Amnesia (Sans x Reader)

Chapter 3: History Lessons and Moral Debates

     Bonjour, Readers!

     Sorry that this one is a little short. I was kind of sick, and on top of that had to rewrite what I had so far.

      Last chapter Toriel left you home alone and, after deciding that reading about snails was boring, you started to poke around the house a bit. You have a little panic attack along with some memory flashbacks after opening the knife drawer. Seeking some comfort, you run back to your room and pull out your soul. After calming down, you go back to poking around and get caught up in your reflection for a hot minute before Toriel returns home.

      Enjoy the chapter!

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     With the snail pie baked and almost immediately consumed—it was surprisingly good. Who knew garlic and snails went so well together?—you and Toriel settled in front of the fireplace with books, her in the armchair and you lying across the soft rug. You had taken the opportunity to pick up one of the books that had caught your eye earlier today, The History of the Underground. After all, it didn't exactly hurt to learn a bit about the place you had woken up in. Had... fallen into? You still didn't remember anything from before the bed of flowers, so you just had to take Toriel's word for it. She seemed to know what she was talking about.

     You were wrapped up in the story of the Great War almost immediately, the recounting of humanity's turning against its sister species mesmerizing you with fiction-worthy writing. Sympathy blossomed in your soul when you read about how the mages convinced man to fear monsters, twisting the truth of monsters being able to absorb human souls. They could, but it took so much effort and was much too risky for just any of them to attempt. Nevertheless, humanity grew terrified of the possibilities and decided to act. Led by a group of seven mages, the kingdoms of man slaughtered a great deal of the monster population. It wasn't until humanity had managed to push the surviving monsters all the way back to their capital at Mt. Ebott that the mages decided that, instead of giving the monsters the mercy of a quick death, they would lock the remaining population in the caverns below their capital. The group erected a barrier that would keep the monsters contained for thousands of years, trapped under the mountain the had looked to for salvation.

     The earlier years were the most difficult. While the king had built up supplies in case of siege, there weren't enough sustainable sources of food to support the few thousand monsters now in the Underground. Hundreds died from magic deficiency, starvation, falling down... It was from acts of desperation that the monster's found their main food sources, edible plants and underground creatures capable of taking in and repurposing the ambient magic of the Underground. Agriculture was set up, housing was built, and hope started to return to monster-kind. And with prosperity came a prince.

     The prince had brought hope to the inhabitants of the Underground. Monster-kind had come to terms with their situation and began to flourish and adapt, the presence of the new prince giving them the hope they needed to keep going. Construction began on a new capital, with more housing that would be capable of holding the last of the displaced monsters.

     And then a human fell.

     The prince found them, terrified and hurt, and offered them help. In the months that followed, while the human was healing, they grew close to the members of the royal family. The king and queen adopted the human as their own and no ill intent was shown towards the newest member of the royal family. After all, they were only a child who could find no responsibility for the sins of their ancestors.

     A few more years pass peacefully. Construction on the capital is almost completed, and the royal family moves into the new palace. Before long, though, the human they adopted begins to grow ill. No amount of monster food or healing magic seemed to remedy the sickness, however, and the human passed away.

     The prince, in his grief, decided to try and take the human's body back to the village they were born in to bury them properly. He absorbed their soul without his parents' knowledge and crossed the barrier with the human's corpse in his arms. As soon as the humans from the village saw the prince with his sibling's corpse they panicked and attacked him. The prince fled the village with the human's body but mortally wounded. He managed to make it back to the entrance of the underground where he met his frantic parents and promptly died in their arms.

     The king, distraught by the death of his two children in the span of less than a day, declared war against humanity and any human who would fall into the Underground for murdering his firstborn child. The queen opposed his ruling, claiming that death could not be made right by more death, but the king had most of the citizens of the Underground on his side. Unable to bear standing next to someone who wished slaughter upon an entire species, the queen put herself into exile.

     Just how big was the Underground? You could have sworn the book described it as too small to fit all of monster-kind--at least not comfortably--but they had room for a queen to put herself into exile? That seemed a little contradictory.

    "Hey, Toriel?" you ask, looking up at the monster in question.

     She sets down her own book, looking at you through the small frames of her reading glasses. "What is it, my child?"

     You sit up, propping yourself up on your palms. "Just how big is the Underground?"

     "Well..." Toriel's eyes narrow. "It is possible to get to New Home from here in two or three days if you make haste. It would take perhaps two weeks if you were to take your time and visit every single monster in the Underground. Why do you ask, child?"

     "Wow, that's... really not that big. And every single monster manages to fit down here?" How many did the book say originally came down here? Thousands, tens of thousands?

     Toriel gives you a small smile. "Monsters do not reproduce as much as humans, so the population has barely risen above the original amount when we were trapped down here. It is enough, cramped as it may be."

     You turned your gaze back to the book resting on your lap. Sure, the Underground wasn't ideal, but... was there any guarantee that the surface would be better? Despite your lack of memory, you couldn't help but feel like humans wouldn't exactly be welcoming to the monsters. There would still be that divide of fear the history book had talked about, unless humanity had begun to regret the mistakes of their ancestors.

    Then again, you were reading a history book from the point of view of the losers when, normally, history was written by the victors. The events of the Great War could have been written entirely different on the surface. Humanity could have been made out as entirely justified, the visage of monsterkind twisted into bloodthirsty beasts who would have wanted nothing more than to rip out your soul and devour your dead carcass. If that was the case, humanity would once again react with fear and scorn. Monsters could be forced back under Mt. Ebott or even slaughtered like cattle.

     "Are you alright, my child?"

     You blinked your eyes back into focus, looking over at Toriel who was now sporting a look of concern on her features. Which would humanity see first? The kind, motherly aura Toriel gave off, or her towering height and pointy canines? Would they even care about her hopes and dreams, or would they just slaughter her out of fear for their own souls being stolen from their chest?

     A smile was forced onto your feature. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just spacing out."

     You bent back over your book, pretending to read but not really seeing the words, your mind far too preoccupied with unanswered questions and the worries of possibilities

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     Question of the chapter time!!

     What is your favorite color? Are there any colors that you dislike?

     Contrary to the obvious, I'm actually going to be using this question boi. If I get answers, that is.

     See you all in two weeks!

     —Kat