Paratale
She raised her head as the end of day bell rang throughout the rapidly filling halls, somebody had to let her out now right? They weren’t going to leave her here, let her die in this filth would they? As the footsteps of the exiting students stomped by her locker, she weakly pounded her bleeding hands against the rusted frame, trying to raise her hoarse voice past the whisper it became over the past few hours.
As the sounds of laughter approached her soon-to-be tomb, a much stronger fist crashed against the exterior, shaking her confinement like a tuning fork.
“Enjoy the night, Hebert, I’m sure someone will take out the trash eventually.”Sophia snickered at her joke, getting some weak giggles from the sycophants around her. The track star turned back towards the nearest exit, giving a beckoning gesture over her shoulder as she walked off.
By this point, Taylor had no more tears left to shed, wide; red eyes stared unblinking through the grating, watching as the students she knew heard her turned corners and left her alone, complacent in letting her suffer and die, content that it wasn’t them.
She raged against the confinement, using whatever strength she could muster to ignore the sorrow, the fear; the all consuming hopelessness of her life. It didn’t last for long.
She slumped as low as she could in that darkness, quivering as she tried to fight off the slowly encroaching emptiness in her soul. She closed her eyes as she felt something touch her mind, a tug to let the lowest point of her life consume her identity.
[TRAJECTORY]
Taylor clenched her broken fists tighter as she rose in her prison.
[AGREE̶M̷̡͈̎̋E̴̥͆͋̋͋͘N̶̩̱͕̪͓͔̈̊̌̇͆̾̓́t̴̢̡̗̱̀̀̿̀̉̎̈̕͝ͅ
With a voice raw with anger, sorrow, and sheer DETERMINATIONTaylor Anne Hebert cried out.
“PLEASE! SOMEBODY HELP ME!”, she clenched her eyes in pain as her tender vocal cords tore at her desperate plea. Silent painful sobs wracked her lanky frame as her head weakly collided with the door. She gave her last scream everything she had.
...but nobody came.
Or so she thought.
A near silent rush of air billowed in front of her locker, she opened her eyes quickly as a low voice spoke up.
“Well, guess the kid finally… got… bored?” the voice sounded deep, like a baritone spoken near evenly throughout, only getting a slight lilt as his(?) statement turned into a question. A soft plap of a plastic sole hit the linoleum as the short figure looked around his environment.
Taylor clenched her eyes in relief as she used up what strength she had to slam her palm against the door. Her voice straining to even whisper.
“P-please, help me…” the stranger walked up to the locker, the top of his presumably bald head was just barely visible from Taylor’s small keyhole of a view. The sound of the padlock clanking against the door as whoever it was took a deep inhale, then flinched as the overwhelming stench hit him full force.
“P.U it is ripe in there, don’t worry okay? I’ll have it open no problem.”, shortly after he spoke, Taylor heard the sound of groaning metal, before a hard snap echoed throughout the hallway.
Less than a second later, Taylor and a heapload of toxicity fell into the arms of the presumed student, his legs buckling as he knelt down to the floor. Taylor felt her head rest against the white t-shirt of her savior. She wrapped her arms tightly around whoever it was that cared enough to free her, she knew she’d be pushed away soon but for now she allowed herself a small modicum of comfort.
To her surprise the stranger had put one bony hand on the back of her head and the other on the middle of her back. He shifted as he let her recuperate, neither willing to break the silence, the only sound in the school was Taylor’s shaky gasping breaths and the dull buzz of the lights above the two of them.
It wasn’t too long before the stranger’s rumbling voice spoke again, three or so minutes after they’d fallen to the floor.
“Okay kid, wanna find someplace a bit more private? Doubt you’d want anyone to see you like this.”
She closed her eyes and nodded mutely, only opening them again when she felt the air rush against her skin.
What greeted her was not the hallway outside her locker, but one of the junior classrooms nearby, the chairs stacked onto the desks as the lights flickered on by themselves.
Taylor turned her head towards the switch, scared that someone else had been in the room when they… appeared? Teleported? When they’d whatevered in here.
She didn’t see a person or anything that could have turned on the lights, until she looked at the switch itself. A small skeletal finger was sticking out of the wall below, it’s tip pushed up against switch. As soon as she caught sight of it, the three individual bones making up the digit fell towards the floor away from each other and as they reached the carpet they puffed out silently into powder.
Taylor flinched as a low chuckle came from the stranger,
“Hehe, never get tired when humans see tricks like these.” Taylor lifted her head from the probable parahumans grasp, blinking as she took in his face… or lack thereof.
A strange mask looked up at her as she sat up. It was clearly made out of some kind of bone, but outside of that looked nothing like a human skull. It wasn’t made out of individual pieces but all seemed to be a single piece molded together. It had an easy-going, almost sleepy smile, no lips to hide the teeth but somehow failed to incite any fear despite it’s obvious wrongness.
