2020-07-11 22:46:10 ¶ ●

## Axetober, Day 14: Maddening Music

(https://archiveofourown.org/works/20857010/chapters/61096756)

The ruins of Old Home had been empty of all but the smallest, most terrified monsters for far longer than the Hunger had existed. It was a place of refuge for the weak and abused, the misunderstood and the abandoned. It had stood the test of time, bearing the long history of monsterkind from beyond even the ancient war that had imprisoned them, and bore testament to a proud heritage forgotten in a time of hatred and fear.

The caretaker of the ruins had been likewise benevolent and protective, keeping watch over the many echoing halls and caverns, the empty homes and the forgotten palace where she had once reigned with a crown of gold. The little monsters had nothing to fear while she walked the tunnels, a merry song of hope and joy bouncing off the stone walls for all to share.

A different song haunted the ruins now, and brought nothing but fear into every soul that witnessed it.

The caretaker had been gone for more than thirty years, returned to a palace and a people that needed her far more. The doors that had once stood tall, defending against the frigid winds and creeping ice of the arboretum, now lay in a shambles in the entrance to the echoing, lost kingdom. The dust and blood of monsters fleeing the madness in the air covered everything, every floor and surface and statue and wall, and any monster that remained alive clung to the shadows desperately, starving into husks of what they once were but living in terror of ever being found.

A beast that never slept roamed the halls now, and to be found was to meet your end.

It had never been Napstablook’s design, of course, to be regarded with the terror that they were. It was the last thing they had ever wanted… and they had done everything they could to prevent it.

The Ruins were an old, old friend to them, a refuge the same as it was to lesser monsters. They had come there many times, in those old, long lost days before the end of the world, to be alone, away from the reminder of their lost family, to wander the Ruins and listen to the music that they had designed with their favorite cousin and reminisce and wish, wish silently for a reunion, if only for a single day.

They would never impose on him, though. He was so bright and so popular and so happy, a shining star for the entire Underground. Mettaton had everything he wanted now… they could cheer him on from the background, if that’s what he really desired.

It didn’t bother them. Not really.

They had been reunited through the efforts of the human, though, the same human that had been so kind and patient with them; they had had happy years, together with Mettaton and the crowds that loved their music (they had never understood why). They’d… never been a particularly happy monster; they knew just how morose they appeared. But those years brought them as close to happiness as they’d ever been.

It hadn’t been meant to last. One day, a great disturbance broke the magic of the Underground, and turned monster souls from love to unending hunger. That hunger tried to visit Napstablook too, in their home as they watched the news with worry, but they neglected answering the door so long, too nervous to even peek through the curtains to see who it was, that it left in impatience.

They stayed in their home, too, as the days grew longer and the violence grew; the broadcasts became more and more terrifying, the danger Mettaton put himself in to air the events in the Underground shaking them to their pale soul… until the electricity failed at long last, the plant in the swamps overloading and halting entirely, and the news stopped coming.

Mettaton never returned. No matter how long they waited, how many times they called his phone (he’d always answered before… he’d never ignored them before)… he never came back, and when the waters of the swamp, sickly and murky with dust, began to crawl towards their homes and the farm, Napstablook fled, to the only place that could comfort them now, or offer any kind of resistance to the hunger that knocked at their door daily.

The Ruins.

The Underground he passed through on the way there, the furthest away they could get from the greatest point of corruption, was a wreckage. Monsters prowled the caverns in search of any food that they could find, including but not limited to each other, homes were in flames, shops boarded up and abandoned… the air felt thick and choking, as though weighted down with something that simply could not be seen.

The break of the world had changed them all, taken everything from them… and it would come for Napstablook too, in time. They couldn’t resist it forever, try as they might, run as they did. It would warp them the same as it did with all else, twisting their mind and their form irreparably… force their hand in the satiation of the hunger that never ended.

All they had of their former life, in the dark places of the world, was the last song they and Mettaton had composed together. It stayed their mind, soothed their soul, and became their mantra, a haunting, neverending hum that echoed from the dust stained walls and filled the empty caverns and sent smaller monsters scurrying away, to do their best to hide.

Perhaps it was a mercy, a warning, an attempt to keep Napstablook away from them, to spare them an unjust end.

They only wished the little monsters were better at hiding.