The sound of crunching snow. A flurry of white blocking his vision. The glint of a knife. Some confident yet ever-so-slightly trembling words. The silence. The pain.

Then more silence. Dust.

Papyrus awoke in a cold sweat, or as close to 'cold' as he could feel. He clenched his bed sheets to steady his quivering hands, images of the dream flashing through his mind. "Come now, you're not scared of a little nightmare, are you Papyrus?" He chastised the air. "Only baby-bones are scared by things like that! NYEH HEH!" He slid back down into the safety of his covers, staring at the wall across from him. Despite his big talk, he knew he wasn't going to be able to get to sleep again. That dream - he'd had it every night for the past week now. The one with the snow, and the voice, and the... Papyrus frowned.

He'd considered going to Sans multiple times now, but every time he'd forget the idea immediately. "What would Sans know, anyway!? All that lazy-bones ever does is lie around, he sleeps like a rock! You could probably swap him over with his pet rock and nobody could tell the difference!" Sans must have had wonderful dreams, if he could sleep so well. Papyrus was glad for him, yet... now that he thought about it, Sans always had bags under his eyes. Papyrus wondered if Sans was eating right, or maybe getting enough sun, but every time he would bring it up Sans would just make an awful pun or shrug him off. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense to Papyrus that Sans might be having the same sorts of dreams that he was having. Perhaps... Papyrus thought, perhaps he was worth a shot.

Sans chuckled, shovelling another forkful of pancakes into his mouth. "Come on, bro. You're not scared of a few nightmares, are you?"

Papyrus groaned and began to violently stuff the pancakes down his gullet. This morning conversation was not going how he had planned. "Are you insinuating that the great Papyrus cannot handle nightmares?! I can handle nightmares, Sans! Just - Just these nightmares are so repetitive and so lifelike that-!"

The sharp sound of clattering cutlery made Papyrus stop cold. San's eyes had gone dark, he was quivering and Papyrus could have sworn, that for just a second there, his brother had had one... glowing blue eye...? He was quite taken back. This was the last reaction that he had been expecting. "S-Sans, what are you doing? Look, you scared your pet rock!" He scolded. "W-"

"What happens in them?" Sans growled.

"S-sorry?" Papyrus was confused. Just a moment ago his brother had been eating his food and laughing off what he was saying. Now he looked dead serious. What had he said that could have possibly triggered-?

"What happens in your nightmares, Papyrus?" Sans was sweating, grinding his teeth together in such a way that it left Papyrus all the more confused as to what could have gotten his brother this riled up. His concern was beginning to shift off of himself and onto Sans - saying that he was worried would have been an understatement.

"Well uh..." Papyrus was flustered. "I just remember them in snippets, really... But the snippets I do remember are really vivid! It starts off with me standing in Snowdin, the area that gets really blizzardy, and then this shape appears..."

Papyrus paused, half expecting Sans to have another outburst. When he stayed quiet - too quiet - he continued. "They uh..." The more he thought about it, the more he could feel the color drain from his skull. "They take out a knife and... Uh. I don't really like what happens next. ... I don't think you would, either. You see, they sort of of... uh..." This had been a bad idea, Papyrus thought. He should never have burdened his brother with all this.

Sans shut his eyes, dead silent. When he opened his eyes, Papyrus saw that he had done a full 180 - the light was back to his eyes, and his composure was as normal as ever. Papyrus couldn't help but think that there was still something tense about the quietness in which he held his words, but he chose not to focus on that. Sans yawned, then spoke. "Thanks for the pancakes, bro. ... I'm going to go check up on something, okay? You stay here and finish your breakfast - I'll be back in fifteen minutes. That's no fibula."

Papyrus scowled. That had been one of his brother's worst yet, but he wasn't in the mood to scream. "You need to go out somewhere?" Papyrus squinted. "... Don't you usually nap after breakfast?"

Sans chuckled a little half-heartedly. "Hey, some exercise might be good for these bones."

"Sans, I swear...!" Papyrus hissed.

Sans got up from the table, chuckling again. He didn't bother to push his chair in but picked up his plate. Papyrus blinked, and Sans, as well as the plate that he had been carrying, were gone.

He wasn't going to be 15 minutes.

