Frisk entered the doorway into Helios Station. The inside was a deep blue color with what looked like circuit-board lines strewn around everywhere.
"Ready?" Alphys said through the phone, "This is it! Take the transporter to the control room."
Frisk walked forward to what seemed to be a set of elevator doors and pressed the button to the side of it, but nothing happened.
"What? The transporter should be working..." Silence followed after Alphys as she seemed to think on what to do next. "W-well then! Go to the right and keep heading up!"
Frisk broke away from the transporter to go through the right doorway, on the other side of which was simply a pit filled with some flames.
"Alright," Alphys said, "now just keep heading up! W-wait, that pit isn't on my map. Eh, forget it! Let's try the left side!"
Frisk backtracked to the first room and went down the left doorway this time instead.
"Okay, you should be able to make it through here-" Alphys said before being interrupted by a Monster popping out of a hat that had floated in and began approaching Frisk aggressively. "W-watch out!"
The Monster had two orbs adjacent to it, one of which, at the mention of a work from the Monster, shot after Frisk. Frisk rolled out of the way and ran toward the Monster, hearing the orb still following him. As he got close to the Monster, Frisk rolled to his right again, attempting to get the orb to hit the Monster instead of him. As the orb got close, it stopped almost instantly, and went back to hovering where it was. In response, Frisk clenched his fist and punched the Monster as hard as he could, causing it to fly backward, turning to dust on the way.
"Th-that was close..." Alphes and Frisk said at the same time. "Wh... why are there Monsters here?" she then asked rhetorically, before regaining her composure. "I mean... It's no problem, r-r-right? W-w-we've just got to keep heading forward!"
Frisk finished crossing the corridor to a greatly ornamented doorway and passed through it. On the other side of the doorway was a sharp turn right followed by an extremely narrow bridge with three innate lasers guarding it. At the head of the bridge was a force field along with a switch.
"Looks like you can't proceed until you hit the switch." Alphys said, "B-but, those lasers will activate when you do." Frisk could then hear the shuffling of papers and the typing on a keyboard through the receiver. "Ummm... Looks like they'll come in this order: Orange. Orange. Blue. G-got it? Move until the third one!"
Frisk approached the button and pressed it. The force field disappeared, but the laser ports activated and rotated at Frisk, who began moving, but stopped when he saw the first one was actually blue, along with the second one. When the third one came, Frisk saw that it was orange and tried to move, but for whatever reason he still felt a jolt of pain as though he was on fire as the laser passed over him. Seeing that the lasers were now clear of the bridge, he crossed.
"Oh my god..." Alphys said when he was across, "Are you hurt?"
"Just a little bit, though it's not that bad." Frisk responded.
"I... I'm so sorry, I... I gave you the wrong order."
"Alphys, it's fine."
Alphys remained quiet, however, likely blaming herself for Frisk's injury. Frisk proceeded down the corridor, eventually coming to a crossroads.
"A crossroads..." Alphys finally said, "Uhhh... Tr... Try just heading straight."
Frisk passed the branch in the path when Alphys corrected herself.
"W-wait! No, I think you should h-head left!"
Frisk looked at the two options. He wanted to believe Alphys, but his gut was telling him to just continue straight. In the end, Frisk decided to trust his gut, and continue going straight. Eventually Frisk came to another bridge guarded by many, many active lasers.
"H... huh? I... I guess this was the right way." She paused for a moment before continuing. "M... more lasers... Okay, I... I won't mess around this time. I'll just deactivate the lasers and let you through." Frisk could then hear a lot of tying through the receiver before there was silence for a moment. "They're... They're not turning off... I can't turn them off, I... I-i-it's okay! I have this under control! I'm going to turn off the p-power for that whole node. Then you can walk across." Next thing Frisk knew, everything went dark as the lights and lasers shut down. "Okay, go!"
