Kai的搬运工

❖ DREAMSWAP: ERROR’S PAST ❖

okay. so I’ve put this off long enough. I wanted to write a whole story about it, but that didn’t end up working out, so here we go. let’s get to this, because it’s long overdue.

this man has been through a LOT OF SHIT and honestly I feel really bad for not mentioning it earlier.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Before he became Error and lost his memories, his name was Myriad. He grew up in an underground industrialized city not unlike a traditional Undertale setting in a poor orphanage, alone for the most part. He tried to make friends, but was either shunned, and the one friend he had succeeded in making was soon after adopted. Myriad was a victim of unpunished bullying that faded in and out of intensity, but in a bout of severity in his teenaged years, he finally fought back, but was kicked into the streets for his behavior.

In spite of this, he got by. Taking whatever jobs he was offered, he got by. Most jobs he was either relieved of due to being replaced or the job no longer being needed, others he quit due to poor treatment by a manager. Eventually, as an adult, he was hired by the kingdom’s royal scientist to clean up after experiments and projects. It was more-or-less a job that sustained him, reasonable aside from the passes that the royal scientist regularly made on him and uncomfortable touching (which, as he reasonably hypothesized, was the only reason he was hired). The upside of the job was hearing in on the theories of magic that circled around the facility.

For a while, that was his life. His tiny apartment and working every day just to pay for necessities. Not a very fun life.

Eventually, an obligatory human who could control time fell underground, and they weren’t a nice one. They tore through everything in their path, deliberately committing genocide and ending every life that not only they could see, but hunt down. Everyone was dying with no hope of escape. Naturally, the news spread through the underground very quickly, and Myriad figured that it was time for him to die too.

With no chance of escape, he locked himself in his apartment. He was certain that everyone else had fled the building by now, but he hadn’t left, being somewhere in the middle between procrastinating escape and a hopeless feeling that there was no point. It wasn’t until he heard footsteps thumping down the hall that reality started to strike him.

Terror overtook him as he knew that it was the human, stalking for survivors. Myriad barely had a will to live as was–but terrified of the human, he thought to precipitate it himself instead as the doorknob rattled. Living near the top floor of an apartment building, he opened up the window, catching a glimpse of the human’s dead eyes as the door hit the wall. He felt so much fear that it motivated his dropping out.

Myriad didn’t die. Instead, he woke up above ground, in the sun for the first time in his life. After some thought consolidation, he recalled a theory about his certain brand of magic being associated to time-space breakage in times of desperation. He sat in complete disbelief for a while before he decided to press on, feeling a better sense of motivation than he had ever felt in his life.

He was eventually found, a young man taking him to a run-down home where he seemed to live with a group of friends, intermixed with those with magic and those without. The neighborhood seemed to be a poor suburb, not that it was anything Myriad wasn’t used to. He stayed there for a while. Everyone there seemed incredibly nice, at least in comparison to what he was used to.

He barely noticed that one of them had been eyeing him for a while. While the others were out, the guy who was giving him looks started getting too close, and Myriad was reminded all too quickly of his previous job, but this one went further than that. He was being forced down, hands in places they shouldn’t have been, terror overtaking his mind as he couldn’t move, and even when he tried to scream, his mouth was covered by the one overpowering him.

His mind melded to one goal of escape before going blank. When Myriad regained all of his sensibility, his assaulter was dead, impaled through the chest with Myriad’s magic, and blood pooling on the floor. With no other options in sight, Myriad ran out the front door and disappeared from the neighborhood.

He had returned to living alone. Finding an abandoned house in a clearing in the woods (at least, he assumed it was abandoned because the windows were boarded up and nobody was there), he tried to get by, but without the sustenance of at least being within society and having a job. He wasn’t there for long, but he had to resort to stealing from town to feed himself.

He didn’t know he was being watched.

One day, food just… showed up at his door. He didn’t know where it came from. It wasn’t poisoned or anything, but it only made him anxious. Somebody was watching him, and he didn’t know who or from where. Afraid to leave his temporary home, he stayed inside for days before finally finding the confidence to hunt the person down himself, if they were still there. 

