Jeremiah wasn't sure what he was expecting to see on the other side of the doors. Being honest, he wasn't sure what he wanted to see on the other side of them.
But now that he saw what lay beyond them, he knew he hadn't expected or wanted to see it. "Why is there another hallway? I thought that door was supposed to lead out of the ruins." He complained half to himself and half to Chara. He wouldn't normally complain about something like this, but this hallway was stupidly long. Heck, he couldn't even see the end of the hallway. Chara sighed. "The exit is at the end of the hallway." Jeremiah decided to take Chara's word on that and started to walk down the straight and narrow path laid out ahead of him.
After several minutes of walking, Jeremiah could finally see what lay at the end of the hallway. It was a dark room illuminated by a single dim light. The light was coming from above and was only bright enough to light the center of the room. Interestingly enough, there seemed to be a patch of grass growing right where the light hit the ground. Jeremiah couldn't help but smile at the sight. "Is it not amazing how God could bring life and light to the darkest of places?" Chara, who was still in a funk, was just going to agree with whatever he said, but then she noticed something hiding within the grass. It took her a moment to realize what exactly it was, but once she did she swore and shouted. "Get out of there Jeremiah!"
Jeremiah jumped in surprise but quickly composed himself and frowned. "Chara that's not funny. Also, you really need to stop swearing." Chara was far too scared to bother arguing with Jeremiah, so she yelled at him instead. "Flowey is in there, run away before you get killed!" Jeremiah just raised an eyebrow. "Flowey?" For a single moment, his confusion managed to confuse Chara as well, but that moment passed quickly. "It's the flower that tried killing you earlier!"
Jeremiah cringed at the memory. "That wasn't a hallucination?" Chara didn't need to answer, because almost as soon as he asked it he noticed the vague outline of a flower hidden within the grass. He felt his determination to move forward slip for a moment. "Maybe I should just go back and try converting Toriel again and leave later?" He quickly dismissed the thought as cowardly. How could he turn his back on an entire kingdom of poor wretched lost sinners when confronted by a mere flower? Besides, this flower was obviously in need of Jesus, he had tried murdering him after all. So, filled with determination to save this flower's immortal soul, he made his way towards them. Chara yelled and called him an idiot with every step.
As he got closer to the flower, he was able to make out more and more detail. Like the fact he was glaring at him. He was too determined to let something like that stop him, so he just continued walking. He didn't stop until he was just a foot or two away from them. He put on his best fake smile and looked down at that hate-filled flower. He was about to try the same approach that he used with Toriel, but he remembered how that turned out. So he decided to be more polite about it this time. "Howdy, Mr. Flowey. I'm afraid that I never introduced myself last time we met, my name is-" He was interrupted by Flowey's sudden and loud laughter. Flowey laughed for quite a while, and Jeremiah couldn't help but be annoyed by the interruption. Once he finally stopped laughing, he looked up at Jeremiah. "I'm sorry about that, you just reminded me of an idiot I used to know." Even Jeremiah could tell the flower wasn't sorry in the slightest, but he decided to turn the other cheek and ignore it. "That's ok Mr. Flowey. But like I was trying to say earlier, my name is-" Flowey decided to interrupt him again. "I don't care what your name is. I'll just call you what you are." Jeremiah gritted his teeth, Chara's constantly yelling at him to run away didn't help his nerves at all. "And what would that be?" He asked Flowey in the sweetest voice he could muster, which was about as convincing as Flowey's.
Flowey just smiled at him. "An idiot." Jeremiah never noticed the little white pellets hurtling towards him. However, he did notice Chara yelling at him to dodge. Jeremiah had never dodged anything in his life before, and he had no idea what he was even supposed to be dodging, so he just flung himself onto the ground. In the end, that only bought him a few more seconds of time. He soon felt a searing pain course through his entire body.
His entire world seemed to crack all around him. He could hear Chara shouting at him to get back up, his own screams of pain, and Flowey's insane laughter. Then, in an instant, his world shattered into darkness.
The first thing Jeremiah noticed was how he couldn't see anything. The second thing was the extreme agony he was in, it reminded him of the time he got the flu, that really didn't mix well with the blight. The third thing he noticed was actually a consequence of the second. He had wanted to scream out in pain but found himself unable to even open his mouth. Fear and panic coursed through him, he tried to kick, scream, pray for help, anything. But he couldn't do anything. He was forced to lay there and take the pain for what felt like forever.
He was just about to start wondering if he had somehow ended up in hell, (which really would've sucked on account of not even remembering how he died) when he heard something. It was the sound of a door being opened and closed. Then to his surprise, he opened his eyes. He was in a white and grey room. Although he was still in pain, being able to see something drove some of his fear away. He began to greedily look around the room with his eyes, taking it all in.
