Monster Age

by GR Griffin

  It was the longest ride ever back home with Asgore taking the lead and Papyrus close behind. For such a goofy skeleton, he was quite the responsible driver. The radio went off and remained off for the entire journey, they had enough on their mind without being bombarded by obnoxious adverts and irritating teen superstars. The empty roads felt drawn out, making the trip back feel longer by threefold. All of them felt the worry of losing their human friend, but Toriel felt it for every single second she was in the passenger seat. Eight children gone. She did not want to make it a ninth. Toriel would not allow anyone to take Fleck away from her.

  It did not help that along the way they passed a park. Toriel could not force herself to look away even if she wanted to. Children playing tag and hide-and-seek on the fields. Families on blankets and benches, walking dogs and pushing prams. Kids on slides, playparks, and swings, being pushed by friends, mothers and fathers. For one moment, Toriel looked at a mother pushing her child on the swing and saw herself and Fleck. Words could not describe how badly Toriel wanted that to be true, to have Fleck back in her arms, to hear the sound of their voice, their laughter, their hollers of joy. Fleck was not even related to her, they were not Toriel’s real child or even a part of her species, but none of that mattered, she cared for Fleck as if they were her own. Family was not measured in flesh and blood, but in love. Toriel looked again and saw herself and Fleck switch back to a different mother and a different child. The heartache only grew more painful.

  They made it home; Asgore pulled up skewed on the driveway, leaving a skid mark and damaging the edge of the front garden. Toriel leapt out and rushed through the front door the second the car screeched to a halt, leaving both doors open behind her. Asgore glanced at Alphys and Undyne through the rear-view mirror, as if he expected them to know the reasoning behind Toriel’s frantic attitude, which they answered with blank gazes. Papyrus pulled up on the curve out front and Sans sprang over the car door.

  Asgore crept through the main entrance and into the hall, the others lined up behind his massive frame. From the living room, the racket of falling hardcovers and flicking pages pulsed the air. Asgore peeked around the corner to the sight of Toriel ransacking the shelves, pulling out books, scanning covers, flicking through pages, tossing them down. She had already cleared out the top two rows. Books littering the floor; open and closed, upwards and downwards. It was a battlefield and the books were its casualties.

  “Where is it?” Toriel muttered to herself, flinging another book over her shoulder. “It is here somewhere… I am sure of it…”

  Everyone else stood watching by the doorway. Should they talk to her? Should they approach? Or should they stand back and let her go through the motions?

  “Tori?” Sans, at Asgore’s side, asked. “You should chill out and tell us exactly what you’re looking for. Maybe we can help?”

  Sans’s words fell on deaf ears, and hers were too big to not hear them. Toriel heaved a collection of short stories onto the coffee table, burying magazines, newspapers, coasters, and the television remote.

  Asgore swallowed hard and dared to step closer, treading carefully around the books. “Tori—Toriel? Can I at least make you…?” He placed a hand on Toriel’s arm. She slammed her open palm with a bang against the spine of a thick tome before going still. She twisted her head around and glared at him. Toriel was like a stick of dynamite, ready to explode at any moment. Asgore took a step back, treading on a page about species of birds. “…A cup of tea?” he finished.

  Toriel pulled out the thick tome, glanced at the cover, was about to toss it down with the others when she stopped. There was something about that particular one that spurned her memory. It was then that she knew she had found the one she was looking for.

  Toriel took a deep breath, answered, “Yes, Gor—Asgore… please,” walked out of the decimated living room, carefully past the others, and into the kitchen. She held the thick book tightly to her chest.

  Five of them gathered around the dining room table as the former king of monsters filled the kettle to the brim and popped it on. The book lay closed before their eyes:

  Biggest Legends of all Time

  “This is the book,” Toriel insisted. “I am sure of it.”

  Sans studied the title. Well, he thought, I could sure go for a BLT myself right now, followed by an inner chuckle. Now, focus Sans! Now’s not the time for jokes.

