"Are you having fun, Chara?"
"Of course not, you idiot!" They angrily replied.
We were surrounded by snow, there were so many activities we could have partook in...and yet, They did not want to do anything. They were wasting our only opportunity to have some fun outside of the castle, and I was determined to have some fun with them before we returned home "What's wrong with you Chara? You have not done anything yet...are you ill or something?"
"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you!" I did not expect that reply "Why would I ever want to have "fun"? The more I have fun, the more I'll regret leaving this place! Please, Asriel, stop trying to entertain me because you're wasting your time!"
I stayed quiet for a while, I almost decided to leave Them alone and try and have some fun by myself...then an idea popped in my head: I sat on my knees and formed a snowball; I smirked as I suddenly got up and showed it to my sibling, whose expression had darkened a little bit "Oh, is that it? You won't do it." my grin got wider "You won't dare..." even wider "You will regret this."
I tossed the ball at Them, but They managed to avoid it at the last possible second "That's it: you're dead, Asriel!"
I quickly prepared another ball and launched it at Chara while They were still creating theirs: it hit Them right in the head, which prompted a sonorous laugh from me...while I was laughing, another snowball hit my stomach. I knew this meant war.
We played like that for an hour at least, at least until our parents arrived to bring us home: I am still not sure how Mom managed to make us stop, but then again Mom was very...persuasive. When They thought our parents were not looking at us, Chara slapped me in the face "Ouch! What was that for?"
"For lettting me have "fun". Thanks a lot, you idiot..." They tried to look angered, but I knew They were happy under that facade of theirs.
"You are welcome, do not worry..." I said as we returned home.
It took a few minutes to prepare for the voyage: I stuffed a few snacks in my robe and told Frisk to wear winter clothes, as we were going somewhere very cold. She simply took a few clothes that were once theirs: a blue shirt, a green and yellow jacket, brown jeans and brown boots. At first They were a bit angry about it, but They quickly cooled off after I reminded Them that They were dead. Once we thought we were ready, we walked through that dark corridor once more and went through that gigantic gate at the end: there was no turning back now. After yet another corridor, we were met by another huge door: this one, I was sure of it, led to the real Underground.
After spending a few seconds preparing myself emotionally, I opened the gigantic door: I found myself in a snow-covered forest, everywhere I looked there was either the candid white of the snow or the natural brown of the trees' bark. Just as I had expected.
Frisk walked a few steps forward...but she was not having fun at all: in fact, after a few seconds, she pulled her hands over her ears and screamed at the top of her lungs as she dropped to the ground; I did not know what was happening, it reminded me a lot of an anxiety attack...that would have explained what had happened in the Ruins the day prior...but what I was seeing was at least a hundred times worse than what I had witnessed in the past.
As she started hiccuping endlessly, I ran up to her and tried to wake her up from what looked like a living nightmare...to no avail.
Chara advised me *Slap her! It works, usually...*
*I cannot slap her! She is a girl...not to mention she is still a child...* I was scared of hurting her and what scared me even more was that Chara could be trying to manipulate me into doing so.
*You're free to do as you please, Asriel...I'm just saying that talking to her won't do her any good...* maybe They were right...but I could not hurt Frisk!
However, I could not tolerate seeing her like that...so I slapped her anyway on her right cheek: her crying diminished, her hiccuping slowed, her tears were streaming down a bit slower as well. For a second, I thought horrified that I could have hit her too strongly.
She tried to keep her composure as she looked at me in the eyes "That was a bit rough..." exactly what I was afraid of, I did not know how to control my own strength... "...But thanks. I needed it."
"Do not worry, Frisk." I reassured her "But, could you please tell me why are you acting like this?"
"I...I don't..." she was about to burst in tears once more, and I needed to stop her before she could "Frisk, if you want me to help you...you have to tell me what scares you."
"There's...too much...space..." that made me even more confused, but she quickly added "Too much...air...empty spaces...everything here is...too big..." she suffered asthma, but she tried her best to explain herself.
