Tallies
You lay in your bed for what is probably hours. Eye sockets blank, staring at the same ceiling, drifting in and out of consciousness. You don't know how much time has passed, and frankly, you don't care either. It's only when you hear Toriel call everyone for dinner that you realize how long you've actually been laying here.
Yup. you being your usual pathetic self.
"SANS YOU'VE BEEN UP IN YOUR ROOM ALL DAY. PLEASE COME DOWN TO DINNER."
You pretend you’re still sleeping, and just don't respond, but then the door to your bedroom swings open and "SANS WAKE UP OR I'M GOING TO HAVE TO CARRY YOU DOWNSTAIRS."
Welp. looks like there's no way you're getting out of this one. Even though you're still not hungry, and there's no point in even eating because the timeline will probably RESET tomorrow or something...
Papyrus literally scoops you out of bed and places you under his arm.
"uhhh. paps i'm up."
"WELL YOU'RE COMING DOWNSTAIRS WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. NYEH HEH HEH!"
Papyrus bounds down the stairs with you in tow, and springs into the dining room shouting "I HAVE RETRIEVED SANS!"
You manage to give everyone a little wave, while you're still under Papyrus' arm. He puts you down in your chair and everyone looks up and smiles at you for a moment (except Undyne) then goes back to conversing. They talk about life on the surface, and what they plan to do, and Frisk tells some facts that they might need. Everyone seems so happy. You probably join the conversation, but seeing how happy everyone looks, knowing that this will be ripped away from them in a matter of days...
"Sans" Toriel chides, "You've been awfully quiet lately, are you feeling alright?"
You regret not chumming in on the conversation because people realized it's not like you. Well not like your façade.
"yeah tori i'm fine. just bone tired."
Puns are good. No one thinks you're questioning the point of living in a repeating loop if you're telling puns. Plus, that statement wasn't even a lie. You are tired. But you can't sleep without nightmares plaguing your dreams.
"Oh all right you lazybones."
You laugh but you're heart is not really in it. Heh. You should save that one for later. Anyways you hope no one realizes the fake laugh and smile you have on, or the bags under your eye sockets that testify how little sleep you actually had. You now try to join in a little conversation before dinner ends, and you listen to how excited everyone is on the surface. What they plan on doing. Thanking Frisk over and over for freeing them.
You can't take it anymore. It's just so UNFAIR that they'll have this taken away from them, only for them to have no memory that it happened. You wouldn't care if it was just you stuck in a repeating loop, but seeing Papyrus and everyone else killed, or just taken away from their happy life on the surface...
Thankfully dinner ends sooner then later, and you retreat back to your room. Without looking, you roll up the sleeve of your signature hoodie, and trace your fingers along your arm. Your feel the uneven bone, grooves in your arms representing tallies. Tallies for the days on the surface. Sure, it seems kinda crazy to mark yourself to prove how long you've been on the surface, but it keeps you sane. The pain of digging into your arm reminds you that this ISN'T a dream, and you are alive. The marks you can feel, and know that your still on the surface, and that the kid hasn't RESET. Yet. The marks disappear as soon as the world RESETS.
You still know that you're crazy for doing this. You shouldn't be doing this. You should probably get help because you're doing this. But it'll probably RESET before you can ask, or get the help you need. But even if you do, it'll eventually RESET again, and all your progress will be pointless, Pointless, POINTLESS. Nothing you did will matter if it's all taken away from you in a matter of seconds.
Do you do this instead. You have a nail that you dig into your bone to tally the days. Perfectly normal.
You check to make sure Papyrus or anyone is out or in a different room (which they are, fortunately), and you go and grab your nail.
HP: 1
You start and drag the nail across your bone, hard so it makes the mark. And you think to yourself, "this is to remember".
HP: 0.5
You finish and you slightly drained (who wouldn't be if half their health is gone), but you again run your fingers over the marks, and count them. And you know you shouldn't have done this, and imagine Papyrus found out, and your a piece of trash, and you can't even save Papyrus, and can't even stop the world from resetting, and you have to remember how much of a failure you are, and how you wasted your life, and...
The list goes on and on, and you simply lay in your bed with negative thoughts overwhelming your head and eventually you just stop thinking about it. Because it doesn't matter.
You can't help it anymore, but your so, so, tired. You have to go to sleep, even if your sleep is plagued with nightmares. But you can't help it because you're so exhausted and you slowly drift off and...
You wake up in what seems like a lab. It seems familiar, with a nostalgic feeling about it. However, you know something's wrong. The atmosphere seems off, and you know today's the day that it happens. What "it" is, you have no idea. It's something's that pulls on the back of your mind, something you should know, but have inexplicably forgotten anyways.
You hear the sound of something sloshing around behind you, so you turn and see this big machine, that also seems vaguely familiar...
But now you notice what's inside the machine. It a mass of gooey looking black. Blacker then the blackest black you've ever seen.
But then, what seems to be a face slowly makes its way out of the black goo. This face also has that nagging nostalgic feeling of something gone wrong. You look at this face and see two vertical cracks, one running up from what seems to be a closed eye socket, and the other running down from the other closed eye.
As your examining this thing, it's eyes shoot open, and the darkness within them keeps growing and growing, and overwhelming you until you can't breath, and then...
You shoot up from your bed, and try to grasp where you are. It's dark, not like the dark in your dream, but still so you can't see. You roll up the sleeve of your arm reflexively, and make sure you still have those tallies. You do.
As you regain your bearings, You realize you still here some people downstairs, and know that the time is soon after you went up to your room. You didn't get much sleep. Regardless of that,
There's no way you're going back to sleep.