Undertale Shorts

Selfish

Sans was used to doing this, lying in the middle of the floor, surrounded by random items, usually empty bottles and scraps of trash. But the fact that Papyrus was there too, made it strange. They were lying in silence, thoughtful, thinking the same thing, and the air was buzzing with the sound of unspoken words.

"Y'know I don't think they're going to change, Paps. Really, how many times have they done this, already?" Sans asked, asking the question that he had being asking for so many resets, many of them that he didn't even bother to remember anymore.

"They have to." Papyrus whispered, barely being heard. Sans sat up, angry tears starting to form in his eye sockets.

"And how many times have you said that? How many times do you remember saying that?" Sans almost shouted. It was true. Papyrus had never said that in this timeline, at least. But there was a feeling in Sans that told him that Papyrus had said that many times before.

"I have a good feeling this time." Papyrus said. Sans looked down at him. There was a shallow line going across the vertebras that connected his skull to the rest of his body. There were marks from the last timelines everywhere, like there was a scar on Sans now, that went from one side of his ribcage to the other side. Undyne had found that her eye, the one that was covered with the eye patch, was no longer blind, but completely gone.

And every reset, there were only more and more signs of the violence in the last timeline. Sans's scar grew deeper, Papyrus's HP kept going down, and Toriel had stopped making knock-knock jokes, and had finally opened the doors, and Sans saw her for the first time.

There was a scar on his right cheek.

"The human really did a number on you, didn't they?"

It was all the human's fault. Almost every single monster in the Underground blamed the human for them being trapped down here, and they wanted the human dead. Except for Papyrus.

He still believed in the human.

"How many times have you died?" Sans asked, lying back down. He was too tired for this, or maybe that was just the feeling of sadness, or maybe just an excuse to be lazy. 

"Forty seven times." Papyrus said. It held no real emotion. It just was a number, the number of how many times he had died, the number of how many resets the human had caused.

"And you think they're really going to change?" Sans asked.

"Yup."

~~~

The Hall of Judgment. Sans had started to hate the place. He knew that he had died here, all forty seven times.

Time to make that forty seven a forty eight, I guess, Sans thought. The human walked in, the cold steel of the knife reflecting light. Their sweater was matted together with blood and monster dust.

And that meant Papyrus had died forty eight times. It took a moment for Sans to feel anything. It almost felt like it didn't matter that Papyrus had died. They were just going to reset again, and kill them again, weren't they? And there was no one to stop them, no was strong enough and they were just going to be stuck in this endless loop of deaths and resets.

"Forty seven times, huh kid? You really like that reset button, don't you?" Sans asked. They didn't reply. Sans looked at them for a moment. The human, one that was barely his height, this was the abomination that had torn the Underground apart, killed Undyne, killed Papyrus, killed everyone. They had killed everyone forty seven times.

"Why do you do this, kid? I know if you're bored, you might reset, but why do you kill everyone?" Sans asked. They didn't answer. There was an angry silence in the Hall, from both the human and from Sans.

"This isn't real for you, is it? It's just some game. We're not real things, with feelings and families and pasts, are we? We're just your play things, and you just want to find every secret in this place, don't you?" Sans shouted in a burst of anger. He at least expected an emotion on the human's face, but it seemed that their face was permanently fixed into a sick, twisted smile.

"It's because you're selfish. You want to rule this world, to do everything over and over again, because why? You're bored. And it doesn't matter if you have to kill everyone forty seven times to entertain yourself, it doesn't matter if you have to commit genocide, for Asgore's sake, because nothing matters but yourself." Sans spat. It was true, and he wished he could stop the human, but their soul was stronger than anything they had encountered before, more powerful than Asgore with seven human souls.

"Wrong." the human murmured.

"What?"

"Forty eight times." they said, letting their fingers trace the outline of the bloody knife, staining their fingers red and grey with blood and monster dust.

"You haven't killed me yet." Sans hissed through clenched teeth. Of course they were going to kill him. What was stopping them this time, good old number forty eight.

"Oh, but I will."