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Frisk stood at the entrance of an ever-expanding hallway. Tall windows that lined one side of the hallway allowed warm, golden light to filter in, illuminating the entire space with the rich light of the setting sun. The light spilled onto the shiny tiled floor, forming radiant pools of gold that stretched out endlessly into the distance. Pillars stood tall and imposing, casting long shadows that cut through the golden light. These dark shadows whispered secrets into the grand hallway, telling the stories of everyone who came before. As Frisk gazed down the hallway, frying pan in hand, they knew.
Their journey was almost over.
Frisk took a deep breath, holding the stale, underground air in their lungs before slowly breathing it out. Stepping forward into the hall, Frisk couldn’t help but gaze upon the imposing windows. Their eyes fixated on the symbol etched onto the glass; The Delta Rune, infamous for the prophecy it foretold. A prophecy of an angel who would free monsterkind by shattering The Barrier or by reducing every last one of them to dust. Its intricate design seemed to shift and dance in the sunlight, as if alive with some hidden energy.
As Frisk trekked through the hall, the golden light warmed their skin, seeping deep into their bones. They sighed contentedly at the warmth, part of them wanting to curl up against one window and sleep wreathed in gold. But as the thought passed through their mind, they realized something. No light in The Underground acted like this. No light in The Underground warmed their body the way this light did. Every light in The Underground did its job; they lit the way and allowed monsters to see, nothing more. The closest Frisk could think of was the sweltering heat from Hotland, but that was because they were crossing bridges over actual lava. This light almost felt like...
The sun.
Frisk stopped. How could the sun reach The Underground? Wasn’t that the thing monsters yearned for the most?
“This is one of the few places the sun touches down here.”
Frisk startled at Chara’s sudden anecdote, tightening their grip on their burnt frying pan as their fried instincts leaped for a fight. Once their mind caught up with their nerves, they forced their muscles to relax, closing their eyes with a deliberate exhale.
Frisk could tell an apology rested on the tip of Chara’s tongue, so they spoke before Chara could utter another sorry.
“How does this place get so much sunlight?” Frisk asked.
Chara hummed, casting faint blips of memory through Frisk’s mind.
“New Home is the closest point to the surface, aside from The Barrier itself. With enough effort, you can break open a door for sunlight to shine through.”
“Really?” Frisk asked.
“Yeah...” Chara trailed off. “I watched this place come together. I’d sit here for hours and watch the builders chip away at the walls until sunlight poured in like a tidal wave.”
Images of the hall in its early days flashed through Frisk’s mind. It lacked the windows and refinement of what it would later become, but the sunlight, somehow, seemed infinitely more vibrant.
“I’d been living here for a few years at that point, so it had been a long time since I’d seen the sun.” Chara laughed sadly. “I loathed the people out there, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss watching the sunset.”
Sunsets. That time when the earth fell still and silent. That time when warmth began its slow travel past a infinite horizon. Thick in its colors, it sank below and drowned, and in its panic, sent out flares of reds, oranges, and pinks that shot across the sky. Flares that burned holes into the atmosphere and allowed the stars to breathe.
Frisk imagined for a moment, what it would be like to never watch a sunset again. They imagined the melancholic pain of knowing that such a simple beauty on the surface still happened... But you’d never see it again. And when you did, by some miracle, glimpse the fiery sky once more, a barrier would forever shield its true brilliance from you. In that moment, Frisk understood why monsters yearned for the sky.
Chara’s delicate arms crossed gracefully atop Frisk’s head like weightless flower petals. Their chin rested on their arms, barely making a dent in the softness of Frisk’s hair.
“Hey, don’t feel bad for me,” Chara said, their spectral voice rolling in waves through Frisk’s body. “I lived a good life here, sun or no sun. Besides, The Underground has a lot of natural beauty that people up top would die to glimpse. I mean, who up there can say that flowers tell you stories?”
Frisk squeezed their eyes shut. Chara was referring to the echo flowers. You know they meant the echo flowers. Stop thinking about him. He’s not here.
Frisk opened their eyes again and resumed walking down the hall, their worn sneakers scuffing against the tiles. As the other end of the hall came into view, a languid, familiar tune wormed into their mind. However, the tone of it dripped with importance and finality, veiling the familiarity until Frisk couldn’t discern it anymore. All of their time spent with other monsters—and Chara’s explanations—told Frisk all they needed to know.
Someone else was here with them, and they meant business.
Frisk stopped dead in front of one of the many windows, boxed in by the pillars’ stretching shadows. Something in the universe’s fabric urged them to pause and take notice of this moment. They didn’t consciously decide to stop, but somehow, someway, the culmination of their being knew to stop here. Magic? Their subconscious? A destiny woven in the stars? They didn’t know. As the imposing theme swelled, Frisk assumed they were about to find out.
