6th February
The first time I've been able to get out of bed since...since. Even so, my hand moves like lead across the page.
Both of them.
Not just Chara.
Both of them.
I tried. I tried so hard. As my medicines failed and Chara's heart began slowing I abandoned science altogether, pouring so much healing magic into them my own health began to deplete. Asgore dragged me away before I became dust. I fought him as he pulled me back, I kicked and screamed. This child was our future.
And all I could do was watch them die.
Even that wasn't the end of it. As they died, their soul pulled free of its moorings, rising into the air like a tiny piece of red glass, small and fragile and beautiful. And little Asriel reached for it, loyal little Asriel who had never left his siblings side. At first, as I called a warning to his parents, I thought he was just entranced, but I swear, there was a knowing look in his eyes. Did the two of them plan this as Chara lay sick? Impossible, I was seeing things.
I saw many things.
Like what Asriel became.
He was so bright I could barely look at him, throbbing with power, horns curling back stronger and more impressive then even his fathers. It was almost funny to see a being like that in Asriels striped shirt, a god in cargo pants.
And then he reached for Chara's body.
As one, me and the royal family knew what he was doing. Hadn't we stood by helplessly as Chara had begged to see the yellow flowers of their town?
Asriel was taking them home.
We reached out, we called, we tried to stop them. In my panic and grief, I even attempted to tackle the boy. I didn't even slow him down. He turned and looked at me with eyes like sad little suns, and waved a hand, magic pinning me to a wall as gently as a breeze.
I couldn't stop him going through the barrier. I couldn't do anything. My second greatest failure.
After Asgore helped me down, all we could do was wait. What would the humans think, seeing something like what Asriel had become walking down from the mountains with a childs corpse in his arms? They'd attack him on sight!
And they did.
It was hours before he came back through the barrier, and it took one look to know there was nothing I could do for him, gouges that sent a chill down my spine marring his fur, and holes from that weapon they call a "gun" all down his back.
He lived long enough to gasp out the story of what happened to him, then died in the garden, dust sparkling on the buttercups like stars.
I knew the royal family didn't blame me, but when I went home, head bowed, the disgrace weighing on my heart was mine.
From the window, I hear nothing. The city is quiet. Even my children walk softly, speaking in hushed tones when they speak at all.
The palace is silent and dark.
7th February
I heard footsteps outside my window at the dead of night. I risked a quick glance, to see a large hooded figure slipping though the deserted streets. They were holding a still, child sized figure.
They were crying.
Something bad has happened. I know it.
8th February
There was an address to the public today.
It was like nothing I have ever seen.
Asgore leaned over the balcony of the palace and screamed...bile. His face was distorted by grief and anger, I barely recognized him as our calm and gentle king.
The other monsters around us hung on his words. Their hearts were just as broken as his, everyone had loved the children, and humanity had taken them from us.
But as Asgore swore that any human that fell here would die, I felt a cold shudder in my soul. I was not the only one afraid. My children are growing. Sans is more of an adult now, growing firmly independent, and Papyrus is nearing the end of high school. Yet both of them slipped their hands into mine, eyes rooted on the brooding figure hunched like a gargoyle above them as they clung tight to me.
I held them back. These are dark times.
10th February
A palace servant woke me at midnight tonight, dragging me desperately to the palace. I was terrified at first. Was he angry with my failures? Would I be punished?
No.
When I stepped into the garden my chest froze into ice.
It was gone.
Everything Asgore had put centuries into growing was torn out, the pride and joy of the Dreemurrs a mess of trampled petals and twisted dirt. The bluebells, the buttercups, the bright little camellias, everything. All gone. In the middle of the devastation, Asgore was hunched besides Toriels empty throne.
He'd torn out the roses by hand. Thorns were gouged deep in his palms, the golden ichor that ran as blood through monsters dripping in a steady stream.
When he turned to me, his mismatched eyes were empty and dull. He'd burned his rage away.
As I bandaged his hands he hesitantly told me what had happened, how a midnight visit to his garden to sooth him had inflamed his rage at his loss, how Toriel was no longer there to comfort him and how the garden seemed to taunt him, something so beautiful in the middle of his despair. For a few moments, he'd despised his lifes work, and those few moments were all he needed to crush it.
By the end, he was openly weeping in my arms as I tried not to be crushed under his prodigious weight. Seeing our king like this...It's like the world has turned upside down.
What do we do?
12th February
Went back to work today. My co workers were respectfully silent, which I was grateful for.
Spent the day staring at my desk. Inspiration just won't come.
13th February
Everything seems grey.
15th February
Papyrus is struggling. He's optimistic by nature, and is trying so hard to cheer me and his brother up while balancing his own grief. I try to put a brave face on for his sake, but it just...doesn't come easily. I hear him crying sometimes, where he thinks we can't see.
He loved the royal children as much as we did.
17th February
Another wasted day. Every time I try to work on something I just see Chara's pale face.
I should be walking through New Home like a giant. I built the Core, my greatest triumph. I am immortal in the history books as the Monster who lit the underground.
Instead I feel like a failure, every time I stumble across one of the little comic book caches the royal children hid around the underground.
20th February
Someone made a memorial for the two in Waterfall. A little statue sheltering a music box. Every time I walk past and hear that tinkling song I think of them. There are flowers under its feet. I add a few whenever I can.
I'm sorry, children.
I did my best.
5th March
An order from the palace came this morning. The king wants two things, a storage system for human souls as they are...harvested, and something to study them so we can experiment with other ways of breaking the barrier.
