FRISK
LV 1
HP 40/40
G 10
The elevator shaft that led to True Lab was empty, but there was at least a ladder for her to climb down. She envied Flowey, who pulled himself through even the bare steel spaces using roots and vines; he proved a long time ago that he wasn't simply a flower. Frisk wondered if things like him ever got tired, the way she was getting tired.
The child smacked the red palms of her hands together when she reached the bottom, stepping out of the shaft into a dimly lit hallway. "..." Finally. She hadn't been in this place for years. She never wanted to go back after the last time.
Since last time, when all the amalgamates were evacuated, the lab hadn't been touched by anyone. It was covered in cobwebs and all the power was low. As Frisk walked down he hall, some of the entries that Alphys made on the wall flickered to life. Not because she had passed them, like before, but because Flowey passed them. And even then, some of them were too dim to read or didn't turn on at all. All the low lighting made it hard for the child to see what was up ahead. Almost tripping on a broken tile, she hissed, "It's too dark. How do you know where to go?"
"I'm pretty good at seeing in the dark," Flowey said with a silly grin on his face. His roots pulled him along and left trails over the floor. "I guess that means you gotta follow me."
Normally she liked to be the leader, but Frisk didn't mind that all that much in this place. True Lab was just as creepy as it had always been, and even more so now that it was abandoned. She could hear noises somewhere farther off, although she didn't know if it was something moving around in this place or just the walls creaking. "You're sure he's gone?"
"I'm sure. We don't have anything to worry about for now," the little flower said with a tiny laugh. As she followed him, Frisk finally began to recognize the areas they passed in the dark. They were in a long hall with mirrors and wilted flowers, someplace else she didn't enjoy being. Her heart was beating louder, while beside her Flowey spoke again, "I have to admiiit, I'm excited!"
"This hall leads to a dead end, Flowey."
"You'd think so, but I noticed something has changed recently," Flowey said with a wink. "Just keep walking."
Frisk hesitated and looked over at one of the mirrors. It's still you, Frisk. She looked so tired. The girl kept walking down the line of mirrors, until she saw something very different. One of the mirrors was shoved aside from the wall, lying overturned on the floor. The spot that it once occupied held a dark door, one with no handle and a scanner on one side. The child's eyes widened; how long had that been there?
"Pretty sneaky, huh? I can't slide it, so this next part is up to you!"
Frisk frowned. "It looks like it needs a thumbprint."
"What?" Now Flowey frowned. "Skeletons don't have thumbprints. Just slide it open, c'mon."
Shrugging, Frisk pressed the palms of her hand against the door - it was easy to get a grip with how sweaty her hands were now - and was, well, not relieved exactly, when it ground against the floor and slid back into the wall. She smacked her palms against each other again as she walked into the new and even darker hall, Flowey dragging along beside her. Some of the lights overhead struggled and failed to turn on, just barely picking up Flowey's movements over the ground.
The shadows that crept all around them made her footsteps so loud, Frisk kept turning her back in fear that there was a second pair. Every time that she did she didn't see anything, but that didn't stop her from doing it again. When she turned her head for a fourth time, she caught sight of another hallway that led off into the dark. "..." She stopped, and after a second Flowey stopped too.
"Ohh what's down there, do you think?" Flowey peered in, squinting. "Ehhh, it's too dark. Do you want to check?"
"No." Frisk clutched her locket and took a step back. "This was a bad idea. I'm just gonna go and tell Sans I'm sorry-"
Flowey snorted and dragged himself into the hall. "What, you're quitting just like that?" The child, looking left and right, didn't reply. She started to walk after the flower on slow feet, and he chuckled. "Yeaaah, I thought so. That's not like you, is it?"
Dr. Alphys' notes didn't want to respond at first, but they came on after persistent effort. It is possible to do almost anything with persistent effort.
That being said, I still can't get my computer to work. And even when I managed to make Alphys' notes turn on, they were just barely visible. No light I could emit had an effect on the true plane of reality. It would be irritating to me, and even more irritating that she left her entries scattered all over on monitors across the lab, except that I didn't have any other leads at the moment.
