The bell rang. The familiar noise snapped Frisk back to reality, and she closed the notebook she had been doodling in. The school week had come to an end.
Exiting the classroom with the rest of the people in her class, she proceeded out of her school and onto the bus numbered 16, taking the right-side seat all the way in the back.
After a ride of about five or six minutes, it was time to get on the bus Asriel was on when the bus stopped at another nondescript school.
After a minute or so, the driver opened the doors, and those who were supposed to switch buses began to funnel out. Frisk, coming last, proceeded forward on the sidewalk and got on bus #32. Passing the notably bus-driver-looking bus driver, she found Asriel sitting toward the middle on the left, slightly slouched back, angled to the side so his knees weren't pressing into Monster Kid's back. They were speaking through the gap between the seat and the wall.
Monster Kid: "Hey, hi, Frisk!"
Frisk smiled and showed similar enthusiasm in reply. Asriel straightened up so he could see over the seat.
Frisk: "Hi Monster Kid!"
She sat next to Asriel, who was scrolling through a music playlist on his phone. It made her wonder if he had a cellphone somewhere from when he was a flower, to have that sort of phone experience. He turned the screen off and looked over at her with a neutral expression.
Frisk: "Hi Azzy. How was your day?"
Asriel: "I hurt myself and had a finger hanging off by a thread today. How about you?
Frisk's expression went from general contentment to disbelief in response to his statement. She had never expected to hear that mentioned in the context of school, much less in such a nonchalant way. Was that not a major injury to a monster? His latter sentence completely went over her head as she glanced down at his hands.
Monster Kid: "Man, it was gnarly! You could see his bones and stuff."
Frisk: "How do you just recover from an injury like that?"
Asriel: "I ate a magic-based granola bar and put it back on. Then I talked the teacher into keeping his mouth shut."
Frisk: "I guess that was a dumb question, wasn't it? How'd you do that?"
A series of events leading to this flashed through Asriel's mind. Agreeing to help a particularly unhinged in a positive way teacher led him to bring the smallest possible firecracker to school, using a box of matches given by his teacher to light it, and subsequently experiencing a quick-fuse hand pop. He took a deep breath, deciding to summarize.
Asriel: "Uhm... Pest control with explosives."
Monster Kid: "Mr. Henson has a mouse burrow next to his desk."
Frisk looked around the seat to Monster Kid.
Frisk: "What was he going to do? Put a firecracker in there and hope it would come up to investigate?"
Asriel scoffed and took a packaged stick of cheese out of his pocket as she turned back. By teen logic, placing that next to a firecracker might draw a cheese-interested creature to come near it.
Monster Kid: "I put an orange juice carton in another kid's hood."
Asriel: "With what?"
Monster Kid: "My teeth. He didn't notice until a little bit later. It was pretty funny "
This back-and-forth continued until all three parties eventually got bored. It seemed like Frisk had a fairly average Friday, so the "How'd your day go?" topic essentially went out the window. By the time the bus ride was nearing its end for the three, both Frisk and Asriel were looking at their cell phones while Monster Kid watched out the window.
The driver took a left, driving the bus into a relatively nice neighborhood. Stopping at a corner midway down the street, he opened the doors. It was time for the trio in question to exit the bus.
Moving through the now tightly packed bus, each of them made their way to the front and exited, regrouping on the sidewalk outside a house belonging to neither of them.
From there, they continued down the sidewalk until parting ways at Monster Kid's home. Since returning to the surface, he had been adopted by a particularly welcoming human family.
Frisk and Asriel said their goodbyes to their friend and continued toward their house. Not far past there, Asriel took his house key out and tapped her on the shoulder, having changed his mind.
Asriel: "Hey, Frisk."
She stopped and turned around, finding her brother holding the key out for her to take.
Frisk: "Yeah? Oh. You gonna stay out for awhile?
She took the key from him.
Asriel: "Yeah. Back that way there's a wooded area I wanna go pick some things from."
Frisk: "Is that how you came back with your breath reeking of onions the other day?"
Asriel: "I dunno, probably. I'll be back in a little while."
He started to turn to walk the other direction with his hands placed in his hoodie pockets.
Frisk: "Okay, bye Azzy. Be safe."
She replied kindly and began to continue toward the correct house, recieving a "Thanks. Later, Frisk." from behind her as Asriel began walking the other direction.
On reaching the house, she used the key Asriel handed her and used it to open the door.
Inside was a nicely decorated entryway with a red carpet placed on the hardwood floor. A short way ahead of the doorway into the living room on the left was a hallway to the right and a forward-facing staircase in front of that.
Closing the door behind her, she quietly continued into the convolutedly described interior and upstairs to her bedroom to put up her things.
After offloading her school inventory, she went back downstairs and looked into the livng room. Toriel was asleep on that chair she'd had since before Frisk casually went and changed the course of history.
She walked past and back out the front door, turning right since she didn't figure she had anywhere better to go at the moment than where she saw Asriel cross the road way down after she left the house.
