God of Lost Stories

#7 A Fatal Mistake

It's very quite when Alloy steps into the next AU. Almost suspiciously so, but then again, Aftertale's Save Screen isn't know for being very busy.

He's beginning to tire. Alloy may be a higher being then anyone in this Multiverse, but that's not what he had in mind when he sacrificed so much to travel his Multiverse. He gets tired and hungry and disheartened. This new Multiverse is draining him. Alloy's making progress with the individual Sanses, sure, but he's found more and more bad blood between the groups. How will this cycle of violence ever stop?

Geno's save screen is very different than Alloy expected. The usual empty, black landscape is now coated in blooming echo flowers. It would be beautiful if Alloy couldn't see all the detached closed floating around aimlessly. The codes are from dozens and dozens of different AUs, but hardly any of the pieces are intact enough to make out what they once belonged to. What really chills Alloy is the fact that he's almost certain that most of these came from living monsters.

Hearing a footstep, the god does the first things that comes to mind: drop. Alloy throws himself to the ground and hides among the echo flower's tall stems. He's not sure why he's suddenly become so jumpy, but Alloy has learned to trust his instincts. Whatever moves before is silent now. Not even the echo flowers have a nearby voice to copy.

     He's laying down in the flowers when Alloy notices that some of them are crushed. He smashed some when he dropped, but there's a clear path where someone crawled through the flowers. Geno? No, that doesn't make sense with the current situation. Who else would be here? It gives Alloy an awful sense of guilt. The sound of static and a high pitched ringing makes up his mind. Alloy stays low as he begins to army crawl through the flowers, following the crushed path. The echo flowers are not endless. They only cover a small area of the save screen. It surprises Alloy when he makes a turn and suddenly finds that they give way to the usual emptiness.

     "Deja vu," Alloy mutters under his breath. Another teenage outcode is standing at the flower's edge, staring intently into the field. They don't even notice Alloy until he stands up.

"W-Who are you?" they jump in surprise, stumbling a few steps back from the flowers. He wears mostly white, with a small scythe on his back. Goth is similar in age to Pallet, but he seems more timid. His face is stained with tear tracks that he tries to hastily wipe away.

"My name is Alloy! And you would be Goth, I presume? I'm here to check up on Fatal Error. See what I can do for him."

"His name's Geno," Goth retorts instantly, gaining a little fire before looking away again, "and...... and what do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. I've only heard rumors, but it seems Fa- er, Geno's been out of sorts for a few months now. I'm traveling though the AUs and seeing what good I can do. Yeah, most everyone isn't getting it right away, don't feel bad," Alloy tries to be as transparent as he can without going over the entire story once again. "Anyways, where is Geno? He should be trapped in here at the moment."

Goth stares, trying to take in what the other is saying. Alloy is a stranger, with a suspiciously strong magical presence, and seems to be the one responsible for sending him to the save screen. Even so, Goth has been becoming more and more desperate. Nobody seems to be able to help his mother at all. Something terrible happened to Geno. Ever since, he's been running around the Multiverse and tearing code from monsters regardless of who stands in his way.

"You can really help him?"

Alloy nods, confident that he can do something.

"Okay," Goth exhales, "I've been watching Geno for a while, and it doesn't seem like he leaves the area with the echo flowers, or even sees beyond them. I'm not sure if he can see anything, actually."