You struggle desperately against the ghostly power pinning you in place, but you can't move anything except your mouth. You bite down on your lips to keep from screaming. Or crying. Or cursing. Or all three at once.
"You cannot move your body," Chara whispers in your ear in that matter-of-fact voice they use when they're detaching themself from the situation. You try to turn to them in alarm - they're hovering somewhere above your left shoulder, and you know that tone of voice, it means they're in pain - but you can't move your head at all.
"What's happening?" you ask, wondering through your panic if you can gnaw through the restraints keeping you immobile. Then you ask your brain to shut up, please. Those types of thoughts aren't helping.
Chara rests a hand on your shoulder, and their bowed head ducks into your peripheries. You try to lean into their touch, try to comfort them, but you can't do anything. Cursing looks more and more like an appealing option. Asriel's right there, laughing at you and saying something you're trying desperately to ignore. "Say something?" you ask them in a whisper, searching for a distraction.
"This is the end," they tell you solemnly. They've always had a penchant for melodrama.
You want to kick them - gently, with a pillow taped to your foot or something, but the urge to kick is still there. That was not the sort of uplifting remark you had in mind. Although they were pretty quiet in Snowdin, only commenting on something spectacular, they got much louder by the time you hit the True Lab. Then they used their incorporeality to cheer you up, bouncing off walls and pulling faces at you through screens of freaky text. You wish they'd do that again. You want to see them pull a funny face. You liked the one where they scrunched up their nose and raised their eyebrows up into their bangs. It doesn't look like they're in the mood now.
Chara's completely still now, nearly as immobile as you are. Except instead of Asriel's weird powers holding them in place, it's the weight of their own emotions that drags them down. Their eyes are fixed on Asriel. He's still monologuing, eyes razor-sharp and full of disdain, and even though their Soul is now pretty separate from yours, you can still feel their pain drifting through your link and stabbing at your Soul. It's a pain not unlike the knives they wield. Like the threads of your Soul are coming apart.
They shuffle their feet, stare at their shoes from behind a curtain of their own hair. When they speak, their words are a quiet condemnation. "I left him behind."
"Not your fault," you tell them firmly. You try to put as much warm hug into your next words as possible, try to make your words soft and easily digestible, like pie or chocolate. You're not sure if Asriel can hear you and Chara talking, but you keep your voice as quiet as you can anyway without letting conviction slip from your voice. "You tried to free everyone. That's not your fault."
Chara doesn't respond. Their silence unnerves you more than your stomach can hold and you swallow nervousness like bile. A need to return wells up within you, nearly a physical ache, and you stop struggling. Asriel notices instantly and grins, saying something that would probably make you sad if you were paying attention. But you're not. You screw your eyes shut - another part of your body you can move, thankfully, you don't want to think about the pain in your eyes if you couldn't blink - and reach mentally for your save screen.
Chara hardly even looks up as your Soul reaches desperately for the load button. Even when you reach out as hard as you can, you can do nothing more than gently brush its surface. "Nothing happened."
You muster your determination and try again. You make even less contact this time. Chara repeats the same message of defeat. Asriel's still talking and you're still ignoring him. You have to remind yourself to blink so your eyes don't dry out. You grit your teeth and try again. This time, Chara says nothing.
You feel frustration well up in you, and you try to clench your fists, dig your nails into your palms, but. Your inability to move only sours your mood further. If only you'd seen this sooner, if you'd been kinder or moved faster or thought quicker -
Chara must pick up on your self-recrimination, because they wince a smile at you with a trembling mouth. "It is not your fault," they repeat your own words, and you smile back at them as best you can. It comes out stretched and uncomfortable. It's hard to maintain. You let it drop.
You take a couple of deep breaths. Asriel grins at your obvious frustration. "Hee hee. Are you having fun yet? Or are you finally ready to die?" he taunts, tightening the pressure around your arms, just because he can.
Chara's fingers tighten convulsively around your shoulder. He's so lonely. You can't tell if the pity and pain you're feeling are entirely yours.
"Asriel, please stop," you plead. You want so badly to reach a hand toward him, you can see that he's hurting, but he won't let you. He won't let you help.
His eyes narrow and he laughs at your plea. "Don't you want to be friends?" he suggests, mocking you with his lilting tone. "We can meet each other, over and over and over again, for all time! Doesn't that sound like fun?" With a flick of his finger, he sends stars barrelling toward your eyelids, just because he can - not to do damage, but maybe just to break you a little more.
