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ONE BY ONE
Chapter 5: Gaster
The door to the Ruins grinded shut as Frisk stepped out onto that path flanked by trees like sentinels, their shadows cross-hatching the snow. He held one arm held up against the sudden glare. He still smelled a little bit like pie crust and clean linen. The conversation with Flowey had gone as usual. Despite his confidence in Waterfall, he hadn't remembered a thing.
After his vision had adjusted, he lowered his arm and started to walk.
"Heya."
Frisk yelped and spun on his heel. Sans was there, leaning up against the wall besides the Ruins entrance, flipping through a small memo pad propped in one bony palm. He looked up at Frisk and winked.
"Yep, it's you, all right. Figured we could change things up a little bit this time, considering." He stuck the pad in his hoodie pocket, straightened, stretched. "Had a real good gag planned, whoopee cushions were involved, they're always funny, but I get the feeling you've seen that one before. Here, take it as a souvenir." He fished through the pockets on his jacket, then his shorts, and then the expression in his eyes turned puzzled. "...huh. Did I drop it? That's weird." Then he brightened up. "That's good! Weird's good. We want weird today. C'mon, kid, walk and talk with me. Or, you know, you'll walk and I'll talk."
He set off down the forest path. After a moment, Frisk followed.
"I'd take a shortcut, but everything's so snarled right now I couldn't be sure where we'd end up. Careful, don't trip." He took Frisk's hand, helped him over the fallen branch. "I dunno what you did in that last loop, kiddo, but when I went through my notes I had asymptotes popping off my readings like line dancers. I've never seen curves like that before, and that's not hyperbola." He glanced down, noted Frisk's completely blank expression. "...yeah, definitely the wrong crowd for that one. I'm just feelin' nostalgic."
They stepped through Papyrus' comically ineffective gate, across the narrow bridge. Ahead was the clearing with the conveniently shaped lamp (for hiding Frisk) and Sans' conveniently shaped guard post (for hiding condiments).
"Anyway, that irregularity was like a jigsaw piece falling into place. Everything clicked at once. Felt almost too perfect, honestly, but this is fuzzy math at the best of times...whoops, stay sharp, here comes my brother. 'sup bro?"
Papyrus stormed in their direction like a lanky whirlwind. His elbows and knees waved about at velocities that would have probably decapitated anyone nearby.
"You know what's 'sup,' brother! It's been eight days and you still haven't-" He skidded to a halt and his sockets went wide. "Oh my God! Is that a human!?"
Sans kept walking. "Nah."
"Oh, okay! Introduce us later!"
"Sure thing. Just stick around here, alright?"
Frisk waved. Papyrus waved back, with both arms.
"I figure we can double back after all this is done and get events on course. Papyrus is a good sport, he'll be here. No one else ought to bug us while I'm with you."
They continued past the box-lover's sign, avoided the world's saddest pick-up note, stepped onto the path where Doggo kept watch. On cue, Doggo's snout emerged from his guardpost sill like a slightly damp sunrise, followed by the gleam of his knives.
"Did something move? Was it my- Oh hey, Sans. Who's your friend?"
"Just a friend. You've got cards with everyone today?"
"Same as every day, yeah."
"Tell Greaterdog that I'll toss a few bones his way if he goes easy on you."
"Ah ha, that's a funny joke," Doggo said darkly. Frisk waved. Doggo waved at where he'd been a second ago, then dipped back below the sill.
"We've got a lot of ground to cover," Sans said, "so I'll fill you in on the details. Yeah, let's step around the ice." They walked around the slippery patch ahead. "The guy we're gonna see is named Dr. W.D. Gaster. He's...hey, where are you going? It's this way."
Frisk had stepped away from Sans and headed up the northern path. He held up a finger: Just a minute. Sans watched as he disappeared into the thicket. After a little while, he emerged again, cradling a small lump of snowman in his hands.
"All good?" Frisk put the snow away and nodded. "Alright. Like I was saying, Dr. Gaster. He was the Royal Scientist before Alphys got the job. Short version is he's kinda tough to find nowadays, but I'm feelin' chatty so I'll give you the long version too."
Papyrus hadn't reset his puzzles yet, so the way forward was clear. Snow crystals sparkled in the dark skies. The wind blew in irregular patterns. It sometimes felt as though the currents carried the breeze in many directions at once.
"Now, Gaster's brilliance was unmatched in the underground. Guy had a mind like no other and a list of inventions longer than Lesserdog's neck on a good day. He built the Core from scratch just to find a way to bust apart the barrier without, y'know, harvesting human souls, since Asgore was getting kind of bummed out with that whole plan. He and his team ran a bunch of early tests on the human souls to get a feel for things, and eventually- what, again?"
Frisk had wandered off to the Nice Cream salesman, who was sitting gloomily next to his cart. Sans watched Frisk hold up two fingers, saw the salesman perk up, then chuckled to himself and stared down the path. A minute later, he heard crunching footsteps and looked back down to see Frisk holding up two wrapped ice cream bars.
"You know, kid, we are sort of on a schedule here." Frisk tilted his head. "Ah, forget it. There's always time for ice cream."
He took one of the Nice Creams and pulled off the wrapper, then read the message inside. "'Have a wonderful day.' Sure, I'll try. What's yours say?" Frisk held up an illustration of a hug. "Heh heh, awesome."
They ate in silence, walking down the plateau. As Frisk licked his stick clean, he idly kicked a snowball down the snowy field; it ricocheted at odd angles, bounced a few times, appeared to somehow roll backwards, and, after a few more kicks, fell into a hole at the end of the path. A red flag popped up as the two of them continued on.
Sans tossed away the stick and resumed talking. "So. Gaster ran a few early experiments on the nature of soul energy – Alphys would pick up where he left off, but it barely took him any time at all to get a rough handle of how determination worked. I'm assumin' you saw the outcome of that nasty business, right?" Frisk nodded; the rusted hulk of the D.T. Extractor loomed in both their minds. "But then he saw something else. Bizarre readings on his instruments or something, I don't know. No one ever really had the clearest idea how his mind worked. Guy could think his way through a corkscrew without touching the sides, you get me?" He looked at Frisk. "You don't get me. That's fine. Point is, the focus of his research changed. His reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. Timelines jumping left and right, starting and stopping – until suddenly, everything ends."
After a moment, Sans realized that he was suddenly walking alone. He turned around and saw Frisk standing in place, staring up at him. His bony brow crinkled.
