Oh dear

Chapter 1

You stumbled up the mountain trail, hiccuping every couple of seconds as you kicked up dirt and scrambled for a foothold when you became too unsteady on your feet. In your right hand was a dimly colored bottle, reflecting light from the moon when it tilted just the right way. Warily your eyes trailed upwards, eyes narrowing in a feverish manner. It was almost completely devoid of dark clouds overhead, so there would be no thunderstorms in the distance for a while.

Breathe in, breathe out.

For a brief change of pace, you had decided to take a hike out near Mt. Ebott. The winding dirt pathways all led to the same place, and walking alone for a midnight stroll seemed like a very good idea at the time. In fact, it still was a great idea: the warm winds hit you, and you sobered a bit as you turned your face to the sky.

"It's quiet out."

It was true: normally the crickets would be humming, but tonight there was no sound except for the warm whistling of winds. You could vaguely make out the silhouette of a deer that had bolted from the sound of your scuffling, but other than that there were no other animals nearby, either. Maybe you've been a bit too loud in your stomping.

You clutched your left side with a sudden shuddering cough, feeling along the skin for the bandages. Knife wounds, from a boy who didn't know any better. You could've dodged it, but it would've been easier to catch him if you didn't. One mistake out of a few. You wouldn't miss the stitches for sure, but you did feel the slightest pang of regret at the traumatized expression the kid had when he came back to his senses. Nobody needed to see that much blood in their lives.

The alcohol did ease off some of the pain, but you despised drinking and this was a one-time thing when you kept waking up howling due to the excruciating pain in your side. All your remaining pills had been used up for the remaining kids.

Unfortunately, your grip on the bottle was not as tight as it should've been, and with your observations it fell out of your hands and made its way into a nearby bush. You nodded after it briefly, frowning. Littering was bad. You should go pick that up.

The bottle was wedged in between a branch and a large rock face that dipped below eyesight, blocked by various ferns and overgrown plant growth in the way. You peered over the edge, shifting so that you could sling a leg over accordingly and reach it, but you halted just as fast. Eyes widening, you stepped back a bit, skidding back due to your lack of control over small motor skills. You should be careful of falling in by accident - or, in this case, a bout of drunken clumsiness.

There was a giant hole in the ground.

Markings scuffed along the edges haphazardly along the dirt, almost like rune markings. Symbols, some that were almost white in color when reflecting the moon's light, were written in a language you did not understand and had no chance of decoding properly. A sense of dread crept up your spine at the very thought of going too close to them.

There was an unnatural cut to the angle in which the hole was dug, almost as if it had been by a cookie cutter and only the pieces left behind were remaining. The symbol right in front of you, specifically, looked familiar. Three triangles, upside down, and the design of what looked like an angel with wings planted directly in the center. You weren't sure where exactly you had seen it before, but it was interesting enough that you wanted to draw it on a notepad.

Warily, you reached for the bottle and jerked back before anything snapped at you.

Nothing.

Turning the glass over in your hands, you shoved the bottle deep into your hoodie pocket before picking up a decently-sized rock and chucking it downward. You waited for the sound of a telltale thump, but there was no noise to be heard. Brow furrowing, you dimly reached for another one before you heard it. It had reached the bottom with a faint clink. You probably wouldn't have heard it if you hadn't been listening carefully.

Something on your skin felt electrified, as if lightning was about to strike. There was a quiet ringing in your ears that would not leave, and you trusted your instincts entirely: this place meant danger.

You scrambled away from the hole, shuddering harshly with a scowl. You felt a sense of ominous foreboding creep over you and promptly slapped the back of your neck to get rid of the feeling. Bringing yourself back to your knees, then your feet, you slowly began to head back to the trail. The night air was getting to you, you thought, rubbing your hands over your arms as you looked up at the sky again. It was time to go home.

Your clothes tugged at your neck.

You yelped as you were held back by the back of your hoodie. The fabric was constricting and you quickly backpedaled so that you wouldn't choke yourself to death. You turned your head, expecting it to have been caught on a low-hanging branch or bramble, only for you to stiffen with horrified surprise.

