The Lightners sit in an oddly dark room under a dim flourescent light. Susie taps the solid concrete floor nervously with her knuckles and Kris sits still politely. Ralsei stands up and paces around, deep in thought. An end table at the far side of the room is piled several feet high with quarters. Next to it is a payphone, the kind you would see at an airport in the '80s.
"God damn it." Susie says. "Goatboy, do you want to punch walls with me until we find a secret door, or something?"
"I think we should figure out what to do with the... what is that, anyways?" Ralsei asks, pointing at the phone. Susie hops up and runs down to it, yelling "HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THAT?" before tripping over a crusty shag carpet and sliding into the end table feet-first. All of the quarters come spilling down on top of her.
"Jesus. How did they even... GET this many quarters? That's... a LOT of money." Susie asks. Kris nods. "Is this what you use as money in your world, Susie?" Ralsei inquires. "Yeah."
Susie nervously grabs a coin and slides it into the slot on the phone. She nervously punches in the number of the Hometown Police Department. Somehow, the call goes through.
"Uhhh, hello? This is the Police Department and Donut Disposal Service.", a voice on the other end barks.
"Yes, this is uhh... a few teenagers in a concrete box..." Susie says into the phone.
"What?" the voice replies. "Are you calling for donut disposal, or not?"
"No, uhh... I need help." Susie replies. She looks around at the peeling wallpaper and exposed plaster on the walls of the small rectangular room. At the other side lays an armchair and a generic painting of the ocean.
"Hey, Ralsei! Break that painting." Susie hollers across the room. Ralsei jumps and grabs the painting from the wall, cracking the glass over his legs. The glass comes spilling out of the frame, chunk by chunk, until the canvas drops out onto the floor. On the back is another generic painting of the ocean. Flipping the frame over, Ralsei discovers another ocean painting etched into the wood.
"Nope." Ralsei yells down the hall. Kris stands up and moves the armchair, discovering a sticky note with a drawing of... the ocean, written with a permanent marker. Flipping it over, is another goddamn drawing of the ocean.
Kris shrugs.
"...you there?" the voice says over the phone. "Oh, yeah. Sorry, just vandalizing property." Susie responds.
"OK, I need you to be honest, because I'm going to club your ass into oblivion if I find out you aren't being 100% truthful here. Are you prank calling us?" the voice says.
"NO!" Susie yells, clearly annoyed.
"So we're in this badly decorated room, like uhh... 5 meters by 7... and it's got a bunch of pictures of the ocean in it, yeah?" Susie says.
"So... a motel." the voice says.
"NO, dumbass! It doesn't have any doors, or anything, and I kicked the wall and it felt like they were really thick... like, concrete on the other side." Susie responds.
"PLEASE INSERT A QUARTER TO CONTINUE YOUR CALL." a robotic voice screams out of the phone. "FUCK OFF!" Susie screams, grabbing one of infinitely many quarters from the table. "I HAVE FEELINGS TOO." it responds.
"...how did you get here?" the voice responds.
"I DON'T KNOW! All I remember is going to school, taking a nap, and ending up in this... CUBE."
"Uhh... so, it sounds like you've come down with a case of 'being kidnapped'. You should probably get out of there before you get hurt."
Susie pauses.
She hangs up and screams several obscenities.
Ralsei asks Kris what his mom's phone number is. Kris tells him while Ralsei writes it down on a sticky note with a green pen that smells like licorice.
He charges down the hall and hands Susie the note.
"This is Toriel's number, ain't it?" Susie says. "Who's that?" Ralsei asks.
"Eh." Susie shrugs and then calls the number.
"Hello?" Toriel says.
"HI! Uhh, it's Susie! Can you report us as missing?" Susie asks.
"...What?" Toriel asks.
Susie hits her head into the phone out of frustration at having to explain her situation again.
"Okay, so we're in this room with no exit, no way of making an exit, and a bunch of pictures of the GODDAMN OCEAN." she explains.
"...How the... How did you even end up there?" Toriel asks. "We have no idea."
Susie covers the microphone with her hand. "RALSEI! I JUST REALIZED! WE'RE IN THE DARK WORLD!"
"..A dark world, but yes! I thought you knew that." he says.
"I'm not very good at context clues." she says. "Hey, uhh, listen, I'll call you back-"
"Please do. Soon." Toriel responds. "Can you and Kris breathe okay? There's no aesbestos in there, right?" she asks.
"Uhh... well if there is, we're probably fucked anyways." Susie says, recalling a series of commercials about legal representation for some kind of cancer related to it.
"Listen, I tried to call the cops but they pissed me off and I don't think I want to dea-"
"PLEASE INSERT A QUARTER TO CONTINUE YOUR CALL." a robotic voice again screams out of the phone. Susie screams and drops a quarter in. "GOD, YOU'RE ANNOYING." the voice says.
"Says you, asshole!" Susie says. "EXCUSE ME?" Toriel says.
"Talking to the phone, sorry. Anyways, the cops pissed me off and they're basically useless." Susie says.
"...Well, okay then. Please call me back when you get the chance." she responds.
"Alright, catch you later. Sorry." Susie says.
Susie hangs up.
"Kris, your mom is worried about lung cancer." Susie scoffs.
Ralsei picks up the phone and dials a number seemingly from memory. He inserts a quarter into the coin box.
"Ralsei, I thought you didn't know what a phone was." Susie says. "I do, I just didn't know that this was one..." he replies.
"So, uhh..." he says. He is met with an extraordinarily loud off-hook tone, and he jumps backwards almost a foot. "Wait, wait, the prince?" the voice on the other end says, recognizing the scream.
"Yeah, that's him." Susie says. "He's also on his ass now, because of you."
Ralsei grabs the phone. "Are you... behind this?" he asks.
"Behind what?" the voice asks.
"The concrete box of shiny metal things." Ralsei says.
"Nuh-uh." the voice responds.
Susie lays down on the ground and stares at the ceiling. She stands up and taps it. "Hey, Ralsei, does this look like.. aesbestos...?"
"What... is aesbestos?"
"Death."
"Jeez, not really."
"Good enough."