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Not with a Bang but with

Can you guys do me a favour? I've been in a bit of a writing slump of late – it's one of the reasons this chapter took so long to come out. Schoolwork is another of course, but I've just been feeling very blocked in my writing these days, mostly stylistically. Everything feels like it comes out very bland. So when you leave your reviews, could I ask if you could tell me at least one thing that you think could be improved in the chapter? It could be anything, really, even an awkward or unclear sentence. Anything at all. It would mean the world to me to get some constructive criticism right now. And while it's very flattering, please don't tell me that the chapter was perfect, or anything like that (though hearing some positive feedback and being told what you did like would be, you know, nice too XD). I believe that there is no such thing as a perfect piece of writing and everything can always be a little bit improved. I could really do with some improvement right now. Thank you.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
File Erased

oOo

"So… are we going to Snowdin now?"

Frisk looked to Sans for an answer. They'd been standing there wordlessly for a solid minute, and by now the silence had lingered far too long, amplifying the heavy, empty feeling where the Save stars should have been.

Sans startled, then let go of her arm and took a step back. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I guess. But we're gonna have to walk. Sorry, kid. I know this must hit kinda hard."

Frisk giggled. "I'm not a lazybones."

He hummed. "Guess that's true." He worried the hem of his sweater, and Frisk couldn't help but notice just how on edge he seemed. Twitching, fidgeting, fiddling, keeping his hands ever busy. It was very unlike him. "Anyway, we can take the ferry from Hotland, so it won't be that bad." He nodded his head at the entrance to the throne room. "Let's go."

They set out.

Asgore's home, as they passed through it, felt empty as ever. The King's small living quarters had always been a bit barren, but the vases of golden flowers covering every surface had previously done their job in breathing life into the castle. Now, like their counterparts in the throne room, these flowers had died, too.

Frisk didn't have to work to keep up as they went. Sans kept to a lackadaisical pace on a good day, but now his steps were a little slower than normal. She tried not to worry about it.

They carried on that way, walking together in a comfortable silence until they reached the Hotland elevator.

The doors slid shut with a clang. Frisk glanced over at Sans and saw that his shoulders had hunched slightly.

The elevator groaned.

Frisk faltered. She hadn't realised how attuned she'd become to Sans's mannerisms before, but it was obvious by now that his behaviour was off in about every way she could think of. Frisk knew why, of course, but she couldn't help but worry.

And her soul was starting to ache again.

She reached out and laid a hand on his arm. "Are you okay, Dunkle Sans?"

He jolted. "Oh. Yeah. I'm fine. Just feelin' a little claustrophobic." And there it was, the standard grin, flashing across his face too quickly for Frisk to be able to tell how real it was. "Nothing bad at all," he added. "I'm okay. Just not the biggest fan o' small spaces most days. Not really used to 'em, y'know? Why take the elevator when you could take a shortcut instead? Then you don't gotta wait for the elevator to show." He winked.

"Oh. Okay."

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open once again. A pause.

"Welp. After you, bud."

Frisk glanced at him, then nodded and started toward the Hotland ferry dock; Sans catching up to her after a few paces.

Just like always, the Riverperson was there, perched on their boat and humming to themselves as they stared off. It was impossible to tell where they were looking under their hood, and that was assuming that faceless form could see at all.

Frisk lingered a short ways from the dock, leaving Sans to deal with the negotiations and busying herself by scuffing a toe against the ground. She dragged the tip of her shoe through the dirt in the shape of a heart and took a step back to admire her work.

She sighed, glancing back at the dock. How long did it take to ask for a ride to Snowdin anyway? Sans was still talking to the Riverperson. She strained to hear without coming too close and being obvious about it, but Dunkle Sans was keeping his voice carefully low.

A hot breeze blew past, ruining her drawing and in its wake she felt a slight prickle on the back of her neck. The feeling of being watched. Frisk hesitated, then looked over her shoulder. But there was nobody there. She peered out into the next room, trying to get a closer look, but the feeling passed as quickly as the breeze before it.

"Kid? Thought you wanted to come."

She glanced back and saw that Sans was already seated on the ferry, legs crossed. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"I do! I wanna ride in front!" Frisk hurried to climb onto the boat and Sans obligingly scooted back. "We're on a special mission," she added to the Riverperson, as the ferry pushed off from the dock. "We're trying to get a bunch of Dunkle Sans's science stuff to fix a machine."

She did not expect an answer from the Riverperson, and indeed she received none. The boat glided out of the small cavern and into the expansive tunnel through which the river ran.

