Chapter Text
“Why can’t I get a refund? It’s in perfect condition and even in its original box!”
You sighed softly, trying your hardest not to let the customer in front of you perceive the tired huff as indignant.
“Ma’am, this is a pack of underwear and I hate to be the one to say this out loud, but they are obviously used… they even smell used.” You refused to take anymore of the product out of their packaging, because quite frankly the first one you had inspected had a suspicious stain on the rear end and you had immediately dropped it back onto the counter in unveiled disgust. Your company policy had no issues with most returns, but this was egregious in every sense, and assaulted your senses.
The little old lady in front of you turned so red she looked like a wrinkled tomato on the verge of busting. You knew what was coming next, it was the usual demand that simultaneously made you feel relieved of duty and caused a pitiful fury that your authority would always be undermined.
“I want to speak to the manager!”
——
You slammed your apartment door closed behind you, your legs wobbled slightly as you placed your keys on the rack hanging beside you and threw your work vest onto the ground. It was Friday, the best day, because that meant two days straight of doing nothing, but eating, sleeping, and playing that new game you got your hands on a month ago. It was the only thing that made these hellacious work days worth continuing, especially when you were in the worst of your depression just shortly before you tried this new hobby.
You hurried into the kitchen where you grabbed out some cold pepperoni from its packaging inside your fridge and a cheese stick to munch on in a hurry to shower and get to your bedroom.
The shower felt so good, mainly on the sore spots where your pants were just a little too tight on your stomach and the suffocated wrapping of ankle that had tight socks on them for eight hours straight. It didn’t hurt that you were an adult and could make the adult decision to eat the cheese stick in the shower too. Your parents would have thrown a fit over you bringing food outside of the kitchen, but free will was a hell of a drug when you had overcome your internal fear of parental discipline.
——
Your damp hair felt slightly uncomfortable on the back of your neck as you put on a loose T shirt and some raggedy shorts. It didn’t matter what you were wearing because soon you’d be in something different entirely anyway.
You scooted some stuff out of the middle of your bedroom so you could set up your platform for free movement in the virtual reality. Normally, during the work week it was folded and sat undisturbed in the closet, but the best feeling was when it was fully resting on the floor all set up and you always tested its rotating before use to ensure it didn’t need any lubricating or anything. After a thorough check up, you knew it was good to go.
Honestly, the entire set up for your room was extremely expensive, and the only reason you could get the entire set was because you took out a loan (for the first time in your life. Thank god for parents who instilled the fear of bad credit into you.) That was why it was important to continue working, so you could keep this and continue playing with all the perks the technology had to offer.
You grabbed both the hand held controllers, headphones, white bulky headset, and booted up your PC to set up the connections to ensure WiFi was strong and the controllers were not lagging or anything. Once everything was complete, you tied the controllers to each wrist, walked over to stand on your platform, and placed the headset over your eyes. After a press of the A button, it was a brief darkness at first but then the loading screen sprung to life. After a few seconds, the title screen came into vivid view. You moved your arms to test your characters’ movements, because even in the open menu you could see your arms and legs and test the mobility.
The open menu had the title displayed in white cursive lettering, spelling out The Skeletons’ Castle and the background was of a fantastical hillside with a dark foreboding fortress nestled between the mounds, far away.
You took a breath in, this was the make or break of your current playthrough. It was a special kind of open world dating sim that had caught your eye when it had been announced that it was in the works a year ago. It was rated M and promised gratuitous amounts of fan service! Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for you, the game went on sell quickly because no one was attracted to the main love interests.
You, on the other hand, had loved the premise of the game and thought the fact that you romanced skeletons over the usual attractive human-like options made the game special, who wanted flesh and blood people anyway after you dealt with the ones you had to daily? You thought maybe a whimsical life with monsters, even without skin, might fair better.
