Chapter 9: The New Lost Soul, But Where Are The Other Two?

When Sans woke up, he was in a dark room. How long had he been asleep? He was half choking on a blanket that nearly engulfed him. Sans struggled under its weight.

When he finally managed to haul it off of him, Sans took the opportunity to breathe. He noticed his eye sockets were somewhat… crusty? How had that-

Oh. Right.

Then the thought occurred to him: how was Papyrus?

His bro was always worried, with good reason, when Sans broke up like this… Sans didn't want to cause Paps more worry than he already surely had.

Sans hastily got out of bed, tripping over the huge blanket in the process. He picked it up, wrapping himself in it. The soft, heaviness of it was comforting when he wasn't being suffocated by its fluff.

When Sans headed downstairs, he noticed that Papyrus wasn't awake yet. Otherwise there would be crashes in their kitchen or, at the very least, some sort of scuffling and the sounds of brewing coffee. Sans had never been out of his room while Papyrus was still asleep.

It was an odd feeling.

Sans decided to check on Papyrus in his room. It felt wrong not to.

In order to eliminate the creak of a door waking his (probably) sleeping brother, Sans teleported into Paps' room.

Yep. Sleeping soundly.

Sans didn't know what he had been expecting, but this didn't seem to be it. Nevertheless, Sans was happy his brother was sound asleep.

He had somewhere he needed to be.

Sans teleported out of the room, heading to Hotland.

Alphys was startled out of her half-asleep daze when she heard the knock at her door. Or maybe it was more like a loud clicking. It wasn't Undyne; she would have caused a banging to make her table shake.

Who could it be at this time of morning? Not even the royal guards who stood outside her lab were there.

Not to mention that Alphys was undoubtedly a mess, which made it all the harder to open the door. She had stayed in the lab watching anime all night. For the third day in a row. Her clothes were wrinkled and dirty, and she was sure she looked horrid otherwise.

But then the clicking knock came again, so she answered it reluctantly.

She was extremely surprised to see a short skeleton wearing an off-blue jacket and turtleneck sweater underneath. Undoubtedly this Monster was not from Hotland.

Alphys studied the skeleton in silence. She couldn't decide if it was just a dirty blue jacket or just a light blue-grey color, and the jacket was very stretched and big for its owner. But the oddest thing by far was that this skeleton standing in her doorway looked familiar somehow.

"heya," he said, with a plastered on smile.

Alphys had definitely been staring.

"O-oh. Hi! S-sorry about this," Alphys replied, gesturing to herself, "Was there something y-you needed?"

Alphys hated her stuttering, and it was even worse than ever now. But the skeleton didn't make a remark about it. Instead, he stood completely silent, propped against the door frame, studying her. He looked somewhat confused, but Alphys had no idea why.

"oh… ummmm… not really. just wanna… ask you about something."

"O-oh. Al-alright. Ask away. I-i am the Royal Scientist a-after all."

"... why not we go inside first?"

"S-s-sure…" The skeleton had a tone of urgency in his rasp-like vioce, and Alphys couldn't help but trust this apparent stranger.

As they went inside, Alphys immediately regretted it. She didn't mind the state her lab was in, but on the rare occasion she had guests, she fretted over every little thing.

But the skeleton spared her a lecture, unlike how Undyne would've. She was grateful once again to him.

"Now, what w-was it that you n-needed to ask?" Alphys asked as she closed the door with a remote.

"i just had a question about you actually. well, now two."

The short skeleton seemed to still be confused, but now he also sounded confrontational. Not a good mixture.

"O-oh. What are t-they then?"

"so first, do you recognise me?"

That was an odd question, but Alphys was truthful. "Yes. You do s-seem familiar, but I can't put a claw o-on it…"

"alright. we used to work in the lab together. but that was a long time ago... now secondly," he said, putting on a more serious expression, "have you recently gotten a human soul? it's weird but it's really important."

Again, Alphys was truthful.

"Y-yes… How do you know about that though?" Where her almost too plentiful amount of tact would usually stop her from saying anything like that, her Soul desired honesty above all. Alphys put up no resistance.

"ah. i had a feeling that was the case. welp. i gotta introduce myself now," he said, going back to what seemed like his signature smile without missing a beat, "hi. i'm sans, sans the skeleton. i live in snowdin town, but before that i was helping you and asgore with the research of human souls."

"W-w-wait… That was y-you?!"

"yep. science is in my BONES," Sans said, laughing to himself when Alphys didn't react to the quite obvious pun.

Alphys normally liked puns and wordplay, but she was having a hard time processing everything happening.

"W-well… Hmm… You said you live i-in Snowdin?" That would explain the outfit.

"that's right."

"Alright…"

Sans and Alphys stood in the lab awkwardly as Alphys pondered over what to say next. Though it seemed as if Sans was contemplating something as well. Sans was the first to speak.

"well, one thing to be aware of is that there are three other monsters with human souls living here now. so you're not the only lost soul. heh," Sans laughed at his pun, and although that particular one wasn't to the usual standard, Alphys smiled a bit. It was a very anxious smile, but a smile nonetheless. She was grateful for that. But something Sans had said just wasn't right…

"W-wait. Three others? I knew a-about Undyne, but who else could withstand a H-human Soul's power?"

"apparently, that'd be me and my bro. oh yeah, that's the other important thing," Sans said, sheepishly rubbing his skull.

"W-w-why not I try t-to help."

"sure. that'd work. i'll tell paps 'bout it."