Chapter 21
"Okay, next we have to put in the flour." Chara read to Frisk, who was mixing the bowl of cookie dough. Chara poured in the flour, which puffed up into Frisk's face. They blinked in surprise, and then started to chuckle.
"You look like a ghost!" Chara laughed. Frisk looked at them with a naughty expression on their face, and then they grabbed a fistful of flour and threw it in Chara's face.
"Hey!" Chara laughed, and then the cookie making fun turned into a flour war. By the time Asgore came back from checking on Alice, the two were covered.
"Aww, you guys made a mess!" Asgore frowned. Chara looked down.
"Sorry, Dad." Chara said, putting their hands behind their back.
"Well, only one thing to do." Asgore grabbed the flour. "Make it a bigger mess!"
"Wait, wh- AHH!" Chara screamed in surprise as Asgore poured the bag over them. Frisk was full out laughing now, an adorable sound. The three played with the flour for a while longer, until they all looked like ghosts. Chara shook flour out of their hair, and it landed on Flowey, who had somehow managed to keep flour off of him up until then.
"Hey!" Flowey shook off the flour. "I'm not that kind of flour!"
"Well, we might want to finish baking, and then you two should get cleaned up." Asgore said.
Do you need help cleaning? Frisk asked.
"No, just go ahead and finish baking, I'll clean it." Asgore waved them off.
"Well, we're almost done, we just need to put it into the oven." Chara said. The two kids put the batter into little balls and put them on a tray, which they then put in the oven.
"Alright, now you two get cleaned up, there's a shower in the room next to where you guys are sleeping." Asgore said as he turned to the flour all over the kitchen, and moved Flowey out of the range of the destruction zone. Frisk and Chara walked upstairs, and Frisk ran to the bathroom and shut the door.
"Hey!" Chara knocked on the door and tried the knob, but it was locked.
"Dammit." They muttered as they went into their room. They closed the door and slid down behind it.
I have to admit, that was fun. They closed their eyes.
"Who...who goes there?" They heard someone say, and then they opened their eyes to someone flashing a knife at them.
"Whoa!" Chara jumped up.
"Oh, i-it's you." Alice said, blushing as she sheepishly put away the knife in one of the pockets of Sans' jacket. "Why are you here?"
"This is Dad's house." Chara retorted. "He's babysitting Frisk and I. Why are you here?"
"Your dad?" Alice frowned. "I thought Sans was…"
"Oh, it's a long story. Sans is my Dunkle." Chara made a mental note to ask Frisk what that meant. Alice looked confused, but seemed to decide not to ask.
"Why are you here?" Chara repeated. Alice looked to the right, and then shrugged.
"I don't know." She lied. Chara narrowed their eyes.
"Alice, just stop right there." Chara said. "'I don't know'?" They mimicked Alice's voice, and then rolled their eyes. "Give me a break. You know. You just don't want ME to know. Is that right?" Alice just stared at them, and looked away after a few seconds. At that moment, Chara knew they were right on the money. "Whatever. It's not important. It's only something that would alarm you enough to pull a knife on whatever person walked into the room." Chara let out a huff, and then left the room before Alice could say anything. They slammed the door behind them and took a shortcut outside.
I need to talk to someone. Or read something. I don't know. Chara sighed and walked to the library, flour falling off of them, bringing back memories of dusting monsters.
It was 4:45 by the time they got to the library, and so they teleported in so that they wouldn't be seen by the librarian. They decided to try to find what was going on with Alice, and so they went into the section talking about dealing with issues like that. They looked through the books, reading a few.
"Mental illness, Cancer, Death in the family...huh?" Chara frowned. "Dealing with Domestic Abuse?" They grabbed the book, and ran to an area behind the bookshelves to read it.
"Low self esteem, frequent injuries, dressing in clothing to hide bruises or scars, afraid of their abuser…" Chara dropped the book. "Why didn't I wonder about that earlier?"
After all, I was like that once too… Chara shivered, recalling their days as Charlotte. We need to talk to her as soon as possible. In fact, I should go back and talk to her. Chara ran to the self checkout and checked out the book. They then walked outside and teleported back to Asgore's house, where they had left. No one was around, but Chara could tell from the sounds in the room that Alice was in there. Taking a breath, they went into the room, shut the door, and turned on the light. Alice was sitting on the bed, hugging Sans' jacket close to her, and she looked up as Chara came in.
"Alice, we need to talk." Chara said simply as they locked the door.
"About what?" Alice asked innocently.
"This." Chara threw the book on the bed. Alice picked it up in confusion, and then frowned when she looked at the title.
"I'm not abused." Alice stated simply, throwing the book back at Chara.
