Waterfall was quickly becoming her least favorite place in the underground. Twists and turns and dead ends, not to mention the looming dread of facing Undyne again. The fight when she had been trying to. To hurt her had been agonizing. What was it going to be like this time? Would she die again? What if whatever circumstances that brought her back the first time don't work again? What if? What if? What if?! She shook herself off. No, there was no need to worry about what could happen. The answer was already there If she died and stayed dead. Then it was purely coincidental what happened that gave her a second chance. The more Harriet thought about it, the more she came to terms with it. But she wouldn't die because she had someone to live for now, someone who would miss her if she died. Toriel - Mom-

Determination hardened within her, and she held her head high as she went through the puzzles. She would win, and go home to her Mom. That sounded so nice. Home to mom.
She closed her eyes and imagined the warm fireplace and the smell of butterscotch pie. No matter what, she would come home.

Ring…

She startled, nearly tripping into the water before fumbling for her phone.

"HELLO! THIS IS PAPYRUS! HOW DID I GET THIS NUMBER? IT WAS EASY! I JUST DIALED EVERY NUMBER SEQUENTIALLY UNTIL I GOT YOURS!"

"What? Papyrus, how'd you-"

"NYEH HEH HEH-! SO…. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING…? I'M... ASKING FOR A FRIEND. SHE THOUGHT SHE SAW YOU WEARING A RIBBON. IS THAT TRUE? ARE YOU WEARING A RIBBON?"

"Yeah, I'm wearing a ribbon in my hair."

"GOT IT! WINK WINK- HAVE A NICE DAY!"

Click.

Did he just say wink wink out loud? He just said wink wink out loud, what a strange conversation. She moved forward through the next room, coming across a room with a black stone ceiling embedded with hundreds of glittering stones.

"It looks like stars…It's beautiful, but it's sad." As she walked she reached out and brushed against all the pretty teal blue Echo flowers, each repeating the last thing they heard. There was a telescope in the middle of the room too, so she glanced inside it wanting a closer look at the glittering stones only to be met with a message scribbled on the lens. "Check Wall" with an arrow pointing up.

"Check wall? What does it mean by that? Is there a secret?" She spent the next several minutes running her hand along every wall until she found the dorm, hidden cleverly in the wall. Up ahead was a long hallway with plaques lining its wall. "More secrets?" She walked up and pressed her fingers to the first plaque, taking her time to sound out the words and read them. Monsterish was a bit hard to read, Mom had made sure she had a basic understanding before she left though.

" 'The War of Humans and Monsters… Why did the humans attack? Indeed it seemed that they had nothing to fear…. Humans are unbelievably strong. It would take the Soul of nearly every monster just to equal the power of a single human Soul.' Nearly every monster? No way." She kept reading. " 'But humans have one weakness, Ironically it is the strength of their Soul. Its power allows it to persist outside the human body, even after death.' Is that what happened? Is that why I could come back? 'If a Monster defeats a Human, they can take its Soul. A monster with a human Soul… A horrible beast with unfathomable power.' " She came up to the next plaque, an unsettling drawing of a creature, and began to think about everything that had happened so far.

Everything made sense now, why Toriel didn't want her to fight, why Undyne seemed so intent on taking her soul for Asgore. Why Flowey had tried to kill her before she could learn about it. One human Soul was the equivalent of nearly every monster in the underground. Then everything that happened with Chara, he never wanted to be her friend, he just wanted to use her Soul to kill everything, when he possessed her it felt like nothing except for that fight with Undyne was a challenge. That must be why.

The knowledge settled in her heart, and her path became a little clearer.

She walked forward, a skip in her step until she reached the next room where the atmosphere changed and dread stopped her in her tracks… This is where she died. This is where- A spear launched itself at her and she bolted for it, running as fast as her feet could carry her. Spears whizzed passed her, cutting her arms and legs as they brushed against her, and with a final burst of speed she lept into a large patch of tall grass and covered her mouth with her hand upon hearing Undyne's heavy footsteps get nearer and nearer. Her heart was beating out of her chest. She held her breath as Undyne lifted her hand and brought it down to grab- MK?

Undyne hesitated, before putting him down and walking off, so she slowly crawled out of the grass on the other side. Feeling sick to her stomach she brought herself back up onto her feet, legs shaking badly as MK popped out of the grass next to her.

