inkydrawss

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 11

Killer within

TW for violence and blood

When You drove back to the farm with Sammy the next day you saw Sans spreading out food for his chickens in the pen. You helped Sammy down and she ran off to greet him. When you parked your bike and turned it off Papyrus wandered over to you. "hey, m'bro wants to go hunting with ya. says we're starting to get low on meat and wants to try hunting rabbits." You nodded and adjusted your crossbow to rest against your side while you carried your bag. "Alright. We probably won't get lucky enough to get a whole lot of rabbits but who knows. Sans is a pretty good shot with his bow." You said making him nod in agreement. You both walked over to the coop where Sans was talking to Sammy.

You noticed with a grin that he was wearing the tailored farmers shirt and what looked like a new pair of jeans, most likely from the run yesterday. He greeted you enthusiastically as he left the pen. "Hello Friend! I Was Hoping We Could Do Some Hunting Today. I Saw An Old Recipe In A Book That Inculded Rabbit And I Want To Try And Make It." He said while Sammy stuck her fingers through the gaps in the gate to entice the chickens closer to her. You chuckled at her and placed your hands on your hips. "Yeah sounds good. Which direction you thinking of heading?"

Sans made a 'gimmie' motion towards Papyrys making him sigh dramatically. When Papyrus handed Sans the map he opened it up and pointed a little east from the farm. "I Haven't Hunted In This Area Yet. There's A Creek About An Hours Walk From Here. I Bet There's Rabbits Near There, And If Not I Bet We Could Catch Something Else." You nodded at the plan as he handed the map back to his brother. "We can walk to that creek and back at a curve so we can cover more ground. We should head off now though, you got a bag packed for the trip?" You asked making him nod proudly.

He summoned his bag from his phone and unzipped it to show off all the supplies he packed. You saw a tiny basic medical kit, a spare shirt, a long hunting knife, a thermos probably filled with water and what looked like wrapped food. He definitely had more packed than you. All you had was some rags, rope, dried meat, a bottle of water and spare bullets. You also had your pistol in your bag for when you ride your bike so you took it out and tucked it into the back of your pants as Sans said bye. When he walked over to you with his bag put away and his bow and quiver strapped to his chest he said your name. "You ready to go?" You asked.

He nodded and you both headed down the road to walk around the fence. You were walking in the woods for several minuets before Sans clapped his hands together. "Soooo. What Did You Do Before All Of This? You Already Know I Lived In The Underground With My Brother. I'd Like To Know About You." You thought about his question, trying to figure out a way to explain it without making him sad. "Well I moved out of my parents house when I was young. I worked a lot of part time jobs and did odd jobs for some extra cash." What you didn't say was most of the jobs you worked were sketchy at best. Like fixing up stolen cars or bartending for adult clubs with barely dressed people.

You always tried to keep true to your morals and helped your elderly neighbors with their car that always had some new issue. There was the volunteer work you did when you were between jobs and needed something to do. You fiddled with you crossbow as you spoke. "I liked hunting though. Being out in the woods feels natural. I wasn't able to hunt much living in the city but I did hike a bit when I could." When you looked at Sans he seemed to be hanging onto every word you said. You raised an eyebrow at him, not used to someone so interested in your life.

He started talking about how he trained to be a royal guardsman but was never able to join. He was trained to cook by the captain Alphys and he developed a love for the culinary arts. You told him how you were not the greatest cook. You accidentally fell asleep cooking ramen and burned it. You both got a laugh out of that. You looked up near the sun and noted how much it's moved since you started walking. You roughly guessed it's been about thirty minuets so you should be halfway to the creek. You quickly held your hand uo in front of him when you heard some leaves ruffling in the distance. You saw a bit of hair peak out from between the underbrush and crouched, making Sans follow suit.

You did your best to quietly pull your crossbow off your back and loaded it. You quietly crept towards the furry animal and slowly stood up to see if you could get a better view of it. Peaking out from behind a leaf was a brown rabbits face. You lined up your bolt and fired. You hit it in the head, instantly killing it. You grinned at Sans as you pulled off a bag strap to dig out your rope. He fetched the rabbit for you and you thanked him as you looped a knot and slid the foot into it. You snorted as you had a hilarious idea. "You want a rabbits foot for luck?" You joked and Sans gave you a disgusted face.

You laughed and slapped his back. "It's a human thing, for good luck and stuff." He started walking away from you making you chuckle and jog to catch up. "Some Human Things I Will Never Understand." He muttered. By the time you reached the creek you caught another rabbit and Sans got one with his bow. After a quick lunch break by the water, you talked about old recipes you knew, you headed back to the cabin. You were hoping to catch a couple more for you and Sammy but it seems the bottom curve you took back doesn't have many animal tracks.

As Sans was explaining how he used to make tacos you heard voices in the distance and quickly grabbed Sans and ducked down into the overgrowth. Peaking through the leaves revealed a small group of men walking through the woods. You felt your throat get dry when you recognized their vests and turned to Sans. You turned to Sans and put your finger on your lips, signaling to be quiet. He furrowed his brows and tried to look for himself. The men seemed like they were trying to hunt, animals or people you wouldn't know and don't care to find out. Sans turned towards you and badly whispered. "Who are they? Why are we hiding when we could work together with them?"

You tried to quiet him but it was too late. They heard the noise and raised their weapons and started searching the area. You turned to him with your most serious face. "Sans, you need to stay here and hidden. If they think it's just me I can chase them off and loose them in the woods. Once they're gone you run to the farm and wait for me. I'll be back." You whispered and before he could reject your idea you popped up and drew their attention towards you.

They all pointed their guns at you or held their weapons ready to strike you. You held your hands up and started carefully stepping to the side away from Sans. "Easy fellas. I'm Just out here trying to hunt." You said making a tall blond guy walk a few steps closer to you while he held a rifle to your head. "Awful lot of rabbits for just one person." He asked and you forced a casual chuckle. "Aw well, I'm a pretty hungry person. If you don't mind I'm gonna go and cook these up for dinner." When you went to side step away blond guy pulled out his own gun.

"You know it's funny, you look a lot like a person we had trouble with a while back. Isn't that right Markus?" He asked the man next to him and thats when you realized the other guy wasn't holding a knife. His arm had been amputated and in it's place was a metal prosthetic with a large knife attached to it. You heard another trying to walk around behind you making you panic about them finding Sans and shifted your body so you kept them in eyesight. You counted five men and realized you couldn't take them on and with their guns, running would be risky.

"Boss was pretty mad at getting shot at. He nearly lost his eye cause of ya. I think we should repay that favor, whaddya say boys?" He asked making them all start chuckling and muttering about how they're gonna hurt you. You took a step back and placed your hand on your axe. Before you could make another step you heard the cock of a gun and the end of a cold barrel press into the back of your head. The blond guy, you're gonna start calling him number two, stepped towards you.

He slammed the butt of his gun against your forehead, knocking you towards the ground. Before you could push yourself up you felt the tip of his shoes slam into your stomache making you throw up what little food you ate. He crouched down and grabbed the top of your head to force you to look at him. "Don't make this any harder then it has to be. It'd be a shame to have to completely ruin such a nice face." When he pulled his knife out you immediately spat into his face.

He barely flinched and calmly wiped the spit from his face with the back of his hand. He chuckled darkly and pointed his knife at you. "Oh you're definitely loosing your tongue for that." As he gripped your jaw in his tight grip you heard Sans yelling your name. You mentally cursed as he stupidly revealed himself, he was supposed to stay hidden. They started to freak out at the sight of a walking talking skeleton and you felt to grip from number two loosen. You kicked him in the knee, making him fall as you crawled back towards Sans.

You stood in front of Sans protectively as you pulled out your own pistol. "What the hell is that thing?" Number two yelled. "He's my friend and we're just going to go. You keep the rabbits and forget you ever saw us." You tried to reason with them. You didn't want to kill anybody but this world brought out the absolute worst in people and sometimes you had no choice. "Fuck that. We're gonna kill you and take your freak. Boss will be excited to see your head on a stick and a new pet."

You heard a low growl like rumble and realized it was coming from Sans. "You Are Not Going To Hurt My Friend." He said and summoned several bones and threw them at the men. most of them hit them in the legs and arms while the rest grazed them. While they were momentarily distracted with bone attacks you grabbed Sans's hand and started running. You heard number two shout at them to chase you making you start panicking. You couldn't go straight to the farm or risk them finding out where they live and going south towards the town could be too dangerous with biters around.

You heard guns being fired and saw a tree in front of you explode from a bullet. You made a split desicion and quickly turned right, hoping to throw them off your trail. Luckily Sans had no trouble keeping up with you, he was even throwing bones behind you in hopes of slowing them down. You made another sharp turn only to immediately start falling. You and Sans started tumbling down a hill and you could feel every rock and tree root digging into you. When you finally landed at the bottom you were winded but with all the adrenaline pumping through you, you hardly felt the pain.

You heard Sans groan and rub his head with one eyesocket closed. As you crawled over to him you heard heavy footsteps coming closer. You looked up in time to see number two raising his gun and the color drained from your face when you saw he wasn't aiming at you. You saw your gun laying next to Sans and lunged to cover him while reaching for your gun. You heard him fire and quickly twisted around and fired at him. You managed to hit his throat and sighed when you saw his body fall. You heard men shouting from the top of the hill you fell down and tried to get up, stopping when you felt a sharp pain in your side.

You looked down and saw red staining the left side of your shirt on your stomach. Sans gasped your name as you held a hand over your gunshot wound. "We don't have time to treat it. We need to get outta here." You said and made sure nothing fell out. Unfortunately you couldn't find your knife and you lost most of your bolts but there were more pressing matters to attend to. Sans helped you stand upright and you tried to run but you nearly blacked out from pain. "Be Careful, We Don't Know If The Bullet Went Through." Sans said and made you lean against him for support.

When you heard running footsteps coming closer you pulled out your pistol and turned. Two men from the group were trying to rush you with blunt objects for weapons. You managed to kill one but missed the other. When he went to swing his weapon you raised your arms to block before you heard the sound of a wet squelch. You lowered your arms with a pained hiss and realized there was a bone pinning the man to the ground by his chest. He choked on his blood before quickly passing and the bone dissapeared, leaving a hole in the man's chest.

You looked at Sans and his face was flushed blue but you don't think it was from embarrassment. Tears started falling from his sockets but he didn't make a noise which unnerved you. You went to reach out to comfort him but felt your knees buckle and fell to the ground. When Sans heard your grunt of pain he seemed to snap out of it enough to help you up. "C'mon. Let's get back home together." It was the quietest you've heard him talk since meeting him. You wanted to make a joke about it too try and cheer him up but all you could muster was a pained whine.

As you started walking you noticed you were having a hard time stepping with your leg where your axe rested and your vision was starting to get black spots. "We're Almost There. Try To Stay Awake." He said as you started leaning more of your weight onto him. You didn't know how long you were walking as you fought to stay conscious. You vaguely remeber something about concussions and how you shouldn't sleep or something. You felt a gloved hand gently patting your cheeks making you open your eyes. You didn't even realize you closed them.

Sans was a mess when you looked at him. He had smudges of blue tears and dirt all over his face and skull and when you looked at his right socket you noticed a small crack going across his forehead to the other side of his temple. You shakily raised a hand and tried to wipe away the dirt and dust on his cheek bone, like you've done for Sammy in the past. He weakly chuckled and grabbed your hand. "I'm Not A Babybones, I Can Clean Myself Up When We Get Back. First You Need To Be Checked By Papyrus. You're badly hurt."

When you tried to look at your wound Sans gently tugged you along. "Don't Look. Please, Just Don't." He sounded badly shaken and you decided to go back to hobbling. You barely made it a few feet before you felt you knees buckle again. You faintly heard Sans yell your name as he tried to catch you. Suddenly he had his bag and was pulling out a rag and gauze and started pressing it onto your wound and wrapping it. You hissed out in pain making him whisper apologies. You felt a few tears escape your eye as you looked uo at the bright blue sky.

You didn't want to die just yet. You promised a long time ago to Sammy, when you both were wandering the woods in the winter and starving. You gave her the last can of food and promised that you would always look out for her and protect her. Sans's voice grew fainter and fainter as you remembered how you tried so hard to protect Sammy. You vaguely register being picked up and carried. You saw the trees whipping past you in a blur and when you looked up you saw Sans crying again. You wanted to tell him you'll be okay but you didn't know if you could keep that promise when you don't have hospitals to treat wounds. Your vision finally grew dark as your consciousness slipped away and your head lulled back.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 10

Truck full of chickens

Heavy TW for dead bodies and heavy topics

You already had your bag packed and was sitting on your porch making sure all your blades were sharp by the time Papyrus arrived. Seems like he was on time when you looked at the rising sun. You stood up and handed him your bag and crossbow while you walked to your bike. The tarp was too nasty from the deer blood so you're hoping to find another tarp in your run so you don't get it waterlogged. Papyrus huffed and slid your bag and crossbow on him. Already accepting his fate of carrying everything while you drove. As you rolled your bike out he pulled out his map and laid it across the seat. You pointed to a town that was a bit further away from the town you've been checking.

"I'm thinking of running to this town since it has more stores. Hopefully there's a kids store there since Sammy's shoes are getting a bit small. It also wouldn't hurt to find some gas cans and siphon some gas outta abandoned cars. It'll take an hour or so to reach the town and we can head back to your farm afterwards as long as we don't hit any roadblocks." You said making Papyrus nod. "maybe i'll be able to find a car that isn't out of gas yet." He mumbled and folded up the map. You started walking the bike onto the path while he followed. Seems like today he's too tired to argue with you judging by the dark circles around his eyesockets and his slow shuffling walk.

When you arrived to the dirt road you hopped onto your bike and turned to Papyrus with a smirk. "Ready to ride or are you still too tender boned." You joked. He scoffed and rolled his eyesockets as he straddled the bike behind you. "i'm not soft, it's just hard to ride a bike when you hit every bump in the road." You chuckled and turned the bike on. "Whatever you say." You took off down the road at a slower speed than before while Papyrus held onto your shoulders. As you drove you felt the cool morning air whipping your face. Looks like summer is coming to an end and with it the fresh fruit you pick.

You're going to have to do more runs for the fall and winter seasons but with it being almost a year since the world fell most stores are already ransacked. As you drove you felt the sun heating up the ground slowly warming you up. By the time you reached the edge of the town you could feel some sweat building up. You cruised down the main street until you came across a handful of biters wandering in the street. You killed the bike and kicked the stand down. Papyrus hopped off and handed you your things as he summoned a long bone. You swung your bag and crossbow over your shoulders as you grabbed your axe.

You took care of the biters closest to you while Papyrus speared the ones further away. Once the street was cleared you checked out the stores to see if there's any biters hiding inside. You saw a thrift store and signaled Papyrus that you were going inside. If there wasn't a store for kids the thrift ones are your next best bet. As you walked the isles you saw some stuffed animals on a shelf in the back and headed that way. If there's toys there's clothes. When you walked into the side room you gasped at the body on the ground.

There, wriggling with it's arms behind it's back was a child sized biter. You felt your hands shake as the biter started gnashing it's teeth at you, weak and half decomposed from laying on the ground for so long. You saw writing on the ground in maker next to it saying 'please do what I couldnt' and you nearly started crying. You tightly held onto your knife and knelt behind what used to be a living child. You saw a bite mark on it's upper arm and took a deep breath to calm yourself. You slid your knife into the base of it's skull as a few tears escaped your eyes.

You fell back away from the body and started heaving. You didn't throw up but your throat felt tight and your stomach was in knots. When you were able to collect yourself you searched the shelves and found an old quilt. You gently wrapped the body in the blanket, wishing you could give them a proper burial. When you heard the door open you quickly wiped your face and stood up. Papyrus walked into the room holding something but when he looked down at the small body wrapped in a blanket he paused. "is that?" He didn't finish his sentence as you gently moved the body to the side. "Yeah. Their guardian couldn't do it so I did for them. They were just a kid, their body deserves to rest too." You said.

Papyrus looked at the body solemnly as you started searching the shelves for things that would fit Sammy. After a few minuets Papyrus started helping after asking what sizes he should look for. "when monsters pass away they turn into dust and we sprinkle their dust on their favorite thing. we're made completely of magic and when our soul breaks our body dusts. when a human soul breaks their body stays but with this virus they reanimate somehow with no soul." As Papyrus talked you managed to find a couple of plain pink shirts for Sammy that should last her for a couple years as she grows.

You heard him snort and as you looked up at him curiously you noticed a jacket. He held up a bright pink winter jacket with blue lined fur across the hood. When he flipped to show the back you cracked a smile at the picture of a rainbow unicorn with sparkles everywhere. It was so ugly, Sammy would absolutely love it. He waded it up and stored it in his phone, probably because it was too bulky for your bag. You felt the heavy mood slowly lift as you finally found the kids shoes. "So what were you holding earlier?" You asked making him grin mischievously and reach into his pocket.

