This is a bit longer, as promised, and I apologize if this chapter seems short, but I promise that I'll upload longer chapters as I progress. I just wanted there to be a little something to read while I write the longer chapters. Toodles, and thank you for those who are reading this.

I woke up screaming as I held my outstretched hand against where I thought I had been stabbed in my shoulder. Although the pain was extremely sharp, thankfully, it left as soon as it had came. I tried to control my fast paced breathing as I looked down to see that there luckily wasn't any stab wounds; there, however, were what looked like bandages that covered my arm. Feeling my breathing beginning to slow down, I tried to see through the darkness of the bedroom I was in- the bed I was laying on was the first indication to my assumption that this was probably a bedroom at least. It was actually even hard to see, even if it was dark, I shouldn't have had that much trouble adjusting both my eyes to the dark. However, trouble seeing through the dark soon became the least of my concerns as I caught sound of several pairs of footsteps growing louder and louder from outside the room. Out of childish instinct, my first thought was to try to hide myself underneath the covers of the bed, but decided against it due to it being too obvious. I quickly rolled off the bed and hit the floor with a hard thud, which hurt a lot, but I ignored the pain and quickly crawled underneath the bed and waited. As soon as the door swung open, the lights were turned on as I saw two sets of… white furry… feet-like-paws? I was confused, and I was still bothered that I was only seeing out of my right eye, which was both frustrating and frightening to me. Carefully, I quietly rubbed my left eye to find that there had been a padded eyepatch covering my eye the entire time. Although I felt a shudder down my spine at what could have been the reason why I was wearing it, I remained quiet. "Mom, where'd he go?" I made the voice out to be another child's voice, but it certainly wasn't Chara's; in fact, the voice was most definitely belonging to that of a male.

"Oh my God…" The mother's voice, despite being worried, was soft; otherwise had it not seemed to have a hint of panic behind it, I would have gone as far as to describe her voice as gentle. I presumed it was her who ran out of the room, leaving to who I was guessing to be her son standing there- most likely baffled from his mother's reaction.

"Ummm… alright." He said aloud before sighing. "Hey uh… gosh, I wished I knew what to call you..." Asriel muttered as he made his way a mere couple feet away from the head of the bed. "Come on, you couldn't have gone very far…" Asriel commented. I heard the sound of hinges squeaking before another sigh came from him. It was then that I begun to hear the light steps of shoes squeaking against the wooden floor before seeing said pair of black shoes entering through the door. "Oh, hey Frisk." Asriel greeted as he turned to face whoever who standing behind him.

"Where'd he go?" Their voice was like what I remembered Chara's voice sounding in a way, except a bit more lighter in tone and it had a very warm and kind feeling to it, if that makes sense. "Did you put him in the wardrobe?" Frisk asked.

"Agh, Frisk! No!" Asriel retorted in disgust. "We're looking for him, and I don't know where to look, so I started with the nearest thing that I thought someone could stuff a body in." I could hear even more disgust in his tone from saying that. "I don't know Frisk, I'm hoping nothing worse happened to him."

"Let me give it a shot." Frisk replied before beginning to hum to themselves. I held my breath as I saw their light blue shorts and long black socks stretch as they knelt down near the bed. "Peekaboo!" They giggled before leaning down to grab hold of my hand before sliding me out from underneath the bed. I held down a whimper as I tried to avoid eye contact with the child kneeling in front of me, but upon a quick glimpse of their face, I couldn't even tell if their eyes were open either. However, my last plan of defense failed as I felt Frisk grab the sides of my cheeks before beginning to play with them with a smile across their face, which I couldn't help but let out a small throaty laugh. My smile was short lived upon looking to my right to see what Asriel had really looked like. There he stood, dressed in brown pants and a green long sleeved sweater with two yellow stripes across the chest- similar to Frisk's blue and purple sweater- except he wasn't a human child. He resembled what look like an anthropomorphic goat, except he had white fur over his hands, not hooves, and his eyes were very human like. It was unnerving to say the least, but he didn't seem like he wanted to hurt me. However, his eyes did widened in shock as stared at me.

"Er… Hi. My name's Kaneki Ken..." Upon saying this, Frisk placed their hand over mine as they begun to shake my hand.

