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madbard · 16 days

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Sanctity

A Killer Sans story.

Every child dreamed of the Angel.

When Sans was young, he had imagined it as a skeleton, beaming with all the radiance of the stolen sun. Each evening, he kneeled beside his father and whispered the poetic words of prophecy, voice faltering at first, then growing steady as the tale of the Angel settled firmly into his skull. Later, he would kneel with his brother while his father vanished into the lab. Each night, he dreamed of the moment when the Angel would tear down the barrier, at last letting the bright and deadly sunshine in.

Everything could be attributed to the Angel. If a monster was successful, it was because they had a place in the prophecy, an important role which would contribute to their eventual freedom. If a monster fell down, it was because they had failed, somehow. They were not the Angel’s chosen and would never be free.

(Did Sans have a place in that prophecy? If he was chosen, then why was he so fragile? Why would it be so difficult for him to make it to that future? Sans had asked his father that one night, after their prayer. Nothing would ever break that silence.)

When Gaster’s final experiment went up in flames, Sans imagined it made a light brighter than the sun. He imagined its light was like the palm of the Angel, taking his father with it – or casting him, finally, into the infinite darkness of the earth. He spread his father’s ashes on the remnants of the lab and then, as an afterthought, on his younger brother’s scarf. He laughed at the funeral, quietly. He shook the chill hands of fear and doubt from his soul. He had faith.

(Some monsters whispered that the prophecy had been interpreted incorrectly. They whispered that the Angel would indeed free them – that their dust would one day mix with the river and thus find its way to the ocean. Sans ignored them as best he could.)

When Sans was young, he had imagined the Angel as a skeleton. But lounging at his post one day in early adulthood, he was surprised to see it take the guise of a child. He was even more surprised when no one else seemed to see it for what it truly was. It turned to him, looked him in the eyes. Then raised a single finger to its lips.

Sans followed the Angel. He watched it navigate through each encounter with kindness and grace. He watched it befriend his brother, the captain of the guard, the royal scientist, and even the king. He watched it destroy the barrier and finally baptize his people in the all-destroying light of the sun. He felt its eyes upon him, and in that moment knew the gaze of something truly unlike himself. Come and see, those eyes said. He saw the prophecy come true.

He stood with his brother in the light of the Angel, the light of the long-awaited sun. For a moment, he thought himself in heaven.

Then he woke in hell.

That first time, he didn’t even see the Angel arrive in Snowdin. His eyelights flickered slowly as he wandered the icy streets in a daze. The air was still, and thick with a scent he refused to recognize. They had escaped, hadn’t they? After years of prayer and service, monsterkind was finally free. His mouth curved around a quiet, desperate prayer. This had to be a dream…

Just outside of Snowdin, he found his brother’s scarf.

Funny, how these things worked. Sans’ first impulse was to find the Angel. Something had gone wrong, certainly – something had gone terribly, terribly wrong. But he had seen the Angel treat his brother with kindness. It would have protected him… right?

Perhaps he already knew…

“Sans.”

Sans spun around, gripping Papyrus’ scarf. The Angel stood behind him, eyes almost as wide as its smile. A silver knife glinted in its grip. His whispered prayer froze as his eyes went dark. He stood still.

“what happened?”

“Nothing much. And everything.” The Angel stepped forward. “Give that to me.”

“where’s papyrus?”

“Free.” The Angel took another step forward, and Sans felt a chill creep up his spine. “You remember being free, don’t you?”

“i…”

“Don’t you want to be free again?” This time, Sans didn’t have time to respond. Its knife had already slashed through his chest.

The second time, Sans woke in the early hours of the morning. He took a shortcut into the woods, stepping onto the abandoned path which led to the hidden door. Even so, he didn’t quite understand. Even so, he didn’t quite believe. Fear made a nest in his ribcage.

This time, the Angel killed him first, separating his head from his shoulders, and Sans woke up back at home.

If a monster fell down, it was because they had failed, somehow. Sans fell again and again. Each time he died, the Angel would say something different, something new. It spoke of the sun’s rays, the way they warmed at first then burned and bleached and ruined. It spoke of the sins of the surface, the suffering of the Underground. It spoke of an endless loop, from which they would never be free. “Better to end it now,” the Angel whispered, wiping blood from its blade as Sans crumpled to the ground.

The loop continued endlessly. Bit by bit, Sans stopped praying.

The loop continued endlessly. He began to fight back.

The loop continued endlessly. The angel’s words changed.

“Do you know the difference between an angel and a god?” the Angel asked once, after Sans dodged its blade. Sweat dripped down his skull, and the air seemed to frost his ribcage as he gasped for breath.

“sorry. i god no idea.” The knife whistled past his ear, and a hushed “angel’s sake” escaped his mouth before he growled and swallowed the word.

“I’ll give you a hint.” It attacked once more, and this time it didn’t miss. It walked over to his dissolving form and whispered to him. “An angel is a servant. A god serves no one.” It stepped back. He died.

