Chapter Text
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Perseverance
It was an admirable trait for a soul to have. The ability to take a hit and get back up despite how hard things got in the end. To persist even in the face of overwhelming adversity. Yet, that was a lie, at least to you, it was a curse that refused to let you break even when every part of your soul screamed and begged for it to end.
Before our story began, before the void stole every memory except the pain that persisted death, there had once been a child that had stumbled upon the entrance to the fabled Ebott. A place where legend, mystery, and superstition swirled together in a cocktail that gave hope to the hopeless, and stole bravery from the bold. Where one careless step sent one stumbling down far below the earth and stone, to the very heart of the unknown and forgotten. Trapped beneath the mountains, a child had unwittingly become a pawn in the grand scheme of science and magic, one that had fallen victim to something worse than death.
Monsters had grown tired of waiting for a savior to bring them to the light, of waiting for more children to fall into their clutches in order to break the barrier. Hope and magic had begun to dwindle, essential for even the smallest of monsters to exist, the air hung heavy with lingering dust and despair. When the meager amount of determination that had been secured started dwindling after multiple failed attempts to secure a way past the barrier, the King gave the word to do whatever was necessary, whatever the cost. The kingdom turned a blind eye to the atrocities committed deep down below even where monsters lived, in the darkest recess of the laboratory belonging to Dr. W. D. Gaster. Experiments on souls, machinery, and void essence began in earnest.
So when the fallen child was finally found, they were whisked away down into that laboratory that would become both a prison and grave.
A child’s soul was an abundance of untold magical potential, and when that child proved to be a proficient purple soul, it meant that Gaster could test to his soul content without his subject perishing like the others had.
But even a soul made of perseverance couldn’t persist forever.
There was nothing in the void, the darkness consumed everything in its path. Except, that wasn’t quite true was it? There was you, a small fragile thing curled up as if trying to disappear. A fractured existence cradled within the darkness.
You died.
One moment you were there, strapped to that table down in that dark laboratory like a rat waiting to die. The restraints had long since left scars across once tender skin, dug in deep enough that they were practically embedded. The scent of iron had bled into every pore and crevice of the room, so much that it had become impossible to clean.
Floating above the operating table within a glass container was the culmination of everything that made up you. Every hope, dream, fear. The small purple soul had long since lost the vibrancy of youth, becoming a dull blackened husk of its former glory over the years of sustained abuse and torment.
Deep cracks spiderwebbed across the glass like exterior, damaged enough that small chunks floated aimlessly near it from where it had started to fall apart. Purple seeped from the cracks, dripping down the glass to be siphoned off. A soul that was forced to persist beyond its limits, its own trait refusing to let the torment cease.
Not even when the experiments caused warping to occur, the damage irreversible.
Then something happened that changed everything.
A loud cracking had occurred – it wasn’t the same cracking sound that had rang out when the first fracture occurred all those years ago. No, this was a sound that was deafening, like ice breaking beneath your feet leaving you to free fall into the maw of the void that waited greedily below. That purple crystalline heart that had held itself together for so long, shattered like fragile glass upon the hardest of stone.
The testing had been too much for you, not even you could persevere through it. Not after months—years of torment at Gaster’s hands.
In that moment, you were unable to persevere, unable–unwilling to continue.
You gave up.
Everything else after that had started fading, including the memories of who you had once been. Each one was like a grain of sand slipping through the cracks until all that remained was an empty vessel, the husk where a soul once resided.
You…died?
Yet how you ended up here, in the void, became inconsequential, one moment there was pain, then there wasn’t.
There was no telling time within the void, just an endless silence, but that was okay, it meant nothing could hurt you anymore. The inky void had become a refuge, cradling everything that remained inside of it. For what seemed like a moment but could very well be in an eternity, you no longer existed. Just a fleeting mote of ruined potential that was fading.
As long as HE wasn’t there.
Occasionally, you would catch glimpses of something at the edge of your vision, indicating either the passage of time or that the void itself was not entirely as empty as initially. A crackle of white energy that would blip in and out of existence, yet it never got closer. Occasionally, it was accompanied by a strikingly familiar surge of what you could only presume to be adrenaline, or more aptly, determination.
During those times, what could be considered your essence would coil deeper within the deep dark abyss, nearly blinking out of existence amidst the endless void. Only venturing out once that familiar white energy zipped passed.
You were alone, until you weren’t.
There was a flicker of something, a glimmer of color— it was there for a fraction of a second, yet it lingered long enough that the void did not feel secure anymore. There was someone else staring back into the void.
