Chapter 8: Meltdown

'How did you find this place Sans? You're not supposed to be here…' my dad said after I decided to let go.

'Long story…but I need to warn you that the building is about to explode soon…' I said.

My dad's expression went from concerned to serious, his white pupils faded out and revealed two black hollow eye sockets. He then quickly pulled down a red lever which placed on the wall near the computers, immediately, red light and loud beeping noise filled up the room. I saw scientists began to drop down their work and headed towards the exit. Just when I was about to check on my dad, I felt something grabbed my leg and pulled me towards it. I let out a yell as I lost my balance and fell to the ground, later noticed the 'Grabber' was the creature that my dad trapped inside the bone cage, somehow it managed to find a way to escape.

I quickly summoned a handful of bones and attacked it, yet my magic only pissed him off. The creature aimed its antler (horns) at my direction and began to charge, I quickly dodged and flew upwards, later sending more bones towards it. During the process, I saw my dad and few scientists were running towards me and shooting different magic projectiles, attempting to take down the creature. Unfortunately, none of the magic hit it but only make things even worst. The deer like creature lowered its head and began to ram its way towards my dad. As it dashed, all equipment, machines, cages and cylinder were destroyed along the way, some of the test subjects which trapped inside managed to break free, later I saw them either wandered around/ joined the deer creature to attack and destroy stuff in the Lab. As I watched the chaotic scene, I felt something clicked inside my head-The alarm, the scientists' evacuation, the explosion…all of the event started to make sense now…

'SANS!'

Before I can react, I felt a strong wave of energy knocked me backwards and everything around me became extremely bright. The pain was unbearable and I can feel my bones about to break and shattered into million pieces, there's no sound came out when I screamed. The blinding light soon reduced to the size of a circle and darkness began to surround me as I continued to fall.

Dark, darker and darker…..

I really made a terrible mistake, didn't I….?

The whole falling process reminded me a lot about my first teleportation. Helpless, desperation, lost…I tried to spread my wings to slow down the fall yet I can't move a single bones, there's too much pain and I don't have the strength to help myself. I felt my conscious started to fade out and my vision became blurred. I closed my eye sockets and bided a silent farewell to Papyrus and an apology to dad, later allowed myself to relax and accepted my fate.

Sans…!

I slowly opened my eye sockets and saw a figure approaching me, it was kind of blurry and I saw faint purple light glowing around it. As the figure came closer, I felt my fall has slowed down and I noticed it quickly stuff something inside my pocket, later it murmured something I can't make out and summoned a white object which shaped like the hybrid skull in the Lab earlier, next I saw two of its hand started to glow in purple.

Don't forget…

A strong purple light shined brightly in front of me and everything went black afterwards….

~o~o~o~o~

…bark…Bark…BARK!

I began stirred and opened my eye sockets, later noticed a floating dog like skull hovering above me, looking sad and worried. Instant, I summoned few bones out of thin air and ready to attack, before they even formed, the skull whined and back away. I slowly stood up and felt most of the pain has gone and can stand on my own, I can even spread my wings and move my limbs as if they never got hurt. Cautious and awareness started to kick in after my checking, there's no way I can survive the explosion and heal insanely fast. I looked around my surroundings and noticed everything was similar to the first time I arrived to the area except lava hasn't reached to the facility yet. It took me sometime to recall what happened in the explosion, I reached to my pocket and checked what did the figure gave me, later I pulled out a dogtag which had a small device placed on one side, while another side was written 'Eunoia'. The device has 3 tiny lightbulb, one was glowing in light blue, one was in orange and the last one wasn't working, all lined up horizontally below a small monitor that currently showing some sort of data I don't understand. I examined it for a while until suddenly the skull flew towards me and started barking, pushing me forward with its snort.

'Stop pushing me! I'm not in the mood to play with you…'I said, annoyed.

The skull nudged me again, this time more forceful, I noticed its white pupils have dimmed and it was staring at the dogtag, looking upset. Without warning, the skull quickly snatched the tag with its mouth and flew towards the entrance of Hotland.

'Give that back to me, thief!' I shouted and started chasing after it.

It's quite impressive for a tiny skull that sized merely bigger than my hand to carry a dogtag which weighted double its size and able to fly in fast speed. I even have slightly trouble to keep up with its pace. The skull led me to the Waterfall area which required monsters to do a small puzzle with few Bridge seeds in order to get across the gap, it stopped and hovered above the water. The dogtag which it currently 'holding' began to blink in violet colour and produced some sort of buzzing noise. It took me some time to understand what the skull was doing, I used my blue magic to summon the seeds and 'placed' them on the water, as the bridge bloomed, they revealed a pathway which led to a corner that I've never seen before. Cautiously, I walked along the path, later discovered a bench sitting in the middle of the room with a lonely Echo flower next to it. The skull made a tiny huffed and returned the dogtag to me, I noticed the light and buzzing sound became more frequent and loud respectively. As I walked near the bench, the light stopped blinking and there were no more buzzing noise came from the tag, I bended down and checked underneath, later found a book with leather cover. The moment I touched the book, the light turned off itself.

Slow and steady, I sat down on the bench and inspected the book. The first thing I noticed was there were few photos carefully clipped inside, most of them were pictures of me and Papyrus playing/ goofing around. Two of the photos have caught my attention, one of them was a picture of me around 5 years old being held by a woman. At the corner of it, there's a small line written 'Sans (5 yrs old) & Lucida, 2000', something about the woman looks kind of familiar. The next photo was a couple kissing with each other, a younger version of my dad was wearing a suit and next to him was the same woman I saw in the first photo but younger, a memo was stuck on the middle of the photo, scribbled '1990, wedding in Snowdin'. This book must be belonged to my dad but what's its connection with the dogtag and the figure, most importantly, how did the skull manage to lead me to this area….

I was about to take out my dad's ID to check whether his face was still blackened after seeing his wedding photo, yet I can't find it, the card must have fallen somewhere during the chase. Without any choice, I continued to flip to the next page, later I saw a note taped in the middle of a blank page, seemed written in a hurry.

Sans, please read from the start and don't skip any entries, there's something you should know long time ago…

Followed my dad's instruction, I read.

(END OF CHAPTER 8)