Funny how your mind can be racing at the speed of light while everything around you seems frozen.

I have no idea what chunk of insanity corrupted my brain and possessed me to stay perfectly still with a pair of swords swinging wildly at me, inches away from tearing through my flesh like butter, but whatever it was, I'd never felt smarter in doing something so amazingly stupid.

The dog's leaping attack just missed me. One of his blades came so close to my neck I felt it brush up against each individual strand of hair in its way. Every instinct I had screamed at me to jump out of the way, or turn tail and run, or grab my weapons and try to fight back. But I didn't.

After the mangy mutt realized he'd met with nothing but open air, he stood up and took another look around with that piercing gaze of his. I tensed up as his gaze past right over me. "Nothing. Must've been my imagination. Again."

What am I, chopped liver? I knew I was good at blending into the background, but this was ridiculous! Who the hell hired a sentry with the sole purpose of...sentry-ing, that couldn't even see a few feet in front of-

"-Wait, what was that!?' Pupper's head jerked to the side, and any threatening notion in his gaze vanished in favor of immeasurable amounts of awe. I followed his gaze carefully, without turning my own head, and spotted a hint of movement out of the corner of my eye. It turned out to be a pine cone slipping of the branches of one of the trees, tumbling into the snow bank below.

I frowned. So...the overgrown chihuahua did have a pair of eyes that worked, he was simply more entertained by the most boring event to ever occur in nature than the creature from another world he was ordered to kill.

"Damn, only a pine cone..." he muttered word for word what I was thinking. His poise became much more relaxed. "I could've sworn I saw something moving..."

Now that caught my attention. I felt like a ninja, hiding in plain sight while I observed my target, looking for any and all weaknesses while carefully plotting my next move. Only here, I didn't have to make even an attempt at staying hidden. Doggo, as the plaque drilled into the side of his sentry station read (really creative name there, by the way. Next you'll be telling me the mutant frogs hanging around the Ruins were called "Froggits" or something.) could only see things that were moving. Either that or he was lulling me into a false sense of security and coincidentally had some weird pine cone fetish.

Doggo began to saunter back to his post, not bothering to hide his disappointment at coming up empty-pawed, oblivious to the fly on the wall behind him. I couldn't help but crack a smile, slowly, to keep from alerting him to my presence. Now I had complete control over the situation.

And it wouldn't exactly be like me to ignore a position of power, now would it?

With painstakingly sluggish movements rivaling a sloth on the dance floor, I pulled out The Almighty Stick, got into a throwing position, then threw caution to the wind as well as the stick as I chucked it as hard as I could.

As I'd expected, Doggo whipped around the moment the unabated flying object left my grasp. "HUH!?" he cried with a mixture of joy and surprise. "A FUN STICK APPE-"

Whatever he was screaming about was silenced as The Almighty Stick hurtled through the air, smacking him square in the snout with a loud thonk! It hit hard enough to knock him off his feet, and send his swords flying from his hands on to the snow.

Doggo's yelps of pain as he rolled around on the ground were drowned out only by my laughter. The creature who had me at death's door less than a minute ago was now rolling around in the snow and dirt like a...well, like a dog. And the real cherry on top? I hadn't even been aiming for him. I threw the stick figuring his canine instincts would kick in, and he'd bound off to chase after it. Although, this certainly worked just as well, if not even better.

I didn't hang around too much longer in case Doggo decided to get up and use his big, scary letter openers to chop me up and serve my bits and pieces on a kebob. I stopped over his pathetic snow-covered form on my way out to admire my handiwork, and to snatch up The Almighty Stick, which had come through for me once again.

The last thing I heard from Doggo as I hurried past was him yelling out between whimpers; "I'm gonna need some dog treats after this!"

Smiling widely as I made my getaway, I raised up the Almighty Stick up to my face. "Way to take one for the team," I praised, stooping over to wash some of the saliva off in the snow. It was only after I'd finished cleaning it the best I'd could and had been jogging for a full minute that I ran straight into a brick wall. I realized the game-changing mistake I'd made.

"Ah, dammit, I should've grabbed his swords!" How in the hell had I forgotten about them!? Those things were way more threatening than anything else the monsters had thrown at me, and when the perfect opportunity came along to steal them for myself, I completely disregarded them in favor of my god damn stick.

Yeah, you really came through for me again. I thought about doubling back to try and take them, but brushed off the idea. Doggo would probably be ready for me If I tried anything a second time.

When I moved too slow, I was manipulated. When I tried to pick up the pace, I missed out on the most obvious bullcrap. No matter how well I played my cards, it seemed like I was always being dealt a bad hand!

"Hey, kid!"

