(A/N: This story is inspired by I'm a fan! By Oneirix / Killer)
It was just your typical kind of life. I graduated from college, landed a job at a sort-of-big general contractor outfit, and with my older brother taking care of our parents for me, I was currently enjoying all the myriad benefits of the Bachelorette -pad life. Age thirty-seven. No significant other. I wasn't exactly short or frumpy or hideous or anything. But when it came to the opposite sex, apparently I had nothing to offer. I'd made efforts along those lines, with varying degrees of dedication, but by the fifth rejection, something fizzled out within me. Besides—really, at this age, I was kinda past the point where a boyfriend or girlfriend needed to be my main focus. Work kept me busy enough. Plus, it wasn't like I was gonna die without one.
…I'm not making excuses, all right? It's just that I started thinking…
"Oh, hello, ma'am! Sorry, we're late!"
There he was, walking toward me, bursting with all that youthful energy of his. He and the beautiful woman next to him. His name was Benjamin, one of the guys who worked under me, and she was Abigail, the front desk lady and pretty much the "it" girl around the office. These bums asked to see me because they were getting married and wanted my advice. In other words, this meeting was the whole reason I was brooding over why I was such a failure at personal relationships. I was leaning against a telephone pole at the intersection where we'd agreed to meet after work, thinking to myself.
"Nah." I nodded a greeting at Benjamin and asked, "What'd you want to talk about?"
"Oh, good to meet you. My name's Abigail. I've seen you at work a lot, but…um, I guess this is the first time I've spoken to you, huh? It makes me kind of nervous, somehow."
I'm the one who should be nervous, lady! my mind griped itself. It's not like I'm any good at speaking to men. How about a little sympathy here? Any way you looked at it, I was the wrong person to ask. I knew nothing about love. They were doing this just to spite me—I was sure of it. Pretty sure, anyway.
"Oh, there's nothing to be nervous about," I replied. "Y/N L/N. It's good to meet you, Ms. Abigail…although you're famous enough around the office that you hardly need to even introduce yourself, huh? Benjamin and I went to the same college, and we kinda hit it off during his training period, so that's how we know each other."
"Famous? Oof! Not famous in a weird way, I hope?"
"Oh, y'know. I hear stories about you dating Benjamin or messin' around with Mr. Jacob in management…"
Somehow, I decided that picking on her would be a good idea. I just meant it as a passing joke, but it made Abigail's face turn a bright shade of red, her eyes watering up a bit. It was cute, in a way. People were always telling me to tone that stuff down—that I needed to consider people's feelings more or, if not that, at least make it funnier—but I couldn't help myself. So mark that down as another failure. Maybe I do have a crap personality. Benjamin took that chance to intervene, patting Abigail on the shoulder. Dammit, Benjamin! So blessed with the natural charm you need to live a decent life… I wish people like you would just explode!
"Aw, stop being mean to her," he admonished with an effortless smile. "And don't worry, Abigail, he's just having a little fun with you."
Cool, refreshing, and completely guileless—Benjamin was impossible to hate. He was still just twenty-eight, quite a bit younger than I was, but we got on well nonetheless. I probably owed him at least a few congratulations…
"Hah, sorry," I said, figuring there was no reason to let my jealousy devour me. "I can't help but needle people like that sometimes. But no point standing here on the sidewalk. Wanna get something to eat while we talk?"
"Aaaahhh!"
Screams. Chaos. What is—What's going on?!
"Move! I'll kill you!"
I turned around to find a man sprinting toward me, a backpack in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other. I could hear shrieking. He was coming my way. With a knife. A knife? And at the other end of it…
"Benjamiiinnn!"
The moment I shoved Benjamin aside, I felt a burning pain run across my back. My body balled up as it collapsed to the ground, trying to withstand the shock. I couldn't tell what had happened. I wanted to move, but I couldn't.
"Get the hell outta my way!" the man shouted as he ran off. I watched him go and then checked to see how my companions were. The suddenness of it all had reduced Benjamin to a stupor, but he was unhurt. That was good. But, man, was my back burning. So hot. Beyond anything, I'd describe it as pain.
What's up with that? It's too hot… Gimme a break.
Did I… Did I just get stabbed?
So I'm gonna die from a stabbing? Holy crap…
? ❄ ?￢ﾚﾐ ✡ ?￢ﾜﾡ ? ✋ ? ? ❄ ?✌✋ ?✋ ✌?
"M-Ms. L/N, you're bleeding… You won't stop bleeding!"
I didn't need to hear that right now. Was that Benjamin? I thought I heard some kind of weird voice. If it was Benjamin, then so be it.
I'm bleeding? Well, duh. I'm only human. If you stab me, I'll probably bleed all over you, yes. Damn, this was starting to hurt, though…
? ✡ ? ✌✞ ?✋ ✌✞ ✌ ? ✋ ?❄ ?✋❄ ✌ ? ?￢ﾚﾐ ?￢ﾜﾋ?￢ﾜﾋ ✋❄✡ ✌ ✌? ✡ ? ?￢ﾜﾡ ? ✋ ?
Um… Well, shit. All this pain and panic was starting to screw around with my consciousness.
