ENTRY NUMBER 01:
* I thought it would help to call them.
* Being able to say what I feel, even if it's too late to act…
* It did help, for a while.
* Just not enough.
Alphys knocked on the door and stepped back, her heels pressed into the edge of the front step. She readjusted the strap of her duffel bag, leaning awkwardly to counterbalance the weight on her hip, and wiped her hands on her jeans. At the other end of the street, a dog barked.
She watched herself with a distant, clinical curiosity, the way she'd once watched other monsters going about their lives from behind her monitor. (For, um, scientific research? Wasn't sociology also a kind of science?) The Alphys-on-the-screen had spent the night hunched over her old notes from the lab, the old ones about the Amalgamates and the newer ones about Undyne, comparing her findings, cross-referencing all of it with that long-neglected list on her laptop which detailed every monster that had recently Fallen Down. If she rushed through her work, she'd have another disaster on her hands, and if she waited too long, all her efforts would be for nothing. It would all be very tense and scary, if she cared what happened to her if something went wrong. But she didn't care, and she didn't feel like trying to make herself care.
It was a liberating feeling. Being detached, like this, just playing the role of somebody that cared. Maybe that was why Sans acted how he always did.
The door opened. A moth monster with enormous eyes and a bruised face was inside. Experience alone was what told her that the moth monster was a moth, and not some other kind of bug; they had no wings. A small, sparkly ribbon was tied in a neat bow around one antenna.
"Er, hello," they said, like they were trying to sound polite, but not hard enough to not sound like they were trying. "What do y—" They stopped mid-word, a slightly horrified expression on their face. It was both kind of funny and theoretically kind of insulting, until they shrank back deferentially and Alphys realized that they just hadn't recognized her. To be fair, except for a few monsters passing by on some early-morning errands, they were the first person to see her walking around in something other than a lab coat or a robe since she became the royal scientist.
"Hi. Can I come in?"
"Y-yes. Of course, your majesty," Cabbage stammered. They backed away to make space for her in the small front room, then winced and put a hand against the wall for support.
Alphys cringed in instinctive sympathy, fixating on the ribbon to avoid staring at the layers of white bandages visible through their thin dress. But that just made them blush through the fuzz on their cheeks and pull the ribbon off, bunching it up to hide in their fist.
"Why did you leave the hospital so soon?" Alphys asked. She scrubbed her hands on a corner of her shirt, but the black grease was all under her nails.
Instead of an answer from Cabbage, she heard a distant, rushing buzz, like static electricity overlaid with frantic giggling. Where there'd been nothing, a bird-shaped monster as big as she was hung in the air over the kitchen table. Its head extended at right angles, snaking up and sideways and then next to her; its body followed the same zig-zagging course, long neck retracting into the body like a tape measure. The two halves of its beak separated, spun around, and reattached in a flipped position.
"YoWhRibuatbitsmdoyellou,walinirtke,Almotophroybbit?os?il." it said. The sounds came from multiple directions, none of them anywhere near the beak.
"Oh. H-hey, Reaper Bird."
In a cloudy puff, they disappeared and sprinkled over the floor and then oozed out of the wall where Cabbage leaned, so that they now leaned against its wing. Cabbage gave the wing a pat and tried to stand up straighter.
"I had to be sure they are all right. I don't trust the others to look after them for long," they said, glancing back toward the hallway. They lowered their voice, like they were afraid the other monsters they lived with might be listening, and added: "I never told anyone about the other Amalga— Amalgamate while I was there. I promise you."
Maybe this all would have ended differently if they had. "I know. Um. Thanks." Alphys shifted the bag to her other shoulder. "Your little sibling is… alive, aren't they..?"
Cabbage smoothed an invisible wrinkle from their dress.
"...Y, yes. Lace… is alive. I was going to go back to see them shortly. They... don't like places that are bright and noisy. It frightens them."
"Okay, great! Ahh, n-not the scared part, I mean, um, I have something for them."
