Chapter 32

Unable to stop herself, Frisk reached out and ran her fingers along the petals of the closest echo flower. She hadn't come across so many since she first entered Waterfall. With a sense of sadness, Frisk wished she didn't rush so quickly through such a beautiful area.

"It's silent," Alice whispered, either in awe of her own or trying to not be heard by the flower that would repeat her words. Looking around the field, she added, "They all are. It must have been a really long time since anyone has been through here."

Undyne and Sans, who had made his sudden reappearance that morning, silently led the way. Even loud personalities such as Papyrus and Mon kept quiet. The group was too far away for the sound of rushing water to fill the calm, leaving their breaths to only music within the edge of Waterfall.

"We'll be at the Core by tomorrow," Undyne softly announced as they settled for lunch.

"Why is it so quiet around here?" Frisk asked, unable to control her curiosity. She poked her plastic fork around her canned cheese ravioli. "Why was it so quiet in Snowdin Forest? I mean, I'm glad nobody's attacking us every five minutes, but the lack of monsters roaming around is unnerving and eerie."

Surprisingly, it was Papyrus who answered. "They're scared. Nobody knows who to trust. The Reds support King Asgore, but the Blues don't. Some Reds see the Blues as traitors and accuse them of treason. Some have been arrested and even executed for wearing blue. As a result, the Blues stay in hiding."

For a while, Papyrus's words hung in the air. Then Undyne said, "Papyrus is right. The Underground isn't safe for not just humans, but monsters as well. I arrested a few Blues in my day. Not for wearing blue, but for rumors of plans to overthrow the king. I don't know how much of it was true, but as they didn't hide their loyalty to the exiled queen, I couldn't just let them go. They're all probably still in the dungeons, waiting for a trial that may never come."

Nobody spoke after that. They continued their meal in silence. When it was time to resume their journey, Frisk grunted as she picked up her bag.

"Yo, need a hand with that?" Mon asked, brows pinched. "You, uh, look like you're struggling."

"It's fine," Frisk answered, waving Mon away. Stubborn to a fault, Frisk didn't want anyone to think she was weak. Although her pack did feel a lot heavier than she remembered it being.

The group spent the rest of the day walking without another word. After lunch, Sans lingered back to let Undyne lead the way. Frisk made eye contact with Sans at one point. Not knowing what else to do, she smiled at him. He winked in return. A small laugh escaped Frisk, and they continued their journey in the calming quiet.

Sans wore the locket under his sweater, so nobody knew Chara was aware of everything that happened. Even though Undyne and Papyrus were the only ones unaware of Chara's existence, nobody else talked about him. Not even Frisk seemed to care Chara was, as far as she knew, absent from everything that went on.

Not wanting Sans to see through him, Chara pretended that he didn't mind. Chara made sure the way he walked and held himself and commented on the world around them didn't show the sadness he felt inside. Instead he acted as if he was glad nobody could see or hear him, even if it was far from the truth.

"Man, you can no longer read these ancient texts anymore," Chara said, barely giving the carvings into the mountain wall a glance. Even though he knew by heart what was written there, he added, "Cannot be anything interesting, I am sure."

"Do you think if I talk into one of these flowers, it could somehow hear me and repeat what I said?"

"All of you are so quiet. Does anyone not have anything interesting to say?"

If at any point Chara annoyed Sans, the skeleton monster didn't show it. Instead Sans acted as if he too couldn't see Chara. Near the end, Chara gave up and walked in silence with the rest of the group.

After they had decided to rest for the night, Undyne said, "Hotland is just an hour walk away. Since it's already hot enough here, we're going to sleep where we won't roast. If we get up before dawn, we'll be at the Core by early afternoon. Good?"

"Finally!" Mon exclaimed, sitting on a rock. "My feet are so sore."

"Mine too," Frisk agreed, but Undyne shouted at her before Frisk could sit down. "What?"

"Don't forget we have our before dinner workout to accomplish."