Frisk was careful to tuck her legs underneath her this time. "Dunkle Sans, what is the Riverperson?" Embarrassed, she lowered her voice. "Like, what kind of monster are they?"

Sans shrugged. "Honestly, no-one knows. River just kinda is what they are, y'know? Pretty sure they've been here a long time, though."

"Oh."

"Guess maybe it is a little weird if you think about it." Another shrug. "You know what, though? This ferry ride is gonna be a good five minutes. Time that could be well-spent on a nap. Wake me up when we get there." And with that, he closed his eyes.

Frisk sighed, turning back around. Sans's ability to fall asleep within seconds was both impressive and downright infuriating. Sans could nap his way out of anything, Uncle Papyrus said.

For a minute or two, there was nothing but the quiet, just the distant sound of rushing water lapping against the cave walls. Another minute or two lulled past. Then, just as Frisk thought they would, the Riverperson spoke up. "Tra la la… the Angel is coming… tra la la."

Puzzled, Frisk frowned. "What? Me? But… the Barrier already broke."

Silence. She glanced back at Sans, but he was still fast asleep, snoring softly with his head lolling about his chest.

The child turned back around, peering over the edge of the boat and staring down into churning dark water that offered no reflection. She wondered how deep the river was.

oOo

After another few minutes, the Riverperson's ferry eased to a stop at their Snowdin station. The pause in movement jolted Sans awake, and he mumbled sleepily before disembarking, shaking his head to bring himself to full alertness.

The Underground was mostly empty, of course. Only a few monsters remained here nowadays. Frisk knew that. And she knew that it stood as a testament to how well the monster race was adjusting to life on the Surface.

It still didn't change how desolate the place felt. Everything had been so lively the first time she'd passed through here, and even the monsters that had tried to kill her had been friendly.

Now, it was as if the entire world had been thrown off-balance. Snowdin Town was supposed to be bright and cheerful, with fairy lights strung from every rooftop and warm light seeping from the shop windows. Instead, the village seemed dead, the lights unlit, the windows dark and shuttered, the once-crystalline snow turned an ashen grey.

"It's like a ghost town," Frisk said to Sans as they passed the little cluster of houses by the river.

He grinned. "Well, the Blook family did decide to stick around here for a while, even if they're from Waterfall."

"Oh, yeah! I didn't realise! It's a—"

"—human expression, I know. We kinda figured out all your monster-y expressions some time ago, with all the old junk that made its way down." Sans tilted his head to the side, bemused. "How's a little kid like you learn so many big sayings?"

"Everyone says them." Frisk rolled her eyes. "Duh. Anyway, I read a lot." She paused. "And I'm almost nine."

Sans just laughed, then his grin faded. "You're right, though. Something feels off."

"What?"

"I dunno. 's just…. quiet here. Too quiet. Feels dead. Or I dunno, guess I'm just not used to it without all the people. It's probably nothing. Let's just check out the workshop, then take a look at those Save stars of yours by the shop."

"Okay," said Frisk, though she was fairly certain the Save star would be missing, just as all the others had been.

They turned the corner to the skeleton brothers' old house. Sans slowed to a stop as they approached it and fished a key out of his pocket; Frisk recognised it as the key she'd swiped from his bedroom.

Frisk had only been to the basement the one time, back when the machine was still there. As Sans flipped the light switch, she took the room in for a second time. Like every other part of the Underground they'd passed through so far, the workshop looked much more empty without the blueprints spread across the countertop. The walls and floor were charred black around where the machine used to be.

Sans didn't seem to notice the eeriness of his old workshop, or if he did, he wasn't troubled by it. He headed for the drawers under the counter and began removing several boxes that Frisk was pretty sure were too big for the space they'd been held in. There were four boxes in total, spilling over with wires and cords and pieces of scrap metal.

Frisk stood in the doorframe for a moment, watching him, then pulled herself up onto the counter. "Why do you have so much machine stuff, anyway? You said you knew a little about them, but machines are Auntie Alphys's thing. You like, um, physics and space and stuff."

Sans kicked one of the boxes over and knelt on the floor as he began to rifle through its contents. "Well, yeah. But sometimes you need machines to do experiments, and we didn't have all that much in the Underground. Had to try building some things myself. And some of this stuff is from when me and Papyrus were tryin' to get the TV and computers set up. Like, machines are cool and all, but you're right, they're not really my thing. Prob'ly for the better, anyway. Working with machines don't mix well with having a lot of exposed bones. Cords," he clarified, pulling at a wire that had already begun to tangle between his tibia and fibula.

"Oh."

