((This was fun to write.))

The nonexistent sky felt unnaturally empty. He couldn't remember it ever feeling so.. blank. The formerly golden void had shifted into a bright, hostile red, yellow swirling around faintly as the realm raged. Even brighter threads lashed about near the bottom of the endless void, some latching to hanging, colored stars before peeling away.

He stared at the scene indifferently, eyelights blank. He had grown tired of feeling when he only experienced fear and frustration. Even avoiding those colors left him empty. Joy felt hollow, curiosity dull. Even taking a middling emotion left him disgusted with himself. So.. he gave up.
There was nothing but emptiness left behind.

It vaguely occurred to him that he had been watching the stars vanish for a long time.
He hadn't eaten. Hadn't moved. Hadn't done anything. He just.. ached.
He could feel his creations dying, and there was nothing he could do about it.

If only to look away from the oncoming demise, he looked down at the yellowing grass and the long paintbrush sitting atop it. He clenched his hand to work some feeling back into it, noting that the plants it had previously been settled on were like straw. He had sat for so long they had died from the lack of light.

He ran his hand over the ancient wood. It had become brittle without his power flowing through it. If he could feel, he would have feared it would crumble to dust, dead like a monster. As it was, he was empty.

Gently holding it closer to himself, he tried to recall how it comforted him. Unfortunately, he felt nothing. Ink curled one leg under him and stared out at his dying Doodlesphere. Everyone he knew and somewhat cared for was gone. The enemies giving him purpose were gone. Trillions of mortals were crying out for help, dying in millions, torn apart into nothing by the Void as thousands remained to demand why, expecting answers when he had none. It was.. lonely.

"...The Multiverse is dying, Broomie." His dry, unused voice cracked out, gazing back down at the writhing strands, hearing the distant thunder of the strange being raging. He pondered if it was some spirit of the Doodlesphere itself, yearning in loss as it watched everything come apart around them.
"..What do I do?"

As always, the paintbrush was mute. It was only ever a tool he'd grown attached to. Ink slowly turned to blankly regard the pile of vials he'd abandoned. They gleamed with color, soothing and familiar amidst the harsh surroundings that burned crimson like an apocalypse. They were comfortably nestled against the pale blue of his jacket. Ink just stared at them, sluggishly thinking.

He.. wanted to feel when everything fell. Maybe not now- that would only accomplish more of the same- but he knew that eventually everything would vanish. Maybe that would leave him alone in an empty void. Maybe he would go with it all. Either way when the time came, he wanted to feel. One. Last. Time.
Then he might throw them away forever. He had failed as a Creator and protector, after all. It seemed only fair.

How ironic.
He was thinking of fairness in a state like this. Why did he care? He had never cared before when becoming like this. He was a Soulless creature without empathy. Not even a Flowey could compare, comprehend. They almost always had echoes of a Soul, memories of empathy- twisted as they usually were.
Could anything be more disconnected from life than a god that lacked emotion and compassion?

Ink pondered if his was a cruel fate. No way to feel love, feel empathy, compassion, feel hate, feel jealousy, feel anything at all. He only had pitiful shadows of emotion, distilled and weak. Did his existence even have a point without Destruction he could combat?
This wasn't even destruction anymore.
It was just the end.

Maybe that's what it was. The Neverending Story that was his Multiverse did have an end and this was it. It called to mind a haunting phrase.
This was how it all ends.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

A tingling had Ink glancing down at his brush. It was emitting a weak bronze light. Red shone out from under his sleeve. Pulling it up, he saw his detestable marks glowing scarlet, sputtering but holding. Now what did that mean?
He couldn't really find it in himself to care.

Letting it go again, Ink stared out at the crumbling worlds. Papers tearing into nothing, fading into the distance until they were stars winking out of existence. If each star and paper didn't equate to an entire universe each, it would have almost been fascinating. Instead, it was simply a clock.
A clock that was counting down.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Rip. Rip. Rip. Rip.
World after world, perishing in screams.
Rip. Snap. Tear.