Frisk wasn't wasting any time and began running as fast as he could across the bridge. When he was almost across, Alphys suddenly yelled "W-WAIT! STOP!", but Frisk wasn't going to do that, and kept running. A second later, the light in the area began flickering on, and the lasers began re-activating. Seeing this, Frisk dived for the end of the bridge, now within reach. Mid-dive, the lasers re-activated, clipping Frisk, sending a sort of frozen feeling through the affected parts. He then hit the ground just past the bridge.
"Oh my god, are you okay!?" Alphys questioned, "I-I c-couldn't keep the power off long enough..."
"I-it's fine, Alphys. I'm fine." Frisk reassured her as he stood back up and began walking again down the path. "We're almost to the end, right?"
As he walked, Frisk reached a massive, thick wall with an opening that led into an incredibly bright room that had the distinct smell of ozone.
"O-ok. It looks like you've made it passed the defense area and are now in the Helios Array. You should now go... I-I don't know... My map of the Helios Array is corrupted. I'm sorry... I... I... I have to go." Alphys said before the phone suddenly lost the call.
Frisk walked forward a bit, finding a full crossroads. There was a notice on either side of the path in front of him, though both contained the same strange letters Frisk saw back in the Citadel and Waterfall Caves. Looking down the paths as far as he could, Frisk decided to go forward till the end, to see what was there.
Eventually, by simply continuing forward and ignoring all other paths leading left or right, Frisk found a much darker room with a bridge spanning a very dark gap just after a sharp right. As Frisk began to cross, he heard a mechanical beeping noise, followed by a winged, mechanical humanoid swoop down from the ceiling and land on the bridge.
The winged android held a spear in one metal fist, and a set of strange circles resembling a target on the back of the other fist. Another deep beep later and the circles began glowing an ivory color, and the android held said fist out in front of it as though it was holding a shield, then began approaching Frisk. Frisk in turn ran up to the android and attempted to punch it, though as his fist approached, it was suddenly stopped by some force before it had passed the android's fist. The android then pulled its spear back a bit. Seeing this, Frisk jumped backward as the spear lunged forward, narrowly missing him. He then backed up to the very back of the room, far away from the android. In response, the android brought up its spear, and threw it at Frisk, who ducked out of the way. The android brought up its wings in response and leapt at the spear. Taking opportunity, Frisk made a mad dash across the bridge.
As he crossed, he saw what appeared to be a red switch on the other side of the bridge.
So that’s what they’re guarding. Frisk thought just as four mechanical spikes appeared from over the bridge, two on each side, jabbing themselves into the ground, causing Frisk to stop. When he stopped, two of the spikes disappeared over the edge again, and a large mechanical beast appeared from over the edge on the side the last two were on, spinning around on one of its spiked legs and landing on the bridge, back facing Frisk. It then turned around to face him and roared a horrible mechanical roar at him before trying to jump on him. Frisk leapt forward to avoid the beast before it landed on him and ran towards the switch again.
As he neared the end, hundreds of silvery rhombuses shot past Frisk and assembled a wall at the end of the bridge and began glowing off-white. Looking back, Frisk could see that the android only had the 'bone' of its wings left, and that both the android and the mechanical beast were approaching, ready to kill. Frisk cracked his knuckles and began to charge the machines when a sudden bombardment of something battered Frisk to the ground, sending him sliding back to the silvery wall. When Frisk looked to see what had happened, he saw a massive floating orb-like machine with horns coming out its top and a giant eye in front levitate down from the ceiling, floating just above the bridge. The orb machine fired some sort of blast at Frisk who was struggling to stay standing and using the silvery wall as support. Frisk, now coughing up blood, stood back up to face the three machines. Seeing his death approaching, Frisk, who's eyes began glowing red, focused all he could into breaking through the silvery wall, and rammed through it. In the process, the rhombus edges cut Frisk up heavily, as though he'd rammed through glass, and collapsed into a bloody mess. Once on the other side, Frisk crawled over to the switch and, using the wall as support as he stood up, brought his fist down like a hammer right onto it. Once he'd done this, the switch turned from red to green, and the machines became docile, heading back to where they had come from.
