2 - Fallen Down
Hm...it's not...it's not bright. Is it even morning yet? How do the monsters keep track of time down here? You wonder if they have a different way of keeping track of time. You'd have to ask later on.
You don't want to get out of bed just yet, though. The sheets and blankets are much too warm for that nonsense right now. Tugging the covers over your head, you furrow further into your fluff-filled pillow, the thoughts of yesterday running through your head. Snippets of memories come back, gradually. The voices. Monsters. Magic. Underground. Reinforced Barrier.
The fact that you're stuck here.
You yank the covers tighter, the surface of the sheets pulled tautly over your distressed person. The air underneath the covers is growing hot and stuffy, but you feel safer like this. It's a concept you derived from your childhood that still comforts you in times of distress. It's doing wonders to help calm you down and get your thoughts together, too, which makes you feel a lot better. It's something familiar. You squeeze your eyes shut, squirming around to get comfortable after you pull your knees up to your chest.
Maybe you'll just disappear.
Hey, magic is real, apparently. So why can't it just create a ripple in time and space and swallow you whole? From experience, you know life won't be that forgiving. You're being ridiculous and you know it. Inhaling some of the stuffy air, it only makes you squeeze your eyes tighter. No, you aren't going to cry. You're going to be okay, and you try to keep telling yourself that.
Damn, well...you pretty much just lost your entire old life. You think you have a right to cry.
So, you give yourself five minutes. No more, no less. You give yourself eight-point three percent of an hour to mourn the death of your old self, your old life, the people you loved. All snatched away from you. You have to remind yourself that none of this is your fault. You're just going to have to make the best out of your situation, and hope for the best. Who knows, maybe you'll be happier down here?
The air grows stuffier as the five goes on, your silent sobs filling the air. Just five minutes. That's all you need. Five minutes. You'll let it all out, then you'll feel better afterwards. An effective solution.
You think about your lost family. Your old home, your room, school, friends, town, belongings...everything. The sun's warmth radiating onto your skin as you waltz down the sidewalk. The light shining from the night sky, a collaborative effort between the moon and stars that were scattered across the night sky. A light breeze rustling your already tousled hair, whipping it into an even messier style, helping feed the flickering flames of a raging bonfire as its flames wavered and quivered into the night sky.
Would you ever see the sun again?
Balling the sheets in your already tightly clenched fists, you let out a soft sob, shifting your face in the pillow and pulling the sheets even tauter around you. The air is becoming harder to breathe with every minute you spend sulking under the covers. You almost wish that your five minutes wasn't up, but you allow yourself to be uncovered anyway. Sucking in some of the less stuffy, cooler air, you decide to see if anyone else is up yet. You'd like to get out of this family's hair as soon as possible. Plus, you're kind of curious about the rest of the Underground. You might be able to learn a little more about monsterkind, too, which you're somewhat excited about. You're pretty sure that the goat and human family won't mind if you take another shower, so you do, sorting some of your thoughts out further as you do. You manage to calm yourself down even more with truthfulness rather than sweet lies. You know that the chance of you escaping is extremely low, what with the Barrier being reinforced and all. That doesn't mean you can't try, though, so you intend to.
You close your eyes as the stream of water spurting from the shower head dampens your face. That little voice is back, telling you that you won't be able to escape, and that you're better off just starting a new life here, with the monsters. You hush that voice for now; it won't do you any good on your epic quest. Something inside you thrums with courage, a fierce, fiery stubbornness that's...not quite like tenacity, but not unlike it, either. It creates shivers that dash down your spine as you tap into that courage, feeling it strengthen your being as a whole.
