FALLS DOWN
Frisk woke up by the feeling of a cold hand jostling her shoulder. She jerked awake, fumbling her book and clutching it close as she stared around her. "What?"
The few kids that were on the bus leaned over the seats and peered down at her with perturbed expressions. "Get up!"
"Oh…" Frisk got her things together, shakily making her way down the aisle. Well… the dream had been quite short… but she'd slept well enough. Strange… in disbelief, she shook her head and kept walking, concentrating on her foot work.
Getting off the bus was always such a relief, but getting down the isle was no easy feat. Everyone kept trying to trip her, and grab at her books. She kicked someone's leg to clear the path and hurried down the isle while someone howled.
"What are you doing kicking people?" the bus driver groaned.
"They tried to trip me."
"Ride in a seat next time?"
"Make some room then…" Frisk grumbled as she skipped down the stairs, hopping to the concrete, and taking off up the lawn of maybe five yards. She hurried across the sidewalk, bolted up the wooden steps to the front door, propped her books on her leg while she fished the keys out of her pocket. She regained her hold on the books, slipped inside and slammed the door closed behind her.
Shifting from foot to foot, she debated dropping the books on the table or going straight to her room. If she sat down at the table, she might just bruise her forehead again, and then she would be uncomfortable because of the plain wooden chairs, and her dad would complain about her leaving the books on the table. "AGH," she wheeled around and went to her room to the right of the kitchen, plopped her books down on the quilt of her bed, shrugged her backpack off next to the shelf of shoes and things at the end of her bed, and proceeded to slam face first into her bed.
There was a low rumbling, and soft fluff touched her hand. The motor sat down on her hand, purring vigorously. Frisk peeked an eye up at the very fluffy brown cat with grey eyes squinting back at her contentedly, tail twitching slightly.
"What are you doing sitting on my hand?" Frisk said with a smile. "I can't pet you that way."
"Meee-ee" the cat choked, tucking its front paws beneath itself.
Frisk began to move her hand, but the cat whined and bared its fangs: "MEEEEE" it hissed a little.
"Fine, I'll just sit here and do nothing then…" and soon Frisk was drifting off, her mind brutally rehashing the events of the day. Sometimes her mind would linger on the good things, but more often it rehearsed all the things that annoyed her. Today it was a fair match. She had to fight to think about Mt. Ebott, and wonder about visiting the place. Soon she was rested and awake enough the more she thought about the legend, and she had some energy in her. Prying herself out from under her cat, and startling it awake, she walked out of her room and simply stared at the wooden floor.
"What am I doing standing up." She stated bluntly, mind blanking. She looked at her hands, realized they were shaking, and her stomach was growling. "Oh." She went to the cabinet, took out a box of mac n' cheese, grabbed a pot, filled it up with water and slammed it on the stove. After she set the timer, she made her way around a protesting kitty to grab the green book in her room and read more at the table.
She was beginning to loose herself in the book when she realized the timer was ringing. She jumped up, seeing the water boiling furiously. "Agaaggh!" she scrambled to pour in the macaroni while turning down the heat. She stirred absent mindedly for the next few minutes, becoming more and more engrossed in the urge to call Ms. Anne and go to Mt. Ebott.
Frisk drained the water from the macaroni in the sink, poured it back into the pot, tossed it butter and milk… and three extra slices of extra cheese from a block. She grinned rebelliously, got herself a bowl and sat down that the table, continuing to read while she waited for the food to cool down.
There was a rumble outside, and Frisk jumped back in her chair, grabbing the table to keep from falling. Her eyes went wide and she looked out the window. Then she realized the sound had been an engine. She sighed, and looked down at the bowl of yellow mush. "Oh." She reached for the spoon and realized she hadn't got one. She remedied that problem and went to eat the almost cold macaroni.
She frowned. "Cheesy enough but how freakin long have I been reading?" a glance at the clock told her it was 6:03. "Well I don't know when I stopped cooking so that doesn't tell me much, dang it."
A second or so later, the door swung open, and a lean man in jeans, plain grey shirt and denim jacket strode inside. He waved at Frisk, and she waved back.
"There's some cheese on the stove if you want it," Frisk chipped.
"I gotta teach you to make meatloaf…" he grinned as he swept off his coat and hung it on a coat rack in the small entrance hallway.
