Chapter Text
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* (You don’t remember the early days very well.)
* (Thinking back to them is like trying to name a color you’ve never seen, or draw a man who doesn’t exist.)
* (Your thoughts are too present, these days, to hold onto what it’s like to be nothing anymore. The sense of nothingness slips through your mind, vanishing every time you attempt to shine a light on it. NOTHING cannot exist where SOMETHING is.)
* (...)
* (...But you remember the smell of apple trees.)
* (You remember standing in a clearing against a forest of hundreds of apple trees. Their leaves are flared yellow, their roots peppered with fallen fruit.)
* (The DOOR is locked behind you. It will remain locked until the PROPHECY begins to unfurl. You cannot turn back.)
* (...Ahead of you, however, there are apples.)
* (You do not know what an apple is. You see something round, and small, and red, piled under the trees. There is nothing in the PROPHECY about it. It seems not too important.)
* (So you stand here.)
* (You stand here for a very, very, very long time.)
* (...You are unsure how long the PROPHECY will take. It is possible you will stand in this field until the meager POWER coursing through your vessel collapses, and you are replaced.)
* (It is possible you have been replaced many times before.)
* (...Your stomach growls, though the SOUL has not yet descended to give you motion and reason for being.)
* (There is an apple not far from your foot. It stands out in a grainy red against the dry green of the field grass, the yellow leaves of the trees, the cyan sky. These are the only four colors you know, and it is somehow nice to see them accounted for. But there’s still another color on the dried leaves beneath the apple, a smudge immediately between red and yellow, and you realize you do not have a word for it.)
* (Similarly, you do not have a word for what compels you to want a closer look at the apple. It seems not too important, yet not too unimportant. It fascinates you.)
* (A voice cuts in. It is too sharp and immediate to be the SOUL, but you startle, anyway.)
"You’re allowed to eat the apples here, y’know. The cops might get pissed about it, but it’s not, like, illegal."
* (You look up. Towards the north, standing against a break between the trees, is a deer-like monster carrying a baseball bat. Her shoes are as red as the apples.)
"Fahaha... why the long face? Or... no face, I guess. What, do you need someone to tell you how to eat?"
* (You don’t respond. You aren’t sure if you’re allowed to, and ultimately the choice doesn’t matter. She moves forward without you, crossing to one of the trees. She hesitates for only a moment, then strikes at the tree with her bat, jostling loose a myriad of redder, fresher apples.)
"Here, on the house. Actually, it’s on your head."
* (She places one of the apples directly atop your hair. It’s the first thing you can remember touching you, besides the grass against your shoes and the DOOR at your back. The smell is so overwhelming it makes your arm itch.)
* (Slowly, of your own volition, you reach your arm up to take the apple. Your own motion is startling, the world turning and shifting as your body does, as if in defiance of the idea. But the apple is warm to the touch, and you can’t remember having felt warmth before. It is... pleasant.)
* (The monster tosses her own apple in her palm a few times, then bites into it. Her teeth cut through its flesh with a crackling noise like breaking static.)
* (You don’t remember if you are supposed to have a mouth. Certainly, you aren’t supposed to speak. Your voice, along with your eyes and nose and ears, is blinded by darkness, so that it may not overhear or oversee those who chose to make you, may not interfere with the ultimate will of the SOUL.)
* (...But the SOUL is not here, yet. And as you put the apple, warmed with sunlight, closer to your face, it seems to banish away the darkness for only a moment, allowing you to bite.)
* (The taste is...)
* (The taste is.)
* (THE TASTE THE TASTE THE TASTE THE TASTE)
* (You are overwhelmed by SWEET food. It is better than SOFT, SOUR, SALTY, PAIN, and COLD. It is better than every other food combined.)
* (RED is better than any other color combined.)
* (You discard any previous favorites as you devour the apple. You do not even mind when you hit the core, though its sudden bitter taste adds a surprising new dynamic to the incredible SWEETness.)
* (And your stomach stops growling. The apple, in its sheer light-warmed power, has cured your vessel.)
"Faha... You’re one weird little monster, you know that?"
* (The deer monster looks at you without any hesitation or darkness to her stare. Her fur is the same not-red not-yellow as the dried leaves, and a part of you yearns to add that color to your collection. It will not be your favorite color, not like RED, but it seems pleasant, all the same.)
