(stop)
It started with a jolt of electric pain in the base of his skull; bumblebees buzzing out their own static song somewhere in his mind. It was quiet at first, but the static steadily grew louder. When Sans tried to clear his mind of the static, it only seemed to grow. About half-way through his panic, Sans realized his eyes had forced their way closed. Something wet and black and not entirely real dripped down his face when he opened his mismatched eyes. The world was hesitantly wavering, seemingly deciding between one thing and another. To Sans' right, he saw a figure cloaked in black, but still despite the shaking world. His face was a blur of white, cracked and scarred, but still smiling. Sans knew him, of course, it was the doctor, though now his smirk appeared to be somewhat forced under some sort of unknown pressure to deliver. Sans reached out a hand to him but this time the world wasn't so hesitant to make its decision.
Sans could feel time slipping through his fingers like sand. The world was changing and Sans wasn't sure why.
(start)
Looking down, Sans realized he'd nearly stepped on one of the doctor's save points.
The human paused, heart thrumming faster even though he'd stilled his breathing. A save point..? How was that possible? He'd just been fighting Asgore when—when... Sans' eyes widened as the memory chilled its way up his spine. The fallen human could remember the feeling of being torn in two, and the memory wasn't helping the pounding in his skull. Had the king killed him? The king was really his only prayer for leaving the underground, but now...
"Hey!" The familiar voice of Undyne yelled (again) as she pulled Sans ' blue jacket roughly. Her face was tight with irritation (still). "You see this!? This is the human! Now let me pass! I've got to get to Asgore!" Undyne repeated unknowingly.
The guards heaved out the same sigh and went into a tirade of explanations as to why Undyne couldn't possibly go meet the king. Sans' mind was elsewhere. This must have been the power of save points as Sans recalled it from his talk with the doctor. He realized that he was shaking, but Undyne didn't seem to notice. In fact, just like the last time, she was far too preoccupied with her argument against the guards.
The ground felt unstable below Sans' feet. There was no way he was going back to that royal scumbag so he could just die again. The guards were distracted, though one kept shooting nervous glances at Sans. Undyne was flinging insults at the guards like it was nothing. And Sans remembered this. They would fight for another minute until the guards would eventually tire of fighting a child. In another minute, they would be guiding Sans to the king.
In conclusion: if Sans wanted to run, it was now or never.
The laboratory loomed ominously to his side but Sans ran towards it with the determination he'd never known.
"Hey!" Undyne. She must have heard his footsteps pounding on the stone below. Sans silently cursed himself. The clanking metal of the guards sounded from somewhere behind Sans' retreating form and grew louder every moment.
It was at the last moment that Sans realized that the laboratory might be locked. He ran towards it regardless, seeing as it was a little too late to change his trajectory. As he reached out to push the door on the off-chance that it didn't open, a small mechanical ding sounded from the door. It permitted him entrance into the lab, but sounded with an echoing clunk behind him a second after he was safely inside.
Metallic bangs ricocheted off of the door as the guards and Undyne struggled to get it to open. Despite everything, the door would only move for Sans. He backed away from it and moved through the darkness. He could hear muffled yelling from beyond the door that listened only for him. It was indistinct in the way that yelling through a giant, metal door might cause. Nonetheless, Sans managed to make out the frustrated screaming of a small fish and the agitated shouting of the guards.
Sans really did not have the time to be wondering what the guards were doing in their attempts to open the door. Instead, he felt his way through the dark room. In all honesty, he couldn't even see the walls, but turning back didn't seem like much of an option anymore.
(-)
And it really wasn't. He could turn back and face certain death. Over and over again, if his understanding of saves was correct, too. It was a redundant death sentence or explore the eerie spookiness of the shadowed labs he was now in. In general, Sans' predicament was rather bleak, but he was filled with determination (that wasn't his own).
It only took a few times of tripping over stacks of something and bumping into what might have been a desk or a wall for Sans to pause and focus on his surroundings. Not long after, his eyes began to adjust to the darkness of the lab, though only slightly. Sans still couldn't see the details on the walls, but after taking a moment to break, he was at least aware that there were walls. This was a step in the right direction in and of itself.
"Well," Sans mumbled to himself, feeling the lack of sound echoing in his skull, "let's see where we are."
The fallen human wasn't sure when things like this became so normal. He should have been alarmed, but he wasn't. In some regards, his whole life was completely different, but in others, everything was still the same. In fact, his head had always pounded as it was then. The only difference was that now it seemed to be rattling on with more purpose. Sans knew he should be worried about the black ooze that dripped from his eye and the doctor that spoke sharply in his head, but he really wasn't. Sans knew he should maybe be concerned with the fact that literally every monster in the underground aside from Grillby wanted him dead. When he tried to think about it, Sans felt a quiet numbness amongst the calm roaring in his head.
(I'm glad that worked.)
The human nearly jumped up in shock, but calmed at the last second. "Doctor? Are you talking about the..." Sans scrambled for the right wording, but the doctor interjected quickly and effectively.
(The reload, yes.) A pause. (I was not anticipating that you would re-save in Hotland. Though I suppose that there is nothing to be done now. In the long run, I cannot be sure whether saving closer to the lab will prove to be more helpful than not.)
Sans blinked, trying to clear the darkness of the room, but only succeeding on tripping on the corner of a desk. "Ow!" He cursed quietly, but swiftly proceeded in feeling his way around the remainder of the long room. A question had been burning in his brain for a while now, but Sans had been hesitant to ask it. Despite the doctor's apparent interest in always being with Sans, the fallen human's trust was not easy to place. They'd apparently known each other for a while, as the doctor had said, but Sans still felt some level of distrust for the bodiless monster.
The voice in Sans' head seemed to already know the question. (The laboratory will prove useful to you if you aim to leave the underground. I can guide you around the laboratory, if you so please. It is in your best interest that you listen.)
He sighed, but couldn't spare the time to actually respond to the doctor. Sans was preoccupied with feeling his way around the dark, echoing room. He didn't respond verbally, but did mull over what the voice had said. This lab would be important? Sans was equal parts glad and suspicious.
Abruptly, the darkness of the lab ended. A door stood tall at the other end of the lab, and as Sans approached it he heard the same ding as for the door previous. It opened in a similarly smooth manner, albeit groaning slightly in protest. Heat and light spilled from somewhere outside the lab, but the doctor disrupted Sans' thankfullness for light.
(We have no business outside of the labs. ) the doctor thought to him, (Turn around and search for the other door.)
Sans would have protested, but two things stopped him. For one, the doctor hadn't led him wrong yet. Sure, he'd abandoned Sans in some times of need, but never once had he purposely led him to harm. Secondly, there was another monster watching him.
"Ah. I assume you accept, then?"
Back from hiatus!
Hopefully, I'll be updating every Monday and Friday now; and perhaps on Wednesday if I feel up to it.
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