"I'm Frisk." They simply stated. I expected them to let go after their short introduction, but instead they lifted my hand toward their lips before gently kissing the top of my hand. I felt my expression go blank as I stared back at Frisk, who followed that affectionate display with a wink.

"Frisk, not now, please..." Asriel muttered softly, which by the way Frisk turned to face him with a shocked expression, I assumed that this behavior was odd for him. "I can't believe you're still able stand after what happened to you." Asriel spoke to me.

"... What exactly did happened to me; and not to be rude, but what are you?" He seemed almost caught off guard by the question, but simply chuckled as he rubbed his chin.

"Wow, I guess you did land pretty hard." His soft laughter soon faded into a solemn frown. "I'm… I… I really didn't think you'd survive…" He gasped as he looked away from me. "... I'll get my mom so she can explain what happened." With that said, he brushed past me as he made his way out the bedroom. Midway down the hallway, I heard him shout "Frisk! Help redress his bandages please," before continuing on his way. With the room illuminated, I could see that all the bandages covering most my body were stained a dark red. Luckily, before the image could be burned further into my mind, Frisk placed their hands on my shoulders and motioned me to sit back on the mattress.

"So… I guess the legend about Mt. Ebott was true." I joked, but my attempt in lighting the mood proved fruitless as Frisk ignored my comment. Licking the sleeve of their sweater, Frisk begun to wipe the wet cloth around my mouth for about a minute before stopping. I caught a glimpse at their now bloodied sleeve before they proceeded to wipe it against their pants. "Thank you."

"Of course." Frisk replied before reaching around my chest to carefully unravel the long strip of bandage around my chest. Not wanting to be a burden, I begun to remove some of the bandages myself to help out.

"Frisk, was… was there anyone else with me?" I asked, as I started to believe that Chara was just somehow a figment of my imagination, and that I had only dreamed of them after I caught of glimpse of Frisk from earlier.

"I wouldn't know because Asriel and Toriel- I call her mom though so don't tell her I said that, okay- helped me get better after they found me." Frisk explained as they tossed the large bloodied bandage onto the floor. "But from what I know, you fell after I did... " Their mood darkened as they paused. "Expect you weren't as lucky as I was, from what I heard, and-"

"Hide…" In an instant, my eyes shot wide open as I remembered that he had been

with me. We climbed the mountain, and after he wandered off… "I need to find him." As I tried standing up, Frisk immediately objected with a whine as they tried to keep me on the bed. "Please let go, I need to make sure he's okay!" I shouted in protest, but instead of letting go, Frisk only held on more as they shook their head.

"No! I have to make sure you don't get hurt again, or else Asriel will be sad again!" I was beginning to get annoyed with their efforts to stop me, so I tried shoving them away, but they proved more persistent than I thought. "I said no!" At this point, they were desperate to get a hold on me, and I could feel their fingers prying between the bands of my eyepatch. "Please, just let us help you get better!"

"I… I need to help Hide…" I grunted under my breath before raising my foot up to kick Frisk off me. They let out a cry as they hit the wall with a loud thud. Getting up, I prepared myself for more of Frisk's determined efforts to keep me in the room, but instead what I saw made me feel sick to my stomach. On the floor, Frisk sat crying in fear as they cowered before me. "I'm… I'm so sorry…" I tried to get closer to comfort them, but they instead scattered to their feet before rushing out of the room. I wanted to apologize, I really did, but I tried to justify to myself that I wasn't in the wrong. Finding Hide was more important, right?

"How sweet of you." I felt tears beginning to weld up in my eyes at this point, and the familiar voice I heard mocking me only made things worse. "What? Did you really think I'd forget about our partnership?"

"Where's Hide?!" I screamed as I held the sides of my face, to which I then realized that I could see my left hand- the same side on which my eye was covered. To be honest, I didn't care about that at the moment. "Help me find him!"

'Well, well, well, looks like someone thinks they're in control here, now does it?' Chara chuckled, and as they continued, their mocking laughs grew louder and louder as I watched in disbelief at the image appearing before me. There they stood, with that same sadistic smile standing over me as shivered on my knees. "I'll take you there, but you'll have to do something for it first."