What was supposed to be a branch was instead a figure, one hand outstretched, holding your clothing without speaking or moving any further. You hadn't even heard his footsteps approaching, where did he come from? You squinted your eyes, unable to see very clearly as a cloud had just passed over the moon mere seconds before, and you waited until the piteous light was visible again for a ray to dance across his face. Your eyes widened.

There was a man - a skeleton - staring back. Molten bones: where they melting? Was he melting? His clothes were all black, he's melting and his clothes are too - long white phalanges have taken hold on your hoodie, and as you tense he stares back with that same, melting grin, one scar across his left eye and another just reaching past his chin. There were strange glowing lights embedded deep into his sockets, and you were unsure what exactly they were coming from.

Your eyes darted down. His hand was composed of more bones, and instead of melting you saw small lines of code, flickering in and out as if being eaten away like a virus. You wanted to shake your head and try to clear your eyesight, wondering if this was a hallucination, but panic was starting to set in and you only had one thing on your mind now.

You hit him square in the face.

He phases through your hand, his image disappearing, and you leap back to regain ground and any semblance of intimidation, turning so that your injured side was away from him. However, with your attention entirely trained on the strange being before you, your feet never catch ground. Your face shifts as the sky falls behind you, and you realize that you had stepped past solid earth and-

Fucking hell.

The ground had crumbled beneath your feet, and so you flung a hand out to grab hold of the clothes on the melting skeleton. You were not going down alone, and you prayed to the lord that this skeleton was smart enough to pull back enough that you could be carried out as well. The grinning creature's face morphed into briefly concealed shock. He flickered - wait, what - but instead of teleporting out, his eyes widen as he tipped along with you instead, down into the abyss.

Winds flying, you fly backward as your vision narrows until the sky becomes a pinprick above your head. You can only grunt with grim disapproval as you hurtled down below.

Man, I wanted to go and see my parents one more time.

You maintained a tight grip on the skeleton's clothes, pulling him closer to glare in his direction and making sure that he stayed directly above you and in your sights. The fall only needed to damage one person, after all. He still seemed a bit struck, most likely by his inability to do his weird illusion trick. The taunting aggress when you attempted to fight him didn't help matters, either, but...

The skeleton was most likely a foe. You vaguely remember stepping backwards, the hole had been in front of you, and the skeleton had been in between. You were sure you had been on solid ground when you did begin to step back, but when you fell suddenly your perspective had shifted.

Your eyes lock with the suddenly terrified melting man.

Before you could open your mouth, the surroundings shifted again, and you felt the sting of irritation as you felt your body begin to stretch.

"What-"

The skeleton raised a hand, and you tensed up, ready to dodge any attack he might have thrown at you. However, he simply placed it over yours, the hole in the middle of his palm pressing strangely against the back, and tried to pull it off. You shook your head, face turning in annoyance as he tried to get you to let go. You were still angry, but you didn't want him to die, either. You heard the cavern open up below you and pulled him closer instead, curling around him.

The ground was nearing. You don't feel it.

There was only black for a long, long moment. You supposed that you had fallen unconscious at some point, and maybe shock had gotten hold (the fall should've been fatal), because when you slowly regained consciousness you were unsure whether you were hallucinating or you were actually in an entirely different place of scenery.

You drifted in and out for a very strenuous period of time, mental state thoroughly and completely disjointed. There was the sound of crackling, similar to the sound of a large campfire, and there was a brief spark that settled at the center of your forehead. There was a flash of multicolored chaos along the back of your lids, and you briefly felt discomfited when it grew too bright to ignore, but then that settled down as well.

When you finally jolted awake, you felt a sharp pang of - relief? - before your fingers curled, your legs twitched, and you regained feeling in the rest of your body. Your eyes moved once you realized you were lying in a bed of golden flowers.

"What in the..."

You were still alive. That was a surprise to you.

