She was out like a light in a matter of minutes. For a while Papyrus stayed in the fort with her but when it became clear that she was probably going to be sleeping for quite a while he carefully scooped her up and carried her upstairs. It was quite a feat of strength. One he lamented Undyne not being there to see. She wasn’t particularly big but being made of mostly water and physical substances instead of dust and magic sure made her much heavier than he expected.

He took off her shoes and set them aside before tucking her into his red race car bed. He imagined she would be very impressed by it when she woke up.

He picked out some old clothes he didn’t wear anymore and folded them up next to her shoes and left a little note insisting that she take them. He did not offer her new shoes- but he hoped new socks would be alright. When she woke up and changed he would wash her old clothes and see if he could motivate his brother into sewing up the holes for her.

Once he was certain his guest was comfortable and well cared for he slipped back out into the hall, closed the door behind him and settled down to watch his favorite TV show.

***

The smell of the yellow flowers was relaxing. It helped calm her. Her yellow dress matched their petals perfectly, like camouflage. It made it harder for anyone to find her.These flowers bloomed in the late spring and stayed with her all through the summer. They painted the mountainside with their organic tribute to the sunny days that nurtured them and grew in thick, tall tufts wherever they were able.

Her favorite patch of flowers grew wild in an empty lot near the center of the small village; just outside the church building and across from a corner store where she would sometimes buy treats when they came down from the mountain for church.

She enjoyed these things. They helped keep her calm.

She heard her name being called in the distance. Her heart stopped for a second. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and lowering herself deeper into the patch of flowers.

Her teacher had tried to take her to see her parents after getting in another fight but she had escaped and ran outside this time. She had spent the rest of the class period hiding in the flowers.

The other kids said she was messed up and didn’t like to go near her much anymore. Today she even heard an adult say that the devil was inside her.

Maybe they were right.

The last time anyone had told her parents she had been in a fight, there had been hell to pay. They had yelled at her the whole way to their junk-strewn, packrat’s hole of a home. Her dad’s belt had been waiting for her among the garbage when they got there.

They told her that kids like her ended up in hell.

Being angry was what the devil wanted.

Drawing disturbing pictures invited evil into your heart.

It was not her call to hurt her brothers and sisters.

She was overacting.

Boys will be boys.

Girls gossip.

She had to turn the other cheek. She had no right hold a grudge against others. It was her job to love them whether they were nice to her or not.

Her parent’s shrieking voices echoed inside her head as she remembered the last time they had gotten angry with her.

“You know what happens to people who don’t love? Do you know what happens to people who hurt others? They live and die alone. They become demons and are sent to hell. Do you want to go to hell, Chara? Do you want to be a demon? Because what you did was not very Christ-like.”

She buried her face against the flowers and tried to drown out the increasingly angry shouts of her mother, who was searching for her in the parking lot.

She really was trying to be good. She was terrified of what would happen to her if she was bad. Why did it seem so much easier for everyone else to be good? Why was their anger more justified than her own?

She was afraid to go home. She had gone a very long time without another confrontation but today she had thrown her books at a girl who had tripped her and called her names. She knew she should feel bad about it but she didn’t. She felt good for getting back at her. She hated these people, even though hating them made her scared. She didn’t regret fighting back but she wasn’t looking forward to the punishment it would bring on later.

As she grew older she was beginning to grasp that although her parents were praised for their kindness and charming demeanor in public, in private they were angry people. Of course no one believed her when she tried to tell them that.

Maybe everyone was like that in secret. Maybe that was why everyone got so upset when she displayed her anger like this. They didn’t like being reminded of their secret, ugly selves.

Maybe humanity was full of secret demons only pretending to love.

Her mother stopped short in front of her flowerbed. Chara knew at once she had been spotted but still froze in place, praying she was wrong.

“Chara!’ Her mother snapped, heels clicking against the asphalt as she crossed the street and pulled her to her feet with one hand and bounced a baby on her hip with the other. “I have been looking for you for at least ten minutes! Why didn’t you answer me?”

She said nothing, lips pressed into a thin line and her head bowed so low her bangs hid her face. She hung limply in her mother’s grasp; held upright by the adult’s biting grip around her wrist. There was nothing worth saying that would make this any better but there were countless things she could say to make it worse; so she stayed quiet.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you.” Her mother hissed, yanking her along.

“Ow! You’re hurting me!” She yelped, stumbling along behind her mother.

“I am not hurting you.” She objected, white teeth displayed between the snarl of her red lipstick. “Don’t lie to me Chara. I hate it when you lie.”

Chara did not object. Arguing the point only ever made it worse. She was, apparently, always lying.

Her mother was a beautiful woman. Tall and slender with fair skin and a slender form hugged by a striped sundress, her shoulders framed by long red-brown curls housed under a sun hat. Yet the face she wore now was so terribly ugly in comparison. “Why are you ditching your class again? Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time?”

