My Friend Over the Phone

Chapter 29

He hopped through the many, many islands of the place known as the Doodle Sphere. He saw an Underfell begin to lose its colour. He watched from afar, knowing what was about to happen.

The ends of the island began to crumble. He saw all of its inhabitants screaming as the ground gave out beneath them. They all fell into the white nothingness below, disappearing from his sight entirely after reaching a certain depth.

Ink has seen it time and time again. When creators no longer care about a Universe, it loses its life force. It's people die from the impact below, usually. Or they're stuck there until they die. But Error somehow survived, the white void he used to call home perfectly resembling the abyss below. He has yet to see another like him who made it out.

He felt that voice tugging at him again as three more crumbled around him. Creators normally don't lose interest in a Universe this quickly, but he hasn't added anything to any of them. He hasn't given them anything new to entertain them with.

he hasn't created.

And thus, an apocalypse is now among everyone. But it no longer mattered to Ink. It didn't matter. Nothing did. If Dream and Blue truly believe that Error and Nightmare are so capable, they can fix it.

For now, he'll enjoy swapping roles with them. Villains are always more interesting, after all.

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"Something's wrong," Error said sternly, staring intently at the blue pop up screen he summoned. "What do you mean?" Blue asked, sitting up straighter in their bed to get a closer look, even though he couldn't read code.

A red caution signal appeared on the screen. "A bunch of Universes are gone. Something is wiping them out." He continued, swiping his hand over the signal to dismiss it. He continued looking at the lines of code. Blue watched several lines suddenly change numbers rapidly, before they all turned into X's and glitched, before disappearing entirely.

"Oh, stars. That must be hurting a lot of people! Can you do something?" He asked, shaking his arm a little bit. "I'm trying. I've never seen anything like this before." He tried rewriting a line before it disappeared. "Come on! What is happening here?!" Blue hummed, opening a window to the Doodle Sphere to see if they could see anything from there.

An island crumbled, all the people living on it screaming in terror as they fell. Error stiffened, seeing them fall into the abyss. "Oh god. What's going on?" Blue asked, a little shaken. Error got up, walking to the closet. "We've got to alert Dream and Nightmare about this. I can't fix this, so it must be something serious." Blue nodded, snapping his fingers to change his clothes. Error took his hand, raising the other. "Let's go."

They both ran to the castle from the teleportation point Error had set, passing all of the violet trees. They passed the white bench, signalling that they were close. Error prayed Nightmare and Dream were actually there, or else all this running would be for nothing. When they finally reached the castle, they quickly stopped to catch their breath, before Error knocked on the door.

Luckily, it was Dream who answered the door. "Oh, hey guys! What's going on?" He asked, then noticed the sweat dripping down Error's skull, and a little bit on Blue as well. "Did you two run all the way here?" He asked. "Yes, because I forgot the exact coordinates and I didn't want to get stuck in a tree." Dream laughed, but quickly noticed the dread the two were feeling. "Wha-?" "Is Nightmare here too?" "Yes, why? Do you need to come in?" Blue nodded. "Yes, something we think is serious is happening."

Dream stepped to the side, letting them in. "Who is it?" Someone called from the other room. "It's Blue and Error," Dream answered for them. "They say they need to talk about something."

They entered the parlour, where they saw Nightmare and Cross snuggled together under a blanket on a love seat. Blue smiled, briefly remembering the recent event that Error doesn't know about. "Hey, lovebirds." Error greeted, smiling at the two. "Oh, hush you. The heater is broken, and it's cold in here." Nightmare snapped back. "What, don't like cuddling with me, Nighty?" Cross asked, faking a pout. Nightmare stiffened, sweating a little, "W-well, no! I-it's not like that-!" The other laughed. "I was joking!" He giggled, wrapping his right arm around Nightmare and somehow moving closer to him than he was before. "oh.." was his only response.

Dream giggled, turning down the jazz music that was playing from the radio on the table and sitting down on one of the chairs. The other couple took the couch. "So, what's this thing you wanted to talk to is about?" Nightmare asked.

"Well, have you noticed anything strange about the Universes?" Error asked back.

"No? What, is something wrong with them?" Nightmare sat up, getting a little worried about this news.

"Yeah, Error and I were noticing that some Universe's codes were just disappearing without a trace, so I opened a portal to the Doodle Sphere to see what was going on, and an island just crumbled away, and all the people on it fell into the abyss!" Blue explained, using his hands a little too eccentrically to gesture what he saw.

Dream also sat up, disturbed by the statement. "So, Universes are just crumbling into bits and the people in them are falling into the void below?"

Blue nodded.

Dream opened a window himself to verify the strange occurrences. It only took a few moments before three or four met the fate Blue described. The twins both felt a strong surge of negative energy from the people. "So that explains the surplus in negativity lately..." Nightmare mumbled, twiddling his fingers nervously.

"But what about Ink? Isn't he supposed to be protecting Universes from destruction? Does he know about this?" Cross asked. "I don't know, I haven't talked to him in a while." Blue said. "Yeah, me neither." Dream added. "Maybe I should go check on him." Error nodded. "Yeah, that's probably best." Dream got up, and teleported to his cabin.

He used his key to the house to unlock the door. He squinted, preparing from the bright mess that was Ink's house, but was instead met with darkness. All of the doors upon doors were still there, and so were the frames that house paintings every now and then, but even though Dream recalled no actual lights in his house, it was like there was a power outage inside.

"Ink?" He called, his voice bouncing off the walls and echoing in his ear ducts. He entered the house, closing the front door behind him. This place was suddenly very ominous, and he didn't like it. "I-Ink?" He called again, drawing out the "I" in his name. This wasn't Ink's style, why did he change his house to become...this?

He opened each and every door, trying to find his studio. If he was anywhere in this house, he was there. He called out his name, getting a little louder than before each time. He was starting to think Ink might not even be here. He briefly considered calling him, but then remembered that Ink always forgets his cell phone before he leaves the house.

He rejoiced when he finally found the studio, only to quickly go back to his sense of dread when he saw the state it was in. The mirror was broken, the glass shards scattered all over the room. He carefully moved around the mess. There were papers littering his desk, which was normally nothing new, except some of them were blank, the ones towards the middle had blood on them, and most of them had unintelligible scribbles of what he thought might've been words.

But what made him really worry, was his sash on the ground. Every single vial was broken, all of the paint inside them stained the carpet beyond repair. These were Ink's artificial emotions, and he was always super careful with them. They were his most treasured items. Dream didn't want to know what happened in here, but he had to find Ink. He had to make sure he was okay, though he had a sinking feeling that he wasn't.

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Ink focused his senses. Ah, there's Dreamtale. It's been a long time since he went there. Since he met Dream, actually. He considered going there, but decided against it. The time will come. Instead, he got a better idea. He knew he'd smirk if he had his emotions at his interesting idea. It would be fun to teach them a lesson.

Horrortale was getting rather boring anyway.