He didn’t find anyone, even as he called. After a while of searching, he started to hear rustling. He grew certain that someone was there, and he called out to them, but right as he thought he cornered them, there was no one there. There were curious flickering squares on the ground, but only for a moment before vanishing. Something seemed to be on the other side of them, but he didn’t have a chance to get a good look.

Myriad spent the next couple of days thinking about this. More food appeared at his door. He knew whoever it was would still be out there. He grew more confident as he searched, albeit still terrified, a nagging worry that it was one of the friends of the man he had killed trying to lure him out. He was able to hypothesize that whoever it was could make portals to escape, after catching glimpses more than that one time, and that’s why he couldn’t catch them. He didn’t remember any of those others he was staying with being able to do that.

Eventually, he caught sight of the end of a long blue scarf turning a corner. He didn’t see who it was as they vanished yet again, but he was growing more certain that it was a stranger. The pattern continued for a couple of weeks. The stranger discreetly brought him food, never revealing any more of their identity. Even as Myriad searched for him, swearing that he was growing closer to cracking this, he never found them.

It was almost like the stranger was playing a game with him.

Myriad almost forgot his situation. The fact that he was hiding. The fact that whoever this was could very well know what he did. He wanted to know who this was. With money from a wallet he found on the ground near town, he bought stationary supplies and left a note on the door.

“Who are you? If you see this, please respond somehow.” He left the pen hooked into the paper, which was laid on the ground, slightly tucked under the old rug in front of the main entrance.

The next day, Myriad almost felt his heart skip a beat as he picked up the sheet of paper to see a sweeping yet not quite illegibly formal handwriting had been contributed to the paper.

“Why don’t you tell me who you are first?” The question was followed by a smiley face. Myriad squinted. Petty. He scribbled down a “You first. Why are you giving me food if you don’t know who I am?” before laying it back down.

One more day. Another response, longer than the last. Concern grew in Myriad’s eyes as he processed the information on it. “Going to town is dangerous for you. One of your old roommates saw you enter town last time. They’re planning on searching the woods for you tomorrow to kill you. They have guns.” Myriad stared at the bottom of the page. “Evacuate. I can hide you.”

Myriad wasn’t sure whether to be more mortified at how much this person knew, or whether to be terrified of this person’s intentions. For all he knew, they could have been the ones to tell his former accommodators where he was. What reason would he have to trust someone who wouldn’t even show themself or share their name? Best case scenario, the individual may have feared that if Myriad was caught and put on trial, they could be considered an accomplice and were trying to keep themself uninvolved. It didn’t seem logical, considering that they weren’t claiming such a stance as is, being apparently willing to hide him, and also considering the claim that people were coming after him with the intent to kill.

His fingers tightened around the paper, creasing its edges slightly. He didn’t know what to think, what to feel, or whether to trust this stranger. He shouted out, imploring them to show themself, but to no response. Frustrated, he threw the paper back down and went back inside. “At least tell me what the hell you mean!”

As it grew dark outside, he heard shuffling. Myriad quietly peeked through the boards in the window, seeing a hand writing directly onto the paper on the ground. He held his breath, trying to see through the very small space, only able to catch a glimpse of what looked like a hoodie sleeve. It was them. They were here, far ahead of schedule, and Myriad, feeling as many things as he was at the time, threw the front door open in an instant.

A man who looked about Myriad’s age was looking up at him, frozen in his place. The pen fell from his hand, and he collapsed backwards into a sitting position from where he was crouching. His eyes were a pale blue, complexion light, his clothing simple, aside from the large blue scarf he was wearing. He looked like he couldn’t decide whether to run or not.

“Tell me who you are.”

“… I’ll tell you later.” His voice was soft and brightly toned.

“Then you don’t get to know my name, either. I want you to elaborate on what you wrote earlier, right now. Tell me everything you know and why you know it.”

