You take a deep breath and exit the large doors, cold winds greeting you as you take your first steps outside the ruins. The doors shut behind you, leaving you stranded with no choice but to move forward. Even if you were layered up with the old clothes you found, the chilly snowfall made you wish you didn't have to leave. Alas, with nothing left to eat, you had no choice but to wander the rest of the Underground.
Hugging your arms close to your chest, you marched toward a strange... fork in the road? At least with the way the pillars stuck out of the ground and spaced too far apart, it made it too impractical to be anything but a design of some art piece.
"Weird..." You pass through the pillars.
"HUMAN!"
You jump three feet forward, startled by the loud voice behind you, or rather that someone was living down here at all. Turning your head, you make out a tall shadow approaching. Seemed to be a man, but why did he cry out human?
Has it been a long time since he saw another person?
"Hello?" You nervously called out.
"GREETINGS HUMAN!" His appearance revealed the closer he got. "I AM THE GREAT- ER- I AM THE KING, PAPYRUS!"
When he stood before you, your eyes immediately glanced to the top of his head, a crown sat around the white base. Seems Papyrus is a kin-
"OH DEAR HEAVEN WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!?" You took several steps back when you saw that this king is but a walking skeleton. "How are you alive?"
"GOOD QUESTION HUMAN," Papyrus said. "HOW CREATURES ARE ALIVE IS SOMETHING I'VE HEARD MK WONDERING ABOUT FROM TIME TO TIME, I STILL DON'T HAVE A REAL ANSWER..." The king rubbed his chin. "BUT I BELIEVE IT IS BECAUSE WE HAVE A SOUL!"
"..." You stood there, wide-eyed and speechless. He both misinterpreted and answered your question. This corpse got a soul still, cool. "How... long have you been... a skeleton?"
"THAT'S A RUDE QUESTION TO ASK HUMAN. AFTER ALL I, THE GREAT- I, KING PAPYRUS, HAVE BEEN A SKELETON ALL MY LIFE. I BELIEVE WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO ASK IS HOW OLD ARE YOU." He seemed assured that he had corrected your question to make sense. You blinked and blinked again, watching him ramble on about asking his brother how old he is.
Is this real?
A living skeleton in front of you. Talking. Moving. Never human to begin with???
What did you walk into?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"AH HERE IT IS, [NAME]." Papyrus gestured to the strange area with red circles and rocks.
After Papyrus had explained to you that monsters are indeed real and that all humans are required to solve puzzles, you followed behind him as he guided you to your first puzzle. Introductions were made properly, and after he reassured you that you didn't need to address his highness so formally, you arrived at the puzzle.
"What am I looking at?"
"THIS, HUMAN, IS A PUZZLE." Papyrus went over the rules, but you just seemed even more lost than before. Mid-sentence, he noticed your scrambled brain and put a hand on your shoulder. "WORRY NOT [NAME], I'VE DONE THIS BEFORE, AND I'LL GLADLY SHOW YOU HOW IT'S DONE."
Papyrus walked around the rocks in such a way, turning the red circles into green triangles. Once he turned the last one and stepped out of the puzzle, he pressed a button in the snow, and it reset the puzzle.
"NOW YOU TRY TO TURN THE CIRCLES INTO TRIANGLES."
"Okay..." You hesitantly place your foot onto one of the circles, and instantly it switches to a triangle. That really messed up your brain. You rubbed your eyes, hoping that would help it adjust.
Not thinking too hard, you walk around the puzzle. You were doing great until you had turned all the circles into triangles and trapped yourself in the middle. The problem didn't cross your mind til you turned to leave and turned a triangle into an X.
"YOU WERE VERY CLOSE HUMAN."
"Do I have to restart it?"
"PRECISELY!" Papyrus hits the restart button.
"That wasn't a guess, but okay."
You redid the puzzle a few times, Papyrus encouraging you every step of the way. The same process follows when he introduces you to the other puzzles. Oddly, his words of encouragement brews warmth in your heart. Going through the puzzles finally became fun, at least until your stomach growled.
Reality smacked you with a brick to the face. The reason you left the ruins. You needed to find food.
"ARE YOU HUNGRY [NAME]?" Papyrus asked, noticing you holding your hands over your stomach.
"I... I forgot I was."
"SILLY HUMAN, HOW COULD YOU FORGET YOU'RE HUNGRY? YOU SHOULD NEVER SKIP MEALS," Papyrus lectures you. He doesn't realize he's the reason you forgot, best not mention that. "LUCKILY FOR YOU HUMAN, WE WERE ABOUT TO HAVE A SPAGHETTI BREAK! COME ON."