"That look on your face...you've heard this part before?" Frisk nodded, slowly. "Yeah. It was like a hole in the bottom of a glass. Every point of time gettin' pulled down to the same place, and then, poof. Darkness. You can probably see why the Doctor woulda thought this was a little more concerning than the barrier. So, he set up an observation lab." Sans looked away; the lights in his eyes flickered. "A place where he could locate the anomaly. And eliminate it."
He turned on his heel and started moving again. Eventually, Frisk followed him.
"Didn't work, of course," he said casually. "Gaster was a genius, but he kinda bit off more than he could chew. Job went on so long all his assistants packed up and went lookin' for better hours. As for Gaster, he-"
Frisk yanked on his sleeve.
"Whoa, what is it?"
Frisk glared.
"That's one accusing look you got there, buddy. Was it something I said?"
The glare somehow intensified.
Sans stared him down for as long as he could – he didn't have to blink, but then, Frisk's eyes were so heavy-lidded it was usually impossible to tell if he was blinking anyway. They were standing near a mousehole, and the mouse's timid squeak filled the silence between them.
The lights of Sans' pupils wavered, and went dark. He pulled away from Frisk and stared off into the woods.
"Tch. Guess you've gotten pretty good at picking up on little white lies, huh."
He scraped one hand across the top of his skull.
"They all died," he said quietly. "Everyone on Gaster's original team, including the Doc himself. I'm the only one left."
The breeze picked up. Evergreens rattled like bones.
"Took us a while to even figure out what was going on. Maybe that's partly why it got as bad as it did. Someone would get caught in a dark room, or turn a corner, or get outta bed a little late...and all you'd find was a pile of dust. Heh." He stared at his slippers. "I guess the anomaly didn't appreciate us messin' around with it. Heh heh. The Doc spent all that effort buildin' a window to see through time, and then forgot to make it one-way glass. He always did have trouble finishing things."
He turned back to Frisk; his grin was as rigid as ever, but the bone around his sockets had drooped so deep that his eyes had turned into crescents. His pupils blinked back on like faulty lightbulbs.
"Gaster was the last to go. Couldn't even collect his remains. The dust fell through the floor, and right into the heart of the Core. I...got a little emotional. Smashed his equipment. After that, the anomaly stopped bothering us, I quit, and Alphys eventually had the lucky privilege of takin' over his job. She even managed to figure out a couple of his blueprints. She's a smart girl. But the Doctor...no one could ever replace him." He shrugged. "Sorry, kid. Didn't mean to sugar-coat it. Old habits."
Frisk chewed his lip, traced abstract shapes in the snow with the tip of his shoe. Then he gestured down the path. Sans took the hint and resumed walking.
"It was a bad time for everyone, you know? The anomaly...whatever it did, it hit hard. Seemed to take away a lot more than just their lives. Hardly anyone even remembers the old team these days, and that goes double for Gaster. Alphys doesn't know him, and she practically interned with him. Even Papyrus doesn't...well. It just got me down for a while." He sighed. "Full disclosure, I kinda looked up to the guy."
Frisk heard something behind him – a distant buzz, like a phone with no signal. He looked back, but nothing was there.
"But that's the thing. Seems like not even getting killed stopped him. I can't totally understand it, but he's...in a lot of places, now. A lot of times, all at once. Maybe it was because his essence fell into the Core. Or maybe he was just that determined to survive. Heh. The guy definitely spent a lotta time around human souls. Your kind might've rubbed off on him." They walked across Alphys' disabled tile puzzle, every square fallen silent and gray. "I was looking for those echoes of him. Hoping your reset shenanigans would eventually stir things up enough to lead me to the source. Where Dr. Gaster really was. And, like I told you on the phone – I found him."
They passed Lesserdog's house; he hadn't yet gone out on patrol, and doggy snores sounded from the darkness within. With every snore, Frisk could see a wet black nose pop in and out of the house; apparently he was dreaming of being pet.
"It's like...trying to solve a word search. One that's a billion letters wide and a billion letters long. You can't hope to find the word you want in that mess if you look everywhere at once, so instead you focus on one little part and hope you'll sniff it out. You kept rearranging things with every reset, until I found the word. The path where everything converges. And it's not much further now." Sans turned and started walking backwards, his grin wider than usual. "Shoulda figured it'd be here. We got strange signals crawlin' on this part of the underground like auroras. Bizarre phone calls, tingling feelings on the back of your neck...and now, we'll finally get to meet the real Dr. Gaster. If anyone can help bail out your fuzzy little buddy, it's him. And, hey, as a special thank-you to the Doctor afterward, whaddaya say we save him, too?"
They'd reached the icy patch containing Papyrus' final switch puzzle. Sans stepped on the ice and pushed off, sliding into the dark tunnel beyond.
"That Nice Cream wrapper had the right idea, kiddo. Heh heh. It's gonna be a wonderful day."
Frisk stood and watched him disappear, then tiptoed onto the ice, pushed off, and followed. They both emerged on the other side with snow poffs on top of their heads. Sans chuckled again and swiped his off.
"Man, where do these things come from? Hold still, kid, you got a little poff problem up top." He knocked the snow off Frisk's head, then gave his hair a quick rustle to shake out the rest. Frisk stood rigid with his hands at his sides. He wouldn't look at Sans anymore. An awkward silence ensued. Sans cleared his throat and pointed down the mountain.
"It's this way. Watch your step."
They started downhill.
"So, uh. How're you holding up? You look kind of beat."
"I'm fine."
"Wow, wasn't expecting you to answer." He looked back at Frisk. "You find anything interesting on your end? Any ways of helping Asriel?"
"I tried some things. They didn't work." Frisk trudged through the snow. "He...got really mad."
Sans' expression turned concerned. Then he looked back at the path and kept moving.
"Well, chin up. That's what you've got me for, right? You just have to stay determined."
They turned and walked along the cliff face where ghostly orbs glimmered through cracks in the stone – it was hard to tell if they were eyes or merely tricks of the light, but either way, they watched with curiosity at these two travelers. They continued to watch as Frisk stopped walking, leaving Sans to once again figure out that the number of footsteps he was hearing had decreased by half. He stopped and turned around.
"What's wrong now? You tired? It's only a couple more minutes."
Frisk shivered in place with his arms wrapped around him, a single splotch of color in the white expanse. His tangled mess of hair barely responded to the wind. When he spoke, Sans had to lean in to catch the words.
