Chapter 10: Second Chances
The sound of whimpers and crying fills my ears. I force open my eyes to figure out what is happening. As I do, I catch a glimpse of a body on the ground with blood all around it. Wait…is this me? Then…where am I? The sound of whimpering becomes louder. Am I…in Asriel? I can feel his soul. I can see through his eyes. I can hear through his ears. Before I have the chance to figure out everything, a scream rings through my ears…or his ears. We both look up to see Toriel standing in the entryway in pure shock. I look down towards Asriel's hands to see if the knife is still there. Thankfully, it isn't, but this scene isn't looking too convincing. Now is my chance. I need to get into his thoughts. I concentrate my mind into his.
"Asriel," I call.
He seems to look around as if the voice were coming from somewhere out there.
"Asriel, listen to me. If we want this to work, you have to talk. You have to tell her everything."
He nods his head to my voice echoing in his mind. I watch everything that happens next. It is very hard to not look at my own lifeless body on the ground beside him. The look on Toriel's face is hard to read. I can see terror, shock, fear, and maybe a little bit of happiness.
"Talk if you want to save me, Asriel," I shout.
"M-mom."
That is the only word he can get out before she comes running towards him.
"Mom get Dr. Alphys. Frisk is seriously hurt," Asriel shouts.
She nods and without another word runs back through the Ruins.
"So, you're the voice in my head," Asriel says.
"I am," I reply.
"So, a-are you d-dead?"
"As of now no, I can still feel my own weight. I chose to leave my body and help you out. I figured you need someone to help you keep your composure at this moment."
"Y-yeah, I've always been a crybaby, haven't I?"
"Well, I wouldn't go that far, but this is something that is serious. I'm so glad it worked."
"I'm not," Asriel shouts, "you can't leave me here all by myself! I can't do this alone. I don't want you to be a part of me…I want you alive."
"If I manage to survive, then sure. If not, I'll always be with you."
A quick moment later, Toriel runs in with Alplys, as well as Sans. She probably used Sans to teleport.
As they all enter the room, Alphys and Sans stare at Asriel in shock. Please Sans, don't kill him. It was my choice.
"Well, what are you standing around for?! If you don't do anything, Frisk is going to die!" Asriel yells.
They appear to snap out of their thoughts and begin working on saving me. Splitting a soul causes a lot of blood loss, so it would take a lot of work to save it. I suddenly feel the pain I felt when I was stabbed once again. I fall to my knees, still inside Asriel's mind. Asriel seems to take notice and becomes worried.
"Fight it Frisk! Stay with me!"
The pain is too much as I collapse completely to the ground and feel my eyes become heavy once again. Is this it? Am I going to die? Am I going to live? Everything went dark once again.
I could hear whispering coming through my ears.
You are filled with PATIENCE.
You are filled with BRAVERY.
You are filled with INTEGRITY.
You are filled with PERSERVEARANCE.
You are filled with KINDNESS.
You are filled with JUSTICE.
Lastly, you are filled with DETERMINATION.
The other souls…they are helping me. They are healing my soul. A warm feeling fills my body as the darkness inside my thoughts disappear. I start to feel the environment around me. I can hear talking, more like shouting around me. I can start to move my body. Everything is coming back to me again. Yep…even the pain. I feel…alive. With another push of strength, I manage to open my eyes. Instead of looking through Asriel, I can see him beside me with tears in his eyes. I use the little amount of strength I have and reach for him. He recognizes my movements and lowers down and takes a hold of my hand. Everything seems to fade in and out as I lose my strength again and black out.
I awake in my own room, feeling stronger than before. I take in my surroundings and notice a familiar face beside the bed.
"Asriel," I say with a weak voice.
He notices my voice and quickly embraces me.
"Hey, hey, easy now. I'm still hurt," I respond with a little laughter.
He loosens up without letting me go. His crying resumes.
"Well, you weren't wrong about being a crybaby," I joke.
After a while, he lets go of me and wipes his tears away.
"Heh, shut up. You would be too if someone you cared about sacrificed their life for you."
"That's true."
"Y-you really did it. I-I thought you were gone. I remember feeling your presence inside of me, but then it left. I-I was afraid that after I felt it leave, that…that you were…"
"Dead?"
"Yeah."
"Hey, I'm just as surprised as you are. You wanna know what helped save me?"
"What?"
"The souls."
"The souls? What souls?"
"The human souls. I felt them give a little of their power to me. It helped me regain my strength. It helped heal my soul."
"Well golly."
"You also helped me too, Asriel."
"I-I did?"
"Yes. You stayed with me the entire time. You called for help, even when meeting mom for the first time. You thought about me first. You held my hand the entire time. You gave me the DETERMINATION I needed to heal my soul. So…thanks."
He responds with a smile.
"So…where is everyone else?" I ask.
"They are in the living room. Toriel called everyone here after we got you into your bed. She is still shocked that I am here. I think Sans is also pretty angry with me because he probably thinks that I killed you just so I could live."
"And he also remembers the previous timelines. Meaning he remembers when you were the God of Hyperdeath. So yeah, he would think that you haven't changed, but I know for a fact that you have."
We both sit in the room in silence for a while.
"So…I guess I should tell the others that you're awake."
"You don't have to do that. I'll come with you."
"No, Frisk, you need to stay in bed. You are in no condition to be moving around. Don't worry, I'll be fine."
