Content Warning: Some readers may find parts of this to be disturbing. If body horror, self-harm, suicide, or other heavy subjects bother you at all- please feel free to skip this one. Your mental health and safety is my number one priority.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doki Doki Literature Club or Undertale, however I do own the plot of this story and Our Player.
An uncomfortable silence stretched over the school that morning. Frisk frowned, then glanced up and peered into the fog as she let go of Yuri's arm, no one. Taking a moment to herself, the girl pulled her phone from her jacket pocket and spared it a glance. Dim white light flashed in her eyes as the black brick came to life. Three gray numbers greeted her: Seven-Two-Zero. Seven-twenty, forty minutes before classes. Her frown deepened, her phone vanished- a thought came to mind again- 'Where is everyone?' Her eyes swept out towards where she knew the concrete lead-up to the school's main entrance was but they strained to see anything beyond blurred black silhouettes peeking out through the thinnest parts of the fog before fading away. A dense curtain of silken white had overcome the town, reducing anything that passed through its threshold to little more than ideas. And even then, only those who grew nearest to Frisk and Yuri's secluded position at the side of the stairs were given that luxury. Everyone else had become specters. Wandering. At home amidst the whisps and curling white trails of mist. For Frisk, it was almost a miracle. Here, she should have been invisible.
So why did she still feel so vulnerable? Her eyes darted back and forth against the mist, it gave nothing away. Frisk bit her lip. She should have felt invisible, here she was, swaddled in the mist just the same as everyone else. But perhaps swaddled was the wrong word for it. Surrounded. Her arms ached, her body tight- her clothes constricting snakes coiled around her, choking the last gasps of freedom from her. Frisk tensed, she could feel them all around her, their eyes, their smile. Her lip bled. She shoved aside the image that came to her, red and raw and bleeding- her tongue tasted copper- bleeding and carved. Just as it had been so cravenly carved into the clubroom chalkboard, it was etched into her mind. Her lips numb, she resisted a familiar voice in the back of her head. It urged her in a way that it rarely did. Determination roared, its bravery clear, its intentions strong. This squealed. It squealed with a far more human noise. An instinctual one that pleaded with her- 'Run!' It whispered, the rabbit caught in the jaws of the fox. 'Inside! Inside we'll be safe! Inside we won't be alone!' It spoke to her with an intensity that she had only ever experienced once. Once, during a time she wished she could forget.
Frisk nearly screamed as something emerged from the fog, the sound only caught at the last second, just before it escaped her throat. The thing lumbered forward, clad in a mockery of the school uniform. Its colors twisted, no longer gray, no longer orange, it strode forward on greens and yellows and reds. Red in its eyes. Its eyes dripped with some unfathomable liquid, its jaws open, its teeth gnarled and crooked- every opening on its face dripped some unholy black substance. The black ran down its chin and cheeks, a fusion of mascara and drool as it came forward- a flash came to her, a silver knife clasped in one hand. Frisk winced, but something beyond her kept her rooted to the ground. It welled up from somewhere beyond her body and flooded her muscles with enough strength to fight off what would come. Determination poured itself into her like a hunter pouring gasoline on his dying fire, knowing what awaited him in the dark. It wasn't for her benefit, her instincts were made that clear. It was for Yuri's. To abandon her now would be leaving her to a grimmer fate than Frisk would wish on anyone- she couldn't abide that, not naturally at least.
But there was no great horror emerging from the thicket, no nameless thing had draped itself in the guise of a student. Its face wasn't some abominable thing that dripped with inky darkness, its uniform was as it should have been Her eyes a gentle blue, her hair a wash of strawberry pink, her blazer unbuttoned. Frisk blinked and the apparition vanished back behind the fog, the only indication that she had ever existed being the receding footfalls as she went. Frisk didn't move for what was an inappropriately long time after that. To be honest, she wasn't sure that she would have ever moved if it wasn't for the realization that in the process of stepping forward to defend Yuri, she had grabbed tightly to the other girl's arm. Her nails made grooves in the girl's skin- a pang of guilt came over Frisk's chest and she let go.
Frisk shuddered as she turned back to Yuri, the first touches of winter shredded through her thin blazer like a knife that someone had dipped in liquid nitrogen. The heat of summer was finally giving way. She shook off her paranoia and huddled closer to the purple-haired girl before reaching her hand out. Yuri hesitantly offered her opposing arm and Frisk took it with a far gentler touch, not that it mattered. The damage was done- a fact that became apparent as Yuri spoke up. "Are you..." Frisk's ears burned. Yuri wasn't the most social of her Club Members but she took notes. It wasn't difficult to see that Frisk wasn't her usual self. Frisk imagined Yuri's eyes darting, a bead of sweat already making its presence known on her forehead despite the below fifty-degree weather. Not the most social, but Frisk respected that she was at least trying. "Is something wrong?" In a way it was comforting to know that Yuri cared enough about her to ask, but Frisk couldn't help but feel a different twinge play along her heartstrings. Anger. Short, sudden, the kind that rises in your chest when you're not angry at anyone other than yourself. Not meant for her.
It didn't last long but the sudden flaring of her nostrils as her brown eyes flicked up at Yuri was enough to silence the girl. Frisk regretted it immediately. These days her emotions were substantially more turbulent than they had been as a child. Even for her, someone whose mother had once touted as being "incredibly emotionally mature", still struggled to fight off the hormonal reactions that her teenage body so loved giving her. "No, Yuri..." She said gently, her anger melting back into the churning ocean that made up her emotions. "I'm alright, its just the cold and... this fog. That's all." Despite her attempt to be reassuring, Yuri nearly yanked out of Frisk's grip the moment the brown-skinned teenager let her go. Frisk hoped that it was only to hide the lingering remnants of last week's shame behind her sleeve, but part of her couldn't shake the sickening feeling that filled her stomach as she thought about her outburst, as small as it might have been.
Even so, Frisk tried to offer her a smile. Last week's shame was better than last night's. Frisk imagined that her dip in intensity had something to do with MC's spike in attention, the two correlated well- but then again, it could have had something more to do with the fact that Frisk had started taking an interest in her paraphilia. "Anyway! You're definitely improving. I'm glad!" She reached over and gently patted the girl's arm twice, though Yuri visibly grimaced at the motion. Frisk noted her reaction down automatically, a holdover from solving so many of the Underground's problems- she had grown so accustomed to learning how to read others that it had become second nature by now. Yuri didn't seem to completely buy her words if her eyes were any indication, but there was an opportunity there for her to broach a different subject.
