Judge not, lest ye be judged, Chapter five.

The best way I could describe it is that it looked like you might imagine the skull of an insect to look. It hung from the ceiling, suspended by all manner of cables and tubes, looking like it was about to take a bite out of you. I shivered.

“Do I have to… go into…”

“Yes, I’m afraid you do.”

At this, I lost all semblance of reason. I screamed and cried, I thrashed, I did everything in my rather meager power to express my discontent with what I now saw was my certain doom. Alphys bowed her head, unable to look at me. She pressed a button on the control panel and I was raised into the machine, the ‘mandibles’ of its massive head closing around me. Inside was totally dark, I felt my heart pounding. Then, the machine whirred to life. It made a deafening roar, louder than anything I’d ever heard before, but that was soon superseded by the singular feeling of searing pain. It felt like my insides were being ripped out of me, like the machine was violently tearing me out of my body. I sat there, every thought and feeling in my mind being crushed out by the sheer agony.

And then it was over. I was… nothing.

It felt... so incredibly odd. I still existed, I was sure of that, but I couldn’t move, or open my eyes, or… do anything. It was as if my mind had been separated from my body, and now existed on its own, lacking any ability to access my senses. Because of this, I had great difficulty keeping track of time. I could have stayed there, trapped in some form of nonexistence, for years, or it could have been mere minutes. What I do know, is that I was trapped in a state I didn’t understand, and hopelessly lonely, for what seemed like an eternity. My mind, being trapped in a state of isolation, slowly succumbed to madness. I forgot who I was and where, I forgot why I had come, the only thing that mattered now was that I was all alone. Unhindered by my senses, I began to have visions: every idea and thought that ran through my head seemed real.  

All of a sudden, I felt myself move again. I couldn’t determine exactly what was going on, but I was overjoyed to finally be experiencing something, anything, that could connect me to the world I knew. I heard another voice, whispering. At the time, I couldn’t distinguish it from the hundreds of voices that whispered in my head, but I felt that it was someone different.

“I’m so… alone…”

“Nobody else…”

“I’ve lost everything…”

This voices sounded… the same as me. Scared, confused. We were alone together in the infinite void. Then there was another voice, then another, all of them moaning about being alone, about being scared. All of a sudden, I felt physicality return to me. Only, I wasn’t human, of that I was certain. When I tried to open my eyes, I found I had dozens of them, from many different faces. I couldn’t look down to see what I was, but I understood now. And I… we… would never be alone again. From now on, we would find people to join us.

A voice, seemingly distant but also more real than the others, whispered insistently:

“Please, you’ve got to wake up! You’re not safe here!”

The voices in the void grew louder now, telling me to stay, to join them. I tried to shut them out, to focus on the voice from the outside. I’m not really here, I told myself. This is all just a bad… dream…

I reel back as I regain consciousness, my hand recoils from the creature and I stumble and fall. A voice inside my head asks if I’m OK.

“I’m fine, I think. W-what just happened?”

“As far as I can tell, you relived the memory that was embedded within that monster… the thing that
was once me. You saw last thing I remember from when I was still human, from when I was the only one inside my head.”

I’m still reeling from what I just witnessed, and beginning to feel very sorry for the poor soul who had to experience it, the one for whom it was real.

“Can you walk? We need to move; the necromancer knows we’re here.”

“Alright, let’s get out of here.”

I start down the corridor as fast as I can, but I quickly come across a dead end. I double back and head down a different path, and quickly realize I’m taking the same path way that I took in the memory… back towards that machine.

I walk through another set of doors and come face to face with the dreaded insect skull. It stares ominously through its sockets. But it’s not the only one. Someone else is staring at me, giving almost the same blank expression.

Alphys.

A voice in my head screams “It’s the necromancer! Run!”. Another bursts into tears. To my surprise, Alphys musters up the courage to speak

“Y-you need to get out of here, you’re not safe.”

“So I’ve heard. But aren’t you the one I’m supposed to not be safe from?”

“I’m… so sorry about the others. I know how…”

“NO YOU DON’T! You have no idea what it’s like to be alone, to be without help, to be hunted, and
to eventually be turned into a hideous abomination. If you did, you wouldn’t have done it six times.”

“Trust me, I know what I’ve done. I know I can never take it back, but that’s not important right now.”

“What do you mean it’s not important? You…”

“Heh, like I said last time, watching someone on the screen really makes you root for them.”

“L-last time… you mean you…”

“A-and… that still holds true. I hate to admit it, but I don’t want monsters to win. We don’t deserve to be free. Not after what we’ve done. We’ve proven very well that humanity was right to seal us under here.”

“So… you would help me… even if it meant betraying the other monsters?”

“I… I don’t know. The monsters are my friends, my colleagues, the people I look up to.  I’m the one who deserves to be punished for what has happened. But I know you wouldn’t accept just killing me, as much as I want you to.”

“Killing you doesn’t change the fact that humans are one captured soul away from going extinct.”

“Yes, I understand. I’m… so sorry”

Alphys stopped talking for a moment to look at her cell phone. What she sees clearly alarms her.
"You need to get moving. Mettaton is here. He’s gone rogue, he won’t listen to me anymore. After hearing that you defeated Undyne, he decided to take your soul himself. Maybe I asked too much of him, but I never expected he’d go so far as to… And if he finds out I’m helping you…”

At that moment, there was a loud crash. The sound of footsteps began to echo through the hallway.

“Mettaton’s here! You need to run right now! Here, take this.”

Alphys shoves a box into my hands, the label on the front read: Determination

“This is… what’s left of the other humans. I’m sure you deserve it more than we do. Take the hallway to your right, there’s an elevator that will take you to the king’s castle. Just… please don’t tell anyone what I’ve done.”

I hold the box under my arm and start running. In the distance and behind a door, I could still hear Mettaton’s booming voice.

“Alphys, I’m sure the human has been through here. Tell me, which way did they go.”

“Mettaton, please, I haven’t seen them. I don’t know where they went.”

“And yet the box of determination is missing. You’ve been helping them, haven’t you. And to think you used to like that Undyne woman. Imagine the look on her face when she realized that what happened to her was your fault.”

“NO! You can’t! That wasn’t me, I would never hurt Undyne…”

“And yet you let the human go. Let them escape. HELPED them escape. You’ve committed treason, Alphys. Asgore would have you hang for this.”

“Mettaton, please! You can’t tell him! I’m… I’m so sorry, I was wrong, I…”

“Don’t worry, Alphys. I won’t tell a soul. I do owe you, after all.”

“I… T-thank you, Mettato…”

Alphys’ voice was cut short by the horrific sound of her scream.

“And since you’ve wanted to die for so long, I’m almost doing you a favor, aren’t I? Better than you deserve, traitor.”