We were the best of friends, we were siblings. We understood each other like nobody else did. Or at least they understood me. Maybe I only thought I understood. Who knows. it hardly matters. We just wanted to help. I just wanted to help. I wanted to tell mom and dad, but they told me not to, and I knew they were right. If we told, mom and dad wouldn't understand, and they would stop us. Because they didn't want to do what had to be done.
A human soul and monster soul's power was needed to cross the barrier. Seven human souls were needed to break the barrier. And there was no way they would volunteer, the humans on the surface. They hated us. They locked us away in here in the first place. Even though we just wanted to live in peace in a place where we had space and resources. We would find our own way of providing, too. Farming or something. Mom and dad wouldn't understand. It was up to the two of us. And I said I wouldn't doubt Chara.
I let them down. I let everyone down because I was a coward. Because I couldn't do what needed to be done.
You know the phrase, right? The catchphrase for that empty husk of suffering consciousness left behind? It's kill or be killed? I got that from Chara. They were yelling it at me as we were dying on the surface.
I watched them expire on the bed. We were right near the barrier, so they could see the flowers, they said, but it was all planned out. It was really so mom and dad couldn't stop us. By the time they realized what was going on, we would already be through.
They were in a lot of pain before they died. I assisted. I made tea out of the buttercups. I brought it t to their bedside, in a flower themed, golden rimmed teacup with a saucer to match. They drank the poison I delivered. One they made to make them sick. One I made to finish them off. They asked for "a strong cup of tea," and gave me a look that begged for mercy, even though they tried to hide any pain.
I cried. A lot. Crybaby, you know? Chara teased me about it. I think they wanted to avoid the emotions. They told me to be happy, to smile, because monsterkind was going to be free. And...and they wouldn't be gone...and we would be together forever. Even though Chara's body was going to die, I would absorb their soul, and we would be together. Neither of us really knew what would happen. The idea came from a book, but it just said the absorbed soul would make a powerful being. I tried to break the barrier with them while we were separate. It didn't work. The fusion is greater than the sum of it's parts. Though part of me thinks Chara might have been looking for an excuse to die, or at least didn't try to avoid it when the opportunity arose.
Surrounded by loved ones and flowers, the poison did it's work. Chara breathed their last, and a little red heart floated up, trembling. Before I could tell it what to do, my hand, or paw or whatever, reached out and grabbed it.
I felt determination and feeling like I had never felt before. And I felt heavy, and big, and not quite myself, and I was running out of the barrier and into the open air. And I knew this place, but I didn't. Fields of tall wild grass and flowers for a long ways. I looked down and Chara's lifeless body was in my arms, and I didn't remember picking them up, and something inside said "that's me."
I realized I wasn't just me anymore. I was me and Chara. We were together, two separate, intertwined souls with equal right to control the body we now shared. They wanted to put their body to rest in a particular flower patch on the way to the village. Before we killed six humans. And that, I felt this sense of dread. I didn't want to kill. And...after, when we absorbed the souls to destroy the barrier...we would be me and Chara and six other people, too? They probably wouldn't want to destroy the barrier, this was exactly why they erected it, cause they thought monsters would kill them and-
My worries went a little crazy, but feeling Chara's determination to free everyone calmed those worries. We just had to keep focused on the goal, otherwise, what was the point of that suffering? Of sacrificing their body?
Humans found us on the way. A small group of them, probably on patrol or something. They saw this hulking monster, I was taller than them, I wouldn't have been on my own. They must have assumed I killed the human in my arms, that I was a danger. Which I did...and I was. They called for help and brandished their weapons.
And...I just couldn't do it. I couldn't choose violence. Chara begged me to kill the humans, reminded me that this was what we did this whole plan for. They pleaded with me to let them take control and do the killing, if I couldn't do it, but I wouldn't let them do it either. Chara put up a fight, but ultimately I had more control over that body than they did. They said some hurtful things, but I know it was just out of desperation. Everything was falling apart because I couldn't do it. Everything was slipping through their fingers because I was a coward, because I was too soft.
The internal struggle was very loud...I don't remember much of the actual fight. There were arrows piercing me. I was trying to throw the humans off, but they kept coming. Finally, what brought me back to the world was a spear to the back, which went through my whole body and out the other side, out through my chest, with our souls thrust out on the tip of the spear. White wrapped around red, and the white, my soul, cracked like glass.
At that point I knew I was going to die.
I scooped up Chara's body. They wanted to be buried out here, with the flowers, but this was no place for them to rest. Before I died, I needed to get their body back home.
Even as I retreated, they continued to attack. I could feel my body breaking down. I don't know if Chara was saying anything or not. I was feeling way to many things to process something like that.
It was all I could do to get back across the barrier before I collapsed and scattered across the flowers.