Chara's hand continues tightening around you. You draw strength from it and keep struggling. "Why are you still trying?" Asriel asks, befuddled and angry. He is the only bright spot against the dark and the void that wraps around his silhouette like a cloak. He clenches his fist and does the star thing again. When you swallow helpless tears, the moisture scrapes over your dry, nervous throat.
"Because I want to help," you manage. You mean it.
"Hee hee!" he laughs. The sound grates against your temples and presses against your skull and you want to rub your forehead but you can't. You think he might've had a nice laugh once, even if he doesn't now. "Haven't you learned by now that you can't escape me?"
"I don't want to. I want to help."
Asriel stares down at you and jolts closer. You try to whip back, but you can't. "You really are an idiot," he says, almost fondly.
"Chara, please help," you beg them, willing them to do something.
Asriel hisses. "Who are you talking to?" he demands, and his eyes are wide and pupils tiny and his teeth are bared. His entire demeanor shifts, like a light switch flicking off.
Chara lets go of your arm, then you're floating, alone. You can't feel or see them, and that simple fact unnerves you more than you'd like to admit. Then, suddenly, determination wells up within you. It's not yours.
"What was that?" Asriel roars, shoving his face inches from yours. Another couple of inches and his horns would have eliminated any need for a haircut for the next several years.
You can feel Chara's fingers tightening around your shoulder, you're going to bruise later, but you don't really care because you can see them smile out of the corner of your eye. They're staring straight at Asriel with their teeth bared. Their expression would look angry, but you know them better than that - that's determination crinkles around their eyes, the set of their mouth, the hunch of their shoulders.
"But maybe, with what little power you have..." Chara whispers right next to your ear. Their voice is low and serious.
Hope burns within you, bright and powerful. "With what little power you have," they repeat, their smile fledging into a grin, "you can save something else."
Their determination mixes with yours. They settle their hands on your shoulders, their palms warm and comforting, and let their Soul float around your head. You push yours out of your body as well. You know that's dumb, Asriel could tear you to pieces with the crunch of his finger, the flick of a toenail, but you want to trust. You're itching to act. To save.
Asriel demands your attention. He's calling Chara's name, but you can't really hear him over the white noise in your ears. You're hovering face-to-face, toe-to-toe with a four-option menu.
But something's different, you see, running your eyes over your options. You can no longer Act.
You can Save.
You start laughing, a semi-hysterical giggle that bursts out of you entirely without the consent of your frontal lobe, and feel tears springing to your eyes. This is it, you think gleefully, you've done it! You can save them!
Chara starts laughing with you. On your shoulders their hands drum a tiny little beat, a sort of anthem that they share with you before leaping into the air, twirling weightlessly around your shoulders. You send your whoops up to accompany them, then reach your Souls out as hard as you can - you can't tell if yours or Chara's is leading toward Asriel but at this point you don't care, you're grinning too hard. "You reach out to Asriel's soul," says Chara's joyous voice from high above you, whooping and sonorous, and they pull off a backflip as they float gracefully above your head.
"What was that?" Asriel asks, terrified. He looks smaller, somehow. It's only when your feet touch the ground below you that you realize you can move now. You take a moment to wiggle your toes against the ground and do a couple of excited hops, then look up toward Chara. They're watching you from above, doing an upside-down pirouette in midair. You wonder if they danced before they died. You shake out your sore hands and bend your wrists and step toward him eagerly, then look up. Chara grins and shoots you a thumbs-up. Together, you shove your Souls a bit closer to Asriel, who flinches back and shrinks even further. He has a body that's more disjointed than his Hyperdeath form. Plus he has wings now, you notice, great sparkly galactic things that would make excellent nightlights. "You called out to your friends," Chara says, and your Soul sings to the monsters you love, a high soaring note of hope.
Six Souls react to yours, then suddenly they're here! Everyone - Mom and Sans and Papyrus, Asgore and Undyne and Alphys. Your mind leaps and soars, and you laugh despite yourself.
It takes you a second to process that something is wrong. You shrug it off, hope still singing through your being. They're here, you can save them. Asriel says something in his gravelly voice - there's smug triumph in his tone and maybe a subtle undercurrent of anxiety, but you don't focus on his words, that itch develops into an urge that propels you forward.
You reach out both of your hands, palms extended to your friends, and think of launching yourself into Toriel's arms. But then Chara lands beside you, and you turn to smile at them.
They don't smile back. They landed hard. Their expression is tight and stony and unhappy, and the juxtaposition of your emotions against theirs sends your core reeling. The room suddenly feels cold, and you wrap your arms around yourself, looking a question at Chara. Even though you can't see anyone's face, it feels like no one is smiling.
