A/N: Last time, Frisk arrives at college and meets a new friend.
Changeling
By Catsitta
2. The Call
"What's on your mind Friskies Bits?"
The object of her musings was staring back, evidently bored with the history textbook they were supposed to be reading. They were at a shady table outside the student center. It was Friday, Chara had no classes and Frisk had two more starting in about half an hour. Upon spotting Frisk studying, Chara dropped their bag on an empty chair and flopped in one across from her. Aside from hellos, they hadn't spoken.
Frisk toyed with the edge of her Statistics book, "Just thinking about yesterday. When you yelled at that boy while we were getting drinks."
Chara was, for lack of a better term, interesting.
They approached life and people with a devil-may-care manner and had a flashfire temper that was borderline frightening. Such as when someone cut them off in a coffee line. Those red eyes went manic and their grin became a razor fit to slice open throats. When staring at the offended didn't get the hint across, the litany of thinly veiled threats that poured out their mouth did. Frisk never heard someone tell another person that they'd 'introduce their skeleton to their smiley, long lost cousin under the mountain if they didn't move' before. Once the point was made, they were back to normal, posture loose.
Frisk pondered why this attitude didn't spook her. That first time Chara's mood flipped like an olympic gymnast out for gold, she should have second guessed ever handing them her number. But she didn't. They felt...comforting. Like the older sibling she never had.
"What about it?" Chara leaned over the table, chin resting their knuckles. "Guy thought that just 'cause he was some big football player that nobody would tell him off for cutting in line. I showed'em. Heh."
"Did you have to be so mean?"
The pair watched each other, the tension falling when Chara smiled, snickering as if Frisk told a bad joke, "Do you have to be so nice?"
"Hey! Being nice is important. You never know what people are going through in their lives."
Chara scoffed, "Doesn't mean you should be a doormat. Look, humans have the bad habit of being awful. They lie, cheat, steal, do whatever it takes to get ahead and make themselves feel big and powerful. They take nice people like you and chew 'em up." A trace of vulnerability flashed across their face, eyes a little unfocused. They curl their fingers, blunt nails digging into the flesh of their palm. "Most of the time it's not worth the headache to try being nice. They cuss you out, flip you off or just ignore you. But if you grit your teeth, look 'em dead in the eye and make yourself the bigger, badder person in the room, they don't cross you again. They don't get it in their head they can use you. Push you around. Sure, they may think you are twelve kinds of crazy, but I'd rather stand on my feet than let someone step on me like a rug."
Frisk slouched in her seat, heart beating faster at Chara's speech, a deep seeded part of her humming uncomfortably. It was obvious from that little speech that her new friend was hurt by someone in the past. Badly. Perhaps for that same reason they always wore oversized sweatshirts, the sleeves covering all but the tips of their fingers.
"Awe, don't look at me like that," Chara hid their face.
"Hey Chara."
They peeked between their fingers, "Yeah?"
"I get it. I think understand why you do what you do."
"Yeah?"
Brown met unflinching red, "You'll do whatever your heart and soul tells you is right. Be that standing up to guy three times your size or jumping in a pool to pull a drowning person out. Despite everything the world may throw at you, what people may do to change you...you're still YOU. You're stubborn." Gluing together the broken pieces with sheer will power and audacity, first to lash out at a threat because it means you're still alive.
They rose from their seat, running a hand through their hair, "I prefer determined."
"Five points for the vocab word of the day," Frisk winked.
"Humph. I know when I'm not wanted. Get to class, Frisbie."
"Frisbie?"
Chara slung their bag over their shoulder, "Yeah, cause I could throw you if you wanna pick that fight." A pause and then Frisk erupted in laughter. Chara's face was twisted into one of revulsion, "God, that sounded worse out loud than in my head. Punch me if I ever say something stupid like that again."
"Nah, it's fine. It's…" The white noise in her brain fizzed and snapped, warning away blotted out memory. Leaving behind only the faint smell of ketchup and damp, winter air. Frisk skittered away from the mental barricade before she gave herself a headache. "I thought it was funny."
.x
Saturday arrived in a bleary haze of coffee and fumbling for an acceptable pair of pants.
When did waking up at six in the morning become such a chore?
Frisk shuffled out of the dining hall, steaming styrofoam cup in one hand, phone in the other, a chunk of toast jammed between her teeth. She crunched absently on said toast. Burnt and buttery. Could be worse. She washed down the last bite with a gulp of much needed caffeine, still in motion. A half-oiled machine in progress. At least she didn't choke or spill it all over herself. Victory.
Thoughts a muddle, she made it to her truck with minimal issue and threw herself into the driver's seat. They were responsible for their own transportation to this class field trip, and of course, everybody who needed to carpool found somebody else to drive them. Saved Frisk the trouble of waiting for someone or figuring out where they lived if not on campus. She could enjoy the quiet of the mid-September morning, it was actually cool enough to not sweat buckets, and morons weren't trying to run her off the road with their subpar driving.
Frisk started up the engine.
It was about half an hour drive to the park.
Might as well get going.
35 minutes, 5 red lights and a little old lady in minivan going 15 in a 40 later, Frisk pulled into the state park, entrance ticket hanging from her rear view window. The ranger waved her in with a smile before turning his attention to the next car. It wasn't too long before she found a dirt and gravel parking lot, a few other students and Prof. Bowtie milling around by a direction sign. Frisk parked, her throat gone dry, hands too tight on the steering wheel. Stepping out of the truck, she looked up, a shiver passing through her body, a breeze whispering beneath her blue tank top and denim shorts.
Mt. Ebott.
This was the closest she had ever been to the mountain since the 'incident'. Trees grew in patches around them, the ground rocky. The air felt thinner just looking at Ebott's towering peak. They weren't hiking far today, but Frisk planned on staying after the lesson was over and they were left to their own devices. She swallowed and joined the others, ignoring the nagging urge to get back in her truck and drive until the mountain not even a spec on the horizon.
