"Goodbye!" You kissed her on the cheek. "See you later today!"
"Goodbye.", she said. "See you..."
She stood in the doorway, in her lime green robe and pajamas. Steam rose from the mug of tea in her hand a short distance into the cool morning air, before vanishing as its short life ended. The sun, still partially obscured by Mount Ebott, tinted the world yellow, like an old photograph.
You sat down in the driver's seat, pulled the door shut, fastened your seat belt, and started the engine. You fiddled with the radio for a second, then looked up. She was still there in the doorway, watching you. You waved to her, she raised her free hand, held it up for a moment, then let it drop. You put your foot on the brake pedal, shifted into reverse, and slowly let the pedal up. Gravel crunched under the weight of the car as it rolled backwards out of the driveway. Looking out the back window, you turned the wheel as the driveway ended and the road began. You looked at her one last time, smiled, and nodded slightly. She tilted her head and smiled back weakly. You looked ahead, shifted, and applied pressure to the gas pedal.
She watched as long as she could, until you took a turn and she could no longer see you. You were gone. It was time.
She shut the door behind her, raised the mug of tea to her lips, and tilted her head back. As the liquid drained from the mug, she tilted her head back further until the mug was completely inverted and completely empty. She righted her head, gasped, and wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her robe. It wasn't that hot. She left the empty mug in the kitchen sink and headed for the bedroom.
She took her robe off and hung it on its usual hook. She pulled her pajamas off and left them where they fell. She crouched down in front of the dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer.
She didn't have a whole lot of clothes. All of them fit in this one drawer. Her collection started with one outfit, the one that came with her new body. Yes, her new body came clothed. Not only was she determined to come back to life, but she was determined to do so in a dignified way.
She had only one pair of clothes, though, so at your insistence, the two of you went shopping. You tried to get her to pick out some outfits, but she wasn't interested and kept sneaking off to kitchenwares to look at the knives. You ended up picking out all of her clothes for her and when you asked her to try them on, she pulled you into the dressing room for a quickie. The two of you are still banned from that Target. She smiled and shook her head as she grabbed the first shirt and pair of shorts she saw.
Now dressed in something more appropriate for the daytime, she walked towards the bedroom door to leave, but tripped over something on the way. She looked down and identified the obstacle as the pajamas she had discarded earlier. Without thinking, she kicked them out of the way with the side of her foot and continued towards the exit. She was halfway through the doorway when she stopped. She looked back at the pajamas, now as much on the wall as they were on the floor.
You would take care of them. You always did, and you never complained. You never even asked her to clean up after herself. You were ok with taking care of everything... But she wasn't. Not anymore. She wasn't going to be a burden on you anymore. That ends today.
She turned around, picked up the pajamas, and deposited them in the laundry hamper. She dusted off her hands and left the room.
She finished tying her shoes and stood up. She went through the front door and shut and locked it behind her. The sun had now risen above Mount Ebott and corrected its hue. She started walking.
She was back. It was less than an hour later. She unlocked the door, walked inside, and kicked her shoes off. She entered the kitchen and placed a small brown paper bag on the table. She went to the window and, on her third attempt, lowered the Venetian blinds. The slats cast shadows across the kitchen floor and her face, creating a pattern of alternating dark and light stripes. She reached for the transparent plastic rod that controlled the rotation of the slats. Things were about to get darker. As she twisted the rod, the slats rotated, blocking out more sunlight. The dark stripes grew taller and taller until they came together and snuffed out the light. She let go of the rod, turned, and walked down the hall.
She opened the door to the closet at the end of the hall. She stood on the tips of her toes to gain a small height advantage and reached, with both hands, into the back left corner of the top shelf. She carefully lifted down a shoe box and pushed the closet door shut with her elbow. She carried the shoe box into the kitchen and set it down on the table next to the small paper bag. She turned around and made way for the bedroom.
She picked up a spiral notebook from your desk, opened it to the middle, and ripped out a blank page. She set the paper down on the desk, grabbed a pen at random from the mug where you kept your writing instruments, clicked it open, and scribbled until she was certain it worked.
