28 - New Home

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The elevator goes up for a loooooong time.

It's quite possibly the longest elevator ride Finn's ever been on. And, burdened with all their thoughts about what lies ahead, it feels even longer.

Because, well... how do they stop the human? How can they defeat something that can just reset time and come back good as new? The only solution... well, it seems like the only solution is to somehow convince the human to stop by themself. Finn told Sans that they believe that even the worst person can change. The human must be able to change.

But.... how?

The elevator finally slows to a stop, then gives a friendly little ding! and slides open. 

The outside... is gray.

Finn quietly exits the elevator, the dummy floating close behind. They're in a corridor now, a corridor that's completely gray. The brick walls are gray. The floor is gray. Behind them, the closed elevator doors are gray. The corridor stretches out in front of them, completely and utterly gray. At the end, the walls cut off, exposing a clear view out of the building. A view composed entirely of gray structures and gray cave walls.

It's incredibly depressing. What's more depressing is the realization Finn comes to as they walk closer to the exposed wall and get a better look at the towers and pillars looming outside: they've seen those towers and pillars before. Back in Waterfall, walking across a bridge with Monster Kid. Only then, they'd seemed so much more beautiful. So alive and full of color.

They're inside King Asgore's castle, somehow.

And it's depressing.

They reach the end of the corridor and turn, the bend leading down a long gray path walled on one side by a gray brick wall and the other by empty space and an incredibly gray view. It's hard for them not to walk slower and slower the farther the path stretches on. They're tired. It doesn't help that the whole place seems tired as well. Weary gray, dragging its feet on the floor, too exhausted to attempt any vestige of color.

They reach it eventually, however. The end of the path. Walls spring up on either side, cutting off the view, then suddenly widen into a large gray room, and Finn is hit with an astonishing sense of deja vu. In front of them is the gray entrance to a large brick building. Gray leaves are scattered around the ground, shriveled and tired. There's a plaque above the gray doorway.

'NEW HOME', it reads.

Finn knows where they've seen all of this before. It's an exact copy of the entrance to Toriel's home. Except Toriel's home is purple and pink and the leaves there are red and alive.

"She took the color with her," Finn murmurs softly, struck suddenly with a poetic thought.

The dummy jumps slightly in the air, then looks rather sheepish. "What?"

"Nothing." 

Unlike the door to Toriel's house, the door to this building is open, displaying an incredibly gray interior. Finn walks in, blinking in astonishment at just how similar the layout of the place is to Toriel's home. In fact, it's pretty much exactly the same in every way; the only difference is that everything here is gray.

Finn walks up to the entrance of the gigantic downward-leading staircase, a gray replica of the one directly inside the entrance to Toriel's house. There's a gray metal chain secured to the top of one side of the railings, dangling down toward the ground. There's several locks attached to it; it looks like it was meant to block the staircase, but was unlocked.

"They're... they're down there, aren't they," the dummy says nervously.

"Yep." Finn stares at the chain, then slowly moves their gaze to the staircase. "This is the End."

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