The room looked quite luxurious, hardwood floors that had no scratches, a bookshelf so full of books he couldn't help but be slightly jealous, and a bed on the opposite side of the room that looked like it should belong to a prince. He wanted to try reading the names of the books, but he found his eyes being forced to look away. His gaze slowly wandered over to a… figure? Jeremiah honestly had no idea how to describe it. It looked like a painting that had been smudged to the point of being nothing but a blur. Normally seeing something like this would be terrifying to Jeremiah, but for whatever reason, he found it's presence comforting. "Is it an angel?" He couldn't help but wonder. If that was the case, maybe he had died and was about to go to heaven. He wanted to smile at the thought, but his body refused to.
He blinked and when he opened his eyes, the blur was kneeling next to him. He realized at this point he was probably lying in a bed. He felt the blur grab his limp hand, this confused Jeremiah for a moment, but he quickly realized the blur was holding his hand. "You're going to be alright." The voice was soft and gentle and sounded like it belonged to an older man, probably around Father Caiaphes's age. Jeremiah wanted to ask the man (it would be rude to just keep calling him the blur at this point ) what was happening, but his body disobeyed his desires yet again. Instead of speaking, he just gave a weak smile and closed his eyes.
When he opened his eyes, he was back in the hallway. "What… what just happened?" He asked himself, wondering what happened to the pain and the man. "I… I think you just died." His confusion doubled, he had no idea who this girl was and why she was talking to him. Then, the memories hit him.
He staggered back as if he had been punched. "Oh," He muttered, suddenly feeling queasy. He then wordlessly looked himself up and down. After doing this for about a minute, he realized much to his amazement he wasn't injured. Not only that, he was standing back where he first noticed Flowey. His heart skipped a beat and he looked at the patch of grass. Thankfully, he couldn't see Flowey anymore. He let out a sigh and slowly started to slide down the wall. "This is… this is-"
"Impossible." Chara finished for him. Jeremiah nodded. "Yes, that's right. Do you think Flowey just knocked me out?"
Chara scoffed at his idea. "Do you really think that weed wouldn't kill you if he could? Besides, you were pretty injured so someone would've had to heal you. Toriel couldn't have done it because she would've taken you back home, and I think it's safe to say Flowey didn't do it." Jeremiah was quiet as he tried to think of an answer. He spent a lot of time in quiet contemplation of what had happened, what he felt and seen. He also tried to remember his dream (at least he thought it was a dream), but it seemed to fade away faster than he could grasp it. In the end, all he was left with was the vague memory of a kind man who comforted him in a moment of pain.
While Jeremiah was stumped and couldn't think of an answer, Chara came up with one of her own. "Maybe you traveled back in time, like Groundhog Day." Chara sounded slightly excited by her idea. Jeremiah sighed in frustration. "I have no idea what any of that means." He could practically feel Chara tilting her head at him as if he was the oddest thing she ever saw. "You never watched Groundhog Day?" Her voice was slow and brimming with curiosity. Jeremiah just shook his head, silently wondering to himself what she meant by watch. "Well, Groundhog Day is one of the best movies of all time and I'll have to make you watch it once we get back to the surface. So I'm not going to spoil it for you." It took Jeremiah a moment to process what she said, but once he did, he had to do a double-take. "Did she just say movie?" It was at that moment he realized he should probably ask her about when she died. It would've had to have been at least before the Great scouring if she had been able to watch a movie. But before he could, she continued. "Anyways, regardless of what movies you have and haven't seen, what do you think of my theory?"
Jeremiah shook his head slightly, pushing questions about how old she was to a later date, he should focus on one mystery at a time after all. "What do you mean by traveling back in time?" Chara just sighed and spent the next few minutes explaining the basic concept of time travel. By the end of it, Jeremiah felt like he understood the concept less than before he asked the question. "So you're theory is that I got killed and somehow sailed through time?"
Jeremiah jumped slightly when he heard a loud smacking sound coming from nowhere, it took him a moment to realize the sound was Chara slapping her own face. She let out a groan. "Do you have any better ideas?" Funnily enough, after all that talk of the past and future, plus the strange dream, he had a pretty good theory for what happened. "I think I do. But I'll have to explain some things to you." Chara sighed and told him to go ahead. So he spent about a minute or two explaining the vague memory of the dream to her, then spent several more minutes listing multiple instances of prophetic dreams in the Bible.
"So what I'm trying to get at is that I think God gave us a warning to avoid the flower, and encouragement to not give up no matter the circumstances." Jeremiah finished, his voice filled with a slightly manic glee. Who could really blame him, if his theory was true that meant God was planning to use him for something great, maybe to even convert all of these savages. He could be just like one of his personal heroes, Saint Patrick.
He felt Chara shrugging at him. "I like my time travel theory better." Jeremiah snorted as he picked himself up, all of his pain and fear forgotten. "Because sailing through time is such a realistic idea." He started to walk down the hallway and past the grass, making sure to look out for any flowers. Thankfully he found none.