  Toriel flipped open the cover, revealing the index page. Most of the sections sounded more like fairy tales than legends, almost as if the two terms were one in the same. Toriel traced her finger down the list…

  Page 1: Introduction

  Page 5: The Golden Egg laying Monster Goose

  Page 9: Dorcan: the Wise King who liked Wise-crackers and cheese

  Page 18: The Cry of the Fox

  Page 19: Or was it the Howl of the Fox?

  Page 20: The Bark of the Fox? Oh, forget it

  Page 40: Timothy Crank: Enlisted into the Military at Twelve

  Page 52: The Untouchable Mallet and the Hour upon Them

  Page 68: Michael and Mitchell: The Legend of the Suave Lawbreakers

  Toriel stopped. Her finger pressed against one entry.

  Page 89: Kanika and the Land between Heaven and Earth

  The former queen of monsters flicked through, all the way to page eighty-nine.

  Kanika and the Land between Heaven and Earth

  Asgore returned with a few cups of steaming tea in his furry hands. He placed them on the table, passing a cup to each person. “You might want to let that cool—”

  Toriel snatched her teacup and chugged the contents down the hatch in one swig. The tea burned all the way down, from her lips to her belly, leaving a trail of numbness down her throat. The pain would serve her well, she needed to be alert now more than ever. She refocused on the page. Accompanying the title was a picture – a large fragment of a stone tablet, chiselled with mysterious writing. Ancient. The text below read as follows:

  After the war between humans and monsters, an archaeological dig site discovered this stone tablet (pictured above) believed to be thousands of years old. Experts involved were baffled by the discovery, since the tablet did not seem to originate from any known recorded civilisation, yet the inscriptions incorporated several different languages of the ancient world, including Ancient Greek, Old Persian, Egyptian, and Latin.

  After many translations, the inscriptions tell the tale of a sorcerer named Kanika and her creation of the Land between Heaven and Earth.

  Sorcerer Kanika lived in the age of stone and fire, when the first of the humans and monsters roamed the world. She was believed to be one of the first monsters who could harness their own power to create magic. Unfortunately, the times were hard on the people, for the land was not bountiful and the water was dangerous to drink. Slowly, the humans and monsters began to starve, and everyday became a desperate struggle to survive.

  As if by fate, Kanika stumbled upon a rock that was infused with a power of which she had never seen. Tirelessly, she carved the rock into a pillar and, using her own magic, unlocked the stone’s power. She created the Land between Heaven and Earth, where the soil was always rich and the rivers were so clean you could drink from them, in the sky, away from the desolate planet. Kanika allowed not just the monsters to reside there, but humans as well, believing that the two species could co-exist.

  The humans and monsters thrived, but peace was only temporary. A mighty war broke out, not between monsters and humans, but between seven factions not separated by species or race, but by beliefs and ideals.

  The paradise fell into chaos. Thousands of lives, humans and monsters alike, were lost. Kanika went missing, and was presumed to have been slain in the conflict. The survivors of the war awoke back on the surface of the Earth, their paradise having disappeared, never to be seen again. They had been banished.

  And so, the Land between Heaven and Earth became a faded memory. Many believe the tale to be a fantasy, of angels and g
ods. However, there are some who believe that the magic pillar is still out there, waiting for someone to find it, waiting for the right moment to return.

  Everyone looked up from the book, exchanging glances. “So, that’s it?” Asgore asked. “We’re supposed to believe that a fairy tale took Fleck away?”

  “No, Asgore,” Toriel replied. “Legend. Not fairy tale.”

  “But still, you have to admit that this is a little far-fetched.” Asgore paused to take a drink. “But then again, a beam of light did pull them away… into the sky.”

  “Whether we like it or not, this is the only thing we have got to go on,” Toriel explained, tapping her finger on the book page. She glanced around the room at the faces. “Unless you still want to believe that Fleck was abducted by aliens…?”

  Silence.

  Asgore sighed. “Okay, so, let’s say that this floating island really exists. How are we supposed to get there?”

  Further silence followed. Undyne scratched her head. Papyrus caressed the edge of his jaw. Asgore stroked his fuzzy beard. Tiny peeps pierced the quiet that were coming from Alphys, who traced circles around the outside of her teacup. The steam of the hot tea fogged up her glasses.

