*Music: Deltarune Chapter 1 – Before the Story

It happened in an instant. There was nothing to precede or proceed from this moment.

Here he was. They were visiting his grandfather in his plain house of whites and beiges. The paint on the walls had flaked off in places, but it otherwise just looked like a cozy old home for its inhabitant who wore the age of the house as if it were an old friend. Sofas with drapings filled the room, all inhabited with a seater but one, and a table decorated the wall near the door.

But it was anything but cozy. No, it was insulting, perhaps, that the atmosphere would taunt him with this false sense of security.

Here he sat, a boy who had short black hair falling down to his neck, skin white, wearing some typical attire; pants alongside a hooded jacket, the hood on his side.

He was briefly confused. Why would any of this feel… weird? Didn’t he normally look like this?

No, there wouldn’t be an instant in which he wasn’t, right? Not like it particularly mattered.

Here in his hand, he held something vile. His grandfather stood in front of him, and everyone in the room of which there were 4 other participants in the room. They were all looking at him, except for one man over on the seat to the right side of a woman who was looking right at him.

Of course he knew who they were. But why couldn’t he put names to their faces? That was odd. Normally he was able to list all of their names.

It would be months until his 17^th birthday, it was strange to be receiving any gifts at all, never mind this early in advance. He could hardly complain; most of the time, they serviced him well enough. Last year; everyone had given one another candles for a large celebration which he’d promptly stayed out of, but they were of use to the members in his family who cared.

But this… this was unacceptable.

In his hand he held a paper slip no bigger than a post-card, and on it, read the words of the organisation he couldn’t believe they’d bothered to give him an invitation to contribute towards. “Return of the Stars.”

Then another pang of confusion washed through him. Why would it be so terrible? What’s so bad about it? He couldn’t quite understand this confusion. Of course they were bad. He’d known as such his entire life of how terribly they were. But as to why… that would come up blank.

He would gaze through it silently, as if trying to pierce through it as if that would somehow make the implications of its existence vanish in his hands. Except that wouldn’t happen, even if he were to rip the thing into pieces right now, that’s not how these things worked, and so his name sat there, as if to taunt him.

“Wow, Sanvu, what a gift!” someone called from beside him. She was almost a mirror image of him, long equally black hair that hung over her shoulders, and brown eyes that mirrored his own. She was sitting to his left, and was peering eagerly at him, joining the crowd of eyes that eagerly awaited his response. The intonation of her voice almost suggested that she was pleased, but also a hint of something underneath which he couldn’t quite put into words. Mockery would be overselling it; even if he didn’t particularly feel chippy right now.

“Is that why you wouldn’t tell us what it was?” she tossed her head over to the other woman, who somewhat mirrored both of them in appearance, as if she were a slightly older version of the individual to Sanvu’s left. “Because you knew that this would mean-“

“Yes,” the older woman responded, smiling as she responded to the younger girl. It was then that the man in the room who was standing right in front of Sanvu piped up, about to speak before the girl interrupted him.

“Oh, so no wonder you didn’t wanna sign the school one. Makes sense now,” the girl beside him responded.

“Yes, I wanted desperately to give the gift of the great beyond to the ones who would be able to see it. I’m a bit… old to sign myself up for such an endeavour, but I do hope you’ll enjoy it… if and when they actually succeed. I don’t think I’ll be around to see it myself again, aha,” the older man who was in front laughed.

This only made it worse. Both of them knew, had to have known, everyone in the room had to have known what he thought of this. What his true reaction to this was. Yet here they all were. The only one who wasn’t looking at him; the other man in the room, looked merely bored and distracted, as if to remove himself from this entirely. Sanvu could only sympathise, he wanted nothing to do with this himself.

But why did he want nothing to do with this? What were these thoughts getting in the way of this?

Sanvu tried to shake himself out of this confusion to no avail. It seemed he wasn’t getting an answer right now. Whatever, this slip sucked. What kind of gift to give him before he grew older was this? It was virtually nothing at best and absolutely vile at worst.

“What do you say, you say thank you, don’t you?” the voice from before cooed, to his left, the woman was staring directly at Sanvu, smiling brightly, as if to bribe him into being nice. “Not every day you get something special like that,” she added, as if something like this wasn’t an everyday occurrence and she was essentially hyping up worthless garbage. They all did.