"So, if I got it correctly, you are...afraid of open areas?" she nodded, and I was a bit proud of my deductive skills; however, I still needed to help the human to the best of my abilities "If you are afraid of open areas, then try to concentrate on what's right in front of you. Do not look in the distance and, unless you really have to, do not divert your gaze from the ground." as I told her what she needed to do, she asked me "Can I...can I please hold you hand?"
I was a bit hesitant at first, but I quickly gave the girl my paw to hold: she held it like it were the dearest thing to them in the world, and she quickly returned back to her normal self.
Now that she could finally observe the environment in her vicinity, she finally realized she was not standing on normal grass "Is this...snow? Real snow?"
"Of course, Frisk...why, have you never seen snow before?" I asked her curious.
"I did see snow before...but I never touched it myself...I've always watched it fall to the ground from behind the glass of a window..." she wanted to touch the snow with her hand, I had to crouch to permit her to do so: I looked at her happily as she grabbed as much frozen water as she could and tried to hold it for as long as she could in her palm "It's cold, it's soft, it's delicate...it's wonderful! I've waited so much for this moment...I never thought it would've come..."
She toyed with the snow for a few minutes before I decided it was time to move forward: there was only one passage ahead of us, so there was not much choice as to where to proceed. As we were walking in that dark, snowy forest Frisk told me "You know, since always calling you Asriel got a bit boring, I invented a nickname for you!"
She was excited...but I was not as excited as she was "A nickname...may I ask what nickname you gave me?"
"From now on, I'll be calling you..." she imitated the sound of a drumroll before announcing "My goat-bro!"
"My what?" the thought of her calling me like that every two seconds was unbearable to say the least...I still had to figure out what goats were! But she looked so happy, she really liked that nickname...I told her I was fine with that, which made Chara laugh like They never did *You do realize how ridiculous that nickname is, right? Oh my, I never thought you would've lowered yourself like that just to please a puny, insignificant, ungrateful human...*
*Stop insulting her, Chara!* as I told my sibling that, we carefully avoided stepping on a robust tree branch lying in the road. Frisk insisted that it would have brought us bad luck, and I was no-one to argue the opposite. We traveled for what I believe was ten seconds before we heard a noise coming from behind us: the stick that we did not want to break...broke.
"A-Asriel...sticks don't break by themselves, do they?" Frisk was even more scared than before, if that were possible.
"No, they do not...stay close to me." I invited her to never let go of my hand, and she did not protest at all; I was afraid we were about to be attacked by one, two...maybe dozens of monsters like those in the Ruins: I knew that monsters liked friendly disputes...but I was afraid one of them could have hurt Frisk without even wanting to. Just to be sure, I summoned a few black flames in front of us in case someone did ambush us.
We sped up our walking, but we soon heard other noises coming from...everywhere around us: however, whenever I turned to see who was making these noises, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. There was no way we were imagining things...was it?
After a few minutes of running, we saw a ravine blocking the way: the only way to get through it was an old wooden bridge suspended above the abyss. As we were traversing it, I felt something happen to me: I immediately realized I could no longer move, no matter how hard I tried. Frisk had the same problem, she no longer had control over her own body.
As we tried to figure out a way to break free from that invisible bound, I heard a grave voice whisper from behind "Human...don't you know how to greet a new pal? Turn around and shake my hand..." whoever it was, I was sure it was that monster who stalked us in the forest before: I wanted to warn Frisk not to follow the monster's orders, but she had already turned around and was about to shake the monster's hand.
*Well, would you look at that! Seems like that child's going to-* Chara's thoughts were interrupted by a fake farting noise, similar to the ones coming from those whoopee cushions my classmates at school used to pull pranks on their teachers *...To...to...what the heck was that?*
I realized I could move once again, so I immediately turned around and discovered who the monsters we were dealing with was: a skeleton monster, an unusual species as far as I knew; he was short, slightly higher than Frisk to be precise, he wore a blue jacket, black shorts and pink slippers...
