Chara and Asgore arrived at another similar looking area as they left. They stepped off the boat. Chara was surprised how much warmer it had gotten, not enough to be hot, but noticeable nonetheless.

"Come again some time, tra la la." said the Riverman.

"Thank you." Asgore replied with a small bow.

Chara stared at the riverman. "What are you?" She asked. She got no response.

Asgore tapped Chara on her shoulder. "Well Chara, let's go."

Chara took off her raincoat as it was soaked from the trip. Asgore, who already took his raincoat off, offered to take her coat. She gave it to him. He put both coats over his shoulder. They walked up the long, dark path for a couple of minutes. As they continued walking, it got noticeably hotter and brighter as time went on, before long Chara was sweating bullets. Asgore looked drenched.

"It's so hot over here! Why would anything work in this place let alone live in it?" Chara said in disbelief.

Asgore gave a short laugh, "Well Chara, monsters are quick to adapting to the environment around them. However, it did take quite some time to live without the sun though. It's honestly one thing I thought we couldn't live without."

Chara understanding what he was saying, "Well, the sun is important. It's the thing that brought all life on this planet. I'd hate to be in a spot without it." Chara replied.

"Chara, maybe you won't have to." Said Asgore.

"What does that mean?"

"For now, nothing."

Chara was wondering about what Asgore said when she bumped into something hot. It looked like a tiny volcano with a face. It was about half her size and the clothing that touched the creature was soot black.

"Hello!" It said to Chara. Chara backed up a bit until she bumped into Asgore. She must've backed up faster when she was thinking.

"Oh. Hello Vulkin." Asgore waved at the tiny volcano.

"Hello King Asgore! How are you? Who is your friend?" Vulkin asked with joy in its step.

"I'm doing fine, this is Chara, she's new to the Underground, so give her a little space, meanwhile what have you been doing small one…"

Chara wasn't paying attention. She was fixated on this…monster that was apparently a walking volcano. She didn't know what to do. Asgore seemed to enjoy talking to it, but she was wary. She didn't know if it was something potentially aggressive, but she noticed that after Asgore gave it a hug, it was walking away, humming to itself.

They continued walking for a bit with only the lava bubbles filling the air with noise.

Chara broke the silence. "Ugh, Asgore ... That was a walking volcano…and you spoke to it." Chara said drastically confused.

"Yes, that was Vulkin."

"Why and how do you know its name?"

"Well, it's my job as king to know my subject's names, so I may greet them like a friend instead of a ruler." Asgore slowed down and stopped. "Oh, look at that, we're here."

Chara seeing the massive white metallic building for the first time was in awe.

"That's huge, I didn't think a building that big could be down here." Chara thought out loud.

Asgore gave a slight chuckle as he walked over to what seemed to be the entrance and knocked on it with three powerful knocks. After a couple seconds of silence. The door opened with Gaster at the entrance. Gaster stepped aside allowing Chara and Asgore to enter the building. It was noticeably cooler inside the building and it smelt clean.

The inside of the building was big and white with not much to look at. It had stuff Chara couldn't recognize hanging on the walls. It had tubes on tables. It had books and folders stacked on top of themselves. Chara could only describe the place as: science.

Asgore motioned Chara over to where he was. She quickly walked there and looked eye to eye with Gaster trying to get a read on him.

Asgore laughed heartily. "Chara, he's a skeleton. You're not going to win a staring contest against him. I've tried."

Chara gave a nervous laugh to his response. She took in a couple of deep breaths, held out her right hand, and said "Hello, my name is Chara, nice to actually meet you."

She felt Gaster's boney hand as he grabbed her hand to shake. As they shook hands, she noticed that it wasn't cold, but it felt warm. It felt brittle, if she gripped even a little harder it would break, but she felt like that wouldn't be the case.

Upon hearing what she thought were words coming out of Gaster's mouth, she fell to the ground in pain. Her ears were ringing. She couldn't sense anything. She felt herself slipping away from consciousness. Whatever Gaster said, she couldn't comprehend it. The pain was intense. She wanted to die.

She woke up screaming from the pain that knocked her out. She saw she was laying on top of a bed of withered roses. She got up and looked at where she was, it seemed to be Kara's place, but something was wrong, the roses were dying, and she noticed the "sky" was a dark red. She looked below her to see a single red rose that wasn't there before. She started walking forward. She noticed that a red rose formed wherever she was, but just as quickly as it appeared, it withered away.

"This isn't right." She told herself. "KARA!" She yelled…." ASGORE, TORIEL, ASRIEL!"

*but no one came*

"KARA, ASGORE, TORIEL, ASRIEL!" she yelled once more.

*but no one came*

She started losing hope in this desolate place, "What am I going to do? I…I can't find the white glow…I can't find Kara…I can't even believe what's going on. Am I going insane? "

Chara didn't want to keep on asking herself questions. So, she decided to keep on walking. She wanted to find something that would help her get out. She wanted there to be a way to leave. As she walked in this field of death, she looked around.

"Wait…." Chara squinted her eyes to get a better look at what appeared to be a white rose. "Will that…?"

