Frisk heard footsteps slowly getting quieter and quieter until they faded away. They stayed rolled in a ball like this for a few minutes, they were paralised and didn't dare to move.
Eventually, they realised that they were alone again, the other human had left them behind. What eventually led Frisk to get up wasn't that they regained confidence, it was that they were still badly hurt.
They were back to square one, bleeding out in a cavern. They still didn't understand what had happened with the other child but one thing was for certain now : No one was going to help them. If they didn't get out of here, they would remain here until they eventually died from their injuries.
If they wanted to make it out alive, they had to search for help themself. No matter how painful it might be to walk in their state, they had no choice.
When Frisk got up on their feet, it felt like their legs were burning. They slowly forced themself to move forward and through the door, ignoring the pain. This door had a strange symbol drawn above it, Frisk had never seen it before.
After crossing a dark room where only a patch of grass was illuminated, they were greeted with a strange sight.
A sort of entrance made out of pink colored stone stood in the way, it was surprisingly tall and Frisk was amazed to see such a display of civilisation in a place like this. The architecture looked very old. There were some stairs that led up to the inside of the structure. It seemed to be the only path ahead.
In between the stairs however, was something else. Something that was just as strange. It was a golden spinning light. They got a bit closer to it and felt a slight increase in heat. It wasn't burning, just pleasantly warm. The four pointed objet kept rotating at a stable speed, it was very hypnotising to look at.
Frisk tried to touch it and suddenly felt strange, it was a filling similar to chills.
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Once it passed, Frisk realised that their legs didn't hurt anymore. Neither did their chest in fact… Frisk examined themself to realise that their injuries had pretty much faded away.
They didn't know what had happened, but they felt much better than before.
They decided to leave the strange star like objet behind and got up the stairs. Once they made it above they ended up in a room that had only one exit aside from the one they came from, and that door was closed.
Was that it ? Were they trapped now ? Frisk decided to try and inspect the room in hopes to find something that would be of any help to them.
An odd looking plaque was on one of the walls, to Frisk's surprise it was in english. They feared it might be some old language they couldn't understand due to how old this place seemed to be but apparently not. Then again, that other child spoke english to them as well didn't they ?
"Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road." Whatever that meant.
They noticed a switch on their right, it was probably to open this door ! Frisk hurried to the switch and tried to press it, however the switch didn't work.
The only other things in this room were six tiles on the floor and some floor patterns.
The path clearly led to that door, there had to be a way to open it.
Why was there even a floor pattern on the floor over here near the tiles ? It wasn't even on the way between the two doors. What was the point of adding that around the middle tiles ?
Frisk realised something, the middle tiles ? They went to check the plaque again, it said to not walk on the middle road. Was the middle road refering to that floor pattern thing ?
Frisk stepped on one of tiles and it lowered itself under their weight. Those weren't just odd tiles, they were buttons. They stepped on all the button except the middle ones, hoping something would happen. It didn't.
They were almost disappointed before remembering there was a switch. Frisk tried to press it again and this time it actually worked, opening the door. So this place was actually a sort of big puzzle !
They stepped into the next room to see that the exit was blocked by spikes, this place must be a puzzle as well. There were three switches on the walls, the room was split in three by two small bridges, water flowed under them. The first switch was in between the two bridges while the two others were past both bridges.
They noticed a plaque and a sign, they went to read those immediately as the plaque had been the key to solving the last puzzle, however this time it didn't not tell them anything useful, just to 'stay on the path' and some nonsense about 'pressing z'.
Frisk crossed the first bridge and decided to ignore its switch. After crossing the second bridge, they now had two switches to pick from. They decided to pick one at random to see what would happen and pressed the switch on the right. As soon as they did so, they heard a noise on their left. They turned around to see that the second bridge had just collapsed into the water.
Did they do that ?
Chills ran down their spine as the realisation hit them. They were now trapped on this side. And couldn't go back to where they came from.
They tried to press the switch on the left to find out that the switch was blocked. They couldn't move it.
Did they just fail the puzzle ? Was their punishment for failing to be stuck here until someone found them ?
They began to panick again.
No ! They didn't want to trapped here ! They wanted to find help ! They wanted to leave this place ! Why did they have to press that switch ? Why didn't they press the first switch when they could ?
Their desire to change their fate caused something to burn inside them again, Frisk felt dizzy once more and the world blinked again.
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When Frisk opened their eyes, they were looking at the golden spinning objet again. After being confused for a few moments they ended up concluding that this weird thing that they had apparently done when the child with rosy cheeks was here had happened again.
This was very convenient for them, Frisk solved the first puzzle again and this time pressed the first switch in the second room. Nothing much happened.
