Skeleton Ghost

Misinformation

((I wrote this chapter months before the Tumblr Sexyman contest, by the way. The reference to Tumblr is just irony. If you know what I'm talking about.. then you know.))

Walking into the warehouse, Sans could see all manner of merchandise and booths set up, even a few small shops around the place. The floor was a cold stone, possibly polished granite or concrete, and even wilder outfits were roaming about. He could see a few.. cone shaped bots with orbs placed on their bodies that flashed and glowed white, faces consisting of cameras and.. sticks. They were absurd, yet seemed to be a favorite.

He ducked around a small group of humans dressed in shaggy brown furred outfits as Frisk did an internal double take.
Those are Chewbaccas? What? I thought this was some kind of.. OC con.
I don't know what anything is. Sans stressed.

Someone dressed in green with purple painted skin darted past him, shouting at someone as she ran. Sans was bewildered at the chaos, tempted to nap through it.

...And then they spotted it.
The stand at the end of a row, looking somewhat rushed in construction and posted in photos instead of art. The people manning it were dressed mostly in purple and largely casual clothing, instead talking about.. oh. Oh no.
Sans shrank into his hood, pulling it as far down as he could. He didn't have any desire to be discovered.

It was some sort of news stand or just general info, except it was focused entirely on everything the humans knew about monsters. Media, clips of videos, pictures, news articles, and of course he was in there.

I just had to get involved before all this, huh?
That crazy guy deserved a bad time, though.
Don't. Don't say that.
Frisk retreated, sensing the pain the comment brought him.
I'm sorry.
He shook his skull, walking past it and peering at the other stalls and menagerie.

"Hey you!"
Oh no. He turned, seeing the eyes on him. The human walked over, waving a packet.
"Did you know monsters are real?"
"Oh yeah, I'm quite familiar with the subject, thank you!" He explained quickly, speeding up.
"No, there's no reason to be afraid, they're quite friendly! They come from a miniature civilization under a mountain! Just look!"

A pamphlet was thrust into his face from behind, forcing the skeleton to slide to a stop.
He pushed it downwards and sighed.
"Buddy, I'm not afraid of anything. I have personal reasons for not wanting to get a paper packet in my face, thanks."

"Oh, I'm sorry I pushed. Most people are scared, you know? Think it's demons coming out of the pits and the apocalypse is coming. That's all a bunch of christan nonsense! They're like people- and they really want out of their tiny cave, they even have missing folks that just disappeared into the wild like animals, hah!"

"That phrasing's a bit rude, isn't it? Monsters aren't animals." Sans pointed out somewhat defensively.
"Oh no, they're not. They're like human/animal hybrids. A lot of people are calling them the real furries, if you get what I mean."

".. They're not hybrids either. They're just people. If anything, by direct comparison most humans act more feral than the typical monster."
"What, you think you're an expert?" The man asked genuinely.
Sans hesitated. "Not really, but you did make a factually incorrect and slightly offensive statement."
"I'm just talking about their version of people running away from home."

"What?" He blinked, bewildered. "It's not a version of running away from home- hell, a good portion of those missing may have gotten lost in their excitement to explore the place. Imagine living your whole life in a small.. country and then realize there's a country next to you that's more than a hundred times bigger than what you can even fathom. It's easy to underestimate distances that way."