Chapter 5
Chara felt a wave of all kinds of emotions, none of which he could make sense. To see himself alive once again . . . it was like seeing a ghost from the past come alive once more, like dry bones standing upright to dance. If Chara had a beating heart, he wasn't sure if it would beat with sheer intensity or if it would have stopped beating again altogether.
It was why as much as he wanted to keep these things to himself, he could not help but be honest with Frisk as he told her that he was not okay.
She stood still for a moment. The two were facing each other, Chara within Frisk's arm length. It was as if everything were falling apart, but her steady gaze through the mask that once belonged to him was the only thing keeping him remaining upright.
"It will be okay," Frisk finally said after a while, as if she wanted to say better words but could not think of them.
"I do not doubt you," Chara replied, "but right now it is hard to believe that is true."
"I'm right here, Chara."
"I know. Thank you, Frisk."
With nothing left to be said, the two resumed their journey. The sun, from what the two could tell through the little light that filtered through the trees, was beginning to set. Sooner or later, Frisk would have to stop to rest for the night.
"You know, Chara, I was thinking," was how Frisk began, "if Sans can go back in time, perhaps we could get him to go back to when you died. We might not be able to change anything, but we can see what happened to you and Asriel."
"I suppose that is not a bad idea," Chara stated, "but we do not know when I died. We do not know where I was if nobody was there to witness what became of me. Not knowing when and where will make finding my death like a needle in a haystack, and remember, Sans found that trip to the past draining. It would be too much a strain on him to use so much magic to find for what we are looking."
"Hmm, yeah, I guess you're right," Frisk said after a moment. "It's just hard. If nobody who was closest to you knows how you died, then how are we supposed to learn how you died?"
"Right now, we can only assume that I know how I died," Chara replied. "Perhaps somewhere in my sea of forgotten memories is the truth of which nobody else knows. As we collect more human items, I will remember who I was more. That is all we have to keep moving forward."
"If that's the case, where do you think the next human items are? How would we know that the items belonged to humans? We got lucky with the ribbon and bandana from Toriel and Papyrus, but how would we know the next monster with a human item would give it up so easily? What if no other monsters have the items we need and we have to search all of Ebott Forest to find them?"
"We have to worry about one problem at a time, Frisk. If we unnecessarily overwhelm ourselves with questions, we might stress ourselves out of making progress."
Frisk didn't argue, but Chara was sure her mind was still asking hard questions that could not be answered. He didn't blame her. In his own abyss of thoughts and emotions, he feared if the truth truly was something he wanted to discover.
They didn't travel for much further when the wind began to pick up. Thunder roared across the sky. In a matter of moments, rain began to fall from the heavens and through the trees onto the ground below. Squealing in surprise, Frisk threw her arms over her head and ran for cover. There was a small hut set up nearby, and under it was a basket full of umbrellas.
"Take one," Frisk read aloud the sign above the basket. "Well, I don't see why not."
"I had forgotten," Chara said as Frisk resumed traveling on the path, "this area of Waterfall Marsh is always raining."
"Why?"
"I do not know, but if it is always fall in the Ruined Woods and always snowing in Snowdin Lane, I do not think it always raining in a portion of Waterfall Marsh is too outlandish."
After two minutes of travel, Frisk noticed and told Chara that someone was up ahead. The two cautiously moving forward, Chara recognized the figure as Mon. The young girl was hugging herself as she took shelter under a piles of rocks that acted almost like a shelter of source.
"Yo, you took an umbrella!" Mon, upon noticing Frisk, wasted no second inviting herself to join and journey alongside her. "I should have grabbed one, too, but I was like Nah, I don't need it. Aha, yes I do. . . . Mind if I go with you, at least through this area? I think we're getting close to finding Undyne. If we're lucky, we'll find her just before she's about to beat up the human!"
"Yeah, hehe, that would be great. . . ." Frisk trailed off.
Chara expected for Mon to go off on another one of her tangents, but the girl never did. Shockingly, Mon was a silent companion as they traveled through the rain. Frisk probably noticed this too, but she didn't comment on it.
Seeing a few echo flowers in the distance, Mon began telling Frisk a story. "So . . . the king visited our school once to teach us about responsibility and stuff. We had to call him Mr. Dreemurr. Anyway, he brought flowers from his own garden and everything.
