The Valley - Part 5
A dark world blurred into existence. The human girl's eyes fought between adjusting to the waking world or falling back into slumber. The battle went on for god knows how long, and Frisk wasn't sure which side of her was winning.
As it waged, she thought back to that lovely dream she had, even though she could only remember a fragment of it. In that fragment, she remembered the grass under her palms and the night lights from Ebbot in the distance.
Not to mention the stars, so plentiful and far away, high above.
As the battle in her mind finally abated, her eyes adjusted. It was strange waking up to no sound. It seemed the strange underground wind had subsided at last.
It was also dark in the room. Very, very dark, without a single shine from the window, as if the starlike cavern crystals had all dissipated.
All that stood out in this black was the silhouettes of MK sleeping and a hunched-over flower underneath the window. Neither of them stirred one bit.
Frisk sighed inwardly and tried to fall asleep again. After what felt like a few minutes, she didn't even appear to be dozing off. Perhaps she just had to adjust herself. But it proved impossible as her entire body was so utterly devoid of energy as if every nerve in her body was yet to awake. She could barely even move her mouth.
She didn't know how long this went on. All she could do was dart her eyes from corner to corner in pitch blackness. It gave her time to think, yet thoughts became nonsensical and incomprehensible when she managed to.
There was, however, one thing that stuck in her mind. A thought so clear, it was perhaps a memory. It formed a face in the shadows, floating in front of her eyes. Like an image overlaid on top of reality, the face appeared wherever her eyes darted.
It resembled a wise, old lady. Not just any old lady, but an aged lady much, much older than her. Much older than any woman who ever lived. Perhaps even older than Earth. A lady of inevitability.
"Reality can be hard to discern," the face said in a hoarse voice of an elderly woman. "Very, very hard to discern even as it stares at your soul. But then again, even if you manage to- well. Hu, hu, hu, hu. No worries. It will all make sense, sooner or later. For humans, it's always just a matter of time."
A figure was sitting upright on MK's mattress and stared at the wall, still like a statue. Despite being right in front of her, Frisk did not even see them sit up.
MK?
She tried to speak out, but she couldn't even move her lips. Her body must be still half-asleep.
"Have you ever thought about a world where everything is the same," they suddenly said, sounding strangely distant. "Except you don't exist?"
"W-what…?" Frisk finally managed to push out of her mouth.
It was a lot of effort just to say that one word. But the figure remained silent as if she didn't exist or say anything.
Something about their voice was odd. It sounded like MK's, yet somehow not at the same time. And the way they stared at the wall and somehow directed the words purely towards her.
But it wasn't just their voice. Even in the darkness, Frisk could tell something was different about them. Like they had gone paler.
But it had to be MK. It wouldn't make sense otherwise. Right?
"Everything functions perfectly without you…" they continued. "Ha, ha… the thought terrifies me."
The kid returned to silence. With great effort, Frisk tried forcing out more than a word.
"What are you saying?" Frisk managed to whisper.
The strange kid finally acknowledged her presence by turning their head towards her. It had MK's face. Except it was grey, completely devoid of emotion, and with eyes as white as a corpse's.
"Please forget about me," they simply said to her.
"Wh-where is all this coming from?" Frisk asked. "Is something wrong? Did you have a nightmare? M-MK?"
They were gone. Without even a single sound, they disappeared like the universe blinked them out of existence.
"MK?"
She frantically looked around the room, baffled.
An audible rustling came from outside, followed by someone falling on their face.
Feeling a surge of determination, Frisk forced herself onto her feet and crept towards the window. Even that proved to be challenging.
Outside was utter blackness, more than she ever thought possible. Not even the cavern crystals shone. However, standing just outside the house was an unmistakable silhouette.
"MK?" Frisk muttered as if they could hear her from there.
What they were doing out there didn't cross Frisk's mind outside of her utter bafflement of everything. She turned towards Flowey, but he appeared to be just a plain, faceless flower at the moment.
