Of a Better World

Something Remade

Horror awoke rather abruptly to the smell of smoke.

It didn't smell like a fire exactly, or anything else of a similar dire nature, He quickly deduced. Maybe Crooks had lit a candle. Or started the fireplace. Something small and menial.
Honestly it was scarely noticeable, but Horror hadn't gotten the nickname "bloodhound of the underground '' for nothing. He could easily sniff out a human anywhere from the Ruins to the Capital.

He laid in bed for a moment. Ever so slightly irritated, selfishly debating if the scent was truly strong enough to spark an actual investigation or if he was better off rolling over and letting things handle themselves. Sound sleep had been hard to come by ever since Lust had retreated into himself. Old feelings like guilt and remorse, feelings Horror had long since snuffed out of his calcified heart had snaked their way back into his chest to roil like indigestion as he lay awake at night. Dreamless sleep exploded into technicolor as even unconscious, his mind decided to torment him with memories of how things had gone. Nightmares crawled through his head at night as he dreamed of killing Lust instead of the stray human that had been unlucky enough to wander too close. He imagined the sandy grit of monster dust on his hands and Lust's big, fearful eyes looking up at him, begging him to stop. It scared him how real these nightmares seemed.

In his dreams his bitter loneliness morphed into something starved and ravenous. Tearing apart Lust with trembling teeth, hungry for warmth.

But he woke, cracking open his eye sockets to see butter yellow light leaking in through the curtains and the boards nailed on the windows and, not to his surprise, no fire. The smell still floated on the air, barely there. The sheer quietness of the house only serving to draw attention to it.

Distantly, Horror wondered if Crooks was home from his early morning wanderings yet. Probably not. He'd probably wake everyone in Snowdin with his fussing if he was.

With bones creaking as he rolled out of bed, Horror shuffled around on the floor for a moment trying to locate his jacket and his slippers and his senses. Any chance of going back to bed completely evaporated as the cold that perpetually seeped into every corner of the house soaked into his thin, ratty shirt and sapped any remaining sleepiness from his body as he gave a irked shiver. A part of him prayed something was actually on fire if only to make this tedium worth it.

His clock, still reliably trugging along despite the years, flashed seven thirty.

Slinking through the hallways he passed Lust room, the room ever so slightly cracked although no movement or sounds gave away whether life resided inside. He sniffed and walked past with barely a glance. If Lust was going to act so nonchalant and indifferent towards him, then so could he. Two could play this game.

He only got to the top of the staircase before he lost the game he started, helpless to the loneliness that gnawed at him like hunger. For a moment he paused, waiting expectantly to hear Lust's soft murmur or the chime of a dog collar, like his anticipation would summon Lust like a ghost from hell. When the house remained cruelly silent his resolve cracked like the supports of a shoddy foundation.

Pulled taut in a brief struggle between his pride and his desperation, he caved and backtracked quickly to check in on Lust's room.

He chalked the silence up to Lust finally giving in to sweet depression and deciding to sleep in late, like any sensible sans, so he was somewhat dumbfounded to find the room empty. Quickly issuing yet another once-over, Horror once again happened upon the simple answer that Lust simply wasn't here. No mutt, no obnoxious teal boots beside the door, no Lust.

The whispers in the back of his mind he'd spent so long hushing flared to a roar. Lust wouldn't be dumb enough to wander outside again, would he? He knew the dangers, the risks. Did he truly resent Horror enough to run away even if it meant running to his death? Common sense told him that it was unsensible, but was it really? Beautiful, glorious, unpredictable Lust. Horror hadn't a clue what he could do.