Deltafell

Chapter Two

You were absolutely, certifiably, lost.

Somehow, someway, in between running after your dad, who much like a cryptid kept disappearing just as you got a glimpse of him, and now, you had gotten confused and taken a wrong turn. You were pretty sure that you were even deeper into the woods now.

You stopped running. This was the most exercise you had gotten in... Forever, and you didn't like the way your heart was hurting, the way your joints were shaking, and the terrifying feeling of Something pressing down on your chest, making you feel as if you would never catch your breath. You collapsed onto your knees, and you clutched the cage as close to you as physically possible, leaning over it as you tried to breath.

Snot leaked out of your nose as your body suddenly jerked, the ugliest noise you had ever heard coming out of you as you hiccuped. Sniffling, you tried your best to calm yourself down.

'Maybe,' you thought to yourself, 'maybe if I had saved, this wouldn't have happened. Maybe I could have stopped this.'

With wasted effort, you wiped the tears from your face and stood up as soon as if felt like you weren't about to pass out. With shaking fingers, and a sense of loss you hadn't felt in a very long time, you picked the cage up, clutching it like a lifeline, picked a direction, and walked.

[W E L C O M E T O M T . E B O T T]

You looked at the glowing letters in front of you, and felt like screaming until you coughed your lungs up. You should have known.

You Should Have Known.

Undertale had been the last game you played, and you played it lovingly, with every single difference you could think of to see how each route was different. And then there had been the hype for the new game but... you never had the chance to play it.

With the [SAVE] stars, and the souls, it was laughably easy to connect the dots, hell you were almost sure of who the figures in the Between were now. You were Angry at yourself for being so... so...

OBLIVIOUS.

You...

You...

Hated Yourself.

You lurched forward, losing your grip on the cage as a gasp of pain left you. You landed harshly on the ground, barely able to catch yourself so you didn't land on the cage and hurt yourself more. With one hand, you clutched at your chest as it radiated a pain you had never felt before. Whimpering, you slowly slid down, tears ran hot and fast. You couldn't-

You couldn't-

You-

You were so tired.

You were so exhausted.

You wanted to sleep. But you were lost, alone, in the woods. On Mt. Ebott, of all places.

You slid your tiny fingers between the bars of the cage and stroked at Buffys soft ears. You couldn't help but let your eyelids flutter close with exhaustion, the only real thing keeping you awake was the lingering fear of being attacked by wild animals.

Or worse.

Finding your way to a certain flower patch. You shuddered at the mere thought of becoming a Fallen Child. You didn't want to end up as the next Chara, or Frisk. You don't think you could handle the constant looping of time, dying over, and over again.

Plus you really didn't want to meet Sans. Calling your feeling for him complex was... putting it mildly.

And if this wasn't the original Undertale universe...

Well, your presence here already guaranteed that it was already a branch from the original timeline. What did the Between call it...? You were almost certain that the Between had called it something.

You leaned back, so you weren't laying on the cage anymore, slowly blinked, and wiped at your face so it wasn't covered in tears and snot anymore. Once the tears were cleared, you could see a pale light glowing between the trees. You knew this glow.

The star called to you.

You stood up, almost in a trance, and with the cage in hand, you walked towards the star hidden inside a thick bush. There was a small tunnel like spot that you could barely see, and you knew that you wouldn't have been able to see it if it wasn't for the stars light. You gave it a blank loo before crawling inside, pushing the cage in front of you. The inside section was... hollowed out, you could say, and more spacious than you would think at first glance. Your fingers brushed against the cold surface of the star.

[ ??? LV ?]

[MT. EBOTT - OUTER FOREST]

[SAVE RETURN]

You saved, and the question marks glitched out. You supposed that since you don't know what to call yourself now... that may have caused it. The single question mark after LV turned into a 1.

Now. Now you can rest.

You unlocked the cage, and pulled Buffy out, cuddling her hard. Nestled against the trunk, you blinked once...

Twice...

You found yourself on the platform, not quite six and a few weeks, and not quite twenty and some months. You were in Between.

The platform across from you was dull, dark, lifeless, but held so much potential in its core. But this wasn't the platform you were interested in.

You were interested in the platform next to yours, the one that faced the platform next to the one across from you. You gave the bright red Soul a curious look, wondering if your magic worked in the Between. If you could [CHECK] the other soul like you could your mothers soul and your fathers soul.

So you took a really good look at it and-

Nothing.

There was an unseen barrier between the two of you.

You heard an ominous scraping, screeching sound from far, far down below. Whatever it was, you hoped it wasn't malicious. You knew that Gaster was in here, but with the differences, with actual structure that you didn't think anyone built, you didn't really want to know what else was in here.

Something whispered into your mind, softer than a springs breeze, quieter than a cautious mouse. You turned back to the unborn soul, and looked at the cables connecting the two of you. Or... connecting your platforms, at the least. You could walk on them, to cross the gap, but you feared what would happen, if you slipped.

Would you die?

Would you fall forever, unable to return to your own soul?

The humming started again. Unwillingly, you calmed down, the pulsing in your Soul slowed down.

You sighed, and closed your eyes.