"Flowey, wake up," Frisk said.
She shook his body to no avail.
"Flowey, there's something wrong," she said. "Flowey-"
Suddenly, there came a click, followed by some creaking. She turned, and the attic's hatch was wide with a blueish hue shine coming out from it.
Frisk pondered if she was finally losing her mind. Was MK really outside? And why was the hatch open as if imploring her to come down?
Clearly, she must be dreaming still. Only, if that were the case, she couldn't wake up. The fear lingered. There was some strange part of her that didn't want to risk it. They were still out there, in the darkness, and she had to help them. Help all of them. This strange rationale told her that the nature of reality didn't matter. In this world, the only truth was her own.
Something was calling for her. She had to move forward, help them lest they be lost forever, so she stepped forward and headed down deeper into the nightmare.
As she descended the ladder, the elderly face of what she called inevitability flashed in her visions again. It remained there as she came into the living room. The house was no different, yet it felt lifeless and silent as the grave, as silent as the place between awareness. The void where the mind doesn't and cannot wander.
"Light or darkness," the face said as Frisk crept to the front door. "Facts or fiction. Oh, it's all so subjective. You will discern it the same way humans do. You will understand. You will comprehend. The real question is, will you accept it?"
I hope I do, Frisk thought to herself. For better or worse.
At last, the face faded from her vision as if to say that its message had been answered, for now.
Frisk stepped out the front door to be greeted by a valley blanketed in darkness. No light, no stars. A world at the edge of reality, beyond which lay non-existence.
Frisk looked around but couldn't see MK or anyone else for that matter. All that remained in this dark world was her.
And someone else.
Frisk couldn't see it, but she knew it was there. A strange presence in the air. Only as she fully accepted it did it come to view.
Frisk hadn't seen her yet, but she knew it was there. She really did not want to look at it, but she turned around anyway.
There she is, unnervingly tall and uncomfortably skinny to the point of being skeleton-like, standing still with her right facing the house. She wore a wool dress dyed blood-red, with midnight black feathers sewn into the sleeves and neck. A very long hood covered the head, concealing it in complete darkness, safe for several strands of sickly grey hair protruding from it. If you looked close enough, you could almost see an unnaturally large grin shining in the blackness, showing rotting yellowed teeth. But it wasn't a natural grin of joy or excitement. She grinned because she had no lips or mouth.
Two, bony hands crumpled like greenish raisins protruded from the sleeves, with long black nails about as sharp as knives. The figure folded them on top of each other courteously.
Underneath the dress, instead of feet, protruded two clawed and feathery bird feet, close to that of a pitch-black rooster.
But the most unnerving thing to Frisk was that she didn't feel frightened by her presence. Not only that, but somewhere deep within her soul, Frisk could almost swear there was a hint of recognition, even if just the tiniest. Like they had met in some past life.
The creature stared like a bird as if politely waiting for her. To speak or to command.
"Hello?" Frisk said quietly.
The figure tilted her head slightly.
"I'm… I'm looking for someone," Frisk continued. "A little kid. Have you seen them?"
The figure tilted her head back before noiselessly raising her left arm to her sides. It was slow and inhuman, like the arm of a puppet or a clock, towards the field of dust. Then her fingers moved in a way as if every muscle in her hand needed individual control until only an index finger pointing left remained.
Frisk slowly fearfully turned her head and saw a patch of light forming in the blackness where the finger pointed. Surrounding the light were numerous pillars resembling tall totem murals.
Frisk peeked closer. There was a silhouette in the distance, standing in the middle of two murals. It resembled a kid with a long reptilian tail and no arms. They stood there still as if waiting for something.
As if waiting for her.
"MK?" Frisk whispered.
She looked back at the strange old lady, half-expecting her to say something. She just remained silent, that permanent grin almost feeling it was mocking.
"I-I have to go," Frisk said. "Thank you, erm, Yaga, I-"
Yaga? Frisk thought to herself. Why did I say that?
