The Inky Reality

Chapter 1 - The Ink

Ink. One word you'll hear multiple times a day. One day there won't be any real people left to even say it. We can blame this all on none other Joey freaking Drew. No one ever even liked the dude, and now no one sure as hell does. Hi, my name is Alice Angel. I have no idea how I haven't turned into a complete ink blob yet. After the chaos at Joey Drew Studios I should be an ink blob. Maybe that's why Joey did what he did, to turn me into an ink blob. No, that's definitely why he did it.

Tom's gone, and I'm stuck in this world I've never been in. I know the Ink Demon is after me. I know he is. That's why I need Henry's help. I need him to help me survive, and to help me save everyone from the Ink Machine along with the Ink Demon. But as far as I know, there's no more Henry to help me. No, he isn't dead, at least I think he isn't. He's still in the studio. If he doesn't make it out alive the whole world is doomed.

How did this happen you may ask? Well, Mister Joey Drew started a new project with someone named "Bertrum Piedmont" whom he calls "Bertie". When he revealed the ink machine to us, the workers of the studio, many of us asked why he started the project in the first place. His reasoning was extremely idiotic. "Live mascots! The most real experience in the history of theme parks! Imagine, fans of the cartoons, getting to meet their favorite characters! The profit will go through the roof!" That didn't go to plan. That put us in so much debt, it made The Great Depression seem like an irrational fear.

We were being drowned in debt, it was terrible. Most production of anything in the studio was shut down due to no money to do anything that would make the studio functional. Our motto was "Work Hard, Work Happy" but there's nothing happy about being in debt. We had plenty of ink to draw with that's for sure. There was no paper, no film and no supplies to actually draw with.

The days there were pretty gloomy. No checks were being written. We all sat there at our desks, not being productive in any way, shape or form.

One day, someone had the smart idea to try and operate the Ink Machine. It didn't go out as planned. At this point, everyone in the studio wanted to smack Joey right across the face. We were all losing money and we all wanted to get the hell out of there. But we couldn't. As always we had to work hard and work happy. But, things weren't always happy. At one point we all pitched in to buy a phone and put suicide hotline number above it because everyone was so depressed. What happened to work hard work happy huh?

Fast forward a couple days, weeks, probably even months, the pipes in the studio gave out, and exploded. The amount of ink in the pipes was so much that it covered some of the Earth. Well, barely any of it. I'll explain later. Anyway, sooner or later the places that the ink covered, their people became a cartoon character that they most relate to. I myself can't make any connections with myself and Alice Angel, but apparently, we're almost an exact match. See, the more you relate to a character, the more exact you look like them. What the ink knows, is beyond what anyone knows. Well, at the moment, at least. Some of us are teaming together to find out, but others are taking advantage of our new cartoonish ways.

Back to how the ink covered most of the world. It started out as only the studio getting covered. Then it started spreading like a sickness. A disease. An infection. Nobody noticed it was being passed around until it was too late. Stage one: A stain of ink would grow on your finger, face, or leg. Washing it off was just erasing it. Not stopping, not postponing, only erasing it from vision of the naked eye. Stage two: Over-exaggerated emotions. Whatever emotion you were feeling would be cartoonified. If you were sad, you would cry gallons of tears but make nothing but a puddle. If you were mad, steam would come out of your ears and your face would go red. Stage three: Complete transformation. You would become the cartoon character you relate to the most. Again, what the ink knows is a mystery.

Back to what I was talking about earlier. The ink disease has spread to over more than half of the world. It's spreading faster than imagined. The antidote for the ink is still unknown. People with the disease were freaking out, so many have died from shock. I wish I were kidding. The casualties have been way more intense than casual. I'm so unfamiliar with the outside world that I don't know how to help others, so I'm concerned that I may freak them out even more or just flat out make it worse. This is why I need Henry's help. He's the only one who I trust to help me with this catastrophe.

It has become my mission to try and go save Henry from the studio. The only problem is there is a high risk of me turning to a blob of ink. But I believe that giving my life will be worth saving millions, maybe billions of lives. But then again, if my life ends, Henry will never escape and everyone will be even more doomed than they already are. If only Tom was still here, then this wouldn't be as difficult.

Cutting to the chase, I'm going to go and get Henry from inside the studio in hopes that this whole thing will end. Maybe on the way I can find some allies. By the end of all this, maybe, just maybe, everything will be peaceful again.