Journey Through the Ruins

Off to the side, there was a room with a candy jar. They saw a sign telling them to take only one, so they did. They weren't sure if they could trust that this candy was safe, but if they were desperate, then having it might come in handy.

Following the path, they came upon a frog-like creature. It was just sitting still and looked harmless. They used to play with frogs sometimes when it rained. Their parents were upset when they came back muddy, but would sometimes laugh at the stories. At least, when they were younger, that's what happened. As they got older, getting dirty or muddy became less acceptable for "little girls."

They were walking past it when it croaked.

A whisper in their ear spoke in its place, "If you want a monster to stop attacking, you only need to act a certain way. If you attack back, the monster will also stop fighting when it is injured enough." They weren't sure if they were hallucinating or if there was some strange entity playing a prank on them. There was no way that a single croak from a frog could have that much detail in its meaning.

They continued walking when the frog jumped at them. The world lost its colour and they were stuck in a battle with this frog.

"Froggit." The whisper told them.

Whatever, the froggit. They liked frogs and didn't actually want to hurt it. They smiled at it and touched its head affectionately. It was pretty cute for a frog monster. The froggit croaked happily and sent some fly-shaped bullets towards them. The fly-bullets darted around erratically and were pretty easy to avoid. The bullets weren't really aiming for them, just moving in random directions.

After the bullets dissolved, the colour bled back into the world and the froggit hopped away. There were a few small coins on the ground where the froggit was sitting. They picked the coins up and put them in their pocket. The one that didn't have their used bandages. If theses coins were the currency in this world, then they'd need to have at least a little to spend on necessities.

As they entered the next room, their phone started to ring. It was an old flip phone, but the tiny screen still showed caller ID. It was Toriel. They wanted to ignore her, but they needed to know what sort of information she was getting from the tracker. It couldn't be a coincidence that she called as soon as they left the previous room.

"Hello my child! I was just calling you to check up on you. You are staying in the room where I left you, are you not?" Toriel paused for a moment, expecting them to answer. When they did not, she continued, "I hope that your silence means that you are staying in one place. That spot has many leaf piles for you to play in and a few froggits to meet. Froggits are peaceful creatures that particularly enjoy compliments. If you are kind to them, they will happily play with you or leave you be."

That information would have been nice a few minutes ago. At least this was confirmation that the whisper, whatever it was, was giving them reliable information.

"And if you meet a whimsun there, know that they are nervous creatures. They are unlikely to approach you, and tend to enter battles accidentally when you bump into them. They will stop the battle immediately if you just let them be." Toriel continued to explain.

It was good to know that there are a few common varieties of monsters in the area. They didn't know what a whimsun was, but if they saw a scared-looking monster, then they could make an assumption.

"Anyways, I also called to tall you that my errands might take longer than I expected. If you could please remain in that room for just a while longer, it would put my mind at ease. The puzzles in the Ruins are quite tricky and could be dangerous for you. Take care, my child!" Toriel hung up. Perhaps she had realized that they weren't going to start speaking any time soon.

If only she had told them what these puzzles or traps were. There was one in front of them and they weren't sure what to do. There were two vents on the wall and a cracked floor that spanned the width of the room. They tried climbing in the vent on their side of the cracked floor, but it was just a bit too high for them to climb into. The only thing lift to test was the floor.

They poked the floor and it fell apart like papier maché. Perhaps it was actually made from papier maché and painted the same colour as the floor. They tore a bigger hole in the floor and gazed down. It didn't look like a far fall, and there was a pile of leaves at the bottom that they could fall into. They probably wouldn't be hurt much if they fell in, but it would be a hard landing if they did. Probably. This place did have some weird magic when it came to falling. Or maybe that was just that first cave where the light was.

Who knows. This place might not have consistent rules of reality. For all they knew, this was some kind of dream world where just thinking and believing could make anything happen.

The cracked floor wasn't too wide across, but it was about as far as they could jump. They backed up a bit and decided to try a running jump over it. They touched the other side with the front of their feet, but were balanced too far back. The fall could hardly be called a fall. A gentle wind spun them in circles as they were lowered down to the leaf pile.

What a "deadly" trap. It was like going down a spiral slide at the playground. This room had two vents, just like the room above. These vents were at ground level, so they could crawl in easily. They crawled into the one at the far end of the room, and were pushed up by another magic wind. They floated out of the top vent and landed on their feet at the far side of the room.

Toriel must have thought that they were an infant or something, if she thought that this was dangerous or challenging. There was literally nothing that could hurt them unless they came across some monsters.

The next room had more of that papier maché floor. They stepped on a random spot and were floated down to the bottom. There was a path traced through leaf piles in this lower room. This must be the safe path through the papier maché floor. There was probably a solid floor covered in papier maché up top so that it would blend in. Once again, it was not a dangerous or challenging "trap."

