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viitria-blog · 6 years

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CAPTIVE SOULS & CANDID HOSTILITY.

chapter 2 / ? ao3 crosspost first | next

When you find Error, he's seated against a pile of knick-knacks, from a Rubix cube in the shades of blinding neon, to a jumble of… bones(?). You say nothing, clutching the doll in your hand, and sit near him - but not next to him.

He's watching through a tear, reality ripped apart at his whim, showing a world you don't recognise. Cross-legged, a milkshake in one hand, the other reaching into a bag of chocolate pretzels. At ease, king of his own castle.

For a split moment, you remember the knife and it's glinting edge, but it's better you left it behind. You’re no fool.

The glitch doesn't even pass you a glance, but you know he knows your there. The static presses thicker with his attention, his interest. At least you have that - his interest, as much as he may deny it.

You curl like you usually do, chin tucked to your knees, doll held on your thighs, close. You look through the tear, to another reality, and blink.

Was that… Spanish? It had to be.

“... What is this?”

“shut up.” Error snaps, reflexive. “i’m trying to watch.”

You stare blankly at him, and huff at his attitude. Instead of responding, you pick at the scabs on your knuckles, gritting your teeth, but do it anyways. Murmured against your skin, “Was just a question.”

Mismatched lights stand attention. “what was that?”

You should really leave it. Ignore him, lie, say anything other than look back at him, scab-lined nails still against your knuckles, chest bathed in the natural warmth of the doll shielded by your body.

“I only asked a question.”

Error’s hand within the bag of treats bag stops, the crinkle of its plastic as he slowly pulls out deafening. The static is suffocating, and you clear your throat, and look away as soon as you close your mouth.

“... then don't.” Even the universe Error had been watching is nothing more than background noise now, taking a backseat to the lull of his voice and the white-noise that outlines it. “ you're a guest here, pest. and you'll behave with the manners of one, or else.”

A guest. What a kind word.

“look at me if you understand.”

It’s a command. You don't want to, but you do, looking through your lashes and the eclipse of your skin to his electric, terrible gaze.

“... be grateful you aren't dead. and until i find some kind of use for you, shut. up.”

You don't say another word for hours.

He doesn’t either.

It’s just you, him, and his damned show.

You’ve been picking at your skin for who knows how long. Nearly each of your knuckles is in some way raw, skin peeled and the ground covered in drops of blood. Your hands and thighs don’t fare much better. Another small strip of skin peels away -

“stop that.”

… How long has he been watching you?

Error doesn’t look concerned. No, how could he be? He’s Error, and from the first moment you were terrorized by this creature, he has never once been concerned. Cocky, confident, lazy, agitated, rude, arrogant - he was full of nothing but confidence and enough self-importance to fuel the paradox he was, only on a multiversal scale.

So with his sockets scrunched, his brow taut, and the line of his teeth narrow, you know it’s not concern, but disgust - disgust and… you aren’t sure.

As always, Error is unreadable.

You rub your finger against your nail, and the skin falls to the floor. “Why?”

Dispassionate. This place has made you hollow, an empty ache curled within you, and the world you live in seems unreal. As if it’s a dream, disconnected from you, and at any moment you might wake up.

“because i said so. so, stop it.”

Your thumb rests on the knuckle of your pointer, and you grit your teeth at the sting. Looking to the blood, it’s then that you feel something. A jolt of fear, terror, worry -

But when you lower your knees, looking to the doll laying in the crux between your thighs, staring up at you, you sigh. He’s fine, untouched by the self-inflicted carnage of your dissociation.

And yet the glitch just doesn’t shut up.

“... i know you have it. you aren’t seriously trying to hide it from me, are you?”

“No.”

It isn’t a lie. You know despite your limited ( yet seemingly infinite ) time here, that you couldn’t hide from Error. Not anything, not truly. So when you hold this ragged doll so close, you aren’t sure it’s for your sake.

Looking to your captor reveals his gaze is stuck firmly on you. Worming against your skin, the static screeches, and through those hollowing tones you can almost hear… Nothing.

You. Hear. Nothing.

“What?” You snap, and curl back again, doll safe ( as can be ) once more.

