Chapter Text
>Someone is calling for help..
>You answer their call.
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"Rise and shine, deputy!"
You feel a spiny sensation on one of your arms, and reality doesn't feel quite real yet.
The scene where you died still laces your vision. The beautiful pink cherry blossoms. You'd been so content to disappear there, and your previous goal was extinguished. That being, over the day or two you'd spent roaming the underground, you'd leaned that no monster you had encountered deserved the justice you'd intended to inflict when you came down here searching for the missing humans. You'd come down with a weapon and intent. But even the most menacing of foes were so warm. You couldn't bring yourself to harm them, and in the end, you gave yourself up to save them.
In all fairness, you hadn't even met a good chunk of the missing humans; most disappearances had happened centuries ago, but the unspoken fact in your town was that they all dared to climb Mt. Ebbot. When you were a kid, you'd stay at that window for hours, a window that gave you space from your family, allowed mental space to dream. You'd mull for hours about what they may be doing. Starting a colony down there? Conniving? Exploring?
Time and time again, you'd brought yourself to the precipice of exploration. You'd brought a flashlight, your trusty toy holster in case any unexpected foe launched at you, and discovered a massive gaping hole in the ground that you might have tripped into if it weren't for the luminescence of your torch. But it seemed too endlessly gaping and dark for you to even dare jumping down, lest you break a leg.. or two. No sheriff would be able to defend from a foe in that situation, even if their gunslinging was out of this world, and you couldn't really hope to explore unless you got a hold of the world's finest ladder.
So you told your parents. You explained in detail the existence of this hole, the missing children and the possible correlation between them was undeniable. You told them that if you could get down, you'd pursue justice; find them, or bring down whoever hurt them!
But your mother proceeded to fly into a rage. She ripped your hat off your head.
"It's time to stop living in delusion! You're far too old for this, Clover."
>You reached up frantically to try to take it back.
She didn't let you grab it. "Other kids are already planning their life out! I could handle this when you were six, or seven. But you're almost a teenager! The missing humans you won't shut up about-"
The smell of bad soda hung in the air. She flipped the poster, and turned it on you, forcing you to stare it in the face.
"Are dead. You know it as well as I do, this ignorance has to be intentional. The townsfolk are being harmed when you make up stories of this monster dream world and won't let them GRIEVE."
>You reached up again for your hat.
Your mother refused to give it back. She shoved you away. "This ends today. No child of mine should be acting like this. You need to get started on your homework."
Nobody has ever understood.
You know you're right.
It was locked up tight on a high shelf the next day. Staring up at it, your messy head of hair feeling bare, you realized what you had to do.
"Kid, hey, how long do you have to stare into space? I know you're in there."
A thorn jabs into your cheek and your eyes shoot open. The first thing you notice is a mossy wall and an intense, musty spell you can't put your finger on. Your body feels incredibly heavy, and your vision refuses to focus. Vines circle all of your limbs. A face thrusts itself into your vision.
"Howdy."
You almost fly out of your skin. This face, it's...
Your mind lies heavily with memories you don't remember making. Other people's experiences tearing in and out of your working thoughts. Whispers of an event you couldn't hope to see, but felt at the core of your being. It feels like you were a part of something very important just now. And Flowey, your yellow-petaled best friend is here, but he's not smiling.
You stare at him. He stares back, and sighs. "I'm surprised you're not losing it. Though, I've gotten more acclimated to humans who don't so much as blink. Your kind is odd, you know that? Wake up and smell the buttercups, Clover." Flowey sneers, and looks aside. He doesn't have all of the overbearingly friendly, saccharine energy with those undercuts of bitterness and frustration that you were used to, nor the maniacal enthusiasm he must have displayed at some point. He just looks tired.
>Question
You ask him where you are. As far as you know, you should be dead.
The vines slide off of your limbs. "New Home, obviously. I had to drag you under the ground before the king could get a hold of your body. Now, maybe you would have liked a proper remembrance, but after seeing that tacky missing poster you came here with, I figured you wouldn't want to be.. hanging around in the basement forever with the rest of them. Your body may have rotted a bit. Oh well, hee hee! I did my part."
He springs up in front of you like he always used to do. "As far as these memories go, don't be too alarmed by them! You're seeing from two perspectives at once, in some. Yours and mine. The difference is gonna be more obvious in that- yknow, that one part where you betrayed me. Thanks. By the way." The edges of his grin grit and his eyes squint menacingly. "Descent from godhood was pretty grand. You can't imagine how it was to be torn down by humans two times in one lifetime. Lifetime? Whatever you could call my continued existence. Really puts a pep in your step!"
Fury shoots through you. He wanted to use the souls of yourself, your friends, the other fallen humans, to make the last human a PLAYTHING. You try to stand up, but your body gives out on you.
"Careful there bucko! And don't even worry, this isn't the same timeline now. Haven't you realized? The barrier is gone. And you were a seventh responsible for its destruction. Everyone is actually gone by now. How's about that." He reaches out a vine to catch you. "I told you, your body might have rotted a bit! Not much you can do about that. I kept you down here for preservation, and though it's been years, you yourself are still alive and kicking! Obviously..."
