Notes:

If you have not played Undertale and gotten every single ending, I have used an Easter egg to support this story. If you want the spoiler, check out the notes at the end of the chapter.

If you have not played Undertale at all, I hope you can understand this anyway!


The air was suffocating with moisture and an earthy smell, but it was much cooler and darker here than it had been above.

The same wounds that had at once left the child unconscious, now made her unable to rest at all. They jolted her awake, sending her into startled gasps as she tried to view her surroundings from her blurred vision.

Her fall had been cushioned by a bed of yellow flowers, which were now crushed and had speckles of blood.

She pulled up her pant leg to see her knee, as if she had merely fallen off of her bike and scraped it against a pebbly road. She didn't think she had landed on it.

It was her side and her ribs that hurt. And her left arm. She was gasping for air, her arm taking most of it away somehow, her ribs making every breath more and more shallow.

She looked up, and saw a sheet of dimming light coming from far, far above.

She wiped the tears from her face, but the tears kept falling, silently. Everything was dark, and much too silent. She wanted nothing more than to stay in that sheet of light, maybe for the rest of her life.

But she was scared. She looked up at the sheet of light, and called, weakly, for help.

At first, nothing happened. Not a sound, not even the sound of the wind from above.

"Help," she called again, louder this time.

She was met with silence.

She rolled carefully onto her side, hoping to get up with her right arm's strength. She tested its strength, but fell back down with a yelp as her side screeched out in agony, flooding her vision with yellow spots.

She squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered. Tears streamed down her face, watering the flowers her body had crushed.

Then, suddenly, she heard a voice.

Her eyes shot open, though she cradled her own body still, unable to fight the pain in any other way.

In the shadows, there was a flower — looking at her with a most casually interested expression, as if it were watching an ant try to climb out of a plastic cup.

She started at the sudden sight of a face staring at her, but knew better than to move.

"Howdy," said the flower, without concern. "I'm Flowey. Flowey the Flower."

He made no other move, except to dart his eyes across the flower bed. Surveying the damage, the human blood. The blood of plants, too.

The child put her head down, very carefully. She sniffled, and stared.

"Now you," Flowey prompted, with a slight twitch.

The child took in a shaky breath, meaning to give a clear answer. "Ava."

Flowey didn't even blink.

Until suddenly, his face twisted into an awful grin. "You're just a plant now — just like me."

Startled, she gasped loudly at his twisted features, and felt the tears flow once again, despite how hard she tried to hold them back.

He slowly let his grin fade, looking disheartened. "Ava…cado," he murmured, less enthusiastically.

She continued to cry, though she cradled herself as if doing so were painful. It only made it worse.

Flowey winced, then said, "Can you, er…"

The child sniffled and groaned.

"Okay. Okay. Hey? Can you walk?"

She continued to cry, and seemed to try to say something. It came out as gibberish mixed in with pitiful gasps.

He sighed dramatically, letting this leaves fall limply by his stem. "Stupid. Stupid flower," he muttered, and then, more thoughtfully he said at the child, "I'll be your friend. Your best friend. By that I mean I could get you out of here."

Ava seemed to have heard him. She became quieter, and looked at him expectantly.

Flowey shifted on his stem, feeling oddly uncertain how to proceed. He had only felt that a few times in his life, in much more important situations. Refusing to fight humanity, trying to fight a soul of a friend who refused to die. When he first became a flower.. and fixed every problem in the Underground that he could.

He couldn't help the almost conditioned curiosity that bubbled up in him, that made him wonder what would happen if he did this or that, but he knew he couldn't reset. Not anymore. Something much stronger than him was out there.

He pushed that thought away. No, nothing mattered. Nothing mattered at all. Everything would end for him, and then for everyone else. And it made it especially weird that this new fallen child made him feel anything. It was as if he should do… something, but what would that be?

Lead the child out through the other side? Well, it was something to do. A completely worthless action, much less redeeming than the redemption he had felt… breaking the barrier. Saving everyone after he had been, worthlessly, saved. Knowing that a darkness might not be stifled.

