Cover Art: FairyFan94 from Deviant Art
Chapter 19 – Forgotten, Bereaved and Scrounger
Frisk blinked in confusion tilting her head to the side as she stared up at him before glancing around in the blackness. There was no end to it. Her hand slowly stroke over the dark ground. At first it seemed like a black bottomless pit with no end but when her hand touched it, it felt like ground. It wasn't an empty space, it even felt slightly smooth yet strangely rough at the same time.
Frisk looked up again into the endless blackness. She could see something moving far away or was it nearby? There was no means of telling. Straining her eyes the human girl tried to see what was moving but couldn't make out any kind of form or shape that made sense to her.
"The shadows… won't hurt… you…" The girl looked up and smiled at the one next to her. He reminded her of her skeleton friends yet he was different, for example there were holes in his hands and cracks in his skull. They still fascinated the little girl though and made her only more curious about her new friend.
He had told her that she was in a place called the black abyss or void. Frisk didn't understand the explanation fully. But she had understood that he was trying to help her and that she was in a place that she wasn't meant to be. Also he had tried to explain something about time and space and how this place was connected to it yet not at the same time… but being the child Frisk was she had tuned out his explanation at some point and found the holes in his hands way more interesting. So she naturally reached out to look at them more closely but he refused to let her see his hands more closely which made the small child pout.
The skeleton then had given up trying to explain anything more to the child. He looked to the side as if watching something and the girl curiously followed the direction but saw nothing. She frowned a little and tilted her head in confusion before she pulled slightly on the strange black fabric of his clothing. For a moment Frisk wondered how she was able to distinguish the fabric of his clothing from the blackness that was around them.
"What… is it… child?" His strange voice ringed in the child's ears. Her eyes searched his face for any kind of emotion but she couldn't see any. Her eyes wandered from him to what surrounded them and then back to him, asking an unspoken question once again.
Wingding let out a mute sigh and shook his head before he smiled sadly at the child. One of his hands reached down stroking her head in what was an attempted comforting gesture. He wanted to avoid answering the question as long as possible and partly hoped that the childs attention span was going to divert again by something else. Though the skeleton wondered why that was so difficult for him to answer the child's question about leaving this place.
Usually he had no problems with answering questions. After all he used to find answers to question as part of his job. But he wasn't able to willingly give this child of kindness any answers. Maybe he didn't want to see that child saddened, or was it the guild he felt for ripping the child out of reality? Whatever it was he didn't like the way it made him feel.
Frisk pulled on his clothing once more and pointed at window into reality. She smiled brightly as she reached for his and pulled him over to it. Her smile got even brighter when Frisk saw who they were able to watch through it.
"Sans?!" The girl cheered slightly. He watched the child letting her hold onto his hand in her small one. Guilt filled him as he watched the child reach out to her skeleton friend but wasn't able to reach him, curiosity and confusion reflecting on her face.
He watched as Sans sat up scratching his skull in confusion but then hold one of his hands over his right eye-socket. Frisk giggled a little, instead of trying to reach him she waved at him and smiled brightly as it seemed that he was looking at her but Wingding knew he didn't. The girl tilted her head in confusion and reached out to the short skeleton once more.
"We… can't reach… them…" He started carefully, glancing down at the frowning child as they watched Sans closing both his eye-sockets before he disappeared before them. "They… don't remember… us…"
The girl only frowned even more staring at the place where Sans had been. He only shook his skull as he glanced sadly down at the girl. He squeezed her hand, that was still holding his, a little to comfort her, the way he had watched others do it.
Slowly the girl turned her head to look at him. "Wingding?" her voice was soft nearly not hearable but he could still hear it clearly, maybe it was the silence of this place that let him hear her soft voice so clear. "They don't remember you?"
The way she worded her question confused him but he nodded anyway not bothering to correct the human girl that they also didn't remember her. There was no use in trying to explain the girl why they didn't or taking Frisk hope with the harsh truth. He knew that by time the girl would understand that she was going to be saddened or blame him for her fate. He was prepared for that… but he wasn't prepared for the girl to suddenly hug him.
Frisk mumbled something as she hugged the skeleton around his middle. The strange black fabric was pressed against her face as she buried her face in it. "Lonely…" She mumbled quietly shocking the skeleton. "You must be lonely…"
Winging awkwardly patted her head not sure what he was supposed to do as he looked around in the black abyss. A warm feeling filled his being. A feeling he hadn't felt in years maybe even decades. He smiled sadly down at the child that still buried her face in his side. The longer the hug lasted the more it filled him with the warm feeling, slowly old memories of his live before the black abyss also returned to him, filling him with even more nostalgic feelings until he finally returned the hug.
