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ONE BY ONE
Chapter 4: Flowey
The same place, the same thing.
Frisk remembered how the first time he had entered Asgore's house, the similarity had struck him so that he'd hesitantly called for Toriel ("Mom?"). The doorways, the carpets, every stick of furniture the same. Only on closer examination had he seen the disparities. The scuff-marks on the carpet from small, careless feet. The gouges on the doorframes from where someone with very sharp horns had forgotten to duck. The books on the shelves covered in patinas of dust, the reading chair whose seat was stiff and cracked. The color of the light, the lingering, melancholy air. And the monsters. He remembered how confused he'd been at seeing them all in this house. They'd croaked quietly on seat cushions, buzzed on high shelves, gently jiggled on end tables and in corners. None of them had acknowledged him. He'd crept around feeling like an intruder. In a sense, that's what he had been.
Now he stepped into the house and shut the door behind him. He made his way to the right and down the hall and into the first room on the left.
He remembered how he'd finally shaken off his déjà-vu in this room, how the twin beds and different toys had convinced him that no, this wasn't where he had been before, and Toriel wouldn't come no matter how loud he called. One bed surrounded by dusty toys, their blank button eyes staring off into space. The other one undecorated and bare, the air around it oddly cold. The two unopened boxes lay on the floor. He remembered that one held a heart-shaped locket, and that wearing it had somehow made him feel safer, giving him the determination to make it through the fights ahead. He had left the locket untouched every time after that. It didn't belong to him.
Instead, he bent over the other box and opened it. He removed the knife he found there. Its blade nicked and mottled with rust. He held it up to the light. He tested its weight. Then he left the room, and approached the key on the far side of the hall.
He remembered that this is when they would speak. And so, on cue, the monsters raised their heads.
"A long time ago, a human fell into the Ruins." "Injured by its fall, the human called for help."
He remembered the first time he had fallen. Lying there breathless among the flowers, staring up at that circle of sunlight. Unsure of whether he could get up, or whether he even should.
He took the key and returned the way he came. He avoided looking in the mirror. He felt the monsters' gazes on his back.
"Asriel, the king's son, heard the human's call." "He brought the human back to the castle."
He remembered that this was the first he'd heard that name.
He stepped into the kitchen and took the second key. He pulled open the door to the oven and saw the empty pie tin that lay there. He went back into the living room. He avoided looking at the golden flowers.
"Over time, Asriel and the human became like siblings." "The King and the Queen treated the human child as their own." "The underground was full of hope."
He remembered seeing Asriel for the first time, and how his face had lit up when he'd called out that unfamiliar name. How he had done the same later, with his body warped and surging with power, the unlocked souls surging with white light from every seam. How he'd drowned Frisk in searing light until it had felt as though his skin would peel away and leave his soul bare, howling all the while for someone Frisk wasn't, begging for him not to leave.
Frisk unlocked the chains blocking the staircase and descended. The knife's handle cold against his palm. He reached the bottom step and stared into the hall beyond. It was thronged with monsters against both sides, all shapes and sizes, every one he'd met and then some, all silent, averting their eyes or equivalents of eyes. They felt like the crowd for a funeral procession. In a sense, that's what they were.
He took a deep breath and kept walking.
"Then...one day..." "The human became very ill."
The tapes in the laboratory depths. Dark words sealed within sticky cases. The trembling in Asriel's voice as he'd promised to fetch the flowers.
"The sick human had only one request." "To see the flowers from their village." "But there was nothing we could do."
The flowers bending in the breeze. The scent of sweet lemons.
"The next day." "The next day." "..." "The human died."
The flower patch in the Ruins, its earth soft and welcoming. The half-open coffin in the basement, filled only with darkness. Toriel standing over the flowers with her palms clasped and her head bowed. Asriel standing in the same place, in the same position, before he'd sensed Frisk approaching. Frisk and Asriel speaking there, and how Asriel would sometimes, half-consciously, place one hand on that earth as he talked, as if lulling the ground back to sleep.
The monsters unspooled their history as Frisk walked amongst them. Explanation and apology in one. The cause of their regret, and why he had to die. As he stepped out of the hall and onto the bridge leading to the castle he found himself flanked by the carved metropolis of New Home, where everyone who had watched Mettaton's last hurrah had stepped away from their televisions and taken to the windows, the rooftops, the streets. Innumerable gazes pressed down on him like weight. The monsters on the bridge continued their story, each picking up where the previous had left off, their souls resonating with this bitter nostalgia. Though every face was different, and some barely had a face at all, Frisk could make out something their expressions all shared. Maybe gratitude. Maybe relief.
He remembered that this was where he had cried, for the first time in a long time. He'd been frightened of his own tears. He hadn't been sure what was causing them, or how to make them stop. Now his step did not falter. He silently mouthed each word as it was spoken. With each swing of his arm, light winked off the knife's blade.
"It's not long now."
"King Asgore will let us go." "King Asgore will give us hope." "King Asgore will save us all."
He remembered Asgore's face when they had first met. That uneasy mix of resolution and resignation. The look of someone who had found himself hopelessly trapped in the machinery of his own choices. He understood that face a little better every time they met.
"You should be smiling, too." "Aren't you happy?" "Aren't you excited?"
He remembered that this was when the final Froggit would leap off the parapet and land at his feet. The way it would turn its head up to look at him, the first monster to meet his eyes since he'd entered the house. That faint, desperate reassurance in its voice when it told him:
"You're going to be free."
And he was filled with determination.
The antechamber beyond. Where the Delta Rune was tattooed on the far wall in stained glass and the shadows of the columns crosshatched the ground like prison bars. Frisk passed through that alternating darkness. He saw the figure standing there at the far end, its hands nestled in its hoodie pockets.
Sans was always around for this. No matter where'd he had been, or whatever dead ends his latest attempt had sent him to, they would meet in this hall. Time after time, he would appear.
As Frisk approached, Sans' pupils shone. The only points of light in his silhouetted frame. Frisk felt that gaze bore through him. Then, those two bright spots swiveled down to the knife clutched in his hand. They remained fixed there for a long while.
