Author's Note: When you see the name "Chara" I suggest you mentally replace it with whatever you named the fallen child. Or your own name. For me, the Fallen Child is a she, and her name is Lith. You can do this with other fanfics as well.


The face was the very picture of rage... but then twisted into a sickening grin.

"Something's different about you..." said the child, "You going to put up a fight this time?"

The hands told him to not let them taunt him. Told him not to give up. That they were rooting for him.

"You know, Sans... This wouldn't be the first time I've killed you." They grabbed the knife and pointed it at Sans."You were supposed to die back there, you know." They smirked. "This was going to be the last time, too. The last time I'd come back to save everyone. The last time I'd come back to kill everyone. I was getting bored of you all. I only came back for the nostalgia. But now? Now something's different. This... Is going to be fun."

Sans took his turn, firing blasters and bone attacks at the human. His new-found determination did not stop his fatigue, but helped him drive through it.

The kid no longer signed at him with their hands. It seemed Sans wasn't the only one who gained some more determination. But not enough to stop them from warning him every time they were about to attack.

When his attack finished and the kid took their turn, they took the time to check him again. They blanched, seeing the change in Sans' stats.

"Well, kiddo, you're looking pretty chilled to the bone." His grin stayed, as he flung another row of bones at them. They dodged the attack with ease.

"Your stats may have increase, but I still have more determination than you. And you can't keep dodging forever." A warning, a dodge. "I can see it in your eyes, your movements. You're still getting tired. You might kill me, but I'll come back. But if I kill you? You're still going to be dead."

Sans grin didn't falter. Each turn, he sent another wave of attacks. Each turn, the kid dodged.

Eventually, Sans hit them, a single bone knocking out a bit of the human's HP. The karmic retribution continued to burn at their soul for moments after.

But even as he saw that he was finally getting somewhere, he slipped up. He didn't miss the warning, but the human swung wider than he expected, hitting him. As he was knocked to his feet, and ketchup poured out of the slice in his clothes, he felt himself melting. And yet, something was holding him together. Something was keeping every particle of his body together, stopping his bones from turning into paste. He felt like a liquid in a container, and something was surrounding him, preventing him from spilling.

He got up, but the child hit him again as he did so. And again. And again. And then all went black.

He heard a voice. It was garbled, and filled with static, but though it was quite difficult, he could make out the words.

"Sans," it said, "Stay determined. You can get through this."

Sans opened his eyesockets, his pupils flickering in the darkness. He saw himself face-to-face with... a face. He was pretty sure it was a skeleton's face, though its teeth were missing, and it seemed somewhat droopy, as if melted. He looked down, and found that his bones were covered in some sort of black substance, and a multitude of skeletal hands, with holes in their palms, were holding the black substance to them. In fact, below the melted skeleton head was mostly the same black substance, with hints of bone flickering in and out of existence.

He was nowhere, and the only way he could describe his surroundings was that they were... nothing.

The melted skeleton's smile became more sincere, as the same garbled voice spoke again. "Sans, you made it!" It stopped, was pensive, then started again, "You don't... remember me... do you?"

"i..." Sans started. He'd never heard that voice before. He wasn't sure if he'd recognize the face, even if it wasn't droopy and melted. But there was something familiar about the hands. "i don't know."

The goopy, blackness-clad skeleton noticed how Sans was looking at his hands. He waved the two at his sides, which were less defined, as their fingers had fused together, and summoned two more hands. The hands started signing. The melted skeleton introduced himself as Dr. W. D. Gaster.

Without thinking, Sans signed back a pun that didn't translate well from the language, as one of the motions in the doctor's name was similar to a different motion Sans chose to use to response.

Gaster gave a static-filled laugh, as if he hadn't seen a bad pun in a thousand years, and signed with one of his own.

After this exchange of really bad and lazily written puns, Gaster told Sans that he was watching, that Sans could reset the world with their combined determination.

Sans asked who Gaster was, what happened to him, and what the black stuff covering his bones was.

Gaster answered that he was the scientist who made the Core, and that he fell into his creation, becoming scattered through time and space. He gave a long, technical, scientific explanation of the substance. To summarize, it was nothing, and yet it was something. It did not exist, and yet it was holding Sans together more firmly than magic could. It never changed, and yet it was fluid. It was not created. It could not be destroyed. It was impossible, and yet it existed. A paradox.

When Gaster first entered this sort of strange and non-existent existence, he was melting, but in time, the immaterial matter clung to him, and he stopped melting. Unlike Sans, he could not leave, as his existence had been erased. But Sans had only died.

Sans was surprised at how Gaster signed as if death were not a big deal. But to him, it wasn't, as Sans could reset time itself. Though time did not exist where they were, and where they were did not exist, Gaster assured Sans that even as they spoke, Frisk was fighting against Chara's determination. Chara. That's what they were called. Gaster had been watching the whole time, and all of the timelines.

Sans opened his eyesockets, his pupils flickering about in the darkness. He'd woken up in the middle of the night again. He looked at his fingers. No black stuff there. What a weird dream. "gaster..." The melted dream skeleton said he built the Core. Couldn't be. Everyone knew the Core was built by... someone. He'd remember later.

He rolled over and looked at the nearest clock. 4:28 in the morning. He wanted to go back to sleep, but something wouldn't let him. Well, he had a nightmare about a kid killing everyone, and then him, not surprising that he didn't really feel like going back to that. Maybe he'd go see if that lady behind the door was having trouble sleeping too. If not, maybe the change of environment would help him sleep.

He lit up his eye, using the light to see. He got off of the couch and headed to the washroom to take a shower. On his way there, he saw his reflection and stopped.

"whoa..." Sans raised a hand to the mirror, waving it in front of him as if his reflection were an illusion.

Both of Sans eyes were lit up.

He rushed out of the the washroom and grabbed his phone, looking for the date and time.

It wasn't a dream. He had Reset.