Upon the two entering the next room, Alex saw what appeared to be a 4-sided yellow star oscillating near a bunch of leaves. Still injured, they walked up to it and reached their right hand out towards it. Something about it made Alex compelled to touch it. Upon contact, a thought burst into their head,
*The serenity of these leaves fills you with Purity.
*Health Fully Restored.
Alex looked at themselves in awe. The voice was right, their bruises and injuries were all gone as a feeling of relaxation and rejuvenation washed over them. Even the headache they had forgotten about had left them. Sans, standing a few feet behind them, cleared his throat, or at least tried to.
Alex spun around, "Sans, did you see that? This star healed me!" Sans' pupils disappeared for a moment and his smile slightly lowered. As quickly as his expression changed, it reversed its direction and he looked normal again. "really, pal? that's great pal… so, umm, you wanna talk while we're in here?"
Alex replied, "Yeah, that'd be great. So you've seen my friend, Frisk?" Sans, exhaled as they both took and seat on the stairs in the room and began to speak.
"yeah kid. i saw frisk. they arrived here a few months ago." Alex's eyes opened a little wider after having his suspicions confirmed. "So, where's Frisk now? Are they ok?" "…alex, i havent seen the kid in months. they were preparing to fight asgore, our king, and leave when something odd happened." Sans, looked into Alex's deep, brown eyes. "frisk must've fought asgore, won, and left back to the surface. all that remained was dust from their battle."
Alex's eyes began to tear up, but also felt anger begin to arise within them. "Sans…" "yeah kiddo?" "Y-you're wrong. Frisk would never hurt anyone, much less kill them!" Alex gradually became louder, avidly defending their best friend.
"listen kid, i'll tell ya, frisk never once killed or hurt anyone when they traveled through. but from what we found at the barrier, this seems to be the only logical explanation." Alex looked down and breathed in and out for a few moments to calm themselves down. Anger wasn't going to help them.
Alex then looked Sans in his eyes and spoke again, "Yeah, I get it, but there's one problem with that theory. If Frisk did actually return to the surface, where were they?" Sans' expression turned into on of confusion as Alex continued. "The mountain you are all under is no more than a mile away from our town. There would have been something the police would have found if they had actually gotten out.
"i see... welp, then i may have an idea on how to find out where they are." It was now Alex's turn to look confused. "What do you mean? How could you track someone who's been gone for months?" Sans stood up and spoke once more, "well, based on what i saw back there with that flower, it appears that your soul was not red, but silver. this might mean that frisk is still the primary anomaly in the timeline. i'll explain more soon, but that means i might be able to track them down."
Timeline? Anomaly? More questions began to pop up in Alex's head, but even so, it now appears that they could finally find Frisk. They stood up and spoke after thinking for a moment. "Great. So where are we going?"
"well, i've got a lab at my house that has what we need, but it's a good distance away. luckily, i know a shortcut, follow me." Sans held out their had as Alex grabbed it. They walked up the stairs when out of the corner of their eye, they could've sworn they saw something moving in the shadows. Something unnatural. They then walked through the door with a new sense of purpose. Finally, everything was coming into place and they finally know what happened to Frisk.
Sans and Alex entered the next room, which had several 'buttons' on the ground. Some of them were already pushed down and the next door to leave the room was open. It appears this was some sort of puzzle that was previously solved. Sans' smile completely dissipated, leaving only a frown.
"wait, why are we here? Why didn't my shortcut work?" Alex looked at Sans with a confused expression of their own. Wasn't this the next room. It looked like everything worked correctly. "Sans, what do you mean?" Sans still stood there for another minute looking very confused until he finally spoke.
"we should already be at my house, but… my shortcut didn't work. they've never failed before. something is wrong, we should be careful." Even with his smile, Sans appeared eerily serious. His pupils had disappeared, leaving only darkness within his eye sockets. They quickly returned, making him less frightening.