Sans seemed to be concentrating, so Frisk fell silent and let him go about his work. Before long, she grew quite bored, and hopped down from the counter and took to idly circling the room. Sans glanced over his shoulder at her, then returned to his task.

Frisk opened one of the drawers. It was shallow and narrow, definitely not big enough to hold those boxes of equipment and machinery. Dunkle Sans was weird. The bottom of the drawer was lined with magazines and papers.

With nothing better to do, she pulled them out and began to leaf through them. There were waterlogged science journals, candy wrappers, pages covered in calculations mostly scribbled out, random texts of science jargon Frisk couldn't understand. Old calendars

And something else, too.

On a sheet of printer paper not quite starting to yellow with age, a child's drawing done in harsh, bold strokes and coloured in with a toddler's care. It looked to be of three skeletons: a little one in orange, a slightly bigger one drawn with many blue circles, and a tall one in black wearing a huge smile. A speech bubble coming from the largest one with a big pink heart in it.

The drawing was signed with a large backwards "P," and at the bottom, in smaller, neater text, were the words "don't forget."

The fonts looked very familiar.

Frisk didn't say anything. She stood there, staring at the drawing in her hands, entirely unsure what to make of it.

She didn't notice that Sans had stood up until he'd snatched the paper out of her hands.

Frisk took a step back, startled. Sans stuffed the drawing into his pocket.

"Don't look at that." His tone was like his expression: toeing the line of unreadable but not all the way there. Somewhere between angry and defensive. Afraid.

"But what is it? Did Uncle Papyrus draw that?"

"Just forget it. It doesn't matter."

"But what – "

"I said, forget it. It's not important, it's just some stupid- goddammit." Sans growled, kicking at another box. "I don't even know what I'm doing here. There's no parts lying around to fix the machine. And even if there were, even if I did fix it, it ain't like it would do anything. It'd teach me, what? That there's a—Void leak, if we wanna keep callin' it that. As if I already didn't know. Real useful. What a waste of time this was. What the hell's the point of knowing things are gonna go to shit if all you can do is sit back and watch?"

"Sans—"

"What?" He turned his glare on her. "Can you do something about it? No. No, you can't. Let's just get out of here. We wouldn't even be in this mess if you hadn't made that tear in the first place."

Frisk froze. Something hollow opened inside her, and she fell.

He was right, of course. She knew that, she'd always known that. She'd run off and up a mountain and fallen into a strange kingdom and done irreversible damage to its timeline and even though she'd freed its people she didn't even know if it was worth the damage because Sans wouldn't tell her anything.

She did not cry.

Then, a pair of arms wrapped around her. She was being pulled into a hug. Frisk hugged back, burying her nose in Dunkle Sans's shoulder.

"Sorry, kid," he muttered, rubbing her back.

Frisk pulled away. "Me, too."

"No." He avoided meeting her gaze. "You got nothing to be sorry for, okay? I shouldn't've snapped at you like that. Anyway, you didn't even make the tear to start with. You just… made it bigger. Like when you pull at a seam on your sweater."

She recalled the metaphor he'd used the night before. "Unravelling."

Sans gave a dry chuckle. "Yeah. Exactly. And c'mon, bud, we've been through this. You didn't really know what you were doin'. You were just trying to keep alive. Perfectly noble reason. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Good." He coughed. "Still don't think we're gonna get a whole lot done here, to be honest. Let's just go home, okay? You can even tell your mom I need to put a few gold in the swear jar."

"Okay."

He nudged her. "C'mon, cheer up. Where's all that Determination gone, huh?"

Frisk smiled shyly and tapped a fist against her chest. "Still here."

"There we go."

"Should we go back and see if the Save star outside the shop is still there?"

"Nah. No point. Let's just go home." Shoulders hunched, he stepped past her and went up the stairs.

oOo

The Riverperson was missing.

Sans and Frisk stood on the edge of the dock, staring at the place where the Riverperson should have been but wasn't.

"That's… " Frisk fidgeted. "That's not good, is it?"

"Uh," said Sans. "If I were to hazard a guess, I'd prob'ly go with no."

"Yeah. That's what I thought."

"I guess we gotta walk."

Frisk looked over at Sans in surprise. "I thought you were gonna say we should nap 'til the ferry gets back. Or shortcut."

"Also a good idea, but nah. We gotta get you home. And I, uh. Don't think I'm ready to shortcut just yet. Maybe in a bit. C'mon, let's go." He turned then and began to head down the path toward the main road.

Frisk turned to follow, tugging at the hem of her sweater. A lone snowflake drifted down and landed in her eyelashes. She blinked in surprise as it began to melt, blurring her vision. She paused to wipe at her eye with her sleeve.