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Sans rested his head on his arms. His eye-sockets were closed yet he wasn't napping or sleeping. A cold breeze blew past him. Snow slowly started to fall. His skull shifted slightly and he opened one eye-socket staring out at the trees opposite his sentry station. Usually he would already be asleep or dozing off but lately… Sans wasn't able to sleep well or even nap at all.
The short skeleton couldn't come up with any reason as to why, aside from the fact that he blamed headaches and weird static interferences. Everything was like it always had been, but yet felt like something was missing. His days were filled spaghetti made from his brother, visits to Grillby's, his job at the sentry station and occasionally talks about time anomalies and static interferences with Alphys…
Both of Sans eye-sockets slowly opened a little bit wider. Why was he discussing time anomalies with Alphys? Or even these weird static interferences that seemed to occur more often lately? The short skeleton tried to remember but found that he couldn't really. His memory was becoming strangely not accessible. There had been a reason, a very important one for him. Maybe even the something that he felt was missing? Sans sometimes felt like he could remember it but yet at the same time he couldn't. This reason that he couldn't really recall was probably why he was sharing his knowledge about timelines with Alphys but…
The skeleton shook his skull. Frustration pulsed through him the longer he thought about it and causing another headache. Slowly he sat up, scratching the back of his skull in confusion, just as another wave of static washed over him and his grin faltered slightly, yet nothing had changed.
A strange feeling went through his right eye-socket and he flinched, placing one hand over it as he closed it. "What now…"
He shook his skull ignoring the strange pulsing that started to throb in his skull. The headache slowly got stronger as an image of a human child appeared before his mind eye. It was a girl and she was looking curious at him, a blue sweat shirt with purple stripes, shoulder long brown hair and warm chocolate brown eyes. He knew that girl that was now waving while smiling brightly at him.
"Frisk… " It was a low whisper and Sans felt even more strongly that he was slowly losing something important. The image before his mind eye was getting more and more detailed. Her head was tilted to the side and she seemed to look in confusion at him but then she frowned. Slowly he closed his left eye-socket too to focus better on that image. "My memory…?"
But right when he tried to figure out what was wrong with his memories static washed over him once more the pulsing in his right eye-socket disappeared and so did the image together with the memory it awoke. The skeleton blinked in confusion as he opened his eye-sockets.
He slumped in his seat again and rested his skull on his arms. "What is going on?" Sans asked aloud unsure of what was happening to him once more. He had a strange feeling but it wasn't déjà-vu like yet he knew that he was forgetting something. His eye-lights glanced in the direction of the ruins, like he expected someone to walk down that path.
"I wonder…" The skeleton buried his face in his arms. "…am I forgetting something…"
He looked up once more, watching how the snowflakes danced around in the air. In the far distance of his mind he could hear an unfamiliar-familiar giggle.
"…or someone…?"
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[LOAD failed]
A frustrated grunt escaped Chara as they smashed their hand down on the LOAD button.
[LOAD failed]
Their red eyes glared at the shining words. Once more their hand came down onto the button, cracking it slightly.
[LOAD failed]
"Work damn it!" They yelled while their other hand clenched around the handle of their knife. Red eyes blazed with rage as they glared at the glowing words.
"Why can't I load her SAVE!" Chara growled, they turned and looked around in the space of nothingness that trapped them. Once more they tried to hit the LOAD button but like before… it didn't react to their touch the way they wanted.
[LOAD failed]
Furious they stomped their foot. Their eyes glared heated at the glowing words. If there were a RESET button then they could easily reset the world and start anew but… for some reasons it was gone. All Chara could do in this place was trying to load Frisk last SAVE which appeared a lot more difficult than it used to be.
[LOAD failed]
For starters it shining words that contained the information's of Frisk SAVE were glitching. Also the SAVE was with Frisks name not theirs like it used to have. Why wasn't it with their name anyway? Did they somehow change that? No it couldn't be. Frisk didn't even know they had this power till Chara took control for the first time in this timeline. They wanted so desperately to turn back time that they summoned this 'loading screen'.
Their hand slammed down onto the LOAD button for the hundredths time, more cracks appeared on it, but there was no different reaction.
[LOAD failed]
Chara scowled at this. Red irises searched through the nothingness. Oh how they despised that sorry excuse of a mad scientist, if it weren't for him she would be in full control already.
"I will make him suffer for that." A smile spread across their face at that thought, no it wouldn't be enough anymore to just 'erase' him. They were going to make him suffer, him and that comedian.
[LOAD failed]
"But first…" The loading button cracked once more under their fist. Their eyes shown with 'determination' and slowly lifted they their fist off the button. The hand holding onto the knife rose into the air. A silver dusted blade gleamed in the nothingness.
The knife came down.
It's stabbed into the LOAD button and it broke.
A maniac grin appeared and their red eyes gleamed in 'determination'.
The nothingness around them started to change.
[Loading corrupted SAVE]