But yet, he would oblige, because they were family, and family stood by one another, even when it was clearly fractured, you didn’t show your distrust. It just wasn’t to be. You had to be exactly how they wanted, exactly as you were meant to be.

He couldn’t look at them directly, instead turning his attention to his right, where all he saw was a hallway leading to a smelly but functional bathroom, alongside some guest bedrooms. But Sanvu wasn’t looking at them for any reason than to want to get out of this particular moment.

He side-eyed his grandfather, the silence in the room deafening as the one beside him was kneeling as if to watch if he would indeed say the dreaded words. He knew what at least most of them knew partially of his real feelings, and so while he’d suppress them here for their sake now; it wasn’t as if he would keep up the facade forever.

“…Thank you,” was all he could muster, in the flattest, most monotone voice he could vocalise. He was desperately trying to stifle his contempt, trying to make it sound as genuine as he could make out, both for the sake of those in the room, and for the sake of himself, the happy inbetween, the compromise between vitriol and apathy that he hoped none of them would hear the wrong side of. He saw their smiles, piercing his soul, as all of them in the room heard it, providing their own equally plastic responses. He figured he should be unnerved, but this was how every gathering went. He should be used to it by now.

“I’ll go get us all some lunch now,” was all he heard his grandfather say before wandering off to the kitchen in the room behind Sanvu.

Those still in the room continued speaking, as Sanvu picked himself up, ready to just vent out his anger in silence; away from the others. She could have the couch to herself; alongside his ‘gift’, he didn’t even look back to see whether she wanted to, but he was pretty sure she did.

As he proceeded into the leftmost room of the hallway, everything became blurry, and all faded into an amalgamation of colour, though there was no visual stimulus, it all made sense.

Every day was a facade with these people. No time was allowed for truly being himself; because the ugly truth would upset those who dared look beyond the veil.

~~

*Music: Luigi’s Mansion 3 – 13F Yoga Room

Now he was just outside. It had always been like this, right? Right, yes, he’d always just been standing here, for hours.

He was outside his house now. The sky was overcast, smothered with grey clouds; the kind that wouldn’t particularly rain, but provided the kind of ominous, lonely atmosphere one would expect when the sun felt like hiding behind a veil for the sake of taking its own break.

Like Sanvu himself. It would only be about a month or so before he was 17 as he stood outside, atop grass, staring at a long field that stretched out. Eventually, if one stared out far enough, one would see some kind of metallic wall with more grass on top, akin to a field raised from the ground. A small wooden fence, no taller than his waist, barricaded what made ‘his’ yard distinct from the field, but it was an extremely loose association, so in essence, if it weren’t for the farther off metal fence beyond the raised grass, all of this was essentially his to stare at. It was the kind of field that would be great for ball games, but it was nowhere near their school, and plenty of kids these days preferred technological leisure, and there were better parks nearby that had all that and more, so more often than not, the grass just sat lonely, awaiting those that would never come.

Sanvu stood in his part of the giant grass yard, the part closest to his house. He wasn’t looking at it directly, instead just behind one of these wooden perches, standing alone, and looking past it. He wore one of those windbreaker jackets, bright gaudy blue and red; today was getting colder. Winter would be soon, despite it approaching the middle of the year.

Why was he out here again? The wind pushed and picked around him, it wasn’t enough to knock anybody over, but it was particularly chilly, and the atmosphere was pretty lonely.

Oh yeah, right: because he was alone. He always had been. Right? Except… when he wasn’t?

Oh sure, he had them. Except another pang of confusion hit, who were ‘they’ again?

Right, those people, the ones who’d taken care of him and all. For some reason it was impossible to remember them in terms of specifics, but when they were related to the reason why he was out here, he could only recall those specifics. That made sense, in a weird sort of way. Maybe in another reality, it wouldn’t make sense, but that wasn’t now, was it?

So here he sat, the wind brushing his cheeks. Why did that feel so strange, why did he feel like it was going to cut into his skin? That didn’t feel right; it was just wind. He hadn’t been out here that long, maybe a couple of hours? They always said he needed fresh air, which he needed to be outside to get even if the sun wasn’t visible. It wasn’t as if the weather forecast predicted rain either; it was just a lonely grey day where the world felt like feeling sad today.