From behind her, the light crunch of footsteps on the hard-packed snow. She spun around, but there was nobody there. A tingle began to grow in her soul. Not a wrenching pain this time, but a mildly uncomfortable prickle.

"Kid? You comin'?"

"Here!" Frisk rubbed at her chest, then hurried to catch up with Sans, glancing over her shoulder one last time. Still nobody there.

oOo

By its very nature, Waterfall had always been quiet. You can hear yourself think, the Riverperson had said in her dream. It felt much more comfortable here than it had been in Snowdin, traversing through the dark muddied caves. The emptiness of the Underground wasn't so apparent.

Frisk kept an easy pace alongside Sans, careful to avoid the puddles that littered the path. Once again, the pair said nothing over the whole journey, lapsing instead into a comfortable silence and allowing the quiet of Waterfall take over. Soon, it was just the distant sound of rushing water and the ever-constant hush-hush of the Echo Flowers whispering in the background.

As they entered the room with the crystalized cheese in it, Frisk found that she was holding her breath as she recalled the dream from two nights ago. The long, featureless cavern with the grey door that she had never seen in the waking world. Would it be here now?

A short, narrow passageway giving way to a blank foyer.

Thick, warm fabric that squelched at her touch. A painful tug on her soul.

A ringing in her ears—

—click, clack, click, clack, click, clack, click, clack—

Frisk gasped as if breaking out from underwater, catching Sans's attention. He tilted his head, cocking a questioning browbone at her. "Uh… you all right there?"

The child shuddered but nodded, taking in her surroundings. They'd passed through the room without her noticing, and now they were at the entrance to the marshlands. Just as things had been the first time she'd crossed the Underground. She looked over her shoulder, and she could still see the little table with the cheese on it.

"I just… " She squinted into the room for any signs of movement, but finding nothing, she turned her attention back to Sans. "I thought there was another room between this one and the one back there. A long one, like a hallway."

"Nope," Sans ventured. "Definitely no hallways. Nothing between here and the room back there."

"But—"

"Trust me. No offence, but I kinda know these caves a little better'n you do, kid. Lived here my whole life, came to Waterfall all the time as a babybones, et cetera, et cetera. That cheese has been sitting there as far back as I can remember, too, actually." Sans made a face.

They kept going. The little bird that carried you over a disproportionately small gap was missing, so they were forced to wade across the stream instead. Now soaked from the knee down, they pushed on across Waterfall.

Soon they arrived at Hotland, where they were greeted with a blast of hot air that dried their clothes and shoes in a heartbeat. No sooner had they taken a few steps into the area, however, than Sans suddenly staggered to a stop and swayed where he stood.

"Sans!?"

"I just… gotta sit down for a sec." Sans lurched forward and sank down onto the rickety stool behind his old Hotland station. He closed his eyes, releasing a long, heavy breath.

"Dunkle Sans? What's wrong?" Frisk leaned against the front of the sentry station, watching him in concern.

"Eh. Not really used to being awake for this many hours at a time." He slid his eyes open a crack and lifted his head, propping his chin on his hand.

Frisk was pretty sure there was more to it than that, but all she said was, "oh." She crossed her arms and followed Sans's gaze across the bridge. Alphys's public lab loomed on the other side of the lava lake.

"You know what I'm thinking, kid?"

"Um. What?"

He nodded in the direction of the lab. "I'm thinking I might be able to find some of what I need in there. Downstairs, if you wanna be particular about it."

Frisk couldn't help it; her jaw dropped. "You wanna go down there? But…"

"Yeah. I wouldn't usually be very nostalgic for the old place, but, well. I just figure that... Maybe it'll be worth it after all." His expression was decidedly determined. It looked out-of-place on his face.

"Now? You're not still tired?"

"Nah. No, I'm good. I feel better already. Loads better." Sans ran his hands down his face, then pulled himself to his feet. "Wanna come with me up to the entrance?" Only one hand entered the pocket of his hoodie this time; by the way the pocket moved, he seemed to be holding onto something inside of it.

So that's what he was doing. Go figure. Frisk should have known, and she pushed back her irritation. Dunkle Sans was being so stubborn, and he seemed to be going round and round in circles, unable to settle on one decision. One minute, he said that her insight as an anomaly was important; the next, he wouldn't let her do anything. And he still wouldn't answer her questions, not even the important ones.

Frisk stood her ground. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "I'm coming."

Sans looked similarly annoyed. "No, you're not."

"Am so."