Ink somehow found he was standing now. His legs were weak from so long dangling, forcing him to lean on the equally fragile paintbrush beside him. The movement sent a pulse of pain through him, a familiar voice whispering, urging him to make something.
There was nothing he could make that could stop this.
He had tried already. He couldn't combat this.
Couldn't hope to defeat such an endless devastation. At most, he could delay the inevitable, but he had given up trying.

Instead, he pushed off the dying island, drifting to the nearest paper- a surprising distance with how few there were now- and gently took it in his hands. He wasn't sure why he was doing this, but he was too absent to care.

This was something he had done many times while he was still on paints. They had involved a lot of tears before fading to an ache.
He felt that ache now, but there was nothing to give it substance, just an ache amidst emptiness. He watched the sheet flare brighter in his hands, fighting to keep together as his presence gave it a hint of strength. It was never enough in the past now, and neither would it be now.

A long tear abruptly rent it nearly in half with a jarring suddenness, edges crumbling away. They drifted towards him, latching onto his bones before it finished tearing and fell apart in his hands. Like a monster turning to dust.
Ink stared emptily, feeling a pang of something familiar.
…Was that.. loss? Why?

He touched his face in alarm upon feeling something damp. A tear- the liquid, not a rip. It was black, warm. Sticky.
Yet he felt empty.

Ink pushed in a new direction, coming upon an original universe. He paused, recognizing the wilted edges and faded lines. He couldn't help but take it in his hands like before.
This.. was the first time he saw an original beginning to die.
Of course, it had been inevitable, but.. it was the first. The strongest. No other like it- not even it's own copies.

It was a small universe, very little inside. It was technically destroyed by it's human, which was contained by the other Souls. Only two lived still, and they lived in the Omega Timeline now.
..Did they even know they were about to be homeless?
Being an original, it would not leave them abandoned without a home. It would take them too.

His grip on the paper tightened on impulse. He could feel the universe crumbling, the page curling in slightly as it began to collapse.
…No. Please. Not the originals.
Ink hugged it to his ribs uselessly, the trickle of despair feeding him.
Where was it even coming from at this point. He'd left his paints behind.

It didn't matter. He could see another universe nearby, another vibrant original beginning to curl in on itself. He kicked off after it, hesitating as pain lanced through him.
It was a rare kind of pain he had forgotten. Last he felt it.. Error had destroyed an original universe.
But this wasn't Error's doing.
He looked down at the paper ripping itself to pieces in his arms, glowing shreds drifting away and clinging to his bones.

A painful sound worked it's way out of his throat at the sound. Some kind of sob. If anyone had seen him, they would have been unsettled by his blank expression paired with the tears.
But he was alone.
He was painfully alone.

The desperation abruptly returned in full force as if he was experiencing the full strength of his paints. Ink gasped at the feeling, at the sudden sense of being terribly, horribly alive at a time like this. He had to do something. Anything. He couldn't create anything to stop this, couldn't prevent it- but maybe he could preserve.
That wasn't exactly his skillset, and he vaguely had a sense that there was a god for that, but that god certainly wasn't here now- so he had to try.
Just a little longer.

Grabbing the sheet, Ink stared at it as his thoughts started racing. It continued to wear away, albeit slower in his hands.
A thought clicked.
They always slowed the closer to him they were.

He frantically shoved it under his shirt, spinning weightlessly as he scanned the Doodlesphere for other nearby originals. He immediately spotted one, darting over to shove it under as well. Before he'd had the idea of stopping the constant destruction, but now the goal had shifted.
Just preservation. Not indefinitely- they were inevitably going to tear themselves to pieces, but at least now they'd last longer.

Already onto his fifteenth sheet, he dared wonder how long this would give them.
In a moment of pessimism, he wondered what the point of this was. Would he die when the last universe fell? Would the first universe even fall?
He still wasn't sure.
He'd sensed a hint of decay in it, but otherwise.. he couldn't tell.
He rather hoped he at least died with his Multiverse. With or without emotion, he didn't want to live with the fact that he'd failed it. Not even knowing why.

