~ It's Raining Somewhere Else ~
Nothing stood in his way.
Soon the universes would learn that Nightmare was their true protector, their true lord and god that could destroy entire worlds in the blink of an eye. It was amusing, he reflected, how the universes often reveled in the bravery and prowress of their creator Ink in the way he was able to combat any threat, any disease that threatened to plague the universe with a mere swipe of his paintbrush. But where did the artist stand now with his mighty brush and ink, where was he to stop the universes from burning? Not once had Nightmare and his army met any resistance, marching right along towards the very heart of the multiverse, to where Ink often claimed his homage.
"You can call for him," Nightmare chuckled, looking upon the motionless body of his brother who often went by the pitiful name Dream, an unconscious form that hovered like a trophy wherever his army went. His kin had been the first to stand in his way, but was no more than a leaf in a hurricane against Nightmare's might. "But Ink will not come, he never will."
This earned several chuckles in response. "They paint themselves as the protector of these worlds," Nightmare boomed to his army, watching their sadistic eyes gleam wish a ravenous hunger, eager to destroy, eager to begin work and watch entire worlds burn. "Ink, others like him, they walk around with their heads held high, believing that they are invincible and because everyone believes so, than it must be true.
"But no more!" Nightmare waved his hand and a black vortex appeared to his right, revealing a writhing body trapped within a bag. Upon hearing Nightmare's voice the hostage began to squirm frantically as it was grabbed by its toes and thrown before his feet. "Today is the dawn of a new era, the first daybreak of a new world that we will rule over as it was always prophesied!"
The army seemed to sigh as Nightmare delivered a blow into the captive's side, smiling at the muffled whimper that came in reply. "He's untouchable," Nightmare declared, mock fear lacing his words. "To kill him is unthinkable, for how can one kill a god?"
Nightmare wrapped his fingers around the bag and flung it away, revealing the face of the self-declared painter who had given himself the duty of guarding the multiverse. There was no indication of emotion anywhere within the eyes of Ink as he gazed upon the army, feeling a pang of remorse at the looks of sheer hatred thrown his way, disgust and loathing. Ink had created each and every universe, sat and watched in astonishment as the first traces of code had pieced themselves together and created entire worlds.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" Nightmare asked, kneeling so that he was eye level with him. "There is no hope of escape for you, no hope for anything. We've already won, you fool. There is no hope of resistance and when word gets out of your death, there will be no one to oppose us."
Ink said nothing, the two multicoloured pinpricks that were his eyes had lost any form of colour, fading to hollow white ovals that gazed solemnly back at Nightmare. "Look at him!" Nightmare howled in a fit of laughter, turning around to face his army. Horror's fingers danced around the hilt of his axe, ready to kill, ready to make them all bleed.
"Look at how pathetic he is!" Nightmare slammed his foot into Ink's rib cage and he doubled over in pain, coughing up a splat of rainbow ink onto the ground. "There is no one to save him, he can't even save himself!" He gestured to the paintbrush several feet away, looking alone and small against the might of his army. "You are alone Ink," Nightmare whispered, tilting the painter's head so that their eyes were interlocked in the world's most intense staring contest. "You are going to die now, and no one is going to remember your name."
"That's where you're wrong," Ink chuckled, wiping the paint from his face. The army seemed to recoil from his very words, reacting like each syllable of his was a knife itself. "Even if you do kill me, there is always hope. You will never win, not when they live."
"Silence!" Nightmare roared and backhanded Ink, knocking him to the floor. "Nothing, you know nothing! I have won, your death is the end!"
"Wrong," Ink shrugged. "You may be too arrogant to understand, but there is hope. All you have to do is open your eyes."
Kill him, the voice whispered to Nightmare, its claws dragging against the ground. Nightmare looked to his master, the lord of shadow and darkness, the true king of the void that none could see but him. There is nothing he can do to save himself. Your reign begins with his head on a pike for all to see.
There was a small voice in the back of Nightmare's head that seemed to scream against this, that despite his murderous and cruel tendencies, that ending Ink's life would do nothing to secure his claim over the multiverse, only to help weaken it.
But now his master was screaming, wailing into Nightmare's mind that he had to kill, kill, KILL!