Sans felt a twinge of guilt as he trudged through the thick snow. In most timelines, he would have been asleep right about now. A mesh of scenarios ranging from absolute joy to nightmarish scenarios and everything in between would always haunt his dreams. For the first couple of resets, he had liked to lie to himself, telling himself that they were just dreams, illusions. Sans no longer tried to fool himself. He knew that they were as real as the bones on his hand. He knew that they had really happened, that he had seen his brother die - but yet, it was funny. Even through all of the pain he felt when he thought about watching Papyrus turn to dust before him, the painful dreams had to be the ones he preferred.

Those weren't the ones that reminded him of everything he had lost.

Anyway, it was fine that he dreamt about that shit. He was used to it, but if Papyrus was having dreams about his own death, Sans was going to find whatever the cause was and crush it to dust. As for what had caused him to have such dreams, all Sans had to go on was a theory. It was a possibility that had been lurking in the back of his mind for a long time now. It was just a hunch, but if he was right and his theory did turn out to be correct, Sans knew that the underground was in more trouble than even he could have foreseen.

He just hoped that none of the others were having the same dreams.

Undyne was his first stop. He hadn't interacted much with Undyne outside of a few work-related passing-bys, but his brother kept him informed in exact detail of every lesson that he had with her. Of course, with the resets, those details had grown repetitive, but Papyrus was one of the only things that Sans couldn't grow tired of.

Undyne seemed very dedicated. Even if all of his knowledge of her was based purely off of his brother's ramblings and TV, Sans would have been lying if he said that he hadn't begun to respect her. Besides, the thought of anything happening to someone so close to Papyrus made his metaphorical skin crawl. He raised a bony fist and knocked on her door, praying that Undyne was a morning person.

After a few moments, the door flung open. Standing in the doorway was a half-dressed, bedraggled looking zombie of a fish-lady. She looked worse than Sans did when he woke up, which he hadn't known was possible. "What the heck do you want, you runt? Don't you know its 7 in the morning? Some of us need our beauty sleep." She squinted at him. "Wait, I know you. Yeah, you're Papyrus's brother, aren't you?"

Sans was relieved to see that she didn't look quite so hostile anymore. He decided not to try out too many puns though, just incase he pushed his luck too far. He grinned his usual grin. "What gave it away?"

"Are you kidding me? Papyrus is always talking about you. Not to mention you two are the only skeletons in the underground - it's a little hard to not to recognise you." She frowned, narrowing her eyes. "He must speak about me an awful lot too, if you were able to find my house. What do you want?" She yawned.

As she yawned, Sans felt a sudden urge to snuggle under his bed covers and just forget that any of this had ever happened. The world would be reset by next week. Perhaps Papyrus's dreams were just a fluke. Perhaps next time the anomaly reset, everything would be back to normal. On the off chance that it wasn't, though... "Well, look." It took a while for Sans to find the right words. "... This is going to sound weird, okay? Like - really weird. I just need you to go along with it and answer me, okay?"

"I want to get back to bed, and I'm really not looking for -

Sans cut in quickly. "Its not what you think, promise. I just wanted to know if you've had any weird dreams lately?"

Sans realised that that had sounded even worse out loud than it had in his head. Undyne was looking at him with a funny expression. "... Um... excuse me?" She grit her teeth, looking like a boiler about to burst. "Is that supposed to be some kind of messed up flirtation, or...?"

"Hey, calm down! That's not what I meant at all. Jeez." Sans put his hands up, shielding himself from any stray spears that just so happened to fly his way. "I mean like, repetitive nightmares, lucid dreams, the like."

Undyne raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "Come to think of it, I have been having some rather 'odd' dreams, yeah. How'd you know?"

"My brothers been having similar dreams. ... I think there might be something else going on."

"Like what?"

"Trust me, you wouldn't believe me if I did tell you." Sans had no problem in telling her. It wasn't like it mattered much. He just had better things to do with his time than to waste hours trying to explain the intricacies of space-time, or to convince people of the interweaving, delicate web of entropy and matter that it was. "Just to clarify, whats happens in those dreams of yours? Last question, then I'll get out of your hair, promise." Wouldn't want to make it anymore tangled than it already is, Sans snickered to himself.

