"And there's somewhere I have to go at the end," she said. "But I think there's somewhere else I have to go... first."

Toriel tilted her head. She was doing that an awful lot. "Where is this other place?"

"It's back at the beginning. After we visit Papyrus and Sans."

"... Alright. You may go where you wish."

That's a first.

They stood first in the streets of New Home as Frisk spoke to Toriel; never had she imagined that she would exit the castle from the front. But when she was on the heels of one of the castle's former occupants, as she had come to learn, it stopped being necessary to sneak out into the Core.

It was surreal, this dark grey city. Even worse than the dim and sickening Waterfall, the lighting came almost exclusively from lamps hung around the windows. There wasn't much of that-but with what there was, it quickly became apparent to Frisk that this city was very old. To be exact, it looked like something out of a medieval story, all the buildings made of stone and the roofs bordered by parapets, spires, or old domes. The doors were made of wood, the windows free of glass, the buildings squished together bordering every street. The street was also made of stone, paved with cobblestones that gave off a mushy click with every footstep she made.

What made it more surreal, aside from the fact that this city was filled with monsters, was that it was almost completely colorless. Much like Asgore's castle, it was all as if every inch of New Home had been made with the same boring material.

It made it easier to keep her head down as she moved behind Toriel, with nothing particularly catching to attract her gaze. She wouldn't have to look at all the monsters that were eyeing her. Standing on the street-smoking, loafing, or just trying to look tough-there were plenty of monsters around, too many monsters, fish creatures and mammal creatures and razor-teeth things. In the windows, the ones close enough to the ground, she could see them too-all in their own individual tiny apartments.

Each of them turned their head to stare at the human that was walking behind the abandoned queen, once they were done staring at the abandoned queen directly. But despite the burning looks, they didn't move. It was as if they didn't dare. Frisk tried to hold her head up high. She kept her frying pan out just in case, and her face stayed a frozen dark glare.

Despite what Sans told her in the final corridor, she couldn't help but think it wasn't because of her that they weren't attacking, or mobbing her (if any of them were "fans" from Mettaton's show,) or anything else.

That was how a lot of their journey through the underground went. After New Home it was Hotland, and from Hotland it was Waterfall. In Waterfall, it was Undyne that she spoke with. Toriel waited outside, humming to herself, unbothered even by the long time that Frisk took to come back out again. When Frisk came out, indeed, she found Toriel deep in conversation with Napstablook, the dark ghost anxiously fidgeting back and forth as they whined to her face. When she returned to Toriel's side, Blooky vanished in an instant.

Then from Waterfall, it was Snowdin.

Toriel even asked if she could come in too, when they finally arrived at Sans and Papyrus' house, on past even more monsters who, all things considered, were pretty much maxed out for surprises. Frisk's heart sank, and she shivered while trying to tell Toriel, in as clear terms as she could manage, that she did not need her coming in and, as she eventually went with, potentially distracting Sans.

"Alright," Toriel said, "We will simply catch up later!"

Her throat burned as she nodded, and then went inside to speak to the bone boys. When the child came back out again, it was to find Toriel in the same spot that she left her, hands tightly clasped together and humming some kind of tune that even Frisk hadn't heard in her head. When she saw that Frisk had returned, she stopped immediately and smiled, nodding. "Did your talk with them go well?"

"I think so." Frisk's stomach flip-flopped, and she turned her head to look beyond at the rest of the town that they still had to go. Some monsters had come out of Grillby's bar just to gawk at them, and the child's face burned. "Come on. We have to make that stop."

Toriel nodded; now, it was Frisk who led the way for her. Frying pan out in hand, like a shield, she trekked through Snowdin and ignored the gazes, only focusing on the bridge into the forest way ahead. She tried to keep a quick pace, but even—not desiring to give anyone the idea that she was afraid of these monsters anymore.

After they passed the bridge, it was an even longer walk to where she had to go. Frisk made it even longer; every so often, she would stomp the ground with her foot and pause, half-hoping for a response and half relieved when none came. Toriel hummed and asked, after a fourth time, what it was exactly that she was doing.

"Nothing," was her only response.

Most of the monsters that Frisk remembered liked to gather thickly on the outskirts of Snowdin—Snowdrake, Gyftrot, the Moldsmals—were absent today, and she didn't know if they were only hiding or if they had fled. It made things easier.

The only other monster they ran into was the Iscream man by his cart, as miserable looking as he always was. Frisk remembered all of the Iscreams that she had stolen from him over the last few weeks, not to mention that she had forced Blue Sans to steal, and lagged behind Toriel until they were both clear of him. He wasn't looking at them, at that point.

After long enough, when the two of them were surrounded by trees, Toriel mused, "Oh, I see what path this is." She picked up her pace until she was beside Frisk, who rubbed her arms unconsciously. "Are we going back to the Ruins?"

"No."

Fortunately, at that point it wasn't long before she didn't have to explain anymore. They were on the final path, where the river met the snow, and Frisk stomped one more time before she put her feet to better use. She jumped over the river and kicked around while Toriel crossed over the same way.