Sans turned on his heel and walked off.
"Despite everything," he said, "it's still you."
He stepped under the shadow of a column and did not emerge again. The only proof he'd ever been there was the echo of his footsteps, already fading away.
The same place, the same thing.
The cavern that held the barrier was unutterably vast. Maybe it was a trick of the light – maybe that pulsating wall warped the twilight that seeped through it, altered the cave's dimensions – but to Frisk it seemed like it could hold every monster in the underground with room left over. He wouldn't have been surprised to learn that the entirety of Mt. Ebott was hollow, and this was its interior. The barrier's size must have only worsened the monsters' hopelessness. Standing near it, you could feel your skin thrumming from its power.
Asgore knelt in front of him, one hand clasped over the gash on his breastplate. The six souls quivered in their jars, emitting their unfinished rainbow of light.
"After everything I have done to hurt you," he murmured (and even in this low, hurt tone, his voice was so deep that Frisk could feel it rumble in his soles), "you would rather stay down here and suffer...than live happily on the surface?"
He remembered every time he'd died at Asgore's hand. Wreathed in flames until he'd felt his soul crack in two, only to wake up again outside the door to the barrier's cavern. The first time he'd been so shocked by the resemblance to Toriel that he hadn't even found it in himself to avoid the king's attacks. Then he'd tried to talk him down, again and again, fighting for the words that would raise Asgore's head and make him understand, unable to find them before he was struck down. Finally he realized that he would have to fight. And then he'd died again. He'd had no practice actually attacking anyone with his stick.
"Human...I promise you...For as long as you remain here, my wife and I will take care of you as best we can."
Asgore's face had lit up. Frisk wanted to approach him. Apologize somehow, for what was to come. He knew he had to keep his distance. His grip on the knife tightened.
"We could be like...like a family."
Gleaming white pellets haloed Asgore's kneeling body. Frisk looked away. He heard a single, strangled gasp, and the sound of dust sifting to the ground. When he looked up again, he saw the soul – that pure white light shuddering above Asgore's remains. Then another pellet drifted cheerfully downward, and struck the light, and shattered it into prisms, falling down, fading out, already gone.
And now. Here was his best friend.
"You idiot. You haven't learned a thing."
That voice again. High and bright and laced with cheer like cyanide. Buried deep underneath, Frisk could still hear the echo of Asriel.
He remembered that this was the first face he'd seen.
Deceptive in more ways than one. Normally like a child's sketch – penciled-in eyes, toothless smile, those lines of black moving seamlessly around the surface like ink roiling on water. But then it would distort like putty, gain dimensions and darkness out of nowhere, and the eyes, already lusterless and black, would crack open and form holes that continued right through the back of his "head" and into parts unknown. They did so now, as vines burst from the earth, encircled the soul jars, cracked them open like eggs. And the face grew fangs, it seemed to decay, it dripped a viscous colorless liquid that sizzled when it hit the ground.
"In this world," Flowey shrieked, "it's KILL or BE KI-"
Then, Frisk stood over Flowey's broken body.
He remembered the terror he'd felt that first time. Deliberate, certainly. Every aspect of the experience tailored to sap his will to fight. That momentary feeling of being nowhere at all, floating in empty dark space before he was yanked back to whatever warped facsimile of reality Flowey had created with his stolen souls. Flowey's face blown up bigger than the Core, ranting down at him in a voice that made his bones shudder. The twitching, cackling nightmare that had descended on him when he'd held his ground. But that had been a long time ago. Flowey was always so entranced by his own power that he never noticed how Frisk's face no longer betrayed a hint of fear, or how his unceasing barrage of incomprehensible attacks were dodged without effort or concentration.
The knife really did make things so much easier.
This was the only time he was ever able to get so close, and as ever, he was surprised by how small Flowey really was when he wasn't constantly mutating himself. He barely came up halfway to Frisk's knee with his stem fully extended. And right now he was hunched over, his petals tattered, his face blackened. The barrier wavered where the human souls had escaped their captivity and burst through to the other side. If Frisk wanted, he could step right through in their wake, before that wall solidified once again.
Flowey turned his head just enough for his photo-negative eye to be visible.
"What are you doing? Do you really think I've learned anything from this?" He sagged again. "No."
Frisk stared down at him.
"Sparing me won't change anything." Even now, he could hear the smirk in that voice. "Killing me is the only way to end this."
Frisk held up the knife. He turned it back and forth in his hand. The dying twilight caught the blade and briefly stained it a bloody red.
Flowey turned again. His grin was a pale crescent.
He watched the knife rise...
"I knew you had it in you."
...and fall.
"...wait, what?"
Working quickly, Frisk used the blade of the knife to carve out a circle of earth around Flowey. He sawed through the dirt, levered it loose. And as Flowey's face snapped this way and that, his pencil-sketch eyes struggling to keep up, Frisk reached down and scooped up dirt, Flowey, and all, and held him in the palm of his hand.
"What do you think you're doing!?" Flowey's scarred, smudged face turned up to his, gnashing its teeth. "You can't do this! You can't do this!"
Frisk turned and walked away from the barrier.
"Hey, I'm talking to you! You think I'm just going to stand here and take it!?" He summoned up all his remaining power and attacked. This resulted in a single white pellet drifting down towards Frisk's head like a sad snowflake. Frisk didn't even have to dodge; his leisurely stroll was enough to avoid it. Flowey stared, then thrashed inside the clod of earth, to little avail.
"Do you even care about the barrier, you idiot? It's going to close up again any second now! And then," his mouth turned toothy, "you'll be stuck down here, with me. And I'll make you pay for this. I'll kill you. I'll kill everyone. I'll kill everyone you-"
Frisk looked down at him and put a finger to his lips. "Shh."
Flowey's grin fled. He blinked. He seemed at a loss.
Then his smile returned again, thin and sharp.