“I only know things because I’ve observed them.” The man stood up, his full height almost exactly matching Myriad’s. “I’m not your enemy. This place isn’t safe for you anymore.”

“Why have you been watching me? Why are you helping me?”

“I know what that man did to you. You’re not a murderer–it was in self defense. You don’t deserve any of this. That’s why I’m helping you.” The man took a deep breath, furrowing his brow and looking Myriad directly in the eye. “I don’t know if you wish to stay here, or if you want to escape elsewhere where your name is clean and start over again. Tell me. I can help.”

Myriad opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out at first. “I… I don’t know what I want, okay? I guess I want to be out of here.” He shook his head, letting out a huff of air. “I want a real home, if anything. And I want to forget all this bullshit. But it’s not like that could ever happen.”

All of a sudden, they both heard degrading shouts in a distance. They froze, both of their minds settling on one thing. Myriad’s hunters had come sooner than expected. Without a moment’s notice, the stranger took hold of Myriad’s arm, racing into the thicket just a short distance from the front door. Myriad stumbled for a moment, but quickly sped up to running behind him. The others must have been closer than they thought, because they heard the noise, making chase behind them. The scarved man pulling Myriad’s arm was holding his other hand up. He glowered at his own hand, which was covered in peculiar green streaks, the air flickering around it, only white showing in the holes that cracked around it.

After they had been running for maybe twenty minutes, they whirled into a small cave, breathing as quietly as possible as they heard the shuffling of those in search nearby. The man with the scarf seemed preoccupied, holding both of his hands up, both of which were covered in unpleasant streaks that almost looked like they were growing as the man tampered with what looked like spacial bending magic, and Myriad started to wonder if his hands were supposed to look like that.

“I… apologize, my powers grow volatile if I use them too much,” the man said.

Myriad rolled his eyes. “Maybe if you didn’t use them so much that wouldn’t be a problem.”

The scarved man shrugged his shoulders with some form of consideration. He looked back at the holes he was trying to tear in the air between his hands, still looking frustrated at the solid white that appeared behind it. However, he soon blinked, as if an idea struck him. He looked back up at Myriad, who seemed to notice his new expression.

“You look like you just had an epiphany, Blue.”

The man blinked curiously. “Blue?”

“I mean, your scarf is blue.”

Someone outside claimed they heard voices. The terror spiked again, apparently fueling the scarved man’s powers more effectively. He closed his hand into a fist for a moment before pulling a clawed hand across the air in front of him. Myriad felt the ground below him disappear, blinding white enveloping him as he gasped. He could see the scarved man from the top of the portal as he fell.

“Sorry I had to do this,” Myriad heard him say. “It’s for your good, I promise. I’ll see you soon.”

The portal closed, the white circling Myriad on every side. What had just happened had occurred so quickly he barely had time to process it. He thudded against an invisible floor, a blank white on every side of him. What did he mean this was for his good? Surely he was just hiding him here until it was safe to come out, right?

That’s what he wanted to believe.

There was no way to monitor the passing time. There was nothing to do. His body didn’t grow tired, he didn’t grow hungry or thirsty. Myriad quickly realized that he had too much time to think. No longer preoccupied by the demands of survival, unwanted thoughts wormed their way back in, and this time he couldn’t try to escape from them.

Was time passing? Everything that had led up to this moment piled on itself, one thing after another, dragging him into despair. There was no running away from it anymore. He was alone, trapped in a hell that reminded him of who he truly was, reminded him of every burden he had, and reminded him of just how little his life had culminated to.

Did he want a new life, or did he want to just give up altogether?

He started to feel noise in his head. Thinking became more difficult, but feeling did not. Every thought that he had became a feeling, running through his body like his bloodstream. He wanted to scream, but he didn’t even know if he had the resolve for that.

It didn’t take him long to realize that something was wrong. Or perhaps it did take long. Whatever time was anymore. He didn’t just feel the dread, the despair, the hopelessness–something was distorting. His thoughts only grew harder to focus on. Were they even there anymore? His mind felt like it was submerged in burning oil.

