If you had ever asked me if, at any point in my life prior to falling into the Underground, I would imagine myself locked in heated combat against a bathtub with a face, I probably would've responded with a well thought out, "Huh?" But there I was, dodging forceful blasts of water from a monster shaped like a tub, complete with a rubber ducky sitting pretty in the center, who only attacked me because I refused a "bath" (which was either a kind invitation to wash me 'cause I smelled like shit, or a creepy sexual advance. Either way, I was just starting to dry off after my little dip from earlier, and wasn't looking forward to getting soaked any time soon.)

I ducked under a jet stream fired by the creature, but found myself losing my footing, stumbling carelessly into the nearest wall.

Sloppy.

Irritated, I pushed off the rocky surface, leaped over another water blast and over the tub itself, and brought my gloved hand down hard enough to crack the glass holding the monster's water supply. Noticing it's defenses crumbling, the Little Bathtub that Couldn't wobbled off shrieking at the top of his lungs, even though I was positive I hadn't hurt him. Along with water, a few gold coins trickled out behind him as he ran, which I didn't hesitate to pick up. He had attacked me, after all, and only because I had stated I didn't want to get wet. Just normal Underground stuff in a nutshell.

Eh, I guess having creeps jump you after refusing to 'get wet' with them isn't an Underground exclusive thing after all...

"Nice moves there, Kid," came a familiar, relaxed voice. "No wonder you've been getting along so well without my help."

Nice moves? I was fighting like I had three left feet!

I threw on a smirk and trotted over to Sans, who leaned carelessly against what looked to be a sleek silver telescope. Why he bothered with a telescope in a muggy, claustrophobic cave, I had no idea. Maybe to get a really detailed close up of paint drying. "Your 'help?' Even Papyrus is putting in more work than you, dude. Not that it's helping much, but at least he's trying." I explained the whole outfit-swap trick Papyrus and I had played on Undyne.

Sans nodded, grinning so hard his teeth threatened to shatter. "So, my bro's looking out for ya too, huh? Nice to see him a little more...grounded, than usual."

I ran my fingers through my hair, relieved to feel the thin strands were finally dry. "Heh. He does sound a little less...tunnel visioned, I guess? He's actually focusing on something other than himself, is what I'm trying to say."

"Hmmmm..." Sans hummed. "Sounds a bit familiar, huh Kid?"

Watch it, Sans. "Yeah, yeah..."

All of a sudden, Sans perked up like a dog offered box of treats. "Perked up" by his standards, anyway. "Speaking of tunnel vision, howzabout a little look through my premium telescope?" he offered, patting the side of the glorified magnifying glass carelessly. "Normally I'd charge you fifty thousand gold to use it...but since I know you, you can use it for free."

"Premium, and free, huh?" I whistled. "In that case, I might just have to take you up on that offer."

I conveniently left out the part of my explanation where I, admittedly, wasn't looking forward to exploring any more of Waterfall alone after my encounter with Undyne. I was willing to delay that inevitability, wasting as much time as possible with another living being - in this case Sans. Hell, I had been this close to reaching out and stopping Monster Kid when he ran off earlier, just so I had a companion to travel with, but the words had caught in my throat. The feeling left a sour taste in my mouth on both sides of the coin: fear of being caught by those sinister, sharp eyes cutting through the blackness of Waterfall like searchlights, and from the sudden necessity to cling to others for protection. After narrowly escaping Undyne with a fair share of wounds, and after experiencing first-hand that...gruesome vision...how did I know if I could trust my own mind and body any longer?

"Kid? You working on your world famous horse impression or something?"

I blinked away the annoyingly vivid images of my limp body impaled on a sea of spears, noticing Sans had slid out of the way, allowing me some elbow room with his telescope. I hadn't realized my eyes had been shut at all, as if I were asleep. Must've reminded Sans of how horses slept standing straight up, or something like that.

Pretty crappy joke regardless.

After he brought me back to reality, I swallowed the urge to invite Sans to travel with me, for...reasons. Maybe it was that same messed up sense of pride I couldn't climb over, but I convinced myself the skeleton would probably just make up some half-assed excuse on the spot to get out of it, anyways. That had to be it. "Whatever you wanna call it, dry bones," I said, leaning down to peer through the lens of the telescope.