“... nothing.” And he turns away, a sip of his shake, and turns back to the ripped seam of reality. You look with him, and watch with ease how the image changes, flicking like channels on a tv, all at little motion or effort on Error’s behalf.

If he were not a creature desolate for destruction alone, you would be awed.

From a world swept in a winter wonderland, full of pine birches and yet pitch as night, to a landscape draped in fire, magma gurgling through the veins of the earth, lighting a warped path. You aren’t sure what to make of it, one image to the next, some with humans, some with monsters, most with nothing at all.

“What are you looking for?”

“for someone i told you shut up not t-too long ago, you sure are talkative, aren’t you?”

This time, you don’t relent. Not as harshly.

A sunrise flashes by. The ocean. Stars pinwheeling overhead. A desk, with a sleeping skeleton. Fog, thick as thick. Your heart quickens in your chest, a hummingbird in a cage of bones, begging to be set free.

“... Let me go.” Just as before. Soft, pleading, empty and yet full of desperation for the sights he flicks through like pages on a book. “You don’t need me. I don’t care where, just - please, let me go.”

The images stop, and through it, nothing. Like a black streak against the white canvas of this strange reality.

“i can’t do that.” Simple as can be, and yet you feel as if Error is being candid. Your nails dig into your skin, and you want nothing more than to reach for that empty hole in the world. “to drop you anywhere would cause a disruption of that universe’s mainframe. to try and accommodate something that never should have belonged? you’d be worse than a glitch.”

His nasal ridge scrunches up.

“you’d be a menace.”

A pest.

If you felt like speaking, you’d at least beg Error to let you keep clawing at yourself. But you don’t feel up to much; don’t feel the strength to react to him; don’t feel like giving him the satisfaction.

A moment, two, and the tear in reality disappears, stitched back together by a trembling hand. The empty space seems blinding now, but it’s eye-catching, soul-stopping at the next flare of magic, the very structure of reality itself bending open once more. ( You can hardly comprehend it, let alone imagine it )

The familiar low strum of his strings striking, going taut - through a much smaller hole now, closer to Error’s side, between the two of you. When they pull out, it’s a white plastic box, tossed to your side.

A First Aid kit.

“fix it. or else.” A snap of his fingers - and the blood on the ground beneath you is gone. A part of you. Pieces of you, as they had once been, disappeared in the blink of an eye.

You could cry. But you can’t.

Error watches as you work.

It’s strange - he’s never stayed this long, never given you something like this. Food and other necessities aren’t needed here so much as wanted, and while you would kill for a shower or ham sandwich, you knew both were far and few between in his whims and wants.

So instead, gifted with something to do, you open the kit, and reach for whatever looks close enough to antibiotic cream. While you doubt you could catch an infection or virus in a place like this, it’d help you heal faster, wouldn’t it? Besides, you weren’t looking forward to the scabbing, nor the marks that would surely be left behind.

Still leant on a pile of trash and treasures, Error is silent, those mismatched lights watching you work with an intensity bordering the one once upon his ‘show’. Keeping quiet, you’ll say nothing in turn, looking to your hands, ignoring how difficult it is to bandage when both are bleeding.

You hesitate between the gauze and bandages before deciding, pleasantly surprised the band aids within are themed - you aren’t sure what the hell that green looking guy is, but it’s colorful and amusing.

The worst of your knuckles under wraps, you clean up your mess, leaving the trash to the side.

Then before you know it, before you even have a moment, reality tears open ( through it, the trash falls to a sudden yet gruff, indignant shout ) and you jump - scrambling away. Just as quickly is it gone, but the damage is done. You’re on your ass a few feet away, wide-eyed and chest heaving. It had felt so, so close, and you could almost feel - it tasted like - it sounded like -

Nothing.

Error’s laughing, a broken, clipped, repetitive sound through the duotone of a child’s and his own voice.

“Don’t fucking do that!”

“i’m sorry - heheh - what’d you just say?”

Your teeth click shut. In one hand, the doll, held far too tightly.

You won’t dignify him with an answer. No, you won’t - you can’t. So instead, you stand, you find your feet, as shaky as they are, and walk away.

The sound of clipped laughter follows.

#reader insert.#Undertale.#original.#CSCH.