"Can I ask you something?"
Something in his voice compelled Sans to lay off the jokes. "Yeah, of course."
Frisk's jaw moved as though he was chewing on the words. Trying to force them into the right shape to leave his mouth. Finally, he looked up. The black lines of his eyelashes were rimed with frost.
"Sans...am I a bad person?"
Sans' smile flickered. For a moment, he appeared to be anticipating a punchline. But Frisk remained quiet after that, his gaze unwavering. Sans nervously fidgeted in the snow.
"Uh. Okay. That's a question you just asked, all right. I mean, we technically just met and all, but I got a reasonably solid mountain of evidence that says you're pretty darn nice, plus the fact that you bought me ice cream, like, fifteen minutes ago, so that's neat..." He scratched the back of his skull. "Kid, why would you even think that?"
Frisk shrugged helplessly. "Because I'm. Hurting people." His voice started to shake. "I mean. I try to help everyone. But then I just take it all back, every time, and, and Asriel doesn't want me around anymore, but I k-keep trying anyway." Now it was cracking like ice. "A-a-and because of me, all your f-friends d-d-d-"
"They wha- No. No. No, no, no." Sans practically warped to Frisk's side, beads of perspiration improbably popping out of his brow. "I didn't mean it like that. Kid, that wasn't your fault!"
"But you s-said that-"
"I know what I said. I said it in a stupid way. Joke's on me! Frisk, seriously, look at me." Sans palmed the top of Frisk's head like a basketball and turned it upwards. "Look at this handsome face. I saw what took out Gaster and the others. Or at least I think I did. And it wasn't you, okay? You're scrambling time like an egg, yeah, fair enough, point made, but that thing was not you."
Frisk nodded, hiccupped, rubbed his eyes with his sleeve. Sans removed his hand and stuck it in his pocket.
"...you wanna quit?" he asked. "I can take you right back to Papyrus. We'll get everything on track."
Frisk gulped in air, steadied his voice. "I don't think I can stop. Not now."
"Don't ever tell yourself that. That kind of thinking's what really gets people hurt. You always have that choice. No matter what."
Frisk stayed silent, then rested his head against Sans bony chest. Sans sighed, patted him on the back.
"I don't totally agree with what you're doing here, it's true," he said. "But I'm stickin' with you just the same. You think I'd still be here if I didn't believe you were in this for the right reasons?"
For a while, Frisk didn't reply. Then:
"I want to keep going," Frisk said. His voice was slightly muffled by Sans' hoodie. Sans gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
"Then let's move. Get you out of this wind before you get sick."
Frisk pushed away and pointed ahead: Onward. Sans turned, walked for a bit, then stopped and turned again.
"And, Frisk. Let me ask you something, too – do you think I'm a bad person?"
Frisk shook his head so fiercely his hair whipped around his face.
"Heh. You see?" His pupils dimmed. "Guess that means we'll just have to take each others' word for it."
Down and around the cliff. They entered a long tunnel that opened up into a cave, where the only sound was a low, resonant hum like a finger running over a waterglass. Veins of exotic ore shimmered in the walls, staining everything a crystalline blue. In the cave's upper reaches, Glyde swam through in the air in lazy circles, occasionally breaking that peaceful sound with his distant, mournful cry: "Haters gonna haaaate..."
And at the back was a door – easily ten feet wide and twice as tall, blue-grey like the sea, its edges marked with undecipherable symbols. Sans stopped just outside the tunnel's mouth, eyed that door, and then took out his notebook.
"You been here before, kid?" He glanced aside to catch Frisk's nod. "Yeah, figured. Ever get this door open?" Frisk shook his head. "Figured that, too. The thing's an enigma. There's an old legend that says it'll open to someone who shows 'extraordinary gratitude,' but I don't exactly have time to bake it a birthday cake, so we're gonna try something a little less subtle today."
He flipped open the notebook.
"I dunno where it goes normally, but for the next, uh...about sixteen minutes or so, I think, it'll lead somewhere else. It won't be in the underground. It won't be anywhere at all, empirically speakin'. And that's where we'll find Gaster."
Frisk peeked around Sans and saw that the first several pages of the notebook were covered with tally marks. The pages were crinkled, torn, spotted with dried ketchup. After the tally, the next page was blank, save for a single sentence in its center, written in a sharp-edged print unlike Sans' usual loopy scribble:
Is it raining somewhere else?
As Sans flipped through the pages, Frisk saw other things. Graphs that seemed to feed into themselves and equations that made his eyes water. Maps of places he thought he recognized, but with extra rooms, X's scratched into unfamiliar places. A sketch of Frisk himself (it was quite well-drawn) with an X scribbled over his mouth, and underneath, the scrawled words: 'DON'T TRUST HIM.' Several more pages were filled entirely with the letter G, written over and over again until the paper was nearly black with charcoal. Two more pages contained only the words 'WHY NOT' slashed into the paper with such force that it appeared Sans' pencil had snapped. Then, one variable at a time, the equations returned, and Sans started muttering to himself.
"Alright, let's see what we can see...minimum fifty units, max indeterminate, that's good, means I can red-line it without worrying too much. Say point seven-five units per second, considering drop-off, then you factor in the KR effect...maybe a minute and a half sustained? Yeah, go ahead and live dangerously."
Sans replaced the notebook and stepped into the main cavern. He slowly rotated his head and shoulders. Various joints popped like firecrackers.
"Man, it's been a while." He looked over his shoulder. "You wanna see something cool?"
What Frisk saw nearly made him run out of the cave. He took a step back, then held his ground.
Sans' eye burned.
His right eye remained the same as ever, that dark hole with its white pinprick pupil, but now light blue and yellow flames licked around the left socket, and at its core was a solid sphere that printed a strobing circle of color on the far wall. Sans' immobile grin was bathed in that neon glare.
Sans said, "Determination."
Frisk crept closer to the flame. It gave no heat.
"You probably know by now that we monsters can't handle determination like humans can. Our souls don't generate it easily. Pump us full of the stuff and we'll just melt. But, there's a theory. If a monster manages to become determined enough, and hang around at that peak – the point just before their body falls apart – all sorts of neat stuff can happen."
Frisk cautiously touched his own eye.
"Heh, heh, heh. Sorry, kiddo, but comparing your determination threshold to mine's like comparing Mt. Ebott to an anthill. This trick is monster-only." He turned back to the door. "And besides, it's just a theory. I mean, I'm not determined. I'm just doing this to pass the time in between all your resets. I don't care about helping you at all."