Today, he would join in with that sadness, if only to project to the world his own insecurities without having to screech them to the world beyond. Last thing he needed was for someone to overhear. No, it was better that all this was inside his head.

No one was outside. The trees nearby would rustle and blow in the wind, but no noises came, even from the houses that sat next door in all directions. Today was just one of those quiet days that one would have to oneself.

All to think and bask in the loneliness the world offered. There was nobody to confide in. No friend who would hear him out, no adult who he could comfortably rely on with his deepest, truest thoughts. He could always only meet halfway, and so from the outside, it needn’t look like he was suffering at all, perhaps even entitled.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t have any friends; there were of course many who treated him with the typical respect that you found around these parts. But in regards to those thoughts was where his lonesome nature truly resided, where he would find no other solace.

What were those thoughts? Why would he find himself so lonely? If these thoughts confound you, then they also did to Sanvu for but a brief singular moment. It was as if disassociating from the moment, the world almost swaying for an instant as he held onto whatever those reasons must have been, for if they weren’t deep-seated enough, then he wasn’t himself, because he wasn’t himself without thinking absolutely every possible thing through.

A click sounded; the door to his right and behind that lead inside. To home. He briefly turned his head; there she was, the same girl from before, wearing some kind of hooded jacket herself, immediately commenting upon his turning, her eyes closed, sighing.

“Wouldn’t want you to get something on your skin from the wind, huh?” she warned, almost as if she wanted to be his mother. “What’re you even looking at, out here? The clouds? Anyway, don’t be out here too long, we’re all inside for a reason,” she conferred, Sanvu humming an affirmative. She didn’t need to know any more than that he would come inside eventually. Sure, he needed to have a mood; but he still had some measure of common sense.

She shut the door again, leaving him once again alone out here as he resumed looking out at the windy field where all his worries blew carelessly through the air.

He couldn’t help but wonder for a moment what a human even was, and why he looked like this despite there being no indication that anything about himself had changed. Was he just going crazy?

No, he couldn’t be, cause he’d always been told he was crazy. Every time he’d refused to believe it, because he’d thought them equally as crazy for believing in what they did. Where those beliefs went, to who would benefit from them, it was all alien, a world beyond his own understanding, despite his being nearly an adult.

He’d always looked like this. That was just silly.

He turned over to his left, the clouds gaining a glowing hue as the scenery shifted once again.

~~

*Music: Minecraft C418 – Axolotl

A similar day to the prior, one equally as grey and overcast to the last, another day wearing this silly gaudy blue and red windbreaker. One could almost mistake it for the last, but no, it was just another autumnal day where the world felt like getting depressed before the cold of winter would set in.

It was a mere two or three weeks before winter would have its start, he’d just turned 17. The day hadn’t been particularly special; much like many of his recent birthdays, it was just a day of vapid celebration where exchanges were made and the world went on going as if nothing had happened. Nothing particularly special, nothing even to be upset over, that’s just how birthdays were now. They were celebrations of the young, days of nothing for the old.

To his right, he could see the location he’d sat brooding at several weeks prior. The world continued to look equally drab as it did then, almost as if to service these episodes that would come and go.

He was sheltered, however, somewhat. For while he was looking out at the location he’d sat out at prior, he was sitting inside his childhood play area; a wooden cabin that had been built by… somebody for his own sake, and her’s, for the allowing of the two to play together. Besides the wooden perch he could see from outside, he also saw his own home outside the window of this tiny shack. The yard extended a far ways left, with some trees extending his leftmost side out the leftmost windows. Eventually, behind him, a fence would barricade the next house along his street so then the yard was only somewhat contained, but it was still fairly spacious, especially for a road that only went one way, with his house at the end of it.

It had been fun when he was playing with her as a younger child, but as they grew up and everyone became more focused on what they were going to grow up to become, its role morphed into something of a brooding zone for Sanvu, and for her, basically nothing, since she was virtually interested in whatever spur of the moment thing would interest her at that point. It was the age after all where nothing could be set in stone.