Distantly, Ink found a part of him wanting to blame Error. Like it was some kind of cruel contingency made in case he was somehow killed- existing purely because of spite.
Yet.. he couldn't really force himself to believe it. Something in him knew that wasn't right, the same part of him that ached.

So he kept snatching AU's out of the air, going at a speed he'd nearly forgotten he was capable of. Even as his ribcage began to get crowded, he carefully slid more underneath. As he worked his way through the thousands of papers, he felt a sense of tightness growing inside. So many universes, so much of his true creations.. each a fragment of himself. He always put a little bit of himself in everything he created, good or bad. Now it was all being gathered into one small space- into himself.

He tried not to think about it too much, but after a while his sporadic kicking to get from place to place became gentler, and he felt as if his precious paintbrush had attached itself to his feet, acting as a paddle through the air- so he treated it as such. However that worked didn't matter- he had a goal to complete. Even if his ribs became too packed, Ink would find a way.

…Until a searing pain lanced through his bones, forcing him to lock up in place and curl up with a gasp.
That.. hurt.
Every single line across his bones was burning, stinging in waves of pain that radiated out from his center, as if all the magical pressure coming from the papers was causing it- but why?

Ink fumbled with his sleeves to check on the stupid marks, shivering and staring at the harsh red light coming from them. With a shaking hand, he touched one of them, flinching in shock upon finding they were no longer solid.

Now disturbed, his namesake began to float free of the marks, revealing a crimson thread beneath that was eerily similar to the strands waving far below. Squinting at it, Ink gritted his teeth and scraped it out of him, clinging to the string and tugging on it. That forced a scream out of him as he felt it was connected to all the rest of him.
Were they in all his birthmarks?
What the hell? Why had he never noticed before?

Freaking out and thinking of Error, Ink began ripping the scarlet threads out of himself, whimpering and choking as each tug felt like a slice that ran deep through him on all sides. He couldn't remember Error's strings hurting so much before. The destroyer didn't even have red strings.
However, there was someone who did…
But that someone wasn't here anymore.

After at least an hour of agonizing removal, Ink allowed himself a minute of reprieve, panting and staring up at the muddled yellow above him. Everything still felt tight, but now there was a certain lightness he had never felt before. It was a strange feeling. He wondered if he had simply forgotten a before.

The pain wouldn't stop. Ink threw the strings as far from him as he could, suddenly feeling disgusted by them as they started writhing in the air. Horrifying. There was no way that belonged to Error. His strings didn't move like that, wriggling and flailing back in his direction as a rumble echoed from far below him.
..The threads. They were the same as the thrashing strands below. Just.. smaller.

Ink looked away from it, unwilling to dwell on it in case he forgot his current goal. Casting aside the pain, he zoomed to the next original, carefully setting it inside and moving on. He'd collected about twenty more pages before an involuntary spasm ran through him, startling a gag out of him as vomit threatened to spew out. He choked on it, wheezes slowly turning to sickening gurgles as he clawed at himself. He was awake, so painfully awake and alive, why, why was he feeling?!

The question ripped through him just as his body lost stability, reducing him to a skeleton shaped mess of his namesake. He couldn't even breathe in this form, only twitch and lose shape sporadically. He couldn't- he couldn't preserve the AU's if he couldn't keep himself together!

He thrashed in place, drifting past a crumbling sheet as his clothes fell away. He mindlessly reached for his scarf, terrified of losing the only thing that reminded him of who he was. All his memories, transcribed onto cloth. It fluttered helplessly away as his vague shape of an arm lost it's resemblance to a limb, swelling and peeling apart into a mess of weightless fluid.

Ink could no longer see, his face having lost it's shape as well. The agony was unbearable. All he could do was center himself as much as possible to avoid losing the precious papers he'd collected so far. He had no mouth, but he needed to scream.

So he writhed, feeling his shapeless mass smack a page and cling to it, the sheet slowly seeping into the liquid. It took everything in him to pause his movements and consider what just happened.
Could he still collect AU's even when blind and shapeless? He could wriggle around like some kind of amoeba, absorbing sheets not to consume, but to protect.