She returned to the kitchen, pulled a chair out from the table, and sat down. She placed the paper in front of her and stared at it for a moment while she thought. Eventually, the words came to her and she started writing. A letter. To you.
*Click* She set the pen down on top of the letter and wiped the tears out of her eyes. She picked up the small paper bag she brought home with her, reached inside, and removed a small cardboard box. It contained twenty, it was the smallest they sold. She would only need one.
She opened the small box, removed a single bullet, and placed it on the table. She set the small box aside, pushed the pen and letter out of the way, and pulled the shoe box front and center. With both hands, she lifted the lid off, set it if off to the side, reached in, and pulled out a revolver...
She was looking for your Gameboy. It was months earlier. Your desk seemed like a good bet. The bottom right drawer was a junk drawer. Well, actually, all of the drawers were junk drawers. The bottom right one was the junkiest, though.
She dug through the drawer a bit. Her eyes glazed over. The drawer was so jam packed full of junk, looking in was sort of disorienting. All the different colors and shapes... Ugh... She groaned and averted her eyes. Sensory overload.
She decided to just reach her hand in and search by feel. She felt around for a while and found something rectangular. This could be it... She closed her fingers around the brick shaped object and pulled. Half the junk in the drawer came with it. After a few minutes of untangling the wires, strings, rubber bands, and a little bit of gum that bound the object to its neighbors, it was finally free.
This was... not a Gameboy. It was rectangular, with an antenna, a small screen, number buttons...
Oh, it was your old cell phone. The one Mom gave you when you first fell into the Underground. It was comically outdated when she gave it to you over a decade ago, but now it looked ancient, like something early man chiseled out of stone to text his early man buddies with...
"just got mauled by a saber-toothed tiger! fml!"
"omg! r u ok?"
"no lol"
"k"
The thing had to be dead by now, but she thought she'd try turning it on anyway. She held her thumb down on the power button...
The monochrome screen lit up and displayed the manufacturer's logo while a short chiptune song played. Wow, that's some amazing battery life! This must have been part of the upgrades Alphys did. The phone took a few seconds to boot up. More than that, actually... C'mon, c'mon... What's taking so long? She knew that it took a while for vacuum tubes to warm up, but this was ridiculous!
Finally! No signal bars, obviously. All the working cell phones the monsters recovered from the humans' trash were modified to work on the cell phone network the monsters had cobbled together underground. The same one that had been decommissioned over a decade ago.
She looked through the menus... "Contacts"? No. "Recent Calls"? Nah. Where were the games on this thing? She wanted to play "Snake". "Dimensional Box"... Hmmm...
She pressed the button. The screen dimmed and she heard a loud electric sparking sound come from in front of her. She dropped the phone and lept back, falling on the floor. A small portal appeared before her, floating in mid-air. Her ears were filled with a buzzing electrical sound as the portal grew larger. She was suddenly aware of a new aroma amongst the bedroom's repertoire, a sort of burnt plasticy smell, like when you use a brand new toaster oven for the first time. After reaching a diameter of about four feet, the portal stopped growing. She could feel the hair on the top of her head standing up.
The phone had punched a hole through space and time, creating a tunnel connecting two separate locations. It was an amazing technology, that, unfortunately, had been immediately banned by human authorities on the surface over safety concerns. Human scientists argued that more research was needed on the potential side effects of tunneling through the Universe and concerns were raised over the safety of the portal itself, what with the so-called "spontaneous dismemberment" issue...
She stood up and retrieved the phone. It didn't seem to suffer any damage from its collision with the carpeted floor. No more than she did, at least. She massaged her bottom. It had been a long time since she had seen this technology in action. She forgot about the loud noises it made, hence her reaction. Luckily, old cell phones like this one were indestructible. They should make bomb shelters out of them or something...
She approached the portal and carefully peeked inside. Don't touch the sides! It was just like the game "Operation", only if you touched the sides, you would be the one getting the operation.
