Chapter Text

Soon after the Underground went empty, all the lights began to flicker. The Core fell dormant as switches and safeguards went off in its inscrutable innards, as if that great machine had somehow detected the monsters’ escape, the quiet they left behind. Elevators sputtered, and lurched, and became still. Across New Home, lamps and lightposts buzzed and dimmed, leaving the city to be illuminated only by the swathes of luminescent fungus that crept across its strangely organic architecture. TV screens became useless squares of black glass; the MTT Hotel’s riot of color fled. And Snowdin’s own warm light – the buttery yellow that had shone through the inn’s windows, the Christmas bulbs strung up along its sign – faded as well, leaving the town muted and leaden under the softly falling snow. All that could be heard was the sighing of the wind, and the distant babble of the streams nearby.

Then, gradually, a new sound. Crunching footsteps, two by two, underlined by a persistent, cantankerous mutter:

“…blatant bipedalism, is what it is. Whoever designed that capital ought to be smacked. ‘Ooh, look at me, I’ve got hands and thumbs and everything, suppose I’ll put a thousand doors all over the place just so those no-good four-leggers can’t go anywhere without giving themselves a blasted concussion.’ There should’ve been a law…”

Through the snow and mist emerged an ominous silhouette, all twitching mandibles and ornate horns. Then the fog parted and Gyftrot pushed his way through. All four of his eyes were squinted with fatigue, his legs shook, and his head was bowed – through that last one may have been due to the four loaded satchels hanging from his antlers. After all the time spent trying to get Snowdin’s teenagers to stop hanging their garbage on his head, now he was forced to decorate himself. It was so funny he wanted to cry.

When King Asgore had finally given the all-clear to leave the Underground, the commotion had been tremendous. Even from his secluded hideaway in the Snowdin woods, Gyftrot had practically felt the ground rumble underfoot from the stampede of monsters ready to see the sun for the first time in centuries. But as far as he was concerned, the sun wasn’t anything to scream about, it was big and hot and so full of itself that it left for half the day and didn’t even tell anyone where it was going, and getting a look at that nonsense wasn’t worth the trouble. So he’d stayed behind, and cherished the opportunity to finally go for a walk without some juvenile ne’er-do-well creeping up behind him and affixing a festive wreath to his face. He’d been completely alone and having a wonderful time.

But then, of course, supplies around Snowdin Town had started running low, and he’d had to go elsewhere for food. The Ruins had been picked clean, oddly enough, so that just left the long, muddy, hot, exhausting hike to the Capital every few days, which, for all its vaunted architecture, was a pain in the backside to get around for the quadrupedally-inclined. And that wasn’t even getting into the confounded tree roots snaking all over the Underground these days – apparently the tree itself had just popped up out of nowhere after the barrier broke, so big that the cavern behind the King’s throne room could barely fit it, and now you couldn’t take a dozen steps without having to clamber over some knotty length of wood heaving out of the ground.

Gyftrot stopped on Snowdin Town’s main street and angled his head this way and that, the satchels swaying like wind chimes. The snow was piling up in ever-deeper drifts, but besides that, the street had gone bare; even the Christmas tree had been taken away, probably stripped of its decorations and retired to somewhere in the woods. That was a shame. He would’ve been glad to smash the horrid thing to splinters himself.

The Librarby door was open a crack. He huffed out steam and trotted over to it, gingerly pushing it open further with his aching forehead.

No one there. The library’s selection of books had never amounted to much, but the townsfolk had picked it clean before leaving for the surface; even that awful, off-tempo clock had been taken off the wall. But a few new books were on the shelves now, most of them textbooks, their spines rippled and water-warped. They’d been arranged with exacting neatness, tallest to shortest. One of them lay open on the reading table next to a spiral notebook and the oblong glass of an MTT-brand lantern (“Sparkle Up Your Night!” ™). The lantern was unlit, but in the dim ivory light that came from outside, Gyftrot could make out arithmetic problems on the paper, rows of numbers that quickly gave way to lashings of frustrated scrawl.

