There's a pause as Cole just looks at Papyrus, staring at the skeleton in a way that's slightly creepy.

"They called me a ghost once," he explains, not really realizing that he's responding to Papyrus's thoughts. "The Ghost in the Spire. It's right, but it isn't."

He was in the Spire. But he wasn't a ghost. He was just lost and confused and worried and making terrible choices that shall not happen again.