Chapter One: The Fall
Death was far more painful than I expected it to be. To be entirely honest, death by buttercup poisoning probably wasn't my best idea, but Asriel and I had come up with so many harebrained schemes over the years that death to save monsterkind seemed no more than a game, another escapade to some faraway world where we could be treated as heroes. I could stay immortal, like Asriel, instead of having to confront the harsh reality that I would grow old, and die, and he would stay young, forever. We could happily live on the surface, in coexistence with humans. Dad would make a wonderful ambassador.
But I knew something was going wrong when I finally did eat the buttercups, and rather than being the quick escape that me and Asriel had imagined, it was instead a long, painful, slow death. Asriel and I expected it to take minutes. Instead, it took days, as I floated between the realms of this world and the next. Thankfully, the buttercups worked as intended, and though it was painful, I was still filled with hope that everything would turn out okay. But as both of us know, that's not even close to what happened.
The plan began as we hoped. When Mom and Dad had gone off to Waterfall, to tell the citizens of my death, Asriel and I—well, my body—sneaked under the chain, into the throne room, and beyond, into the glaring light of the barrier. I had only seen it once before in my life, out of curiosity, and I never wished to see it again. But knowing that we could save all monster kind from eternal suffering filled both of us with determination, and so we walked through the barrier and into the sunlight beyond.
The second sign that things were not going as expected was when we reached the village of the humans. Of course I knew about roads, and cars, and mobile phones, but I didn't expect the village to be so huge. I had come from a different one, a smaller one. I wondered how in the world we could become friends with humans if there were so many of them and so few of us. And more importantly, how would Asriel get six souls without enraging the humans?
The answer was, he didn't. I knew Asriel, with my help, was essentially a god, but he refused to fight people, just like his father. Even when we got into practice fights where I avoided his fireballs, he made sure to have any fireballs that were too close to me dissipate into nothing. So I wasn't very surprised when Asriel didn't fight back against the humans, when they saw him carrying my dead body. Speaking of that, it was so weird, seeing my dead body, but not being dead. Asriel was struck with blow after blow. I wanted him to fight back, but he refused. I smiled sadly, knowing him well enough that there was no way I could convince him to fight. And we both knew that despite our godlike powers, we would die. So I accepted our death, and Asriel did too, as we stumbled away.
I was quite surprised when we managed to again walk through the barrier, despite being severely weakened. We—that is, Asriel—hobbled into the garden. He dropped my dead body and collapsed on the ground. Before he died, I imagined telling him one last thing, maybe making that scary face that he loved so much, or cracking one of Mom's jokes, or telling him that I loved him. But there was no time, and Asriel fell away into dust. He was the first monster I had ever seen die.
I hung onto life for a few more seconds, my soul pulsating with some foreign power. But I knew that, like Asriel, I would shatter, and break as well. Before I finally left forever, my SOUL sidled up to Asriel's soul, which still remained because he was a boss monster, and sent as many feelings of warmth and love as we could imagine. Then both of our souls simultaneously shattered, and everything faded to black.
What happened next was somewhat surreal, almost like a dream. I was floating, somewhere and nowhere, and falling to someplace new. It was almost like an extended dream. Then, suddenly, I felt at peace. Like two parts of me had finally found each other again. I smiled, and let go of consciousness entirely.
Dreams are highly inconsistent, and life after death even moreso. My mind jumped from place to place, reliving memories of Asriel and I, and as time passed, jumping to more obscure and random things, like my favorite ice cream flavor on the surface, or an imaginary world where I lived with my imaginary dog and there were rainbows and candy. As time passed, I essentially forgot about Asriel, instead becoming a soulless wisp of memories. And though I wanted to let go, to give up, something inside of my refused to let go. I struggled, and thought no more.
The first thing I truly remember after Asriel died was waking up on a bed of golden flowers.
It was odd, I suppose, and sadly ironic, that even after I died, the only thing in heaven was a large patch of golden flowers. I didn't even have a body. There was no gate, no eternal joy and happiness, but from the look of these flowers, it seemed like I wasn't in hell. At some point, I think I decided to look up, and was instantly blared by sunlight. I hoped that was the way to heaven: that I could just float up and out of my little purgatory and into eternal happiness.
Wait. Eternal happiness?
Then it all came back, in a flash that made me keel over and want to throw up again and again. I didn't deserve heaven! That was for Asriel! And where was that silly goat, anyway? I was suddenly overcome with a sudden worry, that maybe I was in heaven...because Asriel had taken my place and gone to hell for me.
The thought scared me into complete and immediate denial. Of course that couldn't be! And if it was, we'd just switch places, and go off on our respective ways. Maybe Asriel had just taken a little longer to die after my soul had been ripped from him and shattered. He'd be coming along any minute now. I hadn't gone into heaven yet, there was still time to switch spots, he could still get the eternal happiness he deserved! Then I felt a sudden stab of pain, at myself. Asriel died because of me. His family had taken care of me when I had fallen down, and all I did in return was kill him mercilessly. Who knew how Mom and Dad were doing without us? Who knew what the kingdom was doing without us?