They tried pressing the right switch again and the exact same thing still happened, they were trapped again.
So not pressing the first switch wasn't the problem ? Maybe the problem was that they pressed the right switch in the first place ?
Of course it was, as soon as they pushed it everything fell apart, what even made them think it had to do with the first switch ? Just because the way to it was destroyed ? Why did they have to be so dumb sometimes ? They wanted to try again and do it right this time !
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Frisk felt dizzy again. They were starting to see a pattern here. This weird 'going back' stuff seemed to happen whenever they wanted it to happen. Either because they were going to die or because they wanted to try and do something again after failing at it.
So they really did control that power ?
Frisk decided to try it out, they took only a few steps before trying to go back again.
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...It did work !
So they really could just do that as much as they wanted ?
They were amazed by the power that they had just realised they now had. They would be lying if they said they didn't find it pretty awesome.
Now fully confident that nothing bad would happen to them, Frisk tried pressing the first switch followed by the left switch instead of the right one. When they did so, the spikes retracted. They still didn't know how they were supposed to solve this puzzle but they had done it using the combined powers of 'trial and error' and time travel. That was surely much cooler than whatever the intended solution was.
They continued to follow the path forward until they reached a somewhat strange area. The floor was split into dozens of small gray tiles. Every single one of these small tiles was filled with smaller holes.
Regardless, this path led straight to the exit of the room so Frisk continued forward.
Once they got on the tile, they heard a strange clicking noise.
Before Frisk had the time to wonder what was happening, long pointy spikes came out of the holes in the floor at a very fast speed, piercing through Frisk's body from multiple angles.
The spikes were now covered in their blood, they let an acute scream that quickly faded as their soul shattered.
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As soon as they found themself sent back to the golden light again, Frisk melted into tears. They just… They were just… They felt it very vividly, they felt their flesh being transperced from side to side multiple times. It was a horrifying experience, especially for someone their age. It only lasted a few seconds but it was easily the most painful thing that had ever happened to them. Their fall was nothing in comparison to this.
They… They shouldn't even be alive right now ! That should have killed them !
Every time they tried to think about it, to remember what it felt like, it made them tremble. Frisk wished they could just continue on and retry as if nothing happened, but they just couldn't. Not after having to go through that.
There was nothing good about any of this anymore. Suddenly Frisk did not feel very motivated to continue to move forward anymore. Unfortunately, they had nowhere else to go...
Chara heard a metallic noise followed by a scream, very soon afterwards, the word blinked and they ended up being sent back several rooms.
They hadn't seen anything, but they knew exactly what had just happened to the young human. They shivered as their mind tried imagining it happening to them. This was extremely immoral and they knew it, but if that was was it took to stop them, it had to be done.
The puzzles in the ruins had first been constructed by monsters as defense against a potential new human attack, for these reasons they were orignally much more difficult and dangerous if not outright deadly. It was only much later than they were modified to become mostly harmless as they were only used as sorts of complicated door keys by the inhabitants of the ruins.
However, those original functions had never been entirely eliminated, merely deactivated. When Chara left the human behind, they had several minutes of headstart which they used to reactivate as many of them as they could, one by one.
They were hoping that the human would give up when facing one of the puzzles and remain stuck behind. If these kinds of traps were what it took to get them to do so, then so be it.
They previously weren't sure if the human would still be able to go back in time if they actually died rather than merely being in mortal danger, they had assumed that they still could but now, they were certain of it as there was no way they could have survived this one and yet time still rewinded itself.
The main problem that Chara had now was that whenever the child went back, it made them go back as well and un-reactivated the puzzles. In addition, reactivating the puzzles was way longer than solving them. Because of these things, Chara's progress was much slower than the human's, at this rate the human would catch up to them very soon.
They didn't know what to do… They were just hoping that the human would throw in the towel before that happened. Surely they wouldn't keep trying after that… right ?
Frisk made it back to the room they dreaded, they did not dare to get anywhere close to the grey metallic ground this time. Being impaled alive was something they wished to never experience again.
Eventually, they noticed a plaque that they had missed the first time around as their glare was caught by the shining metal.
"The western room is the eastern room's blueprint."
Frisk didn't know where was the west or the east down here, they didn't have a compass. This definitly sounded like a clue though, they went backwards to try and find what that could be refering to.
They actually found out pretty quickly, there was once again a very strange pattern on the floor. So that must be the blue print to something. After noticing that the overall shape that the pattern followed, it became obvious to Frisk that it must be the blueprint to the metallic gray tile area.
