Chapter Text
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The noise beat a steady rhythm that slowly roused you back into the waking world, eyes squinted open and for an impossibly long moment, you thought you were dead. Far, far above you was a tiny pinprick of watery grey light; you stared at it blankly, the constant dripping drowned out by a sudden ringing in your ears. A droplet struck your cheek, unpleasantly cold, and you flinched reflexively; all at once, your entire back body began to throb with pain and you groaned, coming to the conclusion that you were - unfortunately - not dead.
You scrunched your eyes shut and pressed the heels of your hands against them, making the effort to recover your wits and attempting to recall what had happened. Your brain was reluctant at first but slowly began to offer snippets of clarity.
Apparently, you had pulled an Alice and had fallen down the rabbit hole.
Groaning again, you carefully rolled onto your side and sat upright; the entire back of your body hurt, but your fingers and toes wiggled normally and you could remember who you were, so you figured you'd live. Which was pretty amazing, honestly, since the hole you'd fallen down was a long way up.
"How am I not dead?" you wondered aloud, taking a moment to properly look at where you'd ended up. For whatever strange reason, you'd landed on a lone patch of yellow flowers in an otherwise empty cavern.
Carefully, you climbed to your feet, shivering as your hands brushed against the petals of the out-of-place flowers. For a moment it felt as if something sinister returned the touch, goosebumps rising along your arms. You shook your head, feeling a little foolish, but quickly stepped out of the flower patch anyway. You wondered why your heart was racing; they were only flowers, right?
"I need to get out of here," you decided out loud, sweeping your eyes across the room. There was an elaborate doorway on the far side and you briefly wondered if there were people living down here, or who had lived down here. Either way, you were glad that there was a way out at all; dying of starvation because you'd stupidly trapped yourself down a hole would be a sucky way to go.
You quickly exited the room, only to come face-to-face with another flower. Literally, the flower had a face. Maybe you really were dead? This was a strange sort of hell to be in, though. You stared at the flower, dumbfounded, and it stared back. A fleeting, but queer expression flashed across its face - as if it too was taken aback - but it was gone before you could process it.
"Howdy! I'm Flowey the flower," it said eventually, and you felt in need of a table to flip because this had to be some sort of fever dream or an acid trip. It was too weird to be death, you thought a little hysterically. Even Hell had standards, right?
Surely even Alice would be confused by this nonsense. Thusly, you came to a very swift decision.
"Nope," you uttered vehemently.
The flower wobbled in place, looking thrown by the sudden turn in events. "What?" it asked.
"Nope.Nope.Nope," you repeated, spying another doorway behind the flower and quickly making like a tree, quitting the room.
"H-hey! Wait!" Flowey the flower tried again, swiveling to watch your speedy retreat. Its expression was quickly morphing from surprise to anger and your spidey senses were literally screaming at you. This was definitely bad news bears, man.
"We don't want any, kaythanksbye," your power walk turned into a dash, reaching the door just as the flower's face distorted into something malicious and full of rage.
"Come back here! Stupid human, running won't save you! I'm going to kill you!" the flower screamed, its previously high-pitched voice warping into something hellish and crazed.
You channeled your inner Speedy Gonzalez and booked it through to the next room just as the one with the flower began to tremble.
"Holy shiiiiit~!" you almost flew down the next hallway, kicking up and jumping over random piles of orange leaves, not trusting that they too wouldn't sprout consciousness and begin attacking you. The next room had a double staircase and you took them three at a time, almost tripping over the last step and careening into a wall. Past the stairs was a closed door and that's what finally stopped you.
Your heart was pounding against your ribs at lightspeed, lungs on fire, and your entire body was trembling, arms and legs feeling like wet noodles as you started to crash from the adrenaline high. You bent over and heaved for breath, the back of your tongue tasted like an old penny, and you shakily hobbled your way to the nearest wall, using it to support yourself.
"What the actual fuck," you wheezed, licking your dry lips, and taking a deep breath to encourage your heart to calm down. It took a hot minute, but eventually, you managed to pull yourself together enough to stop freaking out. Flowers were now officially ruined for you.
Pushing shaking fingers through your hair to get it out of your face, you took in your new surroundings. There were several buttons on the floor and a switch on the wall near the door. Trying the door only confirmed that it was locked.
Was it some sort of puzzle? You eyed the buttons on the floor balefully. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make problem-solving the key to a door? What happened to good old locks and keys?
Before you could really work yourself up into a gold-medal tantrum, a mechanical groan came from the other side of said door, and slowly it started to open. Warily, you took a step back; there was nowhere to hide and you definitely weren't going back to the flower room, so you were pretty much screwed if the person on the other side was another weirdo.
The door opened fully and in stepped a bipedal goat-woman in a dress. You felt your common sense scream as it flew off the planet and burned in the sun. You were so done.
"Oh, dear," the goat-woman murmured, blinking at you with wide, brown eyes, her hand still poised on the door where she'd stilled upon seeing you.
She collected herself much more quickly than you, standing a little taller and looking oddly graceful and kind. "Hello. Welcome to the Underground, my name is Toriel," she greeted you warmly, but all you could do was stare mutely. This new variable didn't seem like a threat, and you really hoped that she wasn't; you were crashing hard, and you didn't think you'd be able to make another run for it, not when she was blocking the door and the only other route would be back toward the murderous flower.
She frowned and seemed to notice your disheveled state and wan complexion. Your hands were scraped and bruised, your hair was a mess, and your clothes were full of dirt; all you really wanted to do was take a scalding hot shower and self-medicate with some greasy, unhealthy food.
"My child," she said gently, and you braced yourself against the oddly soothing tones of her voice. You wouldn't allow yourself to be misled, though it was hard to focus when your mind was reeling in the face of all these new impossibilities. Toriel paused and thought better of asking if you were alright because it was pretty obvious you weren't.
"Come with me, we'll get you cleaned up," she gestured back the way she came with her shoulder and a warm smile.
You blinked, blankly staring through her for a moment and considering your options. Honestly, you didn't have many. It was either follow this strange creature or not follow her and risk incurring her possible anger. A little unsteadily, you took a step forward.
Fuzzy memories about your long-ago high school education began to float forward. History lessons you'd mostly slept through about a time when monsters and humans coexisted on the surface until war broke out and the monsters were banished. It had all seemed so romantic and far-removed back then like your teacher had been lecturing a fairy tail instead of facts. Obviously you never thought any of that information had been relevant to you. You'd been wrong, apparently.
You still weren't entirely certain you weren't just tripping balls right now, but as the last of the adrenaline left your system and your entire body started to ache, you were slowly coming to accept that this was all too terribly real. You were completely sober and had somehow ended up falling into your own version of Wonderland.
Well, fuck.
You hoped, at the very least, that there was a sexy mad hatter down here. You were going to need something to help you cope with all this weirdness.