In light of her previous revelation, Frisk went into Sans's room and sat down among the dirty socks and crumpled paper scattered across his floor. Because of their agreement, she had no need to be in there, but something prevented her from leaving. Whereas even an hour before she'd wanted to avoid Sans at all costs, now something new burned within her: curiosity. Was this Sans different from the Sans she thought he was?
That same burning curiosity had been with her all her life. It had driven her to dual enroll at community college as a junior in high-school; it had pushed her to take three government and politics classes senior year; it had propelled her to double-major in psychology and political science in order to learn everything she could as quickly as she could. That curiosity had given her As, entrance into a prestigious college, and prospects for a well-paying job once she graduated from Vanderbilt. Now it possibly doomed her to the whims of a serial killer.
It was for that that she waited, minute after minute, expecting at any moment for Sans to walk through the door. The light outside his window gradually darkened to black, until only the overhead light in his room provided any illumination. It cast deep shadows across Frisk. She hugged her knees to her chest. She'd always been afraid of the dark and the unknown. She really hoped Sans got back soon-
Pop.
"Kid, what are you-"
Whatever Sans had been going to say was lost in the startled shriek Frisk made. She shot to her feet and away from the voice sounding mere inches behind her. Her hand grabbed for the door.
"C'mon kid, seriously?"
The edges of his finger-bones caught at her arm. Frisk tore away and shoved the door open. She tried to move, but stumbled in the pitch-black hallway. The faint light emanating from Sans's room was barely enough for her to see her feet, and she'd only made it three steps down the hall before Sans was in front of her, somehow towering menacingly over her despite being two inches shorter.
"Calm down."
She didn't even have much of a reason to be scared - he'd only startled her, after all. It was with a clear sense of annoyance at herself that she tried to calm down. She forced her panic into a tight ball inside her chest and stepped away from Sans, closed her eyes, and forced herself to take a deep breath. But it was too deep, too slow of a breath and she felt like she was suffocating, just like she had that one time Sans had pinned her against a wall and ripped her-
"Frisk, calm down!"
Sans sounded frustrated. Somehow, his irritation made her irritated with him. She opened her eyes and glared at him. "I am calm!"
"Yeah, you look it."
Damn, she hated him.
The vehemence with which her mind gave tongue to that thought startled her for a second. She wasn't a hateful person by nature: she was rather used to blaming herself for everything, excusing others for any wrongdoing they committed. It wasn't a normal thing for her to hate a person like this. It wasn't normal for her to just look at a person and feel a surge of vitriol through her gut. Yet here she was.
She almost punched him, but remembered herself just in time. If she'd been an ounce braver or a tad more reckless, perhaps she wouldn't have stopped herself. As it was, she forced herself to be content with an angry stare and a mental spew of profanities.
There was a short silence. They glanced from each other to Papyrus's still-shut door and back to each other again. Sans's face was ghastly white and deeply shadowed in the near-darkness. His eye-lights shone clearly through the gloom, piercing through flesh and bone all the way to her heart. Frisk shifted uncomfortably. She'd long before gotten used to seeing skeletons, but there were times they still unnerved her. Even disregarding her bad times concerning them, something about a moving skeleton with no flesh or muscle or bone was just plain wrong.
"Uh," Sans started, "why were you in my room again? I told you to sleep on the couch."
"I..." Really, what could she say? Just this morning they'd been mortal foes. Now Sans wasn't outwardly trying to kill her, but she could still sense his hatred of her. And she hated him right back. There was really no plausible explanation she could have for waiting for him to return to his room.
Her eyes fell onto the white, greasy paper bag Sans held in his hands. Her stomach grumbled. She'd eaten practically nothing of Papyrus's dinner, partially from its being inedible and partially from fear. The fear was still there, but at least this food smelled edible. Very edible.
"Really? I asked you and everything, and now you want something?"
Frisk flinched and edged towards the stairs. "No..."
Sans sighed. "You're a terrible liar, kid...welp, I guess I did promise to feed you."
