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Not with a Bang but with

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:

[REDACTED]

oOo

Note: Hey guys! If you missed the notice on tumblr, I'm doing a video q&a for the fic's upcoming 2nd anniversary. It's already been filmed, but be sure to check out the NWABBW tumblron May 11th to see the video!

oOo

Chara, Frisk was quickly discovering, was frustratingly quiet when she wasn't dropping bombshells. The dead girl stood just a few strides away from Frisk, her hands folded behind her back, with something between a smile and a smirk on her face.

This is the place where lost things go. Apparently she liked being cryptic, too.

"Lost things?" Frisk finally repeated.

"Yes." The smile didn't leave her face.

Frisk flinched suddenly, then shuddered, as something cold seemed to grab at her soul. She plucked the collar of her sweater and looked down at the tiled floor, balling her hands into fists as the feeling in her soul passed. She took a deep breath, as her mum had taught her to do when she woke from a bad dream, then looked up again to face Chara. "I'm saving Sans. I'm gonna find a way to do it, and—" she hesitated. "I think you came here to help me. Right?"

A sharp thunder-clap of static pierced the air. Chara took a stumbling step back, and for a moment Frisk allowed herself a victorious grin. Then the dead girl righted herself, and in place of the placid smile was a look of annoyance. "Maybe so. But if I—well. If I did, then it was to help you. I couldn't care less about some skeleton from Snowdin."

Now it was Frisk's turn to be annoyed. She needed to start looking for a way to help Sans, not stand around in Alphys's lab talking to a dead girl. And if that dead girl wasn't going to help, well, then Frisk would just have to figure it out herself.

She stuck her chin in the air and marched past Chara.

The elevator across Hotland. Up to the MTT Resort, then through the CORE to the castle, then back down to the True Lab.

Chara's feet clicked against the tile as she began to follow, making a resounding echo. "What are you doing?"

Frisk sighed, turning to look at her. "Saving Sans. If the elevator doesn't work then I'll just go the long way round."

"Ah." There was a pause. "I would not go out there unassisted."

"Why not?"

The smirk was back. "See for yourself."

Frisk faltered, then nodded. The automatic doors slid open.

Looking out, there was nothing out of the ordinary at first. Just a stretch of the rough red sand of Hotland with the churning stream of lava and the rickety bridge that cut across it visible just beyond. Then, the scene changed. The landscape was disappearing; before her very eyes it tapered off into bottomless black.

"It's a bit unstable." Chara took a step forward. "Come. It's quite harmless."

And Frisk took a step back. "It doesn't look harmless."

"Maybe so, but I assure you that it is." Chara half-turned, stretching her hand out in invitation. "Walk with me." When Frisk made no move to join her, she sighed. "Perhaps you'd like proof? You came here in your dreams."

"But those were dreams. This is real. I'm…. actually here."

"Yes. But your mind was here. And when it comes to places like the Void, not quite real, it really amounts to the same thing."

"I don't know…"

Chara huffed again in annoyance. "Do you want to help Sans or don't you?"

Frisk faltered. "… yes."

"Then walk with me."

Frisk shuffled her feet. "We can take the castle elevator down to the labs, right? How are we gonna find it if things are… like this?"

"The Underground has not been rearranged by any means. I'm quite confident we will what we—you—are looking for. If that is the castle elevator, I will escort you." Chara's hand remained stretched out in an offer.

"Okay." Finally, Frisk accepted, taking her hand, touching the dead girl for the first time. She'd expected it to be cold, but the hand was warm; too warm, the pale skin rough with callouses and streaked with dirt. Mud was caked under her fingernails.

There was a heavy pause as Chara scrutinised her with narrowed eyes. "You trust me, then."

Frisk shrugged. "Well," she said. "Yeah."

Chara said nothing, just took a step out into the blackness. Frisk followed. The moment she stepped past the door's threshold, the lab disappeared behind them.

The blackness surrounded them now, the absolute nothingness stretching in every direction. There was no surface beneath her feet that Frisk could see or feel, and as she and Chara began to walk, she could not hear the sound of her own footfalls.

"So… how come this something close to the Void?" Frisk spoke up. "Why aren't we just in the Void? It looks like the Void. Or, um, how I think the Void would probably look. I guess."

