Book Four:
Behind the Mask
Chapter 1
It was a good thing Chara had no need for air, because he wouldn't have been able to breathe.
Chara did not remember just something. He remembered many things. His life before Ebott Forest was as clear to him as if it happened a few days ago.
He was born not into an affluential family. They lived in a large home just outside of a small village. His private education was more privileged than what the other, common children received.
However, his parents were not nice people. They used their influence to take from the poor. There never ceased to see fit to scold Chara for minor offenses, nor was there any hesitation to hit him if they deemed necessary.
The details were uncertain to Chara. He had only been a child. All he knew was that nobody liked his family, not even him.
Someone really did not like them. While Chara was out tending to his secret garden in the woods, one of the villagers set fire to the house. Both of his parents and some of the servants perished in the flames.
For the next three years, Chara was on his own.
Then he saved a little girl from being run over by a horse-drawn carriage, and she became his shadow from then on.
The girl was significantly younger than he was, but she was the closest thing to a friend Chara ever had. She didn't see him as a street rat like the other villagers did. The way she looked at him had Chara sometimes concerned he had fooled her into believing that he held up the sky.
They never exchanged names. She had always been "little lady" to him. It was good enough for him. He didn't plan to live much longer anyway. Although he regretted that he would never see the child again, he knew it was better if he had become nothing more than a childhood memory to her.
Or so Chara thought.
The little lady took Chara's fleeing to the woods to heart. When she grew and her own life became hard, she followed his example. What Chara thought he did for the better ended up being the footsteps he never anticipated she would follow.
"We should get going," Chara finally said, the words strangled as if they were twisted in the throat he didn't have.
Frisk, who had watched as Mon walked away, stepped closer to him. "What's wrong, Chara?"
"Nothing is wrong, Frisk," he said, the lie tasting bitter.
"Chara, something is bothering you." She once again stepped forward, and Chara didn't realize he was pulling away from Frisk till she said, "You won't even let me come near you. What's the matter?"
Trying to figure out what to say, Chara chose to not reveal the truth. "Something feels different. Ever since you stopped to help Mon . . . I do not know."
"Did you remember something about your past?"
". . . No, I did not."
Chara could tell that Frisk did not believe him. He had remembered something monumental, and he was trying with little success to hide it from the one person who wanted to help him most. But Chara could not tell Frisk; she must never know.
"Well, let's keep going then," Frisk suggested after a moment too long. She began to march forward. Silent, Chara followed.
Frisk could never know the truth. It was horrible, Chara could not help but think. Frisk trusted him so much to tell him about the boy she had once known who went into the forest and only come out with his face ripped from his corpse, yet Chara could not tell her the truth of his own deepest secret.
If Frisk knew that Chara was the boy who had saved her all those years ago and had set the example of running to Ebott Forest to escape life's problems, she might never forgive him.
Frisk could never know who Chara was behind the mask.