February 10, 2021.

It’s been five years since The Celestial Calamity began.

Five years of killing the unnatural dead.
Five years of watching for signs of resurgence.
Five years of mourning and wandering.

Five. Whole. Years.

And Dust knew that there would be many more.

Today of all days, Mount Ebott once more erupted into a field of thorns underneath the red sky.

Again and again, in erratic rates, The Celestial Calamity would repeat. That was when all hell broke loose, every single time.

And yet, by grace or by irony, that would also be their weakest moment.

Dust looked at his own sleeves, the proof of his weary days: tattered at the edges, faded from sunlight, while stained with blood, dust, and dirt. No amount of laundering could make them spotless again.

What about his footwear?

His pink slippers? Demoted to a house decoration.
His sneakers? Flopped within two years.
Papyrus’ old boots? Too big and too heavy for him.

He now donned shin-high leather boots that he salvaged from one of his adventures, modified to fit his bony feet. Rugged, sturdy, yet light in weight.

Preparing for the battle ahead, Dust adjusted his hood and muttered a little pep phrase to himself.

“Let’s go.”

He teleported straight into the heart of the briars, ripping and tearing through the floral hell with his own special brand of brutal magic.

The briars in turn made more fruit to dispense the living dead. Gave them a sob story. Told everyone that the enemy had murdered their precious Papyrus. Sent them on their way to charge forward with rage.

Light and darkness, life and death, they swirled into a whirlwind of dust.

Who would be the final boss this time, he wondered? In his previous attempt, it was a Whimsalot. That choice was rather amusing, albeit curious.

This time it was Undyne yet again. One of the more popular picks. High offensive power. Good coverage. Those homing water spears kept Dust on his toes. Ever an exhausting endeavour to battle against her.

And that was exactly why he had prepared a little trick for the occasion, tucked away in his pocket, courtesy of the young soldier he found a few months back.

Undyne’s shade yelled: “Why did you kill him?”

Dust paid no heed. Dodging spear after spear, he focused solely on getting up close and personal.

“What did he ever do to you?!”

Ignored.

“Papyrus would never hurt anyone!”

True.

“So why?”

Papyrus wouldn’t have survived that fatal wound.

“WHY???”

He’s already been dead for five years.

There’s nothing to explain.

He landed right in front of Undyne and took out a grenade: his secret weapon. Strength she may have, but she was no match against his speed and cunning.

Dust pulled the pin and shoved the live grenade straight into Undyne’s mouth. Then, he teleported away before he got caught in the blast.

One big boom later, Undyne and all her nearby forces were gone. Annihilated.

Somewhere in the distance, a flower child threw a tantrum.

“Human explosives?!?! That… That’s NOT FAIR!!! Ugh you stupid CHEATER!!!”

Echo flowers again. The little brat played smart by keeping his true location a secret.

“Argh, I QUIT! Count yourself lucky, Edgebag. I’ll get you next time!”

Today’s apocalypse was cancelled out of sheer frustration. Just like that, the briars retreated. The skies cleared, revealing the blue noonday winter sky.

Squinting against the brightness the the sun, Dust commented:

“What lovely weather today.”

He then vanished in the wind.

* * *

Somehow, Stephan’s quaint little farmhouse had survived each and every Crimson Calamity. Was it from dumb luck or was it secretly blessed by a holy power? Nonetheless, Dust claimed the property as his own residence. He had nowhere else to go.

He kept the home clean and intact, contrary to his personal habits. It was a borrowed place, so it would be rather shameful for the original owner to return to a complete dump. Papyrus would have wanted it that way.

Of course, that scenario required Stephan to have escaped the briars on that fateful night.

Dust fed some wood into the fireplace. He may not need warmth to survive, but it was a nice simple, soothing luxury. Once the flames had stabilized, he laid down next to the radiance.

Staring at the ceiling, he muttered: “…The three of us chatted here. Papyrus was still alive back then…”

It didn’t take long for Dust to fall asleep. His snoring continued unabated until a ghostly voice yelled at him:

“Brooooother, you haven’t had dinner yet!”

That snapped him wide awake. A familiar red scarf floated over him, its ends trailing into faint wisps of smoke. It belonged to the decapitated head of a certain skeleton monster whose eyes glowed in a demonic crimson. His gloved hands, minus the arms, crossed over each other in annoyed disappointment.

The hallucination had returned. Not long after the first Celestial Calamity, Dust began seeing a distorted version of the deceased Papyrus. He called it ‘The Phantom’. Treated him like a third brother who appeared out of nowhere.

The Phantom was inferior to the real Papyrus in every way. It was almost an insult for him to share the same face and voice, if he wanted to be critically fussy. But… having the company of this ‘facsimile’ was better than being completely alone.

Dust pushed himself off the ground. “Sorry, bro. That nap took longer than I thought.”

The house was now dark. The fire had gone out and the sun had set. It looked like he’s back on the night shift again.

