Since the usage of wingdings isn´t possible on this side, I have wrote certain sentences simply backwards. Hope you still enjoy the mystery of this chapter.

It was dark in the lab. Lara could barely see the shape of her hand in front of her face. There was a click somewhere in front of her. Nothing happened.

"Damn it, this place isn't powered."

"Flowey, where are you?"

"Across the lab. I wanted to turn on the light, which unfortunately doesn't work. Just try to follow my voice." Flowey called Lara over. She took several steps in the direction of the flower's voice when suddenly she stepped into something soft. She looked down. Lara could faintly see the glittering texture of something slimy.

"Ew! What's that?!" she exclaimed in disgust and stepped back.

"What's what?"

"There's some kind of slime here." Flowey appeared next to her. He bent down to the glittering substance. Despite the bad lightning conditions, he tried to get a closer look and figure out what was in front of him and his friend. Slowly but surely the flowers vision adapted to the dark and he could gather some details.

"Hm. Looks like a trail from a giant snail. But there are no such big snails. Believe me, I know. My mother used to lecture me all the time about snails."

"Why?" Lara asked curiously.

"In how to turn them into pies."

Lara, already disgusted by the slime, had to gag at the mere thought of eating snail pie.

Flowey, meanwhile, examined the slime trail. It seemed to come out of a door in which was the elevator that led to the real lab.

Of course, he thought. An amalgamate must have left this. But wait a minute, all the Amalgamates had been returned to their families. However, this trail does not lead to any of the laboratory's exits, but in to the wall. Why?

Flowey popped up besides the wall. He was able to see that the slime trail ended abruptly at the wall.

Why does it end just end like this? Unless…

Flowey tapped the back wall with a vine. It was hollow. "What the... a hidden room? How did I missed that during my travels. Well… it was probably made by someone who wants to hide something, so I guess they succeeded" Flowey muttered to himself.

He feels all over the wall until a small part of it gave way. There was a click and then an entire part of the wall went up and disappeared into the ceiling. The air that came out of the vent smelled stale and dusty. A weird, pale light came out of it and illumanited the surroundings. Lara joined Flowey. "A secret door?" she asked.

"Seems so. And I thought I knew every secret of the Underground."

"Maybe we should examine it more closely?" Lara asked. She didn't know why, but a strong curiosity had seized her. Flowey frowned.

"I don't know. I have a bad feeling about this. I have never entered this place. If you go in there I can't follow you. I would have to grow new roots first and that takes time."

"While you're doing that, I can have a look around. Don't worry, I'll be close to the entrance so I stay in your line of sight. Come on, it's better than running out there in the heat."

"You have a point..." Flowey said reluctantly. "Okay, go ahead. But don't stray too far!"

" Yes. Don't worry, just a few feet."

She walked through the opening and entered a long concrete corridor. The walls were cracked and stained with specks of mold. On the ceiling were glass bulbs in which a chemical solution was glowing, from which the pale light originated. There were metal doors along the walls. Two of them were directly to the right and left of Lara. She decided to go through the right one. Lara entered a cube-shaped room. Inside were several constructions. Most of them looked incomplete, like someone didn't finish building them.

Or dismantling them. The only complete one was some kind of generator. A strange metal helmet lay on the ground and was connected to the generator via wires. Lara lifted the helmet and took a closer look at it. On its inner side were two flat outgrowths. If you were to put on the helmet, they would press uncomfortably against the back of your head.

In front of Lara's inner eye, Goner Kid's back of the head appeared, with its two openings. She remembered the sentences he spoke before:

... the uncomfortable cold of metal, a very, very cruel pain, especially on my head.

She dropped her helmet and looked around. There was a sign on one wall that read:

A.R. transmitter

A larger sign placed above the first read:

Failure. Use leads to existential destabilization/extinction as well as decomposition of the soul

This machine was responsible for turning the Goner Kid into the gray creature she had encountered! But how exactly did it all happen? Lara doubted Goner Kid would have done it voluntarily. Someone must have made him put on the helmet and use the machine.

But who would do such a thing?

Who, in the name of science, would experiment with a little boy?

Maybe if she looked around she would find out more. Lara went to the opposite room. This one was a bit similar to the previous one. But there was only one machine. It was made up by two generators. They were connected to each other by a huge metal ring. There was also a sign here:

A.R. Transporter (A.R. Transmitter 2.0)

Since there was no failure sign above it, Lara assumed this A.R. Transporter was a success. She examined the apparatus more closely and found a control panel attached to the left generator. The control panel seemed to have lost power. Lights and various displays were dark and showed nothing... with one exception. A small screen flickered faintly. A few 'words' appeared on the monitor:

eht diov

ELIF NOITELED DELIAF

What the hell?, thought Lara. What does that mean?

Below the monitor was a large red button that also seemed to have some power left.

Lara caught herself pushing it.

"What am I doing?" Unconsciously she was talking to herself. Right? There wasn´t anyone else…?

"I can't just push any random button? Who knows what will happen!"

But she couldn't move. It was as if an alien will had taken control of her limbs. Lara could only move her hand. Towards the button. But she didn't want to. She didn't want to until she suddenly got an inner restlessness and panic. Lara got the feeling that if she didn't press the button now, there would be bad consequences later. That she would forever regret it.

She gave in and pressed the button. There was a loud hum as the generators started to work. The metal ring vibrated, lightning flashed inside. Reality seemed to bend, focusing on a specific point in the ring. A bright light appeared, went out, and everything was back to normal. Except for one thing. There was a kind of portal in the ring. It lead to some form of… void. It looked like a hole in reality.