The guilt of his previous actions lingered, but still he seemed to feel nothing.

It was harder now to find any meaning in anything that happened, now. He almost reminded himself of Sans, not even sure why he was continuing to exist. Yet existing all the same.

And a part of him seemed to hope that this was it, to save another child — which he had been punished for before, when that child had meant to destroy humanity. And he couldn't do it.

He had taken care of these flowers, in case something like this happened. Someone had to take care of them.

But once the child was gone? Well. Back to… nothing. No one. Truly, the worst sort of boredom.

The child, Ava, was looking at him. Did she really matter?

"Can you walk?" he asked again, his voice empty, trying not to sound inpatient or curious or hopeless.

"I can't get up," she said — sobbed, really, falling back into sad sniffles.

"Well, uh. Me, neither!" he said cheerfully, throwing his leaves up as if to demonstrate his floweriness. "So… wait here," he said, without cheer.

Flowey suddenly seemed to get sucked into the ground, leaving an empty patch behind him.

Ava sat up a little, trying to get a good look at where he had disappeared to.

Just as suddenly as he had gone, he was back, popping out of the ground like a weird sprout. Ava jumped, then shared at his outstretched root. It was holding, a…

"Cinnamon bunny," Flowey stated. "It'll heal you right up."

Ava took it, and Flowey dropped it quickly into her grip as if he was afraid to touch her. She inspected it and then took a little bite. It was cold, very cold, and hard, but it was sweet. Sweet enough to almost perfectly mask the taste of stale bread. As she ate it, the magic seemed to work against her wounds. The pain lessened, and she took a deeper breath, now that it was finally possible.

Flowey frowned as he watched, waiting to see if he felt anything by the sight. Any satisfaction at doing good, any indication that he was supposed to be helping.

The child reached out. "Another?" she asked.

Flowey looked at the hand with apprehension. "Try walking. I'll show you where they are."

Ava shifted and stood, looking much better. She wiped her face and her gross, leaky little nose.

"Okay," Flowey said uncertainly, looking around as if he were worried something might come suddenly out of the shadows. "This will be weird. Try to follow me."

Ava nodded, much more enthusiastically than Flowey felt.

He was sucked back under the patch, and Ava was left with an empty patch once again.

"Over here," called Flowey's voice.

Ava looked up, into the darkness of the Underground. A flower's face was just visible, in a terrifyingly dark doorway.

"Come on," he called again. "This way."

Ava gulped. She carefully walked forward, and tested her left arm to see if bending it hurt. It seemed to be mostly good enough.

Flowey's eyes followed her as she approached, his expression unchanging. Almost as if he was leading a wild ground bird through a cave.

He fell back into the ground again, then popped up again farther away, by another dark doorway.

This time Ava obediently followed him to the doorway before he said a thing. Actually, she looked like a cat chancing a pop-a-mole.

"Okay, not bad," said Flowey, looking slightly more interested, the slightest bit amused by the game.

Ava bowed happily — carefully, afraid of feeling pain in her ribs despite the healing.

"Okay… — keep up," Flowey stated, and disappeared again. He popped up again on top of a set of ancient stairs. "We need to get through the Ruins."

He watched Ava come up the stairs, then popped up again past the entrance. Ava came walking through into the little room, her eyes locating Flowey right away.

Flowey gestured to the puzzle. "I think the puzzle was never reset," he admitted. "No one has needed puzzles, for…" he thought about it, then shrugged.

Ava looked at it carefully.

"Try the door," said Flowey. "It's still unlocked. If not," he added quickly, as Ava approached it, "it won't take long to unlock it—"

The door was unlocked. Ava walked straight through.

Flowey quickly popped up again on the other side, and watched as the child confidently walked straight through.

"Wait!" Flowey called.

He popped up again in front of Ava, making her come up to him.

"All the puzzles are done," he told her, "but there are still some that couldn't be. Weak flooring. You could fall through."

Ava looked at the floor nervously.

"Not here," Flowey said impatiently. "I can… I can meet you there," he said matter-of-factly.

Ava looked uncertain.

