"chara." My voice was heavy, wavering slightly with dread. Goosebumps erupted on my skin and my hair stood on end, a coldness hovering over the back of my neck.
"Howdy. Was wondering where you'd got up to," chara spoke, an eerie dryness to her voice, like she was incredibly bored. I could almost see her picking at her nails, "That idiot was able to give you your memories back.." she hissed, her voice echoing like we were in a tunnel, bouncing off imaginary walls. I breathed silently, my chest rising and falling quickly. I felt my soul heavy in my chest, resonating with fear and a prominent lack of bravery. If only I had a soul of bravery, or determination. What good would integrity do me in the long run?
"Integrity.. You're honest, and you live strongly by morals..." Honesty? It wasn't like I could attack chara with the truth, or try and bap the immorality out of her!
Unless..
"Frisk.." I muttered, attempting to unravel some of the mystery around me, and also hoping to stall for time before chara inevitably pounced. Something stirred in the air, but chara was hopefully too distracted to notice.
"Yes, Frisk. There were only so many timelines she could go through and repeat before breaking something, someone. And then, I arrived," chara spoke maliciously, as if there was something so obvious that she knew and I didn't, "Well, 'arrived' as a loose term. Being outside of reality has its ups and downs.." She mused. I was left to glance around me as chara's voice felt like thick but seamless smoke, hanging like wet laundry in the air. The fact that I could only hear her voice but not see her body only sent surges of trepidation running up and down my back, like my heart was pumping it as naturally as blood. How a teenager could do this to anyone seemed ridiculous, but I had a feeling that chara was much, much older than she first let on. She had a youthful appearance, rosy cheeks, striped sweater and all; but the way she spoke- it was as if she had seen all there was to be seen, and I was catching the running theme of timelines in both chara and Frisk. Timelines and chara's seemingly expansive knowledge of them implied that she had an equally large experience of them.
A heavy pressure was absentmindedly building behind my eyes as I pushed for answers in my frustrating lack of memory. It was as if a huge chunk had been bitten out of my mind, and I knew it something to do with not just chara (that much was obvious, she was the canon villain here like most video game tropes), but also Frisk. It was as if we were sharing memories. I decided that there was a lot more going on here that presently I couldn't figure out, that despite the time difference and the fact that she died a long time ago, our lives were still very much intertwined.
I need to ask G about this, I thought to myself, but as soon as I thought it a painful ache rose up in my soul, my actual soul, and it was so physically there it sent me reeling. I remembered something we had talked about years ago, months on top of that, something about souls and how they're connected to emotion and feeling. Like, monsters couldn't live without compassion and love, that's how their souls worked - however humans could live without it. chara was a prime example for that, but even there I wasn't sure if she was entirely human. Every human at least once in their life must have felt some sort of compassion, if not then, I couldn't see how that was humane, ironically.
We had a lot to learn from monsters, I concluded. However, I had bigger fish to fry than simply pondering over the nature of souls. That was a conversation saved for Alphys and G, if I ever saw them again.
"What do you want, chara?" My voice was slightly reedy, but held a new courage to it, not quite bravery but something close enough to get me on my way.
"I want exactly what Dr Gaster wanted," chara giggled as I caught my breath. Even after all this time, he rarely left my thoughts, and I knew that when he was still... alive, he had a desire for my soul, despite its prominent capacity of pathetic-ness, or so I thought at the time.
"My soul?" I spoke, still playing for time as I reached out in my mind for Frisk- she had to still be around, right?
"Yes. I thought that was obvious, but your stupidity never ceases to amaze me." chara sighed, her voice evaporating in the atmosphere after every word, seeming to imply something else than my incompetence for souls.
"What do you want with my soul?" Though I was still pushing for time, I was genuinely bothered by the fact that everyone was after my soul. Too many questions, not enough answers, as goes the saying. I think.
Something resonated in my mind as I continued to search. Whatever I was doing, it was working, and I knew Frisk knew that I was calling for her. Her soul was easy to find, but that being said, I was striking upon luck because I literally was acting on a very small gut instinct that somehow was working.
"Oh, I'm sure you know the answer to that. What you're really wondering is why I haven't simply taken it yet," chara snarled, her voice now right by my ears. I jumped, feeling my hands tremble by my sides and my throat go dry.
"You see, dear Y/n, I know you've been communicating with Frisk this entire time. I know you've been stalling and distracting me. The only thing I don't know is if you will survive after I've finished with you, or maybe I do." As the last few icy words rung out around me, chara finally fizzed into view, her body a little fuzzy around the edges as she came into physicality. Her eyes shone and gleamed in the lack of light, twinkling like rubies against her nearly white skin, albeit being slightly sunken in - the 'I haven't slept for weeks' kind of look. She looked... ruined. Wasted. Nearly dead.
"What's with that look? I abandoned my humanity long ago, and there's no way back from letting go of that." she laughed an empty cackle, throwing her head back, and I noticed her voice was now more grounded and solid, much like the rest of her form. Despite my natural urge to try and reason with her, to talk my way out of the conflict, I couldn't help but agree with her. There was no way around this, but something told me this wasn't the final fight.
"When you absorb something, you don't usually expect it to start fighting back. Or maybe you do." chara laughed, before another voice arose-
"Depends on what you absorbed." Frisk. So it had worked.
"I was almost dead when you took my soul from Dr Gaster, but I was still there. I think you knew that." Her voice was almost like silver, completely different to the way chara's voice invaded my mind and my soul. Frisk's voice was like a pink sunset - from where I pulled that idea from, I didn't know. I could see why she had meant so much to G, now. Maybe she still did. Memories like these don't fade quite so easily, after all.
"Of course you were still there, otherwise your soul would've evaporated." chara snapped, her figure like a dark shadow standing about two meters away from me.
"But you couldn't absorb her soul fully." I added, feeling some of the pieces begin to click together. Maybe the evil villain did have some weaknesses.
"If you think you still have a chance to get rid of me, you're wrong. I killed him, and I can kill you just as easily." chara grinned eerily, referring to Gaster. Somehow I knew she wasn't just implying him, although. Fear struck at my soul as I understood the hidden message.
"You haven't.." my breath caught in my throat as my imagination ran wild. 20 minutes ago I hadn't the faintest idea about anything as chara nearly absorbed all my memories, but now- everything was flooding back. Everything, including how much I loved him, how much I needed him.
"She hasn't, yet." Frisk spoke, still only her voice present. Perhaps she wasn't strong enough to materialize fully. chara's vicious smile gleamed, her face scarier than any serial killer. Jason from Friday the 13th would run in terror if he caught even a glimpse of chara's red, bloodshot eyes. Seriously.
"But I will, soon. I'll ruin you, and him, and when you're both about to disappear forever, only then will you see each other, calling out each others name because you both couldn't do anything to save each other," a thick, shrill giggle erupted from chara's lips as she stared you down. You felt like you were shrinking, and your fingertips were going numb with the sudden cold, "How pathetic is that?"
"Maybe it is pathetic to you," I surprised myself as I began to speak, balling my fists despite how much they were shaking, "But I'm gonna change that. Feel free to watch." I growled, feeling my chest heat up, exactly where my soul was, just under my collar bone.
"Oh, this should be very interesting." chara smiled, raising her wrist. Suddenly, the jet black darkness was utterly transformed, making my eyes sting.
And all I saw, was red.
"Very interesting indeed."
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