"Kid." He looked vaguely around. "Frisk. Buddy. It's late. Everyone will have noticed you're missin' by now. Your mom's coming back in a couple days, and you're gonna be in serious trouble if someone tells her that you disappeared the whole day. And even if Papyrus and Undyne decide to stick by you, you know Al's gonna wind up telling everything by accident. And she'll prob'ly find a way to make it sound a lot worse than it could ever be."

"I'm coming. You don't want me to come 'cause you think it might be dangerous, but I don't care, I'm coming. I'm not letting you go somewhere dangerous and scary alone."

"You'll be banned from video games for a week."

"I don't care."

"You're gonna get grounded. From pie. For a month."

"I don't care."

"You're gonna get pickled snails for dinner," he tried, weakly.

"I don't care."

"You – " Sans shook his head in bewilderment. "Geez, you actually mean that, don't ya? Okay. Okay, fine."

"Wow!" Frisk brightened, and skipped ahead several steps before turning back to look at him. "That was even easier than I thought!"

"Don't you go getting too cheeky." He stepped forward to join her. "And if we get even a little inkling something might be dangerous, you're going back. No arguing."

"We both will, then." The child tilted her head to the side and slipped her hand into his as they crossed the bridge. "I know it's gonna be really scary for you to go back down there. 'cause you've never been down there since you were a little kid, right?"

Sans startled, then nodded once. "Yeah. Never."

She smiled timidly. "So then I gotta come." She squeezed his hand.

As they came to the entrance to the lab, the automatic doors sliding open like the maw of a great beast, Sans squeezed back.

oOo

The lab beyond the elevator was dark as a pitch.

"Oh," Frisk heard herself say. She reached into her pocket to retrieve her phone to use as a flashlight, but the movement prompted the automatic lights to flicker on in the corridor beyond, bringing the True Lab to grim, ghoulish life. She put her phone back.

The young human looked over at Sans as they stepped out of the elevator.

"Are you…?" she began.

"I never came this way before," Sans mumbled, seemingly more to himself than to Frisk. "Always went through the elevator in the Capital. Not the one in the castle, I think that one was added after… him. There used to be one not far from where… from where we lived with him in New Home. I think that entrance might've gotten walled off."

"Oh. Well, I mean, I only came here once, but here. It's this way." Frisk pointed, feeling a little silly. There was only one path, at least for now. "Um, where in the labs are we going?"

"Nowhere, really. We're just… having a look around."

"Okay."

They continued down the long corridor. In the dead silence of the lab, their footsteps on ceramic tile resonated and echoed off the walls, which had cracks running up and down them like veins, splitting their concrete surface. It was a silence in which you could hear the skittering of a spider across the floor. The monitor screens on the walls flickered and crackled with static as they walked by, but blinked off again just a few seconds later.

Frisk gave Sans another concerned glance. His movements were slow and stiff, eyelights dimmed to the faintest of pinpricks.

They carried on, without any real sense of direction.

Up and across the infirmary, taking a left.

Frisk saw it first, but when Sans caught sight of it, he froze on the spot.

The Determination Extractor looked just as ominous as it had the last time Frisk had seen it. Looming at what must have been two storeys high and shaped like the skull of some sinister beast, it looked ready to come alive and consume her. Red paint flaked off of it like a reptile shedding its skin, revealing layers of rusted metal underneath.

For Frisk, it was chilling. But she supposed that the machine held an entirely different meaning for Sans.

She glanced over at him again. His head was bowed, his eyelights peering upwards at the machine, and his shoulders had hunched forward; looking, by all rights, like a scolded child. He was chewing at the end of his sleeve.

"Dunkle Sans," Frisk urged, her gaze darting over to the DT Extractor.

When he didn't respond, she took a step toward him, hesitantly laying a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, and Frisk took a startled step back. But otherwise he did not react. He just stayed there, small and slouched and chewing on the end of his sleeve.

The human sighed, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. She was worried for Sans, but she wasn't sure what was the right thing to do. Should she shake him to try and snap him out of… whatever it was he was going through right now? She didn't want to assume he'd phase out of it but she was afraid that if she tried to snap him out of it, she'd make things even worse. She couldn't go get the machine parts on her own because she didn't even know what she was looking for, and she didn't want to explore the labs by herself.

She didn't want to stay here any longer than she had to, either. Especially not in front of the DT Extractor.

Frisk sighed, wringing the hem of her sweater. "Sans," she tried again, lamely.

Nothing.

Then, something bright and flashing captured her attention, just off to the side. Frisk turned toward it.

It was a Save star.

