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It’s all new to you, the first time. An entire world you’ve never seen before filled with people you’ve never met and a chance for something better. Something sparkling. Something new. Something that could give you meaning, maybe, and you eat it all up like that slice of pie you don’t know better than to save. You ask to call her Mom and she’s delighted, and so are you, because she’s really adorable and you love her already.
She fights you, in the end, and you’re really not surprised.
You remember once someone told you that you could get through anything peacefully if you tried hard enough. You remember- remember a lifetime of SPARE options that never really meant anything in the end so you’re not sure how much you actually believe it, but this place is new, and maybe you want to try to take this better chance that you’ve suddenly found yourself falling into. You flirt with a mold of slime. You compliment a frog. You cheer on a ghost. You’re having the time of your life.
You kill your mom.
She just won’t stop fighting you and the battle gets tedious and you try to talk to her, you do, but after a few times the little voice in your head you’re starting to think might not be your own tells you it’s pointless. This is pointless. They were wrong. There’s no peaceful way out of this. You get hurt enough that you can barely move out of the way of her attacks, which is just as well, since that’s just about when her attacks start going out of their way to avoid you, and you think maybe you’re getting somewhere, but she still has that look on her face and talking doesn’t do anything and you’re so tired. You’ve been lied to. You’re so tired. You kill your mom. It’s all you can do.
It’s not, though. That flower you think you’re really starting to hate tells you as much and you’re not sure you believe it, considering the last time he tried to kill you, but you want to get through this without hurting anyone so bad that you figure you might as well. You go through again. You consider telling Toriel you’ve watched her die, but that’s creepy, so you don’t. You don’t bother much with talking. You remember a frog telling you about yellow names and the flash of inspiration is almost enough to blind you. You spam spare until your fingers ache. It’s a hurt you can get behind.
She hugs you. You leave. The flower calls you out. You tell him, fuck you, but not out loud, because he’s right and you kind of deserve it.
You like Sans pretty much instantly. You’re not so sure at first about Papyrus.
You know his type, is the thing- or you think you do. He’s loud and brash and supposed to capture you and you don’t think you’re supposed to like him anyway, because you’ve met people like that before, and honestly if you’ve met one then you’ve met them all. It comes as a surprise to you, then, when you realize that he’s sweet. Really, genuinely sweet, in a way you’ve never truly seen outside of storybooks meant for kids like, half your age. It warms your heart. You’re pretty sure his room is the coolest thing you’ve ever seen. Heck yeah, racecar beds.
Sans takes you to Grillby’s. You get pranked on. You end up dumping ketchup over all your fries, and are less disappointed and more curious about what would’ve happened if you’d asked for a burger instead. Everything seems to sort of fade out of focus when Sans really starts to get into talking with you, which would be weird if you took the time to question it. You don’t, though. You’re a bit distracted by the thrill that goes through you when he mentions a talking flower. The feeling is quickly replaced by something you can’t quite name when he throws echo flower out there, and you wonder if you should tell him. You know you can’t, though. Maybe later.
Even then, you should’ve known that later never comes.
The second time is bittersweet.
Flowey told you there was a way to get a better ending, if you wanted, but after being killed by him literally dozens of times you kind of don’t want to hear it. And it’s strange. Because you can remember beating him and sparing him and walking away. You remember the voicemail with that skeleton you like so much and everyone else. You just don’t remember coming back...here.
But it’s fine.
Getting through Snowdin is a lot easier when you know what to expect; you’d almost say it’s enjoyable. Turns out that nothing really happens when you order a burger, but the whoopie cushion is still there, so you guess some things just don’t change. It’s a little easier to say goodbye this time, oddly, and it doesn’t take so much effort to do what needs to be done. Undyne still kind of scares you, though. Then again, she is still trying to kill you. You don’t spend so long trying and failing to avoid her attacks and instead flee as soon as you have the chance. You can almost pretend it’s a game of tag. You wonder, as you pour a cup of conveniently provided water over her face, if there’s more to her than meets the eye.
You should really know the answer to that question by now.
Undyne tells you about Asgore over a cup of tea and a broken table. She tells you about her past on a backdrop of fish wallpaper and a smashed window, looking soft in a way you’ve never seen her before. You think that maybe you judged her too quickly. You wonder when you’re going to stop doing that.
But then you both kind of set her entire house on fire and you think maybe you didn’t judge her entirely wrong after all.