The idea was that you, the main character, was a beautiful, but politically motivated virgin offering from the human village to the powerful ‘overlords’ as they called them. Your character was meant to play nice, seduce the monsters to mind you, and keep them from destroying mankind’s last living population. The routes also had options to help other monster villages, prove yourself as a human worthy of being friends with some of the characters, or being with an ‘overlord’ romantically to become queen of monsters, or you could make evil and manipulative choices and end up slaughtered and destroying the rest of your species. There was no neutral route, and the only outcomes were good or bad, but it was an extreme battle of wits to choose correct actions or words, and with whom at perfect moments. And, although the character was expected to gain control over many of the skeleton overlords, the end route made you only choose one to be fully committed to as the monster queen in the ultimate good ending.
If you weren’t careful in how you played, you could still end up with a bad ending thanks to jealousy points. That was why it all was a careful balance of ultimate choices.
The main character you played was named Jade, with long braided hair and uniquely colored eyes that made her stand out among others. You were disappointed to see she wasn’t customizable in the beginning, but her personality grew on you after some time.
The romancible characters were an assorted selection of skeleton brothers. There were ten options that didn’t need to be unlocked and were available at the beginning of the game-
Sans (The Leader): This skeleton is one of the shorter ones, with a lazy demeanor that could make one forget just how dangerous he can be. He leads his pack with a calculated, but patient demeanor, but will kill anyone who threatens his family or his loved ones. His route has been considered relatively safest and easier to raise Love points with especially if you connect with his closest brother Papyrus first, and you had succeeded in a couple happy endings with him and finally moved on. This was the only character, so far, you had managed to unlock sex scenes with, and you found out the skeletons had more to offer than just bones, so that was a pleasant surprise.
Papyrus (The Puzzler): This skeleton is a taller skeleton with a cheerful and often infantile outlook that makes him pretty endearing. He is easy to befriend, but difficult to romance because he’s genuinely so dense. You have yet to succeed in raising any Love points, but his Friendship points are so easy it’s almost boring. You decided to give up on any sort of deep connection with this character pretty quickly, and instead used him in the route to Sans your first playthrough.
Blueberry (The Youngest): the shortest skeleton, and the most enthusiastic. He really adds nothing to the intimidation of the overlords but does seem to be a favorite of the younger ages of humans due to his rambunctious nature and short stature making him less intimidating. You haven’t tried a romantic route with him, but friendship has been pretty easy with this character.
Stretch (The Apathetic): This character is a bit difficult to understand. He’s considered lazier than even Sans, he’s non-committed to anything except smoking and Blueberry, and he’s difficult to get any read on. Although you barely can get his Friendship points raised, you have managed to raise his Love points with difficultly through one of your playthroughs, and found out he is more of one of the jealous characters. He’s actually pretty vindictive so you decided to deleted that save file with the prediction of a bad ending so you aren’t sure about much to do with his romance route.
Red (The Gambler): One of the bulkiest characters in the middle of heights, but his figure was authoritative. This character was insanely easy to anger, and also to romance, but the romance also easily went south at the drop of one wrong action. Red is known for gambling, addiction, and flirting in the game, and with your character he’s easily persuaded into her seduction with his playboy ways. However, you found out to be extra careful with this route because if you changed your mind after raising his Love points too high, he takes revenge for breaking his heart if he isn’t chosen. You ended up accidentally raising them half the time and met two bad endings that way, with him killing you out of pure jealousy, so you noted to always ensure your careful with your responses to this character.
Edge (The Commander): Another on of the taller characters, this character is a bit of a tsundere, if you had to analyze everything you had discovered so far. He was another one who was hard to gather information about without the stats helping, because his words and actions usually conflicted with them. He’s actually one of the characters that doesn’t care much for the main character so it takes quite a bit of work to get into his good graces. He’s a bit of a workout so you mostly kept him as a distant friend, with just enough stats to keep from being an enemy.
Horror (The Butcher): One of the tallest characters besides Tatters. This character was terrifying and there was no other way to put it. You tended to avoid him the first few playthroughs because his Love points grew so exponentially it became an obsession too easily and too quickly. His friendship and respect was so difficult to earn it was borderline maddening to have to be aware of the tiniest gestures and goodwill directed at him or else he became crazed with an obsession that would lead to your character’s doom guaranteed.
