It's been a year since that silent night.
Shortly after that, the silence allowed me to conduct a research plan that eventually directed me towards the "spotlights" that Mettaton used, all invented by Miss Alphys herself. And Miss Alphys would be absolutely thrilled at the fact that her invention helped to stop all of this. Using Miss Alphys' spotlights as a prototype, I enlisted Papyrus, and he gladly helped me design an amplified version of them in the quickest amount of time possible. After about two weeks of combining some of the initial compounds Alphys had used, they were ready. And they would have been ready if it weren't for Chara, understandably furious that he wasn't allowed to use them yet, toying with it and receiving temporary blindness even with the warnings and precautions I'd inscribed on the side. After the dark circle in the center of his vision dissipated- which took about an hour- I realized what he'd done was only a portion of its full brightness. I promised Chara that I would be the one to use it, that my vision was indispensable compared to his. After a few hours of discussion, Chara still vehemently insisted that he wanted, no, he needed to use it. And I smiled. I knew I would do the exact same thing had I been in his situation.
The first thing I did was take Jessica's headphones and my computer- not Jessica's computer- and access Jessica's webpage to where anything I said into the computer's microphone could be transmitted to the rest of the speakers in the city's PA system. After instructing everyone to evacuate the premises around the arena, Undyne and I accompanied Chara not only to assist him in carrying his machine, but also to lure Betty there. However, we left the premises shortly before Chara took his position by the machine. Needless to say, Betty wouldn't resist the chance for a rematch against her three biggest aggressors, and when she ambled her way over, Chara activated the machine. Nothing was left of Betty but ashes, and I would have seen it for myself if the floaters still lingering in my own eyes from the machine's blast hadn't blocked the tears of joy from coming down.
But there were no celebrations. While Undyne and I managed to recover from our temporary vision loss within a few hours, there was not even a sense of recovery from Chara. From now on, he would have to come with me to undergo a rigorous rehabilitation process with me for at least an hour each day. I managed to teach him Braille, but it was him who managed to come up with most of his adaptations to survive everyday life. A part of me felt horrible that he was blind, that he wasn't able to see what was coming in those next few months.
We began to change. For the first time in what seemed like eternity, we weren't nothing anymore. We started to adopt real family dynamics. Toriel and Asgore, ever since Asriel broke out of his shell of HATE, started to adopt more matrimonial patterns. For the first time, their children seemed relaxed, and even Chara seemed so, which was extremely hard since he contracted his blindness. For the first time, it seemed that Chara could confide in the family structure they'd had before everything fell apart, since before Chara and Asriel both died for the first time. While I'm not completely a stickler to tradition, there was something unmistakable in the relief that crossed Chara's face when Asgore took Toriel out to the backyard… it was finally safe to do so… for a dance. (Of course, I'd taught Asgore his signature tango swoop.) Professionally, however, Toriel and Asgore became figureheads when it came to their royalty, serving in what would be considered layman's' jobs compared to their former royal status. While Toriel remained in her academy, Asgore became the head of the Human Security Organization, and, while the Anti-Monster Department has not become completely dismantled, he is on the verge of doing so. I'm glad to help him, but some nights he pushes me away despite knowing that I can handle a certain subject, such as the effects of anti-monster weapons on the chemistry of the monster body, better than he can. But we're still emphatically grateful for Asgore's work.
Asriel, to his family's surprise, has graduated elementary school ahead of time, while Chara was still in the fourth grade. So far, he has done exemplary work when it comes to art, and he has in fact been selected for the middle school's gifted art program despite only being ten years old. In addition, he has joined the school choir and registered to three volunteering organizations, bringing an almost devout sort of membership to them, and is now bent on starting his own novel to chronicle his own fantasy story. But there is still undoubtedly something wrong. Sometimes, when his many friends would come over to play with him and Chara (but mostly to enjoy Asriel's company and disposition), an innocuous comment about a javelin or even a track meet would cause Asriel to excuse himself to the bathroom before the inevitable vomiting noise sent Toriel and I rushing upstairs. And one day, I saw Asgore worriedly searching on the Internet searching for causes to perfectionism in children, although I knew deep down both him and I knew the answer.
After a recent bout of harassment in the police force due to Asgore's new leadership in the Human Security Organization, Undyne sought out new employment in the Army, which she claimed was "gonna happen anyway." She has petitioned to put in her own Monster Squadron due to the overwhelming number of monsters who have already served in the siege craving for some sort of normality by joining the Army. She would often bring a new friend home from the recruitment station, with Undyne grumbling the next morning about how "she wasn't ready" and how her friend wouldn't be back. And when she finally did go to the Army, it was a tearful goodbye from back home, but something told me- no, yelled at me- that she would be happier in some other corner of the globe. Still, she's sent us letters once a week, although for her, words never really showed how happy she was.
But us?
We became much less silent, and in fact developed an unspoken code that dictated that no secrets were permitted across us. Soon, as we began to clean the things out of Sans' room, we started to share everything that we had held back from each other during the siege. With every morning cup of coffee that I had, Papyrus went out of his way to prepare breakfast, and during those almost-sacred meals, we would pour out every thought that had been running through our heads that wasn't too terrifying to put into any sort of conversation. As I helped him get back in the groove with his middle school schedule, he agreed to assist me in some of his experiments. During the times to where Grief would give us a wallop out of nowhere, we would whisper half-truths to each other about how everything would be alright and give complete truths about how we would be there for each other. And we poured not just the Grief, but everything else inside us into other areas of our lives. Papyrus poured his into his studies, during which he received a scholarship paying for his entire first year of college. In addition, he poured his into his food, and has been assigned, to his great delight, as the family chef. Like Asriel, he has no shortage of friends, and it is this accomplishment that makes me smile the most. As for me? While science is still something close to a viable obsession for me, I developed a love for music that began when Undyne taught me a few simple, rudimentary piano chords. Eventually, I moved to vocals after being told once, exactly once, that my voice had some sort of potential. Personally, I hated its sound, but as much as I hated it, Papyrus goaded me to keep going. And so, while I hated the sound streaming out of my throat, I learned to love the act of singing. With this and what has happened into this book feeding into song lyrics, I produced an album, which is an awkward, uncomfortable secret that I very often prefer to hide from those who even slightly know me. But I loved the act of producing something, of creating something that gradually, I learned other people loved. And if I could do that- if I could keep myself in the realm of sanity while feeding both of the sides of me at once- then it was enough. God, it was enough.
International assistance, for the first time, poured in. And it wasn't only from the Human Security Organization. For those few months, they hounded me, and the story that you have read and the story that I have shared with the world poured out of my mouth, with eyewitness accounts from others filling in the bits I forgot. My story has now reached across the world, hopefully starting a better world, or at least a little understanding, for monsterkind. And if that isn't enough for me, I don't know what is.
And it was in those months that Papyrus came up to me.
He poured a hot cup of coffee for me,
black with two creams like he'd memorized from the very first time he was allowed to use the coffee machine,
and the conversation afterwards looked something
like
this:
"Hey, Dad?"
"Yes, son?"
"You ever think of writing a book?"