Frisk leaned his back against the wall to rest for a bit. This switch must obviously go to something important, otherwise why would these machines be guarding it so fervently? Frisk thought as he sat there. After a while, he stood back up, and re-crossed the bridge, this time not under attack from the defending machines. Once back in the area that glowed like the sun, Frisk wandered for a bit, eventually finding another bridge, this one crossing a pit that also glowed immensely. Once on the other side, Frisk found two doors, one with an intricate design above it, the other being similar to the transporter door he found when he'd entered Helios Station.
This must be the control room. Frisk thought to himself. He looked inside but could only see darkness. Guess this is it. Frisk thought as he walked into the dark depths of the control room of Helios Station.
Blurb
The Balagoun brothers’ ten-year plan for taking the citizens of New London to a new life on Mars following the apocalypse is about to become a reality with the approaching launch of the first test flight, but equipment, supplies and energy are going missing, conspiracy theories are rife, and it seems as if not everyone wants to leave the Earth anyway.
To take their places as leaders of…
Jack, a middle-aged man with a mop of black hair and a long, black coat, stood up from his hiding place within the bushes. He was the most wanted man in Athens, yet despite that, he'd just finished breaking into jail, talking with someone, and breaking back out without anybody but the inmate, William, being the wiser.
Crawling out from the bushes just outside the police station, Jack started to make his way back to his home, which was located in the western-half of the north-east quadrant of Athens. Along the way, his thoughts were flooded with a young boy he'd seen earlier that day, near the Underground Hole's wreckage. It looked as though he'd been looking for someone, and had been quite visibly upset about whatever news he'd learned.
Poor lad. Jack thought as he walked, his stride rhythmic and measured. At least your friends support you.
His walk back home was short, at least when compared to other trips. The police station William was being held was only in the north-western quadrant, so he lucked out on being within a couple miles. Climbing the stairs of the apartment complex, Jack pulled out a key and unlocked door #4. Stepping inside, he closed the door and hung his coat on the nearby rack. Walking down the hallway, he reached the main room, then went down another hallway off to the side, opening a door when he reached it.
On the other side, in the column of light that entered the room from the door's opening, was a small child, who was sitting with her back in a corner and her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Jack entered the room and approached the girl.
"Hey," he said, offering a hand upon reaching her. "are you okay? Come on, it's time for dinner."
The girl looked as though she hadn't heard him. Jack simply remained there, his hand still outstretched and his friendly demeanor unwavering. After a minute, the girl slowly unfurled and took his hand. Slowly and carefully, Jack led her out to the main room, where the girl then let go and sat at the table, while Jack made his way to the fridge.
The girl was young, probably no older than eight. She was almost entirely skin and bones, had long brown hair, and hadn't spoken a word in the three weeks since Jack had found her. At almost all times, she stared down at the ground, her mouth agape, and her eyes empty. Her skin was pale, though Jack suspected that that was an unnatural side-effect of being chained in the Underground Hole for what was probably years. She was broken. Physically. Mentally. Spiritually. Jack wasn't in the least bit surprised. He was simply thankful that, in the few weeks since he'd rescued her, she had been slowly healing.
Jack pulled a small bowl of rice from the fridge and tossed it into the microwave for a minute. When the timer beeped, he pulled the bowl back out and gave it to the girl along with a spoon.
"Here you go." he said, sitting on the other side of the table afterwards.
The girl slowly looked over at the rice, then began eating it. Jack simply watched from the other side. As she ate, Jack caught sight of the dark-red scabs that still covered her outer left forearm. A pang of guilt rushed him upon seeing them again.
