After about half an hour, Frisk picked up the cell phone Mom had given her. "Does this thing have 2048?" She swiped at the screen.

I shook my head. "All it does is call people."

"Dammit." Frisk looked like she wanted to throw said cell phone across the room. Thankfully, she didn't. "Well, with playing on this phone out of the question, it seems like there's a grand total of nothing to do here."

"You could call Mom."

Frisk gave me a deadpan look. "Yes, tell the deaf girl to use a cell phone. Great thinking, Chara."

"Or rather, I could take control of you and call her."

"No."

"You could tell me what to say."

"Still no."

Okay. There had to be some way for Frisk to let up. Think, think, think…oh! "What if she calls you?"

Frisk hesitated for a moment before relenting with a, "Fine." Success! "You may only take control of me if you have to. If Toriel calls me, then yes, you may take control. But if it isn't absolutely necessary, then my body is mine and only mine."

"What if someone puts a gun to your head and says to let Chara take control or they pull the trigger?" I asked, smirking.

Frisk just gave me a 'Really?' expression. "People don't exactly climb a mountain that's said to make people disappear to go on a hiking trip, you know."

"Jesus Christ, Frisk. It was a joke." I said before I realized the implications of what she'd said. "Wait, what do you-"

Frisk cut me off and went straight into, "Look, Chara, can you please explain all that shit about linked souls now?"

Oh. Okay. So we were pretending she hadn't just implied anything. I sighed and nodded. "There are seven different colors a human soul can be naturally. Different colors represent different qualities, and the color of your soul represents your most dominant quality out of those seven. Orange is bravery. Purple is perseverance. Green is kindness. Light blue is patience. Dark blue is integrity. Yellow is justice. Red is determined. All humans have determination, but people with red souls have the most. You have a red soul, and so do I. When you fell down, those flowers you fell on? That…" I hesitated. "That was my grave."

Frisk sucked in a sharp breath. "Holy shit."

"Yeah. Six other humans have fallen, but none of them had red souls, so they had enough determination to wake me up, and I was stuck with them their whole journey, but it wasn't enough to be able to see and hear me. But you have a red soul, so you have enough. I guess our SOULs wound up linked in the process-well, your SOUL and whatever the hell is left of mine, anyway. SOUL connections are strong enough to transcend physical limitations like your deafness, which is why you can hear me."

"Can I just link my SOUL to everyone on the fucking planet?" Frisk said sarcastically.

"No, that would be too much exertion for your SOUL, and it would probably kill you, or at the very least, severely damage your SOUL. SOULs are pretty much the culmination of our being, and since ours are connected, I can't get very far away from you. And as for the thought-sensing thing, well, one of us has to be trying to either send our thoughts to the other person or know what the other person is thinking."

Frisk nodded. "I think I get it. It's pretty confusing, but I think I get it."

"Hey, Frisk?"

"Yeah?"

I paused for a moment before asking, "What year is it?

"2040." Frisk replied immediately.

"Holy shit."

"What?"

"I fell down 25 years ago."

Frisk's eyes widened. "Damn."

"Well, in any case, I suppose we should just get to the next room and see what this place has for us."

Frisk shrugged. "I guess so." She and I left the room.

In the next room, there was a Froggit, some leaf piles, and another SAVE point. Naturally, Frisk went to the Froggit first. It ribbited a couple times. "Okay." I said. "Let me translate this." I cleared my throat. "Excuse me, human. I have some advice for you about battling monsters. If you act a certain way or fight until you almost defeat them, they might not want to battle you anymore. If a monster does not want to fight you, please…use some mercy, human."

Frisk looked surprised. "It really said all that?" I just nodded. "Damn." Next stop was the SAVE point.

"Playfully crinkling through the leaves fills you with determination. HP fully restored." I said.

"But I didn't playfully crinkle through them." Frisk pointed out.

I held my hands up in an 'I surrender' pose. "I tried, okay? Just SAVE."

Frisk SAVEd. Then she turned on her heel and went through a doorway to the side. In there was a bowl full of candy in bright wrappers of different colors with a sign beside it. "It says 'take one.' Take a piece of candy?" I asked.

