But of course I couldn't actually fall sleep. It would have been foolish of me to actually believe I'd manage to, after all. These were hardly ideal conditions, and even then… well. I'd been up for a very long time, even before I fell down here.

I got up eventually, once I could stand to stay still no longer. Spending too long laying still in bed without sleeping would become agonizing after a while, and then the spasms would begin. I had no wish to subject myself to that, so off the bed and out of the room I went.

I followed the smell of fresh baked goods, to find a surprisingly normal looking kitchen; the walls and furniture a less oppressive shade of yellow. The goat was there, looking contemplatively at a very large pie: larger than my head, even! She must have been quite confident that I'd enjoy it, that or she only had pie tins of such a size. She didn't seem to notice me, probably trying to decide whether it was cooled enough to start cutting, so I cleared my throat to announce myself.

She turned with a bit of a start. "Oh! You're up already? Well, you are just in time. I think the pie is just about done!" She cut out a slice of the pie and handed it to me, and I took a tentative bite. It certainly didn't seem poisoned. I took another. The appearance was most similar to the pumpkin pies I'd made, as was the texture. The flavor, though, was a lot sweeter. Almost offensively so, if not for the cinnamon counterbalancing it. It was still hot, very hot, but I had a cast iron gullet; one that I had trained over years of eating food almost the instant it came out of the oven. I happily scarfed down the piping hot slice.

The two of us stood there in the kitchen for a while, eating away at the massive pie. At my request, she put the kettle on, and I pulled out a small box of tea leaves from backpack; a blend of Earl Grey and a few others. As it was brewing, I regaled her with tales of my adventures; of long afternoons spent exploring the wilderness and getting into all sorts of trouble. It was always a joy to tell these stories to people who I hadn't already told them to, and who were willing to listen. The best part of meeting new people, by my reckoning.

"-And so I climbed, ever upwards. A lesser man might have been afeared that his hand would slip, or that a branch would snap and send him plummeting. But not I. I simply recalled the oath I made so long ago, and continued upward."

"An oath?" Turiel interjected. "What kind of oath?"

"Nevermind that now," I replied. "That's a different story, for another time." I paused for a moment. "Where was I?"

"I believe you were climbing a… tree." Turiel prompted.

"Ah, right. So eventually I breached the treetops, and gazed out at the vast ocean of leaves around me. And, sure enough, I saw my house. In fact, it was not 1 mile away, in the opposite direction I'd been going! I must have been going in circles the whole bloody time!"

She laughed uproariously at this. "You laugh now, but I was not in a mood to see the humor in it at the time," I retorted, but couldn't contain a few chuckles of my own. "Anyways, enough about me. I'm sure you have some crazy stories of your own, Turiel."

She laughed off my question. "Oh, nothing you'd be interested in, I'm sure. I-" she stopped, as if her train of thought had been derailed. "Sorry, did you just say… 'Turiel'?"

I stared at her, a bemused look on my face. "…Yes? That's your name, isn't it?"

She shook her head, chuckling. "No, no! It's Toriel! With an o!"

"…Ah," I said, sheepishly. "Well, that's egg on my face. I did think the name was a bit too fitting to be genuine."

"Oh?" She replied, curiosity plain on her face. "I can't say I'm familiar with the meaning of that name. Why was it fitting."

My eyes lit up eagerly at her question. "Well," I began, "to understand that, you need to first understand the Book of Enoch-"

"-and so, for their sins, the fallen watchers were imprisoned within the earth till judgement day comes to cast them into the great fire." I finished, many minutes later. "So you see, it was sort of a connection of you being down here beneath this mountain, plus you being a 'watcher' of sorts, not to mention one translation of the name being 'mountain of god', and… well, it's all a bit of reach, but there's something there."

Toriel closed the refrigerator door, having put the remaining half of the pie we couldn't finish away for the moment, and turned to face me. "I'm not sure about that, but it was all very interesting. I must admit, I am a little astonished by your wealth of knowledge about what you yourself describe as 'obscure and heretical religious texts'."

I gave her a relaxed smile as I lounged against the wall. "Yeah, not something most people outside of religious scholars are much interested in. But it's a passion of mine. I read the bible cover to cover when I was… seven, I think. Ever since then, I've been pouring over all kinds of stuff like that, religious texts of all kinds, mythological stories, folklore… it's such fascinating stuff. There's a lot to learn from it, both lessons intentionally imparted, and about the people that wrote it themselves."

"I suppose that's true," Toriel replied with a fond smile. "although I'm not sure if I'd find as much enjoyment in it all if I was reading it myself. Hearing you explain it, with all your enthusiasm for it, is half the reason it's so captivating."

"Ha! That's almost exactly what my mother has said!" I responded. "She always enjoys hearing me prattle on and on…" I paused a moment, catching my breath.

"She sounds like a good mother," Toriel said.

"Yeah, she sure does," I replied. For a moment I lost myself in memories… then I shook off my contemplation, and quickly tried turn the conversation to a cheerier subject again. "What about you, Toriel, any handsome young Billy you have a hankering to churn out some rugrats with around here?"

