Interlude 2: The Uncanny Valley

Hotland, Core

Deep in a hot, volcanic region, where mountains and rivers of pure fire lay dormant, a large, intimidating building of pure glass and metal stood firm. Inside of it, the short and plump yellow drake monster, Alphys, wearing her white lab coat entered the lab elevator, alone and trembling, with a touchpad and stacks of files in her hands. She hated this part of her job. It was by far the worst part, and something she wouldn't dare put on even her worst enemies. But since she was The Royal Scientist's top assistant, she knew it was also one of the most important moments of her job, if not the most.

Yet she still couldn't help but hate it either way. Every time she saw that accursed red light blink in her lab office, which also happened to be her home as well, she always felt like her heart ceased. Every time it came, and it always came without warning, it was like the world had stopped turning, and she stared at the blinking light and listened to it's soft but audible beep for a few moments of pure, unadulterated terror, before she managed to put herself together, although barely, and then attempt to answer that call.

This time it came just over a minute ago, unannounced as usual, while she was in her bed watching old reruns of her favourite human shows, and in just seconds after her initial shock wore off, she had dressed into her usual white lab coat and gathered the files and notepad.

There was only one thing that blinking, red light always meant. One thing it always signified, like a horrible omen of eldritch proportion. It was her boss, her master, The Royal Scientist himself, Gaster, calling for her.

The elevator went further and further down, deep into the crust of the earth. Alphys hated how slow it was sometimes, as it always prolonged the agony she desperately wanted over with as quickly as possible. Alphys counted down elevator numbers on the elevator pad and felt her yellow, reptilian teeth shiver. The countdown always seemed to slow down the further her floor came closer, like the universe itself was gleefully torturing her by delaying the inevitable. That and the soft ding it made as it passed by every floor, reminiscent of the dreadful blinking light hanging in her office, just made the agonizing wait worse.

Then, after what seemed like an eternity, the elevator reached its destination. It was the bottom floor, and seemingly so deep down that Alphys could've assumed it was at the bottom of the earth. The door opened, and in front of her was now the deep, dark hallway she always trembled at. The walls and floor were made of plain steel, and in the darkness, the hall seemed to lead into the depths of oblivion. It was never lit these days. It was supposed to be. Or so she was told. Whatever Gaster's reasoning was, Alphys couldn't dare imagine.

She slowly stepped with one clawed, trembling foot into the hallway, feeling as if she was about to literally face death itself. She felt her guts swirl once she placed her other, and was now finally standing with both her feet on the cold, empty metallic floor. Then she heard the door behind her close and her only source of merciful light at the moment, being the light from inside the elevator, follow suit. Alphys found herself now standing alone in utter silence facing nothing but blackness. At the end of this utter oblivion, he was waiting. Gaster was waiting.

Alphys felt sweat leak down her chin. Yet, it was cold in this place. Very cold. Like the outer spaces had somehow manifested here.

She should have been used to this by now. She knew that. This wasn't her first time in this place, nor would it most likely be her last. Yet all Alphys wanted to do now was to fall on the floor and hide, hide from the horrors that surrounded her in silence. This place felt worse now. It always did. It was like this place was the antithesis to both natural logic and earthly magic at the same time, and Alphys wondered in which future instance of coming down here, she would finally crack and lose her mind like Vissie did, her poor old friend and colleague.

But she was sure that if she did run or give up now, she would be given a much worse fate than whatever Gaster had in store for her now. Instead, Alphys did her usual and closed her eyes shut for a moment.

"C'mon Alphys, y-you can d-do this," she whispered to herself. "Y-you're a big girl. A st-strong g-girl. It's just the u-usual. You just n-need to give it your- give HIM y-your papers and m-maybe t-talk for a moment, and th-then you can go back up. S-simple as that."

With that said, she opened her eyes, took a deep breath, turned on her notepad for some visible light, and headed down the dreaded, cold metallic corridor.

