CHAPTER ONE; THE FAMILY OF THREE

*be warned; this story contains violence, swearing, minor suggestive themes, mental illness, and self harm. If you are easily upset, do not read this story. If you are self harming or think you have a mental illness, please seek help. Gotta keep you safe...

{Sometimes, others will not listen to your story. They will ignore what you have to say. You will no longer be respected, and the more you try and insist upon being listen too, the more you shall be dubbed as insane. And the more you listen to them, the more insane you'll become...}

There's a haze of thick fog in the area front of her; so thick it's hard to breathe. It's choking her; every time she opens her mouth to breathe, it seeps inside of her throat and floods her lungs, no oxygen traceable in her body. No matter how hard she claws at her throat with sharpened nails, or tries to expel the substance from her body, she can't breathe. The warm blood dripping from her neck and the searing pain she feels remind her that she can feel things other than this fog.

Suddenly, through the haze, there's a deep, smooth voice with such a caring tone to it she forgets her desperate need for air. "-can she hear me? Oh, oh! Frisk! Do not lose hope, stay determined! We're coming to help you!"

The deep voice chuckles lowly and an equally soothing woman's voice cuts through the fog next, interrupting the other voice. "Oh, my poor child… we love you, do not forget that."

Finally, comes a high pitched voice that seems like it's coming from a child. "Mom is right! We love you, Frisk! We'll come save you soon… don't forget me in that time, okay…?"

Frisk feels her arms and legs being forced down by something unseen, but she's too focused on the voices to struggle or respond in any way. The realization of being deprived of oxygen hits her like a wave, and suddenly, her mind goes blank as she falls unconscious.

She blinks hard as the fog clears and oxygen takes the fog's place and her mind clears. Frisk's wrists and ankles are chained down with thick, leather restraints, set atop a tiny white bed with a single baby blue blanket atop it, such a light shade that it barely differentiated itself from the rest of the pristine, white furniture.

After several minutes of patiently trying to get her bearings, Frisk feels a bandage wrapped loosely around her neck. Though she can't see it, her mind is clear enough now that she can assume its purpose was to stop the bloodflow from her neck. Just as she tilts her head back and sighs, a pudgy, broad-shouldered figure enters the room.

"You gave us quite a scare there, Miss Young. Are you feeling well enough to tell me what happened?" The figure sits down and becomes recognizable as the Institution's head nurse, who insisted all patients refer to her as Yanni.

Frisk shakes her head. She doesn't want to have a complex conversation right now, afraid of what she might say when her mind is still cloudy and she can't think straight. Not to mention she can't quite comprehend what had happened so soon after it happened. "Can I have some water, please?" She asks, her voice raspy and dry. She's glad that the self-inflicted injuries on her neck are only flesh wounds that didn't affect her voice.

"I thought you might like something to wet your whistle," Yanni sets a thin paper cup she had been holding on the darkly painted, chipped, bedside drawer next to Frisk's bed. "It's two minutes to lights out. I suggest you get some sleep tonight, so tomorrow you and your psychiatrist can focus on getting over your problems, yes?"

"I… I'll try," Frisk mumbles, even though she had rarely been able to sleep without the aid of sedatives for the many years she'd been in this cursed place.

Without undoing her restraints, Yanni nods, satisfied, and exits the room, closing the door to Frisk's room behind her. The curtain that acts as a divider between two patients that are put in the same room slowly opens, that side of the room incredibly dark. A pair of brilliant red eyes appear from the darkness, twinkling with mischief.

"What was that, the fifth time this week?"

"Get over here and undo my restraints, Chara…"

"I'm serious. You've gone off your rocker for good, huh?"

"Chara, come on. I'm going to be fine! Now untie me, I do it for you."

"Hmph, fine. You should let yourself succumb to your inevitable madness," Chara winks, emerging from her personal shadows and releasing Frisk from her bindings.

"I would if I wanted to be like you." Frisk snaps, rubbing her sore wrists.

"Ouch, my heart~" Chara giggles and flops onto the bed, despite it being barely large enough for someone as small as Frisk, sprawling herself out without regard for its other occupant. "It's kinda funny how you think that's insulting to me."

