A/N: Trigger warning for suicide. Please proceed with caution.

The moment you saw the sun, you fell to your knees. The rocks bit into your bare legs as various wounds on your body stung. A sob tore from your throat as you felt the other lost children's souls disappear, lost in the grasp of the barrier when you had used up their final gift to you. You shuddered and pressed your face to the sun-warmed rock as tears made their way across your face. Your fingers dug into your shirt and held firm as you trembled.

You were free. You had finally left the Underground. You didn't need to worry about being killed anymore. You didn't need to keep running. You can finally rest.

But this place made bile build in the back of your throat. You forced yourself to your sore feet and kept moving. You needed to get away from this place. You just needed to get down the mountain.

One step at a time you moved forward. You brushed urgently at the layer of dust coating your clothing. The very sight of the thin clouds wafting into the air around you sickened you to your core. At least those monsters managed to get out.

You gave a small laugh to yourself and then bit your tongue. That wasn't funny. You were maybe a bit hysterical.

You couldn't feel your legs moving, but you were still proceeding forward. Your foot slipped on a loose rock and you fell to your knee, scraping it. You forced yourself back to your feet and kept going. You limped some, feeling the blood run down your leg. You wiped at your eyes. You were still crying. Every breath hurt. You didn't want to breathe in the dust.

There was a city in the distance. It reminded you of your home. Should you go there? Should you go home? You didn't have any money left. All you had was gold. Maybe gold would be enough. You didn't want to go back home. You still remembered why you had left in the first place. You had been in the Underground for a long time. Longer than anyone on the surface would even guess. But you had made it out alive somehow. With this strange power of yours, you had somehow managed to do what no other human child had done: escaped the Underground alive.

But at what cost? You had done what you'd had to. You had, despite every bone in your body screaming against it, killed. There were now piles of dust where there had been living creatures. And it was your fault. It was entirely your fault.

But you had needed to do it. It was like Flowey had told you: in that world it was kill or be killed. And you had killed so you would not die. Flowey's laugh still mocked you, echoing in your ears.

Mountain slopes began to turn into grass and dirt. You made your way through the trees blindly, unable to recognize your surroundings. Your feet found some kind of path through the underbrush that you followed. You were tired and thirsty. Your mouth felt dry. It was hard to breathe. You kept moving forward.

Those monsters...they must have had families, right? Other monsters who had loved them? You had discovered Snowy's father. Waiting for his son that would never return home. A broken family, shattered to pieces at your hands.

You wondered about the monsters in the Ruins. Had they noticed the lack of Toriel's presence? The kindly old woman who had looked at you with such hope as you accidentally murdered her. Back then you hadn't known that FIGHTing her would kill her. You hadn't tried to kill her. You had tried to talk to her like she had taught you, but it had done nothing. She had kept attacking you. And you were reminded of Flowey. He had warned you. So you had attacked. And you kept attacking her. You just needed to prove that you were strong enough to survive without her help. If you had proved your strength, she would let you leave.

You hadn't meant to kill her.

You stared in disbelief as you stumbled across the bus stop. The place where all these ideas had begun. The beginning of your adventure. And now the end.

You approached the bench and sat down on it. You must look quite the sight in your tutu and your dented frying pan. You hadn't used the items you had found in Asgore's house. You had thought it would just anger him. You had left them where you had found them. You didn't like the idea of taking anything from a grieving parent, no matter how evil a king.

But Asgore hadn't been evil, had he? He had been nice. And that was the horrifying part. Toriel had warned you to watch out for King Dreemurr. She had not warned you that he was repentant. That he didn't want a war. That he just wanted his child and his wife back. But they would never come. Both of them were dead. And you had to make the terrible choice to take his life too.

He had begged you to, though. He had told you to take his life and escape the Underground. The monsters, despite how many times they had killed you, had still been so terribly kind. Even in his last moments Asgore had just wanted at least one child to leave happy. You hadn't wanted to. You didn't want to kill anymore. Your soul was sick with death. You had never liked death in the first place, but you had been quick to deal it out. Were you a coward for choosing to SPARE the soul on one who no longer wished to live?

The choice had been taken from your hands.

A bus pulled up. You didn't know how long you had been sitting there on the bench. The sun was still setting. You didn't know if it was just taking a long time or if you were just lucky with how quick time seemed to be moving. Maybe time was fast-forwarding to catch up to all the times you rewound it. Who even knew?

You climbed onto the bus and paid with a gold coin. It was worth far more than the amount that you would usually pay, but you didn't care. You took a seat in the back, ignoring the looks you were receiving. You curled up in your seat with your head pressed to the window and stared at the mountain as the bus began to drive. You tried to ignore the trembling of your limbs.

You hadn't killed everyone in your path, but you wondered if that would've been a mercy. A voice in your head had coaxed you to do it each time you were confronted with a monster. It would be easier to just kill them. Killing became easier with each successive death. It hurt you less. They died quicker. They didn't have to suffer. You didn't have to suffer.

