A MINI Adventure

The calm before the storm

It had been a few weeks since they'd asked Papyrus about the new pronouns. They also got more and more comfortable with the name Sans, although the body still freaked them out every now and then. But even that didn't happen as often as in the beginning. Sans had only one problem left.

The famine.

They'd been outside a few times now and seen with their own eyes what the famine had done to the monsters. Sure, Sans expected them to look creepy up to a point. But reality gave them nightmares for a long time. The monsters were thin and bony. The phrase "bare skin and bones" could be taken literally in these monsters. But it wasn't just that. In places the bones protruded from the body, the skin just healed around them. This, together with the inhuman size, gave the residents of their AU an abstract look. Their world really deserved the name Horrortale. Sans was at least glad that Papyrus hadn't deviated much from what Sans was known to be. Because although Papyrus was also gigantic and one of the largest that Sans had seen here so far, his appearance was almost the same as that of any other Horrortale Papyrus. Though Sans could swear that Pap's teeth were still looking reasonably good. But they could only say more precisely when they got to know another Horrortale Papyrus.

It was unfair how everyone had grown in size but Sans was still tiny. They didn't even go Papyrus up to the knee!

A pleasant surprise, however, was how friendly all the monsters were to them. Sans would have expected more bitterness from them if they were honest. Was it because he was still a child? Was that why they were so kind? Or was it the hole in their skull and they had simply mistaken friendliness for instincts that were more active during the famine? And they called them friendly, but Sans thought that the little magic in the air might be affecting their psyche. Because one of the monsters, a bear, they believed, hadn't hesitated long and tried to eat Sans alive. The bear had been killed before it could even reach Sans, but Sans had not been able to identify their rescuer. The shock had paralyzed their body and their vision remained blurred for a long time. It was almost like before, when they still needed glasses to see.

Would they need glasses again? Somehow they were hoping for it. There were unconscious moments when they tried to push up their glasses without some being there. Would they need duct tape to hold the glasses in place since Sans had no ears? Or would it be held by magic? On the other hand, being a Horrortale Sans, they had a little bit of magic, so that could be difficult.

...

They did it again. Whenever Sans faced a traumatic event, they distracted themself into the most mundane matters with overthinking. Papyrus had noticed and told them. They hadn't even noticed it themself. Were such thoughts more common earlier when they were still human, even without having to think about or talk about something traumatic beforehand? Sans hadn't realized that this habit had turned into a coping mechanism. Or maybe it had always been one...?

Still, those few weeks were some of the best Sans ever had. They'd been able to forget the most important part of most of the AUs.

The fallen human child.

Really, Sans wished their AU had remained a normal Horrortale. Because under pressure they had something like a short circuit and acted intuitively. The first thing that came to mind was then implemented. They really wished dust hadn't been his first thought.