The entire town was dead once everyone had been evacuated. The silence was eerie. Alice stood with Papyrus, waiting for the human to come so they could stop them. Grillby made her promise to get out of there if things went bad. She accepted, and he kissed her before leaving. She could still feel the softness of his heated lips.
"I still don't believe it," Papyrus said, sitting down beside her. "The human...I thought they'd be good."
Alice nodded. "I understand how disappointed you must be."
Papyrus made a sad noise.
"But now isn't the time. Once we find the human, we'll capture them and put a stop to this."
He shrugged.
Alice tried to smile. "Hey, maybe Undyne will really let you into the Royal Guard now. She'll see that you really do have it in you."
This made him smile just a little bit. "Maybe..."
Alice sighed. She felt bad. Papyrus had so much hope for the human. He even tried to be friends with them.
She could see something in the distance. She peered closer, and saw the human approaching.
They were only a child, no more than nine, with a pale white face and eyes that were a blood red. Their sweater, which was light green with a yellow stripe in the middle, was caked with dried blood and sprinkled with dust. Monster dust.
They caught sight of Alice and grinned, then ran to her. Alice raised her arm sharply, and a wall of green bones surrounded the human, trapping them inside. The human stopped, looked around, and their smile turned to an angry growl.
Papyrus stood up and raised his arm too, and the human was hit from behind with several bones. The human cried out as they hit the walls of bones. Alice saw him wince. She knew this was hurting him.
He stopped, and Alice took a turn. She gave the human a small beating, not wanting to hurt them too badly, as they were still a child.
Once Papyrus finished his final assault, he walked forward a bit, looking at the human. They were just lying there, crumpled in the snow, beaten and bruised.
"You don't have to do this anymore, human," he said shakily. His voice was trembling. He was crying.
The human didn't respond. They kept shivering silently.
"You don't have to hurt anyone. You are better than this."
The human didn't look up.
"Alice, put the wall down," Papyrus said. "Please."
"But what if they-" she began.
"Just do it!" Papyrus snapped his skull towards her. Alice was taken aback, but she lowered her arm, the bones retracting into the ground again.
The human looked up. Their face dripped with fresh blood. But they didn't even blink.
"Please, human..." Papyrus continued, helping them to their feet. "Stop this."
There was a long stillness. Everyone was quiet, nobody moved. Absolute silence.
Then the human jumped up and ran past Papyrus, running straight for Alice, face twisted into a mad hatred for trapping them in that cage. Alice gasped. Frozen with fear, she put her arms up in an attempt to block the knife the human was holding. She squeezed her eyes shut...
...and heard a cry of pain.
Papyrus! her mind screamed.
She opened her eyes and saw that he had fallen on his back before her. The human was running away, into the forest, but Alice didn't care. She knealt down and pulled him close to her. She was trembling.
Her mind went back to the nightmares she had as a little girl. Monsters turning to dust all around her. She didn't want Papyrus to be one of them.
"No...no no no, Papyrus, oh gosh...no." Alice was panicking. Her little brother coughed.
"Alice..." he managed. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," she said frantically, her sockets starting to spill tears. She examined his wound. He had been slashed across the neckbone, deep. It looked fatal.
"That human..." he whispered. Alice had to lean down to hear him. "I thought...I could help...help them be better..."
She nodded, sniffled, and started to sob. "I know, Papy. You didn't want to hurt them."
"I...jumped in to...save you..."
"And save me you did. Come on, get up. We'll get you some help." Alice tried to stay positive. "What about joining the Royal Guard? Y-You still...You need to..."
Papyrus took her hand. "Sister..." he said with a little smile. "I know it's over. I feel myself starting to fade." He lifted his arm, and they both watched his fingers quickly start disintegrating.
Alice cried harder, holding him close to her. She didn't want to lose her little brother. She was too scared.
He gave her the tightest embrace he could muster, then let out a long sigh. "Tell Sans I love him," he said calmly.
She nodded. "I will, I promise I will." She kissed the top of his skull and whispered, "I love you little brother..."
"I love you too, big sister..."
She felt him start to get lighter, then his dust started seeping through her fingers. She looked at her hands and saw that she was holding only his favorite red scarf.