Tatters (The Gargoyle): The tallest skeleton in the game. You barely interacted with this character other than making kind choices when you were interacting with him. As long as you were on a good basis with him, Horror’s route didn’t go bad easily. Although, you always felt bad about not deepening your connection with this skeleton because he always seemed lonely without Horror. You vowed to give more attention to him your next playthrough.
Blackberry (The Guard): This was another shorter skeleton with a rough exterior that was also cheerful? He wasn’t nice necessarily but he was an extrovert that made it easy to open conversations. You have never raised his Love stats, but keeping him close raised his Friendship stats painfully slow. You vowed you needed to play more and focus on him and some of the others more at some point.
Mutt (The Fearless): This was the second tallest skeleton just under Tatters. You haven’t interacted much with this overlord. He’s quiet, but obviously intelligent and constantly thinking. He never acknowledges your character outright so the best you could ever do was get his Friendship points to the pitiful single digit. Forget his Love points. He was also on the list of characters to put more effort into in later playthroughs.
Aside from these, there were three rumored unlockable skeletons that weren’t available until later in the game. You only knew their names from the rare game forums you found that listed spoilers: Killer, Nightmare, and the other one was still a mystery, but someone said there was a code that hinted at another one available. Apparently, the only way to unlock their path was to play an evil, but neutral route. Meaning you did just enough to gain access to more of the castle from other characters, but not enough to have good reputation points for an extended period of time.
This was actually the point in the timeline you were trying to unlock in this current playthrough. You had avoided gaining too much Love points with all the available skeletons, so it seemed like you were close to succeeding in discovering the secret path to meeting these characters- or at least that’s what you were predicting without too much insight. You weren’t sure who to pick as your final choice for this playthrough yet, but if you could successfully meet the last three maybe the decision would come a bit easier. Your curiosity on these hidden skeleton figures made this mission top priority when you had read about them.
So, ready to start from your last save, you slid your hand over the PLAY option and tapped it.
The picture pixelated apart until you blinked and looked around at the damp hallway you were standing in. You were loaded into your last save point, where you had previously asked Sans to explore the forbidden section of the castle. He had only agreed on the condition that you didn’t go to the very bottom basement and stayed in the top floors. Of course, it was lie when you had promised not to, because that was where you headed immediately, moving past the upward stairs to the downward ones. You watched as your feet followed to your desired direction, and still couldn’t help the awe that swelled in you at these seemingly endless coded possibilities.
Eventually, you came upon large wooden double doors with an ominous sign hammered with a nail onto it saying ‘Restricted.’ You noticed there were some suspicious red splotches on the edges of the splintered wood, some looked fresh, some looked like they had stained and been there for some time.
You took a sharp intake of breath and checked your HP, you had a full health bar. You also checked your inventory to see some health potions had been stocked up in case they weren’t friendly. Honestly, their names alone were telling that they weren’t going to be, but as always if you played your cards right you would get to meet the new characters and learn their stories and routes.
You found yourself hesitating when you placed a hand on the handle to push, but then resolved yourself to continue. You noticed it was pitch black as soon as the door creaked open enough for you to peak inside. There was no temperature to be registered but your brain could pretend it was clammy and cold. You pushed further inside until you could see the outline of steps from the light of torches behind you, so you looked through your inventory for a torch and lit it. Looking around at the newly revealed area, which wasn’t much, you saw the same cinderblock building of the walls as the castle and the cement steps that seemed to go down forever. Taking cautious steps down you felt a slight shiver of fear course through you.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
The sudden sound of a gust of wind going through your headphones made you jump in real life and the game. The light of your characters’s torch was snuffed out and you hurried to get into your inventory to grab another, however, something was wrong because your inventory box refused to pop up. You looked around frantically to see anything in the darkness, but you realized your character didn’t follow your movements this time and you looked down. Startled, you could make out the faintest outline of something slimy wrapping around your legs and torso preventing your character’s arms from moving.
