There was nothing.
Nothing at all for what seemed like miles around, aside from pitch blackness. Not the kind of blackness one would get from waking up too early in the morning and it was still dark out, or the kind where the lights in the room were just turned off late at night. No, this was just a completely empty and soulless void that never ended.
This was the sight that Starlight Glimmer woke up to as she found herself lying down in said void. Her exhausted mind couldn’t comprehend how this was possible, since this didn’t seem to have anything in it and therefore there could be no ground either. Nevertheless, she was laying on SOMETHING.
She didn’t have time to ponder the defiance of the laws of physics that was happening here. She needed to just find out where she was and what was happening.
“R-Rgh…what is this place?” Starlight asked herself as she stretched out her body to try and wake herself up a little. She looked in each direction the place had to offer and found the same in each one. Nothing. “H-Hello?” she called out. There wasn’t even an echo from her voice.
This was starting to make her panic. Sweat formed on her brow and her heart rate increased dramatically. How did this happen? Where was she? She remembered she was playing on Twilight’s computer and tried forever to beat Sans in Undertale, ultimately failing to do so. A few days had passed since then and nothing much of substance had happened besides Starlight brooding in her room and pouting over her failure.
Starlight tried to relax and think rationally for a moment. “O-Okay, let me think…I remember melting Twilight’s computer, pouting for a few days, going to bed and after tha-“ Starlight was interrupted from her own thoughts by the sound of a loud and chipper voice that was not hers talk.
“Howdy!” it said.
Starlight looked around in confusion for the source of the voice. There was something else in here? What could possibly live in this void?
“Down here stupid.” it said again with what sounded like slightly more malice in its tone. Starlight looked down at the theoretical ground of the void and saw a white flower with yellow petals. Normally this wouldn’t be all that interesting, except the flower actually had a face. And the one it was giving Starlight right now was probably the most condescending and shit-eating smile it could muster.
Starlight recognized the flower straight away, and her eyes widened in surprise and slight fear. ‘Oh no…oh fuck no.’ she thought to herself. She wanted to try and run away and get as far away as possible from this weed, but where would she go? There wasn’t anything here.
“You look pretty surprised to see me, don’t ya? Thought you’d gotten away from me just because you melted the royal nerd’s computer right?” it giggled a little before its mouth grew into a menacing smile and grew fangs, as well as a pair of demonic eyes. “You wanted to leave me to ROT. Well think again. It’s not going down like that.”
Starlight tried to relax and attempt to look like the superior one in this situation and narrowed her eyes, despite knowing just what this flower was capable of. It was going to be hard. “You’re not real Flowey. Leave me alone!” She growled intimidatingly.
Flowey obviously wasn’t afraid at all and simply laughed slightly. “Sorry Starlight, that’s not quite how it works either.” The flower’s face turned extremely demonic again and its voice deepened. “I’m as real as you make me out to be.” Starlight’s brave façade lessened a bit at that and she backed away a few steps from Flowey in slight fear. “Hehe. Oh relaaaax, I just wanna talk. I’m not gonna hurt ya…probably.”
Starlight’s voice trembled nervously at Flowey’s statements. She knew for sure Flowey couldn’t be trusted, but what else was she supposed to do? He was probably going to talk anyway with or without her responses. “W-What do you want?” she asked.
“Just to talk about your life. Do anything fun? Make any friends?...ah who am I kidding? You have no real friends, do you?” Flowey asked with a smirk.
Starlight’s ears folded a little. Flowey was hurtful for sure, there was no question about that. But that felt like it physically hurt. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about. I-I have friends.” She answered.
Flowey couldn’t help but laugh loudly at that. “You’re joking right? I don’t get how you’re not seeing the bigger picture. I thought you were smart.” Flowey chuckled a little. “You REALLY think they’ve forgotten what you did to them? Literal identity theft, kidnapping, giving time and space a good spanking just to see them suffer, I could go on all day. Buuuuut…in the end they did decide to let you in…not out of friendship, oh no. What kind of person actually BEFRIENDS someone like YOU? Wanna know what it really is?”
Starlight felt worse and worse over what she’d done with every one of Flowey’s words. By all accounts she shouldn’t have been listening to him, at all. She knew just how bad he was; she’d witnessed his cruelty firsthoof in Undertale. The bad thing was about this though, at least to her, what he said made sense. She really didn’t want to admit it, but that’s what it looked like. Nopony just forgets about the bad things someone did for the sake of friendship. The things she did could’ve done some really terrible things to the timeline and had very permanent effects on her new friends and it was all her fault.
They were her friends though, right?
