Chapter Text
I’d always been told never to look under my bed after dinner.
Every evening, my, let's say, guardian, Mrs *******, would throw on her coat and carelessly toss a blanket over my head. “Don’t get out of bed, *****, be a good girl, okay?” she would say. “Or I’ll make you look.” And she would leave our apartment, slamming the front door. Every night, it happened. And each time, I so badly wanted to defy her.
Though I did not once take her stories of monsters as truth, I followed her orders; never did I sneak even the slightest upside-down peek under my twin bed, stayed a good girl from beginning to end.
Till one night, I heard a voice from underneath. A whisper of a whisper, so small I didn’t hear it at first. But it was there. I was sure of it.
I was sure because it led me up and out of bed and out of our apartment, down the elevator, all the way to the mountain behind the school. I did not feel guilty, not at all. I remember what I thought as I smiled to myself. I’m a bad kid now.
I had no idea what happened when I tripped over that vine, it was so long ago. How I survived the fall, I still can’t understand, but that never mattered. I was terrified, tried to climb back up, but the mountain pushed me down again. The voice that convinced me to wander up here in the first place was louder than ever, calling out to me, telling me to stay.
Had I expected someone to find me, I wouldn’t have yelled so loudly.
He found me in my corner and beckoned me over, and I remember he said in a kind voice, “Oh, you’ve fallen down, haven’t you?”
My arms tense, I turned around and saw him. He had a sweet smile and the palest complexion I’d ever seen, he didn’t wear shoes and had some weird-looking feet. Upon closer inspection, I found that he was covered with white fur and had long, long ears all the way to his shoulders. For a monster, he was nothing like I’d imagined. He asked for my name, and I told him the one I had at the time.
“ … *****, huh? That’s a nice name," he said. "… Do you wanna go to my house?”
I blinked, and after a second, I laughed out loud.
“Tell me your name first,” I said.
Without hesitation, he said, “Asriel.”
“Asriel?” I asked, and I wondered how he didn’t get dizzy from nodding so fast.
“Where are your parents?” he asked me.
I looked at the ground. “Don’t have any.” I mean, it was the truth. “You?”
His face lit up and he told me all about them. He doesn’t have any siblings but his parents are super nice. His “mom” bakes the best snail pie (ew!) and his “dad” has a huge beard and big, awesome horns. It was then I noticed Asriel didn’t have any horns himself.
“… I wanna be just like him when I grow up- hey!”
I jumped.
“Your clothes. They’re all messed up,” he said.
I looked down at myself. He wasn’t wrong.
“Is that ketchup on your leg?” he asked.
I gave him my best Look, but on the inside, my eyes were rolled to the back of my head.
He caught on. “Wait. Oh no! You’re bleeding!”
I rolled my eyes and wiped my hands on my shorts. “We should go to your house now, if you have any band-aids,” I said.
“Agreed. Follow me!”
The story starts there.