Prologue
He could remember the last child to fall here, never really sure what happened to her, the resets just stopping suddenly and she never reappeared. He didn't much care though, she was the most vicious out of all the humans to fall. She had been out hunting with her brothers and feel crossbow and quiver of steel arrows. Unlike most humans she wasn't scared when she came face to face with monsters, she reveled in Flowey's advise and decided to gather all the LV she could.
He referred to her as the Genocide reset, every time she came back she would slaughter every monster in her path, she seemed to actually get joy out of it. Her burning red eyes seared into his brain forever, and the hatred coming off her soul burning a sour taste to his tongue that will never fade. The monsters may all be alive and blissfully unaware of the resets that happened, but he remembers them all. He countlessly watched his best friends, young monsters and his own brother be massacred time and time again, only to be reset to face the same fate. Each death hit him every time like it was the first, he could never get comfortable in his life so he kept his time with those most important to him.
Every reset he felt, he never got the break the other monsters who just lived out their lives did, he was the one who faced them all, he was the judgement, juror and executioner and where the world see him as lazy, he is really just exhausted and knows when he will need to be roused again.
He stood the holding of the demon child one more time, eyes blazing the most fierce cobalt he has ever mustered as he moved towards those red eyes. Blasters ready he flinches slightly as he steps over the crumbled pile of ash that was Grillbey and growls, "Just leave here or die, stop resetting and never return." She chuckled slightly in return and held up the crossbow, her aim at his soul which fiercely glowed behind his large coat. He flashed her his eyes before the blasters took aim and fired upon her as she released her arrow. He smirked realising she had missed him, until he heard a shattered behind him followed by a thud. She was vanquished by his blaster and now that she was gone for the mean time before the next reset he turned and took in what had shattered. He had known, he felt a pull on his cracked soul and could tell what would be before him but it never made it easier.
His brother lay before him in a pile, the magic no longer there to hold his bones together, under the scarf her arrow had pierced and shattered his sternum and gone through his soul getting lodged into one of the vertebrae that was once held behind it. Tears rushed out and stained his face at seeing his little brother in a similar lifeless pile once again. He leaned down to grab his skull and half growled/ half sobbed before letting out a feral roar over the quiet snow. He then began to weep crying out His brothers name. "Papyrus come back please." Then sobbed again and sniffed, "No more, I cant take this please." He begged to nobody face buried in his brothers skull, "Stop the resets, just please stop." He mourned for a few more minutes before grabbing the arrow head that peaked out the vertebrae and broke it off. He walked to his house and to his room, too exhausted to teleport he placed the arrow head in a small box under the bed labeled Papy and then dragged himself to bed to rest for another short time before it all happened again. Weighing deeply on his mind his left eye glowed a soft navy now, his soul heavy he drifted into another fitful nightmare about a similar reset that happened before.
-000-
He was shaken awake rather aggressively from another nightmare and his eyes sore and sticky opened to see Pap on his bed jostling him worriedly. "Are you awake Sans, truly?" He asked with all the worried in his sweet and kind soul, "You had another nightmare. This one must have been bad; your whole room was shaking with your magic and I was alerted to the crash of a bone going through your closet door." He motioned then grabbed his brother into an embrace and held onto him like he would slip away.
"I'm okay pap, sorry I will fix the closet." He almost coughed out from the exertion of magic he had let out in the night. "the nightmare is over now thanks to you." He smiled faintly at his brother who shifted sans into his lap then led down in sans bed like he often did to help with his older brother's nightmares. Unfortunately, he had never learned the origin of the nightmares, he just knows he's had them for as long as he can remember. He just started humming and stroking his brothers skull gently, unaware that Sans wept silently to himself while curled in his brothers arms. Sans didn't know the day anymore, with all the resets always taking away or restarting parts of each day he had completely lost track of the day of the week, even what month he was in currently.
-000-
"But moooom…" Frisk whines to Toriel for what seems like the hundredth time, "Why can't I leave the ruins at all, I'm 17 now I am not the 14-year-old that fell down here 3 years ago." She wants to trap you. Her mind spoke but she just shrugged it off, she had become used to the aggressive voice that scream for confrontation and violence in the back of her head.
Toriel didn't even look up from the pie tin she had been cleaning, "Because its dangerous out there, the monsters in here are peaceful and well adapted to humans visiting." She paused choosing her words carefully, "The monsters outside of the ruins are very wary of humans, they tend to get ahead of themselves, they will try to take your soul wee one." She spoke in her normal motherly tone, she was furiously scrubbing at the pan now but Frisk was unsure if it was frustration at her or if there was some snails stuck to it.
