Another Time

PROLOGUE

It all started with ... a game. 

A game I grew tired of.

A game I played over ... and over again. 

One could call me the antagonist of my own story. 

But I'll let you decide that.

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Long ago, two races ruled over the Earth: HUMANS and MONSTERS.

HUMANS possessed the strength of a thousand monsters. Due to their power, they carried the burden of mortality. 

Although much weaker than HUMANS, a MONSTER'S life was timeless— allowing them to live endlessly until their childbearing years.

One day in a battle over power, war broke out between the two races.

After a long battle, the HUMANS emerged victorious. Overwhelming MONSTERS with their power, few survived to tell the tale of war.

They sealed the MONSTERS beneath a mountain with a magic spell. "The Underground," they named it, kept MONSTERS trapped beneath the sun's surface.

Legend says those who climb the mountain never return.

Centuries passed, and soon HUMANS forgot about the MONSTERS as they lived peacefully on the surface.

To HUMANS, the legend was a fanciful children's story to keep them from the dangers of climbing the mountain alone.

Some stories tell of terrible monsters that steal young children from their homes if they misbehave, while others rumor of a magical place where children may stay young forever.

Much to the disdain of their parents, the underground was not what the legends made it out to be, nor was it to be feared by the human race. Without their history, the stories became lost, and the tales became myths— much like Santa Claus on Christmas Day. As children grew, they learned the truth about Santa and the Tooth Fairy; MONSTERS, too, became a part of this frivolous cycle.

Growing up was not what any child believed it would be. There was no freedom. There weren't endless amounts of fun, junk food, or movies. As delightful as it sounded, growing up became a torturous cycle of fatigue, responsibilities, and heartbreak.

Every one-hundred years, a unique child is born to the human race. Inheriting the will of the first HUMAN, this child possesses unfathomable power and has the potential to either SAVE or DESTROY the world. This power—DETERMINATION—gives a single human what the world craves most.

The power to RESET time.

The power to return time, start over without consequence, and fix mistakes without anyone having to remember.

With the power to RESET, DETERMINATION grants its user immortality. Much like the MONSTERS' immortality, it is reaped during childbirth and lost until another child is born.

For HUMANS, the ability of DETERMINATION was sealed away with monsterkind deep beneath the surface of Mount Ebott. The power to RESET lays dormant, and the chosen human lives a regular, ignorant, and blissful life as a slave to their societal standards. Those born with the ability are unaware that such power lurks beneath them.

In order to utilize this power, one must travel beneath Mount Ebott, survive, and escape the barrier ancient HUMANS placed onto monsterkind.

Why "Survive?"

Because MONSTERS never forgot what HUMANS did to them.

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This story begins with a girl. A girl about the age of 10. 

She had a determination and a heart like no other. Wearing a green-and-white-striped sweater and chocolate brown shorts, she disappeared into the hills of Mt. Ebott.

The MONSTERS showed her kindness and hope and treated her as their own. The King and Queen that ruled the underground of Ebott raised her with their own child. The human child wished to stay with the family forever, for no human had shown her the kindness she had received in her entire life.

However, years passed, and the child suddenly became very ill. 

Without the available resources, the King and Queen could not keep the child alive, and she died in the arms of her chosen family.

Grieving for the loss of their child, the King, and Queen's son, a young prince, took her body back to the surface and placed her on a field of buttercups. The boy remembered how she missed the warmth of the sun and her favorite flowers that bloomed every spring along the surface.

Noticing the MONSTER and then the young girl, the HUMANS attacked the prince. Mistaking his good deed for murder, they collected their rifles and fired at him.

Unable to bring himself to fight back, the boy wailed and pleaded for the HUMANS to stop. Seeing only hatred in the eyes of the HUMANS, he took the body of his best friend and began to walk back to the mountain where the rest of monsterkind awaited. There was no family left for the human girl here: only hatred and greed remained in the SOULS of the surface-dwellers. 

Unable to walk anymore, the young prince arrived at the footsteps of his home, where the King and Queen found him collapsed, holding their human child's lifeless body. He cried he tried to take them to the surface, yet the humans only shot him down. His last words a feeble "I'm sorry". Not to his parents, but to his best friend, lying next to him, as he turned to dust and his SOUL shattered.

Now mourning the death of their two children, the King declared war on any HUMAN who dared to fall into the underground. The Queen, heartbroken and crestfallen, left the King, and vanished from the public eye when she could not suede him otherwise.

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Years later, few children fell into the underground. Those who had fallen claimed to have been led by another child. A little girl wearing a green-and-white striped sweater.

Her story is told by an old soul, a caretaker who mothers them as if they were her own. Nothing could replace the old monster's children; however, each brought her blissful ignorance and happiness. The old woman speaks of her days as a Queen, filling the children that come by with fantasies. However, everyone always wishes to return to the surface where their home rests. 

After each death of a human child, the former Queen returns to her children's graves to mourn, reliving the failure of a heartbroken mother. Her son and daughter's tombs rest on a patch of buttercup flowers: the most beautiful flowers to reach the underground.

The name of the first fallen, CHARA, and the name of her young prince, ASRIEL.

Story after story, life after life, the agony of tears and remembrance trap the children from resting, and as a result, their SOULS will never move on.

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