He pulled out a big mason jar of honey and held it like a fish he caught. You chuckled at him and turned back towards the shoes. You found a pair of pink and purple sneakers that should fit Sammy and stuffed them in your bag. You were only able to find her a pair of pants after searching some more and moved to look for other things. You weren't able to find anything useful besides a small cast iron skillet you could fry some rabbit on. You did find yourself a couple work jackets that had a few holes and a package of unopened socks. Evey time you looked at Papyrus he was storing something different in his phone. You decided to not question him, some of it might be requests from Sans.

When you picked what you could from the store you both moved onto the next. After checking five more shops you were able to find a decent amount of food and a couple bags of rice that seemed safe enough to eat. As you were walking towards the end of the stores you saw a couple abandoned vehicles in a mechanics shop parking lot. Papyrus jogged over to a small rusty orange truck and reached into the open window. He laughed as the door popped open and jumped inside. You walked over to the passengers side door and leaned against it, watching him search for the keys.

"do you think you can hotwire this?" He asked after he gave up his search and you chuckled. "I could but I don't wanna have to hot wire it every time you wanna drive. You checked the door pocket yet?" You asked while pointing towards the door. When he reached his hand in you smiled when you heard the telltale sound of keys jingling. "don't." He glared at you making you hold your hands up. "I didn't say anything. I'm gonna search this shop for a hose and gas cans and start siphoning." You patted the truck door and walked into the building.

The garage doors were left open so it made it easy to search the building. You found three empty gas cans and an old hose you cut using your knife. You heard the truck start for a few seconds before being turned off. When you walked outside Papyrus was looking under the hood of the truck. When he heard you he waved you over as you placed the jugs on the ground. "you know cars, there was this light on the dash and i'm trying to figure out what's wrong with the truck." You looked it over to see if you could find anything obvious. When he tried to describe the light you realized it was and chuckled. "That symbol comes on when your windshield wiper fluid is low. I can check the shop for any bottles that aren't open but the truck can run without it."

He nodded and you helped him close the hood before handing him the hose. "You can start siphoning gas from the cars near here. Just stick one end in the gas tank, cover the other end with your thumb and shake it. The pressure will make the gas pump through so be quick or you'll get gas all over yourself." You explained and walked back inside while he wandered to a nearby car carrying a gas can. You found a single bottle of windshield wiper fluid and went ahead and refilled the truck for him. When you finished you tossed the bottle into the back, you wouldn't need it for your bike.

You saw Papyrus holding the hose into the gas can so you walked back to fetch your bike. As you walked back to Papyrus you heard a couple biters banging against the windows for what looked like a donut shop. You felt a shiver go down your back as you looked at their lifeless faces. You never wanted to become one of them, especially if Sammy had to be the one to put you down. When you arrived at the parking lot you saw Papyrus placing the gas cans in the truck bed. "hey, there wasn't a whole lotta gas left in the cars but i did get a jug and a half." He said and placed his arms on the top of the bed wall.

You nodded in acknowledgement and hopped onto your bike. "Well we picked this town over. The only useful thing was that thrift store. Let's head back to the farm for lunch." You said and started your bike as Papyrus hopped into his truck. You walked your bike to the edge of the road and waited while he backed up. Once he was ready you started driving down the road you took there. As you drove past fields and barns you saw a stray biter in the middle of a overgrown field. When you passed a farm and saw movement around a fenced in chicken coop you raised your arm and signaled you were pulling over.

As you slowed to a stop Papyrus jumped out of his truck and walked to you. "what's up? something wrong with your bike?" He asked making you shake your head. "I think I see something over there." You said while pointing to the chicken coop. When he saw what is was he sighed and sagged his shoulders. You grinned and slapped his shoulder. "C'mon, let's see if we can find some chickens." You walked down the dirt driveway and Papyrus followed you with a dramatic sigh. When you got closer you heard clucking you smiled and jogged closer.

You opened the gate and noticed some blood splatters along the fence line. Seems like some chickens weren't so lucky. You opened the wooden door and saw six hens nervously clucking. You turned towards Papyrus as he walked through the gate. "Bring the truck around. Looks like Sans is finally getting some farm animals." You happily said as some of the chickens started leaving the coop now that a human was here. "fine, but if they poop in the bed you're helping me clean it." He said as he closed the gate and started walking towards the truck.

When you reached the farm Sammy ran out the door with Sans following her. You had just slid off your bike and kicked the stand down when Sammy hugged you. "Did you guys get a truck? Was the run good? Did you get me anything?" She fired off questions making you chuckle and ruffle her hair. "Yeah, we'd found a decent haul. We even worked together to get Sans a gift." You lied, you were chasing the chickens around trying to catch them while Papyrus sat on the bed of the truck laughing at you. Sans perked up at the word 'gift' and looked at you with star shaped eyelights and ran to the truck. He climbed up the back step and gasped when he saw the chickens.

When he hopped down Papyrus stuck his head out the window. "i'll drive the chickens to the coop. hop in if ya wanna ride there." He said and Sans vaulted the back to hop into the bed. Sammy tried to do the same but at a barely four foot and a half all she could do was jump and wrap her arms around the tailgate. You helped her up and walked to the front of the truck. You weren't riding in the back with the chickens no matter how much you cared about her. You enjoyed the breeze through the open window on the short drive until Papyrus stopped and backed the truck up to the coop.

You hopped out and realized this is the first time you'd see their coop up close and huffed in amusement. Seems like Sans didn't stop using barbed wire at his garden. The entire outside of the chicken wire had barbed wire along the bottom, smart way to keep predators out. You started showing them how to properly hold a chicken so they could place them into the fenced in clearing. When they were all in Sammy tried to pet them while Sans held a red chicken. "This One Is My Favorite. I Shall Name Her Penny." He declared and that lead to Sammy helping him name the rest of the chickens.

You didn't pay much attention to the names, all they were to you is eggs and food unless you could find a rooster. Papyrus drove the truck to park in front of the house while the rest of you walked. Sans started talking about all the different foods chickens can eat and how they're great pest control. You noticed the sun was halfway down and decided it's time to head out. "I think we should start heading back. I don't wanna walk in the woods close to sunset. Them biters are getting more frequent where I'm at." You said making Sammy whine.

You gently smiled at her and side hugged her. "I know kid. But look on the bright side, you get to ride on a motorcycle with me." That seemed to perk her up as she started saying her goodbyes to Sans. You asked where her bag was and she told you it was in the living room. When you walked inside you saw Papyrus lounging on the couch and before you could ask he pointed to the corner. Sammy's bag was left there with her sewing things strewn about. You packed everything back into her bag and zipped it up. You nodded at Papyrus as a thanks and goodbye. If he knew you were searching for Sammy's bag he already knew you were heading back.

Sammy walked in to say bye to Papyrus then took your hand to drag you to your bike. "Bye!" She yelled one more time to them as you started your bike. You had Sammy sitting in front of you for safety as you drove down the dirt road. When you got to area where you couldn't ride through you helped her off and walked the bike. On the way back she told you about her sleepover and what they did this morning. They had set up an obstacle course and competed who could do it the fastest. You snorted as you remebered you did the same thing with Sans when you practiced with your crossbow.

You felt the hair on your arms prickle like something was watching you. You stopped and searched the area, only to see nothing. "What is it? You see a biter?" She asked as her hand went to the pocket knife she tucked into her front pocket. You huffed as you shook off the weird feeling and went back to walking. "Nah, thought I heard a squirrel or something." You said as she relaxed. You didn't want to worry her, especially since the feeling went away when you looked. It probably was some animal like you said but you couldn't shake the gut feeling like you were being watched up until that moment.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 9

On the farm

no tw, just mostly wholesome stuff

As you both sat and smoke you could hear Sammy laughing occasionally and Sans yelling about puzzles. You glaced at Papyrus from the corner of your eye. Just yesterday you clocked him where his nose would be and now you're both sitting on rocking chairs having a smoke. You noticed the bone of his nasal ridge was smooth, like you didnt even punch him. You rubbed your scabbed knuckles as you remebered why you punched him. "So what's this love or lv thing?" You asked as you put your cigarette out on the ashtray that was moved to the ground between you two. That made him pause with his cigarette inches from his teeth.

"well it stands for level of violence as i've told you. When you kill a human or dust a monster you gain lv. The more you gain the more you lose yourself. when i first saw you i preformed a check, a way to get basic information like your attack and defense. i saw that your lv was four and assumed you killed people and stole their supplies but seeing you interact with sammy. well, that and you told me why your lv was so high. made me change my mind. don't get me wrong i still don't fully trust you, but i trust you enough to keep my brother safe." He explained as he stubbed out his cigarette.

"I don't trust you much either but as a protective sibling I know how important it is to keep them safe. I worry about Sammy constantly, this world isn't safe for children anymore." He hummed in agreement and pulled out another cigarette. When he offered you passed, you feel a bit bad smoking his cigarettes when you still have some at your base. After a couple minutes you cleared your throat when he finished smoking. "So if you checked me out what are my stats?"

A bright orange blush spread across his cheekbones as he choked on air. "i-i wasn't checking you out i was preforming a check." You cackled at his distress making him huff and flip his hood up. "So can Sans check me? Have you checked Sammy?" You asked. If what you learned was right Sammy would have no lv since she hasn't even taken down her first biter yet. Papyrus calmed down and relaxed back into his chair. "well sammy has the base lv of one, her attack is four and defense is three. which isn't surprising since she only has a pocket knife. but you have very different stats. for starters your lv is four, your attack is one hundred and your defense is eighty. i don't even know how high it is now with your crossbow added."

You blinked at the high numbers. You knew you were pretty strong but compared to Sammy's low numbers you sounded pretty tough. "Wow, Sammy's soul is probably pure white compared to mine." You joked which led to Papyrus briefing you on souls. Monsters had pure white upside down heart shaped souls while humans were upright and could come in all kinds of colors. When you asked what color your soul was he hesitated. "well there's two ways to see your soul itself, first is if you enter an encounter with a monster. the second one is a bit more personal since it's usually done between couples, family, or a doctor that can pull your soul out." You nodded along, deciding to not ask Papyrus anymore about your soul since you figured 'encounter' means fight and you were definitely not going date Papyrus just to find out your soul color.

You thought about Sans for a second but he felt too much like a younger brother so you quickly shook the thought from your head. "Man, learning all this is kinda crazy. First the world ends, then monsters come out of the mountain to this shit show. At least ya'll got it kinda easy with that magic storage in your phones and magical abilities." You said making Papyrus chuckle dryly. "yeah. i can see why chara was desperate to stay underground and was hesitant to let us leave. this place is a mess." He kicked a small rock in front of him off the porch. You noticed that he had velcro shoes with orange and white accents and stiffled a laugh.

You heard Sans and Sammy's laughter getting closer to the front of the house. Her childish squeals of joy and Sans's deep 'mweh heh heh's' made you chuckle. "I'm glad that in all of this Sammy found a friend in your brother. I haven't heard her laugh so much in a long time." Papyrus quietly agreed with you. Sammy and Sans came marching towards the porch. "Brother, Human. We Are On A Date, We Will Be Inside While I Wow Sammy With My Marvelous-ness." He proclaimed and marched inside with Sammy following him giggling.

You looked at Papyrus wondering if you should be concerned making him chuckle and gently shake his head. "don't worry he's done this before with chara. he thinks anyone who compliments him a lot and also loves puzzles wants to go on a date with him. it's honestly more of a play date and he'll let her down gently afterwards." You raised your eyebrows but relaxed back into your chair. You trusted that it was an innocent play date 'date'. You heard their giggles through the walls and smiled softly, seems like it was more of a play date like he said.

After a while of silence you slapped your knees and stood up. "I noticed how much land you got here and that most of it's barbed wire. Mind if I do a premises check to make sure it'll hold against a few biters? I'm gonna start putting up spike traps near my base since the biters are starting to wander this way." You asked as you slid your crossbow on and kicked your bag to lean against the porch railing. He stood up with a stretch and yawn. You noticed tiny sharp canines before he closed his teeth with a click. "i'll come with. don't want ya stepping on a trap that flings you into the woods." You chuckled at the joke but seeing his serious face made you realize that is a real trap Sans made.

"At least he's always prepared." You walked down the porch steps and started walking towards the fence. As you checked the fence he stayed behind you, occasionally telling you to take a few steps to the side to avoid a trap. Luckily there wasn't many taps on the inside of the fence line and all of the barbed lines were tight and straight. "Well the fence is holding up strong. And with the traps Sans has I bet it could hold up against a small herd." You said as you walked back to the house. Papyrus hummed in agreement as he walked next to you. "it better, it took hours to redo parts of the fence that fallen." He whined.

You laughed and nudged his arm with your elbow. "If ya ever need help with the fencing just give me a hollar. I learned how to drive posts and handle barbed wire. All I'd need is some thick gloves and a hat to keep the sun outta my eyes." You said. "i might take you up on that offer." He softly chuckled as you reached the porch. Sammy and Sans were holding shirts and stitching down the sides. You noticed how big the shirt was and realized the farmer who owned this land before was fairly big and tall. You sat next to them and noticed some half sewn jeans in a pile behind them. When you picked one up you noticed that they tried to cinch the pants but the denim was too thick. You saw the size tag on the pants and noticed a scribbled name 'Jason'.

You placed the pants back into the pile as Sans started to talk. "Our Date Went Very Well, They Met All Of My High Standards But We Agreed To Stay In The Friend Zone." He seemed happy about being in the 'friend zone' and wondered if he knew what it really meant. "Yep, me and Blue are best friends now." Sammy declared and held up her hand to show off a small green braided bracelet. "When we went on our date I got to see my soul and it's green. I wished it was pink but Blue said that it means I'm really nice and stuff and that sounds like me."

You glared at Papyrus from the corner of your eye making him start to sweat. "Well Sans I've been wondering what my soul color was, wanna go on a platonic date with me?" You asked making Papyrus choke and Sans perk up. "Platonic Date? What Does That Entail?" He asked making you smile. If Papyrus lied about the ways you could see your soul color you'd go to Sans. Plus he's sweet and you knew he'd be honest to you unlike Papyrus. You held your hand out for Sans to help him up.

"A platonic date is like a normal date but as friends." When he stood up he kept holding your hand as a light blue blush spread across his cheekbones. "That Sounds Like A Lovely Idea. Since There's Not Many Places We Could Go Let's Go To My Room. You'll Surley Be Impressed By My Figurines Like Sammy." He said as he dragged you inside. When you glanced at Sammy she was smiling behind her hands and Papyrus was giving you a death glare. Sans led you through the house and you noticed that it looked surprisingly nice. Everything was clean and it smelled faintly of spiced cologne.

He led you to what appeared to be his room. It was obvious that it used to be a kids room from the faded blue walls with white clouds to the small dressers. There were posters of old movies and what looked like a robot dj. "This Is My Room. It's Not As Nice As My Old One But I Think I Made It Look Pretty Cool." He smiled. He showed you his action figures on his dresser, some looked hand made, while talking about this old show he used to watch underground. You told him some of your favorite movies from when you were a kid and your favorite toys you played with when you could.

Sans turned towards you with his hands on his hips. "I Guess We're Ready For Dating To Start." When he finished everything went dark until you noticed a deep blue glow in front of you. When you looked down you saw a tiny dark blue heart that looked like it came from a cartoon. "That Is Your Soul, The Very Culmination Of Your Being. It Looks Like Your Soul Trait Is Integrity. That's Not Surprising Because You've Always Been Honest To Me And You Always Stayed True To Your Words." You looked around and saw radars, a graph bouncing around and what seems to be an egg in the corner.

"Now We Can Start Our Date." He looked at you with his hands on his hips. You kept glancing at the different things wondering what their purpose was. "So...Uh.... What Do We Do On A Platonic Date?" Sans asked making you shrug. "Before the world fell I'd say we could go to the movies or get takeout and watch some shows but now." You made a 'I dunno' noise in your throat. After that the radars dissapeared and color started to come back. "Well If We Can't Do The Things We'd Normally Do On A Platonic Date Then I Have To Come Up With A New Idea For A Normal Date." He said and before you could say anything he ran out the door to tell the other two the news.

You sighed as you rubbed your face and followed after him. Hopefully his brother didn't try to strangle you for going on another 'date' with Sans. When you got outside Sammy and Sans quickly ran off giggling and you could hear the mischievous ideas they're coming up with for your 'date'. When you sat down in the rocking chair with a deep sigh Papyrus turned to face you. You quickly held your hand up just as he opened his mouth. "Before you do the protective older brother thing just know that it wasn't my idea. I couldn't think of anything to do as friends with the world being like this so he wants to do a new different platonic date."

That seemed to pacify him slightly as he leaned back into his chair. "he likes you ya know? he isn't good at telling romantic feelings from platonic ones so be gentle and don't hurt him, or else." You rolled your eyes at his lame threat. You'd never hurt Sans intentionally, Papyrus on the other hand. You quickly blurted out the first thing you could think of before your thoughts became too violent. "How'd ya heal your face so fast? I remember that you had a little crack near your nose hole." He scoffed and went to reach for another cigarette but changed his mind.