Sans' slipper scuffed across the ground. He raised one hand.
It arrived without fanfare – Frisk blinked and then it was hanging above Sans like it had been there all along, casting its grim silhouette on the ground below. Bone-white, many-seamed, with ram horns curling across half its length. It resembled the D.T. Extractor, that same ghastly goat skull. Its eyes and mouth were full of shadow.
"See how little I care?"
Sans flung his hand forward and the skull's eyes burned the same color as his own. Its jaw split along its seams, one-two-three, and erupted with a raging white beam of light that crackled like a dynamo and struck the door dead-center. Frisk cringed and held both arms over his eyes, but the light was so bright it passed right through his flesh, he could almost see his bones and sinew like looking at an x-ray, and as the beam burned into the door that cool blue color seemed to leach away from it, leaving the stone cold and gray; the color drained from the walls as well, leaving only symbols etched in blue – astrological signs, open palms, squares, diamonds, noughts and crosses. Glyde retreated so far up the cave that he nearly concussed himself on the ceiling. The commotion went on for almost two minutes, and when the beam finally died and the skull winked out of reality once again, the whole cave had gone monochrome, save for the medley of symbols in the stones.
Light spilled out from under the door. And with a great grinding of stone, it swung open. On the other end was a solid wall of white.
"There, all done." He turned around, stared at Frisk, then reached out and gently closed his hanging jaw. "Guess you enjoyed the show, huh?"
"It was raaaad," Glyde called.
"Thanks, dude!" He held out his hand to Frisk. "So. Ready?"
Frisk waited a moment for his ears to stop ringing and the aggravating bluish glare to bleed out of his vision, and then nodded and took Sans' hand.
"Fair warning, kid. We're breaking some serious science, here. All bets are off when we step through that door. Stick close to me."
They approached that blinding light together. Their shadows grew, and leapt, until they were imprinted on the entire back wall of the cave. Silhouettes hand in hand. Then, Sans stopped walking.
"One more thing. While we're baring our hearts to each other." He faced forward. "Dr. Gaster's my big brother."
Frisk said nothing.
"Just... look, you don't owe me anything. But if you can, try to make this the last one, alright? I don't know what's gonna happen in there. But I don't want to forget it."
He felt pressure on his hand. Frisk had folded his own palm over it, and squeezed tight. He nodded up at Sans.
"...appreciate it, Frisk."
They stepped over the threshold. The light consumed them. And several minutes later, the door rasped shut, color bled back into the cave, and the symbols along the walls faded once again into anonymity.
It was a white and soundless place.
Sans hadn't been exaggerating when he said the door led nowhere at all. The two of them walked through a blank. No light, no temperature, no sound that Frisk could hear save the rush of blood in his own ears. Their feet trod on something like solid ground, but no footsteps echoed in their wake. No horizon line to break earth and sky; at several points Frisk had to shut his eyes before his head started to swim. He felt untethered, like soon even gravity would fail and send him floating up into infinity, and he held onto Sans' bony hand all the tighter. Sans' unbroken pace and the rustling blue of his hoodie was the only landmark in the expanse.
Neither of them spoke. Possibly they didn't want to know what their voices would sound like in this airless space. Frisk leaned over until his cheek brushed Sans' sleeve. He anchored himself with the sensation.
They didn't know how long they walked; there was no time here. They didn't move in any particular direction; there was no direction, either. But, little by little, other sounds brushed the very edges of their hearing. A distant clitter. A delicate buzz. Something like a sigh. They had the feeling of being watched. Camouflaged shapes dipped and swam through the skyless sky – white against brighter white. Frisk moved so close to Sans that he nearly tripped the skeleton up, but Sans just put his arm around Frisk's shoulders and kept going.
They found him.
They didn't see Dr. Gaster in the distance; there was no distance. Instead, as they walked, a shape slowly faded in from the blankness, as if gradually shedding layers of gauze. Never becoming closer, but clearer all the same. And when he had fully solidified, and his twisted shape towered over them both, Sans finally came to a halt, and Frisk felt his bones shake beneath his grip.
"Ahh, God." Sans' voice trembled. "What did you do to yourself, W.D.?"
Dr. Gaster slumped crosslegged on the floor, arms splayed out at his sides, head askew like an unstrung marionette. He wore some dark and shapeless garment draped across his body like a shroud; the uneven pattern on the blackness and the glimpses of white fabric grinning through suggested it was a lab coat, scorched to charcoal. His head was seamless, smooth, deformed in numerous places. One eyesocket pinned wide open, staring at nothing. The other a thin, downturned crescent. His mouth another black crescent to mirror the eye. The skull split in two places, one seam running across his entire scalp in a long unbroken line as though someone had tried to pry his head apart. He didn't look like a skeleton. He looked like a wax figurine that had passed through a blast furnace.
And then, there were the hands.
Sprouting from Dr. Gaster's back were countless arm bones that spread across the void. They branched, they split, they rejoined again, like he had become the taproot of a macabre tree. Ranges of radii, forests of phalanges. They wavered like pale sea-grass, and in their upper reaches, countless hands twitched and flexed. Some with fingers more delicate than toothpicks, others so massive that they could have borne up both Sans and Frisk in their palms. Hands studded with staring eyes. Hands with palms split by toothy mouths. Hands riveted with cameras, protractors, nameless machinery. Several arms instead terminated in monsters that dangled lifeless and gray like sad puppets, their eyes staring and blank – Frisk thought that several of them resembled people he knew, and several more resembled Dr. Gaster himself. Their joints clacked like the beaks of strange birds as they swayed; they sometimes seemed to pass through each other, or disappear into the whiteness and return elsewhere like a magician's trick. They all bent low towards Sans and Frisk with a great creaking of bone and joint. They cast no shadow. But the two of them still felt the weight of those hands.
Frisk wasn't sure whether to hold onto Sans even tighter or try and hide behind him. Sans felt his tugging arm, and looked over to him.
"Don't worry, kid. He's not dangerous. I just...thought I'd have been more prepared for this." He held up his arm, forcing Frisk to stand on tiptoe. "Hate to say it, but I need you to let me go now."
Frisk turned pale, but slowly released his grip. Sans gave him a half-hearted wink. Then he sauntered under the canopy of Dr. Gaster's hands.
"Hey." Somehow, his voice remained steady. "Sorry I took so long."