Chara suddenly let go. Frisk gasped, expecting to fall, arms windmilling on instinct, but nothing happened. Just a few strides ahead, Chara spread out her hands and began to walk backwards.

"An in-between place. Limbo, as it is sometimes known. The nothing outside of all of time and space does not operate by strict rules of outside, simply surrounding the edges of reality. Things were always going to be more complicated than that. And with all the meddling with the timeline that's been going on, the edges between the Void and reality were bound to blur even further."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sans meant to lie to you when said you were dealing with a 'Void leak,' but actually, he was telling the truth. Rather without knowing it, mind. The Void has been bleeding into reality very, very, slowly, ever since I came to the Underground. But I, the first ever anomaly, did not understand the power I had. I created many Save points in the time I was alive, but I never used them. And those other fallen children did not have the Determination you and I possess. So it was you who caused the most damage. You and that flower." Chara's expression soured, and she quickly turned back around, hiding her face. "At any rate, you are still stronger, more Determined. More than I ever was."

Frisk fiddled with the hem of her sweater, realising they'd stopped walking. "Um. I still don't get it."

"That is because I wasn't finished," Chara snapped. Then her voice slid back into its casual, careless tone. "Without the Barrier to keep things in check, the Void has been contaminating reality. Poisoning it." She laughed softly, for some reason.

"You and Sans have been pulled into that in-between place," she continued. "For you see, Doctor Gaster has not truly managed to escape the Void. Not completely. Not yet. He's only been able to make it this far. But even here, it has become much easier for him to find both your souls, and yank you into this place." She paused. "He's been calling you—that's why you've had a pain in your soul of late."

As if on cue, Frisk's soul flared with pain again. This was a new kind of pain, like the sharp prick of a needle. Her soul fluttered wildly, beating like the wings of a frightened small bird. When she glanced down at it, she caught it flash with something white before returning back to its usual red. Then the pain settled.

Frisk plucked at her collar. "… right."

Chara nodded once. "It's an interesting place we're in, actually. When the Void seeps into reality, forming an in-between world, it makes it easier for Doctor Gaster to pull you into his clutches, but it also makes it possible for—how shall I put this—for someone to stumble across it, though thankfully not unwittingly. It must be entered with some sense of intentionality."

Frisk was having a hard time keeping up again. "…does it make it easier to leave?"

"Sometimes," was all Chara said.

Frisk hesitated. She still had so many questions, so thinking of the dreams she'd had, she voiced the first one. "So why did you come looking for me?"

"To help you. We've established that, I believe."

"Yeah, but… why?"

Chara looked forward pointedly. "It gets very boring here. I was bored."

Frisk shrugged. "Okay. Good enough."

They resumed walking. It seemed to Frisk that they weren't walking in any particular direction. The dead girl was a few strides ahead, and Frisk jogged forward a few paces to catch up. "Are you sure we're, um, going the right way? 'cause there's nothing here."

Chara held up an index finger, signalling for Frisk to wait. Then—"Yes. Look."

There was nothing to look at in the endless black, besides Chara. "Look at wha—oh!"

Chara was still walking, but now Frisk saw that small patches of colour blossoming wherever her feet fell, like flowers that she left in her wake. Now Frisk could hear the crunch of coarse sand beneath her shoes, could feel the heat from the lava lake warming the stones. The scene of Hotland began to reshape itself around her, spreading from the patches of ground left in Chara's footsteps.

"You're doing that?" Frisk asked earnestly.

"Partially." For the first time, Frisk saw something a little like a spark in Chara's eyes, but it quickly died down. "Intentionality has a certain influence here. Especially if you've been here as long as I."

A moment longer and soon all of Hotland was restored. Everything but the CORE in the distance, and the elevator up ahead, which would take them to the entrance of the MTT Resort at the Hotland border. These were obscured by the clouds of television snow that Frisk was growing all too familiar with. A thin, low whine emitted from them beneath the crackling static.

Chara stopped abruptly. "We cannot go there. I'm sorry. We shall have to make a detour."

"A detour?" Frisk bit her lip. "Like, go the long way across Hotland?"

