Script’s Bitter Taste of Cruelty in the Multiverse: A Skele-napping

Chapter 2: Cold, Dark, and Malicious

~━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━~

Post-event Script quote: “I’m going to be honest; I always wondered what Nightmare’s castle would be like. I wanted to know, but not from experience and being in danger. A few hundred personal accounts would have sufficed. I guess I happened to be one of those accounts.”

Script is tossed into the black swirling portal from the Hotland Lab and into a dim area. The tossed skeleton immediately trips and falls into a skid against a grainy, cold ground upon exiting the portal. His head swims with confusion from the impact. Before he has even a second to recover, a heavy weight drops atop him, smooshing him against the hard ground further. His breath of surrounding magic deflates out of him from the sudden shock. Script dazedly claws at the ground in hopes of crawling out from under the heavy weight atop him, but it’s no use due to his current state and the weight bearing down on him. He lets out a groan of mild panic and displeasure, then stills when the thing on top of him vibrates with a chuckle above Script’s head.

Script's soul stutters when he realizes someone is holding him down. Having just been kidnapped by Killer and noticing the dark stone beneath him, Script can easily narrow down the possible culprits to about five to seven skeletons - it honestly depends on who the King of Negativity had on his team right now.

As Script tries to get a better look around despite being squashed, he feels the skeleton atop him shift his weight around. Laughs echo around him like a cathedral. Script doesn't have time to think on possible attempts to escape as the one atop him heavily plants a hand between his shoulder blades. Another hand clamps onto the top of Script's skull, the phalanges poking into his eye sockets. Said skull is then yanked back, jerking his spine into a somewhat painful bend backwards.

Script yelps when his vertebrae are bent backwards too far. He hisses painfully and the large skeleton on top of him leans down to rest his skull on Script’s shoulder, pressed against his skull. Magic breath smelling of a sickeningly sweet metal scent fills Script's head, adding to the dizzying feeling already drowning him.

"Ya seem to be in a tight spot, know-it-all," a deep, rumbling, yet still somewhat quiet voice comes from Script's captor.

Script's breath hitches on the next shallow breath, causing sparks of panicking magic to appear across his vision. He tries to speak, not really sure what he wants to say. However, all that comes out is a staggered wheeze due to the restricted magic flow through his neck. His eyelights strain to catch any telling pieces of information about his captor's face. He can only see the edges of their frontal bones glowing red, which hardly narrows the possibilities down.

The one holding Script hisses out a sigh, "I must've stolen your breath away. Heh, I do that quite often, ya know? Of course, they don't live long to tell about it."

The captor shakes Script's skull ever so slightly, phalanges curling further into the top of Script's eye sockets. The captive skeleton whimpers softly, shaking with his attempt to hold back from moving. Soft plips of translucent turquoise tears bead at the edges of script’s eye sockets from the cramping pain of the phalanges scraping the inside of his skull.

"Lucky for you," the skeleton continues, "I can't put you on the menu. Not too disappointing, considering you're just bones, not even any skin."

With that, the skeleton's phalanges withdraw from scraping the inside of Script's eye sockets. The sharp angle in Script's neck is suddenly released, allowing his skull to drop and smack into the grainy stone floor. Script makes a stuttered noise of surprised displeasure, then lifts his head slightly to rub at his vomer bone and bonebrows.

The weight of Script's captor suddenly lifts, allowing a gasp of rejuvenating magic to enter Script's magic circulation. He's quick to shove his hands into the grainy floor, lifting himself as fast and far as possible in hopes of gaining some ground. This proves hopeless, however, as a long and malleable appendage suddenly snaps around his lower spine and jerks him up into the air. Script gasps from the shock and subsequent fear both from the grasp and the striking change in velocity. His limbs scramble in the air briefly before his panic-induced blurred vision clears.