Let's see... there were some dirty dishes with paw prints on them, a bandana, a cowboy hat... Wait... what was that? She reached in and grabbed it... Oh my...
It was one of the weapons you found in the Underground... The one that belonged to the child with the yellow soul... Justice... It was a gun! A pistol! A revolver! A real one! She had never held a real gun before. It was heavier than she thought it would be.
Why did you still have this? She remembered you abandoned your weapons in the Underground before leaving for the Surface. You must have held on to it to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Like, for instance, her's...
It was old, but it looked like it still worked. She found the latch that released the cylinder and swung it out. There were six chambers, all empty, unfortunately. She flicked the gun to the right, swinging the cylinder back in. She placed her other hand on the cylinder and quickly dragged it down. The cylinder made a whirring sound as it spun inside the revolver. Weee! She had always wanted to do that. After completing a few revolutions, it slowed down and stopped.
She grasped the gun with both hands, pointed it at the poster of Mettaton on the wall, pulled the hammer back with her thumb, shut her left eye, lined up the front and back sights... *Click* She opened her eye and lowered the gun. She wished she had some bullets. And someone to shoot...
She spun the pistol around her finger a few times. Guns were cool, but she preferred knives. Knives were more brutal, more messy, more... fun. Guns were weapons for a more civilized age. Quick and relatively clean. With a knife, you had to get close to your target, close enough to look them in the eyes, hear them gasping for air... You had to use your own strength, literally get your hands dirty...
Best of all, knives yielded more EXP than guns. A stabbing was traumatic, not only for the one being stabbed, but also for the one doing the stabbing. To deal with the trauma of killing someone in a particularly gruesome way, they would distance themselves. As their body count rose, it would get easier and easier to distance themselves, until they felt nothing from killing but a little bit stronger and warm blood on their hands.
The secret to power was learning to ignore your conscience, your humanity... Compassion, morality, love... They were weaknesses, holding her back, keeping her from reaching her true killing potential. And once she had purged herself of these flaws, once she had shed the shackles of humanity, she would become more than human. A god... No, a demon... And nothing could stand in her way.
Right now, with her humanity intact, she could end lives, but once she had become completely inhuman? She could end... worlds. "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." She smiled intensely and clenched her fists.
Like the atom bomb, she was a weapon of mass destruction, a ticking time bomb, and it was only a matter of time before she went off and took everything with her. Time was running out for this world. The Apocalypse was imminent. This world was not long for... this world.
She would do the majority of the killing with her knife, but having a gun could come in handy. Like, for example, if someone was running away from her, and she was tired from a long day of killing, she could aim for the leg to disable the target, then finish them off with her knife.
She wondered where she could get some bullets. And maybe a holster. Wasn't there a gun shop around here? There was, wasn't there? She walked by it just the other day... with you...
You... you were the only thing keeping her from doing this. You were the thread the whole world was hanging on by. And you... She frowned and narrowed her eyes. You were the one standing in the way of her hopes and dreams. You were a wall between her and her destiny. A small, easily surmountable wall... It would take absolutely no effort. But she just couldn't...
She hated you. And... she really, really liked you. She wanted to hurt you. And... she wanted to hurt those that would dare do harm to you. She wanted to end your life. And... she wanted... to spend... the rest of her life... with...
Ugh... Her head hurt. It happened every time she thought about this. The cognitive dissonance... It was like if two consciousnesses with completely different personalities and opinions had to share one head... Wait... no, it wasn't like that. This was much worse.
It was like one consciousness simultaneously wanted two very different, very incompatible things equally, and there was just no way it could choose one. Trying to, made the utilization of both her brain hemispheres spike to 100% as the left hemisphere evaluated the pros and cons of each desire and the right tried to come up with alternatives or compromises, until the entire brain overheated and suffered a Blue Screen of Death. "A problem has been detected and Chara OS v2.0 has been shut down to prevent damage to your brain."
Oh, why couldn't she have been born a sociopath? It would make everything so much easier... Then again, why couldn't she have just been born completely normal... She sighed.