*Who would ever dress like that in this freezing weather!* I yelled in my head, earning no reply from my sibling. His empty eyesockets had white lights perpetually glowing within them: I imagined those lights acted as eyes for him. What unsettled me the most was his huge, almost creepy grin that was like stuck on his face.
"Heheh...the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. It never gets old." when he spoke, his mouth did not move. That made him even more unsettling.
He let go of Frisk's hand revealing precisely what I expected: an orange whoopee cushion; I had not seen such a gadget in years, and that only brought back horrible, embarrassing memories.
"Anyways, you're a human right? I'm Sans, Sans the skeleton." he presented himself.
Frisk chuckled nervously and greeted him "Uh, hello! My name is Frisk, and he is..."
"Don't worry kiddo!" he exclaimed as he got closer to me: he stopped right in front of me, and for a second the lights in his eyesockets disappeared, leaving only obscurity in them " . . ."
I gulped as some kind of unknown fear crushed me like a gigantic boulder made of sins. That only lasted a second, however, as the skeleton's eyes returned to normal soon afterwards as he explained "You're her goat-bro, right? That's how she called you in the forest, after all..."
That sentence made all my fears disappear in an instant...but it also made me much angrier "Yes, about that..." dark flames surrounded the skeleton, encircling it with their dark heat.
"Asriel, could you please stop?" Frisk looked concerned "This isn't the right thing to do at all..."
"H-Hey, is it hot in here or is it just me" the skeleton fanned his skull with his right hand while he used the left one to tug his shirt "I just wanted to warn you about my brother..."
"Your brother?" I decided to calm down a little bit and extinguish the flames: that monster did not look dangerous...despite the sudden outburst of a few seconds earlier.
"Yes, my brother...Papyrus...he's been acting weird lately: he keeps blabbing about "capturing humans" and stuff like that, and he...well, it's not something I would expect from him. He's a nice fella, you know, but...lately, he's acting weird and I'm worried..." the monster looked legitimately scared, his tone had shifted a little and he, whether he could feel it or not, was sweating copiously: I asked Frisk if she believed the skeleton, to which she answered affirmatively.
If what Sans was saying were correct, then... "Tell me, Sans, is your brother...dangerous?" I asked as I cracked my fist.
"Not really, he's the nicest...oh, I think that's him over there." I saw someone...something approaching us at high speed from a distance: what a perfect opportunity to find out how dangerous his brother was "That's great! Let me introduce myself to him..."
Sweat covering his skull in it's entirety, the skeleton tried to keep his composure while suggesting "Uh, why don't you...uh...throw me a bone and..." he pointed at a nearby construction made in wood a few feet ahead; strangely enough, there was a lamp shaped similarly to Frisk near it "...Yeah, why don't you hide behind that conveniently-placed sentry post? It would be great if you could just...hide...for now..."
"Why should I do that?" I inquired, suspicious "You seem to have-"
"Oh, come on Asriel! Think of it as a game of hide-and-seek!" Frisk grabbed me and asked me to hide behind that...sentry post or whatever; careful the skeleton did not notice her, she whispered as quietly as she could "Besides, don't you want to observe this "brother" of his from a distance before meeting him in person?"
*The girl is smart...* They observed.
I sighed as I exclaimed"Fine! I will comply..."
"Thanks buddy, I owe you one..." Sans wiped off the sweat on his forehead with his jacket's sleeve.
I hid behind that extremely small building with Frisk, who had the decency of avoiding to hide behind that weird lamp; for some reason, the whole construction smelled of condiments of all kinds.
As I spied on the main road, something approached Sans at high speed: another skeleton, but this one was much taller than the one we had met before. In all honesty, he was even taller than me! He wore...some kind of uniform: a white chest-plate, an orange scarf, blue boxers, orange gloves and orange boots.
