The Ink Demon's Little Prostitute~

{1: When Things Get Hard, What?}

Shadows pooled the walls. Wooden boards drowned in darkness as malaise choked the air. And then came the voice. The awful, dreaded voice he could never escape.

It flooded in through the floorboards. Bled through the cracks in the walls. It grabbed him like the hands of the searchers around his waist, holding him frozen in place with the ax above his head.

"Hennyyyyy~"

"God, not now. Please not now.." he begged, panicked. A sense of desperation spiked in his ribcage. His limbs were like lead weights, feeling suffocatingly held in place. The searchers clawed at him. He stood frozen for a moment. Willing his limbs to move, he winced.

CRAK-

Thump-

CRAK-

Thump-

Searchers pulled at his clothes. Clammy fingers desperate and needy as they tried to close around his throat.

CRAK-

Thump-

CRAK-

Thump-

Wooden boards splintered. Small shards threw themselves against his face as he continued chopping through the boarded hallway. He nearly collapsed as an inky body threw itself onto his back, trying to drag him down into ink black darkness.

Excruciatingly cold pain ebbed through his body as its ink mixed with his. Something that never should've happened. He had been warned about. Cold wet fingers tightened around his neck, and more tugged at his clothing. More, more, more.

Dozens of grabbing hands. He couldn't chop fast enough. The thick dark called to him; Join us. Join us. We will have you.

Worse still, the voice came again. As crawling and needy as the hands around his throat.

"Henny, Henny, Henny~" Sickeningly sweet, the words filled the room. Inky patterns darkened threateningly on the walls. The only light came from tears of frustration trickling down the ink creature's cheeks as he threw the ax into the wood tirelessly.

Silence drowned the room. Surging ink around limbs and the cracking of boards fell blunt in the musty air. He threw a searcher from his back. It landed with a sickening squelch in the hungry horde.

"How'sit goin' up there?" The words echoed around the walls. Filled the creature's head as he once again chopped harder. It was taunting him.

Searcher upon searcher threw itself onto him, weighing him down. His knees faltered. He collapsed into the inky swamp coating the studio's floors.

"..This ain't a bad time, izzit? You're bein' awful quiet." A growl shook through the walls. Ink began to leak from the ceiling in small waterfalls.

Ink coated his face as the damned souls surged around him. Hundreds of fingers clawed at him. He wrestled his head away from the monsters.

Coughing down a choke of air, he answered hastily. "N-not at all."

He had quickly learned that if it asked a question, you answered. It was neither patient nor merciful as he had learned from a cruel punishment for his initial retaliation.

His arms were stiff as he used them to prop himself up. Gallons of ink cascaded onto him in a never ending torrent. Each drop felt like a nail against his skin.

"Good." It put simply, sounding satisfied. "I wantcha to meet me in the elevator. Level P. I trust that won't be a problem, yeah?"

Ink coated fingers found their way into his mouth. He hacked violently. "N-no."

"Better not be. And just one last thing..."

SplUk- His face was forced back into the ink. "Y-yes?" Breathing of the damned echoed in his ears, burning into his skull. He couldn't let them kill him. He had to keep fighting. No matter how hopeless. He didn't have any other choice.

"Bring that.. body ..of yours." and with those parting words the pressure in the room popped. Ink no longer bled from the ceiling as the voice echoed into something of a bad dream.

Oh, like he even had a choice! He panted heavily as he threw the searchers off of his back. Ink started to bleed into his vision. He tried killing them, but there were too many. Like a hydra, knocking one down would just make two more pop up. It was hopeless.

Teeth bit into his ankle, and he hissed out a strangled cry, 'If the Searchers couldn't drown him, would they try to eat him instead?' The horrifying thought was like a needle in his vein, injecting adrenaline into his worn body. He roughly forced himself up, trying to remember what his father had always said.

"Henry, when things get hard..." blank. When things get hard, what? The ink creature's head spun as he buried the ax in a Searcher's neck with a sickening squelch.

He couldn't remember. He couldn't even remember what his father looked like.

'Probably like me,' he thought. Light skin, brown hair, and brown-bordering-gold eyes. Or maybe he had gotten that from his mother. It was hard to say. All of his memories before this hell were weak and mushed up like soggy cardboard. Was there even a before? Unbidden, the thoughts swirled around his skull.

Suddenly burdened by the thoughts as well as the inky bodies, he felt strained. Or maybe that was someone else entirely. Who even was he? Surely, he couldn't be that brunet he had so many memories of. His hair wasn't brown for starters, among other things.

Sharp pain jetted through his skull. Both from the thinking, and the Searchers who had thrown themselves against his head. But he couldn't let them kill him. He had a promise to keep. Even if he didn't want to.

Truth be told, he would rather do anything else. Hell, he would even suck up to the twisted angel if she could somehow save him from the dreaded meeting. But Alice would just laugh at him. She'd laugh, even though this whole thing was her fault. Was this what she wanted the whole time?

Unconsciously, his hand drifted up to his chest. If only he hadn't accepted that damn pendant. Too late. He shook his head, trying to disperse the thoughts. That was in the past. But this, these Searchers, these clawing, hungry hands, were now.

A Searcher's teeth, or lack thereof, clamped around his tail. He let out a yell, kicking frantically at the other creature. His boot made contact with its jaw, and it released him. Wrestling himself out of the hoard, he began to chop again.

"When things get hard, you try harder, Henry." He muttered as he cut through the boards, picking up his pace. Realising what he had just said, he smiled a little.

Yeah. Yeah, that felt right.