Sans pushed past her, walked back into his room, and sat down on his bed. Frisk followed, hovering awkwardly at the foot of the bed. She watched as he opened the bag and pulled out a burger and two containers of fries. He offered one of those to Frisk with the words, "Figured you might want something after all."
Frisk took the fries and retreated a few steps. She thought about asking him what he would've done if she'd not wanted the fries after all, but decided she didn't care enough to know. Then she hesitated a moment longer, not sure if she should stay or not. When Sans pointedly ignored her and began chowing down on his food, she decided that was a no and quietly slipped out. She was relieved when he didn't try to stop her.
Frisk tiptoed down the stairs in pitch-darkness. She nearly tripped four times. She groped her way through the blackness until her eyes adjusted enough to see the thin slivers of light coming through the windows. The light, she knew, came from thousands of glowing crystals, the Underground's version of stars. She'd always thought they were beautiful but sad.
Frisk dropped onto the couch with a sigh. The light was just enough that she could make out dim outlines of the sparse furniture in the room. She shoved a handful of fries in her mouth, barely tasting them, and stared at the silhouette of the TV. Now that she was alone, her heart had finally calmed down. It had relegated itself to a slow, steady thud-thud that was strangely reassuring. Frisk tilted her head back into the couch and closed her eyes.
What was her next move? She couldn't stay here forever - she didn't want to stay here forever. Really, if she'd had a better option than roughing it out in the wilderness by herself, she would've already taken it. But as Undyne had said, pretty much every monster wanted her dead. At least here there was Papyrus, the first legitimately innocent monster she'd ever met, and Sans, who seemed convinced of the illogic of murdering her right now.
What she wanted more than anything was to go home. She wanted to see Gran again. She wanted to hang out with Rosa, her best friend, and see Rosa's dog Chika. Months of death and suffering had dulled Frisk's memories so much she could barely remember their faces any more. She wished she'd had her phone with her when she'd fallen, just so she could see them again.
From the time she'd fallen, Frisk had known her goal. Monsters everywhere had sung of Asgore and the human souls he'd collected. Flowey had told her of the barrier that, if broken, could get her back home. Toriel had nearly gone demented the moment Frisk had mentioned leaving the Ruins to go to New Home.
Her destination was the same: she had to get to New Home. She had to get past Asgore. She had to break the barrier. It was either that or resigning herself to the slow rending of her soul and the aching loss of losing her loved ones to the disintegration of memory.
But how? So many times had she tried to get to New Home, and so many times had she failed. She'd only ever faced Asgore once. The death he'd given her had been painless, almost merciful - if indeed a death could ever be called merciful. But it had cemented in her the knowledge that she could never succeed. Even if she could avoid Papyrus, even if she could trick Undyne, even if she could survive Sans, there was always Asgore.
And Asgore could not be defeated. Because she'd made a promise.
And because of that, the barrier could never be broken. She remembered Flowey's words from what felt like a million years ago. 'Two souls to break the barrier, Frisk: one human, one monster.' The barrier could not be broken unless she killed or was killed. She had no way out.
Frisk clenched her hands into fists so tight that the fries container crumpled.
"No," she murmured. "No, that's not right. There has to be another way."
There had to be a loophole. There had to be an escape. It was like politics, like law: there was always another way. Always a way to exploit a weakness. There had to be. Because if there weren't, the only freedom left for her would be death.
The next morning dawned clear and bright. Frisk woke up at sunrise from a fitful sleep plagued with nightmares. Outside, she could hear all the various species of bird the Underground possessed chirping and twittering. Most days she found their incessant chattering annoying. Whether it was from the utter loneliness of her restless night or the simple fact she was still alive, today she found it calming. She was alive, she was okay, she was uninjured. Anything after that could wait.
And wait she did, for approximately fifty-two minutes and forty seconds. On second forty-one, Papyrus's bedroom door banged open and he leaped down the stairs towards her.
"GOOD MORNING, HUMAN! IT IS A GREAT DAY, IS IT NOT?"
"Uh...yeah, I guess so."
