Chapter Text
‘Bright.’
‘It’s so bright.’
Laying on their back, that was the first thought that crossed Kris’ mind as they stirred awake.
‘Morning already?’ they thought, a hint of annoyance present in their inner monologue.
They really weren’t looking forward to waking up today, especially not to a house with an unwelcome inhabitant, assuming a certain someone slept over from last night.
Refusing to get up, they outstretched their arm towards their bedside table and fumbled around to find and shut off the alarm before it assaulted their ears. A recent 'jitterbug' related incident left them particularly unkeen on dealing with any loud noises. Of course, they didn't want to miss school, mainly for Susie related reasons instead of getting an education but the reason didn't matter. Still, if they slept too long their mom would always remember to wake them up anyways. They hoped, at least.
To their surprise, they were met with something fuzzy, or more accurately, several fuzzy things brushing up against them. Puzzled, they rummaged around until they snatched what felt like a thin straw stuck to the ground.
Pluck
It snapped.
They could feel themselves holding something between their thumb and index finger. Holding it up to their face, they felt the same fuzz brushing against their nose. At a loss as to what’s going on, they reluctantly opened their eyes. At first, they felt the blinding light stab their eyes like a hundred tiny needles poking their retinas. They contemplated shutting their eyelids closed again but the initial flash soon subsided as their eyes slowly adjusted to their surroundings.
When they could finally see clearly, their gaze fell on an all too familiar flower being held only an inch away from their face, petals glistening a pale gold hue in the sunlight.
‘Did Mom ditch me over at Dad’s place last night?’
They shook away the thought, affirming to themselves that she would never do that. They did, however, let out a small chuckle at the mental image of Toriel dragging an unconscious teenager across the street.
Regardless, the question of how this flower got here remained unanswered. This was unmistakably the same type of flower Asgore grew, only much more aged. The flower was undoubtedly cared for, they deduced, but the faded colour of its petals suggested it had been thriving for years, possibly decades.
Puzzled, they looked around. A garden of flowers surrounded them, staring at them like a sea of blank faces. Each one was adorned with six golden petals, greeting them from their slumber. Some of them grew so large that they wondered if the garden had been growing for centuries.
Letting their vision meander further beyond, they saw a pair of twin pillars towering far above them with vines that grew from its base. Following the weeds on their march upwards, their vision arrived at the mouth of a grand cavern. Hues of bright yellow poured inside like a mountain stream feeding the lakes at its base, illuminating the cavity below.
The beam of light shining on them was reminiscent of the one from Castle Town. For a brief moment, they assumed they were in a dark world. However, the lack of blue on their skin clearly disproved that.
‘A dream, then.’ They concluded.
‘It’s a nice dream, though.’
They brushed their fingers over the soft petals around them. In return, they felt their small fibers brush back against them, as if reciprocating their touch. Perhaps they wouldn’t mind staying here a while.
Taking the opportunity for a moment’s respite, they laid back on the flowerbed with their arms outstretched and closed their eyes.
-------------------------------------------------
Their eyes fluttered open as they awoke for the second time. In truth, it was too bright for them to actually fall asleep so they’ve just been lying there the whole time, waiting for this dream to end. It seems like that won’t be happening any time soon, though.
They let out a sigh as they finished taking in the scenery around them. They tilted their head forward and peeked above their torso, staring at the dark corridor opposite them. They’ve been looking around for a while but from what they could see, it's the only way they could go.
They got up and walked down the stone corridor, each step echoing throughout the silent passageway. At the end, they were met with a ruined archway.
A gust of cold air washed over them as they stood before it, as if calling for them to enter. Well, it had probably been beckoning them for the past 30 minutes at this point. Cautiously, they peered their head through.
On the other side was pitch black darkness, bar a lonely flower planted on a lonely patch of grass. It seemed as if there was a light shining on it from above but its source was either too small or too far away for them to make out.
Hesitantly, they stepped into the chamber with careful footsteps, not daring to alert anything inside. They could better see the flower now, it was slumped on its stem with all six petals dropped downwards. They could hear faint murmurings coming from it too. Upon closer inspection, its stem looked like it was rhythmically bobbing up and down, as if it was almost.. breathing?
‘Creepy.’ they noted.
Curiosity winning over their unease, they slowly reached out their hand towards the flower creature and gently held one of its petals. Unexpectedly, the creature leaned into their palm and began rubbing its petals against it. They decided to continue playing along, brushing up the flower’s top petals with their thumb.
‘A face?’ they muttered in bewilderment.
Their thumb revealed a plain white face, not unlike the flowers from the room before. This flower, however, had a few traits that made it distinct from the rest.
In the upper half of its face were two thin slits that vaguely resembled eyelids and below was a longer one, curved ever so slightly as to excrete a clear liquid, as if it was some sort of drool.
“..Howdy..” it mumbled to nobody.
‘Okay, so it's definitely alive then.’ Kris didn’t know what to make of that.
“..I’m Flowey.. Flowey the Flower...”
‘Flowey the Flower’. They barely managed to keep themselves from rolling on the floor laughing after hearing a name like that. Thinking back, they recalled their dad telling them a story about how he was the first to suggest a name for them. They offered a silent prayer to the Angel as gratitude for Toriel vetoing the name ‘Humey the Human’ the second she heard it.