"I never said you were." Chara sat down in front of her. "I just wanted to tell you my story. I told you I would tell you later, right?"
"About how you weren't human, right?" Alice said. "What does this have to do with anything?"
"Yep. This is the story of when I was a human." Chara took a breath. "A very long time ago, I was born as Charlotte Breiner."
"Charlotte Breiner? You're German?" Alice asked.
"Yep." Chara said surprised that Alice could pick that out from their last name. "At least, my grandparents were German. I was born in America. That's not important, though." Chara changed the subject. "My mom died when she gave birth to me, and my dad remarried after a few years. My stepmom was named Meredith Hershal."
"Meredith Hershal? My dad used to know someone named Meredith, back when we first moved here." Alice commented. "I don't know her last name, though." Chara clenched their teeth.
I hope they're not the same person...
"Not long after they married, they had a kid, but the kid died in childbirth. I'm...I'm not sure what exactly had happened back then. Everyone had just told me that my dad had done something bad to Meredith, that he would be going away for a long time for. I can understand. I was only about 3 or 4. " Chara took a breath. "But now that I looked through those books about dealing with stuff, and seeing what matched up, I...I think Meredith accused him of…" Chara couldn't finish the sentence.
"Of what?" Alice frowned. Chara looked at Alice blankly.
I guess whatever abuse she's getting, it's not of that nature.
"Um, I'll tell you later. Anyways, I may not remember him much, but I know my dad could never do anything to hurt her. He loved her, plus he wouldn't hurt a fly. But he was sent to jail for it for life. Even when he would get out, that would still be on his records. She ruined him." Anger filled Chara's voice, and they had to clench their fists. "Before that, Meredith was slowly getting to be mean to me. She would take me out for ice cream, and then scold me harshly for getting multiple flavors of ice cream. It got worse and worse over time, to where when Dad was gone, she would slap me and scream at me. She told me I was a mistake, and that I never should have been born." Chara rubbed their arms. "And yet, she would often times go out of her way to do something nice for me. She would take me to an amusement park, or she would let me do something that she normally wouldn't. I thought that she had changed every time. Like a child." Chara muttered the last part to themselves. "She adopted a boy when I was four. His name was Jonathan, and he was five at the time. He was mute, so we both took classes on how to speak in sign. Meredith joined us." Chara recalled way back when. "After my dad went to jail, Meredith stopped showing mercy. She would frequently demean us, embarrass us, and beat us. She ragged on me for not being girly enough, even though that was because I was never comfortable being referred to as a girl. She constantly called me childish and treated me as if I was and unruly 16 or 17 year old rather than about 10 or so years younger than that. She threatened me constantly, and made a list of rules I had to follow at all times. I was to never go out or read books. Meredith said that reading wasn't ladylike. I could only learn to cook, as she told me a woman's only purpose was to serve men."
"That's horrible!" Alice gasped.
"It was." Chara looked away. "I kept a diary. It was the only thing that was bookish that I was allowed to own. I wrote in it constantly, and hid it from her. It detailed every bit of freedom I had, all the rules I broke." Chara ran their fingers through their hair. "One of the things I wrote about the most was my hair. You see, my hair back then was very long and extremely curly. I loved it. It was the only thing I had control over in my miserable life." Chara smiled sadly.
"What happened to it? It's so short now." Alice asked.
"That's the next thing. You see, something that she always did was excuse her abuse. She told me that everything she did, she did to make me successful in life. If she beat me until I couldn't walk the next day, it was because I had broken a rule. She knocked me out for several days once because she hit me with a wine bottle. That one was for sneaking out." Alice looked away uncomfortably.
Is it working? Will she confess?
"One day, I was in my room. I had a ribbon in my hair and I wore a beautiful dress, that was long sleeved and covered the bruises on my arms. I was putting makeup on a bruise over my eye, and I remember hoping that if I looked cute, maybe that monster wouldn't hit me as hard. Then, Meredith burst into my room, Jonathan in tow. He had been forced to tell her about my diary. She…" Chara took a breath. Alice looked at Chara in worry. "She decided that an ample punishment would be to cut off my hair. All of it. It never grew back right." Chara admitted. "She p-pinned me down on the ground, and took a knife to my hair, cutting it all u-ugly and uneven. She then decided to make me suffer. For the next hour, she beat me with the end of the knife, and cut my skin with the blade. On my arms, my legs, my face, everywhere." Chara took another breath while Alice put her hand to her mouth in horror. "After an hour, I think J-Jonathan realized she was going to k-kill me if I lost any more blood. He tried to stop her by pulling her arm, but instead, she stabbed him in the stomach. I managed to escape out the window, and just run as far as I could while still bleeding. Eventually, I made my way to Mount Ebbot, and I jumped down into the chasm." Alice stared at Chara.
