Prologue
“Once upon a time, there was a race of people living underground. They were not your average people though. These people had all sorts of amazing traits, like…strangely-shaped bodies, horns, tails, spikes, slime, anything you can imagine. But even though they all looked very different from one another, they treasured and loved one another anyway. They were pros at looking past physical appearances, and looking inside one another instead to find the beauty there. These creatures were called Monsters, but they were anything but. Monsters were not the human stereotype of horrible and menacing, but they were very pleasant to one another in general. But what should happen to one who wasn’t so pleasant?
A black-hearted bully.
An atrocious abuser.
A vicious killer.
Sure, grown-up monsters would just go to jail for crimes such as those. But what about a child that is damaged enough to become one of these people? As soon as a monster child started to show signs of turning into any kind of variation of these individuals, the royal guard would…”
“Send them to jail?” A small, cheerful voice piped up.
An old, ragged turtle shifted his feet, which were just able to touch the ground from the damp log he was sitting on. He glanced at the owner of the cheerful voice bemusedly. He chuckled a bit before speaking again, in a croaking voice worn from age.
“No, they would…”
“DEATH SENTENCE!! YAHH!”
“Dammit, Undyne, siddown! …anyway, as I was saying, these, er, troubled young’uns would receive a much stranger, more unorthodox treatment instead,” The turtle continued.
“What does un-ortha-pox mea—“
“Find a dictionary. No more interruptions. ANYWAY, back in the day, monsters were lazy. And getting treatment and counseling for these lil ones was too much work, apparently. So the smarty-people up at the Capital invented something. A collar, to be exact. I remember the day the Guard came here, to this very elementary school, to round up the troublemakers, pitch-black collars in hand. These collars were a brilliant invention, but they did terrible things.”
The pint-size fish monster called Undyne spoke up again. “What did they do?!”
The old turtle looked troubled, as if he was debating whether to continue or not. He closed his eyes for a long moment, the three children sitting in front of him leaning forward eagerly. Finally, with a resolute but grim air about him, he opened his droopy eyes again.
“Well, monsters didn’t consider this as abysmal as this is at the time, but the collars would git into yer mind. And shock ya good if you had any of these “poisonous thoughts”, as they called ‘em. Or if you did anything ‘bad’ in general. The power of these ‘electric’ shocks varied from murderer to bully. Although, it was very, very rare to find an actual killer in the bunch. Inevitably, this collar would s l o w l y change yer personality. On the outside, at least. On the inside, these poor children were suffering badly.”
“But didn’t they deserve it?! A few of them were actual murderers!”
The aged monster telling the story sighed, seeming exasperated but fond.
“Undyne, remember. These kiddos were about yer age, and younger. They didn’t need high-voltage shock collars to force-change their mannerisms. They needed actual help; they needed therapy, counseling, anything! The hypocrisy of monsterkind amazes me sometimes, honestly! The real horrible people were the ones administering these collars to children! The shocks weren’t even actual electricity. they were made of a special type of magic, one that was produced exclusively to allocate pain! I can’t imagine, those poor children, forced to grow up with a necklace of suffering permanently attached to their neck! If these kiddos tried to take them off…if they…”
The children watch in discomfort and horror as their beloved history teacher’s eyes started to fill with tears.
“…Mr. Gerson, are you okay?” A petite blue monster with lots of fur looked up in concern at the elder monster, radiating empathy and warmth. “I’m fine, Yvetty,” He gusted out with a shuddery sigh as he picked up the little fuzz ball, cradling them in his scaly arms.
He continued, looking calmer with Yvetty in his lap.
“These children would return from the Capital ‘happy-go-lucky’ and ‘carefree’. But their bad thoughts and their voice were trapped and smothered on the inside. In extreme cases, they were forced to act nice ALL of the time, even when tormented themselves. They were not ‘fixed’, as the Capital’s government had planned. Just painted over with pretty colors and tossed aside. Thank the stars that those atrocious collars were outlawed so long ago. But only when the capital realized…”
A single tear slipped down his cheek and soaked itself into Yvetty’s fur.
“That none of the monsters had made it.”
Paperweight, a miniscule monster made of cardboard gasped, Undyne lowered her head, and Yvetty’s tears joined Gerson’s in their fur.
Gerson lifted his head, smiling sadly. “Not one survived past age 30, and magical shocks don’t kill ya,” He mumbled, sighing heavily out of his nose before deciding to close up today’s history lesson.
“Listen closely, young’uns. Yer generation ain’t supposed to know about this stuff. But I’m tellin’ you anyways, because it’s an important lesson.”
All three children gazed at their teacher in determined concentration.
“Never, ever, ever try to ‘fix’ someone too fast. Help them help themselves, do you hear me?” He asked, making sure each of his students nodded their heads vigorously.
Silence reigned in the damp room for a moment, the rustling of leaves amongst the glowing mushrooms and the class’s collective breathing the only sounds present.
“I’m tellin all of you this fer another reason too.” The children jumped a little as the rasp of Gerson’s voice pierced through the ringing silence. He looked up forlornly, as if he was suddenly in a different time.
“They need to be remembered. The poor little ones who didn’t get the treatment that they needed to help themselves out. The ones who, despite what they did…
…didn’t deserve to die that way.”