A few days after he'd rescued her and had begun taking care of her, the girl became responsive to him. It was first out of fear, terror, yet she didn't scream. A few more days, and she became used to him. It was around that time that he'd made the mistake of asking her for her name. As usual, she didn't answer. Later that night, however, Jack had walked in on the girl with a knife, carving into her own arm. After he'd taken the knife away and cleaned the wound, he could read that she'd carved letters there.
"A-L-I-Z-A"
Jack had no idea why she did it. He still had no idea why, but he felt it was in-part his fault. What terrified him the most out of the entire ordeal, however, was that the girl didn't flinch or wince whatsoever, as if the pain didn't bother her.
A few minutes after she began, Aliza finished the rice, placing the bowl carefully back on the table. Seeing this, Jack stood up and offered his hand to her.
"Let's get you cleaned up."
Aliza stared at Jack's hand for a few seconds before taking it, after which he guided her to the bathroom. Once inside, Aliza stripped off the one-piece dress she wore—her only article of clothing, despite Jack's attempts at getting her more clothed—and climbed into the shower stall. Jack hated to be here, to see her like this, but the last time he left her to bathe herself, Aliza curled up in one of the corners and sat there until he came to check on her hours later. The long dress Aliza wore hid much of her body beneath its pale-yellow cloth, but the evidence of her past was written on her very skin where the dress covered it. Evidence of claw marks and tears covered much of her back, chest, neck, and inner thighs, with bruises still covering parts of her pelvic region. Tattooed onto her labia majora was a heavily ornate butterfly, whose thorax was the vaginal opening.
Ignoring her scars and his seething hatred rising again, Jack turned the water on and pulled the showerhead from its mount. Opting to let Aliza bathe herself as much as possible, Jack mostly sat back, making sure that Aliza actually cleaned herself rather than curling back up into a ball.
After about fifteen minutes and a few direct interventions and assists from Jack, Aliza had finished bathing, drying, and dressing herself. Once done, Jack guided her back to her room and tucked her into a bed in one of the corners, leaving her to sleep. He then went back to the kitchen, where he grabbed a roll of crackers and sat back down at the table, crunching on one. As he sat there, his mind drifted back to the scene of the Underground Hole when he first found Aliza.
Jack walked along, covered in blood, dragging the maimed, struggling body of a sub-Human bastard by his hair, his blood-choked screams echoing through the posh halls of the high-rising brothel as his lungs slowly filled with his own blood. As he walked, his eye caught sight of an elegant wooden door that had a butterfly carved into its upper-center.
Kicking the door open, there he saw her—Aliza—strapped to a metal ring by her arms and legs, her body making the shape of an "X". Next to the door was a guard, who quickly had Jack's knife embedded within his throat. Looking further in, he saw a "customer" standing near the girl, still fully erect, looking to the door to see who had been so rude to interrupt him, yet still hadn't processed the blood-soaked psycho dragging a body behind.
Seeing the "customer", Jack immediately reacted by letting go of both his knife and the body he dragged and lunged himself at the new bastard. Sitting at the kitchen table, Jack gave a wide, tooth-filled smile alongside a chuckle of pleasure as he remembered the thrill of tearing that thing's balls off with his hand and squeezing the life out of him with the other. His memory then jumped to him untying the girl, throwing a cloth over her, and carrying her out in his arms as the building's lowest key supports vaporized and the structure collapsed in on itself. As the emergency responders took care of the smoldering remains, Jack carried the girl home.
He ended his trip down memory lane by reviewing the last few weeks of him taking care of Aliza and helping her recover from the actual hell she'd lived through while she was trapped within. Closing his eyes, Jack then drifted off to sleep.
William sat squarely on his knees, his hands bound behind his back with chains. Looking up and around, William thought about how some Asshole had erupted into his warehouse and beat him and his friends down to the ground, only to come back later with Frisk and some fat skeleton in tow. He turned his attention to them.
