I wasn't satisfied ending Cheer Up The Skeleton week on the last one, so I came up with a bonus prompt for myself. The prompt was "The Next Day."
This whole project was a blast to take part in. I really enjoyed it!
It was a beautiful night outside. Birds were sleeping, crickets were chirping, and the secrets of the cosmos were laid bare above the neighborhood. The moon, mostly full, shed its light softly, watching over the planet like a guardian.
For two skeletal brothers, standing on the roof, class was in session.
"ok," Sans began "so the crazy thing about the universe is just how big it is, and how far apart everything is. that moon up there? how far away do you think it is?"
Papyrus looked up and squinted for a bit, and then held his hands out in a box shape to try to get the picture clearer. "HMM...I BET IT'S HIGHER THAN I THINK SO...TWENTY THOUSAND MILES?"
"nah, try again, bro."
"...FORTY THOUSAND?"
"nope. way higher."
Papyrus was beginning to get that frustrated look on his face. "ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND!"
"getting there. it's over two hundred thousand miles away."
"I WAS GOING TO GUESS THAT NEXT!"
"i bet you were, bro," Sans winked.
"BUT THAT'S CRAZY! HOW DID THE HUMANS EVEN GET UP THERE?!"
"well, they built a spacecraft to get up there, and they had to wait. it took them three days to get up there, and they were going really really fast."
"WOWIE! THAT MUST'VE BEEN SO-"
THUNK.
It smelled like humans and a ladder hitting the side of the house.
"what the...who's there?"
A familiar mop of shaggy brown hair gave them their answer right away. The smiling face that came next only served to confirm the hypothesis.
"...'sup, kiddo? what're you doin' up here?"
"OH! I TOLD FRISK THAT YOU WERE HOLDING AN ASTRONOMY CLASS, AND THEY WANTED TO COME ALONG! I HOPE THAT'S OKAY."
"heh, guess you got the kid all starry-eyed, huh?"
Frisk laughed, while Papyrus tried really hard not to.
"alright, alright, get on up here, bud."
Frisk's eyes lit up as they sat down right next to Sans, the skeleton wrapping his arm around their shoulders.
"so the moon is two hundred thousand miles away, but the sun's even crazier than that. it's about ninety three million miles away. it takes light from the sun a little over eight minutes just to get to earth. thankfully, it doesn't stop shining so we don't really notice a difference."
"SO...HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE FOR STARLIGHT TO GET HERE?"
"depends on the star, but the lowest answer is 'years,' at least."
"YEARS?!"
"yep. they're so far away it takes years for us to see it. some of those stars up there? they might actually be gone now, but we won't know for a long time."
Both the taller skeleton and the human were at a loss for words.
"i know, right? it even takes years for us to see the light from our closest star-"
"A-Alpha Centauri," came a nervous voice from the nearby ladder.
It took her a little while to get over her fear of heights, but eventually Doctor Alphys clamored up onto the roof, briskly walking toward the middle to get away from the edge. Sans side-eyed Papyrus.
"...i guess frisk wasn't the only person you told."
"NOPE!"
"Oh, I didn't think it was a private thing, sorry..."
Sans chuckled. "nah, it's cool. have a seat. you were halfway correct, by the way."
"Halfway?"
"yeah. alpha centauri is actually a cluster of three stars, locked into gravitational orbit with each other. alpha centauri a, and alpha centauri b are 4.37 light years away. their neighbor, proxima centauri, is 4.24 light years away, so technically, proxima centauri is the closest star to us."
"AND...WHAT'S A LIGHT YEAR?"
"it's a measurement of how far light can travel in a year. it's about...9 trillion miles, give or take."
"Whoa..." Frisk said, gazing skyward again.
"yep. so if it took humans three days to get to the moon, it would take...hmm."
Sans pulled out his phone and tapped frantically at the surface. The others gazed on in awe, awaiting the answer.
"well...let's just say it'd take hundreds, if not thousands of years, with current technology as it stands."
Papyrus hung his head. "SO...WE'LL NEVER GET THERE, I GUESS."
"W-well...we don't know that for sure," Alphys began.
"yeah, we still don't know everything about our universe. we might find a way to fold space, which, if we could, we could get there in a matter of days or weeks."
"I'M SURE YOU TWO COULD FIGURE IT OUT!"
"us?!"
"Us?"
Sans and Alphys looked at each other for a moment, giving each other a bit of nervous laughter.
"OF COURSE! THE BRILLIANT DOCTOR ALPHYS AND MY BROTHER SANS, WHO MANAGED TO BUILD A..."
Sans flinched for a bit before Papyrus decided to hold back.
"...WELL, NOT ANYTHING REALLY, BUT I THINK HE COULD IF HE WANTED TO TRY!"
'heh, thanks, pap."
They all laid back and gazed upward again. Alphys tilted her head and had to take off her glasses to rid herself of the glare.
"S-so, Sans, why don't you have your telescope out?"
Sans sighed. "it's too bright here. kinda drowns out the starlight, so i figured i'd go over some of the math and very basic concepts before we went stargazing. i gotta figure out a good spot to set up."
"I know someplace, and it's not too far."
"really? hey pap, ready for a road trip?"
"OF COURSE! I AM ALWAYS PREPARED! ...BUT WHAT ABOUT FRISK?"
"what about frisk?"
Frisk shook their head. "No no, it's okay, you guys go."
"...oh, right. it's way past your bedtime, huh kid? you snuck out?"
Frisk nodded.
"hmm. alright, tell you what, you don't tell tori about this, and i'll sneak you back in with a shortcut later, okay?"
The human gave a beaming smile.
"THEN IT'S SETTLED! EVERYONE! TO THE PAPYRUS-MOBILE!"
"...are you really calling it that, now?"