They still had another half hour before school would officially begin, and though Frisk wanted to be away from the fog as quickly as possible, she was in no hurry to actually allow herself to be swallowed by it in order to reach the doors. The thought sent a rolling chill down the length of her spine. One she was quick to dismiss as she spoke again. "But... about after school yesterday..." The words left a poor taste in Frisk's mouth that only got worse when Yuri visibly seemed to tense up. Still, the previous day's events were another concern that weighed down on Frisk's mind like a fog of their own and the implications of them lurked within that fog like its own horrors.
She took a deep breath in. It wasn't hard for Frisk to discuss things like this. Emotions were her strongest suit and conflict resolution might as well have been a college course in the Underground, yet Frisk couldn't shake the small grains of worry that had built up in her mind. They built like sand piling in a swimsuit, she didn't know when they got in there- and they were impossible to dig out. "You kind of went a little off-the-rails there. Are you okay?"
Yuri stared at her as though she had suddenly screamed in a crowded movie theater, her face awash with red flush and her eyes so wide that Frisk almost thought she was looking at something behind her. "I- that was- I didn't..." Yuri tensed and Frisk was suddenly stricken with the image of a rodent scared to leave its hole and grab the cheese that had been set out for it. It wasn't anger that had her eyes widen and the heat that rose to her cheeks wasn't a product of the red emotion either. "I-I'm not sure what came over me, I just felt..." Yuri's eyes drooped and her head fell with them, both finding it suddenly more suitable to stare at the ground than at Frisk's eyes. The Club President reached her hand out and nearly patted Yuri's arm again before catching herself and settling it onto the purplette's shoulder.
Frisk breathed a sigh as Yuri stayed stock still, not moving or jerking away from her touch as she might have. "Its okay to feel jealous. Sayori probably felt like that too which is probably why she tried confessing to MC when she did." It felt wrong to comfort Yuri this way, but Frisk pushed through anyway. Sayori had been rejected fair and square, MC was clearly interested in Yuri more than her and from Frisk's perspective as the ten-times winner of the "flirtation championship", that relationship was about as good as sealed. "But she was rejected, you still have a chance with him..." Frisk managed a light scoff to keep the mood up. "But you really can't be getting all..." She grinned violently even though Yuri had not moved to look up at her yet. "Grr! When he talks to girls, y'know? Especially Sayori, she's his friend. Best friend, I think."
Memories that weren't quite her own rose to the surface of her mind and the girl was stricken with an oddly morbid image- a body, bloated with water and forced to rise to its surface. Chalking her thought up to the paranoia surrounding her, Frisk brushed it aside and focused more strongly on the memory. All memories were like photographs in a way, albeit taken with a camera far better than anything found on a conventional device, but this one in particular struck her as strange. Hazy, faded like it had been taken by a camera several decades out of date, the image that came to mind seemed tinted with the unmistakable film of nostalgia. The colors either washed out or too bright, the memory felt hard to focus on, but she gripped tightly to what she could.
The few times these new memories cropped up, they always revealed something. This time she saw Sayori, a classroom, setting sun rays finding their way inside through the wide windows. The girl's face alight with the same exuberant smile that she always wore but now it seemed different. Frisk couldn't put her finger on why, but her teeth seemed whiter, her expression brighter than it had ever been in the short time that she had actually known Sayori for. Sitting there, before the windows, Sayori was the sun and its light was her own. She spoke and her voice swam to Frisk's ears like it was coming from an old voice box that hadn't seen use in years. Frisk made out her words through the crackle. Cheerful, eager, like someone who had lost her reason to smile and had finally found it all over again.
She had been so excited to invite MC that day.
Frisk's brow furrowed and something stung the inside of her eye. She blinked and felt the stinging pain subside, replaced by a thin film of water. Her throat felt tighter, a heaviness started to weigh on her chest. Sayori had been so excited to have her best friend partake in all the things she did. She had been so excited to have him here, so excited to have him closer- Frisk understood why now. She had been so...
Frisk closed her eyes and let a breath out through her nose. The memory faded from view after a time, as all memories eventually would. Sayori had wanted so many things out of bringing MC to the Club and she had gotten so few of them. Less than few, actually, given that Yuri had outright- if not unintentionally- taken MC from Sayori. It was tragic, but there was nothing Frisk could do about it short of resetting the entire week and trying to convince MC to choose Sayori over Yuri. But that would mean deleting all of her progress so far and there was no telling what could happen to Yuri's situation if she messed with the timeline too much. This place wasn't the Underground, it was much more mature and far, far more complicated than simply guessing which silly dance would make what Monster friendly towards her. Navigating it without a map was dangerous even for someone who could bend time to her will.
"I..." Frisk opened her eyes as Yuri spoke, finding that the young woman had at last found it within herself to meet her eyes. Yuri's eyes always reminded Frisk of gemstones that had been dropped into a snowbank. Cold and hard- unreadable for most people, she assumed, not that they ever stopped her from reading Yuri- but gorgeous, entrancing to look at. Whenever she met her eyes, a new feeling swelled in her chest and crashed against the walls of her heart- beauty. "I suppose you're right, Frisk... You always are." Yuri reached up with one of her hands and tugged at a lock of hair. She pulled it down and her opposing hand came up, both began to fiddle with the strands as she spoke, but Yuri made an effort to keep looking at her. Frisk pushed down the urge to smile that rose in her cheeks. She didn't want to draw attention to it; it was important that Yuri feel comfortable when she took steps to come out of her shell. "I don't know what came over me yesterday... at all." Now her gaze averted and Frisk was struck with a new sight- a line of reddish color made its home against Yuri's cheeks. "That person I was... I'll try not to let it overcome me again... I've just... never experienced anything like this before."
Frisk nearly reached forward to grip Yuri's shoulder but caught herself at the last second. It was difficult to ignore her innate instinct when it came to touch but Yuri had made it clear that touch was not her language, whether she said anything about it or not. "Its okay, Yuri. We all do things we don't mean sometimes. All you have to do is apologize to MC about it when we see him at Club, alright?" Part of her wanted to ask Yuri for an apology to Sayori as well but she shoved that idea away as soon as it showed its face.
That almost certainly would have been a bridge too far.
The rest of her day dragged on without too much incident. After wrapping her conversation with Yuri up, Frisk's feet were all too quick to get her inside and away from the dreary sheet that hung over the outside world. From there, things had progressed with an abnormal sense of normality. Classes were the same as they always had been, teachers taught with placid smiles and students sat half-attentively, most of them half-asleep before lunch arrived. Obviously, the reason for her earlier outburst was due to the fact that she was still reeling from the image of the previous day. The resemblance that the symbol bore to things she preferred to forget was mere coincidence- a prankster, a night janitor who simply got bored of cleaning that day, a teacher who had wanted to brighten her student's day with a silly little drawing- all far more likely to be the ultimate reason behind the symbol. Frisk had simply taken it the wrong way and now that it was gone, she could move on.
