Snowflakes slowly floated down onto the ground all around Jeremiah. The trees surrounding him towered so high above him, he couldn't see their tops. I wonder if they stretch all the way to the top of the cave? He thought to himself. "I used to wonder that too. A friend and I tried to climb up one and find out, we managed to get up around ten feet before they chickened out." Jeremiah almost let the anecdote past him by without a second thought, but he caught onto something odd she mentioned. "You mentioned you had a friend, was it Toriel by chance?" Chara seemed surprised by the sudden question, but she recovered quickly and laughed. "No, it wasn't Toriel. What made you think that?"

"Well it's just that you seemed to know so much about Toriel, but it was more of a guess than anything else." She was quiet for a moment, then responded. "It wasn't that bad of a guess, she was my friend's mom." Jeremiah's felt some surprise at first, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Toriel acted just like he always imagined a mother would, so it made a whole lot of sense she was a mother. Although the realization did make him feel guilty, her child almost definitely had left home a long time ago, or possibly even died. But going off the fact Toriel was still alive after what he could only guess to be hundreds of years, her child was more than likely still alive. But still, that meant not only had he been rude to a friendly woman who saved his life, (who was admittedly still a witch) but to an old lonely woman who had saved his life. Desperate to stop thinking about how he treated Toriel, he asked Chara a question. "Any idea where your friend is today? You wouldn't be able to talk to them, but I imagine you'll like to see-"

"He's dead." Chara interrupted abruptly, any cheer in her voice gone. Jeremiah was surprised by such a hostile reaction, so it took him a moment to try and respond. "I know it's been a long time, but based on the fact Toriel is-" Chara interrupted him again. "I watched him die, so I'm fairly certain he's dead." After that, silence overtook them both. Jeremiah desperately wanted to apologize but something told him it would only make matters worse.

Walking from that point onward seemed incredibly lonely. The winding paths he walked down seemed to be completely devoid of life. So when he saw two wooden structures much like the one by that conveniently placed lamp, he had some hope he would find someone. But alas, all he found was a sign that said something about dog marriage, (whatever that meant) and a note that read. "All royal guard units of Snowden are being temporarily being recalled to Hotland for training. Contact Papyrus if you have any human sightings to report." At the bottom of the paper, it said it was written by a person named Undyne. Whoever this Undyne person is, they can't write that good because this is all written in almost lazily large letters. Jeremiah thought to himself as he walked away from the two stations.

Regardless, thank God for his providence. I'm not sure if I can deal with two skeletons, let alone an entire army. "I wouldn't call the royal guard an army, they're more like a police force." Jeremiah was surprised by Chara suddenly speaking again, but he wouldn't complain. But he could complain about her next question. "I haven't gotten a chance to ask you Jeremiah, but what year is it?" Jeremiah's heart froze. Should I tell her? "Tell her what?" Chara asked, not sounding very happy at the idea that he was trying to hold something back from her. It took Jeremiah a moment to realize she could read his thoughts. He wanted to smack himself for forgetting something like that. Feeling her ever-increasing impatience, plus his ever-increasing panic, he just blurted out the answer. "It's the year two thousand six hundred and sixteen." He braced himself for some sort of emotional breakdown about how all of her friends and family were dead, but it never came. She just laughed. "That's a good one Jeremiah." When Jeremiah didn't laugh back, Chara's laughter died down. "You're kidding, right?" Jeremiah shook his head, causing Chara to become silent. Jeremiah was just starting to wonder if he had been right to worry, when Chara spoke back up. "So are flying cars a thing yet?" Jeremiah was completely and utterly baffled, to say the least. "How about robots?" His confusion only doubled, causing her to sigh. "I guess movies lied to me. Unless the future is some post-nuclear war wasteland." She could feel how his panic skyrocketed when she mentioned the wasteland bit. "Wait, was there a nuclear war?"

Jeremiah was surprised by the lack of panic in her voice, she just sounded surprised. He hesitated for a moment, before deciding she deserved to know. "Yes." He cringed as he spoke, expecting a million different reactions. What he wasn't expecting was the feeling of her shrugging at him and asking. "When?" He felt a large weight come off his shoulders with her calm reaction. "The year two thousand and twenty-seven." He could feel her nod at him as if he was telling her some trivial thing. As relieved as he felt about her reaction, it still bothered him. "I'm not trying to tell you how to feel, but shouldn't this bother you more?" He could feel Chara raising an eyebrow at him. "Why should it? I died all the way back in nineteen ninety-nine, and I didn't have any family on the surface." That last bit caught Jeremiah's attention. "You're an orphan too?" He asked, slightly more excited than he probably should've been at the prospect. He could feel her shrug. "Yep. Mother died giving birth to me and father didn't want me, so off to the orphanage I went. So why were you sent to the orphanage?"

