Chapter 6

"I don't like this," Frisk mumbled to herself. "It's been a day since we set off the trap. Where are the Reds?"

"What is it with this 'we' stuff?" Chara snorted. "You're the one who set off the alarm. Not me. Not we. You."

Frisk ignored him. That seemed to sum up their entire relationship. She would think something aloud, Chara would make a snide comment, and in return, she would ignore whatever it was he said. Sometimes Frisk wondered why she still wore the locket. If she really wanted the best for herself, she would have discarded the locket, and Chara's presence as a result, immediately after he had killed her. Yet she still kept him close.

For a while Frisk began to wonder if the snow as far as they eye could see would ever end. She and Chara had left the Ruins two days prior, yet they seemed to make no progress. There had not been many monsters around, either. Amongst the snow and occasional puzzle, Frisk and Chara saw a few dog houses. Not one looked as if it had been lived in for a long time. It wasn't until Frisk saw a sign that morning did her hopes start rising.

North: Ice

South: Ice

West: Ice

East: Snowdin Town . . . (and ice)

"A town!" she couldn't help but exclaim. Frisk didn't forget that it was highly possible every resident of that same town would not hesitate to kill her, but she was ready to see some form of community again. Anything was better than being all alone in the ice with someone as annoying as Chara for company.

"How much longer until we get to Snowdin?" Frisk asked after an hour passed with no sight of the town.

"I don't know. I think I left my map at home." Chara smirked at the glare Frisk sent him. Demeanor serious, he answered, "Truth be told, Stripes, this isn't right. This place feels so . . . deserted. Other than those skeleton freaks from outside the Ruins and that blind dog, there's nobody here. If there really is a town so close by, where are its residents? I don't like this. There's definitely something wrong."

Taking a deep breath, Frisk kept moving forward. There had to be an end to this abandoned silence. There had to be.


The place was buzzing with excitement. Drinks were passed around. Glasses were clanked together. It was always that way when he came. After all, he was the life of whatever party these monsters thought was going on.

"It's been ages since we've seen ya 'round, Sans," said a monster that resembled a cross between a wolf and a tiger. "What brings ya back 'ere?"

Sans, wearing his hood up, slid a lazy eye to his companion. "Just felt like stopping by, visiting friends. Y'know how it is."

The wolf-tiger chuckled. "What friends? Ya might be popular with us regulars, but ya sure as 'ell 'ave no friends." He downed the drink Sans bought him. "But ey, if 'aving ya 'round means free drinks, I ain't complaining."

Shooing the other monster away and tuning out the world around him, Sans twirled the glass he held in hand and watched the amber liquid swirl within. He had not been able to stop thinking about that human. She had to be the one he was on the lookout for, but there was no way to be sure. The woman he talked to through the door to the Ruins every day for years had not been there either that day or the one prior. Her absence had Sans unnerved, and this human's coinciding appearance did nothing to settle his unease.

This woman, whose name he did not know – he never thought to ask – all but begged him to protect any human that ever came to the Underground, and like the fool he was, Sans made that promise. Of course, he hadn't been doing much of keeping said promise, but he didn't outright kill the human, either. He felt as if that was good enough.

Yet there was something Sans could not understand. This human – Frisk, he believed she called herself – seemed to actually trust him. Maybe she was simply gullible, and Sans was more than willing to believe such, but it was the fact she thanked him for hiding her from Papyrus that Sans could not understand. Gratitude was just something very few, if any at all, ever showed, yet she demonstrated it so naturally.

"Hey, Sansy."

Through the corner of his eye socket, Sans saw a yellow rabbit monster with swirled eyes sitting next to him. "Hey, Buncrazy," he greeted, sounding a lot more cheerful than he felt.

"Papyrus called," she told him, cutting straight to business. "He wants to know why you're not answering your cell. He just got word that she is coming for an important mission, and you need to clean your socks out of the living room."

If Sans had eyes, he would have rolled them. "The world might as well be ending, and his main concern is Undyne will see my dirty socks?"

Buncrazy laughed and slapped Sans on the back. Sometimes Sans wondered if her laughter was genuine or if she was trying too hard to seem impressed by his jokes. "The captain of the royal guard isn't someone to mess with, Sansy."

"I think I can handle her," Sans said. It was Papyrus, who undoubtedly would be trying very hard to be a part of Undyne's "important mission," he was worried about. Ever since Papyrus's failure as a royal guardsman, he made a reputation for going far out of his way to win back the favor he had lost. Sans didn't know how Undyne was going to handle Papyrus when she arrived or the days following.

