A/N: I'm gonna put a trigger warning on this chapter for a mildly spoopy nightmare. You should be fine, I'm just paranoid and I don't want anyone to yell at me.

The crowd was thrown into utter turmoil. Some kids ran away, so that they wouldn't be lumped in with whatever was going on. Others were closing in, kids ranging from disheveled hoodlums to beauty queens (but nobody in-between) tightening the noose that the crowd had been manipulated to become. The three-tailed cat lady started to try and push her way through the crowd, which was difficult, seeing that the crowd didn't want her in. Sans could've snuck through, but knowing that being knocked over once could put him in a coma discouraged him. He just followed the receding border.

There was yelling from all directions. Sans would've paid anything if it meant he could go back to the utter silence of a few moments ago. The crowd seemed to start to rotate and throb as if it had become one organism. A shriek came from one side, and a hole opened in the crowd. Frisk took the chance to get out, dragging the surprisingly battered boy behind her and carrying all his books. They hurried over to a park bench, and helped the boy get on to it.

The cat-woman from earlier ran over immediately, kneeling over her child. She looked daggers at the crowd as they tried to close in, and traced a rune in the air with her fingertips. A blue, semi-sphere shield lowered around the bench, trapping both of the nekos (as well as Sans and Frisk) inside.

Frisk was gesturing wildly, too frazzled to form actual sign language like she had been learning over the past year. Or maybe she was signing, just far faster than anyone could comprehend. Sans asked if there was anything that he could do, but the woman replied with nothing but a disapproving look. Sans grumbled about "just leaving" and grabbed Frisk's arm, ready to teleport. And then he tried. Emphasis on "tried".

Within minutes, Sans was pushing on the shield, trying every teleportation trick he knew, ducking under things to look for gaps. He didn't dare pull out an attack- that would be going completely overboard. He grumbled a bit and sat down in the corner, watching Frisk try and help, only to be met with suspicious glances and the occasional order to go sit down. For a moment it seemed like Frisk froze and one of her arms slid out of the realm of natural, comfortable positions. But that only lasted a second before she stood back up again.

An echo slid through the shield, barely noticed. Sans glanced outside, and saw that nobody had moved. Maybe this was a weird time shield. Yeah, a magic…

And then he fell asleep.

His eyes opened, overlooking quite the scene. There was the crowd from earlier, except each and every one of them shone in the color of their SOUL. Everybody throbbed with LOVE except for Frisk and the other child. They were back-to-back, and the younger one was trying to set a time-stop, but was getting nothing but static and producing a few movements from him and Frisk that looked like the movements of a video-game avatar in a laggy mmo. Sans tried to push his way into the crowd, but couldn't, as if they were a brick wall. He noticed sluggishly that he couldn't see the tall neko from earlier, but didn't even try to care.

And then, twisted into a horrifying, sickening screech- "Who do you think YOU are?" Except instead of the whole crowd collapsing in on itself, the crowd all turned to him, surrounding him instead. He broke through the crowd and grabbed Frisk, running with her and trying to teleport. But when he looked back, he saw a sickening smile cross her face and her eyes shoot open. The red aura of LOVE started to flow from them, and it all went black.

The last thing he heard before he woke up was a strangled, gruesome voice whisper "I'm back!"

A/N: Sorry for that horrific nightmare bit. I had to introduce that character somehow. *Sheepish laughter.*