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viitria-blog · 6 years

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CAPTIVE SOULS & CANDID HOSTILITY.

He took everything from you.

Your family, your home, your freedom. But he wouldn’t have your mind - your soul. That wasn’t his to take no matter how many he’d felled before you, what he could do with a snap of his fingers, what he promised, time and time again.

After all, for all his pretty promises, he had a truce to keep, and a vow to break. As for you?

You’ve just become a pawn in something larger.

* the long-awaited continuation/update to the beloved fic known as Carmine Strings & Cobalt Heelies. meant to be a prologue more than likely turning out to be a casual rewrite, be prepared for a story in the making that entails your troubled journey from the clutches of one celestial to the next - only this time? a whole lot more domesticity, a side of plot served extra rare, and just this shy of a lot less smut.

relations: sans/reader, errpr/reader, ink!sans/reader, fresh!sans/reader, nightmare!sans/reader, reaper!sans/reader

tw: schizophrenia, mental illness, eventual smut, violence, cursing, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, self-harm

chapter 1 / ? ao3 crosspost next

“I hate you.” You sound strong. You certainly don’t feel strong.

“good.” He sneered right back, blue strings held like ribbons between his fingers.

“Let me go home.”

“no.”

You have no home. Not anymore, not after what he did to it. And yet you still ask, time and time again.

“...”

You have nothing to say, curled into yourself against the empty space that fills this place. No floors, no walls, no sky, nothing but the white. A canvas, filled like a magpie’s nest, if you knew where to look.

You hardly cared, fingers pressing white into your calves, chin tucked against your knees. You watched him work.

“... ugh.” He gets agitated so easily, static bleeding at his edges. His hands can barely stay together anyways, so you don’t get the point. It’s going to tangle, one way or another.

“I hate you.” It slips past your teeth again. You bite your lip, and look from his hands to his gaze. It’s on you now, those mismatched sockets full of… well, you aren’t sure. He’s unreadable.

“i’m regretting letting you live. do you know that?”

You look away, tucking in your chin once more.

It’s suffocating. Reality is nothing more than a piece of clay for him to mold, shape, and break. You are nothing, another piece of the mold, and you can feel when he looks back to his hands, fiddling once more.

The clicking of bones. Static, rising and falling. Agitated huffs.

Staring into the blinding white, it stares back. Silent.

He stills.

“... whatever.” You look up as he stands and scramble to rise with him, panic lacing your chest. Bored. He looks bored, muttering as the strings seem to uncoil, before moving across his bones like living things, winding back to once they came. Your captor doesn’t watch, hands falling to his sides, and begins to walk.

You follow.

“W-wait, where are you going?” You shouldn’t sound so desperate, feet bare against… nothing.

A snort, “what do you care?”

But you do.

Fuck, you do. You just can’t - you can’t be left alone, not again. Not here, not where nothing seems real, where time isn’t real, where you aren’t real. One can only walk amongst the treasures left scattered about so many times before the mind wastes away, the swaying lights far above coiled in blue like an indigo night sky, once terrifying - now a stamp of this hell's making.

You’re going mad here, and you know it.

“Error -”

His name, and the static crescendos. You had thought this place silent ( would like to think it silent ) but it’s not. It’s never silent, never quiet. Not quite. The skeleton stops, slippers still, but he does not turn.

“- Don’t leave me. Please.”

You should know better than to beg.

But what else can you do?

“oh, pest.” It almost sounds kind. Almost, but you know it can’t be. It’s saccharine, toying, mad, and your chest constricts. “i’m not leaving you.”

Are you sick for feeling hope at those words?

He steps forward, but turns on the heel of his next step, and faces you. A smile curls around the edge of his teeth, and the static bubbles. A arm raises to his side, and with it, a tear in the world. Hope. Hope, it’s going to kill you, seeing the open sky beyond it, bleeding yellow and orange like a cracked egg.

“after all, i’ll be back.” That smile turns downright sunny, boyish. “behave, and i’ll even get you a gift!”

You watch him go, and through the static, you can almost hear - NO.

… No.

It may be nothing beneath you, but against your bruised knuckles, it feels like pavement. It breaks skin all the same.

To say this place is like a magpie’s nest is an understatement.

