Chapter 6
Chara stayed alert all night, and when Frisk awoke the next morning, Mon was already up and waiting. After sharing a handful of nuts with Frisk – "I always keep a snack on me. Never know when the urge to munch strikes!" – the two set off through the rest of the rain. Mon chatted excitedly about seeing Undyne in action, but Frisk, if she was having the same thoughts as Chara, could not get the truth of the monsters' curse out of her mind.
The humans attacked the monsters unprovoked. The humans nearly wiped out the monsters, and the survivors were driven into untamed woods. The human then sealed the monsters' fates when they not only put a curse on the forest, trapping those within for all eternity, but also put a curse on the monsters that took away their faces, forcing the once full of expression creatures to hide their very faces behind masks.
No wonder Mon was so excited to see Undyne beat Frisk up.
After they had come out of the rain and Frisk returned the umbrella, Mon turned to Frisk and said, "Thanks again for letting me join you."
"Are you going to run ahead now?" Frisk asked, teasing. It was different for Chara to see Frisk being playful with someone other than himself, as if she wouldn't mind making any friends within this forest.
Mon snorted and answered, "Nah, I think we're going to travel together now."
However, time with the new traveling companion soon came to an end. There was a ledge in front of the girls that would be too difficult to climb. There was no way around it.
"Shoot," Mon crossed her arms, "we must of took a wrong turn back there."
"So, we will need to go back?" Chara couldn't make out what Frisk was feeling when she said those words, but she didn't sound too disappointed.
"You want to see Undyne too, right? Here, let me get on all fours, and you can use me as a stool to climb up. The ledge isn't that high, I don't think."
Mon got on her hands and knees, and Frisk, seemingly not knowing what else to do, stepped onto Mon and reached for the ledge. Using her upper body strength, Frisk used to height advantage standing on Mon gave her and pulled herself up. Once she was secure, Frisk lied on her stomach and reached out for Mon to help draw the girl up.
"I don't think that's going to work as well as you think it is," Mon said, after staring at Frisk's hand for a moment. "No, you go ahead, and I'll backtrack and find a way around."
Frisk hesitated, and Chara was certain he knew what Frisk was thinking. Mon was so eager to see Undyne, it must have been a great personal sacrifice for Mon to lose so much time this way. "Are you sure?"
"Positive!" Mon exclaimed. "Don't worry about me. I always find a way. Don't wait up!"
Spinning on her heel, Mon began to sprint away. She slipped, fell, pushed herself back up, and was once again on the run. It was as if she was already trying to make up the time she was losing.
After Mon was out of sight, Frisk stood to her feet and told Chara, "She is something else."
"Truly," Chara agreed, "but as appreciative as I am for her history lesson, I cannot say that I am sad to see her go. We cannot communicate with each other when she, or anyone else, is around."
They didn't travel long before they came across a chasm so wide that the only way across was through the series of bridges connecting one side to the other. Chara tried to remember the path through these bridges, but it was all foggy. There was not much guiding he could do to get Frisk from one side to the other while still taking her where she needed to go.
Before Frisk could get far across the bridges, she abruptly stopped. Chara saw why before he had to ask. There was a light blue circle glowing right in front of Frisk.
Soon, another appeared. Then another. Each one arrived faster than the one before it. Before long, Frisk was surrounded by the light blue lights. Then, faster than they eye could blink, spears shot from the ground where the light blue circles were.
Frisk screamed, and soon the spears faded. However, the light blue circles reappeared, and this time Frisk was standing on one of them. Frisk, either oblivious or too dumbstruck to think, didn't move away.
"Frisk, don't just stand there!" With all his might, Chara shoved into Frisk. She stumbled out of the way just as the spear shot up from the ground. As those spears began to fade away, Chara shouted, "Run!"
Not waiting to be told again, Frisk bolted forward. She ran like a gazelle with her long legs, bounding across great distances at a fast pace. The blue lights kept appearing, spears shooting from them after mere seconds of their formation. Frisk was easily outrunning the circles. Yet just as Chara began to believe that Frisk was going to be safe, the pattern changed.
