Undertale: The Fallen Child
Disclaimer: I do not own Undertale and never will; I'm merely one of the many who have fallen in-love with this game. There will be a few AU elements within this, mostly based around theories and interpretation.
Chapter One: Like a Ladybird's Child
Our story begins with a young child.
This child lived with his grandmother in a small house, at the edge a little village at the base of a huge mountain. He had lived in this village for as long as he could remember; it was a nice village that was always peaceful. The child and his grandmother lived happily here…until one day the grandmother became ill.
It happened suddenly, making a once healthy woman become bed-bound in a matter of days. No-one knew exactly what caused such an ailment; no-one knew how to cure it. And the young child was left to care for her grandmother. The child did everything in his power to help his grandmother, cooking and cleaning and fetching medicine. But with each passing day his grandmother grew weaker and weaker. Until one day…
"I'm home grandma!"
The child carefully shut the door behind him, in case his grandmother was still sleeping. With footsteps as light as feathers, he tip-toed up the old staircase; he had a small white paper bag clutched in his hands. Each step creaked much louder than they should have, whilst the rest of the house was eerily quiet. All that the child could hear was a buzzing static of an old radio, which must have been on its last legs. He could vaguely make out a song or maybe it was someone talking.
When he finally reached the top of the flight of stairs, he could just peek into his grandmother's bedroom. The child could the cream-coloured walls and the mint-green wardrobe, as well as a large bed with a flower-printed duvet cover. There was a small lump hidden beneath it, the child knew this to be his sleeping grandmother. The funny thing was that grandmother usually noticed him by now, but she was probably just tired. That happened a lot these days.
The child's footsteps were made less noisy by the floor's carpeting, so of course his grandmother would not hear him now; especially if she slept deep enough to notice him on the stairs. He had thought that maybe he should have just left her alone, but she needed to know where her medicine was. And something seemed unsettling about how still she was. He would normally hear her tossing and turning in bed, or even snoring. But in that moment, she wasn't making a single sound; however she was probably really tired. You must sleep sounder when you're exhausted.
The child slowly walked to his grandmother's bedside. There was a glass of water stood there, the glass half-empty – or half-full – and an untouched bowl of porridge that had gone cold. The child had made it for her before going on; she usually would have finished it before he got back. It was okay though; grandmother may not have been hungry. Sure the illness hadn't affected her appetite the slightest bit, but if she had been tired she might have forgotten about it. And he could always make her another bowl when she woke up.
Something isn't right…
He felt a lump in his throat and a stone in his stomach. His grandmother's room was freezing cold, from where the window had been left wide open. Normally she would have shut it completely. Normally she would have been sat up and eating and talking, she would have asked him how his day was and told him she loved him. Grandmother had done none of these things. Instead she was laid in her bed, unhearing and unmoving, and deep down he knows why.
"Grandma…can you hear me?"
His voice quivered as he spoke, little hiccups between the words as he stood by her side. The child's hand shook as he reached for the duvet. He kept hoping she would wake up and say she was fine, or maybe even have it turn out to be a bit of joke. He just wanted her to move…but she didn't. Not when he slid the duvet away from her face, revealing her grey hair and that her skin was the colour of wet paper. Not a single breath left her lips, and her eyelids did not twitch or flicker.
His grandmother was gone.
The child ran; he ran as fast as his little feet allowed. He ran down the flight of stairs and straight out of the house, his heart beating in his ears. He ran through the streets with his head ducked down, ignoring anyone who tried to stop him. He ran past the village's edge and into a forest, the one that his grandmother always told him to stay away from. In fact he kept running and running until his lungs burnt and his head hurt.
When he finally stopped, the child was lost. All he could see was an ocean of towering trees, one that seemed to go on forever. It all blended together into a haze of green and brown. No singular place seemed to have any outstanding qualities that made it stick out from the rest; there was just a mass of trees and rocks. The only thing that really stood out was a mountain to the south.
He propped his back against a tree and deflated, sinking down into the muddy earth below. Big tears streamed from his puffy eyes down his rounded and reddened face, and his nose began to run as fast as he had. He didn't know what he was going to do. The only family he had ever had was…dead. He didn't really know what happened to kids without family; he knew they went somewhere else. Whenever it was, there'd be no-one to tell him stories, or cheer him up when he was scared or sad. There'd be no-one to tell him everything would be okay, even if it was a lie. He had nobody.
The child was completely alone.
"I don't know what to do," the child softly cried.
After what felt like an eternity, the child stopped. When the tears and dried and all he could do was sniffle the child stood-up, shivering from the cold. He didn't know how he would get back home, or even back to the village, everywhere looked the same. He tried walking in what he thought was the direction he'd come from, but found himself back where he started. At least it seemed that way; the mountain didn't seem to be getting any closer or further from him.
He then remembered what one of his teachers said. They told class that if they were ever lost, then needed to find high ground; that they'd be able to see where they wanted to go from there. And of course the highest ground he knew of was the mountain; the same one everyone said was cursed. The one people supposedly climbed up but never came back from. The child swallowed down his fear and started what would be a long journey.
He walked for what seemed like miles, his feet hurting and his body freezing, wishing he had brought a coat. He tripped on the roots that surfaced from the ground; he was attacked by branches that he tried to push away. And alongside all these horrible things, what little of the sky he could through the leaves had turned a dark and stormy grey. The child could feel the air becoming closer, with the echoes of raindrops hanging in the air; he needed to move faster.
