u/Artorius__Castus

The figures standing in the dark expanse are known as the Kept and the Keeper, ancient entities bound to the Ink-Well...a boundless, liquid dimension that reflects every regret and forgotten memory of the waking world. They do not speak; they simply exist as observers of the deep, standing motionless while the sky weeps heavy, viscous droplets of shadow into the swirling violet tide. It is said that the water is not made of liquid at all, but of the very time that people have wasted, pooled together to form a mirror that shows only what one is most afraid to remember.

To look upon them in the water is to see the silhouette of one’s own inevitable end. The Keeper, tall and imposing in his Victorian finery, ensures that the ripples never settle, keeping the surface in a state of constant, dizzying motion to prevent the spirits beneath from ever finding peace. Beside him, the child, an echo of a life that never was, stares with eyes like burning stars, waiting for a traveler to glance at their own reflection. Once a soul makes eye contact with the water’s surface, they are no longer an observer, but a permanent part of the tide, adding their own ripples to the eternal, dark symphony......

A fate worse than death some say......

🖤