"Oh, right." Frisk groaned, but Chara could see the small smile tugging the corners of her lips. He could tell she enjoyed feeling more like herself again. Although Frisk had spent weeks putting the weight back on, her true recovery started to show in the way she carried herself. Her knees no longer wobbled, and Frisk no longer swayed as if she would fall over at the slightest breeze. As thin as she still was, Frisk was slowly but surely getting stronger again.

With nothing better to do – not that Chara ever had better things to do in the first place – he watched Undyne lead Frisk through the warmup. Mon and Papyrus joined in, too. Seeing her friends participate with her brought a smile to Frisk's face.

"Are you jealous?"

Brows furrowed, Chara snapped his head in Sans's direction. The monster stood beside Chara and quickly explained, "That you're the only one who isn't really here? That you can't participate in anything going on around you?"

Forcing a sneer onto his face, Chara replied, "Why would I want to participate in such—"

"Cut the garbage," Sans interrupted. "You might have been able to fool Frisk into believing you don't care about anything or anyone and this is all stupid and if you could you would be doing much better things with your time, but you can't fool me. You're a sad, lonely person who wants to be accepted and have friends but pushes away those who can see you because you believe you don't deserve those things."

Trying to keep his demeanor neutral, Chara replied, "Do not talk about me as if you know who I am. You may know about me and all the bad things I did, but that does not mean you really know me."

"Look, gramps," Sans watched the four take off on their jog while Alice set up camp, "I might not know you all that well, but that doesn't mean I won't see the signs I myself have experienced and spent years trying to hide. As much as I hate to admit it, we have things in common. The both of us are weighed down by the sins of the past, and we try to hide it through bad jokes and the attitude of disinterest. On the inside, we punish ourselves for our faults, believing we can never, ever deserve better."

His curiosity betraying him, Chara asked, "What could you have done that was so bad?"

Before Sans could answer, Frisk's pack burst open, and many of its contents flew out. Heaving, a monster draped over the bag and gasped between breaths, "Tem hold breath for really long time. Now Tem need air. Ahh, sweet air."

Both Chara and Sans blinked at the Tem. "That is the one who tried to save Frisk and then let Frisk spend the night at her house," Chara said, almost not believing his eyes.

"No wonder the kid was struggling to carry her pack," Sans added. "A monster had hitched a ride inside."

"What were you doing in there?" Alice asked the Tem as she rushed over and scooped it up. To Sans, "What are you just standing there for? Get some water or something! The poor thing must be thirsty."

"Tem want to join 'venture," Temmie answered Alice. "Tem hold breath for really long time, so Tem hid at bottom of bag."

Clicking her tongue, Alice said to Sans as he handed her the water bottle. "Clean up Frisk's things, please. I'm going to make sure this little one isn't hurt or anything."

As Alice walked away with Temmie, Chara looked at the things scattered over the ground. There was the note and burnt action figure Frisk found in the remains of Snowdin. Cloudy glasses with a cracked lens and worn ballet shoes she picked up when she and Chara first began searching through Waterfall. A piece of paper with Toriel's handwriting on it. Chara did a double take.

It was indeed Toriel's handwriting. Chara remembered when Frisk left the Ruins, she tore a sheet of paper from a book to take with her. Now Chara knew what it was Frisk couldn't leave the Ruins without.

Toriel's recipe for butterscotch pie.

Turning his attention towards Sans, Chara saw Sans pick up the burnt illegible note, inspect it for a moment, and tuck it into his pocket. Chara didn't call Sans out on it. Instead he shifted his gaze towards the last items to fall from Frisk's bag.

Chara froze.

They were the books Frisk borrowed from the Snowdin Two library. The history book had fallen open, the scrap paper Frisk used as a bookmark indicating that this was where she had last read. On the page, a picture of an unhappy Chara stared back at the soul of Chara.