The two of them continued onto the next room that had bridges and switches. Once again, the puzzle-looking structures were already finished. The next room had some sort of training dummy in it. A few rooms later after walking over a spiked floor and through a long hallway, they arrived in another room with leaves and some sort of black and white looking frog. Sans pulled out a cellphone and called someone up, "hey bro, gotta moment?" They other person on the other end of the phone call was so loud that Alex could clearly hear every word they said.
"OF COURSE BROTHER. HOW GOES THE LOOK FOR HUMANS? DID YOU FIND ONE?"
"wow bro, how'd you know? did you feel it in your bones?"
"I'M GOING TO PRETEND YOU DIDN'T JUST DO THAT AND ASSUME YOU HAD A REASON TO CALL OTHER THAN TO PUN ME TO DEATH."
"c'mon, bro, i know that rattled your bones."
"AHHHHHH. QUITE SANS!"
"anyway, well, i did find a human today, their name is alex and they know frisk." "
OH MY GOD! REALLY?! NYEH HEH HEH! EXCELLENT NEWS, DID YOU TELL TORIEL ABOUT YOUR FINDING?
"no, but i will. anyway, you should meet us by the door to the ruins. don't ya wanna meet 'em?"
"EXCELLENT IDEA SANS, I'LL EVEN BRING SPAGETTI FOR OUR NEW FRIEND TO HAVE. NYEH HEHE HEHE!"
"alright, see ya soon bro."
Sans, then hung up and looked over to Alex. "sorry about that, just letting my bro papyrus know about you."
"No problem. Your brother sounds cool."
Sans' smile perked up a bit, "yeah, he is pretty cool. c'mon, let's get outta here."
"Hey, weren't you supposed to call someone named Toriel too?"
Sans smile grew slightly, "dont you know its rude to eavesdrop?" Alex held both of their arms in the air in defense of themselves, "Hey Sans, don't blame me. Your conversation wasn't exactly low key." As if right on cue, the frog that was silent the entire time hopped over and nodded as it said "Froggit. Froggit." As if it was agreeing with Alex. Sans sighed, closing his eye sockets somehow for a moment in defeat and said, "yeah, i know. let's go."
And so they began walking forward. Many rooms went by as they passed by and encountered many pre-solved puzzles and other friendly monsters. They never once tried to hurt Alex. Finally, after what seemed like hours of walking, they reached what appeared to be a tree in front of an old house. Alex, still looking at the house, asked Sans "Where are we now?"
"this was toriel's old house. she hasn't been here since frisk left… or disappeared."
"Hey, who is this 'Toriel'?
"oh, that's right. you wouldn't know her since you're new. she's the queen of the underground! and she has a knack for jokes like me."
Alex nodded as the two of them walked inside. For being abandoned, the place was still in pretty good shape, as if sensing that Alex was thinking, Sans spoke, "i've been watching over this place as a favor to her. why don't you just relax in here as i speak to her ok? be right back." Sans then walked out the door, leaving Alex alone. Curiosity overcame them as they began to snoop around and explore the house.
Alex decided to explore to the left first. They found a fireplace that looks to have been cold, bone cold, for a long time now. Haha, they'd have to remember that for Sans. They looked at the bookshelf and saw a book called, "72 Uses for Snails". Alex decided that this was not something they wanted to know, so they walked away towards the next room and entered the kitchen.
Starting to get hungry, they looked around in the drawers and cabinets for food. One of the drawers had utensils, but no knives, which was kind of odd. They continued searching until their eyes nearly doubled in size. Before them, right in the middle of the fridge, was a bar of chocolate.
Alex stepped back for a moment and began to think out loud, "Well, Sans did say this place was abandoned." So they began to reach for them before feeling almost a pang of guilt.
They spoke again, "But this stuff isn't mine. It isn't right to steal."
Then they had another thought, "At the same time though, if I leave it, it'll eventually go bad, thus wasting food. If I take it, however, then I won't be wasting food and I'd be doing the right thing." After going back and forth for a solid minute, they eventually gave into their hunger and grabbed it. Without a moment to rethink if this was truly the right course of action, they immediately opened the wrapper and ate half of the bar. It instantly dissolved in their mouth and their HP was maxed out again. Feeling less hungry, Alex pocketed the rest of the bar for later, perhaps.
