The stars were bright tonight.

They were your stars, the same stars that you had looked up and basked beneath for years, taking in the light. Your ancestors and those in your village had marveled at their very presence, bemused that such small glimpses of light could endure still within the icy clutches of nighttime. Songs had been sung, praising the orbs of light that the gods had crafted with their very hands, strung across the sky so that all travelers may have light even when the moon was hidden from man.

But now the stars were cold, embodying nothing of warmth or help. You would die and the stars would continue to endure for a thousand years more, caring not once that you had lived and looked up to them, that their light was your only guidance. The light of the stars were nothing more than beams of dead light, beams of light that had travelled across the universe for millions of years and you were now getting a glimpse. The star millions of light years away was already dead and you were looking at its ghost.

In disgust you pulled your head away, not wanting to look at the sky any longer. But the sky was all around you, the floor, the ceiling, the world. You had grown wings and flown into the heavens, suspended by a mere dome that orbited the green and blue planet below. You stared down at the glass floor, wondering just how long it would hold before it shattered and you plunged into the cold terrain below.

But if Ink had sent you here, if the painter had deemed this as your refuge until whatever war passed, than this wasn't something to fear. There were always the nagging thoughts in the back of your mind. Where would you go after this. after the war had been won and the enemies of the multiverse were eradicated? This universe was not your home and it never would be, you did not belong in a life in the sky.

The hairs on the back of your neck prickled, the feeling of being watched had never ceased since you walked through that rift. Something hidden was watching your every move, but what, you did not know. Your eyes flickered to the trees, mighty plants that hovered in pods of soil above the glass floor, providing the only oxygen for whatever creatures lived in this strange world. It was a forest in the middle of outer space, an ironic sight. But something was hidden in the trees, hidden beneath the branches...

"You're an odd looking monster."

You nearly jumped from your skin as you turned around to face a miniature t-rex, if that was something you could even use to describe the creature, the monster, that was talking to you. It wore a striped sweater that trailed to the floor, emblazed with stars that swam in violet skies, reflecting the starry night of the world around.

"I'm not a - " The words hung on the tip of your tongue, the pieces of the puzzle slowly clicking into play within your mind. The gears turning, you surveyed the growing crowd of monsters around. Never before had you seen a monster, with the exception of Ink and Error, that was. They took on all various appearances, some large dogs, others large rabbits and everything in between. It occurred to you that in this world you could not be a human, there seemed to be a sort of prejudice that existed here.

"Yes," you agreed at last. "I get that a lot." You forced a smile, hoping to convince the monster child.

"You're not from around here," the monster kid narrowed his eyes, brown irises staring into your [E/C] ones suspiciously.

"I'm from..." You struggled to find your fake origin when your eyes trailed to a sign in the distance, an assembling of arrows on a road that pointed to all different directions. Some destinations included Snowdin, Waterfall and the Capital. "I'm from the Capital," you replied with a forced sincerity, squaring your shoulders to put on a more confident attitude.

"Welcome to Waterfall!" The monster kid exclaimed, believing your story. The growing crowd of monsters muttered amiably to one another before finally dispersing. Besides, wasn't it impossible for a human to suddenly materialise out of nowhere? The glass dome that hung over the Earth wasn't exactly the most accessible thing in the known universe, the magic barrier ensured that no humans could enter through the sealed gate and that no monster could leave.

"Waterfall?" You looked around, not seeing any signs of water or life besides the trees that hung suspended in midair.

"You've really never left the Capital, have you?" The monster kid rolled his eyes and grabbed your hand, dragging you onwards. "On the edge of the dome, it's hard to see all of Waterfall, but the closer you get to the middle, the more real it looks."

He wasn't wrong. As you ventured deeper into the woods, the glass floor that reflected the sea of stars vanished entirely, replaced with soil and the song of crickets. The faint rush of water could be heard, whispers of secrets chattered through strange blue flowers that had dug their roots into the soil below. The trees were no longer suspended in pods of dirt, but took root in the ground, giving the strange illusion of being trapped inside a forest in space.

You kneeled beside one flower and strained your ear, trying to catch a glimpse of what it was whispering. A strange voice spoke: They're all dead.

Something strange stirred inside of you, wondering what monster had ventured into these woods just as you had now, kneeled before these flowers and said that. "I'll catch up in a minute, you can go on ahead," you told the monster kid, wanting to see if you could piece more together on what had happened here.

You directed your focus to the whispers, blocking out all other sounds. There! A faint trace of the same voice, only a few yards away. You carefully navigated through the flowers directed only by your ears. A lone blue flower grew on top of a tree stump, thick roots that carried a thousand stars of their own were visible against the ancient bark. A lone quiche was cast aside, forgotten.

Right, the flower whispered to you. You were right.

"Right about what?" It was the same voice from the echo flower before, you were certain. But right about what? This was idiotic, following a trail of flowers who could be parroting the voice of a monster that had died thousands of years ago. If you were to sneeze even now, traces of it could still be picked up a millennia from that moment in time.