It flickered candle-flame weak-nowhere near as bright as the ones she was accustomed to, but still, it was a Save star. A Save star, here in the labs, after finding so many of them to be missing.

Frisk found herself stepping slowing towards it, entranced.

Lemon Bread the Amalgamate had once disguised herself as a Save star, in this very same place before the DT Extractor (though Frisk still wasn't entirely sure how she'd had done that).

It could be a trap, she thought.

And even if it was some kind of monster disguising itself… well, what was the worst that could happen? She'd be pulled into combat mode, but she'd gotten quite good at dodging over the course of the timelines. She'd just work out whatever she needed to do until the enemy could be spared, and…

The power of Saving had made her reckless.

What would happen if she didn't make it through the battle the first time? If this wasn't a real Save star, then she wouldn't be able to come back if she died, or even heal herself if she was hurt. And even if it was a true Save star, then she risked weakening the timeline even further if she initiated another Reload.

The Save star blinked enticingly, a beacon in the darkness of the lab. It seemed to reach out to her and her alone, speaking her name in a seductive whisper.

Frisk stared at it a moment longer. Then, slowly, she reached out and closed her fist around it.

There it was. She felt the familiar rush of Determination warming her soul, then quickly opened her hand, stepping back.

The Save star was gone. But this time, she didn't feel the cold, heavy emptiness that she'd felt where the other Save stars had been missing. Frisk looked down at her hands. Had she imagined it?

She stood there, staring at the spot where the Save star had been, when she realised that Sans was gone.

"Sans?" Frisk spun in every which direction, alarm growing rapidly. "Sans?!"

"In here," came a voice, from around the corner.

Frisk followed the sound of his voice just a little bit back from whence they'd come, up a short passageway and into a room she didn't remember seeing before, but which turned out to be no different than any of the others they'd explored.

Sans's gaze was fixed on a desk covered in papers. Frisk approached him a little nervously, following his eyeline to the desk. "What's that?"

He didn't answer. Frisk leaned closer. There was what appeared to be a blueprint for the Determination Extractor, rolled out and weighed down with Mew Mew bobbleheads for paperweights. There were notes marking it – some of the writing she recognised as Alphys's illegible scrawl, but most of it was in strange symbols, each one formed neat and precise.

The rest of the desk was covered in documents, and in one corner there was a stack of file folders. There was too a child's crayon drawing of what looked like outer space, half poking out from one of the folders.

Frisk turned her attention to the documents. There was a combination of handwritten notes and documents printed from a computer. These, too, were written in the same strange cipher.

"Dunkle Sans, what are these papers? Are they a secret code? Do you know what they say?"

His voice, when he spoke, was flat and far too quiet. "Nah. 's English. Just a different font." He sucked in a shuddering breath. "These things are pretty old. They shouldn't be here. They shouldn't be out."

Frisk picked up a fresh-looking piece of paper and studied it. It was oddly sticky, and stained with black splotches here and there. The ink was still wet. "But do you know what they say?"

A beat.

"Kid. We need to get out of here. Right now."

Frisk nodded. "Okay," she said, very quietly, and waited for Sans to respond. A flash of movement just over his shoulder caught her attention, and she froze.

Perched on the edge of the desk was a single, skeletal, disembodied hand. A gaping hole carved into its palm. Frisk stared, waiting for it to move again, but the hand remained still. She could not tell if it was watching back.

She stared a moment longer, then reached out and tugged on Sans's sleeve without turning her gaze from the hand. "Sans," she whispered, and pointed.

To his credit, Sans only remained frozen for a moment, his eyesockets gone dark, staring vacantly. Then he grabbed the human's wrist. "Kid," he said. "Run."

"What?"

"Now!"

He took off, causing Frisk to stumble before falling into pace. But she was faster than he was, and in a few running strides she was tugging him along behind her. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw that the hand was giving chase, scurrying along the floor behind them.

"I thought you hated exercise!"

"Yeah, well, desperate times call for desperate measures."

"And what's happening?!"

"Nothing good—just keep going! The Hotland – the – the elevator!"

She dared to glance over her shoulder again. "There's more of them!" she cried. Indeed, there must have been a half dozen in total, squeezing out from cracks in the floor and the walls.

Sans made a low hissing sound in what was probably an effort to keep from swearing, though Frisk really couldn't have been troubled by it at the moment. His soul was flickering wildly, and his features were twisted into a concentrated expression. He seemed to be trying to summon his magic. But Frisk had no time to ponder on it, as she made a hairpin turn round a corner.

"Wrong way, wrong way!"

They stumbled as they tried to wheel around without letting go of each other. The crawling hands grasped at their ankles, and they scarcely managed to avoid the snatching fingers.

