Hope Williams, age 10, remembered the moment she died very...VERY vividly.
The first time she'd died, she had died inside, when her birth mother stopped moving in the car they'd been forced to camp out in since they had no home, her chest no longer rising and falling as Hope and screamed and screamed until her throat was hoarse, and she finally realized she HAD to leave and HAD to find somewhere to sleep. She had slept that night under a tree in the forest, sobbing near uncontrollably, wishing, just hoping and PRAYING for something to go right. The wind had stung at her in her scraggly, faded brown shirt and pants, her skin exposed in patches of the ripped-open attire as she sniffled and whimpered. She had taken to taking off pieces of her clothing at one point and tried to cook and eat THAT, but it'd tasted so horrible she couldn't try that again. It was almost impressive that one who wasn't even old enough to be in middle school already knew how to cook for herself. But it wasn't going to save her now.
But then had come a moment of hope. A moment of salvation. For she'd smelled the faint whiff of pie tantalizing her and she followed it into that cave, going further and further into Mount Ebott before falling down, down towards a surprised, faintly goat-like woman with a long, regal purple robe that had a strange white crest on the front, and soft eyes. She had dropped the pie she'd been carrying to catch the child, the flower she'd been trying to offer the pie to staring up in surprise as the little black girl landed in the big white angel's arms.
An angel. Toriel had looked like an angel to Hope Williams, and she had been so certain she was dead, and was going to be carried off to Heaven to join her mamma.
But it didn't work out that way. Instead, the child had found herself feeling warm and safe. She was very sickly from weeks of not eating anything, but bit by bit Toriel was nursing her slowly back to health. Things such as malnourishment were not easily healed with a wave of a hand and a balm of green healing magic, oh no. This required...patience.
And Hope was patient, if nothing else. She had always waited patiently for Toriel to return with a book to read at her bedside, or a pie for Hope to try and enjoy. Hope had waited calmly for Toriel, hearing her faintly musical, tender voice drifting through the air, letting her rub over her messy black hair, loving deep blue eyes gazing into deep brown.
"Why don't you wear that ribbon?" She'd asked one day, pointing at the ribbon Hope had wrapped around her arm, Hope cringing.
"I...it'd look better in someone else's hair. Someone with...like, big beautiful yellow locks." Hope had murmured. "I kinda wish I had big, beautiful yellow hair that looks like the sun. It always seemed people thought that was pretty back home."
"You don't need to look like someone else to be pretty." Toriel had offered.
"Aw, but you got really nice hair, it's all white and soft and...and mine's scratchy and people keep trying to touch it. I feel like a dog being pet." Hope muttered in shame as she hung her head, lying in the pink comforter-covered bed. But then she'd felt her cheeks be lifted up as Toriel's kindly face gazed back.
"You are BEAUTIFUL, Hope. You just need to give yourself time to believe that. Here." Toriel had said, gently unwraveling the ribbon and tying it into Hope's hair, into a little bow as she began to brush the hair with a comb. Then, at last, she held up a small mirror from a nearby dresser drawer, giving it to Hope as the little girl looked herself over. "Do you like it?"
"...I think I do."
"Give it time. I think you'll like it even more." Toriel offered, gently embracing her as Hope had returned the hug. That night, she'd slept in Toriel's bed like she did so many other times, just nuzzled up against her soft fur, quietly listening to Goat Mom's faint, almost musical breathing as it lulled her into slumber.
She felt safe.
Safe and happy.
...
...
...
...and so, Hope had stayed with Toriel for weeks on end, slowly getting better and getting to know the nice old lady who worried to much, becoming less and less frail as the days went on, actually getting some real muscle mass and fat back onto her skinny, near-helpless frame before, after several months, Hope finally asked Toriel if there was a way out of the Ruins. As much as she loved being with her, Hope wanted to see what lay beyond. Just a little peek. For while Hope was patient, she was also slightly curious.
So Toriel had agreed to let her go out of the Ruins if she promised to come back within an hour. It would be a fateful...horrible decision. For that day, Hope had run into Sans the Skeleton. Hope breathed in the icy air of "Snowdin", gazing around at the deep, long, tall, dead trees lining a long stone pathway through a snowy woods. She passed by an immense stone, a blanket wrapped around her as she hummed a bit, continuing down the path as the wind blew a bit harshly around her. Seeing a wooden bridge up ahead, Hope moved over it, noticing a lamp nearby, combined with what appeared to be a small little wooden outpost that had snow lining its roof. But before she could move forward past the outpost, a voice rang out, deep, faintly echoing, colder than even the snow lining the path around her.