Placing your hand in the middle of your chest, where your heart would be underneath, you can feel its steady beat thumping underneath the layers of skin, bone, and muscle. Rubbing the wet skin covering your sternum, you tilt your head up, nearly welcoming the onslaught of hot water landing on your face. Another sigh escapes you; so much has happened in the past few days. You've been doing your best to clear your mind and focus on one thing at a time, but it's hard. Hopefully, you'll get more answers soon. Shoving your thoughts aside, you decide to focus on the first matter of the day: getting to the dining room. You've an inkling that that's typically where the large family gathers first thing in the morning. Yes, that sounds good, you think as you run your fingers through your soaking, tangled hair, working through the knots and not minding the small burst of pain you get in response to tugging down on the strand.
After your shower, you dry off, looking at yourself in the mirror. Little old you stares back, a towel wrapped around her thin, pale body, (e/c) eyes tired, yet ready for anything today could bring. You let one of your fingers trail down your skin; you're already so pale, and you've only been down here for two days or so. Maybe you lost a little blood on your way down? You couldn't recall the injuries you had after your fall, other than the concussion.
Either way, you looked okay. Just okay. You could definitely be better, and you intend to make it happen. You're not dead, or hurt worse, which is a start. Even if you can't go home, you can do your best down here. You're okay. Everything will be okay. Life has a way of working itself out, you know that.
You find that another plastic bag has been set on the bed. Peeking into it, you discover that there's a fresh outfit inside: a pair of dark leggings and a grey sweater with a white stripe across it. Taking the clothing out, you undress and pull the new outfit on. The sweater is a little big, but it's soft and comfy.
You find yourself wanting to keep the sweater.
Upon removing the bag from the bed, you find that the outfit wasn't all inside; there's a note, too. Taking it in your hands and unfolding it, you toss the bag back onto the bed and plop down on it.
Dear (Y/N),
Hi! Looks like you're in the shower, but here's a fresh outfit. We're going to give you a tour of the Underground after breakfast, so come down when you're ready! (there's no rush or anything) : ) - Frisk!
A small smile forms on your face. You have your doubts about this entire situation, but under these circumstances, the little things start making all of the difference.
Starting with a semicolon and an end parenthesis side-by-side, semicolon coming first.
…
"Cinnamon is better."
"Nuh-uh! Butterscotch is! Mom, tell him which one rules!"
"What are we talking about?"
"CINNAMON IS BETTER!"
"Hey, gimme that! I was playing with it!"
"Hey, come back here, stupid head!"
"Mom! Genesis called me a stupid head!"
"Azzy! Don't do that!"
"I didn't do anything! Buttface!"
Toriel pokes her head out from the kitchen, her eyes narrowed into a glare as she scans the crowd of human children. The majority of the bantering stops as the crowd of children realizes their mom is upon them.
"Children. Settle down. Genesis, apologize. Asriel, please stop bothering your siblings," she sighs, "we have a guest. Please behave, or else there will be no pie tonight for the ones who misbehave,"
"Yeah, Genesis!" Asher yells.
You feel a little hand tug on your shirt. You look down to see little Xander looking up at you. He's about half your height.
"Miss (Y/N), right?" he asks, his little, boyish voice soft.
"Oh, uh...yes," you reply.
"I think we're similar. I made this for you!" he says, a toothy smile directed at you. You're confused; what did this child mean by similar, exactly? Regardless, you reach down and accept his gift.
"I made it myself. It only works with people who have the same SOUL traits, and I didn't have someone with a matching SOUL until you fell down. It will protect you in time of need, okay?"
"Thank you! Uh...but what do you mean, similar?" you ask, taking the object into your hand.
"We have the same SOUL trait! You should ask Chara about it!" he replies happily, skittering down the hallway.
"...Okay," you mutter, glancing at the object in your hand. It's a thick, silver , is that real silver? Slipped around the center is a crudely-made circle of twine, and in the middle is a round sphere of...geez, is that iron? Where did this child find these things? And, how did he make it himself? When you examine it further, you find that there are three words engraved in a sleek, pointy font, smack-dab in the center of the small sphere:
Veni.
Vidi.
Veci.
You close your eyes; you know that's Latin, it's just a matter of bringing all the old information back...
I came.
I saw.
I conquered.
