The last thing they saw before their Soul shattered was the terrified look on Toriel's face. Panic. Fear. Guilt. It all passed by so quickly that they could not even process it until after the fact. It was a lot more painful than the very real death they were experiencing right at that moment.

*RESET

The first thing they saw as they woke up was a field of golden flowers. This was true the first time they fell down the mountain and now.

They pulled themselves back up from the flowers and reexamined themselves. The skid on their knee from the fall was healed. The scratch on their elbow from the fight with the Vegetoid was not, so they move the bandage there. Their skin was light pink with burns, not serious enough to require treatment even if they deserved it.

So what had happened? They remembered the fight. They remembered Toriel. They remembered surviving the fall and surviving against all the other monsters and surviving…

They weren't surprised to see Flowey in the next room. They were surprised to see that his expression shifted when they moved past the friendliness pellets this time, and by what he said next.

"You know what's going on here, don't you? DIE."

The next parts happened just like they remembered it. Flowey encircled their Soul in friendliness pellets. Flowey was knocked away. Someone came.

"My, what a loathesome creature, torturing such a poor, innocent youth…"

They tried staying that time. It never worked. They never fell asleep no matter how hard they tried. Time never progressed.

"You must stay determined! You are the future of humans and monsters!"

The Wind in the Leaves

An Undertale/Paranorman crossover

By the Poor Sap Advocate

The zombies were not as concerning to them as they probably should have been. The whole room had been decorated with them; some realistic and grotesque, but most looking like something Mettaton would have in his shows. As they get used to their environment and snuggled into the zombie-printed blankets, they heard the sounds of voices underneath them. The realization scared them more than the zombies, and caused them the bolt of the bed. This was someone else's house.

They did not have much time to think about it. Footsteps were getting closer, and whoever was coming would not expect to see Frisk. They jumped under the bed and hid.

The footsteps grew closer, but not by much. The door rattled with knocks.

"Norman! Time to go to school!"

The door squeaked open and the approacher took a few steps inside. Not far enough to make them out. They stayed for a moment, before muttering something under their breath and leaving, closing the door behind them again.

Frisk stayed under the bed until the sounds of footsteps and voices had all but left, as the occupants went about their daily business. It did not take long, or at least, not as long as they have had to do this before.

"Alright, everyone's left by now. Would you like to come out now?"

Frisk froze. That was not the same voice at the door, nor any of the other voices they had heard. No one else was in the room. They knew that. With trepidation, they poked their head out.

Someone was right in front of them. She must have been human, at one point. Yet the part Frisk couldn't move past was the unearthly green glow around her.

"Wow," she said. "I didn't think you would actually hear me."

It was a ghost. Anyone could have figured that one out. Norman interacted with ghosts on a daily basis. He lived with them, had some walk to school with him, ate lunch with them when none of the other students would sit with him. They were the closest things he could call friends. He knew ghosts better than anyone else in Blithe's Hollow, maybe the entire world, did.

And that thing was not a ghost.

Ghosts were human, or dogs, or whatever they were before they died. Ghosts looked normal, though some who remembered how they died may still be missing an arm or have a cannon hole where their belly should be. Ghosts were surrounded in a sickly green aura as they interacted beyond the veil of death.

The thing that lay in front of him looked more like what a crude characteristic of a ghost looked like. It was human sized, but lacked any defining features. It looked more like what someone would wear for a cheap Halloween costume of a ghost.

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ," said the thing that was not a ghost.

He was pretending to be asleep, Norman realized. And he was really bad at it.

He was in a world of monsters, so maybe the thing in front of him was a monster ghost? It seemed to be the most likely answer. It was not like the Underground was making any sense so far. Still, he was going to have to get past the thing, and he would prefer to do it without hurting him.

"Uh, excuse me," Norman spoke up.

Two eyes, black and round like buttons, snapped open and looked towards Norman. Two flickers of light filled them.

Norman's Soul leapt from his chest, and the battle began. Here comes Napstablook.

"Sorry, I just—"

Norman stopped as white tears leaked from the ghosts' eyes. For a moment, he felt bad. He opened his mouth to apologize.

The tears shot past him and impacted on his Soul. It took him a minute to recover from the attack, but when he looked up, the ghost looked worse than before.

"oh…sorry…I just…" they stammered.

Toriel said that the monsters may attack him. But she also said the best way to get past them was just to strike a friendly conversation.

"You're fine, I just…need to get past…"

The ghost's tears slowed. Norman found those a lot easier to dodge.

"right…sorry…"

"Hey, it's okay—"

The ghost was gone before Norman could finish.

Mrs. Babcock walked them through the steps of making hot chocolate. She would have made it herself, but she could no longer hold the cups or cocoa powder.

"You're too young to be breaking in," she decided. "And if you're a guest, then you get refreshments."

Frisk only had a few moments to enjoy the cozy home and the hot chocolate before the questioning began.

"So how did you end up here, kid?" Mrs. Babcock asked. It was a well-meaning question, and it was said with such a casual tone that it almost wasn't a stab in Frisk's Soul. With shaking hands, they put down the hot chocolate and reached for the notepad and pen.

"'Sorry'," read Mrs. Babcock. Her face contorted in confusion. "What do you have to be sorry for?"

Frisk shifted as they wrote.

Got lost. Trying to fix it. Think I made it worse.

Mrs. Babcock was silent for a moment. Frisk stared at her, trying to figure out what she was thinking and whether or not they should be concerned just yet.

"When you…tried to fix it," said Mrs. Babcock. "Did you do anything…weird? Something most humans can't do?"

Frisk nodded, albeit hesitantly.

"I figured as much," said Mrs. Babcock. "Most people can't see me, you know? Norman was the only one…do you know what happened to him?"

Frisk hands shook more, to the point where it was even harder to write. They weren't even sure what they wanted to write. If Norman ended up in the Underground, he would probably be fine. But they did not know what would happen if he ended up in a place like the Unknown, or the Other World. And what if he wouldn't be fine in the Underground? What if he hurt someone or someone hurt him or

"Kid?"

Mrs. Babcock's voice shook them back to attention. They started writing.

"Kid!"

Two hands reached over Frisk, and even though they did not touch them, Frisk's hands stopped.

"I'm not mad at you." Mrs. Babcock said. "It sounds like you've made some mistakes. But you're still a kid. You have all the time in the world to fix them."

It took Frisk a moment to stop shaking and look back up at the ghost. Mrs. Babcock waited patiently for them before she continued.

"I'll tell you what," said Mrs. Babcock. "I happen to know someone who knows more about this supernatural sh…stuff than I do. Why don't we go visit him, and see if he knows what's going on?"

The stuff sounded forced, like she wanted to say something else. Still, that was maybe the best plan they had so far. Mrs. Babcock's words made them feel more determined to make this right.

*File SAVED

There was something about Toriel that concerned him. She had been the only thing in the Underground that had not attack him, but the way she spoke made him suspicious. They were innocuous things, like where her favorite bug-hunting spot was or the things she usually made for dinner. Yet they were laced with an edge that implied Norman was not going to leave for a long time.

The box full of shoes in a disparity of sizes sealed the deal. Norman had to leave.