Frisk and the Asshole whispered something between each-other as the fat skeleton watched William and his two friends with sentry-esk interest. After a minute of their jabbering, Frisk looked back at William, whispered something again to the Asshole, then stood up. The skeleton then pulled out their phone and stuck it to the side of their skull. After a few minutes, he approached the two Humans again.
"The police are on their way." he said. "Let's get you two out of here."
In the next moment, all three of them vanished, leaving William and his friends alone in the warehouse.
"'ey, William," one of his friends called. "wasn't that Frisk?"
"Yeah. It was."
"Who were those with him?"
"I dunno." William shook his head, chuckling a bit. "Some new friends he made in that hole, I guess."
As soon as William finished speaking, the skeleton reappeared, carrying a hotdog.
"Hey, boneboy. Bring me anything?"
"Nah. Just got myself a weiner. I do hear that's your favorite food, though. Wanna taste?" The skeleton pulled the sausage from the bun and held it out to William suggestively, winking his right eye.
William didn't answer. Apparently taking his silence for a "no", the skeleton slotted the sausage back in the bun and continued eating. After a few minutes, the sounds of police sirens told everyone in the warehouse that the police had arrived. Once voices could be heard coming from out front, the skeleton disappeared once again.
After another minute, the large sliding door of the warehouse cracked open, and a few officers came pouring into the room.
"William?" One of the officers called.
"Down here, Phil."
Phil walked to the back of the warehouse, where William and his friends were chained up.
"Now look at wha'chu got 'urself into."
"Not my fault. Some self-righteous jackass with some strange power just barged in here and chained me down. Any tighter and it might have been nice." William chuckled.
Phil turned back to the other officers. "Unchain these three men and take 'em to the station." He turned back to William. "I'll take William with me. Danny, Andrew, you two take his friends."
Doing as directed, the officers unchained William and his friends and escorted them outside to their cruisers. Once stowed away, the officers began making their way back to the station.
"So Phil," William said after a minute. "what's going on? September has been... terrible."
"You too, huh." Phil said, lighting a cigarette as he drove. William held out his cuffed hands, and the officer gave it to him, lit another, and took a puff. "Yeah, ever since the Underground Hole went down in a massive heap of brick and metal, shit's been crazy." Phil then chuckled a bit. "But even so, it's not all been bad. Moon killed Rosa last week, so nobody will care much if you just... left your cell tomorrow."
"Rosa's dead? Heh, serves her right. That's what you get for trying to be a clean cop in this city." William said, sucking on his cigarette.
"Yeah, but there's more bad news. Seems that the Monster ambassador, or whatever the hell he is, isn't too happy with Athens's situation, and wants the city cleaned."
"You're kidding. He can't do that, can he?"
Phil took another puff. "Apparently he can. The Arista has agreed to increase clean law enforcement starting next month."
"I don't believe this. Why the hell would the ambassador give a damn what happens here? Who is this jackass anyway?"
"Some snot-nosed kid named Frisk, I think."
William jerked up upon hearing that.
"What's up. You know 'im or somethin'?"
"No." William said after a few seconds.
Phil eyed William for a second more before turning back to the road. After another minute, William spoke up again.
"So where's Steven?"
"Back at the station."
"Testing the alcohol content of various liquors, no doubt."
Phil chuckled a bit. "Nah, he's actually doing police work. Filing reports to Sparta and all that."
"Tsk. Paperwork. He drew the short-straw today, huh."
"Heheh, yeah. Wouldn't wanna be in his place today."
As the two finished talking, the police car turned into the station's parking lot. Upon parking, Phil and William stepped out of the car. William took one last suck from his cigarette before tossing it to the ground and crushing it under his boot. Phil then escorted him inside, storing him in a cell.
"I'll leave you 'ere tonight, and in the morning, I'll 'accidentally' leave the key here. Be sure you high-tail it outta here before ten."
William sat back on the hard metal slab that made up his bed, shifting the ragged beige blanket down to one side and fluffing up the mostly deflated pillow on the other.
