Finally released CHAPTER 1 of the official Purple Glitch AU fanfiction! 💜
When 16-year-old Nightmare hits his breaking point under the cruelty of Dreamtale’s villagers, a violent outburst of his negativity fractures reality itself. Across the space of the Multiverse, a dying Geno Sans escapes into a blank Save Screen. Two identical bursts of agony resonate, forcing the system code to crash and opening a glitching portal between two lonely, rejected souls. Heavy AU story focused on psychological drama, angst, and slow-burn tragedy.
The full text of Chapter 1 is available right below!
Please enjoy the read.✨
Credits:
Geno Sans (Aftertale) belongs to @loverofpiggies (Crayon Queen)
Nightmare Sans (Dreamtale) belongs to @jokublog
Original !Purple Glitch story and artwork cover by me (@pastelmore32)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# PURPLE GLITCH: VOLUME 1. THE RESONANCE OF PAIN
## CHAPTER 1: THE RESONANCE OF SCARRED SOULS
There was nothing around.
Only an endless, suffocating darkness that felt almost tangible.
A vast, white space entirely stripped of sound, time, and direction.
Deep within the dead center of this terrifying void, a broken silhouette knelt, his head hung low in complete defeat. A long, ragged scarf of a dull red color lay lifelessly across the invisible floor, stretching out like a trail of dried blood. On the pristine white fabric of his jacket, dark, wet stains were clearly visible.
The left side of his skull was entirely hidden beneath a harsh, erratically flickering white glitch effect that buzzed with silent malice. His single right pupil - a deep, canonical blood-red - trembled frantically with a mixture of raw panic and agony. His right hand clutched his own ribcage in desperation, trying to hold himself together as a thick, crimson fluid gushed through the pale phalanges of his fingers.
This was Geno. He breathed heavily, a sharp, ragged wheeze cutting through the silence as he forced bitter words through his clenched teeth into the emptiness. His voice echoed, doubling with a haunting digital delay.
" - Chara... You goddamn child... "
His shoulders shook subtly from a toxic cocktail of rage and utter helplessness.
" - You took everything. My home. My brother. You burned my entire world to its very core..."
Geno slowly raised his head, and a blind, pure hatred flared up in his single crimson eye. This was his absolute breaking point. A limit that his fracturing, glitching code could no longer endure.
" - Do you think this is the end?! "
he screamed, his voice breaking into a piercing, glitchy crescendo.
" - I hate you... I HATE YOU! "
Overcoming the searing agony in his soul, Geno summoned every last ounce of his remaining strength and slammed both fists down onto the invisible floor of the void with all his might.
The exact moment his fists hit the ground, the sound in the Multiverse abruptly cut off. Something is wrong.
At that exact same second, a bright, blinding light illuminated a completely different reality. The sky of Dreamtale was so azure and piercingly clear that it often made sixteen-year-old Nightmare’s eye sockets ache. To him, this world had always been way too loud, too bright, and too colorful.
Nightmare lay on a soft green meadow, curled up at the very foot of the giant Tree of Feelings. He buried his face deep into the dry, knotted roots, trying to hide his tears from the midday sun. His purple jacket was stained with dirt from the road, and a fresh, muddy footprint from someone’s heavy boot was clearly stamped onto his left sleeve.
The villagers had left only ten minutes ago. They walked away slowly, laughing out loud and joking about how easily they managed to shove the "rotten, cursed apple" face-first into the dirt, kicking him closer to the roots where a monster like him belonged.
The Dreamtale castle was never meant to be an impenetrable citadel. Its white stone walls enclosed a massive, sun-drenched courtyard, where the great Tree of Feelings spread its magnificent canopy. The heavy gates always stood wide open, inviting hundreds of pilgrims daily to bask in the radiant warmth of the golden fruits.
But the castle offered Nightmare no protection. The royal guard, who practically worshiped his twin brother Dream, treated the Guardian of Negativity with cold, silent contempt. The mob had cornered Nightmare in the deep, shadow-choked hollows of the roots right in the middle of that busy courtyard. They kicked him and hurled heavy stones, while the castle guards, standing just a few dozen yards away, intentionally turned their heads, looking the other way.
Nightmare didn’t move. He clutched the dry grass with his fingers until his hands hurt. In his chest, where a normal monster’s soul would glow with a steady, warm light, something heavy, thick, and suffocating was churning. This wasn't just a child’s hurt anymore. It was a deep, ringing hatred for every single living being in this valley. A hatred mixed with an unbearable, tearing loneliness.
“ Why? I’m just guarding the dark side. I’m just existing... I didn't do anything to them... ”
he thought, as large, salty tears dripped onto the bark of the tree.
His brother, Dream, was somewhere out there again, helping someone on the other side of the village. Dream didn't see. Dream never managed to notice when Nightmare was bleeding inside…
A sudden flash of pure rage, the concentrated agony of years of silent humiliation, forced Nightmare to his knees. Choking on unwept tears, he looked at his trembling hands. The overwhelming grief escalated into a peak, uncontrollable mental explosion. Nightmare squeezed his eyes shut and slammed both fists down into the dry earth at the roots of the Tree with all his might.
" I hate you… I hate you all! "
he rasped into the void.