"You can only save one," says Chara. They say it like they're repeating a fact someone already told you.
They're staring at their feet again. They do that sometimes - when they persuaded you to kill Toriel when you reclaimed your soul the first time, when you accidentally tripped too hard into a line of Moldsmals because Chara was egging you on. That look, the one you know too well, means something is going to go wrong.
You register, finally, what Asriel said.
Then your brain catches up with your feet, all too abruptly, and you stumble away from them, horrified. You shake your head vigorously. Chara crosses their arms and doesn't look at you. Your breath catches in your throat, and you can feel an acid burning in the back of your throat and in your tear ducts and you hunch your shoulders and you will yourself not to cry. How can you possibly choose? How can you pick?
There is a solution, you tell yourself fervently. There has to be a solution. You just...you just have to find it.
Steeling yourself, you turn to look at your friends. Each Soul pulses with its own brilliant light that illuminates the underside of the nothing shrouding their faces, a strange white blankness that obscures their eyes and their expressions. Still, even in death Papyrus and Sans hover close together, their hands almost touching; even in death Toriel and Asgore's robes pool together at their feet; even in death Undyne plants a foot in front of Alphys, ready to leap forward, and Alphys faces her with a quiet resolution that she buries normally under ramen lids and anime covers.
Your heart is shredding itself to pieces. No need for Asriel to smite you, now - your Soul takes up that mantle readily. You can't pick.
You can't.
Who is most worthy to see the surface? Who is the most deserving of feeling the sun on their skin, of witnessing the birth of the new world?
Toriel would take good care of you, and you would never leave her side again. She would make you cinnamon-butterscotch pie every morning and would teach you politics every evening and wrap you in blankets when you are cold. But she already has so much guilt, and even though she despises Asgore...choosing her would be selfish. She would miss Asgore, and Sans, and she would smile for you even though she would hurt.
Asgore would lead monsterkind. He alone would take command, would unify the two races, would work ceaselessly to ensure that there is no war when the monsters ascend. He alone could teach you to act as ambassador. He alone could make you tea for every meal, could show you how to garden. But Asgore, too, is already broken and bent with the weight of his own grief, his own guilt. Choosing him would help the future of humans and monsters, but it would break his soul.
Sans would make jokes. He would spread brightness and cheer. He would help Grillby build a new establishment, he would help the spiders move their base to the surface. He would keep that mask up, and he would miss his brother, and you wonder like Papyrus does what would happen if Sans didn't have such a cool brother by his side. Given your memories of Chara's genocide, you don't think he would last long. Choosing him would be cruel.
Papyrus would smile, too. He would do everything possible for a lone skeleton to ease the transition for monsterkind into the new world. He would make as much spaghetti as one kitchen could handle, would buy all the cast-iron pots monster gold could afford. He would make puns, and look to his side for an encouragement, and would receive none. You don't know how Papyrus would react to losing his brother, to losing Undyne and all of his friends, but like with Sans...you don't want to know. Another heartless act.
Alphys would do her best. She would invent, and invent, and drown herself in her work. She would invite you to anime nights and you would teach her to make homemade ramen, like your cousins used to. She would show you Mew Mew Kissy Cutie and you would tease her about loving the sequel. She would watch a human show with the spear-wielding heroine in a dress and would cry and you would not know what to do. She would try her best, would try to go back, believing desperately that she could find a solution, but she would fail.
Undyne would smile for you. She would make you spaghetti and warm her hands with you in front of the fire above the mountain, and would even drag herself out into the cold of night to see the stars. She would fight to learn diplomacy, but wind up fighting only herself, instead. She would throw herself into her training, would work herself ragged. She would blame herself, for losing Papyrus and Asgore, and break.
You press your palms into your eyelids. Bright lights spark into the nothing you can see, and your eyes start to burn. It hurts. Tears drip down your face, and you wipe at your nose, for a brief second hating yourself and Asriel and every single monster you cannot save.
No.
You scrub at your eyes, still not opening them fully, and jump when a ghostly hand lands on your shoulder. Chara pats your shoulder awkwardly. It almost makes you laugh.
You still don't want to open your eyes, so you turn a bit and bury your face in their shoulder. They jerk back a bit, surprised, but after a couple of moments they pat both hands uncomfortably on your back. With your forehead buried against their neck, you smile a bit. It's an effort. When Chara speaks, their voice is strong and resolute. "I believe in you."