Or that was what she told herself. Yet no matter how hard she tried to focus on her work, her mind simply wouldn't stop wandering back to that chalkboard. Or, on the rare occasion where it focused on something other than the smiley face, on Yuri's outburst that had ended the previous day. Her thoughts drifted between these two events like a child drifting between parents in order to get what they wanted. Whenever she shut her thoughts off from one, the other would step in and give them the outlet they so desired. Even so, Frisk forced herself to carry on, yet she could not shake the feeling that welled in her chest. The feeling like something was catastrophically wrong. At first it was difficult for the girl to put her finger on it, like she was trying to find a pulse on a block of wood. But as the day dragged on, she became acutely aware of certain minor details. Details that began to stick out to her slowly, like a scar revealing itself against an otherwise pristine face.
It began when she noticed how quiet everything was. Under ordinary circumstances, even the most silent of classrooms had minor- albeit ambient- noise applied to them. Pencils would drop, students would sneeze or spare a few hushed chats when they assumed the teacher wasn't paying attention. They would stand and their chairs would scrape along vinyl wood floors in horrendous, cat-screeching tones. The teacher might tap a short message against her computer or a student would move to sharpen his pencil and fill the air with the sound of wood shrieking. Indeed, such noises had become a near-daily, if not hourly, part of her schooling experience, so integral that Frisk noticed herself struggling to concentrate without it. A fact that led to her discovery of the phenomenon in fifth period when, during a group project in science, she realized that nobody had spoken a word since they paired off aside from her table. What was stranger, however, was that the moment that Frisk seemed to realize the crippling silence that transformed whole classrooms into sound booths, the noises would suddenly return in force.
Pencils would drop almost in tune with one another. Student upon student would all spontaneously need to use the bathroom or use the sharpener situated on the teacher's desk. Now it wouldn't merely be one cat screaming as if it was in the process of being skinned, it was an entire choir of hellions howling under the knife. But what came to Frisk's mind as being even more concerning was the fact that the process would reset itself until she realized it again. From fifth period onward, silence would become the norm until, sensing how quiet it was, Frisk would perk up and look around the room only to be met with a sudden cacophony of sound like someone had suddenly unmuted an old analog television set. It would come crashing in too loud, as though overcompensating for how silent it had been. Time and again, the cycle would go on and on.
Now arriving in her eighth period of the day- the final hour before she expected in the Literature Club- Frisk found the silence to be infinitely more concerning. Not only due to the general air of unease that followed the concept of dead silence in an otherwise busy school... but because this was her piano class. Most days- and in fairness, she hadn't been here long enough to know if that pattern was something that would continue into the school year- her teacher, Mrs. Akiko, would be settled at her Piano, her fingers gracing the student body with a melody that was audible from nearly across the entire school. Mrs. Akiko was an older woman that vaguely brought flashes of T0r!3l to Frisk's mind in her mannerisms and way of dress.
Kind, motherly, and often speaking with a softness that seemed better equipped for children half Frisk's age than it was for the unruly high school student, it was an open secret that most students considered the woman to be their favored teacher by far. Lunchroom whispers and classroom actions had shown that much. More than once, Frisk had arrived to find an apple waiting on the older lady's desk like an image straight out of a children's storybook. And on occasion, Frisk would glance into her classroom to find students milling about long after school hours had come to a close. She would always catch them either speaking to the woman in cheery, light tones about their future plans or nighttime activities. Or, in cases she knew she wasn't meant to be privy to, she would find them whispering in hushed, half-fearful whispers regarding their problems with boys or worries at home. Being the nosey sort, Frisk found it difficult to peel away from the potential gossip and sometimes only managed to do so thanks to her obligation to the Literature Club.
But the few times that she had lingered in the hallway in an effort to catch a glimpse into the lives of the people she otherwise would never know, Frisk had learned far more than she had expected- and little of it had to do with her peers. While it was true that the home life problems of the social pariah or the love life failings of the local cheerleader were interesting, what Frisk found more fascinating- indeed, more relatable- was how Mrs. Akiko handled her student's needs. Most people, especially adults as old as her piano teacher, struggled to identify with people Frisk's age- a fact which often resulted in their advice being less helpful than they believed it would be. But in her case, Akiko was deceptively emotionally intelligent, especially in the case of handling the problems of young women. The woman had a gentleness to her face that made most people assume that she would always opt for the kindest solution, but that was only the case at certain times.
In the case where a girl was locked in combat with another girl over a boy- not dissimilar to how Frisk imagined Yuri and Sayori would have been without her interventions- Akiko was merciless in her advice, often telling the girl who came to her first to make the first move without considering the feelings of the other woman. The only exception to this was when the women in questions were friends and even then, Akiko still opted to have the student she was advising ask him out first. This made her quite popular with the female student base in particular, as from what Frisk understood, her advice had made several relationships. Further, once the relationships were established, the old woman was quick to offer advice to maintain it, though only did so if prompted. It was for this reason that Akiko had developed something of a nickname amongst her students- Nakiko, a mixture of Nakodo, a Japanese matchmaker (thanks A1py$!), and Akiko, her name.
Frisk had yet to take to the nickname herself. Not only did she not fully understand the context behind the word thanks to the vagueness with which Japanese culture was explained to her, but she simply had no use for the woman's matchmaking services, nor did she have the same closeness with the woman as her peers. She felt that using the nickname would have been too familiar for her. Not only was she disinterested in dating due to the oddness of her circumstances, but even if she was, Frisk had a feeling that romance would come easily for her. She was naturally a flirt and she knew just the right things to say to get someone flustered if she really wanted. Then of course, there was time travel that played a factor.
Now however, none of that could be seen. Frisk lingered in the doorway, looking in and straining her ears for anything that could even be misconstrued for ambience, yet none came. Sitting at her piano desk, Mrs. Akiko was dressed in the same cream-pink cardigan that she always wore. The fabric was hand-knitted and beneath, Frisk could see a sensibly modest dark-colored top that was no doubt accompanied by snug-fitting dress pants. Frisk took a step towards the old woman, finding her eyes drawn to the spot on the back of her head where her hair had thinned the most, the faintest edges of her scalp like seeing the ground beneath a forest of dark, curly trees. When she stepped through the threshold separating herself from the rest of the school, Frisk had uttered a silent prayer that the old woman would suddenly jolt to life like a machine that had suddenly had its switch flipped- yet she remained still.
No, not still. She moved, but not in ways that made any natural sense to reality. Her arms jolted and danced along to an invisible tune, her fingers tapping away at piano keys that should have filled the room with music and life. But it was as though the volume of reality had been turned off. Like she was watching a silent movie, the woman tapped, but no sound answered. Frisk swallowed and took another step. Then another, then another.