.x.
The history of Mt. Ebott was a sad one. Like many places in the world, during the colonization era, native peoples were suppressed, and in the end, exterminated through forced labor, murder and disease. Before they fell victim to european conquest, the native population was a small but flourishing tribe with a few hundred members. They revered the land and art left behind shared tales of the very mountain itself. From what anthropologists could gather, they believed humanoid-animal spirits lived inside the mountain, and would lure village children away to feast upon should they become displeased. They even had a doomsday myth, like many cultures, where if the spirits became enraged, they would erupt from the mountain as a swarm and possess any human they saw, becoming hulking, monstrous abominations that would go on to destroy anything living in their path.
Morning was fading into afternoon when Prof. Bowtie ended the field trip. They had walked up a well-worn path, viewed a number of information signs and toured an onsite museum that was a single room that housed a collection of half-assembled pottery and pieces of tools. Not a bad day, though there a number of vacant expressions worn by classmates, and a few had given up on attempting to look interested and were playing games on their phones. Frisk, well, she wished she could say she was in rapt awe, but the longer the day wore on, the more her head hurt, and now a persistent throb settled behind her right eye. Urg, migraine. Definitely a migraine.
Common sense said to leave and come back a different day, when she was feeling better, but a different part, the same part that had her in a standoff with her mother about attending college here, whispered to stay. Begged her to fight through the ache. A little longer. Just a little longer.
As her classmates scattered, most returning to their cars, Frisk drew in a ragged breath, popped a couple ibuprofen she kept handy for her headaches, and trekked up the walking path. Tennis shoes weren't the best for long hikes, but they would suffice, and she had half a bottle of water tucked in her bag. Likely said bottle was covered with muffin crumbs that she hadn't managed to clean out, but that wouldn't do much but make it a little weird to the touch. At least the scenery was calming. Smooth planes of earthen browns and stony greys intermixed with the warm yellows of dried grasses. Ruddy red of clay snaked veins through rain parched soil, dusty and cracked where its thirst was denied. Greens were in patches, scattering along branches and tangling low to choke out the less hearty plants. A hint of white danced in spatters, tiny flowers blooming despite the heat.
At least it was cooler the higher one went. Not cold. She was far from the towering peak.
Had she come on this walk in prime condition, this would have been a serene experience. As it were, an hour later found Frisk leaning against a tree, miserable.
This was a stupid idea.
The stupidest of ideas.
She was stuck in the middle of a hiking path, hardly able to see straight, during the hottest part of the day. Way to go Frisk. Way. To. Go. Shakily, she pulled the water bottle out and sipped, before fishing around for her cell. It was in here somewhere.
"Ah! Gotcha," her triumph was short lived, as when she pulled the smartphone free, it slipped through damp fingers and skittered across the ground, burying itself underneath the leaf litter. "Well fuck." She wasn't prone to swearing, but it was cathartic when life decided to take a jab when she was down. Frisk fought against the ache in her skull, and knelt, rummaging in the loose debris. "Hm, where did you go?" Her hand brushed plastic. "Oh, there you are. Wait. This isn't it."
Frisk stared at the outdated brick in her hand. Looked like some kind of knock off Nokia from over a decade ago. A couple keys dangled from the bottom. Someone wasn't getting into their house today. Suddenly, it started to ring. Likely the owner trying to call it to figure out where the dinosaur was hiding. What timing! She clicked answer and went back to sifting through the leaves for her own cell. "Hey, found your…" Frisk flinched as a burst of static hissed into her ear. "Yikes! Okay, ow. Um, whoever you are, if you can understand me, I found your phone on the walking path at Ebott State Park. I'll bring it to the visitor information station so you can pick it up."
The static continued, ebbing with the rise and fall expected of speech.
She was struck by an eerie sense of deja vu.
How can static sound...urgent?
There was a beep. Call must have dropped. Frisk looked at the tiny screen. Unknown number. Made sense for someone who was borrowing from somebody to try and locate their device. Maybe...maybe she could help this poor person out by calling one of their contacts. With luck the connection would be better, since she doubted her message went through properly. It took a moment, but she found the contacts. Huh. Just a few numbers in the list. At the top was MOM. Perfect.
Now, where was her cell….?
A couple minutes later, Frisk had her phone tucked in a pocket, and the knock off Nokia propped at an ear. Today was a total bust. She was tired, sweaty and in enough pain that her stomach roiled. It also didn't help that she couldn't seem to find a signal. She'd given up on her own phone since it was deciding to be a brat and overheat, but no matter how many times she dialed MOM or the UNKNOWN number, she hit dead air. The battery was also running low.
"Sorry whoever you are, I'm trying," Frisk said, sighing as the call once again failed to go through. She had to head back down. Phoning for help wasn't going to work. As she tucked away the brick with her own cell, Frisk was once more hit with that deja vu. Like she had been in this exact spot sometime before. She peered around. Just rocks and trees. And humming. Frisk rubbed her temples as the white noise in her head seemed to light up, filling her vision with spots and sparks.
She stumbled.
A branch sliced into her arm. Frisk twisted. Another step. Her back hit the trunk of a tree. CRACK. Something gave. No. NO! Another step. Backwards. Backwards. She couldn't catch her balance. Down. She was falling. Frisk braced herself for impact.
An impact that didn't happen.
Down.
Down.
Down.
I'm going to die.
That was Frisk's last thought before the world went dark with a sickening snap.
-tbc-
A/N: (Frisk falls down a hole. As we all know, that is only the beginning of the story. Thanks for reading! Like it, love it, hate it? Leave a comment. Let me know how I am doing.)