You take a deep, deep breath.

You let the breath go.

In front of you, the glowing light of a false sun shines through the windows of the judgement hall. In front of you, columns stand opposite each other, and go on to the very end of your sight. In front of you, a short skeleton in a blue hoodie stands, waiting to judge you for your sins.

You take a deep breath, and you step forward.

No warning is given, strangely. The silence is unfamiliarly familiar to you, and you remember it well, but you can't place where you've heard it before. Your heartbeat is a steady pulse in your head. You have a headache from remembering what hasn't happened yet. The skeleton grins at you, and speaks. His words remind you of a broken record. The record has so much to say, and can only repeat the same few words, over and over again, infinitely.

"sorry old lady, this is why i don't make promises."

The battle begins, and you can feel your heart lift as if synchronized to your soul. It's almost over for you, for everyone.

The first wave of attacks fly towards you and you dodge them with practiced ease. You know every attack, every strategy, every possible way the skeleton can and will attack you, and you're prepared. You slice through the air with your weapon, and he dodges it easily. You knew about that, too.

As the battle continues, a nervous sweat sends small chills down your body, and your heart beats ever faster in your chest. You know everything that will happen, and you know what you're going to do next. Your knowledge terrifies and relieves you. Because of it, nothing after this will ever be the same.

To everyone who knows, this is old news. To everyone who knows, the skeleton, the flower, Chara, all of this is predictable. The countless endings you have made happen, the unlimited beginnings you have started, they've all been done before.

Nothing is original anymore.

Nothing is interesting to you any longer.

Everything is pointless to you, all their deaths no longer have any meaning.

But their lives have always meant so, so much.

Your hand hovers over the fight button, It drops. You turn towards the mercy button and hit it with all the energy you haven't had for so many resets.

You open your arms as the giant skull in front of you opens its mouth and lets a bright blue light build up in its maw.

You take a deep, deep breath.

Blinding shines through the windows from the inside of the judgement hall.

…

You wake up for the first time on a soft bed of joyfully yellow flowers.

You feel watched, and you smile.

It's finally time to finish this for the very first time.

You follow Toriel, your face carefully neutral. She leads you through the ruins just like she never did before. You find your way to her little home and you just as easily find your way out. You don't have even a speck of dust on your clothes as Toriel hugs you in a tearful goodbye. You close your eyes and embrace her with all the warmth you can muster, and as she walks away, you look back, just for a second, before walking out of the door of the ruins to greet a certain little yellow flower.

A toy knife lies unforgotten in the ruins.

As you meet Sans and Papyrus, their antics do far from fail to make you smile and laugh. You're full of joy and completely devoid of fear, and the brothers only seem to brighten at your sunny disposition towards them. Who wouldn't be happy when someone your own race fears so terribly turns out to be so innocently happy?

And you were innocently happy, what could've happened to make you less so?

You smile, and as you reach the end of your meet up with Papyrus, he smiles back.

You leave Snowdin.

As you enter Grillby's with Sans and sit down for a chat, your surroundings seem so much brighter, not dampened by suspicion and doubt. You leave Grillby's and Snowdin again feeling much warmer than before.

Waterfall seems a lot smaller than you… thought. Though your clashes with Undyne, the captain of the Royal Guard, are fearsome, and your meticulous attitude towards your surroundings makes for a lengthened journey, the experience seems to end so quickly. Your new friend Monster Kid seems to think otherwise; he'd had the adventure of his life. You envy him, almost.

Before you know it, you've already finished fighting Undyne, and you've entered and exited her now burning house. The cooking lesson she'd held went by so quickly, but that was to be expected with her… fiery personality.

When you meet Alphys, you can't help but brighten up even more. The scientist seemed so… cheerful? You can't say how this is different, you can only see her personality reflecting off of her like the light on her shiny yellow scales. Bright, but still empty somehow.

Of course, along your journey the plot twist does come. You cannot say with certainty that Alphys' secrecy was a surprise to you. You love Alphys; you love Mettaton. You can't say you feel very betrayed at all.

You enjoyed Hotland, of course. The intense coloring contrasted so much with Waterfall, and while Waterfall would seem to inspire feelings of serenity and nostalgia, Hotland held emotions so fierce that they took your breath away better than the heat ever could. But, quite alike to Waterfall, the realm seemed to end so quickly. Time flies fast, doesn't it? Too fast. Not fast enough.

Mettaton's battle was- is your favorite. A difficult, heated moment that stretched blissfully long. You always love to pull out your dancing shoes; you feel like a movie star. The fight really is picture perfect, and it even has a happy ending.

Well… mostly happy.

As Alphys leaves you with the painful knowledge of your soon-to-be murder of ASGORE, you can't help but think her happy ending couldn't come quickly enough.

As you meet with Asgore, the exhaustion in his gaze is more prominent than you could've imagined. He looks at you with a smile, but you can see the miserable resignation in the crinkled skin around his eyes. To Asgore, no ending seems like a happy one.