It was like she had now walked in silence for a few hours, hearing only her exasperated breath and footsteps creating metallic echoes through the halls during that time. Alphys looked at the clock on her notepad, and according to it, only a few minutes had passed. She knew that logic dictated that her fearful state must've caused her to imagine time moving much slower than it did, but she wasn't sure of that anymore. She wasn't sure if natural laws even applied down here these days.

A large set of doors now appeared on the hallway to her left and Alphys glanced at it fearfully as she walked past. She knew that door. Behind it lay literal manifestations of her shame and guilt, unkillable yet suffering from immense determination, her determination. The only solace she felt in it was that she wasn't really alone in the blame that lay there, yet Gaster seemed to harbour no sense of guilt about it whatsoever.

Those doors vanished deep in the darkness behind her, and Alphys wished for her dreadful destination to arrive soon just so she could get all of this over with. A few moments later it did, as she finally reached the large, red door at the end of the hallway.

She reached for her keycard in her pocket but unfortunately dropped it immediately from her shaking hands. Cursing herself, she kneeled down on the floor and tried to reach it. Something happened then, something strange she couldn't explain. She didn't realize something had even occurred until she was standing with the card in the slot and noticed she didn't remember ever getting the card back up. It was as if time itself had blinked for a moment, or changed so that she never dropped the card in the first place.

She shook her head and dismissed it as a simple memory loss in a midst of unease, and proceeded to open the door. The first thing she saw was a bright, sea-green light coming from a glass window on the other end of the room that appeared. The room in question was large and wide, and if it wasn't for the green light, it would have been almost as dark as the hallway, if not just as. In the centre of it was a large, strange mechanical device about her size, hovering just above the floor and being supported by steel bars, tubes and wires protruding from the ceiling. Alphys had no clue what the purpose of it was, but from this vantage, the strange apparatus resembled a strange, animal skull of a kind, mostly similar to what Alphys knew from her files on the surface animals as "a deer".

On the left and right walls of this wide-open lab were empty tubes filled with unidentifiable liquid, and on the other end underneath the table with the bright light were desks covered in blueprints, notes and the occasional science tools. Alphys partly wished, mostly out of curiosity, that Gaster would share with her what he was using these strange tubes, devices and notes for, but she was too scared to ever ask him, and another part of her even feared that knowing what it was would possibly make all this feel even worse.

Alphys felt her heartbeat go rapid as she slowly walked towards the glowing window, and the sweat on her yellow scales intensified. She almost couldn't bear to look at the light, even though she had seen it countless times, but she pressed on as Alphys knew that it would bring her closer to finishing this terrible ordeal.

Once she reached the glass window, she fearfully glanced through it. The frosted glass was almost the complete opposite of transparent, so all she could see was a large circular room covered in sea-green hue, and at the bottom of it, she saw a strange, humanoid, black and white silhouette almost hidden by the frosting. She knew who it was. It was Gaster.

Looking down at him, Alphys felt as if she would now finally faint. She hovered her finger over the button underneath the microphone beside the frosted glass window and finally brought herself to press it after a while.

"G-G-G-Gaster?" she spoke into the microphone. "S-sir? I… uhh, I came as y-you requested. I also, umm, brought the f-files that you… that you… asked for?"

She looked down, baffled, at the pile of papers in her hands, underneath her notepad. Even though she was certain she was supposed to bring these exact files, it just dawned on her that she never got any messages or notes requesting them. There wasn't even a microphone installed in her office, so the only way for Gaster to ask for them would've been in person. It was as if something had somehow planted this idea into her mind. Or maybe someone rather.

"Ha… ha… t-that's f-funny," Alphys said, trying her hardest to find light in this situation. "I-I could've… umm, I could've sworn t-that you asked me to… asked me to… bring these to you..."

As soon as she looked back through the frosted glass, Alphys noticed something, or rather a lack of something, that brought forth the biggest fright she had had for a while. The figure was gone. She never heard from him or from anything else from the room on the other side, yet he was clearly absent, and Alphys now began to frantically look around it in panic. It was like the sensation of finding a spider in the corner of your room, and then immediately losing it after you look away for only a short moment.