Emotion flooded her. She cried and screamed to the false sky, lamenting her sorrows until her vocal cords burned.
When the waves subsided, Alice stood up, dried her eye sockets, clutched the scarf tight in one hand, and went to track down that human. She knew exactly where they were going.
Sans waited in a hallway, lit by bright yellow light, just outside the King's palace. He stood with his arms folded, eyes cast downward. He had objected to Papyrus staying in Snowdin, waiting for the human to show, but Alice assured him that he'd be okay, and that she'd stay with him. He'd reluctantly accepted, and now he was here, waiting for them to return.
He heard footsteps. He thought it was the human, so he stood straight up and looked. Alice was walking towards him, head lowered.
"Ali?" he asked, relaxing. "What's wrong? You okay? Where's Paps?"
Alice slowly raised her left arm. That was when Sans noticed that she was holding a...a familiar...red scarf...
Panic, fear, anger, and sadness shot through him all at the same time. "No..."
She slowly nodded. "The human...tried to kill me...Papyrus..." She stopped.
Sans waited. "What?"
Alice's voice was tinged with pain. "Papyrus saved my life...in exchange for his own."
Sans didn't respond, just held the scarf in his hands. Alice started to cry.
"Are you alright?" Sans asked after a long silence.
"I couldn't save him!" she wailed.
Sans walked forward and hugged her tight. "Easy sis..."
Footsteps. Slow. Quiet.
Alice stopped sobbing almost instantly. She looked in the direction of the steps.
"Oh no...they're here..." she whispered.
Sans instinctively stood on front of her as the human stepped into view. They grinned when they saw Alice, a horrible, wicked grin that made her shiver. She never felt so afraid.
Sans glared at them. "You dirty brother killer," he growled.
The human said nothing.
"You've been busy, haven't you, kid?" Sans continued.
Still no response.
"Let me ask you something. Do you think even the worst person can change? That they can be a good person, if they just tried?"
The human frowned and finally spoke. "No. I don't. And even if I did, I don't want to change." Their voice had a strange accent to it. One that Alice couldn't place.
Sans's eyes closed and he let out a long sigh. "Alright, here's another question..."
"Dear Alice," the human interrupted, turning their attention to her. "Do you remember your...old flame?"
Alice took a step back. "No..." she whimpered.
The human grinned and dropped a handful of dust on the ground. "He wanted me to tell you he loved you before I killed him."
Alice cried out, fell to her knees, and started crying again. Grillby...she thought. Grillby...I'm so sorry!
"He died valiantly," the human continued. "Like a true hero, he died trying to save everyone. He died for you, Alice."
Alice just kneeled in front of the small pile of dust, weeping in sheer heartbreak.
"That's it." Sans's voice seethed with rage. "I've had enough of your talk, kid."
Sans's eyes snapped open, and one of them glowed an angry cyan/yellow color. When he spoke again, his voice was low and menacing. "Do you wanna have a bad time? Because if you take another step closer, you're really not gonna like what happens next."
The grin spread across the human's face again. "Oh this is gonna be fun," they said, holding the knife up and tapping their chin with the tip of it and walking closer to Sans.
Sans tossed Papyrus's scarf to Alice. "Sorry old lady," he whispered. "This is why I never make promises."
He raised his arm and clenched his fist just as the human tried to rush him. Their body froze, and they roared in anger. Sans responded by sharply moving his arm left and right, up and down, tossing them around, their body hitting the walls and pillars in the brightly lit hallway, not even giving them a second to breathe.
Alice watched in sadness as the human was thrown about like a rag doll, tears streaming down her face. They deserved this. They killed her little brother, her best friends, and then the monster she loved. They deserved this. They deserved it.
She repeated the phrase over and over in her mind, but by about the third time, she heard something else. A little voice, sounding pained and scared.
"Help me..." it cried out. "Please help me!"
Alice blinked, then looked at the human. She looked past the snarling, anger-filled face of the killer, and saw something that startled her.
She saw the face of another human. Their skin was dark, their eyes were small slits with tears streaming from them, and their mouth open in a silent scream. They had dark brown hair and a purple and blue striped sweater.
They reached a small hand out to Alice.
"Please, Alice!" the little voice screamed. "Please! Help me!"
