I'm not one of you <Frans>

CHAPTER 24: Human Capture Zone

Location: Unknown
Time: 5:48. Is it in the morning or at night? How long have I been asleep?
The small wall-clock ticks carry on for forever, counting down the time toward my own demise.

Waking up with a painfully dreadful headache, I groaned loudly and held my head in pain, feeling the large knot on the side of it where something had hit me with brute force. I looked down on the light brown, wooden floorboards, and I almost scrambled away in fear of being back at the old Inn once more. Noticing the different wallpaper, I assumed I was in the clear when it came to being back at the Inn. "Oh boy, that scared me." I held my chest and exhaled loudly.

But why was I on the floor? My back aches, too. I must have twisted it and slept on it wrong.

The constant ticking in the background gave me hope for a sense of time in the underground, but as I looked towards the wall clock behind me slowly, I could see large bones blocking the way. Blue ones, however, this time. I looked past them with a nervous swallow of my saliva going closer to them with caution, and squinted my eyes to read the time. "5:48." I read aloud to myself. "Is that... am? Or pm?" I asked myself.

I touched the blue bone, and jumped back, hissing in pain once it sent a shock of uncomfort through my hand that had touched it with. "Ow! What the heck?" I looked at it with curiosity. I was careful not to touch the blue bone, and I held my hand injured back, rubbing the injured part to soothe it. "That makes my ankle and my hand now..." I grumbled angrily. "What next?" I sighed, staring into the blue glow of the bone, contrasting to the white ones that stood in very spaced intervals. "It seems like the same substance as the echoing flowers back in the other place..." I trailed off, trying to make connections with substances I was completely foreign with. "But it can't be. I touched the flower. It didn't hurt..." I hummed, narrowing my eyes and turning towards the other end of the wall.

I looked at the strange, new room with curiosity. "Maybe that skeleton brought me here—..." I said, trailing off.

"Yeah. Make yourself at home there, girly." I whipped my head around at the familiar deep voice of that skeleton that attacked me in the caverns of that dark place. "Because you'll be here for a loooong time." He grinned, sitting in a chair with his hands in his hoodie pockets. His gray hood was up, and his purple eye was aflame. He chuckled a bit, turning to face his right shoulder, and grinning even more. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her yet, actually." He said. "I'll just bullshit it." He laughed.

"Who are you??" I said, limping towards the bones. "And why are you keeping me here?" I asked helplessly. "Are you going to kill me like you did all those innocent people?!" I yelled slightly. He seemed taken aback, as if something I said surprised him and humored him at the same time. He grinned the same grin he did a few moments ago, it seemed like everything was amusing to him.

"You don't have to play dumb with me, Girly. I know you can't forget me." His deep voice said as he put his right foot on his left femur and slouched back, lazily. "And you can't really talk, you know..." He said. "You killed them when they were just as innocent. You have no room to say what I did was wrong." He chuckled, shaking his head. "You know..." He trailed off, "In ancient Chinese times, they would tie their prisoners down to the ground, and feed them every single day." He said, looking at me with mad eyes. "However, they would plant bamboo under them, and eventually the bamboo would grow right through their bodies. Painfully and slowly, day after wretched day."

I stayed silent as he continued looking at me. I was visibly shaking. My determination was nothing compared to what he probably possessed. I felt weak in his presence, as if he could somehow get behind those bones in an instant, despite them causing pain to the touch.  I looked around, however, no escape looked possible.

"If you're looking for a way out, it's a waste of time. Papyrus made sure to check for all possibilities of escape." He said, not looking at me, but around the room. "You did a good job." He grinned, looking over his shoulder slightly.

I teetered I'm asking the question on who this Papyrus fellow was, but it seemed like the short skeleton was very unstable mental wise. His constant grins, his sadistic ideals. He was clearly criminally insane and needed help. "First you ask who I am, are you going to say you don't know Papyrus too?" He laughed, and I looked at him with worried, scared eyes. If he was unstable, that meant he was just as unpredictable. The criminally insane is a ground that you don't want to mess with if you don't have experience.

"I-If you don't mind me asking..." I spoke softly. "Who is this Papyrus?" I asked. In a brief moment of hesitation, he stood up slowly, and looked over me with an intimidating stare. He seemed to get very angry, very fast.

"I'm sick of your little game." He muttered, his hands still in his hoodie pockets. He reached through the blue bone, obviously uninjured towards me swiftly, and picked me up by my sweater shirt collar with his fist, bringing me close to the bars. "You can say any shit you want, but I'll never let you even say his name. Capiche?" A bead of sweat dropped down my face was his neared my face towards the blue bones.

He brought his face close, his eyes held a story of pain and sorrow, the clear opposite of the permanent smile spread across of this face. "I—..!" I said, but my voice caught in my throat at the sheer terror from my trembling limbs. I couldn't speak! I couldn't say anything.

"You're not so powerful now, are ya Girly?" He grinned slightly, bringing me closer to the bones. I was practically touching it. I started breathing heavily, afraid of the pain it brought to my hand earlier. "Not without your toys." He said, throwing me back harshly, and causing me to fly back and land with a painful thump on my shoulder. "You'll never see the surface again. I can make sure of that." He spat towards me, standing back up slowly as I looked down slightly from my rag doll position on the floor. I was so terrified, I couldn't move. Was I really going to die here?

It was then, I blinked, and he was no longer there. The skeleton was gone.