Loving Every Bone in Your Body

Entry 3.4 || Zinnia

Zinnia, a flower that means the thought of absent friends.

Everything hurts. Pain throbbed through your entire body. You didn't move, you couldn't even think about moving. You laid on the cool pavement for who knows how long, trying to wait out the waves of pain. This hurt a million times worse than when the machine first warped you to that swapped reality. It felt like your blood was boiling and your bones had turned to putty.

You finally are able to open your eyes when the pain subsides. When you do, you realize you don't recognize where you are.

Breathing in, you sit up. You pause there, taking that moment to check yourself over. Though you were in severe pain, you didn't seem to be physically wounded. Which worried you more. You place a hand on your chest as if you could feel out the condition of your soul. Just thinking about it made a ghost of the pain from earlier seep into your bones. Whatever had happened, between the almost reload and getting Gaster's fragment, it'd nearly ripped your soul in two.

Getting to your feet is difficult. Your body doesn't want to listen to you. You don't want to listen to you, if it means having to move and function. All you wanted to do was lay down and sleep.

The way your head pounded, you're sure the last thing you needed to do was sleep.

Then again, with the way you ached, you're sure you needed rest.

But you're not sure you had time to rest.

You're in Waterfall, again. A different side, one you're not familiar with and don't think you've ever specifically visited before. It's empty of monsters, at least, giving you more time to settle and go over what had just happened.

Since you were in a different part of the Underground you assume you had grabbed the soul fragment. Had it... gone back to Gaster? You didn't have it on you, so you assume so. You didn't know what you expected when you found it but... You don't think it's what you expected. It'd talked to you. You think? Everything about it was fuzzy. But you definitely remember it whispering... whispering something sad. You remember feeling it's feelings. Another phenomenon you chock up to happening because of your green soul.

But...Is that how Gaster felt? Feels?

You wonder how long Gaster has been watching the monster community live on without him. How long he suffered in silence as his family kept living without ever knowing who they'd lost. You know he said he went off grid around the time Asriel was born but you had no concept of monster life spans and how any of that lined up with the normal years you knew.

You imagine yourself in his incorporeal shoes.

You imagine standing next to Frisk and Toriel and neither of them seeing you, remembering you. You imagine disappearing and morning your loss but them never knowing that their sister, their daughter, was gone.

You imagine returning after finding all the pieces of Gaster's soul and finding out they can't see you. That everything you're doing now means nothing.

You imagine disappearing.

Sucking in a breath you dig your nails into your palms, forcefully reeling your spiraling mind back into place. This wasn't the time to lose yourself.

Sure, you hurt. Physically and emotionally. Sure, you felt like crying, as it seemed that the idea of losing everything you had was finally setting in. But it wasn't the time for that. You could cry and freak out later, if none of this worked out. Right now, you needed to be brave and to take this all head on.