“I’m sorry.” She whimpered, trying to hold back tears. “The other girls were picking on me. I just needed a place to calm down for a while.”

“Stop making yourself cry.” She ordered. “You don’t have anything to cry about. But when your dad finds out you were skipping again?” She laughed, shaking her mane of red-brown curls. “Your head is going to spin, darling.”

She was dragged back into the church. She resigned herself to her fate, knowing that once her parents knew the truth there would be hell to pay.

As she was pulled past the steps with her mother’s nails biting into her skin, something inside of her broke and something new began to assemble itself in its place. A lie had been washed away by a cold conclusion.

She did not feel sorry for any of these people. These were not good people.

She despised them. If these were the purest people humanity had to offer, then she hated humanity.

She wiped away her tears and did not cry again.

***

Her sticky eyes rolled open into a new dream. She discarded the last dream bitterly, hating its existence. She yawned and flexed eternally sore muscles and took in her surroundings. She flung the sheets away and tested her weight against the floor. Aside from the lingering sense of fatigue her condition was quite good. There had been no major wounds for her body to heal this time around and now her mind was refreshed.

In the end it had been the bed that had woken her. The amount of time she spent sleeping in beds was now far outnumbered by her days sleeping on the ground. She had grown so accustomed to it that the soft embrace of the mattress didn’t feel like it gave her enough support.

She looked down at the offering set down beside her shoes and read the note.

New clothes. Good.

No new shoes though. That could be fixed.

She checked the closest to see if there was anything else worth taking.

Nothing.

She put on the new clothes. The bright colors of the red sweater and dark blue pants were not her favorite. Someone had added the word “cool” to both. She had to roll the pant legs up to keep from tripping in them. The sleeves kept slipping down to completely consume her hands but they would do. Now all she needed was a new weapon.

The dream faded away into confusion and half scenes.

A boxful of bones. Why was it even there?

A cool hand upon the doorknob.

Bare feet creeping across the carpet.

A heavy weight in her hand.

A smirk of irony.

The top stair creaked a little.

There he was, sitting on the couch. Her grip tightened around the scavenged femur.

This was not a dream.

Rain often found it difficult to awaken from slumber when her eyes were already open. It was like sitting at the bottom of a deep pool of water and slowly rising back to the surface. It was a slow, smothering process. Especially when there was another force thrown in the mix that wanted to keep her under water. She felt that force now, pushing her head down. Weighing in upon her chest. Wrapping around her ankles; trying to pull her back to the bottom of awareness; trying to convince her that yes, yes this was all just a dream. Do not trouble yourself. Sleep. Sleep at the bottom of the pool.

Through the murky, shimmering darkness she saw Papyrus turn to face her. He waved in greeting. His words distorted by the ripples.

“Oh! You are awake!...Why do you have one of the bones from my collection?”

This was not a dream.

Her awareness finally broke through the watery surface of her smothered state and where one would gasp for breath in a real scenario, Rain instead grasped for control. Chara fought her as she always did. It was an eternity of violent turmoil bottled up into a single fleeting second. But Chara had no LOVE on her side. No XP. No heightened defense. She was an incomplete soul with no buffer between them and Rain had been growing stronger in her resolve.

Rain came out on top.

She threw the bone away with a gasp and watched it bounce and tumble down the stairs. She looked up at Papyrus in a state of horror. It had almost happened again.

“I’m going now.” She tried to keep her voice calm and level but it shook and cracked anyway. “Thanks. Don’t follow me.” She spun around and raced back into his room where her shoes would be.

He was calling out behind her, setting aside a container full of half eaten leftovers and climbing up the stairs after her. “Human? Rain? Are you alright?”

Her shoes. Where were her damn shoes? “I’m fine.” She called, eyes darting around the room. Chara had made a mess of things. Tons of stuff had been pulled out of the closet and scattered across the floor. Pillows had been tossed from the bed, action figures knocked over and blankets flung over furniture. How had she slept through all that? She needed to get better at this. She needed to be a lighter sleeper!

“You can’t stay awake forever. If you are going to be the one controlling this body from now on then that means you’re the one that’s going to get tired out while I get to rest.” Chara taunted as she was shoved away, shadowy claws still clinging to Rain’s awareness as she refused to be completely banished from her seat of power.

Rain heard the doorknob turn. “Well you don’t sound very ok! Are you sure there isn’t anything the Great Papy-” his words were cut off with a squawk of surprise when Rain slammed her back against the door and forced it shut.

“I’m, um, I’m not decent! Don’t come in.”

She heard a doubtful “Ok” come from the other side of the door.

“You can’t shield him forever. You can’t save everyone.”

She felt something smooth and hard in her hand. She looked down and found that she had picked up another stray bone from a nearby box without her knowledge. She flung it to the ground with a frustrated curse while Chara cackled at her failing awareness.