Alphys untied the cord from around her neck and pulled it up, sliding the glass vial out from under her shirt. Cabbage gaped, the red light of the Determination reflecting in their giant bug eyes. She held the vial out to them, then felt terrible—so much for total apathy—because Reaper Bird dissolved back into the wall and fled with an electronic screech. Cabbage lurched and fell with an agonized squeak, but waved her away when she rushed over to help. Almost before they got back up, they snatched the vial from her hands and cradled it protectively to their heart.
"Wh-where did this come from?" they gasped, either from pain or shock. Alphys just hoped that they wouldn't fall over again, and crack the vial, and end up granting sapience to a floorboard. "How..?"
She took in the disbelieving happiness on their face and waited to feel something. "Didn't you already figure it out in the lab?"
"…Oh," Cabbage said. She waited, masochistically, for them to ask about the other monster they'd met down there, whose hoodie she now had on, streaked with dirt and grease from a climb through an elevator shaft. But they were too busy trying not to hyperventilate. Well, soon enough, the whole Underground would hear some version of the story.
"They must be pretty young, and, um, not much bigger than you are. So they would definitely be eligible, as long as the doctors don't think my plan is completely bad. But, after what happened to you, all because of what I've been doing… I thought it was fair for you to know first." She shifted her bag to her other shoulder. "Though, just to warn you, I still don't, ah… really know if this will work? I think I have a closer estimate to what the right range of doses should be in order to help, depending on the amount of physical matter in a particular monster's body, but there's no way to tell if it worked unless we do it and it works, and the last time I tried, it didn't, ah... it didn't.
…Um! But, also! As you know, I used to be the royal scientist, and I built all kinds of things long before then. So, so I thought, once you've fully healed, I could make some kind of prostheses for you, if you want. You know, like, new wings? They won't look exactly the same as natural ones, but you'll be able to fly. If y-you want."
"…Why would I NOT want that?" Cabbage realized what they said and how they said it, and covered their mouth while they screamed internally. It was a familiar feeling. "I, I mean, th-thank you, your majesty, thank you, I don't know what I could do for you in return for your kindness, but, but..!"
"You don't have to do anything. That isn't why I'm here. Or. Ah…" she smiled a little, ruefully. "Eheh-heh… maybe that isn't true. To be honest, I'm a little scared to go back to that hospital by myself, even though I know I have to. So, um, maybe we could go together? I could carry you."
They seemed like the type of person to be insulted by that kind of offer, and maybe they were, but not enough to stop them from frantically nodding as they hugged that vial of Determination. Gently, she scooped them up and set them onto her shoulder.
"Uh, s-sorry for upsetting Reaper Bird just now," Alphys said.
"They'll understand. It was an accident."
Cabbage swayed with the motion of her arm as she opened and closed the front door. The dog at the end of the street had stopped barking. "…What is in this bag?" They leaned down to touch the strap, hissed, and sat stiffly back up.
"…If you don't know yet… you'll see, soon."
Nobody murdered Alphys or anything. Well, none of the doctors she talked to, since there was still time for some disgruntled family member to hear from a doctor and take the news a lot worse than Cabbage did, and snap her neck for lying to everyone again, or for killing and/or horribly mutating someone they cared about, if they gave the go-ahead to try reviving them and it didn't work right. Again. But she felt okay by the time she got home, as much as she could feel anything. Tired, but not a bad kind of tired, and now the bag over her shoulder wasn't weighed down by all the Determination left in the Underground.
At the windowsill, a small yellow bird perched and pecked single-mindedly at the glass. She heard it before she saw it. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Um… hi?"
The bird stopped mid-peck. It picked up a small object that had also been sitting on the windowsill, glided down to Alphys' hand, and dropped the object—a sheet of torn notebook paper folded into quarters—onto her palm.
"You brought this for me?" she asked. The bird proudly fluffed up its feathers. Behind it, the window was clouded with scratches.