Me, Alphys and Sans have been toying with a few ideas for soul storage since.
Well, they are, anyway. My inventors block is still a burden, but I give advice when needed.
7th March
Is this some kind of illness? Every time I try to get some work done, its like a door slams shut in my head. I can achieve nothing useful, nothing important.
I suspect its in my head, something to do with my guilt at Chara's loss. Asriel cuts deep, yes, but there was nothing I could do there, the humans wounds were too terrible. But Chara...I could have done something! Their symptoms were maddeningly familiar! If I'd just worked a little harder, maybe they would still be alive.
I could have stopped this.
I could have done something...
9th March
Papyrus has stopped hiding his grief. It's a terrible thing, to see someone as happy as him so miserable. He's such a sensitive soul, theres no doubt he can pick up on the atmosphere of purest despair that pervades the underground. It's hard to stay cheerful in times like this. I comfort him when I can.
15th March.
Someone at work made a remark about missing Toriels pie now that she's vanished. For some reason, that word is sticking in my subconscious, something about it is important, connecting to Chara. Pie, and flowers. But those are just nice things to enjoy on a lazy day, how can they connect to...
…
The flowers.
Buttercups.
The children made pie with buttercups.
I told them...
I told them...
That buttercups were poisonous...
Chara's symptoms were the same as Asgores! I never noticed because theirs were stronger then his! Chara was smaller, of course it would strike harder!
...this was on purpose...that knowing look on Asriels face as he took Chara's soul...they knew...they'd planned this...Chara...they...
They killed themselves...
How can I not have seen this?
Asgore can never know this, no one can. It would destroy him utterly.
16th March.
I remember seeing the children often using a cam corder. I felt a suspicion they might have taped some evidence. While pretending I needed to check an ill cleaner, I had a surreptitious poke around the palace. I found a few tapes the children had made, discussing their...plan. I couldn't bring myself to destroy or steal them, so I shoved them away in an out of place cupboard. Hopefully no one would ever find them.
Theres a golden flower growing in the ruins of the garden. It looks well tended.
5th April.
My mental block shifted slightly, allowing me to make a few notes regarding some form of studying souls. If I had one to look at, I could make more progress, but I don't think that will happen in my lifetime.
No human will come here again.
8th April.
The underground is so different from what I remember. The despair has gone from something sharp and aching to just...another fact of life. People carry on as they always have, carrying the knowledge that they will die in the dark everywhere they go. Sans has always tended towards melancholy, and its worse now. Some days he can barely get out of bed, which I sympathize with. I have days like that too. We encourage each other with the newly invented "texting" function Alphys upgraded our phones with last month, pushing each other to get up and carry on.
Papyrus on the outside seems happier, but his family knows better. Theres a sadness in his eyes, compounded by deep loneliness. Me and Sans are really his only friends. As much as he fakes it with his exuberant enthusiasm in his puzzles, we know its mostly an act.
11th April.
A young fish monster arrived at my doorstep seeking treatment for her bruises. As I worked she explained she'd been trying to pick a fight with Asgore. There's an anger in her eyes, a tension about her. Not all monsters turned to despair at our loss. Some forged their grief into rage, rage at anything and everything about this world that's taken so much from us. Come to think of it, her name is familiar. Undyne...I've been hearing a lot of complaints. She fights near everyone who crosses her path. Asgore would have been an unpleasant shock to her, for his fluffy nature, he's a formidable foe.
Still, she was very cheerful about it all. He's invited her to train with him at the palace. I did hear he was planning a royal guard. Definitely a better use of her time then making the commute through Waterfall that much more challenging.
2nd June.
A human has fallen down.
4th June.
The human is dead.
…
She was 6.
Asgore brought the soul to my lab for storage. His hands were trembling. The blood he tracked into the carpet wouldn't wash out.
9th June.
The soul canisters Alphys and Sans designed work well. As I work on the blue prints for something to examine souls. I keep hers on my desk. It's blue. A patient little soul. Sometimes it glows, illuminating my work. I despise humanity now, but...children are always hard to see die. I apologize to her on occasion. Can she hear me? Does she understand?
11th June
A minor breakthrough.
All souls have traits, human souls strongest of all: Patience, bravery, integrity, perseverance, kindness, justice and determination. Chara, poor child, was Determination positive, that being the strongest trait they had. All humans have a mix of these traits to some extent, but determination seems special. It seems to lead to a stronger soul, the humans who made the seal were all Determination Positive. I've drawn up blueprints for a machine to extract it, and other traits from a soul without damaging it in order to study closely, but determination is my main point of interest. Alphys seems very interested in this as well.
She's a good assistant, if a little scatter brained. She has a tendency to rush things, too.
13th June.
Dear sweet god! I cannot let determination extraction continue.
I did the math, if, as Alphys was hypothesizing, we injected determination into monsters to make the soul stronger, the bodies would overload catastrophically. The results would be horrific. I've locked the blueprints in my personal safe and told her that avenue of study was closed. My word is law around the lab, she knows that well. No, the results are clear. No matter how I do the math, it always comes back to one thing.
The DT extractor will not work.
We will have to take the souls the hard way.
I only hope our king is strong enough to cope.
Still, looking at the bright little scrap of sky floating in its containment tube, as disgusted with myself as I am to say it...it is kind of hopeful. We need 7, and knowing we have one gives hope that some day there will be others. I can feel it in the streets, a slight buzz cutting through the ever present misery, a tang of excitement in the air.
Are we willing to sell our collective souls to achieve the sky?