To Escape the World, Ch. 2

Greetings, to all who have taken the time to not only read this story, but also express interest in continuing on with it! I welcome you all to the second chapter of "To Escape the World!" Now, let's get right back into it, and remember, please take the time to review! You can't improve without critisism!

Disclaimer: I do not claim any of what is portrayed in this story as my own, outside of the plotline and any Original Characters that appear. Undertale is owned by Toby Fox and all of his associates. Please support the official release.

Chapter 2: The Ex-Time Lord, and the Mother

I continue walking forward, heading toward what appeared to be an archway in the darkness. Thankfully, I can see some light filtering through from the other side, so I don't need to do anything involving a generation of light yet. All the while, I have my hands folded behind my head, in a relatively casual stance. Meanwhile, Chara is still in my head, watching what I can see, due to being directly tied into my soul, and is able to feel everything that I can, although to a lesser extent... Not that I knew that, of course.

After I pass through the archway, I see a room that is surprisingly dark, outside of the light shining in the dead center of it. While the walls are not visible, there is something that is visible, and it's a little on the odd side.

There's a lone flower, with a white face and six golden petals surrounding the face. Now, normally, there wouldn't be too much going on with just a flower, right? Wrong.

This flower was glaring at me.

Not in any form of figurative sense, you see. This thing was literally glaring me dead in the face, with pitch-black eyes and a set of lips pressed into a thin line.

"Who are you?" the little bugger asks, and it sends shivers down my spine. There's something about that voice that makes me a bit nervous, as though it has something in store.

Maybe I'm overthinking things.

"Last I checked, it was polite for someone to introduce themselves before asking for another's name." I reply, looking the flower dead in the eye. "But, since you're so insistent on it, The name's Chris." I say, not knowing what is about to happen.

The little guy seems to brighten up a little, hastily putting on a false smile. I could tell one from anywhere, having worked in customer service before. "Oh, the name's Flowey! Flowey the Flower!" It says in that high-pitched voice, and looks at me in a way that screams "dangerous". "Boy, you certainly look confused. You're not from the Underground, are you?" Flowey says, tilting slightly to the side, as though it were a human tilting it's head. Flowey then straightens out, and looks as though they made a resolution of some sort. "I guess little old me will have to teach you how stuff works around here!"

Before I can make any comeback, I felt what could only described as be a sharp tug on... something... in the center of my chest. Before I could even react to the sensation, what appears to be a bright purple heart appears and floats directly in front of me. I just look at it in awe, before touching it, right on the center of the side facing me. When I do, I swear that I felt fingers on the center of my back, but when I quickly spun around, nothing was there.

"That's your SOUL!" Flowey says, and based on the way they said it, I was almost certain it was an abbreviation, but for what, I couldn't guess. "It's the culmination of everything that you are!" They continue, before looking at it with a critical eye. "Can't say I've seen that color before, though..." They finish, and I take an offended look.

"Excuse me, but I happen to like the color." I say, cupping my hands around the floating heart. "I would prefer it if you didn't judge based on just that." I continue.

Flowey frowns, before plastering on that fake smile once again. "Your SOUL is weak right now, but it can get stronger! "How", you might ask? Why, LOVE, of course!" They say in that oh-so-painfully-obvious fake happiness, and I'm immediately set on guard again. LOVE? If that were the case, then I figure my soul wouldn't be THAT weak, just because of the way I am. I'm a lover, not a fighter.

That's not to say I couldn't fight, but whatever. Technicalities.

"Down here," Flowey continues, having not noticed my thoughts, "We can give LOVE with... little, white... 'friendliness pellets.'" Friendliness pellets, huh? I don't buy that. There's no reason for them to be in the shape of pellets. That, and he was wearing this weird grin on as he said it... "You want some LOVE, right?" They ask, turning their attention back to me. I just stare back. "Here! Catch as many of them as you can!" he jeers, almost sounding like he's saying "Bet you can't catch them!"

I wasn't falling for that.

Without taking my eyes off of Flowey, I move out of the way of the pellets, not trusting them in the slightest. Thankfully, the heart moves along with me, mimicking my action. The grin on his face falters for just a moment, but I caught it quick enough to smirk. So, I was right.

"Hey, you missed them!" Flowey says jovially, though I caught an undercurrent of threat behind the words. "How about you try again?" They say, before launching more of them, this time more numerous and harder to avoid. Now they look like they're actually putting a little effort into it.

Deciding to see if I can make them slip up, I start humming a fast-paced tune, one that they, as well as Chara, could never hope to recognize, all the while jumping around the pellets, never breaking pace in the tune. After I dodged the last of the pellets, I looked back over to Flowey. I immediately regret it, upon seeing the look on their face.

At this point, Flowey's got a look on their face that can only be described as straight-up demonic. "You know what's going on here, don't you?" They say in a lilting voice, sending shivers down my spine at how pleasant it sounds, despite the situation. Suddenly, before I can even blink, There's a massive number of pellets surrounding me in a circle. No way out, it seems. Not even through a jump, as there are simply too many of them. "You just wanted to see me suffer." They continue, still not dropping the tone of voice. This is starting to get really disconcerting, as all I can do is sit and watch what could only be described as my imminent death approach. Suddenly, about a third of the pellets launch toward me, far too fast to react to, and still too many to avoid even if I could, and slam straight into my soul.

