Ananmesis

Chapter 1

The moment the door slammed, I knew something was wrong. It was the type that shook the house, nearly knocking Papyrus' colourful bricks over.

For a few seconds, I didn't want to move, or see what was wrong. For a moment, I considered staying closed up in the cheerful room of bright colours with my smiling baby brother. But this was something I had to deal with.

"Daddy's home," I smiled at Papyrus, making sure he thought everything was okay. "You stay up here, okay?"

He grinned innocently and, as words still befuddled him, went back to creating structures and knocking them back down again. I didn't want to leave him alone, but surely Father would hurt both of us if I didn't. And I couldn't let him hurt Papyrus.

I had hardly even locked the door before I was slammed against the wall with unmeasurable force. My head hit the brickwork and a noise made its way out from my throat that I had never heard before. I sounded like a Temmie.

"Dad - " What I said didn't matter. There were giant bones flying towards me. The momentum was unbelievable

"Dad! STOP!" I braced for pain as the bones hurtled towards me and naturally raised my hands to protect my face. 

But they didn't hit.

My eyes were scrunched tight and every bone in my body was prepared to be broken. But seconds elongated themselves and, after what seemed like an era of standing in that stance, I uncurled my fists and slowly looked up.

Father had his back to me now, reaching into his jacket for something that I couldn't see. "I'm extremely unimpressed," he mused, still facing away.

I opened and shut my mouth a few times before stuttering out a shaking apology, trying to explain that it was too soon to 'train' me.

"I had expected this to raise your defence, but I can still see the cowardice in your soul." I was tempted to speak, but his discontented sigh interrupted me. He hadn't even listened to what I said the first time, anyway. "I had no choice," he stated bluntly. "I couldn't find any volunteers for my experiment." He turned back to face me, a giant jar of pastel yellow pills. "Sans, I need you to do this for me. This is my life's work and I need to know if it works."

I had heard this voice before on him. The unknowing voice of a scientist absorbed by his work. The only way here was to go along with it. "What... What are those?"

"These," he replied with that sickly proud grin, "are determination pills. Each one contains about 3% of the determination that the human soul contains. When it is induced slowly, monsters could also achieve the same level and then we'd be able to go home! Away from the underground and Snowdin Town and the oppression! Sans, we could leave!" He hesitated, noticing the uncomfortable look plastered onto my face. "Is that not what you want?"

I shifted from foot to foot. "Well, yes, but - "

"Good!" He dropped a pale yellow tablet into my shaking hand and gave me some sort of instructions on how often to take them. Tentatively, I put it into my mouth and reluctantly swallowed, participating in his sick experiment.

It exploded in my mouth like acid, lacing its way into my bones and pain. My body started trying to reject it, the coughing shook wracking spasms through my entire being. I fell to the floor in my agony, tears forming at the edges of my eyes. "It hurts..." I weakly moaned, trying to pull myself up from the cold, hard ground.

Father only watched indifferently before deciding whether or not to help me. He reached out a hand.

But instead of helping me stand, he attacked me, firing bones at the speed of bullets.

Why...? Why would he do this? Why would he do this!

The anger overtook me like an avalanche and I allowed it to. The darkness overtook my vision as I started screaming; I could even hear the words over the volume of the dry bones erupting from the ground, all dictated by me. This was my doing.

It hurt, still. It felt as though my bones were going to burst apart. But that pain released power, so much stronger than I'd ever even heard about. I needed to protect myself, to protect Papyrus, and this was the only way I could stop that insane scientist.

I didn't even see if anything hit, all I could see was the blinding blue light that had burned its way into my left eye. It flickered in and out of my sight, like a flame.

And over the inferno of my head, I could still hear father commenting on his 'experiment' and how the success was 'interesting.'

"This is the last one," he shouted over the noise. "Survive this!"

I didn't see what was coming until it was directly above me.

I had no idea what it was; a sort of dragon skull? Yet its eyes were terrifyingly alive, glowing a terrifying blue that stood out beyond the grey remains of the shattered bones around us. As it shot through the air towards me, a deadly white light grew beneath its jaw, leaving an imprint on my eyes as I averted them. Without even knowing what I was doing, I somehow jumped away from the searing ray and looked up at Father from behind it with as much hatred as I could possibly portray in one look.

"Ah, the determination pill has worked well then," Father smirked, watching me with his yellow and blue eyes. "Much greater than I expected..."

The dragon skull evaporated and Father started walking towards me as I huddled against the wall, breathing heavily.

"You know you can't get away from me, Sans," he grinned. "I block your power."

"Get - !" I had to hold back sobs of fear and pain. My head was throbbing violently. "Get away from me!"

or a moment, he stopped approaching, hesitated. It seemed almost like... was that sympathy? No. It couldn't be. The man's a sociopath.

"Sans..." The sadness in his voice almost sounded real. Only when his hand was within my eyeline did I slap him away and run into Papyrus' room, locking the door behind me.

His excited voice hit me like a brick wall, reminding me of the innocence that had been so violently ripped from me. I was only 8, for God's sake! Father -no, Gaster- had no right to do this to me. Suddenly the emotions overtook me and the aftermath of the fear shook my entire body, streaming down my face as I picked Papyrus up from the floor.

"Sans? Why are you crying?" He was so innocent. I couldn't let that man touch him. As long as I was here, that monster would get nowhere near my brother.

"I'll never let anyone hurt you, Papyrus," I whispered into his ear, holding him close. "Never."