From War to Science {UNDERTALE}

War

Part 1: The Refuge

~

In retrospect, they should have seen it coming.

Tensions had been growing between the monsters and the humans, and they had been lucky to keep out of most of the trouble. Skeletons were, truth be told, in a funny place. After all, humans also had skeletons, but it was more a part of them rather than their whole being. Not to mention that theirs were much more solid; the skeletons in the village had a similar makeup to monsters: magic and dust. How it came to be that way, no one knew, and so long as they had their security from the war, there was no reason for them to question it. They were a strange mixture of monster and human, and both sides of the war seemed to recognize that and let them be.

But, of course, the humans were the ones to ruin that.

~

He was particularly unlucky. He was born into the Gaster clan. At home, he regularly impressed his family with his articulacy and turns of phrase. He was good at telling stories, and every now and again he would manage a good joke.

In the village, he was useless.

You see, his particularly family tree had a strange quirk. While most skeletons had particular cadences and phrases common only to their clans—with enough variance that they needed a "common" dialect—the Gasters went above and beyond: they signed their language. The story was that several of their ancestors had been mute, but he suspected it was more out of defiance rather than necessity. Regardless, it made any trip to the village a nightmare. He could manage a few bits of garbled Arial, enough to get what he needed, but ultimately he was left silent, too proud to admit that languages did not come naturally to him.

In later years, he would regret not trying harder to learn. It might have made all the difference.

It was the smell of smoke that woke him that morning, and the cries from the village that got him out of bed. His sockets were wide with horror as he saw the scene outside his window—smoke pouring from windows, roofs licked with flames, skeletons running for cover as an army of humans swarmed their village. Some fought back, but by the time he tore himself away, the ground was already powdered white with dust.

They needed to get out.

He ran through the house, already in silent chaos. His mother was signing comforting things to his sisters, his father's hands moving steadily as he came up with a plan of attack. Enough of them could fight, so they would defend the ones that couldn't. Hopefully the clan could make it to the forest, and after that—

He'd never been certain about the noises his family could make. As the wall to their house collapsed, crushing his father beneath it mid-sign, he found that screaming was one of them.

A wave of humans came through the new opening, their magicians and warriors already attacking. Without thinking, he shot a slew of bones at the human nearest to him.

Oh, god.

Humans splatter.

He had no time to be horrified by the blood covering him. His attack had rendered them even more dangerous in the human's eyes, and the slaughter truly begun. He shot as many bones as he could, impaling a few humans, but not nearly enough. More and more dust filled the air, clinging to him, coating his bones and clothing. As he squinted through the clouds of dust and smoke, he caught a glimpse of his mother's hand, signing one thing.