"Horror," Nightmare instructed, his voice oddly calm and free of all the cares in the world, liberated. "Bring me your axe."
~ And Yet The World Turns ~
Something was wrong.
You could see it in the blue veins of the echo flowers, in the stars that swirled in their endless sea in the sky around you, the way the trees seemed to shudder and swirl against the passing of a cold breeze that could herald nothing but cold and calamity to come. The effects of the war were felt here, no matter where you ran or hide. Somewhere, everywhere, there was always a small reminder of the battles and horrors that raged around.
You could see it in the way even the monster child walked, the way his skip seemed to lessen, the bags around his eyes grew. You felt it too, the growing of darkness and despair inside, a black pit that sucked out all life, all hope. The balance has shifted, you thought darkly, wondering what that could possibly mean. Something has gone wrong, terribly wrong.
"Where are we heading kiddo?" you asked, looking at the trees. They no longer seemed warm or inviting, but colder, much, much colder. Their branches were gnarled claws that reached for your throat and caught on your sweatshirt, trying to tear out the skin underneath the fabric. You stepped on a stick in the midst of your struggle, shattering the wood and casting it aside like it meant nothing.
And he was still there.
You shook off the thought, not wanting to pay attention to the eyes you were certain had been following you for the last hour. The monster child didn't answer, his head buried in the scarf wrapped around his neck. Run, you thought, realising that something was wrong here, rooted in the very core of this world. There was no safe place, every universe was a war zone.
"I have to get back to the Capital," you lied, hoping to cover the fear in your voice. "Important business, you know."
"[Y/N]," the monster child rasped, his voice taking on a much more demonic tone. A series of numbers swirled around his head, brief glimpses into the corrupted code that constructed the monster. You felt your blood run cold at the mention of your name, having not told it to anyone but Ink. "I thought we were getting along so nicely?"
The eyes of the monster child were a milky white, the same white of the eyes of a recently deceased corpse, staring at you. You gaped in horror and spun on your heels, charging blindly into the forest. Child-like laughter rang through the air, magnified by the echo flowers that were scattered throughout Waterfall. "Don't you want to play a game?" the monster child asked.
Play a game, the echo flowers agreed.
"You know, I could really use your help!" you snarled at the trees above where you were certain your mysterious follower was hidden, watching, never helping. You caught a brief glimpse of grey, the dull pigment the skin of the monster child had taken.
"Ready or not, here I come!" the monster child screeched and sprang out of the grass, claws unsheathed and ready to sink into your throat. You tumbled onto the ground and wrestled with the demonic creature, tumbling through the hills and grass as you struggled to keep its fangs away from your throat. When you reached the bank of a river, you grabbed the monster by the neck and flung it away from you, springing to your feet and taking off in the other direction. It would not stop the creature, you were certain of that.
But how was this happening? The monster child had seemed so friendly, so inviting only minutes ago. He had offered no indication of any wanting of killing you, so why was he acting this way now? There were strange things happening all across the multiverse, your universe's disappearance was evidence of that.
Disappearance, you liked that word. Your world wasn't gone, it was only hidden. You would go home after this was all over.
"I like you [Y/N]," the monster child chuckled from somewhere nearby. The song of the echo flowers gave the appearance of the child being all around you. "He likes you too, my master does. He thinks that you would make a great soldier like all his other knights and pawns. Did you know that this is a game of chess? It's easy to win if you know how to play."
Your eyes fell upon the greyed sweatshirt sleeve of the monster child. "Checkmate," you whispered and flung yourself at him, pinning the monster to the ground.
"Yes!" the monster child cried, tears streaming down his eyes. "Kill me, kill me please!"
In a fit of disgust, you released your grip on the monster, not wanting to look into its empty eyes any longer. "I'm sorry," you whispered, grabbing a rock from the bank. "I am truly sorry."
Sorry, sorry, the echo flowers chided.
And you brought the rock down once, twice, until the twitching form of the monster child went still. There was no blood, only dust that coated the bank and floated into the river below. You broke into a hysteric sob and clawed at the dust on your hands, wanting it to be far away, light years away, anywhere but here. You hadn't been in this world for even a day and already you were a murderer. Not once had you ever killed another living thing, not in your village or any time during. But one moment away from that and all the walls had broken and you were alone, a new person.
