The sound of birds singing echoed through the vehicle as the sun peaked over the horizon, slowly moving its light directly in the eyes of the woman sleeping in the back. Seats stored away in the minivan, car seats and boosters shoved back against the hatch door. A pillow was under her head, a sleeping bag around her as she fought against the rising sun's light. However, it was no use. She sighed and groaned, a hand running through her messy brown locks. Steel-blue eyes slowly opened as she let out a yawn, a high pitched whine escaping as her tongue curled in her mouth.
Wake in a sweat again
Another day's been laid to waste
In my disgrace
Stuck in my head aga—
She quickly hit the side button on her phone, groaning.
"Damn it, quit trying to read my mood, damn phone…" she muttered, slowly sitting up.
Of course, she just had to wake up before her alarm. She rubbed her tired eyes sleepily as she grabbed her phone to shut off the snooze she initiated. Six in the morning… she sighed and leaned against the side door. She supposed she should get an early start… she had a lot of driving to do if she was going to make it to Mt. Ebott…
How long had she been driving, she wondered? Her windows were down, wind her hair, music blaring on from her phone through the speakers… her short hair whipped around her face, blinding her some of the time… not that she really minded… a crash wouldn't be the worst way to go… After all, why else would she be going to Mt. Ebott? The mountain that was completely cut off from the world… one of the few "cursed" locations left that people still believed in… After all, no one could deny the fact that whoever went up the mountain never came back. Not that they were never found, only a handful never were, presumed to have fallen in crevasses or crushed beneath rocks. Or as the locals so eloquently put it… had their souls devoured by the monsters that lived beneath the mountain.
There were too many pit stops for her liking. But nature didn't wait for anyone… and thank god she stole her dad's trucker cards. It got her some free showers at the stops. Laundry, however, was expensive, of course. But what was she to do? It wasn't like she could grab a lot on her way out… she only had a few sets of clothes… and it wasn't like she was making money while on the road… so she had to make these last… she was surprised she even cared, but… well, it was still a few days of travel, she might as well be comfortable in her own skin, she supposed…
Finally, she made it. A fortnight of driving, doing nothing but staring at asphalt and pavement, eating while driving, stopping only for bathroom breaks and sleep, and the occasional batch of laundry… She parked her car in a free lot. She left the majority of her things in her vehicle. However, she wasn't going empty-handed.
Steel-blue eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, her long bob style brunette hair curling lazily at the ends, rubbing against her jaw and neck. Sneakers, jeans and a long-sleeve purple shirt, hardly mountain climbing material, she thought to herself, but it wasn't as if she was a mountain girl. No, her entire life she lived in the suburbs. She was a city girl. This was going to be hell, she knew… but it would be worth it. Not like she would ever be found after this, right? That was the whole point of the mountain. This was as good as any outfit to die in…
The first part was trying to get past the barbed wire. She used satellite images and street views to try and figure out a way to get around the barricades, the locked fences… she had a few ideas… but she had to get there. She took a bus to get across town, getting as close as the line would take her before continuing on foot. Before continuing, however… well, death row inmates got a last meal request, right?
Her favorite meal, chicken parmesan… one last time… she found a place. It wasn't quite what she wanted… then again she had never found anything quite like what made her fall in love with the dish to begin with… she hadn't been able to replicate the recipe… it wasn't bad, it was pretty good, just… not what she was hoping. She finished it off with a piece of cake before heading out. As she walked further toward the mountain… she realized just how much she was going to miss pasta… but pasta alone wasn't enough to keep her going…
The mountain's base itself did have a few guards around, mostly to keep daring teens and people like her away… but it wasn't hard to actually slip past with a little cunning. She wasn't quite agile enough to climb a tree anymore… however, cutting a wire or two to pull the fence back, well… that was easy. She slipped on some tear-resistant gloves and snipped some wires at the bottom of the fence. She pulled it back and slipped under, using the gloves to twist the wire back, partially, so it didn't seem out of place unless you really looked, and no one would. Not down there, not by the post. Even if they did, it would be too late…
The mountain itself wasn't too hard to scale at first, there were paths and easily climbable faces that kept her going at a steady pace. She would have to stop and rest at points, but she was determined to keep going. Sooner or later she'd find a spot, right? Either she'd fall, or something would fall and crush her… or hell, maybe a monster would show up. That'd be fitting.
