Chapter Text
It was impossibly warm and impossibly cold, and his body curled, cramped, in the cell he found himself trapped within.
The afterlife was great at mimicking his Egg-top prison.
Though Sam had to wonder as he listened to the just barely hearable whispers of the Egg echoing around him, just how much of this was supposed to be here. The Egg was strong, and who was to say it wouldn’t be able to reach power in the afterlife, as well?
Sam could not move much at all in his obsidian container. He preferred it this way, though perhaps a more comfortable position would be ideal. He shouldn’t be allowed to escape, and he was far more afraid of encountering his dead companions than he would ever care to admit.
Especially a certain blue-handling once-ghost.
Despite his best efforts, Sam could not avoid the other dead forever. Not when Ghostbur was so determined to make friends with the one who’d failed him.
“Sam?” came the whispy voice that haunted Sam’s infrequent dreams. “Sam, is that you?”
“Ghostbur?” the other asked, voice raspy from a long period of either speaking too little or screaming too loud for help he knew he didn’t deserve. Sam had not known that ghosts could get to the afterlife.
“Sam! Oh, Sam, it
is
you! I had–well I had
thought
as such, but I wasn’t very sure, and Schlatt wouldn’t give me a good clear answer but–oh, you’re here!”
It was then that the ghost seemed to realize what that meant, as he deflated, and his voice seemed to sadden. “Why are you here?”
“People tend to appear in the afterlife once they’ve exhausted their lives, Ghostbur.”
“Well I just–I hadn’t known that you were–”
“Nobody had.” Sam adjusted his position within his cell, arms resting on the platform of the singular opening within the obsidian, where he could just barely see the ghost.
A long almost-silence echoed between the two of them, the only sounds invading Sam’s ears being the ever-present murmurs of the Egg. Part of him wondered why Ghostbur would willingly walk himself up to such a dangerous area.
That was when he remembered all the rumors he’d heard about Limbo.
“Ghostbur? What…what are you seeing right now? What does this look like to you?”
“Well that’s a silly question! But I’ll humor you–you seem so hung up on it. You’re…” Ghostbur hesitated, deeply squinting in Sam’s direction as if trying to decipher just what, exactly, he was seeing.
After a long moment of thought, he slowly spoke. “You’re in one of those old…well, what are they called–ticket booths, I believe? Yes, yes, an old ticket booth. I’m not sure as to if those are very much commonplace, anymore. It’s probably why yours is the only one with anyone in it! Why not come out?”
Sam couldn’t help but laugh bitterly. If it were as easy as just
stepping out
, he wouldn’t have stayed! “I don’t think this is the same for me as it is for you, Ghostbur. I’m trapped here.”
“Oh, don’t be such a debbie downer, Sam! Or I guess a Sammy sad-sack?” And then he was out of Sam’s sight, presumably trying to open a door that Sam could not see. A door that did not exist.
There was a long moment of struggle, Ghostbur’s grunts of effort echoing through his skull. Eventually he came back into view, hair slick with sweat and a blue-covered face pulled into a frown.
“The door is locked.”
“I know, Ghostbur,” Sam sighed. “I don’t think there was really a door here, to begin with.”
Ghostbur continued to visit. Upon Sam asking, the ghost simply replied “Schlatt is old and cranky, and the other man here seems too sad to talk. I feel bad bothering him.”
Sam supposed that made sense. “But you don’t feel bad bothering me? Why would you
want
to talk to me? You died by
my
hands.”
“I don’t blame you!”
These simple words were enough to shock Sam’s brain to the point of even the Egg’s eternal murmuring being nothing but a dull fuzz.
“I’ve hurt so many people. Surely you’re mad?”
“You stopped Tommy, didn’t you?” The ghost hummed. “If I had known what he was really planning, I wouldn’t have gone through with that. I don’t want to be the cause for any more deaths. And I don’t think you ever did, either.”
Sam didn’t respond.
“You’re a fascinating man, did you know that, Sam? You were very nice to me before I died. For a moment there, you had helped me feel so very safe. I feel like that’s something you used to do a lot. I wonder why you stopped?”
“I did what I had to, to protect the server,” Sam choked weakly.
“You didn’t have to do it alone, though. Sam, I’ve learned that it is
exhausting
carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. You do things, or the person you once
were
will do things, and it hurts lots of people. And there’s no excuse for the pain we’ve caused, is there? But the least we can do is try to do better, so that we never do such terrible things again.”
Ghostbur stood from his spot sitting beside Sam’s prison, turning to leave.
“Just some food for thought.”
Ghostbur was gone once again, and Sam’s heart ached with a weary sorrow. The only sound now was the whisper of the Egg, suddenly much louder than before.