Part II: Decay

Chapter 4: Clandestine

'I'm moving in to Hotland and unable to see you two regularly….'

After hearing this news from my dad, I felt my heart sunk and my 14th birthday party no longer upbeat and fun.

'Why do you need to go to Hotland? There's nothing but lava and heat.' Papyrus said, frowning.

'Because I love being a scientist and the king has recruited me, plus there are advance equipment and technology in that place.' my dad replied.

'Then when will you come back and visit us?' I asked quietly.

My dad hesitated for a bit and stared at me sadly.

'I…I don't know…maybe once a month or even longer….it's going to be really irregular but I'll try my best to squeeze some time and visit you two.' my dad said, trying to smile. 'Even I can't make it, I can still contact both of you two through phone or writing letters.' my dad said.

'Can we call you too?' Papyrus asked.

'You can but only in night time around 10:00 and in case of emergency as I'll be really busy and unable to answer phone calls, I'll leave my phone number and one of my friend's number after the party…' my dad said. 'Speaking of which, I got something special for you, Sans…..'

My dad quickly went upstairs and few minutes later, I saw him holding a shopping bag with a plastic tape sealing the opening of it. He later handed the bag to me.

'Open it.' my dad said, encouragingly.

I carefully removed the tape and opened the bag, later I found a blue long hoodie was placed neatly inside. Unlike ordinary hoodie, the back of it was cut into 3 pieces and it took me sometime to understand why the cuttings looked weird.

'Thanks, dad…'I smiled. '"Owl" put it on now.'

'SANS!'Papyrus exclaimed.

I heard my dad laughed at his reaction while I was trying to put my hoodie on, it took me some time to arrange my wings and fit in the gaps.

'Do you like it?' my dad asked.

'Yep, it's cool and comfortable.' I said. 'Thanks for the gift.'

'You look like a super hero!' Papyrus said excitedly.

'Thanks, brother.' I said.

After receiving my dad's gift, I felt my spirit lifted up a bit yet it's still sad without him staying with us for a long time. Two days later, before my dad left the house, me and Papyrus took turn and gave him a hug, later watched my dad headed towards the Waterfall direction and disappeared in the foggy area.

'I'm going to miss him so much.' Papyrus said.

'Me too…' I said. 'But on the bright side, we can do whatever we want…'

'Does this mean I don't have to go to bed before 10:00? Papyrus asked.

'I guess?' I said.

'This is going to be FUN! I can have more time to play!NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!' Papyrus said happily, jumping up and down.

For the first few days, me and Papyrus stayed up late and played till we felt tired. Solving puzzles, watching TV, eating junk food…etc. It was really fun and happy without my dad watching us. Sometimes I will take Papyrus with me and we'll fly together in the sky when there was nothing to do. We often discover new areas in the process and Papyrus will get really excited about it, sometimes he even asked me to land and explore the place. After the landing, most of the time we'll got ourselves in trouble immediately, usually involved random large monster confrontation or just got lost in a place for few hours. Luckily we made it out alive. In rare circumstances, we'll even find some treasure came from the Surface like books, gadgets that we've never seen before. After the adventure, we'll just go back home and called that a day.

The process repeated and we began to get use of the routine. Usually, before we headed to bed, we'll check the mailbox and waited for 30- 45 minutes to see if there's any phone calls or letters from my dad. Once he called/wrote to us, Papyrus loves to be the first one to answer/ read. Time slowly passed, for some reason, my dad started to call/ write lesser every month( he used to call us at least 3 times per week/ write once per month), around 3 months later, we no longer received any calls/ letters from him.

'Do you think dad will call us today? I miss him so much…' Papyrus asked one day while we're doing target practice with our magic.

'Not sure, brother….maybe you can leave a voice message to him after the training?' I suggested.

From the day my dad stopped contacted us, I started to become worried about him. Was he doing alright? Did he get into some kind of accident that caused him unable to contact us? Things just got tensed after this, I tried my best to stay positive and support Papyrus in both daily and emotion need. Sometimes I'll travel to some dimension that I'm familiar with and brought interesting 'souvenirs' for Papyrus, trying to keep him entertain and happy. However, it still never truly solved the problem. Without my dad, there's always something missing in the house.

'AHHHHHHH!'

My train of thought was interfered by Papyrus's scream, I quickly checked what happened to him and found he's pressing his head with one of his hands, tears streaming down his face.

'I hit the tree too hard with my 'special attack' and it rebounded.' Papyrus said.

'Hang on, I'll be back in few minutes.' I said, quickly rushed back into the house.

I headed towards the living room and opened a drawer which kept a first aid box, but I found it was empty inside. Later, I quickly ran towards my dad's room which he kept a box of medicine in case of emergency. For some reason, the door was locked. Without hesitation, I held out one of my hands and 'activated' my blue eye, focusing to get inside the room and channeled all my magic into the hand. In a second, a rift appeared right in front of me and it was displaying an image of my dad's bed. An uneasy feeling began to develop inside me once I went inside.

The room was dark and I can barely see my surroundings, once I flipped the switch, I found myself surrounded by pile of diagrams, documents and notes, all written/labeled in strange symbols. I barely have space to move towards the drawer where my dad kept his box. I carefully opened the drawer, trying not to knock the things down and got what I need. In the process, I found a silver key and a tube contained some strange liquid labeled 'Experiment 01'.

Everything inside the room suddenly became unfamiliar to me. Unknown documents, strange sample, locked room….

What were you up to, dad?

(END OF CHAPTER 4)