Once upon a time, there was two friends.

Change, and Truth.

Having being born about the same time, the two of them grew up together.

Truth was there when Change became an older sibling, when Insanity, and Sanity, was born, and Change was there, when Truth's relationship became too toxic, and they had to end it.

Their friendship was strong, and many often wondered if they were more than friends, especially Change's younger siblings, who were so used to seeing Truth with their older sibling, that they thought that they were married.

Unfortuntely, this time came to an end...

Truth was so tired, they were constantly being harassed by someone that wouldn't take 'No' for an answer, so they left, hoping to find some peace, far away from their stalker.

However, this meant that an Imposter found their way into the same area as the others, and without Truth to verify that they were the real thing, everyone mostly believed, that the false one, was the real one...

Even after it hurt Change's siblings, in ways that scarred them forever... With their minds blocking out huge portions of their memories, to save them from trauma, and that included their memories from before the trauma, even if they were harmless.

They forgot that they had an older sibling, and said older sibling's best friend...

And Change? They got revenge, by trying to End the Imposter, and they was punished for it.

Without Truth, to bring light to the deception, everyone believed that Change had gone too far, when they took justice into their own hands.

Change was stripped of their Greater Deity status, and was turned into a Lesser Deity of Change, that was quickly forced into the Mortal Realm, forbidden from returning to the Realm of their birth, and to live countless mortal lives, believing that they had fallen, after making a mistake, and that the Greater Deity, that they had worked for, wouldn't respond to them anymore...

And even if some memories of Change, and Truth, returned to Change's siblings, after they had recovered to the point, where their minds allowed them to get some of their old memories back, they never truly remembered who Change, and Truth, had been, to them...

And when the truth about the False Choice had been revealed, after an Incarnation had destroyed them, everyone realised that Change had known, subconsciously, possibly due to their bond with Truth, about the False Choice not being the real Choice.

And because of their actions, Change was unable to be found, by any of them... Their trail had gone cold, a long time ago...

_____

When they were younger, long before the whole mess with the False Choice, Truth leaving, and Change becoming an older sibling, they, and Truth, created a secret hideaway, in a little phrased out area that they moved to the Between, the empty spaces between Multiverses, Omniverses, and other places.

It wasn't that big, it was a tiny forest, frozen at the point where the sun wasn't too high, or too low... Just at the right moment, when the day started, but had not truly begun...

They fused a house into the oldest tree, at the centre of the forest. It looked like the house was a part of the tree, with only windows, and doorways, to show where the tree ended, and the house began.

Inside, it was barely decorated. It was meant to just be a day tip kind of place, somewhere they could go for a few hours, to cool off, or play when they should have been working, so it only had a table, some chairs, and a few games. The walls were only halfway plastered, and the bathroom was, originally, just a bucket, but they upgraded it to an actual bathroom, just before Change became an older sibling.

After that, their duties, and personal lives, made it impossible to visit their hideout as much as they used to.

Change did add a swing, and they added his siblings to the approved guest list, but after Truth left, and Change was exiled, the place was left as it was...

But, when someone needed a safe place to stay, a place where no one could find them, or hurt them... A place where they could heal, the wards let them in...

Cross was Sanity's Chosen, but what they didn't know, was that they were Insanity Blessed, and Change gifted.

Insanity had blessed their original Multiverse...

Change, ̶E̶r̶r̶o̶r̶, had given them a gift...

These three factors, allowed them to access a space, that had been forgotten, for a very long time....

-----

When Cross woke up, they realised that they had 'hopped', again...

But wherever they had landed, it wasn't natural...

There was a sun, shining through leaves, and branches, but it wasn't too warm, and there was no breeze, or animals.

There wasn't any butterflies, at all... The leaves were perfectly green, and moss was sprinkled across bark and rock. The faint sound of water could be heard, but it was slow, and gentle, as if it was barely moving...

It sounded, and felt like, a very peaceful place... Something that Cross was not used too... Every time that they found a peaceful place, they would quickly lose it to a fight... Maybe that was why they were banned from most of the vacation spots, even those that claimed to be neutral...

After all, why would you let something broken, with bad luck, stay around you, and your home?

"Shut up Program." Cross mumbled, but Program was right, they were broken...

Cross rolled over, so that they were on their back, and they looked up at the canopy of leaves, that was above them.

They sniffled, and tears started to fall from their eyesockets.

Alphys was gone, forever, and no Reset would bring her back, and even if a Reset did bring her back, she wouldn't be the Alphys that they had known.

They wiped their tears away, with the back of their left hand, wincing when a sharp pain suddenly flared up, in that hand.

They opened their clenched hand, only to stare at what was in it.

Alphys's necklace...

And the bone around it was burnt...

Cross winced as they sat up, and they peeled the necklace out of their hand... It hurt, but it left behind a burn, in the shape of the symbol on the necklace...

That was going to be a scar, when it healed.

Cross put it in their Item Storage, and they froze, when they realised that the books that Alphys had given them, to read, were still in there...

They closed their Item Storage, got up, and ran.

It was too much for them... The feelings, the grief, the pain...

Just for a few seconds, they wanted it to stop...

They didn't want to think about, or remember, anything...

Because of how much it hurt...

They were lost, and they just wanted to find a way home.

-----

So this turned out to be a bit of an inbetween chapter, between two Arcs, and a bit of a lore chapter as well...

Anyway, the first Arc was the start of the journey, and the begining of healing, despite how it ended.

And while it hurts now, the pain will, eventually, go away, but the memories won't...

Music wise, the main themes for the first Arc were 'Runaway', by Aurora, and 'Where I go', by Lydia the bard, songs that I often listened to, while I was writing. To me, they fit the mental changes that Cross was going through, their desire to find a new home, and how they were coping with how their new experiences, and those that they met, were changing how they viewed the world around them.

During the final stretch of writing the first Act, I ended up, finally, playing Planet of Lana, after I had brought it, during a sale, a while ago, and I fell in love with the game.

But what I really fell in love with, was the song 'Horizons', and this will be the main song for the next Arc, mainly because of what the next Arc will be, Cross's journey to find a way home, wherever it may be, while they travel across different Multiverses, and Omniverses, to find it.