I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be looking for to begin with, and after a second, I noticed the only thing I could make out was a solid red circle no matter where I angled the lens. Some kind of sticky substance, almost like batter, clung to the space around my eye. I no longer wondered why Sans had brought his telescope here of all places. I had literally walked head first into one of the most obvious pranks of all time. Paint on the damn lens.

"Great view," I mocked the skeleton, pulling away from the telescope and wiping the paint off with my sleeve. I had expected to find Sans stifling a laugh, or just flat out giggling like a school girl, but instead, he looked weirdly unsettled.

"What happened to you, Kid?"

Oh, what, the gaping hole in my back? "Undyne happened," I answered coldly. Somehow the wound had escaped my mind entirely, but now that he had so kindly brought it up, it started to burn all over again. "Nice of you to notice."

"Nice Cream Guy's hanging around over there tryin' to make a living. Why don'tcha go grab a cone or two?" Sans suggested, pointing down a separate corridor off the main path. "Should patch ya up."

That bunny guy with the weird mood swings? "Why's he always selling nice cream in the dumbest places?" I asked, but wasn't planning on waiting for an answer. For some reason, knowing Sans had my back, lazy as he was, had reinvigorated my confidence enough to get me itching to be on the move again. Even if I wasn't sure I could fully trust him, any support by this point in the game was better than none at all.

"Good luck, Kid."

"Thanks, Sansy. Hopefully I won't need it."

The Nice Cream Guy had perked up when I entered his small side room, as expected, and immediately started shoving nice creams down my throat. Which, thankfully, sounds a lot more disgusting and vulgar than it actually was. I grabbed three of them, one to heal off the nasty gash across my back, and another two stored in a couple of, "No-thaw containers, invented by the great Doctor Alphys!" as the hare had put it. Not sure how miniature coolers were so high-tech they were worthy of congratulating the inventor every time you use them, but I didn't care to question it.

"Still no luck with drawing in customers, huh?" I asked, more facetious than anything else.

That question alone was almost enough to pull the rabbit back into his funk. "Yeah...no...and still no idea why people aren't showing up, either. I even took your advice and moved shop somewhere else."

Seriously? "Dude, I said to go somewhere hot to sell these things!"

"No, you said 'most people wouldn't stomach cold food in the snow!'"

I narrowed my eyes. "Okay, fine. Now I'm telling you to go somewhere hot as the center of the goddamn earth. Capiche?"

"Hmm...Got it! Now, I really know the perfect spot! Thanks!"

When I returned to the main cave, Sans and his telescope had disappeared without a trace - not even a light stench of ketchup. The vacant spot seemed very out of place without the skeleton inhabiting it. I couldn't help but wondered if he had packed it up and lugged it away like a bulky folding chair, or if he had simply used one of his "shortcuts" to leave with it quickly. Probably the latter, since there was no reason for him to waste any more energy than he needed to. That had to be why I never saw him walking anywhere.

But why the hell would he bother keeping it a secret? Tons of monsters have crazy abilities down here, like Tori's fireballs, or Undyne's spear conjuring shit. It doesn't make any sense...

"Next time I see him, I'll get to the bottom of it," I said out loud, just to make it as official as possible. "And this time, I won't take 'what're ya talking about?' for an answer."

Great, now stop talking to yourself. It's weird.

Fine. But don't expect anything from me for your birthday, asshole.

Waterfall was already a pretty strange place. (Go figure, as if the radioactive mushrooms, seemingly endless water supply, walking bathtubs, and sparkling gemstones on the ceiling weren't any indication.) Yet every time I dared to think I had seen everything the Underground had to offer, I was instantly blown away by something doubtlessly more insane, or downright jaw-dropping.

This, more than ever, was one of those jaw-dropping times.

An intricate network of rivers wove through the stone floor like one huge spiderweb, making the cave seem far more vast than I had originally cared to notice. The glow of those same gemstones encased in the ceiling seem to intensify a thousand fold, painting the walls, the tall fungi growing like oak trees, and everything else they touched in their calming blue aura. What really made me do a double take, and eventually a triple take moments later, was the way the light caught the water. It formed a sky blue color so bright, so cool, so inviting that a dip in the stream didn't seem like such a terrible idea anymore. Even the lily pads and cattails resting like geese on the water's surface appeared as silhouettes against the shining liquid.