So why was he out here again? Besides wanting to be free of the wind, its chill wasn’t something he desired today, but he desired less to be inside his own room for it was too stuffy in there, ironically, for it being near winter, but their home wasn’t particularly insulated, and every time the girls used the heater the whole house became unbearable. It would be yet another several months of that, and while he appreciated it somewhat because of his own aversion to the cold, he sometimes believed they got just a little too much heat, even for the deepest of winter days, since they never got snow. That was a thing relegated to other countries, not his own, so he had virtually never seen it, outside of cartoons and shows that would talk about it. But physically, the climate never acclimated to it, so it was just something he never saw.

So, again, why was he out here, he pried his mind in attempting to find the answer, the answer settling uncomfortably longer than he’d like. Everyone would go on that even though he was almost a legal adult, he was still so very young, so surely he wouldn’t be experiencing memory dropouts like this for no reason, right?

Oh yeah, as it clicked, it made sense. Right, he was sentencing himself to his own punishments. Not one imposed by anyone but himself. He hadn’t done anything to wrong them; to them he was always such a good boy.

No, this punishment was his own to bear. It hardly seemed like much of anything; Sanvu had enough self-respect to spare himself the curse of physical pain or using others as a venting mechanism. No, he cared about them well enough to just respect them while in their presence, while leaving his lone time for when he was occupied with himself and only himself, the few times he was allowed to do so while he was still a child still going through the motions of school.

Because he was still a child, yes, he was nearly a legal adult, his height almost equal to that of the average, and while yes, he had much more clarity than that of a child’s, to the point where people’s conversations made sense even while they talked about more adult things, calling him an adult was being generous in the most literal definition of the term, because that would only insinuate the numbers he adorned on his self, and not anything else to adequately represent that.

Because the only thing he could physically do for himself was basic hygiene. Anything else all his peers, younger, older, had learned to do by now, were all things he was just physically incapable of. He could still walk, and talk, and act relatively normal, even with some level of anxiety, but he was very apathetic. Very lazy, aloof even. Oh, sure, he could continue to study for his schooling, all those crazy projects he was supposed to finish by the end of year, he could tidy himself that much to get enough work done so he could pass their criteria and still find time to be himself, but that was it. In all other respects, he was still a child, mooching off everyone because he desired nothing more than to have as much free time to himself.

So this was his punishment; the guilt of shame of being unable to match up to the image of what they wanted him to be; a man, when in all essence, he was still a boy. They still cared for him and his disabilities nonetheless, but whenever he’d tried doing anything else, there was always that subtle underlying feeling that he was behind, he would always be behind, and that he’d never make it no matter how far he would be pushed. So he had no desire to learn, and thus, this was his self-imposed punishment.

Oh, sure, he would learn one day, he didn’t particularly fancy himself one to stagnate in that way. But he couldn’t help it if even just for a little while longer.

All of these were expectations he imposed on himself; his family didn’t particularly care. Everyone works at their own pace, and rushing any sort of improper development is how those developments don’t occur, was what those in his family had said. He couldn’t quite recall at this moment whether that had been his mother, or his father, or maybe even one of his grandparents, perhaps one of the ones that had deceased. The only living one was his grandfather, the one on his mother’s side; all the others had departed this world a long time ago.

It was a conundrum; in regards to those thoughts, which briefly put him in a stupor as to why he wasn’t being specific with them, because being vague was one of the things he struggled with most, one of the things that others would call him out on, make extrapolations from, assume things of him that he didn’t mean, so he hated being a hypocrite in that regard, which made this episode make intrinsically less sense the more he thought about it.

Rewinding a bit to before he recursively had to spiral into himself, the conundrum in particular was that of his two loyalties. One tied to himself, the one who would staunchly refuse to bend his beliefs to that of those around him, but also the other who was also tied to himself, but who was influenced by others, the one who would placate them because having them be upset also stressed him out, so at the very least, he could put on a facade, since it seemed to please them so, and in return, would also please him.

Yet, while he put on a facade, it was always never good enough for him. He would still be lazy, still be incapable, and while they continued to assure him it was okay, and they loved him for who he was, it all felt vapid, performative. Not that it was; he knew for a fact their words were genuine, but there was always an aspect of it being some kind of act in his eyes because of what he’d also heard from them in regards to his own beliefs.

