A/N: Sorry for the wait guys, been a little stuck for inspiration lately. But don't worry, this story is far from abandoned: I actually know exactly how I want this fic to end. It's just the middle stuff I've been working out. Y'know, specimen encounters, what rooms/Easter eggs/other crap I want to include, and of course what order all that stuff's supposed to happen. The wiki has been a biiiiig help for that, so kudos to the fans who took precious time out of their lives to compile all of it. Anyway, on to the story!

"W-well, this is one way ... to get ... into shape..." I manage to say between gasps. I'd fallen to my knees not long after losing Goopboy, and I couldn't decide if I was taking a bath in sweat, or drowning in it. My companion floated nearby, not looking the least bit tired or winded. In fact, he seemed kind of smug. Stupid supernatural creatures with their stupid supernatural strength, I thought frustratedly.

A lot of the time it was easy to forget about, but the fact is that I was born with Hypotonia, which basically means my muscles are squishier than normal and there's not much I can do to fix it. Having scoliosis and flat feet too doesn't help either. But no way in heck was I going to let this stop me. I would take a quick rest before moving on, even though my feet are starting to hurt.

I pull another juice box from my backpack and gulp it down, sliding to my butt on the floor as I drink. When I'm done, I throw it on the ground like I did the last one, and stand up. I thought about eating one of the snacks I'd brought, but ultimately decided against it as this was only the first monster and there would undoubtedly be even worse things to come.

Like that stupid, good-for-nothing elevator! It looks just like the last one back at room 50 (I'd neglected to mention it because it's a disgrace to elevatorkind) aside from the note. The tables were there, along with the cross (didn't take Spooky to be religious but whatever) and a skeleton-wait, what?

The bones are pure white, not a single bit of flesh left on them. It (or rather he) holds a quill pen in his boney fingers. I gasp. "That's you, isn't it? The romance guy?" I knew the skeleton wouldn't reply of course (though I wouldn't be surprised if he did at this point), it just seemed like the appropriate thing to ask.

I creep forward, barely feeling the floor beneath my feet. The juice I'd just drank forms a whirlpool in the pit of my stomach, and I'm a bit nervous it'll come spiraling out again. This is only the second time I'd seen a dead person in my short life, the first being the funeral of an aunt I'd barely known. I'd touched her hand while looking at the flowers on her coffin, and had done my best to suppress the memory. But now it was all coming back with a vengeance. She had felt so cold, and hard, and unnatural. Don't know if it was those primal instincts that scientists always babble about that caused it to feel so wrong, or something more. Either way, it wasn't something I wanted to relive.

But no matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn't look away. This sight made me realize how bad my situation really was even more than meeting the clay skull did. it wasn't that I didn't know I could die; it wasn't even that I didn't take that fact seriously either, well not really. Or maybe I did?

Up until now, I'd treated this whole thing like a fun supernatural adventure. And I'd probably still do so, after all it's not a bad coping mechanism. But it really sunk the facts in, better than before. Yes, I"m in danger. Yes, people died here.

I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. Once I'm calmed down, I realize I have a lot of questions about what had happened here. One of them sticks out at me the most, and it honestly disturbs me to think about.

Spooky had just left his corpse here to rot, assumingly to shock anyone who Inevitably stumbled upon it. Well it did the trick, but it also pissed me off. I shutter to think of what his loved ones would think if they knew the guy hadn't gotten a proper burial.

"This... this is screwed up." I inform my companion. He might not realize the blatant disrespect going on here; after all he did try to kill me when we first met, and he probably doesn't get out of this deathtrap very often. "This is really screwed up. I gotta do something."

But what? I was only a hundred rooms in with eight hundred to go, and there was no way I'd be able to drag a skeleton that far. Then I had an idea. It would b sort of crude yes, but it was better than what Spooky did, which was nothing.

I head over to the empty table and take out a piece of paper and a red violet crayon, I felt that it suited the romantic guy's personality. And I wrote my respects.

Dear Fellow Adventurer,

So if you haven't figured it out, this is what's left of the romantic guy whos notes you probably also read. I admit I skipped over a few because his dialect wasn't really fun to read to say the least, but now I feel like a horrible person for doing it.

It's disgusting isn't it? That Spooky just left him here to rot, tossing him away like the two empty juice boxes i'd left on the way here. Can't believe that brat doesn't respect her fellow dead. But there's nothing I can do about it besides this.

R.I.P. Romantic Guy, ?-? most likely died from thirst and/or starvation. You were just about as eccentric as I am, but like me you are passionate about your interests and I'm proud of you for that. That's not an easy thing to be after all, with all the judgmental people in this world.

With that, time to ride this god-forsaken elevator and do my best not to end up a forgotten pile of bones.

Zoe

I showed my note/speech to the clay skull, and he approved of it (I think). I didn't draw a picture this time because I was planning to tape it to the cross. I did, then set the whole thing on the skeleton's lap. Much better. Then I packed up my stuff, and pressed the button.

I had to close my eyes again when the elevator started moving. I normally enjoy elevator rides, because as I said before I'm obssessed with them. But this elevator lacked all the things that made an elevator ride fun. No bounce when it finished, no ding when the door opened, and the noise. horrible creaking like it could fall at any minute. For the first time in my life, I could understand the people who were deathly afraid of coming on these things.

After what seemed like forever the awful thing finally came to a stop, and I opened my eyes just in time to notice that rather than the door sliding open, a whole new one had appeared out of nowhere on the opposite side. How I didn't realize this the first time was beyond me, but as I turned around I realized that wasn't the only weird thing.

The skeleton had moved when I wasn't looking. I kid you not, the hand that wasn't holding the quill was now gripping the cross. "what the-did you do that? I swear, if you did that ... well you look innocent enough ... let's just get outa here."

A/N: I wasn't planning for this chapter to be like this, I planned to keep this fic light-hearted for the most part. Well as light-hearted as you can for a game like this anyway. but I like how it turned out, gives my ficself a bit more depth which is good, I didn't want her to be a Mary Sue but it'll probably still happen...