Chapter 1 : Creativity
-REW-
Description: "I believe this is what gives their SOULs the creativity to change the world. To alter their environment to their needs. To create ideas and things that have never existed. Let's call this power… "Creativity"." Legend says that those who climb Mt. Ebott never return. What if the eighth had not the power to RESET, but the power to REWRITE?
-REW-
The human awoke with a start. They were lying on a bed of golden flowers, next to their notebook and pencil. Up above they had been sketching the flowers… Had the ground collapsed?
Achingly they clambered to their feet, collecting their notebook as they did so. They adjusted their glasses, trying to make out the cave they found themselves in from the dim light above. Their yellow-blue sweater was a dirty mess, which they gave a brief attempt to clean before being distracted by other things.
Examining the bed of flowers upon which they'd awoken, they confirmed the ground had given way beneath them. It wasn't terribly surprising; there had to be a reason behind the legend that nobody returned from Mt. Ebott.
They examined the walls more closely. The cave was sheer rock, sloping upwards over a hundred feet to the hole his descent had left. To one side was a tunnel, but it ended in darkness after merely a dozen feet.
They were well and truly trapped.
…
The first day they spent calling for help and trying various ways to scale the walls.
… But nobody came.
…
The second day they sat, staring at a wall without seeing through their clouded glasses. They had run out of tears an hour before.
… But nobody came.
…
The third day, they began to write. Their scribbles were illegible - going back, the writing looked like nonsense even to them. Nonetheless, while the ideas were in their head, the concepts comforted them.
Eventually a single idea took over. Some kind of monster lived under the mountain, and was killing all who fell down. They laughed hysterically at that. Time was that monster, was it not?
They went to write more, but their pencil broke. The broken writing implement dropped from their hand. Their notebook drooped.
They hadn't had anything to eat or drink in three days.
Three whole days.
They were just… so… tired…
-REW-
The human awoke with a start. They were lying on a bed of golden flowers, next to their notebook and pencil. They felt… restored, like the previous three days hadn't even happened!
They sat up quickly, examining the walls around themselves. It was exactly the same! Flowers, sheer walls, and that one tunnel that ended… The tunnel didn't end. At the far end, they could just make out a carved archway in the darkness.
Warily collecting their notebook and pencil, they made their way through the doorway. On the other side, the cave opened up into another cavern just like theirs. Another hole of light shone down on what lay in the center. The thing in the center was some kind of white-furred beast, chained by its feet to a massive, rune-inscribed wall.
The monster's head shifted at their approach. It looked up at them with dim eyes.
"H… Howdy?"
Its voice was raspy. It sounded as bad as they had, before they woke up refreshed.
"It… It has been so long since anyone fell down here; since I had anyone to talk to. Please, come closer."
They complied, stepping into the light with the chained beast.
"Thank you. That will be easier on my voice." Its head drooped. "I have been trapped here as long as I can remember. Do you know what it is like to be alone?"
The human nodded. They had been in that state not very long ago.
"No. You cannot…" He coughed. "You cannot know what it has been like for me. I've been here over a hundred years. Please… come closer? My voice fails me after so long."
They stepped a little closer, turning their head to better hear what it had to say.
"This Barrier has kept me chained for so long… I was worried…" The monster coughed, its throat sounding sickeningly scratchy. "I was worried I would never get the last SOUL."
The monster's claws raked down the human's back. A massive, furry paw grabbed their neck, slamming them face first against the ground. It flipped them, pressing both paws into their neck.
"Once I have your SOUL, I will finally be able to return to the surface!"
The human gasped for air. None made it past the monster's crushing paws.
"I will be able to see the sun! I was trapped here by your kind, and for the first time it will be over!"
Their vision began to darken. Air. They needed… Air…
"I'll finally get take vengeance for my race!" it growled.
The human's last grip on the world faded. They felt the pressure on their neck dull and disappear, the feeling of the rough earth on their injured back vanishing.
They blinked. They were standing in a dark void, their notebook hovering before them. It was opened to somewhere in the middle, and one word was written on each page.
REWRITE : QUIT
Bewildered, they looked down. They were holding their pencil, and were entirely uninjured. The light illuminating the them and the notebook seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once in the void.
They stepped warily up to their floating notebook and considered the two options.
They circled REWRITE. The void faded.
-REW-
The human awoke with a start. They were lying on a bed of golden flowers, next to their notebook and pencil. They sat up, prepared for the monster to come jumping out of the shadows at any moment. They were back on the bed of golden flowers, back in the first cavern. Their clothes were intact, the claw-marks on their back gone. It was as if they hadn't run into the monster at all!
