Underearth/Book 2/Chapter 8

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Frisk opened his eyes. Everything was so dark and blurry. As he tried moving, a bolt of pain shot throughout his entire body, causing him to scream in agony. He closed his eyes and rested for a bit longer. Waves of pain engulfed his body as he lay there, basking in some strange warm liquid.

Resting for a minute more, Frisk opened his eyes again and tried to move his head. Though it felt like it burned, Frisk slowly looked around. Everything was dark, but he seemed to be in some kind of small room, slightly scrunched downward. Sparks occasionally lit the scene slightly. It looked as though he was in some kind of elevator car. But what was he doing there?

Frisk laid his head back down, trying to remember how he got where he was.

*I... entered Alphys's lab.* He thought with great difficulty, as his head felt like it was splitting. *I looked around and found a note. It told me to enter the elevator to learn 'the truth'. After that...* It then hit Frisk like a ton of bricks. *The elevator failed. But... how did I survive...?*

Looking back around, Frisk found the doors. They were smashed open by the force of impact, or perhaps the compression of the car. Either way, that was his way out.

With great difficulty, Frisk began crawling out. Though when he tried moving his right arm, the pain intensified, like his very bones were screaming out in agony. Focusing on it, he found that the middle of his forearm angled a slight bit to one side. His arm was broken.

Slowly bringing his arm to his chest, Frisk crawled out of the elevator and rested against the wall across from it. Looking around more, he found half of an elevator door lying next to him, and another leaning against the wall on his other side, somewhat embedded within. Far to Frisk's right, he saw a hallway that led deeper in. Everything was dark.

While lying against the wall, Frisk started to feel more and more alert with each passing second, and, with each passing second, a lot of pain began subsiding.

*I need to find a splint.* he suddenly found himself thinking. *There's a medical room somewhere around here.*

After a few more minutes of resting, he found himself thinking *I need to get moving now.*

With this thought, Frisk struggled to stand up. Once on his feet, he stumbled down the hallway, hugging the left wall.

After walking to the end, the hallway turned, then led to a lobby of sorts. The lobby, though lacking benches, had an old vending machine sitting next to a door with four lights on it; all of which were dark.

Frisk sat down on the floor just left of the hallway. Looking around the room, the lobby exited in three directions (besides the one Frisk came from), all of which had doors.

The middle door looked unlike the other two, as it looked like an elevator door; half a door on each side of the frame. The other two doors boasted a series of circles on the upper-half, and a solid structure on the lower half, with no way of determining how it opened.

Above the middle door was a plaque that read "Reactor". Another plaque that pointed to the right door read "Pathology". The plaque pointing to the left door read "Infirmary".

*Infirmary...* Frisk read again in his mind. *That's it!*

Frisk stood back up and approached the left door.

*I need to turn the circles until it makes a vertical line.* he found himself thinking as he got near it.

Once in front of the door, being able to take a closer look, Frisk found that there was a line in each of the circles, though they didn't line up. Touching the outer-most circle with his left hand, he found that he could move the circles. Frisk moved the three circles until the line in them lined up vertically. Upon getting the last one in place, the lower-half of the door fell into the ground, the upper-half became loose, as did a piece on either side of the door. Frisk then crouched through the door and walked down another hallway to the infirmary.

Just inside the infirmary stood three operating tables, each of which had white sludge sticking to them.

Walking past the operating tables and a downward staircase just past them, Frisk went to three sinks sitting at the end of the room, specifically the cupboards that were above them. Opening one up, he found a medical splint lying within.

"Yes!" Frisk said, grabbing it and laying it down on one of the sink counters.

Frisk then looked down at his right arm. Though he didn't know entirely how, he knew exactly what he had to do.

Frisk placed his arm on the counter and placed his left hand over where he knew the fracture was. With his next series of movements, and through sheer force of will, Frisk reset the bone. Once done, Frisk let out a scream of pure pain, one that would put even banshees to shame.

Once he finished screaming, Frisk, who was hyperventilating, started applying the splint. Upon applied, Frisk collapsed onto the counter in a heap of pain, letting himself lay there while the pain subsided.

While lying on the counter, Frisk noticed that white sludge started dripping from one of the sink faucets. Soon, more started dripping until a solid stream of the sludge emerged from the faucet. Instead of traveling down, however, the stream wrapped upward and grabbed onto the opening of the faucet. As Frisk watched, the metal began bending, making the opening wider.