He grunted, awkwardly gripped the doorknob in his mandibles, and pulled it shut.

Further down the road. He had to stop and brace himself against the gusts of wind and stinging snow; the climate in this part of the Underground was never too welcoming, but it seemed to be getting even colder than usual lately. The Snowed Inn stood stalwart against the weather, its façade chalked with frost. The front door was shut tight. With effort, Gyftrot angled his head up to the second floor. The windows there stared out blindly.

“Hey!” he called. “You home?”

No answer.

“Come on, don’t make me knock! I’ve been opening doors with my face all day and I need a-”

Then he looked down and saw the front door was already open.

Even now, that little habit gave him the creeps. There were a lot of slightly off-putting things about the inn’s newest, and probably last, resident, but the way he opened doors was somehow the worst – it could have hinges covered with a decade of rust and wood so splintery it’d fall apart if you looked at it cross-eyed, but if he opened it, it’d glide open smooth and quiet as an oiled ball bearing on silk. If it was magic, then it wasn’t any kind Gyftrot had ever seen before.

The entrance was only open a crack. On the other side, a stripe of impenetrable dark. Gyftrot sidled up to it. He felt unseen eyes bore through him.

“Made another supply run,” he said. “Got some things here…couple books, pen and paper, a few cartons of Sea Tea, some of those candy bars you like. The usual. Here.” He offered his right-hand antlers to the darkness. “These two bags are yours.”

Silence again. The kid never thanked Gyftrot for these gifts. He barely ever spoke at all, which was exactly why Gyftrot liked him. But after a moment he felt the weight lift off half his head, and looked back to see a small five-fingered hand pull back into the shadows, the skin marble-pale. The door swung shut again.

“Hey, wait, wait!”

Against his better judgement, he knocked his head against the door before it closed completely. That unseen stare turned piercing.

“I, uh, just wanted to let you know this’ll probably be the last of it. I’m leaving soon. The Underground, I mean. Going to the surface.”

Still no answer. But the silence somehow became accusatory.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Far as I’m concerned it still probably won’t be all that great, but I’ve gotten my share of peace and quiet down here. I’m going a little stir-crazy. Talking to myself. Talking too much. I didn’t talk this much when we first met, did I?”

The silence indicated that this was probably the truth.

“Besides, it'll start snowing up there soon, and I don’t want to make that hike through this stuff.” He stomped on a nearby snow poff with one spindly leg, then shivered as the gale picked up again. “Hey, do you mind if I pop in for a couple of minutes? I’d like to get out of this chill. Be nice to say goodbye properly, too, don’t you think?”

The dark remained voiceless. But after a moment, Gyftrot felt that penetrating gaze leave him. He stepped forward, hesitantly, and then pushed open the door.

The inn’s lobby was empty, covered in a veil of murk. The walls groaned as the wind hammered against them, but that was the only sound – the kid had presumably gone back upstairs, but try as he might, Gyftrot couldn’t even hear a creaking plank in the place. He’d met ghosts that made more noise than this.

After a lot of effort and several swear words, he wrestled the last two satchels off his head and left them by the entrance, then went to the foot of the stairs and looked up. There were more lanterns off to the side, but they were all unlit, so that the staircase turned all but invisible less than halfway up. He gulped and took the steps one at a time, carefully feeling his way through the dark. Of the rooms upstairs, one had its door slightly ajar. Reddish-orange light spilled from its outline like fever.

Gyftrot began to say something, realized no one would answer, then shook his head, steeled himself, and stepped into the room.

“Oh…hey, this is actually pretty nice.”

