Chapter Text
[SUNNY]
A 16 year old boy opens his eyes laying atop a hospital bed, growing more uneasy as he viewed his surroundings.
He was quite literally in a room which could be best described as something out of science fiction.
Clunky, ancient-looking computers...
Bulky Monitors...
Cables snaking across the floor...
Tubes containing what seems to be shifting balls of energy...
Bubbling sludge in vats...
Coat hangars...
A mish-mosh of the sci-fi and mundane.
If there was a doo, there was a hickey to go along with it.
On the walls were diagrams of strange and anatomically confusing creatures. Some more humanoid than others, somehow.
Moldsmal... Shyren... Vegetoid... Whimsun... Loox... Migosp...
It honestly just gets harder to pronounce the further he read.
Shifting his focus to something more immediate, if only to get his mind off what he could only assume to be an index of hell beasts, he glances over at the heart monitor beside of him. Well, at first glance he thought it was a heart monitor. But it didn’t actually display a pulse. Or anything useful to him for that matter. In fact, it looked like video game stats more than anything.
What is EXP, and why does he have some?
The thing also had his name, even though he was never even conscious to give someone his name in the first place.
Somehow the most eerie topping on this scary pizza of mysteries.
...Ginos doesn’t sound too bad right about now.
Considering what he was trying to achieve before he even got here, he was actually quite frustrated at this whole ordeal. He could yell at his supposed 'saviors' later however, finding out his current location was much more important to him.
It was only then that he noticed there was an IV coming from... somewhere in the ceiling. Inside of said line was what was thought to be blood initially, but not actually so.
It was glowing like it was straight out of a halloween decoration party pack.
It was also going under his blanket and snaking up into his blanket. He could only assume that it was being injected into him.
Ah... Glowing substances, being injected into me without my consent.
Intuition was telling him that glowing ANYTHING was not safe, but the fact he was alive at all is probably a miracle.
It could very well be attributed to the liquid, too. Ripping that IV off could mean excruciating pain, and that was pain he wasn't exactly brave enough to see through just yet.
He was also simply too exhausted to give that much care to it.
As Sunny shifts around underneath the hospital blanket, he's caught off-guard by how strange everything feels from a tactile standpoint.
Raising his hand to scratch at his scalp in confusion, he freezes.
Through a state of shock, his brain lists out the bone groups he saw in sequence.
Phalanges... Metacarpals... Carpals... Ulna... Radius—
His whole ass arm is literally just bone. NO muscles. NO ligaments. NO skin attached.
Yet it somehow moves at his command just as if his muscles were still there, intangible and invisible.
Sunny's immediate thought was that he was dreaming. The product of his own mental decline and sick mind.
Sadly, that thought was ruled out quite fast as he attempted the tried and true method to differentiate ones self from dreaming.
Sunny tried to pinch his arm. Trying his hardest to ignore the fact his other hand too was only bone.
...He could actually feel it.
He could quite literally feel everything. Somehow. Impossibly.
He could feel the unrelenting surface of his finger trying to squeeze the equally unrelenting surface of his arm.
The slight pain of his own thumb and index joints struggling and grinding together in vain to pinch something that was completely solid.
His bones were acting as if they had nerves in them, like it had replaced the skin.
No no no nononono—
“EEEEEAAAAUUUUURUUHHHEEEEAAAAAAARRRREEEEEEHHHHCCCCUUURRRFFFRRRSSSSAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ"
An obnoxious garbage noise comes through overhead speakers, startling Sunny right out of his internal spiral.
The garbage noise then proceeds to... clear its throat? Shifting its 'frequencies' towards legible and coherent speech like it hadn’t just made the sound akin to a 7-layers-of-hell-cigarette smokers cough?
A miraculous and confusing turn of events all around.
The unseen—now understood as an individual—garbage noise source tests the microphone with loud, obnoxious tapping to its housing.
Just to make sure audio was coming through.
It totally wasn’t annoying the shit out of Sunny and grating to his ears..
A gravely, but no less polite sounding voice rings through the room.
"One two three- One two three- Ah! Perfect!"
A gigantic screen suddenly flickers on in the direction of Sunny, unveiling a sight that was certainly unexpected.
A fully sentient, fleshless skeleton.
"EURETHRA!"
Exclaimed the televised bone, with quite some glee in its voice.
"The first Necromantic Human-Skeleton Soul Infusion in centuries!"
...What did he just say?—
That's a skeleton. That's a skeleton speaking English to me.
Of course, one would be rightfully shocked seeing a skeleton walking up and about. Especially since this one was talking about necromancy.
The televised skeleton realizes this upon gathering a modocrum of common sense. Steadying himself and clearing his throat nervously this time around, he continued.
"Ah! Um... I see!... I seem to have... forgotten! That Humans are not accustomed to the presence of Monsterkind anymore."
The scientist referred to itself as a part of Monsterkind? The old fairytale? Sunnys thoughts, as always, drift back to Mari. Mari often leveraged those legends to create her own.
It was mostly just to make Kel freak out, and in the process make Hero worry about the existence of ‘spider-monsters’.
Wait. If Monsters really do exist, does that mean—
Fortunately, before Sunny could yet again step foot into another ever-so-often downward spiral about his fears, he was startled out of it once more as the skeleton continued.