You frown; what's that supposed to mean? You groan as questions bounce around in your already aching head; you seriously need some answers. It is a nice armlet, though. Pulling up your sleeve, you push the band onto your arm. It fits pretty well, and it feels nice for something with poky edges. You tug your sleeve down; you'll have to thank little Xander again when you run into him again. You're sure that, with time, the little band will become another constant in your life, something else that's familiar.
"Hey, you coming?" you look up to see Chara and Frisk approaching you.
"Oh, yeah," you respond, following them to the table.
Everyone has found a seat, and soon, you find yourself seated next to Frisk, who is busy shoveling mounds of pancakes in her mouth. You chuckle at her; she kind of reminds you of yourself.
"My children will be showing you around the Underground this morning. You'll also meet our friends, acquaintances, and the citizens of the Underground!" Toriel announces, settling down on one of the end chairs.
"Sounds fun," you say, poking at a pancake with your fork.
"It will be!" Frisk says, "I know everyone's going to like you!"
Once again, casual family chatter fills the air, you falling silent while you eat your pancakes. They're deliciously fluffy and warm, sprinkled with dark chocolate chips that are nice and melty where they reside. What's that underlying sweetness you taste? It doesn't taste like it'd be
cooked with a pancake. Actually, come to think of it, you could've sworn that same taste was in the food you had last night.
What?
You seriously need some answers.
After breakfast, the family splits up. You stay with Chara and Frisk while they're receiving instructions from their adoptive parents. You are to be shown around the Underground and introduced to everyone, take a break in a place called Snowdin and eat lunch there, go to the Ruins, then be back here just before dinner.
"Are you excited?! I am!" Frisk says as you three travel through the hallways of the Castle.
"Yeah," you respond, wondering how to word your questions. You decide to wait until there's a bit of downtime.
"So, the first place we're going to show you is the Core. You'll have to be careful in here, because there aren't any guardrails. The littler kids aren't allowed here because it's so dangerous. The monsters are sort of weird when it comes to safety. The only reason we can be here on our own is because we've managed to navigate our way through here once before. We can solve all the puzzles, too. Puzzles are big in the Underground," Frisk says.
"The Core is where the Underground gets their power. Basically, a big machine invented by the former Royal Scientist sucks in geothermal energy and converts it to magical. It's extremely efficient, although it does get overheated a lot. But, we'll come back to that when we get to Snowdin," Chara adds as you all enter a room.
The border of the floor is covered with lush, deep green vegetation, the inner part of the floor concealed with golden flowers. There are no lights in the room; instead, it's lit by the scattered beams of sunlight that drip down through the large, gaping holes in the ceiling. In the exact middle of the room are two thrones; both gold plated with dark, purple cushions. You wonder where this room is under the mountain.
"This is the throne room," Chara says beside you.
"There's not much to see...unless you want to see the Barrier?" Frisk asks.
"Frisk!" Chara says exasperatedly.
"What?!" Frisk responds.
"The Barrier?" you ask, in a bit of a daze.
"...Yeah, it's down here..." Chara says, stuffing his hands into his pockets and shuffling towards the room located in the back. You and Frisk followed the light brown-haired boy.
The doorway leads into a dimly-lit room. There's a single ray of sunshine shining down on the center of the floor. Chara turns right, and you direct your attention back to him. The hallway gets considerably darker as your trio progresses through the hallway. You bring your hands up to the wall, feeling a cool, coarse stone on the wall. Chara comes to a stop, causing you to drop your hand back to your side.
"We're about to see the Barrier," he says, his voice oddly not showing any signs of emotion. You can't see his face from here, but you think it'd be blank. "you don't have to see it if you don't want to,"
You're not exactly sure what's going on here, but, you admit, your curiosity is beginning to hurt.
"Please," you say, voice quiet. From here, you can just make out the dark, grey pillars supporting a larger, narrower piece of stone on top that has a curved upside. The pillars are engraved with strange pictures and symbols you can't quite make out from here. As for the top piece of stone, you see the same rune intricately carved into the middle that was on Toriel's dress: the one with the three triangles, circle, and the wings.