"I AM GLAD YOU AGREE! SINCE YOU ARE STAYING WITH US, HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO COME WITH ME FOR MY DAILY EARLY-MORNING WORKOUT?"
"I'm good, thanks." The thought of having to train with the skeleton who'd repeatedly slaughtered her didn't sit well.
"THAT IS A PITY. HOWEVER, I UNDERSTAND THAT THE THOUGHT OF TRAINING WITH THE GREAT PAPYRUS CAN BE VERY INTIMIDATING. I WILL ALLOW YOU ONE MORE DAY IN ORDER TO BE LESS INTIMIDATED. NYEH HEH HEH!"
He really had a strange laugh, she thought. Most people's laughs were along the lines of 'haha' or 'heh' or such. Papyrus? He really was great. Greatly different from anyone she'd ever heard before.
Frisk muttered out a thanks and turned away. Papyrus sped out the door, shutting it with a bang that shook the whole house. Frisk glanced up at Sans's door in case it'd woken him up, but the skeleton didn't emerge. She guessed he must be so used to his brother that he could sleep through that. Frisk sighed, fumbled for the remote, and turned on the TV.
Mettaton's all too familiar face popped onto the screen.
"Seriously?" she groaned. "Don't they have any other actors?"
Frisk punched at the remote controls, searching for the change channel button. A quick survey of the remote came with the discovery that there was nothing of the sort, and therefore only one channel in the Underground. Ugh. As if the Underground weren't bad enough already.
Listlessly she sank deeper in the couch cushions and resigned herself to watching Mettaton. At the very least, she told herself, he wasn't doing a rom-com this time around. That had to count for something. She would actually lose it if she ever had to see Mettaton kiss someone again.
In lieu of the rom-com, weirdly enough, there seemed to be some sort of sci-fi show going on. Frisk hadn't even known monsters did sci-fi. After all, humans' version of sci-fi tended to include alien monsters.
But Mettaton was clearly doing sci-fi. He'd apparently ditched the unattractive calculator look and was in full robot mode. Although that was a little odd, it wasn't the strangest part. After all, Frisk had noticed that he tended to use his humanoid mode when he was acting, such as in rom-coms or comedies. That was normal. What wasn't normal was the red glow his eyes had taken on instead of their normal metallic-teal gleam. He was dressed in a weird costume vaguely reminiscent of a Jedi but without a weapon. Taken together, the whole ensemble was eerie.
Mettaton turned to face the screen. Seen straight on, his eyes were even more disconcerting.
"All little monsters know the story about how the CORE came into existence, do they not?" His voice also sounded strangely higher-pitched than normal. "King Asgore commissioned his Royal Scientist at the time - not Doctor Alphys, but Doctor G - to build a power core that could keep the Underground going until we could break the Barrier and make it to the Surface once more."
A scene faded in: Mettaton, now dressed in a lab coat with glasses, was talking to a monster in a terribly-designed goat costume with a crown. The goat-monster pointed to the paper he was holding, on which was a set of drawings depicting CORE blueprints. A voice-over, starring Mettaton, continued. His voice was a prime example of the cheesy, over-dramatized acting Frisk absolutely abhorred.
"Now, in order to power the CORE, the plan was to use energy from the Earth's core itself. But there was a catch."
There was a pause; then frowny-faced confetti rained around the two figures and dramatic piano music started up.
"Doctor G and King Asgore realized the CORE was missing something, something preventing it from being fully functional." Mettaton paused. "A monster's soul."
The scene changed. The two figures traveled from house to house, asking each monster family for something. Each time they came up empty. Then finally they walked into what Frisk guessed was the monster infirmary. They came into a room just in time to see a monster slowly turn to dust. Mettaton, as Doctor G, leaped forward and injected the disintegrating monster with a strange reddish liquid. The monster's soul suddenly stopped disintegrating and slowly began to heal itself.
