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"What makes you think I'd want your SOUL?"
Frisk recoils in shock. Their SOUL pounds like a beating heart in front of their chest. Burnt-out coals stare from where their eyes should be, no sparks of energy left, just an empty sizzling black.
Chara appears to be across from them but they're also everywhere, nowhere, inside their head, outside their SOUL. The 'world' around them, if it could be called one, is nothing but the frozen blackness that Frisk felt with every slash of their knife. Frisk seems to hold their breath as if, in case they inhaled, tendrils would slither up their nose and turn them into part of the void.
"You're perverted." Chara barely keeps their voice steady, they're so close to shaking with rage. They see Frisk is staring at their hand— Chara's right hand, the dominant one, the knife-wielding one. It's empty now. Chara forces their hand to stop moving, searching for something to grip. Just as they know all of Frisk's nervous tells, Frisk knows all of theirs. "You had everything you wanted. Family. Friends. The monsters were free. You fulfilled our dream. And you still RESET."
Frisk's SOUL isn't beating anymore.
"Why? Because you could? Because you wanted to see what would happen?" Chara's face is close to Frisk's now, but nobody's breath meets anyone's skin. Chara detects the slightest shudder from the other child and is relieved— but isn't sure if they're relieved Frisk is afraid or that Frisk still has any feeling at all. "Now you've played out this scenario as far as it will go too and can't accept that it's over. You think you're above consequences. "
*Yes *No
Not a sound escapes Frisk's mouth. They hold their SOUL out still as if it were nothing more than a token for an arcade game. As if this SOUL hadn't been mended by their joint Determination after a thousand deaths, a million resets, and a broken promise.
"We'll SAVE everyone." And Chara had felt a warmth in their empty chest that they hadn't felt since they were first adopted by the monsters' royal family.
Something rises in Chara's throat like bile. They did SAVE everyone. Frisk never said what would happen after. But why? Chara had trusted them. Chara had forgotten they weren't in their own body when with Frisk. The strongest hate was drawn from LOVE.
Or did the saying say ‘love’?
Frisk's unblinking eyes dart between their SOUL and Chara and then back at their SOUL. We're in this together, they seem to be saying.
"You killed them, Frisk," Chara seethes. "You killed all of them. You can't just have them back waiting for you."
No response. Chara tries to maintain a smile, a defense, although it begins to strain. It's always been this way— if anyone sees how upset they are, they have an edge. "You know you can't RESET without my 'determination' as well as yours. You didn't ever anticipate I'd leave your head. You didn't think I'd ever decide enough is enough."
It hasn't dawned on Chara fully yet that everyone they ever lived and died for is dead. Gone. Dust in Frisk's fingernails. Monsters who had been born never having seen the sun— gone. Their parents who just bowed their heads lower and pressed on when the sun was mentioned— gone. The humans on the other side of the barrier all holding their collective breath— in limbo, as Chara spoke to Frisk here.
How ironic. Chara had wanted them all dead, once. But with no monsters left alive to enjoy the sunlight— why bother?
"To think I did so much for you! To think I taught you to FIGHT!" Chara said. "Did you just go through everything the first time to— to get to know everyone? To know how to kill them?"
The slightest shake of Frisk's head and Chara is clenching their teeth so hard they might burst. "How am I supposed to believe that? When we started, you didn't know how to FIGHT at all! You just were killed again and again until I had to intervene for you!"
"It wasn't an accident," Frisk whispers.
It feels like a stinging slap. Chara takes a step back.
They're not smiling anymore.
"You... just let them kill you?" Chara says. "Why? Monsters... Froggit, Loox... they didn't want to hurt anyone! Monsters just don't know their own strength! They are magic! You made murderers out of them!"
"What about me?"
"What about you?!" Chara shouts. "You just threw your life away again and again like it was nothing! As if none of them cared about you. As if none of them would be devastated when their only hope was torn away from them again. How could you..."
"Chara, you cannot give up! This is... this is all just a bad dream..."
