From Murder to Dust

40 - Begin

I woke up in my bed; I hadn't been in my bed in ages. Did the kid actually reset after all this time? I looked down at my clothes; they were still covered in dust. I looked at my soul; it still had the magic restorer. My universe had reset, but I was unchanged. I guess my code was too messed up to react properly to the reset. I heard a knock at my bedroom door, followed by an opening sound.

"Brother?" I saw Papyrus, alive.

"Paps?" I looked at him; he looked shocked.

"I thought you were dead!" He rushed over to me and scooped me up in his now corporeal arms.

"You mean you remember?"

"Of course I remember! How could I ever forget my brother?"

"But..how?"

"I don't know, and I'm not questioning it! I missed you so much! I never thought you would come back!"

"What do you mean?"

"After you were buried, well, it.."

"What is it, bro?"

"Brother, you have been dead for about four years."

"Oh.." I subconsciously snuggled more towards Papyrus. "I'm sorry..."

"No need to be sorry, brother! You couldn't have known!"

"Finally, something good is happening!" Chara floated into view. "Hey Spec, why did you have to have such a horrible fashion sense in the past?"

"I'll change later."

"Spec?" I wondered. "Am I missing something here?"

"Oh, Chara gave me a nickname!"

"Huh. Pretty cool, bro."

"Indeed! Oh, it's so wonderful being able to see you again!"

"Yeah, it was getting a little boring dodging all the security!" Chara emphasized.

"You like it and you know it."

"So what if I do?"

"Seriously, what happened after we died?" I was confused. "Did you start robbing banks or something?"

"Oh." Paps thought for a moment. "There is not an easy way to express this, brother."

"I can express it simply enough." Chara volunteered. "Ink is a psycho. There."

"That does sum it up pretty well."

"Um..what?" I was growing in my confusion. 

"After you guys were out of the picture, Ink began..dominating?" Chara summarized. "Yeah, basically Ink was a worse skeleton than anybody could have realized."

"You're saying he's conquering the multiverse? Really?"

"More like he already did. The only safe place is Horrortale if you don't count the secret refuge in Dreamtale Spec and I organized, and I guess Dusttale, now, too. I wouldn't recommend hanging around here too long, though."

"Wow."

"Yeah. On the bright side, Nightmare's gang has been recognized as the secret hero group of the multiverse; apparently you were the only thing stopping Ink's plans other than Error, who joined the gang, making him part of it. There's nothing stopping Ink now, unfortunately."

"Where is Error?"

"He's locked away in a secure prison; there have been attempts to break him out, but nobody's succeeded."