Four Years 'Til (Papyrus x Reader)

The Fight

•Four Years Before•

A day... that's all it took for my world to come crashing down.

A week... was all it took for me to fear the door.

Six months... was all it took for me to become numb.

A year... was all it took for them to find me.

I wasn't sure how to feel when the doors opened to new faces, fear silencing my thoughts. A man and a woman in uniform, police officers I quickly recognized as they came to my sides. Everything after was a blur until I was sitting in a room, a blanket around me but not warming me up as it was supposed to. A cold numbness sticking to my skin.

My family, who I thought I would never see again, was there, rushing and fussing around me, but they all seemed to be miles away. They felt like strangers. Their voices were mumbles and were muffled by the loud footsteps outside the door. Their soft and caring touches felt no different as they touched the aches on my skin. When a tall woman, whose name simply didn't stick, asked me questions I found it hard to answer. The questions were simple but I felt this heavy weight in my chest, on my shoulders, the base of my skull, and the depths of my eyes, and I couldn't get the correct words out.

I felt frozen as I was escorted away, the dark cloud of their presence suffocating despite it no longer hovering over me.

When they were dragged away to be held behind bars for the rest of their life, I expected to feel something... healing, less weight, fucking anything. But, I felt the same. I shied away from my family's soft touches without thinking and felt my chest tighten even more at their broken faces. My mother was the one to break the moment of silent gazes by pulling me into her chest. It was peaceful against her warm clothes when all I could hear was her heartbeat. I felt like a child, more so as I started crying. More comforting heat started to surround me and I shattered in their arms. I sensed a bit of themselves doing so as well.

Once I returned home, I found it rather strange... the feelings of terror in the walls of my own room. The clean and finely pressed sheets brought no comfort. The dark felt both heavy and light, as if I was spinning endlessly and couldn't stop myself. There was no danger but I felt as if I needed to run. Maybe it was the darker shadows that seemed to hold nothing and everything in them as I stared. Or it could be the small noises that came from the house itself but despite that always spiked my heartbeat.

I had thought that my home would feel comforting... just like I thought I'd feel better when justice was served. It made sense that both of those hopes fell short. No one really understood what I was going through... they were trying but no one knew how to handle a situation like mine. There was no rush or force trying to get me to heal faster. But, it also felt as if there was no improvement at all.

My parents told me they could see my progress, that certain things no longer affected me. The environmental changes, like the decline of me flinching with loud noises, or me actually meeting their eyes after the first few months and gradually holding it okay within the second year. I couldn't say I didn't feel better, but mentally I still felt trapped. With the public eye having been so present, I felt as if everyone in this city still saw me as this trapped girl.

They all knew what happened to me. It had been a year... I was supposed to be dead... Every stranger has grieved the loss.

They all called my return a miracle, a blessing, the prayer's result. That never sat right with me... This was no act of god... No other force kept me alive...

It's as if they were happy ¥¥#*$ didn't make the decision to end my life. Giving them the credit for letting me live.

As if I was simply taken for the ride and had no fight...

...

4 years later... They still look at me with pity.