Summary: Fairy tales are not supposed to be real.
Notes: Hey guys! Sorry for the hiatus but I'm back!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter TextShadow Realm, Adventure Mode, Second World: The Game is Afoot, Date and Time: Unknown.
-Day 1-
"Well, would you look at that, you survived. One down, four to go!"
'The Game is Afoot'
Once again I find myself elated at the knowledge that this journal has made it through yet another world.
Maxwell gave me a clue this time.
Four worlds… That means that at the end of the fourth one I'll be free!
Right?
Heh, I remember my honorable grandfather telling me to trust no one.
Oh, how I have disgraced him.
Not that marrying a commoner sat right by him, either. He forbade me to marry Elizabeth in the eyes of God in a church, it was obvious to me, at that time, that he didn't want the catholic church from finding out that I wasn't honoring the arranged marriage I had with Mary-dear.
But I must confess, If not here, never, that it might be possible that he… that when he offered himself to assist with my wedding to Elizabeth… he just staged it.
He wouldn't do that.
He would never resort to something as despicable as that, wouldn't he? He is a man of his word. He taught me how to be a true gentleman and I have taken it all by heart!
I don't even know why I doubt him at a moment like this…
Anyways.
Taking the same measures as the last world, I collect everything needed to survive the winter.
I just hope this world's winter won't start as soon…
-Day 4-
Frisk came at 'night'. He looked dead serious, as if trying to unveil the mysteries of the universe. A frown plastered on his tiny and round face.
When I asked him what was wrong, he told me a fairy tale.
He told me of a world full of monsters. They were made out of Love, Hope and Compassion. (I told him that that was simply impossible, no actual matter can be created out of feelings alone, but he shushed me as how you would shush an annoying dog.) They lived in peace with the humans, but soon, a war started.
"Why did the humans start the war?" he asked me. I answered with honesty. He appreciates that.
"Humans are creatures moved by self preservation." I said. "That is our first instinct after we are out of the womb. In the search for said preservation… humans tend to destroy what they are afraid of... It doesn't really matter if it is a real threat to them or not. They will always choose to FIGHT."
He looked at me with something akin to understanding…
With the heartbrokenness of a child who is said that Santa is not real.
I feel bad at lying to children, you have to understand, dear reader. I have the belief that a lie would be an offense to this child and their pure need of knowledge. So I told him what I have gathered from my life experiences.
It pains my heart to be the one to tell him this, nonetheless.
After sighing, he continued with his tale.
With another question.
"How can you harm someone who has done nothing wrong?"
I couldn't answer that.
Why had my mother turned against me with hatred in her eyes? For years and years I believed I was the one at fault every time she hit me. Every time she said she loathed me, it hurted me deep inside. Then Willow was born, no thanks to her. And then after the accident and father's death… the hospital… the experiments… I thought I was over it already, with Elizabeth's love and my grandfather's teachings I thought I was over my mother's abuse on me and my little sister.
But alas, I was wrong.
So, I couldn't answer that one question.
How can someone attack an infant?
The undeserving?
The innocent?
"I don't know." I answered truthfully.
He understood this harsh reality better and nodded.
"Humans…" he kept going. "…were afraid of monsters. They could take human souls and use them against humankind." He must have read this from a book. There is no way he can come up with something so… curiously believable by himself.
"Fearful of their magic and powers… they decided to trap them in a cave. The Underground—" wait a minute… It can't possibly the same one "—down Mount Ebott"
This has to be some kind of cosmic coincidence. The same Mt. Ebott I lived in? well… I lived by its skirts…. But could it be the same one our little house was at?
I heard the stories of monsters; magic and a cave that trapped them down Mt. Ebott but, oh please! I laughed at the fairy tale when the man who sold me the land warned me of that "imminent danger" they posed to the whole world. I remember him begging me to purchase the lands and I agreed solely because the poor man wouldn't stop crying if I didn't.
He had purchased the lands in an auction for a good price and thought it would be a good idea to mine it. Little he knew that no matter how much he wanted to pay people from Ebott Town, no one would agree to work in the mountain.