From everywhere at once came a grating, deafening wall of noise. The split palms babbled, the grey puppets shook. It sounded like sticking your head inside a malfunctioning engine, or a dial tone turned to ear-bleeding volume, or ten thousand washboards being scraped at once. Frisk cringed and clapped his hands over his ears.
"Heh. Yeah, I'm doing okay. Looks like you're still the same as ever, too. Despite everything." Sans looked over to Frisk. "Don't cover your ears when other people are speaking, kid, it's rude."
Frisk lowered his hands, then winced again at the next burst of noise. He noticed that all the hands wavered in unison during that din, clacking and twisting in acrobatic contortions. Sans watched the movement intently.
"Yeah, this is the one. He's not much to look at, but his determination's off the scale." Glancing at Frisk: "The Doctor always had some communication issues. No surprise they've gotten a little worse, given the circumstances. Don't worry, we have a system worked out. I'll interpret for ya."
Hands swarmed Frisk like flies. Several camera flashes went off in Frisk's face. One hand with its fingers replaced by strange sizzling rods gave his chest a gentle pinch, then flitted away. Despite the riot of movement whenever Dr. Gaster spoke or acted, his actual body remained lifeless and still. His own, original hands didn't so much as twitch.
Another blast of buzz. Sans nodded, then breathed deep.
"Okay, Frisk. The Doctor wants a word with you." Frisk looked on the verge of panic. "Don't worry. He won't make you say anything you don't want to. And, uh, you might not understand, like, half the stuff he says, but go easy on him. He hasn't gotten to talk to anyone in a while. Ready?"
Frisk stared up at the forest of hands. At countless unblinking eyes, the gray puppets with their heads all tilted in expectation. He swallowed hard, and nodded.
"Alright. Here we go."
A wave of noise and shudder.
"(So, you have arrived.) Okay, starting with the obvious, I can dig it."
The hands clutched and flexed.
"(Let's not lose any time to useless introductions.) Wow, bro, dial back the charm a little, why don't'cha? Okay, okay, it's him talking now. (Sans has already told you who I am. And I have watched you for some time. The irregularities you have created are impossible to ignore. Please do not take this as an accusation. I find your patterns admirable.) Hey, you see? You've made a good first impression."
Fingers snapped like wild animals. The gray puppets babbled at nothing.
"(You created significant unrest in space and time to locate me. You put my brother through a great deal of unease.) Aw, man, it wasn't a problem, really. (And yet. I have observed. That throughout it all. And despite temptation. You continued to be yourself. I have always respected perseverance.) Yeah, clearly. (So. I took what limited measures I could to arrange this meeting. Regardless of its eventual outcome.)
"(Now, tell me what you seek.)"
The hands went still. Sans leaned over. "That's your cue, kid."
Frisk wasn't sure whether to address the hands or Dr. Gaster himself. But he knew the answer, and said it with confidence:
"Asriel."
The hands chittered.
"(Asriel.)"
They seemed to laugh amongst themselves.
"(The doomed prince. Yes. I have observed his trail, as well. The deception. The tragedy. The madness. The sacrifice. The end of his life created ripples of disaster that would extend for generations to come. And after many years, Asriel will break free of that bleak existence, only to fall back into darkness. I would call it heartbreaking, had I the necessary anatomy.) Yikes, W.D., working the rough chuckles, there. (That is the fate you wish to avert. That is why you continue to corrupt time. That is why you hold the future hostage from those who wish to live it.)"
Frisk's ears had begun to ache from the waves of snarl and rattle crashing in on them. Numerous eyes tilted in a way that turned their stare judgmental. But he held his ground.
"(Here is a difficult lesson for you to learn, human. All too often, happy endings are built on the misfortunes of others. As cruel as it sounds, the freedom and happiness of monsterkind hinges upon Asriel Dreemurr's miserable end. He suffered great pain, but when given the choice, in an act of supreme selflessness, he allowed that misfortune to become the foundation of a brighter future for all.)" Sans' voice was toneless. He would no longer meet Frisk's eye. "(But you will not respect his sacrifice. You continue your efforts without hesitation.)" Clenching bone huddled ever closer to Frisk. "(I wish to hear your reasons why.)"
Sans inhaled deep, blinked several times. "Geez, that was a mouthful."
"Sans." Frisk still didn't back down as the hands moved ever closer, though he was shaking like a leaf. "What should I do?"
"Give him an answer, of course. Don't worry, he's just putting on his lecture-hall voice." Another buzz, almost irritated. "Oh, c'mon, W.D., lay off him a little. The most brilliant mind in monster history trying to grill a grade-schooler? Even I couldn't come up with something that funny." He gave Frisk a thumbs-up. "Just be honest, kiddo. With him, and with yourself. It'll get you through every time."
The hands receded. Just enough to give Frisk room to breathe. He stood before Dr. Gaster like a penitent. He tried to find the words.
He remembered Asriel in the flower patch, head bowed, waiting for the end. Further back – Asriel in front of the barrier, surging with the power of every soul at once, pouring all his stolen life into the thing entrapping the people he'd tormented. Further back – Asriel holding him so tight that his claws had dug through Frisk's shirt, his muzzle digging into Frisk's neck. Still trying to smile as he said he didn't want to let go.
Frisk said, "Did you see him, too? After he changed back?"
The hands turned to face one another. They seemed surprised at the question.
"(The point between his rise and fall. Such moments are rare in the sea of time. But yes. I have observed several.)"
"He never smiles." Frisk held himself tighter. "Not really."
Gaster said nothing.
"I mean, he always tries. But you can tell it's not real. It's because he's scared. He doesn't want anyone else to worry."
Several hands rotated in Sans' direction. His pupils darted around. "...what?"
"I don't know him that well," Frisk continued. "I never get the chance. But I've met him for the first time. Over and over. And I think he just hates to see other people get hurt. Especially after...everything that happened. So when he tells me he doesn't want to leave. I think it's the same as his smile. He's telling lies." Frisk sniffed. "Because he doesn't think there's any way to help without hurting someone else."
He rubbed his eyes and looked up. "Even if he really doesn't want to leave, I want to give him the choice. I think I'd be okay if he told me no. As long as it didn't feel like he was lying about it. But first. I need to find a way to help him without hurting anyone. And as long as I can, I'm going to try." He swallowed; his throat hurt from overuse. "But. I hope he says yes. I...I really want him to be my friend."
He fell silent. Sans and Gaster waited, to see if any more words were forthcoming, but that appeared to be the end of it.