  “Got something you wanna say, Al?” Sans asked, noticing her hesitation.

  Alphys stuttered, “W-well… I… I…” She stopped and drew a deep breath. “I… might have something that could help. The key word being: might.”

  * * *

  Before they knew it, they were all at Alphys and Undyne’s house: a quaint, two-story house of pale red bricks and dark brown roofing in a town by the seaside. Pulling up outside, the first thing they noticed was that it was not on fire. The second thing they noticed was that the front window had been boarded up with plywood, which in turn had been busted up and covered with more plywood.

  Undyne shook her head. “I keep telling Papyrus that he doesn’t have to exit through the window but he never listens… even when it’s been boarded up.” She sighed. “He still nails the landing, though.”

  Inside, the house was no different from any other house. It had a cosy living room, a modern kitchen, two bathrooms, an airy conservatory, four bedrooms, a vast garage, a tower, a bridge, a dungeon – okay, maybe it was a little different from other houses. Undyne quickly dashed into her room and got changed into her regular attire – her black tank top and blue jeans. If she was about to go on some kind of rescue mission to save their wimpy human friend, she was determined to look the part.

  Alphys unlocked and opened the door that led down to the basement. The stairs descending were narrow and deep and coated in darkness, a flick on a light switch solved the last problem. With the doctor taking the lead, they treaded carefully down the wooden steps, each one creaking under their weight.

  The monster scientist felt a shred of apprehension for every step she cleared. The lab was her slice of haven, the one place where she could truly be herself. Even in the dark, she knew where everything was and could easily navigate every nook and cranny swiftly. However, she was still hesitant to bring her friends down to it. As she said before, she was done with live testing, but there were still a few many things in which she did not wish to reveal, even to her closest associates. These were not lies or unforgivable mistakes, but rather, a few little secrets. Everyone has them, why can’t she?

  “Lights on,” Alphys called out upon landing on the concrete surface, and let there be light. The basement floor was small, but Alphys had some strange knack of making small spaces look larger. A workbench lay straight ahead, surrounded by crude notes in chicken scratch and whiteboards displaying complex mathematics. The workbench itself was stacked with gadgets, wires, loose screws, nuts and bolts, opened packets of instant noodles, pizza boxes, burger boxes and sandwich wrappers – some of which still had food left uneaten. To the left was a dressing screen with a single, white lab coat draped over the corner. Five supposed inventions by Alphys stood by the walls, all of them of varying sizes and hidden under white sheets.

  Over the workbench, a giant screen sparked to life, playing one of Alphys’s many Japanese animations in her collection – which had drastically expanded upon reaching the surface world. Unfortunately, Dear Dr Alphys had forgotten which one had been playing previously… and where it was up to.

  “Is this another of your anime?” Asgore asked, staring up at the screen. “It looks rather nice—” His eyes widened with sudden comprehension. “Oh my goodness!”

  The white’s in Sans’s eyes shrunk to the size of pixels. His toothy grin formed the closest thing he would ever achieve to a frown. “Jeez Louise…” he breathed under the sound of talking girls. He could not understand their language, but the subtitles were on, and the things they were suggesting were enough to shiver his timbers.

  Dr Alphys clutched her head, her face went red. “Oh my god!” She darted for the bench, almost tripping on her summer dress. “NO! No no no no no no no!”

  Toriel cringed. “Gracious, that cannot be legal,” she implored, blocking most of the screen with her hands. Through her fingers, she made out something that looked like a lollipop. At least she thought it was a lollipop.

  Alphys, hyperventilating, pulled open drawers filled to the brim with circuit boards, switches, and wires. “Gotta turn it off! Gotta turn it off! Gotta turn it off!” She went to the benchtop and swept away components and food packages. The barely legal Japanese schoolgirls/ninjas/robots/sharks/guys were taunting her with their playful giggling. “Where’s the remote? Where’s the remote? Where did I leave it?”

  Papyrus squinted closer at the screen. “What’re they doing with—?”