"Ohhh, I get it. Hee hee. Just killing me isn't enough for you. You want to have some fun with me first, huh?" His face molded itself into Asgore's rotted visage. "Maybe you want to get revenge for that useless king?" It smoothed into Frisk's own features. "Or maybe," the eyes popped open, full of darkness, "you're just a lot sicker than you look."
Frisk had reached the throne room. The last vestiges of sunlight lay warm on his skin. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming. He looked up at the cave ceiling and still couldn't see the sky; he had always wondered where that light came from. The stones up there held a quartz-like gleam; it was possible that the sun down here was only a reflection of what came from the surface. The golden flowers grew thick. The air was ripe with their scent.
"Boy, King Asgore sure did care about these flowers. Definitely more than he cared about his subjects, am I right? They'll probably be glad he's dead!" Flowey's usual twisted chirpiness was coming back, but it was an uphill battle – his gaze still darted this way and that, and his smile wavered around its outline, as though he had to make a serious effort to keep it in the right shape. Frisk could feel roots squirming like worms against his palm.
The antechamber and the bridge stood empty. The monsters had dispersed and gone to await news of victory or defeat. Frisk pushed the elevator's call button with the hilt of the knife and stepped in when it arrived. He stood quietly in place with Flowey held out at his side. Flowey kept surreptitiously glancing at Frisk's face for any sign of his intentions. Judging by the way his scowl got a little deeper every time he looked, he wasn't finding much success.
Frisk walked down the hall, up the stairs. On the steps he could see numerous footprints, claw marks, and suspicious stains where the monsters had trooped up and out. Asgore's house stood empty. The only sound was the tick of an unseen clock.
"It's a nice place, right?" Flowey observed. "And no one's ever going to live here again. Hey, it could be worse! If you hadn't killed him then he would have just lived here by himself, forever. You know, like she's doing!"
Frisk carried him to the kitchen and carefully placed the knife on the counter. Then, he opened the oven door. Flowey's grin fell so far it almost literally dropped off his face, sliding down to his petals.
"Whoa, whoa, wait. Don't do anything crazy."
Frisk pulled out the oven rack.
"You go all this time without hurting a single person and now you're going to do this to me!? What is wrong with-"
Frisk pulled out the pie tin, replaced the rack, shut the door. He slid the handful of dirt and Flowey into the tin. He put the tin on the counter. He turned on the sink. He washed and dried his hands. He washed and dried the knife. Then he picked up the knife and the pie tin again and left the kitchen.
Flowey now appeared to be thinking very hard of something to say. He'd grown himself a brow just so that he could crease it.
Now the bedroom. Frisk set the pie tin down on the right-hand bed, amongst the menagerie of stuffed animals. He went over to the opened box and put the knife back in. He closed the box back up as best he could.
"You're putting it back? Why are you putting it back? Who do you think's going to come get it? Hey! I'm talking to you!" Flowey was making a game attempt to rock himself out of the pie tin, but by the looks of it, he was still too weak to do much more than feebly drape his roots over the tin's edge. Frisk imagined that's why he always made sure no one got too close – he was lightning-quick so long as could burrow, but get him off the ground and he was immobile as any other flower. Any other flower that could murder you with friendliness pellets. But that was off the table now, too, as another limp attack from Flowey proved – his latest projectile barely scorched the floor.
Frisk picked the tin back up, now holding it in both hands so it wouldn't rock around as much. He left the house, took the elevator down to the Core.
"Okay," Flowey said. "Let's see what you're planning. But you'd better move quick. Because," he slowly turned to face Frisk, his mouth full of dripping fangs, "once I get my strength back..."
Frisk wouldn't even meet his gaze. His nightmarish face turned irritated.
He proceeded through the Core, making sure to keep his distance from the sea of plasma – the heat was tremendous even with Ice Wolf's diligent cooling efforts. He walked down the outer bridge and into the MTT Hotel lobby, where Mettaton's glorious fountain statuary continued to violate both the carpet and nearly every safety code law known to monsterkind. The usual crowd of monsters was clustered around the busted elevator to the capital. He saw several of them turn to him with wary eyes. Flowey noticed, too, and tittered.
"Ohh, boy, here we go. I bet they're wondering if you're back from the fight. Whatever happened to their king?" He turned again. "Well? Should we tell 'em? I'll shout it out loud as I can, if you like! Ready?"
Frisk stared down at him, then held out the pie tin to the monsters. Flowey looked at them, then back to Frisk, then back to the monsters. Angry eyebrows appeared on his face.
"...it's no fun if you're just gonna let me!"
Frisk sighed and carried him out the front door. The elevator crowd watched them leave.
"As a slime, I'm puzzled," said a slime, who was puzzled.
He walked down the steps. He waved to 01 and 02, who were, at the moment, practicing their synchronized bouncing (02 was still a little behind, but not for lack of trying). The Nice Cream salesman hummed along to the jolly clatter of their armor. 01 and 02 waved back; even that was in perfect unison. Their symmetrical camaraderie was fearsome to behold.
He took the elevator to Hotland's bottom level. Alphys' lab wavered in the blistering air ahead. Flowey's expression turned sly, which was a totally expected emotion to appear on Flowey's face. Slyness on Flowey's face was a bi-annual vacationer, and it had a time-share and knew where to find all the best restaurants.
"So, you're taking me to Dr. Alphys. What, you think she's going to find a way to keep me trapped? Hee hee hee. You really don't know anything, do you? She's not even-" Frisk headed in the opposite direction. "Oh. Uh. Never mind?"
He stopped at the water cooler, poured a cup of water, and then poured the cup into the pie tin. Then he poured another cup for himself, drank, flung the cup into the lava, and continued on. He avoided glancing at Flowey's face during all this. He didn't miss much. Flowey was running out of ways to express bewilderment.
Outside Hotland, the enormous marquee sign stained them both blood-red. Frisk's footsteps echoed at an even pace. Flowey craned his head this way and that.
"This is where you fought Undyne, isn't it? And then you made friends with her. And then you burned down her house! And then you killed her boss." He smirked. "I wonder if she'll still wanna be friends when she finds out you took away her home and her job. Maybe she can stay with Alphys? Oh, but wait...she was the Royal Scientist, wasn't she? So now she's got no job, either! Wow. You ruined so many people's lives in just one day!" Frisk kept walking. "...stop ignoring me."
