Frisk was thirteen years old, but they felt like they had lived much longer than that. If they summed up all the time that was erased every time they reset, they guessed that years would have passed. Each time they reset, they were the only person that remembered what had happened in the previous timelines. It felt strange to have this power. Because of this power, they were omniscient. Because they were omniscient, they always felt so lonely.
It was hard to move on from happy things. The one thing that this power did not bring them was knowledge of the future. They could never be sure if the future would ever bring them any happiness. What frightened them most was the thought of going so far into the future that they would never be able to go back again. They would never be able to go back to the underground, to experience their greatest adventure, to relive the events that made them so happy, or so sad, or so angry, and all the emotions that made life worth living.
So, wasn't it better to just keep resetting? To keep reliving the past, because they were certain of how the past could play out, and therefore they could be certain that they would be happy? Wasn't this worth sacrificing a bleak, uncertain future for?
Perhaps this was the twentieth, fiftieth, or hundredth time that they had reset. They had stopped counting a while ago. Each time they reached the part of their adventure where all the monsters broke free from the underground and returned to the surface, they would feel happiness for them. Then, they would feel a nostalgic sadness for the past, because their adventure was over, and if they kept this timeline going, the past might just disappear forever. Sadness turned into anxiety, and anxiety turned into fear. It would reach a breaking point until they couldn't stand it any longer, and then they would reset it all the way back to the beginning, back to the moment that they fell into the underground and woke up on a bed of golden flowers.
When they reset this time, they had promised themselves: "this would be my last time." And they really meant it, just like all the past promises that they had made to themselves, promises that they would always break in the end. They were so weak-willed. But all they wanted was to be sure of things. Here, in the underground, they were safe – safe from anxiety, safe from despair, safe from a harsh, uncertain future. It was simply too hard to move on. The past was a better place to live in. They truly believed that.
But when Frisk opened their eyes, they saw something different.
They had expected a bed of flowers, a dark tunnel, a corridor up ahead that would lead to their first encounter with Flowey.
Instead, they found themselves standing atop a steel ledge that rose far above a vast industrialized cityscape. Massive grey towers stretched up all around them, and they realized that the ledge which they stood on was connected to a similarly high building behind them. Below, a huge crowd of people streamed across narrow streets weaving between the buildings. At a closer glance, they saw that the crowd included both humans and monsters.
Their eyes went wide. Humans and monsters, in the same crowd? How was this even possible? Wasn't this the underground?
They remained on this ledge, staring at the cityscape for several minutes, trying to process where they had just landed themselves into. The ceiling above them was completely dark, so they were still probably underground. But it didn't make any sense. The underground that they knew was empty and peaceful. With the exception of the area around Hotland and the Core, the underground definitely did not have busy cities with so many towering buildings. And, most importantly, the underground did not have any humans but themselves!
It was too strange. Something must have gone wrong. But, it was okay – they could fix it! They could just reset again. They'd just need to close their eyes and think about the precise moment in the past that they wanted to return to. By focusing on that moment, reality around them would disappear, time would wind back, and they would wake up again on a bed of flowers in the old underground, and Flowey and Toriel would be waiting for them, and everything would be back to normal. They had done it so many times before. There was no reason why it wouldn't now. It had to work!
Nothing happened.
Frisk's eyes flew open. They brushed bangs of long brown hair out of their eyes and stared below the ledge again. There were so many people, so many monsters! It was impossible for the underground to be like this. No, this wasn't the underground. This was someplace else. It was a nightmare. It was a world that they shouldn't be in. They had to escape from it.
"HUMAN!"
It was a familiar voice. Frisk spun around. They would recognize that voice anywhere.
"HUMAN! Please, step away from that dangerous ledge! If you fall, you will probably break most of the bones in your body. Without your bones, how can you expect to walk, or run, or eat, or breathe, or – no! Without your bones, you would not even be able to live!"
Frisk turned around and saw the tall skeleton with the signature red scarf. It was, of course, Papyrus. They could not have been happier to see an old friend. Quickly, they ran across the ledge and into the building. Even in this strange industrial underground, Papyrus was still around!
But Frisk had to be careful. Clearly, Papyrus did not recognize them, so they had to act as if this was their first meeting.
"Hello," Frisk said, waving at the tall, smiling skeleton. "I was a little scared back there. My name's Frisk. What's yours?"
"Wowie! You've already given me your name, even though I never asked for it? Perhaps it is to thank me for telling you the dangers of standing on top of high ledges! Human! I shall not disappoint! My name is The Great Papyr-"
"Who are you?"
Another familiar voice. Walking up behind Papyrus was a shorter, fatter skeleton wearing a dark blue hood. Sans stared at Frisk for a while, grinning, as he usually did.
"What are you doing here?" Sans asked. "Were you just standing on that ledge?"
"That's what I want to know!" Frisk said.
"Were you thinking of jumping?"
The smile on Frisk's face disappeared. They had not expected Sans to say something so dark all of a sudden.
"You should have," Sans said. "Because you didn't, now, we'll have to take you with us. You'd have been much less of a burden if you had just offed yourself right there."
The blood drained from Frisk's face.
"What...? Why are you talking like that?" Frisk asked, their voice trembling.
Sans turned around. "Since you're not going to jump, we're have to take you with us as a hostage. Don't try to escape. If you do, we'll kill you right away."
Frisk could not remember ever feeling so frightened. They knew that, in their adventure through the old underground, Sans had acted as a judge of sorts, making sure that they solved their disputes with monsters peacefully instead of resorting to violence. Only when Frisk helped every monster in the underground were they able to save everyone and break the barrier. But Sans had never been so outwardly aggressive, so hostile as to tell them that they ought to have jumped off a ledge to their death.
