"Easy..." Sans' says quietly. A discordant hum rips through the air, and explosions of white light surround him. Numerous skull-like objects float beside him, eyes glowing bright. The air crackles with power.

You come to your senses, and drop the gun.

"I-I'm. You weren't...I wasn't...the dream-"

"It's okay. I felt it too." Sans' said quietly, banishing the skull and stepping towards you slowly. "I should have known better to try a shortcut, what with reality all twisted into a pretzel. Lucky I didn't get us both killed Are you hurt?"

"N-no. Should I...should I be?"

Sans' raises his left hand, and you cock your head to the side, trying to see what he means when-

"Oh. Oh wow, are you...are you okay?" His pinky is missing the last joint, cleanly cut about an inch shorter than a normal hand would be. He flexes the hand, and stares at it, his perpetual grin looking a bit more forced than usual.

"Yeah. Used to happen a lot when I first stumbled on that little trick. Why I wear baggy clothes."

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"Oh blindingly so," he said, before forcing out a laugh. "So. This is as far as we go?" He's looking over your shoulder at something so you stand and turn, brushing snow and leftover dust off your pants as you do.

At the end of Snowdin lies a sort of have within a cave. Entering takes you to a much warmer part of the Underground, the stretch of cavern known as Waterfall. Sans took you just before the entrance to the second cave, but some kind of barrier extends in front of you. A wall of white smoke, through which you can barely see details of the road ahead.

"I wanted to take us to Hotland. Get to the lab, run some tests maybe," he says with a sigh. "Didn't make it very far."

"Did you try to walk past it?"

"Nope. Barrier magic. No point."

"Like hell," you mutter. You scoop up the fallen human's cannon, and begin walking.

"Chara!" Sans calls out as you move away. "Chara, a human soul isn't strong enough to-" You reach for your phone, opening a dimensional box and grabbing one of the flowers you picked from Toriel's garden. The buttercup almost seems to glow in the perpetual dusk of Snowdin, and before you can talk yourself out of it, you shove a petal into your mouth.

It's as bitter and awful as you remember it being, and your throat doesn't want it to go down, as if it were a pill. But you steel yourself, and choke the thing down.

This is going to look really stupid if what I felt in the Ruins was wrong, you think to yourself. Or if that wasn't what they were for.You reach a hand out to the barrier. It's solid, and cold. You press, and it gives. You press harder. Your hand slips through. You pull away, and look at Sans.

"...I stand corrected. Let's head back to my house. Sit down, compare notes, maybe get my brother to...Chara, no!"

You turn away, and force yourself through. Sans' voice does no follow you, and instead of snow and slush, you again find yourself walking through dust. The pale light from the Ruins, from un-Snowdin, has returned. You understand now.

You step gingerly across the dust, again remembering where it came from, and start making your way through the ashen wastes of Waterfall.