After making her way down the block, she crossed the road and entered an opening in the greenery on the other side. Proceeding deeper into the area, she began to notice a larger-than-average variety of different weeds and fungi growing around. Their presence would explain the interest of foraging in that particular area.
Not too far ahead, she spotted a yellow sparkle concealed by a cluster of dead thorny vines, wrapped around an equally dead shrub.
Could it be?
Yes. Absolutely. You don't just find a yellow starburst behind some brush like that in nature.
A wave of dread washed over her as she reached in to touch it.
[FILE SAVED]
She retracted her hand from the dead greenbriers. Given that save points only started appearing for her after she fell into the Underground and never appeared again until now, the implications were stress-inducing at the very least. She had to find Asriel. First, she remembered that ticks are still out around late September, so she took the modified Underground cellphone out of her pocket and materialized a can of Off! from it.
She sprayed some of it over herself and proceeded deeper into the forest. Like clockwork, she found him kneeling in front of a leafy plant.
He seemed to be in the process of reaching out to pick it, with his hand hovering inches from the plant's surface.
Frisk: "Hey, Azzy!"
She approached closer. Upon entering the range of about four feet, she started to notice the fact that he was shaking. She approached even closer and reached towards his left shoulder.
Frisk: "Asriel?"
Before she could speak again or offer him some bug repellent, he produced a brief and forceful "AAAAAAAAH", still facing the plant. She jerked her hand back and he shouted out again.
Asriel: "Fuuuck!!!"
Frisk: "What!? Why are you screaming?"
He got up from his kneeling position and looked back at Frisk with his hands at his sides. His pupils looked as big as they could possibly get.
Frisk: "Asriel, are you okay?"
Asriel: "I'd hoped I was seeing things when I walked past that SAVE..."
He used his hands to wipe the tears from his eyes before he spoke again.
Asriel: "But I didn't use it. Did you save for me somehow?"
It was then made clear that he died somehow, and Frisk had no memory of the past timeline.
Frisk: "That seems too convenient, but probably. What happened? How'd you die?"
He looked at the ground and scratched the spot between his nostrils before replying to her.
Asriel: "Br-burn trauma."
Having seen a specific chest-discomfort-inducing cutscene from a Call of Duty game, that phrase and the image attached made the fuzz on the back of her neck stand on end and sent a chill through her. He wasn't joking, he couldn't have been. His pupils were far too wide when she first saw them. One might be able to shed tears on command, but you can't voluntarily dilate your pupils. Or at least, that was what she thought. It would be the case for most people.
Frisk: "How'd you catch on fire?"
He paused and then looked back down at his hands and fingers, realizing he had nothing from the past timeline save for the trauma of burning to death.
Asriel: "I don't 'member..."
How convenient.
Asriel, who was facing Frisk and by extension the direction of the road watched a red car fly past on the other side of the foliage.
Asriel: "Uh-oh. Oh, crap."
He seemed to immediately snap out of his traumatized state and started running towards the exit of the area. Frisk followed him out. He started across the road, paused for another car to pass, then went into a full sprint toward their home.
Their mother's car was indeed gone, and the garage door remained open.
Monster Kid: "Hey, you guys? Did something happen?"
Frisk and Asriel looked a each other.
Frisk: "We should tell him."
Monster Kid: "Tell me what?"
They both looked back at Monster Kid.
Asriel: "You know how Frisk went through the Underground?"
Monster Kid: "Yeah."
Frisk: "I had been finding something we've been calling 'SAVES' through the Underground, and I found another one in the woods. Shortly after that, I found Azzy over a plant."
Asriel: "I seem to have a knack for dying so I think our interactions with those are connected somehow. Both times I've died, I've gone back to that plant and had Frisk come up behind me."
He hadn't mentioned dying a second time. When did that happen?
It was probably another death before his last one. Since Frisk had fought her way through the Underground two or three times, naturally, she would be better at dodging attacks. He added onto his previous statement with a degree of irritation
Asriel: "...And I still didn't pick it."
Monster Kid gave an acknowledging nod and glanced back at the door before he returned his gaze to those he had approached.
He inhaled sharply and coughed.
He paused to pick an descriptor..
"Rage-filled sounding noises. I couldn't even make out any words, it was just screaming. When I came up beside your house I saw your mom pulling her car out and going west."
He nodded his head to the right, armlessly gesturing westward.
Asriel gripped his head in a gesture of general worry.
Frisk: "Do you think she's going after someone?"
Asriel and Monster Kid immediately replied "Yes." in unison. Asriel lowered his hands.
Asriel: "She's gonna kill people. And I don't know where she's going!"
He inhaled sharply and coughed.
Frisk considered asking why he didn't remember the past timelines before he died. The fact that she didn't remember before he died could have implied something about the mechanics of the SAVES interacting with whatever she did to permanently return Asriel from a flower back to a goatish biped.
She opened the front door, quietly proceeding into the house. The smell of burned building materials and molten plastic wafted out around her.