She shook her head and began to head towards the distant light, feeling the gaze of the inhuman entity follow behind her.
Before reaching the light, Frisk had to walk through the void. Stepping into the darkness was like stepping into the air. There was practically no pressure against her feet, no gravity.
She could not see the ground, and part of her mind rationalized that there was no ground. She was walking in the air, through a path laid out for her towards the large totems of stone.
Fearfully, Frisk turned around, expecting the lady to be gone. But the witch remained, standing just outside the house, facing her, observing from a distance, palms on top of each other courteously.
Frisk spent the rest of the trek looking at the light ahead. She felt like there was something in the blackness with her, something that could scarcely be called life. The barest minimum of sentience. Something without what could be called a body or even a soul.
As she closed upon the light, the silhouette appeared moving. Turning its head around as if looking for something.
Suddenly, it took a few steps downward as if descending a hill and vanished out of sight.
Frisk proceeded to run the rest of the way, an act that felt unnaturally difficult. Running up what seemed like a hill should've been seconds, but felt like half a minute.
Once she reached the top, she paused and tiredly leaned her arms on the stone pillars. She took a glance at the mural.
The words and characters were constantly changing and switching places at random. Beyond those totems, the grass glittered in the blackness, sparkling like the sunlight on the ocean.
As she walked further into the field, she saw the glittering was something else. Shining white dust was strewn randomly about the field, hovering between blades of grass. These piles were almost uncountable, stretching further than her eyes could see.
When Frisk stepped on one such spot, she felt like she was passing through something strangely solid, even though her feet just went right through. She then tried to gather some in her hand, but they just went through. Although, she did feel like her hands were going through something oddly solid.
"What is this?" Frisk muttered.
A sudden noise came behind her from another patch of dust. The sound of something or someone shuffling in the grass, but when Frisk turned to look, the sound was gone and there was nothing.
Shaking her head, Frisk continued on through the field.
That noise came again, but when she turned to look this time, she was certain she saw some odd particles floating for just a second.
When she turned forward again, a dark figure hidden in shadow stood deeper in, back turned towards her. Frisk swore it wasn't there a moment ago, and it was clearly not a mirage. She blinked several times and the figure did not move an inch.
As she walked closer, the figure became clearer. No arms, a tail, and a spiked head.
Frisk tried to call out, but only whispers escaped her lips.
Suddenly, she felt something soft hit her feet and she stopped. She felt no pain, but the bump was unmistakable. As she stopped to examine the anomaly, she noticed there was another pile just under her feet. Only, it seemed to be floating up into the air, slowly. The air around the floating pile felt solid like the dust was covering an invisible entity.
Then the noise of shuffling grass came again.
"What the hell?" she muttered as she turned.
In every single pile as far as her eye could see, every single particle of dust floated up in the air and made the exact noise she heard moments prior, of a person moving in the grass. The grass did not move in response, yet the noise of shuffling could be heard. It was as if it was replaying past noises like an echo flower.
Frisk shook her head and kept walking onward towards the distant figure. Every time she walked into a floating pile, she felt herself bump into something. After it happened a few times, she attempted to walk past every single one.
Before she realized it, every single pile had risen into the air. Each particle moved slowly, circling each other as if looking for their spots.
Then Frisk noticed the shapes, and it immediately dawned on her.
Taking the form of their silhouettes, all rose from dust and stood around silently like statues.
Each one was the silhouette of a creature. Some were humanoid, some were more monstrous than others, but they were undeniably shaped like once-living entities.
A wolf, a dog, and a bear. A goblin, a giant stone man, and even a small impish creature she could not fully understand. These were just a few examples of what she could discern.
Then they were armoured, with weapons such as swords, axes, halberds, and other things in their hands.
That's when the whispers came. Untold numbers of whispers in a language she could not understand. They spoke in tones of dread, fear, and uncertainty. Some were louder than others, some were panicked. She could feel them all around her, prodding in her ears, as if desperate for her company. Desperate for her to notice them.