"B-Benjamin… Shut up. It… It's nothing big, all right? Quit worrying…"
"Ms. L/N, you're… The blood…" Benjamin tried to hold me up, face drained of color and looking about ready to break into sobs. So much for that bravado from two minutes ago. I tried to see how Abigail was doing, but my vision was too fogged up to manage it.
Now the burning feeling on my back was starting to fizzle out. Instead, an intense, frigid cold was attacking me from head to toe. That… That's probably bad… People die once they bleed too much, don't they?
? ❄ ❄ ?￢ﾜﾡ ? ✋ ? ✡ ? ﾟﾕﾯ ✌✞ ? ﾟﾑﾍ ✌❄ ?￢ﾚﾐ?￢ﾘﾜ ❄ ✌ ✌ ✡ ❄ ❄ ?￢ﾜﾌ ? ✌ ? ?✌?✡ ? ﾟﾒﾧ
Hey, what're you talking about? I can't hear you too well…
I tried to speak. And failed.
Shit. I think this might be it… Like, the pain and the heat were pretty well gone by now. It was just cold. Cold as hell. I felt as if I was gonna freeze in place.
Who knew dying could keep you so damn busy?
Just then, what remained of my increasingly oxygen-deprived brain cells chanced upon a flash of brilliance. Oh, craaaaap, the files on my hard drive!
I summoned up my remaining wells of strength, striving to relay the final regret I had left in life. "Benjamin! If… If anything bad happens to me…take my computer, okay? Put it in the bathtub, turn it on, and just fry everything on the disk for me, man…"
? ✡ ? ? ✡ ?✋ ? ✋ ?￢ﾜﾡ ? ✋ ? ?￢ﾝﾄ ✌?￢ﾜﾋ ✡
It took a moment for my plea to register with Benjamin. He gave me a blank stare. Then he snickered.
"Ha-ha! That's just like you, isn't it?"
Even if it was just a snicker, it beat having to depart this plane of existence with a grown man blubbering on top of me. I'd take it. "All I wanted was to show Abigail off to you, too…," he continued.
"Pfft…"
Hah. I knew it. That bastard.
"It's fine, okay? Make her a happy woman."
I wrung out the last bit of strength my body had to offer.
"Just kill my PC for me…"
Then everything went black it was not even long until I heard knocking on the door but that can't be right, I died why would I be hearing someone knocking at a door. But the knocking was persistent making me get up and headed towards the door, which was a terrible mistake as immediately I winced, a sharp pain going through my head from the abrupt movement. I reached up to feel my head, but before I touched my head, I saw my hand.
M-my hand it was all bone. No skin, muscles, nerves... Only my phalanges, carpals, and metacarpals, seemingly held together by nothing. I lifted my hand close to my face and noticed that my eyesight was weird. I normally needed glasses, so why could I see perfectly? I could even see a weird orange-red glow on my hand. W-wait a glow? I paid a bit more attention to the glow and noticed that it came from my left eye and was just being reflected onto my hand. I looked around the room I was in and noticed there wasn't a single mirror within the room, dis didn't bother me as much I would be able to take a closer look when I went to a bathroom. The room was a bit dark, the only light coming through the window. It was a mess, the bed I had been laying on was a mattress on the floor, with a ball of sheets on top of it. At the feet of the mattress was a small tornado with some pieces of trash in it.
In the middle of the room was a treadmill, it had a thick layer of dust on it, and a small note was taped on it with a joke. I moved to the drawer and opened it, trying to see if there would be anything in it that might help with my memory. Nothing in it seemed familiar, there was a bunch of paper in it, an orange hoodie a pair of beige shorts, and a tiny silver key. The room itself vaguely reminded me of something I must've seen at some point. That seemed a bit hilarious though, whose room had I seen that had a small and seemingly contained trash tornado?
"no way…" I gasped, "sans' room? Am I in Undertale?"
Wait I appeared to be a skeleton from what I could see, did that mean I am a Sans or I am a Papyrus from underswap or fellswap now? Oh no, I don't want to deal with Resets and the kid, and ugh. Wait a minute my eye is glowing red-orange which Sans or papyrus has red-orange glowing eyes, if I can remember correctly most of Sans's eyes glow blue and yellow, and even red but not red-orange, and papyrus's have orange and red eyes but not red-orange I had a bad feeling about this, something that worsened when I remembered the pain in my… skull? At that moment I felt true dread as I reached up once more towards my head… skull… and this time I didn't get distracted by anything. Okay, there was bone, bone, bone, hole, bone, bon- wait a hole? I frantically tried to feel my skull, feeling the edges of the hole. The edges were ragged like something had shattered it like porcelain. Or… someone.
The picture all this evidence painted was horrible and my fear slowly increased as I put all the pieces together. No, I might not be him! I wasn't Classic Sans or Horror Sans though, that was something I was sure of. From my moment of distraction, the knocking came back to be heard once more from the door, and this time a loud voice could be heard too. "PAPYRUS! WAKE UP, LAZYBONES! I NEED TO TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR WOUND, WE NEED TO KEEP IT CLEAN!" I started to panic, I didn't remember anything from this life...and wait did he say Papyrus am I in swaptale or swapfell do I need to be cliché and pull the amnesiac card? one way to find out? I decided to sit on the bed, staring at the door to see when the Sans would come in.
