I am Inky, born not of flesh, but of whispers and ink. I was conjured by Miyako, a creator who wove me from shadows and silence, a stitchwork of secrets and absence. I belong to Erika—or perhaps she belongs to me.
Erika doesn’t know Miyako in the way you might know a friend. They met in the labyrinthine sprawl of a fantasy MMORPG, their avatars drifting through pixelated ruins and endless plains of code. Erika, the Estonian warrior, clad in armor too polished for the bruised heart beneath; Miyako, the Japanese mage, cloaked in ancient scripts and quiet knowing. Their bond began with quests but unfurled into something raw, jagged, and unspoken.
It was Miyako who birthed me. She told Erika about me one night after a particularly brutal raid. They had won, but barely, their avatars battered and bloodied, resting by a flickering fire in an abandoned castle. “Inky,” Miyako had said, her mage leaning on a staff etched with glowing runes. “A little black witch who knows your story better than you do. She’s been writing it for centuries.” Erika laughed then, a dry, brittle sound. “What story? My life isn’t a story. It’s a glitch.” But Miyako only smiled, her digital mask concealing whatever she really thought. “Even the void has meaning, Erika.”
Erika found me the night her floor cracked open. She had been pacing, muttering to herself, when the first splintering sound echoed through her dingy flat in Cologne. The floorboards gave way with a sickening groan, revealing a jagged, black chasm that seemed to breathe, its edges alive with something between hunger and invitation. “My floor is disappearing,” she murmured, her voice tinged with wonder rather than fear. Barefoot, she stepped closer. The darkness below whispered to her in tones that weren’t mine but felt eerily familiar. She hesitated only briefly before lowering herself onto the crumbling staircase spiraling downward into the void. The air grew colder, sharper, the walls narrowing as though they meant to crush her. The shadows recoiled and stretched, brushing against her skin like ghostly fingers. She didn’t stop. She descended until she reached the bottom, where she found me waiting in my library.
She was naked when she arrived, her body stark and exposed in the dim, wavering light of the void. It wasn’t deliberate—more as if the void had stripped her bare during the descent, peeling away fabric and pretense alike. The ink on my hands dripped like blood, pooling on the floor as I worked. Shelves towered around me, crammed with scrolls that seemed to hum with energy, each one chronicling another life, another Erika. “What is this?” she demanded, her voice taut, though her hands trembled. Her bruised eyes lingered on me, smoldering despite their damage. The look wasn’t just defiant—it was piercing, the kind of gaze that pulls secrets from the air and makes you want to give them freely. I felt it settle on me like a touch.
“They said I could get it fixed,” she Grumbled, almost to herself. “What fixed? ”She gestured vaguely to her face, her voice sharp with defiance. “The sockets. My orbitals. They’re damaged. The doctors say surgery could smooth it all out, make me look normal again.” I tilted my head. “And why haven’t you?” “Because,” she said, her tone low, almost a growl, “I prefer the stress it gives me.” “Stress,” I echoed, raising an ink-stained brow. “Most people prefer chocolate or yoga. ”She smirked, faint but deliberate, her lips curving with a flicker of mischief. “I’m not most people.” “Clearly.” My voice softened, trailing like ink over the space between us. “You’re always the exception.”
Her nudity didn’t seem to bother her. She leaned closer, one elbow braced against the desk, her fingers tracing the edge of a scroll. The movement brought her chest forward, her skin brushing against the cool surface of the wood. She didn’t flinch; if anything, she seemed to claim the space as hers, her presence unapologetic and magnetic. The light caught the faint lines of her collarbone as she tilted her head, considering me with an almost lazy curiosity. “You ever get tired of watching?” she asked, her voice low and edged with challenge. I hesitated. “Not with you.” Her laugh was quiet, knowing. “That’s what I thought.”