"What?!" Looking up, I could see their wide grind become more and more sly as their red pupils expressed a somewhat playful nature to them.

"Beg." I didn't know how to respond at first, but I didn't need to as I watched Chara put their foot out in front of me. "I said beg." I could still feel my tears flowing down my cheeks as I reluctantly leaned in closer to their black shoe. Doing what I could imagine to suffice this sick request, I held their calf as I rested my forehead against their toes. I felt humiliated to say the least, and after feeling their hand grasp my chin, they cocked my head up to look at them in the eyes. "God, you're so pathetic…" Chara chuckled once more before letting go. "Hurry up and stand up while you have SOME dignity left." I couldn't stand up though, despite my efforts, and instead I only broke down and gave in to the overwhelming dread I had in me. "... Dear God, what happened to that confidence you had the last time we met?" When I didn't reply, I felt them grasp my chin again, but this time it was slightly more gentle. Their smile was gone, and instead they gave me annoyed expression- an almost pitiful one at that. "Jeez, you're a wreck… I'll tell you what: how about I take over for a bit? You can just sit back and relax as you watch me show you how it's done." With their other hand, they held it out in front of me. I wanted to find Hide, and even though I felt lost in my hopelessness and despair, I felt something inside me that allowed me to have the strength to reach out my hand toward them. What I felt, was not doubt DETERMINATION.

I couldn't believe what a crybaby he turned out to be, but I didn't really care that much to be honest. He was easy to manipulate, and that was good enough for me. I took a moment to observe around what used to be Asriel's room as I could almost feel a upbeat reminiscing joy emerge deep inside of me from all the art I drew in this room. I probably should have learned to draw better before I ate those flowers and died. Whatever. "Please…" Oh god, I didn't expect him to be able to have the same abilities as I did. "Take me to where we fell."

"Yeah, just, you know, hold on real quick." I reassured aloud as I put my foot out, only to stumble; it had been a while since I've last had a body after all. "Let me get used to this body first, okay?"

"Please hurry."

"God! I just said I would, okay?!" Jeez, the nerve of some people. Using the side of the wall, I was able to utilize it to aid me in my efforts in learning how to walk again- which didn't take long, of course. Going off my memory, I made a quick pace over to where the kitchen was, and immediately begun to search the drawers.

"What are you doing?!"

"Making myself a sandwich, what else?" I answered sarcastically, "I'm getting something to defend myself with, idiot. See?" I asked as I brought the side of the knife close to my left eye, where I could see in the reflection my good old darken eye with a red pupil.

"I can't see it." What did that mean? I pondered about this for a moment, and tried moving it over to my other eye. "A knife?! Why do you need that?! We're just going to find where Hide and I fell down, right?!" Kaneki asked in a panicked tone.

"You've obviously haven't seen what's in the ruins, have you?" I, of course, didn't expect him to… Which I found sort of weird. Shouldn't we have met Flowey? Then Toriel would have saved me and gave me this stupid tutorial on how killing is wrong and whatever. Then again, I've always used Frisk, so I'm not sure what to expect by partnering up with someone else, but I'm more than sure that those monsters were more than willing to attack me. Even so, how did Frisk survive that fall without me? Whatever, those were questions that would be answered in all due time; that, or no longer become relevant to me.

"Isn't a knife a bit excessive? According to the legend, humans are far more powerful." Kaneki tried to reason with me. How cute.

"Look, you let me worry about getting there, okay?" A moment of silence passed without hearing an answer from him, which was really irking me at this point. "I'll take that as a 'Yes Chara! Thank you for taking the time to help me with some stupid trivial pursuit!', how about something along the lines of that?"

"Hide isn't trivial to me; he's family." He finally replied, and sternly too I might add. "I know you probably don't care about him, but… It would mean a lot to me if you atleast tried." I… I actually didn't know exactly how to respond to that at first.

"... I said I would, Kaneki, okay?" I finally muttered in response after a moment of silence passed. I could have sworn I heard a sigh of relief coming from him upon me saying that.

"Thank you, Chara."

Any suggestions? Spaghetti recipes? Please help, I'm hungry and the stove is too stronk.