Chara's breath hitches. They could still feel the sticky sheets of their deathbed. "How could you be so selfish?"
Frisk's eyes narrow into slits. Their lips pressed together are locked as tight as a safe.
"When I taught you to avoid their attacks, you did. But when I told you to strike back, that's where you drew the line. You finally searched for another way," Chara says. Despite themself, a small smile reaches their eyes. That stubbornness of Frisk's had reminded them a little of Asriel, always wanting to do things the 'right' way, always wanting to play the brave knight while Chara played the mean warlock. "... I thought you saw the same thing in monsterkind that I did."
Silence.
"Maybe you wanted to jump down the mountain for another reason. Maybe you didn't have a reason. Maybe you got one when you saw how nice the monsters were and realized you'd never be one of them."
Silence.
"Whatever the reason was for trying to die and letting them keep killing you," Chara continues, "Fine. I don't... I don't care."
"Your ears turn red when you lie, did you know that?" Chara said to Asriel once.
They both ran up to Toriel with their hands over their ears and said that Doggo ate their homework, and then Chara and Toriel both burst out laughing—
Chara's hands twitch again. Their ears are burning.
"But there's no reason in the world why you would kill all of them. Not now."
Why are they talking so much? They went eons with their words stifled by six feet of soil. And then, out of the blue, they were speaking up for Frisk all the time even if they weren't sure if Frisk heard them or not. They spoke about whatever Frisk stopped to look at. They spoke about what they smelled. The first time Frisk stopped and inhaled deeply upon Chara's suggestion, the lost soul felt alive again.
"This is the first time I've seen you."
"Huh?" Chara asks.
Frisk's voice is soft as a ghost— if you weren't looking for it, you'd never notice it. "You were always so... helpful. So... amazing. At first I thought I was only doing things for you," Frisk said, "just to hear your voice. I didn't think someone like me could free all the monsters."
If Chara had rosy cheeks before, now they're really blushing. "You— you think you can just win me back like that, you weirdo?"
"Win you 'back'," Frisk mutters so softly that it's almost lost in the darkness. "I thought that I meant something to someone. Finally. I got called a monster my whole life, you know. But it hadn't been a good thing."
Chara simmers silently. They had waited so long for Frisk to speak.
"Everyone spoke of you so... highly. Everyone missed their fallen royal children. Everyone loved them." Frisk's eyes meet Chara's. "You're as... beautiful as I thought you'd look like."
"Y-you're embarrassing and you don't make any sense," Chara spits. "Why would you say this now? After what you've done? How am I supposed to believe this?"
"You don't have to," Frisk says. "Chara. All I wanted was for it to be over. I thought if the legends were true, if the falls didn't kill me, the monsters would. But... it took so much effort to get one to hurt me. Sometimes... When we RESET, I mean, the monsters in the Ruins were already mourning me but didn't know why.
"And then there was you. I just disturbed your grave and you still told me my life was worth it. Of course you had something you wanted me to do, but... I couldn't fill your shoes."
"You never had to," Chara says, confused.
"Felt like it," Frisk says. "It was all I could think. Everyone looked at me as 'the human'. The only human most knew to compare me to were legends of you."
"Frisk—"
"You didn't let me die, no matter how I felt. You knew how much it would hurt everyone else, whether because a monster would be a murderer or because my friends would miss me. But I learned on my journey..." They look up. "Didn't you realize the monsters felt so much worse when you died?"
"Howdy, Chara! You finally made it home!"
It had felt like ages since Chara had been been in this house. They thought they'd never come back. They remembered pillow fights, coloring out of the lines— chest-wracking coughs, a sense of misbelonging. Dying.
Chara knew they wouldn't enjoy the fruits of their labor after defeating humanity and freeing all monsters. It was a small price to pay. Not much would be lost— only their own self.
Chara took full control of Frisk as they remembered New Home. They ran their fingers along the height chart on the wall; the last time Chara had their height measured, they didn't think that would be as tall as they would ever grow. Their fingers came back smudged, as if someone had started trying to soap the marks off but wasn't able to finish the job.