All Chara could do was stare at the colored image. He was fourteen when that picture was taken, and he didn't know a camera was aimed at him or else he would have turned his face away. His whole life, Chara hated being photographed. This was why in most photos, he either looked down or hid his face behind flowers or whatever else he held. Most pictures of his face, such as this one, were taken without his knowing.

That was why the photographer caught a picture of Chara looking so miserable. Chara couldn't remember what happened that day, but he supposed it didn't matter. There were so many miserable days that year they all bled together.

Unable to help himself, Chara read some of the pages. The words recounted the horrible things Chara had supposedly done. None of them were wrong.

It wasn't until Sans picked up the book and closed it that Chara was forced to tear his eyes away. He looked at Sans, and this time, Chara didn't wear his mask. Even though Chara had no need to breathe, he opened his mouth and took a shaky breath.

Sans didn't say anything. All the skeleton monster did was watch Chara as he slowly let himself crumple. Chara couldn't bring himself to care as he hugged himself and looked at his toes.

Look at what you were. Look at what you allowed yourself to become. It would have been better for everyone if you had just died before you could do any of the things you did.

"Hey, Alice," Sans called to the rabbit monster, snapping Chara back to the present, "I have an errand I need to run real quick. Will you be fine by yourself?"

"Another errand?" Alice called back. The Tem hung around Alice's ankles as she resumed setting up camp. "Uh, Temmie and I should be fine, but what's so important you have to leave so suddenly?"

"Just stuff."

Without further explanation, the world around them changed. No longer were they camping in the dark surrounded by echo flowers illuminating the world around them. Instead Chara and Sans were in a house.

Chara looked around and wondered how long it had been since anyone lived there. Dust and cobwebs littered the floors and corners of the ceiling. The furniture was covered with sheets that must have been white at some point but were now gray from age. A ceiling board hung low. The windows were either boarded up or shattered altogether.

"I found this place during one of my walks through Waterfall one day," Sans said, not looking at Chara. "Nobody has lived here in years. It's like whoever used to walked away one day and never came back. Why that's the case, I don't know. Hopefully for a good reason."

"Why are we here?" Chara kept hugging himself and wondered if he would feel a chill down his spine if he still lived. How odd that no matter how long I exist like this, I remain unused to it and question how it would feel to still be alive.

Sans kicked around a soda can that Chara was certain had not been there when the house was first abandoned. "With nobody ever coming here, it's a great place to allow oneself to not be okay."

"I think we need to even the playing field a bit," Chara said after he and Sans spent a minute standing in the darkness. "You know about the things I have done, but I don't know a thing about you. What was that lab? Where is it hidden? How were you able to get that information on all the other humans? How do you know so much about the space-time continuum and the existence of other Sans-es? Who are you, really, Sans?"

"A curious one, aren'tcha?" Eye and hand glowing red, Sans moved the furniture around to make some space. When he finished, he dropped his hand. "Tell ya what, let's play a game. One truth for another. I tell you something about my past, and you tell me something about yours. Do we have a deal?"

Even though Chara didn't reply, Sans still said, "I'm not from this universe."

That was it. No explanation or what Sans meant by that. Still Chara decided to play along. "I was told once I was not supposed to still be alive."

Interesting words to come from a dead person, or so Chara thought. Yet Sans didn't think twice about it. "I know you also know about other universes."

"I know you know I was experimented on when I was alive." Chara didn't know how Sans knew, but nonetheless, he said the words with confidence. Nothing in Sans's posture or expression confirmed or denied Chara's accusations.

"I watched timelines perish," Sans stated, but there was a hint of sadness in those words, as if part of that might have been his fault.

"I hate the world for making me what I am." They were words Chara never spoke aloud, but it was something he dwelt on for many sleepless nights for half of his natural life. Then, "I hate myself more for making this world what it is."

Sans tilted his head to the side. "And what are you, Chara?"

