I clumsily tumbled out of the way as Toriel's first barrage of flames swept past me, hissing and spitting as they did so, and careened into the ground, the searing heat blazing far too close for comfort. Any closer and I would've been a sizzling pile of flesh and teenage angst.
I hopped to my feet just inches from mashing my face into the incredibly inviting wall. The claustrophobic cavern left hardly enough room to dodge Tori's mob of attacks, and I couldn't help but let that trapped feeling creep back into my mind.
Now's not the best time for a panic attack. Not until Tuesday.
Facing and staring Toriel down was a lot harder than I could ever admit. This woman had rescued me from certain death, offering a new home and all the love in the world you could muster for someone you just met, and here I was, ready to do whatever it took to put as much distance between us as possible. And by her determined and steely gaze alone, I knew she would do whatever it took to keep me safe. Even if it killed her.
...Or me, apparently. Tori must've learned how to save people from watching the serial killers in horror movies, because she was not letting up on the fire. At all.
I had little to no experience with actual fights (even though I was so reclusive I might as well have painted a target on my forehead for the morons who still thought spitballs were relevant,) and even if I did, I doubt it would've translated well when the other person was throwing fire instead of punches. But if there was one thing I'd learned from jumping around Ebott all my life, it was how to dodge. Anything from sidestepping wads of gum some idiot had tossed on the sidewalk to darting around people who were clearly in my way, never the other way around, to avoiding cars speeding along the roads because God knows I wasn't waiting for the slow-ass walk signal to tell me when to cross. There was just one tiny problem.
Beating Toriel into the ground was going to suck for the both of us.
She silenced my thoughts with a wave of her hand, sending another pack of fiery orange projectiles my way. This time, I was ready, and flattened myself against the stone, watching the suckers sail past uselessly.
Move.
My fingers clutched the hilts of my weapons, tighter and tighter 'till the knuckles were white as snow.
...Don't just stand there, move!
Had someone super-glued my feet to the floor? Dammit Tori, why didn't you just back down when you had the chance...why couldn't you have been a wimp like all the others...
I begrudgingly pushed forward as Toriel readied another bolt of fire. The distance between us felt way longer all of a sudden. Inches turned to feet turned to yards turned to miles of the Ruins that stretched out between us now, a seemingly infinite and ever-growing road, each step heavier than the last. It took excruciating centuries of bobbing and weaving through the flames before I was finally close enough to deliver a heavy blow to her left arm with both my stick and my plastic knife, so close I could see each individual tuft of her fur as they were severed.
Toriel remained unphased by the blow despite the wound festering and blood pouring out from the mark it left, staining her fur a dark red. Instead, she conjured yet another array of fire spinning around her in an attempt to drive me back.
Too slow.
I quickly dashed to the inside of the circle of flames and rolled under them, now practically right on top of Toriel. Without a second thought, or even a pause to catch my breath, I drove my toy knife into her knee hard enough to draw blood,despite its dull edge, and rose to smack her across the snout with the edge of the Almighty Stick, forcing a pained grunt from her muzzle. Satisfied, I leapt backwards on the balls of my feet before she could counter attack.
...At first, I was proud. Proud I was holding my own against a magical fire-shooting creature, when I had barely so much as clashed knuckles with the neanderthals back home. Then the reality of the situation sunk in and I went wide-eyed.
And all that pride manifested itself into horror.
The wounds that...that I had caused weren't major, but in that moment, they seemed cataclysmic. Scratches on her arm, leg, and a pair on her snout oozed with blood and plagued her coat of fur and dress, no matter how shallow they were. I glanced down at my weapons and choked. The tips were caked in the same grotesque liquid.
It was so different from failing a jump and scraping my knees and elbows on the pavement. Here, the injuries were on another person, and it was my fault. Toriel was seriously hurt, and it was all my fault.
I met her gaze head-on. Her eyes were so focused it was as if she were staring through my hollow body. "Is that proof enough, for you Tori?" I yelled, flicking the dagger in a weak attempt of cleaning it. "You've had enough?" Damn, was my voice cracking? Get a grip.
Her answer was already made clear by the tight, motionless muscles on her face. She wasn't done just yet.
...I don't care.
...You don't care.
...Of course you don't, why would you? It was so much easier not to care.
With a cry of something between desperation and anger, I charged her again. Fire spread across the ground in snaking rivulets attempting to block my path. I hot-footed over them, ducking every few seconds as even more fireballs rained down from overhead. Tori had turned the cavern into a wildfire in just a matter of moments. It felt like being trapped in an giant oven, burning hot and suffocating. Beads of sweat running down my face merged into streams.
