~Your POV~

"OH MY GOD, SANS! YOU'RE ALMOST AN HOUR LATE! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!" An extremely loud voice shouted as soon as Sans had the door wide enough for his face to appear.

"Sorry, bro. Met someone at Grillby's. I invited her over." Sans apologized, walking carelessly into the house while I hesitantly followed behind him. The owner of the loud voice looked like an interesting fellow. Immediately I could tell him and Sans were related, they were both skeletons. This one had a head shape more similar to Gaster's though, but definitely not the same energy.

This skeleton, who I supposed was 'Paps', gave off a very energetic and bubbly aura. He was currently wearing a chef's hat that was somehow still sticking to his head despite being very tilted. He also wore a long apron that said 'HUG THE CHEF', the word hug had been drawn over a crossed out 'KISS'. I smiled at him, his aura already starting to rub off on me.

"OH! HELLO, BROTHER'S FRIEND! I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS!" Papyrus exclaimed cheerfully, taking my hand and shaking it a little too enthusiastically. I simply smiled, I wonder if he could understand WingDings too.

Papyrus returned to the kitchen, a smell like burning food was coming from it. I sat down next to Sans, some more anxiety appearing. I closed my eyes, but got scared quickly. I was reminded too much of the VOID. I only just realized that I still had Sans' jacket on. I swiftly took it off and returned it to him, not making eye contact. I felt kinda bad that I shouted at him.

He took the comfy jacket out of my hands, I could hear him putting it back on but I still refused to look at him. I noticed a remote on the other side of the couch, but I didn't make a move for it. I was too anxious to make a move, too anxious that I was going to do something wrong again.

Dark thoughts began creeping into my mind. What if this was all just a very long vivid dream? What if I was sent back to the VOID? I don't think I could take it... Everything that has happened in the last few hours have been wonderful, but if it had all just been something my mind came up with to cope...

"U-Um... you alright?" Sans asked tentatively, knocking me out of my trance. I felt warm thick tears sliding down my face and dripping onto my hands which were crossed on my lap. The tears were still pitch black, just like my eyes.

I didn't answer, I couldn't answer. No, I wasn't alright. But I didn't want to tell him and make him feel bad. So, I just nodded pathetically. He obviously didn't buy it, if anything I just convinced him more that I wasn't okay.

He clearly didn't know how to comfort me, but really it was the thought that counted. He awkwardly put a hand on my shoulder and just patted it gently. I couldn't help but smile at his embarrassment. It slightly hurt to smile, most likely due to not doing it in a really long time.

I wiped away my tears quickly as I heard Papyrus coming into the room. There was a lot of black goop on my hands now and I had to quickly wipe it off on my pants, which didn't go over too well. Now it was smeared all over... great. I just put my arms on my lap to cover it up, no one else needed to know my plight.

~Time skip~

We all enjoyed a slightly awkward spaghetti dinner. I stayed silent the entire time, my only communication being nodding or shaking my head. Papyrus was a very talkative person, but I enjoyed it.

It was getting kind of late so we set up my sleeping arrangements and went to bed. Well, Papyrus did anyway. Me and Sans sat on the couch, making sure Papyrus wasn't going to come down again.

"So... what do you want to know first?" Sans asked, looking down at his lap while I looked up at him.

"Who is Gaster to you?" I said, nervous to know the answer. He sighed loudly, knowing that this question would be brought up. I wonder why he was so secretive about it.

"He was... is my father. But not exactly in the way you're thinking. Gaster had a lot of a secret projects, I know that for sure. Me and Paps were one of them, and I guess you were too.

"His main goal was to open the barrier, and to do that we needed 7 human SOULs. But he didn't want to kill any humans, he was fascinated by them and their DETERMINATION. So, he needed to create artificial SOULs to break the barrier. To do that, he would need to recreate DETERMINATION.

"He tried... and tried... but there was no way of just creating DETERMINATION. So, instead he decided to wait until another human came so he could extract DETERMINATION from them. But, he needed a vessel to hold that DETERMINATION. That's where me and Paps come in.

"He decided to clone his SOUL into three, just in case something went wrong. He succeeded. So now, he had three complete monster SOULs. Now he just needed to make a body from them. I was made first, and Papyrus not too long after. He would've just stopped at me, but I- uh, don't have that much HP to be honest.

"Unfortunately, he never was able to inject DETERMINATION into us because he didn't have enough time to build the extractor. Which, is probably good now that we know what injecting DETERMINATION into a monster does..."

Sans shivered when he finished his last sentence. This was so much to take in for one day. I hadn't expected such a long answer. But, this explained quite a lot of the experiments that Gaster used on me. He was examining my DETERMINATION.

"...Thank you." I said sheepishly, now I know why he was a bit secretive about it. It couldn't of been easy to talk about your dead father to an almost complete stranger, no matter how linked I was to him.