With the hand that did not have anyone sitting on it, she slowly unfolded the paper. Inside was a note:
Alphys—
Your friend didn't want me to reveal where she is, so out of respect for her wishes, I won't spill the beans. However, considering how & why I suspect she got here, it seemed only right to let you know what's what.
Undyne came here four days ago. She's stayed with me since then & though I'm no expert on her particular condition, I've looked after her as well as I can. Neither of us have keeled over yet, so I must not have it too wrong.
That's the best news I have to tell you, I'm afraid, but I figure it's what you'd most care to hear.
There's another reason behind my decision to write to you, however. You're a bright gal & capable of tracking Undyne down real quick, with or without my help. You may be trying already. Well, I can't prevent that, & it ain't my place to pass judgment on you, Undyne, or the poor SOUL she says that she hurt, but I've experienced enough to know that she needs time to work through some things before seeing you again. Maybe I'm overstepping, but perhaps the same is true in reverse.
(And if that ain't convincing enough… if you show up on the doorstep with this note in hand, she'll have my hide! Wa ha ha!)
Anyhow. Take care of yourself, kid.
The thin, wobbly, curly script brought to mind a letter from three hundred years ago. The notebook paper and the sender's decision to literally write out "ha ha", not so much. Alphys turned over the note, but nothing was written on the back; no further explanation, no name. But its author was right, because she really didn't know what more she might have hoped or expected to see. Even the things that they did say weren't all new to her.
A lump formed in her throat without warning. She folded the note back up. "Th…thank you."
The yellow bird chirped, satisfied with itself, and flew off somewhere. Alphys dragged the sleeve of her hoodie across her face, not caring that it smelled like it had never been washed. Knowing its original owner, it definitely hadn't.
Sans, whatever he did in that lab and however he came into possession of a photo of the human and the queen and himself and Alphys and all their friends, was dead. Undyne was… she was alive, but somewhere else, and she hated Alphys, and Alphys was alone. It was enough to push some former version of herself into doing something awful and cowardly, with all her fears rolled up together and coming true all at once, but… those comatose monsters in the hospital needed help, and she was (unfortunately) the closest thing to an expert on the one thing that could still save them. Without enough reason to feel hope for the future, more monsters would keep meeting that same fate, and there wasn't even enough Determination to save every person that had already Fallen. The flower was still a potential risk; the possibility of another human entering the Underground and wiping everyone out, a greater one. And she'd promised to start fitting Cabbage for a set of prosthetic wings, once their injuries healed…
Alphys pocketed the note and went back inside the castle. The door swung shut behind her.
Monster Kid wheezed as two feet slammed down onto their back. Sis wasn't so heavy, but she had talons just like Dad's and they were like crazy sharp.
"H-hey!" they whined. "Get—ungh—OFF!"
"Ewwwwww, are you watching, like, politics?" Sis dug her talons in deeper while Monster Kid squirmed. "…Hey, whatsa matter, fart-face?"
"You're breaking my spine!"
"Are you callin' me fat?! I'm telling our parents that you called me fat. They're gonna be maaaa-aaaad~!"
"I didn't! Yo, you're the one that broke my spine and called me a—" Sis pushed off and jumped, straight up in the air. Monster Kid saw their chance and rolled away like a log, but they moved all crooked and their head bonked into the corner of a bookshelf so they literally saw stars. And something hard was jabbing into their back now, so getting away didn't even fix anything.
Sis hit the floor butt-first and squawked. "Ow, what the HELL!"
"Why do you keep doing that, dude?"
"Pttthhhb. How about you try and MAKE me stop?" Sis leaned over to punch Monster Kid in the stomach, then saw the remote sticking out from under them. So instead she just poked them in the ribs to make them move, then snatched the remote away. "…Whatever, I wanna watch anime."
They sat up, shaking their head around to make the living room stop spinning. Sis changed the channel and flopped onto a beanbag chair in a big puff of feathers. On the TV screen, two human-like girls with witch hats and fluffy at paws were shooting energy beams at each other. Monster Kid could maybe get Sis in trouble for using a bad word, or for watching a show with fighting in it while their parents were out, or walking on them, but they weren't really mad and they would be even less mad by the time they got the chance. Tattling was pretty lame, anyway.