The damp, cool air of Waterfall was soothing after the sizzling atmosphere of Hotland and the Core. Water trickled down the walls, dripped from the ceiling, seeped up from unseen cracks in the floor – it all made its own quiet music, a distant patter, a liquid rhythm. On one loop, Sans had told him something. That the water down here was so suffused with magic runoff that it actually ran uphill, falling down and then flowing back up against gravity, forever cycling through unseen capillaries in the stony flesh of Mt. Ebott. The ceaseless rain in the marsh's center wasn't really rain, but water from the marshes themselves crawling up to the cavern ceiling only to fall down again. It felt like a taunt. Another reminder that time here always stood still. Not even their water was allowed to move on.
His shoes squelched through the tunnel where the memory flowers bent low, perpetually whispering their passing conversations. At least one voice sounded like someone he knew:
"Someday...I'd like to climb this mountain we're all buried under. Standing under the sky, looking at the world all around...that's my wish."
"Hahaha!"
"Hey, you said you wouldn't laugh!"
"Sorry, it's just funny...
"That's my wish, too."
He stood and waited until the conversation was done.
Flowey spoke again, his voice unusually hushed.
"Can we go somewhere else, please?"
He walked past the plaques bearing the sordid history of the war, past the waterfalls that held his reflection. He maneuvered through the mushroom cavern, tapping each mushroom to refresh its cool blue bioluminescence as the room fell dark. Every time the light flared, Flowey had made a new horrifying face. Toriel half-melted with bone exposed. A shifting mass of vegetable meat bearing remnants of everyone he knew. Dripping fangs open wide and ready to close on his throat. After the third complete failure to get a reaction, he settled on a sulky pout for the rest of the trip.
They stepped back out into the light. In the distance was a joyful chorus of, "hOI! i'm temmie." Flowey swiveled up to Frisk, his expression haunted. Frisk shook his head. Flowey looked relieved.
They approached another crossroads. To the right, Frisk could hear Gerson tidying up his shop. He occasionally went "Wahaha!" for no reason at all. He was a fascinating character.
"What, so that's where you're taking me? You think the so-called Hammer of Justice is going to keep me in line? What a joke! Even the King had more of a spine than he did! That old fool's only accomplishment is living so long that everyone forgot what a failure he was." His face warped into a turtle's twisted beak. "All I have to do is wait 'til his back is turned, and then-" Frisk headed in the opposite direction. "All right, quit messing with my head! Where are we going!?"
Down the steps, where the River Person hunched over their vessel. Their hooded head turned to Frisk when they saw him approach.
"Tra la la. There you are. I was starting to think you wouldn't show." The River Person had a voice like a bass beat – pleasant and musical in its way, but hard to place.
Frisk hopped onboard and sat down with the pie tin in his lap. He waved. The River Person did not wave back, but that wasn't their fault. It was still a bit of a mystery how many limbs they actually had under that cloak.
"So, shall we go where you requested?"
Frisk nodded. The River Person faced forward.
"Then we're off. Tra la la."
The boat rocked away from the stones, then glided down the underwater river. The trip, as always, was a smooth one. Soft blue light seeped in from crystal deposits in the walls, from the funnels of magically charged water. Frisk idly drummed on the edges of the pie tin. Flowey snapped at him to cut it out. Frisk stopped drumming.
"Tra la la. Think of something beautiful really hard, and maybe you will see it tomorrow."
Then, a diversion. The boat jerked in the water and headed down a side tunnel, far more cramped than the main river. The River Person had to hunch a bit as they sailed through the darkness.
"These waters are unfamiliar, and quite turbulent. Do be safe."
They exited into the marshlands, where the concentrations of magic were especially high. The water shimmered cobalt and every ripple sent up motes of light like fireflies; it was as though they were sailing through a field of stars. Frisk's face glowed as he took in the sight. Flowey looked extraordinarily bored.
The boat came to rest on a mudbank. Frisk stood up and waved goodbye.
"Until next time. Tra la la."
He hopped off and carried Flowey through the marsh, and into the canal where Onionsan dwelled. Onionsan rose from the water, smiling. Onionsan saw Flowey's molten glare. Onionsan sank beneath the water, smiling.
Past Shyren's makeshift concert hall. Avoiding Undyne's dastardly piano puzzle. And at last he found himself in front of that strange horned statue, hunched and huddled under the umbrella Frisk had placed in its hand. The music box secreted in its base played without end. Now Frisk remembered. This was the melody Toriel would hum after teaching him. He stood with Flowey close to his chest, listening to the song patter out its notes like raindrops.
"You know," Flowey said thoughtfully, "I'm feeling much better."
Vines burst from the pie tin and coiled around Frisk like snakes; they squeezed his chest tight enough to make his ribs groan, they cut an angry red rash across his throat, they seized his arms and lifted the pie tin up to his face. Flowey's head inflated into a grin with teeth like tombstones. Frisk showed no change of expression whatsoever. Not even when white pellets popped out of the air and encircled his neck, ready to close in.
"I wanna make a bet," Flowey said. He swayed in the tin like a cobra. "I bet that if I kill you really super quick, I can grab your soul before you even get a chance to reset. Then I can head up to the surface and have all the fun I want! I'll even be real nice and only kill you once. I've done it plenty of times today already, don't'cha think?" He leaned in even closer; it smelled like dirt and decaying vegetables. "'course, I'll pay a visit to all your friends before I leave. And before they die, I'll let 'em know that it's your fault."
"Then do it."
Flowey almost flinched. Frisk's words were toneless and low.
"Maybe," Frisk added, "you've done it already?"
Flowey's mouth twitched. "Ha. Hee hee. You can't fool me. I'm not affected by your resets, remember? I don't forget anything."
"You're right. You don't." The vine around Frisk's throat squeezed tighter, but the words kept coming anyway. "Not unless I'm trying really hard."