Her feet touched on the right spot soon enough, and her whole burrow opened up to her eyes. Child-sized, the lengthy hole that she had dug a long time ago with Flowey and Sans' help. Where she slept, while all around her monsters were tucked into warm and solid beds. Where she kept all of the nothing that she had while trapped underground, far away from home.

It was too small for someone like Toriel to fit. She again was forced to wait outside while Frisk crawled in quietly. "Oh my," she murmured, just before the child disappeared in the burrow.

The burrow was lined with Iscream wrappers and boards, most frozen over and covered with snow by now. The end of it was furnished by several stacks of boards, on which all of the monsters' names were written. Under their names, tally marks.

Every monster had at least one.

Frisk grabbed each stack and, bit by bit, gathered them into one pile. Then she edged them out of the burrow until she found herself sitting just outside of it, with a huge wad of wood boards lying on her legs. Toriel stood with her hands folded, eyebrows raised, eyeing the child quizzically.

"...What is that you have there, my child?"

Frisk stared down at all the names, as one by one she removed each board from the pile. She didn't speak, not even when Toriel asked again with a raised voice. Papyrus, over fifty. Sans, two. Gyftrot, three. Mettaton, well his tally wasn't accurate anymore. She ran her fingers over the lines, her gaze quivering, her lips and brows pulled down.

Being torn apart with sharp dog teeth, or hacked at with scythes.

Being electrocuted.

Being stabbed, or whacked, with hard white bones.

Or spears.

The memories crowded through her head, painful but also dull, and her frown got deeper, stronger. Fire, piranhas on a lit-up gaming platform, drowning. "...Fuck..." she said, quietly.

"Language," said Toriel.

Frisk's head whipped up and around, glaring right at Toriel. The boss monster, covered in soot, only looked placidly back. There was no sound between them, until finally Frisk set the last board aside and took a deep breath. "I want you to help me with something, okay?"

Toriel nodded. "Yes?"

"Can you help me burn all of these?"

In hot, smoking bursts of blue fire, Frisk had watched all of the boards change color and collapse under Toriel's attentions, all of the names and tally marks going up in smoke with them. They were all wet and frozen, but somehow Toriel managed it, and Frisk had a vision of battling her in the ruins that she had tried for a while to forget. She had watched the sputtering bonfire from a fair distance, not wanting to be too close to the heat; hands clasped into fists, she was shivering in the cold instead. She could only be grateful that Toriel hadn't asked her what these were originally for, or why they were doing this. When she had found her own name scrawled on the wood surface of one, she'd picked it up and cooed, nearly giving Frisk a heart attack, before it was also consumed by the magic blue flame.

Eventually the furnishings of her burrow had been reduced to a smoking pile of white wreckage, and Frisk returned up close to them to kick and nudge them with her shoes. Her stomach turned over and over and she sat down in the snow in front of it.

Congratulations, it's impossible to read what was on them now, said her head.

Toriel sat down next to the child, and Frisk scooted a few spaces away with a slitted glance at her. The monster turned her head, idly rubbing soot off her face, and then looked back to the pile. "I recognized a few of the names," she said, as if helpfully, and began to hum again.

Frisk didn't say anything.

"It feels good to be out of those Ruins..." she said in the wake of the silence, lowering her head down almost onto her chest. More humming. "There is so much more light and open space, here."

Frisk curled up, pulling in her knees. "..."

"Perhaps, if this world is given the correct discipline..." Toriel caught a flake of ash that was set in motion by the warmth in front of them. "You could even be content here."

"There's," Frisk stood up, trembling, "Somewhere I gotta go now. H-here."

"Of course. I will accompany you."


Toriel was gone, now, though. And Frisk was far more comfortable for it. Now, right now, it was quiet and dark, with just her standing alone and holding onto herself. The only sound except her breathing was the hum of the elevator, bringing her up up up, and she wasn't sure how much longer she had to go.

As the seconds wore on, feeling like eternity, she pulled out her phone and scrolled through it to kill time. She went through all the names she had programmed into it. Some of them were from this world, and a few were from the other. She couldn't call any of them right now. This stupid phone didn't even have the ability to text, it was just that old. So she just scrolled through the list, and sat down against the wall opposite the elevator doors.

Far below her and this elevator were the quivering masses, the creatures of dust and goo and nightmarish shapes. Alphys, too. Her name was also in her phone, but then it had been for a long time.


The lab that Alphys' private elevator took her into-after it crashed, and probably broke a rib that the Temmie Armor took its time to heal-was bathed in dark, dull grey and harsh red computer screens. Frisk wandered through it filled with fear, shivering in a chill that she didn't think would exist in Hotland.

Each computer screen she passed flickered to life at her presence, like they were expecting her, and when she took a look the entries forced themselves into her mind like the intrusive thoughts. The words followed her progress seeking out keys and getting zapped by the bare sockets or uncovered wires that littered the place.