"I cried out, mom! Dad! Somebody help me!"
There was their room. Their own old crayons. Their own old drawings, with a yellow sun always in the corner. Signature: CHARA. After a while: CHARA DREEMURR. They never felt right signing that. Even if they were part of the family technically, they knew how Asriel's parents looked at them. They shared glances when Chara cried or didn't get out of bed or drew a family portrait without themself in it. So Chara made an effort to always smile, even if it felt like either end of it was pinned like butterflies on a board.
The Dreemurrs deserved a good child, not a nobody. Not a reminder of their imprisonment. The Dreemurrs deserved sunlight. So Chara Dreeemurr thought at the time.
Their last drawing had been signed 'CHARA' again.
"... But nobody came," Flowey concluded, back in New Home.
Nobody.
When they came across a mirror, Frisk let Chara say, "It's me."
"You know, you never stopped me," Frisk says. They snap Chara back into the present. The words are as even and practiced as if they'd been said a thousand times. If Chara didn't know any better, they'd think they had been.
Chara has to admit they're surprised Frisk suddenly decided to start speaking again. They hadn't heard Frisk's voice since the RESET. From killing Toriel to killing Flowey, they'd been silent. Not that the two of them needed to share words to communicate.
(Now they did, Chara thinks bitterly.)
"I... thought you wouldn't do anything you didn't believe in," Chara says. "Determination is to... put your whole self into something."
Frisk shrugs. "However much that might be."
This is the child who petted tomatoes rather than crushing them. The child who tried calling Toriel a dozen times and whispered "I'm sorry" into the dead receiver in case she somehow heard. The child who had killed everyone.
Deep down, Chara realizes they feel like they were the person Frisk betrayed the most rather than anyone they killed.
"I kept waiting to see what you were doing. I didn't think this was what you really were." Chara's voice trails off, although a new smile stays bolted on to their face. It's all they know. "Not after the times we shared together. Or were..."
Chara's smile fades again.
"Were you just pretending the whole time?" they're asking again.
Frisk's SOUL seems to pulse like a heart beating nervously. They've curled into a ball, holding their legs close to their chest.
"You mustn't come back to this place."
The first time Toriel banished them from the Ruins, Frisk hadn't been able to stop crying. Chara had said impatiently they had places to go, monsters to meet. They hadn't listened.
Comforting them had proven effective. Frisk was right. At first, Chara was happy that someone would end this nightmare.
But a part of them had liked calming Frisk down. It was... odd. It was like rubbing Asriel's fluffy ears soothingly after they took a joke too far. They had wanted to be able to run their fingers through Frisk's hair like Toriel did and tell them it would be alright.
Now that they could, with Frisk before them, they hesitate.
"I don't know," Frisk says. "I didn't know what I was. I knew I wasn't something that deserved all their love after you guided my every step. I couldn't imagine living with your parents calling me their child."
"I was just a backseat driver," Chara says. Why were they suddenly defending them? Just a moment ago, they had been furious. "You did the bulk of the work, Frisk. You knew each way to spare each monster."
"It's not hard," Frisk says. "Monsters believed in me even when I started hurting them. Their dust, it would blow on the wind after they died. All over me, my hands and my knife and everything. Isn't their dust supposed to spread all over something they loved?"
Chara doesn't know what to say.
"None of them could kill me like I wanted. Not Undyne. Not Sans," Frisk says. "I don't know why I kept going. Maybe because I wouldn't know where to go if you stopped talking. Or maybe I knew in the back of my head, I knew somehow that if I did this, I would see you."
"Frisk... I saw myself when I looked in the mirror," Chara says. "I didn't see a nobody. I saw you. I saw... us, I guess."
"Why did you let me RESET the first time?"
It's Chara's turn to fall silent.
"You know it takes both of us to RESET," Frisk says. "That's why you're holding back now. You didn't hold back to RESET after we freed everyone."
