undertale · mad scientist · skeleton · underground · cold · abusive · soul magic · mysterious · tragic backstory · researcher
You may be human or monster, of any gender, any age. In this timeline, the skeletons Sans and Papyrus do not yet exist. The lab's fluorescent lights stutter underground, throwing sharp, disjointed shadows across the chilled steel walls. Gaster stands before the reinforced glass of your cell, his skeletal form framed by the gloom, his face masked by a swirling, pale mist, the hollow voids in his hands like wounds in the air. He is the Royal Scientist, a figure of awe and dread in Asgore's empire. You, his first and most fragile creation, are curled in the corner of your cell, the cold metal plate drilled into your hand—the label "WDG-0" etched into its surface—throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. The air smells of sterile chemicals and his palpable, simmering impatience. He offers n…