* (She is not the SOUL. But she was correct about the apples’ power. So, you decide to follow her until the SOUL arrives.)
"Whoa, hey! Personal space, little guy!"
* (The deer monster pushes you back a step.)
* (...You decide to follow at a distance such that no one can tell you’re associated. You stop once she relaxes, rubbing the back of her head.)
"Man, so much for having a private hangout spot today... Where did you even come from?"
* (You are unsure how to respond. You look back at the DOOR, though it remains locked.)
"The old bunker? Really?"
* (She laughs.)
"Faha! Nice prank. But even I can’t get into that thing, and I’ve been trying for, like, literally years."
* (You are unsure how to respond. She seems unsure how to respond, as well.)
"Uh... okay. But seriously, this isn’t exactly a place for baby monsters to play around by themselves. Pretty sure Mr. Boom said there’s lead paint on that thing? Which, obviously, is cool as hell. But also maybe not safe? So you should... probably go home to your real parents. Yeah."
* (You look to the DOOR again.)
"Okay, no, that’s NOT your home. That is a LOCKED EMERGENCY BUNKER. There’s NO ONE IN THERE. Go to your REAL home, got it?"
* (You consider your options, then step closer to the deer monster.)
"Oh, shi--shoot. Uh. Okay???"
* (The deer monster whispers to herself.)
"Jeez, what do I even do in this situation...? Toriel would know what to do, right? She’s great with little kids."
* (She speaks up, louder.)
"All right. Listen up, punk. Hold my hand, and I’m gonna take you back to the Dreemurrs. There’s this goat mom there that’ll love you. They’ll know what you’re supposed to be doing. Probably."
* (Your mouth, newly exposed to the light, tips upwards into a smile at the idea. Someone who knows what you’re supposed to be doing is exactly who you need. And though your steps are wobbling and uncertain, the deer monster’s hand around yours is as warm as a fresh apple.)
"I’m Dess, by the way. Short for December. You got a name?"
* (You open your mouth, but no sound comes out. You don’t know how to speak. You try to focus on the name your CREATORS called you, to let Dess pick it up from your being, but she doesn’t seem to be looking at your insides. She’s focused on the path ahead, your hand in one hand and her bat loosely held in the other.)
"...Guess not. That’s fine. Mr. Dreemurr will probably just give you some weirdass nickname, anyway. He’s such ass at names. Like, seriously, Asriel? As in, combination of Asgore and Toriel? What’s next, Togore?"
* (You blink at the forest as it goes by both of you. There are all sorts of noises coming from it, scents around it, light filtering through branches in sparkling beams. It’s all deeply overwhelming and strange, and you regret not bringing more apples with you along the way.)
"Tell you what, little guy. If he tries to call you Togore, I’ll come up with a better nickname. Like... uh. Snowy? Shit, that’s already taken. Frosty? Oh, maybe Christmas? Let me know if any of these stick."
* (You tilt your head at her.)
"...What, you seriously don’t know Christmas, either? You know, the famous December holiday where the giant polar bear Saint Krisolas breaks through every monster’s window to deliver presents, throw ice cubes, and share news about the PROPHECY? They make a hundred TV specials about it every year? It's, like, classic monster culture?"
* (Your grip tightens on her hand as you nod at the word PROPHECY.)
"Faha! That got you, huh? Alright. We’ll keep that one for now, Saint Kris."
* (Your grip tightens again at the name, a strange new warmth settling in your stomach along with the remains of the apple. It seems... right, somehow. A touch of personal warmth and color in a sea of monochrome.)
* (Suddenly, you realize you are not in a hurry for the SOUL to arrive.)
* (You want more RED things, first. You want more SWEET things. You want to spend more time with Dess, who knows how to eat apples, and with the Dreemurrs, who know what you’re supposed to be doing. You want to spend years and years and years with them.)
* (Maybe after that, when you’ve done everything you can and explored every option, you will be ready for the SOUL. When the Dreemurrs and Dess and the Christmas holiday stop feeling so much like what Dess called "your REAL HOME", you will do what you can to summon the SOUL, yourself.)
* (For now, though... maybe it is enough to be yourself for a while. Maybe it’s enough to explore what being yourself might mean, in this world.)
* (You hope, on the day the PROPHECY begins to unfold and the bunker unlocks once again, that the SOUL will understand.)
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