"Doctor G had discovered a way to make a monster's soul linger after death. Through the war with the humans, he'd managed to extract and keep several humans's Determination. He'd found that if he injected just the smallest amount of this Determination - mixed with a few other key ingredients - into a monster's soul before death, it would stay as it was, perfectly preserved. So Doctor G and Asgore took this innocent monster's soul with them and put it into the CORE. It is the only known monster soul to have lingered substantially beyond its death. It is because of that that our CORE works as it does."
The scene cut back to Mettaton. She caught the metallic gleam of his eyes before he turned away. "I- and that...is all, ladies and gents and otherwise inclined! Tune in Wednesday for the thrilling sequel of To Thrill A Blue Jay!"
There was staged applause and the credits began to play.
Frisk tucked her feet in behind her on the couch. Mettaton's horrible acting aside, that story was one she'd never heard before. Sometimes it was amazing just thinking of all the centuries of monster history no humans had ever known and no humans ever would know. She wasn't the biggest history nut, but even she was fascinated by the thought of an entire culture she'd never known about. Monsters had customs, biology, politics, and history that she was entirely lost in, even after months.
But, thinking back to all that Mettaton had said, she couldn't believe her luck. Just last night she'd despaired of ever being able to break the Barrier without a monster's soul. Mettaton had revealed that there was a monster's soul, perfectly preserved and waiting to be taken. And she even knew where! The CORE wasn't that big of a place, after all. All she had to do was make it to the CORE, find and take the soul, get past Asgore, and she was free.
Free.
Five months of hell and finally she'd be free.
A smile stole across Frisk's face, the first smile she'd had for months.
"Whatcha smilin' bout, kid?"
Her smile abruptly faded.
"Nothing."
Frisk looked up at Sans and gave an instinctive frown of distaste. He looked as casual as ever: hands in the pockets of his hoodie, weight back on his heels, and grin fixed on her. She had no recollection of seeing his door open. Knowing him, he might've just teleported next to her to see if she'd jump.
"So, have you decided what you're gonna do yet?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well." Sans stared straight at her. "Neither of us like each other. That's pretty clear. So I'll be upfront and say this: the sooner you get outta my house, the better. I don't wanna kill you, 'cuz that's a waste of energy and time. But I don't wanna see you around either."
She almost glared back at him and retorted, "Right back at you." She stopped herself just in time. No matter how large their mutual hatred was, he was still far more powerful than she was. Even if he were too lazy to kill her, there were plenty of other things he could do.
"I'm gonna go to the CORE," she told him, "and from there, New Home. I want to get out of here just as much as you want me to."
Something strange flickered over Sans's face at her first sentence. As odd and inhuman as his face was, and as inexperienced as Frisk was at reading him, she had no idea what the emotion was.
"Good. When are you leaving?"
"Soon," she said, rather vaguely. The truth was, even now that she had an actual hope for freedom, getting there was still going to be difficult. She didn't want to have to go through what she'd gone through in the past, not again. She'd been hurt enough for a thousand lifetimes. The thought of tallying up the one thousandth and first was nauseating.
Sans huffed. "What's stalling you? The monsters in Snowdin shouldn't be tryna hurt you or anything."
"The CORE's a little past Snowdin," she bit back, crossing her arms. She considered standing up from the couch so she could be on equal footing with him but decided not to bother.
"What, do you want me to walk you there or something? I'm not a taxi service, sweetheart."
"I was planning on taking the ferry," Frisk mumbled. "The River Person's pretty nice. At least, they used to be."
Sans contemplated her for a second, then nodded slowly. "As much as I want you out quickly, I think you should stay until Paps comes back. He'd be really upset if you left without saying goodbye. I've no idea why, but he actually likes you."
Frisk didn't respond. Didn't really know how to.
"'Course, he likes everyone. Even when he shouldn't. If Undyne 'n I weren't around to keep him safe...he would've been ripped into little, smiling shreds." Sans flicked his eyes up to hers accusingly. "Already has been, actually."
"How many fucking times do I have to tell you, it wasn't me? Papyrus ripped me into little, unsmiling shreds."
Sans's grin took on an edge. "How come I don't remember that, then?"
