EndTale - Galactic (revising w.i.p. - check desc for update notes)

Chapter 6: Maze of Memories

Memories came flooding back to to me as I walked the dark hallways, looking at each and every doorway as I passed them.

Every room had its own labeled sign, and some sort of story in the form of a memory attached to it. Most of them contained unpleasant, repressed memories I'd hardly held onto, but a few of them were good. At least, most of the memories from when I was at my youngest were the fond ones.

I remember... I approached a familiar pale-green doorway.

The Records Room. Gaster explaining Relative Theory to me... and how black holes spaghettify anything that'd fall into them... I walked past it, eyes landing on the next room's sign. I brushed my phalanges over the letters.

The Meeting Room. Reports of Core Workers coming back from the Core alone, when they're supposed to be in pairs, but no one remembering if they left with someone else in the first place... Gaster's pained expression of pure confusion as Minus spat accusations at the workers... I kept moving forward.

Running through the halls of the lab as a six year old babybones, a fluffy dog monster at my heels. Me crashing into Gaster's legs, making him spill his coffee over the dog, turning it brown, but Gaster only finding it funny... The hallway opened into a spacious room filled with tables that had chairs set upside-down atop them, most likely for storage.

The Chow Hall. Gaster shouting at me for bothering him while he tallied reports and core readings. His mug shattering on the ground. His enraged expression. The sketch I'd made fluttering to the ground while I ran away from him... I walked out of the chow hall, mood dropping.

The... The Readings Room... after he found out I could teleport, like him... I stopped myself from reminiscing any further, a shaky sigh escaping me. I would rather not remember that.

I continued to shuffle through the lab wearily. I forgot how big this place was... It didn't take me long to realize that I was lost. I had lived here for the first 15 years of my life, and yet, I was still lost. Why the hell did they design this place like a maze?

After a few minutes of wandering, I stopped for a break. I sat down on the cold floor, back against the wall, head tucked in the fluff of my snow jacket's hood. My exhaustion was getting to me, again. But I felt like I couldn't ignore it this time. Papyrus can't.... Papyrus can't wait... Papyrus can..t...... can..t........ c..can..... he can....

I conked out for a must've been a couple hours before snapping myself back awake.

Panicked as I was, I took note of how the short nap actually made me feel more recovered than I expected. God, but you can't just stay awake, even if Papyrus's life depends on it, can you?? I hoped, deep down, that I wasn't taking too long.

I resumed my wandering, the darkened hallways not getting any brighter. I was far from the True Lab's power room, that much I knew.

But... a solution crossed my mind.

I approached the door to a storage room and opened it cautiously, in case something was blocking the door. Luckily, nothing was in the way. The door's hinges squealed quietly as it opened inwards. I scanned the shelves of the near-dark room, my night vision doing the best it could to adapt. My gaze landed on what looked like a stack of parchment paper. I summoned a small blue bone in my hand, pouring light magic into it, and looked over the shelf. Yep. A stack of blank parchment paper, and... I blinked, looking to the wall next to the shelf ...three unused torches? They had the royal deltarune embellished on both sides of the flame holder. Wow, I haven't seen these in a while. Last I saw them was when the lab had a power outage... all of the employees scrambling to find light, and the backup generator room... oh.