FINALLY out of school in Snowdin, eight year old Sans skips out and heads to the river person.

Today Sans gets to see what exactly his dad does at work! He's been promised so many times, only to have something come up and run it. Not this time though! (Even his BABY BROTHER Papyrus gets to stay the lab in a daycare area! Unbelievable.)

"Would you like to take a ride with me young one?" A whispery voice asks from under the dark purple hood.

Sans nods excitedly.

"Hotland please!" The small skeleton asks, hoping into the boat. The tip of the boat has a dog head on it and it begins to gallop away through the water. Sans loved when the boat did that. It was rare, and when it happened he KNEW he'd have a good day!

Sometime along the way, the River person says something that Sans can't quite hear over his own thoughts. His mind is abuzz with all of the potential things he could see or mess with! Maybe Gaster will actually let him... MAKE SCIENCE!

The dog headed boat slows to a stop at the Hotland entrance and it jostles the skeleton child out of his trance.

"Thanks riverperson!" Sans jumps off and runs up the path. For a second he thinks he may have heard them say something, but when he looks back to ask what it was, they were gone. Huh. They are a strange monster! But he likes them a lot anyway.

The path to the lab isn't new to Sans. He's been up here a hundred times skipping school or trying to see inside. Some of the black armored Royal Guards wave to Sans as he rushes by. He waves back and smiles widely at them.

"I get to go INSIDE today!" He shouts. The guards "ooohhh" and "aaahhh" in childish excitement for him and chuckle when he dashes off the rest of the way. They've watched him rush up the path many times for a few years now. So at least this time he's not skipping school to get in…

Finally he comes up to the big doors and adjusts his blue backpack... and knocks loudly on the metal. The doors open with a zip and Sans sees inside clearly at last. The first room looks... SORTA like a lobby he guesses. Ugly blue and yellows. In front of him is the exit leading to the other half of Hotland to the east. To his left is a down escalator and he thinks that's quite silly. Shouldn't it be going up since it's right next to the entrance? Maybe the layout of the place just wouldn't work that way?... He wonders.

Past the escalator is a VERY large monitor that's showing the live video feed of a bunch of lava and metal being built. Sans rushes up to the screen and stares with wide sockets and a huge smile.

"Ahem." Comes a soft voice. Sans looks over to his right and sees a long table that's supposed to be a lobby desk, and a pretty owl monster sitting there.

"You must be Gaster's boy. Sans right?"

"I am!" Sans quickly goes to the desk and can hardly stand still he's so excited. The owl monster chuckles and hands him a pen.

"Sign in here boy." He sighs. And in rather poor penmanship too. But it's good enough.

"Well done. Now, to your right, there's an elevator that will take you to your father. Do be careful and try not to get lost. It can be confusing down there."

"Thank you!"

The small skeleton runs off to the metal doors and he presses the down button a few times quickly.

"OH! And when you leave, you have to sign out as well! Do not forget!"

"I won't!" The doors slide open and Sans jumps inside and waits for what feels like ten minutes for the dang doors to close. They finally do and he feels the gravity shifting as he descends. The wait for THAT sucks too.

FINNNAAALLLYYY the doors open and Sans walks out.

It's at that second that he has NO idea where he's going. Everything is lit up but there are no monsters walking around. There's just one hallway going to his left. It's silent as can be and it sends a shiver up Sans' whole spine. He walks down it and sees some light up plaques with glowing words on them. But he doesn't bother to read them. Finally he takes another left and after a few more yards of hallway, he finds that in front of him is another elevator, and he wonders where it goes to. Four different colored lights are lit up.

He can either go left where there's a vending machine, or to the right where there's another door with a glowing red light.

Luckily though, he hears the familiar gait of his father's footsteps coming towards him. He stands still though, not knowing which direction they're coming from.

"Dad?" Sans calls. The footsteps pause... then walk faster and he sees Gaster walk out from the left side.

"SANS IS THAT YOU? IS IT THAT TIME ALREADY? I'M SORRY, I WOULD HAVE MET YOU IN THE LOBBY IF I HAD REALIZED SOONER." His tall cool dad walks towards him with a content smile and Sans rushes forward and hugs him around the legs. He is quite short in comparison to his dad.

"It's okay! What are you gonna show me first dad?!"

"YOU CERTAINLY DON'T WASTE ANY TIME DO YOU? HAHA, WELL I'LL SHOW YOU THE COOLEST THING FIRST I SUPPOSE. THE THING I'M WORKING ON THAT COULD SAVE OUR ENTIRE RACE. ALTHOUGH THERE ARE A FEW OTHER THINGS I'M WORKING ON TOO.~" Gaster says coyly and with a grin Sans LOVES seeing. He peeks down at his son and swears he's never seen Sans so happy before. He can't help but laugh.

"I'M VERY HAPPY TO SEE YOU'RE EXCITED TO LEARN ABOUT SCIENCE! WELL THEN, YOU MAY HAVE SEEN WHEN YOU WALKED IN... ON THAT BIG TV IN THE LOBBY."