GET OUT.
Came a guttural, deep voice in the left side of the headphones. You couldn’t contain the spike of energy that traveled through your spine, and you gasped when you hear a loud snap right inside your eardrum and then the words appeared:
GAME OVER
Bad Ending
Reload from your last save?
>Yes
>No
You groaned and unconsciously rubbed your neck with the back of your hand. That was oddly realistic sounding, and that was one of the spookiest deaths you had experienced in the game even if wasn’t as flashy. You stretched your shoulders and felt them pop. It was probably pretty late anyway, and you didn’t feel like continuing this playthrough so you decided tomorrow you’d do a fresh one and maybe try to romance a different character before trying the dangerous secret route. It was gonna be harder than you thought and you obviously needed some more game experience before tackling this.
Removing all the gear made you feel less heavy, and you went ahead and used your PC’s mouse and keyboard to delete the current save file.
It was a lost cause, so you didn’t feel like it was giving up. Or at least, that’s what you told yourself.
You went ahead and turned everything off and scooted your shorts off to slip under your bed’s covers. After fluffing your pillow and settling in, thoughts of the game and ideas ran through your head. You wondered how your next playthrough would be, and how’d you would achieve a good ending this time, and lastly you thought about who you would choose for this route before you finally dozed off into a dreamless sleep.
——
You felt heavy the next morning. You had decided to pour yourself some milk and cereal, but you were so enthralled with your game you didn’t really eat much in favor of just thinking. In the beginning of The Skeletons’ Castle, your character is introduced as the village goddess, essentially. She is beautiful, kind, and was known to help with chores for the townsfolk- not to mention she had a full family with an adoring father and a mother that believed the ground Jade walked on would be blessed. She really has it all, until it’s uprooted by the town people voting she become an offering to the overlords, or demon gods as sometimes they were called, and her family is distressed upon this outcome. The main character has options on how to handle this, which can be considerate and confident- or fearful and unwilling. It really could effect Jade’s reputation right off the bat so you had always chosen the wiser options and acted as if you were taking responsibility for this grand event.
Then, there was the ‘travel’ part. This was when Jade, the main character, goes on a short term journey through the lands with the skeletons onward to the castle. This part of the story could make or break your experience further into the story so you always made sure you helped any monster citizens in need, cooked, cleaned, basically you considered it housewife behavior to appease the skeletons until you could make the saucier connections. That wasn’t the only thing you could do, but when you tried the full evil playthrough you tended to get killed pretty quickly, but it did raise affections with the darker characters easier- like Horror, Tatters, Blackberry, and Mutt. In fact, you were pretty certain if you could balance out your good deeds versus bad reputation, you could manage a good ending with one of them- but you were definitely going to need to play A LOT more to get the insight. You weren’t sure how a full evil route was beneficial at the moment, but it was an option so there had to be something to it, right?
You stopped swirling your spoon in the bowl and decided to say fuck it, if you got hungrier later you’d take a break, but you were ready to hop online already.
After setting up everything once again, you felt your stomach flutter with nerves at the new world you were about to enter that had entrapped you lately. You placed the headset on, and then looked at darkness until the opening menu popped up. You smiled at first, but then squinted as you realized the screen looked… different? It wasn’t anything you could quite put your finger on, but it was like there was a drop in color and there was no other box popping up except the PLAY option. The SETTINGS box and RELOAD box had disappeared.
Huh, were you playing so much you were encountering your first glitch? You shrugged. Surely it wouldn’t be anything too serious, and if it was you’d just reboot everything again.
You moved your hand above the play button and paused when you felt something static start tingling in your fingertips. Was something wrong with the equipment?
Maybe you should go ahead with checking everything before continuing, but before you could make that full decision, you watched as the PLAY button pressed itself and you felt a lurching that had never happened before. Confused, you could swear you felt your body outside the simulation falling, you started breathing heavily as the virtual world turned black and your head spun. What was going on? You frantically tried moving your arms to remove the headset, but your arms felt like the weighed a thousand pounds and then that drowning gravity started pressing down harder on your back and head. The pressure was becoming too much as you started losing consciousness, but you fought and struggled in this darkness in front of you until you reached the peak and fell off the edge- your eyes closed and you blacked out abruptly.