"sans can make monster food that heals a bit. it can't heal much since we're using surface ingredients when the underground food is made of magic but it's enough for little scrapes and soreness." You nodded along, thinking about how useful that food would've been when you had to take down those biters at your cabin. "I could use food like that. I'll bring ya'll some rabbits in exchange for some healing food." You joked making Papyrus shake his shoulders in a silent laugh. "deal. i need a break from deer meat." You silently agreed, what you'd give to have your favorite home cooked food again.

You started to fidgit after several minuets. You weren't used to just relaxing without thinking or planning about what to do next. You noticed the sun was a couple hours from setting and stood uo to grab your bag. "We should head back before it gets too late. I need to check my snares and get Sammy some dinner." You said as you looked around the fields to see if you could find the duo. "good luck with that. they've been conspiring together for sammy to spend the night." You sighed when you couldn't see them.

"Well if she wants to spend the night i guess she can. I trust Sans to keep an eye on her and you to keep them out of trouble. I just wanna say bye to her first." You said. You made a sharp whistle, a signal for Sammy to come to you immediately. Papyrus jumped from the loud noise making you chuckle. He flipped you off but quickly stuffed his hand into his pocket when Sammy and Sans appeared. She was pouting and kicking the ground when she approached you.

You poked her forehead to make her look up at you and smiled. "Hey kid, a little birdie told me you wanna stay the night and have a sleepover." She immediately perked up and looked at Sans excitedly. "I Just wanna say bye and that I'll be over tomorrow evening. Now that I got a bike I'm gonna make a run to a town a bit further away. Who knows, I might even find you a slingshot." You said and she hugged you. "Thanks. I promise I'll be good." You hugged her back then grabbed the leaves from your bag to hand to her.

She took them and ran inside, probably to put them away. "I Promise That She'll Be Safe Under My Care. Now You Be Safe On Your Run. I Don't Want To Lose My Friend, Plus We Still Have To Have Our Proper Date." You felt your cheeks warm from his wording and awkwardly patted his shoulder. "I'm always safe. I made it this far, I ain't dying yet." You said and started walking down the stairs. You heard Papyrus holler your name making you turn to him. "i'll join ya on your run." He said and you nodded at him. "Then you better be there a hour after sun up or I'm leaving your boney ass." Sans laughed and slapped Papyrus's back, nearly knocking him from his seat.

"I'll Make Sure Papyrus Is Up And Ready For Your Run." Sans said and Papyrus started sinking into his chair, already regretting to come along. "I'll see ya tomorrow then. Take care and stay safe." You waved them goodbye and started walking down the dirt road. You started thinking of which stores you should try searching first and remebered how Sammy complained last night how her shoes were getting tight. She needed new clothes soon, she's already grew a few inches since you've met her all those months ago. You hoped you could find a clothing or kids store that wasn't ransacked yet.

You walked in silence back towards the cabin and when you got closer you started checking your snares. Unfortunately all of them came up empty, looks like you're eating berries and dried meat again. You sighed as you plopped onto the couch and kicked off your boots. You weren't looking foward to Papyrus's mood swings going from hating your guts cause you're friends with Sans to him being somewhat nice. You let out a deep breath as you laid down to sleep. You'll deal with it tomorrow, it's tomorrow's you problem.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 8

Bolts and arrows

mild TW for language

The next morning when Sans and Papyrus came over you had changed into a shirt and fresh pants with your weapons strapped all over you. You had your bag packed with some cleaned rags in case of finding fruit and some dried meat and a metal bottle you found in an abandoned car months ago full of water. Sammy was wearing a plain light green shirt and light wash denim shorts. You both were sitting on the porch as she showed you her progress on turning some sleeves into pouches for berry collecting when they walked up to you.

Sans looked at your axe silently asking if you needed it making you shrug. "Always better to be over prepared than up shit creek without a paddle." He pouted at you. "Language." Sans said while gesturing to Sammy. "She's heard worse." You waved to Sammy as you stood up. "Before We Embark On Our Hunting Practice I Would Like To Ask A Question." He glaced at Sammy and when you looked she was giving him a thumbs up. "Shoot." You said and placed your hands on your hips. "W-Well I Was Wondering. After Our Practice With Your Crossbow Would You And Sammy Like To See The Farm?" He nervously fiddled with his gloves as he glanced between Sammy amd you. You placed a hand in your chin in fake thought.

You could see what they were trying to do. Get you both over there and they'd keep playing until it was late and then beg to have a sleepover. When you glanced at Sammy she was giving you her big puppy eyes begging you to say yes. You huffed in amusement and smiled, this could be a fun normal kid thing for her and with this new world you'd take any chance you got to give Sammy a place where she can be a child. "Okay. Plus you told me you'd show me those traps you put around your garden and I want to take notes if I start growing food." You agreed and they both cheered. You chuckled at them and unstrapped your crossbow. "So I've been studying this and practicing loading and shooting it. It handles a lot like a gun, now i just need to practice with bolts and i'm sure I'll become a excellent shot."

Sans nodded and pulled out his phone. After a few taps a dozen bolts appeared in his hand and handed them to you. You took them and before you could ask where to put them he made a small leather quiver appear from his phone. Sans gave you a cheeky grin as you stared in shock at the quality of the items. You studied the leather quiver and noticed that it was made with squirrel hide and the straps were braided grass and vines. The bolts were completely smooth and straight and had sharp points. "These are amazing Sans. How did you made them so quickly?" You asked as you strapped everything on with the quiver resting on your lower back. It felt almost right with the crossbow and axe, you felt like you could take on this new world fighting and win.

Sans interrupted your thoughts as he pulled out his own bow and arrows from his phone. "I Tried Making Shorter Arrows For My Bow But It Didn't Work Out And They Were Too Perfect To Toss. When You Got Your Crossbow I Just Shortened Them To Fit. As For The Quiver, I Made It After The First Time I Met You. I Was Hoping For A Rabbit But I Got A Couple Squirrels Instead." He seemed like he wanted to brag but was trying to hold himself back. You smiled and placed a firm hand on his shoulder in a pat. "Well you have a really cool and useful skill. If I ever need more bolts you're the guy I'm gonna go to." He puffed up in pride after that and did a dramatic pose. You could easily imagine a cape blowing in the wind behind him.

"Well Friend, We Have Practice To Do. I'm Sure With My Help You'll Be Almost As Good As Me!" He then leaped away with a 'mweh' making you look at Papyrus confused. He blinked at you as he leaned against the post and shrugged. "isn't my bro the coolest. he's been really happy lately, just like his old self." He looked at Sammy and when she noticed him they both smiled at each other. "I should catch up to Sans before he gets too far ahead. Ya'll stay safe, you know the rules Sammy." You said and she waved goodbye towards you. As you were walking away you overheard Papyrus ask her what the rules were leading her to have a long winded talk about every rule you've told her.

You started walking east as Sans told you about a decent clearing he uses for target practice. You nodded along to his ramblings as you made sure your weapons were secure and wouldn't slip out. After about ten minuets of walking you arrived to the spot. It seemed Sans cleared out all the brush and weeds and you spotted a few scorch marks and small holes in the ground. He pointed to several trees at different distances with marks from his arrows. You readied your crossbow and took a wide stance. When you fired you nearly dropped the crossbow and barely missed the tree by a few inches. "We Can Fetch That Later." Sans then started explaining about how to aim and to take account of how strong the wind was and which way it was blowing.

When he finished explaining you drew back the bow and loaded in your arrow. When you shot at the closest tree it went right in the center. You turned to Sans with a smile and he had a blue glow spreading across his cheeks. He quickly looked away and fiddled with his bow. "Now Try To Hit The Same Trees I Hit." He said and swiftly pull the string of his simple bow back and shot at a tree further away. It quickly turned into friendly competition as you both tried to get the most distance or coolest trick shot. Sans won the distance, no surprise, but you did win the coolest shot. You ran and rolled across the ground and when you popped up you nailed a nearby tree. Sans tried to run up a tree to jump off and fire his arrow but he slipped last minute and dropped the arrow, luckily he landed on his feet.

You both got a good laugh out of that. "How About We Call It A Draw?" He softly panted, for a monster with no lungs it was weird that he could be out of breath. You held out your hand and when he grabbed it you gave him a firm handshake. "It's a draw." You chuckled. He had that blue blush spread across his face and let go of your hand to wrap his bow around him. After you both collected your bolts and arrows he cleared his nonexistent throat. "Let's Head Back. I Think Sammy Has A Surprise For You." He said and turned to lead the way back. You smiled softly as you followed, he reminded you so much of Sammy at times. You wouldn't be surprised if Sammy declared Sans as her new brother to fit into your litttle family.

You tripped on a root and when Sans looked at you you gave him a thumbs up in response. When did you start thinking of Sammy like family? Maybe when she said you were like an older sibling to her, how you always looked out for her and made sure she had the last bite of food. When you noticed a biter in the distance you quickly loaded your crossbow and shot it down. Sans turned to you impressed at your speed making you chuckle lightly. You retrieved your bolt and fell back into step next to Sans.

He softly called your name to get your attention. "We're Friends Right?" As you looked him over you thought of his past actions and attitude since meeting you. He was nice to you from the start and has really hit it off with Sammy. You could easily imagine that the world didn't end and Sans would come over to play with Sammy and tire her out and after help you cook in the kitchen. Papyrus would be lounging in your chair as he watched Sammy solve puzzles and you'd have a mug of your favorite drink snuggled up on the couch and argue with Sans over what to watch.

You heard him call your name again snapping you out of that impossible fairytale. You gave him a gentle smile and wrapped your arm around his shoulders and kept walking. "You're my best friend Sans." You pretended to not notice how his shoulder subtly shook and a few tiny sniffles escaped his mouth. When he seemed better you patted his arm and leg go of him. You noticed a lambs ear plant and went to pick a few leaves while Sans wiped his face. When you returned he looked at your haul curiously. "They're edible, plus they make good toilet paper." You said nonchalantly as you put them in your bag, making Sans let out a weak giggle. "I Couldn't Imagine Having To Deal With That When Stores Don't Exist."

After that you questioned him about it leading him to explain basic monster biology. Apparently they're made up of magic and can infuse their food with magic to make it edible and can heal your soul. Which is something humans and monsters had you discovered. It was almost hard to believe, people have argued for many centuries about if a soul was real or not but you believed him. If skeletons could walk and talk and other types of monsters existed then the existence of souls doesn't sound too absurd. In return you told him fun human facts like how head hair and nails don't really stop growing. You complained that you haven't had a trim in months and your hair was getting too long for comfort. There was the risk of biters grabbing it if you're swarmed.

"I Can Cut Your Hair For You. It'll Be A Stylish Summer Cut." Sans said and you nodded. "It'll be nice to keep my neck uncovered and cool. Sammy should get a trim too, she's asked a few times for bangs but I don't have any scissors." You played with a few strands of your hair thinking about how short you wanted it. When you both arrived back at your base Sammy ran up to you with her arms behind her back. "Hey kid, whacha got there?" You asked her. She grinned and revealed a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off and was sewn down the sides to fit you.

You smiled as you held it up to your torso. "I love it." You said and she ran behind you to push you towards the cabin. "You need to try it on first. Go change." You lazily took long strides as she pushed your back making you both laugh. When you properly walked towards the cabin you shared a silent nod with Papyrus. He'd keep an eye on them while you went inside. When you put the sleeveless flannel on it fit almost perfectly. When you fixed the collar you noticed a tiny badly sewn rabbit on the corner and smiled fondly. A little piece of her to go with you when you go on runs. You slid your crossbow and quiver back into place and stepped outside.

Sammy started applauding when you closed the door and you spun in a circle to show off her stitch work. "It's perfect Sammy. I'll wear it forever." You declared making her giggle. You saw a boney hand in your peripheral and when you looked you saw Papyrus pointing at your collar. "I saw the little detail Sammy left me. It's a sweet little gift from a sweet little kid." That embarrassed her as she started swinging her arms with a red blush across her face.

"Aw, c'mere you." You wrapped you arms around her and picked her up in a hug. She squealed in delight and tried to wrap her arms around your torso as you swung her side to side. When you put her down you saw Sans and Papyrus watching you two with fond smiles. Probably rembering their own brotherly bond and hijinks. You felt your cheeks warm in embarrassment and cleared your throat. "Let's head to your place. It's almost noon and I packed some food to eat on the way there." You said. Sammy waved her hands at you in a 'gimmie' motion making you raise your brow at her.

She sighed and dropped her arms. "Can I have some, please?" She asked and you nodded and crouched down so she could dig in your bag. When she pulled out the leaves you picked she cheered. "You found us more butt wipes!" You choked on your spit as Sans laughed. When she grabbed some meat and zipped your bag up Sans started explaining to Papyrus about what you use them for. You gave her a quick dirty look before gently pushing her forward. "Alright stinker, you stay busy eating while we walk." She stuck her tongue out at you and you copied her.

As you walked down the path Sans started telling you about all the different types of crops he planted and how they're fairing in the heat. You noticed towards the end of the main path you take they turned off to the side and started trekking through tall grass. You sighed at the thought of picking off ticks from your legs and started stomping a path with your boots for Sammy to follow. Soon the grass got shorter and you made them stop for a quick tick check. Before they could ask why you explained how certain ticks can give you diseases, plus the bites itched like the dickens.

When you gave Sammy the all clear and quickly checked yourself you kept walking. Sans and Sammy started talking about puzzles and future sewing projects as Papyrus led the group with you in the back. You didn't come across any biters thankfully and soon you came across a dirt road. "We're Close. Just Around This Bend And We'll Be There." Sans said. When you rounded the corner you saw big grassy fields surrounding a small two story house in the center. You noticed a barn behind the house and what looked like a chicken off to the side.

You let out an impressed whistle as you looked at the acres of land. "If we can get our hands on some animals you can have a proper farm going here." That made Papyrus groan as Sans perked up. "I've Studied Animal Care In An Old Farmers Almanac And I've Been Begging Papyrus To Help Me Search Other Farms For Farm Animals." You started chuckling as Papyrus seemed to sink into himself. "I can keep an eye out but I can't guarantee any animals. Most of them probably ran off already." You didn't want to tell him what most likely happened to them. Even if the biters didn't get them without people to feed and water them they'd perish.

When you got closer to the house you took in the peeling white paint and the boarded up window on the second floor. There were two old rocking chairs on the porch and an ashtray on the railing thats still being used "We've Been Working On Fixing This Place Up. We Haven't Found A Window To Replace The Broken One But I Fixed The Stairs And Porch. And Papyrus Helped Dust When He Wasn't Lazing About Napping." Sans said and Papyrus nervously chuckled. "hey bro why don't we show them the garden?" That seemed to distract Sans as he excitedly grabbed Sammy's and your hand and started dragging you along. When you arrived at the back of the house you saw that Sans wasn't kidding with his traps.

He used wood posts to hang netting across the plants and had tons of spikes surrounding the edges. There was a gap where a wooden gate was placed amd everything was topped off with barbed wire wrapped around the spikes. "You weren't kidding about the traps. How long did this even take you?" You asked. "It Took Me A Week To Get All The Sticks Sharpened And I Used Some Spare Wire From The Barn. After That It Was A Few Days Of Digging And Making Sure The Spikes Would Stay Up." He said proudly.

He showed you both how he planted his crops and how the potatoes were sprouting well. While Sans rambled on to Sammy about crop rotation and future plans for his garden you looked around the fence line. The fields were pretty big and from the fences you could see seemed pretty stable. It was all barbed wire fence with four lines across each post so it should hold if a stray biter wandered close. You were starting to get nervous about how more biters are getting closer. That small herd before told you that they were running out of things to eat in the nearby towns and if they kept grouping up like that.

You shook yourself out of your thoughts when Sammy tugged on your shirt. "Can I go see the barn with Sans?" She asked. "Sure." You said and ruffled her hair. She giggled and ran off while Sans jogged after her. You wandered back to the front of the house where you saw Papyrus smoking a cigarette in one of the rocking chairs. You joined him sitting in the other and placed your crossbow and quiver in front of you on the ground with your bag on your side. "wanna smoke?" He asked and held out his pack. You took one and before he could do the thumb fire magic you dug into your front pocket and pulled out your lighter. You didn't talk after that, content to sit in silence and hear the grasshoppers chirp like the world didn't end.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 7

Escape from town

TW for blood and violence

Papyrus looked at you skeptically. "you have a plan?" You felt a nervous sweat built up on your forehead and quickly wiped it away. "I have most of a plan. Ok look so you can do those bone attacks right?" You asked and he somehow rolled his sockets like they were eyes. "yes, but they don't show interest in simple bones. they want something moving they can chase." You paused, there goes your first plan. Before you could try to come up with another Papyrus pointed over the roof towards the clinic. "i have a plan involving a motorcycle i found in the alley by the clinic." You blinked in surprise. You must of went through the other side of the building and missed the bike during your escape.