"No. We must leave, and Sans must wait." Chara turned sharply on her heel and began to walk back to the main road, toward the bridge. "Hotland is not safe right now."

Frisk struggled to catch up. "What do you mean? What about Sans?"

"I said, he shall have to wait. Later, perhaps, we can find him. For now, we need to leave." Chara stepped onto the bridge. "Those squares of static you see? Those are openings into the Void, and if you were to let them touch you, then you would be gone for good."

"But Sans—"

"If we linger here, then we will not be able to save him at all. Sans will be safe if Doctor Gaster is with him. Safe from the Void, I mean. But you and I must wait." Chara's expression softened a little. "If it brings you comfort, then perhaps we can stay close, in Waterfall."

Frisk faltered, then nodded. "Okay," she said, and followed Chara across the bridge.

oOo

Frisk and Chara trekked through Waterfall in silence. Trailing behind slightly, Frisk took the opportunity to study the other girl more closely. Chara held herself upright, her movements graceful, but there was a certain momentum to her step that Frisk could only hope was a sign she knew what she was doing. But her movements were oddly repetitive, too, looping somehow, like watching a video on repeat.

"I really think we should make a plan," Frisk spoke up.

Chara stopped, turning to look at her. "Ah. One of those. But, of course."

"Do you have one?" Frisk asked hopefully.

"No."

"Oh. Um. Well, maybe we should – "

"There's no point."

"Okay…Well, then, maybe we can go back now and check to see if – "

"We cannot. Not yet." Chara paused, then dropped down to sit on a rock. Frisk joined her, resting her elbows on her knees, and studied the dead girl carefully. Her expression was pensive, but otherwise unreadable as ever. "It isn't safe yet. I can tell," she said after a lengthy pause.

"How?" Frisk frowned.

"You get used to this place," was all Chara said, turning her gaze skyward. Or in the direction of the glittering cave ceiling, anyway.

Frisk looked up, too, thinking back to the first time she'd passed through these caves. Maybe it was just the quiet, but for some reason Waterfall felt more real than the other parts of the Void-infested Underground. All the details were right, right down to the feeling of the air and the touch of muddy earth beneath her feet and the distant plink-plink of water droplets that dripped from the stalactites a few rooms away.

"You must have been really lonely here," Frisk said at long last.

Chara said nothing. Using the toe of her shoes, she took to tracing stick figures out in the mud.

Frisk tried another angle. "The other kids…. they were here, right?"

"The other fallen humans, you mean? Yes. They were. They've been gone for a while now." She raised an eyebrow. "Since the Barrier broke. I suppose they would have thanked you if they'd had the chance, but… well, as I said. They left this place."

"That's good." Frisk inched a little closer. "Did you talk to them while they were here?"

Chara scooted pointedly away. "No."

"Oh. Well… maybe… maybe if they got out of here, you can too."

"I cannot."

"But—"

"Don't mock me," Chara glared. "I am incomplete," she added, after a heavy pause. "I could not leave this place even if I was worthy of it. I told you, this is the place for lost things."

Frisk gave up. "Well…. maybe we can try to make a plan again." She tugged at the hem of her sweater. "I'm really, really worried about Sans. I don't even know what's happening to him and –"

"He's being tortured," Chara supplied, and Frisk looked at her despairingly, feeling another sharp twinge in her soul—a quick flash of pain that was gone the moment it came.

"Please, Chara. I—we've got to help him. We've got to."

A pause—one, two, three seconds—then the other girl sighed heavily. "You trust me," she said, her words laced with caution. "You truly trust me."

"Well," Frisk shrugged. "Yeah."

"But why? I've given you no reason to. I've done nothing to help you. I've told you nothing about myself or my intentions. How do you know I'm not siding with Gaster? I could be leading you astray, for all you know."

"I trust you," Frisk offered. "You saved me from the openings to the Void."

Chara smirked a little. "Well. Perhaps I only did that because you annoy me, and I'd rather avoid being stuck with you here for all eternity."

"Um," said Frisk, and Chara turned away again.

"You shouldn't trust people like me." A light breeze passed through the cave, shush-shush, and the Echo flowers picked up on the noise and murmured it back, as if the wind had left behind a shadow. Chara stared at the nearest cluster of flowers with a pained expression. "No good will come of it."