——
You sprung awake with a violent jerk. Sitting up, you looked at the white bed sheet encapsulating your body. You grabbed at your ears to find no headphones, then at your eyes to find out it was empty of the headset. Had you been dreaming?
You released a relieved chuckle and shook your head. That had to be the explanation, because you had felt a falling sensation in dreams before, and maybe you had been gaming too much lately and it had invaded your dreams.
Gaining nerves, you looked down at the bed again, but you were confused, your bed sheets weren’t white… your head snapped up to look around.
You froze, this wasn’t your room. The walls were made of logs and twine, there was no computer or pile of laundry in sight. The floor had a carpet that looked an awful lot like an animal’s skin.
You throw the blanket off and sprung into action, but the motion made you see black spots and you promptly fell onto your front, you were pretty sure you just busted your lip and the impact made your stomach nauseated.
“Oh! I think she’s awake.” Came a muffled voice from outside the wooden door.
You panicked, who was in your house? Or who’s house had you found yourself in? For some reason your voice refused to make any noise, it was like as if it was stuck in a lump just before it could escape.
The wooden door opened slowly, until a head popped out and gasped.
“Y/N! What are you doing, hun?” It was a girl, no, a woman, and she looked familiar. Your horizontal vision of her struggled to place the familiarity of her visage.
The woman swung the door out of the way and hurried to your side. She kept fretting, pushing her braids out of the way, braids! Your eyes scanned the winter outfit she wore, the fur hood, the braids that were long and plump- then your desperate eyes landed on her’s. They were the strangest bluest-purple that set her apart from any human that had ever existed.
“…J…a…??” Your voice croaked and broke and you strained to croon your neck upwards.
“Shhhh, shhh, don’t push yourself. You had a terrible accident, Y/N. It’s been days you’ve been sleeping and I’m happy to see you too!” Jade cooed, taking her gloved hands and scooping you up from locking onto your shoulders and under your knees. You were shocked at how easily she lifted you, but when your head was angled and you could look at your body… you were tiny? Not the body of a child but of someone malnourished.
The woman careful placed you onto the mattress again, careful not to raise your raggedy dress and helped propped you up on the back frame. You stared, wide eyed and terrified. What the fuck was going on? You wanted to scream out and ask God what the hell was happening, but your mouth refused to cooperate.
“I made you some soup, it might be a little cooler now than it was, but I hope you like it.” She softly spoke, as if you were fragile enough a breath could break you. She stood straight and walked away for a minute, only to return with the promised bowl on a tray. Sitting it down on the foot of the bed, Jade took a spoon and scooped up the liquid. Leaning back to you she smiled and offered it with a nod.
You weren’t sure why, it might have been because your stomach suddenly felt like an empty cavern and your confusion made you feel so sick with it being so empty, but you parted your lips the best you could and watched as Jade leaned in and helped you sip from the spoon.
“You’re doing great, Y/N.” She complimented, continuing feeding you until the bowl was empty. To be honest, it was good soup. You weren’t sure what kind it was but it wasn’t spicy, just clear and warm.
Jade sighed and sat still for a minute before looking at you wistfully. You were probably imagining it, but she looked sad, although her smile was the total opposite.
“I’ll be back until you get better okay? It was because of me that even happened. I can’t say sorry enough… but right now you need rest.” She said, moving the tray off the bed and rearranging you under the blanket and with the pillow right under your head. Your fear was still frenzied, but your lack of capability made you grateful for this… character? What was happening? Were you still playing the game, was there an update? No… you could feel everything. You could smell the scent of pine and lemon and when Jade got close you could feel the body heat radiating off of her…
Dizzy, you did feel like your eyelids weighed like a million pounds.