You checked to see how many have gathered to see where you could possibly get down. Most of them have left the clinic besides a few stragglers and the rest were surrounding the front of the building and were working their way around both sides. You couldn't see the bike from here and looking at the distance between buildings made you nervous to jump. There was a ladder leading down but you'd need to draw the biters attention away. "Do you know if the bike had its keys?" You asked and when he shook his head you sighed. "Well if there's a chance there's no keys it'll need to be hotwired. You know how to do that?" You asked.

When he shook his head again you placed your hand on your chin in thought. "Ok so one of us needs to get their attention away so the other can get down the ladder to run to the bike. Since you don't know how to hotwire and you can do that little disappearing trick can you get down there and draw their attention with noise? Use a bone to bang on some windows or something and when it's clear enough I'll run to the bike. I'll meet you behind this building and we'll both get out of here." You said and Papyrus took a step back. "how do i know you won't leave me for the dead?" He accused.

You gritted your teeth and slid the strap of the crossbow across your torso and tightened it. "Because I care about Sammy and she cares about Sans. By proxy I have to make sure I get your boney ass back to Sans because I will not let his only family die. Especially to those biters." You made sure to stare directly at him to let him know you were serious. He seemed to sense that you were telling the truth and let out a sigh while rubbing his head. "okay, i'll take a shortcut down there and get their attention. you better be here on that bike." He said and you nodded. "See you soon." You said and walked to the ladder. When you turned to look at him he was already gone.

You then heard him yelling and glass breaking down the street and you watched as the biters started to move towards the noise. Once most of them left you quickly shimmied down the ladder and dropped to the ground. You pulled out your small knife and took down the two that were lingering in the alley. You sprinted across the street while avoiding the biters to the clinic and smiled whe you saw a triumph bonneville bike laying on its side. When you flipped it up you saw a biter coming into the alley. You walked up to it and shoved your knife under its jaw making it drop and reveal several more coming towards you. You quickly straddled the bike and thanked the stars that the keys were left in the ignition.

You had to kick start it and once the engine rumbled to life you quickly sped out of the alley while ducking to avoid the biters arms. You had to slow down and walk the bike through the alley of the gun shop so you wouldn't run over the dead biters you killed. When you got behind the building Papyrus seemed to appear out of nowhere by jumping on the bike to sit behind you. "drive!" He yelled in your ear and you revved the engine and took off. You hopped back onto the road and sped off away from the town. Once the initial panic was over you could feel Papyrus struggling to hold onto your shoulders with your crossbow in the way. You slowed down and parked by the side of the road and flipped the kickstand down.

"I can feel your fidgeting. Why don't you hold onto my crossbow so you can hold me." You said and pulled off your crossbow to hand to him. When you turned to face him you saw a light orange on his cheeks and wondered if he got something on his face when tring to distract the biters. As he was strapping the crossbow on he finally said something. "i guess you didn't need to hotwire the bike." You grinned and kicked the kickstand up. "I only know how to hotwire cars. I just got lucky." Before Papyrus could say anything you revved the engine and took off as fast as you could, making him wrap his arms around you to not fall off. Once you got to a steady speed you felt him unwrap his arms from you and placed them lightly around your waist. You could barely hear him curse your name over the engine and wind.

When you got close to the mountain you turned off onto a dirt road that led to the cabin. It got too bumpy to ride when Papyrus nearly fell off and grabbed onto your clothes like a cat. You turned off the engine and decided to walk the bike the rest of the way after you took your crossbow back. You'd have to walk the bike anyways because of all the trees and traps you put down. You'd have to work on clearing a path to get your bike through the woods if you and Sammy needed to run. You glaced at Papyrus and noticed how he winced with his steps and chuckled. He glared at you making you shrug your shoulders since your hands were busy holding the bike up. "Never ride a bike before?" You asked and he looked away and shoved his hands into his pocket.

After a few seconds he lifted a hand to scratch his cheekbone. "nah, haven't really had a chance to drive one with the world ending and stuff." You rolled your eyes and adjusted your grip. "Then how did ya expect to dive this thing? You probably don't even know how to kick start." You said and Papyrus kicked a small rock across the road, kicking up a bit of dust. "big talk coming from someone who can't hotwire a bike." He sassed and you chuckled. "Yeah, we'd be pretty fucked if there wasn't any keys. If I had the time I bet I could hotwire it though." You smirked making Paprus chuckle. He pulled out a packet of cigarettes and placed one between his teeth. Your fingers itched for one after the stress of today and you kept glancing at the pack he held.

When he noticed your stare he held the open pack to you in a silent offer. You felt the corner of your mouth tik up and rested the bike against your leg. You grabbed one and before you could pat your pockets to look for your lighter Papyrus held out his thumb with a small fire hovering over it. You raised your eyebrows impressed and quickly lit your cigarette. After you blew out the smoke you resumed pushing the bike with one hand resting in the middle of the handlebars. "We make a decent team." You said as you stomped out your finished cigarette butt. "how so?" He asked as he did the same.

"Well for starters you can do that teleporting thing and with my new bike we'll be able to go to towns further away for supplies." You grinned making him glare at you. "it's not teleporting it's shortcuts. little tears in the fabric of space and time that i can slip into and as long as i know my destination. and besides, who said the bike is yours?" You raised a brow and gestured to his legs. He scoffed and turned away from you to cross his arms. After a few seconds you heard him mumble something. "What was that?" You asked making him groan and turn to face you. "i wouldn't totally hate going on more runs with you." He pouted making you smile in victory. "Sounds like a plan."

You walked in silence the rest of the way, only coming across a few biters that Papyrus quickly took care of before you could rest the bike. As you got close to the clearing you saw Sammy and Papyrus running around the yard laughing. You didn't notice that you and Papyrus were both smiling until they called your names and you looked at him. Before he could see your face you quickly turned away to kick the bike into place at the edge of the clearing and walked over to them. When you got closer to them you noticed that they were covered in dirt and sweat.

When you crossed your arms and raised your eyebrow they both turned bashful. You looked around the yard and saw their abandoned sewing suppies on the porch and many rudimentary twig traps scattered around the clearing. As you helped them clean up their puzzles, not traps, they explained how the mess happened. Apparently they were sewing together some old farmers clothes Sans brought when they started talking about who could make the best puzzles. After a mild debate they gathered a bunch of twigs and sticks and made a puzzle the other had to solve. When they questioned your new weapon and bike you said you'd tell later.

You noticed how Papyrus just sat on the portch lazily watching all three of you clean while they told about different types of puzzles they can make with sticks and rocks. You gave him a dirty look and carried a load of the sticks back to the pile. When you looked down you saw scales glimmer in the light and immediately pulled out your axe. When it poked it's head out to give you a warning hiss you noticed it was a copperhead snake and didn't hesitate to swing. Sans and Papyrus watched in shock as you pulled the now headless snake from the pile and held it up triumphantly. "Who wants some snake for dinner?" You laughed when all of them made various noises of disgust.

You got a fire started and wound up cooking and eating the snake alone while the rest had dried meat and berries. Sans asked how the run went and you and Papyrus shared a look over the fire. "Well It went okay. As you can see I found myself a crossbow and some bullets. Unfortunately that horde trapped in the doctors office got out and me and Papyrus worked together to get that bike." You said and pointed to your ride across the clearing. As you tossed the bones into the fire Sans turned towards you. "I Have Another Question. Why Do You Cook Outside When You Have A Chimney?" Sans asked and you rubbed the nape of your neck. "I tried once but the chimney is blocked or something cause it smoked us out for a few days. I don't have the stuff to clean it and I'm not sending Sammy up there." You wiped your hands on your jeans and stole a few berries from Sammy's hands making her whine in protest.

"Yeah you totally didn't burn everything." She sassed and stuck her tongue out at you. "Hey! I know how to put meat on a stick and cook over a fire. Cooking in pans without butter or oil is hard." You crossed your arms and stuck out your tongue back at her. Sans laughed boisterously while Papyrus snickered at you. "If You Need Help Cooking I Am More Than Happy To Teach You. I Had A Great Teacher And I Can Pass On The Wisdom I've Learned To You." He had a big smile and when his eyelights got bigger you already knew you couldn't say no to him. "Yeah that sounds nice. When we go hunting you can teach me how to cook up some delicious rabbit stew that Sammy keeps bugging me about."

You chuckled when Sammy started playfully swatting you with her hands. "I'll Start Making Some More Arrows For You." Sans said and you had to inform him you'd need bolts which are much shorter than arrows. After everyone ate their food you went back to cleaning up the rest of the puzzles and told them to stay by the fire while you finished. You heard them talk about tailoring the farmers clothes to fit Sans and Papyrus and Sammy badly whisper yelled to them about how she was making you a shirt as a surprise. You pretended you didn't hear her as you dropped the last pile of sticks and tossed the rocks into a small pile.

When you returned to the group you made a sharp whistle to get their attention. You pointed to Sammy and Sans with a firm look. "Ya'll are filthy. Why don't we go down to the stream and you can wash up." You said making Sans finally notice how dirty they were. "That's A Good Idea." He said and Sammy grabbed onto his glove and tugged him. "I know where the creek is, let's go." She said and tried to make him run with her as he laughed. You jogged inside to grab two rags for them and when you returned outside they were already making their way down the path.

You easily caught up to them and stayed in the back with Papyrus in front of you. When you reached the creek Sammy convinced Sans to take their shoes off and wade in the shallow water. Papyrus sat leaning against a tree while you joined them near the water. You crouched and started washing off your hands and arms from the dirt you collected from cleaning the yard. You wiped your wet hands on the back of your neck and shoulders to cool off from the heat. You plopped onto your bottom and sighed as you unlaced your boots and kicked them off. You rolled your pant legs up and dipped your feet into the cold water.

Once Sammy was done splashing Sans you waved them down to hand them the rags. You made Sammy let you wipe her face off first before handing her the rag to wash her arms and legs. You dipped your hand into the water to dampen yourself again. You felt your hair raise and looked around the area. When you glaced at Papyrus you saw him looking at the hole in his sleeve fiddling with it. You shrugged it off and went back to watching the duo clean themselves. Once you deemed Sammy clean enough you asked if Sammy wanted to check out your bike. You got her answer when she ran to her shoes and socks and quickly put them on.

You led them to your bike and she ran to sit on it. When she struggled to lift her leg you grabbed her by the pits and lifted her up. She smiled as she leaned forward to grab the handlebars and made revving noises, pretending to drive. Sans made an impressed noise as he looked the bike over. "This Is A Really Nice Bike. What Model Is It?" He asked. "It's a triumph bonneville. It's in pretty good shape and has a mostly full tank. I'll need to find gas soon and if I can get a hose I can siphon some gas from cars." You helped Sammy off the bike when she got bored and she wandered back to the sewing pile on the porch.

Sans gave you a pleading look while glancing at the bike. "You wanna sit on it?" You barely finished your sentence before Sans hopped onto the bike fluidly and rested his hands on the handlebars. He looked almost natural sitting on the bike, like he's done this before. "I'll take you out for a ride sometime if you'd like." You asked and when you glanced at Papyrus's spur face you quickly added. "And you can come too. You'll need to get used to riding the bitch seat when we go on runs." You smirked as Papyrus scoffed and rolled his eyesockets. "That Is A Wonderful Idea. We Can Ride Tomorrow After You Practice With Your Crossbow. I Don't Think We'll Need To Hunt Too Much Right Now With All That Deer Meat We Have Thanks To You."

You rubbed your face not knowing how to react and Papyrus stepped in to save you from floundering. "why don't we head back home. i'm sure the plants are missing you." He said making Sans hop up. "You Are Right Papyrus. I Will Say My Farewells To Sammy. I Will See You Tomorrow, Goodbye." He saluted you and jogged off to Sammy. "The plants miss him?" You asked Papyrus and he chuckled. "my bro talks to the plants. he heard that they grow better with praise so he always greets them in the morning and tells them bedtime stories at night. isn't he the coolest." He had a small smile as he watched Sans saying a dramatic goodbye to Sammy. You nodded with a hum. "He's Sammy's best friend, he's got to be the coolest ever for her to like him."

That seemed to appease Papyrus since he playfully nudged your shoulder with his fist. Sans ran up to you two with a big smile. "Ready To Go Brother?" He didn't wait for a reply as he started marching down the path. You and Papyrus shared a chuckle before he followed Sans. You grabbed your bike to roll it closer to the cabin and thought about washing the bloody tarp to cover the bike when it rained. Sammy waved to you from the porch as she stuffed a piece of fabric behind her. Maybe working with Papyrus wouldn't be too bad if you ignored the rocky start. Plus with Sammy having a new friend she started smiling more and was becoming the sweet little girl you knew she was. Sans is a good influence for her and maybe you could be good friends with him.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 6

A run with Papyrus

TW for blood and violence

The next morning you were up the second light hit your eyes and getting ready. You had your clothes folded away in your spare emergency bag and changed back into jeans and a tank top. It was still hot during the day but the slight chill at night showed that summer was slowly coming to an end. After you slipped your belt on you strapped your small knife to your hip and your hunting knife on the side of your bag. You slid your now sharpened axe into your belt loop and checked your gun. You frowned when you saw that you had four bullets left and quickly tucked it in your pants waistband against your back. Hopefully you'll find some bullets or a new fully loaded gun. But you knew that any store left would be empty. The few months wandering between towns showed you that it's been picked clean and you can only hope a can was lost under one of the shelves.

After you did some stretches, your muscles were thankfully not as sore anymore, you walked to the kitchen for breakfast. Once you finished eating you saw that the sun has risen a decent amount into the sky signaling that Sans and his brother would be here soon. As you were lacing up your boots you heard Sammy get up. You watched from the corner of your eye as she sleepily shuffled to you before flopping onto the couch and leaned against you. "Mornin kid." You said, only getting a grumble in response. You chuckled and started brushing through her messy hair with your hands. When you saw that she was nodding off you gently shook her shoulder making her open her eyes.

"You should eat some breakfast and get ready for the day. Sans is gonna be here soon to help you sew." You coaxed and that seemed to perk her up. She smiled and ran to the kitchen then ran back to her room, holding a chunk of dried meat in one hand and some blackberries in the other. You wandered outside to sit on the step with your head leaning onto your hand. You got lost in thought about trying to find a way to give Sammy a balanced meal. Since you hunted as much as you could she got plenty of meat and you had a fresh water supply with berries growing. But she needed vegetables and Sans said they wouldn't be ready for a long time.

You were thinking about all the junk you ate when you first moved out because you were broke when you heard your name being yelled in a friendly tone. You looked up and saw Sans and unfortunately Papyrus right behind him. You got up to greet them just as Sammy ran out the door. "Sans! Did you bring the stuff?" She asked as she hopped around him. He laughed and pulled out his phone. He tapped the screen a few times before a small rose colored duffle bag appeared in his hand. "I Totally Have The Stuff. I Can't Wait To Learn To Become The Sewing Master. You Two Have Fun." Sans said and turned to Papyrus.

"You Two Be Careful And Come Back Safe." He said making Paprus chuckle. "i'll make sure bro. we're going tibia careful." Sans nodded along before stiffening. "Did you... just make a pun?" He said in the calmest and quietest voice you've heard so far which put you on edge. You didn't like quiet and calm Sans. Papyrus made a gulping sound and nervously laughed. "maybe?" he started rubbing the back of his head and Sammy giggled. "I guess you could say it was.. humerus?" She grinned and Sans dramatically cried. "Nooo! Not You Too. My Brother Has Infected You With His Terrible Puns. Please, Take Him Away Before He Taints Her With More Bad Puns." Sans begged you making you laugh.

"Okay, I'll get him out of your hair." You said and started walking down the path. "I Don't Have Hair. That Joke Was In Poor Taste." Sans huffed and stomped his foot. You held your hands up and chuckled. "Accidental joke sorry. I'm no good at making puns." You said and quickly speed walked away before you got lectured by Sans. You had no idea he had such a hatred for puns. As you walked you noticed Papyrus walking behind you where you stepped. You could feel your fingers twitch as you could almost feel him behind you but couldn't see.

After a few minuets you huffed. "You can walk next to me ya know. We're far away enough that you won't step on any traps." Papyrus walked a bit faster before slowing his pace when he was next to you. "yeah well i didn't know. my bro is the one who memorized where all the traps you pointed out were." He huffed again and you blinked at him. "Sans was able to memorize where every trap was? I mean he told me his memory was good and I figured once he was able to find the deer path I've made he could find his way around." You said as you watched for movement around the trees. "he has photographic memory. you show him something once and he'll be able to perfectly picture it in his head." Papyrus shrugged when you looked back at him.

"That's pretty cool. I never met anyone with that. At least I know why you always play follow the leader when walking through my woods." You smirked making him glare at you. "i know my way around the woods. hell i lived right next to a forest underground." You furrowed your brows and was going to ask how there was a forest under a mountain when Papyrus suddenly held his arm out in from of you and squinted to the left. You turned and saw a single biter on the ground. You noticed that it's lower half was eaten and it was desperately trying to crawl with its arms towards you two. Papyrus lowered his arm as he glared at it.