Frisk nodded energetically. "Hell yeah!" She carefully took a single candy with a hot pink wrapper.

"You got the Monster Candy." I said. "It has a distinct non-licorice flavor."

Frisk gave me a strange look, unwrapped the candy, and popped it in her mouth. For some SOUL-related reason, I could taste it with her. "You ate the Monster Candy." I said, not wanting to say anything about how it tasted.

Frisk swallowed the candy. "Tastes like licorice." She commented.

There was a moment of silence, and then we both burst out laughing. That was when I noticed something. "Hey, Frisk, look over there!" I gestured over to a corner.

Frisk looked where I was pointing. "Oh!" There was an abandoned backpack in the corner. She headed over to it and picked it up. "This'll be useful." She then headed straight back to the bowl of candy, unzipped the backpack, and started putting candy in.

"How disgusting." I said. Frisk paid me no mind. I tried again. "You feel like the scum of the earth." That was when the bowl fell. "Look at what you've done."

That seemed to bring Frisk back to her senses. "Shit, I ruined it." She dropped to her hands and knees and began to put the candy back. I also noticed her taking some candy out of her backpack and putting it in the bowl. Once she was done, she put the bowl back on the pedestal.

"You like licorice?" I asked.

Frisk shrugged. "I don't get to have candy much-or at all, really-so I take whatever I can get."

My first assumption was that she was on a diet, but I took one look at her thin, bony frame and decided that wasn't it.

So what was it?

She looked to be around my age. By that age, a person should have had some candy, right? At the very least, enough to not empty an entire bowl of it into their bag. Hadn't she experienced Halloween? How about parties?

I was reading too much into things. Maybe her family on the surface ate healthy. Or maybe they were poor. There were plenty of reasons. Besides, she'd said it was 2040. Who knew what had become of the surface? Humanity was probably on the path to eradicating itself. Maybe she'd been raised in a world of war. Or maybe it was the apocalypse!

It disturbed me, how happy I was at the prospect of humanity being wiped out. Maybe I was a demon, just like they'd all said. Only a demon could be like me.

I decided not to think about stuff like that for now. It would only make me upset. And even though I deserved to be upset, Frisk was depending on me to help her, and I couldn't help much if I was thinking about what a terrible person I was.

Frisk turned and left the room. As she was walking through the original room, though, she was stopped by a Whimsun and entered a fight. Her bright red SOUL appeared in front of her chest. "Whimsun approaches meekly!" I exclaimed.

Frisk almost immediately smacked the ACT button, hard. "You can check, terrorize, or console." I said.

"Console." Frisk said. "Ar-" The Whimsun…well, it did the Whimsun thing. Let's just put it that way.

"Halfway through your first word, Whimsun bursts into tears and runs away. YOU WON! You earned 0 XP and 0 gold."

As her soul went back into her chest, Frisk turned to me. "Chara, that's not a win. First off, I didn't get to fucking help the poor Whimsun. Second, I didn't even get anything out of it! So how did I win?"

I shrugged. "Frisk, I've never understood why things work the way they do. Don't ask me."

Frisk shook her head but said, "Okay."

In the next room, it was all fine and good except for the fact that a shitload of floor was cracked to the extreme. "Shit." Frisk and I said in unison. "Looks like there's no getting around this." She stepped as cautiously as possible, but the floor still broke, even under the weight of her tiny body. Seriously, she wasn't much taller than five feet, and I could practically see her bones with how skinny she was. It was almost concerning. Did she have an eating disorder?

I decided not to ask about it. After all, she hadn't asked about my surface life. My life as…her. As Cl-

Realizing where my train of thought was headed, I made the (most likely wise) decision to tune out of my thoughts and bring myself back to reality. Frisk had fallen through the floor, and there were two doorways. Frisk went through the one farther to the right-at least, she tried. A Froggit blocked her, sending her into another fight. "Froggit hopped close!" I said.

Frisk put her hand on the ACT button, somewhat more gently than last time. "You can check, threat, or compliment."

