We followed her to a room with white stairs that led to another doorway. Red leaves were scattered across the room. Toriel went into the next room, gesturing to us to follow. We looked at each other, uncertain whether we should trust her or not. As we were debating silently, Bravery had already began to march insolently.

"Uh-BRAVERY WHAT THE HECK!" Justice called, running after him before he could get into the view range of Toriel. She grabbed him by the back of his shirt and yanked him backwards. "WOAH!" Bravery yelped as he stumbled. "What was that for?!" Justice glared at him. 

"You really don't know? Stop acting so stupid! She is a GIANT. GOAT. MONSTER! How can we trust her? The flower was evil, how do you know she just didn't set it up to gain our trust?!" Justice screamed, letting off more emotion than I had ever seen. Bravery glared back, matching her stare. "I don't trust her-I'm just learning more about her to KILL HER!" 

"G-GUYS! Don't fight and don't kill!" Patience stepped in, blocking their glares. "Flowey DID say it was 'kill or be killed'. Maybe that's how we'll get out of here-maybe he WAS trying to help us?" Perseverance stated. "ARE YOU KIDDING? That FLOWER tried to KILL us! We're lucky that TORIEL came to save us! I say we trust her!" Kindness argued. Integrity agreed with him. Justice rolled her eyes.

"All in favor of NOT TRUSTING TORIEL-come by me." Justice said. Bravery and Perseverance came beside her. "All in favor of TRUSTING TORIEL-come over here!" Kindness called. Integrity and Patience came alongside him. Justice and Kindness stared at me, looking to see my decision. After all-I was the tie-breaker. After thinking carefully, I had finally decided.

"What is-we follow her-" I hadn't finished and Bravery was already glaring at me full of hate. "Woah woah woah! Hold on! Let me finish! if we follow her, we can learn more about her. We just met her, and we don't have enough evidence to make a valid point! If we follow her, we can make logical objective!" Bravery rolled his eyes. "Okay, lawyer." Bravery muttered underneath his breath.

Perseverance thought about my spiel. "She's right. That is the most rational thing to do!" 

"All in favor of Determination's plan! Come by her!" Integrity said, as she walked towards me. Kindness, Patience, and Perseverance followed behind her. Justice huffed and grumbled as she reluctantly walked towards me. Soon. Bravery was the only one against. "That's what I wanted I wanted to do in the first place!" Cried Bravery, as he came beside me. Everyone looked at me to see what we would do next. 

"Well..um..." I stuttered. Luckily, Integrity read my mind. "LET'S GO!" She called as she hurried forward. I smiled and followed our group to where Toriel waited patiently for us. 

"That took much longer than I expected. But do not worry, you may take your time. You see, the Ruins are filled with puzzles." Toriel explained as she stepped on a certain amount of pressure plates and then flipped a switch to open a door in the wall. Perseverance was getting uncomfortable with the break in science. 

Toriel continued walking, and we followed. There was a dummy leaning against the wall. "Sometimes, you will enter a FIGHT. That is very dangerous. If you enter a FIGHT, strike a friendly conversation! Stall for time, I will come and-"

"But what if we know how to fight?" Bravery asked, well, BRAVELY. Toriel looked stunned. "You...would want to hurt a monster?" She asked, quietly. Bravery blushed, not expecting the sudden sadness in her voice. "N-no....never mind." He replied sheepishly. Toriel sighed, then forced a smile. "Practice talking to the dummy, young one." She said, pointing to the dummy. Bravery looked embarrassed, but took a step forwards anyways. 

"U-uh...hi Mr.Dummy..." Bravery stuttered. Justice snickered, and he glared at her. "How's your day going...?" Toriel clapped. "Well done! Now," She turned to face the rest of us. "Do any of you care to try yourself?" We all shook our heads. "Then we shall move on."

Toriel walked through the door into the next room, and we all followed. We all flipped some switches to lower some spikes.  

"I wonder if you can solve the puzzle in the next room." Toriel questioned, and led us to the puzzle. As we walked through the hallway leading to the room, a white frog-looking monster hopped from a corner. 

"Woah!" Patience yelped. A box appeared above the frog monster. 

'Froggit encounters you!' It read. Kindness smiled. "You look so CUTE!" She squealed. But before the Froggit could react to Integrity's compliment, Toriel came and stared down the monster. It looked down and crept away. Toriel sighed and said nothing. We continued to follow her to the next room.

A room full of spikes awaited us. They looked dangerous, and...pointy. I wanted to impress Toriel to show her that she could trust us, since after what Bravery said back by the dummy, she seemed aware of every move we made. I was determined to complete the puzzle. But before I could get started, Toriel grabbed my hand. 

"Everybody, grab hands. Puzzles seem a little to dangerous for now." We all linked hands, and she led us through the spikes. Certain ones, I learned, would go down if you stepped on them correctly. I'm guessing the rest wouldn't, and would poke you sharply. They looked slightly dull, though, so I don't think they would be able to kill anybody. That was a relief.

When we made it to the next room, we had already let go. Toriel turned to us sadly. "Forgive me for this, children." 

And she ran away.

We were all so surprised, that none of us moved. Integrity was the first to speak. 

"Should we follow her?" she asked. 

"What if she wanted us to wait for her?" Patience questioned. 

"I KNEW we shouldn't have trusted her..." Justice spat. 

"We need to think of a logical explanation!" Perseverance stated. 

"We need to go without her!" Bravery said.

"What does she want us to do?" Kindness wondered.

All of them were talking, to themselves and to our group. No one knew what to do, not even me. Eventually, they all went quiet and stared at me. I was the one who had solved the dilemma before. 

"We need your help, Determination." Integrity said. The rest nodded. I thought for a while.

"We should walk to the end of the room, and keep an eye out for Toriel. If we can't find her, I don't see why we can't go without her." Everyone agreed with my plan and we began to walk. Patience was still uncomfortable.

"What if she wanted us to stay? What if she'll come back and wonder where we are? We should have waited and had PATIENCE!" She said. She looked worried. I put my hand on her shoulder, and when she looked up at me, I smiled. "It'll be okay! I promise." Patience smiled back.

Soon we reached a random white pillar. Toriel came out from behind it. "I am sorry for leaving you children, but you see, there was an important reason for that exercise. To test your independence. I am leaving to get some ingredients, and will not be back for quiet some while." Toriel stated. I couldn't help but feel worried, since she was the one who had protected us form Flowey and Froggit. Toriel's face suddenly lighted up. "I have an idea!" She exclaimed. 

"I will give you all a CELL PHONE so you can call me and call each other!" She gave us each cell phones, each a different color. Mine was red, Justice's was yellow, Bravery's was orange, Patience's was light blue, Kindness's was green, Integrity's was dark blue, and Perseverance's was purple. I couldn't help but feel like the colors matched us in some way. We all swapped phone numbers.

"Good-bye, my children." Toriel said sadly. She turned to leave, but Patience and Integrity jumped forwards for a hug. Toriel looked like she was about to fall over, but then began crying tears of happiness. "I shall miss you, too." Soon, Kindness and Perseverance were hugging Toriel. Bravery and Justice stepped forwards for a quick hug. Even I hugged Toriel, couldn't help but feel motherly emotion from her. She was warm and fluffy, and smelled like fresh pie. Eventually we all let go. Patience had tears forming at her eyes, and wiped them away. Toriel waved towards us as she vanished from view. 

And then we were all alone.

(Apparently, some authors write their word count. I haven't done that, but I was so proud of my word count because it was the most I had done ever. 1027! N0ICE!)