The Knock That Shouldn't Have Come

The snow fell the same way it always did. Same lazy drift, same whisper-thin crunch under boots that never left a mark for long. Sans stood at his sentry station, hands shoved in the pockets of his blue jacket, breath fogging in the cold air. He'd prepared the joke two hours ago—a groaner about a skeleton and a snowball—and he'd been waiting for the perfect moment to use it on a passing monster. But the path stayed empty, and the silence stretched like old gum. He knew this silence. Knew the exact weight of it, the way it pressed against his skull like a low-grade headache. It was the silence of a timeline that had stopped listening—a save file that wouldn't close, no matter how many times you tried to shut the window. Sans pulled out a ketchup bottle from his jacket, uncapped it, and took a long, deliberate swig. The sweet-tang taste flooded his mouth, but it didn't chase away the deja vu. If anything, it made it worse. The feeling was so strong now he could practically see the outline of yesterday's snow on today's ground. Hadn't he already seen this exact arrangement of flakes? That tuft near the lamp post, curved like a lazy smile. He'd catalogued it in his notes. Twice. Maybe three times. His left eye socket twitched. The notes. He still kept them, even after the resets stopped. He told himself it was habit—a routine from a time when memory meant something. But really, it was hope. A stupid, stubborn hope that if he recorded every detail, every difference, maybe he'd catch the moment the world started moving again. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. The ink was smudged from repeated handling. On it he'd written: "Day 1,432—same pattern. Same snow. Same joke. Same nothing." Below that, in smaller letters: "Knock from Ruins? No. Still quiet." But today wasn't quiet. Not anymore. A sound broke the stillness—a soft, solid knock, like a fist against wood. It came from the direction of the Ruins, where the heavy door stood sealed at the far end of the path. Sans froze, the ketchup bottle halfway to his lips. He'd heard that sound before. He'd *recorded* that sound before. But only in his notes, in the pages marked with question marks and crossed-out dates, when he'd imagined what it would be like if someone came back. He lowered the bottle. The deja vu tasted like copper now, mingling with the ketchup. He knew what was on the other side of that door. He'd known for a long time, even if he'd never admitted it to himself. The snow kept falling, indifferent. Sans took a step forward, then another, his sneakers leaving shallow prints that would be gone in minutes. The knock came again—louder this time, more impatient. A rhythm he'd heard in his bones a thousand times, in timelines that no longer existed. He stopped a few feet from the door, staring at the ornate pattern carved into the wood. The same pattern he'd memorized, sketched in the margins of his notes. He didn't have to check his pockets. He knew what it looked like: a golden flower, its petals spreading wide, as if reaching for something. "heh," he said to no one, his voice rough. "guess the joke's on me." He reached out and knocked back.