Frisk was tired.

So tired.

It was ridiculous, they knew. The king was dead, the souls were gone, and all they could feel was tired.

Where were they, and how much time had passed? They could only guess that they had passed out after fighting the monstrosity Flowey had become, opening their eyes to a place of near darkness. Their hands scuffed the floor below them, finding rock. Despite their veins feeling filled with lead, they forced themself to sit up, letting out a groan that scratched up their throat on the way out. Slowly their vision adjusted to the gloom.

Frisk was in a featureless chamber, opening out wider than their field of vision. Above them: gray. Below them: gray. All around them, the impossibly looming walls of the Underground's final passageway. A column of stone pressed into their back-a stalagmite, they thought faintly.

The first name out of Frisk's mouth was Asgore's, a croak of confusion before they came trickling back: freeze frames of the memories that slipped more and more frustratingly out from between their fingers.

"Human, take my soul and leave this cursed place."

"I just want to see my wife. I just want to see my child."

Their soul draining of Determination, fading as they felt their consciousness pulled back into the haze it had come from.

Their eyelids fell again.

Was this really the room right before the Barrier? Frisk could hear the wind howling, swirling around their small body in the vast space. They wondered how many monsters had lived and died hoping even to set foot here on their way to the Surface.

I have failed each and every one of them.

In the fog of their fading senses, Frisk dully noticed a sensation against their thigh: their phone, vibrating in the pants pocket where they had stashed it. Had they been capable of lifting their hand, they would have picked up. Instead, they slipped down even lower where they slumped against the stalagmite.

They were so, so tired.

In their core they fought it, fought the darkness that curled itself possessively around their shoulders, but their Determination was no use to them now. It was no use when the end already had them in its cold grasp.

Briefly Frisk wondered what had become of the others, or whether anybody would find them.

The dark gave one final push.

Frisk surrendered, their eyelids closing the final millimeter they had struggled so hard to maintain.

So tired.


Sans gripped his phone for what felt like forever, listening to it ring on. Each fruitless beep seemed to resound through the Judgement Hall and into the rest of the Underground, the threads of space-time trembling as they passed through.

"Leave a message," the automated voice finally said. For one brief moment Sans hated it for its oblivious indifference, and dialed again.

Beep, beep, on into the ashes of the Underground.

Again and again.

Maybe the human was dying, Sans realized. If his suspicions about them were true, that meant this was the end. When they released their final breath, this timeline-this universe-would be rewound. Rewound so the cycle could begin anew, leaving Sans shackled by torturous infinity.

Sans thought back to all he had done. All the people he had met.

It's time to say goodbye, he thought, silently bidding farewell to the life he had made. He wished he could talk to Papyrus one last time, before it was all over. If only they didn't share a phone.

Poor Papyrus.

Innocent Papyrus.

Clueless Papyrus.

Sans wondered what his brother was doing, in the moments before the end.

How many times had this happened before?

Next time around, kid, you'd better do it right.


*RESET