I tensed up and stopped dead in my tracks, expecting Doggo to burst from the trees screaming at the top of his lungs with swords drawn, until I recognized the voice as Sans'. Letting out a sigh of relief, I nodded to acknowledge the grinning skeleton's presence. He must've used one of those totally-not-suspicious secret shortcuts of his, because I hadn't noticed him standing right beside me a moment ago.

"Thanks for warning me about the half-blind dog flailing around with dual swords like nobody's buisness. Really appreciate the heads-up. Please don't hesitate to do so again," I said coldly, glaring at Sans' unwavering expression. No sign of guilt emerging anywhere.

Sans shrugged. "Cut me some slack, I already have a skele-ton of stuff on my mind."

"...You're literally just gonna squeeze in puns anywhere you can, aren't you?"

He winked at me, a gesture sending more worry than assurance. "Now that I know ya can handle them, yeah. But hey!" He cut me off before I got a chance to say anything, probably noticing my I swear to God I'll build a castle out of your bones death-glare. "I feel bad about not telling ya Doggo was back there, so how 'bout I make it up to you?"

I raised a tentative eyebrow. If it was an in depth look into the delicate art of pun-crafting, I could probably live without. "Depends. What'd you have in mind?" I asked, not bothering to hide my suspicion. Nor did I bother to remind the skeleton he'd already given me one of his hoodies for nothing in return. After all, he wasn't the on in a life-or-death situation.

"You wouldn't happen to know about blue attacks, would ya?"

I frowned. "Pretty sure that's just what people call it when a member of the Blue Man Group is charged for sexual assault."

"...No?" Sans assured me with the confidence of a salmon fighting a grizzly bear. "Never mind. So, when monsters attack you, they usually shoot some white gunk at you, right?"

"Yeah? So?" I shivered as another blast of cold air pushed past. The hoodie certainly helped, but it was so freezing I could probably be caring the sun in my pocket and still shiver every few seconds.

"Well, some of 'em, my bro included, will use blue attacks. And those, pal, are not fun," he warned. "If you see a blue attack, don't move and it won't hurt you."

I zipped and unzipped the top of my hoodie absentmindedly, not totally convinced Sans was telling the truth. "Don't move? And you're not just saying that to get me killed, right?

He smiled. "Please, you wouldn't need my help for that."

I scoffed at his comment. "I've been doing just fine on my own."

"Oh really? Who's jacket is that on your back, exactly?"

Shit, he did remember. "...Alright, fine. You got me," I admitted, avoiding his gaze. That was easily one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do in my life. I could've easily just denied it to save my sorry ego, but my rational side kept beating it over my head that I'd get myself killed if I rejected any and all help that wanted to waltz with me. Sans probably had a breaking point, too, and if I pissed him off enough to feed me false information...hell, he could be doing it already...I could end up feeding the ground.

So, I decided to play along with his puns and his condescending tone for as long as I could. At least he could take a joke, otherwise I might have to tape my mouth shut just to get out of this place in one piece.

"...Sorry for being an asshole." I added begrudgingly, talking out of the corner of my mouth.

Sans nodded. "Don't sweat it, kid. I wouldn't take me seriously either."

I chuckled at that. "Glad to have my life in your metacarpal." On the inside, I screamed just kill me now.

"Your bone jokes are givin' me osteonecrosis ," he countered.

"...Nope, didn't get that one."

"Eh, worth a shot."

Sans kept chatting away, advising me that the best way to remember to stop whenever I see a blue attack was to imagine the them as blue stop signs. (Thanks for that, Sans. I'll have fun trying to tear that distracting image outta my head.) After that, we said our goodbyes, and he disappeared into the trees, promising he'd catch up. Maybe he has a secret underground network of tunnels, I thought as an explanation for how he was everywhere at once. Man, how much cooler would Ebott be if it had one of those...

I gasped as my feet slipped out from under me. My arm shot out to catch myself as I fell forward, face quickly approaching the ground, and I landed hard on my knees and the palms of my hands.

Grunting in anger and, I spat, "Agh, dammit! What the hell was-"

I paused when I noticed the surface I'd slipped on, a flat patch of solid ice, hard as brick and thick enough that I couldn't see any sort of movement below it's shadowy surface. Despite the pain flooding my knees, which I had no doubt were starting to look like an old prune baking out in the sun for twenty years, I attempted to climb to my feet.

Easier said than done. Standing up on ice was already like trying to balance on a thin beam coated in butter, on fire, above a pit of man-eating lions, with heavy metal blaring at full volume in your ears, and I'd never exactly had any practice with it before. It never really got cold enough for water to freeze in Ebott, even if there were any bodies of water to walk on, and there weren't any skating rinks to fill the void, either. I nearly fell three more times just trying to stand up, let alone when taking my first steps.

