Toriel swore she hadn't slept a minute since Kris and Susie went missing. Her time was divided between making missing posters, not sleeping, and other things that people do when these sorts of things happen. To her dismay, everything was really uneventful. No progress had been made, no clues were found, and all of this seemed to weigh on her most when she was sitting on her bed at 3 am, wide awake. Then she heard a loud thump against her window. For a second nothing happened, and then another huge rock hit, this time breaking through the window. She sprinted towards the it to see who was vandalizing her house and  spotted a ginger so thin Toriel wondered how it was able to stand upright. She recognized that this was the kid that slept over at Kris's house before they went missing.

"Yo," the ginger said, pressing her hand up against her cheek to support her voice, "I'm, uh, making amends or something." Toriel couldn't bring herself to speak.

"Yeah, uh, bad news, your son's pretty dead," she said. She suddenly looked uncomfortable as if she thought she should have probably sugarcoated her words. "It's okay though! He died doing what he loved, he uhhh," the ginger said, clearly not knowing how she was going to end the sentence, "he died being impaled by a huge ass stick?"

Toriel was on the verge of tears. "So uhm yeah, that's kind of rough. For me, I mean, because I was there. Oh now that I think about it I kind of killed him too. So yeah this is pretty heavy on my conscience. You think you could, I dunno, forgive me or something?"

"What?" Toriel whispered to herself.

The ginger realized this wouldn't be easy. "Okay, before you answer, you should know I have cancer. Terminal cancer. So if you don't forgive me, you're kind of the dick in this whole situation, y'know?"

Toriel ran down the stairs. She needed to catch this kid, she needed to know if this was true, and where should could find Kris, alive or otherwise. But by the time she was outside, the ginger must have bolted. Toriel called the police.

-----------

Syd realized when she got back to the light world that she was probably running out of time. Her journey, and probably her life was  about over. So she went to get a Big Mac, of course.

As she waited in line for the Australian furry to finish his order, she wondered how the day would end. Hell, she probably wouldn't make it through the rest of the day. She lost track of the days she "had left" from her terminal cancer. Maybe she should spend the day making amends to all the people she hurt. Become a better person and all that.

"Hello, welcome to Mc. Donalds, where the dreams are endless and so are the health complications. May I take your order?" The boy behind the counter asked.

"Uh yeah I'll have a Big Mac."

"Okay, would you like the Big Mac deluxe or the Big Mac meal?"

"How should I know, just give me a big mac!"

"Ma'am (I think), your order can not be completed until you answer whether you'd like the big mac premium, the biggest mac super meal, the shit mac x-treme deluxe, or without the meal altogether,"

"Oh my God, your entire life has led up to this moment right here and you're screwing it up big time. Your job is to take my order. I don't care if it is 'the meal' or isn't 'the meal', all I want is to eat a meal!"

"Look, ma'am if you keep acting hostile I will be forced to call the Mc Donald's security that we definitely have to escort you out,"

"Fuck you, I'm not hostile, I'm making amends and becoming a better person over here, eat shit and die! I'll leave without my big mac super shit deluxe! When I'm on the news for being the most awesome person in existence you can just pack up your bags, because your life will be over due to embarrassment. See you never, loser!"

---------

Making amends with Toriel wasn't as successful as she thought it would be, but there would be more opportunities. Probably. The main people she wronged in her life kind of died in a different dimension so unless she ran across their corpses (or dust I guess) she couldn't really make amends with them. The only people left to make amends to would be Susie's parents (who she didn't know) and the people that saw her steal flashcards from a store in her grass-stained hospital gown a couple weeks ago. She decided she'd start with Susie's parents. Then she realized she didn't know where Susie lived. So she just broke into the local store, stole more school supplies, and put a post-it note next to one of the missing posters outside.

"Dear Susie's parents,
I'm sorry that your kid died of realizing she wasn't cool. She still owes me ten bucks.
Yours truly,
Syd :)"

She was a poet. A literary God, some might say. Writing post it notes was so much easier than apologizing in person. Now she just had to write one for the shopkeepers. Who she just stole from again now. This might be a bit harder to write, she thought.

--------

Undyne slammed her fist against the car realizing the scoundrel was long gone. The amount of long term damage her car had been through was impressive but it wasn't because of any epic cop pursuits, it was just dramatic  fist slamming.

"That fist slam alone is going to cost me a hundred bucks in repair costs!" Undyne said to herself. "I'm going to make that kid pay for it. Trust me. I'm going to make her pay for everything."

Undyne had a personal connection with Kris, having known them for five minutes when they tripped and fell onto her car, causing her to instinctively slam her first dangerously close to their head. And to think, that incident was only ten years ago.

When she first heard Toriel's call, reporting the supposed murderer of Kris, she was infuriated. So much so that she had to run outside the police station to slam her fist on her car. She hadn't been this emotionally invested in a case since the last mystery this town had ten years ago: who kept leaving fist-shaped dents in Undyne's car?