Shit. I stopped just short of my oppressor as a new kind of pain flooded my body.
My shoulder was on fire. It was smoldering one minute, and now it was ablaze, inches from my hair and face. Shirt, skin, and all.
I panicked. At first, The effect of the burn was difficult to pick out from the waves of heat surrounding me, but the scorching effect it left had pierced my nervous system. It started to hurt. A lot. And stop, dropping, and rolling was substantially less effective when the floor was also, in fact, on fire.
As if I wasn't dealing with enough shit already, the smoke had quickly become unbearable, filling every space of air left in the hallway, and my lungs. I Bent over and hacked out a sick, raspy cough. In the end, that's what saved me. Just as I was being overwhelmed, that one cough brought everything back into focus.
Out of time, I jammed my good arm into my pocket, pulling out a last resort. My last piece of monster candy. I had no idea if the healing would be strong enough to fix my charred flesh, but it was the only trick I had left up my sleeve. Assuming it hadn't already burned to cinders.
It fell into my mouth with the wrapper still intact. It went down without a problem this time, there was so much more to worry about. I waited in vain for it's magical charm to take place.
One second.
I'd done all I could.
Two seconds.
Toriel...why were you doing this...
Three seconds.
Knock it off...!
Four seconds.
MAKE IT STOP!
Five seconds.
I sighed through more smoke than air. Finally, relief swelled through my shoulder, and the rest of my body, too. I risked a glance at the burn, using my other arm to shield my eyes from the smog and heat, more than surprised to find that the candy's magic had not only healed my shoulder, but had eradicated any of the lingering fire. It'd left a huge hole in my T-shirt, but that paled in comparison to the pain I'd felt moments before.
...And how I'd just swallowed a candy wrapper whole, but I could worry about that later.
Reinvigorated, I turned back to Toriel. Her stoic expression had finally broken. Hints of concern once again shown in her eternally deep eyes, black as coal and shining in the bright light of the fire. Her hands shook. All around her, the flames flickered and faded, not completely disappearing, but weakening enough to allow some oxygen to creep back in.
Angry. I felt angry. Angry and betrayed at Tori for watching me in so much pain, not only doing so little to stop it, but being the cause of it all. A woman who'd done everything she could to keep me safe, had been trying to...
Trying to...
The fire. My attention snapped back to the fire. It was arcing around me know. I was wrong; it hadn't ceased. I stood motionless as more fireballs were hurled my way, completely missing their target, so far off I almost swore their intention wasn't even to hit me. Almost...
"...You're doing this on purpose, right?"
She averted her gaze. More and more fireballs rained down, more and more fireballs missed.
"You...you either wanted me to win...or you wanted me to run. That was it." I wasn't even sure if I was trying to convince myself or her at this point. I didn't care. Everything besides Tori was now a part of the background.
"Well...well guess what?" I chucked the toy knife and the stick down at the floor. They clambered against the ground until they ended up in a heap at Toriel's feet. "I'm not going to fight you anymore," I said, struggling to keep my voice calm and assertive. "And I'm not gonna run back upstairs like the scared little kid you want me to be."
She did a poor job of hiding the sob that came afterward in the sleeve of her dress. "I know you want to home but..." she choked, muffled by the fabric. Her face spun slowly around to face me again, tears threatening to pour down her face. "But please...go upstairs now."
I winced. I actually winced. A nagging feeling screamed in my stomach, and I regretted every second I was ever nasty to hear.
Stay strong...for her. "No."
"...I promise I will take good care of you here." She stifled another sob. I bite down another wince. "I-I know we do not have much, but we can have a good life here."
The last of the flames had died out. An eerie blackness now blanketed the cavern. That and soot. A smile hung on the end of Toriel's lips, her real last attempt to get me to stay.
It actually almost worked. The idea of staying here and living with someone...no, not just someone; with Toriel, a person who actually cared. It didn't matter about what, she just...cared. It was almost too good to pass up. What was I really so eager to return the surface for? To live miserably in Ebott for the rest of my life, 'till I get fed up with the world all over again and overdose on some shit dealt to me by a stranger, alone, in a desolate alley? All this fighting, and I didn't even know why I was fighting in the first place...
Deep down, the reason came to me. Ebott, has much of a shit-heap as it was, had a way out. One day, if I played my cards right, I could just hop in a car and drive far away to who knows where. What was there for me down here in the Ruins? Bug collecting? One bookshelf stocked with nothing but history and cook books?