Frisk felt her breathing become uneasy, and she desperately wanted to wake up. But they were so close. They were so close. They stood there silently, and she could see them. She could see their colours, shining from the glow of the floating dust figures.
But then, Frisk immediately halted. The colours were wrong. There wasn't yellow on their shirt or scales. There was no life. They were muted with grey, black and white.
Their head was slightly tilted so she could see their eyes. They were white and lifeless like a corpse.
"MK?" Frisk asked with uncertainty.
As if on command, they began to run away from her.
"Wh-wait!"
She ran after them, not caring whether she would hit any of the figures this time. She ran inhumanly slow, almost like she was walking through water. The whispers were gone, replaced by other noises. They were like loud noises heard from a distance. Fireworks, explosions, shouting and cries. They came from all around here, the noise of conflict. But they were approaching, getting higher by the moment. How long until it suffocated and deafened her.
The kid ran further and further, and the entities became more and more numerous. But as Frisk panted as she ran inhumanly slow after the kid, she noticed another thing. Another more dreadful thing.
The entities had begun to move as if in slow motion.
Then Frisk tripped on something solid.
She landed face-first into the black grass. Then she looked ahead and saw through some of the figures that the kid, thankfully, had stopped. They stood still, staring at her from a distance. Their eyes were pure white, not a single colour in them. The face was expressionless and grey.
Frisk took this moment of pause to breathe and look around. She saw some figures staring at each other. They all grabbed hold of their weapons, and they moved their arms in strange motions.
The loud noises got closer and closer. The figures did not have any clear definition on their faces, but they all somehow looked fearful. None of them wanted this, but it had to be done.
Frisk rose back up her feet. The movement of the entities became faster and faster until they moved at a normal pace. Suddenly, they all stopped.
At that moment, the noise of war finally arrived and the figure ahead of her began to run away.
And all the entities began to fight.
The sudden whiplash of noise almost sent her back to her feet. The clashing of blades, the cries of anger and suffering. Frisk felt the sudden push of the entities huddling up against each other in combat. She was in the middle of a large and loud rumble, and she could barely move.
She tried to squeeze through. She tried to yell. She tried to scream. She could do nothing else as she watched the kid disappear amidst the throngs of ghostly fighters. Finally, a large figure next to her fell off the crowd. Where there should've been a head was a ghastly opening with piles of dust pouring through, and eventually, the figure vanished into another pile of dust.
Frisk couldn't ponder about that as she squeezed through that opening and began to run.
As fast as her slow feet could manage, she ran and ran. A figure fell in her way, so she lept before it materialized into dust. Two canine-like figures, both larger than any person she has seen, forced Frisk to duck and crawl under them. The clanking of the unseen weapons just above her head was loud on its own, only silencing when one of them appeared impaled from the ground up.
As she stood up and ran, she spotted a spiky one wailing and screaming an inhuman screech on the ground as a limb appeared missing. As Frisk ran past it, it silenced as something heavy fell by it.
Flying dust of the slain phantoms covered the sky, yet the fighting had no end in sight. Clashing, fighting, yelling.
Frisk couldn't comprehend, and she somehow knew that these mimics of the past couldn't either. They all rose up again when their dust had settled, only to fight again. Their actions only betrayed the bare minimum of a being, stuck in an endless loop of their own pain and suffering.
Frisk did not know where she was running to anymore. She tried to cry out to MK, but her cries were silent in the row of countless others.
She paused her steps there and turned and turned around. Everywhere, the dust creatures struggled and fought without purpose or understanding. Large and small, fat or slim, they cried, they wailed in pain. They were angry and went berserk. Yet, there was fear in all of them.
As she turned and turned, she desperately looked in a last possible move. Amongst this chaos, she could not find them. She saw anger and hate, fear and unease. She even glanced at the hooded witch walking amongst the crowd, her stick in her hand, grinning her everlasting grin.