Seeing this caused Frisk to sit up. Once the opening was at least four times as large, a massive amount of sludge emerged, filling the sink. Once the sink filled, the sludge, instead of spilling over, began rising higher and higher. Eventually, the tower of sludge stumbled out of the sink and towards Frisk. While approaching him, the sludge sucked in on itself, turning into a ball roughly the size of Frisk's head, floating in the air. The ball then morphed into what looked like the upper part of a Human skull, with many diverse faces decorating the cranium, all of which screamed static.

As Frisk and the melting skull thing looked at each-other, the melting skull thing began screaming louder and charged Frisk, who ducked just in the nick of time. Frisk then charged the cupboard and opened some other doors, looking for something to use to defend himself with.

Upon opening one of the cupboard doors, Frisk laid eyes on a vial filled with a golden liquid of sorts.

*Throw it!* he found himself thinking.

Not wanting to argue with himself in such an emergency, Frisk grabbed the vial and threw it at the skull, which had turned around and was approaching him. Unfortunately, since he had to throw with his left arm, he missed the skull entirely. The vial flew past it and shattered on the ground behind it, spilling its contents everywhere.

As soon as the vial smashed against the ground, the skull thing flipped back around and charged the golden liquid, splattering all over the ground when it hit it. Frisk turned back around, finding three more vials. Grabbing them and stuffing them in his pocket, his eyes were also caught by a strange red cylinder lying in the sink the skull thing seeped out of.

*Grab it!* he thought. And so he did.

While the skull thing was reforming, sucking up the golden liquid, Frisk ran down the staircase between the sinks and operating tables. The bottom of the staircase featured a dark room with some kind of machine embedded in the wall across from the staircase.

Once in the room, Frisk slammed his back against the wall, hiding himself from view of anything in the infirmary. Soon after, the static screaming started again, ringing throughout the empty halls. It remained hearable for the next few minutes, but it eventually silenced.

Once silence had re-established dominance over the area, Frisk relaxed a bit. His arm was no longer throbbing in pain as it had been before, but was now as least somewhat stable. It still stung greatly, but not unbearably anymore.

Looking around the room, Frisk noticed the machine in the wall. Approaching it, he saw an empty red slot inside of it. Looking down at the red cylinder he was still clutching in his left hand, he brought it up and tried sliding it into the slot. It fit perfectly. Upon sliding in, the cylinder began glowing, closely followed by the entire slot and the area surrounding the slot to also start glowing, red.

Frisk then turned around and slowly climbed the stairs back to the infirmary. The screaming skull thing was gone. Wherever it went, Frisk didn't want to stick around to see whether it'd come back. He returned to the main lobby area.

Upon arriving, the first thing Frisk noticed is that one of the four lights on the Reactor door was glowing red. Moving across the lobby, Frisk went to the right door, the door labeled "Pathology". Upon getting close to it, the circles on the door swiveled on their own, lining up the line. The four parts of the door then retracted in their own direction; the bottom going down, the left into its wall, the right into its, and the circle-piece pulling up into the ceiling. Frisk walked on through the now open door.

The hallway behind was long, yet it was the shortest hallway thus far, ending in a room filled with beds. Walking past them all, Frisk notices that one of the beds has tossed, untidy bedding, contrasting with the many neat, well-made beds of the room.

*That looks awful...* Frisk thought as he walked by them.

After walking passed the bed with tossed bedding, he stopped. It was weighing on his mind, bothering him.

*Why is this bothering me?* He thought as he walked over to the unmade bed. *I don't care that it contrasts.*

Try to suppress this feeling of unease as he might, it continued to bother him. Eventually, though, he grabbed the bedding and threw it onto the floor, screaming "I DON'T CARE!" as he did so. Upon stripping the bed, Frisk heard something hard hit the floor. Looking to where the sound came from, he saw another cylinder, this one green. Frisk walked over and picked it up.

The end of the room housed two hallways, one leading straight out of the bed room, the other running parallel with it. Since he was already over by it, Frisk decided to go down the straight hallway.

Someway down the straight hallway, Frisk reached a point where the left wall was completely lined with mirrors. The right wall pulled in a bit, so a table formed inside it. This long table was filled with potted golden flowers. Looking at them, Frisk was reminded of Flowey.