"What are they?" Frisk wailed. Her heart was pounding, and even with the adrenalin coursing through her veins she didn't know how much longer she could go without resting. Sans must have been exhausted by now, too. It would be so much easier if she could just run in a straight line, as opposed to having to weave through the True Lab's intestine corridors.

"Like I said, nothing good."

"Are they him?"

Before Sans even had the chance to answer, the air came alive with garbled shrieks and moans. The low, deep hum of machinery starting up. Here and there, clouds of glitching black squares flickered in the air, on the walls, phasing in and out of existence, and the hands still crawled after them. Somehow they could hear the tips of their bony fingertips tapping on the tiled floor amidst the din.

Distracted, Frisk almost tripped over her feet and stumbled, momentarily losing Sans's grip. Something closed around her ankle and yanked, sending searing stabs of pain directly to her soul and she screamed—

"Shit," Sans gasped out, lifting a hand. His left eye was flickering erratically, from blue to white to completely black. "Kid, just –"

"Help!" The hand pulled again, and now a second had joined it, asserting its grip on her ankle in a spot just above the other's. The human tried to plant her feet in the ground and resist, but the hands were strong, and with their next tug she toppled over. She scrabbled for a grip in the tiled floor. "Sans, help!"

"Hang on- I got a few tricks up my sleeve." He summoned a small array of bone bullets, though his features contorted visibly with the effort.

"Sans!"

He fired.

The attack landed perfectly, and the hands flexed and fell back with a sizzle, releasing their hold. But the attack grazed Frisk, too, and the human hissed in pain on reflex.

"Shit. Sorry, kid –" Sans made to help her to her feet, but he wasn't very strong, leaving Frisk to do most of the work.

"It's okay," the child gasped. The pain was already fading. "It was just… 1 HP… " She looked down the corridor from whence they'd come. It had gone totally quiet. "The hands are gone," she mumbled.

"Yeah." Sans bent over, resting his hands on his kneecaps. He was breathing heavily, his forehead dripping with sweat (somehow). "Don't think we should take it as an invitation to stick around, though."

"Yeah," Frisk echoed. Still, she took the opportunity to catch her breath.

More glitching black squares materialised in the air, in larger clusters this time, fizzling in and out of existence, and in the next instant the air was punctuated with screaming static once again. A hand wriggled its way out from behind one of the monitor screens.

"Let's go," Frisk said.

They pressed desperately on, the glitches gaining momentum, until finally they reached the small foyer by the elevator. Sans summoned another bone and fired it at the elevator call button. In a burst of sparks, the doors opened, and the pair dove inside.

Sans slammed his hand down on the "up" button and they both bent double, gasping for air—

Ding.

Frisk looked down at her chest, wide-eyed. But it was Sans's soul that had been turned blue.

He released a choking sound, but already he was being yanked backward, back out of the elevator and straight toward the hands and the cloud of static.

Frisk screamed, lunging forward, but the elevators doors slid shut before she could reach them. The elevator groaned, shook, then began its lurching journey upwards.

The child threw herself against the doors, like that might help, pounding her fists against the metal. When that didn't work, she pressed furiously on the "Down" button, but the elevator didn't respond. Of course it didn't. She'd have to wait for it to reach the top before it could follow a new command, except of course she couldn't wait because Sans was in trouble and she hadn't even begun to register what had just happened and the elevator was so slow, and… and…

Frisk slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor, her small frame shaking.

The already-long elevator ride seemed to last even longer than before; it seemed an age before it finally shuddered to a stop and its doors slid open to reveal Alphys's upper lab.

Frisk sat dazed for a moment, then shot to her feet, pressing the down button on the elevator. Nothing happened.

She pressed again on the "down" button. Nothing happened.

"Come on, come on," she muttered to herself, pressing repeatedly, furiously.

Nothing happened.

Frisk turned to look out the elevator doors. She heaved a shaky sigh. There were other ways into the lab, other routes she might yet take to go save Sans. An elevator from the castle.

She swallowed. The elevator across Hotland, she thought. Up to the MTT Resort and the elevator to the castle. Then back down.

She recited these steps to herself a few times, running them over in her head as though not to forget, then finally exited the elevator. Alphys's lab was still untouched, at least. The lights were still on, but she and Sans had done that as they'd passed through.

Then, crossing the lab, she froze. There was somebody at Alphys's desk, facing her way. Somebody human. Their hair covered half their face, but something told Frisk that whoever they were, they weren't here by coincidence. She swallowed again. "Hi," she ventured. Small steps forward.

