Looks like the story didn't properly update last time, this should fix it. Also, puke warning~
Chapter Twenty Two: Experimentation
His soul pulsed frantically, magic as well as the unseen force coursing through him. The energy surged about in a confused manner upon its needless summoning. Sans lifted a shaking hand, flexing his fingers as though trying to grasp the incorporeal presence. His attempts at deep breathing quickly turned onto a struggle for air. It was for an entirely different reason than before. His permanent smile was genuine. The lights in his eye sockets cut through the shadows like stars in the void of space.
"Heh…."
He gripped the blankets as though his life depended on them. The unseen force grew stronger, pouring outward from from the core of his being. Something caught his attention and he looked down, finding that his soul was clearly visible, glowing a bright blue from within. An odd buzzing sensation began in his chest and dominated his skeletal form mere moments later.
It resembled the sensation of a limb regaining feeling, after it'd been "asleep" for a while. While it was a rare occurrence for monsters of his kind, it was possible, and it was the best way to describe the experience. Such a fact brought a new spin to the now-old question: Was this foreign yet familiar energy something he had always possessed? Why else would its source be the very culmination of his being? Why, if that was true, was he unaware of it until now? Surely something would have triggered it before?
"C'mon….. You always been around or are ya just a side-affect?"
Could it be this world's unstable magi-
A glimpse of orange fur.
He blinked. "What?"
He chucked, saying, "you're gonna have to gimmie more than that. I need answers, not more questions."
Just why was he speaking to a non-sentient force?
Throwing the blankets aside, he took to pacing. He forced his lungs to fill. They were hardly satisfied. The buzzing only worsened the further he pried. He couldn't stop the laugh from escaping him; since when did he find trouble sitting still? Since when was he anything but relaxed? He was Sans.
He tried to halt his legs. Emphasis on tried.
"Heh…. Since when were you the one in control?"
Pale stone.
That wasn't helpful, either.
When again he came around to the too-neat desk, he grabbed its edge. He gripped it much in the same way he'd taken hold of the blankets. Finally, he regained use of his own legs. He leaned on the dark wooden surface as he wrestled silently with what he could not see. He stared down at his hands. His trembling fingers found some tiny amount of stability when he tightened his grip, only to lose it when he could no longer bear to stay in place.
A yellow glow. A laugh. Someone else's laugh.
A horrible eruption of magic from his eye socket. Pain.
...
The next thing he knew, the room was spinning. He stirred, feeling motion sick. He struggled not to retch. When did he fall to the floor? His twitching hands found carpet beneath them. An abrupt groan as he noticed the pounding in his skull. He forced his eye sockets open, squinting as well as a skeleton could at the golden beams of light above him. The dizziness quickly overtook him, and his vision became dark once more. There he laid, his only option to wait.
Gradually, the spinning calmed, though the nausea remained. He cautiously opened his eye sockets to the sunlight cutting through the room's weakened shadows. From his limited perspective, nothing appeared out of place. The ceiling took up most of his view, however. It didn't mean much. He made a few wary movements before daring to sit up.
Everything looked to be the same. Not a trace existed of the previous night's events. The only thing out of place, the only indication that it had not been a dream, was the fact that he'd awoken in this manner. Sans pushed himself backward to lean against the desk drawers. He propped an arm on a knee, and his head on his hand, blinking whilst he formed his unspoken questions.
He began to form a hypothesis.
This world's magic was unstable. The people within it seemed to carry no ill effects from that; it made sense given that they had always existed with "Nil" being chaotic as it was. Sans had come from a world much different in that regard. The magic within him had therefore been stable, something that he believed must no longer be true.
The magic flowing through his bones now mimicked the element of this world, and created these disturbing symptoms. Sure, the unseen force had helped him. It was also well on its way to causing harm, if it hadn't already. He'd experienced moments of both visual and auditory hallucinations as well. That was another thing to note: the possibility of psychological changes. He made a mental note to keep track of his mental state.
Probably not the best way to go about that.
In any case, it was just a theory for the time being. A parallel universe theory.
The terrible headache had eased somewhat during his musings. He figured now was as well a time as any to try standing. He shoved himself upwards, using the desk as support. A new wave of vertigo attacked, bringing a new and powerful wave of nausea. He waited for both to settle before making his way to the upstairs bathroom.
Light flooded the room with a click. He stepped inside and locked the door- not that he expected Papyrus to be awake so early during the weekend- and shuffled over to the vanity.
Dry blood rimmed the bottom of his eye socket. It'd streamed a little ways down the side of his face before the bleeding had apparently stopped. Aside from the dull throbbing that persisted, particularly on that side of his head, he sensed nothing wrong with it. He looked down at the faucet and turned the knob with a "C". A loud hissing shattered the silence.
He grabbed a washcloth and cleaned up his face, taking care to be gentle around and just inside the socket.
His stomach refused to let him be. Another wave assaulted his efforts midway, this one much stronger than the last. He dropped the cloth in the sink. He hurried over to the toilet with little thought and lifted its lid. A glowing mess of partially-digested food spewed from his jaws. The sickness vanished after a few agonizing minutes, and he was able to flush the puke. Perhaps that was what toilets were for. It seemed a bit excessive to create such a device just for vomit. In the end, he didn't care.
As he finished cleaning up, a scream tore through the house.