Faintly you could see the outline of your hand, encased in the light streaming from the cracks above, and your eyes trailed upward as you frowned slightly. It was dark when I went up the mountain. I passed out for more than seven hours. A day? No, probably not.

You glanced upward, still lightheaded and various thoughts forming vaguely. If you had fallen as far as you thought you had, then how could the light still reach down to the bottom of the hole? Who the hell had thought of digging a hole this deep in the first place? The walls were oppressive, lacking any form or structure and curving in like an upturned bowl, and you quickly got to your feet. You paused accordingly. Nothing was broken.

Strange, but nice. I'll leave that issue for later.

You trailed after the path thoughtfully, glancing behind to give the flowers one last stare. Nothing moved. You could feel eyes somewhere, though, and carefully you shoved your hands into your pockets. You traveled up past the flowers and into the ruins.

The walls were dark in color but strangely pleasing to look at. You peered closer, noticing the runes etched into the sides. They were lighter markings, ones that you traced a hand over slowly. Triangles. A circle with wings. A language you did not understand. It was difficult to move past them, but eventually you did manage to draw your eyes away.

Now that you were coherent, you became worried about the skeleton you had fallen down with. He'd most likely gained a lot of ground. You had some questions for that guy.

There were patches of light up ahead that you noticed as you continued on. It made you smile a bit as you stepped through them eagerly, stepping from stone to stone. There was the faint sound of birdsong, but it seemed implausible and was more likely a trick of the mind. You blink once you notice what was off, hand coming up to rest against your side. The pain in your hip was gone, too.

A yellow flower petal flickers in the corner of your vision and your head instantly turns, stance changing. A lone flower sprouts out of the soil, ground shaking as if straining to release its roots. Its petals unfurl with a swift (unnatural) movement, and when its head turns you can see two bright, beady eyes land on you.

"Howd-"

You flung your bottle at the voice and sprinted. You could hear the smash of glass shattering and loud shrieking, but you left no time to waste. Vaulting over a pillar, you ducked under for cover and picked up the closest thing to a weapon, which just happened to be a decently-sized rock.

"H-hey, hey, calm down, there," the voice said, but it seemed farther away this time. Good. "You can trust me. Can you, uh, come out?"

You tilt your head. The flower might be unaware of where exactly your location was due to the threat of the glass, and it may be biding its time. Ignoring for the moment how strange it was (a flower, you're fighting a fucking flower), you fling the rock somewhere to your right, behind a similar-looking pillar that would also have sufficed as a hiding place. The stone makes a loud clunk against the ground.

Immediately, five different thorny vines burst out of the wall and pierce themselves into the empty space where the rock had landed.

Okay, definitely an enemy.

There is a brief period of time as the flower waits, but nothing else responds. The vines slowly retract, and you watch carefully as you listen to the flower's angry muttering. Your eyes close and you continue to count down from twenty before chucking another piece of rubble you've found. It makes a smaller thunk against solid earth, but this time no thorns come.

You stand fully and creep away, making sure to stick to the shadows.

This all felt like a fever dream. In fact, you were counting on it being a fever dream. The lack of pain made sense as well. You reached down and pinched the back of your left hand, frowning when you felt the brief spark of discomfort. Well, not entirely.

Trust never came so easily. You bared your teeth at the flower's last question, feeling for any scrapes on your palms from scrabbling for something to throw. Asking for blind faith from a stranger, who dared to actually try that? You've managed to read the movements that gave false impressions well: it wasn't hard, after watching people's interactions for so long. That flower had been faker in both expression and voice than anything you'd seen before.

(That often meant they had something to hide.)

You kept bandages wrapped around your left leg for emergencies. You unwrapped them with ease, pulling tight as you wound them quickly around your knuckles and formed a fist. It gave a bit. Satisfactory, whenever you felt the need for hand-to-hand. Unfortunately, these creatures seemed to have some sort of long-range fighting.

You hear the swift patter of feet against tile, and you duck behind an upright pillar. A figure emerges from the corridor, horns tipped back and sleeves drawn to cover clawed pads. Your heart catches in your throat.

It's a goat monster.

