Those Days Continue: Happy Mornings and Nights Spent with Everyone
After the barrier broke, the monsters of the underground chose not to rush to the surface. They kept their daily lives, their snow towns and lava rivers, their laughter echoing through the caves. Frisk lives with Toriel, going back and forth between Snowfull, Waterfall, and Hotland. The great war is over. Peace has settled in like an old friend.
One morning, Toriel wakes Frisk with a gentle voice. After a breakfast of warm pie, Frisk heads outside. A game of catch with Undyne turns into a wild
Those Days Continue: Happy Mornings and Nights Spent with Everyone - The song I heard at the edge of a dream
The snow had begun to fall quietly before anyone noticed.
Frisk walked alone along the path leading to the Ruins. From around her sleeves, the smell of burnt rice still lingered. It was the smell of that failed toast she'd eaten today with Undyne and Papyrus.
*(Today was fun, too.)*
Just thinking that made the corners of her mouth loosen a little.
But deep beneath that warmth, something small and hard like a stone still remained in her chest.
*(That voice I heard in the Core...)*
*"Intruder detected"* — that flat, emotionless voice. Even now, it echoed in the back of her ears from time to time. And the strange being she'd met there, too.
*(I won't tell anyone. I decided that.)*
Frisk gently pushed that stone down to the bottom of her heart.
*
When she got home, warm light was leaking through the gap in the door. Inside, the fireplace flames swayed quietly. The smell of pie still faintly lingered.
*(I like this smell.)*
Dinner was already over. Frisk nibbled a bit of the leftover pie, took a bath, and climbed into bed in her room.
The blanket was a little heavy and warm. Just as she burrowed in, Frisk suddenly noticed she was about to sleep with her socks on the wrong feet.
*(Ah, they're backwards.)*
Fixing them felt like too much trouble, so she left them as they were.
*(Well, whatever. No one's watching.)*
Thinking that, she found herself laughing alone. Today had been full of strange things, she thought.
*
*(Undyne's toast...)*
She'd put the rice straight into the frying pan without washing it. With a serious face, she'd dumped in a huge amount of salt. What came out was a flat, burnt lump. It was supposed to be a triangular rice ball, but it ended up shaped like a board.
*(Everyone's faces when Sans said, "That's toast, isn't it"...)*
Just remembering it made Frisk laugh silently again.
*(Papyrus's invisible maze, too...)*
Papyrus had gotten lost in the maze he'd made himself. Even Undyne, who went in to help, crashed into the walls with him. Their faces when they finally came out holding hands — covered in snow and frost, completely white.
*(Come to think of it, I made hot dogs with Sans in the evening, too.)*
He'd put on too much ketchup, as always. When Frisk pointed it out, Sans shrugged and laughed, saying it just doubled the flavor. That carefree way he laughed — she didn't dislike it. Actually, she liked it.
*(I wish we could keep laughing like that forever.)*
Thinking that, the depths of her chest grew gently warm.
*
But—
*(The truth is, there are so many things I want to ask.)*
Frisk looked up at the ceiling.
That strange being she'd met inside the silver tower. Who was that voice that gave its name? The rumbling wasn't really a catfish. The machine's voice had said "eliminate." What was that thing for? Why had she alone been able to enter that place?
The more she counted, the more things she didn't understand.
*(If I asked, everyone would worry.)*
So she couldn't ask. She hadn't asked today, either.
On the desk sat a small reddish-black stone she'd picked up on the path in Hotland. When she touched it lightly with her fingertip, it still seemed to hold a little warmth.
*(Will there ever come a day when I show this stone to someone?)*
As she thought about it, her eyelids grew heavy.
*
From downstairs, a low, gentle voice drifted up faintly. It was the bedtime story Mom always chose. She could barely make out the words anymore, but just the tone of that voice made her feel at ease.
*(I like that voice.)*
Frisk closed her eyes.
The day's events flowed slowly through her mind. Undyne's burnt toast. Papyrus's invisible walls. Sans's absent-minded laugh. All of it scattered, seeming to mean nothing — but every bit of it was precious time.
*(It's okay for me to be alive in this world, isn't it.)*
The moment she thought that, her chest felt suddenly lighter.
*
Beyond her eyelids, she could see light.
Was she in a dream — or was she still awake? She couldn't quite tell. Frisk was standing at the entrance to the Ruins. Morning light faintly illuminated the purple bricks. Fallen leaves danced in the wind.
*(Tomorrow will surely be another day like this.)*
Thinking that, her heart felt a little lighter. Someday, she would go and properly find out about that stone, and about the person she'd met in that tower. It just wasn't that day yet.
But—
Beyond that light, far, far away, from deep beneath the ground, she thought she heard a faint singing voice.
A small, thin, somehow lonely song. Not Mom's voice. She didn't know whose voice it was. It was like broken fragments of sound lingering at the edge of a fading dream.
"...Who's there?"
She tried saying it aloud, but no answer came. The singing voice was already fading away.
*(Just my imagination, I guess.)*
Thinking that, Frisk closed her eyes once more.
Deep underground. In a dark place no one had ever set foot — something was quietly, slowly beginning to wake.
Only the sound of falling snow gently wrapped the night of the Ruins.
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