Prologue: Weight of the World

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Ink. He needed more ink. He never remembered needing this much ink in his long life. He rushed down the hall, expecting 5 to be in the doorway with his ink. He needed it. Life depended on it.

Well, it wasn't like life itself depended on this picture to be finished. It was more like: If the picture wasn't finished, no one would know they were coming. And if no one knew they were coming, they wouldn't know what to do. And if they didn't know what to do with these intensly important stitchpunks, all hope was lost.

He stormed over to the entrance - the back one, 1 always disapproved of him getting new ink before he was given permission - and spotted 5 not too far away, hauling an ink well for him, the ink stopped with a cork, closed and perfect, just a bit dusty. But 6 didn't care about that now. He didn't care about it's condition. He had to put it on his fingers, glide his hand across his yellow paper, draw what his mind was screaming, now.

"Hurry, 5! Please! I must show you!" he called, cupping his hands around his mouth for greater effect, as 5 was a few paces away.

5 grunted, obviously struggling to hold the big object. It didn't look heavy, and it wasn't, but it was an odd shape - rectangular, almost.

"I'm almost there!" 5 called back, his head just barely showing over the top of the ink well. He stumbled a bit, making 6 perk up from his regular hunch and gasp in worry. No one could possibly know how important that ink was. If he didn't have that bottle, he'd use what ink spilled out of it. And if he didn't have paper, he'd use the very walls of the Cathedral.

Right when 5 reached the doorway, 6 was on the bottle, clutching it and holding it with immense care, cradling it in his arms like a mother to her child and practically running like such a child with scissors.

When he got back to his room, he continued, retracing the scrabbles of ink he had so panically etched in when he first realized he was out of ink. Then he began to feel what his mind was telling him, riding the dull pain with ease and letting it sink in, letting the vision clear his mind and take over his hands. He let it control him.

"T-two... Strangers... From... From afar..." he mumbled, his optics firmly closed and his hands active, drawing whatever he saw, whatever he was told to.

His mumbles attracted 5's attention, and then 2's, who had always believed there was more to 6. Bless his knowing heart, 6 thought roguely as he continued.

When he began to feel the slight pain ebb away, now completely nothing, he opened his optics, staring right down into the picture he had just envisioned below him. 2 and 5 both looked over his shoulders, both of their heads tilted either way questionably as they scanned the picture.

"P-please..." whispered 6, looking right up to the both of them, wringing his hands together and wiping the ink on his upper thighs subconciously. Creator, if only F were here to help him..."P-please remember... You have to remember him... What he did..."

5 leaned in on the picture, then getting so close he may as well kneel, so he did, and then he let his optics zoom, function, adjust, and he could see it clearly.

"It's 9." he said, 2 nodding an affirmative. 5 pulled his mouth to one side and scrunched his eyebrows in thought.

"B-but... Who are... they?"

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