It stunned the doctor. How long had it been since he had heard another creature beyond his own mind speak his name... time was a convoluted and fickle thing both in and out of... wherever he had been. The void... a space between times and spaces... the old and scattered scientist could not help but smile at such a minute detail of his existence. And yet... he would have traded all his success if it meant hearing it again from the little chef and scientist he had left behind.

Shaking his head, he pulled himself from his stupor and placed his hand on the switch. The notepad once again becoming host to his jotted words.

I do not fully understand what brought me here. If I am correct in my assumptions, once the Core is shut down, I will return to my prison. Your help has been appreciated... but I must ask you one more favor.

You told me that Sans had given you manual protocol for shutting down the Core, if you see him again... or Papyrus... please tell them: "I'm sorry. I wish-"

With a deep breath, he flicked the switch. Setting in motion their plan, but so too breaking whatever link held him in this place...

I wish I could have been around longe-

The pen dropped to the floor, soon followed by the notebook. As the Core shuddered and darkened, even Zydras’ light could not seem to beat back the inky and unnatural nothing that swallowed the doctor, wreathing his frame as if it had always been one with the shadows of the control room. And as if between blinks from the elemental... he was gone.

Although perhaps a trick of the light, the shadows of the room felt a little more empty. Their liquid solidity had faded and once more became the soft and hollow darkness he knew. The technicolor starlight of his form revealing the only trace of the his guest’s presence, a small spattering of moisture that lay on the warm steel where the man had stood.

The blue firelight seeped into the shadows of the room, as was Zydras's design. The aged and dull metallic glint of the Core's central control would have caught his eye as it reflected his incandescence. Out of the corners of his vision he would have felt an impossible bending of the light, as if the darkness itself bore enough of a liquid solidity to twist his light away at the very edge of its reach. The smell of ozone and phosphorus ash reaching his senses as the shadows and darkness seemed almost literally peeled away, confirming he was indeed not alone.

Leaning over the dials, knobs, and control panels of the control room, brimming with visible distress as he beheld the readings, was the frame of what appeared to be a skeleton. Fine pants, a well worn sweater, and a dark coat robed the figure as he turned to face him. The coat, as he now could see, was a lab coat. Blackened as if this man had walked through an inferno with his clothes remaining intact against all possible odds. the only sign of any true damage being the melted slag that no doubt was once a name tag and the cracks which veined from the top of his right and bottom of his left eye sockets.

The strange guests face seemed to be devoid of detail beyond the presence of his purple tinted eyes and down-turned mouth... and yet, as Zydras beheld him him clear as day, whatever logic center the elemental had within his mind would have nagged at him. The man felt... for lack of a better description, out of focus.

"......?"

The skeleton opened his mouth as if to speak with only the barest of an exhale escaping his 'lips' as he stared at Zydras. His eye-glow denoting his own surprise in discovering company. Responding to the elemental's request with silence and the act of stepping between him and the command console.

"......"

Worry, confusion, and a sternly protective instinct practically radiated from the man's eyes as he gripped the desk. Waiting for Zydras to make his move.