Broken Souls

Prologue

A/N:

SPOILER WARNING! PLEASE PLAY UNDERTALE BEFORE READING!

There was a machine, standing tall in the centre of the room. Three scientists were busy tinkering with it, instructed by a fourth. They spoke to each other in hushed tones as they prepared to activate it. Behind the control panel, protected by a thick wall of glass, a short skeleton sat on a swivel chair. He was entertaining a young monster child as they waited for their parent to come back from a coffee break.

The skeleton himself had not built the machine, he had only been told what buttons to press and when. Even then, he was only covering for the child's parent and had limited knowledge of what most of the buttons did, other than the clearly labelled emergency shutdown.

So when the fabric of reality itself tore with a sicking rip, the skeleton had no idea how to help. The emergency shutdown button wasn't working, neither were any of the others. The machine was seemingly ripping itself apart, pieces of it flying towards the gaping black crevasse of nothingness. The only scientist who had been working on the machine was now pounding on the protective glass, screaming at the skeleton to run. He leapt up from his swivel chair and beckoned the monster child to follow. They did so, cautiously following the skeleton into the main room and heading straight towards the exit, stumbling slightly as they ran. The skeleton, meanwhile, went back for the scientist, determined to save him.

But there was no scientist there. The room was empty, just as it always had been. There was an air of disuse, the control panel was coated in dust and the floor hadn't been cleaned for years. Long black cables hung down from the ceiling although they'd been disconnected to whatever they powered long ago. Why was the skeleton there again? Oh yes, the Royal Scientist had asked him to collect some of the papers she thought were still in the disused testing chamber. The skeleton searched for the papers with no luck and turned to leave. But something made him stop and check the room again. This time he found something on the floor, a small tag with a name so blurred it was impossible to read. Yet the skeleton's Soul felt a connection to this small token, so he slipped it into his pocket. And then, satisfied, the skeleton left the room.

He didn't notice the tall, darkly dressed skeletal figure standing by the control panel, one eye socket open, the other frozen in a crescent shape and a sad drooping smile.

===

The skeleton couldn't shake the feeling of forgetting something as he went downstairs for breakfast that morning. He was sure he'd remembered everything, it was no one's birthday and he'd watched the sunrise with his brother earlier that day.

So what was it?

It wasn't like the Deja vu he'd had when the resets were happening. It was something more, like an old memory he couldn't quite remember. It was a nagging urge in the back of his skull, telling him that something was different. But the skeleton, not one for unnecessary thinking, couldn't figure out what it was, so he let it be. He walked his brother to work, said goodbye and left for home. Only, before he opened the front door, the skeleton paused. That thought really was bugging him... and the mountain behind the city looked so peaceful...

The skeleton turned around and began trudging through the snow from last night, out of the city, heading for Mt Ebott to think.

A/N:

I think the following book may just be the longest I've ever written so far. It's been in the works ever since I finished my first True Pacifist route and it's finally finished, ready to publish!

I hope you enjoy and uh... This is your final spoiler warning.