Decorated in treasures and trophies alike, precious things, things you can’t even comprehend, things of fire and ice and steel and crystal and you don’t even know - they all find home here, some wound in the careful cradle of strings, others laid about to be found and re-discovered time and time again.

If you’re lucky, sometimes you find something familiar. Sometimes, you discover a new facet to something once thought fully explored. And even rarer so, sometimes you find something new, tucked here or there, or left like an offering.

But Error would never do that.

You know, because you’ve seen the way he handles his things. In his hands one moment and gone the next, tossed between reality without care, left on the ground like a toy to be forgotten. No, the things out in the open are those he’s grown bored with, left to turn to dust. To die.

The things left in crevices, as if smuggled, hidden? You aren’t sure why Error would do such a thing, but at least they’re interesting.

You’ve found weapons, of course. Things that might be weapons, could be weapons, if handled right.

But you’re not an idiot.

And you aren’t ready to let go. Not yet. Not quite. He can’t make you. That’d be just like handing over your soul, letting him win.

So when you find a knife wedged between the cushion of an armchair ( how did this even get here ), you drop it to the ground after a curious once over of it’s glinting edges in the non-existent light, moving on. No, you’re more interested in the chair itself, and go to steal from it with scabbed knuckles, wanting the cushion -

You drop it in shock.

Then, lift it again, slowly.

Underneath, as if left by a child’s careless hand, lays a doll.

Your lip curls, your nerves tense, and the hair on your arms raise. Goosebumps. But you set the cushion aside anyways, hesitate, and reach in. You flinch when you feel the cloth of it's knitted jacket, warm against your fingers, but pull it out anyways. Carefully knitted, the texture reminds you of a sock monkey, stuffed plumply and staring back with those blank button eyes.

Red jacket, red sweater, shorts. A golden tooth and sneered grin.

You don’t know what it is, beyond the fact you’ve seen others like this - dolls, precious things Error usually keeps so close, kept in beds of twine far above your head. But not this one. No, it peers back at you, and it feels alive, and you can almost feel the frustration that clouds your mind, not your own.

But similar.

“... Hi.”

You stop, clutching the thing lowly. You’re speaking to a doll.

A doll Error probably made, a thing that probably has more horror to it than your toenail. And yet, as you almost drop it in your disgust, something stops you.

… It had been abandoned, left here. No, not abandoned. Worse. Shoved away, aggressively left to be forgotten. Just like you. Left amongst these kleptomaniac’s collectives, another thing to rot to dust.

You hold the doll just this shy tighter.

“I won’t leave you.”

The world shudders and gives way for him, as it tends to do, as it should. Cracking wide, beyond lying a place filled with so much it blends to nothing, screams to him in a chorus of welcome home. He’d scream back, but hums a merry tune instead, rattling within his skull.

The can feel the way the universe behind him sighs into the anti-void, whatever information it gives scattered. That world stands for now, but he got what he want, no destruction required.

He's happy, for all an abomination can be.

What he notices first, hand outstretched and a soul cradled within, is the blood on the ground.

Once vivid ruby marks, impacts of dried marron, now. It's not a splatter or spray, but a small puddle in a line, and for a moment, he thinks it's pretty. Bringing some color here - and just as quickly, it's erased.

The blood is gone, and nothing remains.

A low sigh, and he considers his options - before the strings of his hands ensnaring his new gift wind tight, before rising to join far, far above. A snap, and they disconnect, leaving a new trophy in his constellation of souls.

“i'll be back for you, #76.” A warm farewell, isn't it?

Then off he walks, looking for that pest of his, knowing he should at least be sure if they're dead or not, voice all encompassing and a murmur all at the same time.

“... no, no. that wouldn't do it any justice.”

“well, it has been some time.”

“...what?! no?? that's disgusting.”

“i am to please, heheh.”

They talk to him; and he talks back.

Why wouldn't he?

He's explaining the properties of a good cross-stitch to himself or to thousands by the time he finds them. Error took his time, their soul was stationary, and there was nowhere they could go he wouldn't feel that hum.

The Destroyer stops. They're asleep.

Curled atop an armchair he doesn't remember getting ( how did he even drag that here ), their chest rises and falls evenly, knees tucked and hands pressed to themselves. Peering closer, he sees what that familiar hum is.