"I bet you don't remember my being so damaged, now do you? That mass-murdering Frisk you know probably would never go around having panic attacks and the like."
"I figured I just hadn't killed you enough before now." He sighed, closing his eyes for a second. His grin faded a bit. "I will admit, though. You're different. Older, for one. And your soul...well. That's the one thing you can't fake."
Frisk bit her lip at the mention of her soul. "I guess the Frisks' souls you knew before were different?"
"Yeah. Mind you, the Frisks I knew before weren't always bad. Some of 'em were great. One of 'em even got us to the Surface. They died shortly after, though, and the whole timeline reset. I'm still not sure if they meant to RESET."
"They?" Frisk cocked her head. She recalled all the times she'd heard Sans, Undyne, and Papyrus refer to her using they or them. "Uh...you do know that humans have the same pronouns as monsters, right? We go by he and her too, not just they."
"Of course we know. They've always asked us to call them that. I just assumed you were the same. I guess Undyne and Paps must've remembered it from previous times."
"Oh...well I'm a she. That's weird that another version of...me, I guess, goes by they." She wondered if that meant the other Frisk had a male or female body. Identifying differently was one thing. Actually being a gender-bend of her was quite another. She could accept age differences, and even some personality changes - after all, a large part of personality is formed via your upbringing. She wasn't sure she could accept their having an entirely different body from hers. Or, really, identifying differently. But she'd worry about that later.
"Was their soul like mine? Red?"
"Yeah. Every Frisk I've ever met has a red soul. You all also have an astronomical amount of Determination in it. Even your soul does, and it's in the worst shape I've ever seen a soul. It's about red-y to crack."
Frisk swallowed. "What happens when it cracks?"
Sans made a finger gun and pulled the trigger.
She felt faintly nauseous. "Right."
"I've seen their souls become gray from the amount of dust covering them," Sans said slowly, after a moment of silence. "I've seen them so burdened by the weight of their sins they could barely move. Karma, 's what it was. I've seen them darkened with hatred for us monsters, for every living creature, for this entire world. I've seen them light up in anticipation of a kill. I've also seen them at such a pale red it was almost pink, in line with their despair, and I've seen them perfectly healthy, brilliant red with Determination. None of their souls, though...none of them are like yours."
He paused. His eyes were subdued and dimmer than usual. "You're supposed to have the same soul each time you RESET, you know. You don't get to toss it in the trash and pick out a new one each time you screw the timeline. So oftentimes, the affects of a previous timeline will last into the next. A soul I put Karmic Retribution on will still have the affects of it even after the owner RESETs. Toriel, as a boss monster, 's such a powerful healer she can even heal souls - not that she knows it, o' course, but I figured it out after a few tries - and she'll generally heal the worst of the damage before they ever meet me again."
"Why didn't it work for me, then?"
"That's...what I don't know." Sans huffed.
"Usually, the state of a soul is based on the actions of its owner. With a soul like yours...well, there's no action you could undertake that would harm your soul in this fashion. Something, someone, has done this to you. That's the only reason I'm considering your story that you're different. The damage your soul has is inconsistent with what the last Frisk-" his expression darkened "-had."
Frisk hesitated, unsure if she should ask. While she did, Sans seemingly recovered from his recollection.
"Welp," he said, "that was enough info for today. I think I've told you everything you needa know. Once Paps comes back, you're gonna say your goodbyes and then I hope to never see you again."
"If I can break the Barrier," Frisk said quietly, "you will never see me again. I promise."
Sans let out a hollow laugh. "Haven't you learned, kid? Never make promises."
There was a silence. Then Frisk blinked.
When she opened her eyes, she was alone.
A/N: I'm curious, how are the line-breaks showing up for y'all? I've always had a lot of difficulty in the formatting on this website, especially with line-breaks and italics. Are they working out okay for you to read or do I need to figure out a new way to do them?
Also. You know that thing Sans does when he's mad that has a space between each letter? I've tried to do it twice now on here and it doesn't work. It works just fine on AO3 and Quotev but not here. Any thoughts?