VOXISTALE: Novel Edition

Chapter 6

4 Years Ago . . .

"Hey," Frisk smiled as she crested the hill, coming to a stop near the mouth of a cave which led to the sunken ruins of what was once the underground city of monsters, now collapsed due to the eruption of Mt. Ebott. Two others were there already. A skeleton monster, several inches taller than her, and a flower donning a cartoonish face beside him. Both held serious expressions, but tried to appear friendly as she arrived.

"heya," Sans replied with his usual greeting. "thanks for comin'."

Frisk's smile faltered. Sans and Flowey could never stand to be near one another, yet here they were . . . not to mention they were the only two with knowledge of her abilities. That meant this secret conversation Sans had called her to had something to do with her powers of Determination.

"What did you guys need me for?"

Flowey scoffed lightly, rolling his eyes. "You already figured that one out. We don't need to spell it out for you "

"look, we just . . ." Sans paused. "we've all sacrificed a helluva lot to get here. this is the truest happy ending we've ever achieved, despite the eruption, and . . ."

Frisk gulped. "And you think I might reset," she finished for him.

"Might!? Ha!" Flowey laughed, before popping into the ground and reappearing at her feet, rising up to get eye-level with her. "You've always reset. Why is this time any different?"

She stared back at him, expression blank for several moments before she formulated her reply. "Because . . . even if I wanted to . . . I can't."

"can't? what do you mean you 'can't'?" Sans inquired curiously, frowning- or at least the grinning equivalent.

"I mean what I said. My powers stopped working after we broke the barrier. I can't SAVE, or LOAD, and I definitely can't reset. This is the last timeline, whether we like it or not."

Silence befell the trio for several long moments, Flowey and Sans clearly processing this information. "Maybe . . . someone else has stronger determination now?" Flowey suggested, raising a brow. "Same thing happened to me shortly before you fell underground."

Sans shoved his hands into his pockets with a shrug. "nope," he stated. "only one of her souls can exist at a time. until she's gone, this is it."

He paused, eyeing her. "you sure you can't access your save file?" She gave him a nod, holding out her palm. A black, transparent, two-dimensional box appeared in front of her as Flowey slunk back to Sans.

The options SAVE and LOAD were present in the box, yet both were dull in color, and when she pressed on 'SAVE', simply nothing happened.

This seemed to satisfy the skeleton, who grinned widely. "cool. then that's that."

"Just like that?" Flowey spat. "There's something wrong here! It's not supposed to do that!"

"not my problem. the longer it doesn't work, the better."

With that, he turned around and walked away.

Present Day

She felt . . . cold.

Numb.

Afraid.

Alone . . .

. . .

Why did she feel this way? Frisk had slaughtered her dear friends hundreds upon hundreds of times over in another life. In countless other lives. She'd turned Toriel to dust so many times without a thought, and now here . . .