…Fuck it, he could still sense where the originals were. He was doing it.
Ink thrashed closer to the nearest star in his senses, wriggling into a vaguely streamlined form.
It took an awkward while, but he eventually worked out a loose form he could reasonably hold while curling around papers. It seemed oddly large from what he could tell, but functional. Two broad limbs to push through the air, a round front to take in sheets as the rest just sort of.. trailed after him.

After some time, the pain had faded and he abruptly realized that the form had eyes. He blinked them open, finding a paper in his face. He would have recoiled if it weren't for how small it was. It looks like it could have fit in the palm of his hand.
With a jolt, he realized he had hands.

Ink pulled back to regard the appendages, startled at how solid they were. He'd never had a stable form that wasn't his skeleton self. He'd never thought he could have one.
With another flinch, he realized he also had color. His entire lower half was a rainbow, shockingly textured like pebbly skin. It led him to realize that he still lacked legs, only a long, winding tail that ended in a brown tuft of fur, actual fur that reminded him of his precious paintbrush.

Turning, he realized the appendages he was using to move around were a form of wings- upper halves still somewhat fluid and flowing while the back ends were trailing prismatic, shifting light. Solid light, at least, when he touched it. All of it was very odd. He began to wonder if maybe those strange strings had hindered him somehow.
How did they even get there? What was that thing at the bottom of the Doodlesphere?

He looked down at the angrily flailing threads far below. Maybe.. maybe that thing wasn't a part of his realm. Why hadn't that clicked sooner? It had turned everything into a violent red, and that only happened during bad times.
When he had.. gotten bored. Or worse.
Maybe it was why everything was falling apart.

If it had anything to do with why the Multiverse was coming down, then he had to get them out. They weren't supposed to leave the Doodlesphere, but they would survive. Ink jolted into action, rushing through the voidspace and scooping up every original universe he could.

The task took him a little over an hour before spinning in place, tail looping over itself as he regarded his altered home and his altered self.
Ink went still, unsure of what to do next. Logically, he should collect all the copies now.. right?

Looking around at the still millions of dwindling stars, he felt something inside him start to sink.
The Multiverse will collapse into nothing before he had the time to collect them all.
He momentarily cursed himself for making so many and switched tactics- except a question nagged at him.
Why?
Why did he make so many? He couldn't remember why.
Because he liked it, right? He could live through the stories. A part of him was alive in each story, almost feeling everything the residents could. If he could only preserve that feeling and not let it fade, he could feel something… yet..

He had gathered every single original universe into himself, somehow forming a strange new body that almost vibrated from their closeness.
Oddly enough, the shape felt right. Felt like himself. He stared at his hands, no longer skeletal, and found he was okay with it. He looked back up at a row of four pages, though so bright they were he could only see their vibrant light and not their true forms.

Ink drifted up, delicately taking the largest of them, unable to see through the harsh luminescence. It was warm, tendrils of power seeping out invisibly, the only sign of their presence being the feel of them curling around him, seeping through his strange new body.

This. This was the core of his Multiverse. The first of all his trillions of AU's, copies and originals alike. Ink gazed at it, feeling a swell of wonder inside, the same as it had been for all those times he beheld it before.
Yet something was different.
Maybe it was himself.

He slowly tore his gaze from the wondrous thing and regarded the other three universes. Something close to guilt rose up within him.
He'd neglected them. Forgotten them.
He had been unfair to them.
Now everything seemed to be ending, and he would never be able to give them the glory they deserved.

He delicately curled his hands around another brilliant page, bringing it closer as a tear escaped him.
Ink had failed his Multiverse, but before even that he had failed three worlds that had existed long before himself, forevermore greater than he ever could be.

His gaze glanced between the sheets in his hands, the blue and the purple. He looked up to regard the red and golden yellow pair, the same shades as his changed Doodlesphere.
Ink sighed, slowly accepting his failure and the emotions that had come from nowhere.

He pressed the pair to his front, wincing as they burned and melded into his still not quite solid form. He could feel them continuing to burn even from within, noting that some of the cooler colors of his underside had begun to gleam, emitting a light of their own.

