A menace to society

The endless nights without sleep started to leave a mark. He was tired and it was clearly visible. Who knew skeletons could have bags underneath their eye sockets, but not just that. Geno's hands were shaking all the time, it was getting harder to work precisely.

Every night, sometimes also during the day, he found himself working in his made-up lab in the basement of his new home where he lived with Papyrus and Sans. He wanted to have his own place, but Papyrus insisted on taking him in. Geno couldn't go against the taller skeleton. It wasn't HIS brother.. this Papyrus couldn't replace him, but he did treat Geno like a brother. He didn’t want to hurt the skeleton’s feelings by saying no.

Geno had a clear goal however, he wanted to go back to Sketch. No matter the consequences. The only way was by testing to see what he was capable of with his Determination. If he could teleport to the menu screen, then maybe he could go further. Somehow the menu screen and that unfinished Alternate Universe were connected, right? There wasn’t an explanation, he didn’t need it either but how else were they able to talk to each other?!

“Geno.”

The skeleton gasped and looked up in a small panic. It appeared he had fallen asleep, again. He looked at the timer he had in front of him, an alarm in case he fell asleep. It would ring every 30 minutes. It had 10 minutes left. “..Yeah..?” He turned to the door, seeing Sans standing in the doorway with a rather annoyed expression. It was dark outside. He hadn’t realized he had been working for so long. “Go, to, bed.”

Geno smiled a bit and looked back at what he had been busy with. “I’m working Sans. I’ll go to sleep in 20 minutes, ‘kay?” Sans crossed his arms and sighed. He didn’t believe a thing from what Geno was saying. After all, he knew himself best and they were basically the same person, just with different experiences. He walked over to Geno and put his hands on the skeleton’s shoulders from behind, gently pinching him. “You can continue tomorrow. I get it, really. You want your friend back but this isn’t the way. There’s always a different path.”

The other shook his head. “No, no there’s not. Not this time Sans. I get it, you want to help me but I got to do this alone. No more risking other’s lives.” He peeked over his shoulder to look at sense and shrugged his hands off. “Leave me be, please. I can do it, I’m sure.” He smiled gently or tried to. Faking smiles were a trait both Sanses had and Sans knew it wasn’t a genuine one. “Fine, alright. But Pap is getting worried and I can’t say anything. No, I’m not going to say anything, he’s your brother as well and he should hear it from you.”

Geno rolled his eye light and went back to his poking job, screwing around with liquids and what else. "I know. I'll tell him later." He mumbled. “I promise.”

“Do your promises still mean anything though, Geno?”

The skeleton cringed at the comment and dropped his work once again. It was a good question. He promised his friend he would come back as soon as he could but only after a couple of months he started working on it. Time was different outside of the timeline. Minutes could be days, seconds could be hours. It was an awful fate to watch from the sidelines. Even worse… his dearest friend couldn’t watch at all without Geno’s help. He doubted the drawn skeleton could still see the menu screen, the window had probably closed.

“No,” Geno replied and turned around. “They probably don’t.”

Sans nodded quietly and put his hands in the pockets of his pajamas. “Glad you’re aware. Whatever you’re going to do, I’m going to bed. It’s two AM.”

“Good night Sans.”

“G’night Geno.”

The door of the basement closed. Geno sighed relieved and turned back to his work. He was glad Sans hadn’t seen and realized what he was trying to do. He would be furious and immediately burn everything Geno had been working on for the past few weeks. He had to hurry though, eventually one of the skeleton brothers would find out.

Even though he said no more risking lives, he was definitely risking his own. Determination was a dangerous thing and even though he held some in his soul and body, a drop too much would kill him. But this skeleton was no longer afraid of death. The determination he had was making him awfully stubborn and he believed he could do it, he was going to save his dear friend no matter what.

“Alright, first try.” Geno mumbled and stood up with a vial in his hand. He was still shaking from the low amount of energy he had. He knew he should sleep before he tried but he could no longer wait. Every second was a second too much. While injecting Determination would be faster with a syringe, he didn’t want to risk shattering his soul immediately.

The skeleton drank the fluid with one quick swallow and waited. It was the lowest amount of Determination he thought he needed, or at least that was a theory he had. It would give him a small boost and hopefully, it was enough to make him able to break the boundaries of the universe.

“Three, two, one…”

Geno snapped with his fingers and disappeared into thin air.