The agony is indescribable.

I've taken plenty of nasty hits in my life, including having a full-sized ATV parked directly on my back when I was seven. That was not a fun experience, having a full-sized seven hundred pound machine sitting on my back for all of about ten seconds before my grandfather could get it off of me.

This is completely different from that.

It feels as though I'm taking several knives straight into my body in the corresponding points that they hit my soul. The part that sucks is that my soul was getting hit on all sides. I'm sure you could guess what that means.

Before I can even think of any form of retaliation, I collapse, my body forcibly shutting itself down in an attempt to mitigate the pain, and I'm stunned. Gashes open up on all of the corresponding parts of my body, as though some serial killer grabbed a short knife and went nuts on me. Unfortunately, I'm still conscious. And, to top it all off, My soul is still in the open, and to top it off, there are still many, many pellets still in play.

"Die." Flowey says, and I feel my actual heart seize up in terror. Then, Flowey begins laughing. I don't mean just any laugh, I mean the kind of laugh that only an entity that is demonic and hell-bent on killing the thing in front of it can make. Then to my absolute horror, the rest of the pellets start to slowly move in, as though enjoying my reaction of fear and wanting to savor it.

'I can't die here... I still haven't finished my word, I can't die here!' I scream in my mind, and Chara's fear is right behind my own, having only just gotten to re-experience the feeling of living. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I try, my body simply won't respond, as it's still in agony and in forced shut-down, and there's no way out...

That is, until a swirl of fire appears around me, and then expands outward, vaporizing all of the pellets. Flowey gets a look of confusion on its face, before suddenly getting hit by a fireball that's moving at the speeds that a major league baseball player can pitch at, causing them to scream in agony and become uprooted, flying into the darkness surrounding the room. However, I can still barely see them, and when they land, they manage to get their roots back into the ground, and retreat underground. I stare hard at the place they disappeared at, before sighing in relief. However, the action causes the pain to catch up to me even more so, having been mitigated somewhat by adrenaline, making me wince. In the back of my mind, I can barely hear Chara groaning in agony, making me feel as though I should've seen that coming, and that thought made me feel guilty. Before I could really think on it, however, I hear a voice in the archway straight ahead of me, sounding calm and kind, almost like a mother's voice.

"What a despicable creature, tormenting such an innocent youth..." They say again, before walking into the light, revealing what could only be described as a goat/dragon hybrid, with bright red eyes, and a purple robe with an ornate design, looking almost ceremonial. However, I couldn't really answer her, being in a bit too much pain for that. "Ah, are you okay, my child?" She continues, and it's everything I can do to shake my head in the negative. "Here, let me heal you." She replies, and moves her hands together, making a green glow appear in between her hands, before pointing them toward me.

What I feel could be described closest to pleasantly warm water surrounding me, and the pain of my injuries fading away, until I felt as well as I did before I fell down to this place.

I hop up onto my feet, stretching my arms over my head, before giving a thankful smile toward the being in front of me. "Thanks for the help back there, I'm pretty sure I was just about to be a goner. My name is Chris, it's nice to meet you, though I wish it was under better conditions!" I say, presenting my hand to the being for a handshake.

She gives me a pleasant smile, before moving forward, 'Jesus, she's, like, eight feet tall!' and taking my hand in a firm handshake. "My name is Toriel, young one. You're the first human in a long time to have fallen down here..." Toriel pleasantly says, though she seems to have a distant look on her face. "Never mind that, young one. Let us head to my abode within the Ruins." She continues after shaking her head, as though to rid herself of the bad memories. She then turns and walks through the archway, leaving me to my own devices for a while.

I take this moment to try and establish contact with Chara, using the link that we share thanks to my soul. 'Hey, Chara, can you hear me?'

'Yeah, although I'm not sure if you can hear me...' she replies, though it sounds like she's almost muttering.

'I can hear you, but you're really quiet right now, were you muttering or were you talking at a normal volume?' I ask, concerned about this turn of events.

'Huh? Oh, yeah. I was just muttering, mostly to double-check if you could still hear that or not. Turns out you can.' she replies, now at a relatively normal volume. The way she says it, it feels almost like she's wanting to say something else, but decides against it.

'Cool.' I say, smiling lightly, before looking ahead. "I guess I'd best start following, eh?" I say out loud, chuckling lightly. I shake my head, before walking forward.

A/N: Sorry about the delay to anybody who has been interested in this story, as well as the short chapter. I had a bit of a personal emergency that occurred, making me put any and all writing on hold until it got situated. Thankfully, I was able to rectify the issue rather quickly for what it was, though it will still have me on shaky ground for another two weeks after this chapter is published. I thank anybody who stuck through the wait, as well as those still willing to continue reading. This concludes this chapter, so please remember, leave a review if there's a glaring issue that you see! I'm always up for improving my works, as well as my writing skills! Until next time, this has been To Escape the World, and until next time!

-Sonix95