HAZE

LOST AND FOUND

Aster felt warm. He'd felt nothing for a long time; lost in a world all by himself. He screamed at first, calling out for help, trying to find a way out—but he just couldn't.

So he'd slept.

He felt warm; someone else's magic. He couldn't place it. What were they doing? He didn't know. He didn't care.

He slept.

The warmth was calming. Familiar, almost, like an old friend he hadn't seen in a long time. There were moments where he wanted to wake up—an annoying, persistent nudge in the back of his mind telling him that something was wrong, that someone was in danger—but every time he got close, the warmth would pull him back, holding him prisoner.

He slept...

...And then the world dipped, and everything came crashing down.

He opened his eyes to find himself falling. The drop seemed endless, whether he looked up or down. Walls of dirt rushed passed, flying high as he fell down below. The ground was coming up to him fast.

He was so caught off guard by it that he couldn't even scream.

Holy shit—

He went to reach out to grab something, perhaps a branch sticking out form the walls surrounding him, only to find that he couldn't. Arms tightened around him, pinning his arms, keeping him against a warm, tattered body. The person holding him whooped, laughing, as though this was the funniest thing to ever happen to them. The nerve of them!

But then, his fingers digging into their sweaters, he noticed the pattern of their shirt, and clarity washed over his face.

The laughing made more sense all of a sudden.

Frisk?

His breathing hitched as they flew faster and faster down, a scream bubbling up in his throat and tearing itself free. He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out what was happening, attempting to trick his brain—to no avail.

He thrashed in the human's arms, adrenaline pumping through him, the boy unable to sit still. His mind wouldn't stop chattering.

Oh God oh God I'm gonna die I'm dead what do I do shitshitshit someone help...

He hit the dirt—

THWUMP.

—and, pain blossoming in his skull, returned to the darkness.

***

"Come on, come on...this will work, it has to..."

Wingdings paces back and forth in his lab, his movements frantic, mumbling despite the fact that he's the only living person in the room. Sweat drips down his jaw, his lab coat sticking to him in the intense heat that came with Hotland. He busied himself with a control panel, pulling switches and pushing buttons faster than even he could comprehend, typing in code into a machine that was cold at best and cruel at its worst.

Two tables are set up in the room, being the main focus of the research taking place there. Two lifeless, desolate skeletons rested on top of them, their eye sockets empty and limbs lying helplessly still. The smaller of the two skeletons lies on his side, another body taking up the table.

Aster.

His breathing labored, his skin cold and clammy, the other twin sleeps uneasily, unresponsive to the events unfolding around him. His soul hovers above him, glowing dimly, its cracked, dusty exterior shaking in the red-doused lab.