The higher she got, the more her body ached, the more it screamed for her to stop… Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea… She heaved herself on a spot that overlooked a lot of the scenery… there was a great view of the sunset… She leaned back on the rock, uncomfortable as it was, it was better than sitting up. She could feel part of her back already growing numb from it all, as well as her arms and hands…
"Well, not gonna be able to do much else at this point," she muttered softly. "Maybe I should take a nap… traveling at night might make it more perilous…"
As she leaned her head against the rock, debating about just trying to lay down, she caught a glint of sunlight reflecting off of something inside of the rock. Curiosity got the better of her and despite the numbness in her limbs, the pain and fatigue screaming through her body, she started to move closer. Carefully, she crawled to the edge of the ledge she was on, looking down into the rock, noticing that there was actually glass in there. She tilted her head… it was built right into the rock… she started to put her hand down into the hole, going to feel if the rock was stable enough to hold her…
Resistance?
She blinked as she pressed on the air that held her back. She noticed a ripple in the air, but her hand went through it easily, causing a greater ripple, before she pulled her hand back.
"Magic?" she questioned, her voice soft as she didn't quite believe it herself.
Finding her footing, she slowly moved along the opening of the gap in the rock. She carefully began to work her way around the narrow ledge, looking down. It was quite a drop… and was that… magma at the bottom?
"Well, if the fall doesn't kill me, that will… not a pleasant way to go…" she shuddered. The thought of burning alive never came to her before… she could only hope if she did fall into that, she wouldn't feel too much of it before the pain took her… but it'd be over eventually, wouldn't it?
She tried to take her mind off of it. She tried to focus on her footing. She was a coward, wasn't she? She came to the mountain to die yet she wasn't actively trying to either, was she? Was she just hoping something would take control and do it for her? Should she just let herself fall? If nothing else, she could probably aim and hit her head on the way down so she'd be unconscious. Still, her hands shook at the idea… It was one thing to give up, but another to willingly die painfully, right? Was it wrong to just want to slip away into nothing? She could have done that at home… pills, liquor, and suffocation… hanging… why did she drive for a fortnight and come to a supposedly cursed mountain?
She was pulled from her thoughts as she saw a glimpse of a shadow inside of the windows. That was strange, the light was pouring in, causing a glare. How did she…? She focused, intently, then she realized… she was causing a shadow… her back was to the sun, she was causing an unnatural shadow to go into the window… and whoever this was saw her, just like she saw them. It was too far, she couldn't make out a lot… but she felt like she was being stared at. She felt frozen as she stared at the shadow in the window… did this mean the rumors were true? Were there monsters?
She felt herself grow cold, shivering, despite the summer sun on her back, despite the long sleeves… Something was pulling in her chest… she looked down and saw a heart-shaped object coming out of her chest. She tried to grab it and put it back, but the blue glow around it kept it firm. It didn't go far out of her, however, as she was suddenly pulled by the heart-shaped object, the blue glow obviously pulling. She lost all sense of voice, fear overriding her ability to scream as she thought she was going to fall into the magma below. However, it wasn't downward she was moving…
Somehow, against all matter of logic, she was being pulled straight to the glass windows! And it wasn't at a slow and steady pace! She braced for impact, curling into herself just as she slammed through, the stained glass erupting into shards, flying all around the room she found herself being flung into. She felt herself fall onto shards, fresh stings of cuts all over her face and hands. Some glass pierced through her thin shirt and wedged itself into her arms, her torso, probably her back. But that wasn't what was important right now. She rolled over from her front to her side, looking up as her sunglasses fell off to see a skeleton clad in blue with a glowing eye, bones hovering over him and ready to strike.
"This is it. This is how I'm going to die," she thought as she flinched, just looking back down at the ground. She wasn't about to fight it, but she didn't need to let him look at her face when he did it.
However, the strike never came…
The skeleton felt his hand began to shake. He was exhausted, he knew fatigue had something to do with it… but more than that… he just messed up. He saw a shadow, he swore it was the kid… trying to sneak up on him, somehow… He was so desperate to end this, that he didn't… he didn't even feel the difference. He didn't feel just how far away her soul was, he didn't feel how much distance he had made her travel, how fast she had been going through that window… he didn't feel the size difference. Even with blue magic just the amount of mass he had to move compared to a kid..? But when he had her down, seeing those glasses fall off, it made him realize faster than anything else about her.
She had a black eye… the purplish color surrounding a blue iris… that wasn't… the kid's eyes were red, it couldn't be any more different… that's when he really started to look at her. She was taller than he was, how did he not see that sooner? Had he been so focused on killing her..?
He took more of this human in… she was obviously an adult, and if he had this much trouble fighting a kid, he was really in trouble now. He should just kill her, take her soul, get what few monsters there were out… But the way she glanced at him before flinching back… he couldn't bring himself to do it. There wouldn't be any coming back from this one. This human hadn't done anything yet, in fact, he was the aggressor this time… after all their soul was…
He thought he had seen something in the color… but now he wasn't so sure. Looking down at the soul he still held, he realized… there was no color to this soul… It was grey… That wasn't right… human souls were vibrant, one of seven colors… a grey soul? What… would that even mean?