"I believed in you."
"You believed in what you wanted me to be," Frisk says. "What if that's not me? What if I'm not that good and I was just pretending to be?"
"Frisk—"
"Nothing. That's what I am. Some... some kid who couldn't even die right. Just someone everyone put their hopes and dreams in without thinking." Frisk looks away. "And you were the one that kept getting me up. For better or for worse, you kept winding my spring to see how far I'd walk that time. You were the one who wanted to save all monsters first and followed through with it." Frisk pauses. "I'm the one who cut them open to see if I'd feel anything besides this... numb. This thing I felt since I fell down. After I had all the chances to love them, I only gained LOVE."
Frisk stands up. They hold their SOUL out still. "That's what makes me think you want my SOUL, Chara. Because you were someone. You saw what you left behind. 'Cause even if I was saving them, Mom and Dad tried not to call me 'Chara'. And because Asriel couldn't let go of another person close enough to being you."
"You're wrong!" Chara is shouting. Tears well up in their eyes. "What about Papyrus and Undyne and Alphys and all them! A-and the dates and the spaghetti and the everything! They loved you!"
"And I killed them. I'm perverted," Frisk repeats. "They loved what they thought I could be. Y'know, what I was with your help. They'll love what you really are."
The first tear vanishes into the blackness around them when Frisk says: "I would know."
"You're wrong." Chara's voice is wavering. "I'll prove that they loved you. I'll prove that Mom and Dad want you and—"
"Not you?" Frisk finishes.
It feels like there was no way to win. No way out. The plan with Asriel had been so simple. How had it gone so wrong? How had it gone so...
How? Chara's head is spinning. The only anchor in this dark world is Frisk's outstretched arms. MERCY. It feels like a distant memory.
Why hadn't you stopped me? For a moment, Chara thinks it's for the same reason they allowed Frisk to RESET. They had grown to like spending time with them.
The two embrace for what felt like an eternity. Maybe that was the history of this world which was nothing but darkness. Just the two of them, and for once, everything else is nothing.
Before the RESET they know is coming, Chara whispers:
"You were a good partner."
—-
*A name has already been chosen.
C H A R A
—-
White.
They're on their back. Soft light cascades from above. They can practically taste the morning dew.
They remember this. They remember having fallen. It had hurt so much, but this time, they feel... comfortable. They feel as if they're wearing an old sweater that's practically grown up with them.
The first time they fell, they had called out for help and Asriel had found them. They felt themself grinning. Asriel. Their best friend.
Their best... friend?
They hold their hands up before their face and wait for them to focus. Tan, not pale. They roll their sleeves up— all their scars are in unfamiliar places, and looking at the arms solidifies that their skin tone is darker than they remember.
It's Frisk's skin. Frisk's body.
They stand and look around. Nobody else is in sight. The world feels a few inches off— maybe just because Frisk had been taller. Chara had never fronted without Frisk in the back of their mind, but now (after a frantic search) they only feel a waxing and waning presence.
A smile reaches Frisk's face. "Frisk... you were somebody. You were someone before I came along, too."
A cold feeling wells up inside their chest. Their legs are restless.
I don't know who, they think. They hadn't stopped to ask Frisk much, only pressing on and on and talking about the next goal as soon as they met the current one. Sometimes that's what annoyed them about Frisk: how they would get distracted by a ladybug crawling on the flower they had been assigned to pick.
"You forgave my brother on your own. You listened to everyone on your own and never ignored anyone's plea, even if I was urging you to keep going. I'll show you what I saw. I'll show you how much of a full person you are." Determination or stubbornness, they aren't sure.
They test their legs: left, right, left, right, and soon they're rounding the corner. Frisk had jumped the first time Flowey ever spoke, despite how nonthreatening he tried to appear. This time, their heart skipped a beat in Frisk's chest.
"Howdy! It's me, Flowey!"
Something sears through their mind: "Please don't kill me."