"man what a way for humans to end. i hated your kind for so long for trapping us monsters but, looking at how far humans have fallen to a virus. it's kinda funny in a way." He said as he summoned a long bone about as long as his arm with the end coming to a sharp point. You took a half step back as he lifted his arm before spearing the head of the biter, killing it. The bone quickly dissapeared when he turned to face you. "how far are you willing to fall?" Papyrus was staring into your eyes and you suddenly felt exposed. like he was seeing into your very soul and was judging your actions.

You crossed your arms and popped a hip out. "I've fallen a lot in life long before the world went to shit. The only difference is that I picked myself back up and stuck by a code thats worked for me so far. This new world can bring out the worst in people, but I won't let it get me." You stated making Papyrus snort. "yeah well your lv says different." He said and you scrunched up your face in confusion. He raised a brow bridge and started waving one hand around. "lv, love. level of violence. it measures someone's capacity to hurt others. and after your run in with that gang shows how far you'd hurt others to get want you want." He glared at you.

You crossed your arms and adjusted your stance. "I'd do that all over again if it ment Sammy lived. I'm very sure that if Sans was sick you'd kill a person to get him medicine." That seemed to piss him off as he stomped up to you and jabbed his finger in your shoulder. "you do not talk like you know me or my brother. you have no idea what i'd do for him. plus he's my actual brother, she's just some kid you take care of because you feel guilty for what you've done." You smacked his hand away and grabbed a fistful of his hoodie and glared up at him. Now noticing how tall he was now that he wasn't slouching.

"You don't know nothing about me." You gritted your teeth and he smirked. "i know those aren't the only humans you've killed. If it was actually three your lv would be lower." He smirked in victory as your grip on his hoodie loosened. When he tilted his chin up in a smug victory pose you swung your fist into his face without thinking. You hissed as the rough nasal ridge of his face cut your knuckles and Papyrus groaned and held where his nose would be. You saw grey powder falling between his fingers as he glared at you. You could feel tears burning your eyes and you quickly blinked them away. You are not crying in front of this jerk.

"What I did before was self defense. I either kill and walk away or be slowly tortured to death. I did what I had to to survive and I will continue doing that." You rubbed your sore bloody knuckles as you kept your distance from him. Papyrus wipped away the last of the dusty stuff from his face and glared at you. "fine, but after this run you can go back to your solo runs. i'll play nice for my bro since he wants to be friends with the kid but i don't want you talking to me or trying to pretend like you care." You rolled your eyes at him and started to take a few steps back to the trail to town. "Fine by me. If it weren't for Sans I'd do a lot worse than a punch."

Papyrus sarcastically laughed at you. "like you could actually hurt me. i may seem laid back but i've been in and out of towns fighting the dead. i'm a lot more powerful than my bro." He followed next to you while keeping a good distance from you, farther than you can swing with your axe you noticed. You didn't talk for a while after that. You kept rubbing your knuckles gently since they finally stopped bleeding and Papyrus was rubbing his face every now and then. As you looked around you noticed some dandelions that haven't turned into puff balls yet. You picked a couple and started to rub the flower on her hand.

Papyrus did a double take when he noticed what you were doing and sneered. "what are you doing? trying to smell like plants not not like the dead?" You rolled your eyes at him and showed him your now yellow knuckles. "Dandelions can help with small cuts like this. They also make okay tea." You said and Papyrus went to scrunch his face up but winced instead from pain. Neither of you said anything to the other as Papyrus marched over to a dandelion and ripped it from the ground and started rubbing the center of his face with it. When he turned to face you, you immediately covered your mouth and failed to suppress a snort.

His entire nasal ridge going between his eyesockets and partially on his cheekbones. It looked like he really got a nose full of pollen, you started laughing at that thought and he tapped his foot. "ya done now?" He didn't wait for you to answer as he stormed off. You quieted your snickers as you went back to your original pace to the town. When you got to the field you noticed it still had its barbed wire fence up. You made another mental note to try and find some tools so you can take this fence to make more traps with. You pulled the barbed wire apart and managed to slip through without catching yourself.

When you stood up on the other side and turned to help Papyrus through you noticed he was gone. Dissapeared into thin air like before. As you turned around Papyrus was casually standing a foot away from you making you jump. "How did you-" You cut yourself off as you looked between him and the fence. He smirked and wiggled his fingers at you while saying 'magic'. You were getting tired of how many times you've rolled your eyes at him so far. You quickly walked past him as you started walking across the tall overgrown grass and wheat. You noticed some spikey plants you recognized as thistles, peaking out between the grass and made a note to bring an extra bag and gloves to harvest the plants before they flowered. You remember fighting with them one summer when a field was nearly overrun with thistles. You learned the whole plant is edible until it flowers and made milk thistle and fried up a bunch of roots.

When you finally crossed the field you noticed a few biters lingering around. You pulled out your axe as you started cutting through them one at a time. You noticed Papyrus leaning against a wooden fence post and kicked a dead biter off your axe in his direction. "A little help would be nice." You said as the biters were starting to lessen but they were also grouping up. Papyrus sighed like he was just asked to move a mountain a little to the left. He summoned the same type of dog skull Sans had only this one was a bit bigger in height than Papyrus and had longer and sharper bones. Yoy heard the same hum as it seemed to charge up before shooting a beam of light at the biters in front of you making you jump back.

You turned to yell at him about how dangerous that was but he was just smirking and lounging against the post like he knew what you were about to do. You could feel your face getting hot from the exertion and anger you felt and stomped away from him before you explode. As you were getting closer to town you started walking quieter and quieter until the only noise was the occasional clink of your axe against your knife and Papyrus's shuffling shoes. When you arrived to the back of the buildings Papyrus pulled out the map again and pointed. "we're right here. gun shop is there. check any empty buildings to see if there's supplies." You studied the map and started thinking of routes to take if things went sideways.

He folded the map and put it away as you peered between the buildings to make sure it was clear. You shuffled along the side as you kept Papyrys in the corner of your eye. When you saw that the street was clear besides the slain biters strewn about you started walking along the sidewalk. You glanced into the buildings you passed but most of them were already empty or wouldn't have anything you could use. As much as you wished you could use a laundromat there were more important things to get done. When you glanced behind you Papyrus was already across the street entering a store. You decided to ignore him as you kept walking. If he needed help he'd ask just like you had to.

You finally arrived to the gun shop and opened the door. The little chime from the bell made you flinch and flip your head around to make sure nothing was drawn from the noise before heading inside. As you feared everything was already ransacked and tipped over. You walked along the side away from the mess and noticed a crossbow on the ground. You saw the hook on the wall and guessed it was knocked off and forgotten. You picked it up and ran your finger along the side, liking that it had accents of your favorite color. You walked to the back of the store and started searching the open lockers and cases. You silently cheered as you found half a case of bullets that could fit your pistol.

As you kept digging under things you managed to find a handful of assorted bullets you kept. You even found three shotgun bullets left in a jacket pocket that was hanging in a locker. You heard shuffling in the main room and figured Papyrus came to pester you some more. "Did you find anything cause I got-" You stopped when you saw the biter crawling from under the toppled shelves. It must of been stuck under them and you didn't notice. You took care of it with your axe and walked outside. You blinked in surprise at the number of biters in the street. When you looked down the road you noticed they were pouring out from what must of been that clinic and they started noticing you.

You cursed and ran back into the gun shop. You slid a shelf in front of the door to hopefully buy you some time while you thought of an escape plan. You couldn't believe Papyrus would free the trapped biters and lead them right to you. You jumped when you heard them banging against the glass and decided to hate him later, get out and survive now. You remembered seeing a cord in the back office and quickly ran there. It was just in time as you heard the glass parts of the door were starting to crack from pressure. You found the cord and quickly tugged it down revealing an emergency roof exit.

You quickly climbed up the ladder and bursted onto the roof. When you caught your breath you wandered over to the ledge and peeked over. You gulped at the decent sized horde that was gathering around the building, trapping you in. You furrowed your brows as you heard someone calling your name in the distance. You looked around until you spotted a flash of orange on another roof top but when you looked again it was gone. You suddenly heard your name being said behind you making you flinch. You spun around and saw Papyrus's panicked face. "ok i just want it on record that i didn't open the door at the doctors office. i only wanted to check the stability and i guess the dead got worked up into a frenzy and broke the whole door off it's hinges." He quickly explained and you took a deep breath so you wouldn't yell.

You could tell by his body language that he probably didn't mean to ruin things with how anxious he was acting. You rubbed your chin as you thought about new possible escape routes. You really hoped you would get back before dark, Sammy gets nervous when you're gone too long. As you looked across the rooftops nearby you started to get a plan forming in your head. The only issue was that you would need Papyrus's help to distract them and as you looked over to his panicked yellow stained face, you knew that even though you really didn't like him you didn't want Sans upset more. "Ok, so I got a plan." You said with a clap of your hands, drawing Papyrus's attention. Today just gets better and better.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 5

Sewing and berries

Mild TW for profanities

After the ordeal of meeting Papyrus You all wandered over to the porch to sit. Papyrus decided to stand and gave you the stink eye when you sat near Sans. You asked Sammy to run inside to grab you all some dried meat before she sat and she surprisingly didn't argue or pout. You chuckled and looked over to Sans when she was inside. "She's so well behaved around you. Whatever you said made her respect you." Sans had a light blue glow spread across his cheekbones as he nervously chuckled and scratched his cheek. You realized he was blushing and laughed, patting him on the shoulder. "I Just Told Her That She Was Cool. And When She Shared Her Dried Fruit With Me I Said That It Would Cheer You Up If She Shared Some With You." He said completely embarrassed.

Sammy had just returned holding fistfuls of dried meat and handed it out to all three of you. When she handed some to Papyrus you made sure he saw your warning stare and he shrugged and took his share. Sammy sat between Sans and you as she bit into a single strip. "Since we live fairly close to each other I figured we could start trading. Me and Sans could work together to hunt. I can try to find a bow on my next run and you can teach me how to use it. I can even skin all my kills and make pelts for you to use as blankets or cloaks." You said and Sammy perked up.

"I can sew you little pouches from the rabbit skins." She proudly announced making you whip your head towards her. "How'd you learn to sew? I didn't teach ya." You questioned and she smirked. "I have my secrets." She sassed making you chuckle and gently push her. That seemed to interest Papyrus as he fiddled with the hole in his sleeve. "That's So Cool Sammy. Papyrus Found Some Sewing Supplies On His Last Run And I've Been Trying To Learn But I Haven't Been Very Successful." She started telling him how she found an old sewing magazine and practiced with a safety clip she found and thread from her clothes.

Sans promised that they would learn to sew together and she beamed. "My first project is to fix your jacket Paps. That is a fashion no. Just like their jorts." Sammy pointed to you with her thumb making you gasp. "Now I definitely didn't teach you that sass you jerk." Sans and Papyrus started laughing at you as you placed your hand on Sammy's face and pushed her away. "i'll take you up on that offer kiddo." Papyrus's teeth turned up in a smile and Sans fiddled with his fingers. "Wow You're Already Best Friends With My Brother. Giving Each Other Nicknames. Since We're Good Friends I Should Give You A Nickname. I-If That's Okay With You."

Sammy stopped attacking you and smiled at Sans. "That's a cool idea. What should I call you?" She hummed and placed her finger on her chin in thought as she looked over his outfit. "Blue." She announced making Sans tilt his head. "Because of your outfit." You and Papyrus snorted as you realized how much blue Sans was wearing. Blue gloves, Pastel blue shirt, Dark blue jeans, and blue and black laced up boots. "Well Then I Shall Call You Rabbit. Because Of Your Necklace." He said while pointing to the necklace you got her. "That sounds pretty accurate." You said making Sammy pout at you.

"If We're Going To Be Trading I've Noticed How Big Your Blackberry Bushes Are. Since Our Fruit Aren't Ready To Harvest Could We Have Some? I Promise That The Second The First One Is Ready To Harvest I'll Come Running Over Here." Sans interrupted before you and Sammy could start playfully fighting again. You thought about how there's plenty of blackberries and you could easily spare half of the bushes. "Alright. There might be a gun shop in town so we can make a run there tomorrow to look for a bow for me and you can pick as many blackberries as you need after."

Papyrus glared at you and huffed. "yeah no. you're going with me. i don't want sans out there risking his life." Sans rolled his eyelights and crossed his arms. "I'm A Grown Monster And Can Take Care Of Myself. Plus, I'm Older Than You So It Should Be You Who Stays Home." And that seemed to spark what seems like a debate they've had hundreds of times. You and Sammy side eyed each other as they argued about who stays and who goes. When they came to a stand still, glaring and crossing their arms, you decided to say something.

"If ya'll can't agree I can run to town with Papyrus while you watch over Sammy, Sans. She can show you where our traps are and if you're lucky you might find some rabbits or squirrels." When you said that Sans seemed to have all anger fizzle out as he smiled at you. "That Actually Sounds Fun. Better Than Papyrus Mother Henning Me." Papyrus let out a small 'hey' at that which made Sammy laugh. "Hay is for horses." She joked. All of you got a good chuckle from that and Papyrus hummed. "well i got a map of this side of the mountain. we can plan our route and maybe find some gas for this abandoned car we found at the farm." He said and somehow pulled out a folded map from his pocket.

You decided to not question how it got there when he acted like his pocket was empty. Sans made half of a deer dissapear with his phone so you shouldn't be surprised when things appear. Papyrus walked in front of you and crouched towards the ground to spread out the map. You noticed a few spots circled and Sans quickly pointed them out. "This Is The Farm We Live At. And Over Here Is Where We Believe Your Cabin Is At." You watched as his fingers pointed at the two black circles before turning your gaze to the red circles around the closest towns. "the red ones are where it was too overrun for me to go at it alone. but seeing how many you can kill alone we should have a shot at getting through." He said and gave you the side eye. You felt another cold shiver down your spine and got the feeling he wasn't just talking about the biters.

The other two didn't notice as Sammy started asking Sans if there would be slingshots at the gun shop. He shrugged and made a 'I don't know' hum. "My Brother Doesn't Touch Those Since We Can Use Magic To Attack. I Just Like Using My Bow For Huning Because It Feels Cleaner." He said and thumbed the bow string. That cleared up the confusion on where Papyrus's weapons were. You wished you could have magic to defend yourself but at least you were a good shot and could skin and dry animal fur for clothes. Sammy started talking about using slingshots to kill the squirrels that have been trying to nest in her bedroom window while you studied the map.

Now you could see that the street where you fought that gang is circled and wondered if the biters cleared out already since a small horde broke off. Papyrus saw how focused you were and used his finger to draw the path you'd take. When he went to point to the other side of town you realized that was close to where Sammy found that dried fruit in the store with the single biter. You knew his way would take too long going straight to that side. "If we go this way and cut through this field and off the main roads we should get there in less time towards the center of town. Last time I went the biters were starting to clear out from the streets." You said as you traced the invisible path.

Papyrus started scratching his collarbone making a weird bone on bone noise. "the streets may be clear but the stores ain't. i managed to block the door to a clinic that had a big group of dead inside a while ago but now I can't get in there." He grumbled and you thought about if you were going to tell him why the store was overrun. Sammy quickly beat you to it as she leaned forward. "Actually the biters overran the store cause there was a group that attacked my big sib." Sammy stated and you sheepishly rubbed your head.

Papyrus's zeroed in on you making you lock eyes to sockets. "what happened to that group? and why did they attack you?" He said in the most deathly calm voice. You looked over to Sans and Sammy looking at you curiously. You never told her the whole truth of why they attacked you because you still wanted her to keep her hope that people are still good. "Sammy, why don't you and Sans start collecting those berries." You said and Sans seemed to understand that what you were gonna say was not for her ears. He held her hand as they walked to the edge of the path so they were still in eyesight but couldn't hear.

Papyrus moved to sit on the porch but still kept a few feet away and looked at you expectantly. You sighed and rubbed your face wondering where to start. "Well as Sammy said I was attacked by a group. When we first found this cabin Sammy had a really bad fever and I had no medicine to help so I needed to run to the nearby town in the hopes of finding something. Well there was another group there and they were a decent sized group. They all wore leather vests and I'm pretty sure it's for a biker gang. I don't think they had any guns since they only used bats and crowbars and knives. I still had a decent amount of bullets but I burned though almost all of them shooting at them and the dead when the biters heard and started swarming us."

You watched as Sammy crouched and Sans lifted the bushes so she could pick the berries hidden deep within the bush. "did you kill any?" Papyrus asked making you sigh deeply. You did try to shoot in their torsos trying to avoid needless killing but the biters got to them. Then there was the person who stabbed you and you had to shoot them in the head. "Yes." You stated and stared at him. You did what you had to to survive and you weren't sorry. "how many?" Papyrus was glancing towards Sans before settling his gaze on you.