"There is a warm and fuzzy feeling all through my ribcage," Sans said. "Very, very nice, kid." Frisk said nothing, but visibly reddened. "Hey, W.D., is he seriously the one responsible for sending time down the tubes? I'm starting to detect a flaw in our hypothesis, here."
"(My model was impeccable)," Sans translated. "(The anomaly persists. The darkness at the end of time cannot be avoided.)" Several of the puppets tilted their heads. "(But perhaps. Its meaning may be malleable. I had good reason to believe that the terminus meant only ruin. But, with enough determination. It may instead signify a new future. One beyond the reach of any calculation.)"
Every hand bent low over Frisk.
"(There is a way.)"
Both Frisk and Sans' faces lit up.
"(After my demise, my essence drew on the power of the Core. My creation. Beautiful and beautifully useless. But even as I was scattered across time, flung into the darkest corners of the underground, that power persisted. In the absence of anything better to do, I continued my research. I have observed the sea of time, and noted every moment. Their placement. Their purpose. The ripples they leave behind.)"
The hands were now moving so fast they blurred, turning near-invisible against that blank white background. Sans was sweating in his attempts to keep up.
"(Of particular interest was Asriel Dreemurr's death. Of course. Its connections were so bold, and ran so far. When his soul left his body and shattered in the unforgiving air, the future shuddered in sympathy. Even now, I can see it. Suspended in this placeless place.)
"(Human. With your blessing. I will reach out. Seize hold of this moment in time. And COPY it.)"
Sans blinked. He couldn't seem to understand what he had just said. The hands resumed their commotion.
"(I will pour the power of the Core into that moment. One occurrence will become two. The second inviolate. Immaculate. Pure. Its events separate from the greater flow of time. If you possess the bravery. The determination. Then you may venture into that uncharted dark, and extract Asriel's soul before its dissolution. Hide it within yourself. Keep that soul warm beside your own. Carry it to the end of all things, and perhaps. You will find a way to bring the doomed prince home.)"
Frisk's face had begun to hurt. It took a moment for him to realize why.
"Would you look at that, huh?" Sans leaned over, his grin wider than ever. "Kid's smiling ear to ear. Frisk, why the heck do you always look so down? That's a waste of a fantastic face." Frisk flushed again and rubbed his dimpled cheek. "Heh heh heh. Man, we're making it rain miracles today, aren't we, W.D.?"
The hands hung by their wrists. The puppets hung their heads. For a moment, that bony thicket seemed guilty.
Slowly, the movement and buzz resumed. Sans tilted his head, his grin dampened somewhat, and translated:
"(The stress of this act will be severe. The consequences, unavoidable. In the aftermath, I will-) Oh. Oh, no. No. No way!"
Frisk's smile disappeared. He looked back and forth between Sans and Gaster. Sans' skull was beading with sweat. His pupils shuddered in their sockets.
"He's saying that this stunt'll burn up all the juice that's keeping him here. He'll be dead for good after that. And yeah, kid, that sucks, I know, since now we'll have to find a different plan. Because that is not going to happen!" Frisk flinched; he'd never heard Sans shout like that before. "Frisk, tell him. I know you don't want this any more than I-"
He was cut off by a snarl of static. The hands leapt and spasmed.
"No, you don't get to pull this on me now! I mean, come on." Sans held his palms out, the look in his eyes turned pleading. "We've got Frisk's determination, your brains, my devastating good looks. We can find a way to bail you outta this, too. One more miracle, no big deal, right?" The hands kept still. Sans' voice started to tremble. "W.D., I'm begging you here. I came all this way. Don't do this to me again."
The ensuing noise was so fierce that Frisk had to cover his ears again. Even then, it sounded like he was standing within kissing distance of a waterfall. The leaping tides of screech bored through his ears. The hands waved so close to Sans that they nearly knocked him over.
"No, I never thought this was about me, but-"
The puppets crowded him, all blank faces and bared teeth.
"That isn't-"
Several hands formed fists and pounded the soundless ground as the buzz rent the air. Sans stood with his arms limp and his head hung low. His pupils winked out, leaving dark sockets.
"...okay. Okay. I get it, all right?" He angled his head to Frisk. "Hey. He's got more to say." Frisk uncovered his ears, tried to approach Sans. "I'm fine, kid. Just listen."
The buzz resumed, gentler now.
"(Your protest is understandable)," Sans said quietly. "(I have every cause to believe you wish for an end with no sacrifice. But, human. Understand my predicament. I still do not know what presence lurked within the distortion in time, but when I called it forth with my observations, the blow it struck was remarkably potent. It severed far more than my life from this world. The marks I had made in the past. The bonds I had formed in the present. All were undone. All progress erased. And as I continued my notes here, I came to realize something. The marks I had left were, in the end, very faint. My bonds, very fragile. My research had amounted to nothing. My determination to succeed had called down only ruin on those I cared for. And, when I finally passed from this world...)"
Sans fell silent as the hands continued to move. He shook his head slowly. "Oh, no, W.D. You know that's not true."
But Gaster remained still. Waiting for his interpretation. Sans had to fight to let out every word.
"(When I finally passed from this world, few remembered me. Fewer missed me.)" He looked away from Frisk. "(And. In all my observations. I found only one person. Who ever mourned me.)"
Sans stuck his hands in his pockets. "I'm okay. I just...need a minute."
He took deep breaths. Frisk watched his shoulders rise and fall. Then Sans looked back up, and Gaster continued to speak.
"(I have spent too long here. Filled with regret, in this wretched state. Unsure of how I continue to exist or why. The world perseveres without me, and I do not blame it. The future will always find a way to survive, though it may grow dim from time to time. However. If you desire a brighter future. If your happy ending demands misfortune. Then I. Would be honored. To sacrifice my own.)"
Dr. Gaster fell silent once again. There was a distinct air of exhaustion in the way every hand ceased movement at once. Frisk crept closer to Sans, and grabbed hold of his arm.
"Heh. Thanks." His pupils flickered weakly. "Give him your answer, kid. Whatever you want. But do it now, okay? I think this translation schtick's run its course."
Frisk nodded, turned away, stepped forward. This time, he addressed Dr. Gaster directly – that slumped, motionless figure from which every hand grew.
He said, "Please."
As one, the gray puppets nodded.
