curiosity

Papyrus was a naturally curious peerson. He also dreamed of becoming a detective. When he heard that there had recently been a disappearance on Mt Ebbot, he was ecstatic. Now was his chance! He lived at the base of Mt Ebbot, and though he wasn’t supposed to, he had climbed and hiked the animal trails with Sans enough that he felt confident he could find the missing girl. 

Papyrus was not a slacker, and he wasn’t stupid. He made sure to find out as much information as he could about the disappearance. The girl he was looking for a wolf-like monster named Ashley Forrest. Unlike most animalistic monsters, due to some interesting parents and grandparents, she had salmon-colored horns and a pair of white, feathery wings. Ashley had two older brothers, but apparently her parents had died in a car accident a few years ago. According to her brothers testimonies, Ashley had no reason to run away. She was doing good in school, had a couple close friends, was working on a passio project that she was close to finishing, there was an AJR concert coming up that she was excited about going to… 

So why would she climb the mountain? Everyone knew it was a suicide mission to try. Papyrus felt that there was missing information. He wanted to interview the brothers himself. When he asked Wings about it, though, Wings had refused. Apparently, eleven was not the appropriate age to start his career at. Papyrus would have to make do with what information he could get from the newspapers and youtube videos that covered the disappearance. 

On the day of the disappearance, Ashley had decided to go on a walk. This was, according to her brothers, a normal thing for her to do. She had told Derek, the middle child, that she would be trying out a new trail, and might be out longer than usual. So when she didn’t return when expected, the brothers thought nothing of it. It was only when it started getting dark that they began to worry, though they still didn’t go to tell anyone until the next day. 

In Papyrus’s opinion, it was a pretty average sounding case. At least for disappearances in the woods. He heard that kind of story all the time on the Mr. Ballen podcast. Missing information or not, he was confident he could solve it. Next step: explore the mountain and look for any clues as to what might have happened. The Forrest’s lived on the same side of the mountain, just across the city and a bit farther. Since Papyrus couldn’t drive himself over there, he would have to get Wings to.

Wings refused. He asked Sans, but they only had a learner’s permit and since Wings was good friends with the police chief, they didn’t want to rish getting caught. Papyrus would have to walk. On the bright side, he was good at walking. Or, and Papryus was really proud of himself for coming up with this, he could climb to the top of the mountain and then climb down to where he needed to be! That would save so much time! AND he wouldn’t have to worry about somebody trying to stop him and find his parent! He was so smart. Now, he just needed to wait for the right moment to sneak away…

Unyne and Alphys were visiting the skeletons’ home. Papyrus had a gut feeling this was what he’d been waiting for. He went to his room and dumped out his school backpack. He didn’t really know what he should take with him, but he knew when people set out to walk somewhere in movies they packed things like rope and food. So, Papyrus did his best to come up with survival gear like he had seen. There was no rope, but shoelaces should do the trick. He wasn’t allowed to touch the knives or lighters, but flashlights could probably be a good standin for a campfire if he needed one, and he didn’t know how to use a knife safely anyway. He had to bring along Fluffy Bunny, his stuffed animal and sidekick. As for food, he put some Lucky Charms in a sandwich baggy. That should be enough, it wasn’t like he planned on spending the night in the woods or anything.

Then, when Papyrus thought everyone was sufficiently distracted, he declared he was going to go train, and set off into the woods. 

Climbing the mountain was a lot harder than expected. He wanted to go straight to the top, so Papyrus wasn’t following a trail or anything. Usually, when he and Sans came out here, they stuck near thee base and explored the flatter areas. Going uphill was different to that. It was more tiring and slow, and when he had followed one of the animal trails for a bit it had been quicker but now that he had to make his way through the forest’s underbrush it was getting tedious.

Papyrus wasn’t a quitter, though! He could do it! He kept telling himself this as the excitement wore off, and he began to get tired… though he began to have doubts. The trees blocked his view of the top of the mountain, so he couldn’t see how close he was getting, and it felt like he’d been walking for hours… He found a log and sat on it to catch his breath for a minute. It was a lot harder to climb a mountain than he thought it would be. It was taking a lot longer than he had expected. He was beginning to wonder if he was even making progress. He sat there for a few minutes, pondering whether or not to just turn around and go back home…

But that was a quitter’s attitude! Papyrus shook his head and stood. He wasn’t a quitter! He wasn’t a lazybones, like Sans tended to be now that they were getting older! He was the Great Papyrus! Papyrus slung his orange-red scarf over his shoulder, rolled his sweater sleeves up, and began to march onward again, with a renewed sense of purpose. The Great Papyrus couldn’t just stop! He had to find the missing girl!

The forest didn’t change much. He knew he had to be making progress, because he had been going uphill and in the same direction, but if he hadn’t been so certain he would have wondered if he was even moving. Occasionally, he would pass a fallen tree or a boulder or even the creek that flowed down passed his house and into Ebbot River. 

Papyrus had been walking for several hours. He wasn’t sure how many hours, but he knew he had to have been walking for a few because when he left it had been just after lunchtime and now the sun was beginning to sink. He sighed. He would have to set up a camp for the night sometime. This was not going to plan at all. That’s when he saw it— a shadow in the shape of a triangle had moved. Shadows weren’t supposed to move that way. It had gone to the right, but still up the mountain, so Papyrus decided following it wouldn’t put him off course too far.

He walked a little faster, searching for where the shadow might have gone. He saw it again farther to the right, still going up the mountaint but turning more diagonally, and it was attached to a longer bit of shadow that stretched just far enough out of the natural shadows to confirm that it wasn’t normal. He followed it, beginning to move faster. The more he followed, the more he began to believe that it was something’s tail. A pointed tail that blended in with the shadows. 

As he followed it began to dawn on him that he was getting distracted and off course. On top of that, the sun had officially set, and he had to bring out his flashlight. Maybe the creature was a lead? Yeah, that worked. Mysterious thing on the mountain where someone had disappeared, definitely a lead. Flicking the flashlight on, he scanned the forest for any sign of what he’d been following. There— movement to his left! He dashed after it. It did not occur to him that he should probably be afraid of it.

After a few minutes of running, Papyrus stopped. He was standing outside of the entrance to a cave. Did the creature go in there? He scanned the trees around him, but there was nothing. Turning back to the cave entrace, he flashed his light and saw that it wasn’t that big. He walked inside, looking around for any sign of movement, but there was nothing but a large hole. Disappointed, Papyrus turned to leave.

He stopped dead in his tracks. There, in the entrance, was a solid wall of shadow. All that stood out was a large, toothy grin and a pair of mismatched eyes— pink and yellow. Papyrus took a step back. Should he be scared of it? He didn’t want to be, but he was. There was a flash of movement, and he realised that the pointed tail he had been following belong to what was before him. 

Papyrus smiled tentatively at it. He had followed it, so he really shouldn’t be scared of it. If it wanted to hurt him, wouldn’t it have already? He said hello to the thing before him, but it didn’t respond. The two stared at each other in silence for a while… This was weird, Papyrus didn’t like this, and now he was beginning to worry about whether he’d be able to get home. He asked the creature if it would please move out of the way and let him out, but it didn’t. 

Papyrus frowned, and looked around the small cavern again. All that was there was himself, the shadow thing with weird eyes, some vines growing along the floor, and the hole. He turned back to face the creature again, and was startled to find that it had moved closer. Before he could think about it, he took another few steps backward and tripped over a vine. With a jolt of fear, he realised he was falling. Falling farther than he should have… Falling into the hole… Above him, pink and yellow eyes stared at him with a toothy grin. From this angle, he recognised that it had cat ears.