The Snowed Inn had been left mostly untouched during the monsters’ exodus, so all of the furniture here was intact – the twin bed, the nightstand and table, the faded pink carpet with its delicate heart embroidery. Even with its new resident, it was largely unchanged. The lamp in the far corner had flickered out, of course, but several more MTT Lanterns filled the place with their soft, warm glow, and the only other additions consisted of Gyftrot’s offerings, books and juice cartons and chocolate bars that had mostly been reduced to bare wrappers. These artifacts were arranged on the table and in the corners of the room with punishing neatness – the books stacked perpendicular to the table corners, the Sea Tea arranged geometrically besides the door. Even the candy wrappers were stacked with that same neurotic precision.

The kid was on the bed, sitting crosslegged, already chewing his chocolate. His tattered green shirt stood out in sharp contrast to the lanterns’ light, and under the ragged curtain of his hair, dark eyes watched Gyftrot impassively.

“Hi,” Gyftrot said, for want of anything better.

The kid gripped the candy between his teeth, broke off a piece with a sound like a snapping twig, and kept chewing.

He looked familiar, somehow, but Gyftrot was certain they’d never met before the Underground had gone empty – he’d have remembered anyone with this attitude, not to mention that stare, the eyes flat and cold as two specks of mud. He hadn’t been so frosty when Gyftrot had first stumbled across him, though. He’d been on his way home when he’d noticed the entrance to Grillby’s open a crack, and poked his head in to see the kid, a bent-limbed green smear against the bar’s back wall, picking up and examining the glassware with clinical efficiency, several root beer and cola bottles already liberated from Grillby’s old stores. Then he’d stiffened up, and turned to see Gyftrot there in the doorway, and while he still hadn’t made a sound, he’d practically cleared the bar in a single leap and started smashing against the back exit so hard that Gyftrot still winced a little to think about it. The kid couldn’t leave that way – it was the fire door, after all, and he wasn’t made of fire – but he’d looked as if he’d have been happy to light a match and solve that little problem himself until Gyftrot had calmed him down. He’d seemed to relax a lot after being assured that they were the only two monsters still down here.

They’d mostly kept to themselves after that. The kid must have occupied his time somehow, since he wasn’t always at the library or at the inn, but Gyftrot quickly gave up on trying to find out his hobbies, as well as his name, age or where his parents had gone – any questions shriveled up and died under that glowering, oppressive muteness of his. He took Gyftrot’s supplies, and left the empty satchels outside the inn when he was done with them, but other than that he was so unobtrusive that it was like he didn’t exist at all. Gyftrot couldn’t have asked for a better neighbor, at least until the Underground’s newfound emptiness had started to gnaw at him.

The kid continued to stare. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to start conversation. The chocolate bar was already half-eaten.

“You should be okay fending for yourself,” Gyftrot volunteered. “Everyone pretty much just grabbed what they could and took off, there’s enough food and stuff in the Capital alone to last someone a hundred years. Just got to be careful not to fall down, or something.”

There was a sound like a clogged drain. It took a moment for him to realize that the kid had just laughed.

“Something funny?”

“No.”

The voice toneless and harsh as radio feedback. The kid’s face hadn’t changed a jot. The way he stared made all of Gyftrot’s eyes try to turn in different directions.

“You could come with, if you want. I won’t let you ride me or anything, but we could figure something out.”

“I’m staying.”

Worth a try. “Yeah, that’s fair. I’m still not looking forward to all the hustle and bustle up above, but I guess there’s worse things.”

“You might find some of them.” He took another bite, chewed, swallowed. “Remember why everyone was trapped underground in the first place. The surface is the humans’ world. Monsters don’t stand a chance up there.”

“Nah, everyone’s doing okay from what I heard.” The kid’s brow rose. “Yeah, I didn’t tell you, but we actually got a visitor a while back – Muffet, you know her? Eight limbs, big on pastries, giggles way too much? She came to get the last of the spiders out of the Ruins, even brought along a couple of Vulkins to keep ‘em warm. That girl gives me the creeps, honestly, but she sure knows how to throw her weight around.” The kid’s eye twitched. “Sorry, I’m rambling. Anyway, I ran into her on the way out and we chewed the fat for a little while. Apparently she’s got her own bakery now. Partnered up with Grillby too, they do catering. I don’t know who to pity more, him or their customers.”