They stood, collecting their things. Once again, the tunnel out extended through an archway. This time it looked as if someone had begun to carve the base into an ornate pillar, then given up.
Wary of what had happened the last time, the human considered passing through the archway. Eventually deciding that whatever lay on the other side would be better than starving to death again, they passed through.
On the other side was a courtyard, lit by sunlight streaming down from a hole high above. A tree grew in the center of the courtyard, leafless, in front of a small house made of stone bricks. They examined the wall, finding ashes all over, like someone had burned the walls.
Ever wary, they knocked on the slab of stone used for the house's door.
… But nobody came.
The human gripped the side of the slab, pulling it away from the doorframe. It fell heavily, breaking in two on the ground. The inside of the house was dusty. Two literal piles of dust lay on the floor, one by the back wall, one by one side wall. The back wall was the same runic wall he remembered from meeting the monster. Thankfully, there was no sign of chains. Then again, that could be a bad sign.
After stepping inside, he noticed the side wall had a message burned into it, in english. He began to read.
"Asgore I-
"I'm sorry. I never meant to.
"They passed away too, just like the others.
"I don't know how… I don't know why I…
"Please, forgive me, but I cannot go on living like this.
"I hope you will not hold it against me, in our next life."
After the last line of the message, the wall was scorched with what must have been something very, very hot. The pile of dust lay on the ground just in front of it.
They stepped over the pile of dust to the back wall. In response, the runes began to glow. As They touched the carvings, the runes glowed brighter. They pressed on the wall, but it refused to give.
The human stepped back out into the courtyard before it sank in. They were trapped, again. There was no way out. They were going to die of dehydration, again. Terrified of that fate, they fumbled open their notebook. It had held answers the last two times, what did it have now?
They flipped past their half-completed sketch of a golden flower, past pages of mad, illegible scribbles. Suddenly, the scribbles ended. The next two pages were the two options, exactly as they had been in the void, before he'd circled one.
The human blinked. The courtyard was gone. In its place, his notebook hovered in front of him. They were back in the void.
They ran to the notebook and circled REWRITE.
-REW-
The human awoke with a start. They were lying on a bed of golden flowers, next to their notebook and pencil. They-
"It was just over here."
They scrambled to their feet, collecting their notebook and pencil. Footsteps approached from the direction of the tunnel. They turned to face whatever was approaching.
Two figures emerged into his cavern, one the monster he had met before, now clothed in a billowing purple robe. The other seemed like a smaller, effeminate clone. Both of them looked furious.
"It woke up," the female one said.
"It would have been better for it if it had not,"the male growled.
The human backed up off the golden flowers. They weren't an "it!" And why did these monsters look so… angry?
To the human's astonishment, balls of FIRE appeared in the paws of the monsters, then launched toward them.
There was nothing they could do to dodge all four fireballs. One struck them in the chest, and they screamed in agony.
The male looked irritated. "Quiet now! It will all be over soon."
"Maybe after we wipe the surface of this filth," the female said, "Asriel will finally have some peace."
New fireballs formed in the monsters' paws. The human's world exploded into pain. After a moment the pain vanished. They felt the not-hot not-cold of the void. They opened their eyes.
The notebook hovered. The graphite in which the two options had been written glinted in the invisible light source.
The human circled REWRITE.
-REW-
The human awoke with a start. They were lying on a bed of golden flowers, next to their notebook and pencil. They lay, unmoving, unwilling to break the peace and silence this brand new reality brought.
Eventually, they decided to stand up. They couldn't sit forever - dying of dehydration had taught them that. They collected their notebook and pencil, then set forth into the tunnel.
On the far side of the archway lay a massive open cavern. Crystals dotted the ceiling far above like a starry night sky. Some distance away - probably as far away from him as his hole to the surface was from Ebott Town - a purple castle rose to touch the cavern roof. It was surrounded by smaller houses and other buildings, which themselves were surrounded by small areas of unlit, slightly overgrown farmland.
They stared out over the place. It looked almost like a fantasy kingdom from Lord of the Rings or the Inheritance series, but covered over by a mountain.
The area he was in was host to a number of waterfalls, all cascading into a river that flowed to their right. A meandering, branching path cut several perilous routes down past the falls, leading to an old bridge across the river. Cautiously, the human descended the path and crossed over into the unlit farmland.
The farms had poles built up all over the fields. They found one pole that had fallen into the path on which they walked. A crystal like those in the cave ceiling sat atop it, though it was unlit. The fields themselves were barren, or filled with long-dead brambles. The dark and death hanging over the place felt ominous.
