#mmau

"Bro, I'm heading out!" Sans called over his shoulder, placing the last of his heavy boxes down on the polished granite counter, "I'll be back soon."

Turning around to face his brother, Papyrus stands with his weight shifted to one side, hand on his hips as he replies, "Where are you going? We still have boxes to move, and we need to start setting the important things up!"

"Like the sock pile?"

"Like the soc-NO, you're not putting your socks all over this nice new house!"

"Sure thing bro," his eyelights twinkling, "I'm going to look around the town, see if there's anything interesting," he continues as he grabs his keys and an apple, before walking back towards the walnut wood door, "I'll only be a couple hours at most, did you want to come with?"

Papyrus smiles, his face softening as he relaxed his posture "No, I have too much to do, you enjoy yourself brother, and bring back some ice cream on your way back! We're having that movie night before we settle in, remember!"

Chuckling, Sans responds "Gotcha bro, see ya."

"See you soon Sans."

Sans walks down the cobblestone street, the hustle and bustle of the street much more lively that the quiet of his home town. It was almost comforting, to see others milling about their own lives; knowing he wasn't the only one in existence, that everyone here had they're own lives, and friends and responsibilities, and that they always would, for as long as the world still spins.

As he takes a bite of his apple, he appreciates how the sun beams cast flames of warms into the misty swirling air. The frost - shimmering in the sunlight - almost seemed to glow despite the overcast weather as it thawed. It seemed almost magical.

He'd never really stopped to appreciate nature before, but now as he took the chance to, it was truly enchantingly enthralling.

As he chews his apple, he comes across a large sign "Lunar Woods Park" it reads in easy to read letters, with small cosmic illustrations surrounding the words, the sign battered at the edges, and the paint chipped.

Shrugging, he decides this is as good as a place as any to look around; apparently the park makes up for a large part of the town and their history, and allegedly there are dilapidated ruins of an old castle, which at one point housed royalty. And if that didn't pique his interest, what would?

He strolls a fair way into the forest, noting how the birch trees shift hues from ochre to phthalo to mulberry and mauve as he reaches the depths of the forest, the branches dancing as they sway in the wind; fallen leaves pirouetting around splintered tree stumps. And in the distance, he sees the shadowy form of a person.

He stops, the leaves ceasing to rustle under his footfall, as the figure turns around, the air feeling somehow colder as he faces him.

He's missing half of his head! A giant spear piercing through the top left of his skull, and poking out the other side - partially through his barren eye socket, and the lower part of his cheek bone and jaw. How was he standing?! No one should be able survive a hit like that, let alone be seemingly fine, standing in shock with his eye large as though he was the abnormal one here!

"Oh my god, are you okay?! No, sorry, stupid question, you should sit down, stay calm, I'll call an ambulance, okay, just try to hold on for me!" Sans panics, his arms flailing in the air and he questions what he's supposed to do in this situation, he wasn't taught this in school!

The monster pauses, his mouth opening and closing a few time, looking remarkably like a fish, before he responds very slowly in a gravelly voice "... you can see me?"

This gave Sans a pause, what on earth did he mean,'you can see me?' obviously, yes, he could, he's just standing there, confused and very much hurt, and could die at any second if he didn't do something soon!-

There's a hand in his sternum. This monster just put his hand through Sans, and not the hollow space where his stomach would be if he had one, no, through his bone. What the hell?

The monster hesitates, looking over his shoulder a few times like he expects someone to peek their head out the bushes and explain it had been a joke this whole time, before hurriedly requesting "Follow me." And starts sprinting further into the shrubbery, their branches cracking as he rushes through them.

Alarmed by the surprising speed this monster seems to possess, Sans hurries after him, twin foot falls thumping and snapping small twigs underfoot.

They don't stop until they reach a clearing, soft warm light cascading down in waterfalls, highlighting wild flowers in purple and gold as the rainbows caress their petals. Trees surrounding the clearing almost dragged inwards towards the meadow as though they were enamoured with the sight, and above it all on a hill stands an antiquated and derelict castle, clearly great once upon a time, yet now fallen into ruin, the hopes and dreams of everything it once stood for in shambles like the castle itself.

In the middle of the flowers sat...another skeleton? Dressed in tyrian purple clothes of an old-timey manner, a circlet of what appeared to be gold encircling their cranium, they stare wistfully into the distance with a singular turquoise eyelight, at the run down castle, seemingly uncaring of their charred bones.

Sans can only stare in horror; this is another monster alarmingly injured, yet completely nonchalant about it!

"Night." The first skeleton calls, causing the other to turn around and stare at them, first with a questioning look, before turning his sight to Sans as the other tilted his head towards him, before his look falls to that of pity.