Undyne frowned. "Okay, whatever. Anyway, in these dreams, I'm standing at the foot of this cave. I'm pretty sure its the one near the hotlands on the way out from waterfall. I remember seeing it so clearly... I'm armour clad, adrenaline surging through my veins - I've challenged someone to a battle, or been challenged, I'm sure of that - and past that? ... Its really just a blur."

"A blur?"

"Yeah, I mean - I know what's happening. Kinda. I can piece it together, it's just like somethings not right, you know? No matter what way I look at it, no matter what perspective I take past that first bit of the dream, it just feels like there are multiple outcomes. Two opposing sides, good and evil, and I'm fighting against them both. One side resonates with a horrendous danger, like the weight of the world is resting upon my shoulders alone. Yet, my hope, my determination - it feels overwhelming, a strain on my body even through my dreams. The other side still feels noble, and it's trying its hardest, but... They seem lesser, somehow." Undyne seemed different talking about this. There was a glow to her that Sans hadn't seen before. "Do I win, do I lose in the end? It sounds strange, but it kind of feels like I do both." She slouched, rubbing her eyes with the back of her fist. "I don't know, thats about it. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

Sans had a sinking feeling in his stomach. If Undyne could also remember the previous timelines, that meant that the chance of his theory being correct had just increased ten-fold. The barriers between the timelines were beginning to wear away. It had been a nagging fear in the back of Sans mind since the first reset, but he had never allowed himself to worry. Each reset had always seemed so smooth. Nothing that mattered had ever changed and each timeline had been able to hold out on its own. Now though, it seemed that the sheer amount of resets, the jumps from beginning, middle to end were finally beginning to wear on the space time continuum. They were stretching and ripping it further and further like a well-worn toy and Sans knew that if he didn't do something, there would be a limited number of resets left until the boundaries of each timeline broke down completely. They would all merge together into one.

That would mean the end of the multiverse itself.

Sans trudged through the snow and up to his sentry station. His movements were autonomous, tired. The only reason he still came up here was because he had to know. He had to know of the humans motives. Were they okay, or were they going to slit his brother's neck without batting an eye?

He buried his head in his arms, slouched over on his sentry post. "Don't you know how to greet a new pal?" The dialogue was rehearsed, like an actor who had been practicing their part for months. "Turn around and shake my hand."

His assumptions had been correct. He'd talked to Alphys, Mettaton, Asgore - even the punster who's name he remembered as Toriel. All of them had been having the dreams. There was not a doubt in San's mind now as to what was going on.

He didn't want to walk up to meet the human. He didn't want to repeat the same old dialogue, pull of the same old 'whoopee cushion in the hand trick' for the hundredth time. He wanted to sleep. Maybe I should just let the multiverse die. He thought to himself. It'd be a lot easier than any action I could take that might maybe save everybody. Nothing I do matters. Why does nothing I do... He felt something wet run down his face.

Tears.

Why was he crying? This wouldn't do if he wanted to make a first good impression. He began to wipe them away - but he stopped. Maybe I don't want to make a good first impression. He thought, gritting his teeth. I've let them get away with this for too long. ... Maybe it's time I stopped pretending.

Frisk made her way through the snow. It was a route she had taken time and time again, and she moved with confidence.

One step in front of the other.

Step on the twig, thats it - now walk a little while.

The twig breaks.

Continue on, you see a dark shape behind the tree.

It's following you.

Its Sans.

Don't let it scare you.

Sure enough, the twig broke. She found herself smirking when she saw the shadow, also. Yep, everything went according to her plan.

Stop in front of the bridge.

She heard the slow footsteps behind her in no time. Soon, the figure would stop. They'd ask her to turn around and shake their hand. They'd introduce themselves as Sans the skeleton. Everything would go smoothly, like it always did.

The footsteps eventually slowed. Frisk could feel the presence behind her like she always did... but, wait.

What the -

She screamed as a barrage of bones shot up in front of her. She leapt back just in time, only for a second row to burst up through the snow behind her. She looked up to see three gaster blasters poised above her, ready to fire. Seething with rage, confusion and fear, she stood to face Sans, toy knife ready in hand. He had that annoying grin on his face, like he always did.

"Hey, kid." Sans stared at Frisk and yawned, stretching upward. "Sorry for the startle. Usually I'd repeat the same old dialogue and let you go on through, but... uh, there's been a change of plans. You see, there's something we need to talk about."