#nullsiren

Over the years, Gaster had witnessed plenty of others that bore the same name. Some he had actually engaged with. Others he simply watched, judging from a distance. Most were of the unsavory type, a few rather pleasant.

Worst, he felt, were those that dwelled fully in the VOID, those fragmented, lost SOULs that had nowhere else to go, fueled only by emptiness and a scathing desire to be whole again.

(NO MATTER THE MEANS.)

a fate he had barely escaped.

He was used to them. Dancing just out of sight; on the precipice of reality; stalking and laughing, inching onto his territory, egging a reaction. (because they must because they MUST because they must feed on the emotions of others they must fill that emptiness.)

Gaster had found it best to ignore them.

After they realized he would not engage with them, that there was no amusement to be had, they left of their own accord, to find a new victim that could perceive them, to drive some other poor SOUL to the brink of insanity.

USUALLY.

Ignore it. Ignore it. Ignore it.

And he did for a while, regardless of how his instincts screamed at him, how something brushed against the fragments of his being, how something just didn't seem quite right when his back was turned. He ignored it, with grimaces and twitches and noiseless growls directed at nothing.

NO MORE.

"What do you want?"

He did not ask, he demanded, fiery, mouth quirked into a snarl as he whirled to face nothing. But he knew better. He stretched his senses, called to the VOID, sent a message.

I know you're there don't play with me this is my world.

Announcement is maybe too big of a word. An announcement implies that there's a crowd listening. And there was no crowd here. There was only one man, and he was announcing to no one but himself.

"HE GOES LEFT, HE GOES RIGHT, HE'S PULLING BACK AND HE SHOOTS-- HE SCORES!"

Breathing heavily, Bermuda leans back slightly in his skates, looking around, as though there were people all around cheering for him. He grins and waves at nobody, then skates to the center of the small pond he's been skating on for hours.