In between bloody fingers and swollen knuckles, sits abomination #21.

“... lovely. this is where you've been hiding, and with a human no less.” Error suppresses a sigh, clucking his teeth. “tsk tsk, and what would your brother say?”

The doll only gleams back, black button eyes revealing nothing.

The human stirs, but does not wake. Error stills, but his magic does not.

Strings curl, winding along his arms, living coils of magic, extensions of his very soul, wanting back their prize. But the monster hesitates, and grits his teeth, agitated.

The doll isn't theirs. It's his, and there's to take back. They're both his, and it isn't worth it, not for two stupid glitches within his own world, two meaningless things who will come back to him sooner or later, grovelling. Begging.

And he will laugh, he knows it, when that moment comes - the thought even bringing back his grin, a curled edge to yellowed teeth.

“fine.” Error relents. “enjoy the pest, pest.”

The doll says nothing.

Error walks away, static in his eyes, and calls back down abomination #76, nearly cooing at the poor white spade. Blue strings work to completely encase it - a cocoon of his design.

He can feel it's agony.

“... for now, it will only hurt a little.”

#reader insert.#undertale.#original.#CSCH.

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viitria-blog · 6 years

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CASTLE.

chapter 2 / ? ao3 crosspost first | last | next

SANS.

He hates his throne.

It’s not even his, a thing built for those of stature, of grace and nobility, of worth and the ability to lead. Not for a broken, tired creature like him, with bones that creak under the stress of a decision he made far too quickly. But does that mean he regrets it? No, not most nights.

But it’s in those few nights between that he spends here, in a garden of flowers he tends to like a promise, that he hates it, just so. His back bows, his phalanges crack, his smile slack. This is not where he belongs, and he knows it, having left that decrepit crown he stole sit on the arm of that mighty seat, wanting nothing more than to let it rot.

Or for familiar hands, large and furred, to reach and take it, settling it between curling, ivory horns.

… Wishful thinking. It’ll get him nowhere.

He's been told it fits him, but he'd damn near beg to differ.

Sans does his best to focus on other things, instead.

The watering can in his hands is a thin metal that could bend so easily under his touch, a can the late king once held, and he more watches than waters, droplets shaking from petals to the ground below. Watching, waiting - getting lost in his thoughts.

The earth is soaked, the smell reminding him of a place far on the other end of this kingdom of his. It always surprises him, the way sunlight can stretch through the barrier like a tender touch, creeping through the long hall between him and the world outside.

There are few, precious hours in which these flowers get light. Sunrise to just past noon, where the sun reaches past the peak far above and makes the rest of its trip, leaving the throne room in shadow.

And yet, they grow beautifully all the same, reaching upwards, as if they care not for the temptation. Resilient blossoms, a look alike to the poisonous buttercups that grow in swathes elsewhere.

He hates it.

Sometimes he expects to see Asgore standing there tending to the flowers beside him, picking out the snails that threaten their care, to hear his voice chiding how the jokester is overwatering his plants, but never with malice. To be fair, he can hardly recall the amount of times he's been here, cup after cup of tea.

Rumbling laughter at his jokes, a guiding paw to his shoulder blades when they sag, a gentle word to his addled mind.

Sans falters.

Would Asgore have wanted this?

Would he have approved of the way Sans had done what he thought best? Or was he no better from the grieving king, misjudged and misguided, letting his fear and anger guide him?

Did he scream the way sans had, when he lost it all?

Did he find no solace in these flowers, despite how desperately he tried?

What would he do if he were here, and not dead by his own hand?

The sound of shrieking metal stops him.

Blinking, Sans finds the metal handle of the watering can bent and being ripped under his phalanges, his teeth baring into a frustrated smile. Then, a low sigh, and he eases his grip, standing straight.

Wishful thinking.

It breaks things, monsters and others alike.

It doesn't matter if Asgore could have seen this coming or not, a broken judge turned executioner in his place, jokes robbed and left with nothing but a kingdom at his back. He’s dead, and all that remains are the pieces he left behind to be picked up one by one.

