Chapter 7

Days then weeks began to pass. As promised, Toriel allowed Frisk to stay with her until they were able to find Frisk's family – something that left Frisk feeling guilty often. This woman, who had lost her own children, cared for Frisk as if she was Frisk's mother, and Frisk was lying to the woman under her own roof.

"What's going to happen when it's time for me to leave?" Frisk asked Mask as the two of them spent their afternoon walking alongside the river. "If I say I remember where my family is, she's going to want to take me to wherever I say they are and possibly want to meet them. If I tell her the truth, even if only half of it, I could really hurt her."

Mask answered Frisk's question with one of its own. "Why do you care so much about hurting this woman's feelings?"

"She's been so nice to me. I don't want to feel as if I'm repaying that kindness with lies."

"Frisk, you already are. You have been since you meet Toriel."

Grimacing behind the wooden mask she could never seem to get used to, Frisk said, "It would have been so much easier if we were able to find Flowey again. If we could know what he knows . . . Well, it would make things much easier for the both of us. We wouldn't have had to stay with Toriel this long."

"You do realize you do not have only Flowey to talk to about what happened with Asriel and Chara, right?" Mask asked not for the first time. "Everyone in town should have some idea what happened to the two."

"I know," Frisk replied, refusing to admit that as much as she wanted to learn about the fate of Toriel's sons, she could not bring herself to ask just anyone. Whoever she asked might later talk to Toriel about it, and Frisk did not want to imagine how Toriel would feel knowing Frisk went behind her back about such sensitive information. Besides, Frisk had a deep belief she could not explain that of everyone she could ever ask about what happened to those boys, Flowey would know the most.

Crossing her arms and leaning against a tree so that she could watch the water flow by, Frisk said, "Whether or not we find Flowey, we can't stay here forever. I want to leave this place, not live in it for the rest of my life."

"Did you not promise that you would remain here until we learned who I was?" Mask asked, and Frisk's heart began to sink as she realized where this conversation was going. "Was our deal not the more we discovered about my past the closer I would lead you to the exit? That you would stay for forever if this is what it meant? Frisk, we have yet to make any progress in discovering who I am. We cannot more forward until we learn something."

"But what if we already learned everything there is to be learned here?" Frisk challenged, trying her best to talk past the lump forming in her throat. "What if in order to learn more about you, we have to go someplace else?"

"How do I know you are genuine in this suggestion?" Mask flew in front of Frisk's face so that they were looking at each other. "How am I supposed to trust that you are not trying to find your way out of this forest without helping me get what I want in exchange?"

"I have already been here for three weeks," Frisk answered. "Ideally, I would be out of the forest by now, but instead I'm still in the Ruined Woods, just a day's walk from where I woke up. How much longer do I have to stay here before you decide we can more forward? At some point, even you have to think that it would be better to keep going instead of searching for evidence that possibly cannot exist."

"You will not even put in the effort necessary to learn anything about Toriel's children," Mask pointed out. "At this point, how am I supposed to believe that if we move forward, you will put in effort to discovering who I am?"

To that, Frisk did not have a response. The lump in her throat had grown too large to talk over, and her eyes were beginning to burn. If she tried to reply, she might burst into tears. Making her deal with Mask was easy, but now that she needed to honor her part of the bargain, Frisk began to wonder if she would have been better off trying to find her way home on her own. Mask physically could not stop her from walking away, so perhaps going wherever she pleased while ignoring everything Mask told her was an option.

Yet as Frisk considered this, she felt worse about it then the possibility of telling Toriel the truth. Although she would not call Mask her friend, the two had spent the past three weeks being the only real friends they had. Only Mask knew the truth about who and what Frisk was, and Frisk was the only person Mask had regardless if either of them liked it or not. In a lot of ways, the two were stuck together. Perhaps it would be better if the two had no reason to feel bitter against the other.

"If I can't find Flowey by sunset tomorrow . . . ," Frisk said slowly, trying to speak calmly even as her lips wobbled, "then I will ask Toriel directly. I know she knows I have seen those pictures in the room. She won't be surprised that I know something happened to her family. The worst that can happen is she refuses to tell me."

"And if she refuses to tell you?" Mask asked, possibly challenging how far Frisk would go to keep her end of the deal with this ghost.

Taking a deep breath, Frisk answered, "Then I suppose I'll need to find someone else to talk to, but finding the right person to ask won't be easy."

"Renart definitely knows something. You remember what he told Toriel the day she brought you to her home."

"But does he know enough? I'm sure everyone in the Ruined Woods knows that Toriel lost her children, but how many of them know the full story? Besides, we still don't know if what happened to them connects to you in some way."

Mask was silent for a moment before saying, "If we learn that their fate has nothing to do with my own, then we have still made some progress. Knowing I am tied to them will make things significantly easier, but also knowing that I am unrelated means that we can begin searching anew elsewhere to learn of who I was. It may not be the progress we would like, but it would be progress nonetheless."

"If that is the case," Frisk slowly said, "then would you still help me find my way home?"

"Yes. After all, I promised to direct you more the more we learned about me. Knowing that I'm not involved in this tragedy is still learning about me."

Pleased with the agreement they had made, Frisk nodded. It was not an ideal situation for either of them, but it was something. Frisk was ready to leave the Ruined Woods, and she was okay taking whatever path that would benefit her desire.

"I just can't understand why we can't find Flowey," she stated. "It's as if he vanished into thin air shortly after giving me Chara's mask."

"Assuming the mask is indeed Chara's," Mask replied, "but you have a point. Nobody seems to know about him, or at least in all the times we have been to town with Toriel, we never once heard of anyone mentioning him."

Frisk stared at the river, wondering where it went and wishing she could ride the current. Sooner or later she would have to return to Toriel's home. Sooner than she liked, she would have to ask Toriel about her the fate of children. Her heart began to race at the thought. This would not be a simple task even if Toriel wasn't a monster.

"Wait, there he is!" Mask exclaimed, making Frisk jump.

"Wait, who?" Frisk began searching even though she wasn't sure for what it was she was looking.

"Don't be an idiot. See, over that thicket on the other side of the river? It's Flowey."

Not having an opportunity to form words, Frisk searched for the man she had spent days trying to find, located him walking away, and immediately chased after him. She gave no thought whatsoever to how she was going to reach him and what she was going to do when she did.

"Hey, Flowey, wait up!" she called as she ran parallel to the river. Flowey kept walking away as if he did not hear her. This prompted Frisk to shout louder. "Flowey, wait! I have been looking all over for you!"

"Frisk!" Mask called, but it was too late.

In her desperation to get to Flowey, Frisk forgot to look where she was going.

Kicking a tree root or a rock – Frisk wasn't sure which it was – she fell forward. Frisk instinctively threw out her hands to catch herself, but it did no good. As she tripped downhill, Frisk tumbled and rolled until she stopped only by falling into a river.

Disoriented, Frisk thrashed as she tried to locate the surface. She didn't know which way was up or down. Panicking, Frisk kicked and clawed the water as if demanding it to take her to the surface. The water did not listen. Frisk believed she was sinking lower, and this scared her into thrashing harder as her lungs burned from lack of air.

Mask was nowhere to be seen. Even the daylight breaking into the water began to fade to black. Frisk was alone, and she was running out of air.

When the last of the fight was out of her, Frisk began to allow herself to sink into oblivion. There was nowhere else to go. She didn't even have the energy to think any final thoughts.

As she sank deeper and deeper into the abyss, Frisk wasn't sure if she imagined an angel picking her limp body up and carrying her away.