We had been working on the basement for about a week by this time, and it was actually looking pretty good; the floor had been purged of sharp points, the hallway had actual lighting in the form of magic torches - this was supposed to be an 'evil' dungeon, after all - and the cells were cleaned out. We probably had the most babyish dungeon in the multiverse, but at least it wasn't infested with pests; all we had to do now was wait for a prisoner, which would complete the aesthetic. At the moment, Killer and I were doing some dusting; not monster dust, just regular dust. Papyrus was leading a conversation with Killer, being translated through me.

"So can ya touch stuff?" Killer questioned.

"I cannot touch things," Papyrus answered, "but I can sometimes move small objects, like pencils, if I focus hard enough."

"Oh, that's awesome! Here, I got a napkin! Can ya move it?"

"I can try, but no promises."

"You got this, Paps." I encouraged.

Papyrus stared intently at the napkin, and focused his ghostly powers on it. Nothing happened for about half a minute, and Killer was almost ready to give up, when the napkin twitched, then started to float.

"That's so cool! We gotta find other stuff for ya to move!" Killer announced. "Practice!"

"What about our chores?" I asked.

"Oh. Yeah, we should finish quick. Can Papyrus ghost practice while we clean?"

"Yes. Clean well, brother!" Papyrus ordered.

"Yeah, he can. Good luck Paps!" I said, continuing the dusting.

Killer and I resumed our chores at an accelerated rate after this conversation, and had every intent to make Papyrus the best ghost ever; he was already the best ghost ever, but we were going to make him even better, if that was even possible in the first place. When we finished our chores, we just had to find him, which was hard to do sometimes, since he was a ghost. Once, I played hide and seek with him, and I couldn't find him for a couple days in the forest. Apparently he could turn invisible for me too, making it super difficult to find him. Killer and I searched for him all around the house, with no luck, until we walked into the attic, which was the last place we had to search. When we entered, the lights flickered off, immediately alerting us that Papyrus was here, and he was going to try to scare us. I wasn't scared, but I would pretend to be, for Papyrus's sake.

We were met with a floating string of fairy lights dancing around the room, in a slightly awe-inducing fashion; Papyrus had obviously been training, and a lot, by the looks of it. While the lights captured our attention, we pretended not to notice the pencils being shoved into our pockets; Papyrus had weird fears, but he was still the best. The lights also distracted us from the sharp weapons being hurled towards us; those would have been much scarier if I hadn't expected their coming. The lights in the attic were then turned back on, and we grabbed the floating weapons that stopped mere centimeters from our skulls. Papyrus looked proud of himself for this display of his ghostly abilities, and Killer and I were complimenting him for it. He really was the best ghost anybody could have following them around all the time; he's so amazing.

"That was awesome! We should totally scare Nightmare!" Killer suggested.

"That would be fun. Whaddya say, Paps?" I wondered.

"Of course, brother! This will be most enjoyable!" Paps gave a ghostly grin.

"Paps says he's in."

"Cool! How do we scare Nightmare though?" Killer questioned.

"Make a bunch of stuff float around?"

"Hmm...yeah, that could work." 

"Now we just need to find him."

"Wasn't he in the library?"

"I think he was; let's go!"

We then headed to the library where, as we slightly cracked the door open, we found Nightmare. He hadn't noticed us; that was good. We sent Papyrus in to do his ghostly thing, which he did. Books started pulling themselves off the shelves, and Killer and I kept track of which ones went where, since even if we weren't convicted of this, we would be cleaning it up regardless. Nightmare looked around, shocked, and glanced at the book he was reading incredulously, as if he expected it to leap out of his hand, which it did. Books were flying everywhere, and Nightmare was dumbfounded; this was worth every cleaning duty in the world. Papyrus was the best ghost ever! Nightmare looked mournfully at the state of the library as the books finally slowed their paths, eventually stopping as the floor was littered with books; not too many books, though. Nightmare then shifted his gaze toward the door, spotting me and Killer, and facepalming. We were going to have to clean this up, and we started without him even having to say a word. We did, however, start giggling the moment he left the room.