Sans didn't respond, but I felt some tension leave the air. He gave off a somewhat better aura than before, I wonder if he had told anyone else that story.

"Just one more thing... what happened to my eye back there?" I questioned, deciding not to ask about Chara yet. I think both me and him weren't ready.

"Oh... yeah. Um, this is going to sound off topic but have you seen Gaster use magic?"

"Uh, yeah? Why do you ask?"

"So you know how one of his eyes glows purple?"

"Yes, wait- you don't mean..."

"Your eye did that when you sneezed, except it was a lot darker."

I stared at him in bewilderment. He couldn't be telling the truth, could he? I'm a human for crying out loud! But, my body changed when I was in the VOID. Could my SOUL have been effected as well?

"Do you mind showing me your SOUL?" Sand asked abruptly, finally making eye contact with me. I nodded, since I was curious as well. The only problem was, I had no idea how.

"I- um, don't know how." I admitted, slightly embarrassed by this fact. I rubbed the back of my neck which felt a bit softer than normal. Strange.

Then, Sans did something achingly familiar. His left eye glowed blue, extremely similar to Gaster's other than the color. He made a grabbing movement and I felt a tightening in my chest. He pulled his hand away, and out came my SOUL.

So this was the effect of the VOID on a weak SOUL...

It was almost completely gray, but had hints of a pale light blue within. There were many, many cracks running along the edges. If I wasn't careful with it, it could shatter. I started to breathe heavily, trying not to scream. The very culmination (or, as I used to say, combination) of my being, so close to being broken.

"C-Calm down! It's alright... just- uh, it's just a f-few cracks. You'll be okay." Sans reassured me, putting his hand on my shoulder and squeezing gently. He had a panicked look on his face, which didn't convince me of his statements.

"I-it's actually kind of interesting, seeing what the VOID can do on a human SOUL. Who knew it could warp it into being able to perform magic. But I wonder why you're able to do Gaster's magic..."

I really wasn't paying attention, I was still freaking out over the state of my SOUL. Gaster taught me a lot about them, and I luckily remembered most of the teachings. So it was strange that I wasn't feeling immense pain from all these cracks. I wonder how long they've been there.

I slowly calmed down, as long as I was careful it wouldn't shatter. I was out of the VOID now so it couldn't kill me. I'm safe. I yawned silently, but Sans still noticed.

"Oh yeah, it's getting late. Well, I guess good night." Sans said, looking up to a clock on the wall. Instead of having hands, it had bones which were placed almost exactly at 11pm on the dot.

"Goodnight, Sans." I smiled as he began to walk up the stairs. I plopped my head onto the pillow the skelebros laid out for me and closed my eyes. But once again, I got scared. I guess you're never too old to be scared of the dark.

I attempted to clear my mind, maybe I could just drift off to sleep. But I wasn't tired at all, and there was no stopping the constant flurry of questions and thoughts.

I stayed still for at least an hour, judging by the clock. It was kinda weird that I could see pretty well even with all of the lights off. I could clearly make out each and every number on the clock.

I decided that maybe some fresh air would do me some good. The bitter cold might freeze my thoughts and I could finally sleep. I got off the couch and headed for the front door, turning the knob silently. Instantly I was hit with a gust of cold icy air. I shivered, but continued onward.

There was a snowstorm happening outside, fresh snowflakes came down from the... ceiling? Whatever, it's magic. I wrapped my arms around myself and walked over to the forest. It would probably help shield the snow and keep me warmer.

The trees did indeed stop the snow by blocking it with their leaves and branches. Despite the cold, it was rather nice in here. Beautiful icicles hung from branches above me, and the snow was pearly white around here. My mind was finally distracted until...

"Howdy!"

I flinched wildly, the familiar voice scaring the daylights out of me. I spinned around and noticed a golden flower on the ground, smiling up at me.

"Oh thank goodness, it's just you Flowey." I said, placing a hand to my chest to calm my racing heart.

"Oh, right. I can't understand a word you're saying. Good thing I snagged this, huh?" One of Flowey's vines suddenly shot out of the snow with a notepad and pencil in it's grasp. I gladly took it, opened it up, and wrote down what I just said.

"Yep! Just lil ol' me. It's a real shocker to see you back from the dead."

'Well, I wasn't really dead just stuck.' I wrote, showing it to Flowey when I was done.

"Right... I overheard that conversation you had with Toriel and smil- Sans. The VOID, huh? What was it like?" Flowey questioned, I wondered what he was just about to call Sans...

'It was horrible, I don't really want to think about it.'

"That's okay, friendo! But tell me, was there anyone else there?" He pried, a hint of desperation in his eyes.

'No. Why do you ask?'