Toriel laughed off the question. "Oh no," she said. "I am, as you youngsters like to say, 'forever alone'. Truth be told, there isn't much opportunity for romance as the caretaker of the ruins. It does get lonely around here at times, and would be nice to have some children running around here." She gives me a fond and meaningful look.

"Oh dear god," I thought in a moment of dawning horror, and I gradually shrank away from her. "Look, goat lady, I like older women as much as the next guy, but I am way too young to even be thinking about settling down and starting a family," I replied franticly.

Toriel looked completely and utterly gobsmacked, and then began to laugh uproariously, clutching the kitchen counter to hold herself up as she her eyes watered from her merriment. "N-no, that's not…" she gasped out through the laughter. She took several deep breaths, and her laughter faded. "I wasn't trying to flirt with you!"

"Coulda fooled me," I retorted. "As a matter of fact, you did."

"Well I wasn't!" She said, firmly. "I simply meant that your home sounds so much more lively than mine." Her face softened into a wistful gaze. "Your parents must have their hands full with all of you running around, getting into all kinds of mischief. It sounds… nice."

"Home, huh?" I said, softly. "That's funny."

"Hmm?" she murmured, a little confused.

"Nothing, it's just…" I shook my head. "I don't recall every describing it that way. I can't say I've ever earnestly considered a place my home. My house is just where I live. The wilds outside? Just a place where I passed the time. I don't know, maybe I'm putting too much weight on the word."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not," Toriel replied. "What does home mean to you?"

"Respite," I answered. "A place where I can relax, let down my guard, be at peace. A place where I feel… safe." I chuckled. "It's silly, isn't it? There's no such thing. Safety is an illusion, and peace is a lie."

Toriel just stared at me, an indecipherable expression on her face. For some reason it irritated me. Eventually, she began to speak again. "You know… you remind me of someone I once knew. Another human child who fell down, a long time ago."

"Sounds like a smart kid," I replied. I idly wondered what happened to that kid. And that brought a thought to mind. "That reminds me… when are you gonna show me the way out of here?"

Toriel froze at this, her cheerful expression fading to one that approximated that of a deer moments before it had an unfortunate encounter with an automobile's bonnet. "Don't get me wrong," I hurried to say, "It's been fun, and I'd love to visit in the future, but I've really gotta get back to the surface and my family and everything. I've been away for way too long already, you know? Well, maybe you don't, but still."

She just continued to stare. What was she…

Oh. Oh no. She's trying to figure out how to break it to me that she doesn't know a way out, isn't she? That… that's a problem. Do the caves just end, or is there a labyrinth of tunnels that maybe leads to an exit? I don't know which would be worse.

Toriel finally shook off her daze. "I have something to do," she replied at last, in a slightly strangled tone. "Stay here." Then she bolted off through the doorway. I considered staying put… for about half a second. After all, last time I listened to her telling me to stay put… well.

I grabbed my discarded backpack and ran after her. I rounded the bend into the entryway just in time to hear her footsteps trailing away. Down, down, and to the right. I vaulted over the banister, and leapt down the stairs three or four at a time. I stumbled down into the dark purple tunnels, just making it in time to see her disappearing behind a bend. I soon rounded the bend myself, pushing a hand into the opposite wall to halt my momentum. Before me stood Toriel, her backed turned. Two tall and regal looking doors barred the way forward, that pair of symbols once again stretched across them.

"…So you did follow me, after all," she said, in a quiet, resigned voice. "I suppose I should have expected this from you. You've never been the sort of child to quietly do what you were told, have you? …You really are just like-" She falls silent, as if in contemplation.

"What is this?" I asked her, pulling her out of her brief reverie. "What's this big secret you're trying to keep from me? Why are you trying to keep me from this place?"

"You wish to know how to return to the surface, do you not?" she asked rhetorically, turning to face me at last. I gave her a firm, redundant nod. "Ahead of us lies the end of the RUINS," she continues. "A one-way exit to the rest of the underground."

"I am going to destroy it."

I blinked, uncomprehending. "The… door?" I ask, hesitantly. "You're going to destroy the door, so we can leave?"

This provoked a humorless laugh from the goat. "No, child." She explained, more than a hint of frustration entering her voice. "The exit itself. I'm going to collapse it, bury it under rubble. No one will ever be able to leave again. Now be a good child, for once, and go upstairs."

I gave her a tired sigh. "You know I can't do that, Toriel." I rebuffed. "I will be leaving here. It's not a matter of debate, it's an inevitability. Why are you so determined to fight that inevitability? Why are you trying to keep me here?"

"Every human that falls down here meets the same fate." Toriel says, her voice becoming bitter. "I have seen it again and again. They come. They leave. They die."

I scoffed derisively. "I assure you, none of them were anything like me-" I began.

"You naive child..." She said, cutting me off with a scornful, almost sardonic tone. "If you leave the Ruins... They... ASGORE... will kill you. I am only protecting you; do you understand?" Her voice was pleading now. "Go to-"

"Then come with me," I said, flatly.

"…What?" She replied, left flatfooted by this unexpected interjection.