The kid didn’t say anything, but Gyftrot got the impression that he wanted something more. He tilted his head as he tried to remember.

“Uh, let me see…well, those two idiot skeletons became monsterkind’s ambassadors, whatever that means, but the tall one does all the talking and the short one does all the work. That last part’s hard to believe from what I know of him, but whatever, could just be rumor. That Snow Drake punk actually started trying to do standup, God help him, the kid’s jokes could peel paint. Oh, and Madjick’s a street magician, which really rubs me the wrong way. We’re monsters, all of us can do magic anyway, but he puts on a stupid hat and says ‘hocus pocus’ a lot and suddenly he thinks he’s better than-”

“What about the Dreemurrs?”

Gyftrot stopped short and blinked. His mandibles flexed in surprise. As far as he could recall, this was the first time the kid had ever actually asked a question.

“Well. Hmm.” He cleared his throat. “They’re all right, I guess? King Asgore’s still doing kingly stuff, trying to get everyone settled in. Muffet said he’s a gardener at the Queen’s school, too. I guess we have a Queen and she has a school? Go figure.” He shrugged, or came as close as one could to shrugging without shoulders. “Their kids go there, too. You know, the human and the other one who came back from the dead or something. Don’t even ask me how that happened.”

The kid finished the chocolate bar and held the depleted wrapper in his hand. His face had turned downcast, but Gyftrot didn’t notice.

“No idea how it’ll work out, humans and monsters under the same roof, but they seem to be getting along okay so far. I met the human once, he was nice enough. Took some stuff off my head.” Gyftrot stopped, looked back at the kid, and squinted. Then his eyes all widened. “Hey, that’s who you remind me of!”

The candy wrapper crackled in the kid’s fist.

“Yeah, it’s been driving me crazy since we met. But you do sort of look like that human who fell down here. Even though your clothes aren’t-”

“I think you should leave now.”

The words dried up in Gyftrot’s throat. The kid’s voice was the same as always, no change in pitch or inflection or intonation, so he wasn’t sure why it suddenly sounded like the wind blowing off ten thousand miles of ice.

“…sorry,” he said at last. “You’re right. Shouldn’t bend your ear like this. I’ve got to get going anyway.” He took a couple steps back, and added, “My other two bags are by the front door. You can have them. Should be enough in there to keep you going for another few days, at least.”

“I don’t want them.”

“Well, I’m not going to throw my back out trying to hook my antlers on the stupid things again, so you’re stuck with them. Toss them into the snow if you want, I don’t care.”

He turned and grabbed the doorknob in his mouth, then heard:

“You were alone.”

Gyftrot looked up and glanced behind him. The kid was looking away now, regarding him out of the corner of his eye.

“If anyone asks, that’s what you say. Don’t tell them you saw me.”

“Sure. You want your privacy. I get it.” He paused, then turned around again. “You really should think about leaving, though. The Underground’s got nothing left. I mean, I stuck around to finally get some time to myself, and I got it. Why are you still here?”

The kid stayed quiet for so long Gyftrot thought he was being ignored again. But then, in a voice even lower than usual, he said, “I don’t know.”

And that was all; no further conversation seemed forthcoming. Gyftrot sighed, opened the door, and left. As he descended the stairs, the light from the kid’s room narrowed and vanished. He’d closed the door behind him. As usual, it hadn’t made a sound.

Gyftrot stepped out into the cold and started for the woods outside town – one last trip to get his den tidied up before he took off for good. As he walked, he stole a glance behind him at the Snowed Inn’s windows. Through the frost-smothered glass he thought he saw a silhouette, one hand pressed up against the pane.

Then the wind gusted again, and drove fresh snow into his eyes. He winced, looked away, and kept walking. The snow ate up his outline, and over the next few days it did the same for his footprints, all evidence of his comings and goings through Snowdin Town. He left like the rest, and didn’t come back.