It was when she was nearly three feet away that Frisk noticed something else. Her head swiveled across the rows of metal chairs, but her eyes only fell on dull reflections of herself inside of spotless metal legs, only found emptiness sitting on the dull reddish tan seats where students were meant to be. Frisk suppressed a shudder and turned back to the old woman. Her mouth opened to speak but something in the back of her mind warned her against it. To break the silence now would have felt sacrilegious, like screaming in a church, or holding a cross up in a coven. A small yet vocal voice whispered in hushed, desperate tones to her- half-pleading with the girl not to speak as if it knew that breaking the silence would only end in pain. Her mouth suddenly dry, Frisk licked her lips and took one final survey of the room. Half of her hoped that she had simply missed the students, that, in defiance of all reason and logic, Mrs. Akiko's class had simply decided to play a prank on her that day. The other half was relieved that no one stepped out from behind the bookshelves, that no faces peered out from the closet where sheet music was kept for later use.
No human eyes peered out at least. The vertical glass window set just above the door handle was fogged up like a bathroom mirror after a particularly scalding shower, but Frisk barely noted that in her mind as the symbol drawn in the steam reached and burned itself into her retinas. A smiley face. Her heart sank and now Frisk found herself entranced by the image, unable to look away even if she so wanted. This image was different from the previous day's, with two blue dots making up its eyes and a single, barely curved line making up its smile. It was more than just the face as well. It was a head and a little stick-man body with arms that hung limply at its sides and legs that were drawn with a curve to them as if the figure wasn't standing, but floating. Frisk didn't see anything that might have suspended it, for that she was grateful. Yet its eyes, its eyes watched her. Instead of drooping limply like the rest of its body, the head remained frozen in its position. Looking at her. It was then that she saw it
Its face no longer seemed so friendly. The smiling visage seemed to melt in the steam, the upturned lips began to sag, the head seemed to droop but the eyes- those eyes like bright blue marbles- followed her wherever she went. She moved as if to evade their gaze, taking a step towards Mrs. Akiko's now-still body, yet they stayed locked with her own like some wretched mockery of the Mona Lisa. They followed her- wanted her- hated her- blamed her. Blamed her? Yes, she could see it in the eyes. They had changed, just not in a way that should have been possible. The dots became encircled by something greater, and she realized it was a widening. The eyes were wide as they stared at her, strained. Strained. Strained and so, so-
BREEEPPPP
The tolling of the school's bell was so sudden and so loud that the girl's voice at last managed to find its footing and she released a shriek that echoed against the emptiness of the room. It bounced against its hollow walls and reflected against a hundred empty seats until it grew louder than it had been from her own lips and struck her ears with enough force to rattle her. She leapt as she screamed and found her arms wrapped around her body in a thin, barely cohesive effort to protect herself from sights unseen. Her hips brushed against something cold and short and the girl found her world upended as she fell backwards- then found her world turning to a shock of white as her skull came in contact with the piano's keys, setting off a rumbling cacophony of discordant notes that announced the end of her misfortune with a final brum.
Her breathing came out labored and panicked for longer than Frisk wanted to admit. For someone who had faced certain death several times, someone who had even had the displeasure of facing a threat like Omega F10w37, the girl had never felt so overwhelmed. Managing to sit up, Frisk hissed in pain and slammed a hand to the back of her head, feeling a hard bump forming along the ridge of her skull where she'd struck the piano. Thankfully it didn't seem to be so bad- though her head was pounding- but even so, it hurt worse than any of the times she'd been stabbed, shot at, burned or hit in the past. But the moment that she addressed the pain, Frisk's eyes snapped back to the edge of the room where the fogged window had been. The picture was gone now, either too faded to be seen or completely scrubbed away by whatever had brought it in the first place.
She frowned. Then her frown deepened as something else began to bother her. Frisk winced as a spike of sharp pain drove itself through the side of her head and the girl was forced to lean her elbow along the piano keys to keep her arm steady as she rested her hand on the source of her pain. "Applying pressure is usually the right thing to do when you're hurt." A voice muttered from somewhere in the recesses of her memory. It was kind, motherly- Frisk saw a flash of white fur and purple hued robe- her mother, telling her how to deal with pain. Absent of Monster Food, more natural remedies were needed on the surface. The Surface... getting there seemed so long ago now. Her mother...
Frisk suddenly straightened up and swiveled her head around, only stopping when the pain returned- now as a dull throb thanks to her hand pressing itself as hard as it could against its source. The room was no longer as empty as it had been when she entered, now it was more empty. She spared a glance down at the piano bench she was sitting in, the polished black wood reflected sterile light back up at her in response to her unasked question- where did the old woman go? Frisk wanted to interrogate the room further when something else caught her eye. A thin line of bright orange light filtered its way into the room from the hallway. She blinked- 'Orange?' Her mind questioned, the significance of the color not fully realized. Blinking again as if hoping that she had hit her head a little harder than she thought, Frisk half expected the light to return to its previous golden coloration but... it didn't.
A new surge of panic struck her as the girl suddenly sat up even straighter, then reached down with her free hand and dug her phone out of her jacket pocket. She clicked it on and in harsh blue light it read the time- 4:30pm. 'No, that can't be right!' She thought. 'It was only two a second ago, I was just-' Her brow furrowed. How had she lost so much time? Her mind ran over the events twice more but no answer came to her- none she liked anyway. There was always the chance that she had been so engrossed in staring back at the image that she had simply lost track of time- but that implied that her teacher had stood up and abandoned her in such a state without even questioning why her student was acting so strangely. There was the other option, that she had knocked herself out on impact with the piano, but that didn't fit either. Frisk couldn't recall blacking out, only a brief, sharp flash of white and then she was sitting up again. Her eyes hadn't even been closed all that long.
And if she had been unconscious for two hours- Frisk shuddered at the idea- then no one had come for her. Even Mrs. Akiko had left her here, alone. Alone, or so she hoped.
The girl slowly stood and glanced around the room one final time. No eyes stared back at her, yet… the room was different than she recalled. Slightly off like things had been moved. The chairs, previously neatly aligned in five curved rows of six each, were now jumbled and strewn about as though there had been a full class. The door leading into the hallway, formerly open was now closed tightly and- Frisk felt her breath catch in her throat; the door to the closet was ajar, the wood ever so slightly letting in just a pinch of light.
Alone.
Or so she hoped.
