Numb
Darkness. All you can see is darkness. You hear distant voices, some pleading, then some crying, then none at all. Everything is dark.
You can’t feel anything, but why does that matter? Does it matter? Who are you? All you know is the darkness that overflows your mind, seeping into your soul. You neither see nor remember anything else.
But then a distant memory pulls at your mind. You grasp onto it, the only thing you can seem to bind yourself to in this dark place. Papyrus. Who is he? Someone important. Someone great.
Slowly but surely, more memories seem to drift into place. Slowly but surely, you regain yourself. Sans. That’s you. Papyrus. Your amazing brother. Alphys. Frisk. Toriel. Undyne. Asgore.
But then, why are you here? Why are you in this place devoid of all light?
Suddenly, there is a searing pain in your chest with a pounding headache to accompany it. You move to hold your ribs, but find your arm is lead, too heavy to be moved. The pain is almost too unbearable that you cannot regain your senses, but by some miracle you do.
There is something solid and warm that you’re laying on, but how did you get here? You open your eyes slowly, afraid of the oncoming light. Your vision is hazy as you try to take in your surroundings. It’s not as light as you originally thought, it seems like the lights are turned off. But why? Where are you?
Another wave of pain rolls over your ribs, making you, again involuntarily try to move your arm. But again, it does not work. However you’re starting to regain feeling in your limbs.
You try to turn your head to the side, making the splitting headache worse than it already is. You see an outline of a figure passed out, sitting in a chair adjacent to your position. Your vision clears as you try to adjust your eyes, and you notice it’s Papyrus. But what is he doing here? What are you doing here?
You now focus your priorities on sitting up. You’re not going to get anything accomplished without doing that first. Starting off with wiggling your fingers, you make the way up through the rest of your body.
The process is painstakingly long, but you eventually feel capable of moving every bone in your body. Now comes the tough part however. Sitting up. You don’t want to move your chest more then you have to, seeing as even small movements hurt, so you start with grounding your hands behind you and pushing yourself up into a sitting position.
It hurts, so, so bad. Every time your ribs move the slightest bit, it sends out shots of agony throughout your chest. But you do it. You prop yourself up against the pillow behind you, and take a small breather before trying to analyze your surroundings.
It seems you’re in a bed. Not your own bed, but a comfortable one at that. Papyrus is sleeping in the chair beside your bed, looking like he hasn’t slept in a while. You now happen to notice a smaller figure huddled tight in his lap. Frisk. Like Papyrus, they are sound asleep, but they have dark circles under their eyes, barely noticeable in the dim lighting.
You look back at the bed you are in, wondering how you got here, and why Frisk and Papyrus are here to. You decide to take off the blanket you have just now realized you were covered in, and notice the large bandages covering your otherwise exposed ribcage. How did those get ther- Oh.
Your memory of the last day hits you like a brick to the face. How could you? How could you do that to someone as innocent as Papyrus? Why are you even alive right now?
Your brain is bombarded with your own questions, and you are too caught up in your musings to notice Frisk slowly opening their eyes. What you do notice is when their eyes lock onto yours, and they let out a loud gasp as they quickly jump off Papyrus and run to your side.
“I’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry!” The mumble, as they gently wrap their arms around you in a delicate hug, careful not to disturb your chest.
“wh-” You try, but you instantly realize how weak and croaky your voice sounds. Frisk rushes to grab you a glass of water conveniently placed on a table beside your bed, and you sign thanks as they hand it to you.
After taking a sip you start again, voice still weak, but not as bad as before, “what are you apologizing for kid?”
They go back to signing, saying, ‘It’s my fault! I made you sad.’
You sadly sigh before replying, “kid. i’ve been sad way before you came along. all this-” You gesture to your injuries, “is nothing but my fault. i should be the one saying sorry for...this.”
If you felt guilty about your mistakes before, this is on a whole other scale. You failed at getting rid of yourself. And, at least judging from Papyrus and Frisk, it seems as though everyone’s been worried about you. At least you dying would have yielded some positive results, but now you’re still around making everyone’s lives more miserable.
“i... i’m sorry.”
Frisk is about to sign something when you both notice movement from beside you.
“SANS!”
Papyrus springs up from the chair, all drowsiness forgotten.
“OH MY GOD I WAS SO WORRIED!”
He quickly makes his way over to you, with tears threatening to spill from his eye sockets.
“h-hey bro.” You try to maintain a normal voice, but Papyrus notices how tired and weak your voice sounds.
“I...I SHOULD PROBABLY GO GET ALPHYS.”
He turns out of the room, leaving Frisk and you alone again for the time being. You sigh softly, realizing the impact your actions had on Papyrus. How could you do this to him? To everyone? In the house no less. Selfish. Failure. Worthless.
You didn’t even realize how tightly you were digging fingers into your wrist until Frisk carefully pulls your hand away.
‘sorry’, you sign, voice still weak, as you look down at your wrist, looking freshly bandaged.
Both of you sit there in an uncomfortable silence, both wanting to say something, but not being able to find the proper words to express yourself. It’s not until Alphys bursts in the door, quickly followed by Papyrus, Undyne, Toriel, and Asgore, that the silence is broken.
Alphys is the first to speak as she comes over to you, “Sans! I w-was so worried w-when you j-just disappeared! A-and I didn’t k-know where y-you went, but then I h-heard sounds f-from y-your room, b-but you w-wouldn’t answer the d-door when I knocked, a-and- I’m so sorry!” She starts to sob in her hands, and you remind yourself that you’re the cause of this. You’re the cause of Alphys’ misery.