The memory of discovering the monsters' ruined city crept back into my mind, equally if not even more desolate than life would have no drive. No purpose. Even less purpose than it did now.
...Damn, negative purpose in life. Must be a new record.
I chose my next words carefully, giving Toriel my most sincere expression of remorse I'd ever mustered in my life. "Tori...I'm sorry but..."
Her smiled faded. She knew exactly what was coming next.
"But I can't." A silence heavier than iron clung desperately to the air. Not even Toriel's sobs dared to penetrate it. I felt all the tension in the world grow between us.
Until I decided to break it, once and for all. "I've spent my whole life cooped up in one tiny city, a prison, hoping for a way out. And now that I've found one...
...I'm not ready to spend the rest of it caged in another."
Tori took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. When she looked up again, she whispered, softer than felt, "I understand."
Huh. Not exactly what I was expecting to hear. I would say I didn't expect her to give up so easily, but I think "so easily" went out the window three thousands years ago.
"You would just be unhappy trapped down here," she explained. This time I knew for sure she was only convincing herself. "The Ruins are very small once you get used to them. It would not be right to have you spend the rest of your precious childhood here.
"My expectations...
"My loneliness...
"My fear...
"For you, my child, I will put them aside," she finished with more confidence I'd ever heard crammed into any voice.
...I smirked at her. "I really appreciate it and all, but do you think next time you can lead with that, and maybe we could skip the part where you shoot fireballs at me for seven centuries?"
Tori beamed back at me. No one had ever looked so happy to hear my crappy condescending tone seep back into my voice. "I suppose we could, however, when you leave...please do not come back."
Ouch, she just had to tear the rug out from under me one last time, didn't she?
"I hope you understand."
Hope I understand!? First she risks her life to get me to stay, then tells me I could never come back? I had an entire counter argument all ready when I realized she was just being realistic.
Once I was gone, I was on a non-stop ride all the way back to the surface. She didn't want to trouble herself with the possibility of my return, or being responsible for my death. From what I'd seen, she already had enough of a burden to bear.
So when enough time had passed, I gave an honest answer. "Yeah...yeah, I think I do."
Tori nodded in thanks, turning her attention to her still bleeding wounds. "I apologize, but I must tend to these before they get infected."
"Oh, sorry about that." I began, a dangerous pun brewing in my head. "Got a little caught up in the...'heat' of the moment."
That was enough for Tori to burst out laughing. An eyes-closed, gripping-stomach-as-if-it-were-about-to-tumble-out, choking-on-every-breath kind of laugh. Like, exploding in laughter, ricocheting off every wall, so loud the whole world could hear it from here laughter. If puns could kill, then this was the friggin' nuke. It was loud enough for me to flinch and pretty much regretting saying anything at all.
...Almost. "Alright, alright! It wasn't that funny Toriel, chill out..." I pleaded. Well that completely trashed the moment, I thought. I was halfway to up and leaving on my own, since it would save us both an even longer goodbye, when she bent over and threw her arms around me, still chuckling to herself.
My whole body went numb. Tori's embrace was impossibly warm and inviting, much like the person herself. Comforting, and yet...completely foreign. I felt spine shoot up until I was perfectly vertical. One half wanted to stay here like this forever, and the other was debating whether it should give up and return the gesture or squirm around until I could wriggle out and book it too the exit. In the end, I still couldn't bring myself to move. Figures.
"Pathetic, is it not?" She murmured into my ear. I didn't have much of a choice but to listen, but for once, I didn't mind. "I cannot save even a single child."
I suddenly had a million things I wanted to say to her, and no way to say any of it. My mind grasped onto the most generic comforting line it could think of. "I'll be okay...I promise."
Cliché or not, it definitely seemed to do the trick. Toriel released me the millisecond the last word curled out from my lips, and without another word, just a look of sorrow and hopefulness rolled into one, she left back down the hallway we'd come from.
I'd been wrong before. She was gone far too quickly for it to have been any longer than a few meters.
I felt like a total idiot. I'd done it. The Ruins would soon be far behind me. I'd conquered all of its puzzles, fought all of its "threatening" monsters, and met an unforgettable woman who, with her crushing kindness, made me jump through so many hoops just to finally get out. I should've felt some sense of triumph. Instead, now that I was finally leaving it behind, all I wanted to do was stay. The burns on my skin may be gone, but some went way deeper than that.