Jade watched you for a few more moments before retaining the tray and softly walking away.
“Sweet dreams, Y/N.” You heard whispered before the door closed and you were left in this paralyzed body that was now your prison.
——
She had kept true to her word and kept visiting.
She was slowly healing you to full health.
Your existential crisis had lasted for days, but eventually you had accepted your new reality. You had thought maybe you had died and this was your brains last attempt at appeasing you before meeting your maker, but as these days passed you just became more malleable to the idea you had gone insane, but if this was all in your head, what was happening to your real body?
“And then Charles chased away the coyote from getting his chickens. I was so proud of him for facing his fear!” Jade chirped brightly, she was in her usual winter clothes, and if she WAS the main character, then you had to be in the human village, right? Who were you? Jade called you by the name you had in your real life, but it seemed so out of place because you didn’t remember a character being in the game that was named after you.
“Hey, are you listening? You aren’t feeling bad again, are you?” Jade swooped around the bedside and came to place a hand on your forehead. You couldn’t help but appreciate the coolness of her pale skin on you.
In the past days, weeks, you weren’t sure how much time had passed, that she had been coming and caring for you, you had regained strength and your voice. Although, you rarely used it because the sound was so different than what you were used to. Apparently, you were just a regular citizen of this place, with no accomplishments to your name but dead parents and a singular lifestyle that meant you had a weak constitution for social interactions.
The ‘accident’ Jade had mentioned was you (or the you before you took over her body?) falling from high above from a tree- because you were trying to get a special fruit for Jade. The memory had flooded to you one random morning, but otherwise the rest was bits and pieces.
This woman felt guilty about the situation entirely too much, in your opinion. Mostly, you just wanted to be left alone to mourn your sanity, but she wouldn’t budge.
Jade looked over you with a pity you genuinely detested, but yet… you were so afraid of being alone too. Nothing made sense anymore, and you were afraid if you truly did run her off, that you would find out what madness truly meant.
——
You had finally accepted this new reality to follow the plot of The Skeletons’ Castle… but you couldn’t figure out what part of the timeline you had fallen into.
Obviously, the town hadn’t suggested to basically ‘sacrifice’ Jade yet. You weren’t sure how much time was still to pass before the game truly started. This had meant that monsters had just started their rise in this world and were slowly moving in their domination of humanity. You were just guessing, but Jade looked pretty much the same age as she does when you play as her, so there had to be a short time left for her.
You hated to admit it, but you could see why she was considered the goddess of humanity. Aside from the fact that she was ethereally lovely to look at, she was beyond kind and thoughtful to the wellbeing of others. It was no wonder Sans fell for her so easily in his routes.
You wondered if you would watch the plot unfold in real time?
Today, Jade had hand made you a knitted sweater, because of course she did. She helped you put it on and you begrudgingly admitted it was so soft.
“The wooly sheep shed this time of year, and when my parents and I collect it we try to make clothes for everyone. Don’t tell anyone, but I made yours a little more special since we’re friends.” She said with the biggest grin.
You froze. Friends? Sure, it had to have been a month since she started visiting every day but did you consider her a friend? She was just a code of numbers and programmed interactions… and what were you?
“…thank you.” You mumbled softly, and she beamed at you.
——
It was another month later when Jade crashed into your room and nearly toppled over herself in loud sobs and gasping breaths that made her ribs crackle.
Startled, you put down the feather pen and paper that you had been writing with. You had been trying to keep a journal of your old life and everything you knew about the game just to do something in a world without technology that was supposed to be the technology.
“…What’s w-wrong?” You stuttered, awkwardly looming over the hunched body of the main character, unsure of what was appropriate to do right now.
“They’re getting rid of me, Y/N! They are basically throwing me away!” She wailed, her body bundling in on itself like a ball.
Overwhelmed, you collapsed on top of her in an embrace that felt all too real. You could feel her trembling through her thick clothes, and her crying only sharpened into these animalistic whines that hurt to hear.
