Hello, welcome to my story, and thank you for taking the time to read it! I just wanted to put here that this story is rated M for things such as suicide, rape, and strong language. There will be romance, but I do not ever plan on writing smut for this story. Also, you can go to my profile if you want to know a more detailed summary. Enjoy!
You can't remember how long it's been since you've been underground, let alone if you have ever been anywhere but. You don't even know if you were born underground. Your parents never talked about it.
No one really took the time to document our history or the time spent underground. Humans have given up quite some time ago when it came to returning to the surface.
As a kid, you never really worried about it. With yourself and your twin, you've made a relatively fair amount of friends. Though many humans rarely reproduced anymore in fear of famine, disease, and overcrowding in such a tight space, what you had was enough.
Your family was as loving as they could be with their two children, and even sometimes helped other kids out as much as they could.
You were happy.
There were times where you couldn't eat much at night until your parents made enough money to buy some food. You never really had a lot of clothes or toys to play with. Sometimes it was too cold at night to sleep. But you had your Mom, your dad, and Chara.
You were content.
And even though the school work was sometimes too hard to understand, Chara would help you as much as they could. Sometimes bullies at school would pick on your twin from time to time, but you always had their back.
Life could sometimes be hard, but you were at ease.
…Yet so much has changed since then.
It was hard to go to sleep with the bruises and nightmares that plagued you. The cold air always bit you now that no one was there to hold you at night. The silence somehow became more deafening than your fathers snores, Chara's laughter, and your mothers quiet scolding's. Once Chara left you, your family became something terrifying, but you could never really blame them.
Honestly, it was no one's fault but yours when you got into that argument at school. You never really needed to rile up the situation, but you wanted to prove you were strong enough so no one would bully you or Chara. Even your friends told you to drop it, but you persistent on following through some stupid bet. Your determination was possibly your biggest fault.
It was just some stupid rumor. That's what you kept telling yourself. But many humans grew weary of living underground, and since many parts of Waterfall were blocked off by the Rule to prevent more suicides, many people gossiped about the flowerbed near some ruins.
It's been said that sometimes during the day at a certain time, light would shine through a hole and hit the flower bed at such a beautiful angle. But many people believed it to be a lie. The Rule explained that if there were such a hole, that they would do everything in their power to free humans from the Underground. And though there was a light restriction placed near the ruins, many people never thought about it twice, considering they were a bit dangerous in the first place. Albeit, as kids, those stories seemed to be true.
But to you, it was just some stupid rumor. How many times were you going to keep telling yourself that until you legs stopped shaking?
Whether it was a lie or not, once Chara heard of the dim-witted bet you took on, they raced after you, asking a friend to tell an adult if you didn't come back once school ended. Chara didn't want to get in trouble, but if worse came to worse, they at least wanted to be safe. No matter the outcome, you were probably going to experience the worse scolding of your life.
A smile crept on your lips at that time, remembering how angry Chara could be when you got yourself into trouble. Fights, laziness, and your terrible jokes could never stand up to Chara's wrath. But your twin loved you. Your family used to love you.
You jumped a few gates and slid by some corners until you finally got to a dark, silent, open area with just one bed of flowers illuminated by a ray of lights. You were stunned. It was too beautiful . Walking closer to it, you chuckled slightly, jumping a bit after hearing your echo.
"Heh, they said there was supposed to be some giant hand here to crush you. What a joke." You took a camera out and took a picture of the golden flowers, then looked up for another picture, but what you saw caught you off guard.
Was that… A sun? It was so bright and so warm. You had to squint a bit after realizing the pain it was causing your eyes. After living somewhere where it was always cold and dark, it seem natural to you living in the shadows. Yet, after seeing this, somehow you feel as if you couldn't even live a second without it. Just as quickly as you lost focus, your mind suddenly snapped you back into reality once you heard your name being called.
"C-Chara?" Turning around, you see Chara catching their breath from across the empty space. You became scared, although knowing Chara probably didn't tell your parents, you were just simply more afraid of your twin than them either way. No one else knew how to make you regret doing something stupid or dangerous like Chara did.
"You're in big trouble, you know that right?" Chara huffed in-between words. You were always the more fit between the two of you.
"I-I-I know, b-but there isn't anything even d-dangerous… here…" You try to reason, but you could barely even get a word out of your mouth. Your legs began to shake, and sweat formed on your forehead as Chara took more steps towards you. You wondered if you were going to get hit…
Quickly, you go to your phone to the picture you had taken, your mind trying to think of some excuse to prove how you were safe the entire time, and that Chara needn't worry. The sound of footsteps became closer as you recklessly fumbled with your phone until you heard them stop. You look up, ready to take a hit, only to see Chara's eyes staring at something behind you. As you turn around, Chara began to run towards you, yelling your name in hopes of your safety. Even with how loud you knew the screams where, everything seemed almost muted.