As they made it to the city, they pointedly avoided going to the castle. Instead they explored the ruins of buildings, looking for signs of the previous owners. There were very few; chairs and tables filled with rot here and there. In many places like pantries or bedrooms, they found numerous piles of dust.
Remembering the dust in the small purple brick house not two lifetimes ago, they shuddered. It seemed the citizens of this kingdom had died out from lack of food. Oddly, they found no signs of any intact bodies, or portions of bodies. The dead were dust: no more, no less.
Eventually, though, they made their way through all the houses. It had to have taken some time; their legs were caked with dust and they were tired. The human could guess what awaited them in the castle, so they decided not to delay. They could REWRITE at any time anyway. They might as well finish exploring all in one go.
They entered the castle. The gate was ajar, not blocking anyone. Within was a courtyard exactly like the one he'd seen not long ago - leafless tree and all. The difference here was that the tree was surrounded on all sides by purple brick castle.
They walked to the castle's doorway, finding it ajar. Beyond was a staircase downward and doors to two other rooms.
"Hello? Is someone there?"
The human flinched. It was the voice of the female monster. She sounded intensely hopeful.
She appeared in the doorway to their left, wearing glasses and carrying a book. Upon seeing them, her expression lost all kindness. "One of you," she hissed. "Of course it's a human."
The human backed out of the door, opening his notebook. If they could flip to the right page…
"Do not run, young one. My husband needs your SOUL to avenge our people, even if it is too late to save them." The female monster prepared her fireballs.
The human found the pages with the options. The world vanished, hiding the furious monster midway through hurling a fireball. Their notebook hovered.
They circled REWRITE.
-REW-
The human awoke with a start. They were lying on a bed of golden flowers, next to their notebook and pencil. It took them longer to rise, this time. Why continue at all? All the monsters wanted was their SOUL, wanted them dead. If they were doomed to die on every one of these… storylines… why not just give up?
A thought entered their mind, a dim memory. If time functioned linearly, it would have been almost a week since their fall. Were their parents looking? Their friends? Did anyone above remember them?
If only they could meet someone not upset by their presence, who didn't want them dead. They felt their Perseverance wavering.
But, no, Perseverance was their strongest trait, wasn't it? It had gotten them through years of school without help from tutors, taught them how to sketch and write without books and guidance.
They picked up their belongings and marched through the archway.
The great cavern with the kingdom was surprisingly similar to its previous appearance. Now, though, the starry sky was almost black: the stars were gone. There was only a dim light to see by, shining up from the farmland around the kingdom. The light illuminated piles of darkened crystals, between the waterfalls and the fields.
As they began to make their way down the paths of the waterfall area, they heard skittering movement from where the cavern sloped upwards. The human paused momentarily, but shrugged it off as some facet of the sound of the waterfalls.
The change in lighting between this rewrite and the last was disconcerting. The paths seemed similar, but they couldn't say the routes they took were exactly the same.
With a hop over a small ravine, they made it into the no-man's land between the Waterfall area and the mounds of spend crystals that indicated the start of the fields. The human walked along the artificial wall for a little while, then began to climb at a spot where they didn't seem too high. The crystals shifted underfoot like climbing a mound of chunky gravel.
"Y- Yo! Are you crazy?!"
They spun, slipping on the crystals and sliding down a few paces. They cut their arm in the fall, leaving a bright red gash.
"Yo… D- Don't climb that! They'll see you!"
The human looked into the darkness. After a moment they could make out a head, sticking out from behind a crack in the waterfall area.
"H- Hey. C- Come hide, quick!"
Unsure whether they should trust the strange person, they merely slid carefully to the bottom of the pile, then stood uncertainly.
"Yo. I- If you're not coming, I'm g- gonna leave you to 'em!"
They looked around. There was nobody else as far as they could see on this side of the mound.
"W- Whatever!" The head retreated back behind the stone. Footsteps pattered away.
The human made up their mind. Running up to the crack, they squeezed through to the far side and chased the footsteps in the dark. It was exceedingly dark. They couldn't even make out their-
They tripped, falling. They moved to catch themselves with an arm, but it was the arm they'd cut on the dark crystals. It gave, and they faceplanted hard.
The footsteps ahead froze, then came back.
"Yo… Did you just trip? I do that all the time… Not fun, huh?"
The human scrambled to their knees, grabbing their notebook and backing away. They were completely at this person's (monster's? They hadn't gotten a good look) mercy.
"H- Hey! S- Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. Where have you been hiding out? From them?"
They shook their head. They hadn't been hiding out and- Oh, the other person couldn't see them in the dark, could they?
