Strange Times, Stranger Places

Chapter 3: Running Away to Adventure!

See. I told you. That's all. Now to finally see it from... Frisk's point of view? No... Toriel's? No, that doesn't seem as fun. Let's do... Mabel's. That sounds interesting.

Mabel's POV
I sat with Frisk and Connie, learning more of his language. We were picking it up fast, and I liked learning how to talk to him with hand signals. It was like a secret code! Dipper and Steven watched, eating pie. We had some in front of us, but didn't eat it, not while we were still trying to learn.

"So you fell before us?" Connie asked.

Yea. Yesterday. I walked through the Ruins mostly by myself too. Now we can go together and explore the rest of the Underground!

"Yea! We can make new friends too!" I said, smiling. Maybe flirt with a few monsters too...

"Hey, I.. Uhhh... Gotta ask. Are you a guy or a girl?" Dipper jumped in. Frisk just shook their head no.

"You don't identify as either do you?" Connie asked. Frisk nodded yes.

I didn't really know what that meant. Was Frisk a girl? Or a guy?

Frisk's POV
When they asked, I didn't know how to answer. I had been a girl in some timelines, and a guy in others. Sans knew about the differences, but he was the only one. The only one that remembered, other than Flowey, or Asriel.

This timeline, I had no idea. I hadn't checked yet, and I honestly didn't care. I was going to be GENDERLESS. Without a care of what I had. It was more fun that way anyway. I started eating my butterscotch cinnamon pie, which was really good, as per usual. I talked with the girls, and the boys, once we were all finished.

So maybe we should sleep here and ask if we could go further into the Underground. Tell her we're all really curious. Maybe she'll come with us? Or, we could all just leave. I've seen where the exit is.

"Alright. It's getting late on the surface anyway. We should all sleep, then tomorrow we can figure out what to do." Dipper replied. He had learned some sign language as well, visually, instead of doing it like the girls. They wanted to use it like a sort of code.

Toriel brought out several sleeping bags, and arranged them in a circle on the floor of the child's room that I had used the night before.

"Goodnight children."

I laid down, and fell asleep. It was comfortable inside of the warm sleeping bag. In the morning, I looked around, finding everyone else still asleep. I rolled up the bag, and headed out into the hall.

Something about this place... We didn't need to go to the bathroom, yet we needed to eat, to drink. We didn't need sleep, yet we still did it. It always intrigued me what monster food, and the barrier, did to me.

Dipper's POV
I looked around, after waking up. Mabel and Frisk were already awake. I sat up, and rolled up my bag. It was warm, and really nice. I walked out to the living room. Already, Mabel was back to learning how to use sign language. She was getting really good at it, and I could tell she was trying to flirt with the... Guy? Girl? It was strange to think of someone outside of one of those groups, but oh well.

Good morning Dipper. As soon as everyone is up we'll talk.

"Alright..." I said. Usually, I took charge, but this kid seemed overly determined to lead us all. They seemed to know more than anyone about this place, which was probably a good thing, but also made me wonder. What were they thinking about? And how did they know so much? Maybe they're hiding something...

Stop it Dipper. I'm not supposed to jump to conclusions! Mabel already lectured me enough about it, and I didn't need another lecture.

I sat down, after picking up a book from the bookshelf. It detailed the different parts of the Underground, and the history of how they got there. Apparently, the only way out of here was towards the top of the mountain, through a barrier, and to get through the barrier, you needed a human and monster soul. A soul? What does that mean?