They said the mountain was cursed, whoever climbed it…. never came back.
"Once they are out… nothing will stop them from destroying the world as we know it" he had said after stopping crying and while drinking alcohol.
I didn't voice my suspicions, though. It has to be some mistake, maybe there are two mountains with the same name… and…
The same old tale?
"Monsters live in the Underground since then, at first they lived with the fear that someday humans would enter the barrier they themselves erected, that someday humans would finish them off, for good but… It never happened."
A barrier?
They live in an eternal prison?
Of course, that was if this was real. It can't be real.
Monsters are not real.
"I found them.—"
Aaaaand the world stuttered again. Frisk vanished, deflated at not ending his thought.
This has to be a nightmare. All of this.
Life has not been that kind to me so I won't expect it to be just a fairy tale.
-Day 5-
Frisk came back.
He looked sad so I decided not to ask for more information about the 'monsters' he supposedly found under Mt. Ebott.
He, instead, asked about how I ended up in a place like this.
I decided to tell him about Elizabeth.
She had been the one and only light in my life after my long lost sister disappeared from it. He listened to my sad tale silently. The only enquiry I heard from the child was:
"If you had the power to go back in time… Would you use it to bring her and your baby back?" Frisk didn't mean any bad by it. He was just curious.
My first thought was. Yes. Yes, I would.
But.
I don't have the power to do so, nor I have anything else to give in exchange to gain that power.
"If I could, I would…" I answered with sincerity.
He nodded slowly, thinking about my answer in silence.
But I hadn't finished.
"… not use it to bring them back. I would use it to stop my own birth from happening."
I regretted uttering such things in front of a child 0.5 seconds later.
Me and my big mouth.
In retrospective, If I ended my existence before coming here, Frisk wouldn't have to hear something so horrible…
The look of sadness in those hazel eyes, the way the glazed with tears and them rolling from those cheeks made me want to stab myself.
Right in my bloody heart.
I hugged Frisk and cried with him. I uttered apologies like a broken gramophone.
Why is it so easy to wear my heart on my sleeve with this child?
Why does he care so much for a complete stranger?
-Day 6-
I found all the pieces again!
I'm finding a pattern here, the 'things' always spawn around certain objects or environments. For example. The ring thing would always be accompanied by a ring of flowers, the potato thing will always spawn near a half built farm, and so on and so forth.
I don't know yet if there's some kind of meaning behind it. I need to study this in more detail.
I found the wooden thing 'yesterday' so I should be ready to part from here at any time.
I remember one Spanish proverb my grandfather used to repeat. One of the many he memorized from his many trips around the world.
"Un hombre prevenido vale por dos" He used to say.
The English equivalent would be, "a man forewarned is forearmed".
Following this teaching I'll make as many things as possible to not to die in the next world.
I'll be prepared for anything Maxwell has to throw at me!
-Day 8-
I think I'm ready for the next world!
I packed a Thermal Stone (One of my greatest inventions if I say so myself!). Rabbit Earmuffs and a Hibearnation Vest!
I can't be more prepared!
As I was about to 'flip the switch' to activate the weird contraption, a little child appeared from thin air…
…
Now that I think about it, it was pretty funny…
When Frisk saw me, and he gave the cutest and most adorable little squeak you can imagine!
For this to be understandable to you, dear reader, I confess I need to make an imaginary photograph of what Frisk saw.
I believe I wrote before this paragraph, that I needed to have some sort of 'countermeasure' for n-icy circumstances in the future.
Okay, that pun was funnier in my head. I apologize.
The thing is that I had so much fur put on that the poor child thought that I had been swallowed whole!
Needless to say, the child, became scarlet red when he realized it was just him and there was nothing to be afraid of.
"I was not afraid!" He said with contempt.
I couldn't stop myself and I teased him for as long as he was with me that "day".
But after a while, he went away like normal… as normal as all of this situation is.
Time to move to the next world…
Notes: There is no such thing as a coincidence in this world, there is only the inevitable. - Yuuko Ichijara
Notes: *Throws thing at fandoms expecting it wont be lost in the void* Update Monday´s or Sunday´s