A murderer.
Kill me please! The echo flowers carried on the last words the monster child would ever speak for an eternity, the only living reminder of a life that had been so carelessly lost. By now you were certain that the monster child had not been acting on his own free will, nothing more than a mere puppet by whatever was controlling him. His code had been corrupted, altered, and he was sent on you like a dog, trying to kill you.
But who or what wanted you dead?
Perhaps it had something to with Nightmare, the leader of the army assembling somewhere in the void that Ink had mentioned to Error during your encounter with them. But if he was that strong enough to corrupt the code of some monster universes and worlds away, what chance did you stand against him? And if he truly wanted you dead, why not tap into your own code and force you to throw yourself into the river and never resurface? None of it made any sense.
"I didn't mean for this to happen," you whispered to the pile of ashes that were the only remainder of the monster child. "I promise, I will find who did this and I will make them suffer."
"Spoken like a true hero."
From the trees a skeleton dropped, landing on the ground beneath. You had known all along, from the moment the first echo flower had relayed his message, the sound of his voice was all too familiar. "Why are you here?" you asked, feeling slightly on edge. You didn't know whether to trust the skeleton or not. He seemed just as likely to help you as he would cut you open and feed you to the fish in the river. There was also pity for him, and regret for what you had said during your last exchange with him.
Error's story is his own to tell, you remembered Ink saying and turned to face the skeleton, staring into the red and yellow rims that bordered his eyes.
"I got bored," the glitch shrugged, leaning against a tree. But something told you that wasn't quite the case, but the glint in his eyes seemed to show that he did not wish to discuss the topic any further. "Besides, I like watching a good show every once and a while."
Show? The thought of that made your blood run cold. How could watching someone lose control of their own body, forced to kill without any say in the matter, be a show? It was sickening, the thought.
"This isn't a game," you retorted, feeling your own anger resurface. But you forced yourself to push it away, something you hadn't done your last encounter with him. You needed an ally, someone to help you track down Nightmare and put a bullet in his skull. It was your new personal agenda, what set fire to your veins. You were certain, absolutely certain, that he had been the one to corrupt the coding of the monster child and erase your universe from existence. And you would cut him for that.
Error broke into a fit of laughter. "That's hilarious!" he chuckled, glitching slightly at the movement. "It's what you and Ink have in common, the sheer inability to have a single decent thought. We're nothing more than a game to those that have power greater than us. To Nightmare, we are his game, hopeless and hapless to stop him. So he toys with us, pokes us in different directions for his own amusement. And then he'll kill us if we stick our neck out too far, if we don't play our part."
"I'm going to kill him," you whispered, your voice cold. "He destroyed my home, took away everything from me."
"Good luck with that," Error rolled his eyes and swiped his hand downwards, a rift appearing in the air. "This universe isn't going to last much longer. Once the code of one thing is corrupted, the entire universe will follow suit until there's nothing left."
Was that what had happened to your world? Was there some sort of anomaly, some glitch that stuck out like a sour thumb and caused your entire world to collapse in on itself?
"I say we have about five minutes," Error sighed, gesturing to the rift. "And you're no use dead."
"I thought you wanted to kill me?" You raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was playing at.
"Ink's gone missing," Error replied, his voice suddenly grim. You hadn't thought the skeleton harbored any affection for the painter, not when it seemed that they were always at each other's throats. "I personally don't care," he said, answering your questions, "but the few that are behind his cause do, and without a leader they'll crumble. I'm not Nightmare's number one fan, burning things, it's too noisy. You need to find him."
"Yeah, sure," you replied halfheartedly, not wanting to leave this universe quite yet. Why couldn't you just hide, wait the whole thing out until it was safe to go home?
You're never going home, a voice inside your mind chided. The only option is to continue. Reluctantly, you grasped Error's hand and pulled yourself through the rift, catching one last glimpse at the space world.
A comet swirled in the sky, far above the world without a care or thought towards those that watched it. For a moment it seemed to blaze with a fury incomprehensible to mortals. And then the light flickered, hesitating for a moment as the code of its dying world slowly began to decay, before its light too vanished along with everything else.
And then the rift closed, you still alive, yet again the only living reminder of a world that had once been and never would be again.