"It...it doesn't work that way!"
Frisk said nothing more. He turned his attention back to the statue. The music box's song filled the silence between them.
After a long moment, the vines loosened, uncoiled, and retracted into the pie tin. Flowey's entire body seemed to shrink.
"Just tell me where we're going, already," he muttered.
"Not much further."
Down the tunnel was the bucket of umbrellas. Frisk took one as the sign politely requested, fumbled with it one-handed, and eventually popped it open. He continued into the center of Waterfall, where the rain fell.
To the best of his knowledge, this was the only place in the underground where it rained. The ceiling overhead was so seamed, cracked, and pitted that those hidden rivers streaming through Ebott seeped out, and the result was an unceasing drizzle that bubbled around the stones like a secret, before the water was sapped back into the mountain to begin its journey all over again. Frisk's every footstep created small ripples in the film of water on the ground. Flowey practiced his faces in every puddle they passed. The reeds in the surrounding mud bent over the path like eavesdroppers.
He stepped out into the central cavern, where the thick dark mud stretched all the way into Hotland; if you had the nerve to actually brave that murky land (Frisk had never dared, he was just too short), you'd find the ground gradually turning hard and cracked as the magma crept closer and baked it into pottery. But out here, the air was cool and damp. A single rocky path ran through the outer edge of the marsh, and Frisk's footsteps splashed across it as he walked. Small ponds rippled and heaved in the swamp, making it look as though the whole cavern was taking slow, shallow breaths. Overhead, the crystals embedded in the ceiling sparkled like an overturned jewelbox, the closest thing to a starry night sky the monsters had ever seen, their positions forever unchanging. Asgore's castle glittered in the darkness at the far edge of the cavern, the silky light here turning all its turrets sapphire.
Frisk set Flowey down and sat at the edge of the path, his shoes hanging over the swamp. He winced a little as cold water seeped through his shorts. He kept the umbrella held over them both.
"That's it?" Flowey looked around. "That's it. Why here?"
"I like it here," Frisk said. He stared out at the castle. "I came here with a friend, once."
"What, that armless freak with the crush on Undyne?"
"That's right. Do you know their name? I never ask."
"Yeah, I do! And I'm not telling you!"
"Okay."
Flowey's face warped in rage once more. Then he looked back at the view, the castle in the distance, the points of light overhead, and little by little, he arranged himself into a more neutral shape.
"I'm not impressed," he said. "I've been here a hundred times. I've been everywhere a hundred times. What, did you think taking me here would make us friends?"
Frisk said nothing.
"It's all fake, you know. Those aren't real stars, they're just rocks. This isn't real rain. That's not even a real castle, because now it's got no king! And even when he wasn't dead, dead because of you, it's not like he ever helped anyone. He could have just stayed in that stupid garden of his forever and nothing would have changed." He glanced sideways at Frisk. "Y'know...it seems to me that you've got this entire place down by heart already. How much time have you spent down here? How much longer before you get as bored as me?" He grinned. "You know the funniest part? Right now, there's only two people in the whole wide world who'll ever understand how you feel. And both of 'em hate your guts."
His insults ran once again into Frisk's wall of silence and broke. His grin wilted.
"Why do I even bother?"
Flowey sighed and turned his gaze back to the swamp. "There's only one person out there I won't get tired of. It sure isn't you. You're the most boring person I've ever met. And even if he was here, it's not like I could...really care about him." He shook his head. "Why am I telling you all this?"
"I'm a good listener."
"Was that a joke?"
"I don't know. Was it funny?"
"Oh, ha ha." His root bed writhed. "Can I go now? It's not like either of us have anything better to do. Not since you wrecked my plan." He smiled. "I'll just have to kill time until you reset again. Then we can do it all over."
Frisk's head finally turned, just enough so that one heavy-lidded eye rested on Flowey. His bedraggled hair curled around his face. He looked exhausted.
He said, "Can I ask you something?"
"No."
"Okay."
"Fine," Flowey snapped. "Ask me, then."
"You really do want to leave, right? And go to the surface?"
Flowey's face reverted to its most basic shape – straight-line mouth, two dot eyes – possibly because he was too dumbstruck to attempt anything more complex.
"That," he said slowly, "is the single stupidest thing I've heard anyone say, ever. What the hell do you think!? I didn't steal all those souls and kill you over and over again for fun!" He paused, then smiled. "Not just for fun."
"So if I found a way to break the barrier. Without hurting anyone. And leave with all the monsters. Would you come with me?"
For a long time, the only sound was the gossip of the rain.
"...there's no way to do that anymore," Flowey said. "Not without the souls."
"You know better." Frisk's eye bored through him. "I could. If I wanted to."
Flowey blinked. For a moment, his expression seemed almost wistful.
"Heh. That voice...kinda reminds me of someone." Then he shook his head, stiffened his stem in rage. "You don't understand anything about me! You can't just toy with me like you did with all the other idiots down here! I'm better than them!" His eyes turned sunken, his mouth grew fangs. "You'd get to see what they were really like, if they could just remember what I did. Do you have any idea how many times I've messed with all of them? Do you have any idea how many times I've killed all of them? Every single one. Again and again. If they had any idea, they'd be happy to kill me on sight! Because, as you keep failing to learn, you idiot, that's the way this world works!"
Frisk's face didn't even twitch.
"And stop looking at me like that!" Flowey shouted. "It's pissing me off!"
Frisk looked away and waited until the sounds of Flowey's grinding teeth ceased.
He said, "You're right."
"Of course I'm right. About what?"
"I don't understand you." Rain dripped off the shaking umbrella. "But I'm trying. And I think I might have learned something new."
"What, that you're a selfish brat with too much time and not enough brains?"
"I'm not going to kill anyone. I won't let anyone kill me, either. And I know I'm not the person you want me to be." He looked over at Flowey again. "But. As long as you need someone to play with, I'll be around. Until you're ready to leave."
Flowey shrank back from his gaze. He huddled in the pie tin. His features shifted like fog.
"Why?"
The rain whispered.
