Snowfall
As soon as Papyrus was far enough away Alanna turned around and began her quiet journey. The world seemed to be held in a moment of silence as she trudged through the ankle-deep snow. The shorts were long enough that only the smallest bit of her shins were actually exposed to the cold, and she lost feeling in those particular areas of her body after a few hours of following Papyrus.
Alanna passed out of town and came across a large rope bridge which she hardly remembered from her first meeting with Papyrus. The drop made her stomach lurch and she spent a few moments in the approximate middle of the bridge looking down into the darkness below.
"What do I do?" She asked the drop. The rope creaked and swayed slightly, but there was no answer. A sigh and she continued on. The light finally gave way into the strange twilight that was the underground night.
There was a familiar field with a guard-house in the middle. Snow-poffs littered the ground, and Alanna carefully avoided stepping on any of them. Past the snow covered field was a long stretch of ice that easily slid Alanna through, the trees above her dumped snow onto Alanna's head causing her to yelp. The ice continued to move her forwards, almost as if it had a consciousness of its own. She shook her head vigorously only to end up slipping and slamming into the ice. It burned, but still slid her on until it dumped her into the snow on the other side of the ice-field puzzle. It took her a minute to get up.
Alanna found herself humming slightly as she walked. It hadn't occurred to her that she had lost the will to sing for some time now. In fact, she hadn't sung since college, with her friends.
Her former friends.
She found a song pouring out as she traveled along, filling the silence with song. "He stumbled into faith and thought…" The wind blew sharply around her, but surprisingly it didn't sting. "God this is all there is."
A larger sentry stand stood in the cold night air. "The pictures in his mind arose and began, to breathe," for the barest moment Alanna swore she could see a figure in the guard house, "and all the gods in all the worlds began colliding on a backdrop of blue." As long as the monster didn't bother her she didn't feel the need to investigate, and she let her eyes slip past.
"Blue lips. Blue veins." She sang almost sure that her own lips had turned blue at this point. Her mind conjured up the hazy image of Sans. One blue eye set in a smiling face. "He took a step but then felt tired," Alanna forced her voice to strengthen in order to combat the sudden air-stealing fear that was attempting to consume her.
"He said, 'I'll rest a little while,' but when he tried to walk again he wasn't a child." She began to walk over the grey-scale grid that she was sure Papyrus set up. "And all the people hurried fast, real fast, and no one ever smiled…" That reminded her of Ebbot, it was a rather large town where people hustled past without a second glance at someone like her.
"Blue lips. Blue veins," Alanna still had the feeling she was being watched as she headed towards a puzzle that she realized looked like Papyrus' face, "Blue, the color of our planet from far far away. Blue lips. Blue veins. Blue, the color of our planet from far far away."
Her voice echoed to her slightly, a lonely tune in a frozen world. A lonely person. "He stumbled into faith and thought: god this is all there is." Maybe this really was all there was. She was trapped here unless she thought of a way out.
Could she really kill someone? "The pictures in his mind arose and began to breathe." She knew she didn't want to, but the question was could she. The song poured on without real thought on her part, her mind spinning faster and faster.
"And no one saw and no one heard," her voice shook with repressed emotion, "They just followed the lead. The pictures in his mind awoke, and began to breed."
A flash of eyes glowing in the darkness. Alanna was too far gone in her own head to really notice. "They started off beneath the knowledge tree, and they chopped it down to make a picket fence. And marching along the railroad tracks they smiled real wide for the camera lens."
She tried to imagine the sensation. She tried to imagine watching the life leave from a stranger's eyes. "As they made it past the enemy lines," the stranger's eyes shifted into hate-hardened eyes in her mind, "just to become enslaved in the assembly lines." She knew the answer to the question, and she felt hope drain within her.
The large slatted gate passed above her. Alanna hadn't realized how quickly she had been moving through the darkness.
"Blue lips. Blue veins."
No. She couldn't kill someone. It wasn't within her, the very thought made the core of her being flinch away.
"Blue, the color of our planet from far far away."
How would she survive in this world? They wanted her very soul, and it was made abundantly clear that no one would stop wanting that.
"Blue lips. Blue veins. Blue, the color of our planet from far far away." Toriel's door, the door to the Ruins, lay in front of her large and imposing. "Blue," she sang her voice rising and cascading, the door echoed her song back to her in her own voice, "the most human color."
"Blue," Alanna's voice began to quiet her hand reaching out to press against the door. She wanted Toriel to be there. She knocked as hard as she dared against the large door and waited.
"The most human color. Blue," her voice rose again, "the most human color." Why was she singing? What point was there? She slammed her hand into the door this time, crying out when she felt her knuckles split against the door.
But no one came.
She turned to face the empty landscape, her back against the door, injured hand cradled to her chest. She slid and landed with a small plop into the snow. The cold hurt and pushed through the short's fabric easily. The unfinished song felt worse than the cold.
At least she could control this.
"Blue lips. Blue veins. Blue, the color of our planet from far far away." The last strains of her voice stretched out in the dark. She hung her head and simply sat.
Trapped underground.
She tried to wrap her head around it. Accept it. But her mind kept supplying her with little interrupting thoughts. What would happen with her job? She had just started to gain popularity as a radio personality. Things had been looking up in her career.
Alanna's parents had to notice at some point. She had made it a point to call every few weeks to check up on them. What would they do? Would they think she was dead? Alanna couldn't imagine the how horrible it would be for them.
There was the smallest sound of shifting snow. Alanna glanced up, but there was nothing there. Just a flower a few feet away near the tree-line. She let her gaze fall back to the snow at her feet.
"Howdy!" The voice was higher-pitched and Alanna jerked up and slammed herself backward into the door. The large yellow flower near the tree-line had a face. "Oh!" The flower said eyes wide it's little leaves wiggling slightly.
The flower had a face.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare ya!" It said with a hesitant smile. "I'm Flowey! Flowey the Flower!"
Monsters were all shapes and sizes, so Alanna supposed that this was just another monster. A friendly one by the sound of it.
"It's okay," she said forcing herself to relax, "I'm Alanna, nice to meet you."
"You must be new to the underground! I haven't seen you before." Flowey said slightly swaying as if in a gentle breeze.
"I've only been here three days." She confirmed.
"Golly!" The ground underneath the flower began to shift and almost seem to boil, mixing light brown earth and snow. Flowey seemed to glide through the earth a little closer to Alanna. "You must be so confused."
"Actually, it hasn't been that bad…" Other than the fact that she had been broken and impaled a couple of times within a few days. Not to mention she now lived with the same person who impaled her, and was trapped in a strange land with murder being the only clear way out.
Flowey watched her for a moment and Alanna could hear the faintest strains of lighthearted music. "So, you're a human." Alanna felt herself stiffen up at the accusation. It was true, but it was also supposed to be a death sentence down here. Flowey chuckled at the action, and something about his laughter made Alanna shiver. "Oh don't worry," the flower trilled, "you're much more interesting alive right now!"