Her experiments with DETERMINATION, as detailed here, are very interesting. I wish that I could have been able to participate, to have more resources at my disposal than what I had back then. Although it's possible that those studies would never have happened in the first place if I was still around.
The results were apparently not satisfactory, either way. It is worrying to see that she was so upset by what she had done. She isn't the kind of person that can handle failure well, and not, I should think, when so many lives were injured in the process. Reading more of her entries on this only proves that concept more true. I wonder how she's faring now... She doesn't write of this problem being resolved here. And yet, she is still the Royal Scientist, if the human's testimony is to be believed.
Well, so much for this. Nothing she's recorded can help me with our current predicament, at least not on a first glance. There is a lot that's worth a second look, though.
I do find something else, too, as I'm reading through the monitors. Entries on a flower that was also tested with DETERMINATION.
That "Flowey," can it be that he isn't a monster at all? ...Very strange.
This is something I'd like to look into further. But, on my own time, perhaps.
The two of them found a few things that Frisk couldn't make sense of. Some workrooms, one of them reminding her of an operating room in a hospital, some storage spaces, an alcove with a bed attached to it. The kinds of things that she found in the rest of True Lab, complete with equipment with a purpose she couldn't possibly fathom.
Their biggest find was in one of the rooms farther back, what looked like an office with sparse furnishings and monitors flanking the sides. On one side, Frisk could see an old computer on a desk with a corner of color on it, as if a portion was caught in a reality spot. The desk itself was looking clean and the chair scooted back like it had been used relatively recently. "Flowey, look..."
"Aha!" The flower's tendrils coiled around the edges of the desk and he pulled himself up as Frisk sat down in the chair. "Finally, we're getting somewhere."
Curling up in the chair, Frisk pressed the power button and waited for the computer to flicker on. It did not. She supposed that opening doors and sitting in chairs was going to be the limit of how much she could influence real things. She gestured to Flowey, who pressed on the button with his tendrils and just managed to push the button in.
The computer came to life with a black and green light, and several folders of files loaded on the screen in front of the two. Frisk's hands trembled as she fumbled for the mouse - Flowey pushed it into the little reality spot and it became easier for her to handle. The cursor went back and forth between files. All of them were labeled in wingdings. Clicking on one, Frisk watched ten files "tumble" out of it, also all labeled in wingdings. "...I can't read this?"
"Uhhhhhh." Flowey looked around the screen. "Maybe there's something you can click on."
"There's nothing else I can click on."
"Well you don't know that until you start clicking, do you?"
As she was sticking her tongue out at the flower, Frisk's face suddenly fell and she dug into her pocket, murmuring, "Hold on, maybe..."
Opening back up the translator app, she began clicking on the touch screen. There was no way, of course, that she could read any of that out loud - she wouldn't even know how to start - but maybe she had something that could. You open the OPTIONS menu.
You select MODES
You select CAMERA MODE.
The whole screen became taken up by the camera, and Frisk held it up to the laptop screen. It took a moment of buffering, but at the end of it she found all of the words onscreen being copied over by English words. "Aha, Alphys is great," she whispered with a smile.
"Let me see, let me see!" Flowey looked over her shoulder and squinted. "Oh! Well cool, now open something already."
Frisk pushed the flower away and he returned to the desk, the child biting her tongue as she studied the folder and file names. The files were all labeled as entries, and the folders were all labeled as months. There were so many... What were these even entries on? Frisk couldn't keep her teeth from chattering, and she curled up a little tighter. "Okay... just a second..." She took a deep breath to calm down and clicked on a random one, watching as wingdings suddenly filled the screen.
"You'll read it to me, right?" Flowey asked, looking from the incomprehensible screen to her. Frisk was already holding the camera up again; even though her teeth chattered, her hand was steady enough for the translator to read more. Or, maybe it was just that good of a phone. She needed to get a new one at some point, maybe when they all got back...