"Yo! Did you see that?! Undyne just Touched ME! I'm never washing my face ever again! Man, are you unlucky, if you were just standing a Littttttle bit to the left! Yo! Don't worry! I'm sure we'll see her again!" He ran off excitedly.

"Yeah… yeah that's what I'm afraid of." She shook herself off and walked forward, happy to see that glittering light of the Star up ahead, she sat down next to it and relaxed as its magic healed up her cuts and scrapes from that close encounter. She sat there for a while, just listening to the rushing water and calming down, before getting up and moving on.

Sans was there with a telescope, and after some friendly ribbing - pun totally intended- she glanced through the telescope only to come back with a painted circle on her eye.

"SAAANSSS-"

"what you're not satisfied? don't worry I'll give you a full refund."

"I didn't pay anything to look through it!" She rubbed her eye clean of the paint and waved goodbye to the stocky skeleton brother. Oh- "Nice Cream Guy!"

She bought two, one for her and one for MK when she found him. There was a little onion-shaped monster too and she knelt to talk to him.

"What's a star? Can you touch it? Can you eat it? Can you kill it?... Are you a star?"

She giggled and shook her head. "No I'm not a star, and I don't think you can do any of those things. They're too far away." She waved goodbye to the little monster and continued on the path. As she kept walking, her phone rang again.

"HELLO THIS IS PAPYRUS. REMEMBER WHEN I ASKED YOU ABOUT CLOTHES? WELL, THE FRIEND WHO WANTED TO KNOW... HER OPINION OF YOU IS VERY… MURDERY… BUT I'M SURE YOU KNEW THAT ALREADY AND SO I TOLD HER WHAT YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE WEARING A RIBBON. BECAUSE I KNEW OF COURSE THAT AFTER SUCH A SUSPICIOUS QUESTION YOU WOULD OBVIOUSLY CHANGE YOUR CLOTHES! YOU'RE SUCH A SMART COOKIE! THIS WAY YOU'RE SAFE AND I DIDN'T LIE! NO BETRAYAL ANYWHERE! BEING FRIENDS WITH EVERYONE IS EASY!"

Click.

"Heh, Papyrus is so strange. I'm glad he's looking out for me, but I don't have anything to change into. I guess I could take the ribbon off, but she's already seen me so I don't think it'll matter."

She kept walking, coming across a small area with some shallow water, and something moving in it. Halfway through the room, a squid-like monster popped up, very excited to see her.

"Hey there… Noticed you were.. Uh... Here.. I'm Onionsan! Onionsan, y'hear! You're visiting Waterfall, huh? It's great here, huh? You love it here, huh?! Yeah! Me too! It's my Big Favorite. Even though, the water's getting so shallow here, I have to sit down all the time, but- H-Hey! That's ok! It beats moving to the city! And living in a crowded aquarium... Like all my friends did…! A-and the aquarium's full anyway so- even if I wanted to… That's okay though! Y'hear! Undyne's gonna fix everything y'hear! I'm gonna get out of here and live in the ocean! Y'hear!"

Wow. Onionsan talks a lot and is oversharing.

"Oh! Hey… there… that's the end of this room. So.. I'll see you around I guess, have a good time! In Waterfallllllllllllllllllllll-" Onionsan sat back down and disappeared from view.

Some more walking had her coming across more plagues with the story of the war written on them. "This power, a monster taking a human's Soul frightened them. This power has no counter. Indeed, a human cannot take a monster's Soul. When a monster dies, its Soul disappears, and an incredible power would be needed to take the Soul of a living monster. There is only one exception... The soul of a special species of monsters called a 'Boss Monster'. A Boss Monster's soul is powerful enough to persist after death if only for a few moments. A human could absorb this Soul. But this has never happened, and now it never will. "

Well.. that's ominous.

She grabbed an umbrella and walked forward, offering MK the Nicecream she bought for him when she came across him, so together they walked under the shared umbrella and had an ice cream. She had family and friends, and even though it was raining in the Underground and they were eating cold ice cream. All she could feel was warmth.

Heyo! I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween/Samhain or anything you celebrate! Sorry for the long wait it's been a hectic couple of weeks and the muse had left me, not to worry though. I won't forget about you guys. I hope you've enjoyed the story so far! Feel free to follow, favorite, and review! Till next time!