His hand lowered, the bones fading as he put his shaking left hand back in its pocket, the right never having left. Damn it, what was he going to do now? He pulled her into this mess…
Slowly, steel-blue eyes met with empty sockets, magic snuffed out of them. The two silently stared at one another, the human woman barely moving from her place on the floor. She had felt her soul return to her body, not that she knew what it was, the immediate danger had passed… but whatever this was...
It was not safe.
"heh," she heard from the skeleton, a sort of awkward half-laugh, half sigh, "guess, i'm boned now, huh?" he tried, looking down at her. When she didn't respond, he tried again. "guess that was a weak crack huh? Or… maybe you're just not a punny kind of gal, huh?"
As she continued to stare at him, he felt the guilt and awkwardness in his soul grow. "c'mon, throw me a bone here?" he pleaded. "i know i just… really though? none of these tickle your funny bone? nothing's humerus? guess i'm flatlining pretty hard, huh?"
It shouldn't surprise him that he couldn't joke his way out of this one. He did just yank her through a glass window…
The human woman slowly sat up on the floor, looking over the skeleton. The blue she saw was only a jacket… he had a white shirt underneath, black basketball shorts with a white stripe, pink fuzzy slippers that looked like they had been through hell, and… a red scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and shoulders…
More than that, fatigue had really set in on him. His eye sockets looked sunken in, cracks adorned his skull, mostly around his left eye… and the smile he gave her looked fake, though it was more of an effort than she had gotten from many people…
Still… his sudden change in demeanor was… unsettling. He was suddenly trying to be friendly? Forced, but…
"Aren't you… going to kill me?"
His voice got caught in his throat. He had been hoping for a type of response, but that… It wasn't filled with fear, which he could work with. Reassure her that it was a mistake, that he didn't mean it. It wasn't filled with anger at what he did. It was… empty. Almost… disappointed that he stopped.
"Sans."
The skeleton tensed as the deep voice almost echoed through the room. He turned, breaking his gaze from the human. She watched his body show the signs of tension, though how she wasn't sure. He was a skeleton, he didn't have muscles to tense up, but the body language seemed to be the same, as if he did. She couldn't help but peer around him a little to see what he was looking at.
A tall, regally dressed white-furred goat monster stood at the end of the hall. He wore a purple cape with golden shoulder guards and a winged adornment on his chest. His face was adorned with golden locks and what appeared to be a thick beard of the same color, in which his white ears got lost in. The horns that adorned his head gave him a more menacing appearance given their large size in comparison with his head.
"king asgore," the skeleton almost choked, trying to force his anxiety down.
It wasn't as if he was afraid of the monster before him. He could handle himself in just about anything. But he was still the king, and… he had just messed up. There was a new human and if the thought had crossed his mind…
Just as he thought about it, he noticed Asgore's gaze shift to the human behind him. He knew it wouldn't go unnoticed, but he couldn't stop his body as he shifted to step in front of her, fists clenching in his pockets.
"Sans… what's going on?" he asked, his voice stern as his eyes narrowed.
"ah, well," the skeleton sweated.
"think fast, sans," he screamed at himself internally.
Footfalls snapped him from his nervous trance. If he didn't think of something quick, this human was definitely going to die!
"just a little… accident," he quickly started, "she, uh, fell."
"Through the window?" Asgore's eyes narrowed.
"w-well… she… cast a shadow," he lazily motioned to the windows. "i… just reacted," he admitted softly.
Asgore sighed. Fine, minute details didn't matter. However, as he moved to inspect the human, he kept finding himself blocked by the smaller monster, until it became impossible as his height countered any form of blockade the skeleton hoped to use.
It wasn't lost on Asgore, the disheveled appearance of this human. The scent of blood was strong as well, but the fresh cuts made that apparent. Glass was not friendly to any living being, monster or human. But that was just it, he had to put his own kind first… this human was weak, but a human soul was all they needed.
A red trident was summoned in his hand and with downcast eyes, hidden among the shadows created by the setting sun, he raised it up high above his head, aimed right for her.
She didn't move. She sat there, simply closing her eyes as she accepted that this was it…
"wait!" the skeleton shouted, teleporting between them, arms out.
Fear and desperation were all that made him move. He didn't understand why, but the way she had given up didn't sit well with him. There was nothing left in her. He thought he was empty but even he had a reason to fight, to hold on… maybe…
"Sans, we only need one more soul to get out of here," Asgore reminded with a low tone, his mind made up.
"but we need her alive!" he protested. "i-i think," he quickly scrambled for an idea to pop in his head. "i think i can undo all of this!"
"Explain yourself, Sans," Asgore demanded, but he lowered the trident, instead keeping it at his side. He wasn't yet sold on this idea, but he was willing to listen.
