Chapter 9
Frisk couldn't tell if she wanted to scream or cry. Papyrus, one of the trusted companions guiding her through Snowdin Lane, had betrayed her. Now she was trapped in this home, her alone against Papyrus and five monsters in dog masks looking for her.
"She couldn't have gotten far," Papyrus said, his words muffled but still comprehensible. "Perhaps if we look—"
"We will look right here," the big one whom Frisk assumed was the leader said. "Even if the human isn't here, she would have to still be in town. With night falling, I imagine the human would not go out alone in the woods. Otherwise, we will be finding a corpse tomorrow."
The way he spoke, his voice deep as if he growled each word he spoke, made Frisk shudder. There was a smaller man one his right, another wearing a pink sweater on his left, and behind him were a man and a woman dressed in black cloaks. The matching man and woman were carrying large axes.
"Split up!" the bigger one barked. "This house is so small, we'll find the human in less than five minutes if she's still here."
Four of the dog-mask wearers broke apart, and Frisk swallowed her heart. The only rooms upstairs were the two bedrooms, one of which was locked. Not that entering the rooms would help as at least one of them would hear her opening and closing the bedroom door. Either way, all someone had to do was walk upstairs, and she was as good as captured. Frisk had to remind herself to breath as her heart threatened to explode out of her chest.
"You cannot just stay there!" Chara hissed. "Come on, go back into the bedroom. There's a window in the room you can use to escape."
As much as Frisk wanted to argue that someone would hear the door opening and closing, she didn't. Arguing with Chara for sure would have been louder. Frisk swallowed her heart, pressed herself against the wall away from the railing, and made her way back to the bedroom.
Yet as she wrapped her fingers around the doorknob, she heard approaching footsteps. Someone was already coming up the stairs. Her time for escape was running out.
"Don't just stand there and wait!" Chara snapped. "The room should have a lock. Step inside and lock the door! That should buy you some time."
Knowing there was no longer a point in taking her time to ensure quietness, Frisk quickly entered the room, shut it, and locked the door. She felt safe for a solid three seconds. Then someone began to pound on the door.
"Open up!" one of the men shouted. "I know you're in there!"
"Hurry!" Chara shouted, and Frisk didn't wait to be told twice.
Frisk ran towards the window and threw it open. However, there was no tree nearby for her to grab hold of to climb back to the ground. Peering over the edge, Frisk felt her heart drop.
"Jump," Chara ordered.
"What?!" Frisk nearly shouted. "Are you crazy?!"
"Look at how thick the snow down there is!" Chara argued. "Besides, we're only on the second floor. If you fall in a way that distributes your weight, you will be fine."
Frisk again looked out the window and down towards the ground below. She took a shaky breath. Suddenly the sound of someone throwing themselves against the door wasn't so terrifying.
"Look, I know normally this is perhaps the stupidest thing you can do," Chara explained, "but look at how deep the snow down there is compared to the rest of Snowdin Town. It is almost as if whoever shoveled snow in the front yard simply tossed it in the back instead of shoveling it elsewhere. This is practically an escape route that may or may not have been intentionally made."
"Maybe I can hide in the closet?" Frisk suggested.
Just then, there was a loud crashing noise. Frisk snapped her head around to see the man with the pink sweater walk in. The couple in the black cloaks were right behind him.
"Nowhere to run now," the first man snarled.
Discarding all thought and reason, Frisk threw herself out the window. She fell for only a moment, her stomach dropping even faster, and landed face first in the snow as if doing a reverse snow angel. Fueled by adrenaline, Frisk pushed herself to her feet and began to run away.
"I can't believe I did that!" Frisk exclaimed as she circled around the house.
Before Chara could respond, Frisk turned the corner and ran into someone. The bitter air bit into her face as Frisk fell backwards. Her mask, which must have been dislodged when she fell face first into the now, was now knocked onto the ground.
Panic stricken, Frisk picked up her mask and immediately replaced it on her face. Yet it was too late. Alice, also knocked onto the ground, stared at Frisk with complete shock, her eyes glazed over and her mouth visibly hanging open from behind her mask. It didn't help that there was a small crowd right behind Alice. Even if most of them didn't catch that split second in which Frisk's face was exposed, enough of them had seen to make Frisk's hiding in plain sight no longer possible.
Instead of waiting for someone else to act first, Frisk picked herself back up and began running in the opposite direction. Fleeing into the forest, Frisk had to resist the urge to look behind her when she heard that she was being pursued. Unlike last time, Toriel was not going to come to save her.
"You will not be able to run forever," Chara said, "and there is no place for you to hide. Frisk, I don't know how you are going to get out of this."