"Yeah…" murmured Flowey. "I'll just keep sprouting up everywhere, just follow me."

She did. From one room to another, stumbling a bit in the dim corridors.

"Okay, here," Flowey said helpfully.

Ava was standing on a tiny bridge over water, and before her were spikes.

"Just go ahead," said Flowey. "The spikes go down if you go the right way."

She carefully put her foot forward, and yelped when several sets of spikes suddenly shot down.

As she jumped back, the spikes came right back up, fatally quick.

"Hey! Watch it!" Flowey spat, leaning back. "You almost stepped on me!"

"Sorry," Ava yelped, stumbling forward.

Flowey grumbled, then stood as straight as a flower could. "You're short. You can't get hurt by them. Just go across, I'll wait for you."

With that, he folded his leaves and was slurped back into the earth.

Ava carefully stepped through, one step and then two. It was shockingly easy to get through.

True to his word, Flowey was waiting on the other side.

Ava gave him a thumbs up, but Flowey didn't acknowledge it. "This way," he stated, disappearing again.

Ava followed him into the next room, all the way down a long corridor. And then the next room.

"So, uh… Are you feeling determined?" Flowey asked curiously, as they approached what was very obviously a crumbling floor.

Ava frowned. "I want to go home."

"Yeah, but are you determined to?" Flowey pestered.

Ava looked at the floor uncertainly. "How do I get across this?"

"The sight of the Ruins didn't make you feel anything? The little piles of leaves? Getting past that puzzle?"

"I was relieved, I guess."

Flowey stared. "Okay. Never mind." He gestured to the crumbling ground. "You'll fall if you try to cross that."

"I know," Ava said helplessly.

"Yeah. It's fine. Just jump down, it's a soft landing. Then you can climb out through the chute," he said, pointing at the tiny window on the other side of the crumbling floor.

Ava did not look convinced. "Can you hold my hand?" she asked.

Flowey put his leaves up in the air. "You would rip these off."

"No, your.. root?"

"My root." It didn't sound like a question.

"You handed me a Cinnamon Bunny."

"Oh," Flowey said uncomfortably. "You would probably hurt me really bad."

Ava bit her lip, looking at the floor as if it had spiders and snakes crawling underneath. She didn't want to fall down twice, especially not if it was going to hurt.

"You'll be fine," Flowey reassured her without much emotion. "I've seen lots of humans do it. Eight of them."

"Eight of them?" Ava asked.

"Well, no…" he admitted. "But just do it. I'm going to the other side."

As he started to fold his leaves against his stem, Ava yelled, "Wait!"

"Why?" Flowey snapped.

"What if I can't get up again?"

"You'll be fine."

She hesitated.

Flowey waited for a moment, just as Ava suddenly convinced herself to try to walk across the edge of the room, clinging onto the wall for dear life.

Something about that made Flowey want to laugh, until the floor gave way anyway and Ava went tumbling down.

Awkwardly, Flowey moved himself to the other side of the room, listening to a slight groan. And the sound of climbing. A moment later, Ava came out the little chute.

"Told you," Flowey muttered, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

He moved himself into the next room, and Ava followed.

At the sight of more crumbling floor, Ava walked even slower. Her eyes darted around, scanning the walls for anything to hold onto, anything more trustworthy than this floor. Her eyes started to sting as they were greeted with an old but smooth wall.

"This one is easy," said Flowey, pushing down some of the flooring with a leaf. "See? Follow the path, I'll show you. No falling this time."

"Okay," said her shaking voice.

He showed her. "This way… This way… over here… It's really easy, you just have to know the path. Aaaand here we are," he said, feeling somewhat accomplished, though annoyed at how new she was to everything. He knew it way too well.

So did another human. Two humans.

They moved ahead, Flowey popping up and Ava chasing him down the paths.

He noticed, vaguely, that Ava stopped to look at the moldy, worthless cheese, and the crumbs from whatever pitiful creature had munched on it. But she didn't look anything more than curious.

She looked around at every room, with its solved puzzles and general emptiness. It felt creepy and not right in the slightest. Though she knew it was oddly how it was meant to be.