Alex walked back through the living room and past the entrance to check out the other side of the house. The walked through the right doorway and entered a hallway. There were three doors in this hall, but one was impossible to open. Deciding to go in the first door, they found what appeared to be a child's bedroom. Did Toriel have a child? Maybe, but they looked around the room and fond various things from toys to clothing.
They then observed the bed. It looked comfortable, so they sat down on it for a moment when they felt something underneath them. Upon moving back the sheet to investigate, Alex found something incredible familiar. On the bed was a bracelet. It was one that Alex had made for Frisk two years ago for their birthday.
"That means Frisk passed through here! Frisk must have lost it and left it here. Good thing I've been looking around."
Alex then put it on their wrist when they suddenly felt more protected. They looked more closely at the bracelet and some faint words appeared next to it,
*Friendship Bracelet. +15 DEF
*Imbued with friendship and Pure Determination.
Guess that means that it's good, thought Alex.
They walked over to the other room in the hallway and found what appeared to be a master bedroom. This must have been Toriel's room. On top of the bookshelf in here, there was a bright yellow flower that immediately caught Alex's attention. It was so pretty, and it looked just like the flowers that they landed on when they fell down here. Alex jumped up and grabbed the flowers before putting them away in their pocket.
Maybe Toriel would like the flower, she must have forgotten it here. They continued to look around. They looked under the bed and found an old, dusty photo. Alex reached out and grabbed it. Perhaps this photo was lost and never found under there, they thought.
They looked at it and saw what appeared to be another human child and a goat-like child monster. They were hugging each other tightly and smiling. This warmed Alex's heart. This reminded them of how they were with Frisk. They were so close they might as well have been siblings. They flipped it over and saw some faded marker that could barely be read, "Chara and Asriel. Best Friends Forever."
Alex pondered this. Maybe the kid fell down here too and bonded with the monsters. Although, since it wasn't labeled, they couldn't tell which one was Asriel and which one was Chara. They put the photo in their pocket as well. "If Toriel had lost this a long time ago, I'm sure they'd love to have it back.", they thought aloud. Alex then proceeded to exit the room.
As they closed the door behind them, they heard Sans behind them, "whatcha doin' there kiddo." Shit, they'd just been spotted snooping around. They spun around the looked at Sans momentarily before looking down. Sans didn't look too upset.
"S-sorry about that. I was, I was just curious to see if Frisk was here before. I- I found something of theirs!" Alex held up their left arm to show Sans the friendship bracelet they made for Frisk.
Sans sighed, "it's alright kiddo, i shouldn't have been on the phone that long. was just explaining to tori everything that going on." Sans put their hand on Alex's shoulder and together they walked back into the main room with the stairs and exit.
Sans spoke up again. "alright alex. down the stairs is the exit out of the ruins. papyrus should be waiting for us on the other side by now. you go on ahead while i make one last phone call. it shouldn't be long." Alex nodded before walking down the steps. They walked down a long hallway before seeing a large door. Was this the exit?
They opened the door and found another hallway. Guess this was the entrance to the exit? Alex snickered at their own comment as they walked down this hallway. They made their way to another doorway, which had another star here in front of it. They held out their hand once more and felt rejuvenated at another message was transmitted from the weird star.
*The shadows in the next room are shifting violently, but you are filled with Pure Determination.
*Health Fully Restored.
That was odd, Alex thought. What was that about Pure Determination? Last time it said purity. And the thing about the shifting shadows, that didn't sound good. They then walked through the doorway and saw a small patch of grass in the surrounding darkness of the room. Their eyes focused upon a figure standing just beyond the grassy patch. Their eyes then widened as they realized it was the child from the photo. Alex only heard one sentence before the world became black and white like it did with Flowey.
"Greetings. I'm Chara."
