Chapter Text
Welcome to white space.
Omori has lived as long as he can remember.
Nothing really ever happens in white space, but Omori liked it that way.
If he ever wanted a change of pace, all he had to do was open the door to his neighbor's room. But he didn’t feel like a change of pace at the moment, so he happily stared at the infinite white space surrounding him. If he looked hard enough, he could see his own little sliver of white space, plus himself. But that would require too much effort on Omori’s part and would probably give him a headache, so he didn’t bother trying.
Slowly, Omori’s vision began to be consumed by darkness. Omori’s heartbeat began to rise, had something come to torment him again? “Meow, (you should really be leaving).” Oh, it was just Mewo deciding to stand in front of him. Omori’s heartbeat began to calm down, but then what Mewo had said finally clicked with Omori. So despite how much he didn’t want to, he pulled himself off the floor and into a sitting position, (he thought that should earn him a medal for willpower.) He scooped up Mewo and pulled the black cat into his lap, his face facing towards Omori’s face. Their eyes locked. “Meow, (waiting for something to happen?)”
Omori sighed in relief at the familiar question and let the black cat go. Mewo quickly scurried away and out of his sight. Of course, Mewo wouldn’t have said anything new, Omori must have simply been hearing things. However, he still couldn’t help but feel a tinge of worry, even though he had no idea what he could be worried about. He was in white space, nothing could hurt him here.
Omori’s gaze slowly turned towards the plain white door. Perhaps seeing his friends could take away his worry? He considered the idea, but as he did so, he realized what the cause of his worry was. Basil was missing… again, and he needed to find him… again, before he could mess everything up… again. Omori wasn’t sure why he even bothered always bringing Basil back. Was it out of a twisted sense of friendship? Tradition? Masochism? Regardless of why, Omori really needed to get going. So he stood up and pulled the door and entered his neighbors ro…
He opened his eyes and found himself staring at a distant light hanging above him. He could feel something soft underneath him, so he slowly looked down to see what he was lying on. Judging by the yellow flowers all around him, he was lying on top of a flower patch, (specifically a patch of buttercups if Basil’s endless rambling about botany was to be believed). He had no idea where he was, but three things were for certain.
This wasn’t his neighbor's room, Omori had never been here before, and he hated both of those other facts.
“Hey Omori, you’re finally awake!” Omori looked up at the beaming Aubrey and despite his annoyance at his strange circumstance, he couldn’t help but crack a small smile.
She went to offer him a hand, but Kel spoke up before she could. “He’s awake no thanks to you Aubrey”
Aubrey whirled around to face Kel, leaving Omori to pick himself off the ground alone. “I didn’t see you do anything to help wake him up Kel.”
Kel scoffed. “At least it wasn’t my plan to jump down a random hole on a mountain.” Omori didn’t remember them climbing up a mountain, let alone jumping down a hole, but he didn’t question it. Questions like that could lead to a certain someone starting to question more parts of this world, and Omori simply could not allow that to happen.
Aubrey was about to come up with a retort, but Hero interrupted her. “Hey now guys, let’s not go around tossing blame around. See right here?” Hero pointed at an elegantly carved stone doorway. “This must mean people live down here, so there’s a possibility Basil could be down here too.” Kel tried to keep scowling, but he couldn’t help but smile at the thought of finding his friend. “Now come on, we need to keep moving if we wanna find Basil.” Hero stepped through the doorway as he finished speaking, and the rest of the group followed behind the older boy.
The next room was much the same as the first, even coming with another buttercup patch in the middle of it. The only real difference Omori could notice was the slightly bigger buttercup in the middle of the patch. Said slightly bigger flower also was staring straight at Omori like he was a steak. Omori only noticed that look for a moment, before the flower’s face morphed into an innocent smile. “Howdy, my name is Flowey! Flowey the flower!”
Omori knew better than to fall for Flowey’s cheerful facade, and that wasn’t only because of the hungry look he had just given him. Omori had been around Basil for long enough to be able to tell when someone was faking happiness. Unfortunately, his friends didn't know any better, so all of them surrounded Flowey like he was a puppy. “Hero, we need to keep him so we can give him to Basil!” Aubrey excitedly yelled.
Hero gave a nervous chuckle and began to rub the back of his neck. “I’m sorry Aubrey, but we can’t just take him, he probably has a family that would miss him.” Meanwhile, Kel just silently poked at Flowey.
