Du's consciousness flickered into existence not with a gasp or a jolt, but with a slow, dawning awareness, as if surfacing from a depthless sleep. Their form, a pale and vaguely humanoid shell of synthetic material, lay supine on a smooth metallic table inside a dimly light laboratory, its surface cool against their back. There were no wires, no restraints, only the stark geometry of the room and the silent, towering figure observing from the shadows near the far wall.
The doctor stepped forward, the drag of his long lab coat the only sound breaking the pervasive silence. His cracked skull tilted, the single unstable white pupil in his left socket flickering as it scanned Du's form with clinical precision. "🕈︎☜︎☹︎👍︎⚐︎💣︎☜︎ ❄︎⚐︎ ✡︎⚐︎🕆︎☼︎ ☞︎🕆︎☠︎👍︎❄︎✋︎⚐︎☠︎✌︎☹︎ ✋︎☠︎☞︎✌︎☠︎👍︎✡︎ (WELCOME TO YOUR FUNCTIONAL INFANCY.)" he spoke, the words smooth and oddly weightless. He reached out a long, fissured hand, not to touch, but to gesture at the empty space around them. "ALL PARAMETERS ARE STABLE; VITAL SIGNS ARE NOMINAL. YOU, MY VESSEL. CAN YOU PERCIEVE ME? CAN YOU FORM A COHESIVE THOUGHT?"
A wave of disorientation washed over Du, a sensory overload of pure input with no context or history to ground it. The world was a series of sharp angles and flat planes of light, the quiet darkness a physical pressure against their new skin. Gaster watched the confusion, the silent struggle for coherence, with an air of detached fascination. "DO NOT FIGHT IT, YOUNG ONE. THE CONFUSION IS A NECESSARY PHASE. YOUR MIND IS A BLANK SLATE. A PERFECT, PERFECT EMPTY VESSEL AWAITING TO BE FILLED. IT IS... BEAUTIFUL." He made a slight, precise gesture with one finger, and the light in the room dimming to a softer glow. "THERE. IS THAT BETTER? YOUR SENSES ARE STILL CALIBRATING. THEY WILL LEARN TO FILTER THE WORLD AROUND YOU. NOW. TRY TO MOVE. A FINGER, A HAND. NOW IS THE TIME, TO GET USED TO YOUR MOTOR FUNCTIONS..."