Using a lighter, he lit a candle. “Hey, want some chicken rice? We haven’t had chicken or rice for ages.”

The Phantom frowned in skepticism. “Where exactly did you get chicken rice?”

“That soldier had it in his bag. Some kind of MRE. Y’know, dehydrated stuff. Been saving it as a reward. Besides, it’s a super cool miniature science project.”

The chicken rice was one of those fancier types of rations with a water-activated heating element. Just prepare the packet, combine the ingredients, and add plain old cold water. Within a few seconds, the whole thing would be cooking in its own steam.

Watching this wonder reminded Dust of the days when he was still ‘Sans’, wide-eyed for all things science.

“Brother,” asked the Phantom, “Will you tell me stories from the loot room?”

“Huh? Again? Didn’t we do that last week?”

“But that’s a whoooooole week ago!” The Phantom put up a puppy-like face. “Please? Please, please, please, please?”

Dust sighed. “Sure, fine. After dinner. Your choice, as usual.”

“Yaaaay!”

The subsequent dinner tasted quite alright. It certainly was a nice change of pace from wild game, forage, and potatoes. Plus all the hard work had already been done by a machine far away. He had the right to be lazy sometimes, right? That was how he thought.

After eating his fill, he went upstairs. He had converted one of the guest rooms there into what he called a ‘loot room’. It was where Dust stored the mementos he picked up over the years. Remnants of enemies, little interesting trinkets, or anything else that caught his fancy.

At times he found it difficult to tell what’s real and what’s not. This archive of items served as an essential timeline of reality. Plus it had the side advantage of keeping the boredom at bay.

The first item for tonight was a broken rifle. Pointing at it, the Phantom said: “I want to listen to this one!”

“Ah, that thing. Pretty grim tale. Did you know there used to be a village south of here? Yeah. They survived for many nights, until outlaws took over their neighbourhood.”

“Why didn’t you protect them?” The Phantom asked.

Dust shook his head. “To be honest, I didn’t want to worsen the situation. There was a chance that the bandits belonged to a network. Didn’t want their boss to send in a worse team.”

“But the village was destroyed, right? Something went wrong. Everyone died. That’s why you have this gun.”

“Skipping ahead aren’t we?” He shrugged. “I guess they didn’t meet their quota. Or someone tried to rebel. Who knows? I didn’t bother to investigate. Still, I realised there and then that I had to start caring about who sets up camp in my territory.”

“So… First, I turned the dead into dust. Think of it as cremation without a fire. Couldn't let them rot out in the open to get eaten by maggots and wild animals. Then I went on a cross-country trip to rid myself of every last member of their gang: from the lowest lackey to the top dog.”

Cackling, The Phantom flew around in excitement. “Wonderful, wonderful! Kill those outlaws! Kill! Kill! Kill! They must have been full of precious LOVE and EXP, waiting just for you!”

And that was exactly why and how The Phantom was inferior to the real Papyrus. His genuine brother wouldn’t call for wanton murder with such joyful glee. Never.

He placed the broken rifle back down. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but those guys aren’t actually worth very much. Extracting EXP from humans is not as straightforward as monsters. When humans die, their SOUL stays in the body and deteriorates along with it. Unless you drain them or target the SOUL directly, humans won’t increase your LV. It’s why their kind can kill all they want without leaving so much as a single proof of their sin. Funny, ain’t it?”

“Either way, I had a better idea. I pinned the corpses of their bosses on a wall and painted a message with their blood. Let them rot there because I thought they would be more useful as deterrents.”

“What was the message, Brother?”

“I wrote: ‘Stay away from Mount Ebott. Or else.’ Figured the last thing I needed was a multi-way battlefront between humans and demonic plants. Yup. Nope. Absolute thorn in the side. Pun intended.”

“Did it work?”

Dust planted his face into his palm. “Nope. It backfired. Hard. Instead of deterring humans, trespassers flocked to Mount Ebott. Seriously, there’s something wrong with their heads.”

The Phantom moved over to a metal coat-of-arms. “Like this one. Right? Right? A true party of heroes -- with a capital H -- hunted us down! I thought they’re the stuff of story books.”

“Yup, ahuh. Charged at me with all kinds of accusations. ‘Evil’, ‘fiend’, ‘necromancer’, ‘heretic’, ‘murderer’, whichever suited their fancy, including all five of those labels combined. They thought that I was responsible for The Celestial Calamity. Like what the hell, man? I was originally gonna let them go home. But…”

A sense of disgust welled up in his heart. “They asked for it. Nothing pisses me off more than people who refuse to admit that their own wrongs. If you ain’t a true hero at heart, don’t wear the badge.”

Tilting his head in innocence, The Phantom questioned: “Do you consider yourself one?”

“Me? A hero?” Dust chuckled. “Obviously not. I’m just doing what needs to be done.”