This time, the Angel approached him with an altogether different kind of smile.

“But what is a god without an angel?”

Sans said no in every way he could imagine. Loop after loop, death after death. He joked and danced around the question. He sent another attack. At his lowest, he pretended he hadn’t heard.

“Angels live forever.”

“when everyone else is dead?”

“Angels are never alone.”

“i wouldn’t be alone if it wasn’t for you.”

“Angels are powerful. They are beautiful and loved.”

“heh, that’s kind of a loaded comment, isn’t it?”

“Angels know their purpose.”

“what would a lazybones like me want with a purpose?”

“Gods are tireless. I can keep going forever, and nothing will ever change.”

“…”

“You were made to serve me.”

The funny thing about prayer? Repetition makes it meaningless. There is performance to it, certainly. There is what prayer symbolizes, there is the essential power of routine. But once the words become instinctive, the meaning can’t help but diminish. After enough repetition, prayer becomes little more than muscle memory for the weary. And when the weary recite it, how then can they hope to see God?

Sans kneeled in the hallway, bones aching, magic all but spent. Somewhere before this moment lay the memory of the sun, the way he had rested in its blinding light. Even before that, the echoes of evenings spent in prayer with his father, torn carpet barely cushioning his bones. Those memories were lost now, or buried. So many deaths – had there truly been anything before this? Could there ever be anything after? Sans didn’t know. Eventually, he no longer cared.

“and if i said yes?”

It paused and stared at him. A chuckle started low in its throat, stopped just behind its teeth. Sans wished he could feel a twinge of anger or fear at the sound. He just felt tired.

“Just for one round. Just to try something new.”

“somehow i don’t believe you.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that makes a difference.” The god stepped forward, knife glinting in its hand. Sans closed his eyes, waiting for the final blow. Instead, he felt the warm handle slide into his skeletal grip. “Go forth, my angel. Do as your god commands.”

There was a momentary darkness. He woke at the foot of his bed, hands folded. Eyes dark.

When Sans was young, he had imagined the Angel as a skeletal figure. After maturing, he discarded that image as a figment of childhood’s vivid ego. For a moment in time, doesn’t every child worship a god that looks like them?

Sans was not a god. Through the snow, the water and the flame, he became the angel of death. The flash of his knife answered prayers, scattered dust in the river that it may one day reach the ocean. He remained by his god, always. He watched, as if outside himself, as his knife found the faithful and the faithless alike. He watched his brother die.

“That prayer, in his final moments – you know, before he forgave and spared you. Didn’t you teach him that?”

“…”

“Aw, don’t be like that. It’s hypocritical when you’re the one that killed him.”

“shut up.”

“Ooh.” The god smiled and leaned forward. “But it’s new, isn’t it? Isn’t it better?”

“no. no, it isn’t.”

“Hm.” The god nodded. “Do it again.”

The funny thing about prayer? Its meaning is only found through repetition. Sans scoured through the Underground again and again, knife faltering at first, then growing steady as the path of the Angel settled firmly into his skull. He made a sacrament of death, and his god glutted itself on the dust in his path. He became something truly unlike himself – did that now make him holy?

Holy enough, he decided, waking among flowers with his soul burning bright outside his body, a strange tarry fluid dripping from his eyes. Holy enough for this.

It seemed to know what he was planning. At least, it didn’t look surprised when he brandished his weapon. Nor did it fight back. It only spoke. “You know, you were nothing before me. And you will be nothing after.”

How easy, to kill a god. In the end, how stupidly simple. The Angel laughed as he killed his god with its own gleaming knife, and it laughed too, bright blood staining its teeth.

“i killed you.” The Angel giggled. “does that make me god now?” The god lay still. Its chest had stopped moving a long time ago. The Angel finished his prayer anyway. He had to be certain. “actually, nah, not sure i like that… hey, i’ll figure it out.” The Angel rose to his feet, staggered a bit, then bowed his head. “go to hell.”

What is an angel without a god? From then on, the Angel drifted from world to world. He recited prayer as he always did, utterly divorced from meaning. His knife brought whatever his victims chose, and he learned to see the afterlife in their dimming eyes – the reflection of paradise or punishment, a final acknowledgment of the waiting dark. He laughed in the moment before a creature crumpled to dust – something about it made his soul sting, sharply. It made him feel alive.

Sometimes the Angel would glance over his shoulder, searching for his god’s approval. When he caught himself doing this, his posture would stiffen suddenly, and he would cease his prayer. In those rare moments, a victim might escape. In that way, news spread through the multiverse of his arrival – though ‘Angel’ was not the word they used.

Even to the multiverse’s darkest corners, the Angel slowly became known, and this filled certain people with a cool excitement. Gods watched on and wondered where his allegiance might fall. But this Angel had little patience for deities.

