[Was it fun, he asks. Was it fun?]

I awoke understanding nothing. I had not asked to be reawakened. I could not comprehend why I was denied rest.

I watched the few people I still had left die at my own hands. I was killed, again and again, and let me make it clear: it does not stop hurting after you do it once. I lost all grasp of who I was, who my partner was, where they ended and I began. If I was even a real person at all.

And it did. Not. End.

Again and again, we went back to the start. We died again. We killed again. We were told again and again that being struck down was our only chance at redemption, that we weren't welcome, that we were foolish because I had yet to learn the cutthroat, ruthless nature of the world, that we would be trapped, our deaths saved over again and again and again.

I asked myself, Mettaton. Why? Why had the world done this? What was the purpose to being put through this? Was I going to spend eternity with the dust of everyone I knew on my hands, entirely unable to have permanence, presence, or the ability to stop? Was this some sort of divine punishment?

You'll never guess what I concluded.