Grey Ink Novels & Stories

Left a streak on my skin. Dark as ink. Darker than blood. No name. No crest. No return. But somehow, it was mine. And I knew,knew,this thing didn’t belong to the house. Didn’t belong to this life. I should’ve woken Milo. He was down the hall. Close enough to call for, far enough not to hear. But I didn’t move. Didn’t speak. I broke the seal with my nail and unfolded the letter inside. The handwriting was elegant. Sharp. Each loop looked like it had been carved, not written. The ink wasn’t black,it was red. Deep burgundy.

He opened the black bag behind him, a leather-coated bag strong enough to stop the flow of oxygen in it. Countless grey papers crawled out of the bag, different imprints from different publishing presses on the headings. Though they mostly had the same news and sometimes copied themselves despite the copyright restrictions, it all felt different to my father. “Thanks, Mr. Hazel.” I collected the papers from him, giving him the spare change Dad had left on the dining table before heading for work.

“You should take this one. The quality is pretty good, and it’s easy to use.” “Okay.” A grin spreads over his face, then he asks, “What color do you want?” “Ah…what do I get to choose from?” “Lime, silver, violet, and graphite.” My eyebrows draw together. “What’s graphite?” Tiny lets out an amused chuckle. “It’s a dark grayish color.” “Uhm…” I nibble on my bottom lip while I think about which one I should choose, then say, “I’ll take the violet one.”

“God, Layken! You scared me!” Turning back around, I took in the scene before me once more. “Wow, Layken, this is wonderful! I’ve never seen anything like this before,” I said, marveling at the sight. Curiously, I asked, “Are gray and black your favorite colors?” as I turned around to observe the long black double sink. It seemed fitting, since Layken’s vehicles were all black with a gray interior. “It would seem fitting that the woman God made for me would have the most stunning grey eyes. But yes, I love grey and black. How about you? What are your favorite colors?”

she grins. Invidia rises from her chair, pulls a small vile out of her back pocket and holds it up to the candlelight. Inside the vile is a silver liquid, a liquid I presume to be God’s blood, but it looks different…it’s not the vibrant silver I’ve seen the few times I’ve witnessed a God bleed. It’s darker, almost a gunmetal colour. It’s as if the mingling with human DNA, the process of abstracting it or maybe the thousands of years of being separated from the source has diluted its potency or warped it in some way.

They were going for such a long time, did they even get any sleep at all? She would think the hickeys wouldn't be visible considering the dark calligraphy that painted his skin but somehow the hickeys stood out, even among the dark ink on his skin. It had this purple-red like tint to it, as if the hues had darkened just to make sure every eye could see.

for the Gallery’s standards. "Kaelen, the needle!" Silas commanded. The boy stood before the obsidian notification, the "Author's Ink" needle in his hand now a solid, glowing "Unmapped" Violet. He saw the "Grey Lines" of the Moderator’s "Censorship" coiling around the mountains, turning the Silver Peaks into a series of "Blurred Out" shapes. "I can't write over it, Dada!" Kaelen shrieked, his voice sounding like a thousand glass bells shattering in a vacuum. "The ink... it won't stick to the blur!"

She giggled. This bitch! "Yeah... Yeah." An awkward silence passed through. "So which did you pick so I'll get in touch with the designer." "Well, I ended up with the ashes, I mean grey!" "Grey?" Her tone lowered. "That's great. That's a really excellent colour. I mean It doesn't usually scream the usual Steele profound exquisite but it's okay." "O- Kay..." "Yes, it'll look good, I bet. It had a satisfying sharp dullness around it. Magenta, on the other hand, does scream a kind of calm luxury. Unique and unthinkable. Grey would do that too," I could almost see her shrugging as she said that.

There was barely any space left, yet somehow, I knew what he meant. “Where?” I asked quietly. He smiled a real, honest one this time. “Hide it,” he said. “Somewhere only you’d know to look.” My throat tightened, but I nodded. “Alright.” I mixed a small batch of black ink, just a drop darker than the rest. My hand trembled as I picked up the machine. The sound buzzed through the silence, sharp and familiar, but today it felt softer. Calmer. Like it knew this was goodbye.

I chew on my lower lip and glances at the monitor: King (orange) Sharpe (purple) Aldair (red) Beckett (blue) Harrington (gold) Blake (silver) Aldair (green) Carver (lime) Dalton (black) Winslow (navy) Fletcher (brown) Sinclair (violet-gray) Ellery (maroon) Vance (cyan) Wright (indigo-red) Danvers (yellow-black) Carstairs (teal) Grayson (olive) Hawthorne (peach) Owsinski (pink)