Chara-cter Study Chapter 1 - A Life Too Cruel for Puns

Crack! Her head struck the wall, leaving a dent and splashing blood. She slumped to the ground, still conscious but unwilling to fight back. Unable to fight back

"You make my life so miserable, you little brat," said a tired voice. A man in a torn charcoal suit with mussed hair and a crooked tie slumped to the ground opposite his daughter. "If you had never come around, I would be rich and popular now. kinda hard to live the life you want when you have a seventy pound parasite stuck to you. You already drained all the life out of your mother, and now you want to do it to me"

The girl didn't say anything. She tried to stand, but stumbled back into the wall before finally getting to her feet. She swayed as she walked toward the door.

"Chara! Don't even think about walking out of here!"

She did not listen to her father. Chara walked into the street, where she was met by faces looking through their windows. The faces were quickly replaced with curtains, but she was used to this by now. Chara walked to the end of the street, past a number of weedy yards and a single Ford 5-Touring. That was her one rich neighbor, rich enough to have their own car. She knocked the front door of the house on the corner.

A young boy, about Chara's age, cracked the door. "Hi Chara," he said, his eyes on the ground and his voice weak.

"Hi Cecil. Can I come in?"

The already narrow opening closed a little more.

"Chara… I'm sorry. I can't play right now."

The boy was wrenched away from the door. His father opened up the door further, but blocked it with his considerable frame. "Chara! Get the hell out of here, you little demon. Cecil was in the hospital for a week after you played out in the woods the last time. I don't want you near here. What are you even doing outside? I think your daddy should know about this."

He stomped back up the street until he got to Chara's house. Chara was frozen to the ground. Cecil's father came back out, pushing Chara's father by the neck. He could just be heard in the distance saying, "Take care of your family, or I do it for you!" and threw Chara's father to the ground.

Chara ran out to the main road. A woman who was sitting on her front porch called out "You running away again? Maybe this time it'll stick." The woman laughed. Chara stopped to look at her for a few seconds, then turned toward the woods. "Maybe you'll get eaten by a bear this time. You little monster! You belong out there rather than in here. Your drunk daddy, too."

Chara started to walk toward the woods. Just as she stepped under the first tree, she was pulled back by two long, bony arms. She could smell the alcohol on his breath. "Where the hell do you think you're going, you little shit? Neither one of us are that lucky."

Chara did not struggle as she was pulled back to her house. She whispered to herself, "I hate all of you. Every last one."

Chara-cter Study Chapter 2: a Barrier Between Her and the Others

Chara woke to vomiting in the next room. She could see light peeking through the curtains, so she decided it was a good enough time to wake. She went into the kitchen, trying her best to ignore the sounds in the other room. She took a roll and some butter from the shelf, tore the roll and spread some butter on it. This was a common meal.

She grabbed her rucksack and walked outside, heading for the school house. Chara was determined not to be like the other people in her village. She would break out of that place one way or another. Running away to the woods may not have been the best way of accomplishing this, but maybe becoming something better that the others would work.

She sat down at the back of the class, but strangely, a girl sat next to her that she had never talked to. It was not a particularly large class, with only fifteen students in the whole school, but the girl was the daughter of the only rich family in the village, so they did not talk often.

"Well, hello there, Chara!"

Chara did not respond at first.

"My dear, there is no need to be rude. When someone offers a greeting to you, you should respond, especially if that person is your better. In your case, that would be nearly everyone."

"What do you want, Helen?" Chara said, scowling. This was not going to be a friendly visit.

"We cannot stay at this school after this year, you know? I haven't the faintest idea why you would bother staying here. It will do you no good. I am going to attend a prestigious private school. All girls. No more slobbering piggies wanting to benefit from my generosity."

"I can just study at the library."

"You and I both know the library here is hardly worth even a look. There are maybe fifty books, and we have not received a new book since it opened at the turn of the century. Face it, my dear, even being here today is a waste of time. I suppose the sheriff will just throw you in jail if you don't come, though."

Chara did not speak. Her eye twitched as she stared at Helen.

"Your drunk daddy does not have enough money to send you away to where you belong. It is a shame you weren't a boy. You could be shipped off to military school and none of us would need to see your little ugly face again."

Chara moved to a different seat. The teacher called out "Miss Smith! Get back to your seat."

"For crying out loud, Ma'am, my name isn't Smith. There are only 15 people here! You would think…"

Smack! The teacher hit Chara across the face. "You will show respect to your teacher!"

Chara smiled broadly and looked straight into the teacher's eyes.

"Wipe that disgusting grin off your face."