He makes for the throne and sets the watering can at the foot of such an ornate thing, phalanges trailing, hesitating. It takes a moment, two, before he finally touches that cold crown, frozen upon his skull. He has no warmth, no fur, to keep it any other way.

The jewels glisten menacingly as he picks it up, light in his hands. Bendable, breakable, just like the watering can.

It fits, but sans hates it.

He's not sure he can sleep now, but he'll never get anything done with these bags under his eyes, deepening by the day. Someone will get him a new watering can, or they won't.

He hopes they won't.

The next day is a harrowing affair.

He has far too many meetings he doesn't care for first thing in the morning, far too many disputes to settle, and more than enough urgent reports that turn out to be nothing more than the “kingdom crisis” equivalent of a stubbed toe.

He's really over this king thing.

It's after those slew of meetings he's offered something to eat, but more often than not he doesn't have the appetite nor focus to even keep sipping at a bottle of ketchup as he works over paper after paper just begging for his signature or approval.

And while sans is exhausted, and the once self-proclaimed lazybones everyone had once known, he does not skirt his work. Not this, not when one misread or skimmed paper drafted by his advisors would mean less food supply over power, or vice versa.

He has to be careful, and he weighs everything he's given as a judge should.

Fairly.

Most of his early afternoons are spent this way, but it's thankfully the evenings that belong more or less to himself. He's only recently gotten those pesky guards of his to stop following him, loyalists beyond all else. It’s fair to say with the death of Asgore the public had concerns, worries, and more than enough contentions to abide the matter. And while Sans is grateful for their worry of losing yet another, he’s more than capable, and yet it took a demonstration just to be sure he wouldn’t have to worry about a panic whenever he snuck off.

He can’t blame them. As far as the Underground knows, Asgore disappeared, and it’s more than widely accepted it was the human who killed him.

Sans has done nothing to help these rumors. And why should he?

It’s another day he finds himself disappearing the moment his detail’s back is turned, from one archway to the next, stepping through the world from place to place. Seamless, the transition from stone walls and stained glass lit by artificial sunlight, to a world of ice and snow.

It may not be New Home, but it’s his home.

His feet crunch through the snow, and while he feels the cold against his bare tarsals, it doesn’t upset him. Sans can feel the temperature, but isn’t miffed by it, making slow headway past a sentry station that’s been re-polished and now homes a gently snoozing Doggo. Normally, Sans would say something.

But he only steps through the world again, and finds himself yards away, beyond a familiar, broken bridge.

It’s snowing as it always is. Gentle, lazy snowfall that never ceases to make him feel at ease, even if just so. It’s the place he grew up, had a family, a home. The once-prankster can’t even help the way his teeth curve, a smile on that skull of his.

It isn’t long until he sees the door.

The Delta Rune that’s become his life is stamped on the masonry, carved in as permanently as it’s stitched on his clothes. Idly, he wonders if she’ll answer. Sans also wonders if she’s dead, too, if her silence means anything.

Maybe she thinks he’s dead, for all his silence means anything.

And yet he can’t help himself. When he finds himself before those stone doors, he reaches out a hand, as he’s done, day by day, for weeks, months. But he doesn’t rap his knuckles, no. Instead the flat of his palm finds the stone, strangely warm in this cold, freezing world, and he sighs, a sound whittled between his smiling teeth.

Not today.

He’ll find himself laying with his back against the door soon enough, waiting. Listening.

Not a sound.

Eventually, he’ll have to go back. Dinner, and then another restless night pacing the halls.

It blurs together, one day after the next, and Sans has to wonder if this is any better a Hell then the one before.

#reader insert.#undertale.#original.#castle.

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viitria-blog · 6 years

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CASTLE.

chapter 1 / ? ao3 crosspost first | next

YOU.

The sky bleeds a mix of soft scarlet and encroaching indigo, stretching far across the horizon, mountains jaggedly marking the border between land and open air. With every step, snow packs underfoot, the once joyous birdsong having dwindled to nothing more than the occasional low hoot of an owl.

There isn't much else beyond that -- it's cold, your arms wrapped tight around your sides any moment they aren't fending off grasping branches, keeping them from tugging at your hair, your clothes, your face. You already sport plenty marks as is; you don't need anymore. The worst part is how heavy you feel, dragging your weight in a slow march to nowhere.

