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Your name is Papyrus. You are a skeleton monster, the last of your kind. You live on the edge of Snowdin with your brother, Sans. Both of you are trying to outrun something terrible. It would be helpful if you could remember what the hell it was, but you don’t, and Sans says he’s grateful for that. For your part, you grasp at the scattered fragments of who you are, blinded by a pale void of absence. You spontaneously came into being at the age of 11. Somehow, you managed to mutate into a person over the avalanche of coming years.
These are the things that do not change. A lot does change- sometimes you’re king, sometimes you’re dust- but not this. Never this.
This is your life. You and Sans get on just fine.
The current configuration of you is standing in the kitchen. You have no idea what time it is or how you got there but you were doing something, probably- being something, probably- and now you’ve forgotten. Story of your life. You want to call out but then you remember nobody’s around to hear. Undyne is busy with some stuff at the capital. Sans is at Grillby’s or his jobs or wherever he goes when he thinks you don’t suspect anything. You do, but you’ve long since stopped trying to chase his secrets. You just got good at keeping your own in the meantime. Silence echoes through the halls of your empty house. Your existence is defined by other people: you are alone, and you come undone.
Your name is Papyrus. You simultaneously feel like the best and worst monster to ever live, and you’re not sure how that works either. Sometimes your mind is trying to kill you. Sometimes you’re a fucking rock star. Everyone knows when you’re up, you’re up, but when you’re down, you’re down. Everyone thinks you’re stupid, and they think you don’t know that, and even you can tell it’s not unfounded. There’s so much about being a person you fundamentally don’t understand. The books at the library don’t tell you why people laugh at you. Conversations refuse to work like quizzes, you’re afraid.
So maybe they’re right. Maybe you ARE stupid. You’re good at puzzles- you have to be good at something, so you’re lucky it’s that- and you know how to FIGHT; you’re actually quite good at it. You always leave your opponent at exactly 1 HP. But they tell you that’s not what they’re looking for, so somehow, you’re not good at that either. Undyne offers to train you, and then she offers you cooking lessons. She teaches you how to make spaghetti. Every day since then (or loop or ‘day’ or who even cares) you make spaghetti. You have to get it perfect. You have to get it right. You don’t know if you have something to prove. Your brother says you work at everything like it’s your final chance. Ha ha ha. Ha.
Your name is Papyrus. You are doing the spaghetti thing. That is what is supposed to be happening. The person you are when you’re Up would be doing that, but you’ve been Down for a couple days now, and Sans is definitely starting to notice. He’s going to start asking if you’re okay and if he can do something to help but the answer changes by the hour and neither of you want to have that conversation anyway, so you need to pull yourself together and be normal. You’re a grown-ass adult, and you need to act like one. You are the only other sapient being in existence.
You take a few listless steps toward the counter. You brace two arms against it, pushup position, and feel the weight of your bones. You could stand to exercise more. Lazy, lazy. It’s so exhausting to keep yourself upright. You let your head drop, and the gap between your radius and your ulna frames a little piece of the kitchen, an oblong fragment of the world, and you stare into that little portrait searching for meaning. There are a hundred little details you’ve never noticed before and will never notice again. It almost feels like the entire universe is just that piece of counter, that nothing exists save what’s in that frame, and the frame isn’t even connected to you- you’re not there at all. These bones are not your bones. These eyes are not your eyes. You can almost think you aren’t thinking. As if.
The way you’re broken isn’t like Sans. You’re a rollercoaster, a snowflake on the wind, up and down and back and forth, while Sans is sad, but he’s consistent like that. You’re the one who needs routine. Your brother just structured his life around your schedule. You used to have panic attacks, or randomly be consumed by despair, and he’d have to drop everything and come home. (You really aren’t any better, you just keep it on the inside these days.) You know he loves you, but that just makes it worse sometimes. Your brother loves you so much he doesn’t know who the hell you are. Sans has a lifetime of memories with the kid you were, the kid you’ve forgotten, and a gullible teen you haven’t been in a long time, and both of these identities make more sense than whatever you are now. It’s easier for him, you think. He knows how to deal with the teen and the kid, so he just hopes the old strategies still work- and sometimes they do, so you’ve never corrected him. You suppose it’s fair. You don’t know how to deal with you either. You wouldn’t, if you had a choice.
No matter what you are, both the teen and the kid still live inside you. They spend their time with their hands on your ribcage, trying to tear you apart.
No. No, no, no. Your name is the Great Papyrus. You don’t need to breathe, but you do so anyway: you stride over to the window and put your whole skull out of it, gasping in big handfuls of frozen air. You try and you try and you try and you can’t. You can’t. What’s the point? You don’t want to be alive. Except you’re not allowed to think like that because Sans needs you, because the Underground needs you, because the moment you Fall Down is the moment hope finally dies. You have to keep going. You don’t have any other choice.
You have to capture a human.