Chara's smile faded a little, but she still smirked. The teacher slapped her again, and walked away.

Chara's smile returned, and she looked at Helen, who stood and walked back to her own seat. Chara also returned to her seat, as the other students filed into the class. She stared at Helen, who shivered.

The rest of the day was uneventful

Chara dragged her rucksack behind her as she walked to her house. She did not pause as she walked in. She was used to what was likely waiting for her. This, however, was different. She found her father entangled with another woman on the ground. The room reeked of alcohol, which at least was familiar. Suddently, the door burst open with a kick, and three police, two that she had never seen, rushed in to grab her father.

"What are you doing?!" she screamed.

The sheriff said "Everyone knows your daddy is a drunk. I don't know if you realized this, darlin, but that there's against the law. Alcohol is destroying our way of life. Your daddy has to go to jail."

She hated him, but she had no one else to take care of her. She had no where else to go. If her father went to jail, it would be an orphanage for her. She looked at the police as they dragged her father away. She wanted to escape, but now it looked like the situation would be far worse.

She screamed again. Her father struggled a little against the police, and they stumbled in dragging him out. She screamed again… But nobody came.

No. Not today. They were not taking him today. She grabbed a knife off the table and ran at the policemen. Ththick. She struck the first man in his shoulder.

One of the other policemen looked around and said, dully, "What on Earth?"

Ththick. The knife was plunged into his stomach. The third strike was for the sheriff. They collapsed to the ground. Her father woke and looked around him at the carnage.

"You! You did this? Oh my lord! You're a monster!"

"I did this to save you, daddy!" she shouted.

Bam! Her father's fist collided with her cheek. She cried out in pain.

"Don't you understand? I'd have been in jail for a couple weeks for the booze. Now I'm going to go to prison for the rest of my life for murder! But, no, it's you!. You're covered with blood. They'll see it was you. I guess I will finally be rid of you."

Chara stared, her mouth open. He really was a worthless pile of garbage. He would throw his daughter to the wolves after she defended him. She smiled broadly and turned her face toward the ceiling, still keeping her eyes trained on her father.

"And that horrifying face you always make. No one will have any trouble believing the truth, that it was…"

He stopped talking, because Chara retrieved her father's moonshine from underneath a floorboard.

"I guess I may as well let you drink. You're going to prison anyhow."

"Daddy. This isn't for me. This is for you. I just want to give you something you'll love." She picked up a chair and pushed him into wall, where he hit his head and grunted. He slumped to the ground, unable to bring himself to his feet. She opened his mouth and poured the moonshine down his throat. He sputtered and coughed, but when the bottle was empty, he was unconscious.

Chara looked at her school clothes. They were covered in blood and booze. She ran to her closet. Everything was in the wash except a thick, striped winter sweater and an old pair of pants. She changed into the other clothes, and tiptoed into the kitchen. She picked up the knife she had used to kill the police. She knew she'd need protection, but it would probably best if they believed her father had killed them. She placed the knife in his hands, and took another knife which she put in her back pocket, in its sheath.

She ran out toward the woods again. This time her father would not be there to stop her. She ran as fast as she could, but she was stopped by a woman calling out to her.

"Chara! Where are you off to, in such a hurry?

"I'm just gonna go play, ma'am"

"Come here for a minute," she said. Chara walked up the path to the front porch, past a garden of golden flowers.

Chara didn't know why, but she could not leave yet. Maybe this village would have one person who was not completely evil.

"Where are you going, child?" she said.

"I… I'm going to play. Like I said."

The woman looked her over carefully.

"Don't go too far. Haven't you heard the stories? There's monsters out there. At least there were a long time ago. You wouldn't want one to take your soul."

Chara backed off, her eyebrows raised. "Monsters?"

"Yeah. A long time ago, before any of us were born, there were monsters everywhere. But we defeated them all and drove them underground. They don't bleed. They don't eat regular food. They can, however, steal your soul and become something really scary."

Chara turned around at this and started to walk down the path again. "I'll be sure not to run into any monsters."

Chara walked this time. This lady had not seemed to be that bad, if a bit annoying. But that's just one person. One person out of the whole village. It was too late. She was determined to escape this place. One kind person could not change that.

She ran to the woods, to the base of the mountain. The village was full of stories like that woman had told, and one of the stories was that people were not supposed to go near the mountain. That, of course, seemed the only proper option for her, then.

She climbed up into a cave, her heart beating fast again after having calmed at that woman's words. The cave seemed to go down forever. She stepped forward to get a better look at what seemed to be a light coming from very far away, but her foot got snagged on some vines and she fell.

Down

Down

Down

Wham!