Flowey snickered again at the sight of tears forming in Starlight’s eyes. “What they’re REALLY offering to you…is pity. Worthless pity. They only feel sorry for you because you’re so pathetic and such a big crybaby . Oooooh I can just hear you crying like a little filly all those years ago clear as day.” To Starlight’s surprise, Flowey’s face suddenly contorted and morphed into the shape of Starlight’s own face in the state it was when she was a filly. It looked like it was crying and sobbing loudly, sniffling in between sobs. “S-Sunburst wait! D-Don’t leave me, please! I-I don’t have anyone without y-you!” it cried. Flowey’s face then changed again into his normal face, but now with a huge and toothy grin and the pupils in his eyes were missing.
“BUT NOBODY CAME.” He laughed loudly.
Starlight was nearly full on sobbing now. Flowey wasn’t pulling any punches in trying to make her suffer. Bringing up that painful memory was probably the worst thing he could have done to her at this point. Not just that, but he was hitting all the right chords to hit her in the emotions. She’d been thinking about all these things on her own over the past couple of days and it looked like she wasn’t the only one that realized some of these things weren’t adding up.
Flowey’s face changed again, this time turning completely normal and he stared at her with that smug smile he’d first had. “After all, you haven’t really changed THAT much, have you? For someone that claims she’s a reformed pony, you sure do seem eager to kick smiley trashbag’s bucket. What is it? Frustration, anger, hatred, what?...I think you and I both know the answer to that.” Flowey’s stem all of a sudden started to raise out of the ground, slowly and making grotesque cracking sounds as it did so, his face turning back into his evil and soulless smile. His stem was now covered in thorns and separate vines and roots began to grow out of him to somewhat resemble the shape of arms.
Starlight’s eyes widened in horror and she backed away even further, looking up at Flowey’s growing height. “S-Stay away from me! Get back!” she yelled, on the verge of fully screaming in fear. Flowey didn’t pay her any heed, and one of his root arms wrapped around Starlight’s body, restraining her legs and one wrapping around her horn, raising her up to his eye level. Starlight tried to light up her horn to hit him with magic, but the vine around her horn prevented any magic from escaping. Flowey laughed at her failed attempt to attack.
“The answer…is that you’re empty inside…JUST LIKE ME.” Flowey laughed as he swung a vine directly at Starlight’s face…
“AGGGH NO!” Starlight screamed as she shot up in her bed, her sheets covered in sweat and breathing heavily. Her eyes quickly darted around the room to take in her surroundings and make sure she was okay. Sure enough, she was back in her room in Twilight’s castle of friendship, and NOT in the thorny grasp of Flowey the Flower.
Starlight felt her forehead and made an attempt to calm down, her heart rate starting to slow to a normal pace now that she knew she was safe. “O-Oh dear Celestia that was intense.” She mumbled quietly. “D-Do I really think that badly of myself?...wow I think I’m taking this game a little too serious.” She looked over to her right at the table to the side of her bed, where a soda she’d drank a while ago before bed sat half-empty.
She picked it up in her magic, trotted over to the window, and poured the rest of it out, vowing to never drink that before bed again.
She then closed the window, prepared to go back into bed and hopefully back to sleep. Before she did though, she caught sight of her computer desk in the corner of the room. The computer that was there before was Twilight’s that she let her use, and she’d melted it in her rage when Sans...did that thing which should never be mentioned, to her when she last played Undertale. In hindsight, she probably overreacted. Twilight forgave her after that, but she still needed a computer. So Starlight ended up paying for a replacement computer for Twilight (which she now kept in her own room), and one for herself. If she ever did anything that anger-inducing again, she’d at least want it done to her own property and not her friend’s. Looking at her new computer, thoughts of what happened just now, and her last playthrough of Undertale, came flooding back. Apparently the rage had gotten in her head so badly and the game had been reminding her of what she did on so many levels that it was getting in her mind and making her feel even worse.
If she was ever going to sleep again, she needed closure. She needed to get done with this game and never go back to it ever again if she wanted peace of mind. Starlight was not going to wait for another nightmare of Flowey belittling her for her theory to be confirmed. She was beating the Genocide route even if it mean another all-nighter and another melted computer.
And given the nightmare she just had, caffeine and sugar was out of the question.
Starlight sat at her computer desk and booted it up, putting her headphones over her ears. She clicked on the Undertale icon on the desktop and started the game. Sure enough, her file was still there. Thank Celestia for Steam Cloud. Her file loaded and she found herself in the familiar environment of the Judgement Hall and started to move her character to the right where Sans was inevitably going to be waiting for her. As she did this, a few thoughts came to mind about her choices last time she played and what they resulted in. That thing that happened to her last time of which nopony should ever speak of, would not happen again. She could guarantee that.
Starlight exhaled deeply. “Alright Sans. I’m done playing games with you. This time, it ends.”