He had never done something like this before. Not in any of the previous instance of her coming down to this living nightmare, and she now began to wonder if she was finally losing it.

Where is he?! Alphys thought frantically. Where is-

She suddenly felt a dark presence in the air, and it dawned on her that she was no longer alone in this room. She slowly turned around.

"G-gaster…?" she asked softly

Chills ran up her scales and she froze solid. She could see a figure in the shadows, skinny and much taller than her, standing like a ghost with its back to her. It was staring at a glass jar sitting on a desk in the centre that Alphys had failed to notice once she came through the door. What Alphys could only see from this distance, was that the jar held a strange, jelly-like substance resembling almost a mushed human brain of sorts, but it also had some strange flesh-like qualities to its texture and even seemed to be crystallized.

The being in the shadows, the one she knew as Gaster, just stared at it, like he was somehow entranced by this strange gunk.

It was at this moment that she was reminded of why she hated coming down here, why she always hated meeting him. It wasn't due to the social anxiety she often had of meeting new people, or even comparable to when she was speaking to someone she looked highly up to or someone she had a tinge of a crush on. What she actually felt from Gaster, that creature, was genuine, uncontested fear. Fear of the unknown, and fears made manifest from the hints of great or unnatural things that wouldn't belong in this world if the gods that existed were kind.

She no longer felt concerns on whether she was actually supposed to bring him these files or not, as she no longer cared and just wished to get out of here as soon as she could.

"H-hey," she said nervously to the figure. "I… uh, didn't see you there b-boss. Didn't uhh s-see you l-leave your meditation chamber either. How umm, how did you… d-do that?"

The silhouetted figure said nothing and made no movement like it was a statue.

"N-never mind," Alphys continued. "S-sorry. I am s-so sorry I… I'm just gonna… leave t-these f-files here, I don't really know i-if you want them or not-"

As she was about to plop the files onto the table by the frosted window and then proceed to frantically head out, she noticed the files on her hands were suddenly gone, and she only held her illuminating notepad. She had felt a strange lightness in her hands a moment ago, but she was too frightened to think much of it.

As Alphys turned again towards the figure, bewildered and scared of what could have possibly happened to it, she saw her question answered in the most unnatural and logic-defying way she could think of. The figure was now holding them in one of its skeletal hands and seemed to be looking at it. Alphys knew of magic that could teleport items from one destination to another, yet this felt this was somehow different from that, more subtle and less noticeable. It was almost like she never held the files in the first place.

"Y-you already have it," Alphys said frantically. "G-great. J-just g-great. Glad I could, umm, be of help. To you that is. I, uh, I'm gonna go now."

The figure said nothing as it continued to examine the files. Then Alphys saw the file flip a page on its own, without seeing the figure ever using its other hand. She felt she had seen enough now. She had felt that for a while.

She walked past the silhouetted figure, who did not do so much as to turn towards her. Alphys felt, at that moment, a gigantic rush of relief. This moment seemed to have ended much earlier than she anticipated. She didn't even have to speak to her boss it seemed. Now she could finally get back upstairs and chill in her bed for seemingly the rest of the day without much worry.

"Alphys," a voice suddenly spoke.

The yellow lizard froze in her tracks. She felt an unnatural amount of horror grip cling her to the floor like an anchor. The voice sounded almost like a whisper yet at the same time it was paradoxically loud enough to echo across the whole floor. It seemed to spread through every door and every hallway, and it marked itself as a permanent stain on the yellow lizard's mind as it dug through both her eardrums like a wormlike parasite. But the most frightful thing, the one thing she hated the most, was about how it seemed to control her every nerve, and suddenly she felt the idea to ignore that voice to be the worst possible thing anyone could do at this moment. She was sure that even the bravest of souls would feel hesitant in rejecting it.

"Turn around," the voice spoke again. "I want to talk to you."