"Why are you being so nice to me?"
Frisk remained motionless for a while. Then, inch by inch, he transferred the umbrella to his other hand and rooted around in his pockets. There was a crinkling of paper. He withdrew the picture he had drawn of Asriel, unfolded it, and held it up in front of Flowey.
Flowey stared at the picture. He tilted his head. His expression turned confused. Then, gradually, his features softened. He leaned in closer to the picture, his head crafting itself into Asriel's smiling face.
Frisk started to smile, too. His cheeks hurt a little from the effort.
That was when Flowey's head jerked up to meet his, his grin feral and his eyes two burning holes. Pellets encircled Frisk's wrists and snapped shut like handcuffs. He cried out in pain and dropped both the umbrella and the picture; as the umbrella rolled away and he nursed his burning skin, Flowey howled laughter into the air and fired bullet after bullet into the paper until it was nothing more than sodden scraps, indistinct, transparent, washed away, already gone.
"You idiot!" he cackled. "That's what this is all about? Him? Did she tell you about him when she was tucking you in at night? That'd make for one sad bedtime story!"
Frisk looked down at his shuddering hands. His wrists were covered in angry red welts.
"I bet she did! You must have reminded her of him in so many ways. But hey, you want to know how that story ends? The minute he poked his head out into the real world, he got exactly what he deserved. He died all by himself, in the dark, crying out for anyone to come and save him." Flowey's whole face blackened and his voice dropped into a grinding rasp. "But nobody came. So keep that in mind the next time you trot out your worthless, useless, pathetic sympath- Ack!"
With expert timing and precision, an especially fat raindrop had fallen down and hit Flowey right in the eye. His wicked expression fled and he shook his head back and forth, trying to shake the water out. Already his petals were drenched and the pie tin was overflowing.
Frisk looked up from his injuries. He reached out for the umbrella and, though his burned hands screamed from the effort, held it over Flowey, keeping him dry.
Flowey looked over at Frisk, eyes hollow. He sagged.
"...I can't understand you at all."
Frisk kept his distance, now. He was outside the umbrella's radius, and rainwater turned his hair into a ragged mass of brown clumps that clung to his face like river-silt. Flowey looked lost in thought.
"Sorry for ruining your picture," he said. "I got a little carried away."
Frisk stared out over the water.
"I, uh, can make it up to you, if you want. What if I told you...I knew some way to get you a better ending?"
Frisk's hand tightened on the umbrella's handle, despite the pain. Flowey didn't seem to notice. He kept talking.
"You'll have to load your SAVE file, and...well, in the meantime, why don't you go see Dr. Alphys? It seems like you could have been better friends." He looked hopeful. "Who knows. Maybe she's got the key to your happiness."
Frisk set the umbrella down. He picked up the pie tin, then tilted it so Flowey and his clod of dirt slid out. Flowey's roots dug into solid stone. He wriggled in place as though he was trying to get cozy. He smiled wide at Frisk.
"See you soon," he said, and disappeared into the earth.
Frisk didn't bother picking up the umbrella again. He looked out at the swamp, hands in his lap, water coursing silently down his face. He didn't look at the false stars. He made no wishes. He stayed there for a long time, and all the while, the rain kept falling at the same pace, in the same places, as it always would and always had before.
Again.
Always the same place, the same thing.
He was in the Ruins again. Sitting against the pillar with his knees pulled up to his chin. Toriel had given him the phone and then left. Told him to stay and wait for her. She never showed up and never would. Another constant. He would have to go and look for her eventually. No rush. There was always time.
The phone rang at regular intervals. First reassurance, then worry, then dogs. He remembered every one. He kept a tally in his mind. Eventually the calls would stop coming and he'd have some peace. He was certain that if he just sat here for another hundred years or so, everything would be fine.
(Ring, ring...)
Another call. Maybe Toriel had retrieved her phone after all. Maybe she'd come and pick him up. He could draw a new picture. He wouldn't let anyone else see it this time. That had been his mistake. This time, he'd do better.
(Ring, ring...)
He picked the phone up off the ground, put it to his ear.
(Click.)
And what he heard widened his eyes, and straightened his back, and filled him with determination:
"I found him."
? #
Long before.
King Asgore's Royal Scientist had been hired for his genius, not his interior decorating skills. This was evident from a single glance at the Core's laboratory, all pitted linoleum and sharp right angles and dark gray metal; even when it was first constructed, it had already looked a hundred years old. The ventilation fans buzzed like cicadas. The sleeping quarters were in a completely illogical central chamber that was full of drafts and foot traffic. The elevators moved along strange vectors that made the riders feel small and uncertain about their place in the universe. The break room's videotapes were always strangely sticky. And the lights – and this was especially dangerous – flickered from time to time, thanks to the power draw in Observation. It had been a while since the last accident. But, for obvious reasons, Sans wasn't about to take any chances. That was why he'd secreted himself in one of the side offices near the freezers, where the circuits was more stable, and rigged up lamps off the central grid for good measure.
To say he was surrounded by reading material would be accurate, but insufficient – "ensconced," or possibly "entombed," would be better. Ragged textbooks formed corridors, and parapets, and precariously wobbling towers all throughout the office. It was unknown if you could construct a flying buttress out of notebooks, but the stacks were making a good try of it. The scritch of Sans' pencil could be heard over the buzz of the lights.
"Uhh, ok, something else on wave-particle contrasts, that goes here, and I guess we've gotta maybe find another thing on photons next? This stuff needs a name. Mal-temporology? Chronomalacia. Heh heh, oh man, that's a good one, put that one in the books..."
(Knock, knock, knock.)
"Yeah, c'mon in, Alphys."
The door creaked open. "H-hi, Sans. How did you know it was m- oh my God where did you even get all these."
"You know how it is, they sorta multiply on their own after a while. And if it was the Doc knockin' then that sound would've been about six feet higher up. Come on, follow my voice. And, uh, watch your step."
Tentative shuffling could be heard through the stacks. Alphys' orange snout peeked gingerly around a wobbling pile of engineering manuals.
