#afatalerror

The questions floated through the air, and the cold wind froze his shoulders. He covered himself a little more with his scarf, the faint smell of Papyrus filling him with nostalgia. Why did he keep going back to Nature Tale? He asked himself with a frustrating rage emerging. But he suddenly felt like he didn’t want to come back home, like the impulse moving him forward disappeared all of the sudden.

He seated himself where before was Lavender, the vine swing moved a little with the new weight on it, and Fatal legs followed the movement. It was a comfortable seat, that must be why Lavender spent so much time in it. Looking at the flowers in his hand he felt purposeless, useless and so, so little. He used to think he would be able to keep going, that he didn’t need any more than his love for Papyrus, but yet there he was, alone and sobbing about this incomprehensible feeling of emptiness.

It didn’t make any sense, he wasn’t supposed to feel that way, and he wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. He took one petal in between his fingers and tore it apart, and then another and another; he shouldn’t let these stupid flowers get pollen in his head; he wouldn’t let Papyrus behind. The code of the flowers was green, yellow, and blue, and was simple and somewhat endearing, when he tore it apart it was slowly transformed into a glitchy goop of unrecognizable numbers and letters; he liked that process. He broke the stems and the petals, and the string that held everything together; all got broken in his hands, till his feelings got numb.

He considered throwing the unrecognizable mass away in the grass, but he didn’t want anyone apart from the so-called Lavender to know he was there. Even then, he would prefer if that skeleton didn’t feel his presence so easily, that he could be all alone in Nature Tale, breathing the clear air and hearing the animals he didn’t know sing. So he saved the glitchy goop in his pockets to discard once he got home. It felt greasy and gross but one has to sacrifice comfort for the sake of secrecy.

He doubted for a little while about raising his head and looking at the landscape in front of him. He felt like a brick was placed on his head like a rock was sitting in his throat, he felt insecure and confused, but somehow expectant about what he would see. He played with his fingers a for a while, thinking about what to do, till he slowly raised his head. At first, he didn’t see anything, as he was blinded by a light that wasn’t even there, but his eye-lights slowly recovered from the blurriness till the nighttime scenery appeared in front of him.

The view made him feel so little, but somehow, he liked the feeling, he felt like a little ant in a big maze of a green multitude of plants. The moonlight filtered from above through cracks in the thick rock wall of the cave, and that rock itself was covered in moss and dew. Everywhere he looked there were flowers and trees, the plants surrounded one another to the point that the trees got vines engraving their trunks with their roots. From above, the moonlight hit little falling leaves that flew freely and slowly, seeming like almost awake and alive beings. There were fireflies all over the place like little lanterns of even more little fairies, some moths could also be found sitting in logs and flowers, some of them looked like little cotton balls, some like little angels. A buzz in the left side of his head made him turn and he found dragonflies dancing all over the place.

He opened his eye sockets up, trying to capture all the stimuli of this place, he didn’t notice but his glitches were fewer and fewer with every minute he observed it. It was as if some kind of magic took his senses prisoner; he felt like a different monster. The air that entered his nostrils filled him like an opium drug; he felt exalted like a child seeing a carnival for the first time but content like an old man washing the sunset. The awesomeness of the unknown, he thought to himself.

He had passed so much of his life trapped in a dark and endless void, only looking at a cold and tragic world through a little glitching window; he had passed so many days in the awful company of the hundred of eco-flowers screaming with the voices of all his victims. The infinite white, the infinite black, the shadows always followed him, the emptiness was always behind him.

Maybe that was the reason he heated so much the view from Outer Tale, that immensity of the space, no matter how many stars and galaxies you put in it it will always feel wrong to him. In some place, he have heard that Error loved that place, that he was always sitting alone on some rock spacing out in Outer Tale, that that was one of the little places he wouldn’t ever destroy. Maybe that was another reason he hated that place so much, maybe that was the proof that he and Error could never be as alike to each other as the monsters used to think.

