A/N: CHAPTER WARNINGS: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE AND MUTILATION, CHARACTER DEATH, EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, BODY HORROR
Also South Park and other reference(s), see if you can find all of them.
I can't believe how much of positive feedback this fanfic has been getting, I'm so happy ;v;
When I see a positive review when I open up my Gmail it literally makes my day, and it's mostly the reason why this one didn't go on hiatus again. So, thank you all so very much! I almost feel bad for writing this chapter the way I did. Almost ;
Speaking of it, let's roll!
Chapter 7:
Viole(n)t And Red Future
There was, uh, already something wrong with me after the first, I dunno, 6 RESETs. My mind kept trailing off, I started to feel agitated more and more often, I had weird thoughts, Parts of my body felt really itchy at times, and so on. So you can imagine how it went from the fight with Flowey.
My DETERMINATION was getting out of hand. I felt so motivated, but at the same time annoyed. I didn't even have a plan; just to survive for long enough for Sans to come back. Though, multiple times, it occurred to me that it would be easier to just through the damned weed. Nobody would miss it, and it's been nothing but trouble. Just a nasty, sadistic flower.
Once I did it. I went through with it. I snapped out all of the little thing's health points. I felt bad.
And Let me tell you a thing. If you're not a person that finds enjoyment in huge amounts of adrenalin, LOVE is not the thing for you. Love as normal love is okay, but the L-O-V-E is awful. It felt like my stomach was twisting around itself. I forced another RESET.
So it went on. I kept fighting. I kept RESETTING. Each time, I got slightly closer. One time I even heard approaching footsteps, but they weren't quick enough. The fighting was quicker with the newly learnt "Quick Reset", but not quick enough.
And unlike other enemies, Flowey wasn't so easy to defeat. His bullet patterns changed with each RESET, there was no pace to follow. Compared to Flowey, others were about as easy to defeat as sacks of Potatoes.
And the worst part is, Flowey wasn't getting tired. He wasn't getting bored. And unlike other monsters, he wouldn't let me attack. He wouldn't let me talk. He wouldn't let me heal. He wouldn't let me run. He kept his turn going, and going, and going. He trashed me around the walls until they were beaten in, he shot pellets and thorns at me, he stabbed me through and strangled me with his vines, he'd crush and crack my bones in various ways. It was sheer torture.
When I was struck down by the umpteenth time, my SOUL shattering right in front of my own eyes- well, that's the thing.
It should have shattered.
No, instead, it cracked, it shook violently, but stayed together. I felt the urge to get up, to FIGHT, to win.
I somehow managed to get up onto my badly bruised legs and equipped my switchblade. Flowey looked more than pleased. He looked excited. He almost looked ecstatic. Suddenly, my legs didn't hurt anymore. I didn't feel sorry for killing him before anymore. I didn't feel anything but pure rage and DETERMINATION washing over my whole body.
I could see my SOUL, still outside my body, glimmering violet, pulsing light shattering into weird shades alongside the diagonal crack. I could see the countless versions of me, countless broken phantom visions of bodies scattered all across the room. Some of them looked better than the others. One of them still had screaming Sans over it, by several others there were Undyne and Sans, two were left alive; One that was shaking, looking at a dusted blue coat. Other was shaking in a corner with her switchblade thrown across the room, Undyne and Sans by her side, and a cut down weed at the other end of the hallway.
Lingering images of all the past RESETS I've made there, suddenly coming back to haunt me. I should've realized something was wrong. But no, now I'm stuck here, playing Captain Hindsight with you.
I can't remember much more clearly, I wasn't thinking straight. What I can remember though is for every should-have-been fatal hit I saw and felt my own SOUL slowly wash over red. Like it was bleeding from the cracks. Looking back on that, thaaaaaaat should've been the clue number 2. It was refusing to die. It was as sick of RESETS as I was because after all, it was the culmination of my very being.
Though, after it received one last, critical hit it split apart and shattered before my own eyes. Before I knew it I was back in the darkness.
I know what you might be thinking: "Oh, you just RESET then, right?", or "I thought there was no 'darkness' since you learned the Instant RESET, no?"
No, and very unfortunately and obviously, no. I was back in that god-forsaken limbo. I had the DETERMINATION, I just had to reach out, right?
Riiiight?
Well, apparently not.
Back when I still had to go through that hell, I got curious what would happen if I waited. I was tired of the RESETS, one could say I just wanted to let go and die, wait for the death that would never come. To just die and wait for dad to come along. Though, the longer I waited, I began to see some light. Not the bright shining light at the end of the tunnel, but little glimmers of reoccurring light all around me.
