"Hello Chara, it's great to see you again…" said a familiar voice.
Chara opened her eyes and got up but couldn't get on her feet. She looked around to see a wide field of red roses with a small bright object in the distance, but only a few feet ahead of her stood something that looked like her but had black hair instead of brown. Chara slowly stood up trying to catch her balance and not fall.
Chara glared at the entity, "Dammit, it's you. I didn't take my medicine before I went to sleep." Chara said.
Chara remembered being in these dreams before, but in only two circumstances. Either her medicine was wearing off or she forgot to take it. She knew that the glowing object would wake her out of these types of "dreams" and will allow her to fix this situation.
Chara started to walk to the bright place eventually passing the entity, it started following her. Chara turned her head and noticed that all the red roses that it was passing were turning black. Then, it spoke up.
"Hey, don't you want to talk? It has been quite a while since I've seen you last. You usually take that medicine on time and that prevents me from ever speaking with you. I've missed our conversations as it does get really boring being alone. I mean, you of all people should know how that feels, right?" It asked.
Chara continued walking while ignoring it. She didn't want to speak to it, she didn't want to acknowledge that it even existed; that it was a part of her. She wished it was gone. It was a horrible part of her life. It single-handily ruined her.
"Remember when we used to be friends when we were younger, we did...well we couldn't do much together, but at least we talked, and we helped each other with complicated problems at school. What ever happened to that? Those were really good days, I miss those days. I really do." said the figure said in a cheery voice.
Chara stopped and with the entity stopping directly after. Chara turned facing towards the figure staring at its bright red eyes, making direct eye contact. Just looking it directly in the eyes sent shivers down her spine.
"You…you know exactly why I take that damn medicine. You know what you did and frankly, I hope you never get a second chance."
The entity gasped "Hey language, imagine if Dad or even Mom heard you say that. They would wash your mouth out with soap and ground you to your room at the same time, but luckily for you, I don't tattle." It said with a smirk.
Chara's entire face turned red with anger. "YOU…" she realized she was about to lose it and stopped herself. She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself.
The entity kept speaking, "While I do know what I did, she completely deserved it. You had no real idea who she actually was. I wouldn't blame you though, you were always the naïve one. Never realizing other another person's true intentions until it was too late."
Chara, barely holding back tears, vividly remembering the incident "She was our friend, our best friend. She was the first person to fully accept BOTH OF US. It took both Mom and Dad longer to come to the realization and acceptance that they had two daughters!"
"Well, what I did wasn't THAT bad."
"YOU…YOU KILLED HER WI-WI-WITH A ROCK!" Chara yelled in anger.
It tilted its head, "That's what I did? I thought she died because of blood loss from me slitting her throat, so I technically didn't kill her."
All this talking made Chara have flashbacks about the incident, she was standing over her best friends bleeding body on the school floor. She tried to cover up her friend's wound with her own shirt trying to keep the blood in. She remembered the dead cold stare her friend gave while she was doing this and the only thing Chara could say was "I'm sorry" repeatedly. When the emergency services got to the school, the ambulance quickly picked up Chara's friend up while the police subdued Chara. She didn't fight back, she was in tears with blood on her hands. Shortly after, they confirmed her death. They didn't get there in time.
After a couple of months of psychiatric therapy, the therapist came to the conclusion that Chara had DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder, while it was something the family already knew, they originally thought nothing about it, just another daughter to them, but the therapist deemed this second personality to be dangerous and for Chara to receive more therapy on top of not being allowed near others without some form of supervision. In addition to that, she was given medication to help "control" her other personality. Something that controlled her life on its own.
Life at school became hell for her. When she was eventually returned to normal classes, but she instantly became an outcast. She wasn't well received before, but now it was clear as day, even with kids screaming and running if she just lightly tapped them. Any friends she did have quickly became more and more distant as time went on, even to the point where they wouldn't even see each other after school. Her originally good grades took a massive hit as well, to the point the school was pressuring her to finish her education somewhere else, she declined as her parents couldn't afford to.
Chara turned away, and walked toward the bright place, at a faster pace than before wanting to be gone of this thing.
"To be fair, you didn't know who she actually was. What she was doing behind your back."
Chara stopped and clenched her fist "NOTHING ABOUT THAT WARRANTS KILLING SOMEONE!" Chara yelled.
Chara regained her composure then looked down at the roses beneath her feet to at all the red roses beneath her. She remembered them being all white, but that was a long time ago.