Gaster's two largest hands – their pinky fingers taller than Frisk and Sans combined – shuddered into life. They reached up, and up, their arm-bones extending like telescopes, until they disappeared into the blankness. There was a great grinding of stone, and the hands descended with a great archway clutched in their grip. Frisk recognized that whiskey-colored stone; it was the door to King Asgore's throne room. The hands bore it aloft high over Dr. Gaster like an offering.
Other hands swarmed the doorway. More camera lenses flashed. Currents of electricity ran across its surface. Protractors took countless measurements in the blink of an eye, scraping inscrutable diagrams into the door's surface. And then they latched on. Hands skittered across the stone like spiders and grabbed every available surface, encasing the arc in bone. The gray puppets ringed Gaster with their heads raised like witnesses. Bone creaked as every arm tensed, and began to pull.
Dr. Gaster's eye burned.
It began as a dim point in his wide-open eye. Not unlike Sans' own pupils. But as the hands continued their exertion, the light grew, and leapt, and flared into a deep purple flame that spread even to the cracks in Gaster's skull, so that his head seemed veined with amethyst. Gaster's body finally twitched into life, his head lifting up, his mouth yawning open, as the flame leapt like a pilot light. Cracks spiderwebbed through his arms. Cracks appeared in his skull like glazed pottery. And as the door itself finally began to crack, that now-familiar static climbed into a cacophony that, at its very core, held a voice – Dr. Gaster's own, roaring into the empty air.
Frisk had covered his ears again. Sans stared up at the door, as motionless as Gaster himself had been.
The door split down the middle. There was a blinding flash.
When it faded, all had fallen silent. Gaster was once again slumped over. And now, he was flanked by two doorways – both identical, down to the last mark in the stone.
Frisk watched as the hands moved once more. But now their movement was jerky, uncertain, like a failing windup toy. A multitude of index fingers pointed to the left-hand arch.
They heard a voice – without tone or character, jumping unevenly between words and even syllables, as though the sounds making up each word had been dragged from a great many places and hastily reassembled:
"Your. Exit." The great stone doors swung open with oily silence. "Stay. Determined."
The index fingers broke off from the hands, drifted up, grew transparent, were gone. They were followed by the other bones in each hand, and then the numerous forearms. Joint by joint, Dr. Gaster was coming apart. The drifting bones clinked against each other with a sound like wind chimes as they faded from existence.
"Frisk," Sans said. "The same rule applies. You're about to go somewhere no one was ever meant to be. I don't know what you're going to find in there. Or what might find you."
Frisk looked up at him, his expression worried.
"I know you'll be all right." Sans rubbed Frisk's shoulder. "But I got something to finish up here. You understand?"
Frisk grabbed Sans' wrist and nodded. He said, "Thank you."
"Yeah. Well. Same." He looked at Gaster. "For giving me a chance to say goodbye."
Frisk let him go, and nodded to Gaster as well. The doctor himself still didn't move, but one puppet – a white-eyed, monochrome copy of the lively child he'd met in Waterfall – nodded back, just before it detached and drifted into infinity like an untethered balloon. Frisk walked toward the open archway. The blackness within was absolute. He couldn't see how far it extended, or where it led.
The waiting dark filled him with determination.
After Frisk stepped through the arch, Sans walked up to Dr. Gaster, his hands jammed in his hoodie pockets. He was able to approach the doctor, now; the strange lack of distance or direction in this place had, for the moment, been suspended. As if the copied arches had momentarily pinned the world in place. He stood in front of Gaster as the hands continued to separate.
Gaster's head rose to face him. His cracked bones crinkled like paper.
Sans said, "I'm sorry."
Gaster remained silent.
"I tried, you know? I really did try. Even took a crack at getting that one machine of yours running – the Phase Distorter or whatever you called it. I kept telling myself that if I'd just quit earlier, or tried harder to talk you out of it, or, you know, even if I hadn't decided to call you up for dinner at that moment, things might've turned out different." His pupils went dark. "But then the resets started, and I wasn't making any progress, and...yeah. I just lost motivation. Papyrus kept my spirits up. You know the way he is. But I really did want to see you again." He felt a prickle at the corner of his eyesocket, and reached up to touch it; his fingers came away wet. "Oh. That's just embarrassing."
"I. Saw. You." Gaster's voice had become very faint. "Wherever. And whenever. I could."
"Heh. So that means you got to see me give up, huh? Ouch." He stared at his slippers. "I must've looked like one sorry excuse for a brother."
"No. No. No, no, no." With one of his last remaining hands, Gaster palmed the top of Sans' head like a basketball, gently raised it up. "I. Saw. The happiness. You. Sowed. The smiles. That grew. From. Your smile." The fingers clutching Sans' head broke away, lifted off. "Your family. Your friends. You. Were kind. To them. Despite. Everything. And I. Am. Proud."
Sans chuckled at that. Then his laughter hoarsened and broke. His chest heaved inside his hoodie. He covered his eyes with his sleeve. The fabric rapidly started to darken.
"Geez, how sappy can you g-get?" He gulped in air, sobbed it out. "You're k-killing me here, man..."
"There is. No. Shame. In grief. Regret. Clings. To us all." The last of Gaster's extra limbs broke away. "But. We must. Persevere. Sans. Cry your tears. Then. Laugh. And remember me. Now. And again."
Sans snuffled and rubbed his face hard enough to give his skull a good polish. When he lowered his sleeve again, the corners of his sockets were still dribbling, but his perpetual smile looked genuine enough.
"Heh heh. Givin' me homework now? But I think I can manage that."
With agonizing effort, Dr. Gaster lifted his own arm. Chips of bone fell away from him like dust. The cracks in his skull had begun to grow wider. He offered his hand.
"Goodbye. Dear. Brother. Of mine."
"Yeah." Sans reached out. "Safe travels, W.D."
He took Gaster's hand in his own.
(PPPPBBBBTHBTHBTHPPBBBTHBBBPPPTH)-
Sans' eyesockets widened.
-(PBBPBBTHBTHBTHPTHPTHBBBTHBTH)-
Damp air rushed out from between their clasped fingers.
-(PBTHPBPBPLRPLBLRPLRLRPBRPLR)-
It sounded like a lawnmower failing to start.
-(plbrplbrplblblbrplbprPBBBTHHBPLRPLR)-
There was no way to stop this madness.
-(plrblrblrpbbthplrplrfweetfweetfweetfweeeeetfweeeeeeet...)
(...poot.)
Gaster's arm disintegrated. The whoopee cushion flopped onto the ground between them.
"Ha. Ha."