"Well I wasn't sent to an orphanage, I was left outside a monastery." He could feel that Chara reached some sort of sudden understanding. "So that's why you're so religious!" Jeremiah wasn't sure if she meant it as an insult, a compliment, or simply a statement, but he decided to take it as a compliment. "Yes, I have the monks at the monastery to thank for my understanding of scripture. But as for why I was left there, I was born with the Blight, so my parents left me on a hill not too far away from the monastery." If Chara still had her body, her eyes would look like saucers. "Wait, what's the Blight and why would they just abandon you over it?" Her voice was confused but had plenty of anger mixed up in it. Jeremiah sighed. "Well, the Blight is a type of birth defect that first appeared after the bombs fell. It's commonly believed to be contagious, but such claims are merely superstitious, it's actually just a mutation caused by radiation. A little known fact to the average uneducated person is that not all forms of Blight are the same. It's more of an umbrella term, like the common cold or a fever, so there are plenty of different types of it that vary in severity. But that isn't to say they don't have symptoms that are almost universal. These symptoms include Osteoporosis, Hemoptysis, Desquamation, Xeroderma, and Albinism." He paused when Chara let out a groan. "I don't want an encyclopedia definition of whatever you have, I just want to know why they would abandon you because of it."

Jeremiah found her reaction slightly disappointing, if he added up all the time he spent studying the Blight, it probably would've added up to be almost a year, so he had been looking forward to finally getting to put that knowledge to good use. "Well then, I'll get to the point in a moment, but it is quite the lengthy explanation." Chara could tell there was no point in arguing, so she just sighed and told him to get on with it. "Well, to make it as short and simple as possible, the Blight can be a very deadly condition. Most people who are born with it die before reaching three years old. While that's mostly thanks to how it weakens the immune system and some of the more deadly variants, it's also in large part thanks to their parents murdering their children as soon as it becomes obvious they have the Blight. The reasons as to why they do this really depends on the parents, but there are three main reasons as to why this happens. The first of these reasons being superstition. Many tribes hold the belief that the Blight is actually contagious, so they usually kill their children before it can spread. Of course, such beliefs are utterly preposterous, but I won't bore you as to why." Chara interrupted by saying. "Thank God," But Jeremiah ignored her and pressed on.

"The second reason is entirely practical. People who have the blight aren't the best at manual labor, and most parents can't afford to feed an extra mouth that can't even work. Finally, the third reason being a strange sense of pity. You see, life with the Blight can be very miserable and some people would consider a quick and painless death preferable over a life with the blight." He finished his explanation with a sigh. Chara was silent and contemplated all that he said.

Although they were mostly silent from that point on, they both felt a whole lot better. They found a few puzzles that had blocked their way, Jeremiah was able to do most of them on his own, but Chara helped him out with a few of them. They were just walking past a strange glass floor and some sort of machine when Chara interrupted their semi-silence. "It's kinda weird that we haven't seen anyone since we saw those skeletons." Jeremiah was surprised both by the fact she was speaking and by what she pointed out. "Being honest, I didn't notice it until you mentioned it. I guess everyone here is at that royal guard training thing we read about."

"That would explain why there isn't any royal guard, but Snowden is supposed to be a big enough town, so we should've seen someone by now." Jeremiah thought about what she said, and felt tempted to ask the obvious question but knew it was probably insensitive. Thankfully, Chara realized the question as well and didn't care about it nearly as much as Jeremiah thought she did. "Then again, it's been six hundred years, so who knows if Snowden is still even there." She sounded as if she was in deep concentration. "Do you think that Papyrus chased everyone out of town?" If he could actually look at Chara, he would be staring at her bewildered. "Why in the world would he do that? Isn't he supposed to be captain of the royal guard?" He could sense Chara's slight disappointment. "I don't know, maybe he didn't want to risk a human killing anyone. You're probably right, it was just a guess." He was about to tell her it wasn't that bad of a guess when a loud shrieking voice shouted from right behind him.

"Hello, there little and easily scared monster that kinda looks like a human Sans told me about!" Jeremiah jumped up in surprise and almost cursed, but he stopped himself. Chara didn't bother stopping herself however. The voice was coming from right behind him, and he had a sinking feeling that he knew who it was. He really didn't want to turn around, but he forced himself to slowly turn around. To his horror, it was Papyrus, and he was holding a steaming plate of blood… very thick blood that was covering a bunch of noodles. "Pretty sure that's just spaghetti." Chara could sense his confusion. "Its Italian food." Jeremiah tilted his head. "Like the Romans?"

"Yep, like the Romans. It's actually pretty good. But why is the captain of the royal guard standing in the middle of the woods with a plate of spaghetti?" Jeremiah wanted to know that too, but he realized what Papyrus had actually said. "Wait does he actually think I'm a monster, and why would Sans lie to his brother?" Chara was quick to give her best guess. "Well, monsters don't get to see humans that often, so I guess it's believable he wouldn't recognize one. And as for why that creep would lie… I have no idea, maybe Papyrus is lying?"