It was not a secret to Chara what Sans was trying to do. Getting him away from everyone, sharing personal information to encourage him to talk, pushing him to say more – Sans was trying to get Chara to open up. After a century bottling every mistake of his life away, discouraged from sharing anything ever again after the well-meaning Toriel tried to assure him that none of it was his fault, the words sprang up Chara's throat and threatened to pour out.

For a minute, Chara kept the words bitten back. He would dare not say them, especially to Sans of all people. No matter how long he lived, even if he was only pretending to live, Chara would never say those words aloud.

Too bad the words did not cooperate with him.

"I'm a demon!" Chara snapped, the words rushing out as if they wanted to get as far away from his mouth as quickly as possible. More followed suit. "I was beaten and bruised for not being good enough, for not being special enough. 'Why do you look like that?' 'How are you even alive?' 'You are a useless child, aren't you?' I couldn't take it anymore! I climbed this God forsaken mountain to end it all, and I'm so useless I couldn't even kill myself like I had intended.

"I thought things would be better when the Dreemurrs adopted me. What a laugh! Everyone had such high expectations of me, that I would be the hero of monsters, and I couldn't tell them the truth of my past because it would take away their hope. Once upon a time, I had a plan to save monsters, but even that was a failure.

"How could I save everyone when I couldn't even pull through with my part of my own stupid plan? How could I keep providing hope when there was and still is a darkness inside me that won't go away? It was only a matter of time before I gave in. I tricked myself into believing it was for the better, but deep down I always knew that was a lie. There was never anything about me that's good.

"People were hurt because of me. I hurt them. Asriel, my own brother, the only person who ever truly believed in me, died because of my actions. My father turned on me. My mother couldn't accept the truth for what it was.

"I deserve to be in this state I'm in. This horrible existence I have dreaded from the moment I first woke up and realized I was still here but never really here. For one hundred years I was forced to watch humans fall Underground as I had once and go to their deaths while I'm unable to do anything about it. I can never change who I was, nor could I ever right my wrongs. This world, which I would have gladly given my life to save, is falling apart. And it's all. My. FAULT!"

Chara's eyes burned, but of course he didn't cry. In this state, it was impossible to shed tears. It was almost torturous, being able to feel such emotional turmoil but to lack the physical body's way to release it all. So instead Chara curled his fingers into fists and pressed his knuckles into his thighs, the only way he could ever express what was going on inside. It wasn't enough; it was never enough.

"What should we throw first?"

"Huh?" Blinking, Chara studied Sans. The monster had his hands tucked inside his hoodie pockets.

"What should we throw first?" Sans repeated. He looked around the room. "There's plenty of furniture, and plenty of places to throw it. I don't see why we can't do some redecorating."

Understanding came slowly. Chara pointed to his right. "That small table."

Sans pulled his glowing hand out of his pocket and picked the table up with his telekinesis.

Finger dragging through the air, Chara pointed at one of the boarded-up windows. "None of the glass in that window is broken."

With a flick of his wrist, Sans flung the table across the room and into the window. The sound of wood smashing into glass and the shards falling to the floor with pieces of the table filled the room. Chara grinned.

As if his pointer finger accomplished his desires, Chara pointed to furniture after furniture and slung his hand where he wanted the piece to fly. "That chair to that mirror. The couch to the wall of empty frames. The grandfather clock into that China cabinet!"

Feeling a rush come over him, Chara's eyes hungerly searched for more to destroy. Chaos formed around him. Furniture was damaged beyond repair. Glass and China shattered into thousands of pieces that would never be put back together again. The destruction felt great.

"Knock that bookshelf sideways! Toss that table so hard it breaks into two!"

Sans obeyed every command. Laughing maniacally, Chara relished in the demolition. He savored the annihilation of the remains of someone's home. It was the release Chara never knew he needed. How freeing it was to break everything on the outside to match how broken he was on the inside.

When there was nothing left to break, Chara slowly dropped his hand. He looked around, surveying the work. There wasn't a single piece of the house left whole.

Lastly Chara looked to Sans, who smiled at the human despite breathing heavily. A sweat broke out on Sans's face. It must have required a lot of strength and speed to keep up with Chara's fast, destructive commands.