The mask had the halloweeny look of a cartoon skeleton, with the typical black ‘nose’ design and two large dark holes for eyes, inside those empty pits were pupil sized bits of stark white. Taylor took his mask in, but stopped as her eyes trailed down to his neck, only seeing the top of a spine connecting his head to the rest of him inside a hollow, but somehow still full looking, shirt.
Taylor flinched backwards to the floor as she scrambled away from the unnatural looking parahuman. The skeleton stood to his rather unimpressive height as he stepped towards the frightened teenager, both of his skeletal hands raised in a ‘don’t shoot’ motion.
“Hey don’t worry kid, I’m not gonna hurt ya okay?”, Taylor tried to scream as the skeleton knelt to her side, her voice not coming even slightly, the sharp ache being the only sign she’d even tried. His grin didn’t falter or even move as he spoke again.
“Oh, we should probably do somethin’ bout that, why didn’t ya speak up? Hehe.”, he joked as his left hand entered his snow jacket’s pocket, pulling out a cinnamon roll in the shape of a bunny. “Here kid, you’ll feel better trust me.”
Taylor stared at the outstretched treat, she felt conflicted. Was it safer to eat food offered to you by a parahuman you’d never heard of or refuse it and hope they won’t get mad. Before she could move her stomach decided to reply for her with a low growl.
The parahuman let out a slight exhale as he patiently waited for Taylor to accept or refuse. She sat up and reached for the sweet, taking in it’s warm scent as her fingers latched on to it, she wasn’t positive but she could’ve sworn the skeleton’s smile got just a touch wider.
As she pulled the spongy dessert towards her face, she examined the very obviously strange food. Not strange just because of its shape, but how it looked and felt fresh out of the oven despite it being in a jacket for who knows how long. It was still delightfully warm and the frosting was still semi-liquidus yet didn’t drip onto her hands at all.
Her hands, the same hands that had been caked in blood and vomit, were now free of even the slightest spec of filth. The only thing marring them was the cuts and splinted nails on the ends.
She looked back to the skeleton, eyes searching for answers and deceit in his expression despite how alien to a human face it was. He only responded to her by giving a slight nod and shifting from a knell to sitting criss cross on the floor. Taylor looked back at the food and decided to trust someone for the first time in a year, she took a bite.
Her eyes opened wide as the taste hit her, it was soft and warm… and somehow kind. Silly as that sounds, it tasted like a warm hug, and falling asleep in the car with your parents driving, it tasted like waiting for Santa to show up on Christmas Eve. She felt her eyes well up as she scarfed the rest of it down, feeling it’s warmth spread throughout her body, felt it’s sweetness soothe the ache in her throat.
She felt the skeleton’s heavy blue jacket wrap her up as she sobbed heavily into his chest, a small smile tugging at her lips as she slowly calmed down. Despite the hardness of his hands, the soothing circles he massaged into her back felt comforting as he told her everything was gonna be ok.
When she finally felt calm enough to speak, she looked down at her suddenly unblemished hands, sparing no time to think on that as she tried to wipe the tears off her face.
“I-I’m sorry” she stuttered out, the grinning stranger let out a snicker as he let go of Taylor.
“Don’t worry about it, I’m useta comforting kids that got too much on their plates.” he stood as he held out a hand for Taylor to get up, as she did she saw how well and truly smaller the parahuman was than her.Taylor was pretty tall for her age and gender, just barely over 5’8, but the skeleton looked to be maybe an inch under 5 feet. She stared down at him and finally asked the burning question she’d been thinking of since she saw him fully.
“Who are you? What uh, what are you?” Taylor shrunk in on herself as she realized just how rude that sounded, you shouldn’t imply monstrous capes are anything but human. Her fears were alleviated when the skeleton simply took it in stride, sticking his hand out for a shake.
“I’m Sans the Skeleton, I’m a skeleton, what’s your name human?” Taylor blinked in confusion as she shook San’s hand.
“Sans?” she sounded out, what a strange name, then again that metal ward in New York is just named Weld so it works? Kinda?
“Nope”, the skeleton replied, “that’s my name kid, I said what’s yours?”
“Oh, uh my name’s Taylor, why…”, she tilted her head slightly as she finished, “why did you help me, how did you get here?” Sans grin seemed to lose a little of it’s authenticity as he stared down to their joined hands, a melancholy expression taking his features as his brow looked heavier.
As soon as it was there, his expression flashed back to it’s default grin and eyes.
“I helped you because it’s what any decent monster should do.” he met her eyes as her head tilt grew, monster? Sans didn’t act like a monster, the psychopathic kind or the typical snarling kind, he seemed just sorta relaxed but kind.
“As for what I’m doing here? That’s kind of a long story, a reeeeally long story, how bout we get you home and I’ll tell ya all about it then, okay?”
As Taylor opened her mouth to respond, a bright glittering glow shined by the classroom door, a miniature star that burned without heat or casted any light besides what lit itself. As Sans opened the door to leave, Taylor’s fingers moved of their own accord to brush the impossible star.
Knowing that it won’t be easy, but you’re not alone, it fills you with determination.