By some kind of miracle, you've actually managed to stay on your feet. Using the wall as support, you slowly make your way down a narrow corridor. You know there's at least two others who use this lab, possibly more. You need to be careful so you don't get caught, God knows what they'd do to you if they find you wandering around by 'yourself.'
Doors line the side of the corridor. Might as well pick one, it doesn't matter which, but one of them has to have useful things for you. The first room you enter...
It's a morgue.
There's lines of grey slabbed stone, perfectly symmetrical, each containing a clear box of dust. Presumably each container and table belongs to a different monster – maybe sixteen in all? In the middle is a real coffin, like the ones where I'm from, made of wood.
What's going on in this place? It's creepy as hell, but there's nothing useful in this room.
No wait – don't leave yet... I have to see it. I have to see what's in that coffin.
You carefully tread to the center, hands carefully using the death tables as support. The coffin is big and looks heavy, way too heavy to move, but you're too dang short to see inside its contents. You tremble but manage to haul yourself on top of the table, knees pressed close to the coffin's edge with your feet dangling off the table. There's a red heart painted on it, and a name engraved below:
'Chara'
Your hands feel the side of the coffin until you find the seam of its lid. Then it's just a simple matter of pushing the top off until -
The lid clatters loudly to the ground. Well, okay, hopefully no one's around to hear that.
Inside the coffin is my body.
Deathly porcelain skin that puts yours to shame. Hands that have been put together as if in prayer, a single golden flower clasped to my chest – the very same poison that had killed me. My eyes are closed, lips parted ever so slightly. Even the clothes I left in are the same, a green and yellow-striped shirt.
You think it was a peaceful death, because it looks like my body's just asleep. But when I died, I entrusted my soul to my brother to keep. In the end, my death was bloody and brutal, the result of my brother's betrayal. He thought that the lives of people we didn't know were more important than ours. And so when his body died, that had been keeping my soul...
Well, I don't know. Whatever comes next is much more important than whatever happened in the past. The fact that those scientists have probably been mucking around with my dead body, though... It's not right. For God's sake, I'm adopted royalty, not some lab experiment.
I will get revenge for this. Later.
You get off the table and leave my body. The coffin lid is too much effort to fix, so forget about it.
You're back in the multi-door corridor. The next room, you flip on the light expecting another morgue, but instead find some kind of break room. A coffee maker, microwave, refrigerator, lockers... there might be something we could use in here. You start opening the lockers one by one, finding an empty bag of chips (why would someone save it if it's empty?), sneakers, white lab coats, a pink ribbon, instant ramen packages, … a blue and red-striped shirt and pants, possibly in your size, so try putting it on.
It ends up being a lot more difficult than planned. Your hands feel the wooly fabric a good few minutes, searching for the holes. Finally you stick your head through the thing, with your hands not quite through the holes, but there's a problem. You never took the gown off that you were wearing initially. So now you've got a white gown with a shirt halfway on you, lumped and wrinkled because you still need to pull it down. You need to take that gown off before you can put on other clothes.
You pull on the gown, but of course it doesn't go anywhere – because you've still got that shirt wrapped around your body. So now you've got a shirt over a gown, whatever, it's supposed to be more for functionality than fashion anyway. The important part are the shoes and socks and pants.
You try to stick your foot inside the shoe first and fall over loudly, your back banging against the locker. It's wrong though anyway, so forget the shoes for now. You lean against the locker and grab the socks, it's probably going to take step by step for you to even get them on but-
The light in the hallway flickers on.
Oh god, oh man, oh Lord, oh god. Someone's out there. They can probably see the light in here. You remain perfectly still and wait for footsteps, but there's nothing. No sound. And yet despite that, the doorknob's turning. Someone's coming in. They'll find you. You need to hide, now.
You try to stand but your balance is all off to begin with, even without one shoe halfway on your foot, so you just crash to the ground again. There's no hope. They're going to find you, lock you away and probably restrain you this time, and then keep you here until they run a bazillion painful tests.
The door opens.
It's that same damn skeleton from earlier. His eyes are white little pinpricks of white surrounded in black sockets, staring right at you. You're the first thing he sees – how could he miss you. You're both staring at each other for a good few seconds, neither moving.
Don't blink. Don't move. Take steady breaths and don't hyperventilate. Don't think of being locked up forever or being treated like a lab rat. You're much safer if they consider you a failure than if they find out about me. I'm so proud of your absolutely vacant expression right now, you have no idea.
"so, uh... hey." He finally speaks, smile seeming weirdly out of place. "how'd you get all the way over here?" You're just an inanimate doll that's developed a sudden wanderlust. No biggie. "...you need some help with that?"
It's hard not to notice how big of a mess you've made of yourself and the surrounding area. Cautiously he shuffled a little closer to you. You still haven't moved an inch, not even blinked, since his entrance. His bony hands lightly grip your shoulders, pulling you up off the ground, placing you on a nearby chair. He takes off the shoe that's hanging off your foot first.
"you know, some people wouldn't mind wearing pj's for the rest of their life. but i guess a change every now and then is alright." He begins extracting the mess you've made of yourself, taking off your shirt and then gown, before putting the shirt back on proper. His hands are cold, completely unlike a human's, and yet somehow there's still a thin layer of grease on his fingers and he smells faintly like salt and ketchup. He puts the pants and socks on too, with much more dexterity than what you could have managed, making a three hour task take only a few minutes.
He could be doing anything right now, like yelling at you for your escape attempt, dragging you to the dungeon, or something a lot more indecent than just helping you get dressed – not like anyone else would ever know the difference. But he's not. He's just helping you finish what you tried to start.
You're finally dressed, proper. You could probably even pass as a school child, if your soulless eyes weren't straight out of a horror film. He takes a seat next to yours, still watching you carefully. Trying to be casual and leaning an elbow on the table.
"so, uh. you're alive now, right? hehe, i know, probably the last question you'd expect from a skeleton."
Definitely don't answer that.
"you uh, you can understand what i'm saying, right? you could give me like, some kind of sign instead, if you can't talk or something."
Don't give him any sign. You don't want him to know about us.
He's sweating a little. Having a conversation with you is pretty close to having a conversation with himself. He leans in a little closer, eyes staring at you differently, as if he can see something past you.
"Tell me your name," he says in a different intonation, practically a different voice. Much more commanding, as if he'll definitely see through you trying to play this one dumb.
"Frsk." Your lips barely move, some weird sound coming between your teeth, like you're trying to make some kind of sound effect.
Wait, what? You can talk? Can that even be considered talking?
"frisk," he repeats as if for my benefit, leaning back. The look is already gone from his eyes. His bones look a bit less tense – is it relief? Or disappointment? He doesn't seem shocked at the name, at least. Which means it must have been at least somewhat expected.
Your name. It never even occurred to me that you could have a name.
"ok, frisk. we'll figure out what's going on in the morning, when the doc's back." He stands, taking your hand, and gently pulling you up. Your body obediently moves to follow him. You don't have the coordination to mount any kind of real resistance even if you wanted, anyway.
He leads you by the hand and back to the corridor, but not before snagging a pack of instant ramen with his free hand.