Erika rarely sleeps. When she does, her dreams are warzones. Her old boss’s fists collide with her skull, the stage lights sear her skin, and the music drowns out her screams. Sometimes, the stage is empty, and she stands there alone, waiting for something unseen to devour her. The music in her dreams is relentless, the bassline pulsing like a predator’s growl. The lights are blinding, turning her skin to glitter and shadow. The faceless crowd cheers, but it’s never her they’re seeing. Miyako once told Erika the story of Ama-no-Iwato, the Japanese sun goddess who hid herself in a cave, plunging the world into darkness. “They lured her out with a mirror,” Miyako had said. “She had to see herself to remember her own light.” Erika thought of this often when she stood before the blank scroll in my library. The parallels weren’t lost on her. The mirror, the scroll—they were the same, weren’t they? Both reflected something she wasn’t ready to confront.
“You’ve already stepped into the shadows, Erika,” I said once, feigning detachment. “You just need to look at the mirror.” “Do you care, Inky?” she asked, her fingers trailing the edge of the scroll. “I don’t,” I lied. Her lips curved into that faint, knowing smile. “That’s what I thought.”
But it was Bulan dan Matahari—the Indonesian moon and sun—that echoed in her most defiant moments. “The moon doesn’t beg to be seen in daylight,” Erika murmured when the doctors suggested surgery again. “Scars are the same—they don’t need excuses.” She found herself in another story once, though she often dismissed it as a dream—or perhaps one of Miyako’s creations. She had been a soldier, one of the women in the army of Sun Tzu. “I’m no tactician,” she had told him when he asked why she had survived so long. “But I know how to break when the wind gets too strong. I know how to bend.” “And do you know how to strike?” Sun Tzu had asked, his voice like a blade. She had smiled then, feral and unrelenting. “I strike when they think I’m broken.” It wasn’t just a line from her past. She carried it with her, a quiet mantra. When her coworkers complained about deadlines or office politics, she would shrug and mutter, “It’s not brain surgery. Or dragon-slaying. Perspective helps.”
Once, someone asked her, “Dragon-slaying?”
She grinned, sharp and wry. “It’s an old skillset. That, and walking in six-inch heels without breaking your neck.”
The last time Erika visited my library, she stood before the blank scroll for a long time. Her fingers brushed the edge of the parchment, her touch lingering like the promise of something half-forbidden.
“You don’t have to write it yet,” I said softly. My voice dipped low, closer than it had ever been. “But the cracks won’t wait forever.”
Her gaze flicked to mine, and for a moment, the space between us felt electric, humming with something just out of reach. Then she nodded, turned, and climbed the staircase back to her world.
One day, the floor will split open again.
And when it does, Erika will do what she has always done. She will step into the void. She will let it devour her, strip her bare, and rebuild her from the ashes of who she was.
Because Erika doesn’t survive. She consumes.
And I will be here, in the shadows, ink-stained and silent, catching her story as it falls. Because even the void has meaning. Miyako knew that. Erika is beginning to understand. And I am the one who waits.
Once, someone asked her, “Dragon-slaying?”
She grinned, sharp and wry. “It’s an old skillset. That, and walking in six-inch heels without breaking your neck.”
The last time Erika visited my library, she stood before the blank scroll for a long time. Her fingers brushed the edge of the parchment, her touch lingering like the promise of something half-forbidden.
“You don’t have to write it yet,” I said softly. My voice dipped low, closer than it had ever been. “But the cracks won’t wait forever.”
Her gaze flicked to mine, and for a moment, the space between us felt electric, humming with something just out of reach. Then she nodded, turned, and climbed the staircase back to her world.
One day, the floor will split open again.
And when it does, Erika will do what she has always done. She will step into the void. She will let it devour her, strip her bare, and rebuild her from the ashes of who she was.
Because Erika doesn’t survive. She consumes. And I will be here, in the shadows, ink-stained and silent, catching her story as it falls. Because even the void has meaning. Miyako knew that. Erika is beginning to understand. And I am the one who waits