So, where were we?

[Sans]

A few hours later...

What is better than endless wandering, endless searching for one’s desires in the world, only for said endless wandering to be met with nothing less than eternal damnation of the soul, the ceaseless ravaging of the mind, and a darkness so vile and indescribable that the mere mention of it is sure to break the wills and minds of whomever may hear it?

Well, when one puts it that way, the answer would be everything.

Seemed like the answer would be obvious, right? After all, why would anyone want to go out of their way to go get themselves thrown into Nietzsche’s monster abyss when they could settle down a million miles away from the black oil of said monster abyss? Come to think of it, why is it an abyss? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to call it a mirror? A really stained, cracked, badly-in-need-of-a-thorough-scrubbing mirror?

These are the thoughts that only someone like Sans could conjure up in their minds. Only if someone was Sans-- and given that Sans is Sans, Sans would have to be Sans, unless, of course, one was also Sans-- could unfocused thoughts like these be created. Granted, it wasn’t as if these thought sprouted out from the blue either. Such shower bubble thoughts could only be made in specific circumstances.

Sans’ circumstances were very specific.

Sans rested his skeletal head against a pillow of red feathers: the silk softness of his Chocobo mount’s back. His noble steeb (It’s not a horse, so it’s no steed, and it’s not a cow, so it’s no steer. Since a Chocobo is a bird, it must be a steeb,) slept underneath him, its golden beak buried underneath its body. His steeb’s back rose and fell with each breath his sleeping steeb gave; the repetitive, soothing motions of the bird’s sleep breathing almost made him fall back asleep as they rocked him like a baby bone. Thank goodness for the generosity of ranch owners, or at least the ones in Ambrosia.

A small ray of light pierced through, however, and shined over his eyes to stop him from going back to dreamville. Groaning, he lifted a hand to wave away the brightness. Wind blew around him; leaves whistled; he could hear birds chirping above him with properly bird-like laughter. He eventually found the source of the light: a slight separation in the leaf-covered branches from the steady wind had removed the sole barrier between him and the scorching sun above the forest. In hindsight, perhaps picking an open field, with only a lone tree surrounded by flowers and grass and what might have been a small mud pond a few feet away from the tree, had not been the best of ideas he had ever had.

He didn’t know the Tangled Green could reach degrees of 120 Kelvin if the giant rainforest trees didn’t bear the bulk of the heat for the people in it. The only thing stopping him from removing his blue winter jacket to stave off the heat was a similar all-encompassing element: his own perpetual laziness.

Still, it would have been nice if the sun decided to stop being mean to him for at least a few more hours. Perhaps he just needed a drink.

The comedian felt around the ground for a few moments before realizing one of his hands still contained a bottle of ketchup. He lifted it up to his grinning face anyway, sipping what little ketchup was still inside the bottle. After one last gulp, he let the bottle drop to his side and roll away. It tapped a collection of other empty ketchup bottles and tipped them over. They scattered into the grass like squirrels hiding from wolves. He decided it would be too much effort to chase after it and stayed in his spot, hoping nobody from Ambrosia or just a weary police officer walked by to arrest him for littering.

Moments like these, where you are surrounded by perpetual doing-nothingness, is where the mind starts to wander, if only to prevent true boredom from settling in and giving you existential nightmares. As a result, Sans’ mind wandered back to his encounter with Gaster. It had only lasted about as long as it began, but it was the way it ended that gave him pause and what truly made him think about it. After a brief conversation, the crazy skeleton had given him some sort of look, like a bullet had gut-shot him and he was only just starting to feel it sink into his stomach. He didn’t get the chance to ask Gaster if he was okay before the guy rushed over towards the bathroom of the diner they were in.

Sans had waited for hours, binging off of the ketchup drinks the waitresses had been so kind to give him. Eventually, the diner started to close, and Sans was forced to figure out if Gaster was okay.

He didn’t really know what to expect going in, but finding absolutely no sign of the crazy skeleton guy in there was something he probably should have foreseen. Usually when a monster goes, if you really search, you can find some sign they were there. This usually took the form of dust, the bodily matter of a deceased monster. But this time? A solid nothing at all. He might as well have vanished into thin air.

He had walked around to meet fellow patrons either finishing their meals or otherwise so drunk they probably thought they were inside their homes and asked them if Gaster had left the bathroom. A few confused questions and stares was all it took for Sans to get the hint and just leave. That was what confused him more than anything else about what happened. Gaster had caused a bit of a commotion. There was no way people could just forget him.

Sans sighed and tried to focus on something else. Something gnawed at the back of his skull, a pressing matter he couldn’t remember yet only fed the anxiety eating away at his ribs.