Ink took the other pair and forced them in as well, shuddering as his body sizzled. It was the only way. If he was going to protect his Multiverse using his own body as a shield, then he was going to guard the core of it as well.

So he floated there, hugging himself as his center burned, the heat spreading until everything seemed to be ablaze. Still, he kept still.
Regret. He felt regret for everything he had done, faint images bleeding into his mind.

He saw them. The worlds. Their stories he'd ignored, full of alternates both familiar and unrecognizable.
It was truer, purer than any universe he had ever made.
He felt like a facade looking upon the tales.
And maybe he was. After all.. he didn't even have a Soul.
Why could he feel.

Ink shook what felt like a heavy head, ignoring the burning inside and looking around at his ruined Doodlesphere. There were vast red strings climbing up specifically in his direction, a rumble echoing throughout the voidspace as something made of vicious red and bronze light started flying towards him.

ㄖ卄 爪ㄚ ㄥ丨ㄒㄒㄥ乇 ㄖ几乇. ㄒ卄卂ㄒ 千ㄖ尺爪 丨丂 几ㄖㄒ 千ㄖ尺 ㄚㄖㄩ. 匚ㄖ爪乇, 匚ㄖ爪乇.. ㄚㄖㄩ 卂尺乇 几ㄖㄒ 丂卂千乇. A tremendous voice pressed upon him, the air shaking with it's power. It made him want to come closer, let it shroud him in comforting threads..
What?
Threads? Strings? Red like the ones he'd painfully yanked out of himself. This form wasn't for him? What? The form letting him protect universes?
No. No, this wasn't right.

He tried to speak, but a strange warbling note came out instead. Right.. his entire face wasn't the same. Instead, he darted at an unexpected speed across the vast void, finding a faint shape and aiming for it. He was shockingly fast, flapping his unusual wings before he clamped his oversized maw around his familiar clothes. He needed his scarf. Couldn't forget it unless he wanted to forget everything.

I'ᗰ TᖇYIᑎG TO KEEᑭ ᗰY ᗰᑌᒪTIᐯEᖇᔕE ᗩᒪIᐯE! He screamed in his mind, partly so as not to give in to the strange, alluring croon from below. He swung around, wings spread wide as he spotted his paintbrush.

He flinched upon seeing a red glow from it, the metal band shining a harsh bronze as red strings reached for it.
No no no that was not happening.

In a flash, he was suddenly there, surrounded by prismatic light as he clutched his precious to himself. At this size, he could use it as a regular paintbrush. The difference was jarring, but he had no time.

ㄥ丨ㄒㄒㄥ乇 ㄖ几乇, 山卄卂ㄒ 卂尺乇 ㄚㄖㄩ ᗪㄖ丨几Ꮆ? ㄚㄖㄩ 山丨ㄥㄥ ㄒ卂Ҝ乇 ㄒ卄乇 山ㄖ尺ㄥᗪ丂 千尺ㄖ爪 ㄒ卄乇丨尺 几卂ㄒㄩ尺卂ㄥ 卄ㄖ爪乇. The voice rang in his mind.
I ᕼᗩᐯE TO ᑭᖇOTEᑕT TᕼEᗰ. TᕼEY'ᖇE ᗪYIᑎG ᕼEᖇE. I ᕼᗩᐯE TO TᖇY.. ᔕOᗰETᕼIᑎG. ᗩᑎYTᕼIᑎG. I ᑕᗩᑎ'T ᒪOᔕE TᕼEᗰ YET. He found himself answering internally, thinking of somewhere to flee as the vast red strands drew ever closer. They were unimaginably huge, more like ropes- no, pillars of red as they approached.

He sifted through the worlds, feeling them inside himself, readily accessible.
Finally he snapped and curled up, picking one and feeling himself explode into his namesake, reshaping above vivid waves of blue glittering in sunlight.

A second later he was crashing heavily into the sea, writhing at the unexpected weight of himself, sinking deeper in the water. Ink went still where he was, processing what just happened.