“You see, my little brooding Rainstorm, I have been thinking. Every weapon I place in our hands may be a weapon you can turn upon me- but that street goes both ways, doesn’t it? Every unsuspecting object in your hands can be a weapon in mine!”

She skirted around the box of bones like it was an active minefield. Who kept a box of bones in their room anyway? Where the hell did someone get that many bones? Did skeletons just shed the things like shark teeth or snake skin? Dammit why did the Underground have to be so fucking weird?

She glanced out the window. What time was it? Would Sans be back by now? Was he in the house? If he was, would that be a good or bad thing?

One glance at Papyrus’s computer clock told her it was creeping into the early evening hours.

Damn. If Papyrus had gone to work today she must have missed it. Sans was probably still gone but would be back soon. She needed to leave.

“Well you will have to walk right past your new friend if you want to do that.” Chara purred. To help emphasizes that she still had a decent grasp of control over their body, she took a step towards the box and flexed her fingers. “How much mastery do you think you have over your body now that we are both rested?”

“Shut up Chara. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

“Um, I have not said anything for a while.” Papyrus said through the door, confused.

Rain screamed internally. Of all the places to relapse, this had to be the worst. This was scary. She should have known things wouldn't fix themselves all at once. She should have never stayed. But now thanks to her stupidity Papyrus was in danger again.

“Can I come in yet?”

“No! Um, uh, just one second.” She latched on to his computer desk and started to drag it over to the door. The old yellowed monitor shook and rattled in place, its vacant screen flickering with bleak light.

Papyrus heard the rattling of its cheap plastic. “Hey, is that my computer? What are you doing in there?”

She pushed the desk up against the door just in time. Papyrus tried to open the door again and was met with resistance. He called out something in either worry or objection but she was too panicked to catch what he had said. Instead she let out an ear piercing shriek of frustration when she felt her fingers snag around another bone when her mad dash across the room brought her within arm’s reach of the box of femurs again. She tossed it away in anger and began to attack the latch on the window.

A blizzard was raging outside, the wind was chaotic and full of snowflakes. Good.

The window slid open with a screech, jerking upward only a few inches at a time. Her arms burned with the effort while she invented a creative string of curses to help describe her situation.

Chara was attacking her again, causing her fingers to slip and her mussels to seize up every time she pushed.“Not so fun when you’re not the one doing the sabotaging, now is it?”

She forced the window open a few more inches before giving up. It would have to do. She could get her head through. The rest of her body would just have to follow. It was a two story house; the fall couldn’t be that bad, right?

She slid out legs first, making several failed attempts to slide her limbs through the gap while Chara bucked and kicked in objection. She dangled from the windowsill by her fingertips for a split second while she appreciated what a stupid idea this was before letting herself go.

She fell into the awaiting snow below. Lucky for her no one had shoveled the walkway in a while so the landing was easy on her legs. She hit the ground with a grunt and took off running, stumbling through the snow on shaky legs.The first few steps felt unnaturally heavy as Chara dragged her feet but she soon gave up and chose to pool her energy for later.

Back in the house they heard a loud thump and crash as Papyrus finally pushed open the door, apparently knocking over his computer monitor in the processes if his distressed muttering was anything to go by. “Rain! Wait! Where are you going?” He called out, sticking his head through the small gap in the window. The opening was too narrow for him to get through thanks to his Battle Body. “Come back! I’m worried about you! How well can humans see in a blizzard?”

She didn’t look back. She kept running.

There was a brief second of silence. Very brief. Then she heard the chime and crash of glass shattering against the howl of the wind.

“Oh my god.” Chara cackled.

Rain looked over her shoulder just in time to see Papyrus flying out of the window, scarf fluttering in the wind for a brief moment before sliding from his shoulders as he twisted around in the air and landed upright in the snow, glass and ice crunching beneath his boots. His scarf fluttered to the ground behind him like a banner of congratulation.

“Holly shit he nailed the landing!”

“What the hell even is this?” Rain exclaimed, bursting into a full run. The amount of hesitation there must have been between the skeleton’s last sentence and his decision to jump through his own goddamn window must have been nonexistent!

He was striding after her now, long legs and light bones carrying him across the snow in frustratingly quick strides.The only reason there was any hope at all for her escape was that she had a head start and the snow was coming down thick enough to help blur her movements a bit.

Chara was laughing like never before. Rain was sent the mental image of her doubled over, hitting the ground with one hand and clutching her gut with the other as she laughed. Her devious plans had been cast aside for the pure amusement of Rain’s situation. "You better run! He’s gaining on you. If he catches up I will kill him!”

There were some trees up ahead. Hopefully she could lose him in those then slip back into the blizzard. She put her head down and put all of her effort and Determination into going as fast as she could.

Tonight wasn’t going to be much fun.