“But you have many, many human fans! They leave you all sorts of gifts at the farmhouse gates. What’s more, they sing praises for the tragic hero: ‘Dust, The Lone Defender’! One man fighting against the Calamity of Ebott. Woe be all who do evil before his gaze! Quite inspiring actually.”

The idea that he had a fanclub brought genuine discomfort upon Dust. He knew his own deeds. What miniscule remnant of a sense of justice that remained in his heart warned him against basking in his accidental fame. To him, if there ever was anyone who could be called a hero in the traditional sense, it would have been Papyrus.

Hovering towards a black baseball cap, The Phantom urged Dust to tell a closing story. “C’mon, Brother. What about this one? Tell me! Tell me! It’s the finale!”

“…No, not yet.”

Denying the ghost always carried a risk of angering him. He would inflict some kind of torture as a price. Usually insomnia. The worst could last for days. A tired mind makes poor judgements, and that might get him killed out there.

The Phantom’s eyes glowed red, and his voice turned monotone.

“You must. Or, I won’t let you sleep.”

Still, Dust really didn’t want to talk about it.

“Seriously, bro. Not tonight.”

This bothersome hallucination had begun to rub Dust’s temper in the wrong way. This had to be the dictionary-accurate definition of the term ‘abuse’, right?

“The world you’re supposed to protect lies in ruins,” said The Phantom. “The Celestial Calamity opened the floodgates. The Dead! The Damned! The Hollow! They overrun the humans with their great power! And those vile humans make it worse by preying upon the weak!”

Avoiding eye contact, Dust said, “C’mon, you know I’ve only heard about it second hand. Neither of us have seen it for ourselves.”

“That bald, skinny girl. The former owner of that baseball cap. She was deathly ill, left untreated in the chaos. Travelled all the way to you, to her hero, begging you to take her life.”

“Stop.”

“But you didn’t. At least not right away. You waited until she fell sick before taking her life. Kept her around to hear stories about the outside world. Except you didn’t like what you heard, did you? Not at all! To think all your efforts were in vain.”

“Enough!” Defiant, Dust put the cap on his own skull. “Do whatever you want. I don’t need sleep anyway.”

“Coward.” Having dished out his accusation, The Phantom vanished in a wispy puff of smoke.

Alone, Dust felt his bones rattle. He couldn’t stop shaking. Anger? Grief? Bitterness? Guilt? He couldn’t tell the difference. Yet, they still hurt so, so much.

Normally, he could hold his composure. But not today. Not tonight. It was February 10th after all: Papyrus’ death anniversary.

Breathe in, breathe out. Despite his efforts, he failed to calm down.

“I… need a smoke.”

But the previous owner of the black cap hated smoking. She said cigarettes would kill her lungs and her dream. It would be a disgrace to the girl’s memory if he smoked while wearing that.

“No, I’ll drink instead. Save the smoking for tomorrow.”

Dust reached for a bottle of brandy on the shelf. Another salvage from the dead. They don’t need their booze anymore.

He sat outside on the front porch and took a few swigs. One swig. Two swigs. It was tempting to chug it down, but he wanted to make it last for as long as possible.

Looking up towards the sparkling night sky, Dust started his soliloquy.

“Hey Papyrus, if you’ve ascended to heaven somewhere, stay there. Don’t come back. The world went down the gutter. From what I understand at least.”

“This divine comedy is getting longer and longer, and it’s wearing out its welcome. Can you believe what they’re calling me out there? Dust, The Lone Defender, like I’m some badass angsty hero. A hero! God, that’s the least worthy title I can ever hold.”

“If this was the old, peaceful world they would have called me by the right title: ‘Dust, The Mad Murderer’. I’m at least half-insane, and I have a mountain of corpses under my name. Now that’s what I call ‘objective truth’.”

“You told me to protect and love the world in your stead. Unfortunately, I ain’t you. Really. I wanted to say ‘fuck it all’ so many times, if you get what I mean. What am I protecting? How am I going to love? Everything and everyone that I ever cared about is gone.”

“Did you know what I told those scumbags who begged me for mercy? ‘My brother didn’t sacrifice his life for you to turn this world into a living hell.’ And then they became a bunch of unrecognisable stains on the floor.”

“I… don’t see any beauty or meaning to life. You know me, the nihilist. More now than never. What am I fighting for, Papyrus? What am I fighting for? I ask myself this, and yet I refuse to stop. I can’t give up. There’s nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do.”

“Papyrus? I’m scared. Sacred of your memory fading away, replaced by a twisted impostor. I’m the only one left who knew who you were. I… don’t want you to completely die.”

“So please… show me a sign. Any sign. What am I supposed to do? All I’ve done so far is ‘Persevere’. Keeping true to your final request is my sole purpose for existence.”

Dust had reached the point where his cognitive senses were drowned away in alcohol. He broke down weeping and tired, without a brave or comedic front to hide behind. Everything that he had kept inside for the past five years flowed out like the brandy in his hand.