-000-
She will never let you leave, you must go on your own. She always goes to he basement for hours each day to sit at that door, she is just keeping you from escaping, who sits at a door for hours unless they are guarding something. Frisk signed and pinched the bridge of her nose ignoring the voice as best she could but she was starting to agree. "Mom I know you go down to sit at the door to the ruins in the basement each day, are you trying to keep me here, or something out."
Toriel just sighs, "I don't know how you ever found out about that pesky door but I sit there to wait for outside communications with a sentry letting me know if there are any other threats to worry about." She grumbled and Frisk could tell she was pushing her mother to much but she was invested now.
"Just let me go outside nothing will happen to me I promise." She almost whimpered and Toriel groaned in response, turned and pushed past the young girl. She headed straight downstairs down a long dark corridor, Frisk had never been allowed to enter before so she followed her down to try and get through. Just kill her then no more waiting for approval. The voice teased her, like the voice had since she landed down here it tried to get her to kill monsters, make them bend to her will. She shrugged it off like usual and Toriel spun on her after walking for a few minutes.
"Go back to bed child, tomorrow we will go to tend the flowers." She gave the order not as harsh demand but as a loving mother. It send a soft ripple of pain through her soul but no HP was lost, just the feeling of touching a hot kettle briefly, it passed and Frisk followed her again curious as to what her mother was doing.
"Mom, come on I just want to see more than the ruins, it's under an entire mountain I know It isn't limited to what you have me confined too. Just let me see." She groaned almost defeated, she was getting lonely, the froggits no longer able to keep her entertained enough as they had begun repeating their information. The small ruins clearly limiting their knowledge as much as it was limiting Frisks. Toriel stiffened and spun on her.
"Frisk go to your room and we will discuss this when you are an adult but right now you are my child and I think its time you are grounded." She bit out, Toriels face pained from yelling at the child but she had to keep her safe for a bit longer. "I will not tell you again."
Frisk flinched at the scolding, I told you she is trying to control us we should just dust her and leave. Who is she to try to tell us what to do we are 18 in a few days. Frisk was furious as she had never been her soft green eyes taking on a reddish brown hue to them, "If monsters out there are so dangerous that you hide here in the ruins, then no wonder you were all trapped here." Frisk screeched but realised that she went to far instantly and wanted to pull the words that she heard herself speak back in. She backed up muttering and turned back running to the house tears down her face. No fool turn back lets go while she is in shock at your words. We have never expressed these feelings to mother before we should keep going. Frisk gasped at the words in her head and grabbed it tightly she screamed slightly before sprinting upstairs and flinging herself into her room and onto her bed. Tears washing down her face, :Mother is kind, should have never said that… *sob* I am a bad kid, only bad kii…*sob* ds have these types of thoughts." She sobbed softly to herself for what seemed like hours before she let the tiredness take over and she fell into another fitfull nightmare.
-000-
She opened her eyes to another nightmare, she recognized it as it was a frequent one that used to scare her with how real everything felt. She was there but could not control anything, she was just observing through the eyes of another, they had started walking through the snowy landscape towards the fairly large 2 storey house. The knife in her hand glinting as it hit the light refracted from the snow and it showed the dust that was covering her clothes. The body she was in was humming and skipping towards the same destination they had been too on many of the other dreams, Her body was happy and she could do nothing but observe.
They approached the house and knocked on the door before waiting for the answer. The door was flung open and out stepped that aggressive blue light, like swirling fire. I could never make the shape out just the swirling blue that always attacked. Happily the body chirped in the same voice that always rang through her head, "Ready Sansy for the next reset." A growl escaped before the blue magic stepped out and summoned his floating canine heads, I whimpered in the mind f this other being, seeing many times in my nightmares what these beasts were capable of.
"Why do you keep coming back" He snarled, his voice hidden by his beastly instincts to protect his friends and family this time. "STOP This Killing." His blue grew deeper and way more cobalt than she had ever seen.
If it wasn't for the growing, thickening pulses of magic being thrown off this thing she would have thought it was beautiful. Her body scoffed, "You haven't stopped me from killing them yet Sans dear. Why should this time be any different." She gasped, she had not seen this one play out before.
Growling his blasters prepared aim, "Don't call me that Chara, our friendship has been over far longer than it had held." He pulled a bone club out of thin air and growled, "You cant have my brother one last time, I will not allow your dimensional jump." His words strong and bitter, "You will never see him again, I will keep you from seeing him just as you keep making me watch the ones I love die, I will not let you be happy."
See who, she wondered she had never had heard this animosity before, she was afraid. They always died in her dreams, always lost. "You shouldn't have said that." The body chuckled and then scream as she brought the knife up at the blue mass she had called sans. Swiping at him I screamed in her head no stop he loves his brother stop trying to kill them. Like usual my words meant nothing as I could just watch the horror as this Chara tried to massacre the blue flame and his brother again.