You have to capture a human because that’s how you get into the Royal Guard, and if you get into the Royal Guard- the real Royal Guard, not the fairytales Undyne tells you to try and get you to quit- everything will be okay. You’ll finally be happy. The King will take the human’s soul, maybe trade it out for a nice monster soul, and then he’ll use it to break the Barrier and everyone will be free. If you get into the Royal Guard, Sans will know you’re serious enough for his secrets, and people will stop laughing at you when you think you can’t hear, and you’ll never have a problem ever again. You need this to be real. You need it to be real more than you’ve ever needed anything. Maybe they’re right, maybe you’re too silly, maybe you’re an idiot, but they can never say you didn’t try. Trying might be all you’re good for these days.
You suck in another gasp of air, trembling, and suddenly there’s something beside you other than the wind and your breath. “Ew… You’ve got icicles on your face. I didn’t even know that could happen.”
In your peripheral vision is a sunspot of gold and green, gold and green and white; sharp thorned tendrils crawling up your windowsill. You can tell it’s Flowey without even looking. You’ve had those spikes in your eye sockets a couple times. He’s killed you as many times as there are bones in your ribs. His petals brush against your temples like velvet, but still you do not turn.
“FLOWEY,” you tell him, looking out into nothing, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. I DON’T WANT TO FEEL LIKE THIS ANYMORE. I DON’T WANT TO BE ALIVE.”
Flowey scoffs. You can almost hear him rolling his eyes. “Yeah, well, join the club.” That’s something you appreciate about him- Flowey doesn’t underestimate you. You’ve fought before, you’ve thrashed as you lay dying, so he knows exactly how strong you are. He doesn’t let you stay pathetic and miserable, but you also don’t have to be the Great Papyrus: you merely are what you are. “Hey, I can tell you’re being weird in your head,” he says. “Stop that. Stop doing that thing with your face.”
“WHAT THING?”
“Y’know… Smiling without really smiling. Your brother does it too and I hate it.” Flowey shudders. You wonder if he hates it because it reminds him of himself. But he must be able to tell that you’re Down, because he’s being nice to you today- no open insults, no rants about Smiley Trashbag. He likes you. Sometimes he snaps your neck just to see how it feels, but he likes you. He might be your one true friend in the world. “Okay, now you’re making it worse. Stop that!”
As low as your voice will go, you admit, pleading, “I DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP.”
“Ugh. Well, figure it out then. And I wasn’t kidding about the icicles, idiot. Wipe your face.”
Your gloves move to scrub at your eyesockets, and sure enough, they find resistance there. Apparently you’ve been crying, which you should’ve known better than to do outside, and your tears have frozen solid against your cheekbones. They shatter under your touch, falling like stars into the white, white snow beneath.
Silence. A cruel and frigid wind blows past. You stare at the immense plane of untouched white, endlessly white, so white it hurts to look at, and you think white might be your least favorite color. You try to keep your shit together. For some reason, it’s immensely difficult. Everything is so difficult and you have no idea why. Everything is framed through the hollows of your eyesockets, by the dim, clumsy magic roiling within: static buzzes through your vision like a bad signal. Your body is an endless, formless expanse of ice. There’s a lot you can fit in your empty skull, but try as you might, you still haven’t managed to fill it with secrets. Really, it’s ironic. You, puzzle-lover: you’ve made yourself into a labyrinth. Break down one wall and up comes another. Walls upon walls, twisting out into impossibility; false exits and dead ends and spiral branches, dancing around the horrible center of you. Even you can’t tell what’s a lie anymore. You delude yourself into thinking your cage is a control room. Push a button, summon a diversion- now the walls have spikes, or flamethrowers, or electricity-
Flowey makes an absent huff beside you, and you suddenly realize he hasn’t been talking. That’s startling, so you turn, but for once, he doesn’t even notice. Flowey’s too busy staring off into the middle distance, consumed by one of those earnest expressions he doesn’t know he makes. Weighing a possibility behind his eyes. “Y’know,” he starts, very careful, very slow, “You’re not… the only one. Who’s been having… problems. As of late.”
For a single, idiotic second, you think he’s going to lecture you about your brother, or the state of the Underground- how everyone has to stay determined!- but you should know better. Flowey doesn’t give a shit. He’s told you time and time again, he doesn’t care about the Underground and he doesn’t care about the Surface and it goes without saying that he hates your brother, so you have no idea where he’s going with this. His tone is that weird mix of jokey-serious for when he’s being honest and is trying to convince you he isn’t. After all, whatever he says, he can’t just RESET it away. You’ll know. You’ll remember. Neither of them will ever admit it, but that’s another thing he has in common with Sans.
“I… I’ve…” Flowey starts and then stops again, jaw working over the syllables. “I’ve been having… difficulties. With the timeline. Recently. SAVE-ing… RESETs… It’s not- It’s not doing what I want it to. It’s just- It’s not listening.”
You stand up a little straighter. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN?”