"YES!"
"of course you are," Sans laughed.
"Alright, pull in here," Alphys directed.
The car turned into the parking lot of a rest area off of the highway, coming to a stop as Papyrus killed the engine. The four travelers exited the vehicle as Alphys kept pointing the way, away from the minimal lighting around the area.
"We can go that way a bit. A lot of people like to go stargazing up here, from what I've heard."
"cool."
Papyrus used his phone to light the ground, taking extra care to guide Frisk along in case of any hazards. Sans had his telescope slung over his shoulder, its clattering being the only unnatural sound for miles.
Soon enough, they came across a pair of benches along the trail. They gazed off into a valley, and they could easily see the rest of the town of Ebott. Frisk, in particular, was trying to find their house in their mind. Alphys was the first to sit down.
"This should be good enough. Look up."
Waterfall couldn't hold a candle to what they were seeing. Hundreds, no, thousands of stars dotted the sky, and a large stripe cut across the center. Gone were the lights of the city, or even the sounds of nature. It was all as if it were nothing compared to the majesty of the universe that revealed itself before them. It was surprising that out of all of the, Papyrus was the quietest one of all.
"whoa..." Sans gasped.
"Nice, isn't it? I've heard that the university is seeking funding to perhaps build an observatory up here. I hope they do."
"...yeah."
"H-Hey, Sans?"
"...yeah."
"Sans, are you going to set up the telescope?"
He looked at Papyrus and Frisk, who seemed to be lost in their own little world.
"nah. i think class is dismissed. it's time for recess, don't you think?"
Alphys rolled her eyes a bit. "Sans, college doesn't have recess!"
"well maybe it should. i've heard it's pretty stressful."
"I...guess I can't argue that."
"Hey Sans?" Frisk asked, pointing, "what's that huge cloud in the middle?"
"that's the rest of the milky way. we're part of it, but we're only in one part of it. that huge stripe is the center of it, and every single bit of light coming from it is a from a star."
"WOWIE...IT'S BEAUTIFUL!"
"yeah. and it's still twenty-seven thousand light years away. and it's been estimated that the entire galaxy has over four hundred billion stars, maybe even-"
BEEP.
"...what was that?"
Sans, Papyrus, and Frisk turned toward the source of the noise. Alphys was holding her phone out, pointing the front right at Sans. Something on her end gave her a happy smile.
"takin' a picture? you didn't use the flash, so...hope you like it dark."
"I'm not taking a picture," Alphys responded.
It had always been in the back of his mind, lost among other noises, sounds, and experiences, but suddenly Sans realized he'd heard that beep before. At the recent party at Grillby's, he remembered hearing it a few times. And even before that, he'd always heard it when he was around Alphys. He always figured it was just her phone's notification sounds, that it was just another Facebook update or something.
"Sans...there was another reason I wanted to see you guys tonight."
He could already tell Alphys was beginning to sweat, even in the dark. "alright, calm down, what's going on."
"W-Well...Papyrus told me he was worried, so i've been taking measurements and...Sans..."
"measurements?!" Sans glared at Papyrus, who was still smiling.
"...Sans, you have 29 HP."
"what?!"
"YES! YOU DID IT! SANS! YOU HAVE MORE HP! I KNEW YOU COULD DO IT!"
Frisk tilted their head in confusion.
"You see," Alphys explained, "a monster's HP is a measurement of how strong their souls are. Our bodies are made of magic, and our magic is attuned to our souls. Our souls are also dependent on our emotional states, and in our weaker moments, or sadder ones, we have less HP. I made some adjustments in my phone to measure the magical waves that monster souls give off. Sans' soul has gotten stronger. I'm so happy for you!"
"i...i don't know what to say. are you sure you're right? am i...really getting better?"
"Yeah. It might take awhile to get to your old self, but you're coming around."
"I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT! OH SANS!"
"pap...this was your idea? how'd you even...?"
"THAT NIGHT, A FEW MONTHS AGO, WHEN WE WERE FIRST UP ON THE ROOF. YOU GOT SO EXCITED THAT I COULD...FEEL IT. IT FELT LIKE A HEARTBEAT THAT WAS GETTING STRONGER, SO I THOUGHT THAT...MAYBE YOUR SOUL WAS..."
Tears began to trickle down Papyrus' face.
"WHY AM I CRYING? SANS, I'M HAPPY BUT I'M CRYING?! WHAT'S GOING ON! I...NYOO-HOO HOO...!"
Another tear drifted down another skeleton's face before he wiped it away. "s'normal, pap. when you're really happy, your body just...doesn't know what it wants to do. so sometimes it...cries. I uh..."
He sniffled and wiped his eyes again.
"i can't believe it's...happening. i never thought i'd be here, doing this, feeling this."
The brothers embraced each other, trying their hardest to retain their composure. Sans struggled the hardest, since Papyrus had already lost his grip entirely. Heavy, happy sobs erupted from the pair before a small human child decided to join them. Soon, they became a monument to the happiest sadness that ever existed on this pale blue dot.
Alphys sniffled and wiped her eyes before clicking her phone again. A bright flash hit the trio followed by the familiar sound of a camera's shutter being emulated. She tapped a few more times again, both to save the picture, to send it, and then...
BEEP.
"Sans."
The three calmed down for just a bit, looking at Alphys again.
"Thirty two."
Papyrus and Frisk hugged even tighter, and Sans erupted into laughter. True, honest laughter, something they both hadn't heard in a long time. It was the kind of laughter that reminded Papyrus, again, of that fateful night on the roof. It was the kind of laughter that proved the strength of the heart.
It smelled like bones, humans, and scientists.
It smelled like starlight and smiles.
It smelled like everything falling into place.
It finally smelled like hope.