Frisk barged into the Club Room with what could accurately be described as reckless abandon. The door to the Club had been closed when she made her approach, a sign that brought with it a sinking feeling that nestled deep within her stomach. To her knowledge it wasn't against school rules for the door to be closed during Club activities, but at the same time it wasn't normal for the door to be closed when Club was properly in session. Her heart sank further as she approached the room to find it dead silent, leading to the seemingly inevitable outcome in which flung the door open and stepped inside with all the grace of a hurricane stepping through a town.
And then something sailed by her head.
The girl managed to avoid the dark purple pen that had been whipped at her by ducking and was relieved to find that the pen had not been moved by some unseen force but by a human hand. Yuri's hand to be exact, extended and connected to a girl who seemed entirely too expressive. A bad sign, but one that went entirely over Frisk's head as she let out a raspy, half-gasp, half-laugh and stood up straight before setting her hand onto her chest to steady her thrumming heart. Her heart had barely enough time to even register the change in pressure before her mind caught up with the implications of Yuri's wide-eyed expression.
"Natsuki." Yuri's voice emerged as something above a growl but something below her usual register- a snarl. The Club President quickly snapped her head around and took in a full assessment of the scene, nearly wincing as she realized that Yuri hadn't been aiming for her head, but Natsuki's. The much smaller girl had only narrowly dodged the pen herself because she had whirled around when Frisk stormed in. "Call me that again, you stupid bitch." Frisk swallowed. A threat would have been explainable as a product of Yuri's anger, but a dare?
"Have you gone completely CRAZY?!" Natsuki turned her back on Frisk after offering the young woman a short glare, no doubt thinking that her ire was clearly better focused on Yuri. "All I did was tell you like it is, you freak!" Natsuki spat the words like they were poison in her lips. "You're treating MC like he's your fucking property! Well he's NOT! He should spend some time with ME, not some edgy bitch who's trying too hard!"
A black swell of dread and exhaustion rolled over Frisk and bashed against the seawalls of her heart as she took notice of Natsuki's tone. It was the same as Yuri's- strained, slightly pained, yet filled with so much vitriol and venom that just hearing it made the girl want to fall to her knees and sob. Though, perhaps that could have been better chalked up to the events leading up to this rather than this specific event. "Natsuki..." Frisk couldn't help the sigh that scratched its way into her throat. "Not you too!" Frisk didn't bother to hold back her exasperation as her word transformed into a groan that stretched out and rose in volume before being abruptly cut short as Frisk dragged her hands over her face.
She intended to say more, but Natsuki cut in before she could. "You stay out of this!" The pinkette rounded on her and stormed over before jutting a finger into Frisk's collarbone accusatorily. "Where the HELL have you been?! We've ALL been here waiting for you for the last hour!" Natsuki's voice seemed normal enough now, but it still had an edge to it- like it could just as easily snap back into what it had been before. "Are we really going to have to deal with you not taking the Club seriously again, M0n!k4?" Natsuki snapped. Then her eyebrows furrowed. "I-I mean, F-Frisk! How many times do we have to go through this? You're the President! You need to be here to lead the Club! You can't be this late!" It didn't take long for the girl to save face on her slip up, but Frisk was only half-listening now- her brain even going as far as blocking out the small pangs of guilt she felt every time Natsuki's finger poked her again.
Her mind fixated, instead, on the only word Natsuki had failed to say. The word that twisted reality around it, mangled Natsuki's lips to speak and muddied the waters of Frisk's mind all to hide itself from her. The word- what was it? A name? A place? A person? She knew the word too, that was the odd part of it. Frisk could almost perfectly reconstruct it in her mind- M, then something like an "o" then "-ika" to finish it, yet putting the pieces together sent a spike of pain into the base of her neck and through her brain stem. It was a word, it had a meaning- but what?
What, and why? Why hide from her? Why make it unintelligible to their lips? Why let it exist at all if its nature was inherently to be unknown? Why did she feel such dread whenever it felt like she became close to understanding it? Why did her thoughts resist focusing on it like they did? Why did her vision blur, her head swim when a thought came to her mind, a thought that she knew inherently had to be the answer, but one she so desperately felt the need to reject. The thought screamed at her from the darkest, most receding depths of her skull with such voracity that it became deafening and yet it's words were anathema. Her brain, possibly even her Soul, writhed and thrashed as if tied down when she focused on what had been said, yet she knew it had to be the truth.
The President. The former President. The word was a person. A person whose name was erased. Whose life was erased. Whose family and friends no longer remembered them. Whose very existence had been fundamentally pulled from reality- yet nothing changed. Everything was exactly the same, only they didn't exist. In their place, the universe had found someone better. A person, a President.
A Goner.
"We've already shared poems..." Slowly, Natsuki's finger retracted, her anger sparking again towards the oddly silent girl behind them. She turned, fist balled, shoulders squared, the picture of a bright pink chihuahua facing down a very quiet purple Doberman. Quiet, but not unmoving. Quiet. Wrong.
Frisk's arm snapped out and her fingers were aroun Natsuki's wrist before she even realized she was doing it. Frisk pulled the girl back towards her expecting a fight, but was simultaneously relieved and terrified when Natsuki only gasped instead of struggling in her grip. "My- Yuri?" In some ways, it might have been better if her voice had been changed. If she too had been altered, her vocals mangled and twisted by whatever awful force that contorted Yuri, then she might have been spared seeing what had become of the taller girl. Something dark dripped from her sockets- it was purple. Snow melted, gems turned to molten rock, mascara running slickly down her cheeks until they reached her chin. A thin puddle on the floor. The ails of the natural world no longer afforded to them, the voids from where her eyes now fell twisted and turned, vortexes- black holes yawning wide and swallowing the light around them. Light gave way to dark and the very room turned to shadow with her at its epicenter.
The room dimmed and there it was, the fear that jabbed at her heart, central to all of this- twin pinpricks of color from beyond set within those vacant maws in faux replacement for what they had destroyed. Red, dark, light, black, to apply such concepts to them would be to grant them too great a credit. And yet it would be to say too little. In those things, they saw nothing at all. Those which looked upon her saw but that which held them could not see, did not see and saw all the same. She bled, yet no blood emanated from her form.
She screamed, Frisk thought, yet her mouth did not part. In place of such an act, her lips did spread. In place of a scream, there was something that the girl could only name in the vaguest of terms like a crack and its visage went crooked, its neck bent in raw, unnatural angles. Her hair remained in its place, yet it moved. It swayed over pale lips, stretched in pallid grimace, but it moved not an inch from her shoulder. Her teeth- her teeth. Bright and glistening were words to once describe such a sight, now they seemed as summer lies in the nostalgic recesses of her own screaming mind. Black, rotted, crackling and breaking beneath the pressure of a groaning jaw.