You're lost. It's the second day you've been trekking through this forest, trying to work your way back – but so far, it's been nothing but a misadventure, every direction but somehow leading you nowhere but higher. Any attempt to walk down the slope either ends with you finding yourself walking in circles or somehow at an even higher elevation than you started.

It's not only strange, it's terrifying, and you aren't sure how much longer you can keep doing this. There's provisions for maybe another day in your bag, but after that, who knows? It doesn't help that the once lush base of the mountain has turned into snow and sleet, every slow, aching breath clouding the air. You aren't dressed for this kind of weather, let alone prepared for the slowly thinning air.

It feels as if you're suffocating, slowly but surely, choking on cold air that eagerly claws its way into your lungs -- only for it to settle, much alike a parasite, and creep its way through you, working from the inside out. Every breath comes harder, with more work, your body aching, teeth chattering, the cold threatening enough as is.

You know, as much as you try and deny, that you won't make it for much longer, lost, weak and bare atop a mountain you can only seem to climb higher, no matter how hard you try. You should’ve known better; Mount Ebbot’s always been told as the Mountain of Lost Souls, both by the residents a place to never go, and by tourists as an ancient, outdated attraction.

Everyone in Ebbot Valley grows up to the tales of people missing; but beyond in practice, it wasn't something you'd think would ever happen to you, or anyone you knew. And yet, here you are, making slow headway upwards.

Right now, your only hope was to keep going. Hope someone -- anyone -- was looking for you. And you couldn't stop, especially not now. Not when your fingers were unresponsive, your lips chapped an icy blue, every step with the potential to be your last.

You won't stop.

You can't stop.

You're too scared to, no matter the reason you started climbing in the first place.

You don't know how long it's been. Fingers blue from numbing chill, the wind rocks you on this steady slope. The sun is gone along with any warmth it had promised, the only good thing the stars that smatter the sky akin to a dream, covering near every inch. Gorgeous, if only reaffirming in your terror.

Trying to follow the north star down the slope had only led you to find it took you nowhere but up, as if the sky were spinning above you - an illusion, deigned to trap the unsuspecting, like a spider's web.

Maybe you're already dead.

Maybe this is Hell.

But for now? You just want to sleep, irreguardless of whatever's happening - but you can't just yet, not until you find someplace safe. Someplace from the cold and biting wind, from the death you had embarked on this mountain to find.

… You don't want to die anymore. The need to rest is too great, the fear too mounting. But you do have one hope.

The rocky terrain is littered in stubborn life and crevices, a slow incline that threatens to become more jagged the higher you go. Trying to weasel into some of the crevices has proved futile, but you still try, blood gone frosty against your skin. That doesn't mean you stop looking, nevertheless.

There - another one.

It's wider than most others, a crack along the face of the mountain, and inside it seems to stretch on - even widen further on, a tantalising thing. Your fingers curl along the edge of the opening, cut upon sharp stone. That doesn't matter. What matters is as you slot yourself into place, grunting, ignoring the sharp pull and tear of clothes and the muted, numb protest of your body, is that you fit.

You fit, and find yourself inside, and it's dark, pitch, but even bigger within than you dared to hope. A stumbling step forward - to sleep near the chilled entrance would be too much, not when there's… a warmth inside, that beckons.

It's so warm.

You don't question it, a bloody hand to the wall, and step forward.

And fall.

The air is torn from your lungs, chest compressing and squeezed, eyes wet and arms pinwheeling - you're robbed of even the right to scream, nothing but darkness flitting by. Darkness and your very own, blue-red fingers, grasping for air and yet swinging nothing at all.

There's nothing to grab.

Just the sound of your heart, choked, gasping breaths, and the whistling world going by, and you know, all that time you spent climbing, all those circles, all that space, you're falling down.

You're falling, and you're going to land.

Suddenly, the darkness ripples. Light - brilliant, prismine and white and yet clear and flecked by color like oil on water - ignites beneath you, and the world comes to life, for just a moment. It's a giant pit, the walls reflecting back in gorgeous mica, jagged and in geometrical sheets.

Something cushions your fall just long enough you can catch this, and the far, far stretching darkness above you. It's like moving through thick honey after such a long, stark fall, and yet you breathe far clearer than before.

