Slowly, you brought your face up from where it lay. Every part of you was sore, but most sore was your neck. You knew why.

You climbed the mountain with the last piece. People said that once you climbed the mountain, you would never return. You knew otherwise, but weren't planning on bragging about it. Quite the opposite actually, you wanted no one to know about these trips.

You pulled your body up from the bed of flowers. A discolored splotch caught your eye, and after bringing your fingers to your mouth, your suspicions were confirmed. You briskly wiped your face on the inside of your shirt collar.

It wasn't long now. After everything, you'd finally get the end you wanted, the end you worked for. You expertly tied the knot, like you practiced so many times on bits of string at school, and attached the rope to your handcrafted support system.

You felt the inside of your mouth with your tongue, discovering the source of the blood. Had one of your teeth really been yanked out? You looked up at your handy work, but it was too far up to be able to properly inspect it.

You walked to the middle of the rail and put the loop around your head. It was a little big, but you didn't see why it should matter. To fix it now would be procrastinating. Taking a deep breath and closing your eyes, you stepped backwards off the rail. You braced yourself for the snatch. It yanked your neck and you felt your spine pop. Flashes of white sparked behind your eyelids. Slowly, your consciousness faded away, and you could feel yourself falling.

You stood up, reached your hand into your pocket, and put on your glasses. Everything around you was pitch black, only the patch of flowers being illuminated by the hole above. You felt over your body. If you were dead, why were you so sore? Wouldn't it just be your soul walking about? Why did you have to keep this wretched body?

You decided not to think too hard about it. After all, you got what you wanted, why complain? You walked down the dark corridor in front of you, hoping to soon meet some fantastic creature that would lead you to the afterlife.

"Howdy! I'm Flowey! Flowey the Flower!" You scrunched your eyes, trying to find the source of the voice. Surely, a demon to lead you to hell would be big and scary, right?

"I'm down here buddy!" you looked down. Nope. It was literally a flower, a little yellow one with a white face. "Hey, you're new here, aren't you?" You give a curt nod, not amused in the slightest. "By gosh! You're probably so confused right now! Why, someone oughta teach you how things work around here!" the flower chuckled, "Guess I'll have to do!"

Suddenly, you felt a strange floating sensation, and the world around you went even blacker than it already was. You didn't like this. You saw the flower in front of you, and between you, a hollow, milky colored orb, about the size of the flower itself, floated calmly. In the centre of it, a purple heart beat.

"You see that heart? That's your soul! The very culmination of your being!" You pushed one of your hands to the orb, which was oddly solid, and the heart reacted. Slowly, you moved your hands over the smooth surface, and the heart followed.

"Right now, you're souls pretty weak, but you can make it stronger by gaining LV! What's LV? Why, LOVE of course! You want some love? Oh, why not, I'll share some with ya!" The flower winked gayly. "Here, LOVE is shared through… little white… 'friendliness pellets'" The flower squinted as it tried to think of a good name. You could see right through this shmucks bullshit. "Move around! Get as many as you can!"

Sure enough, small white seeds appeared from his end and shot slowly into the orb. You moved your heart around them easily. The seeds passed by and phased right through your body, as if you weren't even there.

"Hey, kid, you missed them. Here, try again." Again, white seeds shot at you, and again, you dodged them. It wasn't that hard.

"Are you messin with me? Are you stupid? RUN. INTO. THE BUL-friendliness pellets." He looked more than annoyed now, and the white seeds shot at you much faster than before. He completely broke.

"You know what's goin on here, don't you?" His voice was dark, and his face had turned scary. "You just wanna see me suffer. Now, DIE." The flower laughed as the entire orb was surrounded by the white seeds. They slowly enclosed you, and admittedly, you were a little scared. But you couldn't die if you were already dead… right?

From the side, a glowing ball of fire shot at the flower, and the seeds disappeared. A tall goat-like woman presented herself.

"Oh, what a miserable creature, torturing such an innocent child." She clicked her tongue. "Do not be afraid, child. I am Toriel, the caretaker of the ruins! I was just walking through here to see if anyone has fallen down. It's been a while since I've last seen a human fall down here. Come, I will guide you through the catacombs."