As he spoke to his brother, I had to cover my ears: he was unnecessarily loud...extremely loud in fact "BROTHER! IT'S BEEN A WHOLE DAY AND YOU'RE STILL DOING NOTHING! TODAY, I'VE ASKED YOU AT LEAST TEN TIMES TO HELP ME AND YOU TURNED DOWN ALL MY OFFERS! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CAPTURE A HUMAN IF MY OWN BROTHER DOESN'T HELP ME?"
Sans replied in a cheerful and yet low tone "Sorry Pap, I just...had a ton of work to do."
The tall skeleton cocked an inexistant brow "HOW MUCH WORK WOULD YOU...?" he suddenly realized something "OH NO..."
"I had a skele-ton of work!" evidently, this skeleton had a thing for wordplay: Frisk seemed to like Sans's jokes, while his skeleton (and even I to be honest) did not like them at all "SANS! STOP BEING A LAZYBONES AND HELP ME CAPTURE A HUMAN!"
Sans looked puzzled as he turned towards us "Uh, Pap...why do you want to capture a human again? You know there aren't humans down here, right?"
The tall skeleton did not look worried at all "IT DOESN'T MATTER! THEY'LL FALL DOWN HERE EVENTUALLY!" he then answered the first question "YOU SEE, I NEED A HUMAN TO MAKE LOTS OF FRIENDS!"
Sans was even more confused now, and so was I "Uh, so...you want to capture a human to make them your friend?" he was almost...relieved, in some way.
However, his brother did not want to capture Frisk for that reason "ABSOLUTELY NOT: A FRIEND OF MINE TOLD ME THAT THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE MORE FRIENDS WAS TO CAPTURE A HUMAN!" that sentence made the short skeleton shiver in his clothes "...What friend, Papyrus?"
"OH, HE'S A WONDERGUL GUY I MET A FEW DAYS AGO! I'M SURE YOU TWO WOULD BE GREAT FRIENDS! ANYWAY, I NEED TO GO: MY PUZZLES WON'T PREPARE THEMSELVES!" the skeleton turned around and left the area as quickly as he entered it, disappearing from our sight in mere instants.
"You can come out now: he's not coming back..." Sans assured us as we came out of our hiding spot and approached him slowly; he kept on looking in the direction his brother had run towards "You know, as a brother, I care a lot about Papyrus. He's the most optimistic person I know, and he deserves some happiness every now and then." he turned towards us, a calm look on his face "So, could you do me a favor? Papyrus really wants to see a human so..."
"You want me to let him capture Frisk?" I asked angrily "You do realize how stupid that plan is?"
*Why? That's an amazing idea! We can leave her with that psychopath and-*
*I will never give Frisk to that guy!* I yelled at them.
*Wow, you've sank even deeper than I thought...* They sighed *I guess it's too late for turning back, huh?*
"Hey, I do know it sounds dangerous..." Sans's voice returned me to reality "...But trust me, Pap isn't dangerous at all. You, on the other hand..." his eyesockets turned empty once more as he whispered, making sure Frisk could not hear him "...You're pretty dangerous, I can tell. If I find out you hurt Papyrus...you're gonna have a bad time..." before Frisk could realize what was going on, his eyes had returned to normal as his voice did "So, we have a deal yes or no?"
I was unsure, even a bit scared...I had risked a lot just by arriving there, so I thought there was no point in being afraid of risking now "Fine, I will play by your rules..."
"Thanks. I owe you one." he looked excited...but something about his voice did not completely convince me. I wanted to ask him more questions, but he quickly walked towards the sentry post and hid behind it: when I went looking for him, he had disappeared.
"What the..." I controlled my language fearing for Frisk's reaction "...Anyway, shall we go? There is nothing left for us here."
I grabbed Frisk's hand once more as we kept on walking down the snowy path. Soon, we reached an intersection: we could either keep going forward or deviate to the left. Frisk decided to go to the left, but we soon realized it was a dead end: the path was blocked by a streaming river.