"Kinda has me thinking . . . Yo, how cool would it be if Undyne visited the school! She could beat up all the teachers! . . . Haha, she wouldn't do that. Undyne's too cool to ever hurt an innocent person. But man, if I was human, I would we the bed everything afraid that Undyne is going to beat me up. Hahaha!"
"If Undyne would never hurt an innocent person, why would she be okay beating up a human?" Frisk asked, probably not knowing that her mouth was open until she heard herself speak.
"Oh, well, uh," Mon grasped for an answer, "humans are not innocent. You know they're the reason we're trapped in this forest, right?"
"I know a little bit of the story, yes."
Mon audibly gasped. "Only a little of the story?! Frisk, this is a part of our history! This is the very injustice people like Undyne fight to change! Do you really mean to tell me that they don't teach you this kind of stuff in Ruined Woods?"
"There was a lot I'm starting to realize I didn't learn while there," Frisk muttered, and it was a good enough response for Mon.
"Okay, no, we're going to have story time," Mon declared. "No friend of mine is not going to watch Undyne beat up a human without knowing why it's so important Undyne beats up this human. Here, sit down at the statue right there."
Looking to the statue Mon indicated, Frisk walked towards it and sat by one of its sides; Chara moved to be beside her. The statue was distorted in shape, as if all this time under the rain wore away at the structure it once held. The only noticeable trait of this statue were the horns on the top of its head.
"Okay, so," Mon said, using exaggerated hand motions as she told the story, "long ago, two races ruled over the earth: humans and monsters. By all appearances, we are one in the same, but we're different in the powers we possess. Humans have determination, giving them the ability to resist death."
"Wait?" Frisk furrowed her brows. "Resist death?"
"I know, weird, right? I think it has to do with humans being physically stronger than monsters, making their bodies harder to kill. Like, did you know that human bodies do not fade away after death? Does a human just go to sleep and never wake up again? I dunno. But I do know that hard to kill or not, Undyne will totally beat up that human, hahaha!
"Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, yeah! So, monsters like us have magical abilities, which is how we express ourselves and yada yada. You would think we could live together in peace, but nope. War broke out between humans and monsters. Unfortunately, having magic did not give us an advantage because the humans were just so good at not getting killed. The monsters feared genocide that's how many of us were dying in the hands of humans. Long story short, we ran into the woods, and the humans put a curse on us, forcing us to live here faceless for the rest of our days."
Frisk nodded, and Chara was sure she was absorbing the story just as much as he was. Since Mon was here to so clearly explain it, life in Ebott Forest finally began to make sense. With what Sans had said of the curse already, Chara felt as if the last pieces of the curse were coming together.
"But wait," Frisk said, seeming to realize something, "if humans don't have magic, then how come they were able to put a curse on monsters?"
"Some kind of ritual or something," Mon said with a disinterested shrug. "Like, seven blood sacrifices, I guess? Witchcraft is different from monster magic."
"And highly illegal," Frisk whispered.
Although Mon was likely not intended to hear that, she did and responded with, "Illegal or not, the humans were willing to do whatever it took to get rid of us. That's why King Asgore has been collecting the faces of the humans that have gotten lost in Ebott Forest: once we have this last human, we can once again go free!"
"And the masks?"
Mon sighed. "Unless the curse is truly broken, we will never again have our faces. But what does 'truly broken' mean? Broken is broken!"
Leaning against the rock, Mon yawned. "Hey, you think this would be a bad place to rest for the night? It's late, and I could use some shut eye after running around all day. Besides, it's nice listening to the rain."
"It is nice," Frisk agreed, looking out into the distance to watch the rain fall, and Chara silently agreed. It was beautiful to see, comforting to smell, and melodious to hear. Even without a proper roof over their head or someplace soft to rest against, this was still somewhere even Chara felt safe resting.
Mon wasting no time getting comfortable. "Night, Frisk," she said, curling on her side.
"Good night, Mon," Frisk returned as she, too, lied down with her back facing Mon's.
Instead of trying to sleep, Frisk looked to Chara. He floated above the girls, watching over them. Seeing Frisk look up at him, Chara said, "Go to sleep, Frisk. I'm here to keep watch. I'll wake you if there is any reason to worry."
This seemed to satisfy Frisk, for she nodded, rolled over, and went to sleep shortly after.