"Three. Two were body shots but I left them for the biters. One I shot straight in the head after they stabbed me." You started rubbing your thigh where you were stabbed, feeling phantom tingles. "I'm not sure if their leader survived. I grazed his head and the rest of them carried him out with another one of them that got bit in the arm. I got out and stole their car to get away. I got lucky and found a bottle of medicine when it ran out of gas and walked back and now Sammy's all better." You said and cracked a small grin when you saw Sammy hold up a handful of blackberries to Sans and they laughed.

You both sat in silence after that as Papyrus let what you said sink in. He groaned and turned towards you. "look, i don't trust you. you seem like you're telling the truth and i get why you did that. i'd do the same for sans, but i don't know if you'd do that for him. for all I know you could be playing friendly only to stab us in the back and steal our things. i've seen how bad humans can be, especially with no rules holding them back." Papyrus stared off into the distance at nothing and you recognized that look. It was the same one you had when you saw your reflection in the window after killing those people.

"I could say the same for you. You know where I sleep at night yet I have no idea where you're staying. We may not trust each other but we care for our siblings. How about a truce? We work together on runs and hunts so they stay fed and safe." You held your hand out to him making him furrow his brow bones. He smirked and took your hand and shook it. "truce. but." He gripped your hand tighter and tugged you closer. You stared into his eyesockets and noticed how his right socket lit up in an almost orange fire. "if you betray us you'll be dead where you stand."

You wouldn't let yourself be intimidated by a skeleton who looked like a string bean in khakis. You tightened your hold on his hand as you nearly butted foreheads. "And if you betray us I have ways of making you dissapear." You bared your teeth in a snarl and Papyrus had a low rumbling growl building up in his chest. He snatched his hand away with a huff and crossed his arms and slouched. "seems like we're on the same page." He muttered and you nodded once in silent agreement. When Sammy and Sans noticed you finished shaking on it they wandered over.

They both were using their shirts to hold the berries they collected as they chatted about different types of hand sewing. They sat between you and Papyrus, with Sammy sitting next to you as she offered some shirt berries. "So Have You Two Made An Agreement? I Noticed Your Intense Handshake." Sans said as he started munching on the blackberries. "we agreed that we would do runs together while you and sammy learn how to sew. then you two can hunt together while i teach her how to garden and basic first aid." Papyrus said and popped a few blackberries in his mouth.

"Yeah, that's what we agreed on." You said and glared at him over Sammy's and Sans's head. He smirked and tossed a berry in the air and caught it in his mouth. Sammy cheered and tried to copy him only for the berry to bounce off her nose. You laughed at her and ate your berries normally. "Well If You Two Are Going On A Run Tomorrow Then I'll Need To Bring My Sewing Suppies Over So We Can Practice. I've Noticed That Your Deer Skin Is Almost Fully Dry And I Want To Try My Hand At Sewing A Sheet To The Back To Make A Cozy Blanket." Sans said as he pointed to the deer skin near the porch.

You honestly forgot about that after the ordeal of the biter horde and meeting Papyrus. "Oh yeah. Another day in the sun and it should be ready for me to scrape off the meat and it'll be ready. Just remeber that it's hide so you'll need a thick needle and thread." You said making Sammy nod. "Yeah because some fabric is thicker and you need different needles for different uh, materials." She rambled through a mouthful of berries and you elbowed her gently. "Don't talk with your mouth full. You could choke." You scolded making her roll her eyes.

Once the berries were finished and both Sammy and Sans had juice stains on their shirts you stood up. "Well if we're doing a run tomorrow I want to get an early start. I should sharpen my axe and pack my bag." You said with your hands on your hips. "you should change too. we live with the dead but you don't have to look and smell like one." Papyrus said making Sammy and Sans giggle but you knew it was a jab at the fact you were covered in biter gore. Sans jumped up and pointed at you dramatically.

"We Will See You Tomorrow You Two. We Must Get Back Home So I Can Pack And Organize My Sewing Supplies. Come Brother!" And with a flourish he bound to the main path like a graceful deer. Papyrus chuckled and stood up and placed his hands in his hoodie pocket. "i better follow him so he doesn't get hurt. see ya tomorrow morning." He said and walked around the side of the house. In the opposite direction of Sans.

After he rounded the side of the cabin Sammy ran after him and leaned around the corner. "He's gone!" She shouted making you get up and look. He seemed to dissapear into thin air as you walked to the back of the cabin and only saw the laundry flapping in the breeze. When she looked at you questionly you could only offered a shrug as you grabbed a now dry cloth. Both of you walked back inside and you started wrapping the dried meat in the cloth.

Sammy started talking about what she hopes to make with Sans as you packed your bag. You pulled out your trusty whetstone you packed at the beginning and started to sharpen your blade sitting on the floor. Tomorrow you'd have to keep one eye out for biters and another on Papyrus to make sure he wouldn't stab you in the back. You sighed as you felt the weight of everything crushing you but looking at Sammy excitedly talk about having a new friend made it a little more bearable.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 4

I just wanted to do laundry

TW For blood and violence

Once the meat was finally done drying it was dark out and Sammy had been sent to bed a while ago after eating the most food she's had in too long. You had stored the dried meat and kicked the fire out then wandered inside. Sammy left two old candles lit sitting on the floor in the living room for you, casting a dim glow across the room. When you looked down at your bloodied clothes you scrunched your nose up and started to change. You put on your last clean bottoms that happened to be pants that you cut into shorts after a barbed wire mishap late spring and a stained black shirt.

You let out a deep sigh as you laid down on your couch bed. Cleaning up all those branches then carrying back that deer has made your muscles tired. As you blew out the candles and closed your eyes all you could think about were the memories you had today. You and your dad hunting together. How he taught you how to load and aim different types of guns. When he made you shoot your favorite dog when it misbehaved and peed on his shoes. How your dad would back hand you if you missed your shot.

Your memories shifted to newer ones. When you had first found the old cabin and you thought you'd be safe. Sammy had a bad fever and you needed to run to a nearby town where you spotted a tiny doctors office when you were still on the road. You never expected another group to be there scavenging, much less them pulling various weapons on you. There were at least ten people wearing leather vests and when, what seemed like their leader, stepped forward and demanded everything you had you refused. Then they attacked you with bats and crowbars making you pull out your gun and they hesitated. You shot two closest to you in their chests then aimed for their leader and managed to graze his head, making him collapse.

What you didn't notice was the person sneaking up behind you and they stabbed you in the side of your thigh. You managed to shoot the person who stabbed you in the head and that's when the biters came pouring in from the street drawn in from the gunshots. When they busted through the door you decided to use your axe since you saw that you were down to your last clip. You started swinging at bodies, not caring if they were living or dead. You wound up getting a nasty right hook making you fall. They wrestled your bag from you but before one of them could take your axe their arm got bit.

You watched the rest of the survivors regroup and started yelling to tourniquet with a belt and to get ready to chop it off. You didnt stay long after that since you had biters fighting to get through the door and you were loosing too much blood to keep fighting. You managed to get a window to the side open and slipped out. You hobbled around the back and saw a car that you think belonged to the group you fought. You didn't think twice and hopped in, thanking the stars that the keys were still in the ignition, and took off down the road. You managed to get halfway back in record time before the car ran out of gas.

When you searched for anything useful in it you nearly started crying when you found a half used bottle of antibiotic medicine and a couple cans of food under the seat. You limped back and got Sammy awake enough to take her medicine and sip from the water bottle. That night you smoked almost half your pack as you treated your own leg, using your belt to bite down as you sloppily applied butterfly bandages. You sat outside on watch at night until Sammy was able to get up on her own and she thankfully got better. You haven't seen any sign of that group or their vests since.

You blinked your eyes open when you noticed the room lighting up. It seems like you stayed up all night lost in your memories. You groaned and stood up, your body was still feeling the pain from yesterday. You stretched and wandered to the kitchen where you stored the dried deer meat. You nibbled on the meat as you stared out the window. You realized you never talked about where or when you would meet Sans and his brother. Since it was still early you decided to get a head start on your laundry before worrying about it too much.

You gathered all your dirty clothes and rags into a pile and walked into Sammy's room. She was still sleeping and you did your best to quietly gather her dirty clothes scattered around the floor. You cast her one last glace before tiptoeing out of the room. You gathered all of the clothes in your blanket then tied it up. You slid your axe into your belt and clipped your knife on out of habit and went outside. You wandered behind the cabin and grabbed the old well bucket from the side of the building. You haven't seen signs of where the well could be and decided that it didn't exist.

You followed along the hidden deer path to the east to where the small creek was running beside it. It wasn't deep enough for fish but it was enough to gather into buckets for boiling and to wash off when you were too dirty to go inside and fill the tub with buckets of water. You filled the bucket and dunked the blanket first and started scrubbing. You cursed as the bloodstains from your clothes wouldn't get out and wished you still had detergent. The things you miss in the apocalypse.

Once you got the dirt from Sammy's clothes and yours were mostly blood free you dumped the gross water into the soil and gathered everything back up in the now wet blanket. When you entered the clearing you hear banging on the window from the cabin. When you looked up Sammy was pointing to the other side of the cabin with a panicked look on her face. She jiggled the window open and started whisper yelling 'biters'. You dropped the blanket ball and bucket and started running along the side of the cabin. You grabbed your axe despite the ache in your arms and hands and held it up to prepare for swinging.

When you rounded the corner you saw a small group of biters wandering through the clearing. Some of them got caught in your wooden spike traps and three were hanging upside down by their feet from the trees further back. You jogged up to the closest one and chopped its head in half. You kept swinging while trying to keep your distance from them. You cursed loudly when three of them gathered around you. You gasped as a fourth snuck up on you and fell onto you. You dropped your axe as you pinned one arm under its chin to keep its biting face away. You rolled onto your back and started kicking your legs trying to knock the other three away.

You grabbed your knife from its sheath and quickly stabbed it in the head. You rolled it off you as you grabbed your axe with your now free hand. You swung your axe at the first biter only to hit them in the chest making it stumble back. You leg go of your axe and grabbed the next by the shoulder to stab in the head with your knife. You switched your knife to your non dominate hand and ripped your axe out of the first biter while stabbing its skull with your knife. You swung your axe down the middle of the last biters head, splitting its entire skull in half.

You panted as you kicked the body off your axe and looked around the mess. You killed all the walking biters and the rest of the them were stuck in your traps snarling. You stomped over the the stuck ones and quickly took care of them with your knife. You could feel the blood covering your body and soaking into your clothes but that was the least of your worries. When you were sure that there were no more biters you slid your axe back into place and jogged to the cabin. You swung the door open making it hit the wall and you yell out. "SAMMY! Are you okay?" You saw her run around the corner and threw her arms around you while crying your name.

She tried to talk but was hyperventilating too much for you to make sense of it. You crouched and patted the back of her head with one hand while the other held her shoulder. "Sammy it's ok it's ok. I'm here you're safe. I took care of all the biters you'll be okay." You softly talked to her and it seemed to calm her down. She sniffed and wiped her face as you comforted her. "Wh-when I woke up and didn't see you I g-got scared. And when I went ou-outside to find you I saw all those biters. I think they heard me slam the door 'cause they started coming closer and I kept looking out the windows trying to find you and- and." You quickly hugged her close as you felt tears burn your eyes.

You pulled away and went to wipe her tears but hesitated when you saw how much blood covered your hands. "I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner Sammy. You did good staying inside and hidden until I came back." You gently patted her shoulder and stood up. "You want to eat some breakfast in here while I clean up what happened outside?" You tilted your head at her when she shook her head and clutched her shirt. "Wanna come with me and help with the laundry? I kinda left it outside." When she nodded her head You cracked a small smile.

"Alrighty Sammy." You held onto her shoulder as you walked outside. You made sure she was walking along the building while you blocked her view of the dead bodies. When you got to the forgotten laundry you handed her the bucket and kept walking to the stream. "Where are we going?" Sammy asked when you didn't touch the blanket. You turned to her and held up your bloody hands. "It's gonna be hard to keep the laundry clean when I'm so dirty." You joked and that got a small giggle from her. You grinned as you got her to smile finally.

After you washed your arms and legs off in the creek and cleaned the blood you got on Sammy's hair you walked back to your laundry and carried it to the back of the cabin. You had crafted a shoddy clothes line out of braided finishing line across two trees. You untied the blanket and started handing Sammy a few shirts and you started hanging up the pants. You kept an eye out the whole time, worried more biters would wander close to your base. You think the noise from the gun you shot yesterday has drawn them to this area. When you see Sans you'll warn him about the small herd and that there might be more who were drawn to the noise.

As you hung the last article of clothing you sighed and rested your hands on your hips. You turned to Sammy and noticed how she was staring mindlessly at the clothes. You looked over your shoulder at the window that was still partially open and had a dumb idea. You nudged Sammy to make her look up at you. "Wanna bet I can fit through that window?" You asked making her smile. "I can totally fit. You're too big." Sammy laughed and started to try and climb into the window.

After you both were inside, and you totally fit through the window without struggling, you convinced Sammy to eat inside while you started dragging the bodies to a pile. You huffed as you pulled to biters from the spikes while trying to avoid stepping in the bear traps you placed near the hanging cans. As you dragged the last body to the pile you hear a voice calling your name out in greeting. When you looked to where it was you saw Sans waving to you coming up the path while another skeleton walked behind him.

You smiled and waved your hand as you wiped your sweaty brow with the other. "Hey Sans, glad you made it here safely. As you can see i've been a bit busy." You chuckled as you both walked to meet in the middle of the clearing. As you got closer you looked his brother over to see what weapons he had. You blinked in surprise as you noticed he was only wearing a faded orange hoodie with a hole in the arm, tan cargo shorts, and scuffed up sneakers. If he had a weapon on him you couldn't see it and that put you on edge.

Sans looked from the blood covering the ground to the pile of biters. "What Happened Here? Are You And Sammy Okay?" Sans asked as he looked worriedly at the blood on your clothes. "We're fine. Sammy stayed inside while I took care of them. I guess the biters in the nearest town heard the gunshot yesterday and wandered too close. Luckily several of them got caught in my traps." You sighed as you rubbed your sore arms. "Now I gotta drag them further into the woods to burn and without a truck it'll take a while. If you help me I'll offer ya'll some dried deer meat." You offered and Sans shook his head.

"There's No Need To Burn Them. We Use Our Magic To Vaporise The Undead So No Messy Clean Up." Sans smiled and with a wave of his hand a giant dog looking skull appeared beside him. You heard it hum before a white beam shot out of its mouth towards the biter pile. You stared in shock as the beam dissapeared leaving only a slightly smokey pile of ashes. Sans chuckled and snapped you out of your trance. You scratched your head and whistled. "That's some magic. Man that could've helped me out so many times." You chuckled and turned back towards them.

You noticed Papyrus staring at you making a chill go down your spine. If felt like the weight of killing those people were crushing you and making it hard to breath until he looked away. It let like the weight lifted and you were able to breath again. He creeped you out with that stare. Sans interjected and asked where Sammy was. You didn't have to answer as you heard the door bang open and she yelled his name. "Sans, did you see all those biters? My big sibling killed them all. They were like, whoosh and the biters were like." Sammy made a gurgling noise as she acted out what you did.

You and Sans chuckled as she jumped around pretending the chop down biters. You may not fully trust Sans, much less his brother, but you were glad she found someone else besides you to talk to. When she finished Sans gestured to the skeleton next to him. "This Is My Brother Papyrus. He's Super Smart And He's The One Who Taught Me How To Use My Bow." Sans said and Papyrus chuckled and rubbed the side of this head. "nice to meet you. sans told me a lot about you." He said and held his hand out to Sammy. When she shook his hand a loud fart noise was made. Papyrus and Sammy laughed as he pulled his hand away to reveal a mini whoopie cushion in his palm.

"ah the ol' whoopie cushion in the hand prank. never gets old." He chuckled and you huffed in amusement. He turned to squint his eyesockets at you in a glare and you noticed he didn't have eyelights like Sans. "so you're the human that shared the deer with us huh? that's pretty nice, for a human." Papyrus said and stuffed his hands into the hoodie pocket. You bit your tongue to keep from saying something rude to Sans's brother. This is gonna be a long visit.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 3

Sans meet Sammy

TW for talk about butchering a deer and blood

"And When The Honey Suckle bush Was Finally In Bloom Papyrus Thought He Was Supposed To Eat The Stem Too." Sans has been telling you stories about his brother and him discovering the wonders of nature on the surface. Your favorite was when Sans told you how a butterfly flew into his socket once and made him panic and run in circles until his brother had to save him.

You both were laughing now and you nearly dropped the deer making you curse as you had to readjusted your grip. Sans snickered at you making you turn to playfully glare at him. You couldn't believe how sweet he stayed despite how long he was trapped underground because of dumb magic humans. He talked a lot about his lazy brother and how he loves puzzles. Mostly how he hasn't seen a good puzzle since surfacing. And When Chara showed up and befriend all the monsters they warned them of how horrible the surface became. They stayed with a monster named Asgore near the entrance of the underground and the rest were split staying underground and spreading out further down the mountain.

