Determination is an extremely powerful trait. It can even keep a spirit in the world of the living with nothing else in it. But… if a being that's being held together by nothing but determination, loses their determination… where do they go? Evidently, they go to a forest.
Chara found themself shambling through forest. They didn't remember actually coming to the forest, but they could hear a train leaving behind them, and with how groggy they were, they just assumed they had taken the train and thought nothing off it.
Chara followed the light they saw through the trees, walking forward until they reached a building. It was a large one, bigger than most buildings in the Underground, save for a few in the capital. There was something off about it, but Chara wasn't quite sure what that was, and at the moment, they didn't care. They just continued towards the door of the building. Chara was up to the first step of the building as looked up to the sign above, reading 'Gregory House' in bright yellow letters; that was when Chara's mind jerked awake and they realized why everything that was happened what wrong.
They shouldn't be here. They shouldn't be anywhere. They were dead, even their soul was gone, there was nothing of them left. They had faded from existence after Frisk had helped the monsters leave the Underground, they were all out of determination. They could have reset, but they didn't have it in them, and so had let themself fade from Frisk's mind, from their soul, and from the world entirely.
'So… where is this?' Chara stared up at the Gregory House sign again. They weren't sure what was on the other side of this door. Perhaps this was the afterlife, Chara supposed it could be. But then, Chara didn't have a soul, so how could they have gotten to the afterlife? Purgatory then? No, that still required a soul…Chara sighed. If they didn't exist, they had nothing to lose.
Chara opened the door, and was greeted with the sight of a grimy rat that stood about a foot taller than themself. "Well hello there." He said, a crooked look on his face and a chilling chuckle coming from his mouth.
I'll do everything I can to stick to gender neutral terms, but if I slip and write 'he' or 'she' at some point, please know I'm not doing it on purpose. I had to fix this chapter alone three times and I'm still not certain it's all right. I don't mind starting to use 'he' or 'she', but I know people, especially in the Undertale fandom, get pretty picky about that.