Forgotten, another flower chimed. Forgotten with no world and no home. I am -

"Alone."

You knew this voice, you were sure. It was in the back of your mind, a memory that was just within reach. Your eyes darted around the forest, trying to catch a glimpse of whomever was speaking to the flowers, oblivious to your presence. There was one face and name that came to mind, but it was impossible, incomprehendable that he had followed you here, there was no reason.

"Who's there?" you called out, reaching to the ground and picking up a mighty stick. It was your only weapon and you wielded it proudly, holding it out to warn any approaching monster. The voice did not respond, the echo flowers humming in unison, the only thing breaking the silence. Even the monster kid seemed to have disappeared.

I am alone, the flowers whispered in different pitches, singing some song that made your blood run cold. You were right, I am alone. Forgotten.

When there was no further response, you let the stick fall to the ground. If something had wanted to kill you, it would have done so already when you were vulnerable without any proper way of defending yourself. Before you turned in the direction the monster kid had taken off in, you looked in the direction where you were certain the hidden pair of eyes watched you. "I'm sorry," you whispered, your words magnified a thousandfold by the echo flowers.

You were right.

I'm sorry.

They're all dead.

I'm sorry.

We're not so different.

You smiled to yourself and disappeared into the forest, the flowers and trees swallowing you whole.

Error had not been to the universe in a very long time, alternate realities such as this one had never been his favorite. The stars were an irritating reminder of the millions of universes that he so longed to eradicate, bond only by his word to Ink that he would stop destroying and erasing universes if the painter stopped creating them. It was an agreement that was driving the two of them insane, for it was Error's very nature to destroy and Ink's fundamental core to create. They were two parasites caught in a never-ending yin and yang that the multiverse could be better without, and yet could not exist without them.

He brushed his finger against the lone petal of the echo flower, watching as the small specks of light swirled in the translucent lilac petal, humming with words and phrases long forgotten. It had been utterly foolish of Error to come here, let alone leave any evidence of his being here. But yet it was calming in this universe, reminding him a bit of the multiverse itself. Serene, quiet, no other living thing besides him and his thoughts.

They're all dead, his words were relayed back to him. Was Error such a fool that he had said such a thing? In the midst of his agitation he uprooted the echo flower and flung it onto the ground, smashing it once with the sole of his sneaker before jumping off the tree. He cast one glance over his shoulder to ensure that [Y/N] had disappeared, that damn human he had mindlessly followed in the first place.

But that wasn't important right now, nothing else mattered but the task at hand. The multiverse was at war with itself, Nightmare, Horror, Dust and a hundred others banding together in a fight without any cause, wanting nothing more than to watch things burn. They had called out to Error, it seemed only logical that he should join them. After all, they wanted to destroy, and wasn't that what he loved? Relished?

In a sense, yes, Error did enjoy seeing things fade from existence, but that was simply it. Error did not particularly enjoy watching his enemies bleed when he could eradicate them from existence with a snap of his fingers. It was a clean and easy process, no messes to clean up. But Nightmare and his band of followers wanted to torch and burn eveyr universe they came across, creating nuisances that were rather annoying on Error's part. So he had remained neutral for the most part, until Ink had approached him, begging the glitch of a skeleton to side with him and oppose the army that was slowly marching across the multiverse.

It was a suicide mission, Ink's idea. There was no way they would win, not with the small number of fighters they had collected. The dimensional beings such as Geno, Fresh and Error were mighty, but even their power could not rival that of an army. It was hopeless, hapless, impossible.

Error watched as the mutilated echo flower began to wilt, succumbing to the process of nature where it would decompose and join the soil that made up the earthy dirt below. The stars above twinkled onwards. He knew better than the monsters and the humans that watched them from their world below. The balls of light were nothing more than pieces of code that joined to form such things, unimportant details that would not be missed in the larger picture. Monsters, humans, they held themselves to such standard and importance, when they were nothing more than strings of code that would be rewritten and deleted entirely. No one mattered, not when they could be programmed to be erased from everyones' minds and memories.

But that idea did not completely resonate with Error either. He remembered his life once, before he had woken up in the Void and succumbed to his insanity, back when he too had been an unimportant string of code in time and space. He had been a part of a timeline with family and friends, not like he even remembered what those were, anyway. But he remembered what it was like to be small, to be a character in a universe and consider yourself invulnerable.

No more!

Error shoved himself away from such thoughts. There was no use in thinking such things, they were dead and there was no way to bring them back. He brought his hand downwards, summoning a rift to bring him back to Ink, back to that void where he had spent years driven to the point of madness. He stared once at the white world that reached for him and then back up to the sky with the stars that twinkled, winked at him. And then he looked to the forest beyond where high-pitched laughter rang sharp and clear in the distance, the human enjoying some joke between themselves and the monster child they were venturing with.

Error let loose a sigh and swiped the portal away, once more hauling himself up a tree and leaning against a branch, taking in the landscape of the world around. Not knowing why, he remained this way, watching, waiting...

The echo flowers sang.

I'm sorry.