But you didn't do it. You had tried other methods when you could. There were times, though, when you couldn't. Where you had no choice to fight because of the magic that locked your SOUL. Or when there was nowhere to go without first killing the monster in your way.

All of those dogs. Undyne. Even Papyrus. People who had stood in your way. And no matter what, you had killed them.

The mountain gave way to a beach. How long had you been traveling? The sun was low in the sky now. It was on the horizon. You hadn't realized there was a beach on the other side of the mountain. The fiery colors reflecting off of the water blinded you. You blinked away the tears and kept staring. The bus pulled up to a stop. Without thinking, you got off.

The humid heat coated your skin. The sun was in front of you. You couldn't stop staring. It hurt your eyes. You looked down at the sidewalk that led down to the beach. You had never been to the beach before. Your parents had never taken you. You had never considered coming here alone. You had never considered what lay beyond Mt. Ebott. The mountain had scared you too much.

Your feet ached and complained as you moved forward. The sand made you stumble because you weren't used to such loose earth. Still you kept moving until you reached the water. The salt coated the inside of your nose and tongue. You licked your lips and jerked back as you tasted dust. The texture was soft, like sand ground down into the finest powder. You nearly vomited.

You fell to your knees instead and desperately tried to wash the dust away. You couldn't stand it. You couldn't stand the thought of their deaths. Their voices haunted you. You began to cry again.

Some of those monsters had been so kind. Papyrus, for example. From the moment you saw him, you had liked him. He and his brother were so silly with how they had interacted. Papyrus liked puzzles and didn't attack you when he saw you. It seemed more like he had wanted to play. He had wanted a friend.

But while actually fighting him, he was so tough. You had tried everything, but you couldn't convince him to stop fighting you. And you couldn't get past him. He had captured your twice, and no matter how kind he was, you needed to get past him. You needed to leave the underground. So you had attacked. He was so strong. He didn't seem to mind. He seemed glad to have a challenge even as he talked about your date with him.

The date never came.

You never saw Sans again.

He hadn't deserved that, you knew. You knew that Papyrus didn't deserve to die. You regretted it from the moment you had killed him. Every person else after him had not been so kind. And you wished that you could've just taken it back. But you hadn't been Determined enough. You didn't know how to load a SAVE back then. By the time you had learned, it was too late.

The dust wasn't coming off. It seemed like it coated your hands. You scrubbed harder, but it only made your hands ache. You wished that you could just rip the skin off. Anything to get the dust off of you. You didn't want to see it anymore.

You couldn't stop crying. Why did you even bother to escape? You had known that you had wanted to die. You had wanted to die when you had climbed Mt. Ebott. Why bother calling it "disappearing"? You had known what you were doing. But the moment you faced actual death, you had struggled. You had raged against it. And you had killed so you would survive.

But why? Why did you even bother? Your life, despite all that you had gone through, was still the same. You were a burden to your parents still, you were unwanted, and now...now you were a murderer. You had destroyed other people's loved ones. You were disgusting. You were the worst.

So why were you still alive? You didn't deserve to live. You should just go back. You wished that you could do it all over. Your last SAVE, though, was before facing Asgore. You couldn't take back everything that you had done. You had to live with your mistakes.

Or maybe you didn't.

You climbed to your feet and walked out onto a nearby boardwalk. You needed to do something. You couldn't live like this. You didn't deserve to. You needed to go back. If you died, maybe you could start over. Maybe you could try again. Force your SAVE to go back further. Try harder. Rewind time further. You would give anything. You would give everything if it meant that you didn't have to live the life you had anymore. If it meant you could fix your mistakes.

You stood out on the edge of the boardwalk and climbed over the railing. You clung to it loosely and hoped there was nobody around. The gold was heavy in your pockets. It was deep here, you knew. There were boats docked near where you were. You just needed to sink. It was just like falling into the underground again.

You closed your eyes and took your final breath before dropping down. The weight of your clothes, the items in your pockets, and the gold dragged you downwards. You couldn't swim well. You had never been properly taught. The water surrounding you scared you. The salt burned your eyes, making you squeeze them shut.

Would this be enough? Would this kill you? Your lungs were beginning to burn. Your body hit the bottom of the water. With your eyes closed, the ocean was endless. You could push off of the ground and claw towards air. But you didn't. Your items held you down. The weight of you LV choked you. Air escaped your lungs, and water flooded in. You gasped and struggled.

You didn't want to die. Death scared you so much. You had died so many times. There had to be another way.

But that was the thinking of a different human. That was the thinking of the primal part of you that didn't consider what few options you had left. You needed to die.

Your vision was going black. You opened your eyes and saw the distorted sun on the water. Bubbles surrounded you. You thought of Waterfall. You thought of Toriel. You hoped it was enough. You hoped, as your mind began to fade, that you would be able to change this fate.

The thought of going back and fixing everything filled you with

DETERMINATION.

A/N: I wanted to write an angsty oneshot. This isn't as...colorful as I would've liked it. I'm not even sure I really like it. But it was a nice exercise, so I thought someone would enjoy it.