As fun as it would be to keep listening to the flower unconsciously mumble embarrassing things in its sleep, they decided they should wake it up and maybe get some information about this place. A haphazard flick on its forehead earned the human a quick ‘yelp’ from the startled flower. They could see several emotions flicker across its face starting from outright hostility, then calming down into a mild annoyance at the human in front of them before putting on a bright smile.
“Golly! Didn’t they ever tell you to let sleeping flowers lie?” it beamed cheerfully, almost too much so.
“Well, I guess I should be thankful you woke me up. Howdy! Im-”
“-Flowey! Flowey the Flower!” they interjected, trying their best to mimic the flower's high pitch . Flowey didn’t look pleased.
“Huh, how’d you know that? Was I talking in my sleep.. and you were listening! Wow, are humans all this creepy?” Flowey huffed in faux offense, pointing a leaf at his stem as if clutching his heart.
“If it weren’t for someone taking their sweet, sweet time, maybe I’d have stayed awake!”
It looked at them, irritated. A few seconds passed between them as Flowey waited out any more potential interruptions. After an awkward minute or so, Flowey let out a sigh and decided to continue his usual spiel.
“..Well, you oughta be new around here.. presumably” he muttered, side-eyeing the human.
“So.. I guess it's up to lil ol me to teach you how things work!” he cheerfully said with a wink.
Kris felt a familiar tug on their chest as the soul phased out of their torso. It hovered a palm’s width away from their chest. They could still feel the connection between it and them, unlike the times they ripped it out and threw it into the nearest container. Rather, it felt more akin to when they fought in dark worlds, meaning it was likely that thing was still controlling them.
‘Well, that’s disappointing.’ they mused.
“See that heart, that’s your.. uh. Golly, you don’t look too excited, not every day you get to see your own soul y’know. Try moving around!”
Heaving a sigh of frustration mixed with a hint of disappointment, they closed their eyes and waited for a familiar yet unknowable force to take control of their soul.
…
Thud
They barely managed not to fall over as they staggered backwards. Something hard had crashed against their forehead. After some observation, they deduced it was likely the glowing white pellet on the floor.
“Hey! Are you even listening to me? I told you to move around!”
That was odd. They had expected the entity possessing them for the past few days to take control and move it around for them, but the soul only floated there, unmoving. They flexed their fingers around and found that they still had control over their body. Maybe, they could..
“...”
“Did you hit your head too hard on the way down or are you just stupid?” Flowey deadpanned.
Kris stood awkwardly with their arm stretched in a pointing gesture, their signature ACTing pose. Flustered, they tried pointing around in an attempt to direct the soul on where to move but it didn’t respond at all.
“YOUR LEGS. USE YOUR LEGS. IDIOT.” hissed the increasingly agitated plant.
Well, it's not their fault the rules of the dark world didn’t entirely apply here. Usually, the soul would be the one to dart around dodging (or trying to dodge) attacks coming its way.
Hesitantly, Kris took a few steps forward and the soul followed along. They did the same in the other direction with the same results. It relieved them to know they were still in control, though it raised questions on where the thing that usually did that went to.
“Good! Looks like you still have basic motor functions. So, back to the script, your soul is pretty weak right now. Souls need LOVE to grow stronger. Down here, LOVE is gained through little white friendliness pellets. C’mon, run into as many of them as you..”
Flowey trailed off as the human gestured to the ‘friendliness pellet’ on the ground. Despite not being very expressive, their expression showed they clearly weren’t buying it. It didn’t take long for Flowey to connect the dots, but the silence between them lasted for what felt like hours. Eventually, Kris broke it with a cough.
“You think you’re sooo clever, don’t you?” Flowey sneered.
It was clear to them that he was getting irate. Weighing their options, Kris thought of ways to deescalate the situation. They were new to this place and the flower had been friendly so far, maybe if they could just-
-a ring of pellets quickly began forming around them.
Crash
Kris barely managed to dive out of the way before they were encircled. Glancing over their back, they could see marks all over the floor, caused by the shrapnel from where the pellets collided and exploded. They only managed to catch their breath for a few seconds before more pellets homed in on their location. They rolled to their side to dodge the incoming attack and leapt back onto their feet, facing the manic flower.
“Here’s one last piece of advice from your good pal Flowey: Die.”
Fwoosh
A sudden gust of fire from behind almost caught Flowey off guard, him only managing to dodge at the last second. Several volleys of fire followed suit, each narrowly missing the flower. It was clear to Kris he was struggling to keep up.
They were proven right when he burrowed into the ground, fleeing whatever attacked him. It seemed whatever was in the shadows was a bigger threat.
From where they stood, they could hear the sound of footsteps grow increasingly loud. The thing approaching them must have been massive, as they felt shivers coursing through their body with every step it took. Though they didn’t have any experience fighting outside of dark worlds, Kris got into a fighting stance. They curled their hands into fists and widened the gap between their feet, readying themselves for a fight.
They lunged towards the shadowed figure in a tackle, leaving both of them on the ground.
“Oof-“ the figure yelped as its, or more appropriately, her back crashed into the stone floor. Kris froze at the sound of her voice. Hesitantly, they took a glimpse of the person they just knocked to the ground. Their eyes met with a confused monster clutching the back of her head, sore from being slammed into the ground by the frightened human.
“Mom?!”