As she approached him at a crossroads, Flowey gestured down the path coming off of their own. "We need to go that way. No need to go the other way. You'll just see an empty city."

Ava twisted her face up in thought. "Why didn't you leave the Underground?"

Flowey scoffed. "This way," he instructed, disappearing up the north path.

Ava followed him to the front of a quaint little house, decaying and covered in a lightless moss or fungus.

"In we go," Flowey said forcefully. He disappeared under the ground again.

Ava carefully entered the little house, and found herself in a small entryway. Flowey was poking out carefully through the floorboards.

"Okay," he said authoritatively. "Now go down those stairs. I'll meet you at the end of the hall."

Before she could object, he disappeared between the floorboards.

Ava looked down the hall, leaning forward for the best view. It was dark, but she could make out a couple of doors. On the other side, she could see a table, she thought, though it was blanketed in darkness. Despite the faint musty smell, she felt that once, long ago, this place must have been a comfortable place to be. She was tempted to explore the rest of the house, tempted to see if anyone else was still here.

But following a need to be good, she went straight down the stairs, feeling somewhat regretful. Though, she felt she couldn't leave the flower waiting. The stairs creaked even under her small feet, whether from disuse or overuse she couldn't tell. Her steps stirred up dust, sort of how she stirred up mud at the bottom of puddles with a stick.

She walked down a long, silent hallway, until she came to a door that was slightly open.

She walked through, down yet another long hallway. She couldn't see how far it stretched into the dark, and she was getting very tired of long hallways. The darkness seemed to reach out threateningly, trying to prevent her from proceeding.

Finally, she came to another entryway swallowed in darkness. Another sheet of light, definitely dimming (was the sun way above setting?), flitted down, touching the delicate looking petals on Flowey's face.

Behind him was a door that was badly burned.

"This is the end of the Ruins," he said simply.

Ava shifted uncomfortably.

"So I can leave the Underground now?"

"Er… no. The Ruins lead to Snowdin, eventually. You need to get to Snowdin, then to Waterfall, then to—"

"How big is this place?" Ava wailed.

"Big enough," Flowey snapped. "It's this way or back to the Ruins. Come on," he stated, falling back into the ground.

He popped up again outside, pushing himself up over soil, then forcing himself through ice, and then the massive weight of snow. Ava was already out by the time Flowey managed to get above the massive hoards of snow, her eyes locating him before he unfurled himself.

He glanced down the path as if it were his messy bedroom when he wasn't expecting guests. He wilted slightly as he tried to locate which spots would have the least resistance to being pushed up. "There used to be a path here," he admitted.

Ava stared at him.

"It's covered up now."

"Yeah."

"I didn't think this far ahead," Flowey murmured, frowning.

He turned back to Ava, who was looking down the path the way one might look at a dragon suddenly standing in their path.

"The snow at least makes it look brighter in here," he offered.

Ava nodded. That much was true.

"I can't get through this as easily as you can. Listen: Just walk straight through. You'll fit through the fence. Then just keep going until you get to Snowdin. Those stupid puzzles are already solved and no one is going to set them back up. Someone solved everything for you. So… just walk through it. You'll be fine."

"Okay," Ava answered.

"Then when you get to Snowdin — the town — you'll see the Inn. There is food there. Monster food. It will heal you. Then just go straight through town, to Waterfall. It's Waterfall because it's dark and… water filled," he finished lamely.

"Straight through town," Ava repeated.

Flowey started to fold his leaves up next to his stem. "I'll meet you in Waterfall." Then he disappeared.


Notes:

SPOILER:

At the end of the true pacifist run, you can walk all the way back to the very beginning of the Ruins. When you do, you can see Asriel in his Asriel form, standing over flowers just as Toriel can be seen doing before you leave the Ruins (after defeating and not killing her). If you talk to him, he will admit several things, one of them being that he feels that someone must attend to the flowers that broke Frisk's fall. Though, he doesn't explain this and it is up to the player's interpretation.
SPOILER
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No spoiler down here!

Thank you for reading!

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Thanks again! I'll update soon.