Turns out, you actually get a different ending when you bother to stop and make friends. It goes like this: Undyne asks you to deliver a letter, and you do, because maybe you don’t want this to be over again so soon, and you end up on another date that you didn’t even ask for this time which ends up with you in a complete nightmare. Turns out that after all this time you still haven’t broken your habit of judging things by their covers. Who knew there was an entire lab hidden under the CORE? You find out, certainly. You become intimately familiar with every inch of the place, actually, and its inhabitants, and its info screens. It scares you. Not so much that you can’t keep moving forward, but the fear is still there, and you hate it, almost, as much as you can hate something that’s so much a part of you.
Turns out there’s so much more to this place than you could have ever realized.
The third time leaves you aching.
The fourth time is a lot harder than that.
It wouldn’t be so much of a problem, you think, if you just knew why. Why does this keep happening? Why do you keep ending up back here, of all places, when you know you got everyone the happiest ending you could possibly give? Do things not work out on the Surface? Does one of them die? Do you die? But it’s just- black, darker and darker, eating at your memories from the outside in, leaving you with nothing but the recollection of the last rising sun you think you’ll ever see.
It wouldn’t be so bad if you weren’t getting bored.
You feel- awful, for thinking it, for feeling it, because they’re your friends and you love them and you’re not supposed to think these things about friends you love. The feeling refuses to leave anyway. You’re...tired. You’re starting to get tired. No amount of skipped dialogue makes it go any faster, or eases the pain of having your family look at you like the stranger you are to them. You learn fast, though. All the little secrets that make the fights easier; your stick for the dogs, the donut for Muffet, the pie for Asgore.
The eleventh time is the first and last you try to stay.
It occurs to you as you sit up in the bed of flowers you can’t quite bring yourself to get sick of; you can’t get dragged back here again if you don’t leave in the first place. Can you? No. So maybe you’ve been looking at it wrong this whole time. Maybe the answer to everything isn’t to set the Underground free. Maybe it’s just to...stop. Stop before you can begin.
You’ve never tried to take Toriel up on her offer of a home before.
So you try. You sleep in the bed and sit at the table and ask for more snail facts while she has the book out. And it’s fine. It’s- nice. Toriel is lovely, and smiles when you call her Mom in a way that almost hurts now that you know exactly how many times she’s been a mother. You even get a second slice of that pie you were always too intimidated to cut yourself.
She doesn’t ask your name.
She doesn’t ask your name, and it itches you in a way you didn’t -- couldn’t -- expect, like maybe she doesn’t actually care, except you know it’s really that she won’t let herself care after so many dead children. She won’t care unless you make her, says that one voice again, and you know it’s right; the knowing sits under your skin in a very real way that makes you think you could scratch it out if you just dug deep enough into the hollow of your elbow where your restlessness lies. Scratch it out and throw it away like the piece of trash it is. Leave it on the ground and tell it you’ll be right back.
Maybe you’re just selfish.
Papyrus’ offer of a couch to sleep on was never an option you seriously considered either. He’s delighted when you show up at his door, reassuring you that this is his first sleepover ever and it will be the best sleepover ever because he’s the one throwing it, which you’re more than willing to agree with. Sans is quietly grateful from behind Papyrus’ shoulder. And it’s good, for a week, almost two-- until Undyne starts getting antsy, having no reason to not want your soul on a skewer yet and every reason to hate you, and no one has to say that you’ve overstayed your welcome.
It’s not that you blame them. It’s just...
You know by the time you get to Alphys that you can’t stay. Not really. Not forever. Even if you managed it somehow, you’d never be able to forgive yourself for keeping everyone trapped in the dark. You can only go so far. You show up at her door with a freshly scavenged anime CD anyway.
You think, in the end, leaving is all you’re really good for.
Sitting perilously close to the edge of the mountain after everyone has left -- not that it matters. Not that it’ll ever matter -- you wonder if-
maybe you’re wrong.
There’s always a difference, between the happiest ending and the right one. Maybe this isn’t how things are supposed to go. Maybe you were wrong.
I’m tired, you say, either the 23rd time or the 87th; you’re never sure whether you should only count each loop or every death. The boy beside you bows his head until his face is nearly buried in the flowers like the body you know is hidden underneath.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
You won’t take my soul, will you, you say, your furrowed brows making it a question even though you know the answer already.
“How many times have you asked before?”
Three. You smile, sheepishly. I think I got a little pushy last time. You tried to punch me.
His surprised laugh turns into a cough. He grimaces at the white speckling the yellow flowers when the fit passes, though you suspect the expression has more to do with the petals accidentally crushed in his grip than the evidence that he’s literally beginning to fall apart. “Frisk...” He turns to face you, hands buried in the dirt.
“Don’t you have anything better to do?”
The cue is a familiar one. Shoulders drooping, you take a step back, and you wish-- hands shaking in your sleeves, you almost tell him for a moment, It’s not like I’m doing this because I want to, it’s not like I haven’t tried--
He wouldn’t remember soon enough anyway.