She held the gun out in her hands and looked it over. Maybe... maybe she should just get rid of this thing? She could wrap it up in an opaque plastic bag and throw it in the trash. Then it wouldn't be around to tempt her.
But... if she did decide to... then it would really come in handy... And if she didn't, she could always throw it away later...
She accounted for all her limbs, then hit the "end" button on the phone. The portal shrunk to the size of a pixel then faded out of existence. The buzzing sound stopped and her head felt heavier as her hair stopped resisting the effects of gravity. Annoyingly, the burnt plastic smell decided to stick around. She walked over to the window and opened it, releasing the smell into the wild. Maybe it would find someone else to annoy. Jerry could use some company...
She left the bedroom and returned a couple minutes later with a shoe box. She placed the gun into the box, then hid it in the hall closet, on the top shelf, all the way in the back left, where nobody could see it, where nobody would find it.
It was the middle of the night. No... She looked at the alarm clock. 3:14 AM. Ugh... It was the early hours of the morning. This morning.
She was lying in bed. With you. You were asleep. Or dead. The room was dark, the only light coming from the street lights outside and the headlights of the occasional car passing by, sneaking in around the corners of the curtains. That and the various electronic devices in the room, which, for some reason, thought they needed to notify her of the fact that they were off with bright red LEDs.
It wasn't the light that was keeping her awake. She had been thinking. For hours. But she was finished now. She had come to a decision. Well, more like the decision had come to her.
She couldn't hurt you. Not now. You had become the most important thing in the world to her. You were more important than power, more important than her own life... Even if she could become the most powerful being in existence without laying a finger on you, she wouldn't. Why? Because you didn't want her to. That's all it took.
But... Tears filled her eyes and she closed them tightly. Since when was she the one in control? It was getting harder now. Harder to distract herself, harder to ignore the urges... And it was only going to get worse... The novelty of being alive again and doing new and fun things was wearing off. And the novelty of... you... being with you... being in...
She opened her eyes, rolled over towards you, scooted closer, and gently placed her arms around you. She could feel the warmth coming off of you, literally and metaphorically. She laid her head down on the pillow and shut her eyes.
That hadn't worn off yet. But it would, wouldn't it? Someday. Nothing lasts forever...
She wasn't going to hurt you. She wasn't going to let herself hurt you. Even if it killed her...
She was awake. She could hear you banging around in the kitchen, making breakfast, or perhaps auditioning for Stomp. She groaned and rolled over. She wanted desperately to go back to sleep, like she had done every day before today, but she didn't. She ignored her urges, the ones telling her to stay in bed, which, at this moment, were more persuasive than any other urge she had ever felt.
It was just like removing a band-aid. One... two... three! She threw the covers off, exposing her skin to the cooler bedroom air. She hissed like a vampire encountering a cross. If the room temperature had been any lower, she may have shattered. She shivered and stepped into her slippers and wrapped herself up in the lime green robe you had gotten her.
She walked into the kitchen. It was you. The one that had done so much for her, the one that had made it possible for her to face her demons, the one she valued more than anything else in this world or the next. You were sitting at the table, drinking coffee, and reading something on your phone.
She wanted to kill you. Right now. You trusted her now, it would be so easy... You wouldn't see it coming. It would be soooo good... Her mouth watered.
Why was she fighting this? It was her destiny. It was what she was born to do. The cravings would never stop. She couldn't resist forever...
...She reached for the latch, swung the cylinder out, and placed the bullet into the top chamber, the one that aligned with the barrel. She stared at it for a moment then pointed the gun upwards...
...She swallowed. No. She wasn't going to hurt you. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed these thoughts out of her mind. Instead, she thought about all the things you had done for her, how good you were to her, how much fun she had with you, how sweet you were to her, how much she... loved you...
...The bullet fell out of the chamber and into her waiting hand. It fit, she had gotten the right kind. It had taken some research to figure out the correct ammunition for this gun.