"S- Still scared? Yo… I said sorry." The other was silent for a moment. "Hey, how about, if I show you mine then you show me yours?"
It took them a moment to piece together what the other had said. They wanted to show off their hideout, and in return the human would have to show the other theirs. Considering they had no use for the cave with the sun and the golden flowers (and the fact that they'd likely REWRITE anyway) they nodded.
"Cool! Okay, it's this way!" The footsteps retreated into the dark again.
The human stood back up, groping along in the darkness.
The footsteps slowed. "H- Hey, how bad are your eyes that you can't see in here?"
They shrugged.
"Okay. Yo, just ahead around this bend!"
The footsteps took a turn. The human followed, finding the corner with ease because on the far side, a dim blue light glowed.
"This is it! Home sweet home."
It was just a section of cave, with one of the star crystals growing in the ceiling. The ground was hard rock. A shelf of rock contained various knick knacks like carved stone toys and a couple spent star crystals.
"I uh… yo… I've been out here a while. It gets lonely, b- but my parents and I got driven out in one of the food shortages."
The human cocked their head. The one they'd been following definitely wasn't human. They looked a bit like a lizard humanoid, but without arms and wearing a tattered striped shirt that made it down to their knees. The shirt had no sleeve holes.
"M… My parents… yo… they didn't make it."
The sadness in the monster's downcast eyes almost overrode the human's response to the monster's razor sharp teeth.
"A- Anyway! My name's Monster Kid! People call… called me MK. What's yours?"
The human opened their notebook from the back and wrote out their name. The light from the crystal was more than enough to see by.
"Oh… uh… Yo… I can't read."
They stared at the monster. Who didn't know how to read in this day and age?
"Paper was really rare back when I was living in Home. I guess they have more now? I mean, they wouldn't have let you leave with any if they didn't."
The human cocked their head again. What kind of name was "Home"?
"Yo… can you not speak?"
The human shook their head. It was complicated, best leave it at 'no.'
"Oh. Well, I can do the talking for us both, then! I mean-"
MK froze, his eyes growing wide as saucers. A moment later, the human heard skittering in the darkness.
"Y- Yo… J- Just s- stay really quiet!" MK hissed. "Th- They can't possibly know we're h- here!"
The human and monster both stayed absolutely silent, but the skittering continued to approach. The sound was definitely inside MK's crack in the cliff outside. The human looked around frantically, but the cave dead-ended in MK's hideout.
"They don't know we're here. They don't know we're here. They don't know we're here." MK was whispering to himself like a mantra. It wasn't terribly convincing.
Suddenly, the sound of skittering reached a crescendo as the corner around which the exit lay became black with tiny moving shapes. A wave of spiders advanced on human and monster.
"N- Nonononono-" MK's pleas cut off as the wave of black reached them both.
The human thrashed as spiders climbed them. They were certain they crushed a few, but a couple strands of webbing quickly became a restricting layer. They lost their balance, falling into the sea of black, skittering forms. Their head hit the ground hard, dazing them momentarily.
When next they had a full idea of what was going on, they were being carried headfirst by the sea of spiders toward the entrance of the cave. Somewhere beyond their feet, MK moaned.
Their head exited the crack, only to be met with a terrifying, five-eyed, fanged visage hanging directly above them. "Ahuhuhu~! What a surprise? Who knew such a delicious little thing was waiting for me in that cave? Oh, yes, I did!"
They were carried past the strange spider monster, though they could still make out its (her?) face in the corner of their eye.
Her eyes narrowed upon seeing MK. "Ah… I kept telling Azzy: We can't let those famine losses leave alive! Look at this. How many years have you been mooching off our fields, dearie?"
MK made muffled sounds of distress as the sounds of spiders skittering increased.
"Take him back into his cave and kill him. Can't have him doing any more leeching now can we? Ahuhuhu~"
The human heard MK kicking and struggling as they were dragged back into the cave. Hearing the one friendly monster they'd met in clear fear for his life, they felt sick.
"And as for you, dearie? Why, Asgore's been waiting for one of you for so long! He'd almost given up hope, what with all the star crystals being nearly used up."
MK's sounds of struggle stopped.
"Ahuhuhu~... Well then, that's one matter of business taken care of."
The human felt their own bundle of webbing lifting off the ground. The spider monster's face drew unbearably close.
"The name's Muffet, dearie. Sweet dreams! Ahuhuhu~"
The last thing they remembered was fangs biting down on their neck.
…
The darkness of unconsciousness gave way to the blackness of the void. The pages of the notebook shone in contrast, unbearably bright compared to where they'd just been.
Wearily, they circled REWRITE.
-REW-