Frisk rolls her eyes, knowing that Chara enjoys disputes and deciding to drop the subject. "So, what did I do this time? Are they planning to move me anywhere?"

"Mm, you know the rules. You want information? I want something you have, hand it over." Chara sits up and grins. "You've got shoelaces with metal aglets. I want the metal."

"Are you still working on that dumb project? It's never gonna work. You aren't going to be able to override the facility's systems with a bunch of metal melted in a microwave…"

"That was last month's project. This time I've got a much better one," Chara murmurs as Frisk opens up the tiny closet next to her drawer and rips the metal tips from the low-quality sneakers she had been allowed to purchase on a group excursion to the town plaza the patients took. It wasn't even like she wanted them; it was just another thing to remind her there was more to life than being stuck in a mental hospital.

"Oh? And what would that be?" Frisk drops the aglets into Chara's open palm.

"I wanted to build a robot friend, so that he'll come back and he won't be scared of this place anymore… maybe he'll even let you see him, too."

Frisk knew who "he" was. Chara, as she knew from reading her medical chart left behind by a careless nurse, was suffering from paranoia and schizoaffective disorder. Her most common hallucination was a strange, kindly creature that she had described as a "tall dork", and a "total softie". She clearly had a soft spot for him, and refused to believe that he was just a figment of her mind.

Although Chara was sixteen years old, she couldn't understand that the medications she was being given were preventing this creature from visiting her. She was firmly convinced that he was scared of the institution because of the scary "psychos". She thought that if she built a robot to protect him, he would come back.

She called this strange creature an equally as strange name; Gaster.

"Yeah, okay… that'll be interesting. Anyway, information. What do you know about what happened?"

"Well, for starters, you started screaming and scratching your neck like you'd die if you stopped. Then you got, like, fixated on this spot on the wall for a while. It sounded like you were choking, kind of. Then some nurses came in to sedate you and I pretended to be asleep. This place has got a full house, they can't move you to another room. You're stuck with me for now," Chara pokes at the metal bits in her hand as if analyzing them, pleased.

"Alright, thanks. I'm gonna lay down now… you can build your robot or whatever, just don't make too much noise, alright?" Frisk sits back down as Chara stands up and scampers off to her side of the room without another word, the aglets in hand.

A few minutes later, another nurse that Frisk didn't recognize comes in. He gives her another cup of water despite the other still sitting on the drawer, and give her two pills to take. After watching her take them, quite agreeably, he heads to Chara's side. Frisk can hear her dive for her bed and shove the metal scraps under it.

Frisk can't quite see what is going on behind the curtain as she feels drug induced sleep close in on her, but she can hear bits of what the two are saying.

"You need to take your medicine, Chara. You need to go let your body rest, and you don't want that hallucination to come back, am I correct?"

"Gaster isn't a hallucination! He's real and he's my friend!"

"Chara…"

"No! He's just scared of people like you that drug us up without even listening to what we have to say! He's scared that I'll hurt him while I'm drugged up!"

"Do you remember the isolation room? You didn't like that very much. I'm afraid if you don't take your medicine, you'll be a danger to other patients and we'll have to put you in there."

There were a few moments of silence. "...fine… I'll take it…"

"You haven't hidden them in your cheeks or under your tongue?"

"Yeah."

"If you aren't lying, let me see…"

"...no…"

"Come on. It isn't that hard. I'll tell you what. If you take these, I'll arrange for you to talk to the head psychiatrist tomorrow, so you can tell him that 'Goster' isn't a hallucination."

"Gaster. His name is Gaster."

"Okay. You can tell him that Gaster isn't a hallucination."

"Alright…"

"Let me see inside? ...mhm. Good job. Good night, girls," The nurse mumbles as he walks out of the room, flipping off the light as he left.

Chara mumbles something Frisk can't quite hear. Her mind is clouded over by the need for sleep, as well as deep in thought. She remembers vividly the words spoken to her that morning by those three unseen voices… unable to be either worried or excited about them and their words. They seemed like they were friendly… they seemed like they were all a family. A very happy, kind family that Frisk would have loved to be a part of… there was a dad, a mom, and a child.

Those voices were a family of three.