"No reason! Just curious! Well, that's all I wanted to know. I also happened to have overheard your conversation with Sans on the couch, golly that's an interesting SOUL you have now."

'Why have you been listening in on me?' I wrote, finding myself becoming a little cautious around Flowey. There was something up with that smile... I saw it as a kid and I see it even more now.

"I missed you of course! But Sans doesn't really like lil ol' me so I didn't want to cause trouble by showing up!" It was a blatant lie. He was hiding something... damn it, how do I respond?

'Right... so how have things been?' I wrote to hopefully change the subject.

"Really boring until you showed up. So... any chance you could show me your SOUL for no particular reason?"

'I thought you already saw it when you eavesdropped on me and Sans'

"Well, that was from a distance. I'd rather see it... closer. Don't you trust me?"

I wasn't sure if I did. But, he did help me all those years ago. He healed me when I fell and led me to life with Gaster. Why shouldn't I trust him?

'Ok... but I can't do it myself.'

"No problem, friendo! I can do it for you!"

My battered SOUL suddenly felt like it was being ripped from my body. Flowey had done a rough grabbing motion with his vines, it really hurt. But I'm sure he didn't mean it. Right?

"Hmm... there definitely is some human in there. I wonder..." Flowey mumbled to himself, pulling the SOUL closer to him so he could eye it. He didn't even care that I was grasping my chest in pain.

"Well, only one way to find out!"

I was about to pick up my fallen notepad again to ask him what he meant, but thorny vines came shooting out of the earth towards me just before I could.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, a terrible ear splitting sound that shook the leaves and made snow fall to the ground. A vine had gone straight through my stomach, causing less pain than expected. Other vines had lifted me into the air, their thorns poking into my skin. But they just felt like pinpricks.

My blood was thick and black, just like my tears. But there was some difference between them too, my blood looked more like thick slime and was starting to quickly spread across Flowey's vines. I could hear the vines start to crumble as my blood tightened around them like a vice, effectively snapping them and making me fall to the soft snowy ground.

"W-What?! This can't be happening!" Flowey shouted, staring in horror at his broken slime soaked vines. I put a hand to my wounded stomach, it felt numb but alright. I looked down on it, and almost screamed again. There was a wide hole going straight through my stomach, but black goo was repairing my body back to normal, slowly but surely. I gulped and steadied my breathing, looking up to glare dangerously at Flowey.

Flowey wasn't giving up at his murder attempt though. A bunch of white floating seeds came pelting at me in quick succession, creating what looked like bullet holes on my body. But again, the black goo was healing me. These pellets hurt a lot more than the vines though, which was surprising.

I made a grab for my SOUL, I was worried that he might try to crack it. As soon as I touched it, I screamed again. A more horrible scream than last time, this one was of excruciating pain unlike the last one that was just out of fear.

I let go of my SOUL almost at once, a few more cracks starting to appear on it's surface. Flowey looked temporarily stunned, most likely from my garbled and glitched scream that almost went to a frequency that only dogs could hear.

I got up and just ran, ran for my dear life. My SOUL trailed along at the same rate I was going. Some leftover blood was falling behind me, creating a small trail. I held a hand to my stomach, to conserve as much gooey blood as possible.

My mind was in an absolute chaos right now. Flowey, my friend, tried to kill me. Or, I thought he was a friend. I guess he was just faking it the entire time... I knew something was off about him but I never would have guessed that he was a psychopath.

I quickly reached the skelebros house and silently slammed the door behind me when I got inside. I was breathing extremely heavily, exercise was something I wasn't used to. My heartbeat thundered in my ears,  my eyes were blurry with tears and my constant shaking. I slid against the door, pressing my face into my knees. I sobbed, harder than ever. I gave up on trying to be quiet, they were probably fast asleep anyway... or so I thought.

"Y/n? What the hell happened?!" Sans whisper-shouted, rushing towards me from the stairs. I just sobbed, shaking even more. I hugged Sans tightly, crying heavily into his jacket. I didn't care what he thought of it, I just needed him right now.

He hugged me back more gently than I was to him, awkwardly rubbing my back in a supposed to be soothing way. It was then he noticed the sweat that was making my clothes stick to my body and my blood that was smeared across my body.

"Is... Is that blood?! Y/n you gotta tell me what happened!" Sans exclaimed, pulling back to put both hands on my shoulders.

"I-I-I- H-He... S-S-ans... I..." I stammered, too distraught to really form a sentence. I just cried even harder, Sans pulling me in for another hug. The adrenaline was seeping out of me, and my exhaustion was starting to take a toll on me now.

"You're okay... calm down... it's gonna be fine."

Sans' soothing voice saying those calming reassurances was what finally sent me over the edge. I closed my eyes, falling straight into the deep realm of sleep.

I really didn't expect to see someone else here with me.