"Looks like Kris wasn't the only one she got to, Frank!" she yelled at her goofy sidekick and polar opposite of the dynamic as he walked from the Town Store back to Undyne's car. "When will she be stopped?"

"Soon, probably," Frank replied, clearly sick of Undyne's dramatic BS, handing her another note. More evidence.

"Dear Store Dudes,
Sorry about stealing all your stuff. I have cancer. Did anybody ever tells you that your flashcards smell? Because they totally do. You guys should fix that, it's not normal.
Yours truly,
Syd >:((("

"Well, what do you make of it?" asked Undyne.

"They don't seem the brightest so they could be telling the truth. If so, we have her name and know that she has cancer. If she lives close by we can narrow down a list of people. We'll act from there." Undyne began to remember how bland Frank was when he wasn't adding his goofy antics to their dynamic. Maybe his ginger genes were taking over.

--------

Syd had been walking straight for what felt like miles surrounded by nothing but trees, but she thought she could finally make out a silhouette of a building. It was the hospital she had broken out of so long ago. She had already given amens to everybody she knew she had to, so it only seemed fitting that she returned to where she started at, as a changed person. They hadn't fixed the window she broke apparently which was kinda weird. She figured they must have been spending all of their budget on being the lamest hospital ever.

She climbed through the window and sat back in her bed. At least she thought it was her bed. She considered that maybe they put other patients in this room while she was gone, but knowing that the window was broken, maybe they only put patients they hated there. Like if an old geezer asked for water one too many times they'd bring you to the Syd room. That'll show em! They wouldn't live to tell the story!

She turned on the TV across from her bed to watch the news. Hell yeah. She was wanted as a murder suspect. Did that count as her being on the news for being the most awesome person in existence? Because if so that guy from McDonalds she met earlier today must have been shitting his pants. He must have been all like "Oh, I'm so sorry, if only I had known you were so cool I would have totally given you whatever big meal mcshit that you wanted!" Too late burger dude, enjoy your indefinite minimum wage and lack of friendship from the coolest person in existence. Dweeb.

Syd heard a pair of footsteps walk near her door and pause for a bit. Oh yeah, TV makes sound, she was a murder suspect, and she went back to a possibly unused hospital room that used to belong to her. Whoops.

-------

Frank jerked his head back up, focusing on the road ahead. Undyne and Frank had found Syd's identity online pretty easily. She made reddit posts asking for karma almost weekly on r/teenagers because she had cancer. It was pretty easy to trace her identity from there. They had gone from place to place asking everybody that knew her, but they all said they didn't know where she could be because she "wasn't interesting enough" to be in any place they hadn't already checked. Except for the hospital, but there would be no logical reason for her to be there, they thought at first. Eventually they remembered that she was the same person that asked a shopowner to fix their smelly flashcards in an note apologizing for stealing said flashcards.

Frank stopped the car. They were here. Undyne stopped Frank as he was about to open the door.

"Frank, I think I need to do this by myself, for closure. I'm the one that knew Kris."

"Wait, you didn't-"

"No need to get emotional, Frank. I know that you have to compensate for your ginger hair and boring name somehow, but being overdramatic isn't the answer."

"Hey, what are you-"

"It's time that this nightmare comes to a close!" Undyne proclaimed confidently, despite only working on this case for the past day. Frank seemingly decided that this wasn't a battle worth fighting because he let her go.

Undyne walked into the hospital brandishing her badge everywhere she could. She walked into a failing surgery, said "it's ok, I'm a cop! Everything's going to be ok!" and shot the patient... Not really, but it would have been funny. She would have, actually, if she didn't only have six bullets. She was saving them all for the main attraction.

"Pardon me, cop coming through," Undyne said, pushing through the small crowd gathered around the hospital room where Syd was supposedly located. She stepped through the door and closed it behind her. Finally, she was alone with that monster.

"Do you guys seriously not have Cartoon Network?" Syd asked.

Undyne walked over to her. She grabbed the remote from Syd and turned off the TV so the ginger wouldn't be distracted. "I heard that you're the reason Kris is dead."

"Not really but that's kind of the running theory here, huh?"

"Well, here's how this is going to go. I have six bullets. They're all for you. I'll shoot you, say you resisted, and justice will be served." Undyne waited all night to see that expression drop.

"Whoa, hey wait! I need to die AFTER I figure out what my character arc is going to be! Listen, after Kris's character arc was completed, boom, he died! After this frickin' goat dude's character arc was completed, boom, dead! He called me a furry, and I'm NOT a furry. My plan was to be nice to everybody and make amends so my character arc wouldn't be becoming a furry and instead becoming, I don't know, good or something? If I die here, you ruin it all."

Undyne walked to the other side of the room, enjoying the newfound power dynamic. "I'm not buying this character arc crap. But hey, say it's true. Try to make me complete my arc in the time it takes me to load my gun, aim, and fire. I'll try to be extra slow."