You realized the world around you gained it's light back, and you could now clearly see the woman. She wore a long blue tunic with some strange crest woven in, over a white long-sleeve dress. She looked strangely like royalty.

You followed her up some stairs through a large door, feeling like an empty husk. That flower had intentions to kill you but, you were already dead. At least, that's what you thought. How else could you see such strange creatures? How else would you be able to see your soul separate from your body?

You trusted this woman as much as you trusted that flower back there. She was too nice, and you had a feeling it was an act. She probably wanted you dead too. It wasn't much different than your old life, only now things were actively trying to kill you.

Then kill them first.

The words echoed in your mind in your own voice. You've never had violent thoughts, and you didn't want to hurt anyone.

Even if they want to hurt you?

That was a solid point, but-

Kill them.

You're not going to hurt anyone.

Kill them.

You don't need to, there are other ways to resolve conflict…

Kill them or they'll kill you.

Good. Let them kill me. If I'm not really dead, then it means I failed. They'll help me get what I wanted.

That seemed to settle the issue, for now.

Toriel had brought you to a room with 6 square panels on the floor and a switch on the wall.

"Welcome to the ruins, innocent one! Let me demonstrate the workings of your new home." She smiled down at you, then walked over four of the panels and pressed a switch. The door at the far end of the room opened.

"The ruins are full of puzzles; ancient fusions of diversions and doorkeys. Please get used to them, you'll be seeing them a lot!" She then went through the door ahead of you, but out of curiosity, you stepped on the other two buttons. Nothing happened.

"In this room, you will need to trigger several switches. Focus only on the one's I have labeled." This room had two bridges, each with clear water flowing underneath, and bundles of fragrant green leaves growing at the edges of the streams. A sign in front of you read "Use your eyes to read signs!" and one at the far wall read "Stay on the path." You had a feeling you were being babied and, as someone who considered himself pretty smart, you didn't appreciate it one bit.

Farther along the path, across the bridge, was a gold switch. Carefully painted next to the switch, a dialogue read "Please press this switch – Toriel". You knew it would have been the switch to press anyway, the path led right to it. Where the other humans that came here really that dumb?

Once you flipped the switch, Toriel nodded and moved to block the next entrance, although she didn't need to, since it was already blocked by spikes. Again, there was a switch coming off the path and another painted note. To the right of it, a switch was painted on the wall.

You boredly flipped the real switch and listened to Toriel, who seemed much too proud of your accomplishment.

"Very good! You are doing so well, little one! Come, let us move forward." Reluctantly, you followed her.

"As a human living in the Underground, monsters may attack you. Worry not, for I will instruct you on how to overcome such a situation." Toriel moved to stand behind a dummy in the room. "When you encounter a monster, you need only to talk to it. Then I will come and resolve the conflict. Come practice on this dummy."

You approach a ragged sack of cloth shaped roughly like a body of some sort and give it a cold stare-down. You looked right into its beady plastic eyes, and you swear it started quivering. You squinted your eyes at it with intentions to intimidate. A few minutes passed like this, you looking down your nose at it and it seeming to sweat in fear, before it floated up and phased through the ceiling.

Toriel, who saw this strange phenomenon, was speechless, only raising her eyebrow at you with the most astonished look in the world. You met her gaze with deadpanned boredom. Really, you didn't know what this lady was trying to accomplish.

"L-let's move on then!" She clasped her hands together, finally breaking the awkward silence.

In the next room, the path bent in ninety degree angles that seemed to have no purpose.

"There is a puzzle to be solved in this room. I wonder if you'll be able to get it?" She walked to the centre of the room in a small hallway of sorts, watching you examine the floor. You had a feeling you needed to memorize this pattern for something else, though it wasn't that hard. Right when you were about to reach the hall, a large frog hopped in front of you.

You felt that same sensation from earlier and the world went black. The frog waited quietly, slowly bobbing its head. You had no idea what to do in this situation, so you just gave it that same mean squint that worked on the dummy. The frog started to shiver in fear, before small white gnats flew at your soul. They were pretty easy to dodge. After giving the frog a bored look, the world returned to normal and it hopped away. You felt like you gained nothing from that encounter and it was a big waste of time, like everything else here.

