sliding down a glass pane, for some reason. Ink saw weird shapes illuminated for a second before he instinctively covered his eyes. One of them, he noticed, was alive, and just so happened to be just as, if not more confused than himself.