I tried to muster up anything clever to say for my nonexistent audience, but found my lips glued shut. My heart, for the first time since being attacked by Undyne, slowed it's pace to something just shy of normal. I let myself be absorbed in the serenity of the scene, in the sudden life of Waterfall, for only a few moments.

...Okay, that's enough for now. This moment could be easily ruined by just one spear up my ass, after all.

I made my way down the riverbed, occasionally crossing over the water thanks to some conveniently placed bridges. Felt better to be in a bigger, less crowded space where I could see Undyne or any other hostile monster coming from a mile away. Not that Snowdin or even the Ruins had been crowded or anything, but there seemed to be far fewer monsters creeping around Waterfall. Aside from Sans, and counting even him was a bit of a stretch. It was as if the Royal Guard hadn't prepared for any human to make it this far in the first place. Come to think of it, that was probably why the captain herself lingered and crept in the darkness of Waterfall. And that ill-preparation left me feeling somehow worse off.

"So? Don't you have any wishes to make?"

The hairs on the back of my neck jolted up for a split second, until I recognized the monotonous voice of an echo flower. It blended in with the color of the water so well I had almost missed it. Another flower nearby joined in the bland chorus before I could so much as blink.

"Hmm...just one, but it's kind of stupid."

I'm sure it is.

"Don't say that! I promise I won't laugh," calls another one, more desperate to join the conversation than the lily pads were to not be dragged off by the swift current and thrown over the waterfall.

Really? I make no such promises.

Each voice sounded the same when repeated by the flora, but it wasn't difficult to tell the flowers' speeches belonged to two different monsters. Thankfully there weren't any others nearby, and the ones within earshot only repeated the same sentence endlessly. I didn't have any interest hearing about their petty wishes, anyway.

By the end of the room the cave began to curve back in on itself, and I was beyond disappointed to see the gemstones begin to dim again, the water beginning to deter back to its ugly dark blue, the color of a dirty, barren night sky.

Back to grimy, dingy Waterfall, I guess. Dammit...

The plaque on the wall didn't help to heighten my spirits either. It continued the history depicted by the last row of them I had seen, where I had my...incident. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about finding any more. My eyes hardly skimmed the text, but it was just enough to make out the words clear enough.

The power to take their Souls. This is the power that the humans feared.

In the next room over, which was only one long straight path surrounded on either side by water, my phone rang again.

"How's the scheming going, Paps?" I answered, deciding to walk and talk at the same time. If Undyne wanted to rear her ugly mug around here, I could just as easily chuck the phone at her for a quick distraction.

"'Scheming!?' The Great Papyrus does not...well, okay, maybe a little, BUT NEVER AGAINST FRIENDS!"

"Alright, Papyrus, chill out! You'll blow my damn eardrums off," I complained. At that same moment, I could've sworn I heard something shift in the water, but it was so small and irrelevant I brushed it off as my imagination.

Never a smart thing to do when people are out to kill you.

"My apologies. So, Human, do you remember when I asked you what you were wearing earlier?"

"In a completely non-suspicious way?"

Splash.

"There it is again..." I muttered, turning to investigate the noise. It sounded fainter than a mouse's squeak in a sea of people, but it was definitely there, and I couldn't help but get paranoid over it the second time.

"Human? Are you listening to me?" Papyrus asked, sounding genuinely insulted.

"Yeah, yeah, something about...kumquats or something, go on?" I reassured the lanky skeleton, silently slipping on my tough glove over my free hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a series of ripples in the water.

Something's following me.

"As I was saying, you may have guessed I was asking you for another friend of mine," he continued, apparently unable to figure out I had my attention directed somewhere completely unrelated. "And, I normally try not to ever, ever lie, but this particular friend's opinion of you is very...murdery."

Was something just bubbling in the water? And what the hell is that stench!? Smells like a back alley sushi shop...

"So, I decided it was for the best to tell her you were not, in fact, wearing a tutu and baseball cap, but instead a pair of jeans and a black jacket."

"Wait, WHAT?!" I screamed into the receiver. This time, it was my turn to shatter Papyrus' hearing. "The hell is wrong with you!?"

"I know, it is wrong of me to betray one friend for another, but I can't let Undyne harm you!"