They traced the path through the leaves a couple of times to get a feel for where to walk. Once they were confident, they walked back to the start of the room where there was a vent to climb up. As they walked back through the leaves, a small fairy popped out and bumped into them. Their vision darkened.

"Whimsun." The whisper told them. That seemed obvious from the way that it was shaking. They turned their physical body and started walking away. As they moved away, the colour came back to their vision. They turned to get another look at the whimsun and saw some more coins on the floor. The extra money couldn't hurt.

Now that the whimsun was gone, they went up the vent and crossed the room by following the leaf path from below. Easy peasy.

The next room made them groan internally. Another pathetic "puzzle." There were more rubber spikes blocking the archway at the end of the room. In front of it were three rocks and three pressure plates with lines drawn between them. As if it weren't already obvious that the three plates needed to be pressed, probably by the conveniently positioned rocks right beside them.

Honestly, this was so simple that they couldn't understand how this was actually supposed to trap or stall anyone. The first two rocks were easily slid onto their respective pressure plates. The final once was weird because it kept moving in random directions when pushed.

They sighed. This was the real trap. Why would all three rocks move the same way? This world was magical and didn't need to follow its own consistent rules. They just kept pushing the rock and it eventually moved closer to the pressure plate, at least until it was a few inches away. From there it would go any direction except on the pressure plate.

After a few minutes of struggling, they stopped and sat down. This was stupid.

While they sat, the rock moved on its own and rolled onto the pressure plate. This place was so stupid! Rocks can't just roll on their own on flat ground! That rock wasn't even round! It was lumpy and had flat sides! It was sitting on a flat side!

They were so done with this place. As simple as this place seemed at first glance, it really was irritating.

They blinked in surprise. How did this small irritation make it through the wall blocking their feelings? Weird. The wall was still there, but that small feeling got through. It probably wasn't that important.

The next room had a small table with some cheese glued to it and another one of those weird stars. They touched the star and their small feeling of irritation disappeared. That was quite convenient. They moved onward.

A ghost was sleeping in the middle of a leaf pile where this room narrowed. That was quite an inconvenient place to sleep. They couldn't jump over it or walk around it. Stepping on it felt like it might be rude. They also didn't want to call out to it. What if it attacked them for waking it up? So far none of the monsters except that flower had been outright aggressive towards them, but they didn't want to take the chance.

They waited for a bit and the ghost woke up on its own.

"S-sorry about that. I was in your way. You must want to get through here, but didn't want to move me. Oh…" The ghost mumbled to itself but still didn't move. They walked up to it, expecting it to move aside as they approached. Unfortunately, by approaching, battle mode was engaged.

Colour disappeared and they were left with a ghost that looked like a floating bedsheet with black holes for eyes. Its appearance was kind of stereotypically cartoonish. Who still wore bedsheets and pretended to be a ghost past the age of four?

Though this was an actual ghost, probably, since it was floating. As they stood there, thinking about the ghost, it started forming tear-shaped bullets from its eyes. The tears floated towards them at random trajectories and flew past. These bullets moved more quickly than the froggits' bullets did.

This ghost might actually be dangerous. Reacting to the threat, they tried to push the ghost away from them.

As they should have expected, it didn't work.

"S-sorry. I'm just annoying you, aren't I? You can't hurt a ghost. We're incorporeal. Oh… I'm sorry." It said.

All they could do was stand there while it was crying more bullets. They couldn't run away because the tear-bullets had formed a wall behind them. Touching bullets really hurt, so they were reluctant to run into them if it could be avoided.

"Hey, you aren't leaving. Does this mean that you want to hang out with me? No… It couldn't be. I'm not that interesting."

Even more tears came from its eyes. It was getting exhausting, trying to move their soul around them all. The ones that should have hit their body just passed right through. Maybe this had to do with the incorporeal thing? Or maybe bullets could only affect souls? Who knew. Maybe it was different for each different monster. This place didn't seem to have a strong sense of internal logic. Even if the rules were mostly consistent, there were still exceptions. Like that rock earlier. And maybe that flower. Flower monster? Was the flower monster actually a monster that differed from regular flowers? Or was that flower monster a flower that just happened to be different and monster-like?

"Oh, you're still here. Do you want to see my hat?" Some of the ghost's tears floated up and merged into a top hat above its head. "Do you like it?"

Compliance is key to survival. They didn't care about its hat at all, but nodded anyways. Anything to make it stop crying at them.

The ghost started blushing, "Thanks. That really means a lot." It stopped crying and colour came back to the world.

"Gee, you're so nice. Maybe later, if you're not busy you'd want to come over to my place? We could hang out or… oh… maybe I'm just being a bother. Bye." The ghost kept muttering to itself as it floated through the floor.