The phrase, "you don't know what you have until it's gone," had never meant anything to me before, just another bullshit line people spewed to help them get over a hurdle in their life. To relate themselves to the other sad-saps in their position. But now that I was experiencing it first-hand...
...It was still bullshit. I was well aware of what I was getting into by leaving her. What I was giving up. I knew the consequences. But I still made the choice, and there was no point in looking back on it. What's done is done. At least, that's what I told myself to get my mind off of Toriel.
It was so much easier not to care.
Another minute or two or eighty passed before I recovered from the stasis T-...that she, had left on me, first bending over to grab my toy knife, and my reappointed best friend, the Almighty Stick. Somehow It'd gone that whole battle without catching fire once. Maybe the ironic name I'd given it was well placed after all, or maybe it was just lucky as all hell. Who knew.
Content with my just-thorough-enough examination, I faced the twin doors. The markings I'd noticed before stood out to me now more than ever.
Plastered on the face of the door, black as ash, was a symbol I'd certainly never seen before on the surface. A diamond with angelic wings spread out to each side hovered over a set of three small triangles forming the shape of what I could only identify as a smiley-face. I didn't know what it meant, and now that I was looking at it again, I realized I didn't care.
I placed a heavy hand on the door, taking one last look around the barren walls of the Ruins. I don't know what I was expecting to see, maybe Toriel coming back to say she'd changed her mind and would follow me all the way to the surface. Of course, that was just a hopeless fantasy. Naiveté like that was the biggest thing holding me back, and had been since the moment woke up surrounding by those golden flowers. I needed to move on.
"Here goes nothing..." I sighed, and pushed open the doors, disappearing quietly behind them with a soft thud as they closed against the stone.
Another long, empty hallway. I honestly don't know what I'd expected at that point. Other explorers in books and movies always complained that there were always people out to kill them, or how everything was booby trapped, or how there was always a bigger fish or something. Meanwhile, whenever something completely useless wasn't attacking me, I was basically playing hallway simulator, waiting in vain for something to change. I'd sooner go back to when Tori was trying to kill me...
...Dammit, I was already back to thinking about Toriel. Come on, focus on anything else...literally anything...
Something between a grunt and a yell of frustration shot from my mouth as a passed by brick number two million sixty-six. Would the Ruins ever end? Did the entire Underground have the same washed out, ugly appearance?
A shiver ran through my body. With each step I took farther into the cavern, it became dimmer and icier than with the last. Because there wasn't already enough shit going on to have me missing Toriel's cottage, why not add progressively shittier and shittier conditions into the mix, too? It wasn't just rubbing salt into the wound, it was picking at the scab with a rusty knife.
Just as I was getting tired of picking at the goosebumps on my arms, the hallway opened up into a new room just as boring as the last. It was pitch black except for a bit of light seeping from a hole in the ceiling.
If there was some greater force hanging out up in the sky, then I was two hundred percent sure it had it out for me. Basking in its glow was a familiar face I'd been this close to forgetting, and the last thing on the planet I wanted to bump into.
"Clever! Verrrryyy clever," it said smugly, it's face lighting up the moment I entered.
This bastard chose a bad time to rear his repulsive mug around me. "Don't tell me your scrawny ass is still slithering around here," I spat at the golden flower as it wore an insanely broad smile. "I thought Toriel incinerated you. Would've been doing the world a favor..."
An obnoxiously complacent look came over Flowey's unsightly, lying, sorry excuse for a face. "Aw, what's the matter? Throwing a tantrum now that mommy isn't around to babysit you?" he cackled. That insane laughter would fit right at home in a mental ward. "Besides, that woman's magic isn't nearly strong enough to kill me. And you're still worthless without that old bag of bones."
Damn, he was setting a new world record for how quickly you could reach my last straw. I drew my weapons and said, "Talk about Toriel and I like that again and I'll break your teeth."
What a pair of charming young gentlemen.
My threat only made him laugh louder. The echo gave off the horrifying effect that there were multiple of this freak of nature. Was it worth stabbing myself in the ear if I never had to listen to him again? "That's adorable! You actually think you've given me any reason to be afraid of you!"
For every second I had to listen to him speak, I felt another brain cell popping. Somehow, I forced myself to get a grip and stomach my anger. All he wanted was to get a rise out of me, and the last thing I wanted to do was give him that satisfaction.
With a deep breath, I said, "You seem pretty cheery, considering you were dead wrong."