"Frisk, c'mon, what's it say?" Flowey was waving around on his stalk impatiently. The sight, for a second, made Frisk smile and laugh before she turned back to the phone in her hands. "Umm... 'It's been six hours since I've removed them from the M-D solution. They are clumsy and confused. Fearful. As expected, little experience in non-suspension has lead to a difficult adjustment period, particularly regarding ambulatory motion' woah woah wait what do some of these words mean?"
"And who's 'they'?"
Frisk paused. She looked back at the computer and clicked out of the file, choosing another. "... Let's read a different one." She captured the screen with her phone and began to read again, playing with the chain on her necklace with her other hand and trying not to let her voice shake. Flowey was looking at her so expectantly. "It says, '1-S will not wake up. He does not respond to any magic I can muster. It's like holding water in your hands.' ..." Her trembling didn't stop. The handplate flashed again into her mind.
As Flowey frowned at her, Frisk kept going. "'His soul is still intact, but he lingers between life and death, unable to commit to either. If he was doing this to spite me, I would not be surprised. This would be less a seri...' Not this one either."
"Oh come on, this one is good, finish reading it."
"No, I-" She looked to the other files. "Let's start from the beginning. At least a couple..."
"Oh, fine. But remember to open that one next after we do that."
Clenching her teeth together, Frisk nodded. With the translator in hand, she opened the first file.
Two skeletons arrived in Snowdin out of the blue one day, named Sans and Papyrus. That's what you were told once when you first visited Snowdin, back before you'd even said two words to them.
The day that they appeared was long ago, even before you showed up.
And before that, when they didn't live in Snowdin, when they didn't go by the names Sans and Papyrus, they lived in Hotland. Here, in fact, in this dark laboratory. But nobody knew that they even existed. And they certainly didn't know anything about the world outside.
The kind of information you can get just from one living person, with magic and a soul, is more valuable than anything else you can do with technology alone. But that kind of experimentation requires dedication. Both on the participant, and the one doing the experimenting. They were painful, unending, scary experiments, a child's nightmare every time they're taken to the hospital or doctor's office.
(You know exactly what they are, because he kept notes about everything that he did.)
When there is no one with the kind of dedication necessary to endure all that, someone being forced to participate... also works pretty well, actually.
They were just created to be somebody's lab rats. They were just tools to be used, tools that would unlock secrets to one day help all the monsters escape from the underground.
Their whole lives were defined by that, and only that.
It was for a good cause, right? The best cause. It was justifiable.
They didn't have names. They were just subjects, to be labeled and kept around for further use.
They didn't have a father at all.
Just like you are now, those two were children once. You might not have actually realized that until this moment. But... And this is also something you only now realized... Unlike you do now, they didn't have a childhood.
They had this.
...
(Reading about the horrible experiments conducted by Dr. Gaster...)
(You feel drained of determination.)
After a moment, Flowey noticed that Frisk wasn't reading anymore.
That startled him from his grinning stupor, looking at the computer screen as if pretending to read along with what she said. Looking back around, he saw her curled up now on the computer chair, her face pressed against her knees, arms wrapped around herself, and the phone limp in her hand. "...Heya, Frisk?" From the child, there was no reply. "What happens next?" He bounced up and down.
Frisk shuddered and made an unintelligible sound.
"Hey, c'mon, why are you stopping? I think we're getting to a good part."
Although still staying in her position, Frisk shook her head just a little.
"Okay, you need a minute? I can wait. We've been here for a while anyway." Flowey snorted.
But his aloof expression fell when he heard a loud, deep intake of breath from the computer chair. And then with it, he noticed her shoulders shaking as she took in another one right after. "..." He bobbed to the left, squinting, sneering. "Woah. Are you... crying?"
The only reply he got was another huge and sharp gasp. Frisk's body had begun to tremble. His sneer turning into a scowl, Flowey raised his voice, "What are you crying about? This guy is dry as toast! It's not that bad."
"..." The sobbing didn't stop.