"Compliment." Frisk decided. "Uh…hi, Mr. Froggit. You, um, look very nice today."

"Froggit didn't understand what you said, but was flattered anyway." I said, unable to suppress a giggle.

It was the Froggit's turn then. Its attack was a miniature frog that hopped in Frisk's direction. She flinched away as soon as it got too close. It seemed almost like an instinct. I suppose dodging can be an instinct, but Frisk's dodging seemed more thoughtless than it should have been.

Well, she didn't take any damage, so I wasn't complaining. "Froggit seems reluctant to fight you." I mentioned.

Frisk almost punched the MERCY button. "You can spare, or flee." I said.

"Spare." Frisk sounded firm.

And she did. "YOU WON!" I exclaimed. "You earned 0 XP and 2 gold."

"Finally, I got something out of this!" Frisk commented. With that, she went through the doorway-for real this time-and it brought her back up to her original area, only she was on the other side of the cracked floor. "Success!" She exclaimed. I flashed her a thumbs-up.

In the next room, Frisk's cell phone began ringing. Naturally, she continued on as if nothing was happening. Frustrated, I took every ounce of ghost-ness I had and possessed her body, sending her into ghost form not unlike my own. "Aah! What the hell, Chara?" Frisk demanded.

"Mom's calling you." That was all I said before picking up.

"Hello? This is Toriel." I smiled when I heard Mom's voice. "For no reason in particular, which do you prefer? Cinnamon or butterscotch?" Holy shit, was she…?

"Hang on one second." I said. I took the phone away from my ear and put my hand over the reciever. "Cinnamon or butterscotch?" I asked Frisk.

Frisk shrugged. "I've almost never had either of them. But cinnamon, I guess."

I gave Frisk a single bewildered look. Why cinnamon? Butterscotch was clearly the better choice. "Do you dislike butterscotch?" She shook her head. "Okay." I put my ear back to the phone. "Cinnamon." I reported.

"Oh, I see." Mom said. "Thank you very much! But you do not dislike butterscotch, do you? I know what your preference is, but…would you turn up your nose if you found it on your plate?" She was so making Frisk a pie. Frisk had better fucking share it.

"Nah, I like both." I answered.

"Right, right, I understand. Thank you for being patient, by the way!"

"No problem, Mom." The words slipped out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. I clapped a hand over my mouth, and Frisk's eyes widened.

"Did…did you just call me 'Mom'?"

I glanced at Frisk with a 'Help' expression. "It's fine." She said.

"…yeah. I did." I said into the phone.

"Would that make you happy? To call me 'Mother'?"

"Yeah. I think it would."

"Well, then call me whatever you like!"

The call ended, and we didn't talk anymore about what had just gone down after that. The next puzzle involved a rock and some spikes. Frisk pushed the rock to a sort of plate or whatever that caused the spikes to disappear. She'd barely crossed where the spikes had been when she was stopped by a Froggit. "Froggit hopped close!"

"Again?" Frisk asked.

"Yes. Again." I said simply.

"Okay." Frisk pressed her hand against the ACT button. "Compliment." She said it before I even provided options.

"Froggit didn't understand what you said but was flattered anyway."

"Are these things like a goddamn hive mind?" Frisk asked dryly before she began dodging the attack. It was different this time. Instead of a single frog, there were a bunch of small fly-like creatures. She almost dodged them all, but one of them at the end of the attack grazed her arm, ripping a small hole in her sweater and creating a cut.

"Froggit seems reluctant to fight you." I said.

Frisk pushed the MERCY button. "Spare."

"YOU WON! You earned 0 XP and 2 gold."

Once we were out of the fight, I decided to check Frisk's HP. Best to make sure she wasn't too badly hurt, right?

What I saw shocked me beyond belief.

HP: 8/10

"F-Frisk…" I stammered.

"What?" Frisk asked.

"Wh…why…" I couldn't seem to force the words out. My voice was quiet and breathy. "Why…" All of a sudden, the words seemed to tumble out.

"Why do you only have 10 base HP?!"

I'm really sorry for taking so damn long to update. Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. Please review! =)