So Frisk is the ambassador to the Monsters, huh... he thought as he took the blanket and beefed up the pillow with it. I wonder... if Frisk found them in Mount Ebott. And if so, I wonder if the Arista knew. Is that why the mountain was always off limits?
William huffed after a minute and got comfortable—at least as comfortable as he could on the hard, cold metal—and went to sleep.
William's eyes slowly slid open. It was bright out, as if it was already mid-day. Blinking a bit, William soon found that he was looking up at a monotonous pink surface. He blinked a few more times and lifted his arm to his head. Lifting his arm, he felt a strange, wet sensation leave it as it left the ground. This time lifting his head, William turned it to look down at what he was laying in, spotting the expressionless face of a woman staring up at him. Caught by surprise, William shot up and jumped away, looking back once he'd landed back in the liquid.
The woman, who was completely nude, was beneath the liquid, floating in it, though seemingly unaware of where she was. Seemingly unaware of anything, in fact, as though she were dead. Looking through the liquid, which looked to be water, William saw more women floating in it, just like the first. Some of the women had gashes carved into them, some had obvious bruising in some places, like around their neck. All of them, however, had heavy bruising covering their entire crotch. Among the women, deep in the water, were two children, standing out among the other bodies in that the children were wearing clothes. Catching sight of the children, William broke his gaze away from the water below.
"Hey Will!" a high-pitched voice said from behind him.
William immediately shot around, his eyes wide with terror. Behind him was a small boy with olive skin facing... him. Another him, that is. Another, younger William.
"Oh, hey kid. What's up?" Young-William said, smiling down at the boy.
"Look what me and Aliza made!" the boy said.
"'Aliza and I.'" Young-William corrected.
"Right. Look what Aliza and I made!"
The boy was holding a small, cardboard structure that was vaguely shaped like an animal.
"Wow," Young-William said, taking the structure. "this looks great. Is it a giraffe?"
The boy nodded. "Yup. We read about them in one of those books. Did you know that they're the tallest animal?"
"No, I had no idea."
"What? Whatever, I'll bet you did know."
Young-William chuckled. "You got me."
William stared at his younger self and the boy with wide, fearful eyes. A crash of glass pulled his attention from the pair to another vision—this one of his younger self alone in front of a sink and mirror, now cracked.
"How is this possible?" the new William said to himself. "Three years? It must have just been a dream, right? Yeah, it never happened. I'm just confusing reality. But then how does Frisk and Aliza remember too? Shared dreams?" Young-William grabbed the back of his head and propped his arms on the sides of the sink. "Arg. This is giving me a headache."
The scraping of a chair against the floor pulled William's attention to another vision. Young-William was sitting on a chair, staring down at the floor.
"Fifteen years. I think, at least." Young-William said, his tone low and his face effortlessly expressionless. "I wake up again, and it's 2010. Again. For the sixth time." Young-William let out a deep sigh. "I haven't told Frisk or Aliza that I remember too. They probably think they're crazy. Maybe I'm the crazy one. Dreams, I tell them it is. Just dreams. Why, for my own sanity?" Young-William dropped his face in his hands. "For what? Does it even matter. Does anything even matter? Why should I work to build something up if I know, someday, without any warning, it'll all just... reset?
"I'm so tired of this. I'm tired of working every day like nothing is wrong. I'm tired of pretending nothing is wrong. I'm just... tired. I'm tired of taking care of others. I'm tired of being selfless, having nothing for myself. Why don't I just indulge for once? It's not like anything would change when it all reset, right? I could probably kill myself and it wouldn't make a difference; just wake up when it all reset again." Young-William began to chuckle. "Yeah, why not. Frisk and Aliza would come back just fine when it all resets again, I could just dump them like garbage on the street. Then I'd be free to get myself killed with all the selfish indulgences I want!" His low chuckling began to rise in tone and ferocity. "It's perfect. And when it all resets again, I just tell them it was all a bad dream and that none of it actually happened, just like I've been doing anyway. It's perfect. It's perfect! It's perfect!!!"