This hand with no flesh, inches from your face, threaten to close in and grab you. You stare through the giant hole in the hand where the sun once was only to see an eerie smile staring back at you. You wanted to move, but your legs wouldn't budge. Your mind told you to run but your eyes stayed locked on that image. It wasn't until you felt something grab your back that you finally made a sound. You became aware of both yours, and Chara's screams. Yet, instead of being pulled up, you felt yourself falling backwards.
It took a second, but you finally understood that Chara pulled you backwards, only to have her forward momentum move right into the space you were just frozen. You fell onto the ground, but quickly picked yourself up.
Ha. Now you can move?
Just as quickly as you could blink, the hand snatched Chara, causing her to scream in pain.
"Frisk, help me!" As you start to yell your twin's name, the ground begins to shake under you, causing you to fall over once more. It took a little longer to stand up this time due to the tremors, but your mind wouldn't stop racing. You didn't know what to do. Whispers found their way into your ears, but you were too scared to make since of them. It became harder to see with the tears streaming down your face, and harder to hear with the shaking as Chara kept calling you name for help. The whispers became louder until you finally recognize one word. Run.
Your fight or flight response kicked in, making it harder to breathe or think coherently. The only thing you could think; the only thing you wanted to do; the only thing you did was run.
You left Chara to die.
You gotten back faster than you had gotten there. With your parents at work, the first thing you do was try to tell a teacher, but they didn't believe you.
You ran to a guard, but they didn't listen to you.
You made yourself run all the way to Hotland. You screamed at the top of your lungs to hope that maybe someone would listen. That the Rule would send guards to help. But it was rather the opposite.
Of course, you realize now the that you were never supposed to find out, and that the Rule was perhaps corrupt. It actually made since now, considering how well they live off compared to many of the other inhabitants in the Underground. Sure, you were a kid, but you felt some dumb not seeing the truth until it was too late. They silenced you. They silenced your parents. Threatening your family, taking away their jobs, forcing you into poverty.
You hate how easily and seamlessly they were able to do so. And how no one around you seemed to have caught on. You hated how your parents lost hope and became so different than what you remember them to be. But you hated yourself the most.
That's why once your parents started beating you, you didn't mind. You felt as if you deserved it. Because, 'maybe if they get their anger out, they'll be able to move on.' You kept telling yourself that considering all the bully's you used to beat up to protect Chara. But it still hurt.
Not only the physical pain they were causing you, but to be hated by someone you loved so dearly tore at you. It made it impossible to forget what happened. The yelling numbed your ears, the constant bruises dulled the pain, but your heart never stopped hurting. You've cried so much, it became hard to speak, not that you ever did anyway. You stopped going to school. You tried to make as much money as you could just to stay alive, but honestly, why where you? To help the parents you kept apologizing to?
You tried not to think about it too much; about killing yourself, since it put too many thought in your head. You even caught yourself drugging yourself from time to time just so you could feel numb to that pain. And when you didn't have the money for it, going back to your parents always made the physical pain take over the mental one. You almost welcomed it at this point. As long as you couldn't feel mentally, you felt just a little better. The mental pain made it harder to sleep at night. It became impossible to close your eyes in fear of seeing that moment again. Although you never physically went back, you always seemed to be next to that flowerbed. It was so warm, so inviting. But you always knew what came next.
At this point, it didn't surprise you once you actually saw it again. Not as bright as it first was, but still an obvious contrast to the life Underground. You step on something and looked down. It was your phone. It wouldn't turn on anymore, but it had been so long, you figured it ran out of power. You look up and see yourself at the flowerbed. It seemed so real, were you actually still dreaming?
The sky above you looked grey, and mist hit your face once you stood in the bed of flowers. It seems that is how they get watered.
Strangely, above you, you see something move and tense up, only to quietly laugh at yourself when you realize it was just a flower, possibly blowing in the wind. Tears began to form in your eyes once you hear the echo come back to your ears. Your voice. It sounded so strange.
"Please," you begin, voice breaking from the strain, "take me away from here. Please just let me die already." But no one answered. You fall to your knees at this point, laughing out loud at your previous comment. After all this time, that's the first thing that comes from your mouth? You were finally broken, crying in the flower bed where all your happiness was taken away from you. Your face was slightly wet from the mist and the tears, but something harder fell onto it. You go to wipe it away, confused when you realized it was water. The rain wasn't falling hard enough for it to hit you like that.
Something then caught your eye from above. You tried squinting, and it looked as if something was staring at you. Memories began to fill your head, but before you got to stand up and walk away, a vine wraps around your neck and drags you up.
Well that's all it seems for the first chapter. I hoped you enjoyed. A few notes though, I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted Chara to be a girl, a boy, or any gender for that matter. But as I wrote, it seemed as if I made her female, so that's what I'm sticking with. Honestly, the gender won't have any effect on the story, so if you want to read Chara as a 'he' go right ahead.
I can't stop you anyways ;_;
Thanks for reading!
I'm unsure how I want to go about this, but here is art for this chapter!
art/Justanothertale-Chpt-1-653618158