You follow the skeleton over to four tree stumps. Two small ones sat on opposite ends of a large table-sized stump, and a microwave sat upon the fourth. Papyrus put something in and turned on the microwave, and you took a seat on one of the smaller stumps.
"YOU KNOW HUMAN, I HAVEN'T HAD THIS MUCH FUN DOING MY DUTIES IN A LONG TIME," Papyrus says as the microwave hums, you smile. "IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE A HUMAN FELL INTO THE UNDERGROUND SO THESE PUZZLES HAVEN'T BEEN USED AND I WAS GETTING WORRIED THEY WERE GETTING RUSTY, BUT THEY'RE STILL AS GOOD AS NEW!" Papyrus exclaimed, shining that cheerful smile you've gotten to know.
The microwave hums on, and as slowly as the snowflakes fall, Papyrus's smile drops.
"[Name], May I Be Honest With You?" Papyrus asks, turning to you. From the way he's fidgeting with his gloved hands, something is clearly weighing on his mind.
"Go ahead," you nod.
"I... I Haven't Had Fun In A Long Time. Not Just Doing My Duties, But In General..." He looks off, his mind calling back memories. "When I Was Crowned King Of The Underground, IT WAS GREAT! MY BROTHER WAS THERE, AND THERE WAS A CEREMONY, AND A PARTY! EVERYBODY LOVED ME! AND I HAD FUN... I WAS SAD That My Other Friends Weren't There, But Sans Said There Were Just On A Well Deserved Vacation. AND GOOD FOR THEM! THEY WORKED REALLY HARD! But It's Been... 10 Years Since They Left For Vacation... Sans Tells Me He Gets Calls From Them From Time To Time, But Strangely, It's Always When I'm Busy... They Never Answer When We Call, And I-"
Papyrus stops himself, afraid to vocalize his thought out loud. The microwave beeps and pulls out a plate of spaghetti. He sets it in front of you and takes his seat. You taste the dish and wonder if it is even spaghetti, but at this point, you were too hungry to care, and you didn't want to comment on it when the skeleton is already spilling out his feelings.
"I Think Sans Is Lying To Me To Spare My Feelings..." Papyrus rubs one hand over the top of the other. "I Don't Know Where They Are... Or Why They're Away... But I Wish They'd Come Home By Now... I Miss Them... I Want To Be Around Everyone Again..."
Water drizzles out of the skeleton's eye sockets. It looks so wrong. Someone so cheerful and friendly should never have tears running down their cheeks.
Alright. Some people think that the monsters are forcing Asgore/Papyrus/Sans, whoever the current king is to kill. I personally don’t think that happens.
The endings, even when a lot of people die puts more emphasis on hopelessness than human murder, unless Undyne is in charge. I suppose that could just be Sans concealing information.
Asgore seems to think that killing you must happen. That could be a result of outside pressures, or it could be him making an awful choice for reasons that are understandable, personal, and not justified, and feeling that he needs to continue. Because he can’t have done it for nothing.
But if a lot of the monsters really want you dead? Not just killing by accident, because humans and bullet patterns don’t mix the same way monsters and bullet patterns do? Well. That makes a lot of murder seem more justified.
Not the genocide/no mercy route. The Whimsuns can’t hurt you. Monster Kid is a child. Hunting down monsters to fulfil a quota is just immoral. Evil. But a lot of murder, sure. I mean. They want you dead. They’re probably trying to kill you the whole time, why not give them a taste of their own medicine.
This is more for any Frisk that might be stuck without a player. Players can turn the game off. But really. They’re trying to kill a human, who they either know is a kid, or could figure out is a kid, if they bothered to do some research. Just because the player is puppeting around a child doesn’t make them any less okay with killing the aforementioned child. Seems a bit like justice, to kill those that would kill a child. Even if they can be convinced.
(Ring... Ring...) Bapstablook: "Uh... I-is anyone there...? No...? I'll just... Leave a message... It's been awhile... Toriel, Undyne and Asgore all disappeared in the night... Poor Hap... He was traumatized... Both him and Maddy are in therapy... Blooky and I are holding down the fort fine...! Anyways... Papyrus became the king... And sentenced his brother, Dr. Gaster, to death for helping you... It's really sad... Anyways... Goodbye...!" (Click...)