It was all so startling and confusing, and frustrating.
"Human! I know my brother can be a little too...grumpy, sometimes. Please forgive his rudeness! But come with us. My brother would never forgive you if you made him fail his mission!"
"Mission? What mission?"
"Keep quiet," Sans said. "You'll have to walk in front of us. Don't even think of running away."
Frisk lowered their head and walked in front of Sans. They did not know why, but they felt an extremely deadly power emanating from Sans, and they realized that they had better do as Sans asked. They did not want to find out the consequences of trying to escape.
They walked through the building, which was made almost completely of metal. A chrome-like smell filled the air. Up ahead, they began to hear a distinct and familiar resonating noise. They could not shake the feeling that they had heard something like that before, and yet they could not pin down where it was from or what it was. But when the building's tight hallways gave way to a series of wide intersecting bridges that hung above a bright white light, they recognized it immediately. It was the sound that the Core made.
"Is this the Core?" Frisk asked.
"A Core, yes," Sans replied. "The fourth one powering this city."
"There's more than one core?!"
Frisk felt a bony hand slap them on their shoulder.
"Are you trying to play dumb?" Sans growled. "The Underground is powered by dozens of Cores, all linked together through an extensive network of interconnected cables."
This was not what Frisk remembered at all. They remained silent. This Sans was so different. They wanted the old Sans back. A Sans that could laugh and joke, and sometimes make dark jokes, but was never so hostile like this.
They descended a long bridge when suddenly an alarm sounded. A moment later, a group of monsters rushed out of the corridor ahead and behind them. These were monsters that Frisk remembered from the old underground: big, mace-wielding knights, orb-throwing magicians, and the like. A pain shot through their heart as they realized how much they missed these monsters. Were they going to fight them? If so, they would talk to them about their problems, find out what they wanted, and make them feel happy!
Sans raised his hand. A blue fire burst out from his palm and wrapped around each of the monsters, incinerating them instantly. The dying screams of each monster echoed in Frisk's ears.
"Why did you do that?!" Frisk shrieked.
They felt a slap across the face.
"I can incinerate you, too, if you like," Sans said. "Didn't I tell you to keep quiet?"
The shock of being slapped by Sans made Frisk so angry that they did not even care any more.
"Why don't you kill me, then?" Frisk shouted back. "You clearly didn't care at all about the lives or feelings of those monsters that you just killed! If you're going to kill them, then you might as well kill me, too!"
"Sure. Whatever you say."
Frisk's body was wrapped in blue magic, and they were lifted up into the air and thrown over the edge.
Screaming, Frisk grabbed the floor of the bridge right before they were flung into the glowing white light below. Hanging over the edge, the desperation of their situation finally set in. This was not the old underground. This was some other world. Some cruel, hostile other underground that they could not survive in. It was a world that wanted them dead.
Was it punishment? Punishment for resetting so much, for wanting to remain in a happy past so that they would not have to face the uncertain future? Was this what they deserved – to have their old friends ripped away from them and replaced by terrible, uncaring clones that just wanted them dead?
"HUMAN!" Papyrus shouted. "I am sorry that my brother had to do this! Unfortunately, you were standing in his way, and he probably lost his temper, which was why he decided to throw you over the edge!"
Frisk wanted to cry for help. Maybe Papyrus would still save them, but they were too full of sorrow to even try.
"We were probably going to kill you, anyways," Sans said, bending down and grinning.
Frisk could not keep their anger bottled up any longer.
"Why?! You weren't like this before!" Frisk did not care about keeping their knowledge of their identities secret anymore. "Sans! You were my friend! You weren't a killer! Don't you remember?"
"How do you know my name?"
Frisk shrieked as Sans crushed their fingers by stepping on them.
"Answer me!" Sans shouted.
"I know your name...because I was here before," Frisk managed to whisper through their pain. "I met you and your brother. I met everyone in the underground and befriended them! But...the underground...it wasn't like this. It wasn't like this at all!"
"You must be insane," Sans said.
"I'm telling the truth! This isn't who you are, Sans! You never tried to kill me! You never killed anyone! You were friends with all the monsters in Snowdin! You loved making puns!"
The light disappeared from Sans' eye sockets.
"I'm not sure what you're playing at here," Sans whispered. "But that is just about the wrongest description of me that I've heard."
Frisk screamed again as Sans pressed his feet harder into their fingers. They could feel their bones breaking.
"In case you don't know," Sans said, "I'm not exactly known around here as the nicest person. I'm a wanted monster. The only thing people have ever called me is, perhaps, 'terrorist'. And I'm going to live up to that name. You know what I'm here for? I'm here to destroy this Core. I'm going to blow it up real good."
"Why?! Why would you do that?"
"You still don't understand?" Sans laughed. "Let me spell it out clearly for you: because, my good human friend, if I destroy the Core, then lots of people are going to die!"
With a kick, Frisk was pushed off the ledge and fell into the white light below.
For some time, Frisk did not feel anything except perhaps a dream-like conglomeration of their thoughts and worries, all slowly melding together. They felt the world fading away, then drawing them in, then fading again, like the waves on an ocean shore. They wanted to reach out for the world, to grasp it, to hold on to something solid, so that their thoughts could stabilize and they would stop floating in this endless dream-like fluid. When the moment finally came, they felt themselves grasping a hand.
They looked up and saw the face of another human, with pretty red eyes.