Thanks to Sans you learned that monsters were freed about two months after the fall during the dead of winter. Around the same time you met Sammy's group and had to run from the dead. You remembered it was October when everything went to shit and thanks to Sans keeping track of time since he surfaced in his journal, you deducted it's been almost nine months since it happened. You decided to trust him a bit for now since he seemed like he was telling you only the truth and was pretty much an open book at this point.

You did wind up telling him a little bit about your own past. Mostly about how you grew up in the woods and learned to hunt with your dad before you moved away. When he tried to ask more about your parents you changed the topic by pointing out a few mullein plants near you and how useful they can be day to day. It seemed to work because after that you both got stuck talking the rest of the way about local plants what which ones the other has discovered around the mountain base.

As you got near your cabin you searched through the trees to see if Sammy listened to you and hid inside. "So before we get too close I should let you know to step where I am now. There's several types of traps around here and I don't want you snaring your foot." You saw him from the corner of your eye puff up in excitement making you smile before you remebered the child in your care now. "Also there's another person here. A kid actually. You seem genuine but I will only tell this you once." You stopped walking making Sans stumble before you turned to face him. "If you hurt her or put her in danger. I have ways to take care of problems." You moved your hip to flash him your axe making Sans gulp.

"I-I Would Never Hurt You Or A Child. Especially Your Little One." He floundered and your face softened. "She's not actually mine. When our last group got overrun by biters I grabbed her and ran. We found this place around mid spring months ago I think. The air was a bit cooler and I remeber we found this old hunting cabin by following these blackberry bushes hoping to find some fruit ripe enough to eat." You said while nodding your head to the bush to your right that followed along the deer path you've worn into the ground.

"That's So Cool. There's Only A Small Bush Near Us That Has Raspberries. We've Been Fighting With The Local Deer Trying To Pick The Fruit. We Did Manage To Get A Garden Growing And I Have Set Up Many Puzzles And Traps To Keep The Animals Away From My Sproutlings. Unfortunately They Won't Be Ready To Harvest Until Next Year." As Sans talked you continued walking up the deer path until you reached the clearing.

Thankfully Sammy wasn't peeping through the window again, she got a lecture about how dangerous that is if there's another group in the area, and you wandered to the side of the porch and let the heavy deer flop to the ground. You stretched your arms out as Sans followed suit and examined the deer. "I got some rope inside to hang this up and drain it. Ya'll want the blood? I don't usually use it but I'm sure there's a few uses." You started talking as you walked up the single step porch. Sans shivered and shook his head quickly making you chuckle. "Alright. I'll get my stuff and we should be finished with this deer before nightfall."

As you opened the door you clicked your tongue to let Sammy know it was you. As you grabbed the rope from a spare bag in the corner you saw Sammy walk into the room holding the old shotgun. "I heard a gunshot. Are we safe?" Sammy meekly asked as you stood up with the rope. "Nah," You pulled her towards you in a side hug. "I actually met someone. Or rather, some monster." You winked down at Sammy making her glare at you. You held your hands up and laughed. "It's true. I met this talking skeleton named Sans and we both wound up shooting the same deer so we're sharing it. He's outside if ya wanna introduce yourself."

Sammy was still suspicious of you as she walked to the door and opened it. You patted her hair as you walked past and stepped outside while she followed you, gasping when she saw him. "Sammy this is Sans, Sans this is Sammy. The kid under my care." You stared directly at him as you talked. He didn't seem to notice as he visibly brightened and held his hand out for Sammy.

"Greetings Small Human. I Am The Marvelous Sans." Sammy hid slightly behind you as she clutched your shirt in her tiny hands. Sans deflated at her reaction making you chuckle. "It's ok Sammy, he don't bite." She clutched your shirt tighter and shuffled closer to you making you rub her shoulder gently. Sans perked up like he had an idea and crouched down to be closer to eye level with her and held both hands out facing each other.

Soft blue lights seemed to sparkle between his fingers as bones suddenly appeared. You blinked in surprise as the bones spelled out 'SAMMY' and Sans let out a nervous chuckle. That seemed to make coax her out from your side as she marveled at the sight. "How do you do that? Are you a magician?" You choked on your spit and started laughing. You told her a bed time story once about a magician who could only spell names with magic and had to save the prince who forgot his name.

As Sans explained how he was a monster and where he came from as you looped the rope through the roof of the porch and started working the deer up. "Let Me Help You." Sans said and before you could react the hind left of the deer light up blue and lifted up towards the rope. You balked at the floating deer and only snapped out of it when Sammy giggled behind you. You rolled your eyes and looped the legs through the rope then pushed the deer so it wouldn't get blood on the wood too badly.

"Hey Sammy, Why dont you run inside and grab the blood pan." You said and spun the deer to decide where the best cuts would be. "Blood Pan?" Sans murmured and you chuckled. "We can't have blood pooling on the ground. Besides the risk of biters there's also a few natural predators around like bears. Plus it can be good nutrients for plants so I dump it on the blackberries." You waved your hand around as you talked. Sammy came waddling through the door holding a metal version of a car oil catcher. You're pretty sure it was a handmade gift since there was engravings on it but age has started rusting it and the blood stains didn't help.

Sans and Sammy immediately turned to face the other way right as you made the first cut and once you finished and kicked the pan under it you wandered over to them. Sans had started telling her about the various puzzles he made in the underground and she talked about the mazes she's drawn in the notebook you found. Once the deer was mostly drained you worked on skinning it in the hopes of making Sammy a nice blanket that'll last her a while.

This seemed to interest Sans as you finished pulling the skin off. "Why Do You Keep The Fur? Can Humans Eat It?" He asked and Sammy loudly laughed. You chuckled and shook your head as you laid the skin on the ground to dry under the sun. You wiped your bloody hands on your jeans and turned to Sans. "I don't think it'd be very good. I keep the fur on my bigger kills to make winter coveres and blankets. Me and Sammy have cloaks for the cold seasons I made out of a boar and huge buck I took down before. I haven't been able to hunt as much though since bullets are getting hard to come by and I need to save my ammo." You said with a shrug.

"That's Why I Use This And Make My Own Arrows." Sans pulled his bow off his back and one of the arrows off his quiver to show it off and that immediately perked Sammy's interest. You smiled as Sammy started asking a bunch of questions like 'how do you make arrows' and 'what's the farthest he shot it' and Sans, the kind monster, answered her questions with enthusiasm. Once she asked him if she could shoot it you decided to intervene.

"Alright kid why don't you go and eat that snack you hid in your bag." You shooed at her making her gasp dramatically. "How'd you know about that!" Sammy huffed and crossed her arms. You winked and stuck your tongue out at her. "I have my ways. Now shoo." And with that Sammy stomped inside but paused in the doorway. "And by the way, it's." And once she named the fruit you groaned and tilted your head back. She giggled like the little gremlin she is and ran inside.

Sans tilted his head at you and you sighed. "She has my favorite fruit and I know she won't share any with me after not letting her shoot your bow." Sans chuckled and placed his hands on his hips. "I Know What You Mean. I Gave Papyrus Honey Once And He Decided That Honey Was His New Favorite Food In The World. I Pretend To Be Grossed Out By It Just So He Can Enjoy It All To Himself." You both chuckled at that and looked at the skinned deer.

"So what are your preferred cuts?" You asked as wandered inside to grab your spare knife from your bag. This one you kept for cutting animals since you worried about the virus from the dead on your small knife from killing biter when you couldn't use your axe. Thankfully you cleaned it after skinning that rabbit yesterday. You decided to grab the tarp you found that was most likely for a motorcycle to place the cuts on. As you walked back outside you saw Sans poking the deer hesitantly with a long bone. "Don't worry it doesn't come back like the biters." You said making him jump and drop the bone. Right as it touched the ground it dissappeared.

"Oh I'm Not Worried About That. I'm Just Curious About The Muscle Structure. My Brother And I Found A Few Medical Books In The Farmhouse. We Think The Local Doctor Lived There. I Hope They Got Out And Somewhere Safe." You frowned and turned to the deer holding your knife. You couldn't tell him that the person was most likely shuffling around as one of the dead aimlessly searching for something living to eat. "I'll probably ask to borrow those books sometime. I know how to treat minor things and how to reset a dislocated arm and stuff but I barely know how to treat a broken bone or gunshot wound. I learned that if you get bit on the limb and cut it off in time they can still live. But You have keep them from bleeding out before you know cutting it off worked."

As you talked you started cutting off the limbs and working on gutting and removing the unwanted things bucks have. Sans sat on the step and sorted through his arrows and started sharpening them with a bone that formed a point. When Sammy wandered out holding the mostly empty bag of fruit and plopped down next to Sans you kept your eye on them. Mostly Sans while he held a sharp bone next to Sammy. You grumbled under your breath when Sammy offered Sans some dried fruit making her giggle.

You hear Sans whisper to Sammy making you raise an eyebrow. You were stunned when she got up and offered you and handful of the fruit. "This is for you." She muttered and you looked at Sans and he only offered you a smile and shrug. You quickly wiped one hand as best you could down your pant leg and let her dump them into your palm. You popped them into your mouth and watched Sans cringe. "Thangs." You tried to say with your mouth full making both Sammy and Sans make faces at you.

They started to chat to each other while you worked and you chimed in with a few questions. You learned that monsters had different types of magic and that Sans was a master of blue type magic. And his brother was a skeleton too who also did bone attacks. Sammy started asking about his bow again making you sigh. "If you really wanna practice shooting something I'll keep an eye out for wood shaped like a slingshot and some rubber bands. I can't promise I'll be able to make it anytime soon but once I do I'll show you how to aim with it." Once the last word left your mouth Sammy jumped up and hugged you. "THANK YOU THANK YOU! I promise I'll take good care of my slingshot and get good enough to use Sans's bow."

You laughed and nudged her off with your elbow. "C'mon kid I'm covered in blood. Why don't you go get started on a fire. I'm almost done." You said as you dug in your front pocket for your lighter. She grabbed it and jogged to the other side of the porch to start gathering the wood. Once she was crouched trying to stack the wood like you taught her Sans turned to you with a smile. "She's a good child. You've taught her well." You did your best to grin as you stared at your bloody hands holding the knife.

Memories started replaying in your head as you looked at the blood under your nails. People with guns yelling. The sounds of biters growling and reaching towards you. The searing pain of a knife stuck in your thigh. The sound of Sans calling your name shook you out of those thoughts as you cleaned your knife on your tank top and sheathed it. "You got anything to carry all this meat back? If not you can use my tarp. I'm gonna dry as much as I can by the fire and cook the rest." You nodded to the now cut up deer meat as you pulled the antler shells off the skull.

"Actually I Can Use My Cellphone To Store This And It'll Keep The Food Fresh." Sans said as he pulled out a thick touch screen phone. You stared in shock at him as half of the meat dissapeared into thin air. You haven't seen any working technology, especially a phone, since the towers went down. "How do you have a working phone?" After you asked that Sans told you about monster phones and how they worked using magic. You made a joke about getting him a bear skin rug if he can get a working phone for you.

Sans seemed to take your joke seriously and before he could ask how you'd be able to take down a fully grown bear with a small pistol Sammy came running over to you and held out your lighter. You nodded your thanks at her and looked up into the darkening sky. "It's getting late and I don't know how well you can see at night but the biters get more active when the sun's down. Plus your brother is probably gonna start worrying about you." You said and Sans sighed. "You're Right. But Do Not Fret For I Will Come Back Tomorrow. Hopefully I Can Get My Brother To Come Along With Me." He smiled and waved to Sammy and you as he started walking away down the path you came.

"You need any help retracting the steps?" you hollered and Sans shook his head. "I Have An Excellent Memory. I Know How To Get Home From Here." And with that Sans walked along the blackberry bushes and Sammy and you watched until you couldn't see him anymore. "I hope he comes back. He's funny." Sammy said. You nodded and wandered over to your meat pile. "Me too. If we can start trading we'll be able to get fruit for us and Sans could help me hunt more often." You started dragging the tarp to the fire. "Alright, let's start getting sticks for this meat. Whoever gets the best one gets the first bite!" You yelled and ran to the stick pile making Sammy laugh as she started grabbing random sticks.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

Chapter 2

Hunting mishap

As always with zombie fics

TW FOR BLOOD

Hearing birds chirping woke you as you cracked your eyes open, only to be blinded by the sun. You grunted as you rubbed your face and sat up. As you stood with a stretch you checked your surroundings making sure nothing happened while you slept. You walked over to the window and blinked at the damage outside. There were branches littering the clearing and everything looked damp.

You sighed at the work you have to do now as you got ready for the day. You strapped your knife in it's holster on your hip and tucked your small pistol into the back of your jeans, you lost its holster after you had to run in the middle of the night with Sammy after a small herd caught you by surprise. And with only a handful of bullets left you try to only use it in emergencies. As you walked towards the other end of the cabin where the kitchen resided you grabbed the can of peaches from Sammy's bag and went to work on opening it with your old crummy can opener.

You cursed under your breath as it slipped for the sixth time and you were debating on taking the can outside and smashing it with a rock when you heard Sammy get up from bed. You quickly went back to trying to open the peaches before she saw your struggling and teased you all day again. You trip over a hole in the ground and smash face first into a tree once and she didnt let up about it for nearly two weeks. You silently cheered as the stupid can opener finally cut the last of the lid and you threw it against the counter. You drained the liquid into a mostly clean cup and drop a few peach slices in it just as Sammy walks into the room already dressed.

"Morning kid, I got breakfast." You said as you handed her the can, getting a grunt as a response. She made a face as you drank the juice and slurped up a peach slice like it was noodles. She sat on the couch as she ate her peaches and stared out the window. "It stormed pretty good last night. There's tree bits everywhere. Think you're up to helping me collect the good wood to dry and toss the rest in a pile?" You asked her once she finished eating.

"Yeah I guess. Think we'll find any worms?" Sammy asked as she stood up and placed the can next to the pile of other cans that you make noise traps with.

You nodded as you grabbed you axe and stepped outside. "I bet we'll even see some snails and rollie pollies." You said as you rested your axe on your shoulder and surveyed the damage. Luckily the trees are just far away from the cabin that no branches fell on it and the blackberry bushes surrounding half the property were still intact. You slid your axe into your belt as you walked down the path. "Alright so I want you to pick up the small branches and twigs. Ones that look like they'll be good kindling while I get the bigger branches and drag the good ones to be cut." You gestured around the area and you both got to work. You could feel the sun beating down on your shoulders and arms as you dragged the branches around the clearing while Sammy asked whatever stick she was holding was good for burning.

You took a break as you walked inside to grab a bottle of water and slowly drank it until Sammy complained that she was thirsty too. "I think we did good work here. let's take a break and rest, you look tired." You said as Sammy finished drinking and she quickly agreed by flopping onto the ground with a groan. "I'm gonna go check the traps and make sure the can alarms aren't destroyed." You grunted as you stretched your arms above your head. "The ones for the biters?" Dammy asked making you nod.

She has taken to calling the walking dead 'biters' because in her great words "they bite you so they should be called biters." You rested one hand on your axe and the other on your hip and you turned towards Sammy. "Yep, gotta make sure no biters got close during the storm. You know the rules when I'm gone." Sammy nodded and rolled her eyes. "Don't go too far in the yard. If I hear a weird noise hide inside under the bed until you come back. And if it gets bad run to the meet up point north in the mountain. I'm not a little kid you know."

You tried to not laugh at how done she sounded while wearing plaid pink shorts and a white shirt with a dog wearing a bun with the words 'hot dog' printed on it and messy hair. "You'll always be a kid to me, and I worry about you. It's a older siblings job to look out for younger siblings." You smirked as she brightened up. "Be safe." Sammy called out as you walked away. "Always am Sam." You joked with a lazy wave making her huff and stomp her foot. "It's Sammy dummy." She yelled and sat on the porch and watched you leave.

You first checked all the traps around the cabin and they all turned up empty and quite a few had to be reset or taken apart because they broke. As you got farther from the cabin you noticed how peaceful it was out here. Since people aren't polluting the air anymore it smells so clean and you could hear a few different birds chirping in the noon sun. You paused as you heard steps and quietly shuffled to a tree and kept your head on a swivel. Suddenly you spotted a deer in the distance and changed your position to face it while staying hidden.

It seemed to be a youngish buck roughly judging from its antlers and you slowly grabbed your pistol. As much as you hated using a gun since the noise could attract the dead, this would be worth it. If you can remeber how to properly dry meat you can have food for the winter. You slowly raised your gun and aimed for the head. Luck seemed to be on your side as it started walking closer to you, seemingly more cautious about what was behind it than you as it trotted quickly. As it raised its head fully you slowly exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

A loud bag echoed in the forest and you smiled seeing the deer drop. Luck truly was on your side as your shot immediately killed it and you didn't have to track it if the deer ran off. As you walked closer you noticed a bolt in it's side and furrowed your brows. "What the fuck?" You knelt next to the deer and pulled out the arrow. It looked hand made you noted as you twisted it around, wondering how the deer was calmly walking around with a arrow in its side. You heard movement in front of you and you quickly looked up to see something horrifying.