The flower and the skeleton are no comparison to the sheer height the woman has. Although all senses point to her being intimidating, you are tugged to your feet as she glances around carefully. The symbol on her dress was the same as the one aboveground, something you decided to keep in mind. She gave off a kindly, maternal aura that the flower creature could not hope to replicate through body language alone: her shoulders were set forward a bit, as if careful not to be overbearing and watchful of smaller humans. Children.

You were no longer a child.

Once the creature had taken note of her surroundings and eyed the new cracks in the wall warily (you noticed the older ones as well: at least you knew where they came from now) she left just as quickly, robes swishing behind her. You maneuver around the pillar and continue on your way, one hand to the wall as you continue along the path.

The monsters you encountered were passive, mostly: you fled before you could spend too much time with any of them. The puzzles and traps were not too troublesome, but setting off the spikes made too loud a noise for comfort, so instead, you held onto the side as you dropped below or jumped over them using momentum.

Twice, you had seen yellow flicker in the corner of your eye, but when you turned sharply it was gone. The flower was definitely still tracking you, due to the lack of golden flowers further down the ruins as the light begins to fade. You keep yourself tense.

The brief fluttering of translucent cloth beckons you. You squint as you tread closer, unsure whether or not it was just a stray piece of fabric. A ghost lay in your path, eyes shut and snoring. Well, more like saying the letter "z" repeatedly without a pause in breath.

"Hi" is the first thing that comes out of your mouth, and the ghost jerks a bit as his head turns to you. You smile a bit. Seeing so many monsters around was nerve-wracking, to say the least, but this one seemed docile right off the bat: the closed eyes, relaxed expression, and the lack of nervousness of interaction. It's an innocent position, and you are briefly reminded of the boy whose wounds you'd tended to. You lean back a bit so you aren't peering down right over him. "Are you okay?"

"Oh..." The ghost seemed rather surprised by the question, nodding forward as continued to lay on the floor. "N-no. But thanks anyway..."

You sit down beside him, leaves shaking a bit as you do so. "What's wrong, dude?"

The ghost is surprised as you sit down, but as the question registers he sighs. You've heard that tone before. You laugh a bit, which seems to cheer him up. "Tough day, huh? That's cool. We all have bad days."

"I..." He looks up at you this time. "Thank you...I've never had a conversation last this long before..."

You laugh louder this time, grinning widely. The ghost seems to smile a little. "Hahaha! Well, I can fill up a whole conversation by myself, you know. Don't worry about talking too much with me, because that's all I'll be doing."

You've had a kid like this before: one girl you'd taken in had spoken little, and the caretakers had been worried that no one would adopt a child with such a shy disposition. You'd filled up the spaces by talking, and although she didn't respond much she seemed to enjoy the company. You'd taken to her with the ease of an older sibling, and she'd grown attached faster than anyone had expected. You'd appreciated her sentiment.

"You're doing great, kid." You gaze off into the distance a bit distractedly, unaware of the way he startles a bit as he starts and listens to your words, intense. "And you're gonna do great in the future, too. Don't sweat it too much, a'ight?"

"You're..." You pause, looking down at him again. He's shuffled up a bit so his back is to the wall, but he's levitating slightly off the ground. You have no clue whether or not he's able to phase through the wall if he's not careful enough. "You're a human, but you're so nice... Thank you..."

"It's fine, dude." You tip your head forward slightly. "I'll see you around."

"I'm Napstablook," he blurts out before you get up again. He floats a bit higher now, and his expression seems a bit lighter as well. "Oh no...don't feel pressured to tell me your name, though..."

"Call me Z," you say, your smile turning amused. Napstablook "eeps" and begins to fade away. (You wonder whether or not his physical appearance is connected to any tangible object or whether it was related to magic. Light particles didn't need to exist, apparently.) "Bye-bye!"

"See...you..."

The last "Z" was a quiet murmur, fond in its inflection, and you chuckle under your breath as you pass through the narrow entryway.

And all the while, the flower watches.

ok wow im writing undertale in 2018 what is this

goodbye