He must have lost consciousness at some point, because when he woke up, he felt so cloudy that he could barely see his hands in front of him. No… his glasses had fallen off. He reached for them, but stopped. What was the point?

When he moved, he suddenly noticed that he had a splitting migraine and it felt precisely like knives were jabbing into his head. This time, he screamed, curling up on the ground and holding his head. The pain was nearly unbearable, so much so that his mind had numbed and all he could think about was the pain and the blinding white around him. He squeezed his eyes shut, screaming and crying, now hoping for nothing more than escape from this. Why hadn’t…

Who?

Was he waiting for someone? Why was he here? How long had he been here?

Thoughts finally started to sneak into his brain again, as he realized how many questions he had and how many of them he realized he didn’t know the answers to. He was certain that he was going to die from this, but he didn’t know how he even got here. His nails dug into his head. He was sure he was about to vomit, but nothing of the sort happened.

One last scream rang out, sparks piercing the air and tearing the air all around him for a moment. His eyes slowly opened as the pain started to subside. The blinding white of the void still hurt, but at least the stabbing sensation was starting to go away. He only caught a glimpse of the rips before they melded back together, the background of everyone of them holding a different image in them.

Something about it seemed familiar, but he didn’t know why. He slowly pulled himself to his feet, stumbling as he attempted to balance. He still had copious questions in his head. Of course he could remember his name though, right?

… There was only a blank space. Kind of like how blank the void around him was.

With no other direction, he followed instinct instead and raised a hand. The air under it flickered, a portal quickly flashing into existence. He didn’t know where it led. He didn’t know where anywhere was, so why did it matter where he went?

He found himself somewhere in the woods. There was a house in the distance, a man waiting on the porch. He looked surprised when he saw the other approaching, but that surprise quickly formed a smile as he jumped up and approached him. The lost one stopped in his tracks, clenching his fists.

“H…Hello,” the stranger greeted. He cleared his throat as his voice cracked. He stared at the lost one’s eyes for a moment, but seemed to push down whatever emotion they had invoked. The lost one took a step back, suspicious. “I wanted to, erm…”

“Who are you?”

The man blinked. He tilted his head slightly, before his eyes went slightly wide. He shook his head briskly. “Um, I’m… Call me Blue. Do you remember anything?”

The lost one slowly shook his head.

Blue let out a sheepish laugh. “Well, that’s okay. I don’t imagine you’re missing much. What brought you here?”

“I felt like I had to come here. Do I know this place? Do I… Do I know you?”

Blue shook his head. “No, not really.” Vague. He scratched his cheek. “This isn’t a good place, though. Bad people live here.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I somehow knew you’d come here and that you’d need help.” He held out a hand. “I think we should leave this place, though. I can take you back to my place.” He giggled softly. “I live in space.”

“You what?” The lost one glanced down at the hand extended to him, but fumbled with his fingers, not wanting to take it. Blue seemed to notice that he didn’t want to take it and awkwardly recoiled his hand.

Blue waved his hand across the air, creating a portal with flickering edges. “Come on. I’ll show you.” The lost one watched the portal carefully. He hesitantly followed Blue through it, doing a double take at the new sky as the portal disappeared behind him.

He wasn’t lying, he lived in space. The lost one didn’t know why he knew anything about space, but he did.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Blue asked.

The lost one looked down, lost in thought again. “… Do you know what my name is?”

Blue solemnly shook his head. “… No.” His eyes perked up after a moment. “Why don’t we come up with one?” He let out a small laugh. “The way that your eyes and skin flicker reminds me of a glitch. Like a video game error. We could call you Error.”

How did this man think so fast? “Error? That’s a ridiculous name. Also, you said we.”

Blue shrugged. “I’ll just call you that until you come up with something better, okay?” They approached what seemed to be Blue’s home–a one story house settled directly on this spacial platform, surrounded by what looked like spacial plantation–the lost one still wasn’t really sure how he was breathing.

“… Fine.”

He ended up staying there much longer than he expected.