My Friend Over the Phone

Chapter 43

    When Error opened his eye sockets, the area around him was a colour he couldn't quite make out. It seemed he was back here again.

    He wasn't fully sure where "here" was, exactly, but it felt like home, in a way. Comforting, but something felt unsettling about it. He heard the faint ticking of a clock. It echoed through the void. It reminded him that he didn't have much time here. The ticking varied in speed as he traversed the dark expanse, between there being minutes in between each little tick, and fractions of a nanosecond. The time jumped around with no clear pattern, just like in the Anti-Void. Who knows how much time has passed in the time Error has been here? It could've been seconds, or centuries. But Error's broken soul hummed with a familiar, yet scary feeling. Determination. There was a reason his dreams kept taking him here. He needed to do something.

    After a time of aimlessly walking around, he saw them again. Saw him again. Ink was still in the same position as he was all the other times he was here; entangled in golden thread that emitted a dangerous and controlling aura.

    He needed to get to him this time.

    As Error got closer to the artist, the ground beneath him shook, and it turned into a tar-like substance, slowing him down and slowly letting him sink into the ground.

    Error had been in a place with ground like this before. Ink had flooded the AU with paint, trying to stop him and Nightmare's team from escaping. It was one of the few times that he believed the artist was truly pissed, destroying the AU further almost as much as he did just to get revenge on them for undoing all of his hard work. Error had spun a spiderweb-like pattern on the ceiling of that version of the Underground to hold everyone else up; it was the most magic he'd ever used at once, leaving him on the brink of unconsciousness. Nightmare and Dust were the only ones still awake, the others too injured or drained to retain awareness.

    Ink had ambushed their little shelter while Nightmare and Dust were trying to make a portal home, dragging Horror down into the black abyss of paint. Error had tied his strings around his own slippers, diving after him. He was able to catch him before he sunk into the tar, the strings slowing the process of getting stuck while he ran towards the portal back to the Anti-Void. He copied the way he remembered moving, trying to limit the time his sneakers hit the ground. He ran as fast as he could before he became truly submerged, lengthening his stride and jumping across the expanse, trying to make it there it time. He didn't dare look behind him for even a second, but through his glasses lenses, he could see thread rushing towards him, as well, but it was still far away, by the looks of it.

    The ground suddenly shifted again, the previously quicksand-like floor hardening. It developed the consistency of ice, making Error slip. He stumbled on the spot for a moment, refusing to fall over.

    He closed his eyesockets, trying to remind himself of the time Blue took him to a skating rink for a third date. It was closed, so no one was there to alert the Stars that he was there. Blue took him out onto the ice, holding him tightly when his feet slipped, stopping him from falling backwards. Blue laughed and held his hands, skating backwards to guide him forward.

    "Push yourself forward, but make sure your feet don't slip out from under you! Pushing slightly outwards will help too! Yeah, now you're getting it!"

    He moved forward. Skating with sneakers was easier than with skates, but he couldn't go as fast as he wanted to. He reached out towards Ink as the ticking slowed once more, only for the distance between them to feel like it's miles apart. Ink was getting further away, or at least, it felt like it. He could swear he heard a scream of frustration from a voice he ddin't recognize, yet still sounded familiar. More thread appeared behind him, getting closer as it chased him from behind.