It had all come down to this ─── Everything you've worked for, you've finally reached the peak of Undertale. You'd run down every road from your own twisted curiousity, having purchased the game only weeks back - you'd come to milk the code for all it was worth. You had saved everyone from the first try; ultimately a struggle for a more-or-less incompetent gamer, but when things were simpler, so was your morality.

You remembered it well, the first feeling of watching the characters taste sunlight for the first time in years ─ It was when things were happier, it was when life was meant to be enjoyed in such a beautiful, earnest way. You remembered that night well - you had reached a goal in which you saved so many lives, and they all could live peacefully together. Even if you couldn't be a part of it ─── In the end, you remembered the tears hitting your eyes to be ones of cherishment. You watched their happy ending be fulfilled, touching the screen - hoping to feel the gentle light of the sun upon your skin just like theirs.

You were happy, and the game mirrored that.

"Your mother's growing skinner by the day,
If she catches anything as simple as a cold - she could be in serious trouble."

You remembered the car ride home. At first, you didn't feel anything - You'd been preparing for this for a while. You watched as someone you adored start to slowly rot into the ground, day by day. It was something that slowly enveloped you. It was a simple pain, and not something that effected you immediately────

However it was then that your curiousity started to delve to something disgusting.

You'd picked up that game again. Every day that she grew worse, you tried something new. You saved everyone, you killed everyone - You saved only those who were kind to you, and you destroyed the lives of the unnecessary. You rescued all the bosses, killed only the bosses - played every neutral through and watched their individual reactions,

Receiving a different phone call from Sans every time, reminding you of your sins.

Your father wasn't taking the health of your mother well. In fact, as he too grew worse - the game mirrored you. Eventually you had reached a point where you stopped seeking out different endings and lines of dialogue; you stopped searching for the items, and merely became a slave to the no-mercy route. You felt horrid at first - watching the froggit die with a horrid squeal.

But now, eyes on screen, you watch the climax of the battle take place. Your character marred to the very bone by the skeleton, having experienced more deaths than possibly accountable for what you'd done, you lean back in your chair as you watch him fall asleep.

You knew what to do next. After all, the time had come where you'd completed more genocide-runs than neutral, or even pacifist. It's what the circumstance turned you into, and now - You just watched as those small letters loomed above his head, indicating he had fallen asleep.

He was sure of himself, but you were sure of yourself more.
You edge your little cursor to the left - little, by little. You don't keep an eye on him. You didn't need to.

And now, you went down ─── Down to the attack option. He would dodge, you would kill him, and it would be over once again until you reset alongside Chara.
Your lips tighten,

As the cursor hovers over the attack option, however─── You catch something out of the corner of your eye. You hesitated to press down on the 'z' button - For right before your eyes, something flashed.

[ACT] [ACT] [ACT] [ACT] [ACT]

Thick brows furrow, and your finger twitches. This was not a part of the code - No, this had never happened before. There was a mercy option within the final battle, but never had any ACT option made itself known to you. Truth be told, you were curious─── Do you look it up, before you leap?

Nah.
Where was the fun in that?

Just the corner of the ACT box was available to you in your square─── The game's code wouldn't allow your square to move any further than left or down, so within your limited space, you throw the dog a bone and activate the new option.

* Sans

Something curious pops up in the screen.

❤ * Check

* Atone

And within that moment, hearing the scatter of your father shouting and the silence dissipating - you stare at that word and all it held out for you. Was it another round of MERCY, or was it something entirely different? You'd come so far, and shockingly, the fight between you and the skeleton hadn't grown any easier ─── You sit there, looking at that one, single, word.

* Check

❤ * Atone

And biting to your lip, you press the 'z' button - waiting almost in desperation for something new to happen. Anything. You wanted ANYTHING to happen.

Nothing does.

And within that moment, something seems to sink. Another hope, perhaps? You barely knew─── You'd completed this run so many times, you thought your fingers would grow numb from tapping away at the keys. You look back to Sans, still sleeping as soundly as he always had. What would it mean to atone?

Would it mean you would be able to erase all those lives you'd destroyed tenfold?
You reach out to the screen,

And finally, you pull away from the keyboard ─ You decide to humour the skeleton's theory. You stand up, taking in a breath - stepping away from the monitor. It wasn't gonna be your turn, ever.
But did that warrant you forgiveness if you sat besides him?

And with a shocked breath, the speakers begin to play a tune. It had been exactly four minutes since you pressed ATONE, and now, the familiar sound of 'memory' plays blissfully through your computer. You look back to Sans ── Almost as if you were frightened that music suddenly playing would wake him up, and everything you'd ever achieved would be over.

As he continues to snooze, you take a calming breath.

But before you even hold the opportunity to exhale, you open your eyes. You're not in your room, you're not in front of your laptop─── You're within a church that's lost all its light, in front of a skeleton who had blissfully dozed off from all his effort to destroy you.

You look behind, and low and behold── There lay Frisk in a similar fashion. Almost as if all their will to act had been torn out of their body, you look down at hands that had quickly grown clammy. Was this a dream?

You give yourself a pinch, just to find out───
"──F-SHiT-" The number one appears above your head - Congratulations, you've just lost one hp, smartass.

And within that moment, recovering from the previous self-inflicted onslaught─ You look back to the skeleton. A light breath enters your lungs with an unforgiving shiver, creeping up to him slowly - Perhaps it was your most idiotic move yet,

Curling up a finger, you reach slowly forward to brush the fingers along the white dome──
BUT BEFORE YOU EVEN TRY, A HAND SNAPS UP YOUR WRIST,

and before you know it, you're dangling down from his grip - those eyes boring straight through you.

"'dunno how you got here, kiddo," that voice is like a knife, running over your jugular in only the fashion a true sadist would display. That grin stretched along unmoving bone cuts into your skin with a fear unlike any other,

He displays a nonchalant shrug, before those white orbs flush to darkness,

"but didn't y'mother ever tell you not to get tangled up in other people's business?"

He must have felt caught up in Chara's tricks ── Being thrown around and around, thrusting attack after attack in the sheer attempt to stop the final threat from destroying the Underground once and for all. You look down at him, arm threatening to finally dislodge itself your shoulder - Was this atonement?

With tears rolling down your cheeks, you couldn't do anything but choke. You weren't Frisk. You weren't Chara. You were just afraid ─ And now, you were going to pay for making the last man standing go completely insane over, and over, and over again.

But pathetically, you hiccup- staring into the dark orbs of death himself.

"Ple──" Before you even hold it in you to plead, as easy as crumpling a piece of paper - your bones snap under the strength of his own. Your wrist collapses on itself, and your scream is all that fills the empty church. He'd broken your wrist, and he'd done it without mercy. If you don't do something soon, he'll kill you too────

"how 'bout you spill what you did to the kid, before we start going anywhere?"

───Just like you damn-well deserve.