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Toriel and Asgore were in a panic. Chara, their deathly ill human child, and Asriel, their son, had disappeared from New Home, and nobody could figure out where they had gone.
Asgore had sent the Royal Guard to search the entire Underground. He and Toriel himself searched New Home, checking all the places Chara and Asriel were known to have hidden away before.
Nothing.
Now the two of them stood in the throne room, trying to console each other.
“I do not understand,” Toriel sobbed. “Chara was dying… do you think Asriel figured it out? Chara’s last wish was to see the flowers from their village… could he have possibly…?”
“I don’t think so,” Asgore said heavily. “There was no way for them to cross the barrier. Asriel knew that. Something… something must have happened.”
Toriel was about to reply when the strangest, most unsettling noise she and Asgore had ever heard reached their ears.
Groaning. Mangled groaning, as though the person struggled to even do so, coming from the direction of the barrier.
“Chara?” Toriel called uncertainly. “Asriel?”
The groaning person came into view, and it was the most disturbing, horrifying thing they had ever seen.
It was a creature—both human and monster, somehow, but its form appeared to be melting, little bits dripping off and hitting the floor with an audible noise. Several holes littered their body, and what appeared to be human blood ran heavy from them.
Toriel and Asgore clung to each other in fear as the creature reached out toward them.
“Mom… Dad…”
Toriel’s eyes widened. “Asriel…?” she breathed; only Asgore could hear her. As he realized what Toriel had, his nerveless fingers slipped from her grasp.
Both of them could now see the brown hair that belonged to Chara, the horns and fur that belonged to Asriel.
“My son… my child… what have you done?” Asgore’s voice trembled.
“I’m… sorry…”
Toriel and Asgore reached out at the same time as the creature fell forward, but they were just too far away.
The creature’s body hit the floor and exploded into dust, littering Toriel and Asgore’s robes and the flowers of the garden they stood in.
The only thing left, other than the dust, was Chara’s body.
Toriel collapsed to her knees. Asgore was too shocked to do anything but stand and tremble.
Neither of them realized, right then, what this would mean for the Underground.
The only thought, going through both their minds, was that their children couldn’t be dead.
Asgore finally fell to his knees himself. He heard a strange sobbing noise, but it didn’t appear to be coming from Toriel; her eyes were too wide, face too stunned.
He suddenly realized the sobbing was coming from himself.
His children, the hope and light of the Underground, couldn’t be dead. The humans couldn’t have taken everything from them once again.
It would only be a short time later that Asgore, overcome with grief and rage, would declare war on the humans again, and Toriel would leave him out of disgust.
Asgore never cleaned the dust from the garden. To him, it would serve as a reminder of what he had lost, and what he must gain so his people would be free.