Sans remained frozen in place as the last of Dr. Gaster crumbled – his labcoat floating away in tatters, his bones drifting off in specks. Finally, only his head was left, tilted slightly up, so that, with the thin crescent of his mouth, it looked like he was enjoying a hearty laugh.
"That's. Always. Funny."
Then it split along its seams, one-two-three, and disappeared.
Long before.
Even before he had relocated to New Home, King Asgore had insisted that the capital's throne room would also serve as a garden. This served two purposes – it allowed his subjects something nice to look at when they came to see their king and queen, and it meant that he would never have to go far when he wanted to do some gardening, which was always. The search for an ideal spot had been exhaustive; it would have been fair to say that the entirety of the capital grew from the selection and placement of this single room in the castle. The ceiling was veined with cracks and seams of quartz that caught vestiges of light from the surface, filtered them, magnified them. It was one of the few places in the entire underground where a monster could feel the sun on their face.
Now the throne room lay pale and cold. The sun had set a long time ago. The stones in the ceiling took in the dim light from the moon and stars, and laid it down in milky pools across the plants that grew thick around the twin thrones. There was no smell of sweet lemons; none of the flowers here were gold. But the air was fragrant all the same.
A rustling emerged from behind the thrones. Then, a small figure, bent double, carrying some kind of load on its back. It limped into one of those murky spotlights, then tried to take another step. But its feet refused to move.
"Haha...guess this is as far as we go."
Asriel shuddered, bent further. The child he carried on his back slid off and fell face-down into the dirt. He cried out and knelt over the body, palms out in apology.
"Sorry! Sorry, I didn't mean to drop you like that! Let me...just..." He struggled to turn the child over, then slumped. "No. No, that's not happening. Serves us right for eating all those pies, huh?"
Asriel's breath was rattling and slow. Monsters didn't bleed, but he was still in bad shape. His fangs were chipped. His clothes were torn. One eye was swollen shut and one ear had been sliced nearly in half. But he tried to smile anyway.
"I guess Mom and Dad must've run off looking for me. Haha. I bet they've covered half the kingdom by now." He looked down at his hands. "...I'm glad they're not here. It'd be kind of tough explaining things to them now."
Asriel reached over and patted the child's back. The two of them wore matching shirts.
"Why were you so angry at those people, anyway? They must've liked you a lot. Otherwise they wouldn't have been so mad at me, right?" His latest breath gave way to a coughing fit; he felt like he was hacking up dust. "Even then. They seemed more scared than anything." He massaged his chest. "I don't blame them. I was scared, too."
Asriel's smile faded.
"...it's okay if you don't want to talk." He bowed his head. "I really messed up, didn't I?"
The wind hummed tunelessly through the cracks overhead.
"You know, I actually don't feel that bad. Just kind of...numb." He patted the child again. "Maybe if I just rest a little while, Mom and Dad'll come back. Then we...can..."
His expression turned uncertain. He leaned in close to the child. On that green-and-yellow shirt, where Asriel's hand had lain, he saw smudges of gray dust. Asriel looked at his hand; dust ran off in rivulets. Then, all at once, the hand disintegrated.
Asriel began to hyperventilate. His face wracked with horror. He grabbed his arm in an attempt to hold it together and felt it dissolve under his grip. Sobs shook his tiny frame, shaking more dust off his skin.
"What did I do wrong?" he cried. "I just w-wanted to be a g-good friend...why is this happening to me!?"
His other hand went. His knee collapsed. Asriel found himself off-balance, his body sifting into the soil beneath.
"I'm scared...I don't want to die! Mom...Dad...anyone, please!"
Asriel turned his crumbling, tear-streaked face skyward.
"Help me!"
But nobody came.
Frisk's hands reached out of the dark.
He rushed to embrace Asriel and seized only dust; the last of his body collapsed in Frisk's arms. He frantically beat dust off his clothes, his breath hitching in his throat. Then he saw it. A shining ivory light where Asriel's heart had been, quivering in the exposed air, ready to shatter any second. Frisk cupped it in his palms. He held it to his chest.
He felt heat pass into him. Like lighting a candle in his breastbone. For a moment, he felt the soul shaking beside his heart. Then, little by little, it calmed down, and the sensation faded. But the warmth remained. Frisk gently rubbed his chest. He felt tears prickle at the corners of his eyes.
Then he looked up, and saw the second light.
This one was deep red. Pulsing. Almost sickly, in way that was difficult to describe. He reached out to touch it, and the air was rent by a harsh crackle, like he'd stuck his finger in a light socket; he cried out and pulled away, his palms scorched. This soul, too, shook, but not nearly as fiercely as Asriel's had. It was taking its time to shatter without its body.
A shadow passed over the room.
It only took a few seconds – as if, on the surface overhead, a cloud had blown under the moon. But as the darkness crept across him, Frisk felt oddly cold. Like someone had filled his bones with ice water. He couldn't stop shaking until the light returned. The wind picked up and blew across the throne room's broken ceiling. For a moment, it sounded like laughter.
When the shadow passed, the soul had disappeared.
Frisk backed away. He still had one hand clutched to his chest. He felt his heartbeat quicken.
He had emerged from the dark space between the two thrones – there had been no pathway or entrance from Dr. Gaster's door to here, just movement, a brief feeling of being nowhere at all, and then he'd found himself here just in time to hear Asriel's cry for help. But when he turned back to that space, something was wrong. Outside of this circle of moonlight, the waiting dark no longer filled him with determination. It felt predatory. Like it was waiting for him to walk in, and snap off his limbs. And in fact, as Frisk stood on the periphery of that shadow, he would have sworn it extended a tongue of blackness out to lick at the toe of his shoe. He pulled away. His heartbeat jumped.
Something rustled behind him.
Frisk turned around and saw nothing there. Only the wavering garden and the dim moonlight. Only the dust where Asriel had been.
Only the crushed plants where the child's body had been.
He wasn't there and then he was. Standing in the darkness opposite Frisk. His jolly green and yellow shirt almost glowing in the night. His tousled brown hair hung over his face, obscuring his eyes, but his smile was wide and cheery and there were two bright points of color in his cheeks. He looked livelier than anything else in this room. Both hands were folded behind his back, like someone with a secret.
"Greetings," he said. "I'm so pleased to finally meet you."
He held out one hand. The skin smooth and pale as ceramic. The other remained behind his back. Metal gleamed in the dying light.
"You have something that belongs to me."