“I… I don’t want to!” She cried between breaths. You didn’t have to ask her what she meant, it must have been time. She must have been told the news about her fate that had been decided the moment this world was created.
You couldn’t help the flop of your stomach in nervousness. What would happen when Jade left? Would you just live your life here now? Stuck, wondering, scared, and… alone?
“Help me Y/N…, don’t let me get taken by them…” Jade whispered, so low you had to lean closer to listen. She was begging for help, and it struck you that this scene wasn’t in any playthroughs you had experienced… Jade was a strong character. She handled the news with grace and dignity, or she handled it with a coldness that still befitted her allure and charm. She had never had, essentially, this mental breakdown in the arms of a side character.
If things were already this different, what else would be changed?
——
Freedom.
It was a word that you knew all too well, it was an experience that anything living yearned for.
“Thank you… Y/N, I’ll never forget this.” Jade whispered, her mouth was covered in a thick scarf. You couldn’t answer back, you weren’t even sure what just happened yourself.
“…be safe…” You said, your chapped lips burning from the frost of the wind. Jade gave you one last look of pity, fear… determination.
“I’ll come back for you, I swear.” She declared, and she turned away, but then ran back to embrace you. Your muscles were jelly, you hadn’t meant to agree to take her place, or did Jade mention that you would without your verbal agreement?
She gripped you so tightly you gasped, and your hands gripped the sides of her cloak in desperation for her to change her mind and not leave you here to take on her destiny. You weren’t even considered average, you had no interaction you could remember with the neighbors, let alone the ability to survive interacting with these skeleton overlords that were on their way? You had your knowledge from Jade’s view, her experiences, but your new body could barely even speak, or run.
How were you going to defend yourself?
Jade released you and gave you a chaste kiss, before she turned away and disappeared into the blizzard, leaving the border of her homeland to find a way to save herself, far away from you and her family.
Was the main character always this selfish, a small voice wondered in your mind.
——
“What do you mean she isn’t here?”
You could swear the buildings reverberated from the question.
You were wheezing, having to trample down a large hill to make it to the middle of the village to ensure the arrival of the overlords was actually occurring. When you played the game, you had been mesmerized by them, fascinated by the anatomy of their bodies, but now that you could hear the depth of octaves of their booming voices instead of reading dialogue, and the scent of blood and ash that followed, not to mention their overall presence… you were petrified. There were only three of them currently present, and you couldn’t make out who they were.
The chief, Jade’s father, was bowing on his knees as his wife was crouched beside him. You couldn’t see their faces from behind the crowd, but you could hear the tremor in their voices even from this distance.
“We have tried everything to find her, but… we aren’t sure where my daughter has gone!” The pleading in his voice was raw, as if he had been crying prior to this moment. You could understand his grief. His only daughter was missing, and now their humanity was threatened to be extinguished, but you knew that there was one last chance.
You weren’t sure if it would work, but you had to do this for the sake of… who? What? You weren’t sure, but you couldn’t just stand around weak and meager and do nothing. What would even happen if you died in this game… would you die in real life? Restart? You had too many unknown factors, but…
“I… will go with you…” you coughed, your voice didn’t carry past the few inches of empty air. You broadened your lithe shoulders and forced your frozen feet to start stepping forward. You couldn’t push past the bulky and tall men and woman in front of you, but you could slip past them between the crevices of their bodies.
“I… will go with you!” You tried again, drowned out by the banter taking place between the skeletons and the chief, and the crowd had started chanting something, but your focus was on getting to the front.
“I will go with you!” You cried, still trying to carry your voice as far as you could, you were so close, and the smell of irony ash grew until your nostrils burned.
Finally, you had one more wall of bodies to push past, but they were beginning to get agitated, and they had started twisting and stomping, one of them smashed your toes and you yelped.
Your body slung forward in pain, and you accidentally bumped into a man who growled and shoved you harshly.
You tumbled into the snow, rolling forward until your body collided with something solid. You winced and ached, your body’s condition was still a pathetic excuse, so when something grabbed a fistful of the back of your sweater, you could only curl inward and shiver.