"Now you may be wondering to yourself, 'Why is the great Papyrus speaking to me, a poor and easily scared monster?' Well, it's simple. I've heard about how you're so easily scared, that even my lazy brother Sans frightens you. I want you to realize that you can trust your fellow monsters." He paused to bend down and put the plate of spaghetti on the snow. "So I made you a plate of my famous pasta for you to eat. Once you eat it, you'll realize you can trust me and we'll be best friends. So I'll leave you here to enjoy my pasta and meet you in town." He then turned around and started to run into the trees, his shrieking laughter echoing through the woods. Jeremiah stared at the retreating skeleton, completely baffled. "Chara? Did I just make the same mistake I did with Toriel?" She hesitated for a moment before muttering. "I honestly don't know… maybe?"

They both stood there in confused silence until his stomach growled and drew him out of his stupor. He stared at the spaghetti and slowly started to step towards it. As soon as she realized what he was doing, Chara let out a growl. "Don't you dare eat that food. He could've poisoned it." Jeremiah pouted and pointed out. "If he wanted to kill me, wouldn't he have done it already?" As he pointed that out, he realized something else. "Wait, isn't this almost literally the same argument we had about Toriel?" He could feel Chara rolling her eyes at him, "Well this is different, I knew Toriel, but Papyrus is a complete stranger to us. For all we know Flowey could be working for him." Jeremiah cringed at the mention of Flowey's name. He knew Chara was probably right, heck almost every part of him screamed at him to just agree with her, but a small part of him that thought about how Toriel broke down and how nice Papyrus acted demanded he gives him a chance. Besides, how would he convert anyone if he acted terrified of everyone he met? His stomach growled again, causing him to blush. his hunger didn't hurt either.

So he made his way to the spaghetti despite her protests. He lifted up the plate and took note of its sour smell. "Pretty sure spaghetti isn't supposed to smell like that." Chara sounded legitimately sick as she spoke. While Jeremiah had no idea how it was supposed to smell, he had to admit it made him feel slightly sick too. "I don't even think he gave you a fork," She added. Jeremiah didn't particularly care about that though, so he just picked up a fist full of noodles and took note of how they felt like rubber. He opened his mouth and stuffed the spaghetti into his mouth. At first, it actually tasted surprisingly good as it slowly slid down his throat. He didn't notice the taste until after he ate the third fistful.

He was vomiting in the snow soon enough. "You idiot, I told you not to eat it, but does anyone ever listen to me? No! Nobody ever listens to me and they always end up getting themselves killed!" Chara kept ranting like this for quite a while, but Jeremiah was too busy vomiting and coughing up blood to pay attention. Eventually, there was nothing left in his stomach to eject and his coughing died down. And to both of their surprise, he wasn't dead yet.

They were both quiet for a moment until Jeremiah spoke up. "I guess you were right, I'm sorry." Chara hesitated for a moment and resisted the urge to rub it in his face. She gathered her nerves and just calmly said. "Just be more careful in the future, ok?" Jeremiah nodded and picked himself off the ground. Once he was back on his feet, he looked down at his mess and laughed. "Thank God I managed to get rid of it all before the poison took effect." Chara was silent for a moment before adding. "We really gotta watch out for that Papyrus, he's obviously cruel, cunning, and far worse than his creep of a brother." Jeremiah, while still slightly traumatized by his recent near-death experience, still wanted to give people the benefit of the doubt. "Well, it must've been hard for him to grow up with someone… as lost as Papyrus." Chara just made a noncommittal grunt and he continued down the path.

(AN) So this chapter was originally planned to be a part of the last chapter, but I wasn't sure if I could get it all done before new year. But thanks to God, a couple days off from work and my new typewriter, I was able to get this half done in time as well. I originally wanted there to be a whole lot more exposition, but I figured that would be boring. I also had a slightly different backstory in mind for Chara and planned to focus on that a whole lot more in this chapter, but that plus the blight exposition kinda made the chapter have too much exposition. Here's a little detail that's still canon to this story but will probably never be mentioned is Chara's parent's names, which are Cor, (her father) and Caroli, (her mother). Their last name would be Venatici. The reason behind these names was pretty cool, there's actually a star named Chara. Chara, (the star) is in the Canes Venatici constellation. Cor Caroli is the brightest star in the constellation.

Also, some of you may be wondering why there are no monsters this chapter besides Papyrus. The reason is simple, T̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶l̶a̶z̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶t̶e̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶t̶o̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶c̶u̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶n̶o̶r̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶s̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶p̶u̶z̶z̶l̶e̶s̶, but the reason is a spoiler and will be revealed in an upcoming chapter.

You guys know the drill, please leave a review and I hope you enjoy the story. Have a good day, happy early new year and God bless!

(Edit) Thank you so much Scion for your review! One of my main goals in this story is too make it as unique as possible. Also seeing your review led me to re-reading this chapter to make sure everyone was in character, which led to me noticing a few spelling and consistency errors. I then went a head and corrected all the errors I could find. You really don't understand how happy seeing your review made me. I hope you have a wonderful New Year and God bless.