Supernova (Ink!Sans x Reader)

2. Echoes of Ghosts

Small, unperceived, this danger will continue to grow and fester if we allow ourselves to be contented with how things are, if we allow ourselves to be blinded to these small problems and decide to remain content with how the world is today and do nothing to fix what we choose not to see.

So if we allow ourselves to be contented with how things are, if we decide it best to not challenge authority, it could ultimately bring about the utter destruction of our race. The human species cannot and will not live in contentment. There will always be some small thing that we are striving to change or fix, a piece of hay out of place that hasn't yet been smoothed over. It happened with the English with Richard the second and Henry the fourth, when the crowds and the masses were intolerant of the first king and cried for the next, and when Henry surpassed Richard, than the crowds turned their noses and opinions against the new king they had once wailed for, now admiring the corpse, the ghost of the memory of Richard the II, now wanting him instead of Henry the IV, the one whom they had once fought wars and torn each other apart for.

But let us not get off track.

I understand that you want to hear more of this story. As the narrator of this fascinating tale, you most likely find it bothersome that I get distracted so easily. You would have rather wished it so that I had continued exactly where we had left off last time, jump head-first back into the plot of this tale without throwing in references to long forgotten Elizabethan plays. But I find it better when I throw philosophy into my story, when I add in a few extra elements to allow the gears inside your mind to start turning, so that you can apply what I have just spoken about to the tale that we will now resume, how you should not remain content with how things are.

How strange, it must also be for you, the reader, to have the narrator speak directly to you. You're used to me remaining omniscient, a voice telling this tale but never speaking in direction. It probably makes you feel uncomfortable, just a bit on edge. But now that I have made it clear that I am the one telling this tale, you must be wondering who I am.

Because that is the nature of you, the listener of my story, to figure out everything. It is often agonising if there is something that you cannot know, some small plot element that has not been explained in full.

So I'm going to keep you on the edge of your seat. Upon the conclusion of this tale, I will tell you my name, reveal who just exactly is the one telling this story. But for now, we shall resume the tale.

You did not know why the painter looked at you the way he did, why the light that glimmered in his eyesockets as if by magic seemed to reflect not your current form, but rather the ghost of a person that had once bore your face from a long time ago. You hated that feeling, the way that someone could know you better than you knew yourself, though you were quite sure that you had never seen the painter before in your life. Meeting a skeleton that had a giant paintbrush slung across his back was something you probably wouldn't forget that easily.

Weren't you supposed to know yourself the most? Weren't you the person with whom every thought was heard, every emotion completely registered? Know one else could have known every thought that went on inside your mind or what specific feeling had manifested in the depths of your subconscious. You and only you had the front row seat to what went on inside your head.

And yet the painter seemed to look at you as if he was looking at a part of himself, as if you were nothing more than a mirror to himself, a glimpse of a person whom he understood completely and entirely. The thought unnerved you, the way that someone could know every emotion, every thought that went on inside your head and predict it with unceasing accuracy. It stripped you of your independence, of your security. For even if bound in chains and shackles, man would always be free inside their mind, the one place that no one but themselves could break into. And yet it seemed as if the painter had invaded even that part of yourself and you were now sharing your mind with someone else, a place that you had been used to living inside of - alone - your entire life.