"You know I can't focus on things. I couldn't even remember my spoon!" she waved it in the air dramatically, and a macaroni fell away and landed on the table. The cat, sitting on a chair, suddenly stood up on the table and began to nibble at the noodle.
"I'm glad you're a bookworm, Frisk, but you have to remember to get out of your head sometimes." He walked over, ruffling her hair and giving a light kiss on her forehead. While he got himself a bowl of macaroni, he asked Frisk: "What did you pick up this time?"
"Mt. Ebott lore." Frisk said simply, sitting down her book.
"Ooooh… the old park? Well I know there are a few monuments there… haven't I taken you there?"
"A long time ago, I think…" Frisk sidestepped the question, mom had been there then… "There was this big battle over land between two native American tribes there. Thing is, it's kind'a hard to believe, unless it's all just symbolic. There's regular people for one tribe, which the story sided with because they were the ones who won the war, and then there was the "enemy" tribe which were treated like demons and monsters."
"Really? That's extreme."
"I wonder if maybe the tribe that won might have just been mean towards them, because there's a lot of evidence of the war physically taking place, but there's so many details about the enemy literally having the appearance of monsters. Scales and horns… Could have just been masks or war paint, and animal skins, but whatever."
"Be awesome if they were really monsters though, right?" he gave her this knowing glance as he pulled out a chair and sat down across from her.
Frisk looked away and grinned widely, "Maaaaaybe…" she said lightly, "But it's just wishful thinking because…" she fidgeted with the corners of the book, absently flipping pages and looking through photos.
"You love the fairy tales."
"Yeeep." She chuckled smugly. "Because of you."
"I'm glad you still read… I'm sorry I haven't been around as much, Frisk. I'm sure you can read on your own now," he laughed, "but it's just hanging out…"
"What are we doing right now?"
He shook his head, a grin on his face. "So what exactly happened in the war? How'd the "good guys" win?"
"Well... she thought for a moment. "Actually, the "good guys" dug a trench for the "enemy" because they had heard there was going to be an attack at night. Welp, there was an attack, and the other tribe fell into the trench. So happened, the trench gave way to a massive cave system. It's said the people still live underground, because the hole they came through was sealed up, along with every other cave opening that was found. It's been so long though, you can barely tell because of all the weathering if there were any places that had been sealed… there were a few suspicious places, but…" she shrugged. "the story gets more and more vague, and mysterious."
"How so?"
"It's said there was a magic that sealed all the "monsters" on top of sealing them away. Something separate. I take it was a ceremony. Throughout history, there's tales of monsters returning. And being killed, or escaping… there's also this big myth that every once in a while, an entrance will open to the underground, like a sink hole or something, and people will disappear in the park."
"I've heard people disappear." Dad nodded.
"The most profound story is where a monster Lion man returned a child that had disappeared, but the child was dead in his arms."
"Whoa, that's intense."
"They attacked the lion man, so say fatally injuring him. He didn't fight back, but fled, and got "swallowed up by the ground, and they were gone". At least, that's how the legends say it."
"That's pretty cool there's a myth like that in our small town. I'm surprised I didn't learn about it. Its local history."
"You know how native American history is shoved under the rug, right?"
Dad sighed. "Yeah." He finished up the last of the macaroni, and stood up to wash it in the sink. "Hurry up and eat, bookworm."
Frisk looked down at her bowl. She'd barely eaten any of it. She shoved her book aside, put her bowl in front of her and ravenously devoured every last cold cheesy noodle. Once she was done, she moved to the sink to wash out her bowl. "Hey, dad?"
"What?" he called from the living room, turning down the volume on the tv.
"Would it be alright if I went with Ms. Anne to Mt. Ebott?"
"The librarian? You besties, now?" he didn't look at her, but Frisk saw the grin on his face.
"She offered to drive me over sometime."
"I've met her before. She seems alright. Just make sure you have your phone with you, okay? Call me if anything goes amiss, I'll be right over. Let me know before you go anywhere, alright?"
"Yeah!" she exclaimed happily. "Thanks! And I don't really leave my phone, so… kinda need the dumb thing for everything." After finishing washing her bowl, Frisk took her book from the table and went to her room. "Welp, I'll be reading till morning."
"You better not."
She giggled mischievously and plopped down to read more. Her cat appeared after a few minutes, and made itself comfy on her back. Sometime after reading a few 100 pages, a great, admirable display of fighting sleep though it was, Frisk finally gave in to sleep in the early hours of the morning…