Script freezes. He looks down upon the five deranged skeletons below, a mere three feet separating him from them. The skeletons could easily reach up and grab his dangling legs. Script recognizes the laser-focused malicious intent in Dust Sans’ eyes as he looks up at Script, and Script could only hope that, knowing of Dust’s past, the killer skeleton wouldn’t be as volatile. Script then eyes the insatiable hunger swirling in Horror Sans’ eyelight, yet the lack of meat on Script’s body seems to be less interesting to Horror. Next, Script’s quivering eyelights land on Cross Sans, and beneath his unprecedented fear he feels uncertainty toward the mostly monochrome skeleton. Script knows that Cross can be loyal to what he sees is best, so he hopes the other would go easy on him for this reason. Finally, Script sees the manic curiosity in the way Killer Sans stands and eyes him with empty sockets bleeding hatred. Script knows that Killer is the worst to be put in a room with, as the dangerous skeleton is known to drag out the torture he inflicts.

Script begins to tremble, feeling as though he were hanging above a tank full of starving crocodiles. His hands move to clasp and lightly push at the appendage around the waist area of his spine. He quickly trails his eyelights from the black appendage to the one running this psychotic show. Nightmare. The King of Negativity is dangling Script like bait. Already, Script notices the rising excitement reflect in a few of the skeletons directly below him. He curls into a ball, trying his best to protect his gangly limbs from potential grabbing hands.

The tentacle around Script's lower spine begins to shift about like a snake, pulling a startled whimper from Script himself. He looks down as the sound of Nightmare's lackeys' talking softly fills the air. Script's focus immediately narrows completely on the black appendage snaking under his coat. Panicking, Script starts squirming to try and push or twist himself out of this predicament, but it's no use. Due to his squirming, the cold, oily tendril brushes against the inner sides of his ribs, and Script jolts with a violent shudder.

All at once, an overwhelming negative presence overcomes Script’s entire being. He chokes, feeling his magic trying to push back, yet the darkness remains mostly steady with its presence. In his moment of unawareness, Script hadn't noticed the tendril pulling away out of his ribcage until a stark change in lighting momentarily blinds him. Script flinches and blinks a few times before yet again he freezes, this time in unmatched terror, his eyelights forming into mere outlines of their normal shapes. Before him, just out of reach of Script and grasped in the oily appendage mere feet in front of Nightmare, is Script's papery soul. Immediately, Script finds himself panicking, knowing that death isn't the worst of his concerns now. His papery bones softly rattle, failing to properly express in sound how violently he's shaking thanks to the papery mixture of his bones.

Nightmare's single cyan-green eyelight studies Script's soul with an intensely morbid curiosity. "Now…" Nightmare begins with a deep and warbling sludgy voice, "I have a few questions for you… little Scribe." Nightmare's head tilts back just enough to clearly show his malicious and eager smile to the shivering skeleton in his grasp. "You can answer them the easy way…" Nightmare trails off as he gives Script's soul a demeaning look before squeezing it briefly with the appendage holding it. Script chokes on his own magic as the overwhelming negativity overtakes him. "Or we can do it the fun way!" A sharp, excited smile splits across Nightmare's face, his single eye wide and piercing. "Fun for us, at least…"

Despite how painful and weighted the negativity is on his soul, Script is luckily bound to The Multiversal Library, thus somewhat dampening the permanent damaging effects of the emotions. Nonetheless, Script is still overwhelmed by additional fear and hopelessness from the King of Negativity. Despite his scrambled consciousness, Script manages to respond with a shake of his head in defiance, knowing what Nightmare would want most from him.

Silence overcomes the room, the previous undercurrent of the lackeys’ mumblings now missing and leaving only the soft sound of Nightmare’s liquid form slithering passively. Script feels his soul quiver in trepidation, and then he feels through the contact of Nightmare’s tentacle the rising anger and vile intent. Sweat breaks out across Script’s body as his head is filled with images of possible torture fueled by Nightmare’s negativity.

“No…?” Nightmare asks as he looks up at Script with mock surprise. Then a wide, devilish smile fills his oily face and his eyelight drills into Script’s terrified face. “I guess that means we’ll be having some fun then… isn’t that right?” Upon asking his question, Nightmare scans the skeletons in front of him with an expectant look.

Script looks down at the lion’s den below him and sees each skeleton give unique reactions. Dust gives a mildly intrigued nod, likely more interested in LV than anything else. Horror seems only mildly interested as well, though he gives a more enthusiastic nod, and Script guesses the skeleton would be more interested in rewards. Cross seems to hesitate in thought over the question before nodding sharply and glancing away; Script desperately hopes with hopelessness that this would somehow work in his favor. Then his eyelights look to Killer, and he feels his soul tremble in the hold of Nightmare’s tentacle.