But, when you beat him, as he speaks of the joyful possibility of a family with you, you can briefly feel a hope reignite within him, only to be inevitably shattered by Flowey, along with his soul.

Flowey… hurts you, deep inside. You look at him, and you see the sharp end of a knife, pointing at your throat. You look at him, and you see the willingness to kill and torture, just for fun. You look at him and… despite everything, you still see yourself.

Flowey takes the human souls and uses reality like his personal plaything; he reloads and erases, kills and destroys everything, and you need it to stop. You have to make it stop, before it goes on forever, and you know exactly what to do.

The human souls, even once they start helping you, make you sadder than you ever thought you could be. Even once you save everyone, you can't save them. They've been out of your reach since the beginning, and all you can do is let them help you, and help them let go.

So when they do help you, and Flowey's giant grotesque form is gone like it never even existed, you have to wonder where they are. You'll never know… well, maybe you will, some day.

Flowey sits in front of you, beaten and bruised, with ragged petals and a piercing gaze that dares you to finish what you've started.

You've never been very good at doing that.

You spare him, over and over again, and it takes all you have because when you look into this pathetic creature's eyes you see yourself, and you don't think you deserve what you're giving away. Mercy.

He doesn't understand you. You grimace. You don't really understand yourself, either.

He runs away… And comes back, telling you about something you've missed.

This is obviously suspicious, but you find yourself not caring at all. The ending has to come soon… And this isn't it. A phone call wasn't what you've been striving for; it's not what you're still alive for.

You have to set things right.

So, you go along, and you finish what you've started. Alphys and Undyne getting together… You look down, and you smile. They always belonged together… You wish it had been a surprise when they finally confessed.

The true lab… true in its ways, definitely not. Who knew how long it had been down there. Dust collected over long forgotten memories, and burdens carried by only one, by two, remained. It's strange, the amalgamates were the only happy things left in that lab.

Finally you could return to where it ended. This time, all of your friends are there. You watch them speak, your smile almost genuine, and wait for the inevitable to happen. It does, right on schedule.

Flowey is… you find yourself having mixed feelings about Flowey. You never know whether to be endeared or disgusted by most everything he does.

This time, as you look at the God of Hyperdeath's vicious grin… you still don't know.

As you fight him, you can't… You can't feel that sorry for your friends. They… you already know they'll be fine. You hate yourself, you wish you didn't know; you want to be as oblivious as you've been acting, but… you can't. You can't, and nothing can ever fix that.

But…you didn't come here to fix things for yourself.

You breathe hard, fighting with every inch of your being to save Asriel, your friends…

Asriel…

… Chara. You're doing this… Because they need you more than you do. You're doing this because even after all of the terrible, indescribable pain you've inflicted on them, your friends, who you know would never call you their friend were they to know what you'd done… you love them. You're doing this because despite everything, you love your friends, your family, and right now, they love you back.

So you fight to save them, even though you know saving Asriel… Would only damn Flowey.

But… Maybe you could change that.

Expectedly, as it seems you're about to die, Chara helps. They're helping you, but you know that they're thinking about Asriel. They bring up memories you wish you'd never seen, ones that Asriel had almost forgotten. And… he stops. He remembers.

He allows himself to be saved.

You stand there with Asriel, and you know you're not alone. Chara stands there too, but it's hard to notice them when you're not looking for them. They're invisible to everyone else. They look at Asriel with so much emotion, more emotion than you've seen on their face for a long time.

You look away. You should have known that they don't remember.

Nobody does, not anymore.

This is new to everyone, everyone except you.

That's what happens when you erase everything in a different way. Everything is the same, but completely different. Pure.

You shake your head, and you hug Asriel, thinking of Chara's expression. He wouldn't be as alone as he thinks.

You stand with your friends, gazing at a sky full of colors they truly had only seen this one time. You feel… Less fulfilled than you'd hoped you would. Empty, almost. You were hoping you'd feel something different, but that was much too much to ask. This journey that was only just beginning for your friends was now ending for you.

You know what you've done, you don't deserve any more chances. You could watch all of your friends move on, knowing that this will be their only chance, or you could be absolutely sure you could never use the ability to load or reset again.

You don't have time to choose, before Toriel looks at you with so much warmth, it nearly takes your breath away.

She asks you if you'd like to stay with her.

You've already practiced over and over again how to say no to this question you knew was coming. You would do your best to turn her away without hurting her, as you still continue to do. You don't want to feel loved, you really don't. It would just feel wrong… wrong to take love from someone you want to give it to so, so much… but you're not very good at it.

But you can see it in her eyes. She looks at you, and sees the future, her's or your's, you may never know. You look at her…

In her loving expression, you know she doesn't think she'd waste any time. And you know now that you'll have so little time left. You almost laugh at that; finally you have time to waste.

You smile at her with love you know you've gained the right way, and say yes.