Little did I know this time my words resonated and echoed into her head. Her eyes flashed to a bright green for a moment and the she stopped trying to regain her composure. I look baffled as I seemed to have control for a moment of my dream and spoke, "Im sorry." The blue mass had hesitated in his blow but struck it anyways. Chara died again and Me with her feeling more of the pain than I usually felt.
-0000-
Screaming I shot up bed someone holding me, feeling the loving energy pulse into me. I was shaking, muttering, "No…No….No" I thought about what just happened, that dream was so different, what changed. I glanced down to see everything covered in thick sweat and the form of the one holding me, I quickly turned into the figure and help on tight, sobbing quietly. "I did it, I saw hope, I saw a change."
A kiss atop my head from the rocking and humming monster, and a smile beaming down at me, confused but still genuine.
"I saw a change in my dream Papy," I spoke softly, nuzzling into my little brother and sobbed, "There was hope." Sans smiled slightly but sobbed softly after the realization came to him.
Papyrus looked to his smaller older brother and sighed his smile falling a little while Sans wasn't looking, "You seem troubled by this brother, whats wrong?" He asked
Sans looked at Papy concerned, "The dreams have never been different from the reset memories before." He spoke softly not sure what it meant.
-000-
She sat up screaming a pained scream, like the pain from the attack in her dream transferred to her body in the real world. She was drenched in a pool of sweat and she came to find herself being tugged into a soft and gentle embrace from her mother. She curled in her lap and sobbed, "Im sorry mother, I didn't mean what I said to you…." She sobbed between words before looking up and sighing, "But my mind hasn't changed."
Toriel sighed, "Come child get changed then meet me in the basement." Toriel got up and walked away leaving her to clean herself up from the sweaty mess.
She walked down the stairs to the basement towards where she could here her mother talking quietly off in the distance. She walked carefully down the dark hallway till she reached a corner and heard her mother mutter sad thanks. Was she praying? She didn't think her mother was religious, spiritual maybe but not religious. She rounded the corner to see her mother standing up in front of a giant doorway. She gaped for a moment till her mother turned with a sad face and looked at her child.
"You are nearly 18 and I shall not deny your freedom, so long as you prove you are strong enough." She sighed sadly and I saw a glimmer of worry flick across her face. "You must fight me and prove you are strong enough to survive."
Frisks mouth fell open and she looked appalled, "Im not going to fight you mom." She stated but Toriel just stood there and initiated the fight. Fire balls flying up and towards Frisk, She gasps and dodges what she can but on fire ball catches her shoulder and singes the sleeve to the sweater and her skin burned slightly underneath. -2hp. She looked at her mother and stated again, "I will not fight you mother." She stood her ground as Toriel let loose another ring of fire balls.
Toriel watched in horror as her daughter kept getting wounded and showing mercy. Before long she stopped aiming for frisk and more just tried to scare her into a fight. "You must fight, what are you doing." She asked pain in her heart at the sight of the singes and burns she had caused.
"I will not fight." She groaned and stood tall but unsteadily her HP now sitting at 4. She was confused as the fireballs started to miss. She is toying with you, finish her like you have watched me do in your nightmares. The voice was back and hissing in her brain. Do it before she does you fool. She grumbles and physically shakes her head, "I will not fight, I'm not you Chara, I will not fight." She muttered softly, so softly Toriel almost missed it… Almost.
Toriel Froze, Is that who plagued her daughters mind and took control. Was it the Chara that took Genocide to far in the underground, almost murdering thousands but somehow every monster survived. A flash of a girl crossed her mind, one similar looking to Frisk but different in Heart. She sobbed at remembering the poor broken child with the dark soul. She sighed and put her fire balls away and motioned to Frisk. "Go Frisk and explore the outside, but remember if you walk through that door." She took a deep breath then sighed as she exhaled, "You cannot come back." She stated before turning her back on her daughter, tears dripping down her face.
Frisk cried slightly and looked at her mothers back before nodding, "Goodbye mother," she choked, "I love you." She spoke softly then turned and went. The only sound above both woman's sobs was the sound of the door tightly closing behind her not to be opened again by poor Frisk.
She shuddered slightly at the cold on the other side before gasping slightly. "Snow?" She questioned softly before walking down the path, not noticing the pair of blue glowing eyes that followed from behind the tree line. Yes snow you imbecile I have shown you the snow in all of your dreams. She groans at the voice, "why are you still in my head? What do you want?" She muttered quietly, not wanting anyone who may be around to notice she spoke to herself. I want you to finish the job I started. Kill them all. She rolled her eyes, "You know I wont kill anyone, Im not you." She groaned, and stopped as she heard a twig snap behind her. She saw nothing there but was weary, she kept going towards the bridge ahead.