Flowey was still completely unphased. "Oh, sorry, I seem to have forgotten." Malice bled through his mock-sympathy like hot water through a tissue. "Please, enlighten me."
He's not making this easy. "Do I really need to spell it out for you? Wait...riiight, thinking would be way too hard for something without a brain!"
He nodded along with my insult, urging me continue. I kept an eyes peeled for any and all "friendliness pellets" that may come my way.
"'In this world, it's kill or be killed,'" I recited in my best Flowey impression, which basically translated to making my voice as irritating as possible. "That's word for word what you told me. And go figure, I made it through the entirety of the Ruins without taking a single soul." Keeping the anger out of my voice was impossible by this point. I started talking faster and faster the more riled up I got. "So by definition, my dear, dear Flowey; you were wrong."
I don't know what I expected, some kind of victory forming in my gut, maybe a defeated look flashing across his face, or best case scenario, watching his petals peel off his head one by one. Instead, he snickered. "Lemme guess; you failed all your spelling tests when you were a kid, right?"
"Nope, I got ninety-fives, 'till I stopped caring." God, I wanted this damn thing to keel over and die. Or at least have any visible reaction to the insults I was chucking at him. My cool was melting, and I couldn't let him win.
"Wow, ninety-fives, huh? Impressive. You must think you're really smart, don't you?"
I flinched as his face distorted more and more, back to that hellish form with the dark, sunken eyes and razor-sharp teeth. The real Flowey we all knew and despised. I wasn't afraid.
I'm not afraid.
"So you were able to play by your own rules," he hissed with obvious animosity. The cavern seemed to grow darker with every breath he took. "You spared the life of a single person."
I blinked. Everything was dark, and the vines were back, tearing at my flesh with their horrendous thorns. I fought back uselessly against their iron grip to save myself. But they were too strong. They pulled until my limbs were torn from their sockets in one violent motion, and I fought back a scream that curdled my blood.
My eyes were forced open again, and they were gone. Did Flowey notice my spasms? Could his sinister smile sense my...
I'm not afraid.
"So what?" I choked. Stronger. "So what?" I said again, louder, more confident. "I could do it all again if I had too. I don't care if there are three more or five thousand more monsters waiting for me." I trotted forward and leaned in, so close to Flowey he could've chomped my nose clean off if he wanted too. Close enough for him to see the beads of sweat running down my forehead. "I'm no nice-guy, but I'm not a sad, sadistic fuck like you."
A few torturous seconds past where we stayed like that. With each passing moment, the smell of his putrid breath grew stronger, the stench of soggy, rotting leaves. We waited for each other to back down. I don't know if I could've taken him in a fight right then in there, but I sure as hell knew I would've gone down kicking.
Finally, he transformed to his fake, almost innocent looking form and shifted back away from me. "Toriel was right. You really are naive, just like the others."
I tossed aside his insult like a crumpled up piece of paper. Triumph flooded every nook and cranny of my body. For now, I won.
Of course, Flowey couldn't have it so that I got the last laugh.
"Lets see how far that gets you."
With that demonic, sinister laugh ringing in my ears, Flowey sunk into the ground, taking the tension in the room with him.
...What, I said I wasn't afraid, not that I wasn't nervous to hell and back.
A sigh of relief tumbled out of my mouth. The weight of a boulder had been lifted off my back.
I hated Flowey. Loathed him with every essence and fabric of revulsion and hatred in and around every corner of the universe. Never in my life had any creature driven me to such extreme emotions and scenarios in such a short period of time, and no one had every been able to catch, brush off, or throw back my attempts at jabs and insults as well as he could. My brain had instinctively marked him as my mortal enemy. Something to watch out for until I could finally claw my way out of this hellhole.
The first hurdle was cleared. It was too late to go back to Toriel. So the next step was clear.
...I had to literally take the next step.
I treaded over the spot where Flowey had been, locking the memories of Toriel, the frogs, the spider bake sale, and even Grey in the back of my mind. They would just be distractions for now.
Another gate lay in my path, this one noticeably larger than the last. A shiver ran down my spine as I drew near, not from fear, but from the damn frigid cold. I ran my hand along its surface and instantly jerked it back. Even the slightest touch from the steel was bone-chilling, enough to sting like a bee. Freezing air rushed through the gap between the two doors. The outside.
This time, I knew for a fact this was it. The end of the Ruins. Just wished the Underground wasn't negative seventy degrees Celsius.
I grabbed the handle despite the painful chill and pulled the heavy door open, ready now more than ever to brave the cold.