Blood and Ash

IV

The next thing you know, you're being nudged awake by a familiar vine. When you wake up, the room is even darker than before. Flowey must have turned off the lamp from earlier to keep Toriel from thinking you were still awake. Everything in the cottage has been turned off, so there's no light coming in from under the door to illuminate things for you. You feel hot and feverish, and you're damp with your own sweat. You feel light headed, and not just from inhaling the stench of death for an unknowable amount of time. When your eyes adjust, you look to Flowey. He gestures to the door without saying a word, and you get out of the bed. It's time to go. Grabbing the musty blanket from the floor and executing your plan, you walk carefully over the blanketed glass and onto the cold stairwell. It takes a bit to get down all of the stairs now that you have a much bulkier cast compared to the makeshift splint you had before, but you manage. Flowey was right, at the bottom of the staircase is a set of long empty hallways. As you traverse, you start to feel dizzy and nauseous. There's a couple of cobwebs here and there, but there's no spiders in sight- only dust bunnies perpetually suspended in stringy silk.

You come across an empty medium-sized room made entirely out of some kind of lavender stone. There are scratches etched on the walls, scorch marks, and splatters of blood on every surface. As soon you get to the center of said room, your stomach turns and the grotesque, half-digested pie from earlier comes up and splatters on the floor. Flowey winces as you heave, suffering from the effects of food poisoning. You get up and wipe your mouth on your shirt sleeve, picking Flowey back up from where you had dropped him. On the other side of the room is a massive doorway carved out of the same stone, engraved with some kind of crest. The surface of the doors crackle and pop with embers, indicative of the magic lock keeping Toriel- and yourself- locked in here. Before you're able to walk up to the door and examine it for a way to get through the seal, a wall of blue fire erupts behind you and blocks your way back to Toriel's house. When you turn around, there she stands in all of her faded, exiled glory. She wears a toothy smile, showing all of her sharp and unnaturally non-herbivorous teeth. Her eyes convey everything you need to know in this moment; she's more than enthusiastic about tearing you to bits.

With a quick motion of her hand, fireballs ignite from thin air and come roaring towards you from all angles. There's nowhere to dodge, nowhere to escape. You pull Flowey's boot closer to you and brace for burning. You feel the heat of the flames lick your skin, but it never comes. When you open your eyes, you see a sort of shield of thorned vines all around you, pruned off by fire at the base.

Toriel seems shocked, as are you. "Idiot weed! What are you doing?"

Flowey stays silent and his expression changes from one of recklessness and impulse driven by fear to determination and courage. Another fireball comes flying at you both, but a cluster of giant white seeds takes the hit and extinguishes the flame.

"What are you doing?! We had a deal!" Flowey freezes at Toriel's words, and your confusion only grows.

"What deal?" You look down at him, but he refuses to return your gaze. "Flowey?"

Toriel begins to laugh. She laughs so much that she doubles over and starts to cry. When she's done, she straightens back up and wipes her tears. "You didn't really think he was helping you, did you? Did he not tell you? Monsters are terrible creatures, my dear." Flowey looks up slowly, an obvious pained and regretful droop to his petals. Toriel continues. "All of us are."

"That pest and I have been working together since the very beginning. Why, if it weren't for him your leg would've been completely fine!" Your hands begin to shake. Flowey grows more guilty by the second. "Go on, weed. Tell them." He looks away again, fiddling with his leaves anxiously. He starts to cry, dew falling from pollen clusters of his eyes.