Snowdin Town greeted Frisk like an old friend.
The streets were the same — the cozy little houses half-buried in snow, the strings of lights still hanging from trees and porches. Somewhere, distant music played. Monsters waved as he passed, smiles warm, greetings cheerful.
But to Frisk, it was a graveyard in disguise.
Every face he saw — bright, friendly, innocent — carried a shadow behind it.
In his mind's eye, he saw the blood. The twisted bodies. Heard the final words.
And though none of them remembered, though they laughed and chattered and spoke his name with joy, he felt it.
A wrongness in the air.
A flicker in their expressions, like a glitch in a record.
A monster child waved to him, eyes gleaming.
Frisk's stomach twisted.
He remembered the way those eyes went glassy when the knife came down.
"Look at them," Chara murmured, voice sickly sweet in his ear. "Smiling at you. Trusting you. After everything you did."
Frisk forced a smile, moving deeper into town.
—
Grillby's was quieter.
Inside, the familiar warmth of the fire-lit tavern wrapped around him, but it felt hollow. Monsters sat in booths, talking and laughing — but it was too soft. Like they were holding something back without knowing why.
Grillby gave him a nod as always, eyes glowing behind the bar's heat shimmer.
Frisk sat at a corner table.
A dog monster trotted past, tail wagging.
Frisk saw it die in his memory.
A flame monster chuckled at a joke from a lizard monster.
Frisk remembered the charred remains.
He clenched his hands under the table.
The laughter in the room sounded distant, like it was happening through water.
And then —
"HUMAN!!!"
A familiar, bounding voice.
Frisk turned.
Papyrus.
As bright and overconfident as ever, scarf trailing behind him, grin unshaken. He approached with the same boisterous energy, launching into an elaborate explanation of how this would be the time he captured a human, of spaghetti traps and puzzles.
But Frisk saw it.
A flicker.
A moment when Papyrus' gaze brushed past him, and something cold passed through those sockets.
Like a glitch in reality. A ripple in a pond.
And then it was gone.
"I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL NOW ESCORT YOU THROUGH SNOWDIN!"
Frisk nodded silently.
"Good little actor," Chara purred, her voice coiling around his thoughts. "You rememberhow he begged, don't you? How he said he still believed in you even after the first strike? And the second?"
Frisk's vision blurred for a moment.
"But look," she whispered. "He doesn't remember now. None of them do. And still…you can feel it, can't you? The weight of your mercy. So sweet. So empty."
They left Grillby's together.
Papyrus bounded ahead, pointing out snow sculptures and puzzle layouts as they moved through the town. Monsters waved. Smiled. Shared words of welcome.
Frisk kept walking.
In every window reflection, he saw their faces at the moment of death.
A monster kid who waved from a snowbank.
An old monster resting on a bench.
A dog couple arm in arm.
All dead. All forgotten.
But not by him.
And not by her.
Chara's presence pressed closer now.
Not a whisper anymore, but a constant murmur, a possessive hand on his shoulder.
"You'll never wash it away," she said. "Mercy or no. This world belongs to us now. Youmight play nice… but I'll always be here, Frisk."
—
Atop Mt. Ebott, the girl had drawn her knees to her chest.
The firelight danced in her wide, reflecting eyes.
The man spoke on, his voice a low, steady current in the storm.
She made a small, tight gesture — fingertips brushing her chest, right where a human soul would be.
The man saw it, his face forever hidden beneath that deep hood.
He nodded once. "Yeah," he murmured. "It hurts. It's meant to."
The rain hissed against the flames.
Neither of them spoke.
The world around them held its breath.