He soon reached what Chara confirmed to be the actual exit to the ruins. It was a beautifully elaborate doorway, it's purple stone columns reminding him of a painting of the old American capital. Between the two columns was a set of purple doors, much like the ones from before. He placed his hands on the door to push it open, the door was freezing cold. Jeremiah shivered. "Hey Chara, what's past the ruins?" Chara was quick to respond. "Snowden." He wondered what Snowden was and why it was called that, but as soon as he pushed the doors open he got his answer.
There was a forest with trees that seemed to reach all the way to the top of the cave. The whole forest was coated in a white powder. Jeremiah stared at it wide-eyed. "Is that…" Chara smiled and answered before he could finish asking. "Snow."
(AN) So I got that chapter out quicker than I expected, Thank God. I was originally planning for Flowey to not attack Jeremiah, instead, he would mock him and talk about how he couldn't wait to see if he would kill someone out of paranoia. I wasn't even sure if I wanted have Jeremiah re-load at all, but then I realized I could have a weird dream sequence, and I love myself some weird dream sequences. Also, I made an Omake that was supposed to be what this chapter was originally supposed to be, but I quickly derailed the whole omake.
Omake: I totally didn't write this Omake on the fly in one draft.
Flowey grinned at him, but even Jeremiah could tell it was fake. "I heard you talking to that old hag, it was hilarious. I've almost never seen her break down like that, let alone so quickly." Despite Flowey's jovial tone, Jeremiah couldn't help but feel ashamed about how rude he acted. Flowey seemed to sense his shame, which only caused their smile to widen, showing off their sharp teeth (which greatly disturbed Jeremiah, because why would a flower need teeth?). "I was only trying to help her be better." He muttered out, more for himself then for Flowey.
Flowey giggled in response. "Wow, I didn't know you could actually hear me! That must mean you ignored me earlier on purpose!" Jeremiah, realizing that this is just an omake and nothing that happens here matters, decided to be sarcastic. "No, I never meant to ignore you, just like you never meant to kill me." He could feel Chara staring at him bewildered. She quickly came to her senses and asked him in a voice resembling a hiss. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Jeremiah just ignored her.
Flowey just giggled again, because the author already had him widen his smile, and having him do that any more could cause it to fall off his face. "You know what? I was planning to kill you for ignoring me earlier, but you're too amusing just to kill right here and now. I can't wait to see how much the other monsters will scare you if you were convinced the old hag was going to kill you."
Jeremiah frowned at Flowey. "That's not any way to talk about your mother, Asriel." Flowey froze, Chara would've done that as well, but the author has been too lazy to properly explain if she has her own ghost body that Jeremiah can't see, or if she's stuck as just a voice in his head. "What?" The siblings asked in unison. Jeremiah repeated himself. A few seconds passed before both of the siblings started to scream at him. "How dare you compare that weed to my Asriel?" While Chara's shouting was filled with anger, Flowey's was filled with confusion and slight fear. "How in the world did you figure that out?" As soon as she processed Flowey's question, she stopped shouting. Jeremiah gave no visible reaction to either of their shouting, instead, he decided to answer their questions calmly. "I read one of Toriel's books about monster history when you weren't looking Chara." Flowey looked at Jeremiah with desperation and asked. "Wait, Chara's here?"
Jeremiah ignored Flowey's question. "The book talked all about the royal prince and princess and what happened to them. After reading that, it was simple to figure out you became Flowey." The siblings were both quiet for a moment before Flowey almost hesitantly asked. "How in the world was that simple to figure out?"
Jeremiah shrugged. "You were doing some weird and probably heretical things with your sister's soul. Your sister came back as some weird ghost thing. You died in a field of yellow flowers, and guess what? Right after meeting your ghost sister, I met a talking yellow flower. If Chara could come back as a ghost, why couldn't you come back as a talking Flower?" Flowey stared at Jeremiah utterly baffled. Everyone was quiet until Chara eventually hissed out. "Let me get this straight. You didn't mention anything about Asriel coming back from the dead until he insulted our mother?" Jeremiah nodded, not noticing Chara's ever-increasing rage. "And you didn't think I would want to know about that?" It was Jeremiah's turn to feel baffled. "Wait, you didn't know, I thought it was obvious?" There was a moment of calm, that was quickly ruined by Chara starting to yell and curse at Jeremiah.
Jeremiah cringed and looked at Flowey for help. Flowey, while unable to see or hear Chara, could actually feel her rage at Jeremiah. But despite knowing his sister was still around, Flowey was still a soulless jerk, so instead of helping Jeremiah out of this mess, he just giggled and said, "Adios Amigo," and disappeared into the ground with a pop.
(AN) I hope you enjoyed that insanity. Please leave any thoughts or criticisms in the reviews. Thanks so much for taking your time to read this story, God bless.