"STOP!" Chara shouted.
Obeying instantly, Frisk skidding to a stop. She halted just in time for another spear to shoot up from the ground, this time the spear appearing just in front of Frisk instead of from behind. It was enough for Frisk to squeak in fear.
"Keep moving!" Chara ordered as that spear also faded away.
As Frisk ran from the spears as they shot from the ground, only stopping whenever she was about to run into one, Chara looked for from where the danger came. Then he saw it in the distance. He could not make out much form in the darkness, but Chara could see the shadows on someone wearing heavy metal armor.
"Undyne," he whispered before turning back to Frisk.
With her focus solely on avoiding the spears, the direction in which she traveled was not taken into consideration. Of course, the only thing that mattered was Frisk's getting away from Undyne unharmed. As long as Undyne was near, Frisk was not safe.
Running aimlessly in the darkness, Frisk took each and every path that drove her away from Undyne. The further Frisk ran, the less Chara could see Undyne in the distance. The spears appeared less and less the more Frisk fled. It was as if the magic was wearing out Undyne, and Frisk's endurance outlasted the monster's. Within time, the spears stopped appearing, and Frisk began to slow down and eventually stopped running when a moment passed without spears shooting up from the ground.
"Phew!" Frisk doubled over, hands on her knees, and began to breathe heavily. Between gulps for air, she asked, "Do you . . . do you think . . . think we lost her?"
Chara searched for Undyne's heavily armored shadow before answering, "I believe so."
"Think that . . . was Undyne?"
"I am absolutely certain it was her."
When Frisk caught her breath, she stood upright and looked around. She had run onto a section of the bridge that was cut off from the rest of the complex. Taking a few steps forward, she could see that this direction led to a dead end.
"Why does such a pointless path in the bridge exists?"
"Perhaps this was supposed to lead somewhere, but construction was never completed."
"Well, looks like we have to go back." Frisk began to move towards the direction from which they came. "Hopefully, Undyne decided not to stick around. I don't know what I would do if I saw her coming."
As if she had been summoned, Undyne began to emerge from the shadows. Chara noticed her earlier Frisk did. Before he could warn Frisk, she came to a halt and froze in place.
Without stopping to think anything through, Frisk turned around and sprinted back in the opposite direction. Chara assumed that Frisk was not thinking and had forgotten that the direction led to a dead end. The realization had Chara convinced that if her spears failed to impale Frisk, then this was Undyne's backup plan.
Frisk nearly ran off the edge of the bridge. Crying out, she stopped and waved her arms wildly as she regained her balanced. No longer in danger of falling off the bridge into the dark abyss below, Frisk spun around and watched as Undyne slowly but surely approached the human.
"What do I do?" Frisk whispered, pleading with Chara.
If only Chara had an answer to give.
Undyne kept walking closer until she was five feet apart. Then, she stopped. Undyne did not say anything. From a moment, she just stood there, staring at Frisk. In return, Frisk also stared at the newly arrived monster.
Before Chara could try to make sense of what was happening, new spears arrived, this time from above. They shot down from the sky and into the bridge. Everything from there happened in slow motion.
The part of the bridge on which Frisk stood was now disconnected from the rest of the bridge complex. For a moment, time stood still. Frisk was suspended in the air. Then time resumed. The bridge underneath Frisk's feet gave way to gravity.
Helpless, Chara could only watch as Frisk fell into the chasm below. Soon, their shared connection began to pull Chara down as well. As they both fell into the unknown, Chara could not help but ask questions to which he was not sure he wanted the answers.
If Frisk dies, does she become as I am?
Of if Frisk dies, do I die again forever?
Will we become similar beings, or do we both cease to exist?
Chara didn't want to know the answers, but as another second was added to the fall, Chara knew he was going to know them whether he liked it or not.