Sans didn't feel right about this. There was something about this test in particular that set him on edge. It was weirdly nagging, like static electricity going down his neck. He kept reminding himself that the tests they had done before had proved that nothing bad should happen. So why couldn't he shake off this feeling of dread?
Sans watched as Gaster placed the snail inside of the machine. It wiggled a little bit on the floor. It wasn't a sentient snail, it was the kind that couldn't talk. Like the ones on the surface. But he could've sworn it looked like it was scared.
What... The fuck was he thinking? It was a snail. It was a fucking snail. It couldn't be scared. It probably couldn't even process what was going on right now. He was probably so paranoid because he hadn't fully recovered from yesterday. Besides, he was in a creepy lab and about to operate a machine that shouldn't even exist. It was expected to feel nervous in that kind of environment.
Right?
Gaster continued with the usual process. He pushed the usual fifty or so buttons before resting his hand on the first lever.
"I'm sending it forward thirty seconds. It should land on the table behind you." Gaster said matter-of-factly. "Please ready your shield." Sans didn't move. He couldn't get over the fact that something felt really wrong.
"Sans, what is it?" Gaster asked upon looking at Sans. It wasn't until then that Sans realized that he was grimacing.
"... Are you sure this will work, Gasty?" Sans asked. He knew it would work. Why was he asking? What was up with him?
"Yes. We just need to test it to make sure." Gaster reassured him. Sans saw Gaster move to pull the switch.
"Wait!" Sans shouted. Gaster turned and raised his brow at him.
"Uh… I guess I just… Wanted to thank you… For everything." Sans said awkwardly. What? What was he doing? Why did he feel the need to say this? What was wrong with him?!
"So…" He continued. "Thanks." Gaster formed a small smile on his face.
"You are welcome, Sans." He said gently. "But we must continue."
Sans nodded and took a deep breath. He quickly summoned his shield and squeezed his eyes shut.
The motor revved, making Sans's stomach drop. The next lever sounded, then the next, then the next. Each one raising more and more panic in Sans until he couldn't take it anymore.
"Gaster, stop!" Sans cried out. But he couldn't hear him. It was too loud. It was too fucking loud.
The clunk indicating the last lever had been pulled sounded, making Sans actually cry out in panic. Gaster slammed the door shut, ran next to Sans, and summoned his own shield.
Have you ever felt something happen before it actually happens? Like, you woke up a millisecond before your alarm clock went off because you somehow knew it was going to go off? Or you somehow knew that you were about to drop something even though you had a tight grip on it? It was like that. Sans felt it. He felt it right before it happened.
He had never felt so fucking terrified in his entire life.
The machine made a screeching sound that was comparable to a thousand banshees crying simultaneously. Sans threw his hands to the side of his head, trying to block out the deafening screeching. The intense bright light, heat, and cold all somehow happened at the same time. Sans shook from the intensity of it. The sound of metal bending and breaking groaned through the air as the door collapsed into the machine. Into the machine. It was sucked in. A hole had opened up into the unknown, unreachable dimension. And it was taking everything in with it.
What had they done.
What had they done.
The gravity shifted into the rift they had created. The G forces almost made him black out. Light itself seemed to fall in, making it almost impossible to see anything but the rift. Air literally formed abrasions on his face from how fast the pull of it was. Sans gripped onto the shield, his entire system shutting down with fear. Every sense he had was screaming. He was paralyzed with fear. The gravity kept shifting around the room, lights started flashing. The sounds were like waves through his head, rising and falling with that god-awful sound that he would never forget. The only thing he could think to do was to hold on. He held on to his shield as hard as he possibly could.
Everything in the room was flying in. The walls, the floor, blueprints, the furniture.
The table.
That fucking table.
The table that was behind him flew through the air. He couldn't even react from how overloaded he was. The table slammed right into him, breaking his shield.
You'd think that given the circumstances, he wouldn't even be able to tell that he started falling because of how disoriented he was. But no, time slowed down to a crawl. He actually felt reality stop around him.
What… What was happening?
His head started clearing up as the lights and sounds stopped. He felt this weird sense of calm wash over him once his senses had fully returned. He looked around to assess his whereabouts. Chunks of drywall and paper floated around him, headed the same direction he was. Was he… Floating? He looked down to see his jacket was rippling around him like he was underwater. He rolled his eyes from one side of the room to the other, taking in everything around him until his eyes finally landed on Gaster behind his shield.
Now, Gaster was a man of few words. He knew how to get points across without needing emotions. Sans had never seen him emote more than a smile before, which in of itself was a rare sight. So it goes without saying that Sans had never even seen Gaster nervous before. Let alone afraid.
But Sans saw horror on Gasters face for the first time.
It snapped him out of his zen state. Time and fear slammed back into him like a wall. Before he could even try to hold onto something, he fell in.
There were colors.
There were colors he had never seen before. They pounded through his eye sockets right into his conscious mind. He saw so many deaths. So many births. So many victories. So many failures. They all flew through his head at the same time. It hurt. It was too much. But they kept coming. They kept coming. They kept shredding through his mind.
It felt like weeks.
For weeks it felt like it happened. The physical torture. He tried to scream, but it was like a vacuum in space. A vacuum that sounded like hell itself. His breath was non existent. He felt his body be torn to shreds and then mashed back together in less than a second over and over again. He was stretched and pulled, crushed and compressed, exploding, imploding. His body was somehow dying and bringing itself back to life.
For weeks it felt like it happened. The mental agony. All he could see was war and despair. Anguish always snuffing out any joy that might have arisen. All he could do was watch. Watch as families saw each other die, plagues destroy entire nations, weapons of mass destruction tear so many lives away.
He wanted it to stop. He couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take this much pain. He wanted it to end.
He wanted to die.
But it wouldn't let him. It kept him just alive enough to witness everything it threw at him. It laughed at him. Laughed at his pain. At his tears. It echoed. Louder and louder until it was the only thing he could hear. It vibrated through him like a church bell. Ringing down to his marrow. The harder he struggled, the louder it got.
He couldn't keep up the strength to fight back. It drained his willpower to try, sucking out any ounce of motivation he had left. He started to let go. To give up. To succumb. His eyes rolled back into his head. He let his soul begin to escape his body, taking Sans with it.
A hand suddenly gripped his shoulder, yanking him out of the rift. He flew out of the machine, crashing onto the lab floor. The pain vanished. The horror left his vision. He gasped, taking in frantic gulps of air.
He was out.
He was alive.
It hadn't been weeks, it had been seconds.
He looked back to see Gaster, one hand gripping the machine as he dangled inside the rift.
"Gaster!" Sans choked out, scrambling to help him. But he wasn't able to move an inch. He looked down at himself, his entire body was glowing orange and blue. Gaster was holding him in place with his telekinesis, preventing him from falling back in.
"Let me go!" He yelled as he struggled, managing to reach out one arm towards him.
Gaster's expression was peaceful as began to form cracks in his face, his entire head was falling apart. Gaster reached his other arm into the machine, grabbing the time and space manipulator. The thing that had taken them so many years to make.
"... No. No, no, no, no! Don't do it!" Sans cried, struggling harder than ever.
Gaster looked back at Sans and spoke in the language. The tongue that was supposed to be forgotten before the earth was even created.
"Take care of Papyrus."
"DAD, NO!"
He ripped the Manipulator out of the machine and the rift disappeared, swallowing Gaster with it.