Alphys felt sick.
She clung to the soft silk of her dress like her life depended on it. She fell heavily against her bedroom wall, a thud resounding throughout her room. It repeated back to her from all directions, soon accompanied by a long, painful groan before both were swallowed by silence.
This wasn't the kind of 'sick' she was used to feeling.
She pressed her head against the wall, pushing her frills and the sensitive skin they were attached to. She pressed harder, thankful she had somehing to focus on—anything to divert her mind from the ravenous prickling in her stomach.
She stayed there, still and dead, until another wave of agony consumed her, made her want to tear at her insides and bleed out. She pumped her legs, wrinkling the sheets until the edges popped off the corners of her mattress, came from under her, and joined her embroidered blanket in a wrinkled heap.
She scooted to the side of the bed and shoved herself off her bare mattress, openly sobbing. She tore a hand away from her mid-section and rubbed the wall for the light switch before she remembered there was no power. She leaned heavily against her dresser and she squinted through the darkness, cursing the powerless lightbulbs strung along the wall.
She stared at the mirror, and hatred grew in her chest like a virus, and the longer she stared at her face—tired and tinted with a subtle, silver glow—the more she wanted to tear at it, rip flesh from bone, feel the clumpy, warm magic slide down and pool at her fucking feet.
She tried not to be horrified at her sudden, internal outburst and focus on the oblong scales stuck to her blue dress and to her yellow knees. Her arms fell at her sides, a throbbing headache replacing the light-headedness she felt just moments ago.
When couldn't bare to look anymore, she tore open the closest drawer to her, found it full of clothes, and moved onto the next. All six drawers followed the same fate until she opened the last one, the bottom drawer on the right and found lined paper inside.
Alphys wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before she kneeled, clutching the folded paper in her hands.
You're welcome.
Alphys' anger drained out of her body, a numbness spreading through her SOUL.
Alphys instantly pressed the note against her face, her nose stinging as she inhaled the smell of bleach and wet rags, the aroma of a woman's hands when she had been cleaning feverishly, left imprinted on this small note when she came along something she shouldn't have.
Alphys turned her arm over, which was normally layered scales, to reveal a patch of on raw skin, exposed and white in pigment. Tiny bumps peeked out of her, a sign that tiny scales were soon beginning to return.
Alphys could feel the ghost of hands on her shoulders, and memories began to resurface, misery and sadness and pain, and that feeling snowballed, and then she was faintly aware that she was shaking.
The stand near the kitchen archway, bare, where there should have been armour the sink where stacks of dishes that were due to be cleaned sit the empty bedroom across the hall, the creaky boards that should have been stepped on by another pair of feet today it was her mom who was supposed to be safe inside, with her.
Alphys slid to the floor, leaning heavily on the dresser, right back where she started.
She felt like she was dying.