Monster Kid stretched their feet out in front of them. Laser noises and squeaky yelling came from the TV.
Sometimes—not that they ever TOLD her this, 'cause she would just take it as an invitation to hog the remote even MORE than she did now—sometimes it felt really good to argue with Sis, even though she always won because she was bigger and older and had more limbs and stuff. At school, the other kids weren't, like, mean, but Monster Kid could never get rid of the feeling that they were being stared at or whispered about whenever they weren't looking, even though the thing that happened was way before the new school year started. And twice a week, they had to see this doctor lady who asked about their feelings and school and stuff while they sat on the floor and played with modeling clay or tried to put together a jigsaw puzzle. They didn't really get the point of going, but it was because of happened that summer.
The doctor lady said it was okay to say whatever they were thinking, and that it wasn't bad or wrong to feel a certain way, but Monster Kid's parents got upset when they talked about it, almost like they were mad at them, so they didn't. But it was, like, a complete real fact that if they hadn't been so stupid, and they listened when Undyne told them to go home instead of following that human kid, she wouldn't have gotten hurt from protecting them and she wouldn't have died. And since the human was evil, she could've taken their SOUL and used it to free everyone, and they would all be on the surface and happy and nobody else would've gotten killed. So they were glad they got saved because they didn't want to die or get hurt, and even thinking about what the human almost did to them made them feel scared even though it was so long ago, but when Monster Kid thought about all the good stuff that would've happened if Undyne didn't sacrifice herself to save them, sometimes, they secretly deep down wondered if it would've been better if…
…Anyway, their parents didn't like it when they said anything even a little like that, and the other kids maybe whispered about them and maybe didn't, and their grades at school kind of sucked, and the puzzle lady was okay except that talking to her was a reminder of how nothing was exactly the same anymore. Except for Sis, who still jumped on Monster Kid and called them a fartface.
The episode ended. Either they just spaced out for that long or it was just almost over anyway, but colorful credits were scrolling across the screen. Sis switched back to the channel Monster Kid had been watching; the new queen, Alphys, was talking into a microphone with her hands behind her back while a bunch of monsters from the capitol listened.
She was talking about being determined, or something. Monster Kid couldn't follow it that much even from the start, and then they got all distracted by Sis like practically breaking their spine and then changing the channel, so now they were lost. They wiggled their feet around.
"Why were you watchin' this, anyway?" Sis asked.
Monster Kid shrugged like they didn't know, or anyway they kind of shrugged, since they weren't that good at it. It wasn't totally honest, since it was like saying they didn't know and they actually did, but it was too hard to put the actual real truth into words. It wasn't that they liked watching, but if something really, really bad happened, Alphys would be the one to tell everybody and tell them what to do, since she was in charge, so if she didn't do that, then nothing bad happened, and the only way Monster Kid could know that she hadn't done that was if they watched. And if nothing really bad happened, and the human was gone and they stayed gone, then maybe what Monster Kid did wasn't so bad. Or, it was bad, but not the most-bad that it could be. Or maybe that made no sense at all.
Sis turned off the TV and tossed the remote aside. It clattered on the floor and one of the batteries rolled out, but she didn't notice.
"Well, whatever," she said. She got up and she poked Monster Kid in the ribs with one of her talons, but not quite so hard this time. "Wanna go play outside?"
"...Yeah, okay."
AN: Well, guess I lied: the first chapter of the sequel fic will get posted once it's done, since I don't feel like waiting any longer to post this one.
It feels a little silly to make a huge fuss about finishing a fic, especially one that's fairly obscure, but this (or, technically its awful first draft) is the first story I've actually written despite years of being too scared to write and then feeling like this one isn't as good as I wanted it to be, plus the whole "it's the year of our lord 2018/2019 who would want to read this Undertale fanfic of mine" thing, so finishing feel pretty special.
Thanks for reading.