"Papyrus, if you're gonna disregard the lie I make up anyway, why would you tell her exactly what I'm actually wearing?"

Silence on the other end. "...You were lying?"

I hung up, shoved the phone in my pocket, and silenced it moments later when it rang again. I was too furious at the skeleton; I worried if I prolonged the conversation I might end up snapping the phone in half. Of all the stupid shit I'd seen him do, this one was the sewage-filled icing on that disgusting, shit-covered cake. Of course Undyne recognized me immediately through the dark of Waterfall, of course she had found me so easily. Because she knew exactly what too look for. Papyrus was out to help me, alright. Help me dig my own grave.

I was so focused on staying angry at Papyrus, I hadn't even noticed the rippling of the water growing more intense, like the rumbling of a volcano as pressure builds below its surface. Even in my ignorance, though, I couldn't miss bright yellow tentacles slithering out of the murky liquid moments later.

My eyes widened. The first instinct I had was to bolt, but two more tentacles flopped haphazardly across the pathway on either side of me, each big enough to block the way forward and back. Waves created by the creature crashed at my feet, and a shower of droplets and tiny bits of rock rained down on me like hail as the largest part of the creature slowly emerged, a big bulb that barely fit underneath the ceiling. All that was missing from the scene was a dark and stormy night.

Seriously? A freaking Krakken?! I'd rather take my chances with the spear-conjuring lunatic, thank you very much.

My mind was drawing a complete blank, and the rest of me refused to move. What was I supposed to do? Stand still punching at its tentacles until it gave up? Swimming around the monster was a possibility, but no amount of fear, money, or desperation could get me in the water with that thing. All the while I was stuck thinking up a solution, the monster's thrashing only seemed to grow more violent.

Punching it is.

While more grotesque vines - no, tentacles, don't get distracted - popped up around me, I sprinted over to the one blocking my way forward. The world started running at half-speed as my fist reared back, my feet planted firmly on the ground, and a rogue battle cry came flying from my mouth...

...Then, all the racket of movement instantly ceased, and I heard the softest, most nervous voice to ever come out of a giant sea monster's mouth.

"H-hey...I noticed you were...here..."

He's friendly. Of course he's friendly. Sure there are killer bathtubs and sword wielding dogs, but krakkens? Those guys, you can trust.

I pulled away from the tentacle and turned to face the monster, startled by its massive puppy-dog eyes, which wouldn't have looked any more out of place on the side of a building. It wore a comically large and nervous smile across its face and was either dripping with water, or sweating bullets.

"I-I'm Onionsan! Onionsan, y'hear!" He managed a brief burst of confidence, but it only served to highlight his awkwardness even further. 'Course, this whole situation didn't have much potential to get any more awkward than it already was.

"Uh...hi?" I should have been relieved to find out Onionsan was a gentle giant (with an...unfortunate name), but something about his presence alone unnerved me, the same feeling you'd get hanging around a wanted criminal. If I had to make a guess, it probably involved those massive, clumsy tentacles that were constantly wriggling around so much they threatened to knock me into the ravine bellow. Plus, he had interrupted my "me time," an offense punishable only by severe degradation. "You mind moving this outta my way, Calamari?"

Calamari—or Onionsan, I had already forgotten which was his actual name—shakily retracted the tentacle in my way. "O-oh, yeah, sorry about that!" the squid sputtered.

"Thanks," I said conclusively, as if there were any hint of a chance Calamari would actually drop the conversation and leave me be that easily. I knew his type, the kind of guy who tries to choose his words carefully, like a card player who takes an eternity examining his hand to make the perfect move, but still trips up and plays wrong anyway. I could tell from the way he had tried and failed to pass himself off as someone worth my time. Plenty of annoying school kids, and adults for that matter, acted oblivious to the fact you wanted nothing to do with them, or even flat-out ignored any not-so-subtle hints you had been dropping leniently. The kind that claimed to be dedicated to "cheering you up," but really are only scrambling for ways to further validate their own existences. I didn't need to so much as glance at it to realize the giant squid was swimming along beside me, waiting for me to present some nonexistent opportunity for him to dip his head further into my business.

"You're visiting Waterfall, huh!?" Calamari chimed in again, right on cue.