As they stood there, someone stepped out from behind the pillar ahead of them, the deep shadow concealing their identity. Frisk’s heart raced with anticipation as they strained their eyes, trying to discern the monster’s identity. Gradually, the golden light revealed the features of a short and stout figure, with a simple jacket that had seen better days. The light drew faint lines around the eye sockets, casting a hollow and eerie look on the face of the monster before them. Despite the eerie silhouette, the figure stood with an air of calm, as if waiting for something to happen.
Frisk’s eyes narrowed, their brows squishing together as their mind cycled through who this might be. The familiar tune of that theme... A languid, simple melody. A monster short and stout... Who?
A sharp breath struck the back of Frisk’s throat, eyes widening, as the name came to them with stupefying delay.
“Sans?” They asked with a pitched voice.
The tolling of bells drowned out their question.
“So, you finally made it,” Sans spoke, voice grim and focused as it had been back at the resort for the briefest of moments. “The end of your journey is at hand.”
Frisk nodded solemnly.
“In a few moments, you will meet the king. Together...” Sans tilted his head back, looking up toward where the stars would be if the mountain wasn’t in the way. “You will decide the future of this world.”
Frisk nodded again, pressing their lips into a line. They knew, had known, for a while now that their meeting with Asgore would be major. Many described Asgore as a kind-hearted monster who’d usher Frisk to The Barrier if they asked him nicely enough... But they knew better. They were the seventh soul, and if Asgore was as swayable as everyone said, there wouldn’t be six souls in waiting. No, this was going to take more than a ‘please’.
“That’s then,” Sans intoned, as he looked back at Frisk. “Here, now, you will be judged. Every action you’ve taken, every choice you’ve made, and every EXP you’ve earned, will all be laid out. And then, I will determine the verdict.”
EXP? What was this, a video game? Thinking back on their odd powers of saving and loading... An experience system didn’t seem improbable.
“What’s EXP?” Frisk asked.
EXP must mean something different here if Sans was judging them based on how much they earned.
“It’s an acronym,” Sans replied. “It stands for execution points; a way of quantifying the pain you have inflicted on others.”
Frisk winced at the definition. It made sense, though. In video games, you ground out the enemies to earn experience so you could challenge greater threats. You didn’t think about how the world viewed your actions, because they were simply a mechanic of progression. No one addressed the massacre caused by this random traveler who wandered into town, because if they did, you wouldn’t be much of a hero, would you? But in the real world with real lives at stake, earning experience through genocide would be pretty grim, wouldn’t it?
“When you kill someone, your EXP increases,” Sans contained. “When you have enough EXP, your LOVE increases.”
“Your soul starts off weak, but can grow stronger if you gain lots of LV.” Flowey had said. “What’s LV? Why, LOVE of course!”
If Flowey wanted their soul to gain LOVE, and execution points raised it, LOVE must stand for something just as grim as EXP.
“LOVE, too, is an acronym,” Sans said, answering their assumption. “It stands for ‘Level of Violence’. A way of measuring someone’s capacity to hurt. The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt, and the more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others.”
Sans met Frisk dead in the eyes and they became viscerally aware of their heartbeat. Its tenuous, muscular throbbing tapped a nervous ditty against their ribs, the kind that people compulsively hummed or sang while walking in complete darkness. Their nerves hummed as they tightened their grip on the burnt frying pan, knuckles whitening like the dead.
He’s decided their verdict. He’s fulfilled the role of judge, and without a jury, only one job remained.
Sans stepped forward.
“But you...”
Frisk drew the frying pan up into a defensive stance, awaiting the inevitable.
But to their surprise, Sans just... Stopped. The sun outside illuminated his skull, casting pallid bone in radiant hues of gold. His eye-lights glimmered with ambiguity, deep and impenetrable as if they held secrets of the universe. He observed Frisk with the curiosity of a scholar delving into an ancient tome that concealed its own meaning. His perpetual grin, etched into his skeletal face, served as a mask, concealing any hint of emotion or intention. Even Chara’s ever-lasting smiles stretched and warped depending on their mood. But Sans? Sans remained a mystery, his expressions cryptic puzzles waiting to be deciphered. Unreadable.
Frisk’s breath caught and stuttered with every inhale as they adjusted their grip on the frying pan. Why had he stopped? He played judge and now he had to play executioner. So what the hell was he waiting for?
“Frisk?” Both Chara and Sans spoke at the same time.
Chara’s ethereal hand draped over Frisk’s, a faint touch that didn’t interfere with their grip on the pan’s handle but served as a gentle reminder of their presence.
“Easy there bucko–” Sans held his hands up– “let’s not throw ourselves into a pan-ic.”
Puns? At a time like this? What was he playing at?
“Well?” Frisk sputtered. “Aren’t you going to do it?”
“Do what?” Sans asked, as if he didn’t have the answer in that skull already.
