The Reason I Run
"My child, what would you like to do now?"
There was the question you had hoped would never come. Your hand trembled, curling into a fist as you recalled when you first left her. When you left because you knew it was doomed to never last. Truly, you had felt happy at every instance of escape but so dejected, a part of you died every time they forced you back, and now, what was left but the broken pieces after the best parts of you died. Hope had been shown to your soul everyday you saw something that wasn't white, rounded edges and one-way glass that only served as a constant reminder to you that all humans are not the same.
Would humans accept monsters as you had? It was true that some had helped you but you always looked human yourself, and now...now that you've seen creatures called, "monsters," act so kind...what would you call yourself? They said you were a wolf in sheep's clothing, a monster within. Since monsters were so kind...perhaps you could say you were a demon, a force of evil, a chaos-bringing abomination; that last one seemed right. Why these monsters had ever thought you could be human, much less a human they had once known, was beyond your comprehension.
You can still see the hand holding yours, a voice assuring you that you'll be okay, even as guns fire and bombs drop; fire spreading like disease. It brought back fond memories of the hand like yours, purple and familiar as it held you up and called you their beautiful little kit. This was, of course, the reason you clung so fiercely, in hopes you might return to your mother. They had, after all, always promised this. Broken voices of a dozen different humans that all promised to help you, to save you, to return you to your mother; all gone.
Yours is a past you'd wish upon no one. Living the life of the exile countless times. Your slow-aging making you a child forever in their eyes, something innocent, pure, and in need of protection. They'll kill them just like the rest, or even worse, they'll leave you to die when they see what you are. When eyes open and they see nothing but blackness in place of white sclera and the ring of white for an iris. They would rather fall off a cliff in their self-imposed blindness than show anyone. Such fear compelled the desire, the same desire to hide the spreading purple that came when you felt strong emotions, like embarrassment, surprise, fear, even joy.
The spreading of such colors reminded you of the past, back when you actually thought you were human; that your imprisonment was unjustified as your savior had claimed. It happened delicately and slow, like a rash it grew. Blushes once deep pink turning a chilling blue that made your paleness stand out. Freckles turning white across your nose and under your eyes, then darkening to a deep violet when your pigment changed. You still didn't know why you could control it now but before it persisted for so long. You can still remember the deepening fear as it grew on your skin, the fear of death, the fear of what you were. Because it was not human.
The eye change had been the most frightening event of all. You had been staring at a mirror with widened eyes, still normal with a golden iris, at the strange color spreading itself onto your skin that had suddenly sped up exponentially. Your arms reaching to hug your body and shut your eyes tight as an unfamiliar feeling dug into your chest. Rubbing tentative fingers that soon turned rampant as they rubbed your arms and felt the odd sensation. Spikes of a jarring feeling clawing deeper and deeper into your body, eyes shooting open and glimpsing at the mirror one more time, seeing black drain into white. Terrified eyes closed to this realization, that not only were you completely purple, you were also completely unrecognizable to even yourself.
When you finally mustered up the courage to look again the tears you were shedding were teal and glowing softly, they puddled on the floor and almost appeared radioactive. That was when you finally let out a scream, only to find your voice silenced. You were at a loss of what to do, your tears were glowing, your body was a violet shade, your eyes were black, and your hair...it was, thankfully, a similar color to your previous dark-brown; black. Your sense of hearing had changed, probably due to the purpley, fox-like ears in your hair where the strands were more gray, contrasting the patches of white and silvery hairs mixed within. The odd sensation on your skin was where...fur...had grown, still purple, that matched fuzzy ears and the fluffy appendage that stuck out on your lower back. A tail...a cat tail. When the transformation was completed it only took a few minutes for your hysteria to cloud your mind enough for you to fall unconscious.
The facility that kept you seemed like it had been waiting for your change, probably since they had known about your mother. It had once acted as a sort of school but now you no longer attended classes or interacted with anyone. Isolation was a common punishment in the facility but never for this long. Your friends knew not to look for you now that you were gone, your teachers knew never to expect you again, just like you knew never to expect seeing them again either. Children weren't dumb at the facility and they knew that a disappearance wouldn't be noted, except by those who remembered. Disappearance meant one of three possible outcomes; that you were dead, isolated, or released. Release wasn't common and was only a myth among the populace, saying that children that grew until they were much older and showed no signs of anything odd were simply let go with a promise to be silent; into a world they knew nothing about… Death was for the uncooperative or those that turn feral after their traits reveal themselves. Isolation came for the obedient, to be studied and, possibly, transferred to a facility for older children that taught them control.
This was the place that really showed you the difference in humans. When you've been a child this long you've participated in numerous escape attempts. Younger kids, still clinging to hope of freedom and wide open skies; the rebellious ones were always the ones with stories of the outside. You've been in countless operations, dozens of failed and successful plans that led you to the outside world. They always brought you back but never kept you isolated permanently, since the only oddities surrounding your being had been the slow aging process. Your guess was that they were trying to get you to rub off on the other children with that trait, like some sort of spore; or they were just trying to get a kid they'd have to deal with for a long time to be more obedient.
You don't know what happened to the other kids after they escaped, you caught glimpses of some, here and there, but not all. Perhaps some never got caught again… Then your memory always shifts to how many hands have held yours and you brush this notion away. This time had been the last, you promised yourself this. One last time before you gave up and let them have you if they caught you; one last game of hide-and-seek. Since they always won no matter where you went you knew it was pointless, and yet...there you were, organizing a lone attempt for the first (and last) time. It was a simple plan that was weeks in the making, utilizing your night-vision, wall-climbing, and more temporary transformation abilities (blending with walls was always much more difficult, especially when you have to stay so still...becoming people was much harder as well, you could only prolong changing simpler traits; like skin color and hair). Avoiding the heat-sensors had been the hardest part, despite your blood's new color it was still warm like any human's.
You could still recall alarm rings as they found your bed empty, climbing that mountain, and...tripping. Tripping over a vine while running, looking back to see if anyone was on your tail (not to say anyone was treading on your actual tail, of course). Then a feeling of great relief turning into weightlessness and dread as you spied the long fall. Instincts should have kicked-in, a fight or flight reflex making you grip the walls on the opening with your claws but nothing came. Fear locked your body and you fell; you know this to be true because of the pounding in your skull when you woke. That flower spoke to you and it was scary. You wanted to tell him that you didn't have the soul of a human but how could you? Bullets surrounded you and you were sure that death had come for you at last.
Fire saved you, flames you had come to think of as horrifying after your mother was taken seemed to wrap you in a barrier of warmth and safety. A hand as fuzzy as yours in its (true?) alternate form touched your cheek, red eyes examining your face that were so full of concern as they brushed over the cut on your cheek. Numerous others marked your body from blindly running through the woods; they stung. You could barely see through your lidded eyes that hid your secret. She called you her child and took your hand in yours, normally the action would have only brought back pain but...the fuzzy feeling of her fur on your flesh was so familiar that it nearly brought you to tears. She embraced you after you held your arms up to her in a needy fashion and fell asleep in arms just like mother's. Truly, your first memory of Toriel is still the brightest in your journey through the Underground, which is probably why fighting her was the scariest moment of your life; and refusing her was heartbreaking.
'I have other places to be.'