The exact moment Nightmare’s fists hit the ground, the reality of Dreamtale shuddered. The air crackled with a violent, deafening tear. Two identical bursts of tearing internal pain, one from the dark, bleeding soul of Geno, the other from the broken heart of Nightmare, found each other across time and space. The logic of the Multiverse simply collapsed under such a powerful emotional resonance.
The image around Nightmare instantly fractured, flaring with jagged pixels, neon bars of corruption, and horizontal television static. The ground beneath his fists ceased to be solid, dissolving into a digital mess. Right between the roots of the Tree of Feelings, the space ruptured, tearing open a glitching, unstable portal that sparked with purple and white light.
Through the jagged, sparking rift, right onto the flawlessly white, sterile floor of the Save Screen, tumbled a terrified Nightmare. The portal snapped shut behind his back with a sharp, electrical hiss, cutting off the distant noises of Dreamtale.
" - WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?! "
a furious, raspy scream rang out, sounding like a severe system crash.
" - Who sent you?! Chara?! Speak up before I wipe your code to absolute zero! "
Right in front of Nightmare's face, sharp, unnaturally lagging white bones erupted from the floor with a deafening crack. Their jagged digital edges pinned the teenager to the ground, blocking any chance of escape. Above the bones, breathing heavily, stood Geno. His single red pupil burned with madness, lethal panic and defensive fury.
Nightmare shut his eyes in terror. He frantically pressed an old, tattered book of fairy tales to his chest, the one Toriel used to read to him in the quiet library, covering his head with it like a fragile shield.
" - Oh p-please… Don't! Please, don't hurt me! "
Nightmare screamed through his tears, his whole body shaking violently.
" - I just... I just wanted to hide! They... they were throwing stones at me! I don't know who Chara is! Don't hit me!"
Geno froze.
His hand, raised for a lethal strike, slowly wavered in mid-air. His furious gaze scanned the intruder's vulnerable figure: the dirty, oversized purple jacket, the muddy boot print on the sleeve, the raw tears in his eyes, and the children's book clutched tightly in his trembling hands. This wasn't a ruthless human killer. This wasn't a threat. It was a beaten, terrified child.
" - Damn it... "
Geno exhaled hollowly.
The sharp, lagging bones instantly dissolved into white pixel dust, clearing the path. Geno staggered, clutching his bleeding chest, and slowly stepped back, sinking heavily onto the floor a few paces away. Glancing at how Nightmare shivered from cold and residual fear in this vast, sterile whiteness. This teen is so reminiscent of his brother Papyrus. Painfully reminiscent. Geno let out a heavy sigh…
He reached out, tugged at the edge of his massive, flowing red scarf, and softly but firmly tossed it forward, draping the warm, thick fabric over Nightmare's trembling shoulders.
" - Huh... Kid, you almost gave me a heart attack with your sudden portals, "
Geno grumbled, turning his face away to hide his own weakness.
" - Where the hell did you even come from? "
…
Nightmare carefully rose to his knees, still wrapping himself tightly in the comforting scarlet fabric, and timidly crawled a bit closer to his strange savior. The scarf smelled of dry dust and something vaguely, longingly familiar. From his sudden movement, the collar of Geno's torn jacket shifted slightly to the side. Nightmare caught a random glimpse of his chest and completely froze.
Right in the middle of Geno's ribcage yawned a horrific, jagged, eternally bleeding wound, through which his soul was completely visible. It was cracked exactly in half, its edges crumbling into volatile digital noise, and right above it, a neon system counter glowed dimly in the cold air:
[HP: 0.1 / 1]
" - Y-your... your soul... "
Nightmare's breath hitched, his voice dropping to a frightened, awestruck whisper.
" - Are you dying?! "
Geno flinched, his expression hardening as he hurriedly, almost roughly, pulled the edges of his jacket together, hiding the wound and the counter from sight.
" - Hey, pipe down, kiddo, don't yell, "
Geno hissed, scowling in annoyance, though a deep shadow of sheer exhaustion flickered in his pupil.
" -I'm not dying. I haven't been dying for a long time. As long as I'm stuck in this godforsaken white box of a Save Screen, my counter is permanently frozen. So don't lose your mind, I'm not gonna turn to dust right in front of you."
But Nightmare didn't shrink back. Instead, he gently pressed the edge of the red scarf closer to his face, shifting his gaze from Geno's jacket back to his strange glitching eye. In the purple eyes of the Guardian of Negativity, there was no fear of a monster. There was only the endless, pure empathy of a soul that knew all too well what it felt like to bleed alone.
" - But it... it hurts a lot, doesn't it? "
Nightmare asked softly, almost weightlessly, crawling one final step closer.
" - It hurts you every single second... "
Geno completely froze.
His entire cynical, protective armor gave out for a brief, silent moment. Nobody had ever pitied him for a long time. In his shattered world, everyone just died or killed, but here, this strange, weeping boy from a random portal looked at his fatal wound with such genuine, aching sorrow that something painfully turned inside his frozen code.
A familiar, bitter, and tired and sarcastic smirk appeared on Geno's face. He reached out and adjusted the heavy red scarf on Nightmare's head, gently ruffling it.
" - I've seen worse, kid. I've seen worse... Alright, drop the subject. What's that book you've got there? You're holding onto it like it's the greatest treasure in the entire Multiverse. "
Nightmare timidly looked down at the colorful cover, and a tiny, hesitant smile appeared on his tear-stained face for the very first time on this day.
Very long, exhausting day.
---