Alphys didn't even consider refusing and proceeded to obey. Once she did, she was greeted by the same bottomless eyes that glared into infinity she had seen and loathed for years. The eyes seemed almost pure black at first glance, somehow even darker than the rest of the figure itself, but each of them had white dots in the centre like distant lights at the end of the darkest tunnels of oblivion, and here in the darkness of the room it was like looking the last remaining stars on an otherwise empty night sky in a dying universe. It was like staring at eternity, and they hinted at things, greater things not meant to be realized by any entity, magic or not, in this fragile reality. Where these white dots ended or even where they led, Alphys couldn't even dare to imagine, as she felt the truth would make her mad. All she could bring herself to do now was stare at this being, this being she knew for years but still couldn't fathom as existing in the slightest.

"G-g-g-g-g-" was all she could mutter.

The being looked at her, patiently, with his seemingly bottomless eyes. The way he did just made Alphys feel worse.

"G-Gaster?" Alphys finally said, although meekly. "Uhh… w-what d-d-d-do you uhh…"

"What do I want?" the being asked back. "I want to talk. Simple as that."

"Oh uh… about uhh… w-what?" Alphys asked, nervously.

"You should know," Gaster simply said. "I am disappointed in you. Only slightly, but still, I am disappointed."

That one word, disappointed, seemed to cause all of Alphys' nerves to seize at once. He had never said that to her, and the lizard felt like she was about to genuinely die, or worse. Yet, despite everything, despite now wanting to run screaming out the door and through the halls, she felt it was better to stand her ground for now, as she feared that doing otherwise would upset him even more.

"A-about what?" she said in a whisper, as it was all she could muster through her trauma.

Gaster stood still, almost as if he was waiting for his turn to speak.

"I read… some of your so-called files on human history," he began after a short pause. "And watched some of the tapes. Even tried out some of those… interactive media. I found them… interesting to say the least. Valuable even, in some sorts. But that is not the reason I have called you here. The reason is your reckless usage of them."

Alphys almost opened her mouth in disbelief. Those tapes and books were supposed to be kept secure in a locked closet in her room, and she only let a select few others view them. It had been that way for years, and she hadn't even informed Gaster about them one bit. She knew the possibility that someone else had told him, but barely anyone came down here these past few years except for her, or so it was ever since Vissie lost her mind and was sent to the asylum.

Is there no limit to this… thing's grasp? Alphys thought to herself and felt the sweat run down her cheeks.

"Oh… t-t-those things?" she asked and smiled nervously. "H-how uhh… how did y-you hear a-about them? H-how did you even… uhh… get to them exactly?"

"They are all fiction," Gaster said, clearly ignoring her questions. "None of these things, in any of the discs or stories, actually transpired in this world or any that closely resembles it, and those aspects of them that do have some actual historical merit have been changed so much as to be completely unrecognizable. Yet, you are not naive. You are smart, and you knew, yet you still labelled them as history. Why?"

"I.. uhh…" Alphys muttered, smiling awkwardly and sweating.

Her literal lizard brain tried it hardest to think of any excuse it could possibly think of, anything that could possibly save her from this being's wrath.

"Y-you're right… I did do that," Alphys began, spouting out whatever popped in her mind. "I-I did label them as… history, because, um, that is… what they are… in a sense. A history of… human media. Sure it's kinda… lacking in content if we are speaking in a general sense, it's no library, after all, heh, but this is all I have managed to scavenge from the trash that flows down here. Besides, we… heh… all gotta start somewhere right? And collecting human media is important… in a sense. Also, I never really expected anyone to take any of them seriously, heh. Maybe I should've… made it clearer."

She smiled apologetically at the cold figure in the dark. He seemingly stared at her, unmoving, but Alphys couldn't really tell from the darkness. Then walked a few steps forward, until the sea-green light from the window alongside the white one from her notepad finally illuminated the rest of his body. She could now see this being as it truly looked. The head that held those two infinite pits with distant light uncannily resembled a human skull, and Alphys felt like there was something else wrong with it despite the aforementioned eye sockets, but she couldn't fathom what. The Royal Scientist wore a coat of purest midnight black, the one he almost always wore, and it made him look almost like a sorcerer from a distant corner of dark lands. If Alphys didn't know any better she would've thought he brought those clothes with him from whatever realm he returned from. Protruding from the two sleeves were skeletal hands, with milky white bone palms that slowly developed into ink coloured fingers like they had been dipped into a dark void where even the brightest of hopeful light could never shine. They were almost invisible when they were further in the darkness. He continued to stare at Alphys, seemingly thinking something.

