The snow crunched beneath their feet, the endless expanse of white stretching around them like a shroud. Frisk followed a step behind Papyrus as the skeleton marched ahead, scarf billowing in the chill air.
"BEHOLD!" Papyrus declared, striking a triumphant pose. "THE NEXT INGENIOUS PUZZLE OF THE GREAT PAPYRUS!"
Ahead, a simple arrangement of tiles lay in the snow, colored squares forming a pattern far more convoluted than necessary.
Frisk remembered this.
The first time through, he'd laughed.
Back then, it had felt like a game.
Now, it felt like walking through a mausoleum built from his own sins.
Papyrus turned, grinning wide.
"I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW, HUMAN, THIS ONE TOOK ME THREE WHOLE HOURS TO PERFECT!"
He puffed out his bony chest, pride gleaming in his eye sockets.
Frisk forced a small smile.
"Go on," Chara's voice breathed, syrup-sweet. "Play along. Pretend you aren't remembering how he bled. How his bones cracked. How he still believed in you… even when you raised the knife a second time."
Frisk clenched his fists at his sides, keeping his expression blank.
Papyrus stepped aside, gesturing grandly.
"YOUR MOVE, HUMAN! SOLVE THE PUZZLE, IF YOU DARE!"
Frisk stepped onto the first tile.
The snow felt colder.
The puzzle colors seemed muted, like everything else since the reset.
Each step felt like a weight dragging at his chest.
His mind reeled back to the time he killed him.
The desperate look in Papyrus' eyes.
The way he'd smiled even as his body fell apart.
"I… I STILL BELIEVE IN YOU…"
The words dug into his ribs like glass.
"You can't outrun it," Chara cooed, her voice now everywhere — in the wind, in the crunch of snow, in the spaces between heartbeats. "No matter how many you spare. No matter how much you pretend. You built this, Frisk. Every smiling face. Every kind word. All of it resting on a foundation of corpses."
Frisk stumbled.
A sharp intake of breath.
Papyrus rushed forward, concern etched across his skull-like face.
"ARE YOU ALRIGHT, HUMAN?"
Frisk looked up, forcing a nod.
"HAH! DO NOT FEAR! THE GREAT PAPYRUS SHALL LEAD THE WAY!"
Papyrus' hand landed on his shoulder — warm, steady.
Frisk's throat tightened.
That same hand had crumbled in his grip.
—
They made it through the puzzle.
Papyrus cheered as though it were the first time.
Frisk let him.
He laughed where he could.
Smiled when expected.
And Chara laughed with him.
"Good little actor," she whispered. "But you'll never be clean. Mercy is dead here, even ifyou keep choosing it."
Frisk's knuckles whitened as he gripped the sleeve of his shirt.
Papyrus didn't notice.
He was too busy launching into a speech about spaghetti traps and the next puzzle.
But in the flicker of snow-light, Frisk thought he saw it again —
A hesitation.
A flicker in Papyrus' sockets.
A shadow passing through a soul that wasn't supposed to remember.
And then it was gone.
—
Atop Mt. Ebott, the girl hugged her knees tighter.
The fire crackled softly, spitting sparks into the damp air.
The man's voice didn't waver.
She raised a hand slowly, fingers trembling, and made a small, halting motion — a knife tracing across her palm.
A question in her wide, silent eyes.
The man's head dipped once beneath his hood.
"Yeah," he said. "It happens again. And again."
The girl's lip quivered, but she said nothing.
The rain whispered against the earth.