Silent Tale

Silent Tale

Papyrus wasn't in the best of moods, even if he would never say this out loud.

Henry, Maria, and the other woman were still following him around, not that he minded. What he did mind, was that the woman they just met was looking at him with distrustful eyes.

Why was she looking at him like that? He hasn't said a word to the woman so he couldn't have said something that insulted her. Hasn't he proven that he was an ally and friend? Why were she SO judgemental?

He gritted his teeth. This wasn't good. He shouldn't- no, couldn't let his emotions and insecurities get the better of him. Not in a place like this, where enemies and demons lurked around every corner.

He shook his head and focused his attention to his surroundings. He had no idea where he was going, but he didn't feel like pulling out his map to find out and even if he did, he wouldn't know where to look. It wasn't like Serif had left a hint to where he was.

Still, walking was better than standing so he just let himself walk. If the humans had a problem with it, than he would gladly hear their suggestions. Unfortunately, they were too busy judging him to offer any solutions or ideas.

He sighed as he passed by a nearby sign in the shape of an arrow.

GARDEN MAZE

Papyrus stared at the bold, red words, not at all surprised that it was written in blood.

Still, he found himself heading to the direction of this so called garden. It's not like he was going anywhere or had anything else to do.

After five minutes of walking, the monster and three humans found themselves at the entrance of the garden. If it could even be called that.

The entrance had walls and floors made entirely of white concrete, with some vines and cracks along the edges. And in the inside, from what he could see, were walls and walls of green.

It was a hedge maze.

Papyrus felt his soul tighten at the sight. Any other time he would've been excited at the prospect of going inside a maze as large as this and try to find a way out. But...

He had a feeling if he went in there, he wasn't going to come out.

Before he could voice his concerns, however, the humans just pass by him without a word. Not wanting to get left behind, he hurries after them.

The mist, if it was possible, was even more stronger in here than out there. Perhaps because the walls felt closer together. Whatever the reason, Papyrus tried not to get lost.

There were many twists and turns, and the skeleton had tried to memorize the way back to the entrance, but after a while he gave up. It was hopeless trying to map out this place and all he succeeded was giving himself a headache.

Some of the hedge walls were torn and falling apart, no doubt from the lack of care, but they were able to easily manouver around them. Sometimes, they would find benches and tables blocking their path. Where they had come from, he had no idea, but what was strange was that they were all overturned.

The path was made up of little white pebbles which crunched under their shoes. He allowed a small smile to spread across his face when the strange woman seemed to be having trouble balancing on her high heeled shoes.

His smile immediately slipped away when he heard footsteps coming behind him.

He quickly turned around as he pulled out his knife, ready to strike.

But all he could see was white fog.

He tried to slow down the erratic beating of his soul as it thumped painfully in his chest. This wasn't possible! The footsteps had stopped when he met Maria, she was the one making them! He was behind her- behind all of them, the entire time! Who was making those footsteps?!

"D-did you guys h-hear that-"

He turned around to question his companions but found himself talking to thin air.

He was all by himself.

Breathing heavily he turned frantically in every direction, hoping to catch a glimpse of the humans, but all he could see was fog and shrubs.

Did they just leave him? Abandon him when he wasn't paying attention? He knew that they were uncomfortable with him, but that didn't mean that they could just... LEAVE him behind like trash!

He took a deep breath and tried to think of a more logical approach. It wasn't fair of him to just blame the humans for leaving him. They probably thought he was behind them and accidently continued on.

Happy that he was able to come up with a reasonable conclusion, he took a few steps forward.

Only to pause when the footsteps took a few steps forward as well.

Papyrus hesitated and took another step forward.

His follower took a step forward.

He took another five steps.

The stalker took five steps.

Sweat ran down his skull and when his follower mirrored his next two steps, he threw caution to the wind and made a run for it.

He could still hear the footsteps run after him.

He made several random turns, determined to lose his strange follower but it was like it knew where he was going.

After ten minutes, just when he felt like his soul was on fire, he tripped over something and fell down. His knife flew out of his hand a few feet away, and he hurriedly crawled after it. The little pebbles scratched up his arms but he easily ignored them. Once he had his knife he looked over his shoulder and his panic returned when he saw what he had tripped over.

It was Maria's handheld camera.

For a few seconds he just stared at the fallen device, than crawled over to pick it up. After making sure he didn't break it when tripping over it, he flipped it open.

It was still recording, and he didn't know how to turn it off, so he just held it in his other hand. He'll give it to Maria when he found her.

With one hand clutching his knife and the other holding the camera, he clumsily got to his feet. He could just put the camera in his bag and a small bitter part of him wanted to leave the device behind, but...

Maria clearly favored this device. He couldn't leave it behind knowing she treasured this object. Plus it felt... Comforting to hold something other than his knife. Who knows, maybe if he believed hard enough the camera will actually record things again.

Once he was on his feet again, he looked ahead of himself and gasped when he saw various pictures covering the shrubs.

