+ It's good that we can't see what isn't there +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE
Where: Wonderland and adjacent dimensions!
When: Friday, April 21st to Monday, April 24th
Rating: PG-13, warn if higher!
Summary: A place to list your tears throughout the event, and describe the worlds that can be seen or accessed through them. Event Post.
The Story:

While invisible zombies ravage Wonderland, tears are popping up everywhere! Through them characters can see versions of themselves from alternate universes. Some of them show a different version of Wonderland, some a different version of their home. Some are as benign as a character drinking coffee instead of tea, others are as drastic as somebody's entire personality changed completely.

On day one tears are so small as to barely even be recognisable. Faint voices and melodies can be heard through the tiny cracks if you step really close, but these brief and indistinct glimpses are barely even worth describing.

On day two tears have opened up wide enough to recognise them for what they really are. Yesterday's melodies will sound clearer, and the voices will become decidedly familiar, belonging to people characters know, sounding perhaps even like the characters themselves. Look through the tears and they may catch sight of home, or something that merely looks like another part of Wonderland. The tears are yet narrow and instable though, and the field of vision is correspondingly poor.

On day three the tears have grown a great deal. The worlds beyond them can be seen and heard, though most cannot be interacted with at all. Only the biggest ones are already stable enough for characters to stick their hand inside, and pulls through any objects within reach.

On the fourth and last day some tears have finally become large and stable enough for characters to pass through whole. Not all tears will reach this stage, but those who have can be visited, and the world beyond them explored... at each character's own peril.

Comments

[mettatonvevo]

[She grabs him with intent to hold, intent to command, and Mettaton's eyes widen in surprise. His soul jumps in a small bout of panic and immediately he begins to try and pull away.]

Alphys. Let me go.

[He doesn't want to shove her away roughly but this is not going well.]

[sciencelizard]

[She narrows her eyes. This may be the one chance she has to keep him. She won't lose it.

And he might be able to see it, more intently than he ever has in an Alphys.

Determination.]

No. You'll s-stay. You'll stay here.

Don't fight this.

[mettatonvevo]

[He pulls his arms and attempts to shove her backwards from him.]

I will not. I cannot stay. I don't belong here. I need to go home.

[It's funny to refer to Wonderland as home but... it is now, isn't it? At least, the people there make it feel like home.]

[sciencelizard]

Your home is here!

[She's all but yelling now, the cracks in her serious and queenly facade beginning to splinter.]

You took what I gave you and you ran f-from me! You went off to stardom and didn't care! And then you try to-- you just die before we can-- before you--

[Well, Alphys never was a person who was good at holding back her tears. Even now. Not with so much anger, not with so much grief.]

Your home is with me. It h-has to be.

[mettatonvevo]

[Her words sting, harsh and hot, and he almost physically recoils at them. She's saying everything he always thought (and almost wished) that his Alphys would say to him. Show him some anger, show some bitterness, anything but that crushing sadness, that unending disappointment. Give him something to fight back against.]

I was selfish! I was cruel! I know this. I know. And I'm sorry. Nothing I can do can change what I did.

[He's still stepping away. The tear is somewhere nearby... it has to be.]

You don't understand. You don't know what is happening. I belong to a different timeline entirely. This cannot be my home because I never experienced what you have, first hand.

[He looks around- there it is! Across the room. He backs towards it.]

But one day, you could be with me. Things will change. The anomaly, Frisk, they're- they're just a child. They've made their mistakes. But they'll choose MERCY the next go round. Try to believe in them. Please.

[sciencelizard]

[Her strength is short lived, having had just enough to push back at all, but as the tears begin to fall down her face she loses her grip, and he begins to slip from her. Literally, in that he moves towards some unseen door... and figuratively, because she had him back for only a few minutes and she’s already driven him away.]

It w-will not be me. You know this as well as I do. I am... stuck, here, until I am destroyed. There is nothing else.

[She finally looks at him, really looks at him, tears running down her face and more threatening to fall.]

You don’t d-deserve that fate. And I... I don’t deserve you, if I’m going to be selfish.

Go. Get out of here.

[Despite everything, and all of the pain clear still in this gesture, she manages a smile.]

Do... d-do better than me, will you?

[mettatonvevo]

[It hurts him to hear her speak like that. All final, with no hope to liven her words. He wishes, so much, that he could be the Mettaton she needs right now. But her Mettaton died awhile ago and he can't exactly replace him. Not when his Alphys still needs him back home.]

Maybe this time will be different.

[Maybe the RESET will be kind.]

Alphys...

[Her tears are so much but he knows not to approach. That will make him weak and give her an opportunity to seize him again. So he steps away more towards the tear, knowing in another moment he'll be free to slip away.]

I will. I'll do better.

[Empty promises for an almost empty timeline.]

...I love you, dear.

[He looks away after he says it. He can't bare to look at her. He goes to the tear and steps through and when he sees Wonderland's floors he collapses, trying not to cry himself. It's a useless battle.]

[sciencelizard]

['Maybe this time'. A future many will never see. A future she certainly won't. But his words ring hollow as he disappears, and she watches where he goes for just a few minutes more. It's not hope, exactly. Not quite resignation, either. Just... existence. The march of time ever forward towards absolution.]

I love you t-too, Metta.

[She doesn't know if he can hear her. She doesn't dare hope that he can. But regardless of the answer, she turns, and leaves, the cape dragging a heavy path through the flowers until the tear shows only silence.]