Undertale spoilers!

I don't own Undertale. I cri evertim.

I was back in the cave. The near horizontal tunnel in the roof of Hotland.

"Where did mummy go?" Muffet tilted her head to the side and looked at me curiously.

I didn't reply. It felt like I was moving through wet cement. Slow and unwieldy. I turned to run away, but a Gaster Blaster appeared in the mouth of the cave.

"I need a human SOUL."

I looked back and it was Gaster. Muffet was gone.

His face was melting rapidly.

"Then I'm afraid I'll just have to take it from you."

"No…" I said pathetically, and tried to run.

Suddenly, there was a web in my way. I was stuck.

"You killed me, didn't you, dearie?"

Tuffet was there. There was a cut snaking from her shoulder to her waist. Dust curled around her.

"The Royal Guard will pay us a huge sum of money for your SOUL, dearie~"

Tuffet reached out with one of her hands. I saw her face up close, all of her eyes blinking in turn.

She closed her fingers around my SOUL, squeezing it until it shattered into a million purple shards.

My eyes shot open and I sat up quickly. Just a dream. Likely guilt induced.

Because I'm a filthy murderer. And soon, I'll get worse.

I was sat in a guest room in Alphys' lab. I stood and walked towards the door.

"What was life like on the surface?" Alphys asked me.

I was surprised. Of course – monsters had been stuck down here for so long, she was probably born here.

And she'll die here, if I have any say.

My hand twitched towards my notebook. I had to force it to stop.

"It was… okay, I guess. I got up and went to school every day, and when I got back, I wrote stories. I must have written a hundred by now."

I opened my notebook and showed Alphys various tales I'd written. There were all kinds of stories – dragons, spaceships, superheroes, you name it. It was probably there. And of course, the unfinished tale based on the monsters that lived underground. That was the reason I came to Mt Ebott in the first place. I wanted to know more.

She flicked through them and smiled.

"These are really good!"

"You think so?"

"Y-Yeah! I really like them."

"You know, I always wanted to be an author. I wanted to write real books, that got published and famous."

"That sounds like a great dream."

We sat in silence while Alphys read my stories. I listened to the gentle beeps of the computers and thought. We were back in the lab. I'd changed out of my hospital gown and back into my regular clothes. I'd also stuck a plaster over the cut I'd received from Sans. Karmic Retribution considered me a normal person now, and didn't have any effect on me. I suppose all the good I did above ground managed to amount to two whole lives. That's something to be happy about.

I needed to get out of here, but I had no idea how. Was there even a way out?

"I need to leave the Underground." I told Alphys.

Alphys shook her head. "It's impossible. The only way out of the underground is through the Core. Beyond there, you'll find the palace, where the king lives. The exit is there."

"That doesn't sound difficult."

"Wrong. Beyond the palace is the Barrier, the magical wall that separates our world from yours. It is impassable unless you have a human and monster SOUL."

I struggled to fight down another random wave of anger and murderous thoughts. They'd been happening more and more since I'd killed Gaster. Was I going insane? Probably. Even now, I don't know. It's highly likely.

"Monsters have SOULs?" I asked, genuinely intrigued. I hadn't seen Gaster's SOUL, or Tuffet's."

"Monster SOULs are very weak. They can't sustain themselves without a body to stay in. Exceptionally powerful monsters such as the Dremuur family have SOULs powerful enough to stay for just a few moments."

"So I need to kill King Dremuur?"

"That… is correct." She sighed, and flopped back in the chair.

I stood up and grabbed my notebook from the table. I straightened my glasses as I walked towards the door.

"H-hey, wait." Alphys said hesitantly. "Do you mind if I… uhh… keep that?"

"My notebook?"

"Yeah. I want to keep reading it, if that's okay."

"Sure." I told her, putting it back on the table. Alphys probably had some cool stuff lying around.

The chapter was originally meant to end a little later, but it was getting kinda long, so I moved the end of this one to the beginning of the next.

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