"You were...you wanted to die?" Alice asked.
"Yes. I didn't have anyone else in my life who cared about me." Chara said. "That is, until I fell underground. I met many people. Asriel, and his parents, Asgore and Toriel. I was scared of them at first. After all, the only people I knew very well as family members had all hurt me. I was especially afraid of Toriel." Chara admitted. "But, I found books down there. I was free to do as I pleased. I found a new gender identity that I was comfortable with. I took the name, Chara. I was happy for the first time. But slowly, I felt myself start to hate humanity. The only humans I had known that were still alive were evil. I learned monster history, and by the age of 11, I found a plan to kill all of humanity. I just needed to die. If Azzy took my soul, he would become a powerful creature, more powerful than anything else. That was what I needed for my plan to work." Chara recalled the memories.
"You still wanted to die?" Alice asked quietly.
"Yes. I did. But this time, it was for a good cause. It wasn't because I was on the verge of death anyways and no one would miss me." Chara explained. "This time, it hurt more to realize that I needed to die. Because if I died, I would be hurting my new family."
"Why did you need to die?" Alice asked.
"You remember what Alphys said, right? About colors of souls and Determination levels? Well, I have a very powerful soul. Red, in fact. If a human soul is absorbed with a monster, than that monster becomes all powerful. In any case, back to the plan. I needed a way to die that wasn't conspicuous. But one day, Azzy and I made a pie for Dad. But instead of putting cups of butter, we accidentally put buttercups. We poisoned him on accident. The only thing I could do was laugh. It was better than breaking down because I had hurt my new family. But, it gave me an idea. I could poison myself with buttercups."
"Isn't that painful?" Alice asked.
"Oh, yes it was." Chara decided not to linger on the subject. "I died, and Azzy took my soul. He left the barrier, and laid my body in the flowers, like how I had asked for as my final wish. The humans attacked him, thinking that he had killed me. I tried to get him to fight back, I tried to take control of our body. But he didn't want to fight. My plan, to get 6 human souls to break the barrier, the one that had taken me two years to come up with, all ruined because of him. We both died, and my soul went back into my dead, human body."
"After that, I'm not sure what happened until Frisk went underground. At first, they made friends with everyone. Even those who didn't want to be friends. They freed everyone. I was happy to see them all again. And then, they RESET. This time, they didn't seem to care that they had been friends with everyone in a past timeline. They killed everyone. Toriel, Papyrus, Undyne, Mettaton, Sans, even Asgore and Flowey. I thought, was his my doing? Was I the one who was controlling them, giving them the ure for genocide, much like how I had once felt against the human race? After Frisk killed Flowey and faced me, I saw their eyes. They were open despite the fact that they needed glasses. And Frisk's eyes are brown, although in certain lighting, they can appear reddish. Their eyes were bright red, almost as bright as mine. It was then that I understood. I didn't force them to do this, just like how I thought. It was some sort of celestial being, controlling the two of our actions. All of Frisk's stat increases, just affected me. After all, it was me who was keeping them alive. It was a miracle that I survived falling down, of course Frisk didn't. And so then, I killed Frisk in order to force a true reset. But then, the world died. It was all just...gone. And so, I slowly realized that I needed to take what was left of Frisk's SOUL in order to reset the world. But, I needed to make sure they wanted the world back. After all, if whatever being that was controlling us really wanted everyone dead, they wouldn't come back. And yet, they did. And Frisk traded their SOUL for the world back. That was the timeline before this. And after they completed it and freed everyone again, I bided my time. I wanted to get revenge on humans still. After all, just because that plan failed, didn't mean that I couldn't find another way. And this time would be easier. After all, who would expect a child to kill everyone? And so, two years after the barrier was broken, I took over Frisk's body. But, what I didn't expect was for them to be living with Sans and Toriel. Sans used his magic to throw me around the room, and eventually, he split the soul in half, which created two new souls, one of which was mine, and the other Frisk's. And so, now, I am not a human. I am a demon, one that comes when you call it's name."
"I don't know about that." Alice said quietly, still shocked at Chara's backstory. "You're the nicest demon I've ever known."
"Look, I just wanted to say, whatever you're going through, there's always gonna be someone who knows what you're going through. It sure seems to me like you're an abuse victim, even if you won't admit. But, holding it in won't help you. Please, just let us help you."
Alice took a breath.
*A/N Hey guys!
Today is my birthday! I'm 16 years old now!
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I will see you next time UwU
~Skater