It was the final battle. The human had come such a long way. They had befriended every monster, eaten every piece of candy, won every battle. They had even beaten us once, but not with full power. We had six human souls and the souls of every monster in the underground. We were an almighty God, and we were unstoppable. We really hadn't meant for them to die. We thought that they would just… refuse. They had already taken far worse! Why, then? Why couldn't they have just beaten us like they did before! They had beaten sans, in another life. They had killed everyone because they looked for a way to save me. They had tried thousands of times, going down thousands of paths, looking over every single square millimeter of this world, looking for a way to free me. This was one thing that they hadn't tried before, I guess. I guess I was stuck with it. I hit them, and their HP hit zero… but their soul didn't break. They didn't LOAD, they didn't RESET, they didn't even have the decency to tell me what was coming. They just… died. Left me standing, surrounded in unfathomable power, but unable to do a damn thing about it. With all of my might, with all of my power I tried to bring them back. I Tried, so hard. Unfortunately, healing magic works in multiples. You multiply your HP with your healing factor, and the product is the new health… zero times infinity is still zero. They were dead. Not even a being with such power as I could help them then. I stood in that damn pocket dimension with all of the souls around me for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for them to take their turn, when I realised that they didn't get a turn. There would never be another turn. I slowly hovered down to the ground and picked up their soul. It was a small thing, pleasantly warm. It was smooth on the outside, and it faintly glowed the lovely hellish red that it was. Deep inside of the center was a little black dot, hardly noticeable. That was what marked their genocide run, when they gave their soul to Chara. I smiled at the thought, though I hated that memory. All of the pent up emotions of my life as Flowey hit me then. And that was when a God cried. Huge, sobbing gasps that shook the ground, tears that filled oceans and a hellfire in my eyes that proceeded to evaporate them. I was pissed now. Chara had taken their soul, but soon was shoved away by their pure power of will. They hadn't wanted to destroy the underground, but they didn't know it would lead to what it did. They did it for me, and I killed them for it. What kind of a… no, monster wasn't even a proper word for it. What kind of a beast am I, to kill the one thing in the entire multiverse of timelines that ever cared about me? What in the world could drive me to do such an act?

I couldn't think of these things for long, though, because the soul started to crack just then. I was tempted to let it finish disappearing, so that they could reset… but I didn't think that they would. I didn't even know their damn name! … I shook as I took in their soul, and at that time something happened. The human soul displaced all of the monster souls that had been used as a proxy for the last human soul, driving them to their various places in the underground. I felt every single one of them as they were torn from my body, I lived through every one of their lives and experienced every emotion that they had ever felt. I understood then every argument and counter arguement, every feeling, every everything of every single monster of the underground. Everything from one Froggit to another, to Papyrus and why he likes spaghetti, to Mo-... Toriel and Asgore, and their whole life with each other. I saw myself grow up, and I saw myself die. I felt the pain in my Mother's heart as she lost her only two children, I kindled the blaze in my Father's soul as he declared war on humans. I felt the other six human's lifeblood spill out from their bodies as they were pierced with a trident… and I felt my Father's disgust with himself as he did it. I felt sans's life, but only part of it… something was broken inside of him, it seems, and I couldn't figure it out.

I laughed, I cried, and when I finally felt the last monster soul leave, I fell to my knees. I felt all seven human's presence, but they were simpler creatures than that of a human. They were pure emotion, and all that they felt right now was fear. They stayed silent to me, and I couldn't bear to look at them. I looked away from them, stood, and looked at where I was. I seemed to be in the RUINS, and my Mother was lying on her bed. I was still Asriel Dremurr, Absolute God of Hyperdeath, and I realised that I was fairly imposing. I saw my Mother stir in her sleep, evidently about to wake. I turned invisible and shut off all of the rainbows and flashy powerful stuff, not being able to look at my mother as she got up. I felt shame. I had killed her so many times throughout my runs that I had grown numb to it, even when I was a soulless husk. I now felt my sins crawling on my back.

Mom stood as she got out of bed, commenting on how odd a dream she had to herself. She smiled and sat at her writing desk, flipped the page in her journal, and started writing it down. She wrote about a new human falling down, how she watched the human grow and make friends with all of the monsters, her confrontation with Asgore, and just when things got bad, she woke up. She thought it a fairly poor ending to such a vivid dream, but smiled as she let the ink dry and set about her daily routine.

I was crying silently at this point, realizing two things. One, likely everybody knew what I had done, and two, this was likely a new timeline where everyone had the same dream of the previous timeline. I teleported to New Home, to find my Father attending his garden. One quick check at his journal confirmed that he, too, had the dream. I walked to the barrier and lifted up the soul case, finding that all of the souls were husks inside. They appeared to still be there, but they were only afterimages due to a mess up in the partial reset that seemed to have occurred. I looked at the clock on the wall that also had a date counter on the side, noting that it was the same morning of when he human was supposed to fall. March 13, 2001. I teleported to the bed of flowers where the human was supposed to be, fully expecting them to be there. I smiled when I saw something fall, running over and making myself visible, laughing and exclaiming that it would be alright… until I found a pile of dust where their body hit the bed of flowers. I suddenly felt intense pain in my chest, and I kneeled over, grasping at my chest. It felt like death, but far, far worse. I saw all seven souls appear in front of me, then they spun around and formed into an amorphous blob of rainbow. They spoke to me in a hive mind. "You have stolen us. Earn us, be the monster you have always wanted to be, or begone, Dreemurr. Your time is short."

Then there was more pain. And more. Then, I felt more pain. It was endless pain for me, my shoulders being unable to bear it. I felt my form wither, and fall. I felt my shoulders sag and morph. My ears and horns shrunk back into my skull, though it was no longer a skull. I knew what was happening. I was becoming a flower again. I fought. I fought hard, but at some point I cried. I cried harder than I would like to admit. I was a damn flower again, and I felt the lack of feeling coming back. Eventually I picked myself up, straightening my stem and fixing my petals. I guess this world isn't actually Kill or be Killed. It's more like Kill and Die inside.

End of Chapter One