"Come with me," I repeated. "You're afraid for my safety, right? You believe, foolishly, that I won't be able to survive out there. So why not come with me?" I walked towards her, my words picking up momentum and volume now, my arms wide and gesticulating. "I've seen you in action, the way you so effortlessly toss around the most hellish of blazes and the most soothing of warmth and healing in kind. You could send my enemies packing, heal my wounds, shepherd me through all the dangers of the UNDERGROUND, see me safely through to the surface! So why don't you!" I was shouting now, Toriel was flinching back from me. "Well? Answer me!"

Toriel's expression shifted at my outburst, changing to… something indecipherable. "I… can't," she said, at last. "I'm sorry."

"Why not?" I screamed. "What's stopping you? Is this nonsense about 'protecting me' just an excuse, and you really just want to keep me trapped here for your own sick pleasures?" She didn't respond to that, just kept staring at me with that damn expression on her face. "No? then what? Are you afraid, then? Is that it? Are you such a fucking chickenshit coward that you can't bear to leave the ruins, even to protect someone you claim to care so much about the safety of? Is that it?"

"…Yes," She responded in a low voice.

I recoiled slightly at this response, the fury of my gaze replaced with confusion, my momentum entirely derailed in an instant.

"What?" I said, dumbly.

"You're right: I am a coward," She continued, that strange, unnerving, indecipherable tone entering her voice once again. "The thought of leaving the Ruins, of going out there and meeting him… of meeting ASGORE again… it terrifies me."

I just stared at her for a long moment, uncomprehending. "…Is this 'ASGORE' really so terrible a creature," I began at last, haltingly, "That you think he would be capable of killing the both of us so easily?"

"I do not know. And that is what terrifies me." Toriel replied. "A long time ago, when I last still knew him, I would have easily given you a firm 'no, of course not'. And not for lack of power. Now? I really don't know has become of the man I… I couldn't bear it, seeing him again now." She gave me a truly miserable look, a wretched expression worse than anything I'd ever seen in the mirror. "Pathetic, is it not? I cannot bring myself to face my own failures, not even to save a single child."

I didn't know what to say. This was... new. And yet, it wasn't, was it? The people around me, the adults, the older children, everyone supposed to be taking care of me… Yes, I was entirely used to them failing me, completely, due to their own weakness.

Yes, I'd been here a thousand times, lambasting those around me for their cowardice, their utter failure and incompetence, if not outright malice.

Only... that was the first time someone has actually agreed with me. That's what I wanted, wasn't it?

Funny, it didn't feel as satisfying as I might have thought.

I just felt tired.

"I expected better from you, Toriel," I said, and let out a resigned sigh. "I don't know why I did. More fool me, right?" I gave this a sardonic chuckle. "You've made your plea, now listen to mine: get out of my way. I'm leaving, Toriel. Even if I have to dig my way out."

She met my stare for a long moment, that same wretched expression on her face. "…You want to leave so badly?" She finally said, after what felt like minutes.

"Of course. How could I not?" I said in a matter-of-fact tone. "What's waiting for me out there… it might not be anything I could call home, but there's so much more. I won't stay here, down in this miserable cavern full of monsters, locked away from the forests and the stars."

"Hmph. You aren't really like her at all, are you?" She replied, and her face hardened into a scowl of grim resolve. "There is only one solution to this. Prove yourself… Prove to me you are strong enough to survive!"

I didn't see the attack coming. More fool me, right? But I was still confused, unsure of her intentions, and what the hell she meant by what she said. When the flames erupted, I barely had time to raise my right arm to my face before they hit me.

And then my whole world was fire and pain.

What did I feel in that moment? Shock? Horror? Betrayal? Fury? No, nothing of the sort. I couldn't. There wasn't any room. All I felt was that searing pain as the fire ate into my skin, burning away at me, setting my sleeve alight and making my eyes water both from the pain and the heat. I might have screamed in agony, or the pain might have driven the air from my lungs before I could.

Past my burning arm, that damn goat prepared more of her fireballs. I didn't have time to think. I pushed myself forward through the agony, and charged towards her. Another pair of fireballs impacted me as I ran, setting more of my clothes alight and doubling the pain, but they couldn't halt my momentum. Finally, my reckless charge reached her, and with a final desperate leap I sent my uninjured fist crashing into her face. Combined with the impact of the rest of my body slamming into her a moment later, she was sent tumbling down to the floor. My unburnt hand drew my knife from its sheath in a practiced motion.

The knife went up. Then it went down. Then up again. Then down again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again.

After a while, I realized I was just stabbing the ground. Nothing but dust remained.

And then something floated up from the pile. A… 'heart' shaped object, much like mine but pale white. A soul? I stretched my burned hand out towards it, clasping it between my fingers and palm. I closed my hand tighter. Tighter. Tighter. Blood ran down my arm. I opened my hand to see… nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all.

I walked forward. The door protested my efforts, but it opened eventually. A flower was in front of me. The same one as before? It spoke to me, said so many words. A name. Chara. Mine? Was that my name? What was my name? I…

Grey. So much grey. Oak, maybe? A comforting thought. By Oak and… and..

White. Everything turned white. I tried to push through, but something blocked my way. I tried to move backward, but my legs couldn't find any purchase. Am I lying on the ground? When did I…