"Thanks for the encouragement," Frisk muttered between gasps for air. Then she saw a tree with low hanging branches. Instantly, Frisk knew what to do.
Taking hold of the lowest hanging branch, Frisk used her upper body strength to pull herself upwards. Once she swung her leg over and was able to stand upright on the branch, she reached for the next lowest hanging branch. Again and again Frisk reached for the next branch, quickly climbing up the tree like a squirrel out of practice.
Frisk only stopped for a moment when she heard commotion under her. Looking down, she saw the men with the dog masks run past the tree in which she climbed. For a solid moment after they were past, Frisk held her breath and listened to them run further into the distance.
"I cannot believe that worked," Chara said, sounding surprised. "I thought that by climbing the tree, you were trapping yourself. However, none of them stopped to consider that you would climb a tree at all. They all ran right past you as if you were not even here!"
Once she was sure nobody would hear her speaking to a ghost, Frisk replied, "I wasn't sure it would work, either, but I had to try. I'm a little out of practice though, so I didn't know if I would be able to climb this tree fast enough."
"Well, I think you climbed that tree expertly."
Frisk beamed with pride at the comment. When she was little, she often heard her mother's words of how ladies don't climb trees. Now Frisk was glad that after more than a year since she last climbed a tree, she was still capable of scaling one like some sort of woodland creature.
"Going back to Snowdin Town won't be an option," Frisk said as she began to climb down the tree. "Too many of them saw me without my mask. They know what I am now."
Chara was silent for a moment before asking, "You know what this means, don't you?"
"That I can't go back to town," Frisk answered, annoyed Chara wasn't paying attention.
"No, I mean that word is going to spread that you are here in Ebott Forest," Chara corrected. "Since Papyrus knew you were going to Waterfall Marsh, everyone is going to be expecting you to arrive and travel through there. Hiding in plain sight will no longer be an option to you."
Frisk tried to swallow only to find that her throat was too dry. Chara was right. Everyone was going to know to be on the lookout for a child with a bored expression mask. Even if finding a replacement mask was possible, Frisk wasn't sure how long it would be before someone else discovered who and what she was. There were no more reasons to feel safe in this forest full of monsters searching to tear the skin right off her face.
Once her feet were again on the ground, Frisk began to quickly walk parallel to Snowdin Town towards the other end than the one she entered. The whole time she travelled with Sans and Papyrus, they all were going straight in a single direction. Frisk considered the possibility that Waterfall Marsh was directly east, hoping that there wouldn't be much traveling left to do now that she no longer had the supplies she had with the brothers.
After an hour of walking, Frisk's legs were heavy, her lungs burned, and her fingers had grown numb. It was as if Snowdin Lane grew colder and colder the further she progressed. She started to shiver so violently she wondered if monsters miles away could hear her teeth chatter.
"I worry for you," Chara said, his tone the most concerning Frisk had ever heard him use. "Frisk, the sun set a while ago, and the temperature will continue to drop. If you stop to rest and sleep, you will not wake up again. I do not know if you will wake up as a ghost like I did, and I do not wish to find out."
"I have no plans to rest," Frisk replied, the words hurting as they came from her frozen throat. "I will keep moving forward or die in the process. Although I would rather make it to Waterfall Marsh. At least there I don't think I'll have to worry about frostbite."
After a few more minutes, the temperature dramatically changed. The air suddenly went from freezing as if walking through ice water to warm as if walking through steam. The fog was so thick Frisk could barely see her hand in front of her face. Her muscles began to warm. It wasn't too long after that Frisk began to grow hot in her thick dress and shawl.
"It appears as if we have arrived at Waterfall Marsh," Chara said, and it was the most beautiful thing Frisk could have ever heard at that moment.
"Thank goodness!" Frisk exclaimed, removing her shawl. "I will need to find somewhere to rest for the rest of the night. As for food, what I took from Papyrus's house should hold me over for a few days if I'm careful."
"You will have to continue to travel in hiding," Chara warned. "Even if not everyone knows that you are here, you still cannot trust just anyone to not know what you are."
"I haven't forgotten," Frisk said, although she wanted to. There was no reason to be afraid when in Toriel's care. Even Sans and Papyrus made her feel a little protected at first. Now, Frisk was on her own. Even with Chara by her side, only she was the person who could protect her if the need ever arose.
"Hey," Chara then said, sounding skeptical, "what is that ahead?"
Squinting, Frisk saw a shadowy figure in the distance. As she walked closer, she saw that the shape was humanoid. Heart leaping to her throat, Frisk turned around and began to quickly walk away, hoping whoever that was did not see her in the thick fog.
"Hey, Frisk, wait!" shouted the figure, and the voice was that of Papyrus.