Gone.

Memories, traditions of old and new had been eradicated without a single thought. A world that had been crafted by your ancestors for thousands of years had been erased in the blink of an eye, no memory or gravestone to remain of those that had been taken along with it. But here you remained, their tribute, the only living fragment of a universe that had simply been deleted, erased from all histories of time and space.

The world around you was serene, an infinite sea of white that bore neither sky nor ground, without wall or floor. There was nothing here, nothing lived in this white world. Was this the afterlife? Was this where you were destined to spent the rest of eternity before time itself died and burned everything with it?

You remembered bitterly of life in your village, songs and festivities to honor false gods and sing of the better realm to come. But there were no gods, everything had been wrong, wrong, wrong! Or were there gods and this was a show for them, watching the condemned souls of mortals be driven to insanity in this void? If that was true, than you would not please them, allow them the satisfaction of winning.

But you hadn't died, that was one thing you were sure of. You remembered clearly running out in the meadow with your brothers and sisters, dancing away to the music that thrummed within the heart of the village as the Elders prepared to offer a blood sacrifice to the gods in hopes of a bountiful harvest this coming autumn. But then the music had stopped, the laughter from your lips was cut short and you felt confused and eventually grew afraid. You had looked over to your siblings to see what they were making of this only to discover that the field of flowers and grass had vanished too along with the music, leaving you the only survivor.

I'm alone, you thought to yourself. I'm alone and very afraid.

Surely you could not be the only one left? Perhaps this was all a dream and you and your family would laugh with it in the waking hours of the morn. But as time continued to stretch onwards into infnity, you fears and troubles grew.

You were walking without a sense of direction or purpose, afraid of what you wouldn't find, more than what you would. You were afraid of the worst, that you remained the only survivor of whatever catastrophe had ripped away the very fabrics of your universe, destroyed the small village you had grown up in.

"Shea?" You finally mustered up the courage to shout, convinced that nothing was around to hear you. "Mya? Ren?" You rattled off the names of your siblings, pausing after each name hoping to see them running towards you, arms outstretched, some hope for normalcy.

But when no one came did you sink to your knees, tears blurring your vision. What had caused this? You had paid your penance to the gods every festival, sacrificed more than your siblings and parents, even giving up your pet goat in hopes that the gods would give your father a better harvest than the meagar amount produced last year.

You were even set to be betrothed to the chief's son, which was considered to be an honor above all others in the eyes of the gods. After all you had done, was this how they were to reward you? Were you to exist until the end of time while your friends and family were given sweet release? What sort of reward was this, sitting forever in a white room without end and definition?

Your heart caught in your throat a minute later, seeing at last a small speck in the distance. Convinced that your mind was playing tricks on you, the first symptom of insanity from isolation and despair, you tentatively approached the object, afraid of what you might find and what you might learn. What if your universe was truly gone, destroyed by the hands of your gods?

Or what if it was something else, something more? There was something else at work here, you could feel it through the very hum of this world. There was much suffering here, secrets that seemed to be hidden everywhere in the realm of nowhere.

Was it possible for the air to be screaming? That was what you thought as you approached a tear that seemed to exist from nothing. It was a glimpse into a world that seemed quite different from your own, a world with...

Monsters.

Through the brief glimpse into this window of time, you could make out a snowy world that's harsh cold seemed to offer no remorse to those that wandered into its icy clutches. But there was also laughter here, a type of joy and compassion that could thrive nowhere else. It seemed that despite this unknown world to you, the monsters there were happy, happy knowing that they had made the most of what they could live with and wanted nothing more.

You were tempted to join the world, desperate to share in this happiness if only for a second. But fear pulled you away at the last minute, afraid that if you stepped inside the rift, it would seal behind you and there would be no hope at all to return to your village. What kind of gods existed in this universe, did you wonder. Surely they were more compassionate than yours, for their subjects lived in peace and happiness.

"C'mon Papyrus, stop being so lazy!"

You stopped in your tracks, the high-pitched squeak that emanated from the universe ringing through the air. You were certain you had heard this voice before, grown up with it just as you had with Shea and Ren. But that was impossible, was it not? You could not live another life besides the ones the gods bestowed upon you, no one was given second chances. Upon death, ones soul would ascend to Azroth, where their spirit would be judged in truth and justice in the eyes of Mron, hero of heroes, conqueror of empires.

