Metamorphosis

“Huff… huff…”

Henry raced down the dilapidated hallway as fast as his old legs could muster, sweat running down his face and his lungs burning from both a lack of oxygen and the acrid smell of old ink filling the air.

Pools of ink sloshed around his ankles, probably staining his pant legs, but at the moment, he didn’t care. He kept running, desperate to escape the… horror behind him. Even now he could still see it, the inky mass with it's hands grasping through the boarded-up doorway…

Shaking his head, Henry refocused his attention on getting out of this God-forsaken place as soon as possible. Soon enough, he could see the exit up ahead. Just a few more feet and he would be free…

“Almost… there…”

He reached out towards the doorknob, ready to grab it…

…Only for the floor beneath him to give way. Henry only had a moment to let out a gasp of dismay before he disappeared into the pool of ink and everything went black…

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"No, no Henry, not yet. You can't leave before the fun really begins..."
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Slowly, Henry’s consciousness drifted back to him. His head ached and his body felt sore, but he was still alive, at least. With a groan, he opened his eyes, letting the world around him come back into focus.

“Oh, my head…” Groggily, he reached up to where a sizeable lump was no doubt growing… then he stopped. Something was… not right here.

After a moment, he lowered his hand and stared at it in disbelief. Was it his imagination, or had his hand… changed? Suddenly his fingers were thicker and more simplistic-looking, not to mention the fact that his hand - his whole arm even! - looked like the color had drained right out of it...

A terrible feeling suddenly came over Henry. Glancing down, he could see that the same had happened to the rest of his body, with the colors of his clothing replaced by dull blacks and grays. (That and what appeared to be a pentagram painted on the floorboards beneath him did not help his confusion.)

Henry just stared, his brain unable to comprehend what his eyes were showing him. He tried rubbing them to clear his vision, but nothing changed.

“Okay, okay, calm down.” He firmly told himself, trying to reassert his grip on reality. “It’s just a weird... Really weird… uh… stress dream.” He struggled to get to his feet, only to let out a yelp of pain as his old war wound reassured itself. Henry winced and grabbed at his knee.

“Huh… that’s funny. Shouldn’t hurt in a dream like this…”

But what if it wasn’t a dream? Henry grabbed his cheek and pulled at it, feeling a slight pinch of pain, but he didn’t awaken. Then in desperation he tried patting himself down. No effect.

That’s when the sudden realization hit him like an anvil to the head.

“…Oh, no.”

He was a cartoon. A living, breathing cartoon, of ink and… well… ink. It was all so absurd he felt like laughing.

This shouldn’t have been possible… but then again, everything he’d seen so far today had challenged what was even considered real… He was seriously regretting turning on that damn machine, let alone coming here in the first place.

Speaking of which… Henry looked around, trying to gauge his surroundings.

He was still in the studio (…damn it…), which was just as run-down as the upper floor, if not even more so. There were huge holes in the walls that had been haphazardly boarded up, as was the door frame off to the side, and more ink dripped from the ugly black tubes sticking out of the ceiling. Adding to the whole creepiness of the scene was the fact that someone had scrawled the words “THE CREATOR LIED TO US” on one of the walls in dripping black letters.

“Well… that’s not ominous.” Henry mused, trying to keep calm despite his growing panic. Thankfully, another glance around showed that there was a fire axe on the wall behind him.

Henry let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Finally, some good fortune for once. “This will definitely come in handy.”

He stumbled over towards it (wait, was he shorter now? As if this whole situation wasn’t weird enough...), hoping like hell nothing was going to jump out at him the moment he got there. Thankfully, his paranoia was unfounded.

Henry carefully took the axe off the wall, testing its weight in his hands, all the while trying to ignore his… new appearance. At least now he had a way to defend himself in case he ran into that… thing again.

Taking a deep breath, Henry began working on clearing the doorway of obstructions. There would be time to figure out what had happened to him later. Right now, he had to get moving.

Hopefully, he’d figure out just what the hell was going on here. One way or another, he was going to get some answers, or die trying.