Maybe it was how devoid of life you already were, but you couldn't help but be disappointed that the afterlife was so dull.

When you passed through the hall, a metal plaque on the wall caught your eye. "The western room is in the eastern room's blueprint". You figured this meant the pattern on the floor, and followed Toriel to a floor of spikes.

Deciding you should probably get a second look at the pattern before dancing around on a death trap, you head back to the previous room. But something stopped you. You felt an overwhelming sense of fear, but for what, you didn't know. Perhaps you were imagining it but, you felt like you were being followed. You didn't even enter the eastern room before running back to Toriel, hoping she hadn't turned into some horrible creature. Right now, everything felt like it could go horribly wrong.

"What is the matter child? You look pale as a ghost." You tried to calm yourself down and put on a tough face, but also didn't want to stand here much longer, so you just shook your head and smiled weakly.

"Right, I understand. The ruins can be very stressful to a newcomer." She looked across the spikes. "Come, perhaps puzzles are too fearsome for now." Toriel grabbed your hand in her fuzzy paws and guided you across, seeming to know the path by heart.

You were met with a long corridor, and she turned to face you.

"I know you are afraid, my child, but there is something I must ask of you. It pains me to do this but," You tensed up in fear, preparing a method to dodge around her and run away. "I need you to walk to the end of the room by yourself. Please forgive me." She ran off and hid (quite obviously) behind a lone column at the end of the path.

You eased and started walking, realizing your situation again. You didn't know why you got so afraid back there, but you should have known not to expect her to do something actually dangerous. It could be said that the woman was trying to get you to drop your guard, but you were smart. You always kept yourself sharp, even at times like these when things were so mind-numbingly boring.

It took you no time at all to reach the end of the room, and Toriel revealed herself from behind the column. You had tried to slip past it, hoping she wouldn't notice you leaving, but it seems she was watching out for you.

"Greetings, child! Fret not, I was merely behind this column this whole time. I know that may have been scary, but there was an important lesson to be had. I had to know of how independent you are. There are some things I must do alone, and I need you to stay here and wait for me. I will leave you this cellphone, in case of emergency." She handed you an old phone. It was a brick, with a yellow display and a worn number pad. It was similar to the ones you've seen your parents use when you were too little to even write. "Please be good." With that, she finally left.

Of course you weren't going to just stay there, but when you started to enter the next room, your phone rang.

"Hello? This is Toriel. You haven't left the room have you? There are some puzzles ahead that I have not yet explained, and I do not want you hurting yourself on them. Be good, alright?" Without waiting for a response, she hung up. You sighed, frustrated. You've only known the woman for half an hour and she's already turned your first impression of the afterlife sour. You could not feel more suffocated than now, you decided.

Upon entering the next room, a frog similar to the one you saw earlier sat to your left, but you didn't get close to it, not really feeling up to encountering any more monsters of any sort. You instead headed over to a particularly large and fluffy pile of leaves, grabbing a large handful and watching them flutter back down with the rest. But something else fluttered in front of you too that you hadn't noticed before.

In front of you floated a small creature, covered in grey wisps of cloth. It shook at the sight of you. You sort of pitied the creature, and gave it a reassuring, albeit very fake, smile.

Despite this, the creature burst into tears and flew away, as if you had personally insulted something very important to him. Rather than seeing this as entirely too extra, you only felt for the creature more, and wanted deeply to help it. You sprinted after the creature, determined to get a helpful word in to it.

You just saw it's figure disappear into an open doorway in the next room and continued to chase it down, not thinking about the fact that running after it might scare it more, when your foot caught on something and you felt yourself fall.

You landed hard on your butt and looked above you. Apparently, the floor up there had just given in under your weight. There was nothing in this room but two doors, so you decided to just take the right one. It led to a ladder, which you climbed, and found yourself in the room where you fell. An interesting trap, you thought, but not all that difficult to figure out.

You headed forward, when your phone rang yet again.