By the time the child reached Mount Ebbot, he was covered in dumps and bruises. Mount Ebbot certainly dwarfed anything he had ever seen before, with its peek reaching right into the overcast sky and hiding in the clouds. There was also a path where the mountain touched the ground, giving the child an excellent way to climb it. However this path was also steep and narrow, but the child had no other choice. He was filled with determination…and a bit of self-preservation.
At first his stepped with caution and fear, terrified that a single misstep would send him tumbling over the edge. The ground below him felt uneven and uncertain, with thousands of tiny stones sat in his way; it was almost like they were waiting to trip him up. He didn't dare look down once; he knew the height would make his vision twist and blur. He was already becoming short of breath, the last thing he needed was to be short of courage as well.
He was about a fifth of the way there when he stopped. Somehow the world had darkened without him noticing, and the gloomy day had become an uttering frightening night. The glare of storm clouds still lingered; they covered the brilliant moon and stars in a curtain of bleakness. There wasn't a single light in the sky, and from what he could see, very little coming from where his village was. If he tried to go home, he'd have no way where he was. And he had no idea what creatures would be waiting for him…
No, he was going to stay up there. All he had to do was find some shelter and he'd be fine; maybe someone in the village would realise what had happened. Maybe he'd been wrong and his grandmother had just been asleep, and she'd call someone and they would come and find him. He tried to believe that was true, that when he got back home everything would go back to normal. But the as the rain began, something told him that was just wishful thinking.
At first it began as a light drizzle, with each droplet pitter-pattering against the ground before swiftly being absorbed. In matter of seconds though, the light drizzle became a full blown torrent; the water smashed against everything with force, and saturated the world until nothing could soak it up. The child's clothes became so wet that it seeped into him, chilling him right down to the core. As he shook and shivered, his fingers went numb and he knew he couldn't stay out there. Luck would give him a solution.
The child frantically searched for a cave or even an outcropping, something he could hide under. What he found was an entrance just big enough for him to use. He ducked his head down and sneaked through, his eyes only making out vague shapes inside the darkness of the cave. He could see the outline of sharp stalactites hanging threateningly from the ceiling, promising a horrible death if they were moved. There was also something long and thin on the ground, lots of them, all bunching up at a certain point.
The child had no intention of going near them; whatever was there could stay there, away from him. He had sat himself as close to the entrance as possible as well, just in case the source of the long thin shapes tried to get him. His grandmother had told him old tales of monsters, and now there were all rushing back. Versions of big and clawed hands formed in the shadows, ready to grab hold of him and drag into long-toothed jaws. He started considering leaving the cave and braving the storm.
"Don't…be…scared."
The child jumped up and looked for the voice's source, but barely saw anything in the darkness. It sounded weak and strained, and as childish as he did. He inched away from the wall with his hands clenched and twitching by his side; he didn't know what the voice was, or if anything lived up there. It could have been a monster for all he knew.
"I'm a friend." The voice continued, echoing off the walls, "I came here too...I got lost and it got cold."
"Just like me," the child murmured.
"Just like you." the voice replied, "But now I'm stuck, and I need your help."
"W-we could wait until someone comes here!"
"But that could take so long...I might not make it."
He didn't want the other child to die. He moved a few more inches from the wall, his eyes able to see the cave's inside a little better. The long and thin things were a green colour and had leaves attached to them; they were vines. But he still could not see what exactly they were gathered near.
"I-I can't see you anywhere!" The child yelled.
"If you go near the vines, you'll see a hole." the voice said, "That's where I fell."
"How long have you been down there?"
"It's...it's so hard to tell." The voice sounded weaker, "I can't see the sun from here…it's so dark and…so scary."
He felt so sorry for the other child, and that filled him with determination. He was going help them and get them out; they would go back to village and…and then maybe they'd be friends. They'd stick together and have a happy ending. He wouldn't have to alone; the other child's parents might give him a place to stay. He walked towards the vines and found the hole, which looked a bit bigger than he was expecting.
"Just little closer." the voice said, "by the way…I forgot to ask your name."
"I'm Frisk." He yelled down the hole as he looked down it, searching for the other child.
"Well then…thank you very much Frisk."
Before Frisk could notice how different the voice sounded now, he felt something slip from underneath one of his feet. One of the vines had moved. He hadn't thought something like this would happen, hadn't been prepared for it, and fell down the hole. He fell and he fell, watching as the dim light from inside the cave was swallowed up nothingness. He saw it become smaller and smaller, until there was no hope of seeing it again. He heard the air whoosh by him, and he heard his own terrified screaming. And somewhere deep in his soul, he knew he shouldn't be able to survive this.
And then he reached the bottom.
Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope you'll stick around for more. I've tried to give Frisk a bit of a backstory here, to at least explain why the heck they went up the mountain in the first place; I went with male pronouns on a whim, giving Frisk a clear gender because those reading this will know that Frisk is Frisk and a character in their own right. Not just the player avatar. I also tried to have a bit of fairy-tale/Brothers Grimm feel here; I'm not sure how well I've managed that bit. Anyway please stay tuned for the next chapter, it should be up soon!