"Frisk, why would you ever want to come here?" I asked, puzzled "There's nothing interesting...unless you want to swim in the river, which I would not recommend..."
"You're wrong!" she exclaimed "Look, there's a fishing pole over there!" she was right, a fishing pole was stuck in the ground near the river; the fishhook was still floating in the river, uncontrolled. Whoever possessed that fishing pole had gone away a long time ago, I imagined.
Still, I did not find that even barely interesting "Again: why would you ever want us to come here?
"I dunno, it looked interesting from afar..." she approached the fishing pole and retracted the fishing line without me authorizing her to "Hey, stop! It is not yours!" I ordered as I approached her as quickly as I could.
My futile attempts to stop the human were for naught, as she managed to recover the hook from the cold water: a picture of an ugly monster was attached to the hook. On the other side of the card were the words "Call me! Here's my number:" followed by a long number I do not nor wish to remember.
"Why should we "call" this monster? Also, what is the purpose of this "number" over here?" I admit, I was very ignorant on modern technology. Sure, lots of gadgets were produced each year back when I was a child...but I had never heard of cellphones before.
"Have you never heard of cellphones before?" the human looked at me confused.
"What is a cellphone?" I asked, curious.
"Well, it's a device that humans commonly use to communicate between themselves from a distance..." what an incredibly detailed and precise description for a cheerful girl like her "...Seriously, have you never seen one before?"
"I am not sure: I am not on pair with the Underground's most recent technological discoveries, but I do know there is a way for human's junk to fall down here, in the Underground. It is very well possible that one of these "cellphones" might have fallen down here and that our scientists have reverse engineered it to adapt it to monsterkind's necessities."
"Wow, and I thought my explanation was technical!" the girl chuckled as she threw the hook with that photo attached to it back in the river "Come on, we've yet to explore this place as we should!"
We walked back to the intersection: this time, we took the road to our left, the one that was originally in front of us. After not even ten seconds of walking, we spotted the two brothers talking with one another: as soon as we got close, they turned towards us.
The tall skeleton could not contain his enthusiasm "OH MY GOD! SANS...IS THAT...A HUMAN?" dear Lord, he was so loud...I wish I had brought headphones when I first exiled myself to the Ruins: they would have made the journey towards the barrier much less troublesome...
*You do realize he just ignored you, right?* Chara was as sharp as ever.
"Pap, I think that's a rock..." the short skeleton pointed somewhere behind us: when I turned around, I saw a small white rock that could have easily been mistaken for a small pile of snow. Originally, I thought that was a joke...until I heard Papyrus sigh "OH...UH...YOU'RE RIGHT..."
"Hey, what's that in front of the rock?" this time, Sans pointed directly at us. Not only was he fooling around with his brother, but also with us. That unnerved me immensely.
"OH MY GOD! SANS...IS THAT...A HUMAN?" Papyrus asked the question exactly like he did a few seconds earlier.
"Yes." his brother simply replied.
"SANS! OH. MY. GOD. I'M SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!" the tall skeleton could not control his excitement: he kept on spinning around as if that were the happiest day of his whole life.
Unhappy to be ignored, I yelled "You're forgetting about someone!" I pointed my right index finger at myself, just to make it clearer.
"OH, WELL. YOU'RE THERE TOO, I SUPPOSE." was he making fun of me or something?
"ANWYAY, GREETINGS, HUMAN AND...UH..." he nervously asked "WHAT'S YOUR NAME AGAIN?"
"How...dare you! My name is-"
"His name is goat-bro." Sans interrupted me "Say hi Pap."
"BUT OF COURSE! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WELCOME YOU IN SNOWDIN! ARE YOU HERE WITH THE HUMAN?" he eyes Frisk suspiciously for a second before turning his attention back to me.
"Of course I am!" I yelled at him; even though I was yelling, my voice was still several tones lower than the skeleton's "Why do you ask?