That was weird, but the ghost left them alone and got out of the way. They didn't want to stick around and wait for it to come back. They ran forward and didn't look back.

Ahead was a sign pointing them to a spider bake sale. They had nothing against spiders, but were a bit curious about what made this a spider bake sale. Were the baked goods shaped like spiders? Or maybe they were made of spiders? That would be gross. Or maybe they were made by spiders? For all they knew, spiders were friendly giants in this world. Or maybe spiders meant something completely different here.

They went forward to check it out. It was a bit off that Toriel hadn't called them again to "check in on them" because they had moved. Or maybe she was just tracking them and keeping silent so that she could catch them off guard later. They decided to keep an eye and an ear out for her so that she couldn't attack them or do anything before they had a chance to hide.

Inside the spider bake sale room were spider webs and a sign. The sign read "Made from spiders, by spiders, and for spiders." These baked good were definitely gross. Made from spiders and by spiders? Yeah, no thanks.

Some spiders crawled forward on the webs, carrying what looked like donuts and jugs of liquid. The spiders stared at them, almost daring them to leave without buying something. They took the coins from their pocket and threw them into the middle of the web before quickly grabbing a donut. Hopefully whatever amount they had was enough.

They quickly backed away. When the spiders crawled back into their webs, they figured that it must have been enough. The spiders weren't coming after them for more money, so they must have done something right. Despite being supposedly made from spiders, it looked like a plain unfrosted donut. They stuck it in their pocket, and it somehow stayed intact.

Right. This world is magic. Naturally, it has magic food. Of course. There's no reason that the food should get squished or crumble or rip apart or anything like that. It just fits in a pocket that it has no business fitting in. Magic.

They passed through a room with some froggits, but the froggits ignored them. It was convenient. Maybe the froggit from earlier told its friends to leave them alone.

Or maybe the froggits were secretly Toriel's spies, and were watching their moves from a distance.

Maybe if they were desperate, they could hide away in the spider room. They made sure to remember it for later in case they needed it.

Next was yet another room with vents, some papier maché spots covering what were probably holes, and some rubber spikes blocking the exit to the room. They picked a random spot and jumped down the hole. Inside the hole was the ghost, resting on another pile of leaves.

"Oh… did you want this spot? I'm sorry…" It faded from view and disappeared. What was the ghost's problem? It was kind of odd, but at least it didn't attack them again. They went up the vent and tried a different hole.

They repeated this for a few holes. One hole had a ribbon in it, another had a weird carrot monster and a jello monster. The carrot monster wanted to feed them vegetables for some reason while the jello monster wiggled and purred when they touched it. Both were relatively harmless.

"Vegetoid and Moldsmal" were the names the whisper told them.

In one of the holes, there was a button. They pressed it and went back up. The spikes at the end of the room were gone. This wasn't a puzzle or a trap. It was just a waste of time.

The next room similarly had spikes at the end. There were three coloured buttons beside three pillars. On the wall, a sign told them what order to press the buttons. They did it, the spikes disappeared, and they moved on. The next room looked the same as the previous room, but the buttons were on different sides of the pillars. A sign said that it was all a matter of perspective. Once again, just push the buttons and continue. This was repeated two more times. Was it supposed to be hard to progress?

They came upon another fork in the road. There was a pile of leaves and an archway to the left, and a narrow hallway straight ahead. They went to the hallway first and found a toy knife on the ground. It was slightly sharp. Even though it was a toy, it was probably the most dangerous thing that they'd encountered so far. They tucked the knife into their waistband and headed back the other direction.

The other path had a tree in front of a house. As they approached the tree, they heard the house door open. Toriel came out and spotted them.

They were screwed. She was going to attack them for disobeying her. They knew they needed to hide because she was faster than them. All they could do was curl up behind the tree trunk. If they tried to climb it, she'd still be able to grab them. The safest thing they could do was become as small as possible, keep their back to the tree, and protect their head and torso. If they could protect their spine and vital points, then she wouldn't be able to hurt them as badly.

"My child? What are you doing here?" Toriel questioned them. They stayed still and didn't speak. Saying anything wouldn't change their fate. Looking at her would only expose their face, so they didn't look up. "I was just about to come back for you while the p-, I mean your surprise was setting. I'm glad to see that you are safe."

They heard some footsteps slowly approach. The crunch of the leaves made it easy to hear where she was. "My child, could you look at me? I want to see if you are injured. The Ruins can be a treacherous place for one so young, and I am quite skilled at healing magic. If you are hurt, I would like to help."

Their mind went numb. They couldn't process the confusion. She was trying to trick them into exposing themself. There was no way that she would do anything else after they blatantly ignored what she told them and got caught.

Toriel's footsteps slowly got closer. They started trembling, but didn't know why. This reaction didn't make sense. Was she cursing them with her magic or something? They tried to keep their body still but couldn't stop the shivers. She must be using a curse on them to make them vulnerable when she decides to attack.

