Inktobertale 2022 : Compilation of novels

17th of October : Too bad I lied

[Inspired by the "It's in the script" comic by Comyet. If you know you know.]

Gaster suddenly woke up and raised his chest from his mattress with an audible gasp as he looked a round him. His bedroom, the same as usual. He slowly got up, and looked through the window of his caravan, the circus was still standing, as beautiful as ever, and the artists were getting ready. A normal day. Someone like Gaster, shouldn't fear nightmares, especially with all the crazy things he had seen and learnt but still... that one had felt far too real. But it couldn't have been, right ? 

True, Genocides could happen, but Gaster would never fall to them, nor even allow them to occur in the first place. Hell, even if he did die, he wouldn't be able to remember it. But still...

Gaster was split in two between the brutal realism of this "nightmare", and the certitude he had. As a very logical man, he only saw one way to find an answer. Skim through what he knew. True, if he and the timeline had been reverted to normal after the events of a Genocide, the memories of said timeline would probably feel very much dream-like. But in all his knowledge, Gaster only saw one way that an entire universe could be regenerated after such a tragic event without using Resets, which would prevent him of having any memory of previous timelines. And it was by the hands of someone who had sworn to never ever put himself in the way of the continuity, the "script" of AUs, so it simply was impossible.

Unless...

"Ah ! There you finally are !" said Dream as he appeared in the timeline where he had just felt Ink. The protector seemed to have very little feelings, and had therefore been very hard to locate. When Dream arrived in the AU, he was surprised by its look. He seemed to be in some swamp at night, with large lily pads and fireflies over the greenish water. The scenery, while very dark, still offered various beautiful colors to whoever could look hard enough. And there, sitting in the dirt, just in front of the water, was Ink. He did not react at Dream's call, neither did he when his friend started approaching.

The guardian of positivity could tell Ink wasn't doing great. Only allowing himself to feel a minimal amount of emotions was something the protector only did in hard times, to overcome a painful feeling or to better concentrate. And Dream knew very well why. That was the very reason why he had gone looking for Ink in the first place. Yesterday, in one of the AUs Ink cherished, that being Undertop, a Genocide had occurred.

A perfect Genocide.

And while he had never seen it go to that extent, Dream knew just how committed Ink was to never betraying his rule of non-interference. He probably was a mess, even despite the very few feelings he could manifest.

"So... is everything okay ?" he asked.

Big silence.

"...Yeah." eventually answered Ink, which caused a silent sigh of relief from the guardian.

"Glad to hear that." said Dream as he sat next to his friend. "Listen, I know how terrible you must feel. Just because you can make yourself not feel sad doesn't mean you aren't. As you told me yourself once, sometimes there's nothing we can do other than let fate do it's bidding, and-"

"I didn't."

Dream got surprised, and perturbed by this sudden interruption. "You... you what ?"

"I said I could handle it. Promised I wouldn't intervene. Dream..."

The guardian's eyes widened as he started to understand. "Ink..." he began, "what have you-"

"...Does it still count as a promise if you only find out later that you were lying all this time ?"