Everything went black. The ground underneath his feet disappeared and he felt dizzy for a second. It was clear he got out of the timeline, so he managed to do something! Wherever he was, it wasn’t the Menu Screen. Did that mean he made progress?

Once he opened his eyes, his eyes scanned the new area he found himself in. He looked down at the floor and began to feel nauseous. It didn’t feel like there was an actual floor and gave him the illusion of floating. There were no ceilings either, nor walls. It looked like an endless white abyss. It looked similar to the white space he used to look at through a made up window, but this place felt weird. As if a pressure was crushing his soul, some weird force. “Hello?” He called out, his voice echoing through the space. No one answered though.

He looked around once more before he started to walk on the somewhat non-existent floor. It made him dizzy, but he had to explore. There had to be something, right? There had to be something… He couldn’t be the only one around.

The worst scenarios were appearing in his mind. What if he was stuck here forever with no one to reach him? How could he escape? He tried teleporting around but it didn’t bring him anywhere different. The only thing he saw was white. Endlessly white.

Geno didn’t know how long he had been walking, but eventually, he stopped and sat down. He had no other option but to wait. Maybe someone would rescue him. Someone must be looking for him. There must be someone able to reach him.

So he started to do what he was best at. Sleep. At first, he couldn’t. There were so many thoughts keeping his mind busy until it became tiring. Sans could sleep anywhere, which meant he could as well. So, he slept… and slept.

Until he couldn’t sleep anymore.

“C’mon, there has to be a way out.” He mumbled to himself, walking around once again. He screamed, begged for help, for someone. But no one was answering. No one ever did. He should’ve d3$tr0y&d that timeline. If he did, he wouldn’t be there. He would be dead of course, but he had accepted that fate a long time ago. Now he couldn’t do anything. Sleeping became boring, walking was useless and no one ever responded to his cries. It was all a waste of time.

Talking about time, by now the glitching skeleton had been sitting on the non-existent floor for quite a while. He thought he was starting to hear voices but there was no one around. They became louder, and louder. He just couldn’t hear what they were saying, it was like.. someone was whispering through a broken microphone. He was finally going crazy, huh..?

His eyes hurt. His body hurt. Everything hurts..

. . .

. . .

. . .

“Error!”

“AHH!”

The Glitch instantly reached for his strings, only to face his frenemy once he opened his eyes. He got greeted by a big smile. “..Can’t one have some decent sleep for once?” He responded to the smile with an annoyed expression. “You were rebooting in your sleep, I don’t think that's a decent sleep bud.” Ink said, crossing his arms while he backed off.

“Hold up..” Error cringed. “You watched me sleep?!”

“Well, yeah. How else would I know? I didn’t know you were capable of dreaming. Quite an interesting sight to be honest.” The guardian snickered and sat on the floor with his terribly annoying smile. A smile of curiosity and Error knew it way too well. It meant he wouldn't stop asking questions until he got either an answer, or got kicked out.

Error didn’t know if he had to take Ink’s last comment as an insult or not. “I am not going to tell you what I was dreaming about.” Honestly, he couldn’t even remember. It was probably because of the reboot. Maybe that happened every time he went to sleep, he couldn’t recall ever vividly dreaming and remembering the dream after waking up. “Aww, come on. I’m curious!”

Of course he was. “No, I don’t remember it anyway so there’s no point in you bothering me about it.”

Ink crossed his legs on the floor and slightly tilted his head. He wondered what it was like, dreaming. He never managed to, it was probably because he lacked a soul. That was his theory at least. There were nice dreams, and bad ones. He wondered what he would be dreaming about..

“Hello? Ink stain?”

“Huh, what?”

His mismatched, colorful eyes met Error’s. “What were we talking about again..?” The destroyer sighed frustrated and turned his back to the other. It was impossible to have a normal conversation with Ink, if they happened. “Alright, time for you to get out.”

“Woah-! Hey! I just got here!” Ink squeaked as he got dragged along by his scarf. “Error! Stooop!!” The glitch let go once Ink got placed on the black substance he came through and crossed his arms. The artist looked curious at the other, then down at his black puddle. “You know, Dream can uhh… Pfft- look at your dream if you’re curious what it was about. Or he can at least tell you if it was a bad one or not since you.. were rebooting once or twice. It’s pretty funny, he discovered he can do so by accident. Just imagine-”