Entry No. 6

* Asgore asked for some of the monsters in and out of the city to come to my lab.

* I recognize some of these faces. Neighbors, friends of friends. Some of them are sick.

* I'm taking them into the back rooms one by one, but they're getting suspicious.

* After I inject each one with determination, I...

* Can't let them leave. Not until they die, and I can see what happens to their SOULS.

Entry No. 9

* things aren't going well

* some of the test subjects have "fallen down" but their bodies won't turn to dust.

* it's the same for any of the ones i kill.

* Asgore's going to be mad at me.

* people keep asking me when their friends are coming back

* stop harassing me.

Entry No. 11

* i realized what a toxic person mettaton really is.

* he only ever talks to me to aask when i'm gonna be done with his body

* he's totally gonna ditchme when it's done.

* i'll show himm

* i'll give himwhat he deserevs

Entry No. 16

* imliterally havingnaa panictattck

* theyknowwhat iidd

Entry No. 18

* the flower escaped

* we were just getting somewhere too...

Entry No. 21

* stopharasing me oh my god thisis whyi never ttalk toanyoen anumore hhhhhhhh

Worse than the computer screens was the creatures that Frisk met down in the lab, hiding in the crevices and shadows and in unusual shapes. They couldn't be fought back, they couldn't be reasoned with. She didn't even know what kind of monsters they were; they were all white masses of shapes that moved in strange inconsistent ways: they rolled like sand one moment, ballooned out like a gas another, and sometimes they filled spaces as though they were liquids. One was an amorphous collection of dogs that drooled all over her and nearly squished her under giant gooey paws, another was a collection of trailing skulls and whispered words, and there were even more still.

Each time she went against them, her only choice seemed to be to run. But however hard she tried, there were many times when she found herself returning back to the site of the last "miracle" where she SAVED over the world.

Just when she'd hoped that her days of dying were over.

It wasn't always them that occupied her thoughts of the lab, though. Frisk found in one room a TV and tapes, tapes that Alphys mentioned in her entries if only briefly. The thoughts of her head intruded and told her not to watch, and yet she picked up a tape anyway, and pressed it into the video cassette player. The picture was so dark, it was hard to make out much, but the audio was crystal clear. She watched one all the way through.

* Gore, wake up.

* No.

* Are you videotaping me? Put that away.

* No.

* Because today is a MOM-umental occasion.

* I will have a monumental fit if you don't put that camera a-

* ...

* ...

* Did you get the joke.

* Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm

* Toriel. I will be honest. It was not optimom.

* ...

* No, no, that was not as funny. Hmm hmm hmm.

* Oh go to sleep then.

* Fine.

* Fine.

* Fine.

And another.

* Okay Anna, smile.

* That's not a smile.

* Like this, see?

* Hah hah hah! Did I scare you?

* Oh no, I had the lens cap on.

* Cry again so I can catch it.

* Aw, come on. Don't make me come in there.

And another.

* Are you feeling better... that's good...

* No, the lens cap is on, see?

* No one can see you cry.

* Hah hah hah, come on, no one's gonna watch this.

* ...

* Do you remember when we tried to make butterscotch pie for dad?

* And I thought we were supposed to put in buttercups, but it was actually cups of butter?

* And dad ate it and he got really sick?

* You sure saved my butt then.

* Mom was sooooo mad.

* It was just an accident though, pfft.

* Anyway, um, I was thinking...

* Oh, shoot, let me turn this off.

And another.

* It-it's gonna be okay, Anna.

* I know it's gonna work.

* You said you trusted me, didn't you?

* Hey, you don't HAVE to if you don't want to.

* ...

* You really... want to...?

* Um.

* Okay, I'll...

* Get the flowers...

And another.

But the last one she realized she didn't need to watch. It had words in it which she had heard already, words that she had heard all this time.


Even now, back in the elevator, Frisk's stomach was cold and empty inside. Even Alphys' assurances, which rang so hollow in any case, didn't erase the sick bundle of nerves in her.

It might not work. They might not come. Whatever it was that was supposed to happen, might not end up happening.

And then she wouldn't even have the boards that she had had reduced to a pile of ash. There'd be nothing, just like Anna.

You wish someone would call you, but no one is going to.

The elevator doors opened, bathing Frisk in the cool light of Asgore's grey castle. Frisk stood up and brushed herself off, stumbling off the platform into the stone hallway. She checked her phone again and strode forward, not noticing the squeaks and creaks behind her as unseen appendages slowly dragged the elevator down into the shaft, never to be used again.


Author's Note: I really wanted to cover some of the things that Frisk encounters in True Lab, but, as has been my feelings for a lot of Underfell stories, I don't think it's necessary to do a complete play by play of what happens. I'm assuming everyone reading this has seen or played the Pacifist ending for themselves and already know how you're supposed to go through True Lab. Sorry guys; the amalgamates are going to have their own importance later in the series anyway, the way I have it currently planned.

The next chapter might take a little longer to get out, depending. 'Cause the next two chapters are the most important /

Next Chapter: Doubts and Fears