Dreamcrash

Twelve: Memory

We walked up the path, up the mountain, and reached the top. The first thing I noticed was an incredible view of the forest and the city behind it.

"Wow, it sure is pretty up here..."

"Yeah. You see that city over there?" Pen responds. "That's Ebbot City, one of the many homes to the humans. I've been there once, it's a nice place. But we aren't here for the views. We're here for this." He motioned to something on the ground. I turn and look at it. It's a massive hole that seems to go down into the mountain and ends in some blackness or somewhere I can't see.

"....You're joking, right? We came here for a hole."

"No, we came here for what's in the hole." Seed says. 

"Yeah. Come on, let's get this over with." Patch sighs, then jumps down the hole. 

"Come on Night," Pen says as I sit there in stunned silence. "It's a lot better than it seems."

"I... I don't know about this..."

"Well, too bad." Pen grabs my hand and pulls me down with him.

The fall probably only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like a few minutes to me. It's just darkness as I fall, except for the small beams of light coming in from the hole. Soon, I hit the ground. I'm lying on a bed of golden flowers. Patch and Pen are waiting for me a few feet away, by what looks like an opening to a cave. 

"Guys, where are we?" I ask, walking over to them.

"Welcome to the Underground," Pen says. "The home of the monsters. A 'Kill or be killed' world."

"Shut up. You're mocking me." Seed glares at him. 

"Yeah, I am. It's a nice place and the monsters are great."

"Idiot..." Seed rolled his eyes, if flowers can even do that.

"Seed, if you and Patch could search the Ruins while I go alert Alphys we're here, that would be great." Pen continued.

"What about me?"

"You'll come with me." Pen grabs my arm. "Okay, meet up at the Music Box room in Waterfall?"

"Sounds good. And make it snappy, the sooner we get out of here the better." Patch says, then continues on into the cave looking thing. Pen teleports and takes me with him. We land outside the cave area, on top of a ton of snow. Aren't we under a mountain? How does it snow? Turning around, there's a giant purple door and a few bushes surrounding it.

"Where are we?"

"The Underground."

"Specifically."

"We are in Snowdin Forest, just outside of the Ruins. If I'm correct... it should be about here." Pen leaned over and reached into one of the bushes. "Bingo." He pulled out a camera. "Hey, I can't remember if this thing records audio, but if it does, hello Alphys! It's me, Pen. I have some stuff to do and will be hanging around here for a while. I'll be headed to your lab for details in a moment, just wanted to let you know." Pen placed the camera back in the bushes. "There. Next place."

"Where are we going now?"

"Hotland, Alphys's lab. She'll be able to help us." Pen grabbed my arm again and we teleported. We were now in front of a big white building, surrounded by lava.

"Uh... Should I be alarmed? We're surrounded by lava."

"No, this is normal. Welcome to Hotland." Pen smiled, his eyelights turning pink. He leads me to the building and knocked. The door opened. I followed him in while looking around. There were some computers and cabinets that were stuffed with papers. A fridge was against the wall on the other end of the lab, and the wall had several posters of manga on them. I was stairs leading up to another floor and an elevator door on one of the walls. Pen and I waited a moment, then the doors opened.

"Entry 26. T-the amalgamates are doing well- er, well enough. Just f-fed them and got a message fr-from Pen, saying he had stuff t-to do and should be here any minute." A voice said, and a lizard looking monster walked out of the door. She was a very pretty orange color and had a black lab coat on, along with glasses. I sensed fear and guilt coming from her, but happiness when she saw Pen. "Oh, h-hello Pen, welcome b-back."

"Hello Alphys." Pen nodded. "Hope you're doing well."

"I-I'm doing f-fine. J-just watching the human."

"Speaking of watching things," Pen said as he pushed me towards Alphys. "This is Night. He's from another AU." 

"W-wow." Alphys looked at me in interest.

"Night, this is Alphys, the Royal Scientist and one of the best monsters I know. Why don't you tell her why we are here?"

I freeze. "Uh... okay... I'm Night, the Guardian of Emotions. I'm looking for my brother Dream. Have you seen him anywhere? He looks kinda like me, but more positive and yellow."

"N-no, sorry. Haven't s-seen anyone b-besides the human on t-the cams."

"Alright," Pen says. "Keep an eye out for him, please. There's a possibility he'll spread a Code Virus, and I'm not up for dealing with another one of those. Thanks Al."

"N-no problem."

Pen waved and grabbed my wrist, teleporting me to a completely new area. Water was dripping from the ceiling and there was a statue in the center of the room. His eyelights turned back to their normal mint.

"Can I ask questions now?" I ask.

"Just asked one, but sure."

"What was the point of that?"

"Letting Alphys know why we're here. She has camera access to every area in the Underground, except for the Ruins, which is why I had Patch and Seed search that area. This way, Al can look while we alert the other AUs."

"You said there was another Code Virus you had to deal with. What happened?"

"Ugh... That one was a disaster." Pen's eyelights turned dark green. "It was back when we had both Underfell AUs running. Somehow, the Underfresh lines and one of the Underfell lines got entangled, probably by the Fresh for that AU getting into Underfell. He ended up taking the Code Virus from his AU and transferring it to Underfell, creating the hell we now know as UnderFV. I ended up transferring the whole Underfresh code to that AU, since it's bad enough with just one."

"What do you mean by 'both Underfell AUs running'?"

"They were both existing. One was freshified, the other destroyed by Thread." Pen's eyelights turned a dark red. "That was the first major AU I lost. Not long after that, I found Patch and he joined the team. Since then, I've vowed to never let Thread destroy a whole AU again."

We stand in silence for a moment. Then I hear something echoing through the caves, a soft, calm noise, almost like a melody. "Pen, do you hear that?"

"Yeah... It's coming from over here." We head down the path into another room. Seed is on the floor, and the moment we walk in, he makes a 'Be quiet' motion. I then see Patch on a bench, in front of something. The noise is coming from that thing, and I realize it's notes on a piano. 

A memory surfaces. Dream had a friend who played the piano, and he taught Dream a bit. Dream told Patch about it once, and Patch smiled, but on the inside, I could tell he was sad about something. I sense the same emotions from him now, even more strongly. It's as if he's sad, but not quite sure why. Like he's trying to remember something, and it's right there, but just out of his grasp. The song goes perfectly with it, a calm, sweet, yet sad tune. We stand in silence until he finishes.

"That was... incredible," I say.

"Thanks." Patch smiles. "I've always liked that song."

"What song is it?"

"I'll show you." Patch leads us back to the room with the statue. "Stay here." He leaves and comes back a few moments later with an umbrella. He opens the umbrella and places it in the statue's arms, covering the statue from the dripping water. I hear a click, followed by the sound of music. It's the same tune Patch was playing earlier, on a music box. Pen's eyes fade to a light blue and Seed seems to slump.

"I call it 'Memory'," Patch says. "Because that's exactly what it does. It doesn't matter who, or what, it always brings back memories."

We sit there in silence until Pen says it's time to go.