"Hello, this is Toriel! Just a random question with no meaning behind it whatsoever; do you prefer butterscotch, or cinnamon?" You sighed, getting more than tired of her presence.

"Cinnamon," you mumbled. It was the first time you had used your voice in a long time. It wasn't like you chose not to out of rebellion or were selectively mute or anything, you just didn't usually have the energy to socialize, and didn't usually see a point to try.

"Splendid! Thank you very much." She seemed pleased to hear your voice and satisfied with your answer, and hung up. But no later did she hang up than did your phone ring again. You gritted your teeth and answered it.

"This is Toriel again. Er, you do not dislike butterscotch, do you? I know you prefer cinnamon but, would you deny food that also happened to have butterscotch in it?" You opened your mouth to speak but were annoyingly cut off. "Right, right, I understand. Thank you for your patience." She sounded like she wasn't even paying attention, like she was focused on something else, and finally hung up. Just to be sure, you stood there with the phone in your hand for another minute.

When it seemed she had nothing more to say, you slipped it back into your back pocket, but found that your notebook was taking up too much space. You had forgotten you had it back there. Or rather, you didn't think you'd still have it with you in the afterlife. You tiredly sat on a nearby rock and cracked it open.

From the cover of the book to about the middle, you kept a loose diary. Nothing interesting ever really happened in your life, so you usually just wrote about your dreams and fantasies, but there were still large gaps in time where you mentioned nothing. In the back of the book, you were writing a song, but the last time you had looked it over was about a week ago, when you snuck out of the house to hang out at your school.

Your parents were pretty strict about where you went and what you did, but over the years they had started to dull, and it became easier and easier to sneak out and gain your own interests. They had dreams for you to become a pianist one day, though you weren't sure why. They weren't exactly classy people; actually your family was pretty poor. But they still stuck you in the music program at school, somehow scraping together the fees every year for attendance to basic piano lessons.

Music became your escape. You're sure that if your parents were allowed to loom over you at school, they'd have a pretty strict say in what kind of music you played. They even told your music teacher (more like demanded her) to teach you to play only one thing. But you and your teacher had a pretty tight bond. She understood your situation and encouraged you to find your own path and define yourself. She was one of the first people you asked to call you Corvus instead of Caroline. She was also the only one who actually did. You trusted her with all of your secrets and problems, and she always had wisdom to impart to you.

But lately, you had been growing quiet. She didn't say anything, however, and you were grateful. You didn't want her talking you out of your plan. You only had one thing you wanted to finish before your departure, and that was your little song. She gladly let you use the piano, watching with concern as you tested out the same tune over and over again, as if it was the last thing you'd ever enjoy, but said nothing.

You read the notes over in your hand again, hearing each of them play in your head. You hoped that you played it enough times back at school, and that it wouldn't fade from your memory too quickly. In reality, you weren't that proud of the piece. It was only a series of slow, single notes, and you wished you had the talent or knowhow to make it more complicated and pretty, but it was all you could muster. Even so, it was a pretty tune, and each time you heard it, an odd feeling of nostalgia passed through you.

You closed the notebook and looked at the cover. It was a solid green with a white square towards the top centre. You got this book at the beginning of the schoolyear, but it wound up getting unused for any school related things, so you scribbled over your legal name with permanent marker and wrote your actual name below it. Sadly, you had written the first name in pen, and could still see the ugly thing scratched into the surface.

You gave a hollow sigh and got up. To your surprise, your feet didn't land where you had last placed them. You found yourself in a small dip in the ground. Behind you, the rock you were sitting on was now resting on a pressure plate.

You smiled and patted the rocks surface as you passed by to the next room.

The floor here was very cracked and worn, and you were initially afraid you'd fall right through like before. But upon closer inspection, you could immediately tell that some of the cracks were painted on, while others were real. It astounded you that whoever made this puzzle (probably Toriel) took the time to hand paint realistic cracks onto this path.