“Fight me!” Frisk yelled, their voice bouncing off the walls of the hallway. “Come on, this is the perfect setting for a boss fight! The golden light, the bells, you judging my character like some fucking sage. This is the final corridor before I meet Asgore, and you’re here with your wisdom that you never show off without a joke; how can I not expect this to be some grand fight?”
“Because it isn’t one,” Sans said matter-of-factly.
“Bullshit!”
“Kiddo, I was never going to fight you.” Sans lowered his hands, shoving them back into his pockets. “You’d have to give me a damn good reason to break the promise I made to that old lady.”
“Yet, not that long ago, you’d told me I’d be dead where I stood had you not promised her that!”
“Kid, I was joking.”
“No, that wasn’t a fucking joke! Jokes are funny; that wasn’t funny; nothing about what you said then was funny!”
“Okay, look, I’m sorry,” Sans said, taking a step forward. “That one was ill-placed, I’ll admit. But I’m being dead serious when I say I’m not going to fight you here and that I never intended to.”
“Why not?”
Sans simply shrugged. “Why would I?”
“Because everyone else has!”
Frisk’s voice filled every corner of the hall with their anguish and frustration. Sans flinched back the tiniest amount, startled by their outburst.
Frisk lowered the pan, frustration welling in their eyes. “There hasn’t been a single moment where I’ve felt calm enough to not check over my shoulder every two fucking seconds to see if anyone’s following me and looking for a fight. There hasn’t been a single moment where I didn’t feel the need to stock up on healing items. There hasn’t been a single moment where I haven’t itched to s–” Save my file in case I die. “Every single monster I’ve run into has attacked me or tried to kill me... So I just assumed you would, too.”
For a moment, Sans’s passive mask of indifference gave way. The edges of his smile dropped by a razor-thin margin as his eye sockets furrowed in an oddly human way.
“Frisk,” he muttered.
“I just–!”
Frisk glared at the ground, their face contorted with building frustration. Tears squeezed out of their burning eyes and ran down their cheeks as they clenched their hand around the pan. Their entire arm trembled with the force of their emotions, until, with a sudden shout of anguish, they flung the pan towards the nearest pillar. Sans instinctively sidestepped, even though he was nowhere near the trajectory of the pan. With a resonant, metallic clang, the pan crashed into the pillar before clattering to the ground.
Frisk dropped to the floor in a disheveled heap, pulling their knees up to their chest as they covered their eyes to keep the typhoon at bay. It did little to hold their tears in.
“I just want to go home.”
For a while, Sans just stood over them, a silent sentinel of contemplation. He sighed, carefully lowering himself to the ground so he and Frisk were on the same level.
Frisk wiped their tears away, their shiny eyes meeting Sans’s stoic gaze.
“I’ll take sitting over standing any day,” he said with a chuckle.
Frisk huffed a soft laugh, barely audible in the silent hallway. Their gaze fell to the floor, unable to hold eyes with the skeleton any longer. They weren’t going home, were they? The only way they could cross The Barrier forced them to take a life, abd that’s something they just couldn’t do. But they still had to face him, right? They couldn’t just avoid Asgore forever. Even if, by some miracle, they convince him to spare them, what then?
They would never see their family again.
Chara’s hand ghosted their back, gently resting it on their shoulder.
“You can find a new family here, with Toriel, with everyone. You can be happy here.”
Frisk quietly scoffed at Chara’s suggestion. They weren’t wrong, but they didn’t understand what Frisk had to lose—what they had already lost.
Frisk shook Chara’s hand from their shoulder as they crawled over to Sans and all but collapsed into him, clinging to his sweater like a lifeline. Sans stiffened at the sudden contact, his hands hovering over Frisk with uncertainty. But he didn’t push them off. That’s all they needed. He didn’t need to say or do anything.
But he did do something. After a while of letting Frisk cling to him, he wrapped a grounding arm around them, holding them close. Frisk focused all of their energy on not crumbling right then and there.
“For the record, you never gained any LOVE. ‘course, that doesn’t mean you’re completely innocent or naive. Just that you kept a certain tenderness in your heart,” Sans said.
Frisk tightened their grip on his sweater.
“No matter the struggles or hardships you faced...” Sans lowered his head, rubbing soothing circles into Frisk’s back. “You strived to do the right thing. You refused to hurt anyone. Even when you ran away, you did it with a smile.
“You never gained LOVE, but you gained love.” Sans chuckled. “Does that make sense?”
Frisk gave a watery laugh. “Yeah.”
Sans laughed in return. “I’m going to be honest with you kid, if I were you, I would have thrown in the towel well before now. But you didn’t get this far by giving up, did you?”
“No,” Frisk murmured.
“That’s right. You have something called ‘determination.’ So long as you hold on—so long as you do what’s in your heart—I believe you can do the right thing.
“We all do, kiddo.”