Bad Apple (Nightmare AU)

Chapter 5 : Waterfall

It's been more than 400 years since Nightmare left his old world, watching the Multiverse grow, absorbing every bit of negativity and hanging out with Error from time to time. Recently he's been making deals with desperate people but the work was starting to be too much for him, he needed a second hand. Error is already busy with destroying and fighting Ink so Nightmare was on his own. Nightmare exhaled and pressed his back against his chair, his last contract was a pain and the debtor tried to screw him over so he had to be eliminated. After a while starring at the selling, he got up from his chair and teleported to another AU, the most negative one he could sense, he needed more negativity.

Nightmare teleported in Waterfall, with the amount of negativity he expected to see a lot of people but no one was there. Not that strange for an AU stuck in an eternal genocide, a very recognisable one, however he could smell the monster dust and couldn't sense any sign of life. Except from the waterfall, there was one single person behind it and all the negativity came from them. Curious, Nightmare went trough the waterfall into the cave it was hiding, inside was a Sans with he's hood up holding a red scarf in he's hands. Thanks to his magic, Nightmare was able to see the hallucinations, so many of them, all the people he killed, they were madefrom his guilt, anger and powerlessness. Nightmare could hear him mumbling, he was apologizing and blaming himself, his amount of negativity extremely high and Nightmare knew exactly what it meant. Nightmare watched as the Sans invoke sharp bones pointing towards him, Nightmare had seen many people thatdesperate for a way out but he knew it was never the solution. He took a dip breath and absorbed the hallucinations, it was almost to much for him, to Sans it felt like a big weight was lifted from his back, like his sins couldn't crawl up his spine.

Nightmare cough, the negativity was almost painfull, making the Sans turn around in panic.

Sans : "W-who are you ? Why are you here ?" he said panicked.

Nightmare : "I'm Nightmare and I'm here because of your negativity."

Sans : "What ? My negativity... ?"

Nightmare : "I can sense negative emotions and act on them like making your hallucinations disappeared."

Sans : "H-how... Why did you help me ?"

Nightmare : "Over the years, I saw a lot of people at the bottom and every time I ask them the same question. Why ? Why do you want to end your life ?"

Sans : "I don't have anything to fight for ! Everybody is dead, the reset button doesn't work, that demon didn't come back and every is dead because of me !" he cried out, he was surprised how easily he just poured out his lament on a stranger, was it Nightmares doing ?

Nightmare : "What do you think will fix this ?"

Sans : "Nothing at this point... I'm stuck here forever." the silence felt heavy.

Nightmare : "You know about timelines ?"

Sans : "Yes."

Nightmare : "Ever heard of alternative universes."

Sans : "In theory, yes."

Nightmare : "Well, those AUs are real."

Sans : "They are ?"

Nightmare : "Yes and I want to give you the opportunity to work for me and get out of this place."

Sans : "Work for you ? And do what ? Be a therapist ?"

Nightmare : "No, I make contract with people across different AU and I need a hand."

Sans : "Sounds intresting but what will I do exactly ?"