The figure stilled, then brushed their hair away.

Frisk's jaw dropped. It took her a moment to find her voice, Sans entirely forgotten in the moment. "Chara," she uttered at last.

Chara smiled, and stood.

Frisk had been told before that she looked a lot like the long-dead human Princess. She'd seen photographs – not very many; apparently Chara had never liked having her picture taken and thus most had been candid shots. But it was hard to make out any distinguishing features in those grainy images eighty years old, captured by cameras another twenty years older. She'd never really believed it before.

Seeing Chara now, though, was something very different. It wasn't uncanny, not really. But it was chilling nonetheless. She was taller, and indeed looked older than Frisk, but younger and smaller than the twelve years she'd been when she died. She wore similar, but not identical clothing – brown slacks and brown shoes and a green sweater marked by a single yellow stripe. Her hair was lighter, a warm, auburn-hued chestnut next to Frisk's muddy brown, and her skin was much, much paler.

But there was something else about her, too, some quality about the other girl that made Frisk feel like she was looking in a mirror. Something about the arrangement of features on that pale face. Something about her eyes.

Chara took a single stride forward. "Hello, Frisk," she said, her voice level. "I'm glad you're finally here—you took your sweet time. I've been wanting to talk to you for a while now."

Frisk just stared. Then everything came rushing back at full force, an avalanche raining down. Sans. The labs. Hands.

"I—I have to—we have to save my Dunkle Sans, that—" The child gulped for air. "That was… that was that scientist, wasn't it?"

Chara pursed her lips and folded her hands behind her back. "That was Doctor Gaster who took Sans, yes. He was the Royal Scientist before Doctor Alphys. You know this already, but his name slipped your mind, so I thought to remind you. It's perfectly all right. That happens sometimes, even here."

"What do you mean? What are you talking about?" Frisk shook her head, then bounced anxiously on the spot. "We have to save Sans! You… you can help me, right?"

Chara said nothing.

"You showed up in my dreams," Frisk insisted. "I remember now. That was you, wasn't it? I thought it was."

"I entered and influenced your dreams, yes."

"And you've been following us."

"Yes."

"Why? Why are you…?" Frisk shook her head again. "I'm saving Sans." She looked from side to side, still a little frazzled. "I just need to –"

"You cannot."

"What?"

"You cannot save him from Gaster. Don't worry. He'll live."

"How can you say that?"

"Because." Chara remained eerily still. "Doctor Gaster is not going to kill him. Hurt him? Yes, certainly. That is a given. But he is not going to kill him. That would be counterproductive."

Frisk looked at her despairingly, and Chara continued.

"He took him for a reason, after all. And he wants both of you, you know. He needs both of you for his purposes. I would suggest that you try to get to safety while you still have the chance."

"I'm not leaving Sans." Frisk said, resolute.

Chara rolled her eyes, but finally she moved, unfolding her hands from behind her back and taking a step closer. Frisk, for her part, remained where she stood. "Fine. If you want to be optimistic, then there is a chance that Doctor Gaster will release Sans once he gives up on affirming his hold on you. He needs the pair of you, after all."

She thought of what Sans had told her of Gaster. "He's not really going to do that, is he?"

Snort. "Your levels of deduction astound me. No. Of course he's not."

Frisk looked down at her toes. What was Doctor Gaster doing to Sans right now? "Why did you come here if you didn't want to help me?"

"Frisk!" Chara snapped. "Listen to me. Don't you understand? You can't rescue your… skeletal uncle. It's pointless. This is Doctor W.D. Gaster that we're dealing with, and you cannot beat him. Not anywhere, not ever, and most certainly not within the here and now. This is his domain."

"His… domain?"

Chara raised her eyebrows just so. "His domain, yes. I'll assume you know what that word means. You're well-read, for your age." She spread her hands out in what was definitely a mocking gesture. "Welcome to the Void."

Frisk's heart dropped. The nothing outside of all of time and space. Wasn't that what Dunkle Sans had said? Her mind was racing; she couldn't make sense of it all. "The Void? But…. "

"Yes. Or something very close to it. We aren't in your world at any rate, not entirely. But I'll say again that's it's really rather complex, and if I tried explaining it to you now, in your current state of mind, my words would be entirely lost on you."

"… what are you even doing here? I mean… you just died, didn't you?" Frisk paused, suddenly unsure of herself. "You did die, right?"

"Yes. I died. And before you feel the need to ask, yes, I am still dead."

"So what are you doing in the Void?"

Chara smirked, without mirth. "Oh, Frisk. Did no-one ever tell you? This is the place where lost things go."