  Undyne covered Papyrus’s eye sockets. “You don’t wanna know, Papyrus!”

  “Hey, who turned out the lights?” Papyrus asked, standing there, offering no resistance.

  The manic scientist found the remote inside a greasy pizza box, next to a single, untouched, cold slice of anchovy, tuna, pickle, and onion pizza. She snatched the remote, nearly dropping it in the process, and pressed the stand-by button. The jumbo-sized monitor went off, and so did the torture to everyone’s eyes.

  Shaking, the former royal scientist from the Underground breathed deeply, setting the remote flat on the workbench. “I’m sorry you had to see that. L-Let’s never speak of this again,” she said, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.

  Sans gestured with the ‘okay’ hand signal – the tips of the thumb and index together, and the three remaining fingers raised. “Okey dokey.”

  Toriel dropped her furry, white hands. “Agreed.”

  “Let’s not speak of what again?” Papyrus asked, still blinded by Undyne.

  “You don’t wanna know…” she echoed, letting go of his skull. Papyrus blinked at the bright light.

  The doctor adjusted her spectacles and cleared her throat. “So a-anyway. Welcome to my new lab. Feel free to look around, but please don’t touch anything. Most of it is untested, unstable technology.” She shifted her gaze to the side. “Especially the remote control – I mean, i-it’s not dangerous or anything, ju-just don’t go anywhere near the stand-by button.” She walked across the room toward the dressing screen, pulling her hat off her head. “No peeking. Especially you, Undyne.”

  Alphys disappeared behind the screen. Her summer dress and hat appeared on the end opposite to the coat before that was pulled out of view. She walked out from behind it, fastening the top button of her lab coat. Just like that, Dr Alphys was back in action, transformed into the scientist everyone was more familiar with. She straightened her collar and tugged the sleeves down as if to say “Let’s get to work.”

  The company spread out across the room, inspecting what there was to inspect. They could only imagine what was behind those covers. Sans skimmed across the workbench. On the near corner, a shiny sphere with a series of buttons caught his attention. “What’s this?” asked Sans as he picked up a weird looking device. For such a small thing, it was surprisingly heavy.

  “I said
don’t touch anything,” Alphys clarified. “That’s a super unstable experiment on chaos theory I’m working on.”

  Sans examined the device, rolling it around. “Chaos theory, huh? What does it do?” He found a button on the side and pressed it. Nothing happened.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Alphys answered. She twirled her finely trimmed moustache and tipped her bowler hat. “But when I do, by Jove, it’ll be a jolly good breakthrough in science, my old chap!”

  Sans passed the device back and forth in his tiger paws, treating it like a basketball. “Doesn’t seem to do much, if you ask me,” he said. “I guess it’s a bit of an… oddball.”

  Ba-dum pish!

  “Sans!” Papyrus, the taller of the tiger brothers, scolded.

  Sans winked his yellow, cat eye. “Oh, c’mon Papyrus, that joke was… purr-fect.”

  Ba-dum pish!

  “Will you stop that?” beseeched Papyrus.

  Sans responded, “I’ll stop when you stop smiling.”

  “I’m not smiling, brother.”

  “Then what’s that under your whiskers then?”

  “An upside-down frown.”

  Toriel, the purple dinosaur, stepped forward. “Sans, please,” she said, “as hilarious as your puns are, can we please move on?”

  Asgore added, “I would like to continue too if you do not mind, ribbit.” His pale chin expanded and grew against his green, slimy skin.

  “Sure thing, Tori.” Sans dropped the device back on the workbench. The same button he pressed got caught on a wrench as it landed. “So, anyway,” Sans the skeleton began to inquire, rubbing his bony hands together, “you were gonna show us something, Al?”

  Dr Alphys walked over to one of the blanket-draped machines and clutched the cover with yellow claws. “One of the only things I’ve managed to get working…” She pulled the cover off. Taller than Asgore, the machine comprised of a glass cylinder with a door, big enough for one person to stand inside. Attached to the right was a terminal, complete with a series of monitors, keyboards, buttons, dials, levers, and switches.