I waited some more. Before long I realized that that light were strings. Silver, shining strings, going as far as eye could see in that pit. Now that I look back on it, it was almost like some kind of a forest. After a short while I reached out for one of them, and it hummed on touch. I slid my finger down, it produced a short melody. I tugged on it, it screeched and everything flashed white. I was back at the last "SAVE Point".
This time, I waited. I waited, and waited, and waited. Nothing was happening. No lights were appearing, no tears in timelines to escape to. I felt hopeless. I leaned back and fell into the hold of the darkness.
Though, just then, I saw a thin, white string right behind me. I pushed myself up and looked at it. There was only one left. Had I really died so many times already? Heh, suddenly that "you only live once" motto sounds stupid, eh?
I touched it gently, it hummed as weakly as it shone. I fiddled around with it a bit, I dragged my fingertips across it for as long as I could, listening to the gentle melody of life. That was my last way out, last opportunity. I wanted to cherish it.
Though, after a while, I decided I had no time to mess around any further, and lightly tugged on it. Instead of a screech, it washed over violet, then red, breaking off and shattering into fine powder in my hands. It had been too weak. Its fragile existence wasn't enough to give me one last chance. I felt terrified. I felt truly hopeless. I would remain dead.
My hands shook, wide eyes staring into the nothingness once filled with beautiful bits and pieces of timelines I could crawl into. The red dust fell from my hands slowly, seeping in between my fingers.
Suddenly, I heard a faint, sly voice from behind me.
"Oh wow… I've never seen anyone use up so many timelines…"
My nerves spiked, even though it was a rather gentle tone. Kinda familiar too. I turned to the source, only to find a kid about my age or older. They were wearing a green and yellow shirt with a heart locket around their neck. They wore brown long pants, and I suppose some kind of shoes…? I can't really tell, about anything past ankles blended into the darkness in that place. They had neatly cut short brown hair, russet eyes, rosy cheeks and a small, er… I guess "sympathetic" would be the way to describe that smile. I couldn't really tell if they were a boy or a girl, the voice wasn't really helping. Maybe they were a tomboyish girl…? A boy…? I still can't tell.
I managed something I thought would sound like "who are you?", but I could tell it sounded nothing like that. They just smiled a bit wider.
"I'm no one. I'm just like you." They continued in a voice dripping with sweetness and honesty, "I'm just another SOUL who ran out of timelines to escape to. I'm stuck here, just as you are now.."
So many questions came to my mind; Who were they? How come I've never seen them before? Why didn't they try to escape into one of my timelines? How long were they there?
As if to respond to them, they carried on, not waiting for me to blurt out another nonsensical stutter:
"I've been here for what you could say was decades; time passes very slowly here, as you can tell." they then sighed, "I've seen you before, you poor thing. You've been hurt so many times, mostly by betrayal from others. I've seen you RESETTING, I believed you could make it, so I even cheered you on as you gripped onto those shreds of your own life and strung them into different timelines."
Then it became clear why the voice was so familiar; they've been watching me struggle pathetically through the underground all this time. But one question remained.
"… I'm Chara." They said, putting a hand out to me, "The friend that comes when you call their name."
I carefully put my hand in theirs and they pulled me up.
"I have to say, your life has a nice tune to it. The air around it hums with strength and DETERMINATION. … I used to have it too, but my life was cut short, and so was my brother's."
"What happened..?" my voice was probably flowing with sympathy.
But they just shook their head and put my hands into theirs, and being slightly taller than me looked down into my eyes.
"They hurt me. They hurt my dear brother, all the monsters. The humans I once called my own kind reaped the lives of so many others, fearing such fragile and kind creatures. They were mad. They took my life and my family. They took our freedom and everything we held dear, and monsters now ACT according to that, but I know a way we can fix that. How we can set them all free."
Without missing a beat, I nodded to let them know I'm listening.
"You see, I've been dead for so long, I'm in great pain. But I learned something during that time, the ability of two humans sharing a body."
"B-but, isn't it a rule that only a monster and a human SOUL can fuse, not monster with monster and human with human..?"
"It's a special exception. I can lead you, I can help you free all of them if you just let me, please." They said in the most honest and heartfelt voice I've ever heard. My heart sunk; there was something wrong, but I misunderstood what it was. Another spoiler: HUGE mistake.
I gulped down the biting feeling in my throat and nodded again. Their smile got even wider, to the point that it was getting slightly less natural and half a step more to alarming.
"Excellent." they gripped my hands tighter, and their heart locket started to faintly glow.