"I wouldn't get too comfortable," Buncrazy said. "You heard the rumors, right?"

Of course Sans heard the rumors. Every monster in the Underground had heard the rumors. Even the monsters living under rocks have heard the rumors.

"What rumors?" he asked.

Leaning in close and whispering loudly, Buncrazy answered, "There's a human Underground. A human, Sansy! If the rumors are true, then we're that much closer to making it to the surface. We can finally be free!"

"Oh, I haven't heard," Sans replied as if he didn't care all that much. "After so many false claims, I learned to just tune out any word of humans in the Underground."

Such was true. Had he not seen Frisk himself, he would just as easily wave away this rumor as he had the previous others. "I wouldn't get my hopes up, if I were you," Sans suggested, not sure what he meant by those words.

Buncrazy shrugged. "I don't know. There must be some credibility to these rumors. After all, it is quite the coincidence the captain of the royal guard herself would be coming to stay with you the exact same time these rumors started to circulate."

That was what Sans was afraid of. "It is quite a coincidence," he agreed.

Showing all of her large, pointy teeth in a toothy smile, Buncrazy merely said before moving on, "I hope I get to see the human before Undyne slays it. I've never seen one before."

As the rabbit monster sashayed away, Sans pondered over the last thing Buncrazy said. Never seen a human, huh? She probably wouldn't even know Frisk is one if they ever happened across each other.

The thought rose questions inside of Sans's head. Glancing around the room full of laughing, drinking monsters, he asked himself, How many of them would recognize Frisk as a human if they saw her?


"There's got to be an end to this," Frisk murmured nearly a few hours after she found the sign. "Where is Snowdin? I'm sure we should have come across it by now."

"You are going East, right?" Chara asked.

To Frisk's surprise, Chara seemed less energetic than usual. Normally whatever emotion he shared was intentional, calculated. Frisk could typically tell whenever someone was showing genuine emotions or not, and every single emotion Chara had shown before, minus the incident on the stairs at home or shortly after with Flowey, was a mask he wore. Now the mask was gone, revealing someone who was as ready to find the town as Frisk.

"I'm not sure. I think so," Frisk answered. "Toriel didn't have a compass, or else I would have brought it."

Chara didn't reply. Now that he wasn't irritating her so much, Frisk snuck glances at the human every now and again and tried to figure him out. Sometimes he was annoying, other times he was malicious, and now he was exhibiting hardly anything. What is he really feeling? Frisk thought. Can he feel anything at all? Or has his state left him to only imitate emotions?

There was still the matter of how he came to be. Chara died, King Asgore tried to take his soul, and Toriel stole his soul from the king and had it infused with the locket. Chara's own locket, as he claimed. Such was enough for Frisk to gather that the locket she wore, clearly designed for a child, had to have been Chara's when he was a kid. However, the discovery only brought up more questions than answers. Frisk chewed on her lower lip.

What if I tried to ask Chara about his past? Would he get defensive, snap at me to mind my own business, or just ignore me? Catching another glance of Chara from the corner of her eye, Frisk sighed through her nose. He doesn't seem to be the type to share anything personal. Asking would be useless. If I'm going to figure any of this out, I need to find another way.

"Stripes!"

Chara's sharp voice drawing her back to reality, Frisk blurted "What?" and looked at the boy.

"Welcome back to earth." Chara rolled his eyes. "As I was trying to ask: Do you see it, too? Up ahead? I think it might be the change of scenery we were looking for."

Staring ahead, Frisk saw what Chara referred to. These weren't trees or dog houses or puzzles, but something else entirely. Frisk couldn't stop the smile from spreading across her face. "Buildings!" she whispered before sprinting towards the town.

It was foolish to run straight into potential danger. Frisk knew it, yet she did not care. All her logic was lost. There was a town in this abyss of snow, and she had finally reached it. If she died before she made it, she would always come back and rush for the town again. Now that she knew it was here after all, nothing could stop her from reaching it.

Yet as she neared, Frisk sensed that something was not right. The closer she got, the more she could feel the wrongness. Her run slowed to a jog, and then a trudge not long after. Closer and closer she got, the wrongness making more and more sense with each step. Tears welled up Frisk's eyes, her throat in pain from the lump that swelled inside.

"What happened here?" Chara asked, standing just behind Frisk and voicing her very thoughts.

Frisk didn't stop as she entered what was supposed to be Snowdin. She almost couldn't believe what was before her. Instead of seeing a small town bustling with activity, she entered the charred remains of a community burned out of existence.