There was a path drawn that crossed the whole thing. Frisk went back and forth between both rooms to confirm that the shapes indeed seemed to match. The pattern had to be indicating the correct path to avoid the spikes.
This pattern was too complicated, it was hard to tell how many tiles did the lengths correspond to and if they were to try, they would be so stressed by what would happen if they failed that they would definitly mess it up. Frisk did not believe in themself anywhere near enough to attempt this, even having understood the clue.
At the same time, it was the only way to progress… But was it worth risking to face this horror again if they failed ?
Frisk decided that they would only do it if they were completely sure to succeed.
They counted the dimensions of the gray tile puzzle and, using one of their shoes as a ruler, recopied it at a smaller scale right next to the 'blueprint' by using some small rocks they found laying around.
Afterwards, they used the same shoe to measure the ratios of the path of the blueprint compared to the dimensions of the puzzle to deduct how many tiles each movement corresponded to, then identified the matching path in their recreation.
They checked their work to make sure they didn't make any mistakes. It should be good. The only way it could be innaccurate was if the puzzle was too old and if part of the blueprint faded away with time or something, but it looked like new in their opinion.
Once Frisk had entirely memorised the path, they put the tip of their shoe into the first tile, fearing the worst. Once nothing happened, they stepped on it entirely.
They slowly made their way through the puzzle while repeating what the correct path was inside of their head over and over, stepping into as close to the center of the correct path as they could in case the old mechanism would count it as failure if they got too close to a wrong tile. They let out a sigh of relief when they made it through unharmed after all.
They ran through a very long corridor before stumbling into a branching path. Over the leaves floated another one of those golden star thingies. Frisk touched it as well, interacting with these things made them feel similarly to how it felt just before they went back in time, this weird feeling similar to chills...
Frisk peeked into the room above to find nothing but an empty pedestal. It said 'take one', but there was nothing here. Or at least if there was, then someone took it away.
They heard a clicking noise coming from a couple rooms further than they were, the human in a blue striped shirt followed the noise to find another empty corridor. They ran along through it until the floor collapsed under their feet.
They fell down and hit the ground on their side, which left a bad bloody trace on them. Had they not gotten injured enough times today already ? When they got back up, they saw that this room had two exits, the one on the left was blocked by spikes. The one on the right appeared to be usable but when Frisk went through it, they saw that it actually led to a very thin opening that went upwards.
If they wanted to get out of here, Frisk would have to climb it. The opening was so small that they could press their feet one on each side which was much easier than just climbing a wall, even if it had a bunch of openings.
Frisk ended up being really surprised by how easy it was to climb it, they had no experience in it at all but they still did it on the first try.
It was when they got to the top that things went south. A rock blocked the opening. The way they look led straight to the other side but the opening that allowed them to get there from within the wall had been blocked by a rock.
There were still a couple small holes on the left and the right of it but too small for Frisk to fit through. They couldn't leave. They were stuck again.
Frisk tried to push the rock out of the way but it had been carefully placed to be immovable from the inside. Someone had to have deliberately closed this opening.
The only way they could go was back down, into the room below where both doors were unusable.
However, they weren't going to give up just yet, they still had one last way to get another chance at doing things right.
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Frisk was surprised to see they were back near the second golden light, not the first one. Maybe these things served as the places Frisk could go back to ?
Either way, they didn't lose a second and this time went to the path on their right immediately. What they had missed last time was that the floor was slightly cracked.
Frisk judged that they should be able to jump over the cracked tiles if they put enough effort into it. They took a few steps back and gained as much speed as possible before jumping as far as they could. The tip of their feet still touched a cracked tile and said tile collapsed, however the rest of their body made it and by pushing on the ground using their hands, they were able to drag themself on the other side.
Suddenly, Frisk heard a click again.
Last time, this click happened while they were still in the other room, but this time they were already here just next to where it came from
Frisk got back up and ran to the next room only to be greeted by a sight that gave them chills.
It was the other child again, the one who almost stabbed them… Twice.
"B-back off !" The human with rosy cheeks screamed as soon as they saw Frisk, taking a couple steps back. Funny how the roles had been reversed, the human had done and said exactly the same thing when they first met each other.
Frisk held both palms in front of them in the direction of the first human and slowly did as asked. They were still terrified of the human in a green striped shirt, getting close to them was the last thing they wanted. They wanted to search for help but this was surely the one person they wouldn't want to get 'help' from again.
They were blocking the way though, what would they do now ?
Chara did their best to hide it but they were panicked. They had no more time to set up anything. They did manage to fix one last trap however, they still had one last occasion to deal with the human right now.
The first human moved slightly to the left and pressed their hand against the wall, against the hidden button.
It was now or never.