"You are lying," he answered simply, sounding as cold and careless as his expression, yet his words made Alphys startle like a cat. "You intentionally mislabeled these stories and entertainments to fool others into thinking these were historical records. You have already done so already, several times in fact, towards different souls, some of which that you care for. Now this misinformation has even spread throughout the underground from soul to soul, and you are the root of it."

Alphys didn't know what to say. It was like his voice was speaking directly into her soul, and reaching deep into the dark recesses of it and grabbing hold of whatever shame or sorrow lay in those depths, and she found herself unable to bring forth the courage to double down on her lying.

What else does he know? she thought, panicking. What other knowledge is he hiding from me?

"How did you… when did you hear about it?" Alphys nervously asked. "Did anyone tell you? Was it Vissie? Undyne?"

Wait, how could it be them? Alphys thought. But… if not them then who else could it be? Does Gaster actually leave this floor without my knowledge?

"No one told me," Gaster answered simply.

That answer surprised Alphys and made her feel confused at first. But then as she thought on it she felt even more frightened.

"Then… h-how did you know?" she asked the being, befuddled. "Do you… go outside often?"

Gaster didn't answer. Just looked at her, silently. It seemed he wasn't willing to answer, but this silence Alphys thought was much more frightening than any explanation he could've given.

"I do wonder though," he suddenly began after a while. "Why did you do it? What did you hope to accomplish by intentionally misleading other monsters?"

"I uhh…" Alphys muttered, not knowing where to start. "I j-just wanted to… impress others. All these works, these comics, shows and games. All of it is… so amazing I just wanted to… see how they reacted I guess."

"So you are saying you deceived other souls, some of which you care for… for amusement?" Gaster said, sounding as confused as a machine trying to understand emotions.

"No, no, no!" Alphys began apologetically. "That's not it… I…"

She stopped herself from continuing. She couldn't find a clear, satisfying answer because there wasn't any, and she couldn't deny that anymore. Every excuse she made would just make it worse. She stared down on the floor, not wanting to look this being in his accursed eyes.

"I… I don't know," she admitted. "I don't know why I lied. I just… I'm sorry I'll fix it… I promise… boss. I'll even erase it all if I have to."

Alphys still couldn't bring herself to look at him, while he stared down at the ashamed lizard, looking like a master standing over his whipped hound. She wished that she was able to ignore his presence altogether, or even pretend he didn't exist as if he was simply an illusory shadow on the corner of her eyes. As it stood though, even the very air she breathed down here radiated his presence. To deny him was harder for her than to deny even reality itself.

"Hmm," Gaster finally replied after a while.

Without saying anything else, he turned around and headed back to the shadow.

"Do not disturb me from now," he said while staring again at the jar. "Unless I otherwise order so. This work I have is far more important than anything you can think of. You should also know that it is of utmost secrecy. If you do however come down here, Miss Alphys…"

He turned suddenly quiet.

"I-if I come down here… t-then what?" Alphys asked and looked up nervously.

Gaster stared down at the glass jar on the table as if he was in thought.

"You may leave now," he simply answered. "Do not disturb me."

And with that said, he was gone. Gaster, alongside the glass jar and the files, he was no longer in the room. There were no effects, lights, or sounds, or even anything that could've hinted he ever was here, and witnessing his mere vanishing as if he just blinked from existence made Alphys almost feel as if she was close to having a heart attack. Then after she absorbed what had happened, she felt a weight lifted from her soul as it no longer felt his presence, and without hesitating, she ran out of the room and walked down the corridor with haste.

She didn't even consider locking the door again behind her. All she wanted to do now was to get out of this accursed floor and corridor, away from these horrors and hints of otherworldly truths.