It looked like a biter only it had no flesh left and was just a skeleton in worn clothes. You scrambled to your feet, dropping the arrow while you grab your axe from your belt and swung it back. The biter reacts and raises its hands. But instead of groaning and reaching out to you it bunches up and once it started to speak you nearly dropped your axe.

"WHOA WHOA CALM DOWN I'M NOT YOUR ENEMY!" It, he? they? yelled. You breathed quickly as you looked them over, noting how they seem to move like a living human but they only had bones visible. "Please Let's Calm Down And I'm Sure I Can Explain. Could You Lower Your Weapon Please?" They asked as their eyes, the supposedly empty sockets, had glowing blue circles staring at your axe. You slowly lowered it but kept it in your dominant hand. Just because there's a skeleton walking and talking to you doesn't mean you trust them.

They seemed to relax and somehow smiled at you, their toothy grin getting really big. "Wowie I Haven't Seen A Human Since Chara." The lights of their, his, you're going with him since their voice is very deep, eyes get slightly bigger before shrinking as he seems to remeber something. "My Apologies For Not Introducing Myself Sooner. I Am The Marvelous Sans And I Believe Twas My Arrow You Saw. I Think We Both Saw This Deer And Shot It At The Same Time. What A Funny Coincidence." Sans said with a flourish with the back of his hand under his chin. You nodded and mumbled your name back as you tried to process what is happening. Sans seems to notice your shock and playes with the string of his bow strapped across his chest you just now noticed. "Well uh, Sans, since we both shot this buck I think it's fair if we split it in half. What do you say?" You gestured splitting the deer with your hand as Sans grimaces.

"Ah, Well My Brother Usually Deals With All Of That. I'm A Really Good Aim And I Like Hunting But I Can't Do All That Blood." Sans says with a shiver when he sees the pool of blood on the ground from the deer. You nodded as you though of how Sammy always turned her nose up when you'd skin anything. "I can understand that. I actually know how to cut up a deer. I've done it a few times before the world fell." You quickly glanced him over one more time, trying to see if he was playing any tricks. When he looked up at you with the same sparkle in his eyes that Sammy had yesterday when you gave her that gift, you knew that you could trust him enough to know your base.

But first you had a few questions. "My base is in the area, and I guess you can help me carry the deer back and I'll cut it for you. I just have a couple questions before you know where I sleep." You crossed your arms and that made Sans straighten up. You fought a smile as his head reached your chin and he looked up at you with what looks like a his serious face.

"How big is your camp?" You decided to get the easy one out of the way and depending how he answers will tell you a lot about his character. Sans perked up and started swinging his hands around as he spoke. "Me And My Brother Live In A Old Farm House East From Here. We've Been Trying To Grow Vegetables But Since Most Of Aren't In Bloom Yet So I've Resorted To Hunting While My Brother Searched Nearby Towns For Food."

You hummed and rubbed your chin. You wondered if his brother looked like a skeleton too before quickly shaking the thought away. One thing at a time for now. "Alright and how many dead have you killed?" You asked and Sans scrunched his face up in thought. "I Think Around Fifteen Or So. It's Hard To Tell Though Since I've Had To Face A Big Group Of Them Once And I Used Really Big Bone Attacks To Try And Slow Them Down." He said as he started counting on his fingers. You blinked at how he 'attacked' them.

"What are bone attacks? And what are you? I haven't seen any biters that could talk and emote like you." You tilted your head at him while watching the exposed bone of his arms twist just like human bones. You shivered at the thought of all the exposed bones you've seen and looked away towards the trees behind Sans. Your attention was brought back to him when he moved his hand with a flourish and a small white cartoony looking bone appeared.

"This Is My Bone Attack. Of Course It's A Small One That Can't Do Any Damage." Sans smiled at you before he clapped his hands together making the bone dissappear. "And As For What I Am. I'm Not A 'Biter'" He used his fingers for quotations and you noticed he had blue gloves that were torn on the ends. "I'm Actually A Monster. We Were Trapped Under The Mountain Before Chara Fell And Broke The Barrier And Freed Us All. Most Of Our Friends Stayed Near The Top Of The Mountain But My Brother And I Wanted To See If We Could Venture Into The City To Find Human Survivors. You're The First I Came Across And I Can't Wait To Introduce You To My Brother!"

You opened your mouth to respond but stopped as you heard shuffling and groaning to the right. You both turned to see three biters stumbling towards you making you lift your axe. You turned to Sans with a smirk. "Wanna show me your bone attack?" You asked him and he nodded and changed his stance. He seemed to mimic throwing something and as his hand flew foward and bone as big as your arm appeared and flew straight into the closest biters head. Sans faced you with a smug expression making you chuckle as you approached the two that were left.

You swing your axe and land straight into the first biters head. You grunted as rotten blood landed on your jaw when you pulled your axe out. Before the next biter could reach you a bone flew straight into the side of its head making it slump to the ground. You eyed Sans as he smiled brightly at you. "Nice Work Human. We Make A Cool Team." You nodded at him as you pulled your rag to clean your axe. You noticed Sans make a face and you chuckled out a "what".

"That Rag Is Absolutely Disgusting. Please, Use Mine." Sans said as he pulled out a much cleaner grey rag and handed it to you. You grinned as you tucked your 'absolutely disgusting' rag into your back pocket and took his. "Thanks. Well since you didnt try to hit me when my back was turned I guess I could trust you." You handed his rag back and tried to not laugh at the face he made when he tucked it back into his pocket.

"Why Would I Hurt You? Shouldn't We All Work Together To Fight Those Biters?" Sans asked making you sigh softly. "Not every human is very good anymore. A lot form groups and don't let outsiders in, trying to keep possibly infected people out. Others travel the roads threatening others for their supplies and if they don't comply." You mimicked chopping with your axe making Sans gulp. You slid your axe back into place as you grabbed the front half of the deer. "C'mon, my base is northwest of here. On the way there you can tell me about this underground and how you were freed by this Chara person." You said as Sans quickly scooped up the hind legs. "Well It All Started With A War Between Humans And Monsters A Long Time Ago." Sans started talking as you led the way back to your base. Hopefully Sammy didn't get too spooked hearing the gunshot.

[inkydrawss]

First the dead rise and now SKELETONS?

chapter 1

reader and Sammy

this is my swaptale zombie au that I took inspiration from the walking dead. I originally posted this on ao3 so if you see this on any other sites that isn't me. I DON'T ALLOW FOR MY FIC TO BE SCRAPPED FOR AI

Tw for blood and violence

You never thought life in the apocalypse would be easy. Since you were young you always had a plan on what to do in different situations but this. This was the worst.

You grunted as your back hit the wall and you shuffled along to stay out of sight. The groaning of the dead body around the corner grew closer to where you hid. Why did you have to run out of food and need to run to the store today. The small town looked abandoned with only two dead stumbling around the street when you first scoped it out.

A small whimper shook you out of your thoughts and you glanced to the young girl next to you clutching her bag strap in one hand and a small pocket knife in the other. You softly huffed under your breath and adjusted your grip on your axe.

You two had just entered the seemingly abandoned store until you heard the shuffling and ducked around the corner. And now you had to take care of the new problem so you can get the kid some food in her stomach. You glanced at her and gestured for her to stay put with a look as you stood up straight and stepped around the corner.

Luckily the dead thing was facing away at the wall and just turned to face you as your axe swung down onto its face. It let out a gurgle as the top of its head was sliced off and slumped to the ground. You panted as you glanced around the store to double check you were alone now.

When you deemed it safe you clicked your tougne twice and the little girl stepped around the corner. She ran down the isle and started looking under the nearly empty shelves. You chuckled as you pulled out a dirty rag to quickly clean your axe before putting it away on your belt strap.

You remembered how you got stuck with this kid under your care. A loud "Yes!" came from her direction reminding you that you that you would gladly be stuck with her. "Don't be too loud Sammy. we dont want to draw any more to us." You spoke over the short shelf making her nod bashfully and stuffed what looked like a bag of dried fruit into her bag.

When the world first fell and the dead started walking you got out of the area with everything you could carry in your bag and wandered near the woods trying to hunt with snare traps when you stumbled upon her group.

There were about seven men,five women and three kids including Sammy. It was just her and her dad and at first you didnt think anything of them. You were just trying to survive to wake up the next day. But one hot and humid morning when Sammy walked over to the campfire with a long sleeved shirt on you were suspicious. When you handed her a bowl for breakfast and her sleeve rose slight showing a nasty bruise on her wrist you immediately became protective of her.

Every morning you made sure she ate next to you and after lunch you took all the kids to the creak nearby to teach them how to fish and purify the water by boiling it. By dinner you'd sit next to her and her dad and kept a close eye on him until he stumbled into his tent to take night watch later.

One night when you and Sammy were watching the embers burn out in the fire sitting on some dusty folding chairs, she had just her head on your shoulder and started snoozing. You were fighting sleep and all you could remember was that it felt like you just blinked and suddenly you hear a gunshot and a man yell. You jolted awake making Sammy's head fall off your shoulder as you quickly stood up and grabbed your small pistol from its holster.

It was total chaos after that. The dead were everwhere you looked eating all the other survivors with gunshots popping off left and right. You were lucky you made a run that day and still had the bag packed next to your chair as you swung that over your shoulder and grabbed Sammy's hand and started running.

You weaved through the dead, shooting any that got close to you and making sure Sammy stayed next to you. You managed to find a small gap between the dead and ducked though and you both kept running until you couldn't breath. After that you kept to the woods and did your best to hunt small game like rabbits but eventually you had to venture into towns.

You manged to find a small grocery store that was barely ransacked and managed the find some canned food along with a old shotgun and emergency axe in the back. Since then you both stayed near the base of a nearby mountain since it seemed like the dead haven't ventured towards this area yet and there were plenty of animals to hunt.

"You able to find anything?" You asked as you checked the last shelf, finding it empty. Sammy jumped around the corner with a big smile holding a can of peaches. "Nice score." You mumbled and ruffled her dirty blond hair. She made a disgruntled noise and slapped your hand away making you laugh. "C'mon kid, let's check our traps before heading back to base." You said and grabbed the can and quickly put it in her bright pink unicorn bag that you nabbed for her a week ago.

Sammy hummed in agreement as you both walked out the back of the store and retraced your steps back into the woods. You occasionally stopped to check your snare traps while you watched Sammy check the ones she set and helping her reset the ones that went off. When she checked her last one and saw a rabbit she cheered and announced that you'll both be "Eating rabbit stew." tonight.

As you walked the small path leading up to your base with the rabbit bouncing on your hip Sammy called you name making you turn to her. "Thanks for looking out for me. I didn't have a lot of friends before and when my mom got bit my dad got weird and didn't want me to go too far from him. You were the only one near me when it happened and now you're stuck with me." She trailed off and rubbed her arm. You frowned and reached your arm out, offering her a hug.

She glanced at you and leaned into you making you wrap you arm around her. You couldn't believe that she was only eight years old and was already dealing with so much. You don't know what her father said to her and if he wasn't already dead you'd beat him to death. You took a deep breath to calm yourself and rubbed Sammy's shoulder.

"I care about you kid. What your dad did to you wasn't normal. I could never hurt you, especially like that." You glared mindlessly into a passing tree remembering the bruises on her arms and how'd she flinch whenever a man would raise his voice. You instead looked at her and she looked up at you with her big honey brown eyes with unshed tears.

"I know this world is a lot more dangerous now and it's very scary but ill do my absolute best to keep you safe and happy. You deserve to be happy. Plus I'm not stuck with you, you're stuck with me." You laughed evily and poked her cheeks with both hands. She started laughing and wrapped her arms around you digging her face into your stomach.

You held her for a moment before patting her back and gently pulling away. "You know, I have a little something for you. I was waiting for your birthday but I think now is good." Sammy immediately stepped back and nearly vibrated in place at the idea of a gift. "What is it? How did you hide it I've looked everywhere!" She paused as she rubbed the back of her neck. "I mean, I don't look through your stuff when you're gone ignore what I said." You laughed as she pouted at you. "I have my secrets." You winked at her.

She stormed off to the old abandoned hunting cabin you live in now while avoiding all the traps you set out to catch or alert you to the dead. You laughed again and followed her to the porch. "I did a water run yesterday so why don't you take our bags in and wash up while I skin this, I'll let you built the fire if you do." You said to her as you slid your bag off and plopped in on the porch.

She quickly grabbed your bag and walked inside as you slid your axe off your belt and sat on the porch step. You unclipped your small hunting knife, thankful that it was left behind in the cabin and got to work on the rabbit. When you were almost done you heard the door open and close and small footsteps coming closer. Sammy plopped on the single step a good distance away from you as she scrunched up her nose at the smell.

"You gonna let me built that fire?" She asked while crossing her arms over her knees and laying her chin on them. You peeled the last of the skin off, happy you got it in almost one piece. "Yeah, you know where the wood and sticks are. Just remeber to never-" Sammy quickly interrupted you. "Never built it higher than the rock stack." She droned as she stood up.

You made a face at her and stuck your tougne out as she did the same. You both giggled as she started to gather the wood. Once she got it built you handed her your cheap zippo lighter from your jean pocket. She made a face at your bloody hands and you blew a raspberry at her. "You're gross." Sammy giggled as she took it and lit a small fire with some dried moss she stuffed in the center.

Once you got the rabbit cooking you washed up and changed your now bloody clothes from the dead thing and rabbit. You walked outside in a tank top and the baggy worn down jeans you've had since the beginning of the outbreak. "How's the food looking?" you asked as you sat on the ground next to Sammy and looked at the rabbit chunks on sticks cooking. She shrugged and grabbed one of the sticks to turn the meat. "Good enough to eat for a dog. So yours is done." She smirked at you and you gently pushed her.

"You're a little shit." You said as she tried to push you back, making you push her over as you both laughed. As the food finished and you both ate it down to the bone, making sure she got extra portions, she turned to you and stared. "What?" You asked. "You need something?" Sammy immediately started pouting as she whined your name. "You said you got me a present. Where is it?" She demanded as she leaned forward and back like you had it hid behind your back.

You chuckled as you stood up and stretched. "Let me grab it from inside." You let out a groan as your back popped making Sammy laugh. "Yeah yeah I sound like a old person. I'm not even that old you know, sitting on the ground is just uncomfortable." You walked inside and headed towards the couch to your secret hiding spot. you glaced out the window to make sure Sammy didnt follow you and that she was still safe before laying on the ground in front of the old sofa.

You felt the edge of the fabric covering the underside until you felt the hole and you stuck your hand in. As you blindly felt around, accidentally grabbing your emergency cigarette pack. You quickly hid it again, as you grabbed another small box that you were looking for. Sammy asked you to not smoke anymore cause it was bad for you and now you do your best to not smoke when she's up. You'd feel guilty about lying to her about not smoking anymore but its one of the few things that help after a day of killing the undead amd worrying about keeping Sammy fed and safe.

As you walked outside with the small gift hid in your palm Sammy quickly whipped her head around to you and started bouncing up and down where she sat. You grinned as you handed her the small red velvet box. "I saw this when I went on a run to that mini mall a while back. It reminds me a lot of you." You said as she opened the box and let out a small 'oooo'.

Inside was a silhouette of a silver rabbit with a tiny green peridot, her birthstone. She carefully pulled it out and held the silver chain and watched the rabbit spin in circles. "You wanna wear it?" You asked softly while leaning forward. She nodded with a big sniff and handed it to you as she pulled her shoulder length hair up to expose her neck.

When you finished clapping it and turned around to face you as she played with the pendant. "Thanks. it's pretty." she muttered as she kept staring at it. You gently smiled at her and rubbed her back. You both watched the dying embers until she let out a loud yawn. Seeing as it was close to sunset you started to herd her inside to get her ready for bed. Once she was in her room under her bed covers you came in to check on her.

"How're you feeling kid?" You asked her as you started stroking her head and gently untangling her hair. She hummed and she played with her necklace again. "I'm ok now. I really like the necklace you got me, its really pretty. Thank you, you're like my cool older sibling I saw in movies before." she said as she yawned. You felt your eyes burn as you tired to not cry. "Well I'll happily be your cool older sibling Sammy." You leaned down to kiss her forehead and went back to petting her head.

Once she started to sleep you quietly snuck out of the room and walked to the couch where your pillow and blanket greeted you. You took off your knife and belt and you laid down, making sure to keep your axe within reach. As you slowly felt sleep claim you the wind started picking up. 'guess it's gonna storm tonight' you thought to yourself as you closed your eyes and fell asleep.

[inkydrawss]

I made a cover photo for my swaptale zombie au