You glare defiantly at him, and he raises his brows. "For a person without the ability to bend time and space like Frisk, you sure are determined, aren't you? Your soul flew right back over here. I barely even had to guide it."
>Question
You ask what he means by "guide it." Moreover, who "Frisk" even is.
Rather than respond, Flowey smiles. "Good luck out there."
He descends under the dirt and doesn't pop up.
Silence rules the room, and you painstakingly shift your arms, head pulsing and palms sweating. Your hands reach around shakily for your gun. Your head is still barren. For a moment, the lack of hat fills you with a certain dread, but then you remember you willingly gave up both it and your firearm when you accepted your death. It would certainly be nice to have, though, as you navigate your new memories alone there on that stone floor, sifting through the information Flowey has given you.
Right. You were freed and became one with a being. And for a time, you could remember sharing in a cruel, borderline heartless sentiment that still makes you shudder when you think about it. But then the cries of a stranger brought you back to your senses, and somehow, inexplicably, you remembered the true enemy. Though your own journey had been filled with mutual respect- despite the annoyance on his part- His sadistic sentimentality was not one you could get behind, especially with his genuine intention to torture that human forever.
It's hard to believe he pulled the wool over your eyes that completely. God knows what he could've done with you, if he wanted to, back then.
Then, you'd been part of something that was significantly harder to remember. All you know is that someone felt your burning desire for justice, and someone delivered it in your stead. You'd fired your gun up at a giant, rapidly shifting wall of white energy and shot holes straight through it.
..or maybe that was just your imagination. It had been hard to tell fiction from reality ever since you ended up in a world of monsters and you'd only seventy-five percent believed they existed when you took the plunge down that hole in the first place. Now, it feels like you've really taken a hit, and there are no flowers to soften your fall this time. You can't move.
>Call for help
Justice has already been served. You already did what you could. What are you still doing here? You're alone, and it's horrendously confusing.
>...
Flowey said nobody else was down here. Are they up in the human world? Where else would they be? But you're still in the underground, down in some room under.. the underground?? Was this what it was like for your friends who fell?
>Call for help
>...
You try Flowey's name. He's gone. Why did he put you down here? Why aren't you dead? Despite how painful this is and despite how you should be dead, you don't want to be. You want to live. Even the very moment you gave up your soul for the sake of doing what was right, a desire to survive had pounded through your veins as thickly as your own blood. Dalv. Martlet. Starlo. Ceroba. You remember them, you wonder if they're alright, if they're out living the idyllic life you supposedly contributed to securing for them.
The thought gives you the strength to shakily stand up, leaning against the stone wall for support. There doesn't look to be a clear way out. You're stuck in a box-like area. Your hand fumbles as you brace against the wall, and a brick pushes back. A trapdoor opens above you, and vines tumble down, light flooding into the room. Maybe if you climb, someone will spot you at some point- it's hard to believe that anyone would want to do any more investigating down here, after how unhappy they all seemed with the confinement.
Your hands clasp around the vines. They seem sturdy enough. Pulling your own weight up is a whole other matter; you only have so much energy in your body after it presumably laid dead for who knows how many years. It's a wonder you can even still slightly move. The vines stay there, daunting you, testing you. You steady your resolve. Hat or no hat, you're still a cowpoke through and through.
You grit your teeth and begin to pull yourself up on the vines. Almost immediately, your grip falters.
>Endure
You steady yourself like you have countless times before. In battles, you've been pushed to the edge of death over and over again, and you've always managed to stand up even when there were oncoming projectiles. You've been at a fraction of a HP point before; Ceroba's enraged, teary face stands with the frightening memory in that regard. It feels like you're barely holding on now that your soul was put back in contact with this lump of flesh. Still.. you try pulling yourself up again.
>Endure
You're about halfway up. Your breath hitches in your chest and arms won't stop shaking. You want so badly to crumple and fall. But at the same time you need to see how your friends are doing, if they're even still alive. You want to see your village again.
>Endure
You pull yourself out from the hole, the vibrant grays and muted oranges of New Home tinging the edges of your blurry vision. Your body goes completely numb. A lifetime seems to occur before you next open your eyes. Quite frankly, you're exhausted, and that little stunt sapped the last of your energy.
The idea of continuing to live seems a bit tiring.
>Give up
>Give up
Call for help
Give up
>Call for help
You issue a plea to the universe, as the one who had only wanted to make the world just. Your body hasn't eaten or moved in far too long, and it feels like you're on the edge of death. Here, again, all alone.
>Call for help
This time it only comes out in a whisper.
...
Someone answers your call.
Someone's standing over you. Someone guides your hand towards a surplus of golden light that's faintly familiar to you.
Blossoms surround you. The same yellow blossoms you remember trampling all over when you ascended that mountain; A yellow blossom like the one you've learned to associate with death. Just as quickly as that, your vision is plagued in darkness. The first thing you see is a child wearing green and yellow, staring vacantly into the dull glow. The other person you've just met- a kid just like you that you could swear you've met before casts you a warm look and nods.
You "save."
They pull their arm under your shoulder and stand up with you, supporting you. You two walk together.
You endure.
You stay determined.