Chapter 2: Small Shock

The first time Chara's name got pulled, they just froze. People said the reaping was, for the most part, a pure game of fate. Maybe your name gets pulled, maybe not. Of course, the likelihood increased as you grew older, but that should hardly bother a twelve year old like Chara. It was a fair chance for all. And may the odds be ever in your favor! What a bunch of crap.

Mom had woken them early that day. They each got one big slice of pie for breakfast. Mom otherwise always insisted on a healthy meal, no matter how scarce food was. Sometimes, they had to resort to the Underground's own farms to get by. Those times would often be spent eating small pieces of water sausage for breakfast. On a good day, Dad would harvest a few vegetables from his garden and they would have that for dinner, sharing it in big meals with the whole Underground. Dad always knew how to make the scarcest of times feel like a time for celebration. But to be honest, there never was much growing. Most plants needed sunlight, which the cave system simply couldn't offer. So, to have something as special as pie as breakfast should have made Chara weep in joy. Instead the delicious meal just tasted like ashes.

It had become a tradition by now: Baking a pie at the day of the reaping. It began six years ago. Each and every time it was a farewell. Chara wondered if mom realized that.

"I can't wait to see how the judgement hall looks, now that it's fully decorated", Asriel chimed, always the cheerful one.

Mom smiled, though it was strained. "Didn't you see it yesterday, when you helped decorating?"

"Yeah, but I didn't get to stay till the end. Papyrus and Undyne were still busy hanging stuff up when I left."

"Oh my… I didn't realize your dad put those two in charge. Are you sure nothing's damaged?"

"It wasn't last evening."

Chara huffed, taking out their frustration on their poor slice of cake. "Why do we even celebrate it like this? It's not like as if any of the capitol's cameras are working down here. All that makes it outside is Alphy's surveillance tapes."

"My dear child, it's to lighten the mood. Especially today, we all do need some cheering up."

The human child's fork made a loud noise as it connected with their plate. "But there's nothing to cheer for."

"Chara, don't."

"It's murder!"

"Chara, not today! I can't…", a white furred hand moved into Chara's line of sight as Toriel reached for the table to steady herself. "I cannot deal with this today, my child. I'm utterly sorry. I should be strong for you."

Chara bit their lip, looking up. Mom's fur, always well kept, was ruffled, her eyes bloodshot from clearly not enough sleep. Chara knew they could be difficult, but they never intended to harm their mother. The child fidgeted, reaching over, not sure if touching their mother right now would be ok. "Sorry. I'm sorry, mom."

Toriel's gaze lifted, a small smile breaking through. "I forgive you, my child. No harm is done. It is just important to understand that monsters rely on love and compassion. The sadness induced by a day like this, every year, is far from healthy. So I have ordered to decorate, to make it as far from hurtful as possible."

"You'll love the decoration, mom, I promise." Asriel added in a soft voice, his focus shifting to their best friend. "And there will be orbs swirling with all kinds of magic. I added one too. You'll love it, Chara."

The human child huffed, not happy but not as angry as before. "If you say so, Azzie."

"We made a green and yellow one for you and an orange one for mom! Alphys helped making them and then Papyrus let Frisk climb on their shoulders to put them up high. It was so much fun, wasn't it, Frisk?"

The other child gave a small nod. Riiiight. The other human was so quiet, Chara tended to just forget they were there. But eating their pie in tiny bites across from Chara sat the newest addition to the family. A bandaid still stuck to the part of their forehead that still took time to recover from the fall. At this point, the Dreemurr family was experts on head, leg, or whatever else one managed to land, on injuries. They had seen all sorts of weird injuries from new ones falling into the underground. The burn marks around the neck never seemed to fade however, if Chara's own were any indication.

"So, Frisk, how are reapings on the surface side of the district nowadays?"

"Chara!" Their mom chastised.

"What?! I'm just curious."

The young human who currently donned a blue sweater with purple stripes, curtesy of Toriel, just shrugged. "I never went there."

