Were We Doomed From The Start?

19.- Ghost In Solitude

As Ninja debated whether or not to visit, Gaster materialized in front of him, putting down Shadow and hugging Ninja tightly then checking for bruises or anything, spotting the cut on his cheek. Gaster slowly brought his hand close to Ninja's face and he leaned in, taking a closer look.

"Gaster, I'm fine."
Ninja mumbled.

"You're clearly not. What happened? Did anything hurt you?"

"This is from the fall, and dodging..."
Ninja said, trailing off quickly to not worry Gaster more than he already had.

However, Gaster was already worried, pulling Ninja close and holding his chin up to his own face, giving him a worried look while Shadow joined in by hugging Ninja and leaning on his neck, starting to fall asleep again.

Ninja had attempted to struggle, but it just made Gaster hold him tighter by the waist. Shadow however, let go and took off the coat, making Ninja wear it to keep warm as he continued to lean on Ninja's neck, lightly nuzzling him while toying with his hair again. Ninja tried to complain, but Gaster put his finger on Ninja's mouth, softly making a shushing sound with a smile. Quite quickly and easily, Ninja bit Gaster's finger whose hand recoiled immediately.

"We have to get back to finding our way out of here."
Ninja said, handing Shadow over to Gaster and taking out his map to chart the land.

Gaster held Shadow in his arms, who fell asleep again. He turned to look at Ninja, who was eating some of the quiche he had found to regain some health and heal his wounds. Although some healed, the cut on his cheek didn't seem to go away, only barely sealing up yet ceasing to bleed, the smudge still remaining in a lighter colour.

Ninja then went over to a sign close to the wall, which told the locations nearby.

*North: Blook Acres
*East: Hotland
*???: Temmie Village

There were three different ways to go behind the sign, with another room on the left and the path forward was to the right. Going to the room on the far left, the ground was glowing grass with dark dirt that led to a little gap from that ground to the regular, surrounded by the glowing light blue water.

There was a little bird standing there, that offered to carry him across the gap of land, to which Ninja politely declined. Going back and over to the first room out of the three behind the sign.

The room led to a fish like house that was two coloured, half a light discoloured purple and the other side a kind of black colour with a fish skeleton pattern mat in front of the door and a bigger version on the left with a training dummy on it, resembling the Mad Dummy he had fought before. Of course, it was a much paler version, like the colour before the brighter orange it had turned into during the fight.

He walked up at it and it spoke to him.

"What.
What?
WHAT!?
It's a living."

He stepped away from the dummy while smiling, staring at the windows as it was obvious that nobody was home. The second area had two houses next to each other, each leaning the other opposite direction. One was a light blue, and the other a light red. The light red house seemed to be locked, and the window was up too tall for him to peer through, so he went over to the light blue house and knocked.

The door opened with a creek, revealing a mostly empty house that looked a bit old, to which he stepped inside a bit before someone greeted him.

"oh...
you really came...
sorry, i...

wasn't expecting that.
it's not much, but make yourself at home."

There was a fridge in the corner near him, on the left and an old discoloured blue TV next to it on the right. In the other corner at the other end of the room was a desk with a very old school computer, blocking the window and some cracks in the wall.

Ninja stepped closer inside and saw three albums on his right, along with a spiderweb in the corner with a flyer on it. Going up to the albums, each had a label on it and a CD inside it.

The one closest to him was labelled as "Spooktunes", the second as "Spookwave" and the third as "Ghouliday Music". Ninja played "Spooktunes" and sat down on the floor as him and Napstablook listened to it for a little bit before Ninja was intrigued by the old fridge, going up to it when Napstablook noticed.

"oh...are you hungry...
i can get you something to eat..."

Napstablook went over to the fridge and opened it, taking out a transparent sandwich, offering it to Ninja.

"this is a ghost sandwich...
do you want to try it..."

♥Yes        No

Ninja took it and tried to bite into it, only for it to phase through him entirely and fall to the floor with a splat.

"oh...
nevermind..."

They stood in silence, looking at the sandwich on the floor for a solid few seconds before Napstablook talked again.

"after a great meal i like to lie on the ground and feel like garbage...
it's a family tradition...
do you want...
...to join me..."

♥Yes        No

"okay...
follow my lead..."

Napstablook went over to the middle of the room, lying down while Ninja followed, lying down too.

"here we go...
you'll lie down as long as you don't move.
so...only move around when you want to get up, i guess."

Staying there for what felt like an eternity, Ninja started to relax and heaved a sigh of relief, sinking into the floor a bit as his muscles unclenched and started to finally relax.

Around them, the floor, walls and ceiling started to fade out, the furniture and CD's staying while in place of the room a slowly moving glob of space started to appear, slowly creeping in until everything was covered by it.
Star like clusters littered the ceiling and floor, some sprinkled out more randomly while others were more clumped.

The music had faded out without him realising, the void of space making its own sounds that resembled that of an aura shifting around the room, almost like a calm droning sound that helped to unravel his mind from all the stress and extra thoughts he had the entire time, starting to fall asleep.