"...you a human?"
"...hello?" Hope called out, glancing about, looking for the sound of the voice.
"...so you ARE human. well. guess that makes this easy."
And just like that, Hope gasped, seeing something rushing towards her. A bluish-white beam of light that erupted out from behind the outpost. She dove away, the ribbon flying off of her, wafting back into the ruins. She clung tightly to the blanket, trying to make for the woods, only to be reamed over by several more harsh, horrific beams of pulsating light that served to blast her off her feet. The little African American child let out a pained gasp, flopping around on the ground, cringing as she rose back up to her feet. She panted and heaved, feeling as though her skin was on fire, the voice rising up through the woods again, seeming to come from everywhere as it softly clucked its tongue.
"my my. surviving a direct hit from my blasters? not once, but five times? wow. you are GOOD, kid. real good. somethin' special. I almost not wanna do this. but you're a human, so it's kinda hard for me to feel sorry for you."
Suddenly cold bony bars surrounded her, boxing her in, and a singular blue eye was faintly visible in shadow in the woods, getting closer...closer. A glaring, harsh blue pupil that had no kindness to it, the bones getting closer still, Hope trying to push them away, trying to break out, suddenly noticing that something was hanging right above her, mouth open wide. A horrific-looking, almost demonic, skeletal skull with energy coalescing around its maw, even more horrific skulls popping up around her as the being with the harsh blue eye spoke again.
"i really wish I could feel sorry for you. i wish I didn't have to do this. but try to understand, kid. you finally appearing after all these years? well..."
It's grin was the work of demons, and Hope quietly whimpered as its words echoed through the forest, the beams from the skeletal THINGS around her wiping out everything in her world.
"you're giving us all hope."
Agony. Pure, white-hot agony. On its own, the attack was a harsh, hateful, burning punch to the gut. But hitting AGAIN and AGAIN...she screamed and wailed and sobbed, the monster she'd come to know as Sans staring for a long, long time as the Gaster Blasters finally finished. Soon she was barely standing up straight, her clothes ripped and tattered, sobbing incoherently in a fetal position as he shook his head.
"looks like it won't kill you so quick. you've not got any LOVE. No EXP."
He sighed, holding his hand up in the air as it faintly glowed blue. "i'll just break your neck and..." Then he'd stared, puzzled, as if something was wrong. Her SOUL, the emblem of a heart was floating in front of him, light blue and normal but, why...
"...guess I can't do it. sorry then, kid. i wanted it to be quick."
The Gaster Blasters lit up again...and Hope remembered all turning black.
Unbeknownst to Sans, another version of himself was putting the finishing touches on his own prey. The kid in front of him had tossed the knife away and was sobbing into his hands and Sans grinned, holding out his arms.
"C'mere, pal." He said with a smile, Frisk walking forward, having tossed Chara's influence off him.
But then bones jutted through him with a horrific THLA-THLURK and he gasped in agony, Sans chuckling. "Geeeeeeet dunked on!" He proclaimed...seconds before he himself was impaled by a series of vines, Flowey's scream echoing through the air being the last thing he'd ever, EVER hear.
"CHARA!" Flowey screeched out, shooting through the dust and racing to "Chara's" side as a red soul began to shudder, and Frisk motioned him to come closer as best he could, lying in a pool of his own blood, coughing and spluttering uselessly. The little brown-haired child groaned in agony before Flowey leaned in, and then...Frisk gently rested a hand on Flowey's head.
"I...forgive...you..." He whispered out.
And with that, Flowey found himself shuddering in agony of his own as the warm hand slowly grew cold, and the Soul vanished. With a scream of denial, fury and rage, Flowey raced away, howling and wailing...unaware he was watched by a pair of pitiless eyes that had no soul of their own.
Within a week, Flowey was all alone in the recesses of Waterfall, having run away as far as he could, unable to deal with the grief. He laid in front of a single horned statue with an umbrella over it, quivering and crying, wishing he couldn't feel these phantom pains. He covered his face with his petals, lost in grief and the faint music that echoed from the statue, playing on repeat again and again. Soft, tinkling notes echoing through the air like rain gently falling on his head.
But then a soulless, hateful laugh echoed through the air. A voice that sounded familiar, yet corrupt and distorted, and Flowey turned, eyes wide as a pitiless smirk stuck out in the dark beyond his reach.
"Hello, ASRIEL."
"...h-how do you know...?" Flowey whispered, eyes wide as the being stepped into the dim natural light by the statue and his eyes went wide with sheer terror. "What ARE you?!"
