They are standing at the foot of the memorial.
There is no grave there; not anymore. The golden flowers still bloom, unperturbed - deaf and blind to the world around them. They smell just as sweet as always. Unbroken; untouched. Gentle stems coil around the stone of the statue.
Corry eases themselves, sliding down; cross-legged, hunched, their pose loose. There is nothing to fear there - no monsters to hunt them down, no ghosts of past. There is no grave there anymore. No small corpses, rotting beneath the yellow blooms. No dust to spread on the soft petals. Yet the flowers remain. The consequences to actions never taken.
There are no corpses, no dust. No names to engrave on the useless tombstone. No real memories, except those in the grasp of Corry’s own mind. ( Small feet upon the stone; claws clattering gently in the silence. Laughter. Smiling faces; eyes widening in joy. ) Everything’s a blur; on purpose. Pictures and sounds are left in their parents’ minds, vague, diluted - as if touched by time. All fake. All fabricated to fill the void - empty spaces in the photos; figures of their children cut out of the story.
Say hello to Rey and Carrie for me, please? their mother asked them when she heard where they are heading. Her eyes were sad, distant. Corry smiled and hid their face on her chest, breathing in - Toriel always smelled of sweetness and fire. It is new names, each time: mind struggling to fill in the blanks. No one questions why the names change so much. This is how it works; the world hates the void and the excess. It fights both, as well as it can. No one questions anything, ever.
“ That’s where you are. ”
This is how it works: a rusty knife and a worn bandage, wrapped in an old sweater, rotting in the ground below the statue. Pollen and dust, the normal, harmless dust, settle on its horns, on the crumbling, unrecognisable face. The music box never plays anymore, no matter how hard you try to wiggle the little silver key; but they know the melody by heart now, so they sing instead. This is how it works, in this world. One equals three. A happy ending equals three lives ruined, lost. One voice rises, and the melody flows; nothing more, nothing less.
“ If I could, I’d hold you close; but I can’t reach that far... ”
The golden flowers still bloom, and they are just as soft as Corry remembers when they slump against the statue, resting their head on a stone shoulder covered in fluffy, fur-like moss.
“ Shining bright all day and night, little star, how brave you are... ”
There is nothing to fear here, but a lot to grieve, and their voice is quiet. Gentle. It is almost as if they don’t want to wake up the sleeping children.
“ If I could, I’d shine with you... ”
A gear turns in the long broken music box, and it plays a sudden single note - quiet and sweet and forlorn, and then it falls silent again - for good, this time.
“ ...but I can’t reach that far. ”
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