He had to think quick. Something, anything! "i-it's just a hypothesis… but i worked under the last royal scientist with alphys, remember? i know what i'm talking about. a human did all of this… maybe… another one can undo it. but i need her cooperation to do it."
Asgore looked at into the darkened eyes of his judge. He couldn't deny his former experience, nor could he deny his desire to save his fallen people… but at the risk at who was left? His gaze fell to the human, who hadn't even bothered to fight against him, hadn't even said a word since he had appeared.
"And what do you have to say about this?"
Black sockets and chocolate brown eyes that were far too hard for how soft and round they were supposed to be stared down at her. Steel-blue met them both, glancing between the two.
"I have a choice?" she then asked in that deadened tone.
Asgore could feel his soul churn, his brow tightening at the sound. Adult or not…
"Within reason," he answered. "No matter how you got here," he cast a glance to his right, Sans avoiding his gaze, "we are all trapped behind a barrier of human design. The only way to break it is with the same power that created it. You would be the seventh soul we need, but it seems there's a way to… reverse a recent tragedy that has befallen us."
So the stories weren't quite exact… but that was to be expected… that was if what she was hearing was the truth… she didn't know if she could trust either of these monsters… yet… did she really care?
"So… you want me to help with that in exchange for my soul?"
Asgore didn't like how blunt it was, but that was what it was, wasn't it? Exactly as she stated… "Yes."
There was silence from the human as she sat there, her gaze falling to the tiled floor she still sat on. Blood had pooled slightly under parts of her, she could feel it on her back, and some fresh dripping down behind her ear onto her shoulder… she didn't know how visible it was… nor did she really care at the moment.
"You're not going to like it out there," she said softly before looking up at the goat monster, unflinching. "I don't care if you take my soul. I came to the mountain to die. Because that's what this place is to humans. The stories are spread far and wide, how monsters will steal and devour your soul if they catch you on their mountain." She watched the eyes go wide and dark on the two monsters before her, guilt sinking into the goat much more than the skeleton.
"To be fair," she continued, as her gaze fixed back down at the tile, her voice gaining a soft tone, one of genuine empathy, "most humans don't take stock in monster stories anymore. They don't think you're real. Most just assume those deaths are from rock slides or falling into the many crevasses on the mountain's face. Probably is the case. There's definitely more than seven deaths attributed to this mountain." Her gaze shifted back up to the king, "But the second you announce your existence to the world, there's going to be a frenzy. Stories are going to circulate. You will be blamed for all of it, even if you didn't have anything to do with the other deaths. And you won't be able to discredit any of it unless you admit to killing the seven you need to escape, which will earn you the same hatred."
Sans trembled, visibly more shaken than Asgore. This was not the kind of news they wanted to hear. Sure, they knew reintegrating was going to be hard, but… to be outright labeled as murders…
"I will take whatever punishments the humans deem necessary," Asgore then spoke firmly. "I will not deny what I have done. I regret it every day, but this is what must be done to protect my people, to help them… to free them from…" He stopped himself, there was no point in convincing this human. "Surely, there cannot be all who would judge us all for the actions of one."
"Do you know the saying, "the bad apple spoils the bunch"?" she asked. "Many humans still think like that. We have racism among our own people, there is still so much hate," she warned.
"And you?" he growled, his fur started to stand on end. "Why do you hate us so?"
Deadened blue eyes blinked, taken aback by his words. "I don't… hate you."
"Don't play me," he growled, flames starting to spark in his massive paws, one still wrapped around his massive trident. "You said you came here to…" he couldn't even finish the sentence. "You were hoping to pin your death on an innocent monster?!"
She didn't seem intimidated by the display of anger. "Until I came across those windows, I didn't put any stock into the monster stories. Until I saw," her eyes drifted to Sans, "…I hadn't even… I'm still processing all of this. But I don't hate either of you," she said as she looked up at them both. "You can't call me hypocritical either, both of you were willing to kill me so much as look at me, and I am just as willing to die by either of your hand."
Flames smothered as if doused by her words. It was true, the only thing she did was appear and the king was willing to take her life. Sans no doubt thought the same until this other idea of his popped into his head. "You still wish to die?"
"Your majesty, just a few moments ago, I was thinking of how to make jumping into lava painless," she explained. "I think I'm past that point on the ledge… at least if I die by your hand, I can help someone, somehow I suppose…" she shrugged a little. "But… if I can help with something else first… I'll do that. You can always take my soul later, yes? And it's not like I can leave even if I wanted to if what you said is true about the barrier."
Finally, the trident vanished. His paws hung heavily by his side. This was truly a dire situation they found themselves in.
"Sans," Asgore spoke, his voice heavy and deep, but he spoke with authority, "You are responsible for this human… whatever happens…"
"got it," the skeleton muttered. What had he gotten himself into?