"Oh, you poor dear," 'Night' whispers, before seeming to steel himself, and turning to Sans and resuming, "I'm Nightmare, this is Horror, and we're two of the ghosts who haunt this park. I'm the head ghost here, in short meaning I'm mostly in charge as I was the first to... arrive here. If you ever need anything explained, you come to me, okay? I'd hate for one of my boys to delude you. If it's not too personal... may I ask? How did you die?"

All three of them pause for a moment before Horror speaks up "Night... he's not dead."

Nightmare stands in shock, eyelight quicky scanning over Sans' form to check if what Horror said is true before Horror continues "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

He shakes his head, tendrils of smoke curling around his back in confusion, "What is you name child?"

"Sans, Sans the skeleton."

This causes a huff of amusement from Horror, and a light smile from Nightmare, before he walks slightly towards the tree edge, and calls out "Cross?"

From the bough of a nearby tree, yet another skeleton appears, his head peering out through the canopy, before he hops down and jogs toward the group.

Presumably Cross, the skeleton is dressed in chainmail and leg armour, with a shockingly pristine cross the colour of molten sunlight around his neck. But what would catch your eyes the most, would have to be the multitude of arrows protruding from his body, thin trails of blood leaking down from where they'd hit. "Yeah?" The walking pin cushion asks.

"Do you know where Dust and Killer are?"

"Out by the front of the park, I think they're looking to annoy people with Killers power."

"Would you be a dear and go fetch them please?"

"Sure." He smirks, and with that, the creature that was once a skeleton metamorphosises into a tiny ball of light, colours barely feasible to the naked eye spiralling in a waltz for one, flashes of black, white and purple all dancing together. The orb spins in a circle for a second before shooting off in the direction towards where Sans had come from at an unattainable speed.

It was only a few seconds before the orb returned, forming the figure of Cross once again, this time with two other skeletons behind him, both stumbling and appearing dizzy, likely from the speed they had just travelled at.

"Ugh, my head! I hate it when you do that!" The first replies, glaring up at Cross through dark eye sockets, only a speck of light visible in his right. He was dressed in a leather jacked and jeans, with a substance that looked like runny mascara trickling down his face, more pressingly, blood covered his abdomen, stemming from what looked like a stab wound on his right side. A target shaped object was shattered like broken glass across his chest; the small pieces all clearly desperate and fighting to stay together, yet unable to due to strain. He stands up and makes a sort of rolling gesture with his wrists, before wiggling his fingers, and leaning down to the other monster, "You good?" He questions.

The other looks up at him with wide eyelights, before nodding, staying silent. He was dressed in a loose, billowing white shirt, black buckled shoes and navy breaches. More confusingly, he was also wearing a grey hoodie, which was clearly too modern for the time era he must have come from going by the style of his clothes. He reaches for his neck, fiddling with a jarringly red rope tied tightly around his throat, too tight for anyone to breathe with anyway, the ends frayed as thought cut with a sharp implement. He presses his weight against the first new arrival, before looking at Sans, and tilting his head in an obvious question, who are you? his eyes ask.

"Who are you?" His friend echoes the unspoken question from the smaller, "Ah, shit, am I not the youngest anymore?" He almost whines, "No fair, I like being the baby!"

"You are a baby." The so far unspoken skeleton pipes up, his voice sounding hoarse and like it had been rubbed raw. It likely had, going by the noose around his throat. He makes a face of displeasure at the sound of his voice, his hands going to rub at it, his eyes downturned.

"Big baby." Horror continues. And runny mascara makes a noise of dramatically feigned astonishment.

"How DARE you!" He pulls his hand up over where his soul would be as he pretends to go faint, fanning himself with his free hand. "No, but like, actually, who he?" He calms down and points to Sans.

"Sans." Sans very uncreatively states.

"Sans, eh? Pretty name for a pretty face." He flirts as he get up in Sans' face, eye sockets half lidded as he stares at him with a smirk on his face. "How'd a fine thing like you end up dead here then?"

"Not dead Killz." Horror mutters under his breath, meaning this is probably Killer, and the time traveller over there is Dust, morbid names they have here.

"Wot."

"I'm not dead." Sans very simply states.

"Then how are you... here?? Seeing us??"

"I suppose that means you've never seen anything like this either? How about you Dust? Cross?" Nightmare queries.

Both Skeletons addressed shake their heads.

Nightmare turns to Sans again, "Do you have any idea why this may be? Have you seen any ghosts before?"

"No clue, and not to my knowledge? I'm new in town, just moved in with my brother, and sure, I saw some strange looking folks when I was out, but I didn't really think anything of it? Not until now anyway..."

The ghosts all pause, staring at each other with silent queries and conversations brewing in they're eyes, before Nightmare once again speaks in his almost melodic voice,