"Stop being such a baby! I thought you wanted to find this stuff out! We haven't even figured out how it ends! I mean, we kind of do already, but..." But Frisk didn't respond, even when Flowey came off the desk and poked at her with one of his roots. "Frisk? Frisk?"
The sobbing just got louder.
He scowled deep and dragged himself off the chair, onto the ground. "So you're just going to quit?" Frisk's head dipped up and down slightly. "You always do this! You crybaby! I don't know why I thought this was going to be a good idea!"
No reply.
"... Fine. You're boring. I'm leaving."
No reply.
Flowey looked up at her for a long time, his scowl turning into a grimace. "Bye."
Frisk didn't respond. Finally, when she did look up, she saw that the flower was gone. So as another sob wracked her body, she put her head back in place and tried to breathe.
A long time passed like that, or at least so it felt, before something unsettled her.
She heard a high, musical ping from her phone. It took a few seconds, but eventually she pried herself apart and looked... she closed the translator app, feeling a sick twinge to see it still having the text from the last entry. And when she closed it... SANS sent you a text! "... ..." Frisk opened the text messages.
knock knock.
Wiping her eyes and sniffing hard, Frisk typed: Who's there?
SANS sent you a text!: not u apparently.
She started to smile, but that only made her tears come back. With trembling fingers she pecked out: Srry I'm taking a walk in waterfall.
She hoped she'd have a minute to catch her breath, but the response was immediate. SANS sent you a text!: kk. And then came a second one: paps says we gotta talk when u come back.
The computer screen was still staring at her, all of the wingdings blurred in front of her eyes, and Frisk thought she was going to throw up all over it when she swallowed the lump in her throat. She pulled her knees up tight to keep from sobbing, but even then it took ages for her next response: Kaaaay if paaaps wants us toooo.
Click
"!" The hair on the back of the child's neck stood on end. That sound came from outside.
Click-click, click-click, click-click
They were footsteps.
The chair rolled back across the floor as Frisk jumped out of it, having to draw it back in with her free hand at the last moment. She tried to turn off the computer, but no matter how many times she rammed her finger on the power button it didn't register. The screen just continued to blare the dark light and Frisk could hear her own pulse in her ears like a cuckoo clock. She could hear her breathing racheted up with it. No, no, no, no, no,
Click-click click-click click-click click-click
It was getting louder. Frisk's head whipped left and right, and she cradled the phone close to her hands. No, no, no... The desk. The desk. Under the desk, under the desk. She was still small enough that she could fit if she stayed curled up. She got down on her hands and knees and squeezed in, backwards, drawing the chair right up to her as if no one had been sitting in it at all.
Ten seconds later, the door slid open.
Frisk held a hand over her mouth to keep quiet her noisy breaths, and gritted her teeth to keep them from chattering, eyes blurring back over with tears. Walking into her limited range of vision were a familiar pair of shoes, pair of pants, and the edges of a labcoat. Suddenly it felt as though she wasn't able to breathe at all. She gently put the phone down on the floor and cupped both hands over her mouth, thankful for Papyrus's phone-casing that muffled any noise that might have made.
Dr. Gaster's feet were moving around the desk, and the hum of the computer reminded her of what he must be seeing in front of his eyes. She heard him muttering in his unintelligible speech, pulling the chair back and then pushing it in again. He was confused, perhaps. Maybe he didn't know what had happened, that there was someone there, just that the computer was on for some reason. He turned around and walked a bit away from where the child was hiding, presumably examining the rest of the room.
SANS sent you a text!: lol ok
For just one moment, Frisk's heart stopped beating.
Author's Note: This is another thing that I predict would have gotten too long keeping it all one chapter, so it's being broken into two parts. For reasons, I'd rather not name the next part something different, so it's a Part 1 and Part 2 deal. Sorry if this caused any confusion whatsoever!
I borrowed a bit of the dialogue from Zarla's comics for the Gaster entries, specifically "Arm thief! Arm thief!" and "This will come in handy later". As of yet they are two of the few comics that show him actually transcribing his notes to his computer.
Next Chapter: Dark, Darker, Yet Darker.