William was drawn from the vision by the rumbling of a door behind him. Tearing his eyes from his demented self, he saw the silhouette of a child standing in the light of a tall, metal door.
"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU, WISEASS!?" The new William shouted from between his two friends.
What the... when... was this? William thought, for once watching the vision with interest rather than terror.
The silhouetted figure stumbled forward into the room William and his friends were in.
"What? Frisk lived through that!?" William's friend said.
"Yes, William, I did." Frisk responded coldly.
Vision-William just stared for a second, trying to compose a response. "How the hell did you survi—" He then spotted the dagger that Frisk was holding. "What's that for? You angry or something!?"
"You could say something like that." Frisk said, pulling the dagger up to his face.
"Look, bro, if this is about kicking you down that hole, I'm sorry about that. I wasn't myself."
"Just like you weren't yourself when you abandoned me and Aliza on the street like some bag of trash!? You were supposed to look after us after mom and dad died."
"I LOOKED AFTER BOTH OF YOU FOR FIFTEEN YEARS!!!" Vision-William shouted before covering his mouth.
Frisk stopped moving. "Y-you do remember!"
"What are you two idiots doing, get him!!!" Vision-William commanded his friends.
His friends dashed forward to restrain Frisk, but both were swiftly cut down by Frisk and his murderous rage. As one of his friends slowly choked on his own blood, Frisk approached Vision-William.
"W-what kind of monster are you?" He asked.
Frisk stepped closer, though as he approached, his eyes turned black and pus-like black fluid poured out of them, along with his mouth. Vision-William faded, along with the room, but Frisk remained.
William, who had so far been watching the vision with confusion, saw the disgusting deformed face of his brother and stepped back. Frisk didn't hesitate, shooting forward with great momentum and planting the knife straight into William's face.
William shot up from the metal slab, his skin cold and moist, and his breath out of control. William grabbed his chest with his hand, feeling the rapid beats of his heart as it pounded away like a war-drum.
As he slowly steadied his breathing, his heart rate slowly fell too, until it was finally running at a steady beat. Despite the pounding in his chest running slow again, his head pounded all the same, as though the heavy beats from his heart simply relocated to his brain.
Ignoring the pain, William looked around. He was still in his cell, at least he was pretty sure he was. The surrounding area was dark, though the city lights shone some light from his barred window.
As he sat in the dark, rubbing at his temples to try and alleviate the pain, his mind reviewed the day's events. How Frisk, along with some asshole and a skeleton, had delivered him and his friends to this cell. He reviewed the memory a few more times in his head before the pain finally began to lift.
"You're angry, aren't you."
A hissing whisper said.
William looked around his cell again.
"Who's there?" He asked the darkness.
"Someone who wants to help you, though if you must call me something, call me Beauty Queen."
"Beauty Queen?" William gritted his teeth. "That's a stupid name. What do you want?"
"As I said, I wish to help."
the answer came, its speaker choosing to be ignorant of the insult.
"Though as I have answered two of your questions, answer one of mine. You're angry. Angry at Frisk. Angry at yourself. Angry at the world. Your hedonistic way of life, though stemming from your nihilism, is threatened to end without your desired reset. You can't just lie your way back, and you are powerless against the whimsical nature of the universe."
"What is your question?"
"What if I could help you gain the power to perpetuate your current state of existence for as long as you want. Would you accept my help?"
"What? Power? What power?"
"The power to bend this world to your will. Even take control of when it resets, and to when it will reset to. Imagine it, you would be unstoppable. You could do anything you like."
"Anything... I like..." he said, the possibilities already sprouting in his mind.
"Don't listen to it, Will." A new voice said from the darkness.
William looked back around his cell. Even through the darkness, he could make out something that wasn't there before. Something—no, someone—new.
