Reset: Once Upon a Time

The man paused.

The wind had shifted again, quieter now, like the world was holding its breath. The rain now came faintly.

The girl sat motionless, her face partially shadowed by the mist. Her expression had changed. No longer simply listening… now she was feeling it. Her fingers clenched the edge of her book, knuckles pale. There was something sharp in her gaze now. Reflection. Unease. A shadow of guilt that wasn't hers.

The man noticed, of course.

Though his face remained hidden deep in the cowl of his robe, one could sense the shift in his presence—subtle, acknowledging. A silent question passed between them: Are you starting to understand?

He didn't wait for her to respond.

"Not everything in Hotland was loud," he murmured. "Some horrors whispered from beneath."

And the story continued.

It began with a door.

Deep in the corridors of Hotland, behind layers of misdirection and mechanical theater, Frisk found it. A plain entrance—unmarked, cold, humming faintly with electricity. Alphys hadn't mentioned it. Hadn't even hinted.

But the moment they opened it, the air changed.

It was colder.

Older.

The hallway stretched out like a forgotten limb, lined with cracked tiles and flickering fluorescent lights. The sound of dripping water echoed endlessly, though no water could be seen. Dust coated the ground—no footsteps but their own.

"Where are we?" Frisk whispered.

Somewhere we weren't meant to see, Chara replied grimly.

As they moved forward, they found the logs.

Alphys' voice—recorded long ago, brittle with shame.

She spoke of her experiments. Of trying to harness Determination. Of injecting it into fallen monsters, hoping to revive them. Hoping to bring them back.

At first, it had worked.

And then… it didn't.

The amalgamates were the result.

Twisted, fused creatures. Shadows of monsters who once had names. Their bodies melted together like wax, voices layered in broken harmony. Some wandered the halls, crying for loved ones. Others hid in the dark, afraid of what they had become.

Frisk stopped at the sound of a voice—small, raspy, childlike.

"Mommy…?"

A malformed mass slid from the shadows. Its limbs bent wrong, its face split with too many eyes.

Chara gasped. This isn't a monster. This is…

"Help… me…"

Frisk didn't run.

They knelt, held out a hand. They whispered kindness.

And slowly—trembling—the thing shuddered and began to cry.

They stayed until it calmed, then moved on.

Every corner of the lab held more secrets. More pain. More evidence that Alphys had failed—not because she didn't care, but because she cared too much. She had tried to fix death. And she had only created something worse.

"She never told anyone," Chara whispered. She locked it away. Buried it beneath the surface.

Frisk didn't judge.

They just kept going.

Toward the final room.

Where the Determination had been stored.

Where the experiments had started.

Where, buried beneath notes and wires and ruined hope, Alphys had written one final thing:

"I wanted to save them. I just wanted to save someone. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Frisk stood in silence, the hum of the machines growing quieter.

They reached for the power switch.

The lights dimmed further, one by one, until only the exit glowed behind them.

Chara didn't speak.

Frisk didn't smile.

But they understood now.

Even kindness had a cost.