The ghostlight was consumptive in a way that ordinary sunlight was not. 

Following after Xochitl, Frisk stepped blindly into the glow.  For a moment, she could see nothing — the walls on either side of her must be there, but they were lost in the cold white; the stone floor of the dungeon clicked beneath her hooves, but invisibly, swallowed by light.  Vex clung to her mane, burying its little face into her withers.  She could feel its heartbeat against her. 

It shivered — or maybe that was Frisk herself. 

“You are almost through,” Xochitl said from ahead of her.

She stumbled forward another step.  Meleph jostled against her hindquarters, blind and clumsy, indistinguishable, and Frisk snapped a hoof backwards, pinned her ears, but—

Then they were through.  Stumbling out into a wide cavern.  Xochitl was waiting for them ahead, head lowered, whiskers twitching as they sniffed at the dusty cobblestones.  The ghastly eyeball that followed them rotated from where it hovered above their back to blink its wide red stare at Frisk. 

“Look somewhere else,” she muttered, and it rotated away from her silently while Meleph and Asphodel emerged from the ghostlight. 

---

Asphodel did not seem perturbed, which annoyed Frisk.  He stepped forward, his head lifted.  His empty eyes were wide.  Frisk could never tell what he was looking at — but she turned, too, studying the cavern that laid open before them. 

It was so broad across that she could not see the far side.  Old columns, half-rubble, unfurled upward from the floor.  There was something strangely organic about them — the shapes contorted, the angles askew — or perhaps they had been forged that way over time by the moss and vines, the woody branches, that clung to them. 

Sunlight, pale and warm, filtered downward from pinhole cracks in the distant ceiling. 

“Where is this?” Asphodel demanded of Xochitl.  “This is not on our maps.” 

The Cavedweller twitched one ear.  “I don’t know.” 

“I thought you said you knew the way,” Meleph protested. 

“I knew a way.” 

“Knew?” Asphodel said. 

“I can still guide us forward.”  Xochitl’s head cocked.  Their whiskers trembled uncertainly.  “But you should be careful.  There is something in this place that I do not recognize.”

---

Frisk couldn’t hear anything. 

But she thought she understood what Xochitl meant.  She followed after him carefully, Meleph and Asphodel trailing along behind her.  There was the sound of their hoofsteps on stone — soft, muted clicks.  The sound of their breathing.  And just beyond that—

Like subterranean hum.  At the edge of her perception.

And the shadows shifting among the leaves, like the stirring of nonexistent wind — shapeless, formless.  Harmless, Frisk told herself.  It only felt unnatural because of how accustomed she had become to the straight lines of the dungeon, the precise right angles of the corners, the manufactured, intentional nature of it in comparison.  It was only a trick of light that the columns seemed to twist by imperceptible degrees as they walked, but—

If I look fast enough, she thought, ancestral fear, gut-deep dread—

There will be something there. 

---

A corridor opened in the wall ahead of them, framed by a knot of vines.  Xochitl’s step quickened towards it; Frisk, gratefully, picked up a trot, too. 

Something parted the shadows among the columns.  The corner of her eye.  The unconscious terror. 

And Frisk — finally — turned.

The thing that unfurled itself from among the roots was greasy with darkness, its edges blurred as if it did not quite belong in reality. Its impossible jaws opened wide with hunger. 

You see me, it said, its voice airless, bodiless.  It swelled with triumph.  You see me—

Frisk thought of crows in the moorlands.  Of the way those, too, had a tendency to change.  Of the way they sat among skeletons, fat and sleek, well-fed on bone.  Of Terrence, watching her:  Stop looking, Frisk. 

Let it be. 

---

“Close your eyes.” 

---

It was very quiet and very dark behind her eyelids.  Meleph, frantic, pressed against her hindquarters, tight against her flank.  Ahead of them, Xochitl’s breathing mellowed with their fierce concentration. 

But she couldn’t hear the shadow creature anymore. 

After a long moment, Xochitl said, quietly, “Follow my voice.” 

Frisk stumbled forward a step towards them.  Vex shivered against her shoulder. 

Xochitl said: “Sometimes I forget about the way things change when they are perceived in ways that I can’t.  It must be very dangerous to see.”  

Their hoofsteps were moderate, distinct clicks on stone.  Frisk followed.  She felt snags of vine catch at her legs as she went — or perhaps it was shadow made physical, given shape.  She did not open her eyes.

Xochitl said: “We are nearly there.” 

She felt the stone change.  The moss give way to mortar. 

Xochitl said:  “You are safe.  You may open your eyes.” 

She did.  Behind them, the overgrown cavern was still.