Well, that's great. There went Chara's change in topic. Thankfully, Toriel saved them from another awkward moment: "Well then wash up, my children, and get ready. I fear there's no dwindling anymore."

So, yeah, the track record of human children getting selected during reaping in district 12 never was that great. Combining that with Chara's luck, they shouldn't have been surprised. And yet, there's a difference between knowing that there's an entrance to the underground around here somewhere that you could fall into and actually feeling the wind rushing past your ears. Which meant that knowing it would probably happen really didn't make it better. Not even the first time.

Golden light from the fires of Hotland filtered through the windows left and right, illuminating rows of children in all shapes and sizes. Orbs with magic flickered above, forgotten. Only two of the children were human. And since the odds were in their favor, guess which two names shone on the big screen at the far wall of the district 12's judgement hall. It was a live broadcast from the district's surface above, were an escort proudly held two little scrapes of paper into the camera. Of course, Chara didn't know how many children were standing up there right now, but if the population didn't explode while they were down here, their odds were still a big, steaming bunch of crap.

Chara must have looked silly, just staring blankly at their own name. They didn't even really notice the golden flicker out of the corner of their eyes. If it weren't for the loud sob breaking the silence, they would have probably continued to stand there forever. As it was, their head wiped around to the far back, where their mom had collapsed. They had seen her coordinating weeks of near starvation, even plagues taking one soul after another in the underground, with stride, never losing her kind words and firm composure. This, however, seemed to be too much, as her hands grasped at Asgore's forearm who tried, but failed, to steady her. With knees touching the floor, head drooping down and obscuring her face, was the proud former queen of the underground. Her features shivered with each and every sob. It was heartbreaking.

"hey kid." The child glanced at the skeleton stepping forward. Ever the collected one, he wore that big smile on his face like every other day. "standing around won't conTribute to anything good, don't cha think? so, why don't we get this over with?"

Getting this over with? Was he fricking serious?

"heya Frisk? What about you? Care to join?"

Sure enough, the purple striped kid trotted over compliantly. How were they able to be so calm? Chara felt as though they were ready to burst with… with everything. All kinds of emotions swirled inside and Chara just couldn't take it. They had to do something, to let it all out and chose an option already.

A glance at the bony hand stretching towards them, beckoning like the grim reaper of human tales, settled it. Why couldn't they be spared? They refused to face this.

So they ran away.

"hey, kid! Wait!"

"SANS, LET THEM GO!"

The child ran past their friends, past their parents. They ran hating the tears streaking down their cheeks.

Somehow, Chara found themselves in their room, huddled into one of the blankets with their festive sweater and shoes still on. This sucked. This just sucked so hard.

Thankfully, the door had a lock. Unfortunately, however, they kind of shared that room with Asriel and Frisk. Oh well. Yes, they were kind of a douche when it came to all of this. But they really couldn't find the strength to care. Therefore, the locked door probably was the only reason why Azzie began talking to them through it. They couldn't imagine him doing that for any other reason after all the trouble Chara was causing right now. Mom probably was furious.

"Hey, Chara? Are you in there?"

"…"

"I-I'm here if you need me."

But they stayed silent.

"Chara? Are you awake? Mom has put some leftover pie outside, if you want to eat any."

But they stayed silent.

"It's been nearly two days, you know. You might want to eat."

Silence.

"No one is mad, I promise."

Silence.

"Chara, please, just let me in. You don't have to do anything. Don't make me spend another night without you. Please, you have to eat."

They didn't care.

"Please, just say something. Anything."

"…"

"Mom said she'll break the door down if you don't come out."

"…"

"Ok, that was a lie."

They were as good as dead anyways. Nothing mattered.

"A-are you mad at me? At us? I'm sorry. I'm sorry those stupid games exist. I'm sorry for not being able to… to help you."

"Azzie."

"Yes?"

"Please go away."

