LOADING SAVED FILE 1...

"…"

Moltres. Wake up.

"…"

Motres. You have to wake up.

"…ugh…"

Slowly the girl rises to her feet. Her head aches and there is an overwhelming smell of flowers. Her eyes adjust to the pitch black that seems to surround her with an odd burst of light falling at her shoulders from above. Slowly, slowly, she cranes her neck to peer up to the sky where a stream of sunlight beams tauntingly from where she stood completely alone and confused.

Already the voices that had pulled her from her slumber had fallen into the world of forgotten. She shakes the matted hair from her face.

"…ugh…my head…"

She continues to speak to no one, eager to hear something other than the circling symphonies of silence. Warily she glances down at her feet which are covered entirely by a sea of yellow plant life that clung almost fearfully at where sunlight touched, struggling for the blessed rays of life. Entranced, she gingerly leans to brush at the soft petals, reminded of distant childhood memories of butterfly wings being chased in the midst of spring. There is a child's laughter chorusing through her mind.

Such a remembrance ignites a sharp burst of pain from her temple and she staggers forward, whimpering.

In a matter of seconds, the memory of butterfly wings disappears to join with the voices of the forgotten. She cannot recall what it was she had remembered. She cannot remember how she ended up on the ground again, kneeling before the flowers in defeat.

She does not know who she, herself, is.

Except. Except what she can hear repeating in her head like a song persisting to be recited and kept pure for passing down generation after generation is a single name.

Moltres.

It guarantees no true identity. It calls for no acceptance to be hers and hers alone, but it is all she can seem to hold in place. It is all she has, so decidedly she takes it for herself. It is the first step in her ways of becoming aware.

"Moltres…" I breathe out, testing out the word, feeling oddly uncomfortable with the way it seemed to flicker to life. I relish in the way it gives me a feeling of consciousness. "Right."

With a deep breath, I turned to a direction I deemed appropriate enough to follow, and delved in the world blindly. In not too long, I came across yet another area of limited light, noting a patch of greenery and a single…smiling flower.

Smiling. I knew for a fact that flowers did not smile back wherever I had come from.

It seemed expectant for me to approach and so reluctantly, for whatever reason, I decided to venture forward. Immediately it's beady eyes seemed to light up in excitement.

"Howdy! I'm Flowey! Flowey the Flower!" it exclaimed all too cheerily.

And suddenly a warning bell flared in my mind, and all I could think was: "KILL".

But just as quickly as it came, it disappeared off into an unobtainable memory.

"Hmm…"

I gaze at it questioningly, seeming unable to tear my eyes away.

"You're new to the UNDERGROUND, arent'cha?"

The emphasized word danced circles behind my mind's eye and curiously I wondered why it seemed so bitterly familiar… like a bad dream I had conjured in another lifetime…

"Golly. You must be so confused."

"Leave." I spoke coldly, surprising both myself and the plant.

For a moment no one, or really, nothing, said anything. It blinked almost rudely at me, shaking away at its petals and flicking its leaves in a foreign manner. After some time, it continued.

"…Someone ought to teach you how things work around here, and little old me will have to do!"

Something was peculiar with the way things suddenly felt. Like there was a slight and sudden change. In what, I had no ideas as to where to start guessing. But the fact was I was certain I'd done something to change what this thing was meant to say. I'd gone and altered some form of a… what was the word…

"…Hey…"

I snapped to attention, noting the impatient twitch of Flowey's unmistakable temple. His smile remained intact, but looked extremely forced. The whole ordeal now seemed like a horrid performance. And I, the audience, had managed to aggravate the actor of the show.

"What are you doing? Why are you staring off in space like that? Don't you know it isn't polite to ignore someone when they are speaking?"

No words broke through the barrier of uncomfortable silence following its remark. I merely stared for another bundle of comments to be said. In response, Flowey once again ruffled itself, the briefest of twitches gnawing at the corner of its mouth.

"*ahem*… right then. Well… Here we go!"

For a terrifying moment, everything went black. Before I could even register a moment's panic, the brightness returned, although in a strange, almost breathing glow of red. Startled, I leapt away from the new source of emitted light only to find it leaping right on with me. There, hovering just inches from my chest was a pixelated…heart. I dared a step to the side to find it following along with me in a delayed fashion, much like the acts of a love sick pup. Stunned, my palm reached out shakily at its outline only to retract at its warm and blocky touch. Again and again I braved myself into repeating the poking process, mindless of Flowey gazing at my bizarre charade with a look of pure irritation.

