It starts every time with a dream.

Howling wind. Some dark expanse of space. Absolutely nothing.

And, y'know, it's boring. Would it kill you to give a guy something to do in a place like this? A rock to throw, a bottle of ketchup to drink. Something.

The first time I had the dream, I walked. After a few minutes, I turned to the left. Doubled back. Ran. Stopped. Caught my breath.

Nothing. Absolute nothing in every direction.

Now, I sit. I used to get frustrated. It was starting over. It was all starting over, and most likely, it would continue to start over. When something doesn't happen, most people don't consider that it ever will. You don't expect to wake up one day and then wake up again on exactly the same day.

It's between 0 and 1 when you begin to consider it a possibility. It's happened once. It could happen again, but it probably won't. So I woke up once again on Day X, Year 20XX. So it probably won't happen again. It's not like I haven't seen this on some schlocky MTTFy movie. As long as life goes back to normal, it doesn't really matter to me.

But 2 is different. 2 implies the possibility of infinity. That it probably will happen again, and that it won't ever stop.

And so I sit. I come to terms with the fact that it won't ever end. They're bored. They'll keep coming back, and coming back. And really, there's no reason for them to quit. They have nothing to lose in this world. If they don't like it, they can start over.

And just before it ends, I wonder:

Is it really that simple?

Will there eventually be a point where nothing can be SAVED?

I wake up halfway on the floor, as usual. Believe me, it's not because I want to.

"SAAAANS! WERE YOU NAPPING AGAIN?"

The door opens with a bang. Papyrus steps through, cape flipping behind him.

"yeah."

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS? YOU HAVE SENTRY DUTY. SNOWDIN FOREST, NOW!"

"ok."

Satisfied with that, he leaves, the cape flipping again. He's pretty cool, even when he's yelling at me.

I finish rolling onto the floor, heels landing with a thump. I don't bother making the bed. I mean, I can make it before I go to sleep, right?

If I remember, they'll be going through the forest in a few minutes. I head out the door.

You know, I used to just wait on the bridge. Really, I did. I'd just stand there, chilled to the bone. If I had skin.

I'll sum it up: I got bored. There's nothing around for miles but snow. Drifts of snow. Pieces of snow. Snow poffs. Snowdecahedrons. White as far as the eye socket can see.

And so, I mixed it up a little. Just once, I thought. I'll just do it once, and then next time—I know there has to be a next time—I can go back to just waiting.

And so, when they finally showed, I did it. I waited behind a bush as they walked by, and, when they were a good distance off, I clapped my hands.

The look on their face was priceless. They turned around, eyes as big as saucers. It wasn't just the noise that got 'em. "Skeletons are what humans look like when they die," they told me later.

I'm sure they were scared to death. Poor kid. Falling down into some strange world, everything trying to kill you…

But in a situation like this, you have to get your kicks somehow. I couldn't resist doing it again. Again. It's sort of a game now.

This time, I try a different approach. I wait a little bit. When they're about fifteen feet down the road, I step on a stick, and…I guess it doesn't really matter. The point is, I'm out of their range of sight. They jump a little, slowly turn around…it's great.

After a few seconds, they continue—haltingly. Put one foot out, stop, try not to turn around again, take another step. Eventually, they get more sure of themself. They walk a little faster. It only happened once. It probably won't happen again.

I step out from behind a tree, barely bothering to muffle the sound of my footsteps. They freeze.

"Human." I pitch my voice. Maybe it'll sound scarier that way.

The wind whistles over the bridge.

"Don't you know how to greet a new pal? Turn around and shake my hand."

There's a pause. Then, slowly…

Splat.

"heheh. the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. it's ALWAYS funny."

The whoopee cushion takes the edge off of it—at least, I hope. The little guy seemed shaken up last time. They ran off before I could say anything else.

A smile starts to form around the edge of their lips. Slowly, it turns into a grin, and then into full-on laughter.

"I…I thought I was—!" Tears stream down their face, and they can't say anything else. It worked.

After they calm down, it goes the way it usually does. I take them to my brother. It makes him happy. It makes them happy. They get bored pretty easily, so I hope that if they get to know him, well…

Maybe they won't play so rough.

Notes:

The conversation on zero, one, and two was mostly picked up from the Cambridge Guide to Samuel Beckett—specifically, the chapter on Waiting for Godot and Endgame. Godot was written in two acts to imply the possibility that Didi and Gogo would…basically wait by that tree/shrub forever. I imagine Sans in a similar scenario.

I'm mostly building the characterization off of Sans's "serious mode" (occasionally lapsing into his looser speech patterns) and his love of "science fiction…when it's real." I view him as a liar, really; he seems to be smarter than he lets on, and he admits in his Genocide dialogue that his humor was pretty much calculated to win the player over so they don't, y'know, KILL EVERYONE.

Questioning the use of "people" in the monster realm, but I don't know if there's a noun I can use that refers to "intelligent beings in general, both human and monster"…so it stays until I find an alternative.