What does that mean?
The group continues in the room. You could have sworn you saw something grey and sparkly to the left of the doorway.
"What is that?" you ask, pointing to the little star.
"That's a SAVE Point," Frisk says, "it's a manifestation of our DETERMINATION. Each human has a special ability, according to their SOUL trait. Chara and I both have DETERMINATION SOULs, so we can both interact with that," she gestures to the little star, "but you and the other humans can't, and that's because you all have a different SOUL trait,"
"What does it do?" you ask.
"You can't tell anyone," Chara says.
"She can tell Sans!" Frisk replies.
"Well, yeah, but he already knows about it," Chara points out.
"True...but anyways! SAVE Points enable the DETERMINATION SOULs to reload previous SAVE Points in a specific timeline. If a DETERMINATINON SOULS has enough DETERMINATION, then it can RESET the entire timeline," Frisk says.
"No one remembers RESETs, either," Chara informs, and then, before Frisk can say it, he adds, "with the exception of Sans,"
You wonder who this Sans guy is.
"That's...wow," you say, wondering how much DETERMINATION it'd take to make that possible. So, timelines are a thing now, too? Well, you're in for a load of surprises today. "Okay...so what's the deal with SOULs?" you ask.
"We'll explain that to you after we see the Barrier," Chara says, "we're not really supposed to be here in the first place, plus it's just a long story,"
"Um...if you don't mind my asking, why aren't we supposed to be here?" you question.
"It's...well...the amount of magic here is insane," Chara starts, "the Barrier's level of magic is off the charts. That's because there were seven wizards who raised the Barrier, meaning that the energy and magic of seven human SOULs went into creating it. Why is it dangerous to us? If we...stay too long here, the magic that was forced into it by the monsters after the Barrier was created will try to suck us up in another attempt to break it. Since the monsters infused so much magic in a failed attempt to break it, the magic remained, and since its original purpose was to break it, it will still try to get as much human magic as possible. Uh...I don't know if that makes sense or not, but that's the basic gist of what's going on,"
"Huh," you say, "so magic can linger long after the wielder is gone?"
"Yeah, but you wanna know something interesting?" Frisk says, not waiting for your answer, "the wizards actually died when the spell for raising the Barrier was complete,"
"Which means they're still, technically, a part of the Barrier," Chara concludes.
"Know what's even weirder? Only the people who began the spell can make changes to it," Frisk adds.
"So how was the Barrier reinforced, then? You said the original wizards were dead,"
"That's the issue," Chara says, "we're not sure what happened. There was a massive shift in the magical energy just a few months ago. The only ways for that to have happened were either to have one of the original wizards being resurrected from the dead, which, by the way, a has an extremely low chance of happening, and then the other option would be for the wizard's SOUL to have...mutated, which isn't possible since it's already split. We're not sure if there's another scenario we aren't factoring in or if something weird's about to go down,"
"Dang," you say, not sure how to respond. This is a lot to take into account of, but what else here is going on? You'll have to learn more about SOULs before you start making predictions and all that jazz.
"Anyway, we've been chit-chatting long enough. Shall we?" Chara asks, gesturing towards the room. When you approach even closer, you hear a faint, eerie noise. To you, it sounds almost like slowed-down, distorted pitches of white noise. It sends shivers down your spine.
"Um, one more thing," Chara starts, "the Barrier is...well, it's a really personal place, especially for humans since our SOULs were meant to break it. You'll see what I mean when you go inside," he finishes.
You nod. "Thank you,"
He smiles back. "Us humans have to look out for each other since there's only nine of us down here. Speaking of which...we'll tell you all the ground rules that revolve around our humanity at the next meeting," Chara says.
Meeting?
"Sounds good," you reply.
"Okay, okay, go!" Frisk says.