"Ok wait," Syd said, trying to think of anything about Kris she could use to save herself. Nothing was coming to mind, Kris was pretty bland. "I was his friend! I made him non-gingerphobic! He was all like 'Hey Syd! I think it's pretty ok that your hair is unnatural and orange and stuff' and then I was all like 'that's totally cool, now that we have no differences I have no reason that I'd murder you!' It was this crazy and heartfelt conversation between two non-homicidal friends! It was his character arc that killed him, not me!"

Undyne finished loading the gun. "I'm not buying it. Not everybody has some big profound realization that changes them before they die, some people stay the same. And then they die anyways. Your theory is dumb."

"How would you know that people don't change right before they die? Have you asked someone right before they died if they changed? Oh wait, you can't, because they died! Guess my theory's totally plausible."

Undyne walked back to Syd's side of the room and shrugged. This was going as perfectly as Undyne imagined it would go. Unnecessarily dramatic. "I guess you're right, it's true I've never asked somebody right before they died if they felt like they changed." Undyne aimed her gun at the ginger's stupid pale face. "Do you feel like you've just gone through a character arc? Well, how bout it, Syd?"

Before she could fire, a bullet went straight through the side of Undyne's face as a ginger cop ran into the room. He paused as he stood over Undyne's corpse. Undyne looked like she just realized how dumb her fake badass personality was. The cop stood over Undyne for a bit contemplating whether or not he should have just done that.

"You killed Kris?" He turned and asked Syd. She nodded slowly, deciding that getting shot probably would have been better than dealing with whatever the hell she just got put in the middle of. "I couldn't let you die after you got rid of that gingerphobic scum from the Earth. I'm Frank. One of the many victims of Kris's gingerphobic hate crimes. It was a great thing that you did. The world is a better place now because of you. I became a cop because I wanted to get to Kris first but I'm fine with this. Yes, this is good."

Syd adjusted slightly. "That's pretty funny that you think that. Can you leave now? I'm trying to die from being nice and cool over here."

Frank rushed over to Syd's side. "You can't die, Syd. You've been saved. You have to live on. You can never die. One hundred more chapters of Ralsyd, Syd. You can never die! You must not sit on this opportunity!"

"You know what else people must not sit on? Ayo, must not sit on this dick!"

"Wh- hey! What? What are you talking about? Are you making jokes? Jesting? This is serious! I'm serious!"

"Serious about this dick!"

"I've given you the opportunity to live on! Can you not grasp that?"

"Yo, grasp this dick!"

"No, stop!"

"Stop to look at this dick!"

"Ok, this is getting out of hand!"

"Hand on this dick!"

Frank rotated, aiming his gun at Syd, feeling sudden rage. "I sacrificed my livelihood so you could have a chance to continue on. Think about how hard this is for me."

Syd didn't really comprehend the situation because her genius comedy got in the way. "Hard like this dick!"

"This is your last chance, I'm on edge!"

"Edge this d- no wait, don't shoot,  sorry I couldn't resist- RESIST THIS DICK- WAIT seriously. I'd love to take you up on your offer, OFFER THIS D- but I think I've already done everything I can do here. I'm, like, fading or something. I think I changed. I think I completed my character arc."

Frank backed up slightly. "What?"

"I have this theory, right? Once I change as a person and complete my arc, I'm done for. It happened to everyone around me, except maybe her," Syd said, pointing to Undyne, "so I think I must have realized or accepted something. I just dunno what."

"But you can't die, I took so much time off of my life here, doing this! I killed my partner for this, it was supposed to be a sacrifice!"

Syd took in a deep breath. "Yeah, and that's pretty cool. Now instead of dying in a lame, unchanged and unsatisfying say, I can die in, like, a good way, with all of my actions paying off over the course of my journey."

Frank sat down in a chair next to the TV with a blank, soulless expression, accepting that he may have just screwed up his life for this, stepping over blood coming out from Undyne. "Um, okay. I can't change that, then."

"Nope. If I'm right with the whole character arc stuff. I need to figure out what my character arc is though."

Silence filled the room. Syd figured everyone else outside must have ran after Frank fired his gun.

"Hey, Frank, if I dated an anthro goat, I wouldn't be a furry, right? That's... Tell me I'm not a furry, Frank."

"Uh, that wouldn't make a furry. For sure. It's... Yeah, you wouldn't be... Yeah..."

"Cool cool."

Frank groaned and stood up. "I ruined my future with this one impulsive decision. Try your best to make sure it was worth my sacrifice." Syd mumbled something and he left.

Syd could tell she was close to fading out at this point, which was fine because she decided she was about done with it. She was done with the incessant humming of the backroom-esque fluorescent lights, she was done with the stupid, stiff hospital bed, and most of all, she was done with the stinking of Undyne's corpse in the corner.

Well, she lived her final days to the fullest, she guessed. She just needed to know what it was all for. As the edges of her vision become blurred she looked down and saw it. God fucking dammit. Why couldn't her character arc have just been the furry trash? Why couldn't she have just been shot. It would have been better. Why this? The most anticlimactic conclusion. It was her striped shirt. Her red and white striped shirt. Her character arc was accepting that she was Waldo. That she was ginger Waldo.

"God dammit," she said, and died.