But if your universe was gone, did that mean the extinction of your gods as well?

You suddenly felt very alone.

"I'm not alone!" you declared to no one in particular and turned away. If rifts such as this existed in wherever you were, surely there was a rift that would take you back home? A small smile spread across your lips upon thinking of the stories you would tell Frisk, an orphan you had befriended years ago back in your world.

You broke into a run, afraid that if you dwelled near the universe any longer you would jump straight into its heart and never leave. The rift soon became a fading memory as time stretched on, time without beginning or end. Strangely you did not hunger or thirst here, an anomaly that struck you as odd. There is nothing different between me and the dead, you thought darkly and pushed onwards, determined to find a way out of this hell.

But your searches were fruitless, in vain as you could find neither another living person or doorway out of here. You had even turned back in hopes of finding that one universe, only to find nothing.

"I'm sorry!" you hollered into the air, sinking to your knees. "I don't know the crimes in which you punish me for, but I beg you, please give me another chance! I'll start my life over, dedicate myself to the village temple. Mron, hear my call!" The last sentence rang through the air, ending in the same damn silence that had followed you since the very beginning.

Your gods were dead.

Everyone was dead.

Not dead you realized, but eradicated. Your universe had simply vanished in the blink of an eye, taking along with it the lives of those inside of it. No one would live again in that world, no one would live to care to pass on the village stories and memories of those that had lived. Thousands of years of history and dreams vanished in a single second. What kind of magic existed that could do such a thing? Who or what was capable of such power?

You sank to your knees, silent tears rolling down your cheeks and fell to the absent ground below, falling out of sight for what would seem like eternity. Curious enough, it seemed that you were walking on nothing, held in mid-air by some magic. This was just a small detail you noticed as you brought your head to your knees, wanting to block out everything, never again wanting to see the white of the world you were in.

C'mon Papyrus, stop being so lazy!

How could one be so happy, knowing that their entire understanding of reality could be wiped away in a second? How could one be bothered by something as trivial as that when there were greater forces at work here?

"They're going to war."

At first you had thought it to be the first creation of your mind, already succumbing to the fury of insanity that threatened to ravage your mind. But as the conversation continued, you soon thought it to be real. It had to be real, it was a hope that was essential to your being. If you refused to embrace such a thing, then you were truly lost to the void. A second voice answered the other, one that brought chills up your spine.

"Chaos is such a beautiful thing, is it not?"

The voice of the first seemed to be slightly on edge, impatient that the second individual seemed humoured in his frustration. "Nightmare has already succeeded in rallying his forces, converting several of the universes to his side. Dream refuses to fight his brother, no matter how much I beg him too. I need you on my side Error, even just for this once."

The voice whom you assumed to belong to Error replied, disgust laced in his words. "Another truce, is that what you're suggesting? Do you expect me to believe you after you broke our last one, destroyed everything we had worked for? You stood by and watched as the X Event took place, nearly uprooting entire worlds. And you call yourself your protector and me their adversary? That's adorable."

You mistakenly thought that perhaps you had wandered onto some argument between two interdimensional beings. "The X-Event was unavoidable!" the other voice retorted. "It had to happen, and we stopped it, didn't we? This is something bigger than the both of us Error. Whole universes are already beginning to die off, there were reports that Tribetale was eradicated a few seconds back. Nightmare's power is growing, and soon he'll have the power to destroy everything. I need you here, on my side."

"And what if I don't want that, Ink? The universes are background noise that pollutes the void. There was only one universe meant to exist, the true timeline." Error seemed on edge now, whatever the X-Event was seeming to stir up old angers inside of him.

"Nightmare will stop at nothing until everything is destroyed," Ink replied quietly. "He will destroy the original universe as well and there will be nothing. We will forever be condemned to the Void until Nightmare hunts us down like dogs and we will meet our end, because he will kill us once he has what he wants. And do you want to spend the rest of your days trapped in the Void? We both know what insanity can do to a person."

When Error did not reply, Ink let loose a sight. "There's so much to do in so little time."

You froze as a string wrapped around your legs and around a mysterious [S/D] coloured heart that appeared before you. Your blood turned to ice as you were thrown into the air, no longer in control.

"Hold that thought," Error chuckled in amusement. "It seems that we have company."

(S/D stands for the design you have for your soul).