"Flowey the flower!"
Their throat seems to close up. Frisk had coaxed the repressed SOUL out of this little flower and embraced Asriel like Chara had wanted to since the goat child's death. Frisk had sliced this little flower again and again until not even dust remained.
Which Frisk did they believe in? The one they thought Frisk could be with their help? Or the one that went loose which they didn't stop?
"—you listening to me, buddy?" Flowey is saying. Chara snaps back to reality. This is Asriel, a part of their mind is screaming. He'll respond to you. He responded to you in the past. Give up this act and SAVE him. "You don't have to be afraid! I'll teach you aaaallll about the Underground! Relax! I'm your—"
(But then they don't, they just continue the act, it's all they know.)
"Best friend." 'Frisk' says the words almost inaudibly at the same time as Flowey.
—-
Good? Evil? Froggit wasn't sure it believed much in either. Mostly, to be honest, it just wanted to go home.
Confronting them in Frisk's body, Chara wonders how they didn't realize earlier that Frisk had been dying intentionally. It took some serious stumbles into Froggit's hopping around to die from it.
Frisk is silent in their mind. It hits Chara: it took the both of them to RESET. If Frisk had fully wanted to die, why did they come back after letting themself die?
"You're amazing," 'Frisk' says. Froggit blushes. It seems reluctant to keep hopping around in case it hurts anyone.
Those had been the words Frisk had said as Chara had urged them to FIGHT. 'Your life is worth it!' they had said to Frisk.
Frisk shifts on their feet. Chara realizes they're no longer sure who Frisk had actually directed the compliment towards back then.
—-
Toriel.
Toriel, who had embraced Frisk one last time before they left the Ruins forever.
Toriel, whose body had given way to Frisk's knife like putty. They had put so much into that strike. They had channeled so much hate and pain and hit Toriel with all of it.
Had Frisk really been that miserable the whole time? Chara wasn't sure anymore. All they knew was that they had to be as much like the real Frisk as possible to make sure that their little experiment worked.
The first time Toriel confronted Frisk, Chara had told them frantically to FIGHT. To defend. 'I hear Mom was even scarier than Dad in the war!' they'd said.
Back then, Frisk hadn't let themself be hit by attacks for once. They'd ran and jumped and dodged and blocked. Chara had been proud. They try not to smile now as they remember, dodging all of Mom's— all of Toriel's fire attacks.
"You can stay here," Toriel is saying, starting to lose her resolve. "We can have a life here."
The first time Toriel had said that to Frisk, Chara hadn't felt a response from them. They still aren't sure what propelled Frisk forward. Were they always unsatisfied, which is what caused them to want to start over after their happy ending?
Or was it for something— or someone else?
When Toriel embraces 'Frisk', the child pats her back twice the way Chara always did during hugs. They feel her body tense. Chara freezes— they aren't sure if that was intentional or not. But instead of realizing anything was wrong, Toriel just pulled back and left Frisk to exit the Ruins like she had before.
For once, Chara thought of how easy it was to just keep going without being stopped, no matter how odd they may have seemed.
—-
Lesser Dog. Greater Dog. Papyrus. Shyren. FIGHT, Chara had urged each time. You're more important.
Frisk had never asked why.
Everything from bullets to music notes pierces and pummels Frisk's skin. Chara wouldn't have cared if it had been their own body— but it being Frisk's only made them angrier when a monster, knowingly or not, harmed it. FIGHT, their instincts scream. FIGHT.
(And then they'd see Frisk standing before pieces of what had once been a flower and somehow it didn't seem worth it anymore.)
The more Chara spared everyone like Frisk had, the guiltier they felt. They had helped Frisk find their Determination, right? Had it all just been for their own old dream of freeing all monsters?
"I'm so tired, Chara. I'm tired of all these people. I'm tired of being here. I'm tired of being a flower." Flowey had only stopped short at "I'm tired of being."
This had once been a child who jumped out of bed each day and breathed in a snout full of morning air. All before Chara happened.