*ASRIEL POV*
Okay, focus. All you have to do is say that she is awake. Yeah, this totally isn't awkward speaking to them for the first time in years. Jeez, everyone is here, not only mom and dad, but Sans, Undyne, Papyrus, and Alphys are here too. Oh boy. I don't want to explain everything yet until Frisk is ready. I need her beside me because she can help make my story believable, especially to Sans. I walk into the other room where the gang is waiting anxiously. I take a deep breath and enter the room. Once I do, all eyes are on me.
"She is awake," I say nervously.
Nobody says a word. They just stare at me in shock.
"Well, are you going to see her or not? I'll explain everything momentarily. Stop focusing on me and focus on Frisk."
They all seem to snap out of their gaze and place their attention on Frisk. They all get up and walk to the bedroom, except for mom and dad.
"Asriel, is it really you?" mom asks.
"Yes, it's really me, mom."
She runs over to me and hugs me with tears streaming down her face. I relax a little more and return the motherly embrace.
"Shouldn't you be focused on Frisk right now?"
"Everyone else is with Frisk, so that'll give us some time with you, child."
She lets go of me as I take my attention to my father, who is on his knees and crying as well. I run over to him and embrace him.
"Oh, son, I can't believe it's really you," he says in a weak, but deep voice.
The three of us sit in silence, enjoying each other's presence, probably except for mom and dad towards each other.
"We should really go check in on Frisk. I'm sure she wants to speak with everyone. Same goes for me."
They nod as we head into Frisk's bedroom.
*FRISK POV*
Ugh, why did everyone have to come in at once. I'm stuck here with everyone asking all the questions about what happened. I keep telling everyone that I will explain, but they keep questioning me. Azzy, where the heck are you? Save me!
"Okay everyone, lets give Frisk some space now," Toriel says as she enters the room.
Everyone stops their questioning as mom, dad, and Asriel walk into the room.
She continues, "Now, I know you all have questions, but let's give them a moment to explain what is happening here."
Asriel walks up beside me as I carefully sit up in my bed. We both look at each other and I give him a slight nod. He nods with me and takes a deep breath to calm his nerves.
"So, I bet you are wondering what the heck is going on and how it's possible that I'm standing in front of you right now. To begin, after I died many years ago, by dust was scattered on the flower patch. In one of Alphys' early experiments, she injected DETERMINATION into a flower. I came back to life as a flower, but I had no soul, or at least I thought. I was Flowey the flower because I could not remind myself of my horrible past or let anyone else know who I really am. My life as a flower was awful. I spend many timelines trying to feel love, trying to show affection, but couldn't. I spent many timelines trying to be happy, but I couldn't. Other timelines I became evil and killed everyone again and again. There was no way for me to feel. Then, Frisk came along. In the last timeline, she fought me, numerous times, and came out victorious. I even took the human souls and all the monster souls in the Underground and became powerful, but somehow, she managed to find the real me. She made me feel emotions again. I changed back into my normal self after the fight and released all the souls and even breaking the barrier. However, by releasing those souls, I was left without one, so I turned back into a flower."
Asriel looks over to me as a sign for me to continue.
"One of the reasons I chose to RESET because I wanted to find a way to save him. I forgave him for everything that happened and wanted to find a way to make him have a soul again. I found out that he already has a part of a soul inside of him, which gave him the ability to feel emotions as a flower, but not all of them. I couldn't find any other way to give him a soul, so I gave a part of mine to him so he could live again. Just to make it clear, he didn't try to kill me to take my soul out of his own interest. This was my decision. This was my choice. He was against it, but I made him do it because he deserved a second chance. I didn't care if I died or not. If it meant giving up my life just for him to live again, I would do it. I survived because of the human souls. They gave me some of their powers and it filled me with DETERMINATION. I was able to recover, so now here we both are. I'm alive and Azzy is alive. If I couldn't free all monsters, I at least wanted to free one, and that was him."
Everyone stood in silence while taking in everything that was said. It's a lot to process. Asriel breaks the silence.
"I-I'm sorry for everything I done. Going to the surface in the first place was my fault. If I never went there, I wouldn't need Frisk to save me. I'm also sorry for everything I did in the past."
I grab a hold of his hand to comfort him.
I add in, "I'm also sorry for taking extreme measures like this. There was no other choice and I felt that it was the right decision for me."
After another long pause, Toriel speaks up, "I think we all need a minute to process everything."
Asriel and I look at each other and look back at the gang and nod. With that, all of them left the bedroom, leaving just the two of us.
"How'd I do?" he asked.
I look up at him with a smile, "You did great. How do you feel?"
"I-I don't know…all of this is happening so fast. I mean, I'm literally back to my normal self after being a crazy flower for many years. It's like I just popped into everyone's life after they have already moved on."
"I told you before, they may have moved on, but they have never forgot about you. They are just shocked to see you alive again. It caught them off-guard. It's not a bad thing, just unexpected. They are really happy to see you alive again."
"Really?"
"I'm sure of it."
"Hey, Frisk."
"Yeah?"
"Thanks…for everything. I'm glad to have a sister like you."
"And I'm glad to have a brother like you."
Hello everyone! 2020 is almost over! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. This is not the end of the story! There will be more coming soon! In the meantime, let me know what you think! Hope you all have a fantastic last day of 2020!