The Dreemurr sibling's bedroom lay dark; silent except for the sounds of two steady breaths and whatever nightlife resonated from outside. Their beds lay at adjacent corners, one for Frisk and the other for Asriel. Navy curtains blocked any stray light from entering.
With a bedtime schedule as strict as Toriel's, they were guaranteed to be bright and early for the day that lay ahead. Asgore and Toriel – like all parents – envisioned their kids to be big and strong when they grew up. Asriel would be as heavyset as his father, sporting giant horns and a brimming beard to boot, while frisk would be tall and slim and proud in whatever they chose to be.
Of course, dreams had other ideas.
Asriel snapped awake with a gasp, rising a couple inches off his pillow. Tired eyes remained wide with narrow pupils for a few seconds while he fought to catch his breath. There was his sibling over in the other bed, snoozing peacefully, having better dreams than him. The stuffing in his pillow crumpled as he lay his head back down.
"I don't get why I get dreams about falling," he wondered in a whisper only he could hear. "I was born underground, so why should I suffer?"
He shifted around in his bed, trying to get comfortable so that he would drift back off. After a few minutes, his thoughts ran with the reasons behind his struggle. Asriel did not realise how chapped his lips were until he smacked them together. He ran his dry tongue along the roof, gum lining and gutters of his mouth, finding little moisture.
Asriel groaned. "I need a drink."
But he was already comfortable. Draped in warm sheets, exhausted, barely able to keep his eyes open, he loathed the very idea of having to get up. But his dry mouth demanded it. With another groggy moan, he threw off his warm sheets, rolled out of bed and… into the depths of space.
Far, far below, the tiny Earth grew larger and larger as he plummeted toward it in freefall. The cold, airless air whipped past constantly, trying to rip away his pyjama t-shirt and shorts. Both his bed and Frisk's bed, the bedside tables and the wardrobes all drifted up into the beyond, never to be seen again for thousands of years.
Asriel Dreemurr descended rapidly, falling toward his end. And yet nary a peep escaped past his lips.
"I'd be more scared," he said in a normal tone, "had it not been for all those Flowey dreams." He stretched his appendages wide, embracing his fall. For only being in his head, he couldn't feel the blanket that covered him, or the pillow in which his head rested. The cold sensation between his fingers and toes was quite genuine. "I what they say is true, then I'll wake up before I hit the—" a giant blue light from the side flashed in his pupils "—GROUN—!"
A passing comet crossed his path at the exact moment he slammed into it, striking solid space rock before passing its icy contrail, going into it with a black eye and coming out the other side frozen like an ice cube.
He continued his fall toward the planet, leaving his own trail of ice behind him. Solidified teeth were barely able to chatter.
"C-c-cold… cold… cold…"
As he hit the Earth's atmosphere, he burned up, melting the ice instantly while also lighting his fur on fire.
"Ow! Hot hot hot hot HOT!"
Mercifully, he passed that to the sheet of white clouds down below. It couldn't get any worse than that, right? Maybe his prayer had been answered. Already, he could see the ground.
No, wait. That wasn't the ground…
"Not the Outerworld!" Asriel screeched as he fell toward the seven magical islands he was at some months back. "NOT THE—"
Too late. He bounced off the highest peak from the castle in the centre and out of the Outerworld entirely.
Asriel's fur was a charcoal-coloured, frazzled mess. One of his eyes was black by now. He opened them, hoping this dream would end. Not yet.
"M-Mettaton, watch ou—"
Too late again. The killer robot, enjoying a relaxing jet ride across the sky, had his trajectory ruined. Thankfully for him, his boxy shell was impervious to all damage; the resounding thud of some goat kid's cranium travelling at terminal velocity failed to even make a dent against his metal body.
"Hey," Mettaton shouted in his robot voice, shaking a fist. "I'm flying here!"
"…S-sorry…"
So much pain. But Asriel was way past the clouds now. The patchy ground was in sight, closing in fast. Not too far to go now. Unless…
"Wait…" he mumbled, "Does Mount Ebott count? I mean, it's technically part of the ground, so it's peak—" Too late thrice. The top of Mount Ebott shudder as Asriel slammed into it. "Guess not…"
Almost there…
Then it was the roof of his own house. He hit it hard, reducing a few tiles into fragments. He slid closer to the edge to the jangle of broken slate, finally seeing individual blades of grass several metres below.
"About time…" he mumbled. Some of his teeth were missing.
Sweet, wonderful earth; the very thing to snap him awake. Or the thing he will almost hit before he wakes.
From out of nowhere, Doctor Alphys appeared and found him in an instant, despite his odd positioning. Her beaming expression ignored the horrible appearance and apparent agony the boy must have been feeling.
"H-hey, Asriel," she said, "I've just finished my l-latest invention."
"Latest invention?" Asriel repeated. His chin dangled over the side now.
"Yeah. I've installed a trapdoor r-right in front of your house. Now, if we ever need to get back to the Underground, we can get there much faster."
Asriel glanced down. "A what?" To his horror, there, etched in the ground, was a square outline with two noticeable brass hinges on one side.
Alphys pulled a generic doomsday button from out of her lab coat pocket. "Check it out."
"No, Alphys, wait!"
Do I even need to write it? What comes after thrice anyway? The moment Asriel dropped, so did the claw on the button. The hatch flipped ajar and prolonged Asriel's descent. He zoomed down a claustrophobic tunnel of black rock and grey stone, making a one-way trip all the way back to his past home.
Above, the short, plump frame of the doctor appeared. "By the way," she echoed down, "there were some stubborn rocks that I couldn't move, so it might be a little b-bumpy."
All Asriel could do in light of that was shrug. Even that hurt. "Oh, what a nice change of pa—"
He bounced off a boulder as the drop snaked to the left, then another as it turned to the right and he slid face first down a steep incline of crystals, each one smashing against him like glass. "Ow ow ow ow ow."
Exiting the tunnel (and covered in bruises and fragments of crystal), Asriel fell toward the grey dystopia of New Home. Never before had he seen it how the ceiling did. He struck the peak of the castle, then one of the many boxy skyscrapers (groundscrapers?), and finally the roof of his previous home itself.
Hurting all over, he moaned, "Please don't let there be an underground under the Underground…" He slid off and dropped the remaining way to rock bottom.
He was a centimetre away when…
It ended. Asriel jolted back into the reality of a cosy, warm bedroom with his sleepyhead of a sibling in the opposite corner. He briefly wondered what wondrous dream they were having before crumpling back onto his pillow.
At least Frisk's dream will be better than his…