Crack. It came again, louder now and Frisk found that the girl's place in reality had changed. She had not so much as stepped as she had moved. But even to call it that would be too simple a solution. In once, the girl had been across from them, now her face in twisted madness was closer, longer. Now her teeth, like knives blackened in the heat of their smith's oven, stretched out before them in all-consuming gaze. Frisk pulled Natsuki back further, something resonated in her chest. Determination swelled to meet this force, its light brimming over her top like the first gasp of light in the following of a harsh and bitter night. Steady had been her heart once, now it thrummed in great pace against her ribs. Light had been her grip on the girl's arm, now it tightened so much that her knuckles cracked white. Determination shone brighter, its light their guide to escape the darkest depths of the thing wearing Yuri's skin.
Natsuki didn't seem to notice the glow, even as she pressed her back up to Frisk's chest, the other girl's grip on her wrist momentarily forgotten. "Back- back up!" Whether she was speaking to Frisk or "Yuri" was difficult to tell, and mattered little. Her voice had done enough to shake Frisk out of her paralysis and the President yanked on Natsuki's arm with enough force to swap their places. Frisk couldn't say that she had faced scarier- even with all Six Souls, F10w3y was only equivalent to whatever this was- but she had faced stronger things than a bent, broken body. Even if looking at it made her want to run, Frisk swallowed and allowed Determination to be her guide.
"Get out of here, Natsuki." Frisk told her without looking back, half-afraid that if she did she would find that her friend had too succumbed like Yuri had. "Get help, I'll..." She trailed off, her grip slackened, then fell. "I'll be right behind you." It was a lie in its clearest form. Frisk had no intention of following the girl. No, she would do nothing less than save Yuri. Determination built in her chest, greater now than it was before- no longer merely the sun peeking out from behind the horizon, but the brightest light of Heaven on high shining down into the blackest depths of hell. Wider it spread, its light red and sanguine in contrast to the thin pricks of blood that sunk themselves deep into Yuri's voids.
Neither moved as the sound of footsteps retreating filled the air. Frisk knew the reason behind her staying, but the thing's stasis was harder to explain. It twitched errantly with every passing footfall, only stopping when at last Natsuki's feet became too faint to be audible. Every movement from the thing seemed pained. Each shuddering jolt that overcame it's crooked neck was quickly followed by the low crackle of bone grinding against broken fragments of itself. Every now and then its fingers would tense as if gripping something- the veins in her hands popped out and threatened to explode with the pressure, then faded as the creature loosened. Its grinning face seemed to slouch at one point during their silent exchange, then quickly snapped back into place with a sound like tearing plastic. On the whole, its form seemed more inherently human than it had only a moment ago- a product, undoubtedly, of the pain it was in and the arrival of Frisk's Determination.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Frisk questioned the thing. Not its arrival or even its design- those were questions that Frisk believed may never be answered- but about its place. Why here, why now? Why not overcome Yuri earlier, while they were alone? Why not overtake Mrs. Akiko and hurt her then? Why take Yuri at all? What of Natsuki or-
Frisk licked her lips and suppressed the sudden urge to take her eyes off of the crooked thing as a new question crept over the folds of her mind and wrapped its talons around her brain. Where was MC? Yuri and Natsuki had been fighting over him when Frisk arrived, but the boy had been suspiciously quiet throughout that ordeal and was now, if he was truly still inside the room- had ever been inside the room- equally silent. Was he still here? If so, why hadn't he done anything- to stop the girls or to escape this thing? Frisk swallowed, her hands balled into fists as her Determination struggled the rest of the way free from her chest and surrounded her like a wreath of fire shrouding a tree. Her SOUL took another moment, but it emerged as well. Whether MC was here or not, it didn't matter, her plans had been set in stone from the moment she had begun. She wasn't going to fight Yuri. She was going to save her, and there was only one way that Frisk knew to do that.
"Yuri..." She began. "If you're still there..."
Crack. It moved again, crossing the distance between them in a blink. Closer now, Frisk was forced to stare into its black things. Made to look deep, made to see what could not see, what should not be, but what was all the same. At the heart of them, buried in blackness like stone was color beyond color. Like red but not quite, it burned like fire yet no heat came from it. The red lived, but only in memory. Memory that she had long since passed. Frisk was made aware of a clicking sound emanating from just beneath the voids. She followed the trail of purple streaks that made a line from socket to teeth and found the culprit. Its mouth moved in broken ways that should not have been possible. Like- like a video game glitching, it stuttered and warped, the lips stretched beyond their means, the teeth opened then closed then phased through each other, then vanished altogether before returning as onyx obelisks which jutted from her lips. Its jaw worked, opening and closing yet the lips followed not its path, instead taking their own in wretched ways that were so violently alien. She imagined it wanted to speak to her but could not find the words.
Eventually it realized its folly. Eventually its jaw stopped, yet the clicking persisted even as its teeth settled and its lips curled in taught-pulled smile. Frisk took a small step back. "It..." She forced down the urge to shudder as she felt something cold touching her arm. The thing had reached for her and it had touched her without her realizing. When it had done so, she couldn't be sure. She couldn't be sure of anything, looking into that face. It was cold like death, its touch. Cold like a body long-decayed, left to rot within its crypt, left unattended, left alone. Its flesh, waxy and loose along the hand, its grip tight. Her palm squelched. Whatever was happening, Yuri was gone. Frisk finally gave in, her eyes left the thing as they closed.
"It's going to be alright." She could feel its face now, close to her own. Her mind flashed with images, paranoid ones no doubt. Its teeth widening, unveiling a maw not dissimilar to its eyes as it bent forward. Its tongue reaching slightly, grasping the tip of her nose right before it bit it off. Frisk summoned all of her mental fortitude and allowed herself to fall backwards. Away from all of this. "Everything is going to be..."
On her back again, this was starting to almost become normal to her- not that she wanted it to be. Before, in the Underground, when she opted to RESET she would usually end up in one of two places. Generally, she would find herself standing near the place where her Determination had felt at its strongest, usually somewhere where she had found something beautiful, ominous, or otherwise intriguing. The tunnel right beneath the place where she battled U^d7n3, the mouse holes with the cheese, the room just before she faced 4$0r3, all places that brought Frisk unique feelings unlike anything she had ever felt before. Excitement for what lied ahead, hope for the mouse to one day achieve its dream, unease for what she worried was going to come next.
The only other place that Frisk would ever return to- and more importantly, the only place that Frisk had ever landed on her back for when performing a RESET- was the beginning. The very origin point of her adventure, the flower bed and what lied beneath it. She had only ever experienced returning to that place twice. Once, days after her battle with F10w37... and then the phone call from $4n$ that told her how things weren't as nice in the Underground as they could have been. She remembered that time with some fondness. A nostalgic tingle in the back of her mind, the smell of butterscotch-cinnamon pie, the memory of the date she helped set up. The battle for the fate of everything. The True Lab, the things that laid beneath. Nostalgia could take her far, but it couldn't cover the ugliness of that timeline, not fully at least.