*Where the hell is Flowey?* Frisk thought while he gazed at the golden flowers. *Undyne and Muffet are back, as well as a few others, so where's Flowey?*

A sudden screeching caused Frisk to snap out of his thoughts and look from the flowers to a massive melting ratite-like creature shambling towards him. The creature screeched again. It's screeching sounded like a crowd all trying to say something different at the same time. The bird creature then brought its head up, then brought it down like a hammer where Frisk was.

Frisk, seeing this coming, jumped forward through the gap between the bird creature's legs. Landing carefully, as to not damage his arm any further, Frisk ran further down the hall. As he was nearing the end, he caught sight of another staircase that headed down, like the one back in the infirmary.

Frisk changed course, going directly towards the stairs with the intent to descend. The bird creature then suddenly ran past Frisk, evidently expecting him to continue running straight, and slammed head-first into the wall, splattering all over it. Frisk, however, continued down the stairs to the room below, slamming his back against the wall like he'd done before.

He then remained there, hoping it would leave. Frisk waited there for a few minutes, the last screech he'd heard being a while ago. Confident the creature was gone, Frisk relaxed and looked around the room. It was like the room before, right down to the machine in the wall. Approaching it, Frisk saw that the slot in this one was green. Bringing the green cylinder he was still clutching tightly in his left hand up, he slid it into the slot. Just like before, it began to glow, but green this time.

After slotting the cylinder into the machine, Frisk turned around and cautiously climbed the stairs. The bird creature was gone, but the wall where it had smashed into was slightly cracked. Frisk then backtracked to the bed room, took a right, then went down the parallel hallway.

Down the left side of the hallway, Frisk couldn't see anything due to the darkness. The right side, however, hosted a room that he could see the end of. Frisk went this way first.

The room was narrow, and appeared to be some kind of ventilation area, evident from the rows and rows of fans lining the left and right walls, stretching from the floor all the way to the ceiling. White sludge decorated the safety grate and fans all along the room.

Walking past the fans, Frisk quickly made it to the end of the room, where a switch with two buttons on it was. Of the two buttons, the top one, which read "OFF" was already pushed in. Frisk looked at the bottom button, which read "ON", and pushed it in. Almost immediately, all the fans in the room activated.

Once the fans turned on, air began blowing into the room. The white sludge that decorated the safety grate and fans flew off, then suddenly levitated in the air. While levitating, they all came together into a large white ball in the middle of the room that came slowly down to the ground.

Upon reaching the ground, the ball morphed into a wide six-legged canine with a massive hole where its face should have been. The dog creature approached Frisk like it was hunting prey.

*Vile beast.* Frisk thought, stretching his arms (and jacket) out wide in an attempt to make himself look bigger while making loud noises.

The dog creature stopped moving towards him. It then looked around at the walls surrounding it. From there, it then jumped straight up onto one of the walls, scurrying around on it.

Catching himself gawking at the sight, Frisk took this chance to try and escape, running for the exit. Just to be sure the creature wouldn't follow, at least for a time, Frisk pulled out one of the vials filled with the golden liquid and threw it, full force, at the wall the switch was on.

The bait worked. As soon as the vial shattered and the contents spilled all over the wall and floor, the dog creature leapt at the golden liquid, lapping it up with its esoteric maw. As Frisk ran down the hall, he heard the beast howl from behind him. It sounded like an entire pack of wolves howling all at once.

Someway down the corridor, Frisk saw yet another staircase leading down. Upon reaching the bottom of this staircase, however, Frisk found that it was just another hallway, though brief in length. Unlike all the others Frisk had seen, the end of this hallway boasted a bathtub and shower, complete with a purple shower curtain.

Frisk listened closely for any noise from above. It sounded as though the dog creature *wasn't* giving chase. While listening for the pattering of footsteps, Frisk suddenly heard a loud clunk come from the bathtub. Frisk shot his head over to look at the tub. Nothing appeared to have changed. But that was all just from the outside. Cautiously, Frisk started approaching it. Once he was able, Frisk grabbed the curtain and thrust it to the other side. The inside of the bathtub was a complete mess as far as anybody could see, with more of that white sludge decorating the interior. In the middle of the bathtub, however, lay a yellow cylinder. Cautious of the white sludge, Frisk slowly reached out and grabbed the cylinder, then quickly pulled his hand away.

He then waited for something to happen. But nothing ever did. Thankful for the anti-climactic ending to that affair, Frisk walked away from the bathtub, and back up the stairs, cautious not to alert any of those creatures that could be wandering the dark halls.