A/N: Disclaimer first: I don't own Undertale.
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Well, peeps, I wonder how other people write angst and sadness..
I have to constantly fight to write it instead of distracting myself with cute cuddling fluff pictures.^^ Nope, It must be done.!
Have to say I'm not that satisfied with the last segment. Probably becaus it's too much FEELS for me to write.
So imagine the sadnessssssss...
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Darn, I'd really love to be able to write better!
(Everytime I write, I imagine it as a picture - but I can't "write" a picture! Urgh! Brain! Give me useful!)
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Papyrus reached Snowdin in record time. On another time he would have rejoiced by this incredible feat, but not today.
He was already bathed in sweat and out of breath as he pulled the boat close enough, hoping that it won't be visible from the docks. On a second thought it hadn't been much of a good choice to hurry off without preparations, but at the same time he couldn't bring himself to unnecessarily endanger a monster that was able to manoeuvre a boat with magic. So instead he had paddled all the way back, his thoughts circling solely around his stupid hazarding brother, not bothering when his bones screamed at him to slow down.
Now he was all wobbly on his feet. Another thing Sans would have found hilarious.
What was his brother thinking?
It made no sense! First convincing him to help out the villagers, only to disappear back to the danger zone – and that while being ill! With his current condition he should've been tucked into the bed instead of even having to endure stress like this!
Papyrus cautiously stepped onto the docks. So far so good, no human-thing or something else in sight. But also no foot prints of his brother, only the undisturbed freshly fallen snow.
Come to think of that – he hadn't seen Sans' boat until now. Did he accidentally pass it by in his haste? It was sure hard to make out clear shapes in this mist. But how fast could his brother even paddle in his current condition?
Was his goal even the village?
Come to think of it, it was very unlikely for his fragile brother to actively search the battlefield. The more Papyrus thought about it, the less likely it seemed. With his weak constitution Sans was often the first to decline even a easy-going practise session, more comfortable with doing absolutely nothing more than slacking off.
…On the other hand him disappearing into nowhere at a critical time like that also wasn't something he'd normally do.
Out of nowhere a foul stench slammed into his senses, abruptly snapping his focus back into the positively hostile present. He wrinkled his face.
Urgh, how the stench of crumbled dust made his soul crawl… by now the wind had carried the scattered remains of the poor monsters through the village and spread out beyond any chance of collecting the dust and giving them a proper funeral.
Despite the overall scattering and instincts screaming bad smell, it seemed to accumulate at a certain line, he noticed. A small straight trail made by small shoes, leading through the ports away towards Waterfall. The footprints were too thin to belong to his stocky brother; they looked more like they belonged to a child or a small monster. And small patches of dust were crushed underneath the prints, mashing them up with the white snow and forming uncomfortable grey irregular blotches.
The human thing must have passed through here.
Papyrus felt an involuntary shiver creep up his spine.
Keeping a constant watchful eye socket out, he slowly made his way through the mist to the direction of the village. He couldn't remember the fog drifting around him like an ominous lingering threat. The silence was deafening, every tiny little scrape sounding alarming loud. He slightly flinched with each muffled noise. Everything felt dissembled in the mist. Surreal.
It felt so wrong having to calm himself down so he wouldn't be startled by every hazy small thing that disturbed the white. Normally he was hardly fazed by normal white foggy silence unlike some of the village monsters, but this… it was neither a normal situation nor normal fog.
Or when do you have to deal with the threat that a human murderer thing could jump out from behind you unnoticed? It must've been the lingering feeling the human thing left behind for he knew that according to the dusty trail the human went off towards Waterfall. However who didn't say that… Papyrus frowned and forced himself to quit the frantic path his thoughts ran towards.
Think positive. It's just a misguided human, Papyrus… calm down, they won't be coming back to jump at your neck, that's just your overreacting imagination… you did have a hard day, so it's okay to be a little bit jumpy, but just calm down now and find your brother and take him back to the evacuation camp.
He finally noticed a disturbance in the snow.
Well, just look at that. That looks awfully a lot like your brother's footprints. So that means you're on a good right track to find him and then go to the other villagers and have some nice spaghetti. Yep, like that. No need to worry.
He forcefully calmed himself down, even allowing a small smile to slip on his face as he walked along his brother's path.
He just went back to the village to bring something heforgot. Of course he didn…
…What was that?
Something dark on the ground was emerging through the fog. Another set of footprints?
It didn't look like that. More like some bones a skeleton would use for attacks. Why were there bone attacks lying around?
Now that he thought about that, there were more around, half buried in the ground or covered in remains of snow. A lot of the snow however was treaded down, kicked away or melted, revealing large parts of the normally full covered dark earth. Even some parts of the ground were rumpled and sported large holes. It looked like a battleground.
It was a battleground.
And Papyrus could count the monsters that could fight with bone attacks on two fingers.
No.
No.
NO!
Suddenly Papyrus lost all his previous caution and calm attitude.
This can't be right! This can't be right!
He bolted from his stiff posture and ran around the battlefield, desperately trying to find the whereabouts about his lost brother. Destruction, poached snow, small red droplets of an unrecognizable substance, scorched earth, dust.
He froze.
Dust.
His entire being shook as he noticed the dust on the seemingly innocent blue jacket lying on the ground.
"…SANS…?"
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Papyrus stared at the ceiling, shaken and trembling, vainly trying to calm down. But he had to...
If somebody would have asked him how long he had just sat there in the snow, clutching his brother's blue hoodie and crying, Papyrus would not be able to estimate the time at all.
He only hazily remembered desperately wanting to go home, to this being just a bad dream. A bad blurry dream where he had to wake up from and go to his brother's room.
Apparently that's where his feet had unconsciously carried him to. Just Sans' room...
This had to be a bad dream.
It had to be.
Please.
Suddenly he picked up a noise. What...?
He wasn't sure he even had heard that; if he even wanted to hear.
Nonetheless he listened carefully, not daring to move or make a sound. There it was again. A muffled whine along with a slight rattling noise.
Still tightly clutching his brother's blue jacket, Papyrus slowly sat up. From where did the sound come? It didn't sound like a threat... more like-
The old bed squeaked loudly. Papyrus involuntarily tensed up at the unintended loud sound. The whining stopped abruptly, only for the rattling noise to increase. Papyrus looked around the messy room of his brother. There was someone hiding in this room. And they sounded somewhat terrified - not that he blamed them.
There. The bed stand was rattling slightly.
Papyrus had to calm down before he cautiously reached with trembling hands towards the locker. As soon as he pried the top drawer open, something white raced out in a blur, throwing socks and clothes around and disappearing under the bed as fast as it came.
Papyrus had to calm his racing heart down before was able to even progress what the heck just had happened.