I was so caught up in my own worries about Asriel and my parents that I didn't even realize there was another person here with me until they got up and walked right in front of my face. Startled, I jerked back—only to realize that the creature in front of me was a human. A real human. Maybe they had died too, in their own human world, and I supposed it was better to talk to someone than dwell on my own thoughts.
"Hello! My name is Chara. What's your name?"
They made their hands into fancy symbols. I vaguely recognized this from my time on the surface as some form of communication for people who couldn't speak, but I had no idea what they were saying.
"Um, I'm sorry, I don't know that language. Can you speak?"
They shook their head once. Good to know that some signs were still universal.
"Oh. So, how did you die?" I asked.
They looked at me, eyebrows furrowing in confusion, as though I was crazy.
"Wait. Aren't you dead?"
Another head shake.
"Huh. Well, I think I am. I'm waiting for a friend so he can go to heaven."
The human still looked confused, and then looked at the bright light above us and seemed to understand. They shook their head vigorously. I didn't quite understand.
"What do you mean, no? Of course this is heaven. See?" I floated up a few inches to show them that I could, in fact, probably rise up to the light if I wanted to. They looked quite confused, and tried jumping into the air, but couldn't seem to get anywhere. Then, struck by a sudden thought, they tried to grab my hand, only for their hand to pass right through mine. I looked at my hand in shock.
"Huh. I guess an alive person somehow made it here. Wait... have you been stuck here for a while, and you can't get out because you can't float away to heaven?"
They shook their head and pointed up. I had no idea what in the world they could have meant. Then they clasped my arm (or tried to) and started walking towards a dark door that I hadn't seen before. I wondered where it led. If heaven was up...did that make that door hell? If so, it might as well have had a blaring sign on it saying "Chara, go here." I obediently followed the human through the door and out the other side.
In the next room, to my eternal disappointment, I didn't see any burning fires or pits of flames. All I could see—which wasn't much, since the room was very dark, was a little, bright yellow flower. Except this one had a smile. It looked like a monster, but I hadn't even seen a plant monster before, much less a flower. As the human walked towards the flower, the flower began to speak.
"Howdy! I'm Flowey. Flowey the flower. Hmm... You're new to the Underground, aren'tcha?" The human nodded their head vigorously as I recoiled in shock. We were in the Underground? Now that I thought about it...the room we were in earlier looked a lot like the room I fell down into on my first trip. So maybe this human was another fallen human? And my family wouldn't be here anymore: they had moved to New Home. Speaking of them...where was Asriel? Why was I here and not him?
In the meantime, it seemed like the human was busy scrawling a name into the dirt. "F-R-I-S-K" read Flowey out loud. "Your name is Frisk?"
Frisk nodded, smiling. The flower seemed caught off guard, apparently coming to the same conclusion I had: Frisk was mute. But Flowey pressed on, explaining SOUL mode and LOVE to Frisk. I watched him, nodding. I had gotten into my fair share of practice fights against Asriel and other monsters. It was fun, but it really hurt when you got hit by one of his fireballs. At least mom made Butterscotch Pie for us when we were done.
Everything seemed to be going as normal, until Flowey started taking about "friendliness pellets." As soon as they appeared, I knew they would hurt Frisk. I'd been hit with those white projectiles too many times to count. As soon as I saw them, I yelled, "Wait! Those are bullets, not friendliness pellets! They'll hurt you! What are you doing, you idiot flower?"
Frisk looked back at me and nodded, but Flowey didn't even seem to notice that I existed. He even looked perplexed that Frisk had turned around to look at me, almost as if he couldn't see me at all—or hear me. Flowey shot the white projectiles anyway, and the obedient Frisk moved just a step to the left, easily dodging them. Flowey's face contorted into a frown.
"Hey buddy, you missed them. Try again." After Frisk dodged the same set of bullets twice more, with Flowey getting increasingly angry each time, the flower finally seemed to realize that we knew what was going on. Suddenly, his face contorted into some kind of demented grin, and he laughed cruelly as white bullets appeared in a ring around the human and I and started closing in. Suddenly struck by a curiosity, I wondered if I could interact with anything in this world at all. I couldn't move the dirt, as I quickly figured out, but would the bullets hurt me? Figuring that a tiny flower couldn't possibly cause that much damage, I tentatively poked one of the bullets. Nothing happened. It seemed I was truly like a ghost in this world.
Frisk huddled in the center of the ring, which slowly closed in on them. I wished I could help them somehow, but there was nothing I could do. The bullets slowly closed in on all sides, Flowey still maniacally laughing—they were three feet away, then two, then one. When I was sure I couldn't bear to look at the scene any longer, the bullets disappeared, out of nowhere. Flowey's face seemed shocked, for just a second, before a suspiciously familiar fireball came out of the darkness and knocked him over to the side.
And then Mom came out of the darkness.