"Well," Frisk contended, sticking her chin in the air. "I do, so there." She paused. "And anyway… it's not like I have another choice, right?"

At first, Chara said nothing. Then a soft chuckle passed her lips. It escalated into a high giggle. Her whole frame began to shake, she bent double, tears welling in the corners of her eyes, and then she laughed, and kept laughing, louder and louder and more hysterically.

Frisk just stared.

"Forgive me," Chara said when at last she quieted down, after far too long. She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. "I did not expect that. You caught me quite off-guard."

"Expect what?"

Chara ignored her. "You want to make a plan."

"Yes," said Frisk heavily. "Can we please make one now? 'cause if you don't, I'm gonna…. I'm gonna… " She wracked her brains for what she was going to do. "I'm gonna go back to Hotland myself, even if I have to wait until the Void openings disappear. Even if I have to wait, like, a million years."

The dead girl tilted her head to one side. "I see. Well. I have some ideas, but I highly doubt you'll take kindly to them. They are not true solutions anyway—not the kind you're looking for," she added.

Before Frisk had a chance to say anything, Chara went on. "I really don't understand why you're so very insistent on a plan at all. It won't do any good. I've told you so already: you cannot save Sans, and you most certainly cannot stop Doctor Gaster." Her expression darkened. "Here, I'd say, you can trust me. I have gotten to know him, in this place, and he is—he is vile and cruel and cold and he will stop at nothing to get what he wants."

"Determined," Frisk murmured.

Chara gave a half-snort that stopped short as her expression twisted into one of disgust. It was the most passionate Frisk had ever seen her. "Indeed. I did not realise you were funny."

But Frisk had a different takeaway. "You know Doctor Gaster?"

The dead girl stiffened. "In a sense. I certainly wish I didn't."

"But… but you know him enough, right?" Frisk shot to her feet and began to pace in excitement. "So… so maybe you know… something about him that could help. Something I could use to my advantage." That was a good saying, she'd learned it in a book a long time ago.

Chara gazed up at her dispassionately. "And you think that simply having information about him would help you… how, exactly?"

"Well, like when I was going through the Underground. If I knew something about a monster I met, then I'd have a better idea of how to act without having to fight them."

"You still think those rules still apply." Chara's tone was typically flat, but Frisk noticed she was trembling. "They do not. Do you not understand what Gaster means to do? You cannot just… talk to him like you did with your friends." She didn't give Frisk a chance to respond. "He is going to take your soul, take your Determination."

"Oh," said Frisk. She fell quiet for a minute. "Well, I guessed that part."

And another laugh, this one short and biting. Chara seemed to have the capacity for a great number of laughs. "You really understand nothing. I've told you that he will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. And so you have it. That is what I have learned about him, what I have to teach you."

"I just meant – "

Chara spun on her, and for just a moment, her eyes seemed to flash red. "He took it from me, too, you know. He took my Determination."

"What do you – "

In an instant, she yanked her soul into visibility.

Frisk had guessed a dead person's soul might look a bit different to a living person's. She had guessed a being stuck in the Void might change matters, and she could even have guessed the strange nature of Chara's death might mean she'd have a funny-looking soul. But it didn't prepare her for what she saw.

The soul was a mottled, brownish red, the colour of dried blood, and speckled in strange white spots. It was also somewhat disfigured, jagged points jutting out from the smooth edges of its heart shape.

It was suspended there, withered like a piece of overripe fruit hanging too heavy from a branch.

Chara was breathing heavily. "I was the first one he went after. For many years I had thought, I had been so certain, that it was the only thing keeping me bound to this place. But I was wrong. I truly belong here, I deserve nothing better, and Doctor Gaster took away the only power, the only value, I had to my name."

"I'm sorry," Frisk said after a long pause, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she knew they fell about a hundred miles short.

Chara just looked down, and her soul faded out of visibility. "It happened not long after the Barrier broke. I suppose he realised then that he might find a way out of this place, and that he needed Determination to do it. He began with me, and after that he sought little scraps of Determination from those other monsters. The ones who fell with him, a small group of CORE technicians. Collateral damage. They had admired him once, you know, when they were alive. But Doctor Gaster drained their Determination, and they ceased to exist after that, even here. It took him some time to find them all, though. They all hid after what happened to the first."

