Reborn as Error

In the morning I was woken up by Nightmare placing two mugs on the table right in front of me. I felt whatever the weight was move off and my immediate reaction was to stretch out stifling a yawn. 

"Good morning," I heard which caused me to sit up in a timely manner.

"Morning... is it early?" I asked not know what time it was.

"Yes, I see you and Horror decided to crash here. How was the performance yesterday?" Nightmare asked as he sat at an armchair. 

"It was fine," I muttered before grabbing one of the mugs. Horror grabbed the other. "The kid did pretty good I guess so there's that." I took a sip recognizing the taste of coffee the way I liked it. 

"Well as long as you had a good time," Nightmare said pretty much ending the conversation there. The three of us enjoyed the quiet moment between us. I wished that I enjoyed it more since it would be quite the day.

Apparently Frisk was popping in for a visit and to Sans' luck a good portion of people were actually out for the day doing their own thing by the time they would come around. Not me though. I was in the living room when Frisk came in and crawled on the couch to watch the TV. I just waved them off when they gestured to the remote letting them watch whatever they wanted. Sans just poked his head in. 

"Try not to bug them too much alright kid?" Frisk just gave a thumbs up and payed attention to the TV. Classic seemed satisfied with that and went about to do whatever.

It was a pretty normal moment until I realized noticed the silence between us. Usually the kids would be all together but Frisk didn't bother to even see if they wanted to hang out which I found to be odd. After a bit though I notice the kid acting a bit weird.

Something was up.

"Hey, why do you look like something is wrong?" The kid looked at me then towards the doorway. After seeing that no one was going to pop around the corner they scooted so they were closer me. I just raised a bone brow curious in what they were trying to do. They started making gestures near their chest that took me a bit to understand.

"Uh... does your chest hurt?" I guessed but they shook their head and kept trying eventually making a heart sign and a bunch of x's, they were really trying to keep quiet so it must've been something important.

"Is there.... something up with your soul?" I guessed again and they nodded in confirmation before they made a gesture of taking it out. 

"You want me to.... take it out? You can't?" They looked uncomfortable as they shook their head. They showed me that they were trying but they couldn't do it.

"Alright don't panic, come stand in front of me. Let's have a quick look." I didn't like the idea of taking out their soul since I've only done that with myself. Any other time it was with strings and it looked painful.

They carefully slid off the couch and stood still in front of me. I reached out and tried to use the strings but had a sudden sense of dread creep up my spine causing me to immediately retract my hand. The kid looked concerned by my actions and I quick assured them.

"No no, don't worry. I just realized that I have to be careful so I need to do this the old fashion way." That was a lie but they didn't need to know that. I tried again reaching out with my magic to feel for the kid's soul. Soon I felt what I was searching for and slowly pulled the sensation towards me willingly out the soul to be exposed.

What I saw I wasn't expecting.

Their soul was constricted by strings. But they weren't my strings, these were a much lighter shade and had a vabrient glow. They were definitely strong looking. 

"Geez kid, how long was it like this?" They shrugged before pausing to think and held up a finger. "A day?" Denied. "A week?" Denied. "A month?" A pause then a 'so so' motion. "Why didn't you tell someone?" They didn't several motions which looked like a frustrated 'I didn't know'. 

I had no idea why this had happened but I was going to try and fix it.

"....I can try to get rid of these but you're going to have to cooperate." They just nodded wanting to be free of the strings. I had to be careful. 

Using my own strings I wiggled them under the other strings causing the kid to flinched with every touch. The soul was being constricted a bit more so no doubt they weren't comfortable. Once I was done I carefully moved them around until the soul was free and the other strings just dissappeared. 

I moved the soul around seeing that nothing else was wrong before placing it back where it belonged.

"Ok, that should do it. Just let me know if you get more ok." They gave me a thumbs up before running off to do who knows what, maybe now they wanted to play with Paps and Gradient. Once they were gone and their footsteps faded I scowled.

I have no idea where those strings came from and I could only point my finger to one person who was able to do it besides myself. Even then I don't think it's them, couldn't hurt to check.

I waited til I was certain the person I was looking for was home before going to search for them. I didn't need others to see what I was doing and questioning me. To my luck the one I was looking for was by themself looking at their phone. I walked over and tugged on the back of their shirt gaining their attention.

"Oh, hi Error! What's up?"

"We need to talk Ink. Right now." I didn't wait before walking away towards his room. I know no one would bother looking for me in there and Ink doesn't stay in his room except to rest. 

He followed curiously and I waited til he closed the door to speak up not waiting for him to settle.

"Are you trying to pull something?"

"...What?" I could see he was caught off guard but didn't ease up.

"Be honest with me right now. Have you been doing something with your paint or magic recently?" 

"Um, like what? Besides painting and seeing if it was possible to go back to the Doodle Sphere I haven't been doing anything else with my magic or paint." He rose his hands up showing his innocence in whatever I was thinking of.

"Are you positive? Like really positive? I know your memory isn't exactly stellar."

"Yes Error I promise I haven't been up to anything beside trying to go home."

"....Alright. I'll believe you for now." I sighed seeing that my one suspected was a dead end.

"Error, is something going on?" Ink asked realizing that this situation was bothering me more than it should have.

"No... Yes? Maybe. I honestly don't know. I don't want to explain it if it was just a one time thing. It's complicated."

"Well I can help you know. We both have jobs and if something is bothering you that I'm not aware of... maybe I should be aware of it. Safety and such." He said and I had to think about it since even I had no idea what just happened.

"All I can really say is keep an eye out. I found strings that weren't mine and I have no idea where they came from or who made them."

"Which is why you came to me," Ink said piecing it together pretty fast. "I'll keep an eye out I promise. I'll even write a memo so I constantly remember. This is obviously concerning and I'm glad you shared this with me." I huffed a bit not sure how to feel about him being glad that I shared information and quickly walked past him.

"Yeah whatever, just remember and keep it to yourself for now," I said before leaving his room and heading to my own wondering what the heck is going on. 

I thought our biggest issue would be just getting home.