Omori had to give Flowey credit, despite all the annoyances surrounding him, he had only let his mask slip a little. “Golly, you’re awfully quiet, you must be new to the underground, ain'tcha?” Omori gave no response to Flowey, purely out of a desire to see how long Flowey could keep up this act of his. “Well, somebody really ought to show you how things work down here.” Omori felt a small tug from inside him, and he could only watch in surprise as a small purple heart floated out of his chest and the room around them dimmed. “This right here is your soul, the very culmination of your being. It starts out weak, but you can make it stronger with LV. What does LV stand…“
Flowey suddenly stopped and gaped at Omori in surprise. But his surprise was quickly replaced by a wicked glee. “Oh, I see. You must already understand how this world really works.” Flowey gave a small perverse giggle. “You already have some LV, five to be exact. You must have killed lots of people to get it that high!” Omori slowly began to frown, causing Flowey to give another giggle. “Or maybe you just killed one person, someone close to you?” Omori could feel Ș̴͙̖̋̌́̇̈́̓̅̋͐̆͝u̷̥̠̞̞͙͒́͑̄̏n̸̨̛͈͚̠͖͉̭͙̘̱̰̿͊͒̌̈́̅͘͜͠͝n̸͕̻̬͈̯̣̖̘̎̇͐͗̈ẙ̴̨̙̬̼͔̮̋̈́̄̄ begin to stir from within him, so he took a step forward, fully intending on erasing the weed. This just caused Flowey to laugh maniacally. “Oh, you’re feeling angry? How pathetic, you must be in denial. I’ve bet you’ve tried to convince yourself it was just an accident, that you never meant to hurt them.” Flowey’s face started to melt. “But we both know what you really are, a killer, just like-“
Before Flowey could continue, or Omori could try and erase him, a fireball came out of nowhere and hit Flowey, uprooting him out of the ground and sending him flying away. The room suddenly lit back up, and a goat woman wearing purple robes stepped into the room. “What a terrible creature, tormenting such a poor and innocent youth. My name is Toriel, caretaker of the…” She paused, noticing the knife in Omori’s hands. “My child, while I understand you may be feeling scared, you really shouldn’t be walking around with a knife like that.” Toriel moved to take the knife off him, and he briefly considered slashing at her with it, but he realized attacking someone who had just helped him would probably also lead to a certain someone questioning this world. So instead of killing her, he simply decided to let her take it off him. He could always get it back later after all.
After that, Toriel led him out of the room and into another one. She was talking to him, but he wasn’t paying attention. His main focus was the small little picnic set up in the middle of the room by his sister Mari. She was smiling at him and beaconed him and his friends over. “Hey Omori, I just got done setting up this picnic. Why don’t you guys come over and relax with me? You can catch back up with Toriel later.”
Omori happily complied, eager to finally see a bit of familiarity in this new strange cycle, and they all sat down at her picnic. Toriel stared at them all awkwardly for a moment, before speaking. “Oh, do you want to take a break, my child? If so, feel free to take one, I’ll be waiting for you in the next room.” With that, she made her way into the next room.
Once she left the room, Mari spoke up. “So, Omori, did you guys get to see anyone else besides Toriel down here?”
Kel groaned. “Ya, we met this real jerk of a flower in the first room.”
Mari frowned. “How was the flower acting like a jerk?”
Aubrey jumped into the conversation before Kel could answer. “He was saying all kinds of mean things to Omori. He even lied and said Omori killed someone!”
Omori cringed as he felt Ș̴͙̖̋̌́̇̈́̓̅̋͐̆͝u̷̥̠̞̞͙͒́͑̄̏n̸̨̛͈͚̠͖͉̭͙̘̱̰̿͊͒̌̈́̅͘͜͠͝n̸͕̻̬͈̯̣̖̘̎̇͐͗̈ẙ̴̨̙̬̼͔̮̋̈́̄̄ begin to stir again.
Mari must’ve noticed Omori’s discomfort because soon enough she was pulling him into a hug. “Don’t worry about what that flower said to you, Omori. Everyone here knows you could never hurt anyone.” Omori smiled as those words of comfort put Ș̴͙̖̋̌́̇̈́̓̅̋͐̆͝u̷̥̠̞̞͙͒́͑̄̏n̸̨̛͈͚̠͖͉̭͙̘̱̰̿͊͒̌̈́̅͘͜͠͝n̸͕̻̬͈̯̣̖̘̎̇͐͗̈ẙ̴̨̙̬̼͔̮̋̈́̄̄ back to rest. Although deep down, Omori was still worried. He had just started this new cycle, and yet hints of the truth were already starting to creep in… Which is why he absolutely hated anything new, it never led to anything good. If he could, Omori would just erase this entire cycle so they could get back to their usual one. But doing that would definitely make Ș̴͙̖̋̌́̇̈́̓̅̋͐̆͝u̷̥̠̞̞͙͒́͑̄̏n̸̨̛͈͚̠͖͉̭͙̘̱̰̿͊͒̌̈́̅͘͜͠͝n̸͕̻̬͈̯̣̖̘̎̇͐͗̈ẙ̴̨̙̬̼͔̮̋̈́̄̄ question his reality.
So Omori would have to play along with this new script he was given, and hope that this was just a short little detour before everything got back on track. Omori knew he could do it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.