"Sure," I answered, figuring how I could be as vague as possible. "I'm on a little...vacation."

Without pausing for a single breath, the squid continued in his oddly high-pitched voice, "It's great here, huh!? You love it here, huh!?"

Might as well test the waters of this guy's stupidity while I have the chance.

"Sure," I said again, as disinterested as the first time. "I figured it'd be a great place to take a little time off for myself. Not many people to chew my ear off around here, yeah?"

"Y-yeah! I like it too...It's my big favorite..."

Welp. Can't get much more obvious than that without tattooing "Flop off, sushi-legs," across the back of my neck. Looks like I was right about this guy...

"Even though, the water's getting so shallow here..."

For the first time since I started walking through this incredibly long room, I was almost tempted to come to a stop. Calamari had managed to spout out an interesting little tidbit, whether it was on purpose or just dumb luck. "Looks pretty deep to me..."

When I cast a glance back at the squid, I noticed he had ducked to hide his face in the apparent shallows. "I, actually have sit down all the time, but..." his voice bubbled to life. A moment later, he shot out of the water like a cannonball, making a sudden effort to shake off his darkened mood. "B-but hey! That's okay! It beats moving to the city!"

"'Course it does..." Sounds like you need to convince yourself first before trying it out on me, pal.

"You're right!"

Did I say something?

"W-why would I wanna go live in a crowded aquarium with all my friends, anyway?"

The forced optimism in his voice stuck out like a sore thumb. Or a giant sea monster hiding out in a cave. "You managed to find some suckers willing to be friends with you?" For the first time, the curtness in my voice didn't come willingly, but was dragged out by force of habit. I almost found myself regretting it.

"K-kinda...until they all left without me."

I stopped in my tracks completely. "They abandoned you?"

A spark of pain flashed across Calamari's face and in the big, black pupils of his eyes, disappearing as quickly as it came. My question hung in the air like a thick cobweb, until the squid sank beneath the surface of the water for a second time, as if trying to disappear from the conversation. Except now, I actually wanted to see it through to the end.

The cave went dead silent for a while, even the water seemed still as ice and makes no sound, until Onionsan poked his head up again. "They uh...they left for city while I was sleeping, I guess," he mumbled slowly, now refusing to meet my gaze. "I thought we had agreed on staying, and that the water draining was fine...and the aquarium is full, anyway...as if I wanted to go with them..."

Poor sap. Even his friends couldn't stand him.

"Sorry, can't say I know the feeling," I shrugged. "But if they really did take off behind your back, they're probably a 'buncha assholes anyway."

My words of wisdom didn't help cheer up the squid, not that I had expected them to in the first place. Onionsan sat with his tentacles pulled to his...chest (wasn't planning on majoring in squid anatomy), eyes darting to everything in the room except for me.

Bet he's regretting giving me the time of day now, I thought, turning to leave without so much as a "see ya, hope you're not too upset about being completely alone in the world for life."

"You know what, you're right! Who needs those guys!"

Guess he's not too upset.

As suddenly as I'd given up on the monster, he'd shot out of the water like a lightning bolt, the expression on his face equally as bright. The force of his outburst shook the entirety of Waterfall, and I stumbled trying to keep myself from falling off the narrow pathway.

"I am?"

"It's all okay, y'hear!" The ground continued to shake as he flopped up and down like the world's largest flounder in the middle of the world's loudest rave. "Undyne's gonna fix everything, y'hear! I'm gonna get out of here and live in the ocean!"

"Great..." I muttered weakly. Between the constant shaking and the grim reminder that a crazy laser-spear-chucking knight was stalking me, my stomach felt ready to empty what remained of Grillby's burger and the nice cream into Onionsan's little reservoir. That's, what, the ten millionth person who indirectly wants me dead?

I spun around, desperately looking for some kind of escape, and thank god, the end of the room was only meters away. The cavern wall cut across Calamari's little pool of water, rendering him unable to follow me any further. A few more steps and I'd be home free, on my own again. If I could thank Onionsan for any one thing, he had effectively crushed any desire I had to travel with a companion.

"Well, good luck with that," I said quickly, ducking out of the room and refusing to look back.

"Thanks!" Onionsan yelled back. As he began to lower himself underwater one final time, I heard him call out to me, "Have a good time in Waterfallllllllllllllllll~"