Rising Storm [ Ink!Sans x Reader ]

15. The Truth

When he awoke, the world was silent.

The painter wondered if the Void had ever before known the comfort of noise, the way it could pierce the veil of silence and break the ice that had formed for far too long. He had never quite understood why the adversaries of his were so determined to eradicate noise, to end the whole of existence, calling the beauty of life a mere annoyance that needed to be stamped out rather than cultured.

It occurred to Ink that he did not know where he was. He was sure he was somewhere, but where that was, he knew not. But whatever this place was, it sure wasn't very inviting.

He got to his feet and was taken aback by the clothing that he wore. He had grown accustomed to his leather tunic, something he had worn since the beginning of time it seemed. Those garments he wore not, donning something more sinister entirely. He wore a set of ebony armour with a crimson knife tucked in his back pocket.

He did not remember wearing such things or ever putting it on.

In fact, looking back on it, there seemed to be a very big gap in the painter's memory. He struggled to recall the last coherent detail that had registered in his mind.

He remembered being emotionless, walking around the Void without a care for any living thing, the occasional flare-ups of emotion that had somehow sparked inside of him whenever he had looked upon the human that had been so insistent on travelling with him.

The human!

He could recall it now, escaping with them into a world of nightmares, one of the universes in existence that he was less fond of. He remembered walking through the forest in the dark of night, the never-ending dark that seemed like it could stretch on for aeons and maybe even longer. And then the great pain that had rocked his very being, screaming into the dark as Nightmare had reworked the very code of his soul, changed and crafted his being into something new entirely...

He remembered being dragged away, the last glimpse was of [Y/N] as they watched him disappear into the Void, the rift sealing behind him like a tombstone.

But after that, there was nothing.

That should have bothered Ink, the unexplainable gap in his memory. He did not know how long the amnesia stretched, whether it be from a day to a whole century. He didn't think that he felt any older so it couldn't have been that long. Then again, what was age? If age was the marking of appearance, the way that the face would grow hard and the hair upon a human's head would wilt into molten silver, then in that sense, Ink was ageless for his life spanned on for eternity if no mortal wound took hold of him.

But in his mind, in his knowledge, the only place that Ink truly aged, he felt the same. No wiser and no younger than he could remember.

And that begged the question as well, where could [Y/N] have gone?

That was a new feeling too! The way he cared for another living creature! How long had it been since an emotion latched itself inside his mind, burned there and did not fade?

The painter flexed his hand and brought his soul into view, something he had not seen in a very long time. The very sight of it sent another wave of questions rolling through his mind. He had not been reunited with his soul for centuries, eternities even. What had occurred during the lapse in his memory that had given him his soul back?

He assumed that Nightmare must have tracked it down. Souls were like these gateways into their owners' very source code. If Nightmare had found the painter's soul, then it would make sense all that pain he had felt when the very essence of his being was rewritten as if it meant nothing, like he was just some canvas that could easily be painted over. The vulnerability unnerved him.