"I, er, j-just wanted to let you know. I heard the oven ding. In the kitchen. Where the oven is."
"Oh, great, thanks for the heads-up. Means my quiche is ready."
"Your what?"
"My quiche."
"Your what?"
"My. Quiche."
"Oh! Oh, sorry, I misheard. I love those!" A rustle as she got out her phone. "Um, h-how do you spell that again...?"
"'s a casserole, Alphys. They're good for you. The Doc loves 'em, when he can actually remember to eat." Sans set aside his pencil. "I figured I'd try and drag him out of Observation before he wastes away to bones and skinnier bones."
He stepped around his desk and met Alphys in a papery courtyard, hands in his pockets. In deference to his work, he was wearing a lab coat. In deference to the fact that he was Sans, he was also wearing house slippers. They were approximately the same height, but Alphys managed to hunch herself shorter anyway. She smiled nervously.
"It, it actually smells really nice! I thought I'd make something of my own, too. So we could all eat t-together for a change."
"Is it ramen?"
"No!" She reconsidered. "Yes. B-but it's the gourmet stuff! Real meat and everything!"
"Cool. C'mon, let's get out of here. Baby steps. I think some of the essays are restless."
They tiptoed around the paperwork and out into the hall. Sans instinctively glanced up at the lights. "You checked the grid, right?"
"Yep! Everything's running fine! Which is good! Because that's the rules! Ha ha!"
Always stay in the light if you were alone. Even when you were asleep. Especially then. Alphys had made it clear to Sans that she was totally okay with this guideline pasted on the walls every two dozen steps. She didn't think it was ominous at all. Sans hadn't said anything, because Alphys had told him this completely unprompted, with a pronounced twitch under her eye. This place really didn't agree with her.
He'd tried, with decreasing levels of subtlety, to convince her to leave, but she was having none of it, and getting a word from the Doctor on the matter was a lost cause. She'd apparently approached Asgore personally with a request to work with the Royal Scientist, and said Royal Scientist had apparently managed to get his brain and his fingers lined up long enough to sign off on the request. Sans could understand up to a point; the girl was a sizzling bundle of nerves, but put her in front of a machine, any machine, and she'd work the kind of magic that even monsters would have trouble believing. And they needed someone to perform maintenance. Observation was just sucking up too much juice, even this close to the Core. The lights couldn't go out again.
"It, it'd be really nice to all get together for a change, you know?" Her tail dragged on the linoleum as she walked. "Just, you know, off the r-record. I wasn't expecting it to be quite like this. It's really...uh. Empty."
"Yeah, well, you know." He tried to leave it at that, but Alphys soldiered on.
"I mean, there's a lot of beds in the sleeping area. A...a lot of beds. And most of them. Don't look like they've been slept in for a while."
"I nap pretty much anywhere and the Doc seems to think sleep is a thing that happens to other people. As for everyone else, they've, you know, passed on. To other jobs. Place is a little gloomy, in case you didn't notice. I'm mainly stickin' around because I promised the Doc I'd help him out, someone's gotta translate his notes. Most everyone else has families they wanna see."
"Oh, I get it. I, uh, don't have that problem. Ha ha!" She tugged at her labcoat and grinned in an unsettling way.
They stopped in front of the central elevator. Sans hit the Call button. A deep thrum reverberated in the walls.
"What's the Doctor doing in there, anyway? If you don't, er, mind me asking."
"Sorry, Alphys, it's hush-hush. Another reason why everyone left, you know? Gets a little frustrating, not being able to brag about your job." He rocked back and forth on his heels. "Even me. I got a brother back in the capital. He thinks I'm studying to be a dentist."
This elevator really took its sweet time.
"Won't matter for much longer, anyway. Research is movin' on. Asgore's more interested in soul properties than our current project, so the whole thing'll be shut down soon as he figures out a polite enough way to ask."
"Oh, I wanted to tell you! I actually found some of the Doctor's blueprints. I hope that's o-okay?" Sans looked at her. She timidly tapped her claws together. "And, you know, at least for the ones I could actually read, there's some really good ideas there! I might b-be able to put together something that'll make Asgore happy. So you can continue your research!"
"Oh." Sans stared. "Heh. That's nice. I'm sure the Doc'll be impressed."
With blessed good timing, the elevator dinged open, bathing them in cold white light. Sans stepped in. "Take my food outta the oven, would you? By the time I drag the Doc up here it should have cooled off."
"S-sure thing. And, uh, Sans?" She sidled a little closer to the elevator. "Is everything okay? Things here seem really...tense."
"Ahh, we'll be fine." He winked as the elevator doors slid shut. "Do I look worried?"
He held the wink until the doors fully closed and the elevator jerked into life. Then he calmly turned around, rested his head against the cool metal wall, and took several deep, shuddering breaths.
It was stressful enough having to cobble together an entirely new branch of science with nothing but waterlogged textbooks from the surface. The atmosphere in this place wasn't helping at all. Papyrus and his endless procession of action figures were a soothing balm whenever he managed to slip away and get home, but right now leaving the Doctor alone didn't seem like the smartest idea.
It had started as a study to find new ways to break the barrier, because of course it had – the monster community had one problem on its mind, and no one was keen on waiting for who knew how long until another human fell down with a soul to claim. The Doctor had overseen the construction of the Core just to generate enough power to find a solution. For what, exactly, Sans was never quite sure, but the man was the Royal Scientist for a reason. Much like this elevator, his mind tended to move in weird directions, but it'd always reach its destination in the end.
As a matter of fact, the elevator currently felt like it was traveling diagonally.
The Core was completed, the lab was built. The early experiments had been tentative things, sending out feelers, mapping unfamiliar ground – none of them had worked with souls before, after all, and they were spooky things when you got right down to it, the way those jarred lights always seemed to swivel to face you when your back was turned. It had been around that time the Doctor had sketched out the blueprints for a number of machines, including that skull-shaped thing that made Sans' calcium crawl when he'd tried to read it. Key word being "tried." Even if you discounted the Doctor's handwriting, attempting to work from his blueprints was like baking a cake on a pogo stick. It was exhausting, it was pointless, and it would probably end in a big mess and a lot of embarrassing self-injury.