Frisk had to find them. She knew she had to find them. She had to save them, their soul. She had to-
Who was she looking for again? She could not remember. It was all so blurry, like an old dream. Yet, there they were, standing amidst the crowd, looking at her with those grey eyes. Another entity stood beside them, placing its hand on their shoulder. A skeletal entity dressed in all black, its eyes resembling distant stars. And like the stars in the night, it was there but unachievable. Always in sight, but never in grasp.
Gaster?
That name popped up in Frisk's mind instantly. It was here, just as it was in this same place many years ago in the waking world. She felt her body relax as everything around her slowed down. She had a sense of understanding, although she couldn't figure out what that understanding was.
Of course, he would be here. Why wouldn't he? This endless battle, this infinite death. This is the place where its purpose is served in more than a handful. It is the result of it all, but he is not. He is what remains after, while it is the aftermath itself. And not just this battle, but of all living things. It is the inevitable result of everything.
"Frisk?" a voice said.
Amidst all the noise, that voice stood out more than all.
"Wake up."
What remained left of the dark world began to dissipate. The goner kid turned around and walked into blackness. The noise of the battle was gone, except that one oddly familiar voice which remained.
"Come on, Frisk, get up."
Frisk felt her feet move forward on their own. She had to run after them.
"Frisk, Gods damn it-!"
The kid was gone. The figures were gone. Death was all that was left, and it stared her in the eyes.
"Frisk, wake up! FRISK!"
…
"Gah!"
Frisk rose up on the mattress, feeling the sweat on her brow and the pounding in her chest.
"Frisk, finally!" Flowey said with relief.
Frisk grasped her chest and breathed heavily while the waking world blurred in front of her eyes. She was so thankful to see the familiar face of the flower floating in front of her face.
"Oh god," she muttered. "Oh my fucking god."
"Look, I'm sorry about your nightmares," Flowey said. "But we have a bit of an urgency right now!"
"Whu-… what?" Frisk managed to say, almost in a whisper.
"Erm…"
Frisk glanced around the room. Everything was just as it was supposed to be, except MK could not be found. Their mattress was unoccupied, and their blanket was carelessly thrown to the sides.
"Where's MK?" Frisk asked worryingly.
Downstairs? Frisk hoped. Please tell me they're downstairs!
Flowey closed his eyes and took a deep breath. What looked like sweat ran down his face.
"That's… that's the reason I woke you," Flowey said, sounding regretful. "They erm… they ran away last night."
Author's note:
So... does anyone pay attention to the author's note in this fic.
Eh, whatever. Sorry, it took so long, only, what, a month after the chapter came out?
Anyways, I'm a very forgetful person, if I had to admit. But those reading this(and were here when it first came out) might notice a few changes in the chapter itself if you look hard enough. I admit, I kinda rushed the re-read and editing process before the first upload. And I really shouldn't have, tbh. This chapter is still imperfect IMO, but I did make some changes I think are for the better, mostly because I think it flows better a bit.
Anyway, this chapter itself is something I actually wasn't planning to do until like very recently, as in this year. But I love a good dream sequence, especially those of a more supernatural variety, and oh boy, I couldn't resist. So, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, this chapter is chock-full of future foreshadowing. Some of you may be curious about Gaster and his exact nature in this fanfiction, so far, he has only appeared in person once, and who is to say this isn't a second one? Man, the whole concept of non-existence is something I'm kinda obsessing over in this AU, hence why I'm writing that prequel story (which I WILL get back to, I promise. This isn't another "That's Politics" Situations. I hope.)
And then there is the mysterious "witch" that Frisk meets early on. Or have they met before? Just don't be surprised if she or her presence makes a return.
God, there is so much more I wanna say about this chapter but at that point, I'd be going into some heavy spoiler territory. The next chapter will come out very soon at the time of writing this. It will also be the final one of The Valley segment, and after that... well, I ain't telling just yet.