"Didjya see his face?" Killer asked. "That was priceless!"

"Wish I had a camera!" I stated. "You know what? I'm getting a camera."

"Good idea. Then we can look back on stuff!"

"Where do I get a camera, though?"

"There's probably some cameras somewhere around here."

"Nope. There are no cameras in this building, sorry brother." Papyrus sighed.

"Aw, really?" I frowned. "Maybe I can learn how to speed draw or something."

"Time to go: you can finish this later." Nightmare said, walking in.

"Brother, I am going to stay behind this time, good luck!" Papyrus smiled.

"Okay." I replied to both.

"Sure thing, Nightmare." Killer saluted.

Nightmare opened a portal to what looked to be a darker universe. 

"This will be your weekly independence test." Nightmare started. "I'll pick you up in half an hour."

"Okay." We replied in unison, walking through.

We had done these often, and it usually turned out fine, with double the universes affected. There were a few occasions when Ink or Dream, or even both showed up, but in those situations, nothing too bad ever happened. Killer and I started our negativity spreading as always, with him on the ground and me in the trees. We had twenty-five minutes before a portal opened, revealing Ink and the swapped Papyrus; a battle was bound to break out. Dream and the swapped Sans were most likely off battling Nightmare, so the chances of help coming were low. The Papyrus and Killer immediately went at it, and I started blocking the Papyrus's attacks, while also stopping Ink from doing much of anything. I saw Ink throw a dirty look in my general direction, since that was literally all he could do; he was unlucky that he had to use a paintbrush to access most of his powers. Actually, I wasn't sure if he could or couldn't use his powers without it; he just didn't. I was pretty sure he hated me, though; that fact was pretty obvious.

Killer and I eventually made the opposers run off, and waited for Nightmare to pick us up, since he didn't tell us where he was going; sometimes it was frustrating, since we didn't even know if he was okay. We did have permission to go home if he didn't pick us up within an hour of when he said he would, though; I wondered what Papyrus was doing at home. Killer walked up to the tree I was in and started to climb it, eventually sitting on the branch next to me.

"So, how long do ya think we'll have to wait?" Killer wondered.

"Dunno. Paps is at home." I answered.

"Huh. Got any fun ideas while we wait?"

"Take a walk in the forest?"

"Hmm. Sure."

We both then descended from the tree and began to wander the forest, pointing out the interesting things we saw. Some stalactites hung from the ceiling pretty low in some places; a few reaching the tree line. It was a pretty dark forest, but it wasn't as dark as mine. Now that I thought of it, I hadn't actually seen any forest as dark as mine; I guess the dust really blocked out all the light. I wondered if any forest was darker than mine; I would hope so, but I guess I couldn't complain if they weren't. Darkness: the absence of light. How dark could something even be? Was complete darkness even possible? Waas darkness relative? What was dark to somebody might have been bright to somebody else; maybe there was simply a different kind of light that couldn't be seen, such as ultraviolet. I didn't think humans could see magic light outside of battle unless it was really powerful; I saw it everywhere. Was blindness simply not being able to see light? Perhaps they just saw a different light. Darkness was confusing.

"Take a look at this flower!" Killer picked a small flower out of the ground. 

"Cool. What kind is it?" I asked.

"Not sure. Looks pretty, though. Maybe native to the forest?"

"Probably. Perhaps you should keep it; a memento?"

"Sounds great: the blue would really go well with nothin' in my room."

"Just a suggestion."

"I know, just jokin' with ya."

"Think an hour's up yet?"

"Nah. I'd say we still got about twenty minutes."

"So what should we-" I was interrupted by a portal opening, revealing Nightmare. "Nevermind."

We walked over to him, making sure he wasn't injured; he wasn't.

"Sorry I took so long. A couple skeletons blocked my way." Nightmare apologized.

"Yeah, found trouble here too; ran 'em off, though." Killer said.

"You look a bit injured; want me to take a look?"

"It's nothin,' I'll live."

"I'm taking a look anyway."

"I know."

"Come on, you're probably both dying to get home."