Then, strange readings on the monitors. Oscillations that leapt like fleas. Persistent déjà-vu. The Doctor had built deeper into the Core, and begun Observation. That was when the rest started happening. Pockets of space where the air was oddly cold. The sound of laughter and scraping metal. The feeling of always being watched.
And then, the accidents.
The elevator doors finally opened. Sans stepped out, his grin back in fine form.
The floor in Observation was riddled with holes like a cheese-grater, better to let in the Core's warmth; they needed as much power as possible. Through the holes crept a dull orange glow. The heat was tremendous. They were just above the Core, or possibly inside it, or possibly both at once. Bizarre things started happening to time and space when the instruments here were on, and the Doctor never turned them off anymore.
This lab was vast, and stretched on into blackness. Machines scattered without attention to sense or safety. Printers that gradually scratched out the oscillations. Monitors with their keyboards dangling several yards away, their screens full of darkness. Scattered tables bearing lit candles, photographs, urns. Sans carefully avoided looking at these memorials as he walked across the glowing floor.
A voice could be heard at the far end. Low, breathless, thin as spider legs. Wandering from clause to clause as though the speaker was constantly forgetting and then remembering again what he'd wanted to say.
"A fearsome phenomenon. What a lovely helix. Everything that descends. Must converge. I believe. This model. Will bear bitter fruit..."
"Hey, W.D.!" Sans called. "It's Sans! You wanna step over here for a second?"
"Yes, Sans. It is you. You are there. But I am here. This disparity. Must be rectified."
Sans groaned and kept walking.
Grinning through the dark at the lab's furthest end were numerous lines of color. As if looking through a cracked window with an aurora on the other side. They zigzagged, they crossed, they went parallel again, they crept in from every direction. This sight was, in fact, generated by numerous monitors, haphazardly stacked on top of one another. After every accident, this monument had grown larger, and the power draw greater.
Sans had wanted to quit after the first one. Finding a pile of dust where one of your co-workers used to sleep kind of knocked the wind out of you. But the Doctor had just grown more determined after that, and with every one that followed. They'd instated the policy about the lights far too late. And by then, the power draw had increased to the point where their own machines worked against them. Alphys and her nimble, sweaty hands were at least keeping the grid up and the machines topside maintained, but there was no guarantee if that would keep them safe.
"Hello, my little anomaly. Hello, my terrible terminus. I see you. I am standing in your way. I will terminate you. Like the terminal tumor you are. I will exorcise. And exercise. My excision. Ha, ha. My wit. Is sharp. My math. Is sharper..."
Talk like this is why he needed Sans around. The Doctor dispensed pearls of wisdom like a vending machine, but somewhere between his mind and his mouth they came out covered in nightmares. He'd once given a brief lecture on comparative soul metaphysics without Sans there to interpret for him. Everyone in attendance had supposedly slept with a nightlight for a month afterward.
He loomed through the shadows now, his exposed bones and lab coat making him appear like a child's sketch in chalk. Incredibly tall – apparently Sans had caught the short end of the stick there, pun most definitely intended, Papyrus was already lanky as anything and his other brother looked like someone had taken Papyrus and shoved him into a taffy puller. And that went double for his hands, which had palms like dishes and fingers like ten spindly bananas. They popped, they clattered, they never quite agreed on how to act. This behavior might have explained his handwriting, which wasn't illegible so much as approaching legibility from the totally wrong direction.
He stood in front of the monitors now with those hands splayed out, like a schizophrenic conductor with ten tiny batons. The snarl of lines in front of him, Sans noticed, formed an irregular pattern as they approached the center – they converged and formed a helix, a spiral, that seemed almost three-dimensional in a way that made his sockets water. And in the center, darkness. Darker than dark. A black blob whose edges wavered like a jellyfish, and sucked all the timelines in.
"What's up, W.D.," he said. "Nice to see the work's going well. You wanna maybe get something to eat before you pass out?" He stuck his shaking hands in his pockets. "Got a quiche with your name all over it. That's not a joke, by the way, I had to be really careful arranging the spinach."
The hands reached out to a pair of nearby keyboards. Keys rattled like machinegun fire. That dark blob seemed to tremble.
"A different differential. A bit of pressure. And we. Will pierce right through. This relentless future. Finally. Looks brighter. And brighter."
With every word his hands shuddered and clacked, moving in impulsive, yet predictable, patterns. He was never able to talk without gesturing. It was like his mouth and his hands moved on the same switch.
"C'mon, man." Sans shivered involuntarily; it felt like he was being watched. "This can wait. Get some food in that ribcage. Alphys cooked something, too, in case you wanna get your week's sodium intake in one sitting."
"Dark. Darker. Yet darker. The darkness. Keeps. Growing. The shadows. Cutting. Deeper. Photon readings. Negative..."
"W.D.! Hey!" Sans whistled through his teeth. "My face is in this direction!"
He started at that, as though hearing Sans for the first time, and glanced over his shoulder. There were dark circles under his dark circles.
"This next experiment. Seems very. Very. Interesting."
He turned around fully after that, slightly hunched, his hands at his sides. The glow coming from beneath the floor stained his bones a faint orange. Clipped to his labcoat was a plastic badge with his smiling skull next to the words: Dr. W.D. Gaster, Royal Scientist.
He stood with his back to the monitors.
Every candle blew out. Every alarm was strangled. Every printer began to spew out page after page of nines.
And only Sans saw that dark patch twitch, and surge, until it engulfed the entire monitor on which it clung. Only Sans saw how it seemed to bleed darkness, the shadows running so thick that they crept down and hacked the timelines below into hash. Only he saw the arm emerge from that blackness, dripping shadow like tar, and the hand at the end of that arm, and the knife clutched by that hand, its blade gleaming a bloody red.
Only Sans saw the knife rise...
"What," said Dr. Gaster, "do you two think?"
...and fall.