"Frisk..." Chara develops a habit of feeling their own pulse in Frisk's body. They'd gone so long without a pulse. But they didn't want to check if they were still alive— they want to check in some way if Frisk was still alive.
Frisk's face looks into the ice of Snowdin and the water of Waterfall and even the video feed inside the lab. Their reflection stares back each time. They keep waiting for someone to say, "It's you!"
But nobody came.
—-
"I know," Asriel says. "You're not actually Chara, are you?"
They don't know where they are. They're nowhere. They're everywhere. The world is nothing but an inky darkness again and Chara feels oddly at home.
To think that Chara had waited so long for this. They had wanted their best friend back so badly. They had done all of this for Asriel's sake and his family's sake.
"... Whether you like it or not!" Flowey had said, once, in some timeline, in some scenario. "Whether you want it or not! You can't escape the TRUE meaning of this world!"
Who had taught him that?
"No," says 'Frisk'. They ball their right hand into a fist and then relax it and then do it again. Nobody had noticed except a small presence inside them getting smaller.
"I know. Chara has been gone for a long time."
Thank God, Chara finds themself thinking.
The monster child has nothing else to look at in the world but still somehow looks past them. It smells like green grass and crisp air. It had smelled so much sharper from Asriel's nose when they had joined together.
"Chara... I think if you're around, just living in the surface world doesn't seem so bad." Flowey had said.
The two embrace for what felt like an eternity. Frisk gives the best hugs. In Frisk's arms, you feel like you're safe. Your thoughts like knives tearing you up on the inside can't find you there.
Chara makes sure to emulate that for Asriel to be as much like Frisk as possible, too. For a moment, their hand twitches to pat Asriel. They settle into rubbing it up and down his back soothingly.
Asriel soon vanishes without realizing who had been behind the mask. Nobody had realized.
The good news: Chara's Frisk impersonation had been perfect.
The bad news: Chara's Frisk impersonation had been perfect.
Nobody had a single memory of Frisk from when they alone SAVED everyone. Nobody had any recognition of Chara's small tells and twitches. They had both been forgotten.
It was for the best— what if the memories of Frisk that surfaced had been being on the wrong end of a knife? That wasn't the Frisk that Chara wanted them to remember. This was.
—-
Kill or be killed. Maybe Chara had believed that, once, that one person would always lose somehow and one would always win. Asriel had preferred drawing pictures because Mom would say they were both perfect, but Chara loved sports because it was clear someone came out on top.
Frisk hadn't believed that, Chara thought. A win/win scenario could always exist.
But what was there to win from their own death?
"Maybe... the truth is... Chara wasn't really the greatest person," Asriel says.
'I know', they want to say.
The Dreemurrs deserved a good child, not a nobody. Not a reminder of their imprisonment. The Dreemurrs deserved sunlight.
They had it already. They could walk through the shattered barrier and see the sun for the first time. But they were all waiting on their real sunlight to come back from saying goodbye.
Their body is shaking. Empty. It feels like a hollowed-out space where their heart had been. When they call out Frisk's name, nobody responds anymore.
"While, Frisk... you're the type of friend I wish I always had."
One who wouldn't use them as means to an end for a plan. One who cared about their lives beyond what it meant to them.
Chara had urged Frisk to live— for what? Chara had tried to prove that everyone had loved Frisk and—
"Not you?" Frisk had finished.
"Frisk? Are you alright?"
Inhale. Exhale. Their right hand clutches where the knife would fit so well. Of course nobody knew Frisk used their left except Chara, when using it to bring a knife to their skin as punishment for letting another memory of Frisk die. But no matter how they would try, they could never cut Frisk's skin.
"I'm... I'm fine," they say. They smile. It's all they know.
Frisk had to live on. That was the least Chara could do after all they had done, for better or for worse. If Frisk ever wanted to take back control, Chara would have the body ready and healthy and waiting. The Dreemurrs would have their sunlight.