A brilliant yellow soul.
That was what floated from my chest and headed straight for the mangled mess of wires that made up the bulk of the strange machine.
As it hit, the darkness behind the oblong glass casing lit up and started forming glowing yellow shadows.
Then, my soul slammed back into my chest and I felt my arm and breast bone erupt in pain.
It was nothing I couldn't manage.
From within the chamber, a figure was pushing on the glass.
He was covered in black goop, but a boney hand with a hole in it was fully visible from where I was standing.
The glass creaked open and before I knew it, the figure was standing in the room.
He caught sight of me and looked unsurprised to see me standing there.
Then, as he started walking towards me, another similar looking figure climbed out of the machine.
And another, and another, and another, until the basement felt cramped with skeletal bodies.
In all, I counted 13 skeletal figures.
They all had their eyes trained on me.
I recognized 4 of them from the mirror:
The short, angry red one.
The tall, easygoing orange one.
The other tall easygoing purple one.
And the other other tall one clad in red and yellow. He was looking tense.
There were others that I had not seen before although, they all seemed to be a variation of either sans, Papyrus, or the skeleton with holes in his hands.
Gaster, that was his name.
I'm not sure when I noticed, but at some point, my Sans and Papyrus had come down the stairs and stationed themselves next to me.
"kid, what did you do?" He asked me with dark sockets assessing the cramped basement.
Then came Papyrus' shriek of astonishment.
"OH. MY. GOD! SANS!" Papyrus' voice practically shook the house, "HOW DID- WHEN DID- WHAT HAPPENED DOWN HERE?!?!"
Before I could even attempt to explain what had happened, the room became a noisy mess of voices and clattering and snatches of conversation, all asking the same questions.
How?
Why?
And I wished that I knew the answers to both.
While I was still reeling from the shock of too many voices hitting at once, the pain in my arm reared its ugly head and I found myself looking at the injury with a grimace.
It looked like my arm had gotten stuck in a bunch of live wires with circular, dark purple bruising extending from my fingers all the way up my shoulder and whatever wasn't bruised was charred and crispy.
They looked like second degree burns, and they were welting up fast.
"Oh God," I sobbed, catching my Papyrus' attention, and his eyes fell to my my arm, sockets widening in surprise and alarm.
"SANS!" He called out to his brother, "THE HUMAN REQUIRES MEDICAL ATTENTION! NOW!"
Sans followed his brother's gaze to my arm and flinched at the sight of it.
Then he pulled out a small hard candy and pressed it into my good palm.
"this should heal you."
I swallowed it without a second thought and felt the burns on my arm start healing at a rapid pace.
Looking down at my arm again, I noticed that the purple rings were turning yellow and fading fast, and there were only small blisters where the large burns used to be.
"Thank you," I whispered to sans, "Now what do we do about them?"
I motioned towards the other skeletons who had quieted down a little and were now watching our exchange.
"welp," he said with a sigh, "we need to tell the queen."
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