"Oy," it spoke gruffly, almost seeming to sag with exhaustion from observing my curious state. "If you're done... That would be your SOUL. The very culmination of your being."

Slowly, I nod. Captivated by its soft, radiant glow. This I knew. Somehow I knew.

"Your SOUL starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain lots of LV."

It waits to see if I have anything to say, looking as though it's daring me to interrupt his speech once more. Wordlessly, I focus back on the floating heart. My soul.

It's a cute little thing, honestly. Just about the size of my palm. It even seemed to have its own slight beat, pulsing in separate bursts of rhythm. But still, just as this conversation seemed all the while… something was oddly familiar. As though this tiny, inanimate looking object were a long term friend I was being reunited with.

Testing my thoughts, I rest a hand to my own chest only to jolt at the lack of life. There wasn't, without a doubt, an expected organ moving within my ribs. This heart before me was truly…

"What's LV stand for? Why LOVE of cour- HEY. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME, PIPSQUEAK?"

Flowey was frowning most unpleasantly, sending visions of feet tapping in a mad sort of pattern. It no longer seemed like a potential friend – nor did it ever, in that case – and I grew wary, comfortable enough with the idea to step back. Immediately the heart did the same, encased in my towering figure. The plant, too, took immediate notice.

"You…" it almost seemed to sigh, shaking its head in a new deranged sense of ominous intent. "You know what's going on here, don't you?"

The pixilation before me quickened it's rate, eager to move. With a nervous swallow, I fell back another couple of feet.

"Then you know how this ends right? You know how to play the game, yes?" Flowey went on in an eerie, monotone voice, growing louder with each progression. White bursts of what I presumed to be pellets appeared from thin air around it, throbbing with an unmistakable excitement. They seemed to tremble at the very thought of being launched at their next victim.

It was settled then. This was indeed an enemy not to be taken lightly. There could be no question as to how I came to such a realization so quickly, but –

"COLLECT ALL THE LOVE YOU CAN, EYAHAHAHA!"

Cackling, Flowey spectated me falling to the ground in surprise at a sudden circle of white coming in all sides, closing in…closer…closer…my heart struggling, struggling, until –

Gone. They disappeared much like they appeared in the first place… shrouded in mystery.

"Eh?"

Peering up to see what had ended such an atrocious situation, I did so just in time to take in Flowey's stunned expression along with a bright purple flame being flung towards the monster. In a tumbled fit, it flew off and out of sight, somehow blown off down to the roots.

"What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth…"

The voice was one of a sweeter song, caressing the weariness in my tensed muscles. It sounded of home and I could barely refrain from crying in pure relief. This being was so painfully familiar. So wonderfully pure. And I felt as I'd gotten back something precious I'd lost a while ago.

"Ah, do not be afraid…?"

The female's soothing voice trailed off at the sight of me taking in her grand appearance through blurred vision. But even with the distortion, I could absorb the unmistakable heaviness of her robes with those symbols which meant nothing but also so much to me, the lulling purple, the large, soft paws, and those peppery horns raising out towards the heavens. Her kind features melted into a look of deeper concern – something I deemed at the moment to be a talent – and her eyes wavered with a mixture of confusion and desire to comfort. In an attempt, I put out a hand to shake her… non-human paw in gracious civility. But rather than trying to understand my intentions, she smiles and pulls herself to me, enveloping me in a blanket of an embrace.

"My child," she asks softly, pulling me back to wipe at the corners of my dancing vision. I can feel slips of her fur getting stuck in the crevices of my lids, leaving a persistent itchiness – of course, something of which she couldn't have much control over. "What are these for? You need not be afraid of me. I am TORIEL, caretaker of these RUINS. I do not wish to harm you."

She wipes away at an escaping droplet, tilting her head at my transitioning mood. The moment of joyful reunion was replaced with puzzlement and a vagueness of my whereabouts. There had just been a talking flower, hadn't there? And this was a speaking…goat-thing.

Obviously I was dreaming. This was all a tripped out dream. And soon I would wake up in my bed… at a home with…what is the word. What are they? Parents. And maybe a brother… or… or maybe a sister…?

An explosion of overwhelming pain flared within my mind, knocking me into the belly of my savior. Startled, she folds her massive paws around my head in a careful manner, frantically calling for my state with a flurries of "are you alright, my child?" "what is wrong?" "careful now, I am going to take you into the catacombs."

And as I felt the last of my consciousness fade away, the skylight above me seemed to flicker and shudder. I began to confuse whether or not it was I who had closed her eyes on this world or if it had been the world above shutting their gazes away from me.