The lights in Papyrus's eyesockets burned with fiery determination"BECAUSE THAT HUMAN IS MY FIRST-CLASS TICKET TO FRIENDSHIP! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL CAPTURE HER AND CLAIM WHAT IS MINE!" he was not done with his speech: he put his right hand on his chest and added "HOWEVER, CAPTURING YOU NOW WOULDN'T BE FAIR! SO, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, CHALLENGE YOU, HUMAN, TO A PUZZLE DUEL! IF YOU MANAGE TO OVERCOME MY CHALLENGES AND SOLVE MY PUZZLES, I WILL LET YOU LEAVE UNHARMED!"
"Hello? Excuse me? I am still here!" I shouted at the skeleton, who looked at me puzzled "I do not understand what does Frisk has to do with your "happiness" or whatever: you will not lay a finger on her for as long as I live and breath!"
My challenging tone, instead of scaring the monster, made him even more determined "NYEH HEH HEH! I KNEW THIS WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN EASY BUT..." he kept on rambling for a few minutes, and for the whole time I kept asking myself: was that a laugh?
*If it was, it was the worst laugh I have ever heard in my life.* Chara admitted *Can we kill this guy? He's already getting on my nerves...* for once, I was fine with their decision.
"SO, HUMAN, WHAT DO YOU SAY? DO YOU ACCEPT MY CHALLENGE?"
"If we accept?" I asked, sarcastic "We-"
"We accept your challenge!" Frisk shouted at the skeleton; I felt dizzy for a second as the human asked for my approval. I swear, in that moment, I could have killed someone: thankfully, my mind managed to prevail on my instincts just in time to participate in this skeleton's "game".
"WOWIE! I AM SO EXCITED!" he returned to his jumping and spinning "I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR THIS MOMENT!" his expression shifted for a second as he admitted "...A WEEK OR SO TO BE EXACT." he then turned to us once more "ANYWAY, IT'S TIME TO LET THE GAMES BEGIN! PROCEED DOWN THIS TRACK...IF YOU DARE! NYEH HEH HEH!" the tall skeleton was about to leave, but he stopped once he noticed that something was ringing inside his brother's jacket's pocket "A CALL? SANS, YOU NEVER RECEIVE CALLS FROM ANYONE..."
"Nobody's calling me, Pap." the skeleton reassured as he got something out of his pocket: a rectangular, oddly-colored device that Frisk recognized as a "cellphone". She admitted, though, that it looked like an old model to her.
Sans began fiddling with the device until, without warning, his skull became as white and pale as the snow around him: his breath intensified, the lights in his eyesockets disappeared and he looked like he was about to pass out.
"SANS? IS SOMETHING WRONG?" Papyrus asked worried.
"P-Pap...c-could you p-please capture the human by yourself?" odd: Sans never stuttered before. Something dire must have happened "I-I have some t-things I need to do..." he put his phone back in his jacket's pocket and ran behind a nearby tree as fast as he could: as soon as he got behind that tree, he completely disappeared, leaving only us three in that part of the forest.
"WELL, IT SEEMS AS THOUGH MY BROTHER DITCHED ME! HOW UNFAIR!" he stomped the ground below him "DO I REALLY HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING BY MYSELF? WHO CARES: I WILL SHOW HIM I DON'T HAVE TO RELY ON HIM FOR EVERYTHING!" he turned backwards and took off at supersonic speed, rapidly disappearing from our sight.
"I knew this voyage would have been awkward..." I commented "But this...this is plain nonsense!"
"Which isn't bad!" Frisk pointed out "Meeting new people is fun!" she became sad all of a sudden "...At least, I think it is..." that only lasted a second as she quickly regained her usual joyous attitude and reminded me we needed to move on.
As we walked down the snow-covered path in the forest, I kept thinking about how that small skeleton's attitude completely shifted in a few seconds: something bad must have happened indeed for him to act like that.
However, I had to focus on other, more pressing matters: there was a kid that needed to be delivered to the barrier, whoever was waiting for her on the Surface had to be at least a little bit worried of her sudden disappearance.