“There is nothing to eat on this one.” The voice was deep, and etched with a decaying smell that made you want to gag.
“I WILL COME WITH YOU!” You shouted, which you instantly regretted because the tall skeleton dropped you.
“What the-?” The skeleton sounded angry so you scrambled through the pains and sat on your knees and kept your head down.
“I’ll take her place!” You said, holding back your tears.
“Y/N…?” You hear a voice behind you.
You slightly turned, looking into the blue eyes of the chief watching you in disbelief.
“Who’s this?” Came a lighter voice to your right, it was cheerful, but had an edge to it that meant nothing good.
“That’s… my daughter’s…?” The man says with concern, seemingly choking up on his words.
You kept quiet and your head down.
“Wasn’t your daughter supposed to be beautiful?” Came the lighter voice again and you could feel a spike of anger swell in you. Honestly, fuck them. When you played as Jade they were awe-struck by you, and the opposite reactions were doing a number.
“No! Sorry, no that’s not my daughter, that’s her… friend?” The chief’s voice shook, as if his worry had multiplied tenfold.
“I’ll go with you.” You repeated, gritting your teeth and refusing to look up past the skeleton’s boots.
“She seems pretty adamant,” Came a third voice, a medium vibration among the deeper and lighter one. “come on guys, even if they aren’t eye candy, we can always use someone for the chores until the other one reappears.”
You glared at the snow beneath you. These monsters were pretty shallow, almost as bad as the human men you used to know.
“For fuck’s sake, Papyrus. If you want to keep her that bad just say so, but she’s your pet. I ain’t feeding that thing.” The deepest voice growled, before kicking a little bit of snow towards you and starting to walk away.
“We’ll be back.” Came a deep, dark promise from the deepest voice, but it started to depart.
“Alright! The sensational Blueberry can’t wait to see the real daughter!” Came a cheerful reply as it followed the other. You noted the name.
You waited until a red gloved hand made it’s way under your vision.
“Come on young lady, they won’t wait on us!” Came the booming voice, and you hesitantly reached a hand into the palm, and allowed yourself to look up into the eye sockets of Papyrus, the brother of Sans. He had this wide smile and bright white eye lights that looked you over.
“We’ll get you something else to wear when we get to the next town! The mighty Papyrus can’t have you walking on those slippers in this weather.” He chimed as he hoisted you up and dusted off your skirt from the snow the other skeleton had kicked onto you.
You nodded meekly, noticing Papyrus didn’t release your hand to start dragging you along. You took one last look behind you at the amalgamation of faces that had varying expressions. You cringed, unsure if what you and Jade had planned was even worth the effort.
“Human, do you like spaghetti? You look like you need much of it.” Papyrus asked, looking down at you from his height.
You raised an eyebrow.
Well, at least this one was being nice to you, but why hadn’t Sans showed up to pick up Jade like he does in the game? You would have felt safer with him around…
——
Hello! Welcome to your first check point and congratulations on making it through phase one in our hardest mode available! You have achieved meeting some of the skeletons! Let’s check how things are going so far!
Papyrus (The Puzzler):
LOVE: 0/100
FRIENDSHIP: 5/100
OBSESSION: 0/100
JEALOUSY: 0/100
SANITY: 90/100
Thinks you smell bad, but doesn’t want to say it to you.
Blueberry (The Youngest):
LOVE: 0/100
FRIENDSHIP: 2/100
OBSESSION: 0/100
JEALOUSY: 0/100
SANITY: 80/100
Can’t wait to meet the real daughter, she’s supposed to be pretty!
Red (The Gambler):
LOVE: 0/100
FRIENDSHIP: 0/100
OBSESSION: 0/100
JEALOUSY: 0/100
SANITY: 75/100
Annoyed his time was wasted.
——
Inventory:
Currently empty
Reputation (ranked by -1000 to +1000):
+12
Although you aren’t well-known, the self-sacrifice for them to buy time to find Jade was admired by many humans. They will remember this.