There was one other time that Frisk had landed on her back before this. One other time, the only time she had ever hoped to put behind her- the only one she wanted to forget. But this world was much like her own, it seemed. It didn't want to forget and it certainly wasn't going to let her get off easily either, was it? After all, it kept reminding her of it, over and over and over again. In the "code" that she saw when her eyes opened during the RESET, it was there. Against the chalkboard, it was there. In the picture, it was there. The one face she never wanted to see again. The face that looked so similar to her own while being so different. The face she had seen only once. The face of her own curiosity. The face that came when she performed a True Reset.
The face that came when she took their lives away.
She had seen it only once, yet in that momentary refraction- an instant so infinitesimal that Frisk might have assumed she was only seeing things were it not for the way its smile softly widened- it had made itself a permanent resident in her mind. A bleeding, red gash drawn against the wrinkles of her mind, ever present, ever watching, ever smiling. Two cuts, then a curve. Equal sign, parenthesis. She had seen it only once, she had seen it only for a moment. In that mirror, looking back at her with its eyes like lights, shining and eager and hungry. Always hungry. Always for more. She had seen it only once.
Frisk laid there, dreading the idea of opening her eyes. This was not the flower bed that indicated familiarity- home, safety, T0r!3l's arms- nor was it the warmth of the bed she accepted as her own for the past few days. The things which brushed against her back were too rough, their touch like toothbrushes against her skin. Their edges were short and gnarled, filthy in ways that she dared not describe. She could feel the grime clinging to her even now, tainting her clothes in its black touch and dyeing her skin in charcoal color as it wrapped itself between the bangs of her hair. She breathed through her mouth, her nose had long since begged her to free it from the scent of unclean earth and mildew. Not the scent of a home, nor the scent of any flower she knew. The scent of a carcass, a house built and gutted, rotting from the inside out. She knew what was beneath her now, her palm opened and gently she swept her hand over the coarse carpeting. Her fingers caught in places, parts where the carpet grew too gnarled and too wrapped in dirt. She stopped moving her hand when she broke through one such knot and something skittered over.
The carcass was old, that much was certain. Old and unused. For how long was a mystery that could only be solved by opening her eyes, yet perhaps it would be better not to know. To remain her, placid in her island of ignorance. Content in not understanding. But she knew that was only a dream. One day, like the mouse, she would be forced to leave her hole and collect the cheese. For to do otherwise was to invite death in its slowest form. She took a final, deep breath of the place's stale, warm air and gently, slowly, as though not wishing to disturb what she might be alone with, her eyes slid open and stared into the dreary dark.
It was some small miracle, she thought, that the room was not completely abandoned. Alone- or so she prayed, what little that did for her- but not empty. Part of her was unsure. Perhaps in its emptiness, the room would have offered some cohesion to itself. A place, drenched in this much filth and soaked in such a stench, with no furnishing might have made more sense, might have been less off-putting than where she lay now. Yet in reply, the place defied expectation and decorated itself in furnishing aplenty. The room she found herself in was simple- a dirty couch against the wall closest to the window, an old box-TV blaring blue light while propped up on a wooden stand twenty years too old for it, a coffee table between them, beer cans littering its surface. The home was decaying, but the room lived in.
Frisk frowned as she sat up, her head immediately turning and facing the window leading towards the street. Outside was pitch black, though in vague terms she could see the edges of similar buildings- homes and houses one or two stories tall, standing along the street's edge like a black parade. The only source of illumination she could see- for even the homes were silent in their march, no light struck her from within their windows- was a single streetlamp at the far end, tall and curved, offering what little salvation from the dark it could on its shaky, yellowing bulb. Night had fallen, that much was clear, yet the specifics of how or when were lost on Frisk. Perhaps she had gone back too far, but the place she now stood within was fully unfamiliar to her; she would have remembered the smell at least.
No, something had gone wrong in the RESET process. No surprise there, Frisk supposed, it wasn't the first time that something had interfered with her abilities- though it boded poorly. There were only two- technically one- beings in the entire Underground who could overcome her ability, and if one of them was present here then... Whatever force had altered Yuri and turned Natsuki's wrath up to that extent was stronger than she imagined. Worse, it was also far, far darker than either of those two had been if Yuri's transformation was indeed its doing. Frisk would need to remain vigilant.
Then, as if designed specifically to make her jump, something fell. It didn't come down with a crash or a bang, or anything as animated as earlier. Rather, it came with a crinkle. Gentle, quiet, paper bending just as it hits the floor. Frisk turned towards the sound on a dime, her fists balled, her brow sweating- she peered into a room she hadn't seen before. A kitchen, white tiles just barely visible against the border between rooms- lit up by the thin blue light emerging from the TV. Then, a few spaces behind that, halfway peering from the darkness like a set of ivory eyes was indeed a piece of paper, fallen from its place on a wooden beam. Frisk frowned. It knew, it remembered her first appearance in this world, when she had walked right into a beam just after entering the kitchen.
She swallowed and approached the paper before gently lifting it. At first it seemed the same as the schedule she had found. But as she read, the words changed. Their forms grew strange and then, as though like a computer screen with water poured down on it, they glitched in electrical sparks. Yellow, blue, green, pink and red. Frisk tightened her grip on the page so much that she drove her thumb through it. Written in flat cursive was a list. Her heart sunk.
"1. 6:00-7:30 Wake up, and hurt mom. (It had to be her.)
2. 7:31-8:00 Head off to Snowden on No Mercy days. (See the way his ribs protrude.)
3. 8:00-3:30 The Heroine dies. (She'll always know she didn't come home.)
4. 3:31-4:00 End his favorite reality show. (Look inside, we'll see)
5. 4:00-5:00 No more bad food, no more good friends. (No! You didn't see! You reeled, blind at the last moment)
6. 5:01-6:30 Kill dad. (But its too late.)
7. 6:30-9:00 (Already scorched this meaningless world)
(It wasn't a little thing.)
(It was so nice to see you.)
Partner."
Frisk's face tightened as tears poked holes in her eyes and threatened to spill out. The first list had been the schedule of a girl she would never know. This list was not the same. It was her list. A list of everything she had done and everything she would do, if she hadn't quit. If he hadn't said what he'd said, if he hadn't invoked their friendship from another time. If San-
Something much louder came down this time. A thin, sharp sound, a snap or a crack. It came from above her head and as Frisk peered up, she heard a different sound, gurgling and struggling, something kicking in frantic order- an animal caught in a snare, its foot ripping and tearing as it uselessly screamed for freedom, its howls to fall on ears not deaf but uncaring. Frisk spared one final glance towards the page, then tossed it aside as something new began to bleed onto it. Written in blood, the same image from the fog, closer now, more detailed. A hung thing, its eyes blue, its hair pink, its smile gone, mouth now agape.