I made my way off the ice, taking one tortuously slow step after the other, until I was able to hop back onto the snow with a sigh of relief. Never thought I'd prefer trudging through the snow to walking on anything else. I wonder if Sans had a pair of ice skates I could take off his hands...

A short way forward, the path split for the first time since the Ruins, one leading forward, and the other, thinner one heading off to the side. I chose the latter first, the wrong way. And the only reason I knew it was wrong was that it looked right, which rarely seemed to be working for me. I'd probably choose wrong even if I was following the yellow brick road.

It was a short detour at least, ending pretty much just as it started. The path opened up over a ledge overlooking an eerie pit of absolute nothingness, with a single lonely snowman standing over the cliff's edge.

I eyed it strangely. Much like the snow itself, the snowman felt utterly unreal and alien to me, like a talking flower or an anthropomorphic dog, something I'd only ever glimpsed on TV. That being said, it wasn't exactly as glamorous as Frosty, not even in the same ballpark. It had only a lazy smile carved into it's top mound of snow, a couple of small black bits of coal for eyes and buttons for the...buttons, complete with the only thing snowmen couldn't live without; an old, withered carrot nose. I guess everything looked better when you saw it on TV. Hell, it's bottom layer of snow was so melted and mushy it was a wonder the unrealistically happy piece of snow was still standing.

Much like Ebott's economy.

Once I was content with my observations, and by content I mean pissed that yet another part of my childhood had been gutted, I sighed and turned to leave.

"Are you a human, traveler?"

Figures. Seems like everything that's got a mouth has something to say down here.

Typically, I'd glance around at the trees and in search of the obvious source of the voice, but it really didn't take a detective by this point to figure out it'd come directly from the snowman.

"Depends," I shot back. "You got a switchblade hidden somewhere in those lumps? Of snow!?" I added quickly, realizing how...lets say weird the first part sounded.

"Oh no, nothing of the sort," the snowman's voice floated over, so quiet I could barely hear it over my own thoughts. It's mouth strangely didn't move when it spoke, although even that wasn't new or surprising to me anymore. "I was...just...curious."

I nodded. "That all? I'll be going, then."

"No, wait!" the snowman called out before I'd taken even my first step. I eyed him suspiciously, trying to read what he was thinking.

The snowman cleared his throat with the sound of gargling snow, and spoke more quietly. "S-sorry to yell at you, but I'm not very familiar with your kind."

"Can't say I've seen a talking snowman myself." The snowman chuckled at that. "So what do you want?"

The moment I actually asked him to speak, he was suddenly at a loss for words. "...Well...you see..."

"Spit it out already! I could just as easily be freezing my ass off somewhere else," I pressed. It felt odd talking to something that couldn't so much as bat an eyelash, like trying to hold a conversation with a scarecrow. Or the elderly.

"...As you can probably tell by looking at me, I'm frozen to this very spot," it explained.

Oh great, a sob story. My favorite pastime; listening to other complain.

"And...well...how do I put this..." it rambled, searching for the right words. Finally, with a new sense of confidence, and - I swear on it - a glint to its unmoving coal eyes, it said, "I want to see the world."

...

...

"...You and me both, pal."

"Well, unlike me, you can!" It was if a spark had ignited in that old pile of snow, and it started talking faster and faster. Even the trees seem to come alive at his speech, with a gust of wind spurring their bristles, causing them to sway in time with his words. "Those legs of yours could take you here, there, anywhere you want! All the sights and landmarks this vast world of ours has to offer! And so, kind madam..."

...Sounded like it was finally about to get to the point.

"I ask that you take a small piece of me with you. So that we may experience all those wonders together."

What did this guy take me for, some raving lunatic? I already had enough on my plate just trying to survive in this insane world, there was no reason to add yet another burden onto my back. As if there were any other choice but-

"I'll do it." The chorus of wind stopped. "And it's sir, not madam."

For a moment, it felt like the world had come to a screeching halt, mouth gaping open at my madness. "...Sir, words cannot describe the amounts of gratitude and happiness I am feeling right now. Truly, thank you. Now please, reach in and take a piece from my abdomen, and store it in the bottle by my feet."

I complied immediately, as if in a trance, walking up beside the snowman, fishing the snow covered bottle out, pulling off the cap, and reaching into his center to pull out a fair sized chunk of his body despite the stinging sensation in my hands. I half-worried I'd cause him to collapse, but he stood his ground firmly. I sealed the snow piece within the bottle and carefully stuffed it into my hoodie's front pocket.

I didn't know how taking an inanimate piece of him would help him see the world.

I didn't know why I cared.

Maybe I really was crazy.

I knew for a fact I didn't care.

"Good luck on your adventures, my friend," the snowman sang. Even though I knew its mouth hadn't moved, the grin on its face seemed ten times wider.

I nodded and left without another word, suddenly needing to get back to the surface more than ever before.