Lara went a little closer. But before she could get a closer look at the other side, something came out! Lara flinched and stepped back with a yell. A bizarre figure protruded from the hole. It consisted of a gray mist. Its eyes were focused on Lara with an uncomfortable intensity. The figure began to speak: "Now here you are."

The voice, unlike that of Goner Kid, sounded calm and composed. But also… lurking. Like the figure was a snake, waiting to strike.

Lara opened her mouth to say something but the figure continued: "After all this repetition, everything is finally going perfectly. It continues.

…

I have something for you. Come closer child."

The figure opened its mouth or beak (Lara wasn't sure what it had). An object fell out. Lara picked it up without really thinking. It was a mask. It was made of a smooth, but at the same time rough, material. It felt cold and dead, but somehow also alive.

It felt familiar. Did she see it somewhere… see someone holding it?

The item disappeared in Laras inventory.

"The machine needs soul energy. Then you will return the missing piece to its rightful place. After that everything can really continue. You have many questions, I can feel it. You will find out everything. You will do everything right. You need a shortcut through Hotland, don't you? Follow the corridor and you will reach a large room. There is an elevator there. Enter eighteen and you reach the New Home.

...our time is up."

The creature disappeared and the portal closed with a flash.

And for a brief moment, it seemed like reality flickered for a moment. There was a flash of something dark red. And then… everything was normal(?).

…

…

...

Lara stared into space for a while... before leaving the room. As soon as she closed the door, Flowey popped out of the ground in front of her.

"Howdy Lara. I was able to root successfully. Tell me, what have you found so far?"

Lara faltered. Suddenly she could only vaguely remember. There was a shortcut through Hotland and rooms... the rest kind of eluded her memory. What was going on? Something was very wrong here. But before she could think about it any further, Flowey asked her again if she had found anything. The flower looked with concern at his human companion. She looked like she wasn´t really there all mentally.

"I´m fine Flowey. I guess maybe the air isn´t really breathable with all this dust and mold here."

"Then we probably should be leaving this place and continue our journey."

Lara stiffened. Her journey… there was some form of intuition that told her this place could be important to her journey. This weird urge to explore this place and expect something to help her.

"Maybe we should stay around. There could be a shortcut to New Home and saves us a trip through Hotland."

Flowey pondered about this idea for a minute. He had to admit that a shortcut would really be helpful and there was also a curiousity burning inside him.

The same curiosity that made him explore the secrets of the Underground during his resets. It would be a lie if he said he didn´t want to learn more about this place, that had somehow eluded his endless quest of searching for mysteries. At the same time this didn´t mean he would trow out his caution.

"Are you really sure we should search around this place. Lara, have you noticed that the slime trail that led us here also goes to the end of the corridor?"

She shook her head and looked up. Indeed, the trail just mentioned led to a metal door at the end of the long corridor. And disappeared behind it. Lara felt more and more restless. But at the same time she was seized by a ever growing curiosity.

"Let's just take a quick peek inside."

Flowey sighed. "Okay. But let's look at the other rooms first."

They first went through a door that led to a storage room. There were shelves along the walls, but they were mostly empty. Only here and there lay a few empty test tubes or some clunky syringes. The next room was very interesting, but also strange. It was in the shape of a triangle with the door at the top. Lined up against the back wall were three glass tanks. They were shaped like a cylinder and full of holes and cracks. The metal floors and ceilings were rusted and covered with dried up slime. Whatever was in the tanks was long gone. A sign was embedded on each pedestal of a tank. They said: Subject-1, Subject-2 and Subject-3.

Neither Lara nor Flowey knew what kind of subjects the pedestals where talking about, but they had a bad feeling about it. They decided to move further along into the next room.

They found what appeared to be a small office. There was a desk with empty folders. An overturned chair lay on the ground, alongside some scattered notes. Lara and Flowey locked at them, but instead of letters there were a variety of symbols forming words and sentences. Since neither of them could make any sense of this the duo looked more closely at the desk.

A thick book laid on top of it, several notes stuck between the pages. But there was nothing written on them. The entire bock was devoid of a single ounce of ink. The paper was crinkled, like something had once been written on it. But the text was simply gone from existence.

To the left of the book was a small glass container. A sheet of a dried out golden liquid was covering its base. There was a weak glow to it.

Flowey took one quick look and knew immediately what it was.

"That golden stuff, it's determination. Determination extracted directly from human souls. How did it get here?"

"Wait, you can extract stuff from our souls?" The concept sounded kind of morbid for Lara. She looked at the stuff inside the container. Something like this was existing inside her?

The flower nodded at his human companion. "Indeed. You humans can produce determination within your souls, making them incredibly strong. Monsters have found a way of extracting that substance. … but only under certain circumstances. This is a lab… whoever has worked here could have possessed the means of doing so. I´m not sure tough why all of this was kept in secret."

"Maybe we find out what happened here if we look at the last rooms."

They left and went to a door with a broken lock. Behind it was a room in which there was only a narrow bunk and another door that led to a toilet. Lara went into it and closed the door behind her. After some minutes there was a flushing noise and the human reentered Floweys filed of sight. He looked at her with a raised eye brow.

"Really? We are in an ominous lab where there could be God knows what and you just went to the toilett?"

Laras face became a bit red. "Hey we humans have to follow when nature calls. Besides, do you have the slightest idea how long I was holding it back?"

"No and I don´t want to know. Let´s just move on."

The two continued on their way and finally reached the end of the corridor. There was the last door. Behind this, the slime trail continued. Lara grabbed the doorknob.

"Just gonna take a quick look", she muttered to herself. Lara slowly opened the door. What lay beyond took her breath away.