“Aren’t you just fantastic!” The Angel paused, then straightened, turning through the snow of decimated universe to face a small, skeletal figure, dressed in a stained scarf and splattered with ink. “A Sans who no longer believes in anything, but still sees himself as the Angel! A Sans for whom death has become prayer, because prayer never led to anything but death. Odd, definitely – I’d guess your creator was feeling pretty ambitious when they made you…” The skeleton tilted their head. “I’m not sure they succeeded.”

“who are you?”

“Ink! God of Creation. You see, I helped make this universe, so… whoa there, let’s not be too hasty!’ The Angel had raised his knife and taken a smooth step forward.

“god, you say?”

“Hm. Maybe I shouldn’t have said – wow, you’re quick!” Ink swung a massive brush through the air and the Angel’s knife skittered across the brushstroke’s obsidian surface. “Look, sloppy or not I think you came from a place of real excitement and love! I’d like to –”

Ink never finished his sentence. Blinking, the Angel darted around the obsidian shield and raised his knife to stab this god in the chest. He managed to spill a vial of red paint, so much like blood that he smirked, believing for a moment that he had already won. Retribution was brutal and swift.

The Angel no longer felt fear. His god had cured him of that, through the endless resets. Still, Ink’s rapid-fire attacks quickly had him on the defensive, constantly dodging and side-stepping to avoid strike after inky dark strike from the god’s strange weapon. Each time he brandished his knife, he was ambushed by a new attack from a new direction, all coinciding on his form as he struggled to fight back, struggled to survive.

Was this the true power of a god? Something cold settled in the Angel’s soul, causing it to fizzle. He began to seriously consider retreat.

But to where?

The Angel tried to step into another world, but Ink was on him the moment his portal closed, taking advantage of the snow’s blinding afterimage to dig a painted blade into his back. It was dark here, and cold – far colder than Snowdin ever had been. Another blow, and the Angel’s soul shuddered again. This time, he felt fear.

Was this it? Was this where he died?

Another blow.

Perhaps this was right. Perhaps this was what he deserved…

Another blow and sparks flew from his soul, igniting terror and pain. This time the Angel screamed. This time, his mouth shaped a word he’d sworn to never say again.

“ANGEL!!!”

Ink lunged forward, but before his final blow could land something warm and strong gripped the Angel’s ankle and dragged him into the infinite darkness of the earth.

When the Angel woke, he imagined for a moment that he was dead. His sockets could not focus because there was nothing to focus on – the world seemed to have vanished into a brilliant white expanse. He lay there, soul burning, weeping black, emotionless tears. A minute? A year? If the figure hadn’t spoken, the Angel might have lain there forever.

“Greetings, little angel. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

The Angel leapt to his feet. Across from him stood a strange, dark figure. At first, he might have guessed that it was a skeleton – but a tarry black fluid not unlike the Angel’s tears covered every bit of the monster’s body, leaving only a single teal light to stare into his sockets. The Angel might not have recognized Ink’s power, but he could feel this monster’s strength – could feel it in the way the very air seemed to bristle against his presence. This was no mortal. This was beyond anything the Angel had seen.

“what have you heard?”

“In general? Ah, little one, that would require some time.” A fluid black tentacle slipped from the creature’s spine and wrapped around the Angel’s shoulders, immobilizing him. The Angel was still. “But you were asking what I had heard about you. So I will oblige. I have heard that you are a harbinger of death. Some have gone so far as to call you an angel, but I know better than that. After all, what is an angel without a god?”

“i already killed my god. i don’t need another.”

“I do not desire your worship. Besides, there is a title which suits me far better than god.”

“what do you want?”

“A fighter. Someone with little respect for the likes of Dream and Ink, who would aid me in destroying my enemies.”

“you want me to kill gods for you? i would do that anyway.”

“Well then, little god-killer. I have a place for you, if you’ll take it.”

“…and if i say no?”

“Then I shall leave you in the first universe that opens up beneath our feet. You will be free to cause whatever destruction you wish. But if you choose to follow me – oh, you will see and experience far greater things than you could ever imagine.”

“somehow i don’t believe you.”

“Very well. You may return to your dreary existence. But you are limited when you fight alone. You will be more powerful at my side.” The figure extended a tarry hand. “I am not like the other gods. I have no need for angels. But you aren’t exactly an angel anymore… are you?”

The god killer stared at the dark figure, stared at his extended, toxic hand. The dead grass beneath his knees felt like torn carpet. He remembered a different hand, a hollow palm. Prayer was simpler then. The words didn’t yet matter, not like his father’s cool hand on his skull, not like his brother’s chirping voice. The angel wasn’t present in that space. It was only them.

His soul flickered.

“no.” Killer rose to his feet, meeting those deadly teal eyelights. Viscous black fluid burned into his hand. “i’m not.”

The prophecy was fulfilled. The Angel was dead. And for the first time, a prayer was granted.

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