"And who are you?"
"My name is Jack. Pleasure to meet you."
William eyed Jack closely. He was a tall, white man with a mop of black hair clad in a long black coat.
"And what do you want, Jack?"
"What do I want? Hmm, a question that has changed as many times as I've asked it myself. Right now, I guess the answer would be to settle my debt."
"Your debt? And what would that have to do with this place? Is that why you're here?"
"In a fashion, yes. Though if you're asking if I was jailed for this debt, the answer's no. I'm still wanted."
"Then what are you doing in my cell?"
"I'm here because of you."
"Me?"
"You're at a crossroads, William. I promised someone who helped me a great deal that I would do whatever they needed, and they told me to be here at this moment, to make sure you made the right choice."
"You've gotta be kidding me."
"No, I'm not. When I spoke, you were talking to Beauty Queen, yes?"
William looked around the room, trying to find where this "Beauty Queen" had disappeared to.
"You won't find it here."
"It?"
"Beauty Queen. It's not here. It spoke directly into your mind."
William scoffed at Jack's statement.
"You don't believe me?"
"No. Why should I? Spoke directly into my mind? Are you crazy?"
Jack didn't answer. Instead, he simply brought up his hand and summoned a flame just above his palm.
"Whoa!" William yelled. "How did you do that?"
"Magic. The very same magic, in fact, that Beauty Queen was no doubt just promising you."
"If you have it, does that mean you accepted the power it gave?"
"What makes you think that? Besides, the power it gives isn't yours. It belongs to a parasite that it puts on your SOUL to feed on it."
"A parasite... on your SOUL."
"Yes. You don't believe me on the existence of a SOUL, do you?"
"No. Can't say that I do."
Jack sighed. "Unfortunately, I can't show you that. You can only see a SOUL if you've trained in magic, even slightly.
"I can tell you want this power that Beauty Queen offers, but the price for that power is far greater than you think. In order to gain it, you need to murder. This growth comes best from those close to you. The parasite will twist your reason and your purpose, until you're nothing more than a murderous machine."
"Like I care. Besides, it's not like it matters anyway. Tomorrow could never come. For all I know, I could be waking up back in 2010."
"Is that what all this is about?" Jack asked, his brow cocked. "You became what you are now because you think it'll all just erase?"
"Well why not? Everything else I did in those lost years was reverted. All those people I raped and murdered; it'll be like it never happened when it all becomes 2010 again."
"It won't become 2010 again."
William's cocky smile fell. "How do you know?"
"Because I finished what I kept resetting for."
William's eyes widened. What is he talking about!?
"I believe I owe you an apology, Will. You see, I was the one who kept making it 'become 2010 again'. And I see now why he wanted me to come here..." Jack said that last sentence more to himself than William. He then looked straight at him. "I can't reset anymore. That power has moved on. It moved on just before September started, at the end of the day the Begierde building—the Underground Hole—exploded."
"Was that you, too?"
"Yes. It was."
"But... that means you're..."
"The Mad Man. Correct."
Jack stood up. William just stared at him, slack-jawed.
"I'm not here to kill you, Will. At least not yet. I'm here to tell you to reform yourself. When the morning comes, and you 'escape', do not go back to your criminal ways. If you do, I'll know, and I'll kill you." Jack then reached into his pocket and pulled out a golden ring. "If you really do want the power Beauty Queen offers, take this. It will unlock your magical potential." He then handed the ring to William, then stepped over to the window. "I've been blocking Beauty Queen from talking while we talked. When I leave, I have no doubt that it will attempt to convince you otherwise of the things we spoke on. Do not listen to it."
As soon as Jack finished speaking, he disappeared in a flare of red energy.
William sat alone in the cell, staring down at the ring he'd been given. As soon as Jack vanished, Beauty Queen hissed in William's ear again, but he wasn't listening. Eventually, he fell back asleep, to dream on these revelations.