She really did have a talent for puzzle making, she just didn't know how to put it to proper use, you decided. While you carefully walked across the painted path, you started to feel bad for judging Toriel's excitement and how she held your hand through these puzzles. You remember when you were young and could still feel. You would get so excited to show others things you made, to the point that you would bug them endlessly to look at it and tell you that they liked it. But, like you now, they would brush it off or get annoyed and angry. You cursed yourself for being so rude to Toriel, and decided to at least feign excitement if she decided to show you more of her puzzles, or anything else she was interested in. You wouldn't let yourself get like them.

Suddenly, as you approached the next door, you felt it again. That following presence. You could even hear the soft footsteps behind you. They sounded familiar, somehow…

Your heart raced as you sped into the next room. Three rocks sat in more ditches. You hurriedly pushed two of them to the plates, but stopped when you got to the third.

"Woah their pardner, what's the rush?" You ignored the voice coming from it and pushed against it. It didn't budge. "You look like you're really in a hurry. Do you need me to move?" You briskly nod your head, not wanting to play this game right now. The rock moved about a pace forward. "How's thi-"

"PLEASE!" You yelled out in frustration.

"Jeez fine!" The rock slid all the way to the pressure plate. "You owe me kid." You ignored it and kept running.

You were stopped dead in your tracks by an odd sight. In the centre of the room, what seemed to be a comical sheet ghost laid in a small pile of leaves. It was quietly mumbling to itself.

When you got closer to it, you could hear what it was saying.

"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz(are they gone yet?)zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

It was saying 'z' out loud repeatedly, pretending to be asleep. You decided you'd need to move the ghost with force, and felt yourself being drawn into battle.

The ghost floated in front of you. Even though it was surrounded by a gloomy aura and looked on the verge of tears, you could hear a catchy, snappy tune playing from nowhere. The ghost sighed, shuddering weakly.

"H-hey buddy, what's the matter?" you inquired across the battlefield. The ghost only tightened its mouth as tears streamed down his face. Oddly enough, they didn't fall straight down, but instead floated towards your soul. You were almost too late in moving it out of the way, but even then you got hit. A low vibration rung throughout your body, and you felt oddly slightly weaker, though you couldn't tell how.

"Are you depressed? I know that feeling. It's ok to cry." As if on que, the ghost let out a long wail and more tears flung at you. You were prepared this time.

"This will pass. There's always time to make things better. You've just got to get up and face the world." You knew this was a lie firsthand, but you felt obliged to help this poor soul, and sometimes a comfortable lie doesn't hurt. The ghost breathed deeply, and you expected more tears, but instead it let out a long, shaky sigh.

"I'm not really feelin up to it right now… sorry…" You sighed, getting slightly frustrated, but you knew you had to be patient. It's what you'd want. Speaking of, what would you want to hear in this situation?

"That's fine, taking care of yourself is top priority; after all, you are very important!" The ghost smiled weakly at this, tears slowly rolling down his cheeks.

"Y-you really think so?"

"Of course I do! Everyone should be the most important person to themselves!"

The ghost smiled a little wider, and looked like it was preparing something. You looked on, curious, but ready.

"Let me try…" more tears came from the ghost's eyes, but instead of heading towards you, they floated up, and started forming a hat. "I call it 'Dapper Blook'… Do you like it?" You grin widely and nod. "Oh no…"

Slowly, the world around you gained color again, the ghost still lying in the pile of leaves. It started to mutter something to itself.

"I usually come to the ruins because there's nobody here but… today I met somebody nice…" he sat up and looked at you. "O-oh sorry, I'm just rambling… I'll get out of your way." Sure enough, the ghost disappeared from where it sat, and you could pass.

You felt something strange in your chest, something familiar. You felt just a small portion of your feelings come back. It wasn't enough to make you not a husk, but it gave you hope, and filled you with determination. You completely forgot that you were being followed and pressed forward.

Sorry this first chapter is pretty boring, since it's just a retelling of what you go through in the ruins, but the next chapter is where things start to get unique and fun (imo), so please have patience ; v ; i hope you enjoyed this none the less, and i'd love to hear what you guys thought, good or bad. ps again you can go see what corvus looks like at 6ftslugdottumblrdotcom/tagged/doctor-corvus