They heard her stop in front of them, and felt a large warm hand settle on their arm. All of a sudden, their body involuntarily froze. Why would she try to shake them into an open position only to paralyze them? Did she try a new strategy because trying to expose them didn't work?

"Young one, you are safe here. I'm not angry with you for being curious and wandering off. I am just glad to see that you made it here." Toriel said softly, "Will you please let me see if you are alright? I only want to help you."

They clenched grabbed themselves tighter than before. Maybe they weren't paralyzed after all if they could still adjust themselves. If she didn't paralyze them, then what was she doing?

"If you are comfortable with it, I can bring you inside first. Is it okay if I pick you up?" Toriel asked quietly.

They gave a small gasp as their heart started pounding. Their heartbeat was loud and they had to breathe quickly to keep up with it. Their face was hot and they couldn't hear anything past their own breathing and heartbeat.

Was she depriving them of their senses one by one? They kept their eyes shut and dug their fingernails into the skin on their arms where they were crossed in front of their face. They could feel, but they kept their vision away and tried to pretend that they could hear. They kept silent and waited for Toriel to grab them and pull them inside or force them out of their protective position.

Instead, nothing happened. Toriel's hand stayed on their upper arm and she didn't seem to be moving. They just kept breathing and listening as much as they could. They heard nothing past their breath and heartbeat for what they thought was several minutes. They needed to keep track. They started counting their heartbeats.

They needed some reference for how long she was keeping them this way. All they could do was count.

847 heartbeats later, they were able to distinguish a distant humming. It was a woman humming a gentle tune. The tune was simple, and repetitive, but unfamiliar to them. Was this how she was casting her magic? Other monsters didn't cast magic by humming, but maybe spells were different from bullets? Or maybe she was just different from other monsters? They had no way to know for sure.

The humming became clearer and their heartbeat slowed. They were able to breathe deeper and their heartbeats lessened in intensity. Were they becoming resistant to her spell? Or was her spell only meant to last a certain amount of time?

They stayed still. If she thought that they were still trapped by her magic, maybe she would leave them be for a little while longer. They considered trying to get the probably-poisonous candy from their pocket. If she was planning to torture them, then maybe they could try to end it swiftly. They could do what falling didn't manage to do.

Toriel stopped humming, "I'm glad you managed to calm down, my child. I'm proud of you." Her voice sounded genuine and full of warmth. They were confused. Wasn't she the one causing this? "Your skin has gone very pale where your nails are digging in. Perhaps you could try loosening your grip?" she suggested.

So that was the plan. Lure them into a false sense of security, then catch them off guard. They weren't dumb enough to fall for that trick.

"I see. My child, now that you've calmed down, I'm going to pick you up. I'll take you inside to the bedroom so you can rest. Is that alright?" She asked. When they didn't respond, Toriel continued to speak, "I'll have to assume that your silence means that you heard me and aren't objecting."

Toriel put on arm behind their back and another under their legs. She really was going to take them.

"I'm going to lift you up in 3… 2… 1… and up." They felt their body leave the ground as Toriel lifted them up. She wasn't hurting them yet, but they couldn't completely trust that she wouldn't. They could feel her footsteps as she walked.

This was an opportunity. While she was busy holding them, they had a chance to grab the probably-poisonous candy, pop it in their mouth, and escape her permanently.

They quickly squirmed out of her grip and grabbed the candy from their pocket. They got it in their mouth as they tumbled out of Toriel's arms. They hit the ground hard and gasped. The candy got stuck in their throat and they started choking.

"Oh my goodness!" Toriel exclaimed. She started beating their back, "No, no! Please cough it up. Push it out. Push it out!"

After a moment, they spat the candy out and breathed deeply. They were numb. They had failed and now had to accept whatever punishment they'd be given. They didn't move from their position on the ground.

Toriel lifted them once again, and they fell limply against her chest. She was holding them protectively. "Please be more careful, my child. I don't want to lose you." She whispered.

They felt her continue to walk. She must be taking them inside to punish them. Their parents were the same. Their parents would never scold them publicly or announce punishments where it could be overheard by anyone outside the family. Groundings and extra chores were always assigned when they were at home. Maybe Toriel followed the same logic for whatever she was going to do to them.

They stayed numb and accepted that they couldn't do anything to change the outcome. They felt their body turn sideways as they were lowered down.

Their eyes stayed shut as Toriel placed them onto something soft. She pulled what felt like a blanket over them. Wherever she put them, they knew it was dark. There was no light coming through their eyelids.

"Rest well, my child. I'll come and wake you when it's time for supper." Toriel said softly.

They were exhausted. There was nothing they could do but wait for the inevitable. As they laid still and waited for the end, they fell asleep.