That was always how these meetings ended, every time she came down and most likely how they would continue to until perhaps she would become too scared in this place to even move on her own accord.

It wasn't like Gaster was unaware of it, of her fear. In one of her previous meetings down here, she finally caved in and confessed, but all he did was stare at her for a moment with his same, unmoving expression and then turned away as if all she told him were mere unimportant tidbits. Even when she broke out in front of him, he simply examined her with a soulless look. Alphys wondered sometimes if he even had a soul, or if it was lost whatever abyss he crawled back out of.

She hated coming down here. She hated this job, this torture she had to endure under the heel of a seemingly unnatural being. She even hated… him. Or at least who he had become.

She thought back on her memories of Gaster from old. Before the accident, and before his disappearance. The skeleton monster she worked with gleefully and who gave off no aura of disorder or otherworldly horrors. The hard-working yet joyous monster that brought smiles to her and her coworkers, the one who saw potential in her and even specifically picked her as his second in command. The monster… that she once loved.

There times though, where she wondered and feared if those memories were even true, or if they were merely something like fake implants that manifested after this being rose from whatever hell he was born in. Those thoughts came to her first after she discovered that she couldn't find a single file, source or anything that pointed to his existence before the accident. It was as if someone or something had wiped out or altered any records that even mentioned or hinted at him before he appeared and seized his current status. But then Alphys would wonder why her memories of him were of a much pleasant person than the thing that lived down here. Perhaps, as she sometimes considered, it wanted to ease her and everyone else into trusting it more, whatever it truly was. But then came the questions of his two sons, both of which were born long before his momentary disappearance. Then there was also Gaster's so-called father-in-law, Semi.

Alphys doubted though that she would ever find the truth of it. If it was even possible to find it that is. But the thing that bothered her the most, the question even she herself couldn't answer, and one she pondered on her elevator ride back up, was why she didn't quit. Or why she couldn't rather. She knew it was most likely for the best, but every time she ever came close to doing so, she felt a disturbance or sensation of sorts, telling her it was wrong or making her feel that her resignation would throw a wrench into some kind of plan she had to follow. She also thought at times that it was just an excuse she made, a convincing lie she made to herself, and the simple truth could be that she was fearful of how Gaster would react if she did resign.

She pondered these things and more even long after she left the elevator and entered her room where she proceeded to lay on her bed, as she did after every visit, waiting for this day to end. That was all she could do at this point. Ponder, but never expect to get an answer to any question.

Author's note:

So in this interlude, we are introduced to two major characters from the game, and ones who obviously play a somewhat big part in this story. As to how big, I can't exactly tell you.

I really don't have much to say about this chapter. I kinda wanted to make Gaster give off a whole Lovecraftian vibe, but spoiler alert, his presence is and won't not the only hint of that though. But this story is not gonna turn into like a cosmic horror story of sorts, or at least I haven't planed it to be. Simply since Gaster's mere concept is based somewhat on the question of existence, and that in the original game he is someone who got literally erased from existence, I thought it was kinda appropriate for his character in this AU to somewhat reflect that. Alphys, on the other hand, I decided not to change much. Many of the main cast hasn't so far, but there will be some changes in characters later, in case you are curious. I ain't telling who changes, but if you read the prequel story, A hunt to Remember, you might definitely guess one popular character that has a big change, so to speak.

So I am not sure when I can promise the next chapter to come out. I do have some other fics and stories to work on. There is the non-canonical crossover fic with the artists Killb94 and Katelynntheg, involving our three versions of Frisk. Then there is also the Shattering spin-off story about Politics Bear which I'm remaking, but I might end up possibly scratching that one altogether. Then finally, if you have been paying attention to these notes, there is the original short story I am making, completely set in my own fictional universe and not related to any games, movies or any official work. When I do manage to finish it, and it is not a question of if, I will post a link to it on a future note. My goal is to at least finish one of these projects before the end of the year.

Anyway, without further ado, enjoy the story so far.