It’s not like
It’s not like you’ve never killed before.
There were times when a monster leapt out and initiated a battle too quickly for you to do anything but lash out in surprise, fear lending your stick a power you never would’ve given it otherwise. You’ve rubbed the skin of your hands raw trying to unsee the dust on your palms more than twice. You’ve killed your mom.
The only difference is: this time she hates you for it.
Sans says something about you not being human anymore, and you and the voice agree without even having to say anything; you’re more human than anyone else here. That’s the problem, isn’t it? You’re human, and you’re tired. A dangerous combination, if not a fatal one. A very fatal one. For everyone but you.
It’s only when you get to Papyrus that you think -- maybe you don’t have to do this. You step into his embrace and your mind races as he tells you how scared he was, thinking -- maybe you don’t have to go too far. There’s so many more options, aren’t there? So many more things to do? To see? To find?
You try...everything.
You kill only the dogs. You spare only the dogs. You leave Toriel alone in the Ruins with nothing but the scattered remnants of dust and regret, and you make her your only kill. You spend hours sparring the local monsters until you save up enough G to buy the fried snow from Sans, only to find it was useless to begin with. But that’s okay. You leave Sans to live with his brother, alone with the throne and a kingdom and no one else to rule it. In another run, Papyrus is the only casualty.
There are so, so many endings.
None of them are right.
Inside the room behind the skeleton brothers’ house, back turned to the machine that will never let you close enough to touch, you tear up the tattered drawing and tell yourself that there’s nothing left. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Grinding is the easiest thing in the world.
Grinding--
You get a new boss.
Undyne the Undying is...terrifying, and heartbreaking, and new, it’s exhilarating to the point that you can hardly breathe through the smile choking up your lungs. The hatred that rolls off of her in waves is aimed at you almost as sharply as her spears, and hurts just the same. Not enough, though. Not hardly enough. You’ve seen your friend rise and fall through so many peaks and hardships that it hardly matters anymore. You’d say you can always just fix this all in the end, reassure her from experience-- but that would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?
Trailing a dusty scar through the Underground, you arrive at the judgement hall in a cloud of death.
(...You wish. Real life isn’t cool enough for that. You knock your boots against a pillar so the dusty soles don’t slide on gold tile and watch as white poofs up in a chalky, unceremonious decrescendo to the floor.)
You die.
Like, a lot.
Sans stops counting pretty early in, which is fine with you; there’s a voice in your head keeping track even if it’s less entertaining without all the backhanded jokes -- or were they threats? Doesn’t matter. You get to what you guess is the halfway point and sort of rock on your heels for a moment, deliberating on what the right thing to do could possibly be here. You shrug, and figure: worst case scenario, you’ve got plenty of time to start over if you have to. Time is on your side. Except, not really. Time is eating you from the inside out and you don’t know what else to do except fight back.
You get shot full of bones and spend the ten minutes after the next LOAD bracing yourself against a pillar and a laughing fit because Sans has no fucking clue what he’s just done.
He’s the only thing standing between you and the rest of your life. The fucker can save you a seat in hell for all you care.
Chara helps.
You’d probably be angry that they took this kill from you -- and you are, for a burning second that leaves your grip white-knuckled on their knife -- but you know that you wouldn’t have thought to cheat right back at your opponent for another dozen “wins” at least.You settle on...excitement, instead. You’re almost there. Prodding your cheeks, you nudge your mouth into a smile. You’re going to be free.
“Let us erase this pointless world, and move on to the next.”
Chara smiles in the exact way you can’t. Not anymore.
Hands linked behind their back, their cheerful demeanor mirrors your own; you’ve reached the end. There’s nothing left. This has to be it. And you know-- it wasn’t you who was wrong, it was this place. It was broken. Corrupt. But you’ve emptied it all, turned everything to dust until there was nothing left. Now all you have to do is leave it all behind you for good. You mash the ERASE button so hard it would hurt, if it was something you could feel.
“Right.” Chara’s smile grows wider -- and it grows, and grows, and grows, and “You are a great partner.”
The world crumbles to a laugh you’ve only ever heard inside your head.
.
.
.
.
.
“Interesting. You want to go back.”
No.
No, no, no no no--
“You think you are above consequences.”
You’re not naive enough to think you haven’t fallen so far that the only thing you’re above now is the dust on your shoes. This is what you asked for. This is what you wanted, and now it’s being thrown back in your face like a promise no one ever said they’d keep, and--
Flowers cushioning a fall you can still feel in your lungs, you dig your fingers into the dirt until you wonder if roots and stones would be the only things you’d pull up. Your stick digs into your shoulder, the same way it did the last time, and the first.
You were wrong.