Underearth/Book 2/Chapter 10

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Though the lobby was still dark, the four lights on the Reactor door shined brightly. Red, green, yellow, and blue. As he approached the door, it opened automatically. It was another elevator, though this one looked extremely old. Reluctantly, Frisk stepped into the cabin and pressed the "down" button.

Soon after pressing the button, the doors closed, and the elevator descended. Frisk could tell, even from within the cabin, the descent was in many stages. Every single time the elevator descended, there was a sudden lurch, then a pause, then another lurch, another pause, and so on.

Eventually, the movement stopped, and another set of doors opened. These led out into a long, dark hallway. Following this hallway, Frisk found a set of stairs leading down at the end. Heading down, Frisk soon found himself in a large, dark room. From the moment he entered this room, he had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched. Yet nobody was here.

Frisk walked to the end of the room where he found a massive chasm. Above the chasm, at level with the ground Frisk was standing on, was a strange machine with many wires and cables coming from it. Simply looking at the machine filled Frisk with a great sense of unease. Despite this, however, he also felt drawn to it.

The machine itself looked like a large canister. Two dark lights decorated the middle near the top, and right in the middle of the machine was a large red heart-shaped crystal.

Once Frisk stood directly in front of the machine, a keyboard extended out to him. The keys on the keyboard glowed a bright red, with a single large button right in the middle. Looking down at the keys, Frisk brought up his hand and pushed the big red button in the middle.

As soon as he did this, the keyboard retracted, and the heart-shaped crystal in the middle started glowing. Lights in the room then began flickering to life as well.

When the lights turned on, liquid began dropping from the ceiling, splattering onto the ground. Turning around, Frisk saw that there was a considerable amount of white sludge covering the lights above. It wasn't long after that the creatures the white sludge belonged to dropped from the ceiling as well, splashing onto the floor room, soon re-forming into many various abominations, all of them slowly advancing on Frisk.

"Hey! Stop!!!" a voice rang out from the entrance of the room.

Everything looked towards the entrance. The voice was Alphys's.

"I got you guys some food, okay!?" she said, shooing them away.

One by one, the abominations left, until it was just Frisk and Alphys in the room.

"Sorry about that..." she said. "They get kind of sassy when they don't get fed on time."

"Sassy? Is that what you call it?" Frisk asked.

"Uh... Anyway! The power went out, and I've been trying to turn it back on! But it seems like you were one step ahead of me. This was probably just a big inconvenience for you..."

"Oh no, not at all. Seeing the fruits of your labor has really allowed some light to be shed on you."

Alphys looked uncomfortable.

"I... I suppose I owe you an explanation. Soon after hiring me, Asgore asked me to continue Dr. Gaster's work in studying the nature of SOULs. Though they were almost all corrupted, I looked through his old files and found something he called 'DETERMINATION'. Dr. Gaster wrote in his notes that it was probably this that caused Human SOULs to persist after the Human died. I thought that if I injected it into dying Monsters, their SOULs would last after they died too. But the experiment failed. You see, unlike Humans, Monsters' bodies don't have enough... physical matter to take those concentrations of 'DETERMINATION'. Their bodies started to melt and lose what physicality they had. Pretty soon, all of the test subjects had melted together into... those. Seeing them like this, I knew... I couldn't tell their families about it. I couldn't tell anyone about it. No matter how much everyone was asking me. And I was too afraid to do any more work, knowing... everything I'd done so far had been such a horrific failure."

"Yes, what an amazing idea, covering up this disaster. No wonder you're so introverted." Frisk said.

Alphys went silent for a bit again.

"I'm going to tell everyone what I've done." she finally said. "It's going to be hard, being honest... Believing in myself... I'm sure there will be times where I struggle. I'm sure there will be times where I screw up again. But knowing, deep down, that I have friends to fall back on... I know it'll be a lot easier to stand on my own."

It was now Frisk's turn to go silent, thinking about everything she said.

"Hey, Alphys." he soon said. "If... if you ever need any help, feel free to ask me. I'll be more than willing to help in any way I can."

"Thank you."

Alphys then turned around and left the room.

Frisk sat down on the ground, thinking further on what he'd learned.

*I was such an asshole...* he thought. *I had no idea what she was going through, and I was always more willing to make everything worse simply because she lied to me and used me. I should have acted better...*

After a few minutes of sitting there, Frisk stood up, and left the reactor room as well.

Soon after leaving the reactor room, Frisk's phone started ringing.

"Hello?" Frisk said after answering it.

"Howdy!" the voice coming from the other end was not one Frisk recognized. "How'd you enjoy looking through Alphys's sins?"

"Who is this?" Frisk demanded, now stepping into the elevator and pressing the "up" button.

"Boy, it's been a long time, hasn't it...? But you've done well. Thanks to you, everything has fallen into place. Chara... See you soon."

The phone suddenly dropped dead.

Frisk pulled the phone from his ear. What the hell was that all about? he wondered, staring at the device.

Frisk stopped staring at it when the elevator suddenly stopped. Frisk approached the door that should have opened, but it never did. All of a sudden, the elevator felt as though it was falling. Frisk grabbed onto a rail within, holding onto it closely. While it was falling, Frisk felt the same sensation he felt whenever Sans took him through one of his shortcuts. Soon, though, it all stopped, as did the falling sensation. The doors of the elevator then opened.