Nature Tale was cozy and comforting, an oasis in the middle of a deserted world, every place felt like the warmth of a home, and the nights he experienced there weren’t dark but shone in a way he didn't think it was possible. It seemed dreamlike; a perfect place for a perfect home. He found himself dreaming of a house shared with Papyrus there, he dreamed of the nights he could pass beside his brother there, the meals they could share; the happiness of his brother.

His brother… He felt so alone at that moment, so disconnected from reality, his eyes weighed with the weight of tears that couldn’t exit his eyes. His shoulders felt tense and hard as a rock as if all his ribs were fused into a big chunk of bone.  He felt tired and useless, somehow dumb as if he were just a mistake. He wanted to run, to run far away, further on the horizon when he couldn’t find himself. “yOu’RE JuSt AnOTHer diRty GLitch tHat I HaVe TO cLeaN Up.” The words of Error filled his head, and make his broken soul hurt. It felt like a knife penetrating everything again and again.

His glitches came back in a storm of white, black, and cyan boxes that covered his entire body and his throat tried to scream, but even his words were shattered into pieces. He needed to get out of there, he needed…

The frustration filled every bone of him. Not this again, not this. The air was missing from every breath he take with his mouth wide open. He was going to die. He was sure, this time he was going to die. His hands were shaking as if the earth under his feet were trembling. Soon the edges of his vision turned black and blurry. He embraced himself and closed his hands over his arms, but no matter how much he press them his vision wouldn't come back. He wouldn´t come back. Tears fell from his eyesockets, bitter and salty as blades cutting through his face.

A smell penetrated through the thick air, interrupting the sacredness of his despair. The sweet aroma stopped all his thoughts in an instant, and he felt a breeze undoing knots all over his body. Like a river transformed into a waterfall, the screams hiding in his throat fell freely as tears down his face. Unlike before these tears cleaned his face as pure water, slowly passing like the comforting hand of a lover.

He let the seconds pass through him like the soft air around him. He let himself take a break and surface again as a new monster. When he raised his head again there was no trace of tears on it. His eyes searched rapidly for the cause of the mysterious smell, besides him rested an enormous bush of lavender flowers, with its little flowers pointing in all directions. Now, when he was calmer, the smell of them seemed a little tacky, too sweet, and too strong for his taste.

There was just one possibility for that bush to appear suddenly in that place. He felt dizzy when he realized that Lavender has seen him in that state, it was the second time that has happened to him. He seemed to not be able to maintain his dignity in front of strangers, always falling into his despair too easily. His cheeks felt hot and his hands shut instantly into a thigh knot.

He rapidly got up from the swing and walked as fast as he could far away from it, he opened the white portal with his right hand and passed through it as if his life were depending on it. He felt the atmospheric pressure release from his shoulders as he entered the infinite emptiness of his save screen. The eco-flowers spoke to him: “Crack-crack” the sound of broken bones filled the room. Then far away he heard a little flower say “BROTHER” in the broken voice of Patch.

As if that sound was a premonition, Patch came just moments after it. “BROTHER ARE YOU BACK?” the tall skeleton asked kindly, but Fatal did not answer. “I WAS THINKING OF ADDING A NEW INGREDIENT TO MY SPAGHETTI RECIPE, WANNA HEAR ABOUT IT?” The silence followed Fatal till the middle of the eco-flowers, which welcomed him with more screams and cracks. He lay down in between the big blue petals and closed his eyes.

Patch watched his brother sleep, probably something had made him really mad if he was taking a nap in an accurate position. An unknown impulse made him come close to the sleeping body of his brother, he kneel down beside him and looked at him closely. This time there were almost no glitches on his brother's face. As if he was sleeping comfortably his chest raised slowly making the sound of the air passing through his nostrils soft and welcoming. 

Something made him feel calmer, for once the immensity of the void around him felt quiet in the best of ways; for once it felt like home. A smell caught his attention. A soft sweet breeze floated from his brother's body. It was a flower smell… where did his brother go that day.