Chapter Twenty: Different Kinds of Nightmares
Darkness gripped everything, his surroundings made invisible by an unnatural shroud. The shadows allowed no movement. There was nowhere to flee even if he could. For they concealed little else but a snow laden ground. He knew not of how he'd obtained this fact.
Papyrus made a useless attempt at figuring out how things had come to this. No train of thought could exist for long, a fog having settled into his fearful mind. He silently called for light to cut through the suffocating dark. He struggled for air as panic joyfully crept in.
The darkness was alive, the shadows circling playfully. A familiar presence stalked its defenseless prey. Its power increased with every moment that he was afraid, with every breath that failed to bring enough air.
Though he could not bring himself to be devoid of the emotion. His muddled fractions of thought were unable to produce much reason. Even if he had been fully capable of trying to calm himself, a part of the skeleton knew that it would do no well. Emotions weren't usually things that could simply be turned off.
How much time passed this way? It was impossible to tell, and an irrelevant subject. Seconds passed by that felt like years, before his perception of it sped up, the hands of an unseen clock moving too quickly for mortal sight. It took an eternity for the clock's hands to shift. Then four forevers were over in the time it took to blink.
The being was content to feed. And then it wasn't. Papyrus was standing before an image that appeared exactly like him. Despite the blinding shadows, it was clear as could be. It was no mirror image, he realized with dread. He and it were the same.
The skeletal monster in front of him carried a cruel smile. It radiated everything wrong, each and every thing no one was supposed to be, feel, or think. It had no morals or regard for others' well being. It cared not for the world around it and found excitement in destruction. This creature was evil.
And it was him.
His eye sockets opened to a shaded room. Dark, but naturally so. Magic and streetlights were reflected by snow, and soft light illuminated the room. Glass was broken somewhere nearby, but sleep wouldn't fully release his mind. The being was close. He assumed and hoped that it was weak here.
Sleep lingered, leaving him in a half-conscious state. His thoughts began drifting to memories they normally wouldn't touch. He was flooded with images of the past before able to react.
Droplets fell heavily from the obscure space above. Despite everything, he found it amusing. Why was it that rain always seemed to accompany such moments?
Wakefulness betrayed him. It was unwilling to come and give him control. So Papyrus tried to flee back into his realm of nightmares not nearly as difficult to face. There was no amount of fear he could find less desirable than this.
His pursuers weren't far, and he was entirely sure they were serious. How many injuries could one suffer before their two points of health depleted? It was the question they had posed many times and now they were going to experiment. Sprinting through territory unknown, he knew he was a rat in a maze.
His plan backfired. The unconscious state was more welcoming, and made sure to let this recollection go on. He had been in Waterfall, lost in a tangle of natural hallways deserted by all but he and the others. Skeletons were not inclined to be bothered by temperature. Yet he'd found the falling water unbearably cold.
His fear of the dark was at play, making this an even more dramatic scene. To Papyrus, it seemed as though his classmates had disappeared. Glowing mushrooms at a corner behind provided just enough light for over-sized shadows. He decided from this point on to refrain from looking back.
Their voices were amplified. The echoes reaching him sounded like the roaring of an unholy beast. He was tired, though fear drove him onward. For how much longer, he didn't know. If only it wasn't so dark. If only he'd done the smart thing and just stayed home. If only-
Papyrus had known for some time that he feared the darkness only for what could lurk within. In the more populated areas of the Underground, it was never a problem. There was always something to shed light on the only parts of the world he knew, and would likely ever know. Here it was different. He had reached a dead end and with not even the glowing of fungi for comfort.
They were coming.
He couldn't help it. He began to laugh, effectively jolting himself awake. It made little sense to laugh in his situation. He was trapped in a time loop. If he failed to free the kingdom, everyone was likely to lose their sanity. Nevertheless, stopping proved an impossible feat.
Sitting up, the skeleton reflected willingly now on his past self. His HP was higher now than it had been. Afraid of the dark because of what could be stalking him in the shadows. There truly was something out there to validate such a fear, and the skeleton had discovered a part of himself that liked it. The twisted side of him struggled for power, to make him feel comfortable even in the shroud of his sleeping nightmare.
In a way, Papyrus was still terrified of the dark. Only a different kind. He thought back to that night in the tunnels and his humor shattered. He was able to catch his breath as he remembered turning the tables on those monsters. He'd fought back. He'd had to. Afterwards, his reputation would change, sculpted carefully into the one he now protected.
You fought them. You fought them because….
I was tired of it. And I feared then that they really would kill me.
And?
And…. Because there was no one there to protect me anymore.
Sorry this is so late everyone! My brain just wasn't working. But I'm actually really enjoying this story. I dunno if I've had this much fun writing since The Rise of RogueClan. Anyway...
An announcement: updates should hopefully become much more frequent. I want to finish so I can better focus on National Novel Writing Month. And with everything else that'll be distracting me, having this finished before or by November should help. Then, when the time comes, I'm pretty sure I'll be absent from fanfiction altogether. Definitely won't be updating stories until I either write fifty thousand words or just fail miserably and give up.
So how is everyone liking the story thus far?