When the Sans didn't hear a response, he opened the door and immediately locked eyes with mine, that's when I recognized I was in swaptale and my brother is blueberry I saw internally I was grateful I wasn't in swapfell.
"BROTHER! WHY DIDN'T YOU REPLY?"
"what?"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU REPLY! BROTHER, I WAS WORRIED!"
"Err, I'm sorry but who are you? who am I? where am I?" I asked, finding it a bit hard to lie to sweet blueberry but it was needed. "What?" Sans said shocked, his volume lowering slightly in a still loud way, but no longer could classify as yelling. "Papyrus? If This Is One Of Your Jokes, It Isn't Funny And You Should Stop."
"who is Papyrus?"
A tear rolled down blueberry's face from his eye-sockets, and he started crying.
"he-hey, why are you crying?" I said alarmed, I moved forward to try and comfort him, but that only made him cry more. After a few moments, blueberry seemed to try to pull himself together and told them that they were his brother and their name is Papyrus 'He' had been attacked and 'his' skull had been broken. Blueberry seemed to be having a hard time saying it, though whether that was because his little brother had been attacked or because he knew the person who did it was up for debate.
Blueberry sighed and grabbed my hand, "C'mon I, The Magnificent Sans Need To Look Your Skull Over To See The Damage Better Now That You're Awake. I Am Going To Bring You To The Innkeeper, Miss Sheen In A Bit Since I Am Not An Official Healer." Sans led me out the door, a hallway was there with another door with numerous signs warning people away. He led me to a door to my left, a door I hadn't noticed before now even though it was right next to us. He opened the door to a bathroom. The bathroom had a bathtub shower combo, a sink, a small closet, and a weird-looking toilet. Looking at it a bit closer, I realized that it didn't look like it was for… err... expelling waste, but it seemed more suited for people to throw up in.
It seemed that while skeletons don't need to go to the bathroom for the usual things humans frequent the toilet for, they did throw up. I wondered if it was like some of the fanfictions I had read, throwing up magic? It made me wonder what else fanfiction writers were corrected about; maybe ecto…?
No matter, they could think about that later. I looked at the sink and sure enough, there was a mirror above it. I moved towards it, but Blueberry held me back.
I looked back at him in confusion, and he explained that he was afraid of my reaction. "I might remember something…" I lied easily, "could you leave me for a bit? I wanna take a shower."
"Okay," Sans said unsure before perking up, "Of Course! Brother, You Stink, But Take A Bath, Not A Shower! And Be Careful With Your Wound!"
"okay" I agreed.
Sans left the bathroom, and I was immediately in front of the mirror, trying to look at myself.
A hiss slipped through my teeth and I reached for my right eye. It was not there. There was no eye light there, and their left eye light was red-orange and large. Menacing…I made a few expressions and was impressed at how expressive my face was for a skeleton. Grabbing my cheek and pulling, I noticed it behaved as a human would.
The hole in my skull was large, more like a crater and I reached in it, having the strange urge to scratch at it. I shook my skull and stopped myself. My hand automatically went to my right eye and I hooked two of my phalanges on it, pulling slightly. It caused a little pain, but it grounded me a bit. My first thought was semi correct I was swaptale Papyrus but a horror version of the original swaptale Papyrus, though it seemed that my red-orange eye was my Left instead of my right from like canon Horrortale. Looking at Sans though, it seemed that while it was after the incident with alphdick, we were not that far into the famine yet. It was before the skeleton brothers had been forced to eat humans to survive.
All of this brought me a new question though. Where was Papyrus? Did I replace him entirely, or was he still in there somewhere? I took a deep breath and decided to hold that thought for a later time. Before I could even start to reach for the handle to turn the water on, Sans burst into the room, causing me to let out a yelp and almost fall from losing my balance.
"BE MORE CAREFULL, BROTHER!" Sans scolded me after catching me before I fell.
"ye," I mumbled embarrassed, "Sans, please don't just barge in, what if I was naked?" Sans shrugged at that and started walking out of the bathroom with me under his arm. "Nothing I Haven't Seen Before! When you were Little You Would Bathe With Me After All!"
"yeah, but I don't remember that remember?" I reminded him.
"Hmmm Yes I Understand! You Haven't Even Made A Single Pun Or Joke Yet! That Means You Are Sick!" Sans declared, walking down the stairs and starting towards the door. I frowned and remembered that Papyrus made a ton of puns normally. That might be a slight problem, I thought to myself, since I rarely can make puns. I love them, but I am not good at making them. Occasionally the morbid ones I manage, but Sans from horror tale only starts those when he starts to hunt humans.
"err, Sans? where are we going?" I asked Sans.
"Didn't I Already Tell You? Miss Sheen The Innkeeper Bunny Is A Certified Healer, And I Want Her To Take A Look At Your Stats And Injury!" I nodded and continued to… hang out while he was walking out the door and marching towards the Inn. Oh man, I was already attempting to make puns in my head as practice.