She pushed the cylinder back in and placed the revolver back into the shoe box. She picked up the bullet, reached for the box of ammunition with her other hand, but stopped. She held the bullet up close before her eyes and rotated it with her fingers. This was the first bullet she had ever seen with her own eyes. It was smaller than she thought it would be. Such a tiny little thing, with the power to do so much damage... Monsters thought humans were so powerful, but they were just as fragile as monsters if you used the right tool.
She flipped the bullet upside down and looked at the bottom. It was such a simple thing, too. The hammer hits the primer, ignites the propellent, which forces the projectile out of the case, down the barrel, and into her...
She shut her eyes tightly, clenched her fist around the bullet, and took a deep breath. She held it in for a while, then let it out, relaxing her eyes and fist as she exhaled. She put the bullet back with the others and added the box of ammunition to the shoe box.
She picked up the letter. It was smudged and wrinkled in a few places from the tears that had fallen on it. She hoped that you would still be able read it. And that you'd never have to. And that if you ever did, that you'd understand. That you'd forgive her. Forgive her for doing what she had to do to protect you and the ones you loved. She folded the letter up, placed it in the shoe box, and put the lid on.
...She smiled and wiped a tear out of her eye. Why was she... She wasn't sad... Was this... a tear of... joy? It was. This may have been her first.
She loved you. Of course she did. She had for a long time, but now she could admit it. It was a wonderful feeling.
Love... love wasn't really a weakness, was it? It was... powerful... More powerful than power, really, as dumb as that sounded. As long as she could remember, there had been only one thing she truly wanted, and in less than one year, it had been superseded by you, by love... Love could save lives, save worlds, save... her... Now that was power.
She used to think love was stupid, just an emotion that humans evolved to encourage them to breed and pass on their genes. It was nothing more than instinct, something that humans more primitive than herself let themselves be influenced by.
Maybe all of that was true, but it didn't matter, she'd take it. Because it made her happy. And, unlike the other things that made her happy, nobody had to get hurt.
She could do this. No, she would do this. With you at her side and the power of the love you shared, she would succeed. Or she would die trying.
"Good morning!", she said.
"Oh, hey!" You looked up from your phone. "You're up kinda early, aren't you?"
"Yeah.", she said. "I think I'm going to start waking up earlier from now on."
"Oh, ok.", you said. "Any reason why?"
"I guess..." She walked over and hugged you from behind. "I guess I miss seeing you in the mornings when you have to work. I'd like it if we could spend our mornings together every day, like we do on the weekends."
"Aww..." You placed your hand on her shoulder. "That would be nice. It would definitely brighten up my day..."
She held on for a moment, then released you.
"Hey, you ready for breakfast?" You pushed your chair out from the table and started to get up. "I made some extra pancake batter, let me just heat the pan back up..."
"No, wait, let me." She walked over to the stove and turned the burner on. "I can handle this."
"You sure?", you asked. "I don't mind..."
"No, I can do it." She cut a slice of butter out of the butter dish and scraped it into the pan. "If anything, I should be making you breakfast..."
You sat back down. "What? No, you don't have to..."
"I want to.", she said. "I think it's time I started helping out around here. Time I started earning my keep..."
"Earning your keep?", you asked. "Chara, no, you don't have to do that. You don't ever have to..."
"Please." She turned away from the stove and looked you in the eyes. "I want to help out. Please let me do this."
"Ok.", you said. "I'm sorry... If you want to, be my guest."
"Thank you." She turned back to the stove and tilted the pan, evenly coating the bottom with the melting cube of butter. "It would make me happy if I could help out a bit."
"Well, alright.", you said. "I'm happy if you're happy."
"I know." She smiled to herself.
"Cool." You looked at your phone. "Well, I gotta get dressed. I have to be at work in about an hour..."
She took inspiration from you. You would rather die than hurt the ones you loved. She would do the same.
And if it didn't work out, if love lost the battle between LOVE, it would still win the war. She would scuttle the ship before she let it fall into the hands of the enemy, even if it meant she had to go down with it. She would take a bullet for you, even if it was her pulling the trigger.
No matter what happened, her love would protect you.