Frisk thought of the grey monster she'd seen in her vision, the one who'd tried to warn her about Gaster to begin with. She thought of how they had been consumed by the oncoming wall of static. "Oh," was all she said.

"Indeed. I expect he would have gone after the other children, too, if they'd still been here. Whatever happened to them, at least they escaped that."

When Frisk said nothing, Chara nodded once, as if in satisfaction, then looked out onto the road. "Perhaps we should keep moving. I hate this place; it's ever so quiet."

"To Hotland?" Frisk perked up.

"No. The other direction."

"Oh." Frisk couldn't help it. "Snowdin." That would take them even further from Sans. But it wasn't like she had any other choice. "Okay, I guess."

Chara stood up swiftly. "Well, then." She paused, cocking her head to one side as she scrutinised Frisk with narrowed eyes. Then she scoffed quietly. "Forgiving to a fault, you are."

"Huh?" But then Chara was suddenly several strides ahead of her, so that Frisk had to scramble to catch up.

They walked in silence for a very long time—too long, it seemed—and Frisk couldn't help but wonder if Waterfall had really been this large, or if this had something to do with the Void. All the while, Chara continued to walk with the same smooth, repetitive movements.

They crossed a long tunnel of caverns, which Frisk remembered passing through with Monster Kid. Raindrops continued to drip from the cave ceiling at a slow, rhythmic pace. One landed on Frisk's nose, and she blinked in surprise, batting at the air in front of her like a distracted kitten. The rain left massive puddles interspersed across the muddy floor, and Frisk, unable to resist, paused to jump in one, trying to create the biggest splash she could, not caring for a second that her shoes had soaked through. Up ahead, she heard Chara laugh faintly, and looked up to see the dead girl looking at her with a bemused expression.

"I thought this was a serious rescue mission," she said, and Frisk flushed and pressed on.

It wasn't until they'd made their way into the next room that Frisk realised something strange: she had no reflection in the puddles of water. Chara did.

I would not touch the water if I were you.

Frisk swallowed, and sidestepped out of the puddle she was wading through. Her shoes continued to slosh with every step.

A rustling in the tall grass up ahead caught their attention, and they froze on the spot, heads snapping toward the source of the noise in sync.

"Chara," Frisk whispered. "What was that?"

Chara shushed her fiercely.

The grass rustled again. Everything was still for a moment. Then, a Temmie leaped out at them, pouncing from the patch of grass and landing in a tumble of limbs at their feet. It looked up at them and stuck out its tongue, its smile bright and vacant. "h0I! i'm TEmMIe!"

Chara grabbed Frisk by the collar and yanked her forcefully back. She glowered down at the little monster, apparently not one to be swayed. Which wasn't very surprising, really.

For her part, Frisk had only heard passing snippets of the Temmies' supposed treachery; but nobody would tell her what exactly made the bizarre little monsters so terrible. She hadn't encountered one since the day the Barrier broke because Asgore wouldn't let them integrate into a full life on the Surface, so she still found the tales hard to believe. Even so, she made sure to stay a few paces back, her eyes darting between Chara and the Temmie.

The Temmie blinked up at them innocuously, tail wagging. Then it stumbled to its feet, swaying on the spot, and its whole body jerked violently as it gave an abrupt cough. It hacked and hacked, like a cat coughing up a hairball. Instead of a hairball, though, it brought up something else—a small, flickering cloud of television snow that produced a faint crackling hiss. The Temmie blinked again, then turned and disappeared in the tall grass, the ball of static vanishing along with it.

Frisk stared after it. "What was that? What was wrong with—"

"Void residue," said Chara. "Nothing more."

"What—oh." Frisk shivered, puzzling it out. "If you touch the static…. "

"Exactly so—very good. You're a fast learner. It does not bode well for the monsters that remained here in the Underground, however."

"Oh," was all Frisk said, again, as she tried not to think of all the monsters, all her friends, who'd decided to stay behind. Old Mr Gerson's shop wasn't far from here, and when the Barrier broke, he'd stubbornly refused to leave his establishment of a thousand years in exchange for the bustle of Surface life. Was he okay? Did he know well enough not to approach mysterious any clouds of static? Possibly, but even Asgore said that Mr Gerson had gone a little funny in the head in his old age.