Killer Sans has a face-splitting smile as he admires Nightmares proposition. Then his empty sockets raise to look right back at Script’s own quivering eyelights. The liquid hatred pours from his eye sockets, a testament to the wickedly eager desire of the skeleton. Script jolts when he feels the direct eye-contact connect, feeling as though his eyelights had been painfully hooked by the stare. No matter how hard he tries, Script can’t look away from the cold sockets staring back. Consternation engulfs Script as he realizes the worst case scenario, aka being stuck with Killer, is most likely to occur.

Nightmare turns his gaze to look across his subordinates and addresses them. "You all remember what I've told you?" Each of the four skeletons nod in their own forthright. Script notices that Cross seems the least eager of them all, giving a sharp nod caked in dutifulness rather than anything eager. Nightmare grins wickedly at their responses. "Good. Information extraction is the key here, so do not kill him. If you do, you'll be taking his place in the dungeon."

With that, Script suddenly feels gravity take hold where Nightmare's supporting tentacles become absent. Script gives a near-breathless yelp as he drops through the air. His body jars viciously against the cold, grainy stone that makes up the flooring. Script's chest spasms from the shock before he can take a few recovering breaths of the surrounding magic in the air. The tainted energy given off by the five malicious monsters around him causes his magic intake to feel less rejuvenating, but he readily takes in what he can.

After regaining some of his awareness, Script can hear discussion around him. His soul stutters in fear and his eye sockets snap open upon hearing words involving bone breaking. He comes to find four subordinates partially circled around his form, standing over him like predators assured in their capture of prey. Dust and Horror stand to his right, their shoes about a foot away from Script's form on the ground. Killer is directly to his left, his shoes mere inches from his shoulder. Off to the side from Killer near Script's legs is Cross.

Against his better judgement, Script looks up to Killer's face. He trembles as he finds that same malicious intrigue in the hollow eye sockets that leak liquid hate. Script glances to the starkly contrasting face of Cross behind Killer. He finds the near-monochrome skeleton looking off to the side with a steely expression. Script props his body up slightly by his shoulders and shimmies backwards slightly, hoping to get out from under these skeletons even a little bit. He stills completely when he spies a worming tentacle high above his head. He becomes locked in place, finding his escape only for wishful thinking.

Nightmare's voice cuts the banter between the four above Script. "Killer," Nightmare addresses with a sharp tone with hints of a pleased air about him.

Script's head snaps to the sharp movement of Killer's skull turning to face Nightmare, and Script feels the slightest reprieve from not having that malicious stare drilling into his skull. "Yeah boss?" Killer responds to Nightmare.

Nightmare's next words slide out like liquid evil, "You have first dibs." Script's soul jitters about with existential dread, and he shrinks in on himself when Killer's eye sockets retrain themselves back onto Script's cowering form. Nightmare speaks again, hissing his words with venom, "And don't even try to use the excuse that you forgot my warnings. Else I'll make an example of you." Script spies a few tendrils above him lash irritably as Nightmare speaks. He feels the dread coating his soul tighten with anxiety over the possibility of Killer overdoing things.

Killer's stare only moves away from Script's form to address Nightmare. "I'll keep that in mind." A sharp exhale of exasperation comes from above and directly behind Script, sending cold chills down his spine.

With his assurance given, Killer's gaze magnetizes right back to Script, and this time his eye sockets languidly eye his form as if Script were being dissected. Script feels cold sweat break out on his body as the harmful intent in Killer's gaze locks onto different places of his body. No doubt the demented skeleton is figuring the best places to start breaking things.

As Killer's gaze returns to Script's face and their eyes lock, a cruel smirk hitches onto the devilish skeleton's face. Script whimpers slightly as he finds himself paralyzed with fear. Killer tilts his head to the side with humor laced into his cruel grin.

Nightmare once more speaks up, sharp and authoritative. "Everyone else, get back to your work! We have preparations to make." Each skeleton moves away from Script with purposeful steps, all except Killer.

As the other skeletons' footsteps echo through the room and fade into another doorway, Script feels the silence beginning to weigh heavily upon him while the ruthless skeleton above him simply looms.

Script feels like he's going to have a bad time.