Sans dragged his body behind the flimsy, half-destroyed wall that lay in that weird section of Hotland just before Muffet's home. He couldn't remember what this section had been remodeled for. It was clearly from before The Human. It offered no security, no camouflage, no warmth. Just like his clothing, really. It, too, had been in place since before The Human had come, and it showed.
Of course, all of the holes, stains, and greasy patches paled before the most recent damage. At least a third of his shirt was already bright red. Giant holes that still smouldered at the edges showed equally giant holes through his ribcage, two overlapping on his left side and one low on his right. Another went through the left sleeve of his hoodie. A piece of bone was snarled in the fabric. His right shin was bruised even before he began dragging it through the dirt.
Sans would have considered himself lucky if he hadn't known that the Empress had sent her Hound after him. There had been two of them a few weeks ago; Lesser Dog had succumbed to his infected leg despite everything Sans had done. That left Dogamy, who had barely managed to keep from snapping Sans' neck ever since his SOULmate and wife, Dogaressa, had fallen at The Human's hands. The skeleton would see no MERCY from him.
It seemed so long since Sans had seen that action. Part of it, he knew, was his own horrible memory. It had been fine once. His brother had...Sans couldn't remember what he'd done. But Undyne had berated him for losing his memories of the time before The Human. It wasn't the only thing he'd lost, but no matter what he did in desperation-fueled insanity, nothing had fixed him. It. Them? He didn't even know anymore. He didn't know anything anymore.
Well, that wasn't quite true. He knew he was going to die. He could see it in the dull shine of the axe that came through the wall above him. He couldn't stop the whimper, even then.
His SOUL was pounding so fast it hurt. His nonexistent throat felt raw and ragged, like it has in the cold of…something. He couldn't remember what. It was dark and cold and lonely, whatever it was. The feeling overtook him, stealing his sight along with all the warmth of his SOUL. It didn't steal his hearing, though, and so he could hear the wooden wall breaking and still do nothing about it. His SOUL was just...so broken.
The snarl he expected to follow the axe never came. Instead, someone other than him whimpered. Little scurryings surrounded him. The considerable weight of a bigger monster than him (also known as most of them) made the floorboards wobble despite the ground they were laid on. Muffled curses became even more muffled. Something that struggled was dragged away. Then-
"Oh, dearies, don't forget the poor morsel she had him hunting. I'd just as soon not have dust all over our territory. It rather defeats the...what is this?"
Footsteps moved around the wall that hid him. A polite gasp broke the silence.
"Is that...? Dearie, can you hear me?"
A small hand lifted his skull off the floorboards. Another two patted his chest ever so gently. A fourth pressed some sort of fabric to the cracks in his cervical vertebrae, as if any amount of compresses would mop up the blood still seeping out of him.
He tried to verbalize, not really knowing what he would say when he did. Either a very sick goat (why did that make him wince?) was yodeling through the other end of a badly-carved didgeridoo, or his vocal cords had been damaged when the Empress lost her patience for him yet again over lunch.
The unseen Muffet, a monster he could only remember because of Undyne's constant rants about her untouchable little 'territory', sighed.
"I am so sorry to do this, dearie, but I need to know something, and this is the only I can learn."
That was the only warning he got before a fifth hand lifted his shirt enough for the sixth and final hand to snatch his SOUL out of his chest.
Muffet floated in darkness partially lit by a purple glow. She thanked the Stars that her own SOUL shone so brightly. Even a spider's eyes could not pierce this gloom.
She moved forward. It was the only direction in a place like this. Nothing made a fairly poor navigational marker. But nothing could only last so long before it gave in and became something. She just had to PERSEVERE.
After some time, although not nearly as much as she would have thought, her purple glow was met with a deep blue one. A few steps further and she saw it. A handful of dim fragments of an inverted heart shivered before her. They were all sorts of colors - yellow, indigo, red, orange, blue, silver; no two were the same shade. Several threads of purple magic dangled from half-remaining seams. It was horrible to look at. It was even worse to know that that mangled soul had once been a person.
The spider-girl closed her eyes and let her soul stretch. Purple lines spread out around her. The magic encircled her and Sans' soul. It cocooned the broken blue glow, hiding it in careful safety from everything that might hurt it. Then she gave it the order and it began the long job of stitching the mess back together.