It was frustrating, the kind of thing you could never come to a clear conclusion to and one that you would always ruminate on before promptly dropping it and pretending it never happened. The kind of thing you’d think about changing, but then brushing it off in always thinking about it as a future issue for the future self. Something you’d never have to think about now.

The day grew darker, in what felt like seconds, the darkness draped over his yard, he heard the door click. He didn’t have to look to hear who it might’ve been.

“Heeey! Dinner’s ready! We ordered something this time, and we made sure to get your favourite too! Pretty sure you wouldn’t wanna miss it!” the voice called out. Her again. The one almost his age, the one he still somehow couldn’t put a name to, but knew everything else about her on a good day, when his mind wasn’t wrangled with strange, foreign thoughts.

“Coming!” he called out as he heard her footsteps run back into the house, clearly having heard his affirmative. He sat for a few more minutes; not even he could resist his personal favourite, but it was one of those things that just added onto the world deriding his very existence.

He didn’t want to be special. He just wants to be good. Passable. Himself, sure, he didn’t want to necessarily become part of a greater whole, but to be something distant and separated from everything else… no, that wouldn’t sit right with the boy at all.

It was as he stood up, preparing himself to go inside, that the world swivelled and turned, fading into black.

~~

*Music: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door – Poshley Sanctum

This vision felt familiar, yet it didn’t at the same time. Here he was; some kind of lizard. All around him, the world turned lighter and lighter as he stood atop a cliff, watching the lights float and wisp their way into the great beyond.

He looked down at somebody. It was a white squirrel, his best friend, and here he had told them that neither of them were real, because it was the only thing that made sense in this moment, as the entire town dissipated into dust, fuel for a projection of which its purpose was unknown even to those who opposed them. He continued sniffling on his chest, and while the human should be perturbed by someone being so upset, not to insinuate that he wasn’t, he wasn’t really able to join in with the waterworks, instead only internalising his own upset with that of the unmoving cushion he made himself for the accommodation of his best friend.

It wasn’t as if he wasn’t upset, every so often his breathing hitched as he watched the trees dissipate into nothing, each blade of grass flowing up into the heavens as birds would flock to the sky, and he imagined the ever increasing darkness. As the vision would blur and smear, none of the objects in the scene having any definition, he would repeatedly bring his face down only to meet the squirrel’s eyes seized shut. It seemed he didn’t want to be able to see when the end came; it could hardly be blamed on him after all.

“I’ll… never forget you…” the tiny thing whimpered, his sobs eking through his every syllable, as he hiccuped and forced more of his tears, many of them slightly fizzy in nature due to his very being, to dribble down. Yet none of this bothered Sanvu in the slightest, who had accepted that there wouldn’t be a beyond to this world.

“Of course…” Sanvu said, the world increasingly growing brighter, blurring in definition as he continued speaking, forcing his own eyes shut. “I couldn’t be more grateful to have found purpose in being your friend,” he exacted, the world lopsiding itself as he spoke, finding himself unable to make any mention. The world was morphing and swirling, definition of space was slowly distorting itself by the second.

“I hate that we failed, I was stubborn enough to believe we would make it out…” he trailed off, before continuing, his eyes still shut, focusing on the tactile sensation of his friend’s tears as they continued to fall.

“But… there’s nothing we can do. I’m sorry, but… however much you believe that, that’s up to you.”

It was the last thing he spoke aloud before another wail and a load of tears came, only further serving to drill in the fact of failure that it was to Sanvu.

But he should be used to this. Always, without failure, he was a failure, right? His entire thing in this entire world had led to that point, from every mission having them wander in circles, to the disappearing population, to the trust he’d lost with everyone… besides the one individual who he solely trusted, right here, crying in his lap.

He gave one last peek to the world beyond, squinting with his eyes over now that the lights were much closer. They were mere metres away. It would only be seconds before they would follow the path of everyone else, and it would all be over.

For the sake of the Pokemon world above, the ones who’d been turned to stone, for their rightful chance at life.

This was how it had to end. After all, there was no chance of Sanvu ever becoming himself.

But he accepted this too, as every definition, even those of the single one he had behind his eyelids vanished into darkness.

Into oblivion.

~~