>> —-are you sure? there’s nothing in the void, the readings must be–
>> I know what I saw—-
Then suddenly the void wasn’t empty anymore, a single thread reached through the darkness to wrap itself around the broken soul. It was followed by another, then two more, until multiple were tethered to it like an anchor point. The void began to destabilize, the dark swirling abyss becoming tinged with shades of gray and points of color that hurt to look at, filled with a sense of wrongness you couldn’t explain.
There was a small tug, followed by a popping sound.
Someone was screaming. The sound came from all around, until you realized it was you who was screaming. Calling for mercy as your tentative refuge began to crumble.
Then there was nothing but static.
And
you
fell
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The Machine.
An amalgamation of science and magic, with a touch of madness from a desperate mind. To those who knew of its existence, and more importantly to those that knew about the inner workings of it, would call the creation a failed prototype that shouldn’t exist anymore. Its original creator was long since gone from this world and timeline, lost in a point of existence that was unreachable. All that was left was the blueprints for said machine.
Even then, its exact purpose was a mystery.
All that was known about the machine was through trial and error alone.
Hidden away beneath the manor in a locked basement the machine sat dormant after nearly three years collecting dust. It had been deemed too unstable after the recent surge, bringing forth what the household had hoped would be the last pair of siblings. A relic that only brought bad luck and even worse memories to those surrounding it.
If it wasn’t for the potential backlash its destruction could cause, there were multiple souls that would have destroyed the machine in the blink of an eye.
The household was quiet, the dead of night brought forth a serene sense of peace as those souls above slept, unaware of the single blinking light illuminating the basement in an eerie red glow as the system locked onto the signature of an anomaly. Which wouldn’t have been unusual, except for the simple fact that it matched none that had been pulled through thus far.
An alarm began to blare, breaking the relative peace, a safety precaution after the first set of guests had arrived. It caused a chain reaction, several phones lighting up and beginning to emit that same frantic beeping sound, awaking multiple monsters in the process. None of which could have foreseen the next events no matter how prepared any of them were.
“shit-!” A tired voice rang out as a skeletal figure blipped into existence inside the basement, followed by frantic tapping and typing on the keyboard attached to the beeping machine.
His presence wasn’t the only one that appeared, quickly followed by a string of colorful curses aimed at no one and everything at the same time. “oh for fucks sake vanilla, i thought ya unplugged the damn thing!”
“red, you know i can’t–”
“Who’s it pulling through now?” Added a third, yet equally exhausted voice, gravely with the subtle undertone of a gentle lisp.
Those words caused all three of them to turn to the words appearing on the multitoned screen displayed to the right of the machine. Normally a small readout would appear there, predicting the strength of the surge and giving a brief outline of the timeline, mostly flavor text, yet this time around the words left them more confused and worried.
What should have been words was instead a garbled mess of letters, numbers, and weird symbols that flickered in and out, glitching and outright rewriting itself. Akin to a self writing code, changing to suit its needs, whatever those may be. Without anything stated between any of them, there was a heavy silence that filled the room, each one already coming to the same verdict: this was not normal.
“why now of all times. it’s had three years to act up,” Before anything more could be said, an electrical current raced through the machine, lighting up every instrument connected to it. The readings raced off the charts and began careening into dangerous territories.
“Look! There,” a skeletal figure pointed at the text appearing on the screen, giving it a small tap. “It looks like the....the signature is coming from the void?”
“no fuckin’ way ashtray–”
“red,” that one word was uttered with such a deadly calm that it caused the red clad skeleton to snap his jaw shut with an unhappy expression. “stretch, are you sure? there’s nothing in the void, the readings must be–”
“Sans, I know what I saw,” eyelights lingered on another string of the same garbled text, “there! You see it? Whatever it is, the signature is coated in void essence.”
Another arc of electricity sparked, causing the basement lights to flicker ominously, a precursor to how much worse the current situation could turn in a moment.
The magic within the air seemed to halt, growing heavier and stagnant, ice cold as it mingled with the souls currently present, causing a chill to race up each of the monsters spine. Then without warning it crackled alive, lashing out in a manner that had them staggering backwards to protect themselves from the sheer backlash of magic output.
Mist gathered within the basement, clinging to everything it touched like a cloud of death, unsettling and oppressive.
Through the haze, a figure could be seen hunched over, swaying lightly in an unsteady manner like a newborn fawn. It was unmistakably human in shape, that alone had the magic spiking once more, this time with fear and hostility from the gathered monsters. Each one knowing just how dangerous one human could be, especially if it was involved with the machine.
SPLAT.
A vile, black, tar-like substance splattered against the concrete flooring, followed by the sound of coughing, sputtering, and heaving. The smell was nauseating, a rotting stench, like death in liquid form.
“Did the machine….just pull a human through the void?”
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