"Greetings, Human. You may call me Doctor W.D Gaster. You are in a place colloquially known as the Underground. You may have heard stories about... ahem... ‘creatures’ that lurk underneath the very mountain you have fallen into.”
The doctor awkwardly scratches their ‘cheek’, unsure of how to proceed.
"...Aha... Well... It is true. I am one of those ‘creatures’ as a matter of fact. Even if it is very rude to refer to us as such."
A pause is held, expecting some kind of gasp or disbelief—in which Sunny doesn't partake in at all of course.
Just a widening of his eyes.
The doctor couldn’t help but raise their... Brow? Socket? How can bone do that?
"...Right then. I will be in shortly to further explain your... erm... condition."
Sunny watched as the screen flickered off, the speakers doing similar with a crackle and a pop.
...Condition?...
This entire situation was surreal. More surreal than his literal dreams, and those were pretty damn surreal.
He was just spoken to by a monster. An ACTUAL monster from those literal fairytales.
One of which who was more intelligent than him by—most likely—multiple margins.
There's so much he’s having to fathom all at once that he doesn't even know WHERE to start.
“Aha... Ha... Hem... You don’t even know about the concept of the... soul?...”
The doctor was stumped by that. Like it should be a common thing for souls to be necessary in the concept of day to day critical thinking.
“What are human schools even teaching? It’s a fundamental part of life! How-”
The doctor immediately sighs in interruption, rubbing their nonexistent temples. The culture shock was seemingly too much for them.
“I’m not made for this. I’m not a teacher. Oh my Angel- Okay, just try to keep an open mind.”
What could be more earth shattering than the concept of the soul being an actual thing? They JUST started talking...
.
.
.
...Oh.
No more flesh for Sunny.
No heart to pump. No muscles to stretch. No tendons to pull. No lungs to breathe. No stomach to eat.
Not even a brain was left inside his skull to think.
The logistics to how that even worked weren’t even dwelled upon. Glossed over by the impatient and socially inept doctor.
“Flesh is heavy and cumbersome! You won’t miss it!”
Sunny very much missed his flesh actually, despite the doctors insistence.
“You humans are so bulky. You need a physical buffer to even use the parts given to you! Magic is so much more efficient!”
Sunny had to hand-pick a bunch of information from a lengthy and hard to follow tangent. Most of which left more questions than answers.
‘Gluing’ my soul back together.
Skeleton-monsters being half-descendants of humans.
Something about Determination?... and Patience? AND Justice?
...AND Magic! Somehow. Whatever that means!
Barely held together on a physical level...
Oh, wait, right. He at least elaborated on that. I'm a breath away from dying at all times.
As it stood, nothing makes sense to poor Sunny anymore.
The doctor apparently had no concept of culture shock either, or perhaps they were simply excited to go on rambles about science when given the chance.
In either case, the rushed conversation had gotten genuinely annoying to Sunny. Especially when he understood none of the other concepts being talked about.
It was an impressive feat to find someone who sucked this much at reading the room. It was impressive, considering Kel used to be his best friend.
If they hadn’t mentioned his fragility, he would have tried to slap some sense into them when they were still here.
Sunny wasn’t too far off from his previous assessment about himself being a Frankenstein’s monster. Sunny was quite literally an abomination that shouldn’t be even possible.
...Yet, there he stood. Staring at what was left of him in a mirror.
Magic, bones, and a soul barely held together.
[GASTER]
Gaster was reeling with various different emotions.
Morally, he was a mess beyond normal comprehension.
First, he effectively had to remove the guts of what seemed to be some kid. It was grisly and unsettling work, no matter the context.
It was just a kid, after all.
Seeing any kid injured the way they had been would make most sane individuals sick.
Then he had to explain to the boy what he did in a way that wouldn’t make them faint on the spot. Not the easiest feat for a socially inept scientist that prefers to nudge the boundaries of reality itself than socialize.
In his lousy attempt to try and play it cool, he immediately tried to make the lack of flesh seem like a good thing.
...Yet somehow, the boy didn’t emote at all. Despite the doctor having realized a bit too late just how insensitive it might have been.
Good going, Wingdings. You are the royal scientist, and you cannot even talk to a child. How in demons hell are you even going to take care of Papyrus at this rate!?
He was sure that their skull had SOME emotive capability, especially after being bathed in such intense magic. Yet they were still as empty-socketed and poker-faced as they were initially.
Humans are quite good at inhibiting their emotional reactions to things, it seems to be a trend.
Taking the out he was given, he tried to deviate by explaining just a little on how they’re even alive. The boy clearly still didn’t understand any of the concepts he spouted however.
Not even souls.
The most fundamental part of living, and they know nothing about it.
He tried his best to summarize the process as dumbly as possible, if only to try and give the kid some answers. However, his desire to be in the same room with someone who had to witness such a social catastrophe (himself) was rapidly dwindling.
This SOUL mumbo-jumbo is going to be the death of me! I’m nowhere near what King Asgore needs to break that barrier! Artifical SOUL power simply cannot exist!
Well, at least that ritual I stumbled upon in the archive was on to something. What a marvelous find.
It's like the missing link between Monsters and Humans. We really aren't so different after all.
In fact, that boy could pass for a skeleton monster quite easily!...
Hm... Perhaps I could just...—