He felt bile rise to his chest when he looked at the graphic painting of a child on fire. He looked at another picture and whimpered when it was a beheaded woman with blood splashing down her clothes.

What was even more horrible was that these looked like real people. Like someone had snapped a photo of their horrible deaths and just painted it on a canvas.

He tried to ignore the paintings but found that it was hard to do since they were everywhere. He felt his soul beating in his ribs as his paranoia and terror rose. It didn't help that the footsteps echoed him.

After five minutes of looking at the paintings he forced his head and the camera to look down and stare at the little white pebbles.

Suddenly the white stones became red and he gasped when he stepped on a hand.

He looked up and swallowed his scream. Instead of finding pictures on the wall, he saw bodies all around him.

One man had a rope wrapped around his neck while a woman had a hole in the center of her chest. Body parts were everywhere, in various forms of disfigurement. Each person looked more horrible than the last and there was so much blood-

The camera shook as he kept moving forward, determined not to let this stop him.

"... Please... Help me.."

Papyrus stopped and looked around. Was someone still alive-

Something grabbed his foot and he looked down and screamed.

It was a bloody hand.

He kicked the appendage off of him and scrambled backwards as the hand clawed the ground to move towards him.

".. Please... Please... Please.."

"Help... Me. Please... Help me.."

"... Please help me.... Help..."

".. Save me... Please.. Have mercy.."

".. Help.. Me.. Save.. Me..."

Papyrus looked around him as voices surrounded him. He almost screamed again when the corpses started moving. Like puppets with strings, they all moved sluggishly and abnormally towards him.

Surrounding him.

A whole garden full of dead people.

Papyrus started running. He ignored the voices and body parts as they tried to catch him. He sped by various decapacitated humans of all ages and genders trying to trip him up.

Bloody appendages reached for him, and the voices were all but screaming at him by now.

"Savemesavemesaveme!!"

"Helpmehelpmehelpmehelpme!"

"Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!"

It was too loud, too much, too... Everything. He tripped on a leg and the bodies swarmed him. They pulled and scratched on everything. He squirmed and kicked but nothing could keep them off. It was like swimming in a sea of corpses.

He elbowed and pushed his way out of the overwhelming group, breathing heavily as he was having a panic attack. His red jeans and sweater were torn in various places where hands had pulled at them. One of the straps of his backpack was broken and he was missing a shoe but he didn't notice nor care.

He wanted to go home. He hated this. He hated that he was being treated like this. What did he do wrong?! What did he do to deserve this?! What did he do?! WHAT DID HE DO?!

He looked ahead and immediately stopped when he was about to run into a wall. He hurriedly looked around but found that there was no way out. He was trapped.

He had unknowingly run into a dead end.

He could hear the shrieks and whimpers of the corpses as they were closing in on him. Desperate, he tried to climb the shrubbery walls but it was too flat to grab a hold on. Maybe he could try cutting an exit?

He reached for his axe but found nothing but thin air. Eyes widening, he realised that perhaps one of the corpses had taken his weapon while they were grabbing him.

As their voices grew so did Papyrus' fear and terror. He put his back further into the wall. As far as he could go.

A woman whose lower jaw was ripped off found him and stumbled forward, followed by a child missing both arms. Holding the camera and knife tightly to his chest, he tried to sink into the wall behind him. There was no way he could fight his way out of here. He'll be ripped apart before he could even think about escaping.

He had never felt so hopelessly lost in his entire life than at that moment

The desolate feeling overcame him and before he could stop himself, large fat tears rolled down his eyes. The dryness in the air felt suffocating and cold, making Papyrus cry even more. He was going to die. He was going to die alone without ever say goodbye to his friends... To his family... To his brother...

He closed his eyes and leaned further into the hedge and just when he feels the closest hand reach out for him, the wall behind him gives away. Papyrus gasps and flails, trying to steady himself but he's already falling.

He must've been on top of a hill or something because the next thing he knows, he's rolling downward.

He's aware that he's dropped his knife and camera but he can worry about that later. His back slams into something sharp- a rock perhaps and he feels the last strap of his backpack rip and roll after him. The poor monster doesn't even have time to scream before he feels himself freefall for about three seconds.

There's a loud splash and he lands in some kind of body of water, except... Everything is thick and red...

His eyes widen when he realizes that he's surrounded in blood. He quickly resurfaces and spits out the red liquid. Gasping, Papyrus tries to control his panic as he looks around.

He's in some kind of fountain... The kind where people put coins in to make wishes...

He swims to the edge and shakily tries to pull himself out but lacks the energy to do it, leaving the bottom half of his body submerged. The skeleton still feels dizzy from the tumble he took before falling in here. His delicate hands leave a dark red puddle on the otherwise clean, white concrete.

Papyrus sobs and heaves upwards with all his strength but it seems like all his energy leaves him at that moment. It looks like whatever was keeping him going was already finished and he feels completely wiped out and drained. The tall monster lets his now red skull rest on top of his bloody arms and breathes in and out.

The last thing he feels before passing out is a skeleton hand brushing his face.