And then, the light is above you, a solid wall, and you're falling. Again.

This time you can scream - and you do, only moments later it's cut off.

You're choking, back hitting the earth cushioned by arching, knee-high blossoms that ripple with color under the disappearing ceiling of light. Air wheezes from you in one deft blow, and something must have broken - mustn't it?

But beyond the rough landing, you feel fine.

Just terrified, confused, and ready to sleep for a thousand years.

Above you, that cavernous darkness, looming above as if ready to swallow you whole. And yet, you can still see the outline of flowers, of drooping petals above you, reaching far, far above. There's light, somewhere.

And yet you don't move. Gasping for air, a hand clawing at your heaving chest, eyes wide and heart a drum in your ears. The world is spinning, like the stars had above, a trap of ingenious design - and the darkness looms; a beast, carnivorous, starving.

It pounces, and then, there is nothing.

#reader insert.#undertale.#original.#castle.#suicide mention.

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viitria-blog · 6 years

Text

CASTLE.

Oh, all of these minutes passing, sick of feeling used, If you wanna break these walls down, you’re gonna get bruised, Now my neck is open wide, begging for a fist around it, Already choking on my pride, so there’s no use crying about it.

An original AU based upon the thought process of “what would it take for sans to snap so completely he takes control of the kingdom?”

chapter 0 / ? ao3 crosspost next

UNDYNE.

“You’ve done enough, Sans.”

Broken bloody and spitting out teeth, naturally yellowed claws curl around the static magic of a fading spear. The Captain’s voice is desperate, no longer the determined command it once was. She’s already lost this battle, and she knows it.

Dark sockets adorn a rictus grin, the smiling jester that had once been her friend now nothing more than a terrifying sight. He hasn’t taken a single blow this entire time, not since she started throwing punches, not since the king fell, not since papyrus died. Not since he started this, and certainly not since he decided to finish this.

“… there’s plenty more i could do, undyne.” Dry. The skeleton’s tone is starkly dry in comparison to the humored one he usually holds, kneeled before the ex-captain. An elbow on his knee to prop his skull, the other rests lazily at his side, looking down upon her prostrate form. The hall is riddled with bones and spears, crumbling into near nothing. Dust and blood paint the walls, thicken the very air they breathe, soaked into Sans’ clothes and bones.

She can barely stand, barely prop herself up on a mangled arm, no longer baring her teeth or having the strength to keep the spear in hand from fading out of existence. “Please,” It hurts to breathe, legs twisted, a single, golden eye winking up at him. “don’t do this, Sans.”

As ever immovable – chin held in hand, blazing azure magic peers down, that façade of a smile he’d once worn like armor replaced, fortified, made into steel. Undyne couldn’t read him, she barely ever could as is, and if anything terrifies her most, it’s that.

A moment, two – the only sound her labored breaths, claws digging into the gorgeous, ruined, golden tile beneath them both.

Slowly, he speaks, hand stretching out.

“… i’ll need a captain.”

A monster has no heart, and yet her SOUL pounds as if she does, thrumming in her ears, echoing loud and heavy in her chest. Asgore is dead. Papyrus is dead. So many – so many, are dead. From all angles, it’s not hard to see the fault, the blame – the justice, that must be done in turn. He doesn’t need a Captain. The Underground does.

But those dark sockets, filled with dancing cobalt flames; those bones of pale ivory, grainy to the touch from dust and slick from blood; that iconic jacket, a faded blue -- torn, dyed red and ripped at every edge; that scarf, tucked under a matted hood of faux fur, a brilliant crimson mark – all of it, every last detail, shows that this isn’t Sans. This hasn’t been Sans since the very start.

… But she’s terrified. Undyne the Undying, Captain of the Royal Guard, second to none but King Asgore, is terrified.

Painfully, she takes his hand. It’s hard to get a good grip, but he holds on, just so.

Then, Sans smiles, and for just a moment, he looks happy, genuinely so, teeth pulled into that handsome grin, both boyish and comforting. The one he wears right before the punchline. “… thank you, undyne.”

His grip becomes painful.

“but i meant someone else.”

#reader insert.#undertale.#original.#castle.#blood.#violence.

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