"Asriel and I were nearly eaten by a horde of Temmies once," Chara said suddenly, snapping Frisk from her thoughts. Her expression was pensive.

Frisk stared, wondering if she'd missed some important piece of context. "What?"

"My fault, of course. I'd roped him into it. I don't even recall what it was I wanted to do in the Temmie Village in the first place. I expect I just wanted to stir up the usual mischief. But what a sight we were when we came back home! Naturally, Asriel burst into tears and reported everything the moment we stepped through the front door. I don't believe I ever saw Mamma so angry." A smile spread across Chara's lips that developed into a soft chuckle. Then she cut herself off abruptly, so abruptly she swayed on the spot. "Well. No matter. Those days are long behind me, and we all know that."

"But you can still think of them, right?" Frisk nudged her.

"There is no point."

"Why not?"

"Because—" Chara's face twisted as she looked like she was about to explain something, then changed her mind. "There just isn't. I cannot go back to those times. I cannot go back to when… I cannot just Reset or reload my last Save point, you know. Not like you can."

"Save point… " Frisk murmured, then she perked up. "Save stars! Oh! That reminds me!"

Chara's eyebrows rose up. "The… Save stars? What about them, pray tell, could be relevant to our present predicament?"

"I saw one in the labs."

"Well—yes, more than one, wasn't it? There's nothing very important about that, you would have seen Save stars all across the Underground. Your Determination is the reason you're in this mess to begin with."

"No." Frisk shook her head, eager. "I don't mean from when I fell. I mean now. When I was here with Sans, before Gaster found us. I saw a Save star."

Chara's expression morphed into one of awe. "You were able to create a Save file? Just recently? Here?"

"I don't know if I Saved my file or not—nothing really happened after. Touched it and everything, though."

"Even so… " Chara shook her head and tilted it to the side, studying the other girl with curiosity, and something a little like pride. "Saving and Reloading, all of that should be impossible here. Certainly I was never able to do it. Well, then, Frisk. Perhaps you're even stronger than I thought."

Frisk frowned. "Is that a good thing?"

Chara's excitement, though, had already retreated back into pensiveness. "I wonder… " she murmured. She clenched and unclenched her fists. "That is—I was only thinking, but, well… Doctor Gaster can drain Determination from a soul. That is how the Extraction Machine works."

"Yeah… "

The dead girl shook her head. "Well. As I said, it's just an idle thought, but I cannot help but think it all the same… it might serve us to have a Determined, yet soulless being on our side. If you follow my meaning."

Frisk narrowed her eyes in thought, then they widened as the realisation struck her. "Oh. Oh!" She bit her lip. "Do you think… he's here?"

"I can think of nowhere else he'd be."

They were coming close to the Snowdin border.

"And—" Frisk tripped over her feet as she tried to keep up with Chara rather than trail behind her—"do you think, do you think he'd help us?"

Chara smirked. "Doubting him, are we? Flowey knows a great deal about the timelines—more than you, certainly, and I would imagine he knows more than even Sans, or myself. It may help, at any rate. A small hope to go on, perhaps, but it's not as if we had very much hope to begin with. I daresay it's cause for celebration."

"Yeah." Frisk nodded thoughtfully. "Plus, you're his sister, so I bet he'd listen—"

Chara spun on her. "That thing is not my brother."

"But he was… Asriel. The last time I saw him, I mean. And even, even if he's Flowey again… I mean, even when he was Flowey, he really missed you. I think he did a lot of that stuff because he missed you. I bet he'd want to help you even more than me—"

"I said, he is not my brother." Chara looked pointedly ahead. "Asriel is gone."

Frisk dropped the subject. "Where do you think we'll find him? The Underground is pretty big."

"Well, were was he the last time you last saw him?" said Chara, as if it were obvious.

"Just outside the Ruins. Where I fell."

"How convenient. We shall continue heading that way, then, though I imagine you'll be wanting to rest by the time we reach the Ruins door. It is still a long journey across Snowdin Town and the old Capital, if you'll recall."