You step inside the room, your hands gently grabbing the dark columns as a gentle breeze sweeps past you. The darkness slowly gets brighter and brighter with every step you take, static-y noise growing louder and louder. Are the other two humans even following you? For some reason, you don't feel like you can look back. Your entire body, with the exception of your legs, feels...paralyzed. With what, you're not sure.
Someone's staring at you, you know it. Your arms hang limply at your sides while you continue to trek forward. Something at the bottom of your stomach begins twisting it into dread-filled knots, twisting tighter and tighter until-
…
White.
What are you even standing on?
There's a long, seemingly infinite, narrow passageway of black that extends as far as you can see. Surrounding you are three walls of white. What's that strange, rainbow sheen you see? Could that be the wizard's magic, or what is left of it? A gentle whooshing seems to originate from somewhere and end nowhere, rushing past your ears and fading into nothingness. If you squint, you think you can see the vague outline of civilization in the distance, but it fades away as soon as it appeared.
Your breath catches in your throat. How is this even possible? Your skin feels like it's crawling with a strange tingly sensation.
"Are you okay?" you hear Chara ask.
"Y-yeah, it's just...really..." you can't find any words to describe what you're feeling.
"I know. Come on, we've been here long enough," you feel a hand on your arm, and it leads you out. You follow it all too eagerly. You're glad to get out of there.
"Now that you've had a taste of the Barrier," Frisk starts, turning away from the room, "we can discuss the meeting and how SOULs work!"
"FIrst order of business is the SOULs talk," Chara starts, "so. Every monster and every human has a SOUL, which is the very culmination of one's being. Monster SOULs are made up of love and compassion, whereas human SOULs are individually...unique. You know how Frisk and I are DETERMINATION SOULs? Well, that's our main trait. Each human SOUL has one of seven traits: DETERMINATION, BRAVERY, JUSTICE, KINDNESS, PERSEVERANCE, INTEGRITY, or PATIENCE. There are no exceptions when it comes to this,"
"What's my trait?" you can't help but ask.
"Look at your sweater," Frisk says.
You glance down to see that your sweater is no longer white; now, the stripe running across it is a dark, royal purple, and the primary color is a fiery, bright orange.
"BRAVERY is orange, your primary trait, and PERSEVERANCE is purple, your secondary trait," Chara states, "which means you're going to be one hell of a mage. BRAVERY and PERSEVERANCE make one hell of a combination when it comes to magic. Not only will you be able to fight well, but you'll be very good when it comes to enduring, too. When humans interact with the Barrier with that specially-made sweater, they can have their top two traits revealed. It's pretty amazing,"
You're going to become a mage?
...What?
"I'll have magic?!" you ask, your eyes going wide.
"Yeah, if we ever get through this tour," Frisk responds.
"Okay! Okay! Lead the way!" you comment.
"Anyway, back on the topic of meetings," Chara says again, leading your trio, "every week the humans of the Underground have a meeting. You remember where we first met? We were in the Ruins. That's where we meet. Tell her what we talk about, Frisk,"
"We remind ourselves of what it means to be human. Being surrounded by a brand-new species is...well, it's a lot, and it's hard. We're being smashed in the face with a brand-spanking new culture that's never really existed before in the human world. Chara thinks it important that we remind ourselves to stay human. Not that being a monster is bad or anything!" Frisk explains, jogging to catch up with Chara.
"No monster goes to the Ruins anymore. That building we were in? That used to be a home to a bunch of monsters, but..." he sighs, "anyway. We meet at the place where every single one of us fell. The place that every single human down here has in common."
"You can't tell mom or dad about it, though," Frisk says.
"Why not?" you ask, genuinely curious. You think that these meetings are, indeed, a good idea, but why hide it from Toriel and Asgore? They seem like they'd understand.
"We talk about the one thing we're not allowed to share in the Underground, and all of us are sworn to secrecy by a blood bond," Chara says, his voice quiet.
"What would that be?" you ask.
"Why each human fell, how, and all the details," Frisk answers, "all of it,"