For the first time in what was at least a month, he was out of the Doodlesphere.
And for the first time in existence, the cores, the stories of the original universes were no longer suspended in their voidspace.
The reality of it was sort of terrifying. Especially coupled with the fact that he had left his jacket and paints behind and still felt.
Where were these emotions coming from?!

It hit him suddenly.
All the originals were inside of him. Even the first four. The power was pulsing, impossible to ignore, feeling like himself yet more.
Was he.. sustaining off of his universes?
The first hint of emotion had emerged when he'd held a paper in his hands.
He had never touched them when empty before. He had always strived to refill his paints instead.
What a horrible time for this discovery.

He wanted to rage over it, but his dead, logical half knew better. He had to know what universe he had thrown himself into. That hadn't been exactly the best idea, but he'd been rather rushed. How long had that entity dwelled in his Doodlesphere? What was it doing there? Why had he simply not noticed his presence until he was grabbing AU's left and right?

The questions flitted through his mind, hauntingly unanswerable. He didn't know, and the very fact that it had never once crossed his mind before was terrifying. What a mess..

Ink pushed himself to the surface, peering around until he spotted a beach in the distance. He almost started moving towards it, but hesitated.
What world was this? He needed to know. He squinted, sensing a page inside that was shaking, studying it internally. He couldn't just look at it, that would require removing it and with all this water around that wasn't something he wanted to risk, so instead, he singled it out and tried to identify it purely by it's energy.

He felt a sense of brine, waves, wood cracking and voices shouting, flags flapping and hoarse singing.
If he had been anyone else, he likely would have been confused, but he was the Creator, and no matter how many he made, he was always able to recognize his creations.

He tilted and found himself swimming in an excited circle.
The pirate universe. That was a good one, especially with his weighty body as it was. Lots of water, lots of seaborne monsters so he wouldn't appear too unusual.

He kicked his tail and headed for the beach. Even if he had an ungainly form, he wanted to see just how he could move on land.
As it was, he swam very much like he did in the Doodlesphere, though it made sense given the mediums.

When he entered shallower water, he hesitated, peering up at the shore. It was full of nothing but sand and then trees. He heard the waves sloshing onto the beach, the wind rustling the leaves, but heard nothing of anything alive.

That was fine. There were many abandoned islands in this world- that and those of a low population with empty coasts.
Ink heaved himself onto the sand, grimacing at his weight as his thoughts drifted to beached whales. He rather thought his oddly shaped head was somewhat like a whale's, which was rather odd. Just about everything about this form and situation was weird.

Dragging himself ashore, he found he could sort of 'stand' upright, albeit a little shaky and requiring curling his tail around himself. It seemed his wings helped balance the weight of his protruding face. It seemed their light had faded, leaving a strange, dull membrane behind, faintly iridescent in the sun. Ink was fascinated by it, though the intrigue was darkened by loss and fading bewilderment.
…Could that entity track him through AU's?
He hoped not.

Ink glanced over the canopy, a little unnerved at how it only came up to his ri- his chest in this form. Leaning forward, he found himself sliding along in a serpentine fashion. It startled a snort out of him. He felt like a lamia like this.

Half-formed ideas bubbled in the back of his mind at that, but for once he.. didn't have it in him to spare them energy. He couldn't get up the will to create a universe anymore. Even if it's existence would help keep existence going a little while longer. The part of him that always had the desire to make felt.. defeated. Broken. Empty.
Was he even a god of creation when he could no longer create?
He didn't want to think about it.

Ink found an old, dilapidated stone cottage, walls crumbling, holes in the rotted roof, chimney fallen. Knowing he couldn't fit inside at this size, he stared for a long moment.
Then he curled his length around it, resting his enormous chin on his tail, arms crossed around it, gripping Broomie protectively.

He had the thought to create a mirror just to see what his face looked like now, but he didn't have it in him to move anymore. One wing tucked into his side, brushing a line of fur going down his back as the other draped over the damaged structure.

With that, much of the tension in him drained away. He had an idea, knew something more. Maybe now he could do something about it. Maybe.. even save his Multiverse.
He had a despairing feeling that nothing was going to work.
Ink did not like that feeling.
He didn't like it at all.