She ran towards it with a newfound hope, after several minutes of non-stop running seemingly going nowhere; she immediately got to it, as if time suddenly shifted. She crouched down to get a better look at the flower. The flower was…moving? Parts of the flower were phasing in and out of existence at random.

"Wait is it…glitching?" She said to herself, it looked like an electronic device that was messed up. She touched it. As soon as she laid a finger on it, her entire world started to change. All the withered roses, the red sky, and even the ground disappeared. She thought she was falling, yet she couldn't feel herself moving. She tried walking but couldn't move. She tried to turn her body, she could. She looked around her. She stopped when she saw a red heart-shaped object. She instinctively reached out and grabbed it; holding it close to her body she felt safer. This object gave her hope. She didn't know what it was, but that it was good. She turned the object around to get a better look at it but noticed the back of it was black. When she saw the black side of the object, all the positive feelings were replaced with those of fear.

"Wake up."

Chara bolted up off the bed she was laying on while breathing heavily. She immediately noticed that the object she was holding onto was gone. She saw the metallic, white walls of the laboratory with various pieces of furniture scattered about. At both ends of the room there were stairs leading down to the floor below, there was an edge that was blocked by railings. She looked over the railing to see the floor below and saw Gaster at a table writing down notes before tinkering with a small, metallic object.

She went over to a staircase and as she was walking down, she yelled angerly, "GASTER! WHAT IN HELL DID YOU DO TO ME?!"

Gaster jumped a little out of his seat as he heard her voice, he, looking directly at Chara, said calmly "Oh, hello, are you feeling ok?"

"NO, I BLACKED OUT AFTER HEARING YOUR VOI- "Chara stopped herself at the bottom of the staircase as she realized, she could understand him now.

"Yes, that appeared to have been the case, I do apologize, I haven't spoken to a human in my native language before and didn't know you would react violently because of it. I injected you with a sedative, so you would calm down, and you fell asleep."

Chara with a puzzled look on her face said. "What, I didn't react violently, I fell over and couldn't sense anything. I was in so much pain I passed out!"

Gaster got up from where he was seated and walked towards Chara while saying "That was the first thing you did, after about five seconds on the ground you quickly rushed up and tried to grab me around my what would've been my neck, with what appeared to be murderous intent. Asgore was able to grab you quickly and keep you still, soon after I injected you with a sedative, after he put you in my bed. He quickly apologized for what you did followed by chewing me. That was three and a-half hours ago."

Chara, surprised, thought to herself "Kara! So, she is still around." She regained her composure before thinking about what she was going to say next. She had that terrible nightmare and it frightened her "I actually have something to ask you, can you do that?"

Gaster looked at her curiously, then he gave a slight smile "Sure, I will try to answer it to the best of my abilities."

Chara took in a deep breath, "After I heard your voice and passed out, I had this horrible nightmare where I was trapped in this hellish landscape and…and I saw this red, heart-shaped object. When I grabbed it, it felt comforting, but when I turned it to see the back, it was this metallic black color and I had every feeling to run. Soon after, I heard something tell me to wake up, then I did."

Gaster, hearing this, took on a more curious look. "Really? That is quite a nightmare." Gaster crouched down to Chara's eye level. "What you saw, was a soul. More specifically, a human's soul. As for whose it belonged to, it was probably your own soul."

"Wha…?"

Gaster stood up, "A human soul is a very powerful object. It's something that is the core of every human being. Even monsters have souls as well, but they're far weaker then human souls."

"Why is that?" Chara asked puzzled.

"Human souls and monster souls are made of different things. Monsters are made up of what I believe to be pure magic however the common consensus is love, hope, and compassion. When a monster departs from this world, their soul is instantly destroyed with the body hosting it turning into dust. Boss monster souls, which is what the royal family have and are, can last several seconds outside the body, are quite stronger, but eventually succumb to the same fate. Human souls are made up of a material called determination. What determination is, is even still a mystery for me. What I have gathered is that it's quite strong and is more physical than a monster's soul."

"That's…we- "

Gaster seeming to have gotten carried away with his explanation, "Furthermore, the two souls can interact with each other. Boss monster souls can absorb human souls to get stronger, but even a fully-grown boss monster isn't as strong as a fully grown human, but a boss monster with a human soul has exceedingly high power. As far as I know a human cannot absorb a monster's soul as the soul doesn't last long enough outside the body for a human to get a chance."

"Wha- "

"I originally concluded that Asgore needs seven human souls to break the barrier is that originally it took seven of them to create the barrier trapping all of us down here. Seven human souls absorb by a boss monster, will, theoretically, be able to break the barrier because it's stronger." As Gaster finished, he looked over at Chara waiting for a response.

Chara's body locked up with fear as she realized what that meant to her. "Do…do you think they'll- "

Gaster, realizing what Chara was taking from the conversation, quickly responded "No, absolutely not. The monsters down here wouldn't even think about it. Monsters are generally peaceful beings. Asgore and his family wouldn't do that period, but that does remind me of why he brought you here in the first place."

Chara asked cautiously "What would-"

"To run tests on your soul of course."