The smile kept getting wider, the grip on my hands tighter, the glow of the locket stronger and pressure building up in my chest heavier.
"Ch-Chara," I started panicking pretty fast, but I'd bet you too would if a strange dead kid was crushing your hands and you had a real hard time breathing, "You're really starting to scare me, l-let go of my hands please..?"
I started looking around and it didn't help. No, in fact it made me more aware of the situation and that made things even worse.
I could see Chara's hands shaking slightly from the pressure they put onto my hands. And speaking of those, there was no way they could help. My fingers were blue and numb, and I could swear I heard cracking. It hurt, it hurt so much and they were just smiling widely, so much that it should be anatomically impossible to do so without stretching their face and tearing their lips. And what a surprise, that's exactly what it did. The Russet brown eyes became straight up red and bloodshot, their face pale leaving only their rosy cheeks their original color.
I looked around some more, tugging to get my hands out of the steel grip, but they weren't letting go, and examining my surroundings only, again, made me panic more. I finally realized what was causing the chest pressure.
I saw my SOUL, the little glimmering Violet heart, slowly separating from my body. This was not natural. Nothing about it was. When it was fully out, it felt like I've been dragged into and through a taxing fight, and boy its looks matched the feeling. It was littered with countless cracks on almost every single millimeter, breaking the violet light into various shades and colors. It would've been beautiful if it wasn't A) extremely painful, B) Extremely dangerous and C) Completely nuts.
But no, it didn't stop there. It continued going until it met with the locket.
"You know…" They spoke, they voice distorted like it was two people speaking, "Your life has a nice tune to it. The air around it hums with strength and DETERMINATION.. It's the same as theirs…"
"I've…"
"Always wanted to haveIT."
Their face was dripping, like they were just a painting. The black from their eyelashes slid and dyed their sclera in a terrifying fashion. Next thing it was just plain sliding over their now inhumanly stretched, toothless mouth. Don't ask me how it became like that, I was too busy panicking over the other details to notice. My point is, their face was melting. Like when Monsters absorb too much DETERMINATION. And the feeling they radiated, that sensation in the air.. The one I felt in the last few RESETs. The same one I felt when killing Flowey. It wasn't just the same as it, it was the same.
The moment the locket and my SOUL connected they changed color. It was like ink shot through each one, violet through the little red necklace on Chara's chest and red through the cracked culmination of my very being.
It felt like I was shot through, even though there were no visible wounds on my body. I guess that would make sense, counting how violently it reacted on touch. But no, they didn't give me even a second of rest. Quite the opposite, as I didn't even have enough time to double over before they grabbed me by my shirt's collar and lifter me up, taking my own switchblade and flipping it open, seemingly out of nowhere. I don't know if this makes sense to you, I know that to me it did not. Still doesn't. But this is The Void, isn't it? Nothing makes sense here. The existence of it makes no sense itself.
The next thing I knew, they were staring up at me, their red pupils still persisting the ink-like liquid. I must have looked pretty pathetic and scared, because that's how I felt. Even more so, they seemed to be enjoying it and taking it in. Just me, trashing in panic to no avail, in fear for my petty life.
"Don't worry. I will keep the promise." They chuckled in their polyphonic tone, "They will be 'free', mankind will suffer, I will have a new body."
"And I could have never done it without you."
All I remember were them swinging my own blade across my face, everything going red, then white, accompanied by a distorted screech of a lifeline opening a new timeline.
Now, before you judge me and look for the holes in the story, let me remind you that by the time I got into The Void I felt angry and betrayed, even after Sans apologized, and Chara was the first human I've seen in days, and they were so understanding. I know now that it was a dumb decision to trust them, but back then it wasn't so obvious.
So…
*FIGHT
You see, Mister… I stalled my RESET too much, and now they've made their return…
*Your LOVE increased
I'm sorry I freaked out when I saw you… It was all new to me back then.
LV 5
…..
I guess you're right.
No matter how much I dwell on it now… I can't change the past… Not anymore.
Not…
Anymore…
999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
A/N: THE END?
HHHHHNNNNNGH I WAS HAPPY WITH THIS CHAPTER BUT I'M NOT
I'M NOT OKAY WITH THIS I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS
( I'M STILL GLAD I MADE THAT PUN IN THE TITLE THO I WAITED SINCE THE START TO DO IT )
SO IS THIS THE END?
WILL THIS BE THE FIRST EVER STORY THAT I WRAPPED UP?
WILL IT HAVE A SAD OR A HAPPY ENDING?
FIND OUT IN THE NEXT CHAPTER IF IT EVER HAPPENS?
BYE?