“Dude. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Undyne says in a somber tone as she walks over to comfort Alphys.
“Sans, I just want you to know we are here for you if you ever feel like… this again. I-I just…” Toriel starts to break down as Asgore places a comforting paw on her shoulder, “I can’t lose you too! Chara...Chara died by taking their own life. And I, I didn’t realize until it was too late. Just, please, please, promise me, us, you’ll tell us if you feel like, like this, again.”
Papyrus, who has been silent this whole time, finally speaks up.
“WHY?” He says, and starts sobbing loudly. “WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY ANYTHING?” He continues, voice breaking on the last word.
“i…” How do you explain this? How do you explain the crushing hopelessness you feel, not knowing if you’re going to be waking back up to the cream ceiling of Snowdin, or the blue one on the surface? How do you explain your worthlessness at failing to stop the anomaly? How do you explain your failure at saving him from his descent into insanity, then failing to save Papyrus from his experiments resulting from that?
“i…”
“It was me.” Frisk says, gathering everyone’s attention, then changing back to signing, ‘Sans, I’m going to tell them.”
“kid, ya don’t have to.” You say, “not like it matters anyway.” mumbling the last part as more of an afterthought.
“W-what are y-you talking about?”
“WHAT DOESN’T MATTER?”
You sigh as you sign to Frisk, ‘do you really want to do this?’
‘Sans. This is it. No more RESETS. I promise.’
Frisk’s eyes are pleading with you to understand, and you shrug. You don’t have anything to lose. You can’t be more disappointing then you already are. Now everyone will know how you failed them, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.
Everyone in the room is staring at you and Frisk with confused looks on their faces, searching for an explanation. You take another sip from the glass of water, and tell Frisk that you’ll talk about it, seeing as it would be easier to understand without signing.
You feel empty, hollow, numb. Nothing matters. You don’t matter. This conversation doesn’t matter. It will all be gone soon. RESET. It doesn’t matter that you’re telling everyone how many times you failed them. It doesn’t matter that they’ll be sympathetic. It doesn’t matter that you’re worthless. It. Doesn’t. Matter.
You start.
You start with the multiple timeline theory, something only Alphys understands, but then you use the Schrodinger’s cat paradox to explain it to everyone else. You talk about Determination, and the properties it has with time, SAVING and RESETTING. You talk about Alphys’ Determination experiments, which everyone knows about what happened to the monsters, but nobody knows what happens when you inject it into a non-sentient being. You talk about Flowey, the golden flower covered in the dust of Asriel and injected with Determination. You watch the horrified expressions of everyone, particularly Alphys, Asgore, and Toriel, as you tell them about the reincarnated soulless version of the prince. You tell about how Flowey could RESET and SAVE, causing the same day to be lived over and over and over and over…
You talk about the horrific things the soulless prince did, befriending everyone only to strike them down the next timeline. You tell them how you remember every single timeline. You don’t say why though. Then you tell them about the day Frisk fell. The day the flower’s Determination was overridden by a stronger one.
You talk about how many times you have gotten to the surface, only to have it wrenched away from you. Then you talk about how Frisk got bored, and started killing. Scarce at first, but then escalating on to full on genocide of the monsterkind. You tell about how many times you had to watch Papyrus die. How many times you had to watch everyone die. Only doing something about it when there was no hope left. You tell them of the first fallen child, awoken by Frisk’s Determination, then turned evil by Frisk’s boredom. How Chara gradually took over Frisk’s body, power-crazed and pumped up on LV. You talk about how Chara was in control of many more timelines, until Frisk realized that they were the consequences of their actions. You tell, how by some miracle, Frisk had managed to help Chara, both coming to a mutual agreement to not kill, and not be killed. To give everyone a life on the surface. You don’t say you don’t believe them. However, you do describe, in detail, every time you failed everyone. Every time you gave up on stopping the anomaly.
You tell them all of this, but don’t feel a thing.
Everyone was silent as you told your story, and still are as you finish. They send you pitying glances that you don’t deserve. Frisk is the first to cut the silence.
“I’m sorry.”
Everyone is quick to forgive them, you knew they would, but they all send worried glances your way. You stare down at your broken chest, hating the fact that you’re still here. Why couldn’t you get a break? Even for a little while. If everyone really wants to help, they could have let you take a break from life. Until the inevitable next RESET.
You look up as Papyrus starts in his unusually quiet voice, “How many?”
You look back down at your ribcage as you respond, “as soon as i realized the kid was doing it, i tried counting, but lost count at about six hundred. probably way into the thousands now.”
You feel the eyes of everyone’s stares on you, probably judging you saying, ‘You had that many chances, but you still messed up every one?’ You agree. You failed everyone thousands of times. Thousands of RESETS, and you couldn’t get one right. You’re very tempted to rip the bandages off your chest and smash your ribs in again, but you don’t think you’d get far with everyone in the room. Because they care about you. For some reason.
“Oh Sans!” Toriel says, tears in her eyes, before coming over to you a gently pulling you into a hug. Papyrus follows suite, already crying, and everyone else soon joins in. You all stand there, in a giant group hug, many people crying. They care about you. They care about your wellbeing. You don’t know why they do, they shouldn’t, but they do. And the numbness fades just a little, replaced with a small warmth in your chest. It’s the smallest amount, and you know it won’t last long, but right now you embrace it, and think,
Maybe being here isn’t so bad.