ANOTHER HUMAN

A story of (slightly more) humans and monsters

by Amisia

I sit down on the empty cliff and feel a slight glimpse of presence when Chara sits down beside me. She stretches once and proceeds to look at me expectantly. I ignore her, and look down at my fingers, which I'm nervously chafing. I rub my hands together to try and get the crawling feeling of dust off them. I hate dust. I hate it a lot. Chara, however doesn't seem to mind the dust at all ... and although I will forever hate the dust, I am slowly starting to feel less and less disturbed by her stance on it. I guess I'm getting used to it. Just like I am getting used to it all. This monotony. I rub my hands against eachother again, and I can hear Chara sigh loudly beside me.

"*But it was stuck on your fingers." she says. I can see out of the corner of my eye that her eyes are closed. She's right, though, but that doesn't stop me from trying to get the dust off. There is only one way of really washing it away, I know that.

I turn my head to look at Chara; she has her head turned to the setting sun, her legs are dangling lazily off the side of the cliff. My own legs are held stiffly in place, as close to the side of the cliff as possible. No swinging. I know from unfortunate experience that it hurts to fall off of the cliff, and I don't really want to have it happening again. Chara couldn't care less about falling. There are various possible reasons; I haven't asked her. It could be because she is a ghost. She's actually a ghost that's attached to me, with, to us unknown, magic. So she's practically unable to more more than about 5 meters away from me. I mean, even if she did fall from here, she'd just be stuck in mid-air. She can also hover, doesn't have to be on solid ground, although I know she prefers to be. I don't know why, I haven't asked and I don't intend on doing it.

I'm not even sure if she'd have cared about falling from the cliff, even if she'd still been alive.

So ... I sit still, and Chara swings her legs. Forward. Backwards again. Forward. I turn my glance to my hands again. I don't know how many times I've even RESET anymore. I mean, we've been through every possible "ending" long ago. I lost count a while ago, and even Chara isn't sure how long has passed. We have been re-doing all of my actions over and over for a long time now. It's an endless loop that we can't escape. I am afraid that Chara is getting bored with it. It's never good when something bores Chara.

There's a lot of different ways to get through the UNDERGROUND, and every "route" is drastically different from the others. It may sound morbid, but most of them involve killing some (or many) of the UNDERGROUND's inhabitants. Sometimes even all of them. The dust on my fingers is itching. I'm a pacifist by heart, though, so I obviously don't want to kill anyone. I especially like befriending all the monsters. It feels like the dust is crawling under my skin. Chara hasn't always been here with me. I remember my first journey through the UNDERGROUND - how long has it been? I wouldn't be surprised if it was years - I was all alone, confused and endlessly scared. And when I finally freed the monsters from their prison underground, I was so happy! I had finally done it; I was their hero! I could live with my new goatmom and all my new friends for all eternity! But that's where the loop ended. We would just stand here on the cliff, overlooking the beautiful landscape, and my friends would then slowly leave me, one by one ... until I was all alone again. I was sad and scared. At first I waited. They'd have to come back for me. They didn't. When I tried to get down from the cliff, I fell to my dead and wound up on the little sunny patch of grass on the bottom of the giant hole in the UNDERGROUND again. Starting all over. It was only much later that I learned about my ability to SAVE and RESET. And it was also only much later that the urge started. The urge to ... kill. The urge would grow stronger within me, as it slowly took over my own wishes for love and pacifism.

I met Chara after my very first total mass murder, or as Chara's favourite word for it is: "genocide". When I had grown the right amount of apathy because of my ability to RESET, and had finally done what the urge had been telling me to, by killing every inhabitant of the UNDERGROUND that was in my way. In the end, Chara was there to greet me, telling me that she was the voices in my head, and that she was 'the urge'. And although she maybe wasn't the best company for me (being the lover of absolute chaos with a passion for killing that she is) at least, with her, I wasn't alone anymore. She was with me from that day on. And she's constantly annoyed with me.

And ... although I usually get my way with Chara (resulting in quite the amount of pacifist runs), I must admit that she can be quite persuasive. So after having watched me going through the UNDERGROUND without killing anyone a bunch of times, Chara would start insisting that I started killing more. And as a result, just as I've lost count of my RESETs a long time ago, I've also lost count of the genocides.

I can feel the crawling feeling of depression that always follows me like a (second) ghost whenever we do a kill-all runs. I guess you can say I feel my sins crawling on my back. A flash of blue light catches my eye from within as a skeletal smile turns to dust. The dust is indeed stuck on my fingers until the next RESET. I look down, and force the memories away.

Why do I put up with Chara? Time after time she makes me kill my best friends (and the most real family I've ever had) yet I still like her? Chara has grown to become my friend. And over time, I ... actually just gave in and did what she wanted me to. It's not because any of it really matters anyway, right?. Nobody remembers after the RESETs. And Chara is the only one who's with me through it all.

Over time, we grew closer and closer to each other.

Honestly, I can't even imagine not having Chara with me all the time, anymore. I don't know how or when that happened - but maybe that's just what happens when you have a ghost following you around everywhere. And vice versa. Even if that ghost has some murderous tendencies.

I find myself shrugging at the sun setting on the far horizon. Chara opens her red-glinting eyes and looks at me.

"*What was that for?" I shrug again. She frowns and leans back, resting on her hands which are resting on the cliff behind her. She scans the landscape.

"*So ... when are we gonna RESET?" This whole scanario isn't unusual at all. Every time we put an end to a timeline, we will sit here on this cliff and have a little break before starting all over again. Usually doing it all differently. I will never commit two genocides in a row. It's too much for my mind and for my SOUL, and I'm pretty sure Chara would be too annoying to handle if I did.

Sometimes we're not alone here, but surrounded by loved ones to watch the sunset with. But mostly? It's like this, or at least similar. Just the two of us, completely alone. Covered in dust. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Right now, more. Chara usually doesn't want to stay here for long; I think she hates the Surface or something, or maybe at least just this area.

We know (from experience) that nothing more happens after this point in a timeline. Ever. It's the end of the loop, and we don't know why. And you must trust me: I've tried everything. I've recently started just accepting the fact that there's nothing more to do at this point in a timeline, than to RESET the loop and start over.

I quickly get up, and Chara immediately copies, stretching her arms over her head again. I hear a ghostly 'pop' from her non-existing joints.

"*Let's stop by Toriel's kitchen this time, shall we? I need some of the chocolate that she keeps in the fridge." I roll my eyes at her, not really understanding the chocolate-obsession of hers. I mean, chocolate is great, but not that great.

"Choc-a-holic."

"*Yeah, whatever. She keeps it there for my sake anyway, I'm sure."

I reach out for the RESET. Chara yawns in a very bored manner.

"*Here we fucking go again."

I feel reality shatter around me. Without any warning, I'm lying on a bed of flowers, without the slightest sign of dust. Everything is as it is supposed to be.

Except, not really.

Hi. Amisia the author here.

I hope you liked this first and really short chapter of my very first fanfiction! I already have a couple of other chapters ready if you like this one ... This chapter was really just a short introduction. The real story has yet to start.

Okay, so a short introduction to the story: This is going to be a story of another human falling (or teleported? Nobody knows) down into the UNDERGROUND. That new human just so happens to be a huge fan of Undertale.

The narrator is changing between the other human and Frisk (and sometimes guest-narrators) every time a line breaks the text (or if a new chapter starts).