Crashtale

Chapter 4: Home

Frisk moves away from the bookshelf and to the dresser. "The sock drawer," They say, an ominous tone to their voice. "My nemesis."

I am completely lost for words at the sincerity and unfeigned emotion behind that.

Frisk moves to the other side of the room to the cactus. "The most tsundere of plants," We say at the same time.

They then leave the room. I turn around one last time, not wanting to leave the comfort of my mother's room. Then, for just a moment, I saw one of the golden flowers looking at Frisk, a grin on his face. I blinked and he was gone.

The thoughts are pulled from my head as I'm suddenly dragged after Frisk. They continue down the hallway. They stop outside of the third door in the hallway, labelled 'Under renovations'. They look at the table next to it, with a flower pot and several broken crayons. Frisk proceeds to the end of the hallway. A water sausage is sitting by a mirror.

Frisk looks in the mirror. They take in their appearance. It's the same as always. Their eyes stop at their chest, and they smile softly. Then they look at the reflection of their eyes.

"*It's you."

"It's me."

The smile grows slightly, then fades away. As they head back towards their room, they laugh. "'It's me', who am I, stupid Goldie... Ha!"

I decide against asking. Not like they could hear me anyways.

Frisk opens the door to their room. It's like Toriel's, the same brown scheme, but with red accents instead. The bed was smaller, with a toy bin at its base. A cabinet was next to it, and some shelves next to that, with a lot of junk on it.

"*A dusty picture frame. You can't make out the picture."

Frisk picks up the photo frame that was on the shelf and blows off the dust.

"*There is no picture."

They continue looking around. A hand drawn picture was taped to the the wall, next to a lamp. Frisk looked at it.

"*Hand drawn. The signature has been scribbled out."

Frisk shrugs and pulls the cord on the lamp, turning out the light. They crawl into bed and snuggled up under the covers. I sit on the floor, lean against the side of the bed, and ponder. What has been going on recently? This whole run has been a mess. Things have been going incorrectly, I've been saying things I don't want to say. And Frisk... They've never acted like this before. It's odd.

"*Hey, Frisk," I say, before remembering that they can't hear me.

"Yeah?" They mumble.

It takes me a second before my thoughts backtrack and I realize they just responded to me.

"*Frisk, I have a question." I speak again, to double check they can hear me.

"Shoot."

There is so much I want to say. I want to ask if they know why the timeline is messed up. I want to ask why they reset, why they've been acting weirdly. But That feels like a lot to ask. So I ask the most sensible question.

"*Do you know what's going on?"

"No. I don't. Wish I did, but it's beyond my control."

I don't respond to that, and I stay quiet as they drift off to sleep. So Frisk didn't know what was messing up the timeline either. That was a bit relieving- It wasn't their doing.

"Chara?" A voice says softly, coming from the doorway. I look over to see none other than Flowey, a small smile on his face.

"Azzy!?" I exclaim. "Can you see me?"

"Yeah, I can hear you too." He pauses. "Chara... do you remember?"

"Yeah, don't worry. I still remember last run. And all those before it." I laugh, weakly. "God, why couldn't things have stayed that way..."

Flowey's smile drops a bit. Or maybe that's just me. "Yeah, I wish. But of course, Frisk goes and screws everything up."

"Honestly, I... I don't think it's their fault. They said they didn't know what's going on with this timeline."

Flowey frowns. "That doesn't stop the fact that they reset."

I don't know how to respond to that. Frisk was the only person with the ability to reset, so it had to be them. Yet it was hard to believe they actually did it. They were so against it up on the surface. I decide to change the topic.

"Asriel... do you know what's wrong? Things have been so messed up lately, there's been so many changes to how the run's going. Frisk seems to be fine with them, but I think these changes affected them too, with how they're acting and all... and it's affecting me too! I've been saying things I don't mean to, but it feels so natural, and everything has just felt so wrong and-"

"Hey, hey, calm down."

I take a breath, suddenly aware of how panicked I just sounded. I calm myself. I look back at Flowey. His eyes meet mine, a look in them I can't quite place but am not sure I like.

"Chara, Toriel's gonna be here any second now, so I gotta go. Don't worry, okay?"

"Easy for you to say." I meant it as a joke, but my voice had a slight bitter tone to it that was fully unintentional. Before I realize how I sounded, he's already left.

True to what Flowey said, Toriel came in a few seconds later. She left a slice of pie on the ground by Frisk's bed. The smell wafted through the air, and I felt myself relax upon smelling it. It smelled like warmth and family and home. Toriel looked at Frisk for a moment, smiling, then left the room.

I think back to Frisk. And I hope, I so dearly hope, that they weren't lying when they said they didn't know what was causing the problems in the timeline. But if they weren't the cause, what was? A chill ran up my spine. It wasn't Frisk, and I don't believe it was Asriel. So another being, another force, was behind this.

This might be something completely out of my control.

Hopefully, when we finish the run, we can set things right. Hopefully.