"Oh yeah, it was a bunch of lava! And some people moving big pieces of metal around!" Sans grips his backpack straps tightly and stands on his tip toes.

"YES. THOSE ARE PARTS OF AN ENORMOUS MACHINE. IT'S CALLED 'THE CORE.' AND IT WILL PROVIDE THE ENTIRE UNDERGROUND WITH POWER UNTIL I CAN FINISH MY BLUEPRINTS FOR WHAT I'M ABOUT TO SHOW YOU. THIS WAY SON."

Gaster walks to the right and slides a red keycard through a tiny card slider. The doors click and then open. Sans follows and instinctively grabs his father's hand.

They head down a few halls and finally start seeing some monsters working on various things that Sans can't wrap his head around. Eventually they come up to a room with many tubes and wires hanging down from the ceiling. Gaster goes to a small end table, grabs some blue paper, and comes back to the front of the tubes and wires.

"THIS, SANS," he starts, unrolling the paper. "IS CALLED AN EXTRACTOR. YOU SEE SON, HUMANS HAVE SOMETHING VERY STRONG IN THEM THAT KEEPS THEM ALIVE MUCH LONGER THAN US MONSTERS DO. THEIR SOULS ARE WHAT PERSIST LONGER, AND IF WE CAN GAIN SOME OF WHATEVER THAT IS… THEN MAYBE WE CAN RECREATE IT. SYNTHESIZE IT. AND USE THAT AS A SUBSTITUTE TO HELP OUR GREAT KING BREAK THE BARRIER."

On the paper is this ugly and actually pretty creepy looking…. Pincher skull thing with the tubes attached to either side of its head.

"So you're extracting something from a human soul to study it?"

"PRECISELY. WE DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT IS YET BUT WE WILL SOON. WE HAVE A FEW SOULS ALREADY, BUT ASGORE'S GOT THEM LOCKED AWAY AND WON'T LET US DO MUCH EXPERIMENTING ON THEM. WHILE THE SOULS ARE PERSISTENT, THERE'S NO GUARANTEE THAT THEY WON'T FADE WHEN NOT IN A CONTROLED ENVIROMENT. AND WE CAN'T WASTE A SINGLE SOUL… BUT WE'VE ACTUALLY MANAGED TO EXTRACT A LITTLE BIT OF THE STUFF WITH SOME PROTOTYPES I'VE MADE. ALTHOUGH IT'S SO LITTLE THAT THERE'S NO WAY IT CAN POSSIBLY DO ANYTHING USEFUL…"

Sans stands there staring up between the blueprints and the hanging tubes. This is some heavy stuff he was not expecting. But if it's important to his dad then it's important to him.

"Can I help?"

Gaster raises an eyebrow a little too quickly for Sans' liking… It appeared to be an incredulous look to him. But it disappears, and is quickly replaced by a smile and a loving pat on the head.

"I WOULDN'T MIND A PAIR OF FRESH EYES LOOKING AT SOME OF THE WORK. THE IMAGINATION OF A CHILD CAN BE QUITE THE ASSET TO US DULL MINDED ADULTS."

The rest of the day goes smoothly and less heavy and creepy than it was down in the lab. Gaster even takes Sans aaallll the way out to see the CORE being worked on. Sans can see how Gaster beams with pride at it. "THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE THE UNDERGROUND, SON." He said with growing confidence. As he explained the science behind it, Sans watched as his father would get more excited and more animated and his smile would grow bigger and wider until he was sure he would hurt his face. Seeing his dad love science so much made him happier than any scientific book could. He hopes that someday he can show his dad how much HE loves science. He wants to learn ALL of the science and impress his dad more than anything else in the entire world.

The short skeleton visits his brother in the daycare area where a few other monster kids are playing and plays with him for a bit. But he doesn't stay for long. He has other friends to play with back in Snowdin and Waterfall!

When Sans finally leaves, he insists that he can get home on his own.

"JUST BE CAREFUL. DON'T WALK ALL THE WAY HOME EITHER. I'LL FEEL BETTER IF YOU GO WITH THE RIVERPERSON STRAIGHT TO SNOWDIN."

"Don't worry about it dad! I've done it a thousand times!" Sans says confidently. He signs himself out and winks at the kind Owl monster, silently saying "See? I remembered!" They understand.

"You just go back to being the coolest dad ever." Sans replied, holding onto his backpack straps tightly. The two wave goodbye and Sans exits the lab.

Several yards away Sans can see a fight breaking out. The two armored guards are in a fighting stance. One of them is hurt. Nobody ever causes real trouble like this in the underground! The most damaged guard falls and turns to dust immediately. The other guard shouts and charges the attacker. Sans' eyes go wide and he looks around for a hiding place. Someone actually KILLED a Royal Guardsman... Why would anyone do that?!

Sans finally gives up on finding a hiding spot since there are none and he considers going back to the lab... The second guard falls to the attacker and Sans finally sees them. They're just a child... They're taller than sans but still clearly a kid. He can see that the kid's soul is colored green. A human soul... There was a HUMAN in the underground… And just like the stories in history class say…

They're murderers.