The cramps already began at day two. Chara had once read that it only takes between three to seven days without water and food for humans to die. They could have been more active, of course, but they just couldn't bring themselves to really do it. Even if they fell down once and for all, what good would it do? There would just be another child selected in their place. And that monster would have to suffer, just because of the actions of one selfish human. It didn't seem fair, even if they would not be there to watch it. But to walk outside, to succumb to their fate was just as impossible. Chara huffed, stuffing their face into a pillow, letting out a muffled scream. Their surrounding was a mess after days of self-imposed imprisonment and so were they. A small part of them felt bad about making the nice sweater reek, but they shushed it together with all of their emotions.

Frustrated by themselves and the world, Chara turned around to lie on their back, gaze drifting from their shared closet, filled to the brim with old shoes in different sizes and striped shirts, to the family photo. They never had much, but the Dreemurrs never cared. The picture had been taken right after a long day in the mines, with Chara and Azzie all dirty from crawling around the tight spaces. Still, they smiled, together with two proud parents, all looking at the camera. Asriel and Chara both held a nice bouquet of golden flowers in their arms, freshly picked from dad's garden. The edge of Chara's mouth twitched as they remembered the sweet smell of buttercups. They always loved those flowers and dad knew it. The pair on their nightstand had already begun to wither without dad's gentle care. He was a bit reluctant to put plants inside a home with young children, even though he loved them all. Dad made both of them read a whole book on recognizing and not eating poisonous flowers. Chara gently reached out to touch one of the browning petals. It wasn't so bad for Chara, they didn't mind reading. But Azzie had not been as fond to just sit around and read. The petals felt smooth near the stem, but became rough and dry at the ends were the decay began. Even now, they started to wrinkle. Asriel also didn't like the topic, of course. Sickening poisons weren't exactly his favorite bedtime stories.

Chara's fingertips stopped at the very tip of one goldish brown petal. That was it. They sat up straight, gazing at the flowers in front of them. That was the solution. Sick tributes were usually handled in two different ways. Chara had seen both of those ways before.

Some years ago, a child with steady purple eyes had fallen down, the fifth at that point. They wrote stories Chara enjoyed to read. The child always seemed to try to document as much of the space around them as possible with sharp focus, eyes piercing trough those glasses. Yet, they didn't get to see much of the world as their health was too frail to move around too much. Even with mom's soothing care, they never seemed to be completely cured of their sickness. When they were chosen as tribute, it only got worse. Whereas before they were able to walk short distances and on a good day even play with the other children, they now were bedridden, not even able to walk to the barrier themselves. It was deemed by the capitol as bad entertainment. But surprisingly, the capitol waited, refusing to choose another tribute and rather waiting for the child's condition to get good enough to at least put up some fight.

That year, only one tribute from district 12 competed in the hunger games. At the day of the parade in the capitol, the child finally passed away. It was peaceful, at least. They got to spend their final moments at home.

The next year, the chosen tribute was a human again, another one of Toriel's children. It also was another child with a dampened health, thankfully this time only with a mild cold. Some smart monsters suggested, in most secrecy of course, for the child to exaggerate it.

"Maybe the capitol will wait like the last time," they said. "You may get away with your life."

But the sixth was a silly one. They just smiled and said "it would be mean to let my monster friend go to the capitol alone" "it wouldn't be fair" and "besides, if I play it wrong, they might want to choose another tribute."

How stupid. So, they went anyway. As the first day in the arena approached, they were already not in the best condition and in the end it wasn't a weapon or attack that killed them, just that stupid cold. What a waste.

Chara felt giddy all of a sudden. Maybe, just maybe if they played it right, they could bluff their way through another year. But they had to do it right! The sixth was right when it came to one thing: Convincing the heartless capitol of their sickness would be hard. So, rather than put fruitless hope into their acting skills, they may be able to get away with just the right amount of sickness.

Their gaze fell onto one particular flower. They had all that they needed right here. For the first time in days Chara smiled.