Beware the Ink Demon? (BATDR Ink Demon x Reader)

Prologue - Into the Ink

    "Y/N, go dust the relics in the museum room. It's been a week since they've last been cleaned."

I didn't even know there was a museum room here. Of course he could have sent an actual janitor to do it, but he hates me, so he makes me do cleaning stuff. I think it's because he didn't want a woman to be his intern. Lucky for me, I shouldn't be an intern for too much longer. I know I have what it takes to be an animator, and I know girls can get hired as animators because there's plenty of them here. That's why I started working at Archgate Pictures, is so that I could be an animator like them. The rest of the 1970's is changing, so why won't he give me anything to do other than cleaning? I shake my head. Dusting isn't hard anyway, I'll just get it done so I can move on to actually important stuff.

The elevator shakes a little as it descends down the levels. The door finally opens unsteadily, and I stride out as proudly as I can make myself look with a feather duster in hand. I begin to clean the tops of the cases with the old relics from Joey Drew Studios in them. They're so heavily coated in a grey film, they look like they've been begging to be cleaned for much longer than a week. I pause my skillful dusting to look at the object inside the case. A cute little plush version of Boris the Wolf, sealed safely away inside of its protective glass case. I giggle a little. It's big, pie-cut eyes and plump body make me feel happy.

After finishing all the cases in the room, I move over to the door that leads to the old ink machine. As I reach for the handle, I can feel that I've stepped in some sort of liquid. Surprised, I look down to see... ink? Yes, ink is leaking through the bottom of the door from the other room. Ew, my soles are covered in it now...

I open the door, expecting to simply see a puddle from a spilt inkwell or something. I regret my life decisions immediately. The moment I crack the door open, waist-deep ink forcefully comes flooding out from the other room, nearly knocking me back. It quickly suffuses across the newly acquired space, turning the whole area into a shallow lake of charcoal liquid.

I look down at my clothes, which have been drenched in black from the waist-down, and gasp out loud. What the hell? Where did all that ink come from, why was there so much ink? No siree, I'm not going to be cleaning all this up, this is the janitor's mess, not an intern's. In fact, I should probably sue the company for having a god damn room of ink and then letting an innocent, unsuspecting employee get soaked by it. Oh god, my clothes are completely ruined. I know from experience, ink doesn't come off easily. I'll properly think about suing after I throw my clothes away. This really sucks, I only got these pants a week ago...

Even more unfortunately for me, ink is slippery. As I'm making my way out, my foot slides across the wetted floor. My leg goes straight up, and I fall hard on my back like a cartoon character tripping on a banana peel. My head slams into the ceramic tile ground with a loud bang.

•••

Ugh, what happened?

I warily open my eyes. Why is the world yellow? Is this what a concussion feels like?

I sit up listlessly. Something feels different. I begin to look around, now fully discomfited and alert. Something is definitely different.

Everything appears sepia toned, like paper that has been yellowed by time. Jet-black ink covers the floor and looks to have splashed across the walls, like somebody took bucketfuls of it and then threw the buckets around wildly. Every edge of every object looks like it was hurriedly sketched on. Generally, the world looks like a cartoon strip, if that cartoon was three dimensional, only black and white, and the artist's pen exploded and dripped ink onto it.

I'm about to pinch my cheek to see if I'm still unconscious and just dreaming, but quickly recoil at the sight of my hand. It appears (whatever your ink monster self-insert's hand looks like).

Where the hell am I?

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And that's the prologue! Chapter 1 will be taking place after Y/N has already been in this world for a while, just as a head's up. So that's that!