Chapter Text
Clover woke up in a field of yellow flowers, their balance unsteady after the fall. She quickly looked at the surrounding area and determined the room was empty besides the flowers. Clover thought back to his doubts about whether Frisk was actually telling the truth when they said there were monsters down here, but knew they were a bit too deep in to turn back now.
The young gunslinger walked into the next room where a frog-like creature almost as big as himself was sitting. The human cautiously approached the large frog, evaluating the threat that the monster in front of her posed, but was suddenly brought into a cold wireframe void with 4 buttons.
The buttons read “FIGHT”, “ACT”, “ITEM”, and “MERCY” with each one bringing up a different menu in front of them. Clover selected the “FIGHT” button preparing to defend themself from the monster in front of them. She saw the sight of her gun appear in front of her and she lined up their shot hoping if he fired a warning shot then the monster would be scared off. The shot injured the frog, but did not kill it and the monster retreated.
The path was now clear, although Clover felt some guilt from hurting the defenseless frog eating his mind. She suspected that Frisk may have made up that monsters would attack humans on sight to try and make their own adventure sound more impressive, and Clover realized they probably just attacked a defenseless monster unprovoked. He decided that monsters must not be as mean and violent as others claimed and they would need to change their strategy to avoid compromising their morals.
Clover decided that they had spent long enough reflecting and she still needed to find the 5 missing humans that Frisk had said were down here. The hatted human proceeded forward into the next room where a large group of monsters had gathered around a barren black tree with a pile of red leaves at base.
The monsters seemed to be sad, with their heads hung low and some flying monsters were crying. Clover watched in silence from the doorway as one of the larger monsters scattered some white dust on the tree before the group went upstairs and disappeared deeper into the ruins. A few minutes after all the monsters had left, Clover approached the tree and tried to figure out what the monsters were doing gathering around the tree. The tree and leaves seemed to be rather normal besides their color, so why had the monsters gathered around it?
She pondered the question until they were distracted by a glow among the leaves at the end of the room. He went up to the glow and found a yellow star that made him feel rejuvenated.
Clover used this second wind to continue deeper into the ruins coming across puzzle after puzzle that had not been reset. She started to wonder why there were so many puzzles if nobody was going to maintain them, which led to the question of why there seemed to be nobody in the ruins despite the number of monsters that had been at the tree earlier.
He then noticed an unsettling gaze upon him and heard whispers from the wall. They assumed the silence must be driving him crazy since walls should not talk. She rushed forward, hoping to find a way out before they went fully insane from the quiet. Clover ran through a room for what felt unreasonably long before finally coming across a door with a light on. Hoping to calm her mind by getting out of the darkness, Clover went inside.
The inside of the building appeared to be a house of some kind with a room to the left and a hallway to the right. Clover called out to see if anyone was home, and heard no response. They decided to search the house for supplies since their food got crushed and his water bottle broke when she fell into the underground.
He decided to start by searching the left side of the house since it seemed smaller. The first room was a large living room area with bookshelves lining the wall and an empty fireplace. It seemed like a nice place, but books were left on the floor and the empty fireplace made it feel abandoned and ruined the vibes. Seeing no useful supplies, Clover went into the next room through the door on the far side of the room and found a kitchen.
The kitchen had a sink, stove, oven, fridge, and knives, but what caught Clover’s eye the most was a rotting pie that someone had left out on the counter. It had not been the most appetizing thing Clover had eaten, but she was hungry so he cut themself a slice and ate the rotten pie, ignoring the unpleasant taste. It was enough though to convince Clover to leave the rest of the pie instead of trying to eat more. Clover then checked the sink to get some water, but unfortunately the sink did not work. Clover then searched the fridge and the rest of the room but found nothing worth taking. Having run out of options on the left side of the house, Clover went to search the other side of the house.
The right side of the house provided less useful finds than the left with most of the rooms being either empty besides furniture or already having been looted by someone else with open boxes and disarray of drawers. There was only one place left in the house left to search, and that was down the stairs.
Clover returned to the entryway and cautiously descended and found it was very dark in the basement. They ran their hand against the wall to try and navigate the area without walking into something, and eventually managed to find a stone door at the end of the hallway after stubbing their toe on loose rubble only a few times. The door felt rather important, with an intricate design carved into the stone around it.
Clover pushed the door open and went forward, discovering a chilly room with a single light in the center. His teeth started to chatter and she started to shiver as they approached the area where the light was shining. But there was nothing there. The light had seemed like such an obvious sign that something important should have been there, but there was nothing. The emptiness of the room made Clover feel uneasy, but they closed their eyes and ignored it and continued forward with her steps quickening as she tried to get away from the creepy room.
He was then brought to an abrupt stop as they ran face first into the exit door. The door was even colder than the door to enter the dark room, but it was the only way forward so Clover took their bandana and wrapped it around their face like a scarf hoping it would be better than nothing when faced with the cold. They then opened the door and walked into the freezing storm of Snowdin.