Chara gave a slight chuckle "The funny part is that whenever you took control of our body, I fully trusted you. You looked like me, talked like me, we even share an extremely similar name, and you said that you would protect me, and that gave me confidence. Confidence that nothing would be able to slow us down, stop us. That we could make it through the world, but I was wrong."
Chara looked up to the figure with a frown while it kept a straight face; not blinking. It opened it's mouth as if it was going to say something, but Chara continued.
"You were always the vocal one. The one that wasn't shy of meeting new people. You got along with people a lot better than I did, but then you took advantage of my trust and did the unthinkable and because of that, just for that reason alone, I can never forgive or even trust you again. Did you even think about literally ANYTHING before you did that? Or did you do it for the hell of it, because of that one choice you did, it has ruined both of our lives. You're ever stuck in the back of my mind to be in a never-ending slumber while I'm forced to take medicine that cost our parents a lot of money, forced to live being a social outcast, am underneath constant surveillance at school, and the hours of therapy I've had to go to just to accept myself again to prevent me from doing horrible things to myself. I will never have a chance at a regular life. I can't make any newer friends, everyone's afraid of me, they all think that one day I might snap and kill them, and the problem won't go away with me moving. This past of mine will follow me forever."
Chara waited for some response, some sign of guilt or remorse from the entity, but while she was speaking, it was whistling and picking at the roses clearly not paying any attention.
"HEY!" Chara yelled angry that it was ignoring her.
The figured stopped whistling and looked at her for a bit before responding.
"Oh, ugh, are they still going on over that? That was, what, two years ago? You would think they would get over that by now."
Chara whispered to herself "Four."
"What?"
"IT WAS FOUR YEARS AGO!"
"That only just proves my point more. They need to get over it. People die every day, but you don't see that weighing down on everyone's conscious. It's just something that happens in life and they need to learn to accept that."
Chara started to cry to see how it responded to a major event in their lives and what it has done to her.
"NOBODY FORGETS A FRICKING MURDER!" Chara yelled with tears going down her rosy red cheeks.
Chara wiped the tears from her face and said in a whisper:
"I wish you would just…I wish…I wish. I wish you would just disappear Kara."
Chara turned around and ran.
"CHARA, WAIT!" Kara yelled as it ran after her.
Chara ran and ran, not looking back. She didn't want to look back. She felt the warmth of the glowing light as she got closer.
"SLOW DOWN, I'M NOT DONE TALKING WITH YOU YET!" It shouted close behind Chara.
Chara opened her irritated eyes, she woke up on the floor, she rubbed her wet eyes. She could hear the wind roaring outside. She opened her phone and read that the time was three in the morning. She put the phone back down and left her room. She walked towards the door that she had seen no one entered yet; she opened the door to be greeted by a small yet, lovely L-shaped kitchen, most of the details was covered in darkness, but she could make out the sink and a small stack of plastic cups. She walked over to the sink and poured herself a cup of water. She walked back to her room with cup in hand and sat on her bed. She turned on the lamp and grabbed her pill bottle. She took her medicine, drank bit of water and laid back down in bed falling asleep soon after to the sound of the roaring wind outside.
"Hey Chara, wake up." said James.
"Ugh, what time is it?" Chara mumbled with her face stuffed in her pillow.
"It's almost noon; we should've left to go set up camp a couple of hours ago." James said.
"Wha…?" Chara asked confused.
"I didn't want to wake you as you seemed to be sleeping well, so I got your stuff packed earlier, all you need to do is get dressed."
"O…k." Chara yawned while rubbing her eyes.
Chara got dressed in her regular outfit and put her stuff in her short's pockets. She walked until she was outside, it was a peaceful, sunny day. No signs of the roaring wind from last night. She looked around until she found her dad waiting on a trail that was behind the house. She got her pack from her dad and started to walk with him down the trail.
"JAMES, CHARA WAIT A SECOND!" Cheryl yelled.
She ran over to the two, when she got to them, she gave both of them hugs and kissed James.
"Please, be safe." Cheryl said.
"We will Cheryl; multiple weather reports around the area said it was going to be sunny all week, so we don't have any chance of being caught in a storm, it's all fine." James replied
"Alright, please take care of Chara and don't go climbing up that mountain, please."
"We won't." He reassured her.
James and Chara walked on the trail nearing the entrance of the woods with Cheryl waving good bye.
"SEE YOU BOTH IN A COUPLE OF DAYS!" Cheryl yelled out to them.
James and Chara walked into the lively woods until they reached the spot that James had marked out. They spent the next couple of hours setting up tents, sleeping bags, a spot to have a campfire, with a couple of chairs to rest in. They were finally ready to start camping and Chara gave a slight smile once again.
