A story from Inkland

The Last Night on Inkland

Every Hearth journal comes with a small ink creature called an inkling. This is chapter one of where they come from, told in ten panels. It's made-up fiction, and it never reads anybody's journal. It's just a story.

A white paper star with a round window streaks across a dark blue sky, trailing ink. A small blue face peers out. — Somewhere very far away, a small star is in a hurry.

A small blue planet seen from space: ink oceans, folded-paper islands and a spiral sea in the middle. — This is Inkland. The seas are ink. The land is paper, folded into mountains. Every sentence anyone meant to write falls here as rain.

Small blue ink creatures splash at the edge of an ink sea, folded paper mountains behind them. — Inklings are born from drops of the Great Inkwell. They grow by being near words. Mostly, they splash.

At night on the paper shore, a young inkling points up at a bright white smudge among the stars. — One night, somebody noticed a smudge.

A huge white comet like thick wet paint fills the sky, its tail blanking out stars. Tiny inklings watch from the shore. — It was a comet made of correction fluid. Glossy. Enormous. Ridiculous. They called it the Whiteout.

Old inklings in round spectacles fold white paper stars in a lamplit paper hall. — The Elders speak only in footnotes, and slowly. That night they said almost nothing, and folded star-pods until morning.

A blue inkling squashes a button, a pebble in a red scarf and a fishbowl helmet into a much-too-small paper star. — Inkling did not pack light.

Hundreds of glowing paper stars rise from the planet in a wide fan, the white comet far off in a corner. — Every pod was aimed at one thing in the universe: a page with room left on it. Then the sky filled with tiny lights.

A single paper star drifts through the dark. Through its window, a blue inkling sleeps against the glass. — The dark was very big. Inkling named the pod Unsinkable II on the way, and declines to discuss Unsinkable I.

A vast ruled page curves away like the surface of a planet as a tiny star approaches it. — And then, ahead: a page. Mostly empty. Plenty of room.

You know what happened next. It happened on your page.

How yours lands is who it is

When you start a journal, a pod lands on your first page, sideways. You give what climbs out a name, and the way it landed decides how it talks to you.

Classic: Stood up, dusted itself off, waved. Warm mischief.
Stargazer: Landed softly, then lay there looking up. Dreamy and slow.
Sparkplug: Bounced four times and yelled “again”. Cheers your tiny wins.
Captain: Landed exactly where it meant to, it says. Dry and deadpan.
Gremlin: Landed upside down and won't talk about it. Chaotic little goblin.

The rest of the story

Chapters two to five arrive as your inkling grows, one transmission at a time. Nothing to unlock, nothing to buy, and every chapter stays there to reread.

Let one land on your page

Free, and private by default. Your first words wake it.