And beneath, in red.
=)
Frisk moved quickly, through the hallway on the right and up the stairs like a hurricane made its way through a nation. Rabid and fearful, yet brimming with determination, she followed the garbled gasping, the struggling and kicking, knowing now what she had not known before. She reached the top and found the source of the struggle. A door loomed at the end of a long hall. Shadows danced beneath its frame and Frisk grew near only to pause. Hesitation, terror. What might she find beyond this door? Her eyes closed for a moment, then swirled with something vibrant, something that burned, something red.
It was with determination that Frisk gently opened the door.
Author's Note: We're really stepping into Horror territory now. This time I wanted to try capturing a sort of Silent Hill-esque feel with a slight Doki Doki twist added in. You'll note the references to Natsuki's neck-snap within Demon Yuri's appearance, or the way that the image seen in the window is... thinking hxppy thxghts.
But, now that we're here things are about to speed up dramatically for Frisk. And Monika, for that matter. Join me later this month (or the beginning of June potentially) for the next installment of Monitale as we tackle much brighter subject matter and far greener pastures in the Pacifist Route. For now though, I do believe we have reviews to get to.
Guest: ONE way to fit something in from UTY, you say? If I had to guess, I would say seeing Kanako in the True Laboratory as one of the Amalgams. I would really like to see that! (Even if it's tragic, scary and sad. At least Ceroba would see her daughter again in the Epilogue. Probably she will be mad with Alphys, but Kanako would be happy in see her mother again
Me: I'll definitely consider it. I'll need to look some stuff up around Kanako and see what can be done with her, but we'll see. Who knows, it might be a great way to introduce more horror elements and, if you read this far, you know how much I like those.
Guest: Well, I'll be honest that the battle against Flowey was never one of the highlights of Undertale for me, but you did a great job here! Flowey's narration mixed with the normal narration, the Player having a body and being hurt, Monika's despair, Monika awakening her aura and using Asgore's powers, the tone of despair due to the lack of control that the protagonists have over the situation, the trust that Monika had to place in her beloved, the narration of human SOULS, Monika's speech to Flowey when he was weakened, the "post-credits" scene, everything is very well done and written
Continuing the comment from before: I'm looking forward to the True Pacifist Route! And onto the next chapter of FFLC!
Me: I'm so very glad to hear that you enjoyed that chapter so much! I had a lot of fun writing it, though I'll admit that there were a few parts that I felt skeptical about keeping in. Flowey's narration, to me at least, was a bit of a struggle to get through since I wasn't sure how I wanted it to come across, but it looks like people liked enough, so I'm happy!
As for FFLC, ask and you shall receive. This chapter was particularly fun to put together, but now its time for the True Pacifist Route to come- and with it, a True Ending. Hope you enjoy these parts as much as you enjoyed the Flowey Battle...
Guest: Sorry for the comment in Portuguese. It wasn't supposed to come out like that and I don't know how to delete the comments on this site.
9- Toriel: A luta tem um bom contexto e um ótimo tom dramático, junto com a música "Heartache", que casa muito bem, mas é muito fácil e pode ser bem cansativa pra quem jogou o jogo muitas vezes.
8- Papyrus: A luta é simples e até meio demorada, mas gosto da mecânica da alma azul e a luta é bem engraçada e divertida. Resumindo: Perfeita para o Grande Papyrus!
7- Photoshop Flowey
6- Undyne (Neutro e Pacifista)
5- Mettaton EX
4- Undyne, A Imortal
3- Sans
2- Asgore
1- Asriel
Me: Its fine. I'll just toss it into Google translate really quick- Ah I see, a list of the fights and how you rank them. Personally, my ranking might be a bit different than yours. For example, I like Undyne the Undying more than I like Sans so she'd be in 2nd place.
I'll do a short ranking here in order from least to most: Toriel, Papyrus, Neutral/Pacifist Undyne, Mettaton EX, Omega/Photoshop Flowey, Sans, Asgore, Undyne the Undying, Asriel.
setokayba2n: Waiting for the next chapter, as always very great and loved the interaction the SOULS, Monika did not even doubt for a moment, also while it was only a month, I wonder how was life for PLAYER and Monika during the month before the RESET, it could very well be strange for teenagers that no one knows appear in the city saying they come from the monster infested mountain without money.
Me: Sorry for the longer wait this time. Last month had me running kinda ragged with a different project but I'm much more available this month so hopefully we'll see two uploads to make up for it! Glad you enjoyed my writing for the SOULS! I'll admit, I was a little inspired by Undertale The Musical for their characterization (you can even see me directly referencing the musical's version of Your Best Nightmare in the chapter a few times), but it all worked out in the end.
As for Monika and Player's time in the city, that's an interesting question and maybe in the future one day I'll do a chapter about it. Small spoilers for after the series offically ends, but I'm kinda playing around with the idea of doing a yearly "chapter" for Monitale every 22nd. These chapters wouldn't have any story significance to them, at least I hope not, but they would be used to explore the characters in more depth and see what they're up to both after the story ends and during some moments like the Month between them leaving the Underground and their RESET. What I will say on the subject is this- the conversion rate for Monster Gold to human money is astounding. They were definitely well-off enough to not really need to worry about being questioned too much, and plus Monika is an eighteen-year old woman, she's an adult so there's no reason for anyone in the massive city to really notice her showing up one day. If she wanted, she could trade her gold and easily fade into a life of obscurity...
But we both know that isn't what she wants...
saga1213: shifting bitween 3rd and 1st person povs during the flowy fight reminds me of another story here,alice in undertale
Me: I've never read it, what's it about?
Guest: You know what's curious? A YouTuber from my country (The Brazil), called "Core" (Don't laugh, please) has already theorized that the Undertale and Deltarune OSTs written in capital letters are directly or indirectly associated with Gaster;such as "THE HOLY", "CORE", "ASGORE", "ANOTHER HIM", "THE WORLD REVOLVING" and "MEGALOVANIA".Does it make sense to you?
Me: Hmm... it seems possible. Gaster does have associations with Asgore, the CORE and Sans (Gaster Blasters), and if you believe in speculation then it could be possible for him to be the person behind Jevil's madness, so that adds up as well. Admittedly I'm not as well-versed in Deltarune's music to say anything else on the subject, but Gaster is a really interesting character to discuss so I appreciate these conversations nonetheless.
In any case, that's all for now so...
Until Next Time, True Readers!