As there were no other words to say, Chara simply told the skeleton monster, "Thank you."

"Nah, I should be thanking you for the workout." Sans winked, huffing as he spoke. "It's been ages since I reached that level of physical activity."

"I definitely do not make anything easy for anybody, that is for sure." Chara sat on the ground, put his weight on his arms behind him, and looked up. He heard Sans collapse across from him. "I have not had a temper tantrum like that since I was ten."

"That must have been one hell of a mess to clean. Good thing we don't have to clean up here. Could take days."

"Hopefully nobody planned on picking up any furniture or mirrors one day."

"That would be a sight. Your home broken into, but nothing's stolen. Just trashed."

Despite himself, Chara laughed. It was a small laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Though what really surprised Chara was his lips not falling after the laugh but resting in a smile of sorts.

Chara closed his eyes. If I had known getting everything out would have felt this good, I would have done it sooner. Why did I trap myself in misery for so long?

"You're not a demon, gramps."

Opening his eyes, Chara looked at Sans. His breathing started to even out.

"How could you say that when you know what I did?" Chara asked, not knowing what to expect.

Sans calmly answered, "You made mistakes—"

"People died because of me."

"I didn't say they were small mistakes. Anyway, you made mistakes, but that doesn't make you a demon. A demon would immerse itself in its evil, but you don't. Instead you regret your wrongdoings and constantly punish yourself over the things you can never make right. You did bad things, but you're not a bad person."

Chara sat up and hugged his knees to his chest. "Thanks, but that does nothing to change what I did."

"Neither does indulging yourself in self-loathing." Sans slowly stood to his feet. "Look, I'm not going to preach to ya about forgiving yourself and moving on because I'm not a hypocrite. I will say, however, that ya have to decide whether you're going to keep riding the self-pity train or learn to not dwell on the past. You're not the only person you're hurting, y'know."

There was no need for Chara to ask whom Sans referred to. "She hates me," Chara stated, the words thick in regret. Suddenly the relief he felt at destroying the abandoned home fleeted as if it never existed.

"She doesn't hate you."

"She is so much happier when I am not around. Even I can see that. You can't convince me otherwise."

"Frisk is recovering from all the hurt done to her mentally and emotionally," Sans replied, "and she's recovering from a deadly poison that definitely hurt her physically. Not to mention how many people who want to kill her on top of her traveling with monsters who did kill her. I know from all the resets that Undyne killed Frisk more times than any of us care to count. I can't begin to imagine how Frisk is able to see Undyne as a sort of mentor despite everything."

To that, Chara didn't have a response. Sighing, Chara rested his chin on his knees. He bit his lower lip, not knowing what to do.

"Point is," Sans continued, "if Frisk can forgive Undyne, then I don't see why she can't eventually forgive us."

"There is a difference in what I did and what Undyne did," Chara argued, but his words sounded weak even to himself.

"It doesn't matter," Sans countered. "At the end of it all, every single one of us has hurt and been hurt. That's a part of life."

When Chara didn't reply, Sans asked, "Are you ready to go?"

"No," Chara answered. "I . . . I want to think for a few minutes before we head back. Is that all right?"

"Do all the thinking you need." Sans threw himself back down so he lied on the floor. "I could use a nap after throwing so much heavy furniture around."

As soon as he said the words, Sans started snoring. Chara stared at the monster and wondered if Sans was acting or really fell asleep that fast. After a moment, Chara believed Sans truly was sleeping.

Still hugging his legs and resting his chin on his knees, Chara thought about what Sans said. As helpful as destroying somebody else's property was, Chara knew the effects wouldn't last forever. When the feeling finally faded, he would be back dealing with his problems. They would never go away. Even in death Chara couldn't escape the consequences of his actions.

Chara listened to Sans's soft snores as he contemplated what the skeleton monster had said.

"You're not the only person you're hurting, y'know."