"The Ruins door… " Frisk's voice trailed off, then she broke into a toothy grin. "Okay. Race you!"

Without giving Chara a chance to react, Frisk shot off, feet pounding hard on the slick, muddy earth. It was quickly becoming harder with cold as she neared Snowdin. For a few moments, she thought that she might have actually left Chara behind, and that she'd have to turn back around and fetch her, but just as she was crossing the Snowdin border, a streak of colour shot past her in a blur.

Chara ran with the same grace with which she walked, her movements fluid and easy with none of the flailing awkward limbs of childhood, footfalls landing silently on the snow, somehow avoiding the hidden patches of ice that littered the landscape.

"Hey, no fair!" Not one to be beaten, Frisk tried to pick up the pace, only to slip on a patch of ice and find herself face-first in the snow, her clothing soaked. She heard Chara laugh softly up ahead, but the dead girl wasn't stopping or slowing down. Frisk grit her teeth, took a moment to catch her breath, then picked herself back up and scrambled after her.

They ran down the main road of Snowdin Town. Past Sans and Papyrus' old house, past Grillby's and the turnoff to the ferry. Even though the town was all but dead, and they were in the Void, and Chara was winning easily, Frisk found herself laughing, and the abandoned village didn't seem quite as grim as it had earlier.

They kept on running, out of town and into Snowdin Forest, the path lined by snow-kissed conifers on either side. It wasn't until they'd run past the dogs' sentry stations that it occurred to Frisk she really ought to be tired by now—lungs bursting, muscles in her legs aching, sweat streaking down her back, unable to continue. She was not tired, but now that she let her mind wander enough to notice it, she really was very cold.

But she didn't say anything. It felt good not to talk for a while; she wasn't really used to talking so much. She just kept running, and she tried to think about that, and focus on the now clearly impossible task of beating Chara. So long as she could keep that up, then she wouldn't have to linger too much on Sans, and what Gaster could be doing him right now. It was a little harder not to think about it when she ran past Sans' old sentry station.

Her soul pulsed and twinged, and when she glanced down at her chest, it looked almost whiteish in the half-light. But then her vision cleared, and there it was, the same vibrant red she knew so well.

Before long, she found herself running across the bridge to Snowdin, and with the great stone door to the Ruins in sight, Frisk let herself stumble to a stop, nearly pitching forward as the exhaustion started to catch up with her. After that, it seemed a marathon to walk the remaining few metres to the Ruins door.

Chara was already waiting for her there, leaning against a nearby tree with a smirk on her face. "Slowpoke."

"Cheater," Frisk shot back.

"Cheater? Whatever gave you that idea?"

"You used your Void powers or something," insisted Frisk as she finally reached the door. She all but collapsed against it, turning her face skyward. "Because you're 'part of this place' or whatever you're gonna say. The race wasn't fair."

"Well, pardon me. I'm dead. Surely you could allow me the courtesy of winning a race or two." Chara turned her attention to the Ruins door, stepping forward. "Are you ready? I'll wait for you here."

Frisk squinted up at her. "You're not coming with me?"

"No. You needn't worry. I won't be going anywhere, and you should be quite safe in the old Capital."

"But… why?"

"I'd rather not, and I'll thank you not to press the matter further. I shall wait for you, you know." Her gaze was heavy upon Frisk. "Or don't you trust me?"

Frisk tugged at the hem of her sweater, but picked herself up so that her eyes were level with Chara's. "I do trust you."

"Good. Then there should not be an issue."

"I guess. Fine."

"You've nothing to fear beyond this door," Chara said calmly. "Unless that flower tries attacking you, I suppose, but I find that scenario unlikely."

Frisk turned to the door, pressing a hand to the cool stone. "You really think it'll help to have him with us?"

Silence.

Frisk sighed. "I'm gonna help you too. Not just Sans. Just so you know."

She expected the dead girl to scoff, or reject the very idea. Instead, her expression was impassive. "How noble of you. Saving everyone. Perhaps you're going to try and save Doctor Gaster, too."

Frisk looked away. "Well… see you pretty soon, I guess."

"And you're… quite certain you want to do this?"

Frisk bit her lip, drawing in a deep breath. "I have to be." She shuffled her feet, and pushed on the great Ruins door.