“Well, don’t freak out about it,” Flowey says, very much sounding like he’s been freaking out. “I mean, it’s probably nothing. Right? It’ll work itself out in the end. It always does.” Maybe realizing how open he’s been, Flowey contorts his face into that same horrible grin. “I’ll be back to killing everyone in no time.”
You turn away. Flowey is Flowey, but you don’t have the energy for this. It’s important information, about the timeline, but it might not even be true- Flowey’s done worse before. You wonder if you should even bother telling Sans. Sighing heavily, you lean your full weight against the windowsill, imagining it cracking, imagining the whole house finally giving way. You’d close the window if Flowey weren’t in it. An empty house only welcomes the chill. “I SUPPOSE WE’RE ALL HAVING A FUNNY SORT OF DAY THEN, AREN’T WE?”
In the corner of your eye, Flowey deflates. Counting on your reaction. Whenever he does anything, he does it to make you scream or laugh or cry. “Well… How ‘bout I come back tomorrow? Maybe things will be different then. How’s that?”
Tomorrow. You can’t begin to imagine tomorrow. You can’t imagine being here another hour, another minute, another second. But Flowey’s usually gone by now, and he still hasn’t left yet. Petulant like a child, you can’t help but ask, “WHY?”
Flowey’s eye twitches. “You’re too stupid for the answer.”
“FLOWEY.”
“Just… Ugh.” His whole face is twitching. His teeth grind painfully together. Either he’s stalling or he genuinely doesn’t know what to tell you. You get that a lot. But whatever it is, you watch something release behind his eyes like a dam giving way, and suddenly the words are spilling out of him like he won’t get another chance, like water from his lips. “Look. You didn’t hear it from me, but- Something big is gonna happen. I mean something huge. I know it. I just- I just don’t know what it is or when.” Tendrils receding from the windowsill, retreating back into the heart of him, all that’s left is his stem and the nerves he’s trying not to show on his face. “Make sure you’re on your sentry rotation. That’s all I can say. Check everywhere. Snowdin outskirts. The route to Waterfall. Near the old door. Keep an eye out, okay?”
“FLOWEY, YOU KNOW I DON’T HAVE A SHIFT TODAY.” Because he was being difficult earlier, and because you need someone else to suffer too, you add, “AND YOU KNOW I DON’T HAVE EYES. I ONLY HAVE EYESOCKETS.”
“Papyrus,” he tells you. “I’m serious.”
You realize with sickening clarity that he is. He really is. Any other time you’d take it as a joke or a prank or an attempt to get you killed because he likes the way Sans grieves, but this time… You’re not sure if you’ve ever seen Flowey nervous before. Surprised, yes, and caught off-guard; revulsed; startled; mocking; fake-scared when he wants something from you; furious and elated and entirely null; like you, he has a hundred faces to put on and take off for when the moment calls. But this isn’t a gambit he likes to play. Nervous isn’t one he likes to wear openly. He’s really asking this time, and he’s really scared. Something in the fabric of reality has changed.
Okay, you say, weakly, I will, but you don’t even believe yourself. Who even are you? Is any of this happening at all? You get the urge to ask him to just RESET already but then you remember he literally just told you he can’t. Can’t, or is having trouble? It’s too late to ask. Even if you did, he wouldn’t clarify. You can feel yourself forgetting already: you forget everything that isn’t carved into you. You forget yourself sometimes. Forgettable, forgettable, forgettable.
Your hands are on the sill and Flowey isn’t saying anything at all. You look out at the snow again, and you catch your reflection in a neighbor’s window, white on white on white, and suddenly you’re not here again- you’re very far away. You’re shattered through space and time. You’re in your closet during one of the first RESETs, sitting on the floor and letting the cramped space hold you together, arms slung around your trembling bones, trying to resist the urge to take your fingers and claw the light out of your eyes…
You’re in a basement with Sans a long, long time ago, kneeling on the gritty floor as somewhere a machine vomits smoke, and Sans is holding you by the shoulders so tightly it hurts, telling you before you both forget, this is how you kill a time traveler…
You’re further back than that, somewhere impossible and faraway, a house or a room or a laboratory where the shadows are darker than darkness, and something is going very, very wrong…
You’re falling, Falling Down, you’re down, Down, even further gone…
Something is coming, something without a name, something bigger than names- something that will change everything forever- a prince dethroned, the second child of royalty- a way out- a way out- the Angel, the Delta rune, the prophecy- they will return, and the Underground will go empty-
A door shuts behind you like a gasp. Sans is home. You turn to look, and when you turn back, Flowey is gone. All that remains of him is a single stray petal, drifting lifelessly into the virgin snow beneath.
*hate to bother ya, but can you do me a favor?
*i was thinking…
*my brother's been kind of down lately...
*he's never seen a human before. and seeing you might just make his day.
*don’t worry, he's not dangerous.
*even if he tries to be.
*thanks a million.
*i’ll be up ahead.