"I am become Death. Destroyer of Worlds."
"St-stay away from me! D-Don't hurt me!"
"Oh, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to HELP you, Asriel. I'm going to take away all your problems. Just relax..."
"STAY BACK! ST-STAY BACK!" Flowey screeched, vanishing into the ground, the imposter's pitiless laughter ringing in his ears.
...
...
...
...Hope wasn't sure what was going on at first, but then she saw it playing out before her eyes. The possibilities of a hundred different timelines, everyone in the Underground's hopes and dreams were all playing out around her. She could see, she could SEE what had been, what was, what would be, in every possible way. This…foul, twisted, cracked being had destroyed everything. All of time and space was compressed into this one moment and she was watching death being played out over and over again to keep her in line. To keep her a slave.
She was watching…her own death. Sans's Gaster Blasters burning into her body as she pitifully whimpered, eyes pleading for Mercy that would never come. Or horribly speared through the chest by the Royal Guards as she tried in vain to run. Starving to death in Snowdin, collapsing in a heap, calling uselessly for help, burning alive in Hotland, screams echoing through the dark recesses as a foolish monster tried in vain to "heal" her with more Lava…
But no, no the worst was Asgore's. She kept seeing that most of all. And the saddest thing was, she wasn't being killed by him. She was just dying right in front of him. Over and over she saw it, struggling to get through the barrier, hands uselessly whacking against it before sliding down, sobbing and crying, her little body giving out as he gently picked her up, looking down at her near-skeletal form. Without food, almost without clothes, nothing but a frail husk that had fought off hunger for one reason and one reason alone: the faint hope of seeing the sun again. Only to be told by the mournful king that you needed a human AND monster soul.
To come so far and fail at the very end, when she'd been so close…that was the cruelest cut of all. But...
But then it had happened. Frisk had shown up. He had saved them all. He had crossed through the barrier and would soon reset, and make all right, and Hope closed her eyes, sighing as her spirit began to pass on, waiting for the end to come-
Instead, she found herself falling. Down, down into a familiar patch of flowers and hitting them with a THWOMP as she groaned, rubbing her head before getting up as best she could, turning...
And before her, standing in front of a terrified, shaking Flowey was a figure that looked like Sans, and yet...so clearly wasn't. This tubby skeleton's body looked utterly black. His eye sockets were crimson foul and unnatural, his form almost minimalist in design. It was as if he'd been boiled down to his most basic state, there was no detail on his body. No creases in the dark jacket he wore, no indentation of where the finger bones met, his smile and fingers an ugly, disgusting shade of yellow that made Frisk think of rotting teeth, with a red shirt to match the pitiless sockets that gazed at him. Within those blood red sockets on the right side was a single white pinpoint pupil, within the other a dark blue pupil with a foul, unnatural yellow iris, another little black pinpoint blazing forth from within. He seemed to be eternally crying, blue streaks running down his cheeks from his eye sockets, his smile the grin of something twisted and sick that had died under a rock yet somehow crawled back out.
"S-Sans?" Hope found herself asked softly. Despite the fact he had murdered her many times in possible timelines, she had forgiven him. It had been hard...but she'd forgiven him. Seeing him like this was...disturbing. "Sans, what's wrong?" She asked.
The being that looked like Sans looked her over, frowning. "You can't be here. You're...you're the Soul of Patience. You oughta be gone or in a capsule. No, no. Can't have this." He sighed, shaking his head.
"It-it's not him!" Flowey yelled out in terror. "He wants to murder me! PLEASE, you have to help!"
"I AM helping." Sans chuckled. "Come to ol' Error Sans. C'mere, pal." Error Chuckled, holding out his hands...
Patience grabbed hold of a chunk of dirt beneath the flowers and tossed it into Error Sans's face. He clawed at it, howling as she raced at Flowey, snatching him up and barreling through the hallway, panting and heaving. "We've gotta get to Toriel or Asgore or the REAL Sans!" She insisted, glancing about, a shudder running through her, a cold wind blowing through her very soul as she realized how empty the purple halls of the ruins were...
And the dust that lined the floors. Dust of dead monsters. There was a disgusting, rank, rancid smell, the smell of a musty basement that had not been cleaned in years filling the air, and a chill stabbed it's claws deep into Hope as she quivered in raw fear, hiding behind a stony pillar, trying not to scream at the many, MANY piles of dust lining all around her.
"Ch-Chara had their fun and...everyone is gone." Flowey murmured. "Error Sans finished off what Chara couldn't. We're..."
He hung his head, his voice barely a whisper.
"We're the only things left alive in the Underground."