We followed Nightmare through the portal back home; he immediately went to looking at Killer's wounds, so I decided to head back to the library to finish cleaning up in there. The sheer look on Nightmare's face when the books started flying around was worth every bit of the cleanup. As I walked down the halls, I wondered where Papyrus was; usually he was always nearby, but I felt lonely when he wasn't by my side. I felt more empty than usual. I felt pretty empty anyway, but Paps could stabilize it just by being there; he really is the best brother ever. I finally reached the door to the library and opened it; the library was clean. I somewhat expected this, due to my nature, but it was still pleasant. Paps was floating around the room, and came up to me when he noticed me.

"Hello, brother! Do you like it?" Papyrus questioned.

"It's amazing, Paps. You're the best!" I replied.

"I am the Great Papyrus!"

"Yes, you are. You were always the best at organizing."

"I hope you didn't miss me; that's a double compliment."

"I suppose I did..."

"No need to miss me, brother! I will stay with you forever! I cannot die as a ghost, you know!"

"I guess you're right."

"Of course I am! Let's go see your friends!"

"Okay, Paps."

Papyrus and I were then on our way to the living room, where Nightmare usually performed his healing. Killer was insisting that he wasn't hurt as bad as he looked, but we knew that was a lie. He had received some pretty bad hits in the previous battle; those wounds weren't to be messed with. We had a pretty good fighting strategy, though; teamwork was really underrated sometimes. A couple weeks ago, Killer insisted on going out alone, since I was apparently overworking myself - which I wasn't - and came home looking worse than ever. He was never opposed to my coming after that; in fact, I think he appreciated it more. I wasn't even sure he'd fully recovered from that yet. I sat down in the living room, Papyrus by my side, and watched Nightmare's healing technique. He mixed magic with medicinal herbs and plants, which I found rather interesting: usually, healers either picked one or the other, but he picked both, and made it work. I wasn't a healer, myself, but I could tell that he put a lot of effort into it.

"Seriously, I'm fine!" Killer stated.

"You're not fine! Your ulna is on the verge of cracking!" Nightmare retorted. "Don't even get me started on your radius!"

"So my arm's a little busted up; it's not the end of the world!"

"Maybe it should be, if only to teach you to care more about yourself."

"Relax, ya shouldn't be stressin' yourself out over me."

"Well, I am, and I say you need bed rest. This sedative should prove useful, since you don't like sleeping."

"I don't..need a..a.." Killer fell asleep.

"Dust, would you be kind enough to escort Killer to his room?"

"Sure thing." I responded, standing up.

"Thanks."

I carefully lifted Killer off the couch, minding his patched arm, and began to walk towards his room; I wasn't exactly the strongest skeleton out there, so there was a bit of difficulty, but I managed to get him there in one piece. I didn't see why he had to fall asleep before he got to his room, but I wouldn't argue. Killer reminded me a bit of Papyrus sometimes, although he wasn't half as cool as Paps: nobody could be as cool as Papyrus. He was pretty cool by normal standards, though. I took the flower he picked in the forest out of his jacket and laid it on his dresser; it didn't look bad in his room at all. Shutting the door to his room, I began wandering the long corridors of the house, trying to get myself lost, I guess.

I liked the feeling of being lost. Not knowing where you were, and not knowing what would happen: those feelings made me feel comfortable. Paps didn't like those feelings, so he didn't usually accompany me when I got lost. After a while of my loneliness, I started to memorize the underground, and I couldn't gain the satisfaction of being lost. Nightmare's house was easy to get lost in, especially since I hadn't memorized every part; there were three or four floors, each with multiple hallways, so there was no way I was memorizing it anytime soon. The doors on the sides all looked alike, with minute differences you could only see if you were looking for them; the walls were long, and from the end of the hall, you could only barely make out a window at the other. It was a perfect place to lose yourself, and that was exactly what I was doing.

I liked being lost.

~~~chapter end woot~~~

Dust bean and Killer bean teach Paps bean new tricks.

Thanks for reading my ghostly writing!

Bye!